Chapter 2: Carpooling
The light inside the car had finally reached its climax and blinded the entire cabin. Lyra could hear the car beginning to rev up and the ride smoothing itself out
Was the car FLOATING? Had she somehow driven off a CLIFF? She couldn't bring her eyes to look at such an intense light.
The sensation continued for what felt like the longest few seconds of her life, however, ALL of Lyra's attention was being occupied by the feeling of the hand on her shoulder.
Before she knew it, the hand was gone. As soon as it was, the light began to dim until it finally became a warm light. It was no longer the bright scalding white of before.
With her eyes still shut, she started to feel the car rumble.
Was the car back on the road? No. This rumbling was MUCH too consistent to be natural. Bricks maybe. A cobblestone road.
Lyra struggled to open her eyes, which before closing them were still used to the darkness of the night.
Her vision, while blurry, started to come back through. Looking ahead, Lyra began to see an area that was well-lit. She could also hear voices, as if she was standing in a crowd. As her sight cleared up further, what appeared to be a horse's carriage could be made out. She was approaching it VERY quickly.
Lyra: Wh-wha- AHHHHH!!!
Lyra slammed the brakes with all she could and jerked the wheel.
Narrowly avoiding totaling her car, she instead careened into a stack of wooden barrels and crates, shattering and destroying MANY before the brakes finally put an end to the car's destructive slide.
?: My inventory! Oh, this cannot be!
What? Crates? Barrels? Inventory?, Lyra thought, analyzing the situation. Her eyes darted around as she tried to understand what just happened.
Lyra: Is.. is it day time?
Lyra rolled down her window and looked up at the sky. It was slightly cloudy, but otherwise a bright, sunny day.
An older woman came running from the other side of the carriage that Lyra saw just moments before her crash.
Woman: Oh dear! It's ALL ruined! That metal box must have come flying off of one of the passing ground dragon carriages!
A rather rotund man, wearing a black apron and scruffy clothes made his way around the same way the woman had come from.
Man: None of that matters now! Come, honey, we need to find whatever blithering idiot of a carriage driver lost their load and DEMAND compensation for their failure to secure their product!
Woman: Oh, but some of THIS might be salvageable—!
Man: We don't have time! Quickly! We must find whoever is responsible for this!
And with that, the two departed into the busy avenue of bustling carriage traffic.
Lyra: Do... do they not realize that I'M the one who crashed here? It's like they didn't even recognize that this is a car or somethi—
Wait a minute…, Lyra thought. Ground dragons? DRAGONS?
Lyra opened her front car door, got out, and observed the damage. Thankfully, the only damage that was noticeable was that her car was left with a few scrapes.
But after she saw, she heard.
City sounds. The sounds of the mid-day hustle and bustle of an urban area. She turned to see what was behind her car.
Before her was a wide street, filled with many carriages. However...
Those weren't HORSES pulling them, but rather, large beasts. Lizards? No, dragons. The woman's voice echoed in her head. "Ground dragons", she had said.
Lyra couldn't believe her eyes. ACTUAL dragons! Some on two legs, some on four. Some blue, or green, or a display of many OTHER colors.
Her attention turned to the many passersby walking around, through, and some even scavenging the wreckage.
They all wore elaborate clothes, robes, cloth and hats. It was very fantasy-like, very...isekai.
Lyra: Whoa... what is this place? It's like I've been summoned to another world or something! This...this is so awesome!!
Lyra's attention was then drawn to the buildings with their architecture, the stone pavement of the roads, and finally, the squeak of something on the other side of her car.
She walked around only to witness some street urchins trying to take the mirror off of her passenger door.
Lyra: Hey, you! Could you PLEASE stop messing with that? It's mine!
The urchin dropped his hands to his side
Urchin: B-b-but I found it first!
Lyra: Yeah, well believe it or not, I PAID for it with MY OWN money, so therefore, it belongs to ME! Now, KINDLY get lost!
Lyra turned around to see a small crowd gathering to look at her car.
"What in the world is that?"
"I've never seen anything like it."
"What do you suppose it does?"
Lyra: When did YOU all get here?!
Lyra began to look like a deer in headlights. The only thing occupying her mind was that not all of the people surrounding her car now were human. She observed all sorts of demi-humans mixed among the humans in the crowd. What FINALLY shook her from her trance, however, was that some of the onlookers were brave enough to begin touching the car now.
"It's so smooth AND cold!"
"Is that WHOLE thing made of metal? It must weigh as much as a ground dragon!"
"The paint is so shiny that I can SEE MYSELF in it!"
