Lyra slammed her hoof on her snout, watching her own eyes screw up in pain. Her nose was bleeding. Despite herself, she felt a rush of cold satisfaction pour in underneath the anger, seeing herself down in the dirt, covered in coffee and bleeding. This was a long time coming. A long time coming.
She glared back up at herself, wiping off on the back of her hoof. Spat something pink.
“You make me sick,” she muttered.
She boxed herself in the ear again and shouted, but Lyra kicked upward into her stomach, knocking the air from her and doubling her over. She tried to get on top, but they kept tumbling over each other, hurling punches without any sense of direction and certainly without any skill, bleeding and bruising and screaming in high-pitched voices as they rolled around in the dirt down the street.
It was lunchtime. Ponies were standing at the windows of Sugarcube Corner and staring. She should have been getting home, Bon Bon would be worried.
But she looked again into those bright yellow eyes and she seethed so hard she felt like her chest was going to push out her throat.
She gasped, reared back, and with boiling hatred choking out her thoughts, pounded her hoof right into her stupid face again.
She knew exactly what happened the day everything started. She knew, because she spent a great deal of time trying to retrace her steps and figure out what on Equestrian earth caused all this. Like she’d always been told. When you lose something, or something’s broken, you have to retrace your steps.
She tried, and the only thing of any significance was that new radio.
What happened was, Vinyl was having a yard sale, hocking a bunch of her old equipment to pay for a new speaker or turntable or something. And Lyra had been looking for something to make for background noise while she wrote, keep things from getting too quiet while Bon Bon was out minding the shop, and Vinyl had this really neat-looking vintage radio with wood paneling and golden knobs. It was exactly what she needed.
So Lyra haggled, forked over twenty bits for the radio and a singing tea-timer, and brought them home. It was a late Wednesday afternoon, the sky just starting to turn orange behind her as she scuffed her hooves on the doormat and walked in.
She loved their house. Bon Bon had this habit of getting a whole bunch of knick-knacks and filling the house with them—little drinking birds, clocks shaped like cats with little swinging tails, paintings of ponies with fruit for a head, weird stuff like that. She hounded garage and yard sales like a bargain hawk—that’s why Lyra went, she knew Bon Bon would be too busy in the shop, wanted to pick something up for her. Thus, the tea timer. She put it next to the kettle and went to her office to set up the new old radio.
Her study had a nice view when she opened the curtains, looking out over their generous backyard, the tree they planted together and Bon Bon’s little flower garden. She took a moment to drink it in, then cleared a space on her desk and set the radio up.
It only took a little tweaking. Vinyl kept everything she owned in tip-top shape. PVCR buzzed to life, Baritone’s smooth voice coming in beautifully on the old speakers as he discussed something about bridge repairs. Boring, but that was the point. She swept her tail out from under her, pulled up the chair and scooted up to her typewriter…
… and that’s when she saw her for the first time. Standing out under the tree.
She was short and skinny with a round face, choppy green-and-white mane that hadn’t been cut in a while. Big, golden eyes, fresh green coat.
In other words, she looked exactly like Lyra. Save for one detail.
She was smiling wide and broad, big enough to put dimples in her cheeks, but it didn’t reach her eyes at all. It felt like on the other side, she was deeply unhappy, maybe even miserable.
When Lyra smiled, as she had been doing a moment ago, it was often very small and kind of private, and a lot of the time ponies thought it was forced. It was easy to tell that sometimes, on the other side, she was deeply unhappy, maybe even miserable.
She stared at her, and she stared back. They both blinked exactly twice.
Lyra got out of her seat and shut the curtains. Then she stared at those for a bit, and opened them again.
Still there. Still smiling. It still felt exactly the same as it did, like it was a big fat lie.
She shoved the window up and leaned out. “What’s your problem?”
“What’s yours?” she responded.
“Are you a changeling, or something?” she asked.
“No, are you?”
“Answer my damn question!” she shot back.
“Answer damn mine!” she fired in return.
They went quiet again for a moment, and blinked in unison. But before Lyra could get another word out, she cut her off.
“Nah-na-na-nah-nah!”
Lyra slammed the window shut and drew the curtains.
She came inside the house. She wouldn’t leave. And nobody seemed to notice her, not even Bon Bon—or if they did, they weren’t alarmed by her presence.
And it followed her, the way she followed Lyra. Walked right next to her through market. Nobody said a peep. She was afraid to ask anybody, for obvious reasons. Everyone knew she was an only child, and after the Wedding, no way she’d have a changeling for a pal. Which meant, most likely, she was just going crazy.
