A man is walking home from work when he finds a small Lyra trapped in a bush and takes her in
My life's pretty normal.
Wake up and go to work three days a week, then come home and do whatever from Thursday to Sunday.
Never in my life did i think that could change so dramatically, but it did.
One, hot summer day, as i was walking home, i came across something I'd have never expected to find. a character from the My Little Pony Freindship is Magic show, Lyra Heartstrings and she's a filly.
that leaves just one question, What do i do now?
Major Spoiler: No, seriously, this will take away the mystery if you keep going.Just wait and you'll get quite the surprise, I swear it will be worth the wait.Fine, but I warned you. This fic is an unofficial sequel to A Spell For Lyra by Kolwynia with their blessing.
“Thanks,” I said to the bus driver as I get off the bus, flinching a little as I left the cool interior of the air-conditioned bus and stepped into the terrible heat of the day outside.
“Sure, mate,” the bus driver said, being polite and the door closed behind me.
I lifted my drink bottle (an empty Lipton Raspberry Ice Tea that I’d gotten several weeks before and reused) and started heading down the path and turned into a suburb that was a little off-track from where I lived.
It was Wednesday, the last day of work for me this week and I was wiped, not helped by the heat of the day and was really looking forward to getting home and realizing in the air-conditioned place. Despite being twenty-one, I still live with my parents, since I have a mild brain injury. It doesn’t affect me too much, but chances I’ll be moving out anytime soon are slim.
I live in a family of eight, so the house can get pretty noisy. Luckily, I have my own room and once in there, door closed, TV on, I can lose myself in my own world of televised enjoyment and my own imagination.
As I walked down the street, I look at my drink bottle. It holds up to 1.25 litres of water, and I’m shocked it’s still three quarters full. Though that would explain why my mouth felt so dry.
I sometimes take this path home, even though it makes the trip a bit longer for several reasons, the most regular one being that I missed the bus that goes straight to the lake by my house and I have to catch another and then walk the rest of the way. It takes about fifteen minutes to get from the bus stop to my house, but it’s better than walking all the way home, which can take two or more hours and on a hot day like today, that’s the last thing I wanted to do.
As I pass by a house I’ve passed tons of times going down this street, I heard a small rustling in.
Now, I can be a bit paranoid at times and when I hear a sound I’m not used to or expecting, my brain goes on defence. I glanced to where I’d heard the sound. It was a small bush near a tree in the front yard of the house I was passing.
Now, my first thought after this is “It’s probably a bird or something. Nothing to worry about,” but then I noticed something. A sound. I listened closely and realized it sounded like whimpering. Almost like a little kid’s whimpering.
Now I was curious.
I cautiously took a few steps forward, put my drink bottle down and pushed the leafs of the bush aside. What I saw made my mouth drop wide open.
In the bush, struggling to pull its right foreleg out of a small vine that, at another time, I’d wonder why it was there in the first place, was a small mint-green coloured unicorn with filly with a similar coloured mane and tail, with a bit of white.
Now, I’m no brony, at least that’s what I tell myself. I only started paying attention to anything MLP FiM since listening to MicTheMicrophone’s reading of the fic My Little Dashie on a whim.
This filly I could tell was from that show. Lyra, I think her name was.
Now, the main thing going through my mind right now is... How is a cartoon pony standing in front of me right now? I mean, that shouldn’t be possible, right? I listened to My Little Dashie, but was it actually possible that something like that could really happen?
Wait. What am I saying? Of course it’s possible, I’m looking at one right now!
Next I wonder why she’s here in the first place. Is it like Rainbow Dash in My Little Dashie? Was she caught in some powerful, explainable magic burst that sent her here, to the real world and regressed her to a filly?
Judging from her current appearance she’s around three, maybe four-years-old, by pony standards, though I don't really know what those are, not having really paid much attention to the show.
Hey! I barely looked into the thing yet, okay? I only listened to My Little Dashie about a week ago.
It’s at this moment I noticed Lyra’s noticed me. The look on her face, it... I don’t know why, but it broke my heart. It was a look of utter fear, her golden eyes staring at me like a was a monster.
Well, I guess, to a three-year-old pony of Equestria, a human would be seen as a monster, since we tower over them in height.
I noticed her lips were really dry. I want to slap myself on the head, but don’t, in case it would scare her more. It’s 42 bloody degrees today and she’s got a fur coat on, for crying out loud! Of course she’d have dry lips. She must be boiling.
I slowly reached towards her, which she responds with by trying to move away, only to trip and fall onto her side.
“It’s okay,” I said quietly, reaching into the knee pocket on my right-leg, pulling out my wallet, which contained my backdoor key. “I’m just gonna cut you free. You don’t have to worry, Lyra. I won’t hurt you.”
Maybe it was my tone, my words or maybe that fact that I’d used her name, but Lyra calms down and stops fidgeting. I opened my wallet and move my backdoor key to the vine and start trying to cut it. If I blunt the key it won’t matter. The screen door part of our backdoor was removed months ago, and this key’s been pretty much useless til now.
It took about three minutes, but I finally managed to cut the vine. Once she was free from the bindings that had been keeping her there, I more than half expected Lyra to run off and leave me worried for her safety in the real world. Well, she did try that. But when she put pressure on the foreleg that had been trapped she yelped and sat on her haunches, whimpering again.
I moved toward her and took as best a look at it as I could with her trying to keep her distance from me. It didn’t seem too bad. A rather nasty cut, but nothing serious. though, i noticed she had a lot of cuts around her hooves, which didn't look like they'd been made by the bush.
I looked to my drink bottle and nodded to myself, picked it up, took off the lid and held it out to her. She flinched at first, then hesitated, though I could see her eyes fixed on the beautiful water within.
“Thirsty?” I asked, sitting down closer to her and holding it out a bit more. “You look like you need this more than I do right now.”
She looked up at me, as if trying to figure something out, then leaned her muzzle toward the bottle. I tilted it up so the water would slowly drizzle into her mouth. She gulped it down quickly, almost choking a few times.
When she was done, the bottle was only a quarter full, maybe less. She licked her lips, a smile on her muzzle.
“Liked it, huh?” I chuckled and she nodded. She then tilted her head at me, a curious look on her face.
I put the lid back on the bottle, took my purple bag off my back (hey, it’s only so people don’t lose me in a crowd, okay?), stored the bottle inside and strapped it back over my shoulders.
I put a hand to my chest. “James,” I said, then pointed at her. “Lyra. James. Lyra.” I did this a few times before she seemed to understand and nodded. “So,” I said, scratching my neck nervously as I realized I was having a conversation with a cartoon character. A pony at that. “Can you talk?”
She just tilted her head.
Guess that was a “no”.
I was going to ask further, when the heat of the day seemed to decide it was sick of being ignored at smacked me in the face by blowing hot air on my face. I decided I’d wait til later to ask her.
I stood up, then bent down and picked the small filly up. She didn’t protest. If anything, she looked excited.
I quickly made my way down the street, carrying the small pony in my arms, making sure no one was around to see me. This was for several reasons, the most selfish of which was that I didn’t want anyone seeing me with an MLP pony, thus, labeling me as a brony. The more realistic reason was because I wasn’t sure how others would react to seeing a cartoon pony being carried in some random guy's arms as he walks down the street.
Luckily, the area around the lake seemed to be deserted today. Understandable, since it was so hot and no one wanted to be out in this heat longer than necessary. I had to take my time though, cutting through the pathways that whined around the lake around, staying out of sight of the road. It made me wish today had started out colder. I’d have worn my jumper to work and could hide Lyra in that. But, I made do with my situation.
A lot of ducks and geese were quacking and hooking as we made our way through the parkland surrounding the lake. Lyra seemed very interested in the other animals, but I couldn’t let her go exploring right now. I had to get her back to my house and out of sight of anyone else so I could try and figure this out.
After ten minutes I managed to get across the lake and passed the road, entering my suburb, where I knew not many people would be likely to be out at this time. Another three minutes or so later I was walking down the side of the street my family’s house it situated on.
As I got closer, I noticed neither of the cars, my brother’s nor the family care were parked in the drive way and sighed with relief. I’d been worried what my family was say, or rather, how they’d react if I walked through the front door carrying a cartoon pony.
I’m careful to get my keys out of my right-thigh pocket and unlocked the doors, so that I don't drop Lyra in the process. We have a screen door, followed by a wooden door.
I push the door open and walk inside, closing the door behind me. As I walked in, I let out a huge sigh of relief and the cool air within the house envelops me. God, I missed this feeling whenever I had to walk out into the scorching heat.
Lyra also seemed very happy as I felt her sigh and cuddle a little closer to me. I felt my heart skip a beat. It was so cute that I almost Daa’wwed before I regained my mind and carried her to the kitchen.
I placed her on the counter and opened the fridge to see if there was anything to eat. I’m always a bit hungry after work and Lyra could probably use something to eat herself.
I noticed a couple of vegetables that we’d had for dinner the previous night sealed in a plastic box and took them out. I took two small plates out of the cupboard, placing a few of the carrot slices from last night on one plate and handed them to Lyra, then turned to the pantry, intent on getting myself a peanut butter sandwich.
As I turned back around with two slices of bread and the jar of peanut butter, I smiled as I watched Lyra chewing on some of the carrot slices. Seemed she was able to eat solid foods. That was a relief. Though, since she’s a cartoon pony, anything's possible, right?
I put the bread of my plate, took a butter knife out of the top draw and spread some peanut butter on one slice, then put the other slice on top. I took a bite and relished in the feeling of finally eating something.
I heard a small burp and turned to see Lyra blushing. I almost choked on my bite of peanut butter sandwich from laughing and had to thump my chest a few times before I could get it down.
Lyra looked a little worried, but I smiled and shook my head, telling her I was fine.
Once the two of us were done, I helped her down and we went into my parents’ lounge room. There’s two in our house, and my room is next to it, so I have to walk through it to get to my room anyway. But, unlike most days after a week at work, I decided I didn’t want to hang in my room. That was until I saw Lyra trot in there.
I followed and saw her trying to climb up onto my bed. I smiled, walked over and helped her up. Once on the mattress, she curled up and went to sleep.
My smile deepened and I moved my chair that I usually sit in when watching my TV and just sat, watching as the little unicorn slept.
I thought of something and left the room to turn on the family computer in the main lounge room.
I knew from My Little Dashie looking for any info on how this all could’ve happened was useless. But, if I went on Wikipedia, I was bound to be able to find Lyra’s full name and all the info I’d need to know about her character in the show. It would help me in the long run, since I’d know what her personality is and what to expect from her. I’d do this quietly, so as not to disturb the sleeping filly in my room.
It may sound cliché, but, until I learn whether or not I’ll end up going through the same thing as the guy in My Little Dashie went through, regarding the pony’s return to Equestria, she’s my little filly.
I sighed loudly as I leaned back, rubbing my neck. I’ve been online for at least an hour and what I’ve learned is both really helpful, while at the same time absolutely useless to me.
Lyra’s full name is Lyra Heartstrings. According to the fandom, she is the partner of Bon-Bon, an Earth Pony (I rolled my eyes as I read that was the description for non-unicorns or pegasi) and only ever had one line in the show and that wasn’t til the second-to-last episode of season 2.
Something that interested me is it said she’s obsessed with humans. This made me raise an eyebrow.
Humans? How could she be obsessed with humans? From what I read about the show, humans don’t exist in Equestria... wait a minute.
I quickly typed in something someone from work had mentioned a while back that I’d ignored since I’d been trying to prove I wasn’t into MLP, despite listening to and enjoying My Little Dashie.
My search yielded nothing. I’d tried Equestria Girls, the MLP movie that had come out in fall... which, despite claiming I'm not a brony, I have on DVD. From what I could find, Lyra doesn’t even appear in that, which made me feel a little insulted for Lyra, not to mention it was a dead end.
It was at that moment my body decided to remind me that it was the last day of work for the week and I almost dropped onto the keyboard.
I shook my head and went back to my room. Being as quiet and careful as possible, so as not to wake the sleeping unicorn, I took my pajamas out from under my pillow and headed for the bathroom.
