Phrase 1
LYRA COCTA MELUM
Phrase 1
“Hello?” Lyra called out. She had awoken in a strange, grey landscape. Everything was dusty, covered in something akin to soot in spread and consistency but not quite the same color. The ground was broken apart, like a series of small tectonic plates. She was near a fault, in a concave formation. She couldn’t see more than 30 feet in any given direction because of the raised ridges all around her. She heard another voice, muffled, but certainly there. Figuring that she wouldn’t be able to hear any other voices from her position in what for all intents and purposes was a ditch, she tried to pull herself up from an awkward sitting position.
In doing so, Lyra felt herself. Her skin was cold and hard, but she couldn’t feel herself on the inside. Only when contact was made between one part of her body and another did she feel by her unusually cold body temperature. It was strange. Everything about this was strange. Could it be a dream? No, she’d just woken up from a dream. A nightmare. A very, very lucid nightmare that she’d tell her friends about the moment she figured out where they were, and where she was in relation to them.
Maybe she’d just woken up from the nightmare and unknowingly went back into another, less scary, dream? Regardless, she continued trotting out of her hole, noting the odd ping her hoofsteps made. Maybe this was a dream. She peered over the ridge and saw an expanse of similar depressions. In the distance, a cream coated, red-maned earth pony could be seen trotting at the tops of the ridges.
“Roseluck!?” she shouted.
The other pony perked up after hearing this. It wasn’t a confirmation that it was indeed Roseluck, but at least there was a pony that could hear her in this grey scape. Lyra heard what could have been a response, but the other pony was too far away for it to carry as more simple noise.
The two moved closer and closer towards each other, following what from above looked like an intricate pattern. Their movements brought them closer and closer to a third pony, a pegasus lying unconscious in a depression that lay between the two. As they neared, their voices became clearer to each other. When they’d gotten within 50 meters, their shouts became a viable form of communication, and they could see each other far more clearly than before.
“Is that you, Roseluck?”
“Yes! Where are we!?”
“I don’t know! I just woke up here. I was having the scariest dream . . .”
They unknowingly woke the sleeping pony. She had a neon blue coat, and dark green mane that was long and flowing. She moaned for a few moments, but not loud enough to draw the attention of the two mares closing in on her position.
“What was it about?”
“Parasprites!”
“That’s weird, so was mine . . .”
Parasprites? thought the blue pegasus. What’s a parasprite?
“Did you . . . Did you die, in the dream, perchance?” Lyra asked with a concerned face.
“I think so . . .”
_ They thought they were dreaming? Ughhhhh . . . I’d hate to be the one to break it to ‘em but . . .
“Hey, who’s that?” Roseluck said as she and Lyra looked into the hole preventing them from congregating.
My name is . . .
I don’t have one . . . Oh! What do I do what do I do!?
“Isn’t that Fluttershy?”
My hostess, perfect!
“Yes, it’s me, Fluttershy!” the pegasus yelled.
Lyra thought to herself about how forward the normally timid pegasus was being. Considering the odd colors she now sported, doubts formed in her head that led her to think that this mare was not Fluttershy, at all.
“What’s wrong with your coat and mane, Fluttershy?” She asked, hoping that it was Fluttershy and she had just gotten dirty or something along those lines.
“Well, um, I don’t know, to be honest . . .”
Her voice cracked.
“You’re not Fluttershy, are you, honey?”
“No, no I’m not . . . I’m such a terrible liar, why do I even try . . .”
Moments later, the plates shifted underneath the three mares. A depression growing underneath the pegasus deepened until it opened up and sucked her in. The other two ponies followed suit. Everyone screamed as they fell into a far darker place than they had woken up in.
_(LOL NOPE)
“My . . . My hooves! What happened to my hooves!?” Roseluck screamed as she looked at the missing appendages before her. Her two front legs had broken into small pieces in front of her. They looked like porcelain, or another ceramic material. This has to be a dream, she thought.
“They’re broken, simple as that.” the unnamed pegasus said.
“But . . . How do . . .”
“You’re made of clay now, that’s how! Now, if you’d kindly get off of me, I can go and find something to help you get your hooves back.”
Roseluck hadn’t even noticed that she was lying upon the blue mare. She quickly rolled off her and tried not to touch the sharped stubs her hooves had become. As she moved, several liquids, the colors red and cream, started to ooze from the vacancy of her legs.
“What . . .”