“You’re seriously paying five bits for those sour-ass apples?” she remarked as Lyra put them in her satchel. “Ugh… you are such a chump.”
Or maybe being driven crazy.
She shoved the bag shut and stomped away from the stall, glowering.
“You can’t hold on to money at all. That’s why your girlfriend has to support you.” Lyra didn’t look at her. “It’s not even your own bits you’re pissing away. If you actually wrote something, you might make some. When are you going to do that, by the way? You can’t marry her if you don’t have any money.”
Lyra wanted to cry and run home and sock her in the stomach all at the same time.
Her doppelgänger didn’t follow happily. She dragged her hooves all the time, looked around. It was really obvious she wanted to leave, that she didn’t want to be around Lyra or crowds or anyone at all, or at the very least she’d rather be hiding. And yet, she never tried.
She checked her list and went up to the lettuce stand. Bon Bon wanted three heads—it was almost summer, she had said, it was about time to start on summer salads.
“If you had married that guy, your family would have paid for it.”
She sucked in a breath and took two heads of lettuce.
Lyra spent a lot more time sleeping. Whenever she could, and longer, too. Wake up? Shower. Go back to bed. Wake up again, stare at the office door, go back to bed. It felt like every moment awake was a gamble, because she never knew when the other her would lean in and say something awful. Something she took because she felt like she was supposed to, but even when she did it made her feel weak and drained and pathetic.
A week had passed. Her head dipped down into the cushion, and she woke up blearily, blinking at the light. The world came into focus—and Bon Bon was sitting there, smiling down at her.
She smiled back and scooted up, hugging one of the sofa cushions and laying her head on her lap. The TV was on. Apparently, even that hadn’t woken her up.
“Feeling any better, sweetie?” Bon Bon asked, petting her hair gently.
“Yeah,” she said. She meant it, but she still sounded choked, because she could hear herself leaning over the back of the sofa, too.
“You’re worrying her,” she whispered. She always whispered when Bon Bon was around, for some reason. But that only made it worse. “She cares about you. And this is how you’re paying it back?”
Bon Bon kissed her forehead, and Lyra had to stuff back tears.
One night, while she was sleeping—Bon Bon curled up at her back, and on the floor her double slept with a blanket nicked from the closet, occasionally kicking and murmuring like a puppy—Lyra woke up with a small start. She had an idea. Well, first she had gone to sleep thinking about something, and then she had an idea.
She thought about the radio.
Of course. That was the only different thing about the day she showed up. Vinyl had, accidentally or with awful intentions, given her some sort of haunted radio and that’s why she showed up, why she wouldn’t leave, and she couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to her before. Being so pissed off and sad all the time had clogged her brain up, but now it felt, for the first time, like it was running clear.
But the radio! She could take care of it. It would take care of all these problems, and she’d never have to think about it ever again. A wave of scary relief rolled over her bones, and she almost giggled, but stopped herself. Bon Bon stirred a little against her; she very, very carefully slipped out of bed, kissed her girlfriend on the cheek, stepped around her sleeping form on the floor. Couldn’t wake either of them up if she was doing this, after all.
Lyra crept to the bathroom and grabbed a towel, then to the closet for a hammer, and then delicately, so very delicately she carried the radio out of her office, into the backyard. She didn’t turn on any lights. The moon was high and beautiful and her chest felt light and giddy as she wrapped the evil box up in her fluffy pink towel, covering it up completely. The hammer had a nice heft to it.
Her hits were neat, controlled—but powerful. Smash. Take a breath, pull back. Smash. Wood broke and snapped, things that sounded like glass made muffled breaking sounds. Smash. Three. Pull back, breathe. Smash.
After the ninth strike, and when she was left with nothing but an indistinct lump, she sat back on her haunches for a while and sucked in air to catch up with her pounding blood. It already felt better. So, so much better. It took her several minutes of gasping and breathing to realize she was crying.
She wiped her face up and took three more long breaths, staring ahead and smiling broadly. She lifted the towel and unwrapped it a little. No surprises, no sudden recovery or hidden crystals, no dark magic. Just one smashed radio. She bounced it up and down and relished in the jingle of busted electronics, like it was the sound of a lock finally being picked free in her heart.
Lyra swung it around, tied the corners up and walked back inside with her head high, ready to sleep well.
She was there. Standing by the dining table.
Why was she there.
Why was she awake and standing right in front of her?
“You’re not even thirty yet, and you’re already a failure.”
Hate her. Hate her. Hate her.