I closed the door, undressed, turned on the water and started showering.
Half way through, however, I stopped, just letting the water pour down on me. It finally sunk it. Lyra Heartstrings is here, in my house. She’s sleeping on my bed. She’s a filly and she’s real!
Once I’m done in the shower I turn off the water, dry myself and put on my pajamas (boxer shrots and a T-shirt not fit to be anything else anymore).
At that moment I hear something. It’s like a scratching on the bathroom door; expect it doesn’t sound like claws on wood, though. More like... hooves.
I roll my eyes. Who else would it be?
I wrap my clothes up into a bundle and open the door. As I expected, Lyra was sitting in front of the doorway, a few tears in her eyes. She must have woken up while I was in the shower and wondered where I’d gone.
I bend down and scratch her behind the ears. She seemed to like this, closing her eyes and giggling. Then she comes closer and nuzzles my cheek. I can’t help but chuckle.
I stand up and start off towards the laundry to put my clothes in the washing machine. In our house, when it comes to work clothes, I have to wash my own. I stuff my clothes into the washing machine, put in the powder, set the timer for fifty and push start.
Lyra watched me the whole time, curious. When the machine started, however, she yelped and ran out and back to my room. I found her hiding underneath my bed, shivering.
I sat down and quietly explained to her that the washing machine wasn’t going to hurt her. I must have tapped into my inner parent voice or something because she calmed down and came out from under the bed, which I lifted her on top of so we’d be closer to eye level.
At that moment my phone went off, telling me I’d received a message. Unfortunately it was on Work Profile, so the message tone was loud music that sounds like it’s from a Japanese festival.
The noise was so loud it startled Lyra, who leaped up and fell back, followed by a flash of golden light. When the light faded, Lyra was standing on the other side of window, her hooves pressed to the glass, her eyes wide with fear.
My eyes were wide with fear too, not at the fact that I’d just seen magic for the first time, nor that Lyra had managed to teleport, which, from what I read online, is one of the hardest spells for unicorns to perform. No, my fear was because of the family dog. He’s a Jack Russel named Jack Russel... I know, such a creative name, right?
Anyway, I was scared for Lyra now, because Jack has a real gripe about territory. He doesn’t even like other dogs when we take him for walks that are clearly nowhere near our house, but he still gets angry about other dogs coming near. You don’t even wanna know what he once did to a bird stupid enough to fly into our backyard and taunt him.
“Lyra, stay there!” I told her, hold my hands up to try and emphasis how important it is she listen and do as I say.
She seemed to understand, nodding in response, but her eyes were filled with fear.
I hurried out the room and to the backdoor. As I opened it, Jack came running from around the corner leading to the gate, his tongue wagging.
I bent down, forgetting I was in my pajamas, and grabbed him. He thought it was a game or something, and started panting as I carried him towards the open door to the shed. It’s where he’s lived since the day we got him and he knows when you close the door, he’s meant to be stay in there, not that he has a choice, since there’s no other way out. His area of the shed is a small closed off area, so he doesn’t go sniffing around everything in there or run out when we open the shed doors.
As soon as I put him down, Jack realized he needed to stay in there for a while and sat while I closed the door.
After that I quickly ran across the yard, turned down the straight where our old swings from when my youngest siblings were little are and came to the other corner, leading down to our rain water tank (which, for whatever reason we haven’t used in years, by the way) that also goes passed my bedroom.
I could see Lyra down there, looking at my window with fear.
“Lyra!” I called, cupping my hands.
She turned, saw me and bounded down the small path towards me. When she got close enough she leaped up and I caught her, holding her close. She was crying, sobbing into my shoulder and I let her. I’d be lying if i said i hadn't been just as scared as she was, if not more. I didn’t even wanna think about what Jack might’ve done if he’d noticed Lyra before I could get to her.
I took her inside, placed her down in the bean bags we had out in this lounge room instead of couches, told her to wait and went back outside, closely the backdoor behind me so Jack wouldn’t run inside.
Soon as I opened the shed door he ran out of the shed, panting, his tongue hanging out, thinking I wanted to play.
I just walked back to the backdoor and stopped. He’d hurried after and was now sitting by the door, waiting for me to open it so he could get inside too.
I was suddenly thankful my mother had decided to paint over the glass, because it blocked out most of the inside from view from the outside. However, there is a small rectangle down the bottom, at Jack’s height, so he can see inside.
He suddenly tensed and my heart skip at beat. He’d noticed Lyra. Before he could do anything, I moved my foot between him and the door. He protested, trying to get passed, but a few angry “Jack”s made him sit, though I could tell he would run in as soon as I opened the door.
This meant I had to go back in the most annoying way possible with the backdoor. I had to slid it open enough for one of my feet to slid through and then slowly slid the rest of me through, making sure to keep the door blocked, then closed the door behind me as the last bit of my right foot got in.
I bent down and glared at Jack, who slumped, knowing he’d done something wrong.
I turned around to see Lyra standing in the purple bean bag, a look of worry and concern on her face.
I walked over, picked her up and held her close, murmuring, “He won’t hurt you. In time, I’m sure he’ll see you like he sees me. A member of the family.”
Now, I only half believed myself about the family part. I knew from My Little Dashie that if I let myself get too attached to Lyra, I’d be the more heart broken when she had to return home, and I knew she would. Whether it was Celestia or Twilight arriving to bring her back or she’d just poof away, I don’t know. I just know it will happen.
It was about 6:23. Not quite time for dinner, plus, none of my family were back yet... or would be til tomorrow.
When I returned to my room after remembering the whole reason Lyra had teleported outside in the first place, I went to check my phone.
James, wont be back til tomorrow. Your brother’s hanging with Alex and your sisters are staying over at Hannah’s for the night.
There should be some leftovers in the fridge, or you could make something yourself.
Have a good night.
MumXO.
I rolled my eyes. Why did Mum always have to end her texts to me with XO?
I changed into new and cleaner pajamas, since my current ones were now covered in dog hair and went back out into the lounge room.
Lyra was sitting in the kitchen, looking up at the fridge. I decided to have an early dinner and opened the fridge to see what we could have. The first thing I knew was not for Lyra was the meats like ham on the top shelf. I didn’t need to be told she didn’t eat meat. She’s a pony, for lord’s sake. Even here in the real world ponies don’t eat meat. I did however find some corn on the cob and some peas.
I took them out of the fridge, got a plate out of the cupboard under the counter, took a steak knife and cut the corn of the cob. Then, I put the corn and the peas onto the plate and the plate in the oven, setting it for a minute on Express.
Lyra titled her head at me. I just grinned. She had a lot to learn about this world. When the vegetables were finished cooking, I took the plate out and left it on the counter to cool, while I put some chicken and some of the leftover schnitzel on another plate and heated it up for myself.
While the meat was reheating, I took a can of SPC baked beans from the pantry and emptied it into two bowls, one for myself and one for Lyra.
When the meats were done cooking, I took them to the table, along with the other vegetables. I think took two glasses from the counter cupboard, as well as a straw from a nearby box we keep them in and poured some raspberry cordial into each glass, putting the straw in hers.
I said grace, which Lyra looked puzzled by, then we started eating. Though she glanced at my meat a few times, I shake from my head to her it wasn’t for her.
She found the baked beans interesting. She chewed them with a slight frown, as if trying to understand the flavour. Guess they don’t have baked beans, back in Equestria.
Once we were done with dinner, I decided I’d treat her. I went into the fridge, but then realized Dad hadn’t bought anything dessert worthy for a few weeks that I could really give Lyra.
It was as I was standing and about to close the door that I noticed the small section of the fridge Dad reserves for his own stuff, mostly chocolate and the like. There was a half a bar of Cadbury Milk Chocolate in there.
Now, my first thought (other than if Dad finds out you took that, you’re up shit creek) was could Lyra eat chocolate, being a pony? This was imminently followed by me slapping myself on the forehead. With the little I had looked into MLP, the characters could pretty much eat anything we humans eat, save meat.
So, deciding Dad would understand (after fainting from shock, maybe) I took the bar out of the fridge and went back to the table, breaking it in two, one half for me, the other for Lyra.
At first she looked at the slab of chocolate in front of her, to me as I bit down into mine. I nodded and she picked it up with her hooves (something that almost made me choke on my own chocolate) and bit into it. At once her eyes lit up like a Christmas Tree and she began chewing happily.
When we’d finished eating, Lyra yawned and rubbed her eye with a hoof.
I decided, after everything that had happened, I was pretty tired myself. It was only 7:32, but an early night wouldn’t hurt. I hadn’t really had anything planned anyway. So I picked Lyra up and carried her to my room.
I gently laid down on my bed and held Lyra close to me. She was so warm and her gentle breathing was making my heart do back flips.
Oh, yeah. With the aircon keeping the house cool, being warm in bed, even on hot nights, feels nice. Don’t ask me why, I’ve tried to figure it out for the last four years.
I close my eyes and, for the first time in ages, didn’t need my medication to fall asleep. With Lyra snuggled against my chest, the warmth of the bed overtook me and I was sleep in seconds.
To say my family were shocked when they saw Lyra... would be about the biggest understatement ever.
When I’d woken up the next morning, I wondered why my bed felt so warm, before I felt the thing in my arms move a little and I remembered what had happened the previous day.
To be honest, I’d thought that was a dream. But, when I shifted so I could see what was in the bed with me, sure enough, held within my arms was a mint-green unicorn filly, sleeping peacefully, a contented smile on her muzzle.
I decided to just wait until she woke up before doing anything. Who was I to interrupt a filly’s dreams, right?
However, no sooner had I thought this, then something caught me off-guard. Something I’d never have expected. I heard a scream.
I went ridged as it echoed around me, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. It was a horrified, pain-filled scream of a female.
I didn’t even move. I remained motionless for what felt like forever, my ears peeled for even the slightest explanation as to what that scream had been about.
From the fact I heard nothing going on outside, it seemed like I was the only one who heard it. Lyra had seemed a little anxious, stirring in her sleep, a slight frown appearing on her face, but other than that, nothing seemed wrong.
I decided to put it out of my mind and chock it up to my brain still waking up and just hearing things that weren’t there.
A few minutes later, Lyra stirred. She opened her eyes, those large, golden eyes and looked at me. For a second, she looked frightened, but then she smiled.
“Good morning,” I said, smiling back. “Did you have a good sleep?”
She yawned, stretching and tried to get up. The covers were a little too heavy though, so I helped her push them off.
We went out into the kitchen and I got us some breakfast. Nothing special. A bowl of Milo Dou cereal each and a glass of water for myself and some apple juice for Lyra.
At first, I thought she was going to eat her cereal like a dog, push her face down into it and start eating. Instead, to my utter surprise, her horn glowed with its golden aura. The same aura covered the spoon I’d intended to eat my cereal, but had put so close to her she must have assumed it was hers.
I watched as the spoon levitated off the table, moved to her bowl, scooped up some of the brown and white pieces and popped them in her mouth. She chewed, a smile breaking across her face and she quickly swallowed and scooped up another spoonful.
I couldn’t believe Lyra could already use her magic. In My Little Dashie, Rainbow Dash hadn’t been able to fly for a while and she’d been at least a year or two older than Lyra was now. Maybe unicorns mature sooner than pegasi?
It was at that moment the back door slid open and my first younger brother, Tim walked in. As soon as he saw Lyra he stopped dead. I’d gone ridged the moment I heard the door opening, my brain freezing, not letting me try and figure out how to explain how a mint-green cartoon pony was sitting at our kitchen table, eating breakfast.
Tim looks a lot like me, mousy-blonde hair, blue eyes and a similar facial structure. He’s a little taller than me, but back when we were younger, people kept mistaking us for each other. As we got older though, he started looking a little different from me and thus, people stopped confusing us with each other.
Tim slowly turned and spotted me. His face showing his mind looked like it was about to crack like an egg, he mouthed one word. “What?”
I grinned hesitantly. “Um...” I chuckled, fidgeting with my hands. “I... can’t really explain this without sounding crazy, can I?”