“Blood. But not really. Try to keep that inside you or you’ll pass out.”
She shifted her appendages so they pointed upwards, the very idea of such movements made Roseluck feel sick. She looked into her broken legs. They were hollow, aside from the liquid welling up inside them.
“I’ll be back with some clay to patch you up. It would do you well to find the unicorn that fell down here with us. Don’t move, obviously . . . Just, holler out her name, tell her you’re here or something like that.” As the blue pegasus got up, she scanned her body for any injuries. She found one.
“Ah dammit, I was REALLY wanting to fly . . . well, just another bit of encouragement to get us some clay, I guess.”
Roseluck just stared at her, perplexed. She had lost two limbs, and the pegasus before her had lost her wings. Neither of them appeared to be in pain. How could they be so . . . nonchalant about everything that was happening?
As she walked away, Roseluck tried to take her mind off the sharp, wet stubs in front of her by looking at her surroundings. She was in the middle of a dirt road, with trees lining the path to her right. On her left, was a stone wall, about twice her height when standing. Both of these prevented passage unto the road from the outside.
A cacophony sounded from behind the wall. Brown dirt and small shards of green were forced into the air. Several landed near Roseluck.
“L-Lyra . . . ?”
“EY! That’s my talking head, git yer tentacles off it!”
“You’re selling it to me, you dolt. And frankly, it hasn’t been talking much. Where’d you find it?”
“The minefield, of course! I found it screaming on the ground.”
“I’ll give you 20 irids for it.”
“Deal!”
Lyra was confused. She’d been awoken by swift tug on her hair, and a strange feeling in her . . . neck? It felt like that was all that was left of her. The last thing she remembered was waking up in a field, taking a few steps, and a loud noise coming from all around her. But she felt like it was heard throughout her entire body, not just her ears.
“So, I was told you talk. Mind speaking up, just for a moment?”
Lyra opened her eyes. In front of her was a purple mass. Her eyes were going to have to adjust to the light before she could actually see what it was.
“If you can talk, and are therefore a living figment, I might give you a job. If you can’t speak, I’m afraid you’ll just be another ornament. So please, speak up.”
They were talking about me. _I’m the “talking head.”
“I-I’m Lyra.”
“Well hello Lyra, I’m Dokker. Owner of this small shop. Does there happen to be, uh, any more of you lying around anywhere? A head isn’t a very useful assistant, you see.”
It’s a dream. Just play along. He said I was found at “the minefield,” right?
“Yes, I’m sure there’s some of me left back at the, uhhh, minefield . . .”
“I’m sure there is, missy, but I don’t think anything left there would be very Intact.”
She gulped, however that may work when you don’t have a neck. It was then that she got a good look at the thing that was holding her. It was nautilus with a purple shell, and blue, slimy tentacles. One of which was, at the disgust of both her and whomever had found her, holding her by her mane.
This is the weirdest dream I’ve ever had.
“Excuse me!” A feminine voice called out. Lyra couldn’t see to whom it belonged, but she could swear she’d heard it before.
“Ah, yes. What would you like, dear?” Dokker swiveled on the mass of tentacles propping him up, turning his eye in the direction of the patron. Lyra caught a glimpse of her. It was the same blue pegasus from before, but its wings were broken off.
“Oooh, that looks bad.”
“Oh, these?” She said while craning her head and nudging the sharp stubs that were once wings with her muzzle. “They’re fine for now. Do you happen to have any-” She stopped and stared at Lyra.
“Ah, you’re interested in this, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I happen to know that, uh, head. Her name’s Lyra.”
“Well, tell you what, if you do me a favor she’s yours.”
“Sure.”
The nautilus jumped to the front of the shop, dropping the head onto the floor. Her face was engulfed in several inches of water, but she didn’t feel like she was drowning. It was an unpleasant feeling, of that there was no doubt, but she didn’t feel like the lack of breath was detrimental to her health.
“Find me a nice piece. Something with a decent caliber, if you can. That prawn across the street has been stealing all my customers away with his “moral” policy of not accepting living figments for cash. I’m going to scare him outta town, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll shoot him dead! No-one messes with Dokker’s flow of irids and gets away with it. Hell, you can take this head now, and I’ll give you some clay to help the poor girl to her feet once I get the gun.”
“I can do that.”
What’s a gun? Lyra thought as she was handed, no, tentacled over to the blue pegasus.
