Ingress
#1 of Ingress
Lyra manages to end up in hyooman land. Standard pony x human romance to follow.
Lyra stared at the doorway of her walk-in wardrobe, frowning deeply. This was her third attempt at trying to enlarge it using magic.
Twilight Sparkle, Cherilee, even Rarity. Lyra had gone to see them all, to finalize the magical mathematics needed to attempt to create this portal.
It had all started when she bought her new ironing board, and discovered, to her dismay, that she had nowhere to store it! And thus had started a long chain of events whereupon she sought a way to magical enhance storage space. First, it had been trying to increase the inside dimensions without increasing the outer dimensions. But that had failed miserably. Second, she had tried to make the wardrobe lead to a point in space outside of their own time-space continuum. Or at least, that's what she thought she was doing. It had ended with several thousand butterflies streaming out from the doorway before she managed to close it.
The cleanup had taken an entire day. A day of sweeping dead butterflies from every corner of her house. Their multi-colour dust was irritating to the eyes, and it stuck to everything. She'd had to throw out all her unsealed food. It was all tainted.
And now, she was sure she had it all fixed in her mind; she would create a portal, not to another time-space area, or anything like that. She would merely make a portal leading to some faraway place across the sea, and then she would be able to just store things wherever the portal led to. With a sturdy lock and a thick door on her wardrobe, she wouldn't even have to worry about things coming through the portal, like wild animals or even other ponies.
Lyra concentrated carefully, closing her eyes. Her horn began to glow, and she focused on creating a doorway between two places. Her wardrobe, and a field of some kind far, far away across the sea. Definitely not under the sea, because she didn't want a thousand gallons of salt water a second spraying out of her wardrobe. Not under. Definitely not under.
Lyra's brows furrowing, and she twisted the magic, feeling the connections forming.
Bang!
Lyra's eyes shot open and her head jerked to the side, the magic control being snatched away by her lapse in concentration. Something had hit her window, startling her.
Blinking slowly, Lyra stepped over to the window, carefully opening it and peering downwards. A robin was slowly rolling to its feet and flexing its wings, recovering from the blow with her window.
"Besotted bird," Lyra snorted, shaking her head.
The bird looked up at her, and bobbed once in place before leaping away and taking to the air.
Lyra closed her window again, and then turned back to her wardrobe to continue the spell.
A light shining from the wardrobe caught her attention, and she frowned deeply, stepping quietly over to the open door. A shifting sequence of lights were visible inside the doorway of her wardrobe. It swirled in multicolored hues; blue, green, yellow, red, white, black. It was mesmerising to watch.
Lyra's head tilted to the side slightly, and he grinned. It had worked?!
Bounding over to the dressed beside the wardrobe, Lyra picked up a flower. She eagerly thrust the flower through the swirling, multicolour portal, holding it there for a ten-count before withdrawing it.
The unicorn inspected the flower carefully, staring at it. It seemed to be the same colour as before it went through the portal, it hadn't aged any, it was still a normal temperature, and it didn't seem to be harmed at all by its transport.
Lyra hummed a moment at that, and then picked up her quill and piece of paper with her magic, writing a quick note to explain where she went, in case she couldn't get back. And then, Lyra stepped through the portal.
Instantly, Lyra heard voices. Wherever she was, it was dark, really dark. At first, she thought it was a cave, but the ground underneath her hooves was soft and uniform in texture, like carpet. Lyra lowered her head, and allowed a small touch of magic to build in her horn. Swirling turquoise balls of light began to glow around the tip of her horn, casting light on her surroundings.
Strange objects jumped out at her. Objects that she had no idea what they could be. They were definitely not natural, but they were like nothing she'd ever seen. There was a strange object with what appeared to be a seat on it, with two large, circular wheels and a cog system. But it was so misshapen that Lyra couldn't even fathom how big a pony would have to be to sit on it, or even what its purpose would be.
A white-and-black object sat against one wall, flat and thin like her ironing board. She assumed that it would fold out, but it was much bulkier than her ironing board, and had a long, flat surface on it that was soft and black, like a bed. It was far too thin to be a comfortable sleeping platform though.
A black object with a shiny, reflective surface on what Lyra assumed was the front of it, sat in one of the corners, with a pair of long, silvery poles topped with black tips poking up from it.
