Vinyl was panting heavily as she opened the door to her home, the all-out race to get home and wake up Bonbon having tired her out more than she expected.

She stumbled towards the stairs only to grind to a halt when she heard voices coming from the kitchen down the hall.

Sticking her head in the door, Vinyl found Bonbon sitting at the table drinking coffee with Octavia, her mane still mussed from sleep.

“So there you are.” came Octavia’s remark as she looked up and saw Vinyl entering the kitchen.

Vinyl winced as she crossed to the sink and filled a glass with cool water “Sorry I’m late, I took longer than I thought while I was out.”

Octavia clucked her tongue, “When I woke up and noticed Bonbon in your bed, I guessed something like that had happened. Did you put the note on her stall in the market?”

“Yup, did it first thing this morning.”

Bonbon spoke up for the first time, “Did you manage to find out what happened to Lyra or the human by any chance?”

“No sign of Lyra this morning, who knows what she is up to. The human escaped the hospital last night though...” Vinyl scratched her neck, and Octavia pounced, recognising the nervous tick for what it was.

“You know more than that!” she accused, “Did the human hurt somepony? Does anypony know where he went?”

Sighing after she had gulped down her water, Vinyl elaborated as she moved to take a seat at the table, “I have a fair idea of where he probably is.”

It was clear Octavia was getting impatient with her playing coy, as she half stood from her seat to lean in towards Vinyl. “And?”

Vinyl sat back and stated as nonchalantly as she could, “I already met the human, he’s cool.”

“YOU WHAT?!” Bonbon shouted, leaping out of her seat in surprise.

“Yeah, that’s what held me up from coming to you wake up. I found the human and jammed with him for a bit.”

Octavia sat down again, “Please tell me you weren’t involved in letting him loose from the hospital?”

“Nah, he was long gone from there. He was in the shed out the back of Matilda’s place.”

“Matilda?” the question came from both Bonbon and Octavia at the same time, although the reasons were different.

Vinyl looked to Octavia, “You remember that nice donkey mare we met on the train coming down from Canterlot last Fall?”

A look of recognition dawned on Octavia’s face, “Yes, of course. She was lovely, but I thought you got bored of our conversation. How do you even know where she lives?”

“I helped her repair the turntable on her gramophone not long after we moved in.” Vinyl’s smile was a tad smug, it was not often she could surprise Octavia.

“Oh yes, I remember now, but what about the human? What is he like?”

“Hmm… how to describe him…” Vinyl sat back on her haunches while she thought, “You ever see a minotaur?” She asked Bonbon. “Think like that but no horns and different legs.”

“Ugh. There was a minotaur in town at the start of last summer giving motivational speeches.” Bonbon was scowling at the memory.

“I take it he was no good?” Octavia asked gently.

“Oh no, Iron Will was too good. When it was Cherry Berry’s and my turn to haul the market trash out to the composting yards, he had made one of the local pegasi go completely crazy! She bucked our carts so hard that they dumped all the trash right on our heads!”

Octavia winced at this. “Wow… that’s not good. Who was it? Any pony we might know?”

“It was Fluttershy, she tends to the animals in the area.”

“Yellow pegasus with a long pink mane?” Octavia inquired, almost fearfully.

“You’ve met her?”

A light blush started to rise on Octavia’s cheeks “She saved my quartet from that crazy Pinkie Pie filly at the Grand Galloping Gala last month.”

Bonbon seemed impressed, “Wow, how’d she manage to do that?”

“She went insane and set the entirety of Princess Celestia’s menagerie on the guests in the ballroom.”

Octavia and Bonbon both looked in surprise at Vinyl as she snorted, then giggled. Hurriedly jamming a hoof over the front of her mouth, Vinyl stumbled from the kitchen and shouldered her way out the back door.

“BAH! HAHAHAHAHA!”

Octavia sighed at her housemate’s antics, “You see what I have to deal with? At least she didn’t hear about Pinkie Pie forcing us to play the Pony Pokey at the Gala…”

“Meep!” Octavia looked sharply back at Bonbon, who had both hooves stuffed in front of her mouth and tears streaming down her face, which held a rictus of restrained hysterics.

The cellist held her head in one fetlock and made a shooing motion at Bonbon with her other fore hoof. “Go on, let it out…”

Seconds later, the confectioner was out the door, howling her mirth to the sky right alongside Vinyl Scratch.