“Try to get me the piece by tomorrow night. I heard there were some big-pocketed travellers coming through town soon and I’d hate to see all that money just slip by me.”
“Will do.”
_(above sequence- weird as shit)
Lyra, what was left of her, was propped against a wall. The blue pegasus was sitting in front of_ her, expecting the head to say something which she had already prepared an answer for.
“So, um, this is a dream right? I’m pretty sure I was knocked out by the fall. Or I could still be in the same dream with parasprites, or-”
“I’m really sorry about this Lyra, but you’re dead. You and Roseluck have both said that you were killed by parasprites in your dreams. Well, those weren’t dreams. Now, you’re just a soul in a ceramic doll. A doll that’s been reduced to nothing more than a head, might I add. How’d you manage that?”
“I just sorta trotted away from where I landed, and then there was this loud sound . . .”
“You stepped on a mine, honey. They’re these little metal things filled with explosives, and they’re rigged to explode when anyone touches them.”
“Ohhh . . .”
“But don’t worry. With, well, quite a bit of clay you’ll have your body back in no time.”
Lyra, only having a sliver of doubt that she was in a dream, had no choice but to continue under the assumption that this pegasus was telling the truth. What was her name, anyway?
“Who are you?”
“Onassis.” the pegasus _declared.
“That’s a weird name.”
“Lyra’s a pretty weird name too, same goes for Roseluck.”
The mention of the other mare brought concern to Lyra’s face.
“Where is she?”
“Where she fell. She’s injured too, not as extensively. It would be best to get her back to health before we even start on you, considering she can’t move on her own or be carried.”
Lyra was about to speak, but she was cut off by Onassis biting her hair and dragging her across town. She was pleasantly surprised that the experience lacked any painful sensations. She stopped in front of a storefront somewhat similar to the one they had just left. It had a sign near the front that read “I refuse to buy or sell any living or deceased figments, in whole or part!”
A large prawn popped out from behind the chest high counter.
“Hello there! What can I do for you?”
“My friend and I need some clay, badly. I don’t have any money, but I do have some information you might find quite valuable.”
“Well, I don’t see why a trade of such items couldn’t be made . . . I’ll give you 5 buckets of the purest clay I have.”
“Deal.”
The prawn and the pegasus leaned towards each other.
Onassis whispered into what was probably the prawn’s ear-hole.
“The nautilus, Dokker, wants to run you out of town. He’s asking around for a gun. He intends to scare you away, but he’ll make good on his threats if it comes down to it. I suggest you either arm yourself, or call him out on it.”
“Really! That no good scoundrel Dokker? Why, I know exactly what I’m going to do.”
The prawn moved to the back of the store, and pulled out a long black rod.
Is that a gun?
“I’ll run him out! And if he doesn’t oblige . . .”
And with that, he was off. Lyra and Onassis watched him scurry across town. He arrived at Dokker’s store, the two shop-keeps conversed for a moment, and then the prawn fired 3 times at the nautilus before running back to his own building and clambering back inside.
“You two can have all the clay you need! I thank you kindly for tipping me off on that one.”
Onassis carried the many, many buckets of clay she’d been given by the prawn. She held Lyra with her teeth as she had before, but this time she avoided dragging her neck along the ground. Lyra wanted to know some more about what her companion had just done.
“You said you weren’t very good at lying, so what was that there?” Lyra asked.
“Thum tings ‘ange hif ‘ime” Onassis said through a mess of hair.
“What?”
She let go of Lyra, letting her roll for a moment before placing a hoof down on the head before it left her reach.
“Some things change with time.”
Lyra thought about that for a moment before being scooped up again by the pegasus.
In the distance, a disabled Roseluck could be seen. As the pegasus brought the two friends together, Lyra noticed that she was weeping. Her fore-hooves were shattered, pieces of them scattered around her. When they had gotten within several feet of each other, Onassis lay Lyra down beside Roseluck. They looked at each other. The earth pony’s tears grew in viscosity. The unicorn gave her a goofy smile. She was still under the impression that she’d be waking up to the smell of BonBon’s cooking, and would eventually talk to the ‘real’ Roseluck about this crazy dream. Roseluck responded appropriately, sniffling and shutting her eyes wishing that the head that lay before was just part of her imagination.
“Well, it’s time to fix you up.”