He slowly shook his head. “What is that... unicorn doing at our table?” At once his face deflated and he put his head in his heads. “That sounded like something a mad person would say. Maybe I am mad? You don’t see a mint-green unicorn sitting at our table, eating breakfast, do you?!” He looked back up and at me, his eyes wide, pleading. I wasn’t sure whether he was pleading for me to say “no”, so he could rationalize this as him simply hallucinating from a long night of work, or if he wanted me to say “yes”, so that he knew he wasn’t simply going nuts.
I sighed, got up and took him to the bean bags, easing him down into one. Lyra hopped down from the table and walked over, a puzzled expression on her face, while Tim just looked at her with blank eyes.
“A unicorn,” he said, sounding like he wasn’t really talking, just letting his thoughts become vocal. “There’s a unicorn in our house. Unicorns are real. They’re not make-believe.” He lay back in the bean bag, looking up at the ceiling. “James, I’ve gone nuts, haven’t I?”
I shook my head and tried to explain to him what was going on as best I could. The fact that I had to mention My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic didn’t help.
Lyra just looked from him to me, more confused than afraid of this second human.
When I finished, he looked at me and I could see the gears in his head slowly turning, trying to logicalize everything.
“So, are you trying to tell me that a show for little girls, that somehow spawned a fandom comprised of both girls and guys of every age, is a real place?”
“Well, if you accept the idea of string theory, yeah,” I said, nodding. “I’ve always believed that, for every TV show, every book, every fictional thing that ever has been thought up by mankind, another universe, parallel to our own is created. I think Lyra proves my theory, don’t you?”
He looked at her, puzzlement appearing on his face. “How’d she get here?”
I shrugged. “Got me. I just found her yesterday, trapped in bush on my way home after work. As for how she got here, to our world, not a clue.”
Tim frowned. “What’ll we do with her?”
I frowned too, out of irritation. “What exactly do you mean “What’ll we do with her?”?”
He looked at me, his expression serious. “This is big, James. A cartoon character has appeared in the real world. Don’t you realize what this could mean? The two worlds could be coming together. There’s no telling what kind of damage that could do!”
My face eased and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Phew. I thought you were talking about getting rid of her.”
His eyes bulged. “What? You plan on keeping her?!”
I frowned slightly. “She’s a little kid, Tim. By the show’s standards, she’s a little more than a toddler.”
He stood up, staring at me. “You’re always going on about Doctor Who! Now that something that could cause our universe to collapse, destroying everything, you’re not even thinking about it?!”
“Didn’t happen in My Little Dashie,” I shrugged, getting up and walking into the kitchen, Lyra following after me.
Tim just stared at me, his right eye twitching slightly. “You’re telling me, you’re chancing our universe’s destruction because of something you read in a fan fic of a show for little girls?!”
I gave him a withering look. “If the universe didn’t like the fact that Lyra’s here, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation because we wouldn’t be here.”
He stopped, blinking. “That... that...” He flopped back on the bean bag, his eyes wide. “You... How did you just make that sound so rational?”
I shrugged. “Listen to The Doctor talking long enough and you get into a similar mind-set, I guess.”
Tim sighed and got up. He walked into the kitchen, glancing at Lyra as she watched him walk passed me. “So, you plan on keeping her?”
“Would you knowingly send a child, in a world different from her own, out onto the streets? She wouldn’t even last a day in our world.”
He frowned, thinking. “That’s true. And think about what the government would do if they learned there was an alternate world alongside our own and that one of its inhabitants has come here.”
I shook my head as I closed the fridge. “I’d rather not, really. We’ve seen similar stuff in movies enough to know anyway.”
The rest of the family’s reactions were varied. My youngest brother, Tom (yeah, Tim and Tom, go ahead and laugh), thought Lyra was stupid and acted like he couldn’t see her.
I got very angry at him for that. She’s a unicorn, for crying out loud. And yeah, she’s not exactly the smartest one of us, but then again, she’s only three-years-old at the least. He wasn’t exactly the smartest apple in the bunch when he was that age himself, after all.
My sisters, Chloe, Elsa and Trina had a small part of their inner child reawaken and acted like any little girl does when unicorns are involved.
My parents... well, they were harder to deal with and easier to deal with at the same time. My dad told me we’d have to send Lyra away, since we weren’t (he wasn’t) sure if it was safe to have her around.
My mum had rounded on him (after I explained everything I could) furious at him for even thinking of sending a lost child away, especially one we all knew wouldn’t simply be able to fit in with the rest of society.
After much arguing, and me promising I’d take responsibility for Lyra, he came around and agreed that, as long as I took care of her, I could keep Lyra.
I scowled at him when he said that. Lyra wasn’t just some pet, a dog that I’d taken pity on and brought home. She was a magical unicorn filly, a child that needed caring for and protection in this world unfamiliar to her.
I groaned at my mother’s question, leaning back in my chair and stretching.
It has been about five months since Lyra came into my life. At first, she was nervous. With so many humans living around her, that was understandable. However, she opened up to the rest of my family in time.
She acts just like a child, which hadn’t surprised me, I’d read My Little Dashie after all. She seems to enjoy a lot of the shows for children on the local stations and some of them I find enjoyable myself in a child-nostalgic kind of way.
However, I made sure she watched only the kid shows meant to educate as well as entertain little children that weren’t made too recently. I found the more recent ones just made it seem like the producers think little kids are completely brain dead. The educational kid shows from when I was younger, back in the 90s and earlier 2000s were far better. They taught you, but didn’t insult your intelligence as they did so.
We’d quickly realized we had to get her some presents for Christmas. Since I’d found her on December 5th, that hadn’t left us much time, but we’d decided on a few toys for little kids. A rubber ball, some Lego Duplo blocks and a small green teddy bear.
When she took her presents out of her Christmas bag (in my family’s house we don’t wrap presents, but have them in large sacks instead), her eyes widened with joy.
She looked closely at the red rubber ball I’d gotten her, a puzzled expression playing across her face. I bent down and bounced the ball in front of her. She watched with intrigue as it bounced up and down. She giggled when she leaned in and it bounced off her nose.
We’d all laughed, watching her run after it and chase the ball around the living room. She looked so happy and full of joy, a stark contrast to how she’d been when I found her and her first few days.
I’m not sure why, but I’d caught her at times looking into space, a sad expression on her features, a few tears in her eyes. I still didn’t know what those were about and until she learns to talk, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to find out.
As I watched her playing, none of that sadness visible as she smiled like... well, a child on Christmas morning, I couldn’t help feeling a sense of joy that I never had before. I couldn’t fully explain it, though I’d noticed my mum give dad an odd look. I paid it no mind though, just happy that Lyra was happy.
Caring for Lyra had become what I do each day. Likely, I’d found her days before work was over for the Christmas holidays and I’d been able to be with Lyra every day.
When we’d shown Lyra to the rest of our family, my grandparents and cousins, they’d all been shocked. One, because a cartoon unicorn was with us, and two, we didn’t seem bothered by it. Well, I wasn’t bothered. The rest of my family had still been a little hesitant at the time.
If you can’t tell, yes, I’ve had what happened to Dash’s dad happen to me. Without meaning to, I’ve become a father.
The first time I realized that I’d become a father was when Lyra and I had gone to bed one night (she sleeps in the bed, I now sleep on a mattress on the floor). It had been a month since Lyra had arrived.
I told her goodnight and she’d said it. As I moved to turn off the light, from behind me I heard, “Good night, Daddy. I love you.”
I literally stopped, my mind trying to process the words she’d just said. I smiled, walked back over, leaned down and kissed her forehead, right below her horn.
“Good night, my Little Lyra. I love you, too.”
She smiled, and closed her eyes, snuggling into bed to sleep.
I walked back and turned off the light, then went back to my mattress. I lay there for a long time, thinking about the last few months.
Ever since I’d brought Lyra home, I’d felt something whenever I saw or thought about her. A feeling in my chest that I’d never felt before. A joy that couldn’t be explained in words.
I’d suspected this would happen, having read My Little Dashie. She’d seen me as her father since I took the charge in caring for her. However, knowing it will happen and it actually happening are two very different things.
However, that fact that she’d said it only reinforced my worries about her safety. She hasn’t once gone outside the house aside from going to the family Christmas Bummer (Party), which we drove to by car and the backyard. The risk is just too great to let her go out like a normal child and that’s not the right environment for a child to grow up in.
I rub my eyes and sigh as I look at the computer screen. I’d been searching the net and communicating with someone online for the last three months.
We’d realized after New Year’s that we couldn’t care for Lyra here in Australia. A mint-green unicorn would be way too obvious here and she’d be taken away out of fear that she could be dangerous, even though that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
When she isn’t playing, or watching television, Lyra wrestles with Jack. He got used to her after a while and the two are near inseparable. Sometimes I’ve even caught her taking a nap alongside him.
Those had been the perfect picture moments, which we’d put into the newest family member photo album, Lyra’s. We each had one from when we were little, me and my brothers and sisters, anyway and now she had one too.
Anyway, I’d joined fimfction.net in the hopes that I could meet someone who might be able to help me. I’d first gone to RobCakeran, the writer of My Little Dashie and asked him just how he’d come up with the story. I’d hoped that he’d actually been speaking from a first-hand story, even if some parts of it wouldn’t add up with the dates he’d set.
Turns out, it wasn’t like that. He’d been inspired and it was just a fictional work. He’d never had Rainbow Dash come to his home and wrote the story as a way to tell his story without giving her away.
I’d then decided to just asked in a blog if there was anyone who lived in a place where seeing a character from the show in real life wouldn’t seem weird.
It was an innocent enough sounding question and it didn’t actually risk Lyra’s reveal. All anyone who read it thought was that I was just posing a hypothetical question.
I’ve no idea why I thought that was a good idea or why I thought someone might answer. Surprisingly, they did.
Two weeks after I posted the blog, someone by the screen name KayPony233 had contacted me, telling me that her home in Japan would be a good choice for that idea. With all the weird stuff that goes on in Japan normally, a cartoon pony walking around wouldn’t seem too weird at all. Might turn a few heads, but that’d be it.
I started talking regularly with KayPony233, first on fimfiction, then via regular email, before we moved to Skype calls, during which we shared our real names. She was an interesting girl. Her name was Saiyaka Rio, she lives in a small town in Sapporo in an area called Odori Park , she was nineteen and still in school, studying to be a high school teacher.
Dad had at once been against me living with a girl four years younger than me, before I reminded him I’m not like a lot of the guys of today, only thinking about the girl and getting in her pants.
My reason for going to live with this girl and share an apartment with her was for Lyra, so she could live a happy and non-enclosed life, in a place where she won’t have others staring at her or worse.
Life wasn’t too easy for Saiyaka though. She lived in a reasonably large apartment for a Japanese apartment (her words, not mine) in a building called Tsuki Apartments and had to pay the rent all on her own and it was making it hard for her to do her studies, because she had to work part-time to make enough to pay the rent each five months.
She had no parents, them having died when she was ten and had been living with her grandmother on her mother’s side until a few years ago, when she’d moved out. She and her grandmother were the last of her family, so they didn’t have anyone else to turn to.
When I asked her if I could come to Japan and live with her, help her with the rent, she was interested as to why I’d want to move to a foreign country just for that. I told her it was because I was caring for a mint-green unicorn filly and wanted to raise her there so that she’d be safer.
She’d burst out laughing during that Skype call. She didn’t believe me, I’d known she wouldn’t. She was in for quite a surprise when I moved in with her in a few more months.
I looked at my mum, a slight frown creasing my brow. “It’s not like I’ve just jumped into this, Mum. I’ve been looking for a job I can take that pays well in Japan as well as gotten my working visa and learned enough Japanese to be able to get by.”
Learning Japanese had been a nightmare. I’d always loved the Japanese culture, Anime had been a part of my life since I was a child, but the language was torture to actually learn. I’d had to spend all my work breaks listening to English to Japanese translation CDs and go to sleep with them playing in my ears so that I could learn it.
The most insulting part was Lyra had somehow used her magic to learn Japanese. I honestly don’t know how she figured out how to use her magic like that, I’m not a unicorn, so I couldn’t have taught her to if I’d tried, but she’d done it. She’d started speaking only a few days after I’d brought her home, so her sudden mastery of a language I was seriously struggling to learn hurt my ego pretty hard.
