Chapter Twenty-Two

I take a lot of walks, if you haven't realized that already. I have a lot of free time, since I don't really have much of a job other than assisting Twilight and anyone else that asks me for help. I had proven my use as an agent of sorts, I suppose, so Celestia was more than happy to make sure I never really went hungry. I didn't really like freeloading, but at the same time I knew without a cutie mark I wouldn't really be accepted for anything more than odd jobs—which I did plenty of, if any of the ponies were ever brave enough to approach me about helping them.

Anyway, that's a lot of build up for saying I was walking in the park in the middle of winter, thinking about something to do and trying to escape the cold through the labor of putting one foot in front of the other. I was bundled up in the warmest clothes friendship and repressed guilt can buy.

Since Ponyville gets so snowy in the winter, there are usually very few park goers or the like out enjoying it. I didn't get much of a chance to enjoy snow as a child, so you can understand that when I first realized this place got snowy I was overjoyed.

Then I found out how much snow really, really sucks. It's fun if it lands and sticks for a few days and goes away. It's a lot less fun when it sticks for weeks and you have to constantly shovel it since this damn village doesn't believe in using magic to solve problems like that.

But I digress yet again. I was walking through the snowy, cold park when I heard music in the distance. Sad, sad music. It sounded rather familiar, so I made my way to it. I crested a mound of snow that I recognized as a bench in warmer months and found Lyra sitting under her tree, playing that sad song she played the first time I met her. It looked like she had been crying.

I walked over and cleared a small space out on the ground and joined her. She didn't look up until the last notes faded away. Normally when she saw me she put a smile on her face, but today she didn't seem to be able to manage it. Honestly I don't know if it's me she liked or just my hands, but I've never brought that up.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

She sighed and let her instrument drop back down to its case. "It's… Bon-Bon," she finally said. "I think she might love me so much more than I love her. I really care for her, but… I don't know, Navarone. I think she might want marriage but I'm not sure if I'm ready." This world has marriage? "I don't know what to do…"

"I'm having a somewhat similar problem, Lyra," I answered. "If you love her, though, you love her. That's really all there is to it."

"I know, but I don't know if I love her! She's always been there for me and it always seems like she's doing so much more for me than I'm doing for her… It doesn't seem fair, what she does for me. Especially when I give so little in return."

"If she is still doing things for you then she's obviously getting something in return just from the simple act of helping. Now tell me, what do you know of love?"

She blinked, not expecting that question. "It feels… good," she said after a moment. "You never want to leave the pony you're with. You hurt when they hurt. If things go sour you care more about patching it up than you do about placing blame." She gave a shuddering sigh.

I answered her sigh with one of my own as I dredged up from memory, "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." That's the second time I got to use that. Maybe I should make a list of good quotes from my world and keep it around for reference.

She nodded slowly. "That sounds like Bon-Bon. But I don't know if it sounds like me."

"I can't help you there, my friend. I have seen you two together and I know you're happy together, but beyond that I don't know. I have no idea what your home life is like. Though I also don't know what a typical pony home life is like, so I guess that's not really any different. The only advice I can give you is to not feel pressured into getting married before you're ready because you feel like you owe Bon-Bon for being there for you. Down that road lies pain and resentment."

"So what do you suggest I do?"

"I don't really know," I answered. "As I said, I have the same problem. I personally suggest talking to her. I know that it can't be an easy subject, but it is usually better to have such things out in the open rather than leaving them to fester inside of you. You'll have to make your own decision as to whether or not to do that, though; I know I would have a very, very hard time doing it, and would rather come to grips with it myself rather than risking their feelings by bringing it up. Even though I know that's a bad idea, of course."

She gave me a small smile at that. "Stubborn, Navarone?"

I shrugged. "I'm bad at taking advice. Either way, though, I hope you'll do what will make you happy, because in the long run that's what will make Bon-Bon happy. Oh, and don't tell her any of this advice was mine unless it works out for the best; she seems like the clingy jealous type, and might try to hurt me if it goes sour for her in the short run."

I got a full smile for that. "She always was jealous of you, Nav," she admitted. "She doesn't have fingers like you do."

I held up my hand and slipped my glove off. "Why would she be jealous?" I asked, flexing my fingers. "Sure, having fingers makes me better than most ponies, but I'm sure she has some manner of redeeming qualities!" The way I said it made it obvious that it was a joke.

She giggled. "She's jealous because of what you told me the first day we met. How having fingers makes things so easy to… stroke." Oh. Ew. "She's mad that she can't touch me like you can." Welp, this just got really uncomfortable.

"There's a spell that turns humans into ponies and ponies into humans," I said. She perked up immediately. "It's incredibly hard to cast if you have a cutie mark, though." She drooped a bit.

Only to perk up enough to ask, "Is Twilight strong enough to cast it?"