Onassis placed all the buckets on the ground. She picked one up, and poured its contents into one of Roseluck’s truncated limbs. She repeated the process, switching between the two hooves. The ceramic material she was made of started to grow at the break points. Onassis stopped and watched as the pony’s appendages reappeared. Roseluck stood up, and, having no words for what had just happened, shook the pegasus’ hoof profusely.
“Don’t put your full wait on them for a bit, they’ve got to dry and until then they’ll be quite fragile. Now, we need to find a place to stay-”
“Wait, aren’t you going to fix me too?” Lyra exclaimed.
“Yes, but I think it would be better if we found somewhere to do it where we couldn’t be disturbed. It’s going to take a while to get your body back. We’ll have to poor some into your neck, wait for that grow out and dry . . . We don’t even have enough clay right now! Personally, I couldn’t say that I’ve been ‘merely a head’ for any period of time, but I’m sure you could hold out just a bit longer . . .”
“Hmmph. Fine.”
She would’ve brought her shoulders down in indignation, but she had none.
Maybe this isn’t a dream? It has been a while . . . .
Lyra had been a head for the better part of the past day and a half. She didn’t like it. Being carried by her mane. Sitting around, propped against things. Idly waiting for her friends to find some place for them to stay. Or, for that matter, doing anything. _Onassis was particularly interested in shopping, or at least looking at what each shop had for sale. The 3 ponies had no money. Lyra vaguely remembered the name for the currency in this place, ‘irids.’
She’d seen them being pushed on occasion. They were similar to bits, but only on the rims. In the center of every irid was a small capsule made of something like glass. Within the capsule was a small amount of a black liquid that had iridescent properties. Thus the name.
At present, Lyra had been laid against the side of a building offering housing for two. Roseluck and Onassis were arguing with something or other inside. In this particular situation, being left alone was not her peeve. She had been placed upside down, as the other mares rushed in to ask about staying for the night. Alone, and disoriented from the perspective, she decided to whistle and hum. She didn’t understand how she could even speak without lungs, but she didn’t question it.
As she finished an elegy the third time through, she moved onto something a bit more complex. She didn’t remember the name of the melody, or where she’d picked it up, but she rather liked it. It was something very solemn, despite being in a key usually used for cheery songs. She managed to get through most of the song before someone dropped a sack of irids down (“up?”) her throat, and walked away.
She tried to say thanks but as she opened her mouth, coins spilled out. Onassis and Roseluck had just finished negotiations with the owners of the facility they were hoping to stay in. Their expressions answered the question Lyra found herself unable to ask. When Roseluck saw the coins flowing from her mouth, she was confused. However, Onassis put on a smile and snatched up Lyra, shaking all the irids free of her cranium. She then collected them all into the bag they originally occupied, and went back into the building.
Just like that, they had a room. And some saddlebags, which Lyra was just as opposed to being carried in as the she was of their previous method of transporting the unicorn head. But it was a step up, at least. She could speak with whoever carried her without being dropped on the ground.
Onassis was interested in how Lyra had gotten so much money while they were failing to convince the owner of their housing that they could pay him in favors.
“How did you get all those irids, dear?”
“I whistled a tune, and somepony just dropped the bag into my skull.”
“Hmmm . . . could you refrain from using ponnerisms? Somepony doesn’t really apply here.”
“What IS here, anyway?”
“I don’t know exactly, but I can say that we’re not in Equestria.”
“But how can you say that? You haven’t even explained this whole death thing yet!”
Onassis pouted.
“Tell me, how did you feel right before you died?”
“You mean right before I went from the parasprite nightmare to this weird dream? Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“No, you definitely felt something. Something you don’t normally feel when you dream.”
“Fine. Pain. I felt pain as my flesh was eaten away. Please, I’d rather not think about that anymore . . _.”
“And what is that you don’t feel here?”
“Uhhh . . . Pain? Doesn’t that prove it’s a dream?”
“If that were true, then you’d be a sleeping brain inside a fleshless skeleton. Last I checked, that wasn’t possible.”
Lyra thought about what the pegasus said for a moment.
Maybe that was just a very, very lucid dream.
Maybe I’m comatose after some horrible accident that I don’t remember?
“Last I checked, ponies weren’t made of clay, and there wasn’t such a thing as a talking nautilus, or any other talking sea creatures.”
“Except serpents, and the elusive seapony no-one seems to remember anything about.”
“Whatever.”