In the end, she’d taught me and she’s still not even four-years-old yet. You feel pretty small when your three-year-old daughter is the one teaching you a new language.
My mum folds her arms. “A child care worker? That’s a high paying job?”
“Where I’ll be working, it will,” I said, showing her the home page of the school I’d soon be working at. “Working for Shiseikan Elementary School I get a sum of six hundred thousand yen a week. Even when you convert that to Aussie dollars, that’s way more than twice what I get a fortnight already. Financially, I’ll be fine. Plus, let’s be real, Mum: I don’t exactly have the highest qualifications, so teaching preschoolers-kindergarteners is a good a place as any,”
Mum sighs, walking up and pulling me into a hug, which I didn’t expect. “I’m just worried about you. Because of your brain injury, I didn’t think you’d be leaving home for at least twenty more years. And now you’re a father and you’re moving to a whole other country and...”
I return her hug, patting her back. “I know, Mum. This is a big change for all of us. But we have to think about what’s best for Lyra. We don’t know when or even if she’ll ever go back to Equestria.”
That was a lie, of course. I know she’ll go back someday. Whether it’s a simple “poof” and she’s gone or Twilight Sparkle will come and take her back there. I don’t know when this will happen, but I know it will happen one day, not that I’d tell my family this. They’ve all become fond of Lyra in the time she’s been here. She’s as much a member of the family as any of us.
Plus, it means, amongst our family only, my parents can say they’re grandparents while they’re still relatively young and my brothers and sisters can say they’re aunts and uncles, and the oldest of them isn’t even twenty for a few more months.
“Until then,” I say, patting her back, “we have to keep her safe while still allowing her to enjoy her childhood and Japan is the best place for that. There she can walk around and no one will really question it. Japan’s so weird she’ll seem normal by comparison.”
She sniffles and smiles at me.
This was the right thing for Lyra. Now that I was her father, I had to think about her future. True, I’d never wanted to be a child care worker, I’d never even considered the idea of teaching kids, which I would have to deal with regularly as one, and I’d now be working four, sometimes five days a week instead of just three like I’m used to, but for Lyra, I’d have taken a six day a week job at a fish gutting factory if I had to.
Lyra and I had gotten special shots to make us immune to the bacteria in Japan’s water. They don’t have the same filters for their water that we do in Australia, so it was necessary if we were going to live there.
How did we manage to get Lyra’s shots when she’s a pony, you might ask? We’d all gone dressed in costumes and told the doctor that we were going to a costume party after and that Lyra had chosen to dress as a unicorn.
Still don’t know how, but he bought it, gave her and me our shots and we were set.
On September 24th, Lyra, my dad and I will be going to Japan. It will take saving up everything I make at work here in Australia to that point, but I’ll have enough to pay Dad back for our flight to Japan.
In a few more months, I’ll be leaving my life in Australia behind and beginning a new one, as Lyra’s father in Japan. I was already her father, but I will be able to be a much better one there.
I can only hope she will be happy there and that I’ll get enough time with her before she returns to Equestria to be happy with my life.
“Did we have to get up so early?” Tom yawns from the backseat as our car drives down the highway.
It’s very early, well, for us, anyway. It’s 5:14AM. Now, that might not sound early, especially since the flight doesn’t leave til 11:30, but today was a school day and for the others to be able to say goodbye before we left and still make it to school on time, an early start was needed.
Lyra certainly mirrors Tom’s feelings though. She’s curled up in my lap, fast asleep. She’d barely noticed when we’d gotten up. She’d opened her eyes for maybe half a minute before going back to sleep.
“Trust me, Tom,” Mum says as the car turns into another lane, “you’ll be happy you got to say goodbye as apposed to us letting you sleep longer and James and Lyra being gone without a goodbye.”
“No, I wouldn’,” he grumbles, settling deeper into the seat, closing his eyes. “I’d’ve been fine with not saying goodbye.”
Yeah. Tom and I aren’t exactly on the best of terms. Brothers fight, that’s common knowledge, but Tom, for whatever reason, just seems to hate me. Everything and anything I do just seems to piss him off and he always feels like he has to talk me down, despite my being the eldest and him being the youngest.
After a few more minutes of driving, the car pulls into the airport parking lot. We all get out and Mum and Dad help me get my luggage out, three bags, one roller, which containa my entire DVD collection and two large scrap bags, which hold all my clothing.
We all stand in the parking lot and the others say their goodbyes to Lyra, who is now awake and realizes where we are. I’d been telling her about the airport, so that, when we got here, she wouldn’t freak out.
There are hugs given to Lyra from everyone as well as tears, aside from Tom. He stood away from the scene, hands in his uniform pockets, looking bored.
Once the farewells have been finished, I unzipp the purple bag I’m using as carry-on luggage and gently lower Lyra into it, leaving a hole for her to breathe air through.
I carefully strap my bag back on my back, nod to everyone, take the roller bag and one of the bags containing my clothes and we head inside.
The airport is rather busy, considering the time, people are going hither and wither, some carrying luggage, some looking excited and clearly waiting for someone to arrive.
We go to the check-in line and Dad and I wait. After about ten minutes we go up to the front counter. I hand them my luggage and ticket, the former of which they label with my destinations, Melbourne and Japan, Melbourne being where we’d be catching a transfer flight, since we couldn’t go straight to Japan with the tickets we’d gotten.
Now comes the moment of truth as Dad and I get into line for the search. We empty everything we had in our pockets and put them into a tub that went through a scanner. It was used to see what you had in your bags, to make sure you weren’t carrying anything illegal.
Now, I’m sure you’re wondering, how are we going to avoid them seeing Lyra in my bag as it goes through the machine? Well, it was thanks to Lyra’s playing a prank on our family members during the Family Christmas Bummer that we are going to get through this.
I mentioned that Lyra has somehow been teaching herself how to use her magic. Well, she’d taught herself a spell that works a little like a perception filter, like on Doctor Who. When the spell is active, for twenty minutes, if you weren’t careful about it, you would mistake Lyra for a plush toy version of herself.
So, how would she know when to use the spell, so we can take the most advantage of the time limit? I have a code word that, when Lyra hears it, will use the spell. The code word being: Plushies.
We reach the area where people get scanned before they are allowed further into the airport. Since Mum and the others aren’t going on a plan, they go through another gate that has people moving through it a lot faster while Dad and I have to wait for our line to slowly move.
“Sir, please put your bag on the belt so we can scan it,” one of the security men asks me when I reach the front of the line.
I gently take it off and place it down saying, “Okay. Nothing much in there, really. Hey, do you guys have any childhood plushies you still keep?”
The men look at each other, confused as my bag goes through the scanner. “Well, sorta, yeah,” the first one answers. “A hypo. Jaws. Got ’im when I was two.”
The other man nods as he watches the screen. “Tigger. I got him when I was five.”
“Tigger, Winnie the Pooh, Tigger?” I ask and he nods.
Our stuff passes through the machine with no sound saying anything odd haa been found. Dad and I separately walk through the human scanner, no beeps saying we have any metal on us, get our stuff and my bag and head through the airport to where our plan was.
We soon come to the spot where the others can’t go on and we all say our final goodbyes to Mum and the others. Once done with that, we go into the main area of the airport where only passengers could go.
Since we have so much time before our flight, we go to the food court to get some breakfast. We go to a Subway. Now, why would we do that when Lyra can’t eat meat? Well, as you know, Subway have several vegetarian options.
I tell Dad what I want and we agree on what Lyra would have and then I head over to a booth in the corner so as not to have too much attention paid to me.
I sit down and take Lyra out of my bag. She looks around excitedly, this new place with new smells that she’d never experienced before. I tell her to wait and no act out and she listens, though she doesn’t stop looking around, turning her head to see everything she could from our booth.
Dad comes back a little later, carrying a tray. On it are a Chicken Teriyaki and coffee for Dad, a Meatball Sub and coke for me and a Veggie Delite® and lemonade for Lyra.
We all dig in, enjoying our breakfast. Lyra really seeming to enjoy her sub, if the smile on her face and the “Mmmm” sounds she’s making are any indication.
After breakfast’s finished, we go to look around the market area as we wait for our plan. When the time comes and we hear the announcement for all those boarding our flight, we go into the waiting area for those catching our plane. There is a small delay so our plane leaves closer to noon instead of at 11:30.
Once we got on the plane Dad and I took our seat, I had a window seat while Dad had the isle one right next to me. Lyra had to recast her spell several times, since it took so long for before our flight was even meant to leave, then adding the around extra half hour.
Once we’d sat down, Dad and I buckled in, I put my bag in front of me and pull Lyra out, sitting her on my lap. She looks around with the same excitement as before, taking in everything she can from my lap.
She catches sight of the window and looks out, putting her hooves to it and watches the outside.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking,” a male’s voice sys through intercom speakers all around the plane a few minutes later. “We’d like to welcome you to Cathaway Pacific, flight 22454 from Adelaide to Melbourne. Once we get airborne our flight will be just over an hour and thirty minutes.
Til we reached our flight altitude of 30 000 we must ask you to remain seated and to keep your seatbelt buckled. If, at any point during the flight, you require any assistance our flight attendants will be more than willing to help you. Thank you for choosing to fly with us and we hope you enjoy your flight. We should be cleared for takeoff in about ten minutes.”
We’re in Premium Economy, so there are TVs in the back of the seats so during the flight we get to watch some shows, movies, et cetera on our way to Melbourne, though I'm sure Lyra would be perfectly entertained just watching out the window.
The screens turn on and two safety demonstrations comes on, playing several seconds after each other, one part of the demonstration being explained in English, then the other in Asian. I was able to follow the English one no problem and the Asian one I kinda understood. It had been a blend of Japanese, Chinese and another Korean language I’d never heard of, so I’d gotten chunks of it.
Once it’s over, the screen shows the path we’d be flying to Melbourne and then the transfer flight to Japan, followed by the current times in each place. By the time we get to Melbourne it would be noon, so we’d get lunch there. After that it repeated again and again.
Dad glances at me, a small grin on his face. “Ready for this?”
I look to Lyra, who is still looking out the window, her eyes shining brightly. I nod. “As I’ll ever be.”
Fifteen minutes later the intercom bings and the captain’s voice speaks up again. “Ladies and gentlemen we have been cleared for takeoff. Flight attendances, please return to your seats.”
I pick Lyra up and hold her in my arms. A few seconds later I feel the plain move forward underneath me. Lyra turns her head back to look at me, confusion in her eyes.
I can’t help but chuckle. This is a new experience for her, but it is just as much the same for me. I’ve only ever been on a few flights, the last time being from Adelaide to Queensland for a week-long vacation. This is defiantly a bigger step than that.
Lyra watches the window from my arms as the runway moves passed, going faster and faster. Soon the plane tilts back, moving upwards.
Lyra and I both wince as my ears and no doubt hers, poping from the sudden rise in altitude. Man, I’d forgotten how much that hurts. I can only imagine how painful it is for Lyra, since her ears are more sensitive than a human’s.
Once we’ve reached the altitude of 30 000 feet, the seatbelt light goes off and the screens change to show the entertainment options, not that Lyra notices them at first. She’s paying too much attention to the clouds as we pass them.
I have to admit, I’d never seen them like I was now. They look more solid, almost like the clouds during A Whole New World in Disney’s Aladdin.
However, my new Dad instincts kick in and I suddenly imagine Lyra teleporting outside to try and touch those clouds, not knowing she’d drop 30 000 feet.
I quickly pull her away from the window. She looks up at me with a slight pout. I hold up a finger. “Lyra, while we’re on this plane you’re not allowed to teleport, okay?”
She frowns, then looked down.
I smile and ruffle her mane. “Do this for Daddy, huh?”
She looks back up, cocking her head in confusion, then smiles and nods.
I sigh with relief. “Good. Now, how about you watch something?” I take the headphones from my chair’s arm, put them on Lyra’s ears and click through the options until I find a few kid shows that are both appropriate and entertaining for her.
