There was a small spark, and the circuitry hummed to life. The solenoids clicked, pulling the pins that powered the complex clockwork within the device. Lyra pulled back her goggles and inspected the action, making sure that everything was buttery smooth. The neural feedback system was still incomplete, but the overall mechanical framework looked good.

Carefully, she picked up a small cylindrical device and a microtorch in her magic and, holding her breath, attempted to lower it into the highly crowded rear compartment of the device. Just as she finally had it settled in, the door to her workshop was slammed open, causing her to jump back with a cry and fall off her stool.

“What the buck?” she said, turning around, initially surprised that someone had entered her laboratory. As soon as she saw the green hair and brown coat coming through her door, though, she remembered that she had been roped into having a cheese-stealing roommate. At least this time, she was not wearing a saddle- -she was completely naked, like a normal pony. “You! Don’t you at least knock? I mean, what if I had been clo- -” Lyra stopped when she saw that Toaster was injured. One side of her face was swollen and red, and she was walking stiffly with a pronounced limp. “What happened to you? Did you try to use your face to pound a nail or something?”

“Applejack punched me,” said Toaster, flopping down in a semi-collapsed couch that was against one wall of the workshop.

“And you lived? Impressive.”

“It hurts…”

“Here,” said Lyra, reaching into the coolant bath she was using to store processing chips and pulling out an ice pack. She threw it to Toaster. “Take this. Any reason why Applejack bucked you in the face?”

“Because I tried to buck her brother with my face.”

“Ah,” said Lyra, going back to her project and partially ignoring the unicorn mare across the room. She began writing on a pad, doing the calculations for the neural feedback system. “Well, she is very protective of him.”

“But Leera, he was so BIG!”

“It is, literally, his first name,” noted Lyra. “And my name is not ‘Leera’. It is ‘LYRA’. The ‘y’ is like the ‘y’ in ‘sky’.”

“That’s weird.”

Lyra turned around in her stool and pointed to her flank, where there was a small insignia of a harp-like instrument. “See? Lyre. On my butt. Hence ‘Lyra’.”

“And the Heartstrings part?”

“Congenital defect.”

“Oh.” Toaster looked at Lyra’s rear, jealous of her pretty color. “What does it mean?”

“A medical anomaly that one is born with,” said Lyra, turning back to her work.

“Not that. Your butt.”

“Oh.” Lyra swiveled again and faced Toaster. Ponies very seldom asked what her cutie mark meant, thinking that it was obvious when it could not be further from the truth. “It is a mark of irony.”

“Irony? Why is a lyre ironic? Or is this some hipster thing I’m too square to understand?”

“Have you ever seen a lyre?”

“Yes. In Canterlot. They sound real pretty.”

“Do you recall what is significant about a lyre?”

“Of course. It can only be played with magic.”

“Exactly.” Lyra raised her front hooves in front of her. “How is a pony supposed to play a lyre with THESE? It can’t be done. My mark exists to taunt me with a reminder of my own biological limitations...limitations which I strive to overcome.”

“Um…how?”

Lyra smiled, and picked up the device she was working on. Even if it was not yet good enough for combat applications, it was suitable for at least a minor demonstration. She slid the device over her hoof and lower foreleg, and held it out in front of her, flipping the power core on.

The device hummed, and then burst open, producing five flexible appendages. Toaster was so frightened that she cried out and leapt behind the couch. She looked over the upper edge as Lyra flexed the fingers of her creation.

“What- -what is that thing?!”

“I call it the Horse Assisting Neurolink Device, or H.A.N.D. for short. You know, because it’s a hand.”

“I can see that- -but why would you construct such an abomination.”

“Hey!” said Lyra, pointing at Toaster with her metal index finger. “Someday, everypony will have hands! Mark my words, some day there will be a bat pony wandering a dystopic future using a device very similar to this to manipulate objects at will and I did not know it could do this!” Lyra paused, and looked at the extended index finger. “Cool. Now I can gesture to things. Like…to that Bridgeport,” she pointed across the room to the machine in question and giggled. “Now the next time I get arrested, I can finger somepony in court!”

“That’s really more of my job,” said Toaster, still behind the couch.

“What?”

“But you have magic. Why not just use that.”

“You have magic too, don’t you? Why don’t you use it for every application?”

“Because I can’t.”

“Exactly, because we deserve to be free of hooves, and the hand- -wait, what?”

“I can’t use magic,” said Toaster.

“But you have a horn.”

“Yes. And I am quite horny indeed.”

“So…does it not work or something?”

“Oh, it works. But everything I touch gets, well…melted.”

“Really?” Lyra reached down and picked up a piece of copper pipe in her hand. “Here, catch!”

She threw the pipe across the room, and Toaster caught it in her magic instinctively- -at which point it promptly was reduced to red-hot liquid that splattered all over the couch, lighting it partially on fire.

“Oops,” said Lyra, moving one of several fire extinguishers in the room over and putting out the flames. “Weird. That’s definitely not normal.”

“It makes my job really, really hard. Or…I guess soft, and kind of flaccid?”

“You seem to make an awful lot of wiener references when you talk,” noted Lyra. “It’s kind of weird.”

“I’m sure a pretty mare like you has seen quite a few in her day.”

“Actually…well…let’s just say I have a steady partner right now.”

“Aww. So cute. I wouldn’t mind a coltfriend myself…”

“Coltfriend…right…”

“But hey,” said Toaster, changing the subject. “The reason I came up here…I didn’t make any money today. And I have no food…I was wondering if you have any I could borrow…”

Lyra sighed. “There is some hay out back in the shed. The RED shed. Not the root celler. That’s where I keep the- -”

“Roots?”

“Spent fuel rods. Don’t go down there. Seriously.”

“Okay. Thanks Leera.”

Lyra shuddered at hearing her name mispronounced, but decided to let it go. “Hey, Toaster,” she said as the other pony got up to leave. “Do you think you can help me with something?”

“I don’t do mares,” she said.

“Neither do I!” squealed Lyra, far more defensively than was needed. She calmed herself. “No. Tomorrow I need to go into town to pick up a shipment from a vendor. It’s real heavy, and I could use some help. And maybe I can help you get stocked up on some real food, too.”

Toaster’s eyes widened and she broke into a wide grin. “Really?”

“Sure. What are friends for?”

Toaster crossed the room quickly and wrapped Lyra in a devastatingly crushing hug. Lyra was surprised to notice that Toaster smelled oddly of grandmas. “Oh thank you Leera!” said Toaster. “I’ve never ever had a friend before! You’re my first! You’ve broken my friend virginity!”

“Um, eew,” gasped Lyra. “Let go please…suffocating…”

Toaster released her, and then pranced back to the door. “I’m going to get a good night sleep in my room now,” she said. “That way, I’ll be really alert when we go out tomorrow. And you can help me find stallions!”

Before Lyra could mention that she really did not know that many stallions in Ponyville, Toaster had left the room- -and, by the heavy sounds of repeated thuds, promptly fallen down the stairs.

“I’m okay!” she called back through several stories of wood and radiation-proofed armored steel that made up the house. “Horn is still attached!”

“What a werido,” said Lyra, turning back to her desk. She held out her hand in front of her and once again extended the index finger. An idea occurred to her, and her eyes flitted to either side, making sure that Toaster was not coming back.

When it was clear that Toaster had returned to her crawspace, Lyra lifted the cybernetic index finger and inserted it into her nose.

“Ohhhhhh,” she groaned, her eyes rolling back in her head from the intense pleasure. “That’s the ticket…”