Onassis left Lyra alone for the night. Or, what was called night. There wasn’t a sun; instead this strange place was lit by a luminescent ceiling. Eternally. Most of the creatures seemed like they were always awake. Always attending to their stands, or walking about the town. That’s all anything seemed to do. It was like the entire place was designed for other beings to be attended to by these sleepless attendants. It was surreal. Something out of a fairy tale. Just further proof to Lyra that it was all a dream.
When Roseluck and Onassis had finally gone to sleep, Lyra remembered what they’d found the room for, and cursed as quietly as she could.
“They forgot to start working on my body . . . .”
Lyra sat, stood, whatever a head does, on a desk at one end of the room while her cohorts slept in beds on the other side. Well, one of them slept. Roseluck had not voiced her opinion over the past day. She was suspicious about everything that they’d seen since this spell had begun, but far more inclined to believe that they were not dreaming. She crept out of her bed and silently trotted across the room and whispered to her friend.
“Psst, Lyra.”
“What is it, Roseluck?”
“I can’t go to sleep . . .”
“Because you already are. Hell, if we’ve been in a dream for this long I’m more than willing to believe there’s some crazy communal thing going on.”
What’s hell? Why in the world would I use a word like that, it feels so vulgar. I’ve never heard it before, so why does it sound so familiar . . . .
“But Lyra, I think we’re really . . . Never-mind, I wanted to talk to you about Onassis.”
“I don’t trust her.”
“Me neither, but I think there’s more to it. I don’t think she’s really a pony.”
“Well duh.”
“How should can we find out what she is, though?”
“You could just ask me about it.”
At the appearance of the third voice, Lyra yelped in startlement, while Roseluck reared back. Onassis moved out of her covers and stared at the two mares with a pleasant smile. Roseluck was so frightened by the idea that the pegasus had heard them speaking of their dissent that she just shook in place. Lyra, on the other hand, fully expected her to be listening, and put on a straight face. She hadn’t expected Onassis to interrupt, especially not in such a way and certainly not at that point in the conversation, but it didn’t matter. She’d be getting an answer.
“Great, what are you?”
“A parasite. Was a parasite.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I was a small organism residing in your friend _Fluttershy’s brain. One day, she died, and I gave my life in her stead. Years later, _I’m chosen to go on this stupid adventure beyond the grave with you and 8 other ponies. You’re dead, your friend is dead, and 6 other ponies you may or may not have ever met, are dead. This isn’t a dream._ Deal with it.”
“Wh-what?”
Roseluck, either mellowed out at this point or sufficiently numbed by incredulity, stopped shaking and spoke up.
“Could you say that again, slower this time? I didn’t catch everything . . .”
“Gladly.”
They’d gone out to eat. _That’s what Onassis told them they’d be doing. No sleep would be had that night, not that they felt like they needed any. After her revelations, they wouldn’t feel like doing so for a while. They were in a ‘pizza’ parlour. Run by an otter. _This existence grew even more confounding and whimsical at every step. Lyra had been placed on the table, beside her friend, with the green-maned pegasus on the other side. They were still processing what they had been told by Onassis. Roseluck was confused. Lyra took the words from earlier with a grain of salt, but not out of distrust or disbelief. She’d practically come to terms with death, with only the slightest doubt remaining to chide her into believing otherwise.
A pseudo-pony, once a parasite . . . A parasite in a pony, no, my friend, too . . . I don’t care if this is a dream. I can’t just let this pegasus make claims like that and not at least try to investigate them. Even if I wake up in the middle of it, and everything I uncover turns out to be for naught. Even if this is all real, and delving into the truth hurts me and Roseluck more than what happened to me on the minefield . . . I’m going to find out what’s going on.
“Hello, may I take your order?”
An otter, female, in a waitress getup had rolled herself to their table. She was wearing roller-skates. Onassis answered her.
“Yes, _a medium pizza please. Half pepperoni, half vegetarian.”
What the hell is a pizza? What the hell is pepperoni? Vegetarian? Is pepperoni . . .
M-meat?
The waitress wrote down the order on a small notepad.
“Will that be all?”
“Yes.”
She rolled to the kitchen, placed the order on a hook, opened, and promptly entered, a door to what was presumably the break room. There weren’t any other patrons. The 3 ponies were their only customers.
“You can ask me whatever you want.”
“Before you two went to bed, why didn’t you start doing the whole regeneration thing?”
“Because you don’t have any blood.”
“What do you mean? I’m made of . . . Clay! I don’t think dolls have blood, fantasy or not.”
Onassis sighed.