She spends the flight watching, completely engrossed in the shows playing, while Dad and I discussed about what he’d be doing while he was in Japan. Since I was going there to live, he was going to have a little fun, go on a few tours, see the sights, that kind of thing.
I feel jealous of him. Two days after we arrive I’d be starting my new job as a child care worker at Sapporo Elementary. I was lucky they’d given me the job, really, but I was still surprised how much I was getting paid. Guess they really respect their child care workers there.
Not too much later the plane comes down in Melbourne. We get off and have a look around the area passengers are allowed to while waiting for their next flights.
I’d intended to stay on the plane, but Dad had told me when he and my sister Chloe had gone to China with one of our cousins and my grandmother on my dad’s side, they’d stayed on the plane while waiting for it to go and had regretted it when they arrived in China because they’d been really stiff.
With that in mind, he’d advised that we get off and stretch our legs, so we are. We decide we’re hungry, so we go to find somewhere to have lunch. As it happens, there’s a Hungry Jacks not too far in, so we stop there.
We agree on what we’d order and I go over to a booth in the far corner, just like I had at the Subway back home, taking Lyra out of my back and sit her down next to me.
Like back at the Subway, she looks around excitedly, smells that were new making her wrinkle her nose in confusion, then giggle.
After a few minutes, Dad comes over, carrying a tray. On the tray are two Whoopers with cheese, mine without salad or mayo, two large fries and one small, three drinks, coke, diet coke and lemonade. There is also what looks like another burger, but I know better. It’s a bun with just cheese, lettuce tomato and onions.
We all tuck in, Lyra particularly enjoying her fries. Maybe due to a subconscious memory of eating hay fries back in Equestria? Or, more likely, it just tasted really good. I know I was enjoying this meal greatly. I have a feeling I might not find too many burger joints in Japan, not like Hungry Jacks, anyway, so I’m enjoying this while I can.
When lunch is over with, we wander around for a while until we hear our flight call over the airport intercom and head back to the plane, Lyra back inside the bag. She won’t be able to walk around normally without anyone paying too much attention til we’re in Japan.
The second flight takes a lot longer, two and half hours. Luckily, the jetlag seems to be getting to Lyra. She’d amused herself with a few movies and looking out the window, but after about half the flight, she fell asleep in my lap.
I take this time to watch some movies and shows myself. I watch MIB3, Brave and a few episodes of a show I wasn’t even sure was still around these days, American Dragon: Jake Long. It was nice, being able to watch something and not have to worry about keeping Lyra occupied. Anyone who’s traveled with kids before knows there’s only so long they’ll be able to entertain themselves before they get bored. And by bored, I mean want to run around and be crazy bored.
As Brave comes to the end credits, the screens all change to show the plane’s route, revealing that we’re landing soon.
After a while, I feel the plane touchdown, the motion waking Lyra, who sits up, rubbing her eyes sleepily.
The captain’s voice suddenly speaks over the intercom. “On behalf of Cathway Pacific Airways, I would like to welcome you all to New Chitose Airport, Japan. Please remain seated until we come to a complete stop.”
Lyra looks out the window and then back at me and I wink. “We’re here, Lyra.”
She smiles. “Finally.” She shakes her head. “Why did it take so wong?”
I chuckle. “Lyra, Japan’s really far away. This was the fastest way to get here.”
She yawns and stretches. “Otay. Oh, I shouwd cast da spell again, right?”
I nod. Her horn glows with her golden aura. It flows over her body and then fades away.
The plane slows down and stops, followed by the intercom buzzing. “Thank you for flying with us. The local time here in Sapporo is 3:23PM. Please walk in an orderly file out and follow the directions to customs and baggage claim. Please remember to take all your possessions with you and we hope you had a nice flight.”
We get our luggage, Lyra hiding in my bag again. She’ll have to do this until we’re passed customs. After that, she’d be free to walk around on her own.
It takes a few minutes, but we get through customs without a problem. As we exit customs, following the signs that are in both English and Japanese, we walk through the airport until I see a girl holding a paper sign with my last name, Walker, then first in black pen-marker.
We walk over to her and she smiles. “<You’re James and his dad, right?>” she asks. Her accent wasn’t completely Asian, not that I was surprised. During our Skype calls I’d heard her and she’d told me the reason for her accent was because she’d lived in America with her parents before their passing, so she didn’t quite have her Asian accent, having lived around Americans most of her life.
She leads us to baggage claim and we get mine and Dad’s stuff. Dad doesn’t have much. A single bag, since he didn’t plan on staying for too long, though it was still pretty big. Saiyaka, or Sai, as she said I could call her, helps me take my luggage and we get on a small tram that takes us to a train station.
There, both Dad and I get train passes, Dad’s will last for a few months, regardless of whether he’s going to be here that long or not and I get one that will last for five years. I’d have to reinstated it after those five years, but I could live with that.
Sai notices me get another pass, this one with the name Lyra Heartstrings Walker and frowns in confusion. “<Um, there’s only two of you. Plus, isn’t Lyra Hearstrings—?>”
Before she can finish, I take off my bag, lower it down, open it and Lyra hops out, looking around in awe.
Sai just stares, her mouth hanging wide open as she watches Lyra look around in interest.
“<I told you I was looking after a mint-green unicorn filly,>” I chuckle.
She closes her mouth and looks up at me, her eyes wide. “<B-b-b-but— How-how-how-how—?>”
I hold up a hand. “<Long story. Let’s just get to the house, Lyra and I will settle in and then I’ll tell you everything I can.” I then lean in and whisper, “But, please, don’t say anything about My Little Pony Friendship is Magic around her. She doesn’t know about that yet. She’s not ready to.>”
She nods slowly, looking dazed.
Once all the passes are finished with, Dad parts with us, so that he can book into the hotel he’d decided to stay at. He has the address where we’d be living, so if he wants to visit before heading back to Australia, he knows where to go.
We board the train and it heads down the subway tunnel, towards our new home.
I would recommend rereading the previous two chapters, as i have made edits that were needed to continue the story and thus will make this chapter make a bit more sense in contrast to the differences from the original earlier chapters
I chuckle as Lyra stands on her back legs so she can look out the window of the train.
We’re on a transit moving along the rapid line. The trip takes just about an hour, so we’ve about another ten or so before we get to our station.
Sai is just staring at Lyra, transfixed. It’s a good thing she’d given me the station we need to get off at before the move, because I don’t think she’ll notice.
“Mommy! Mommy! Look at that pretty unicorn!”
My head shoots up and a glance around quickly, before I notice a little girl, maybe six years old, sitting a couple of seats down. She’s pulling on her who is clearly her mother’s hand, pointing… at Lyra!
Her mother looks in our direction and I immediately try to look like I wasn’t looking their way mere seconds ago, trying to blend in among the other passengers, something that is pretty much impossible when you’re the only white person in a train for a Japanese people. Absolutely impossible when you’ve got a mint-green unicorn filly sitting next to you eagerly looking out the window.
“Yes, honey,” the mother says, causing me to feel a mixture of confusion and fear at the tone that is not one of someone seeing something abnormal and feeling fear from it. “It’s quite the lovely plushie.”
I blink, before my body sags with relief. I’d completely forgotten Lyra was still under the effect of the illusion spell.
However, my ease isn’t long lived as I hear “Sorry. Sorry. Pardon me,” and, as I continue to look at the ground, see a pair of brown shoes stop in front of me, followed by the mother’s voice asking, “Um… e-excuse me?”
Gulping, I slowly look up.
Before me is a nice looking woman, now that I have a closer look at her due to her proximity.
She looks someone in her mid-late twenties, with long brown hair tied back in a bun, is wearing a simple blue dress and has a handbag over her right arm. Held in her left hand is that of the little girl, who looks like her mother, but with hair that reaches just below her ears, a bowl cut, I think it’s called.
I gulp again. “Y-yes?”
“Where did you buy that?” the woman asks tentatively, pointing to Lyra, who glances back, noticing the new arrivals.
“I… um… I…” I stammer, my brain going completely blank.
Crap. I did NOT think this through as well as I thought I had. What in the world am I supposed to say?
“He… got it as a birthday present,” Sai says suddenly, startling me. “He can ask the person who gave it to him.”
The mother’s face seems to sadden and she shakes her head. “Oh, never mind.”
She moves away, pulling her daughter with her, who waves to Lyra saying, “Bye, bye, pretty unicorn.”
Lyra waves back, smiling happily.
I sigh, both with relief and sadness. Lyra probably thinks she just made a new friend, even though we’ll likely never see that woman and her little girl again.
“Mommy, she waved back to me!” the little girl says, her voice full of excitement.
At once, any thoughts of thanking Sai for getting us out of a difficult situation are halted as to the two of us look to each other in shock, before looking to the fading girl, then to Lyra and back to each other.
That little girl could see Lyra. As in see through the illusion spell. Her mother couldn’t, but she did.
“But… but how?” Sai asks, before her expression blanks. Apparently it just caught back up to her that Lyra is real.
We shake our heads and I start to explain what’s really going on to Sai.
It takes a bit, but, after a while, helped by Lyra snuggling up next to me for a nap, she starts to take things very seriously.
“<Once we’ve set you to up, we’re talking,>” she says, getting up and taking my bag off the storage space above us, myself taking Lyra in my right arm, while holding my other bag with the other.
As we get off at the next station, I spot the girl and mother from before. Guess they live nearby?
We walk for almost half an hour, maybe enjoying the peace of the area, before getting to the Tsuki Apartments building complex.
It’s a five story building, with twenty apartments per floor. It’s stark white, though I can see touches from the families living in the separate apartments, giving more varieties of colour to the white.
We head in, up the stairs to the second floor and enter the third apparent.
It’s reasonably sized, just like Sai had told me in our communications.
There’s several rooms, including two bed rooms that are unoccupied as they’re for Lyra and myself, a kitchette, a bathroom about the same size as the one my family has back in Australia and a small living room that opens out onto a balcony overlooking the area around the complex.
Sai helps us unpack and set things up in our room, seeming surprised when she finds clothes for little girls among those I’d brought.
“What?” I ask when she holds up a blue dress, giving me a confused look. “<You didn’t think I’d have Lyra walk around naked all the time, did you?>”
The ponies may do that in the show, but they’re social norms are very different than ours.
Once everything’s set up in both mine and Lyra’s room, we go into the living room and sit on the couch that bends around.
“<How is this working?>” she asks, her tone serious. “<You have a mint-green unicorn. What is your plan?>”
I look to Lyra sitting next to me on the couch and smile, before looking to Sai.
“<You’re gonna think I’m insane, but I’m planning on having her join the kindergarten at Shiseikan Elementary School.>”
She just stares at me for several moments, before closing her eyes and rubs them with one hand. “<Okay, explain it clearly and carefully. You’re Japanese is still a bit rusty, so say it in English only.>”
So, I do. The plan is very simple, disgustingly so.
I will be teaching in the kindergarten section of the school and Lyra will be attending there herself. This lets her experience a real childhood as well as would allow me to keep an eye on her. It’s a six minute walk from here, too, so I can easily take her with me every morning without worrying about distance.
Plus, children that age are perfect for her to be around, since, as proven by that girl on the train, little kids will be able to accept a unicorn living among them without a second thought.
It’ll allow her to become something normal to the kids, so, as they grow up, they’ll treat her like one of them and, by proxy, anyone else around her.
That’s not to say Lyra is going to just be like any pony from the show living in this world.
During the five months she’s been here in our world, she quickly noticed how we all walk on two legs, not four.
It’s a bit odd, seeing her walking on two legs, but she somehow figured out how to do it and, once she got the hang of it, it didn’t actually look that odd.
If anything, it made her look more like a human child wearing a costume.
Lyra joining the kindergarten has a second objective. Since there are several high schools so close to the Elementary school, once Lyra finishes kindergarten and elementary, she can move right into one of those schools, as they all have middle and Junior high levels too and are not too far away.
I’m personally looking at Sapporo Asahioka High School. It’s only a little over half an hour away by train and, by then, I’m certain I won’t have to worry about Lyra traveling alone by train. Though Sapporo Shiritsu Keimei Junior High School for her Junior and Middle school years might be easier, as it's even closer, being a twenty-seven minute train ride.