Looking behind herself, Lyra found that she had stepped out of a cupboard that was an exact replica of the one she had in her house. Had she created another wardrobe by accident?
Biting her bottom lip, Lyra looked about. A door stood ahead of her, and she carefully lifted a hoof to push down on the handle, causing it to click, and then slowly creak open.
A hallway stood in front of her, stretching off to the left, and right. A doorway stood to her right, and a staircase to her left. The door to her right was ajar, and had a faint glow emanating from around it. It had a strange quality to it though, dull and muted. No flame that Lyra had ever seen cast a light like that. Voices echoed from the room, along with the sounds of movement.
Cautiously, Lyra crept forwards towards the door, poking her nose around the edge of it very slowly. A sparse room greeted her, with whitewashed walls, a long couch, and the source of the voices and glowing that she had observed. A large, strange moving scene greeted her, like a palace tapestry come to life. Strange, tall, elongated creatures barked ordered at one another. There was an explosion from the screen, and Lyra squeaked, quickly retreating back behind the door, her heart racing.
Had they seen her?! Could the strange creatures inside the moving painting see at all?!
Heart pounding, Lyra crept away carefully, moving toward the stairs, determined to inspect more of this strange home before she went home and closed the portal.
Descending the stairs, the young unicorn came across a room furnished with bare low, long dressers. A single glass vase sat on top of one dresser, with a long-dead flower sitting in it. Several doors led off from the room, leading to other parts of the house. The door at the front of the room, she assumed, led straight outside. The rippled glass showed a distorted scene of an open, dark space, with a single strange light high up in the air. It reminded Lyra of the lanterns hung from trees during Ponyville festivities.
The doorways on either side of the main room led, on the left, a strange room that was bright, even in the faint light of just her horn glow. Strange, smooth surfaces reflected the light from her glowing horn many times over. To the left, was a very bare room, and to the opposite of the door leading outside was a doorway terminating in a long hallway, with more doors leading off it.
Lyra headed for the bright, reflective room first, peeking around. It was very clean, and a large object in-set into the wall, at least twice her height, was humming and vibrating softly. Lyra gave it a wide berth, looking about the room curiously. It was very strange. She didn't recognize anything there.
A single small room lay at the other side of the shiny-object-filled-room, with another door leading to what she assumed was outside, and some more strange, square objects with their odd shiny surfaces.
Lyra turned about, ignoring the doors leading outside, instead heading into the hallway, peeking about. These doors were all closed, but the open door at the far end of the hall looked more habited. There was a clothing article of some description in the doorway, and through the opening, she could see a dressed piled high with strange objects. There was a shiny tube-like shape, shining red and white; A black box of some kind with strange, angular surfaces and a magical point of light constantly glowing. But the thing that drew her attention most, were the roving lights on the walls and ceiling.
Drawn to the strange light show, Lyra crept forwards towards the door, poking her nose into the room and peering about. The faint scent of sweat met Lyra's sensitive nose, and she wrinkled it a moment, as she tried to get used to the scent. Her eyes were drawn to the source of the light, finding that it was a red lamp of some kind. But instead of fire, it had water inside it, as well as slowly-moving globs of red material that moved in a circular motion, up, and then down. It was bizarre, and entrancing.
Lyra crept around the bed next to the door, and towards the entrancing display of the lamp, tilting her head to the side and staring at it, letting her horn glow fade out of existence. The shifting light of the lamp lit up her face in roving patterns, and she gave a faint 'oooo' of delight.
Movement behind her made her stiffen up in surprise. It was an instant later that she realised she had done something very stupid: she hadn't checked the bed! Somepony was asleep on the bed!
Lyra turned and bolted from the room, no longer trying to be quiet. She bounded around the bed as fast as she could.
The clothes on the floor were the unicorn's undoing. Her hoof hit the cloth with all her weight behind it, and it just slid out. Her hooves scrabbled at the floor a few times as she tried to regain her balance, but her sideways momentum meant that when she did manage to straighten up, she whip-lashed her head into the wall in a violent smack.
Stars exploded in Lyra's vision, and she went down hard, the world going black.
Consciousness returned to Lyra slowly. She had a splitting headache, and she could feel the lump growing on her head. Soft little whimpers left the unicorn as she struggled to rise to her hoove, cracking an eye open and lifting a hoof to touch at the side of her head.