“Roseluck, you can attest to this. When your hooves broke, they bled, did they not?”
“Y-yes. Red and white . . .” Roseluck said, shaky from the memory.
“Lyra, as a head, a head with a hole at the bottom especially, you don’t have any blood. You’re hollow, empty. Without blood, you can’t metabolize clay and regrow any of your body.”
Lyra thought about this. It made some sense to her, crazy sense but still sense.
“How do I get blood, then?”
Just then, the waitress reappeared, along with their order. She placed it on the table. Onassis pulled some irids out of her saddlebag by the teeth and placed them in a small tray held by the otter, who rolled away and counted out the coins in her paws. The food itself was odd. Lyra had never seen much like it before. It was like a quiche, but flattened, and missing the layer of dough that would normally cover the contents of the dish. It was sliced, like a pie, into 8 flat cone pieces. The ingredients were proudly presented atop the meal. Almost every one was covered by a layer of thick, white cheese. One half was made up of things reminiscent of a salad, and the other . . .
The pepperoni side, at least the side she hoped was pepperoni, had something she hoped more with all her being was not slices of meat. She was disgusted by the possibility that anypony, no, anyone, would eat another living thing that could possibly garner thought. It was odd, this repulsion. She hadn’t flinched, or produced an analogous motion of such, when the prawn shot Dokker, probably killing him. But when presented with the possibility that someone in her party was omnivorous, she couldn’t restrain herself. Couldn’t banish the thought. Couldn’t keep quiet.
“Is that . . . meat?”
“Yes, and if you want to recover your body anytime soon, you’ll be eating some of it.”
Lyra’s pupils shrunk. She stared at Onassis. Even though it was not a command, it was far more than a simple suggestion. She was being asked to eat meat, nay, required, not out of courtesy but condition. This, she could not take.
“You’re sick.” she muttered.
“What was that Lyra? You’re going to have to speak up.”
The calm demeanor the pegasus carried only served to make the pale green head that was Lyra begin to seethe with anger.
“Onassis, you disgust me. I’m not going to eat meat.”
“Understandable, which is why I’m going to have to make you eat some.”
“Wha-hmmmmpph”
With a few flicks of her hooves and what remained of her wings, Onassis stuffed a slice of pepperoni pizza into Lyra’s mouth. She tasted it, and was disgusted to find that her taste buds obliged without even a hint of refusal to the meat. She tried for a gag reflex, to force out the doughy, _bloody, mass of food, but as soon as it had been tasted it simply ceased to exist. The entire slice was gone after just a moment. Lyra had just consumed the one thing she never thought she’d even have an inclination to try, that she never thought her species would ever be able to stomach, and that was that. No physical qualms. No aftereffects, yet. She looked to her companions. Roseluck was crying into her hooves. Onassis had a smug grin. They stared at each other for a few moments. Lyra donned the most resentful face she could, while Onassis kept up her grin.
“Would you like another slice?” she said, free of malice.
_“No.”
Onassis had finished the disgusting half of the pizza, and boxed the rest for Roseluck and Lyra. Neither felt in the mood to eat after seeing the pegasus choke down that one, _bloody ingredient. Roseluck was audibly weeping. Lyra, placed tenderly in the vanilla mare’s closed saddlebag, had a face of ire. It was directed at Onassis, of course, but the head had no way of actually knowing the position of the pegasus--the despicable, carnivorous pegasus--that had just forced her to partake in the vilest thing she’d ever eaten. Lyra was brought out of her indignant musings when her carrier came to a sudden stop.
“What is that?” asked Roseluck, perturbed by something unseen to Lyra.
“Rose, step away from it.” Onassis said in a cautionary tone.
At this, Lyra felt the pony take a few steps back. Moments later, she heard a loud crunch.
“Keep back, there’s a few more.”
“But-”
“Roseluck, trust me, you have no idea what these monsters can do.”
Trust her? Monsters? If I still had a body, I’d be out there helping those things kick her flank . . .
Roseluck screamed in pain seconds later. She collapsed, bringing Lyra down with her. As they hit the ground, the head rolled out of the saddlebag and got a good look at the things her cohorts were talking about. Spiders. Big, black spiders, easily dwarfing the already shortened unicorn. There were 4 in total, one of them stuck to Roseluck’s front hoof.
Onassis cursed rather loudly, “Lyra, keep the spiders off your friend. I can’t kill them all AND protect her, so Rose’s safety rests on your, uh, shoulders.”