We talk for a bit more, going over more of the details, before we’re interrupted by a knock on the front door.
We glance at each other.
“<We’re you expecting company>?” I ask, as Lyra stand on the couch, looking over it at the door.
Sai blinks, before facepalming. “<Yune-san.>”
With that, she gets up and hurries to the door, answering it… before her voice goes quiet.
Curious, I get up and look to see who this Yune-san is, before I freeze in place. It’s the woman from the train!
The two start speaking in Japanese at a level I do not yet understand, catching maybe every second and fifth word, though it’s clear Sai is struggling to think of something.
It’s also apparent she and this Yune-san know each other very well… which would beg the question how Sai didn’t recognize her on the train, if not for the fact realizing Lyra’s real had probably blown her brain at the time.
Suddenly, I notice this Yune-san’s daughter is standing behind her and hear a happy cheer from behind me.
The little girl barrels past her mother and Sai, running towards me, when a mint-green blur shoots past my legs.
Lyra and the ltitle girl meet and hug each other before dancing, as if they’re best friends.
I just stare, glancing from the two dancing children to Sai and Yune-san, the latter giving me a look I cannot place, though I’m pretty sure her brain is failing her anyway.
We’re sitting in the living room, the three of us adults having just spent the last several minutes talking, with Sai and myself explaining things as best we can to Ha Yune.
Due to my not being completely fluent in Japanese and Ha-san being very bad at English, Sai’s been working as the in-between, translating each of our sentences to the other.
Ha-san and Sai are good friends. She knew Sai’s parents and had watched over Sai after she moved into the complex, offering to help whenever Sai was struggling.
Sai, in return, always offered to babysit her daughter whenever she could.
The two got along very well and were very good friends… which is probably the only reason Ha-san hasn’t accused her off going off the deep end for what she and I have been telling her.
The confusion Ha-san was experiencing is completely understandable. She didn’t know anything about My Little Pony FiM, so the info dump we’d given her, combine with the implications of Lyra being here meaning that world actually exists, was a lot to take in all at once.
We’d essentially shattered her whole concept of reality.
I glance away at the girls playing. Lyra got out her toys while we adults talked about “grown up stuff” and now the two are playing with her Duplo.
I can’t help smiling at the look of pure joy and happiness on her face as she and Ha-san’s daughter, Kimiko-san, play together, acting like they’ve been best friends forever, despite barely having known each other for over two hours.
“<This… is weird,>” Sai translates Ha-san’s next sentence.
I nod. “<I understand, Ha-san. It took a bit of getting used to myself, but Lyra is real and she’s here. Japan is the best place I could think of to raise her, as your country is so accepting of the weird.>”
“<She says she can see how well Kimiko and Lyra get along,>” Sai draws my attention back to the girls. “<She can see how quickly they’ve become friends and doesn’t want to break them up and—>”
She pauses, before looking with both hurt and annoyance at Ha-san and says something firmly in Japanese, way too fast for me to sift through my limited knowledge of the language.
Though I did hear the word “baka”, which I know is Japanese for fool or idiot, so, guessing it wasn’t the most pleasant of comments.
Ha-san looks a bit shocked, before seeming to think it over and looks apologetic.
She looks to me. “<I sorry. Not mean… to be rude… to child.>”
I blink, before it clicks and I try to keep my composure as I realize she’d said something insulting about Lyra. Now I do not mind that Sai called her an idiot in their native language.
After a moments, I sigh, open my eyes and nod. “Forgiven. I hope our daughters… can be good friends.”
Hey, speaking a full sentence all at once in a foreign language is tricky. If I have to take it slow, I will.
We all return to watching the girls play, Lyra talking excitedly to Kimiko in Japanese.
I really should not feel so jealous of my own daughter.
I smile as Lyra plays tag with several of the children.
It’s been almost a month since we moved to Japan and I started my job at Shiseikan Elementary School.
Getting into sync with the job had been a lot easier than I’d anticipated.
There’s five other staff in the preschool to kindergarten area and they welcomed me, if a bit uncertainly, with open arms.
Handling the children has been pretty easy. I can attribute that to having grown up with five younger siblings and having been much older when the last four came around.
Lyra and Kimiko-san are the closest of friends, Kimiko-san introducing her to the other friends she’d made at the school, the group happily welcoming Lyra into their little group.
Thanks to Yune-san, I soon learned that I’d been a bit off on my little unicorn’s age.
Yune’s a vet and offered to give Lyra and once over and found her physical age is actually closer to between six and seven years old. So I guess Lyra’s more four year old like behavior was more due to her loss of memory than her actually age.
As such, we’d celebrate two birthdays so Lyra didn’t feel weird being treated as a six year old than a four year old.
To my surprise, the school’s preschool-elementary area doesn’t have a uniform policy, so Lyra’s wearing a plain white t-shirt and blue skirt.
She keeps alternating between running on all fours and two legs, trying to make things more challenging for the other kids whenever she’d been tagged.
“Lyra is a sweet child,” I pull my gaze from the kids to a man and woman, both with black hair, the former cut to his ears and the latter tied back in a ponytail.
The man is Yokomoto Kazu and the woman is Daichi Yue. They’re two of the other staff in this area of the school and the ones I’ve gotten on best with.
Granted, when there’s only six staff members looking after over twenty children between the ages of four to six years old, you have to all be able to work together or else it won’t work, so we’re all friendly towards each other, but they’re the two I’ve gotten on best with.
We’ve gotten on so well, the three of us are on first name basis and don’t even use honorifics with each other anymore.
The rest of the staff are currently having a break, so it’s just the three of us.
“Have to agree with you, Yue,” I look back as Lyra tumbles with a boy wearing a blue shirt and white shorts, the two laughing happily.
“I still honestly find it a bit weird that a unicorn exists in our world and is so happily playing with the other kids,” Kazu shakes his head.
I nod. “Yeah, I’m not surprised, Kazu. Unicorns aren’t exactly a norm around the world.”
“I just wish I knew why Bon Bon and Twilight made her seem so upset,” Yue sighs.
There’s a pause, the only sound being the kids having fun.
I slowly turn to Yue. “Can… can you repeat that?” I must have misheard. I must have.
Yue motions for me to follow her and we leave Kazu to watch the kids alone for a moment.
She takes me into a small room with bright and colour walls, with drawings hung all over the room on strings.
Yue brings me over to one group of pictures in particular, takes them down and hands them to me.
What I see makes my eyes go wide. It’s crude, drawings by four year olds usually are, but the colours are way too obvious for it not to be clear what I’m looking at.
On the page is a stick figure pony, mint-green, clearly Lyra.
However, it’s the other two that worry me.
On one page, stick pony Lyra is standing next to a purple stick pony with a pink stripe in her mane and tail and a crudely drawn six-point pink star on her flank.
The other page has stick pony Lyra hugging a cream coloured stick pony with a blue and pink curly mane and a trio of candies on her flank.
“Twilight and Bon Bon,” I murmur.
My emotions are a conflicted mess of confusion. I’m happy that Lyra may be starting to remember Equestria, but, at the same time, I have this sense of foreboding.
Is it because I fear her remembering Equestria might send her back? Is it because I don’t want to lose her after…?
And why is Twilight still just a unicorn in this picture? Why isn't she an Alicorn?
I blink, before looking to Yue, what she’d said earlier coming back to me. “What did you mean they make her upset?”
Yue looks sad and annoyed. “I can’t really explain it, because she can’t either.”
HALF AN HOUR AGO
Yue smiled as she watched the children drawing, chatting happily amongst themselves about what their pictures were off. Some drew home and their family, others fun places they’d been to or wanted to go.
As past little Kimiko and Lyra, she happened to glance over Lyra’s shoulder and noticed the stick pony figures much like Lyra had drawn herself.
“Lyra?” the little unicorn glanced up, her horn losing its golden glow, the crayon held in a similar light dropping onto the table. “Who are they?” Yue indicated to the figures.
Lyra pointed excitedly at the cream coloured one first. “Bon Bon. Bon Bon’s my best pony friend.” She then pointed to the other pony. “That's Twilight. She’s my friend. Good friend.” Her expression suddenly saddened. “Sad friend.”
Yue glanced from the pictures back to Lyra. “Why is she sad?’
Lyra just remained quiet for a moment and Yue became worried when she saw tears brimming in her eyes.
“Not know. Twilight just sad. Something bad happen. Not know why. Just know.”
Yue looked from the now slightly sniffling filly to the drawing, unsure how to respond.
NOW
“I guess… maybe she really wants some friends who look like her,” Yue says, shaking her head, looking sad. “I guess I can understand. She is the only unicorn in the school, after all. Of course she’d want some friends just like her.”
“Y-yeah,” I nod absentmindedly, my thoughts elsewhere.
This isn’t the first time Twilight has come up without Lyra knowing about the show.
Sai has been very careful not to let Lyra know about FiM, keeping all her pony stuff in her own room, even only watching the show in there, so Lyra doesn’t accidentally see it and start asking questions her young mind won’t be able to understand the answers for.
But that hasn’t stopped things related to the show seeming to infiltrate Lyra’s mind.
I’ve been able to ask around without giving away my objective and, without naming the show, I’ve been able to learn most people living nearby us who aren’t in Sai’s personal friendship circle know about the show, not even most of the children in the area.
This was why, when Lyra first mentioned the name Twilight, both Sai and I had been unnerved.
It happened about a week ago.
The day hadn’t been any different from other days, I’d taken Lyra to school, Sai had worked and studied, we’d done little shopping before heading home, nothing out of the ordinary for the routine we’d all gotten into.
A WEEK AGO
I jolt up in bed, my heart racing, as a horrifying scream fills the entire apartment, sending chills down my spine
I’m barely conscience, but that scream is clear as crystal…and it’s one I’ve heard before.
It was the scream I’d heard that first day with Lyra. The one that had terrified me and seemed to make Lyra uncomfortable in her sleep.
Before my brain can fully wake up, however, another scream fills the air, this one high pitched and scared, but from a voice I recognize.
“Twilight, don’t!”
The sound of Lyra’s scream makes me bolt out of bed, nearly colliding with a bleary-eyed Sai as we both rush out of our rooms to Lyra’s.
She’s sitting up in bed, her eyes wide, her breathing ragged. Tears a streaming down her face.
“Lyra?” I ask as I come in, Sai right on my heels.
Lyra turns at the sound of my voice and I reach her bed, kneeling down to her level.
She looks at me for several moments, the tears never stopping, before she wails and hugs me, repeating the same thing over and over. “Twilight, why? Why, Twilight?”
I instinctively hug her, before glancing to Sai, who seems as lost for words as I am.
Twilight? Could she…? Is she talking about Twilight Sparkle?
NOW
“Eventually, I’d gotten Lyra back to sleep, but the very next morning, she had no memory of any nightmare or saying anything as she cried into me. She didn’t even remember crying into me,” I finish telling Yue as we return to the main playroom.
“That’s… so strange,’ Yue says.
I say, nothing, watching Lyra as she dodges a boy who tries to tag her.
Sai and I had been worried, but we’d put it out of our minds and we just acted like things were normal so as not to worry Lyra… but they weren’t.
We’d noticed small things about Lyra’s behaviour we hadn’t before after that.
Sometimes she’ll just sit by her bedroom window, staring up the night sky, silently crying. When asked, she’d tell me she doesn’t know why, but she feels really sad sometimes when looking up at the night sky.
Whenever she played with her Duplo, she’d make sculptures that looked an awful lot like Twilight Sparkle or Bon Bon.
She has no knowledge of the show, so shouldn’t know what those two characters look like or their names… but clearly does and it makes her sad.
I don’t understand why and I hate that I can’t do anything.
Sai and I have been trying to find anything we can to make sense of it, even asked on forums for the fandom, wording it in a way that makes it sound like we’re talking about a story, not real life.
I want to help Lyra no longer feel sad whenever she thinks about her past, even if she doesn’t realize that’s what it is.