Truthfully, it was NOT that shiny of paint. However, these people had never seen clear-coated paint before.
Lyra circled around the front of the car, got into the driver seat, and fired it up.
"Oh it roared!" , a young woman said as the crowd took a collective half-step back.
"Look, papa! It lights up! Wow!", a child remarked as Lyra put the car into reverse and turned on the headlights.
She started to back up while the crowd stayed still.
Lyra rolled down her window.
Lyra: Excuse me, people, I have to move. Please let me through.
The crowd stayed still, memorized by what they were seeing.
"It moves! Do you think she CONTROLS it?"
"Oh look, smoke! Do you think she's got a fireplace inside it?"
Lyra, desperate to have the crowd move out of the way for her so that she could move her car, honked the car's horn. This startled the crowd enough to where they opened a hole big enough for her to safely back out of.
With the car rolling down the side of the road, she was now faced with pedestrian traffic. Even in strange worlds, proper traffic etiquette would include NOT operating a car on the sidewalk. Nonetheless, Lyra was struggling to get her car onto the busy city road.
Lyra: Come on… PLEASE let me merge…
Lyra, begged for a gap in traffic with her blinker on, not that it made any difference due to the fact that people in this world had no clue what the blinking yellow light was meant to signal..
In the confusion of her attempt to merge into the oncoming ground dragon convoy, Lyra had failed to pay attention to what was in front of her and subsequently hit something, or rather, someONE, with a 'thunk'.
Lyra slammed the brakes and looked at the person who had come to inadvertently sit upon her hood. Thankfully, it was a very slow bump, just faster than the person's oblivious walking speed. But why had this person NOT noticed the very-foreign sound of the car?
The person jumped off the hood and spun around.
Lyra held her right hand up in surrender and used her left to roll down the window in an attempt to voice her apology, but no sooner than when the person turned around did things get even MORE confusing.
Lyra: Uh...hey...sorry about that. You haven't been hurt anywhere from that just now, right?
The person turned around. Upon Lyra and this person seeing each other, they INSTANTLY realized that they were BOTH wayward travelers.
The person was a boy, around maybe sixteen to eighteen years in age from the look of things. But what made him stand out from everyone ELSE in this town was his black and white with orange accent-colored tracksuit. However, what DEFINITELY sold his foreign image was the partially-full plastic convenience store bag that he held in his hands.
The boy stared back at Lyra and her car.
What is THAT doing here? I never saw this the LAST two times…. The boy thought.
He walked to Lyra's window. Lyra and the boy only stared awkwardly at each other, trying to size up the situation and assess friend or foe.
Boy: O-oh no. I'm not hurt. I'm fine! No need for you to apologize! Wait...
Lyra: …that outfit...
Boy: …and that car...
Finally,they both spoke at once.
Boy/Lyra You're from—
Lyra: Earth, right?
Boy: Yeah. Twenty-first century?
Lyra: Yep! Don't let the old car fool you!
The boy smiled at the remark.
Boy: Ha! It looks like it came straight out of some decades-old undercover cop daytime TV show!
Lyra: I'll take that as a compliment.
Boy: You betcha!
Speaking as if he'd found a new friend to sit next to during lunch, the boy finished his statement with a thumbs up in Lyra's face.
Another brief silence of awkwardness took over them both.
Lyra: So …uhh… birds of a feather?
She said while pointing with her thumb behind her, in a gesture of inviting him into the car, as logic would dictate they should probably both stick together in this strange world.
Boy: Fly together? Yeah!
The boy walked over to the other side while the crowd from before was closing in behind them.
Lyra reached across the inside of the car to unlock the passenger door right before being besieged for a SECOND time.
The boy sat as stiff as a board in the passenger seat, bag between his legs.
Trying to juggle the tasks of keeping the conversation going along with taking the opportunity she saw to merge into the traffic of the road, Lyra asked her guest a question.
Lyra: So, where are you from?
Boy: Japan.
Lyra: Oh, nice! I'm from America!
Boy: Well, at least you seem to know of my homeland's existence. Uhh…what's your name by the way?
Lyra: Lyra Anderson. Feel free to just call me Lyra, though, of course. Nice to meet you!
Lyra extended her right hand for a shake. Her eyes were still on the road ahead as she concentrated on not hitting any dragons or being hit herself.
Boy: Oh, like the constellation Lyra? That's so cool!!
Subaru spoke up upon seeing Lyra's outstretched hand.
Boy: Uhh...I'm typically kinda awkward with giving handshakes to girls, but you seem nice enough, so...