It was dark in the room, and only the faint red glow of the strange lamp she had seen cast mild illumination.
"Oi, calm down," a soothing voice said, from somewhere close by. Lyra cast her gaze towards the source of the voice, finding a very strange-looking creature watching her, speaking in a low, soothing tone, and holding a square towel of some kind dripping with moisture.
A constant stream of soothing words left the creatures mouth, as he - Lyra assumed it was a he - shuffled closer.
"Come on now, I'm not gonna hurt you. If you try jump out the window, you're gonna cut yourself. And if you attack me, I'm gonna knock you right the fuck back out," he said, still with that same, soothing tone.
Lyra stared at him, bewildered, snorting a moment in confusion. His tone was completely at odds with his words. It took a few moments for it to click. He thought that she was just an animal!
Lyra worked her mouth a few times, trying to dispel the sensation of her tongue being too thick for her mouth. Her throat was dry, and she was having troubles getting her mouth to work properly.
"Not gonna hurt you," the creature repeated, bringing the towel closer to her, "Just gonna make sure you're not bleeding, and you better not kick me."
Lyra snorted again, shaking her head, taking a step away from the creature.
In an instant, the creature was on her. He was surprisingly strong, and the fact that he walked on two legs instead of four gave him an incredible centre of balance. His upper limbs were completely free to tug her over. Very quickly, Lyra found herself on her side, with one of the creatures powerful limbs pinning down her forehooves, while the other gently applied the moist towel to her temple.
Lyra stiffened and then relaxed, giving a low groan at the soothing, cool sensation on her temple. After several seconds of this treatment, he removed the towel and inspected her head, his strange, surprisingly delicate protrusion on his flat, odd-looking hooves stroking against her fur, checking for any splits in the flesh.
"There, see?" he asked soothingly. "It's not so bad. And you're not bleeding. Now, I'm gonna stand up, so please don't leap up and run at the walls or anything."
The strange creature paused then, and a hoof moved in to touch at the base of her horn. The creature seemed surprised at this.
"What the hell?" he murmured, tugging at her horn a moment, the frown on his face barely visible in the gloom.
"It's my horn, you idiot," Lyra mumbled.
The creature leapt off her, bouncing back onto his feet, leaning against the bed, breathing hard, eyes wide. "Y-you speak?!"
"You expect me not to?" Lyra retorted, squinting faintly and lifting the towel back onto her temple, giving a faint groan.
"B-but you're an animal!" the creature protested weakly. "This has to be a dream. Or I got food poisoning. I'm just hallucinating."
"If you were hallucinating, you wouldn't be talking to yourself," Lyra responded smartly, shuddering and then relaxing, closing her eyes. "Now shush, stop making noises. Head hurts."
"What are you?" the creature asked incredulously.
Lyra huffed, tugging the towel off her temple and throwing it aside, rolling to her hooves to stare at the creature. "I'm a unicorn, you idiot! Was the horn not a clue?!"
"B-but unicorn's aren't real," came the weak protest.
"What you are, isn't real," Lyra retorted, snorting once and scowling.
The strange creature shook his head. "But it's you that's in my world!"
Lyra growled and rubbed a hoof against her throbbing temple, shaking her head a moment to clear it. "I wanna go home."
"Home?" the creature asked, raising a brow at her. "Where did you even come from?"
"Equestria," Lyra said with a toss of her mane, "Through my wardrobe."
"You... came out of my wardrobe?" came the confused query.
"Indeed. My wardrobe. I was trying to create a portal to another part of Equestria. A bird hit my window. Must have distracted me at the exact wrong moment," Lyra explained with a wrinkled nose.
"...Magic?" he asked incedulously.
Lyra rolled her eyes and picked up the towel from across the room with her magic, throwing it at the strange creatures face.
The creature made a sound of dismay, tossing off the moist towel and then staring at her. "That's... not possible."
"Says you," Lyra retorted.
"And you can just... walk back through my wardrobe and go home?" he asked with a disbelieving shake of his head.
"Yup," Lyra said with a grin. "Just walk on through."
"Great, my own little Narnia," he said with a slow shake of his head. "How many more of you are there?"