I don’t understand why Twilight is a fixture in this, though. Bon Bon, I get. It’s clear the fandom heavily ships the two of them together and, from what few times they do regularly appear in the show, the creators are listening and, while unable to actually confirm the ship, are making it heavily implied.
But Twilight? Sure, Twilight is the main character of the show and she and Lyra and both unicorns and seemed to both go to Canterlot, but that’s no clear indicator as to why Lyra would have even the faintest memories of Twilight so import that she held onto them as strongly in her subconscious as she did to Bon Bon.
There’s also the words she used about Twilight the night we heard that scream in the house.
She’d told Twilight not to do something and then asked why about it as she sobbed into me.
We don’t know what Twilight did or why, but Lyra didn’t seem to like it. It had made her sad, broke her heart… even if she can’t actually remember it.
We need answers… but we don’t know where to get them.
What did you do, Twilight Sparkle?
Is it the reason Lyra’s in our world? Can you fix it? Do I want you to fix it?
I sigh, watching Lyra play happily.
I don’t know what the future has in store now. I can only hope I can give Lyra the best childhood she can have… before we find out why she came here in the first place… and she goes away, forever.
“And the winner of this year’s Snow Festival is… Walker Lyra-san, for her amazing equine sculptures!” the announcer shouts in the microphone.
Lyra screams with joy, her, Kimiko, Satoru and Kio, all dressed in what those living in Australia will call minimal winter clothing (long-sleeved t-shirts, jacket/hoodies and jeans), hugging each other and squealing with delight.
I smile as I watch them, before patting Lyra on the back and indicating she needs to head for the stage, causing her to blush.
We’re at the Sapporo Snow Festival in Sapporo Odori Park. It’s been two years since Lyra came into my life and I moved to Japan.
Lyra and her friends will soon be entering their second year in elementary school.
I feel a little anxious, since, once she’s going to middle school, Lyra won’t be walking to school with me every day and I won’t be there to watch over her.
Then again, that could just be daddy protective instincts kicking in. She’ll only be just under half an hour away by train, so it’s not like she’ll be too far away.
Regardless, those worries are for another time.
Lyra runs on two legs through the crowd and climbs up onto the stage to accept the award.
“You’re doing pretty well,” I glance to Sai standing next to me.
She’s wearing a red jacket over a black shirt and black leggings.
I myself am wearing a black shirt, blue coat and black jeans. I’m still slightly adapting to the weather here in Sapporo compared to the weather I lived with my whole live in Australia, but I’m not fully there.
Lyra, however, has adapted very well, though I think her fur coat played a part in that when it comes to the cold weather, with her only needing a white long-sleeved shirt, grey vest and a black skirt.
She got her Cutie Mark a month after we started living in Sapporo and was overjoyed when I told her what it was.
Though, she doesn’t simply play the harp. She also enjoys playing guitar.
I nod, looking up at the stage as Lyra waves to the crowd, who cheer and clap.
Granted, our time starting in Sapporo hadn’t gone without a few incidents. Walking around with a mint-green unicorn isn’t exactly something people are just going to outright ignore at first glance, but, over time, the city has gotten used to Lyra and she’s now just another remember of the society.
And if there are any MLP fans or those who know of MLP who’ve met Lyra, they’ve kept very quiet about it.
Even social media has been oddly quite about it, despite photos and videos I’ve noticed of Lyra pop up every once in a while.
Though, as I look at Lyra’s sculpture… I wonder if it’s time we tell her the truth.
The sculpture is of Lyra with Bon Bon hugging her, Twilight looking determined as casting a spell and Princess Celestia behind her faithful student, a gentle smile on her face, with them all standing on a balcony of what is clearly Canterlot Castle.
I know I’ll have to tell Lyra the truth soon, that she comes from a world that somehow became a TV show here in this world, but I hope it won’t be too soon.
Lyra has gotten so used to her life her, her friends, the places she enjoys visiting (she particularly enjoys the Tanukikoji shopping arcade and just walking around the underground shopping centers) and the culture.
I really couldn’t have chosen a better place for Lyra to grow up.
Once Lyra steps down from the stage, we all go to have some dinner.
Our group gather at a sheltered table to enjoy are festival food. Sai and myself are having sides of yakitori chicken skewers and jacket potatoes while the kids share some okonomiyaki pancakes, takoyaki octopus balls while we all share Sapporo’s winter speciality: crab nabe hot-pot.
It’s as we’re eating that I notice someone watching us from several tables down. He’s wearing a black coat and pants, along with gloves.
The moment he notices I’m looking he turns away, trying to make it look like he’s interested in his okonomiyaki pancakes, but I can tell from his posture he isn’t actually interested in the savour food.
I decide to put it out of my mind and we all congratulate Lyra on winning the festival, making her blush and tell us all to stop… so of course we double down, making her blush harder.
We spend the rest of the festival walking around, enjoying the food, the festival games and admiring all the other sculptures.
As the night wears down and I can tell the kids are starting to get tired, I suggest we all head home.
Lyra and the others are having a sleepover with a few other friends who’re around the festival with their families.
Sai says she go with the kids to make sure none of them get lost and we’ll meet up outside the park.
I watch them all go, Lyra talking with Kimiko and I can’t help smiling.
I turn to head out the park when I notice the guy from before. He’s standing near the exit, looking like he’s trying not to be noticed.
My eyes narrow.
After I’d seen him during dinner, despite wanting to put him out of my mind, I’d spotted him several times. He’d clearly been watching us and, waiting for a moment for some or one of us to be alone.
Seems I’m the one who’s going to have to deal with him.
I walk towards the exit, pretending I don’t notice the guy.
As I get close, however, he turns fully and stands in my way.
“<Walker-san,>” he says, his use of English immediately telling me this was planned. “I am Agent Sakamoto Haro. I was wondering if you would mind having a few words about your daughter.”
At once, I tens, using my body language to show I am not going to be intimidated. “<Whatever government plans you have for my daughter, you better bloody forget them, pal.>” I snarl. “<I’m not letting you make Lyra some kind of experiment, understand? You mess with my daughter, I will fuck you up in so many ways, you won’t believe it’s possible!>”
He remains calm, not seeming the least bit worried. “<You have no reason to fear, Walker-san. We have no ill will towards you, your family or your friends. We merely wish to discuss with you the implications of what your daughter’s existence are.>”
I cock an eyebrow ever so slightly. “<You mean the fact that she exists means there’s a world where the rulers control the very sun and moon and that that world is real? What? Are you planning on treating Princess Celestia and Luna like they’ll invade our world, using the celestial bodies as leverage against us?>”
He shakes his head, holding out a card. “<Your daughter cannot be hidden from the truth forever, Walker-san. We have known about her for a long time. We have been observing you and know she is no threat to our country or world. However, we also noticed you have kept her real identity from her.>”
I hesitantly take the card. On it is an address outside a building in Tokyo. I give him a sceptical look. “<Your point? And do you just expect me to blindly go to this address?>”
He doesn’t get angry. He just nods.
“<I get your suspicion, Walker-san. We do not pretend that you aren’t justified in being hesitant. However, we have information that may be of interest to you.>”
I scoff. “I find that highly unlikely.”
He reaches into his coat and I tense, going into a defensive stance.
When he pulls his hand out, he’s holding… a rolled up scroll?
“<We were sent this by a woman you owe the safety of your daughter to, Walker-san.>” He holds out the scroll. “<Without her, you never would have been able to protect your daughter when you found her.>”
My eyes widen and I snarl. “<Oh? Who is blackmailing me then?!>”
He shakes his head. “<You have never met her, but you know her and she has a firm place in your life. She made the show from which your daughter comes.>”
At once, I pause, my brain halting in place, puzzled by his choice of words.
The show my daughter…
“Lauren Faust?” I think aloud.
He nods. “<She has held onto this letter for over a year. It is only by sheer chance that she learned of your daughter’s whereabouts and contacted one of our operatives, unaware they we undercover in the Hasbro Japan branch.>”
I glance from him to the letter, not really sure if I do or don’t believe him.
He leans forward, putting the scroll in my hands. “<We know you have many reason not to trust the government on this, Walker-san. However, we will not ask you anything until you know the truth yourself. Open the scroll later tonight, when your daughter is asleep. Once you do, you will understand. We will be happy to speak with you then.>”
With that, he puts his hands in his pockets and walks off, fading into the crowd within seconds.
I just stand there, the scroll in my hands, not sure how to react.
I don’t know how long I was just standing there, but I’m jolted from my mind’s spiralling lockdown by a hand on my shoulder.
Shaking my head, I glance to my right to see Sai looking a little concerned. “You okay, James? You seem kinda out of it.”
“Is something wrong, Dad?” Lyra asks, coming up to me. “If you’re feeling a bit off, we could postpone the sleepover.”
I stare blankly for a moment, blinking, before quickly shaking my head and smiling, doing my best to secretly put the scroll in my coat pocket without anyone noticing.
I lean down, putting a hand on Lyra’s shoulder. “It’s nothing, honey. Nothing a nice warm cup of coco at home won’t fix.”
We head off back through the streets and get to the apparent.
The kids spend the night doing what all kids do at sleepovers: watch movies, play video games and chat about things like school and stuff that happened that day and plans for both tomorrow and later in the year.
I’m the one left watching over them as, despite it being the Snow Festival, Sai still has a shift at her job to do.
Since I’d started helping with the bills, she’d needed to do less work, but she had to cover tonight for a co-worker.
I just sit in the kitchen, watching the kids having fun and being kids. Lyra even agrees to play as two plays in a racing game by using her magic to control one character, while her hooves would operate the other.
By 10:40pm, the group are all wiped out and snoring away in Lyra’s bedroom.
I can’t help smiling as I look at them all, before slowly closing the door.
I walk into the living room, intend on cleaning up some of the mess they’d left behind, when I notice my coat laying on a chair in the kitchen. In particular, I notice the bulge in my right-side pocket.
I blink, before remembering what that man had said back at the festival.
I stand where I am for several long minutes, debating whether or not I should do this.
He made it clear whoever he works with would leave us alone if I choose not to work along with them, whatever that means… but he said the scroll came from Lauren Faust herself.
Now, it’s very possible he was just saying that for the sake of getting my attention… but what if he wasn’t lying?
What if the scroll really did come from Lauren Faust? And, if she sent it… what was so important about it?
I stand there, debating with myself for almost twenty minutes, before I decide to simply read the note. Opening the scroll couldn’t possibly change anything.
Walking over to the chiar, I reach into my pocket and pull out the scroll.
I blink as I notice the torn seal on it. It’s Princess Celestia’s Cutie Mark. A Royal Seal.
As I move to open the scroll, two sheets of paper slip out.
Stopping, I bend down and pick them up, reading the first one.
From: Lauren Faust
To: Human Resources Hasbro Japan
I am writing this because I do not know how else to move on without it.
I realize I have no fully worked with the company on the production of the show since the second season, however, recent news has come to my attention.
There is a man named James Walker living in Sapporo right now. He has a daughter.
This daughter… needs to read what is on the attached scroll.
If you open it or have opened it, I’m sure you understand why she must have the scroll.
I would honestly not feel right not contacting her before the company moves on, as you will be releasing the sixth season next.
I beg you, please let her have this scroll before then.
I have held onto it all this time because I honestly was not sure what to do, but now, what must be done is clear.
Please let Lyra Heartstrings Walker have this scroll. If we do not, it could prove too much for her when it happens.
I just stare for several long minutes, my eyes wide and my mouth agape.
Lauren Faust knows about Lyra? She’s known about her for a year before sending this scroll to japan? What in the world is going on here?!
Too anxious to know what’s in the scroll now, I ignore the other letter, which also seems to be from Faust and open the scroll.
“My friend,” a voice says, startling me and making me close the scroll.
I quickly glance around, but see no one else in the apartment.
Putting down the scroll, I do a quick search, coming up empty. The place is locked up tight.
It’s as I return to the kitchen and reach for the scroll that something about the voice clicks in my head, only causing further confusion.
It… it had been Tara Strong’s Twilight Sparkle voice.
What…? Why would Tara Strong be anywhere near my home? And why would she be doing her Twilight Sparkle voice?
