OK. So, tattoos on my legs.

I closed my eyes and let out a deep breath. My pounding headache subsided, or at least the pain had been temporarily overwhelmed by panic.

I opened my eyes again and looked down.

Yup. Still there.

I poked at the offending mark tentatively. If it was a tattoo, it should hurt at least a little. Right? It’s not like I had any experience with them, but hey, needles, injecting ink, you would have to assume it’d be sore. But nope.

Maybe it was numb or something? Do they use anaesthetic for that sort of thing? I poked harder, and the feeling was normal. Not sore, but the same as poking any other part of my leg.

What could I have gotten into last night? I vainly tried to remember once again, but the most I could recall was the club with Brooke – push past that, not important, my brain cut in – and Daisy...

Wait, of course. I laughed out loud, the harsh noise sounding more like a forced croak. It’s somehow Daisy’s fault. She was probably pranking me. In fact, she probably just painted these stupid things on when I was asleep. Though, if she took off my pants to do so I couldn’t help but be a little creeped out. And why harps?

There’s no telling with her. I stood up, the room only slightly spinning before I steadied myself. Pulling a washcloth off the bathroom counter, I ran it under the sink, getting it nice and wet.

Scrub scrub scrub.

No dice. There wasn’t even a hint of a smear on the shape.

OK, with soap then. I lathered up the area with some hand soap and set to rubbing it fiercely with the cloth.

Still nope.

Rubbing alcohol! Sure enough, a bottle sat in the cabinet underneath the sink. I had no idea how old it was, but that sort of thing wouldn’t go bad. It felt cold, but didn’t sting.

And it didn’t do a damn thing to the mark.

I poked my head down into the cabinet again and glared at the dusty set of cleaning supplies within. Uhhh, Windex? I was out of ideas.

The skin around the harp mark had turned red with my vigorous attempts at rubbing it off, but the mark itself was untouched. I leaned over and looked at it carefully. Perfectly sharp lines outlining a golden harp with three strings.

Well, now what?

After giving up on the matter for the present, I went about the business of reacquainting myself with the land of the living. Meaning a shower, brushing my teeth, changing into something clean. It did help me feel better, though my headache had returned as a low constant pulsing. I swallowed a few ibuprofen to calm it down and thought about breakfast, but it was almost lunchtime. I could just grab something in a bit.

I also took the time to text Daisy.

<We need to talk. In person. As soon as possible.>

Only moments after my message, my phone lit up with a reply.

<class til 3!!>

At least she had responded. I figured if this was one of her pranks I wouldn’t get anything out of her without meeting face to face, but jeez. It’s poor form to troll someone this hard on their birthday night, plus all the other shit I had going on.

Thankfully, my own schedule for the day was light. I had a class as well at 1:00, but that gave me plenty of time to get lunch. And maybe some details about what had happened last night from a more... reliable source.

At that thought, some muscle between my stomach and my heart twisted. I ignored it.

I had figured my idle daydreams of a beautiful baker were stupid fantasies. I had told myself a million times that she was out of my league. It should be a relief to have it out in the open and settled.

At least that’s what I kept telling myself, as my mouth twisted in a wry grimace.

Shortly afterwards, I arrived once more at the Café Sucré. Like yesterday, it was a fairly nice day, and several of the outdoor patio tables were occupied with patrons enjoying the weather. I stepped inside, my thoughts on other things.

Mostly one thing. Or person. Who I could see as soon as I walked in, uncharacteristically sitting with her head down, forehead pressed against the cool glass top of the pastry counter.

Looks like I wasn’t the only one who ended up overdoing it last night.

I walked up, trying to push extraneous thoughts out of my mind – but man, her hair was particularly untamed today, spilling out in a loose jumble on the counter. It was striking. Was it always that long? Guess it was hard to tell when she normally wore it pulled back.

Right. Pushing extraneous thoughts out of my mind. I cleared my throat.

She looked up at me, bleary eyed. “Hey. Lyra?” she mumbled.

I didn’t hear her distinctly, and it didn’t sound quite like she said “Tyler”, but I figured I’d take an honest attempt at a wrong name over “Twitchy” for now.

“Hey,” I said. “Looks like someone had fun last night.”

Her eyes narrowed and she glared at me for a moment, but then the corners of her mouth turned up in a smirk. “No kidding. How do you keep up with that Daisy?”

Daisy’s name on Brooke’s lips twisted a knife in my chest. My smile faltered. “Beats me,” I said hurriedly. “But that’s what I wanted to ask you about. What, uh, what all did we do last night?”