"Unicorns? Or ponies in general?" Lyra queried.
"Ponies," he said automatically.
Lyra pondered on that for a moment, humming thoughtfully. "Several thousand."
"Thousands?!" the creature asked, awed.
"Thousands." Lyra tossed her mane again, and then stared at the creature. "Now that I've answered your questions, you will answer mine." A note of firmness crept into Lyra's tone, leaving no room for argument.
"Make me," the creature said with a shake of his head.
Lyra rolled her eyes slightly. Her horn glowed, and she levitated the human a full foot off the floor.
Instantly, he began to thrash around, limbs flailing. "Put me down!"
"First: What are you you? Second: What is your name?" Lyra stated her questions calmly.
"I'm Jason, I'm a human, and I really don't want to be in the air any more!" the human protested, breathing hard and staring at the ground.
Lyra nodded to herself, and allowed her magic to fade, causing the human to drop straight onto the bed, bouncing a little bit. "Well, human, it is very nice to meet you. But I'm going to take my leave now and get something to drink."
Jason stared at the pony for a long moment, shaking his head. "I have drinks here."
"Oh? You would offer them to me freely?" Lyra asked, ears perking.
"Yeah," Jason replied with a shrug. "Why not?"
"Very good!" Lyra said, clapping her hooves together. "Lead on!"
The human pushed himself off the bed, and disappeared through a doorway, flicking a light on. Lyra winced and clenched her eyes closed as the bright light excited her headache. By the time her eyes had adjusted enough to the light for her to open them, the human was back in the room, with a fluffy robe of some kind wrapped around himself.
"C'mon," Jason said, motioning for the unicorn to follow, heading back out into the hallway.
Lyra walked after the human, watching him touch at the walls. There was a faint click, and then suddenly, light. The light itself was strange though. There was no flickering of flames within it. And it was the wrong colour entirely.
Jason led Lyra back into the room with all the strange shiny surfaces, and went straight to the humming object. With a quick tug of his strange, flat hoof, the entire front of the object just opened up and a magical glow made itself apparent. Lyra could see that the entire inside of the humming object was hollow, and it was filled with strange glass jars, some plates, and strangely-shaped bottles.
The human leaned in, pulled out a bottle of water from the part of the object he had opened, and then reached into a cupboard, pulling out cups. Lyra assumed that this was the kitchen, given all the accoutrements. But it was the strangest kitchen she had ever seen.
Jason poured out a cup of water, and then offered it to her. Lyra gave a nod of thanks, and then took the cup from him with her magic, tilting it up to her lips to drink. She spluttered as she sipped. "Cold!"
"Well it did just come out of the fridge," Jason said with a slow shake of his head.
"Fridge?" Lyra asked, confused.
The human tapped the humming object, and the beckoned her closer.
Lyra stepped over to the 'fridge', and then blinked slowly, lifting a hoof to wave towards it. It was cold inside! Like ice!
"I know not of this magic," Lyra admitted, pouting.
The human chuckled. "It's not magic."
"It's cold! There is no breeze, outside is hot... it's magic!" Lyra protested.
"No, holding a cup without touching it, is magic," Jason stated with a slow shake of his head, motioning towards her levitating cup.
Lyra flushed faintly and quickly grabbed the cup out of the air with her hoof, holding it manually instead, sipping at it gently. "This water is... it tastes strange."
It's just water," Jason placated, holding his strange, flat hooves out in what she assumed was a placating manner.
Lyra snorted, and then grabbed his hoof, inspecting it closely. "Why is your hoof so flat?"
"It's not a hoof," Jason said with a frown, wiggling the thin ends of his hoof. "It's a hand. And those are my fingers."
"Fascinating," Lyra stated distantly, watching him wiggle his 'fingers'. "Don't you have to worry about them getting snapped off?"
"Snapped off?" Jason asked, bewildered.
"They're so thin, and spindly." Lyra grabbed one of his fingers in her maw, wiggling it up and down for emphasis. "One little twist, and it would be gone!"
Jason rolled his eyes, and then leaned against the fridge, supporting his entire leaned weight on just his fingertips. "No snapping, see?"
Lyra stared, frowning deeply, her head tilting to the side. "But... they're so thin!"
"Thin, but strong," Jason said with a smug smile.