The boy hesitated for a moment, and then slapped Lyra's hand enthusiastically and shook it back.
Subaru: Subaru! Natsuki Subaru. Nice to meet you, too!
Lyra: Subaru? Like the car company or the star clust—?
Subaru: There! See that blonde girl running on top of the carriages?! Follow HER
Subaru cut off Lyra with his exclamation.
Lyra: Uhh… sure! Is she a friend of yours?
Subaru: In a way.
He closed his eyes and lowered his head.
Subaru: She's got something that I need to get a hold of.
Lyra: Fair enough. Well, then, let's follow her!
However, a car is not the best mode of transport in a city congested with ground dragons. Between being cut off from the carriage drivers not seeing the low profile of the car and spooking ground dragons with a foreign-sounding- and-smelling moving metal box, they quickly lost track of the blonde girl. Lyra was informed by Subaru that her name was Felt. After nearly an HOUR of trying to follow the carriage-top runner, they had fully lost track of her.
With a sense of defeat, they turned onto a much-less occupied avenue and parked to reconvene.
After an awkward silence where neither of them really knew the right thing to say to one another given their own knowledge of the world, Lyra eventually piped up with a comment.
Lyra: So, I guess you could say that we're not in Kansas anymore.
Subaru: Yeah... and with no yellow brick road to follow...
Subaru rested his elbow on the arm-rest and pressed his fist to his face as he looked out the passenger window.
After a few MORE moments of silence, Subaru chose to speak first this time.
Subaru: May I ask how you got here? To this world, I mean? Have you BEEN here very long?
Lyra: Maybe only about, hmmmm, a few minutes before I ran into you?
Lyra replied with an air of thought as she tilted her head up and outward around them. She crossed her arms.
Lyra:How long have YOU been here? You seem to know a good amount more about this place than I do…
Lyra turned to face Subaru with a seriously-puzzled look on her face
Lyra: …not to mention...you ALREADY know this acrobat-thief girl...but from the looks of it...
Lyra looked down at the plastic bag on the floor, which had some of some sort of potato product along with a cup of what she assumed was soup or ramen inside of it.
Lyra: …you just got back from a convenience store.
She somberly finished her own sentence.
Subaru gave her a puzzled look of his own.
Subaru: Well…I was hungry after a long day of gaming in the dark.
Subaru replied as he crossed his arms and held his head up. He leaned back away from Lyra and pointed his finger in Lyra's face.
Subaru: Wait! What does THAT have to do with anything!?
Lyra: Because—
Lyra reached towards the backseat behind her seat and pulled a bag of her own up to the front, filled with the food which she had ALSO just bought.
Lyra: —so did I.
Subaru stared at his bag and frowned.
Subaru: Did you start to feel dizzy or tired just a few moments before—
Lyra: Before the white light showed up? Yes. Although…I AM only running on a few hours of rest…and I HAVE been up for nearly TWENTY HOURS now…
Lyra turned away and grabbed the steering wheel as she stared a thousand-yard stare out the windshield.
Lyra: Just..driving.. Nothing but non-stop driving.
Lyra snapped herself out of it and turned to look at Subaru once again.
Lyra: Did you also see... her?
Subaru was silent for a moment before responding.
Subaru: Silver hair?
Lyra nodded.
Lyra: …and deep purple eyes? Almost like amethysts?
Subaru: Yep.
He said while putting a hand to his chin and nodding, eyes closed.
Subaru: …and the cutest, most-angelic face and attitude you've ever SEEN, right!?
Subaru responded with twinkles in his eyes and rubbed his hands against his face.
Subaru: …just the way her kind caring attitude can sway your soul and—
Lyra: —Uhh… I was GOING to say "overtly malevolent aura" and "speech pattern like a broken record."
Subaru: Hmm...I've gotta say… I think we're talking about two COMPLETELY different people here..
Subaru answered as he put a hand back to his chin.
Lyra: Yeah…probably...
Subaru: Wait! If you've only been in this world for mere moments before running into ME…between that time and your arrival… when did you meet HER?
Lyra: I met her just about right before I left the old world.
Subaru: What? Where was she?
Lyra pointed to the rear seat behind Subaru with her thumb.
Lyra: Just back there. She started showing up in my mirror and asking me over and over again if I could "help her beloved" or something.
Subaru: Doesn't sound like the same girl that I met after I got here…
Lyra: Well, now what?
Subaru: We're going to have to drive to the slums near the edge of the Capitol and ask around to see where Felt lives. I have a good idea of where she lives, so I can guide us in the right direction.