Lyra knew her friend was in trouble, and carnivorous mare be damned, she was going to keep her safe. But she didn’t know how to fight! If she had hooves, she could stomp and kick. But now she only had a horn, and she wasn’t very good at magic . . . Onassis, evidently, suspected this, looking back at the mint green head with a look of concern. She closed her eyes, turned back to the creatures, and started tapping her hoof.
_“1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4 . . .” she whispered, in time with the tapping.
“What are you doing?” Lyra said with a glare.
We’re in the middle of a battle and she’s . . . tapping out a time signature . . .
“Aren’t we supposed to be fighting, or something!?”
Onassis opened her eyes, staring back into Lyra’s. Still mouthing the count.
“GO!” she shouted, breaking her silent chant, as she started something else . . .
The world exploded into hundreds of colors. Stripes of vermilion here, turquoise there. Circular verdant prisms, no, batteries, danced across the sky now surrounding them. The dirt path that kept the ponies aloft previously was replaced by a resolute and _tangible nothingness. Onassis was glowing with an aura of electric pink. Roseluck, standing as she donned a pained and equally confused expression, was surrounded by a semi-opaque crimson mist. Their arachnid attackers were much larger than they had been outside of this place, suddenly having grown to twice the size of all three ponies combined.
Lyra was surprised by what she was seeing, as well as where she was seeing it all from. She was at eye level with the other mares, but neither of them had picked her up. Looking down, she saw that she still didn’t have a body, but she could feel something between the invisible ground and her neck.
“What’s going on?” she asked, hoping Onassis would hear her. The pegasus looked at her, and mouthed something.
“What?”
Onassis smacked a hoof against her face, loudly. Ephemeral sparks sprouted from the contact. Still pointed at Lyra, she began her mouthing again. This time, Lyra made an attempt to read her lips.
“You . . . are . . . mute . . . ‘d?”
The pegasus shook her head in affirmation, then swiveled it and gestured to the spiders. Lyra hadn’t noticed it before, but they were quite a ways away from the three. Much farther than they had been before whatever it was that Onassis had done. Moments later, the blue mare was barreling at one of the monsters. Using the remainder of her wings, she dashed into the air and flew the last couple of meters between her and the beast. She landed on its abdomen with a sickening crunch, green blood covering the pony’s entirety and disappearing moments later. The spider didn’t die, but it was severely wounded. Leaping off the creature, Onassis sauntered back to her starting position. She said something to Roseluck.
Ya-or . . . turn?
Roseluck slowly trotted up to one of the monsters. She tapped one of its hairy legs with her hoof. The spider made sounds similar to . . . laughing? The mare drew back, scared to tears by the reaction. Moments later, it stopped its chortling. Despite the lack of force, hell, enthusiasm, behind the strike, it had clearly done something to the beast. Green foam began to spill out of its mouth. Its eyes glazed over. Legs gave way as its body fell with a thud. Onassis shouted something, which Lyra interpreted mentally as “That’s it! Go Roseluck!” The mare slowly trotted back. When she arrived between the other mares, she wiped off some residual tears and put on a shaky smile.
Onassis appeared at the Lyra’s side, startling her. She began slowly mouthing something to her, which she transcribed immediately.
"Try to cast a spell, one that will push over one of the spiders. Push it as hard as you can."
And try as she might, Lyra could not wield any such spell. Her head shook as she attempted to levitate one of the monsters, to no effect. Onassis said something Lyra would rather not remember interpreting.
"Okay, so psychokinetic _despotism _isn't your . . . that's it! Well," another thing Lyra wish she hadn't heard, "You're useless like this, just, uhh, kick them or something."
Lyra did just that. Inexplicably, she was able to trot with her phantasmal section. It was hard, not being able to see the floor or her legs, but she made it to the creatures without tripping up too much.
Why do they just let us attack them . . . shouldn't they be fighting back?
As her invisible hoof came down on one of the spider's eyes, and then she figured it out.
_It's not their turn yet . . .
Pain shot all throughout Lyra’s nonexistent body as she was promptly knocked back across the line of scrimmage by the spider. Onassis shoved her beside Roseluck and stood between them and the monsters, shouting things that made the mares cringe. Every spider, save the one that hit Lyra, struck the pegasus. She fell over, unconscious. Roseluck looked at the body in horror. Lyra, admittedly, carried a smirk for a moment before _taking in her friend’s shocked state.