“Can you believe that?” She glanced to the towel. “You hardly ever do anything, and you still manage to fuck up what little you actually do.”
Punch her?
Punch her.
“All you do is sit around and sleep. You don’t even try.”
Lyra punched her in the nose.
She stopped talking. Just stared at her, and not with that stupid lie of a smile, the one she knew too damn well. Her eyes were wide, shocked, and the air went cold between them.
She reached up and wiped some of the blood away.
“I hate you too, you know,” she mumbled before storming off past her, through the living room, and shoving her way out the front door.
Lyra wasn’t sure if she had just beaten her or not. She didn’t feel any better.
She went back to bed, snuck under Bon Bon’s arm, and didn’t sleep.
Another week passed, and Lyra didn’t see her again. She still didn’t feel better. Kept bouncing around between wanting to sleep all day, wishing she could get a head injury so she’d have an excuse not to write, and wanting mostly just to sit around and be sad, interspersed with watching TV with Bon Bon to make it not feel so bad.
Then, one day, Lyra was at Sugarcube Corner, picking up some lunch for her and Bon Bon. Pumpkin fritters and iced coffee; she feigned a little smile and thanked Mrs. Cake, rubbing sleep from her eyes, and carried the things in her magic, floating them at her side as she went for the door.
And there she was again.
Right out there, in the open. Standing outside on the street. Her stance was wide and confrontational. Lyra felt her heart pick up and a hard twitch in her right foreleg.
“HEY!” shouted the other her.
“WHAT?!” she screamed.
“FUCK YOU!” she screamed.
“FUCK YOU!” she screamed back.
“FUCK YOU!” she retorted.
And that’s when Lyra hurled the coffee at her and charged out into the street and tackled her, and she threw a punch, and then Lyra threw a punch in her snout—
She was tired and exhausted, but angry most of all, and that is what carried her through as she looked into her eyes and screwed her face up with rage and pounded her cheek again. She made her so fucking angry it got hard to breathe, hard to think, hard to do anything but scream and kick and punch.
Part of her was begging to just go home. Go home and get under the blankets and watch Sailor Lune with Bon Bon, or take a bath, or just lay on the floor even. Something. Anything.
But she looked at her, saw her, and it boiled over.
. . .
It lasted about ten minutes before they wore out. Neither of them were good at fighting.
Lyra was bleeding which meant she was bleeding and Lyra was crying which meant she was crying. Lyra was bruised and she was bruised.
Fair’s fair. Even if it’s not fair at all.
In a haze, both of them somehow ended up sitting outside against the wall of Sugarcube Corner, their faces covered in dried tears, dried spit, and street dirt. Lyra had bought another coffee, and they were sharing sips of it through swollen lips.
“I’m angry and fucked up and sad all the time, and I don’t really know why or what to do with it,” she said.
Lyra nodded and took a sip. The cold burned where she’d bitten her tongue. “Me too.”
“You learn anything?” she asked.
“Don’t know,” Lyra answered. She rubbed a hoof in the dirt, watching some pony give her a look as she walked by. “Did you?”
“Not enough to actually… solve the problem.”
“Me either.”
They both breathed out and looked up to the clouds, fluffy and blue against the cerulean sky. Bon Bon must be worried. Maybe she’d been worried a long time, though?
“Why do you think we’re tired and miserable so much?” Lyra asked.
“Ugh.” She closed her eyes and smacked the back of her head against Sugarcube Corner, wincing. “I… think it’s a lot of things? I don’t… think there’s one real answer, and even if there was that wouldn’t… fix this.”
“Yeah.”
Lyra paused, rubbing her ankle into her eye. The pain helped her focus. “I don’t wanna be angry at myself just for being sad.”
“Are you still?” she asked.
“Yeah.” She opened her eyes again, but didn’t focus them. “But I don’t wanna be. I don’t… think I deserve it. Right now, at least.”
“I guess that’s something,” she said, taking another sip and offering over the cup. She took it. “I don’t wanna be angry at myself for it either. But I am.”
“It’s a start,” Lyra said, with a very tired smile.
She shifted up, and with a few wincing motions, got up to her hooves, rocking back and forth to test her weight. Everything looked sore, but she reached a hoof out, anyway. “I’d like to be way ahead of that, but it’s a start. You wanna be friends?”
“Better than beating each other up,” she said, taking the hoof and hoisting herself up. She looked up and down the mare in front of her, the short, skinny chick covered in bruises and filth, with the round face and bloodshot golden eyes. The mare who loved Bon Bon with every fiber of her being and wanted to be a writer so bad it sometimes made her actually scream.