It took a little while for them to calm down, since they kept on bursting into laughter again as soon as they caught sight of one another, but the two eventually returned to the kitchen, and the sympathetically amused cellist waiting for them with her coffee in hoof.

“Now that you are quite finished,” Octavia crooned with an arched eyebrow, “Human. Details. Now.”

“Wow. Eager much, Octy?”

“I hauled that thing halfway across town on my back, and not a single pony lifted a hoof to help. I think if anypony deserves to know what he is like, it is me.” Octavia flicked her short mane back as she tossed her head imperiously.

“Alright, alright.” The DJ groused. “The short version for now, since I’m tired. I went to the market and put up Bonbon’s note,” Bonbon’s eyes widened at this, before she dashed out the door, much to the others’ bemusement, “and I spotted some of his tracks near her cart. His hooves are huge, by the way, made it seriously easy to follow where he went.”

“I followed him back here. He sat just over there for a bit,” Vinyl gestured with a hoof out the window, “then his tracks wandered a bit until I found him asleep in that little shed out the back of Matilda’s place. I was gonna levitate him out and bring him over to the library so the crazy nerd over there could take a look at him, but he woke up before I could even get him out the door.”

“Oh dear,” Octavia worried, “he wasn’t angry, was he?”

“Nah. Spoke mostly in riddles though, worse than a zebra at some bits. I kinda forgot he was hurt and dropped him, but he didn’t seem to mind much. Just sat up and started making tea.”

“Making tea?” Octavia was slightly skeptical.

“Yeah, darndest thing, he’s even got some kind of magic teapot. Put in cold water and tea leaves and pour out hot tea, just like that. No fire, no stove, nothing. Then he got a little weird, started talking about bending things and painting pictures with different brushes, crazy weird. Tea was good though.” Vinyl paused for breath a moment, trying to remember the confusing conversation.

“Then I remembered about waking up Bonbon and ran back home. Oh, I told Iroh, that’s the human’s name, to go rest in Matilda’s place since she’s still not back from Shanghay.”

Octavia looked dubiously at Vinyl, “Are you sure that was wise? It is somepony else’s home after all…”

“It should be fine, he was kind of uptight, so I don’t think he will mess with her stuff. Besides, I wanna be there when Lyra finally meets him. Something tells me it will be awesome!” Vinyl gave a false evil cackle as she rubbed her hooves together.

Three fillies, a rather large stallion and an old mare were working in a barn.

“This is a joke!” Scootaloo complained from where she was helping Apple Bloom stack bags of seed left over from the year’s planting.

Sweetie Belle looked up from where she was helping Granny Smith repair baskets that had been damaged by water over the previous winter, “I kind of like it,” her high voice piped in, “basket weaving is fun! I wouldn’t mind getting a cutie mark with this.”

Granny Smith chuckled, reaching over to prod a couple of strands on Sweetie’s basket that were crooked into place with a practiced hoof.

“Better than doin’ nothin’ and bein’ bored, right Big Mac?” Apple Bloom grinned, coming to know how impatient Scootaloo had been these last few days.

Big Mac looked up a moment at the mention at his name before turning back to the plow blade he was sharpening in the corner. “Eeyup.”

“But it’s an awesome day outside, we could be exploring or something!”

“Just be patient,” Granny Smith lectured, “first we get the jobs for the day done, then we have some fun. ‘Sides looks like we’ll be done soon anyway.”

Scootaloo groaned, but carried on her work, buzzing her wings to provide the extra lift needed to get the bags neatly on top of the pile.

“What about going to have a look at the blackberry bush in the park once we’re done here?” Sweetie Belle spoke up after a few seconds.

Scootaloo looked at Sweetie dubiously from atop the sacks of seeds.“What’s so great about that? We see it all the time.”

Granny Smith looked on with interest as Sweetie stammered out a reply, “I - I was wondering what got that unicorn so excited last night…”

“Now, which unicorn was that?” Granny asked.

“I don’t know her name, but I see her with the candy mare all the time. She’s green with a white stripe in her mane. She was kinda scary, like Twilight was before she put a spell on that doll…”

“Miss Lyra?” Big Mac’s voice surprised the other four.

“You know her, Big Mac?”

“Eeyup!”