Brooke straightened up in her chair. “Wait,” she said, “you don’t remember? ...How much don’t you remember?” Her eyes shone with anxiety.

I gritted my teeth. “I remember... that. I mean after. Where did we go after the club?”

“After?” she asked. As she thought, she twirled a finger in her hair, causing one unruly curl to be wound even tighter. “Let’s see, well, first you sort of started a drinking contest with yourself. And then Daisy took that as a challenge, and dragged me into it as well... It gets blurry after that point. I mean, we stayed pretty late, but after a while you were seriously out of it. Last I recall, Daisy was dragging you off, saying she would get you back home.”

Aha. Daisy. Knew it.

She raised an eyebrow at my expression. “Why?” she asked. She hesitated for a brief moment before continuing. “Did anything... uh... strange happen?”

I waved a hand dismissively. “No, I just need to talk to her. I...” A couple of excuses flashed through my head. I was absolutely certain I wasn’t going to admit to getting a pair of musical tramp stamps while wasted. “I just don’t like not remembering things.” Good enough.

Brooke shrugged. “Oh, and Twitchy?” she said. I rolled my eyes. Apparently I was still stuck with the nickname. “Can you do me a favor and not tell anyone about that thing I told you last night?” She blushed slightly at the reference.

I nodded curtly. “Yeah. No problem.”

Her face broke out into a genuine smile and before I could even react, she leaned over the counter and wrapped me in a tight hug. She smelled like cinnamon. I don’t even like cinnamon and it was still heavenly.

She suddenly pulled away and ducked behind the counter. I could hear the sliding of the back of the display case, but I was too momentarily stunned to pay much attention.

“Here, I think I owe you this!” she cheerfully said, and pushed a cupcake with pastel green icing into my hands. I looked at it blankly, then back up at her, but she just giggled and turned away, sweeping into the kitchen and leaving me standing there, still frozen.

My brain eventually completed a full reboot, and I mechanically turned and left.

It wasn’t until I was out on the sidewalk that I realized that the conversation we had was the longest I had ever talked to Brooke without freaking out or stuttering the whole time. It had felt... comfortable. Well, touchy subject matter aside.

Things could be a lot worse. Maybe actually being a friend wasn’t so bad.

The pain in my chest at that last thought didn’t even hurt as much as before. I’m sure it would go away eventually.

Right. Friends.

The cupcake was good. Mint and chocolate, my favorite.

I don’t know if it was lasting confusion, or relief over my headache finally subsiding, or a sugar rush from the cupcake, but when I made it to the University, my head was all sorts of scrambled.

Everything just seemed so happy! Alive! Did I always pay attention to the birds chirping, the strange harmonies of the conversations of students throughout the campus, the burbling of the fountain at the central plaza?

That stopped me as well, I looked up at the fountain, feeling as if I had never really taken the time to properly see it before. At the center was a horse, sculpted in copper or bronze or some other dark metal, front hooves raised as it crashed through the water. I paused for a moment to think of how best to describe it.

Majestic. That’s the right word.

No rider, no saddle, just wild and free, as ponies should be. Hey, that even rhymed. I bet I could write a song about—

OK, no, I don’t write songs about ponies because I was not a twelve-year-old girl. I shook my head. Seriously, I was way too ADD today.

Trying to concentrate on something, anything, I pushed on, turning from the plaza to walk up the steps to the history building, following the stream of other students going to and from class.

Now, the first floor of the history building is actually fairly interesting, as the Uni kept it as a museum in miniature, with rotated exhibits throughout the year. I had a hunch that most of the time they were just displaying junk in the hopes that somewhere legit would try to take it off their hands, but at times it could be pretty neat.

As I walked through, I meant to just continue straight to the main stairwell and head up to class. The exhibits were still ancient Minoan relics that had been on display for the past three months. I had seen them all when they were first put in and while I found them to be one of the better collections, once you’ve seen thirty vases in a row, that’s basically all the historic pottery you’ll ever need to see. Y’know?

But something glimmered in a corner, catching my eye. I hesitated, looking at my watch. I could spare a few minutes.

Weaving through the waves of students making the beeline from the main entrance to the stairs, I walked off to the side, where the display cases were alone and unvisited.

There, behind glass, was the thing from my mark.

A gold-colored harp. Or, as a plaque helpfully explained, a lyre. It had seven strings instead of three, but it was absolutely the same thing. The shape was identical.

I drew in a big breath and began bouncing on my toes excitedly. And then, I kid you not, I squeed.

There is no other word to describe the sound that I made. I did not even know I was capable of producing noise of such a high frequency. At that moment I froze, still on my tip-toes, and turned my head slowly, as I felt blood rush to my face.