Lyra: Got it! Thanks!
Lyra put the car back in drive and headed back onto the main avenue on Subaru's direction.
He knows all this from not being here much longer then I have AND he also dodged my question from earlier about THAT, as well. Lyra thought.
About halfway to their destination, Lyra's unanswered question had finally bugged her enough. The hesitation she felt of re-asking had been overpowered by curiosity.
Lyra: So…we got a little off-track there…and I was …uhh…still wondering… just exactly HOW long did you say you've been here?
Subaru hesitated to answer.
Do I tell her the TRUTH? I can tell she's ALREADY feeling skeptical at best by now. Can I trust her? Should I be honest based on just THIS loop? That wouldn't TECHNICALLY be a lie. Subaru thought.
Subaru:Uhh...about a few more hours than you, I would guess...
Subaru cast his gaze out of the window while answering.
Lyra: Bullshit.
Subaru: -hk!
Lyra: How do you meet this silver haired chick, get robbed by this Felt girl, and then learn roughly where she lives all in the course of just a FEW HOURS?
Subaru: Well…you see… it's like this.
Subaru proceeded to tell Lyra of all the things that he had at least encountered at least for this loop. He told Lyra about the silver-haired girl who accused him of calling her by the wrong name, how he had chased a blonde thief girl because she stole an insignia from the silver-haired girl, and his near-death experience with thugs in an alley along with how he was saved by a knight.
Lyra: Interesting…however, that STILL doesn't explain HOW EXACTLY you know where she LIVES.
Subaru: I only have a ROUGH idea, technically…
Lyra: How'd you narrow it down to just THAT?
Subaru: Well...uhh…I ...uhhh...asked Reinhard about it and told him that she had said to "live strong". He said that's a VERY common saying in a certain area of the slums.
I'm REALLY glad I didn't bring up the loot house. I don't know HOW I could have explained THAT one. Subaru contemplated.
They continued their drive until Subaru directed Lyra into the slums.
After a while, they found a place to pull over and walk on foot. Subaru asked where a girl named Felt lived and was given directions. Driving a short distance, they came upon a dilapidated shack where Subaru AGAIN left the car to investigate while Lyra stayed to guard the car. As soon as Subaru poked his head into the shack, the SAME blonde girl came from another direction and began attacking Subaru.
Once the shack was destroyed, Subaru was trapped in the rubble and was EVENTUALLY able to FINALLY have a dialogue with the blonde girl. After Felt and Subaru came to an understanding, Subaru escorted her back to the car that Lyra was still sitting in. Lyra reached over to unlock one of the doors to the backseat area.
Subaru: Here. Just hop in back there and we'll be off.
Felt: Wait a minute. What is this thing? Are you guys kidnapping me?!
Subaru: Don't be silly! Now, get in.
Subaru practically threw her into the backseat before sitting back inside in the passenger seat.
Lyra turned to view their new fellow commuter and raised a hand to say hello and smiled to try and break any hostile intentions.
Lyra: Hello, Felt-chan! My name is Lyra! I guess we're BOTH heading the same way, so why not hitch a ride, you know?
Felt's expression softened a bit, but not before Subaru protested.
Subaru: Hey! Who's side are you on, here?! She just got through trying to lop my head off!
Lyra inched closer to Subaru and whispered close to his ear. She used a voice loud enough for Felt to hear in the backseat.
Lyra: You know, if this girl has something you need to get and you're trying to get it back in a diplomatic fashion, wouldn't it make sense to be KIND at the very least? Huh, Subaru?
Subaru stayed silent for a moment before reluctantly agreeing with Lyra. Lyra moved back farther away from him.
Subaru: *sigh* You're right…
Subaru closed his eyes, crossed his arms, and nodded.
Subaru: Felt, would you PLEASE give us directions to the loot house from here?
Subaru had said this in an almost- mocking tone which wasn't lost on Lyra but was just vague enough to not be perceived by Felt. Her expression lightened as she began to list off directions.
Felt: Well, first you need to head down to that crossroad and take a left where that tall building with the shop cover is- woah woah! Wait, how are we moving? What's that rumbling sound?!
Lyra had put the car in gear and began rolling down the empty street to the tune of Felt's directions. Subaru turned in his chair to face Felt and reassured her.
Subaru: Don't worry. This contraption will get us there faster than if we went by ground dragon!
Felt continued the entire ride speaking her navigation directions with a sense of bewilderment and tense curiosity to the situation. She also tried to slip in questions about the vessel that she was in between her instructions.
It wouldn't be long before they reached their destination.