Apple Bloom hung her head in exasperation at her monosyllabic brother for a moment. She hated when he played twenty questions.

“Do you know where she lives?”

“Nnope!”

Sweetie Belle, being slightly quicker on the uptake than her friends asked a question that needed more than a yes or no. “How do you know her?”

“Eight golden delicious and four honey crisps every Tuesday.” Big Mac’s sly smile caused the three fillies to groan while Granny Smith chuckled at her grandson’s little joke on the fillies.

The stallion gave the plow he was working on one final critical look and decided it was sharp enough.

“Ah’m takin’ this back to Carrot Top.”

The fillies looked pleadingly at Granny Smith who chuckled at the question in their eyes.

“All righ’. You youngin’s get the last bag on the pile, and you can go play.”

The three fillies cheered as Sweetie Belle jumped up from her almost ‘fixed’ basket, and ran to help her friends get the final bag on top of the stack. With victorious cries, they dashed for the door to the barn.

“Y’all be back by sundown now!” Granny hollered after them, receiving a trio of affirmative shouts as they headed for town. The elderly mare smiled before giving a tired sigh and turning back to her basket.

A green unicorn swam back to consciousness with a groan, her head aching abominably. Moving carefully, she sat on the edge of the bed, her rear legs hanging over the side as she massaged her temples with the knuckles of her fetlocks.

“So you’re awake.” The voice was distinctly icy and certainly NOT Bonbon’s.

Forcing her eyes open, Lyra caught sight of a nurse, her white coat and pink mane identifying her as Nurse Redheart, and she looked very annoyed with the unicorn looking back at her.

“Why am I here?” Lyra wondered aloud.

“That’s what I want to know. Nurse Sweetheart told me you came charging into the hospital in last night and caused a huge ruckus. She had to have you sedated before you hurt somepony.”

Lyra’s brow furrowed in thought for a moment before the events of the previous day struck her, “The human! Somepony told me the human was here, and I had to see him before he got away! I have to get proof!”

“Oh we got proof alright, but the human isn’t here anymore.”

“What? How? Where did he go?”

Redheart’s frown deepened. “The how is easy, the noise you made woke everypony in the hospital, including the human. Where? I have no idea, but he is injured and he should still be here!”

The nurse stalked forward, turning Lyra’s expression nervous as Redheart growled. “I don’t care if he’s a human, a pony or a stinking diamond dog, but the fact is it’s your fault one of MY patients has run off. I will make you a deal, you find my patient and bring him back, and maybe, just maybe, I won’t report you to the Town Watch as a public menace. Understood?!”

Lyra, now bundled against the bed’s headboard in terror of the menacing nurse, could only nod her head rapidly.

“Well? What are you waiting for? A gilded invitation? GET! OUT!” The nurse all but roared the last two words, causing Lyra to stumble past her, race past the pair of orderlies outside the ward and gallop out of the hospital as if her tail was on fire.

Nurse Redheart stepped out of the ward a few moments later and calmly adjusted her cap.

“That sounded fun,” the stallion to her right grinned.

Redheart flashed him a bright smile and a nod before turning to carry on with her rounds.

Meanwhile, Lyra had reached the bottom of the hill that the hospital sat on in full gallop, finally slowing to a trot and then to a stop as she got out of sight.

Sitting down, she tried to get her heart rate and her throbbing head under control. “Note to self, don’t mess with the nurses.” Lyra groaned.

‘Right,’ Lyra thought, ‘find the human, bring him back, study hands, and get something for my head. Oww.’ She paused to revise her previous thoughts, ‘Head first, then human.’

Standing shakily to her legs now that the adrenaline had worn off, Lyra stumbled back towards her home, where she could find an ice pack for her head and food for her stomach. She realised she had not eaten in almost a full day!

Lyra was so preoccupied with her predicament, that she barely registered that the streets were quieter than usual and that the marketplace, normally bustling with activity at this time of day, had barely anypony there.

Minutes later, Lyra was in her kitchen, a tall glass of milk in front of her as she crunched her way through a couple of apples. She gulped down her milk, tossed the cores in the bin, and headed off to bed to sleep off her headache. She would wake up when Bonny was home and get her to help with looking for the human.

That decided, she placed her head under a pillow and tried to sleep.

Author's Notes:

3 Chapters in 4 days, yow!