Thankfully, no one had seemed to notice.

I looked back at the lyre, tracing its form with my eyes, as I tried to figure out just why I was so excited. It was small. Really small, as in it’d be easy to hold or carry but maybe even a little difficult to play due to the strings being fairly close together and set in the same plane as the frame.

The plaque underneath was not particularly helpful. It just noted its origins as an instrument used to accompany theater, poetry, and song. No, really, it was used for music? Thanks, history. It wasn’t even properly dated like most of the other artifacts. To my only semi-trained eye it was probably just lacquered wood, but it was in great condition for an artifact. Could have been a replica then.

I realized my hands were on the glass of the display case, surreptitiously rocking the front glass door side to side to confirm that it was locked.

I dropped my hands to my side. Seriously. What was wrong with me? Why the hell would I even want this stupid thing? I wanted to get these marks off, not host an ancient poetry jam.

I spun around and determinedly marched off to class.

I only looked wistfully back over my shoulder at the lyre in its prison once.

Now, normally I’d be the first to argue that history classes aren’t any more boring than every other subject. Particularly calculus. But there’s something about that certain combination of the room being a few degrees warmer than normal and the professor’s monotone being particularly lulling that was sadly irresistible.

There’s also a reason I sat two-thirds of the way up in the big lecture hall. It is because I know my own weakness, and soon I succumbed to the inordinate weight of my eyelids, leaning back and sliding down in my chair for comfort.

Unfortunately, my dreams were anything but pleasant. An image sprung to mind, an all-too familiar one.

At first it was just his eyes in the darkness, two red pupils floating in yellowed sclera. They rattled around independent of one another before stopping to focus directly on me, causing me to shiver.

Then his face came into view, pulled back into a smile but baring that one oversized fang. He was smiling of course, but it was a cruel grin, always mocking.

His head spun and twisted in the air, floating around me in a circle, causing me to gasp and clumsily try to move to keep him in front of me. It was... hard. Something didn’t feel right, my legs didn’t respond right, but his laughter rang in my ears, keeping me from concentrating on what was different.

Then, his head froze, and with a series of pops, his body started to appear. Each section was something different, one mass of strange flesh joined into another with an ugly seam, making a patchwork monster. All I wanted to do was to shut my eyes and hide, but I couldn’t risk not watching him.

I had to do something. But... it was all gone. I started humming, the noise barely louder than a whimper, the aquamarine glow shimmering weakly in front of me.

He didn’t even stop laughing. I knew it wasn’t enough, not without my focus and not without her. And she was already gone, he had sent her away, to some place where I could not reach.

He fell into silence, mid-chuckle, and the shock was enough to disrupt my concentration and cause the magic to fade away. I grasped in my mind for a tune, any tune, but nothing came.

“Don’t worry, my little pony, I’m just giving you what you always wanted! A whole new world of possibilities, isn't that exciting?” His voice was happy, but it burned in my ears.

I stared up at him, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing me cower, but my legs shook, betraying my true feelings.

And then I heard him snap a claw, sounding like a dry bone being broken in two.

I jolted awake.

Images swum in my head. That was... It was...

...

As soon as I tried to grasp them, the thoughts had flown away again.

I knew that feeling of dread, although it had been a long time since I had one of those nightmares. But I could only ever recall that sickening feeling, and never the specifics. I pressed one hand to my forehead, feeling the cold sweat.

Behind me, I heard stifled giggles, and I turned and glared at a group of girls a few rows back. They wouldn’t meet my eyes.

God, I was probably talking in my sleep or something, but the professor and everyone in front of me hadn’t seemed to notice. Good luck on my part – I had gotten quite experienced at sleeping inconspicuously and making noises would be a worrying development, even if I was having nightmares again.

I flicked my bangs out of my eyes and tried to focus on the lecture. Most of the class had already passed, but for the rest of it I had no problems staying wide awake, boredom be damned.

After class, Daisy was not responding to my increasingly frustrated texts, which meant she was either enjoying my panic or just not paying attention. Probably the latter – she was always mischievous but rarely sadistic.

Let’s see... I figured she was on campus still, as she regularly regaled me with stories of her crazy roommates and how she tried to avoid them when possible. And given that we were out late last night and Daisy didn’t mess around when it came to parties, she was probably still trying to recover, meaning she would be somewhere quiet.

It turns out I did know her habits well. I found her in the back of the smaller science and engineering library on campus, sitting at a table concealed behind shelves of technical manuals that I was fairly sure had never been needed by any person on Earth. For whatever reason, there was a table and chairs jammed back in the corner here, a convenient place to study.