"So those are... fingers. And that's your hand?" she asked, pointing at his 'hand'.
"No, that's my palm," Jason said, holding it out to show her. "This entire side of my hand, from here," he pointed, "to here, is all my palm."
"But... you called it your hand!" Lyra protested, whining.
"No, the whole thing put together is my hand, and this is my arm," he said, waggling it at her.
Lyra blinked slowly. "You humans are crazy."
"Perhaps," Jason said reasonably, pouring himself a glass of water as well.
"You're taking this all very well. You're not nervous or worried or anything that I'm here?" Lyra queried.
"I'm convinced this is a really bad dream or acid trip, or something. I'll wake up soon," Jason said with a shrug of his shoulders.
Lyra looked down at herself, and then giggled softly. "You have some very odd dreams then."
"I blame it on eating chinese food before dinner," Jason replied dryly.
"Chinese? What kind of food is that?" Lyra asked curiously.
Jason pondered on that for a moment. "China is another continent."
"Ohhh! So like, griffon food!" Lyra said with a happy bounce.
Jason's eyes widened. "You guys have griffons?!"
"Griffon's, hydra's, pegasi, basilisk's..." Lyra hummed thoughtfully as she ticked off names.
Jason took a moment to steady himself with the counter, staring down at the pony. "...None of them are going to come here are they?"
"This is just a dream, Jason. None of them can hurt you," Lyra said with a giggle.
"Oh. Good." Jason replied distantly, and then paused. "But I've been pinching myself for the last few minutes and it hurts. And I haven't woken up yet."
Lyra gave a noncommittal shrug. "You're the one that thinks this is a dream, not me."
"But if this isn't a dream, I have a teal talking pony in my kitchen," Jason stated.
"I always thought it was closer to cyan," Lyra said with a thoughtful hum, peering back at herself for a moment.
"Same difference!" Jason protested, huffing. "You're still a talking pony!"
"And you're a talking... human thing. How'd you know I was a pony?" Lyra queried, head canting to the side.
Jason looked the unicorn up and down, and then gave a nervous smile. "Uhhh... this is going to be an awkward thing to explain."
Lyra stared, open-mouthed at the horses on the screen of Jason's laptop. "They're... they're... ugly!"
Jason gave a faint chuckle, and a noncomittal shrug. "I rather like the look of horses myself. They're kinda... I dunno, majestic?" he offered, raising a brow at the unicorn.
With a soft snort of suppressed laughter, he opened up a search for unicorns, showing Lyra a picture of a pure white horse with a spiraled horn.
Lyra could only stare, aghast. "But... but... They're horrible!"
Jason just laughed, shaking his head. "I'll admit, they're not as cute as you are."
"You think I'm cute?" Lyra asked, tilting her head up to stare at him.
Jason nodded slowly. "Indeed. I'd probably think all your kind are cute... are they all the same colour as you?"
Lyra shook her head vigorously. "All colours of the rainbow!"
"That's... very strange," Jason said, leaning down and squinting at the time in the corner of the screen. "Well, assuming this isn't all some kind of bizarre kind of dream... I really do need to get back to sleep. I gotta be up early for work tomorrow."
"It was daytime when I left Ponyville," Lyra stated with a single nod.
"That's... kinda weird." Jason frowned, pondering for a moment, before shrugging. "Contemplating the meaning behind dreams is pointless. I trust you won't be here when I wake up?"
Lyra shook her head. "No, I'll be back in Equestria before then. Promise," the unicorn said, crossing her hoof in front of her chest in a sincere pose.
Jason smiled and gently tapped the unicorn on the nose with a finger. "You are far too cute to be real."
Lyra just grinned, and then bounded away up his stairs, disappearing.
Jason stared after her, watching her tail swish out of sight, shaking his head once. He slouched off to his room, and collapsed into bed, quickly going back to sleep, convincing himself that the entire incident was just a hallucination.
Lyra peeked back over her shoulder at the multi-hued portal behind her, and then magicked the door of the wardrobe closed, sliding the lock neatly into place. With a happy hum, she bounded off to tend to her daily duties.
That night, she was going to return to this 'humans' abode, and she was going to force him to explain everything to her. But first, to the library! She needed to know if there were any mention of humans in Celestia's archives.