Why are things just getting more and more confusing today? Everything was going so normally until today.
Picking up the scroll, I open it up again.
“My friend,” the voice says again, and I close the scroll, glancing around… before looking to the scroll itself.
Is… is the Twilight Sparkle voice coming from the scroll?
And, why does it sound like it has an echo effect on it.
Frowning, I decide to open the scroll again and, this time, I’m not closing it. I’m going to find out what’s going on here, once and for all.
Taking a deep breath, I open the scroll.
“My friend,” Twilight Sparkle’s voice says. “I… hope this letter reaches you, because it is extremely important, possibly the most important thing you will ever read.”
I cock an eyebrow at that. Okay, I’m more confused now than I was before.
“I’m writing it in the attempt to right a wrong I committed years ago, a terrible mistake that cost me a friend, perhaps forever.” Wait… what? “It all began in the Magic Kindergarten of Canterlot…”
Chapter 8 - Twilight’s Confession and the Equestria Extension
Sai came home later that evening to find me slumped against the dining room table, bawling my eyes out, my body being wracked by sobs.
When she asked what was wrong, I pointed her to the scroll, rolled up on the table, only able to say two words through my sobs. “Twilight! Lyra!”
Still worried, but confused, Sai had opened the scroll… and learned everything I have.
It’s all there, in Twilight’s letter. It explains everything. Everything. Why Lyra ended up in our world. Why she was a filly. Why she had no memory of her life before I found her. Why she finds herself staring off into space and feeling sad. And why she has those nightmares the same time that scream rings out.
It’s all in the letter.
Lyra is the reason she’s in our world. She wove a spell that would send her here as a human, so she could save humanity. She wouldn’t have had her magic, but she’d have had the only magic she’d have truly need, the magic of friendship.
She’d wanted to bring all the love and light of Equestria with to our world… but it had gone wrong.
Twilight had tried to stop her. She’d interfered with Lyra’s spell.
That’s why Lyra was a six-year-old filly with no memories when I found her. That’s why she didn’t have her Cutie Mark. Because of what Twilight had done when she tried to stop Lyra’s spell from sending her here.
Twilight is also the only reason I could’ve known about Lyra when I found her.
After Lyra had been sent away, Twilight did everything she could to try and get word to Lyra, to let her know what had happened and who she is.
Twilight did everything in her power to make sure the story of Equestria made it to our world… meaning Twilight is the reason the idea for Friendship is Magic entered the mind of Lauren Faust in the first place.
It was Twilight, sending knowledge of Equestria to our world in the hopes of it reaching Lyra… but it didn’t.
Lyra never got the information, because Twilight clearly didn’t know how to send it specifically to her.
Once the full weight of everything hit Sai, she pulled me into a hug and we wept into each other.
All this time, we’d been having such happy times with Lyra, enjoying having her with us… while Lyra’s friends suffered, knowing their friend was lost to them.
How do you cope with something like that?
“Daddy?”
At once, we both got stiff.
Slowly turning around, we see Lyra and her friends standing in the doorway of her room, looking tired, but worried.
“Daddy, what’s wrong?” Lyra steps forward, her eyes wide with concern. “Why’re you and Sai crying? Did something bad happen?”
I almost break down again.
Lyra… even with everything that’s happened to her, regardless if she remembers it or not, she’s more concerned with us than herself.
I look to Sai and she looks back, nodding, sobbing as she says, “It’s time.”
So, we tell her.
We told her everything.
How could we not? You don’t hide such a huge bombshell like this. You just don’t.
How could I call myself her father if I hid the truth from her after what I’ve learned?
We let Twilight’s message play, this time with all the kids listening.
Lyra wept into me as she heard what had happened to her, Sai and I doing our best to explain My Little Pony to her for the full context. In fact, we told her about that before letting her hear the message, so she wouldn’t be confused as to who is talking.
We all know that no one is going to be going to school today. How could any of these kids focus on school work after hearing something so huge about one of their best friends?
And going to have to call in sick myself. I couldn’t be around the kids today. Not today.
“D-Daddy?” I look to my daughter as she sniffles, staring up at me with sadness and… fear? “Does… does this mean I’m not really your daughter?”
My eyes widen and at once, I pull her close. “No, Lyra, no. No, sweetie. Don’t you ever think like that. Family is more than blood. You are and always will be my daughter. I will always be your daddy. Nothing can ever change that.”
“But… but that Twilight said…” she whimpers.
I wipe her tears with one hand. “Yes, Twilight said you wouldn’t be how you are, and we wouldn’t be family, if she hadn’t broken your spell. But that doesn’t change that we are family, Lyra. I could never look at you and see anyone other than my daughter.”
“And you did it!” Kimiko says with firm encouragement, standing up.
We all glance at her, confused.
Lyra sniffles, trying to get her crying under control. “Did… did what?”
She walks over and takes her friends’ hooves in her hands. “You brought friendship to us, Lyra. You done it for all Hokkaido.”
I blink, before my eyes widen as just what she’s saying dawns on me.
Twilight’s letter clearly explains Lyra wanted to come to our world to help it, to spread love and friendship to those around her… and she had.
My family have never been happier. Whenever we video call them, they tell us how much has changed since they met Lyra. How many good things are happening in their lives.
And then there’s my life.
Not only have I become a father and felt the full joys that come with it, but Lyra is the reason I moved to Japan.
Until she’d come into my life, I’d had no real life plans for my future. I’d had vague ones, but hadn’t the courage to follow most of them through.
Now? Look at me. I’m a childcare worker at an elementary school in another country. I have a daughter who brings light into my life every single day. And I have so many friends.
Sapporo isn’t the only city in Hokkaido that has come to accept Lyra as a fact of life. All of Hokkaido has.
Nowhere when we go away on vacation does anyone think Lyra is odd. She makes anyone she encounters on the streets happy.
We even took her when we went to visit Sai’s grandmother in Kyoto and nothing went wrong. Everyone saw Lyra as normal.
Whether or not the rest of Japan feels the same is up for debate, but…
I quickly reach into my pocket and pull out the card with the Tokyo address on it.
Is it possible more of Japan than just Hokkaido and Kyoto know about Lyra? Does all of Japan? And what about beyond?
Has Lyra become known and accepted overseas without us even knowing about it? How else could Lauren Faust have known about Lyra living here in Japan as my daughter otherwise?
“<So, you came after all,>” Agent Sakamoto is standing under the Rainbow Bridge says as I come around the corner.
He’s wearing a black suit and tie, though I don’t get a Men In Black vibe from him.
He glances around. “<I’d have thought you’d bring your daughter with you.>”
I scowl. “<Lyra is still recovering from realizing what that message meant. You know damn well a child couldn’t just bounce back from something like that.>”
Sai has taken time off to look after Lyra. They’ve gone to her grandmother’s house in Kyoto for the time being.
I’m here to get some answers. Namely, what the government has to do with us getting the message in the first place.
Agent Sakamoto blinks, before his expression becomes one of understanding and nods. “<You are right. To expect her to just be okay with it is foolish.>”
I fold my arms. “<Now, what’s this all about? And don’t play stupid games with me. This is my daughter we’re talking about.>” I narrow my eyes. “<I will not let anything bad happen to her, you got that?>”
He nods, if feeling at all intimated or annoyed by my tone, hiding it well. “Come with me, Walker-san. We have much to talk about.”
I follow him away from the bridge to a non-assuming white square style car.
I can’t help cocking my eyebrow.
“<What?>” he asks, raising an eyebrow. “<Were you expecting a black, slim car or something?>”
I nod slightly. “<Actually, yes.>”
Agent Sakamoto moves over to the car and I get in, but remain wary.
I know full well this could go south, fast. I have to keep my wits about me at all times.
He starts the car and we begin driving through Tokyo.
“I imagine you have many questions,” Agent Sakamoto says as we pause at an intersection. It was a statement, not a question.
I nod slightly.
Lauren Faust’s second letter was all I’d needed to become skeptical as to how far down the rabbit hole this all goes.
Her second letter had been directed solely to Lyra. She wanted to speak with her, to apologize for not knowing sooner the implications of the show she would be responsible for being so wide spread… and she’s going to be here in Japan, today.
Agent Sakamoto remains silent until we pull up in an underground parking lot.
I follow him upstairs to find myself standing before the Tokyo Tower.
I cock an eyebrow at him.
“Things are more complicated than one could ever believe,” he simply says and leads me inside.
We get into an elevator marked Staff Only and go down for about twenty minutes.
When the doors open, it’s too a large room with plush chairs.
I glance at Agent Sakamoto.
He indicates to a closed door on the far left of the room.
After making it clear I will over go after him, he opens the door and I walk in to find what looks like a broadcasting room.
People are moving around, talking facts and figures that I can’t even pretend to comprehend. It’s the screens themselves, however, that have my attention.
I’ve seen enough TV shows and played enough video games about alternate worlds to tell the diagrams are relating to some kind of wormholes.
Though, the screen that has my attention the most is one looking at what seems to be a house in an ordinary neighbourhood… but a familiar one.
It’s the house I found Lyra outside.
“<Walker-san,>” I turn to my right as a man in a military uniform steps forward. “<Thank you for coming.>”
“Japanese is fine. Are you guys trying to figure out how to open a portal between our world and Equestria?” I demand, pointing to the screens.
You’d have to be someone pretty inexperienced in the idea of such things to not immediately figure that out, especially after hearing Twilight’s message for Lyra.
The military man seems surprised for a moment, before closing his eyes, chuckling. “I guess we should’ve expected you’d figure it out quickly, considering the circumstances.”
I fold my arms. “Care to explain those circumstances?”
He chuckles again, before shaking his head and extending his hand. “I am Admiral Akitaka.”
I take the hand and shake.
“You are partly correct, but also partly wrong,” he says, turning attention to the screens again.
“After that letter from Faust-san was arrived in Japan a year ago, we got in contact with several scientists who are experts in the fields of nuclear and astrophysics,” he indicates to several people in the room who turn their heads and bow, before returning to doing whatever it was they were on their screens. “Both here and in Australia.”
I blink. “In Australia?”
He nods. “Since your daughter appeared in Australia, it stands to reason the end point of her travel from her reality to our own was within the vicinity.”
“And the need for nuclear and astrophysicists?” I ask. I have a guess, but I’m not above checking to see if my knowledge based from science fiction is incorrect or not.
“We’re corresponding with the Australian astrophysicists to compare the data and maintain watch should the portal reopen,” a female says from… somewhere in the room.
“No need to pretend, Walker-san,” Admiral Akitaka says, his expression serious. “It is clear from her message that this Sparkle Twilight intends to find a way to reopen the portal between this world and her own. We have been preparing for the last year, to be sure we are ready for when that happens.”
I glare. “To invade Equestria?”
The admiral slowly shakes his head. “To welcome her. The Japanese Government wants no ill feelings between this Equestria and Earth.”
I cock an eyebrow. “Alright, I’m curious. I’ll bite: Why?”
He smiles, a warm, understanding smile. “You’re daughter has lived among the Japanese public for two years, Walker-san. We know she means us no harm, in fact the opposite. Even without that being stated in Sparkle-san’s message, that much has been made clear.”
“Plus, there’s the fact their rulers control two celestial bodies,” a nerdy sounding guy’s voice says from… ugh, this room has too many people in it for me to keep track. “Picking any kind of fight with such beings would be foolish. Especially as we do not know if this Princess Celestia will be able to control our sun like she can her own. Much better not to take any chances.”
I can’t help feeling uneasy by that statement. That’s a pretty morbid way of looking at it. Accurate, but morbid.
After I’ve managed to regain my composure, I look to the admiral. “So, you’re saying you’ve been monitoring where Lyra appear in this world to ensure good relations when the ponies find a way here too?”
The admiral nods. “And, if it isn’t too much trouble, we were hoping your daughter would be willing to work with us. We feel we can help her further her original goals.”
I remain quiet, arms folded, thinking it over.
“Wait. She’s not here?”
The sudden additional voice pulls me from my thoughts and I turn around to come face to face with the creator of Friendship is Magic herself, Lauren Faust.