Or sleep. She had a book open on the table in front of her, but given the sunglasses and her slouched posture in the tilted-back chair, reading wasn’t exactly high on her current priorities.

It was only a paltry form of revenge, but I placed one foot against the raised chair leg and pushed down forcefully, causing the seat to fall forward back to its normal position. Daisy windmilled her arms as she jerked back to consciousness, her sunglasses tumbling off her nose and onto her book.

“Gah!” she said, wildly looking around. Her eyes stopped on me. The widened as she stared at me for a moment, then narrowed again as a tentative grin formed on her lips. “Tyler...?”

“Alright, we need to talk,” I said. I pulled out the other chair and took a seat. “What exactly happened last night?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” she said. “I leave you guys alone for some private time and when I come back you’re trying to discover how many drinks it takes to get to the center of liver failure. Things not go well with your lady?”

I winced. “We’re looking for different things in a relationship. Or at least she is.”

Daisy hesitated, a pained look crossing her face. She settled on reaching out to pat me on the shoulder sympathetically. “Plenty of fish in the sea. Or something. At least you tried?”

I shook my head in irritation. “Whatever. That’s not what I mean though. What happened after the club?”

She cocked her head to the side at my question. “What do you mean? I hauled your ass home, which, you’re welcome, by the way.”

“Right,” I said. “And there were no other stops? You didn’t convince me to do something... stupid? You didn’t decide to play a little joke?” I stared at her firmly.

She did genuinely look confused. I couldn’t help but recall that every other time she had pulled some sort of prank, her poker face had been abysmal. She was not great at keeping quiet, particularly when it was something that amused her, but as much as I watched for a suppressed smirk, it wasn’t there.

“W-what are you talking about?” she asked.

I exhaled through my teeth. “I’m talking about this.” I glanced behind me to make sure we were completely alone and then unbuttoned my pants.

“Oh god!” she exclaimed, holding up her hands to cover her face. “Tyler, I know you struck out with pastry-girl, and I’m flattered, but...”

“No!” I said hurriedly. “Not that. This.” I twisted, fighting with my pants and boxers until the harp – no, lyre – was in view.

Daisy was quiet for a moment, her face still hidden by her hands. She cracked two fingers, peeking through suspiciously. When she saw the tattoo, her hands dropped, along with her jaw.

And then she burst into raucous laughter, pounding the table between gulping breaths. The loud noise echoed through the library and I shook her shoulder roughly to get her to stop, but she was laughing so hard that tears had started to form in the corners of her eyes.

I heard a furious shushing from behind me, turning partway to see the head of a librarian poking from where the stacks ended in the aisle. Thankfully, my back being to her, she was unable to see my state of quasi-undress. The librarian’s icy glare seemed to get through to Daisy at least, and she quieted down. I smiled, hopefully apologetically. It seemed to be good enough, as we were left alone once more.

As soon as the librarian had left, I started to zip up my pants again, but Daisy stopped me and stared intently at the lyre marking for a moment before indicating for me to continue.

“Oh my god, you have a cutie mark,” she finally said. “Why do you have a cutie mark? Have you been a secret brony and holding out on me all this time? Why a background pony though? I mean, sure, I guess the music thing makes sense but why not Mane 6? Obviously Pinkie Pie is best pony, but Twilight would work, or maybe Rarity if you’re not worried about it being too girly, but if you were worried about it being girly why the hell did you get a cutie mark?”

My mouth hung open for a moment at the nonsense that seemed to be spilling from hers. I finally managed to get in a response. “...What.”

Her eyes were intense and the grin on her face had stretched worryingly wide. “I suppose that explains the hair though.”

“...What?” I said again. Out of reflex, one of my hands reached up to my head.

I felt soft hair. A lot of soft hair. A whole lot more than I had any reason to have.

“WHAT!” I shouted.

Behind me I heard a cough as the librarian reappeared. “Ladies, if you insist on being disruptive I will have to ask you to leave.”

I turned in my chair halfway and tried to look penitent, as Daisy mouthed a “sorry”. The librarian frowned and left us again.

Daisy snickered. “Ladies.”

I paused, rewinding my brain thirty seconds. Is that what she had said? Wait, it totally was. Did this hairstyle make me look like a girl?

I reached up and cautiously ran my hands through my new hair, as if it would bite me. It stuck out pretty far in the front and I pulled some strands down in front of my eyes. It was... a very pale blueish green? Not any normal shade.

It must be a wig, then. I reached up and tugged hard, hard enough to really really hurt. So. Not a wig.

Daisy’s expression was awestruck. “How did you even get your hair to look like, uh, that?”