"I don't think so. I think she's strong enough to turn me into a pony, but I don't think she can turn an adult pony into a human. Celestia or Luna could, but good luck convincing them to. And trust me when I say the change is so jarring that you would probably be too disoriented to enjoy it much."

She rolled her eyes. "How bad could it be?"

I described the problems Twilight and I had adjusting to different bodies.

When I finished she shrugged. "I could get over it, if it meant having fingers… Especially if I still had magic!" Her horn glowed and I felt my hands go rigid. "I don't suppose you'd mind if I played with yours again?" she asked.

"Just be careful," I answered. "Don't do anything with them that I wouldn't do if I was controlling them."

She gave a look of what I thought might have been disappointment before jerking me closer. She spun around and ran my fingers through her mane. Then my hands went to her back. And then they went to her flank.

"That's far enough, Lyra," I said before she could pull them anywhere else. She shuddered as my hands returned to my own control. I pulled them away from her and moved back to my patch of cleared grass.

When I got settled back down, I saw she was looking at me. "You said you didn't know much about my home life," she said. "So I don't suppose you knew Bon-Bon is something of a voyeur?" I really didn't like what she was implying.

"I didn't know that," I answered. "It seems odd to me that a jealous girl would be happy watching someone else have sex with you, though."

"I thought the same thing when I found out," she said. "We had a bit of a talk about it, though. It seems she gets off to the feeling of protection it instills in her." That's really creepy. And it might be a lie.

I don't want to hurt her feelings, but if it comes down to it I'll straight up tell her no. "That's strange, but I suppose to each their own. I don't really know why you feel like telling me that, though."

She smiled. "Relax, Nav. You already made your point clear. I'm disappointed but I understand. That was just a warning on the off chance you run into me having sex in a public place and think I'm cheating on her because of the conversation we just had."

I let out a sigh of relief. "I'll remember that, then." So there actually are reasonable women on this planet.

Her horn glowed as she picked up her instrument again. "I still don't feel perfect about my… love life, but I do feel a bit better now. Would you care to hear me play some more?" I nodded, a smile back on my face. She began to caress the strings with her magic, the song she was playing a much happier contrast to the one I found her playing.

Not much really happened from that point until during Winter Wrap Up, and I only include this because I feel it is sadly necessary.

Yes, reader, I write about the time I finally got caught in the magic of the song.

Now, I had seen several of these songs happen in the past. The first year's Winter Wrap Up, near the end of the Gala while Twilight and I were dancing—I only mention that one now because I didn't even notice it at the time, and it was only made known to me when I asked Twilight about it—on the boats to and from Africa, a bunch of Pinkie Pie's songs that she seems to make up and practice all the time, and when we got all the ponies in Ponyville trashed—though I don't remember that one either.

Anyway, I was in my second Winter Wrap Up, on my third year in Ponyland, when I got caught in the damn singing magic. I was the first one, you see, so I didn't have time to build up any resistance to it.

Basically, as soon as I stepped outside Twilight's house I was punched in the face by the song magic. There's not any other way I could really describe it. I know my voice sounded considerably better than it was supposed to, and it fit perfectly with what everyone else was singing, but I was definitely the first one to start it.

Dude, I don't even want to talk about what it was we sang about. I will say, though, that it was a lot darker than the usual pony songs, but not necessarily in a bad way. It gave hints at the Luna situation, the Kat situation, and my time as Z, but no specifics. I have no idea how the ponies managed to keep up or how any of it fit together, but I guess that's magic for you. It was also fitting for winter, thought maybe not for a day that was supposed to be happy.

It did end on a very pleasant note, however, with Fluttershy popping in about a better tomorrow and a coming spring. I find myself hoping as I write this that the message imparted there would be true, and that the going would get easier. But I never did believe in storybook endings.

If nothing else I was hoping I wouldn't run into any more psycho women.

Oh, and a side note, in case anyone reading this is wondering: Whenever you get caught up in the song magic, none of the ponies will ever hold anything you sing about against you. It is mostly uncontrollable and it's impossible to determine who might be the next victim, so there's the unofficial rule that anything sung about will never be asked about or brought up. Not like anyone is reading this, though.

The rest of Winter Wrap Up was pretty chill. I helped Fluttershy again, since that was pretty much all I knew. The animals were getting used to me anyway.

Still, fuck singing.

Oh, and Pinkie Pie did throw me a party for my birthday, in case you were wondering. Sadly, for a twenty-first birthday, there was very little drinking, and none of what was done was alcoholic. We used almost all of the booze for the big returning home party, and the rest was saved up in case I needed it for anything that wasn't drinking related.

It was one of her typical parties, with hooting and hollering and all that carrying on. I pretended to enjoy it to humor her, but I really don't much care for stuff like that, never did.