“What? You’re the one who did it!”

She looked offended. “Why would I do something like this to you?” I didn’t even bother responding. “OK. Wait, nevermind. Why would I do something like this to you without videotaping your reaction for YouTube?”

That... actually was a fair point. “Well, who would?”

She shrugged. “I doubt you did it yourself. You were totally down for the count when I brought you home, and I guess you wouldn’t even know enough match the mane to the mark.”

“Huh?” I said, but she ignored my interjection.

“Someone could have broken in after I left you conked out in your living room and dragged you out for a midnight makeover, but that’s a lot of work for a prank.” She was still staring at me with a half-smile on her face, torn between taking things seriously and just being amused at my predicament.

I was still subconsciously running my fingers through my hair. It was fairly short on the sides, but long in the back. Oh god I had a mullet, didn’t I? The front drifted forward lazily, longer than it should be as well, but apparently willing to naturally stay up and out of my eyes.

Had it been like this all day? Surely I would have noticed it in the mirror this morning, but there was no other time the entire day that someone could have messed with me without my knowledge.

“Earth to Tyler,” she said, causing me to guiltily stop playing with my hair.

“Er, right,” I said. “So, who would I know who'd have a grudge against me? To the point that they'd seek revenge in such a ridiculous way?”

I rubbed my chin, musing, but nothing came to mind. Sure, I interacted with other people at school, the lab, whatever, but I couldn’t think of anyone that had made a big impression on me lately, either positive or negative. Certainly not anyone who would have reason to do... all this.

“It just doesn’t make any sense!” I blurted out in a frustrated grumble. My hands inched their way back up, scratching at my head as I puzzled over the meaning behind everything. My hair just felt so soft. It was distracting, like a scab I couldn’t help but pick at.

“Well,” Daisy said, “if I know anything about ridiculous schemes, it’s that you don’t just set something crazy up and then not follow through. Have you noticed anyone suspicious? Someone following you or watching you?”

More sound advice. Whoever was playing this joke on me would want to see the fruits of their labor, meaning they would have to potentially expose themselves. I ran through the day in my head, but nothing sketchy came to mind. But then again, I hadn’t necessarily been on the lookout for suspicious activity.

“Not that I can think of,” I said. “This has just been completely exhausting.” I sighed softly. “Maybe I should just head home and get some rest. Whoever did this will probably want to claim credit. Eventually.”

Daisy punched me softly in the shoulder. “Hang in there, Ty. Plus, the hair is kinda cute. In a girly way.” She winked at me and I rolled my eyes.

I stood and peeked around the corner of the bookcases, hoping to catch some lurking prankster spy, but the aisle was deserted. Daisy had already slouched back in her chair and retrieved her sunglasses, ready for another “study session”.

In fact, the whole library was empty as far as I could tell, other than the still-unhappy librarian. Guess my mystery nemesis wasn’t going to be easy to catch.

The whole way back to my place was equally uneventful. I stopped in at a burger place, hanging around way too long in a seat in the very back so that I could observe every person to come in. But no one seemed out of the ordinary, except for a few curious looks at my flashy hairstyle.

Also, the worst burger I had ever tasted. I made do with the fries, but I wasn't going back there any time soon.

By the time I arrived at home, it was late afternoon, the sun starting to slink down towards the horizon. I trudged up the steps, but upon entering the hallway outside of my apartment a strange sight caused me to stop.

There, on the ground directly opposite my door, was a girl. She was sitting next to a white plastic bag, with her knees pulled up to her chest and her face down, meaning all I could see was her hair. And it made my crazy ‘do look tame in comparison.

It was pink. And also blue. The colors split neatly down a vertical line across the top of her head, every colored strand seemingly in place. Her bangs were broad sweeping curls, one of each shade, and the back was long, also ending in a large swirl. The colors were a bright pink and a deep blue, both more vivid than any dye job I had ever seen.

“Uh. Hi?” I said, mystified.

At that, the girl looked up and leapt to her feet. She advanced on my position.

“What. Did. You. Do to me?” The harshly punctuated question came out in a hoarse growl.

I just stared. At first my brain focused on the little things, like her balled fists and gritted teeth, or the way she was stalking towards me on her toes in a fundamentally offputting manner. And then it noted her jaw quivering and her rapid blinking, indicating that behind the mask of anger, she was actually... scared. And then I saw her eyes directly.

I knew that face all too well. I had stolen enough sidelong glances in recent days to be completely infatuated with nearly every inch of it.

But those eyes, those eyes were wrong.

Brooke’s eyes were not supposed to be sky blue.