Lyra, Gifted Unicorn Dropout

by Halira

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Lyra, Princess Cadance, Colgate, Romance, Bon-Bon, Sunset Shimmer
Length: 6575

Learn how Lyra went from being a prodigy at the school for gifted unicorns to a regular pony in Ponyville.

Lyra Heartstrings. When she was accepted to Celestia's school for gifted unicorns many had high hopes for her. She was a skilled musician and showed promise in the little understood field of love magic. By all rights she should be either performing to an audience of thousands now or be a personal student or assistant to Princess Cadence. What she is instead doing is working a part-time job in a coffee shop in Ponyville.

Her life didn't go as expected but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Published 2017-01-17 02:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-01-28 04:41:01 UTC

Another day at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns

The sun shone through the clear open windows of the classroom window. The teacher, a old green unicorn with a very clashing hot pink mane by the equally inexplicable name of Cranberry Hubris, closed out his discussion of rare and mythical creatures with his class. The class itself, which consisted of about fifteen students all on the cusp of adulthood and all unicorns, were waking themselves from naps and gathering quill and paper to note the inevitable assignment which would be the one to make up the majority of their mid term grade. A grade most needed to do well on because most were found sleeping when called upon to answer a question due to the sleep inducing tones of the lecture and their general unwillingness to gaze more than needed on the eyesore of color that Professor Hubris had defied all genetic chance to come to be born with.

The classroom was arranged in a circular pattern around the lectern with large curved tables and benches that could seat five ponies each provided they were not particularly overweight. The odd design of the room allowed all students to be an equal distance from the professor but also made it so the professor could only see five students at a time while the other two tables were out of his sight. And with ponies like Twilight Sparkle and Moondancer both sitting at one table asking frequent questions ten of the fifteen students managed to sleep through pretty much all the class, two of the students got a lot of information, and three of the students suffered the torture of trying to appear attentive of the eyesore who somehow managed to be more torturous to listen to than to look at.

The lucky, or in this case unlucky, unicorns who shared a table with Twilight Sparkle and Moondancer were Twinkleshine, Minuette, and Lemon Hearts. This group was who Lyra Heartstrings would consider friends though she half wondered if Twilight and Moondancer should rightfully be placed in this catagory as those two rarely budged from studying and she was fairly sure both knew little to nothing about the interests or studies of the rest of the group. Lyra was thankfully the sixth pony in the group and therefore regulated to another table where she was now waking from a rather pleasant nap.

"Class," the professor spoke, " your mid term assignment which shall make up seventy-five percent of your mid term grade is to write a ten standard scroll sized report on a rare creature of your choosing that I have not covered in this class as of yet." Twinkle, Lemon, and Minuette all banged their heads on the table with frstration as Lyra and the rest let out a sigh of relief. Apparently paying attention in class reaped no rewards.

Lyra trotted over to her friends with a smirk on her face as the class dismissed. "I am so glad I took this class with all of you. I get a free nap daily and can still make a good frade!" The mirth in her voice was not remotely held back as Twinkleshine gave her a dirty look.

"Do you even know what Professor Hubris covered so far Lyra?" Twinkleshine said with some annoyance due to her wasted attentiveness. "With all the naps you get in class I doubt you know and you are likely to write on something that was already covered." The oft-put unicorn glared at her notes as she packed them away in her saddlebags.

Lyra grinned more at her friend's question "Well you girls would let me know if I started writing on something that was already covered. What are friends for?"

Lemon chimed in,"I don't know it might make us feel better if you had to guess." Lyra looked at the lemon yellow mare with some apprehension and worry wondering if Lemon was being serious. The growing look of dread made Twinkle, Lemon, and Minuette burst out laughing.

"We wouldn't do that to you Lyra," Minuette said around a laugh. "But you should have seen the look on your face! That was priceless! I wish I had room in my bag for my camera so I could have taken a picture."

Moondancer spoke up in a lecturing tone, "You shouldn't have help though. It is your fault for not paying attention. I personally found the lectures very interesting."

"You would," Lyra said while once again questioning her friendship with the bookish mare.

"Oh don't be like that!" Minuette said. "I know if you asked Twilight she would let you know everything that was covered."

With the mention of educating someone on something the lavander unicorn's head shot up out of the book and turned to her friends. Lyra knew Twilight would have no qualms telling her every single word of every lecture literally word for word. The mare may have her head in books ninety-nine percent of the time but when given the opportunity to *educate* someone she became almost manic in her obsession. Lyra pegged her as a future professor or maybe a librarian. She also had no intention of actually listening to the expanded version of every lecture she had slept through along with extra commentary and suggested reading materials for expanded research.

"Heh, that's okay Twilight," Lyra said trying to stop the barrage before it started. "Twinkleshine I am sure has all the notes I need. I wouldn't want to interupt your studies."

Twilight actually managed to look disappointed, a rare show of emotion from her other than her typical disinterest while studying and hyper active lecturing. Lyra almost felt guilty for turning down her help.....almost.

"It's time for me to get off to my personal mentor studies anyway. I don't want her to be kept waiting," Lyra said to Twilight and for good measure added, "you definitely don't want to be late for your's either do you Twilight? Princess Celestia might be disappointed if you are tarde."

The button was pushed. Twilight went from looking disappointed to a panic and quickly teleported out of the room with a large pop without even a goodbye.

"Lyra you know you shouldn't do that to Twilight," Lemon Hearts said with a shake of her head. "You know how she gets at the slightest mention of any posdible disappointment to the Princess."

"She will get over it," Lyra said with another big smile. "She likely will thank me later for making sure she wasn't tarde. Speaking of which, I have a princess that expects me to be on time to her lessons. I will catch you girls later on!"

And with that Lyra galloped out of the classroom for her own personal studies with her personal teacher, the younger princess. Cadence the Princess of Love.

How to turn a unicorn magenta

Lyra hurried out of Celestia's school for Gifted Unicorns into the streets of Canterlot. As was typical it was a sunny day. Lyra actually wished for a rainy day at least once to break the monotony. She didn't think weather teams ever scheduled Canterlot for rain and rarely for heavy cloud cover. She guessed there was no particular reason it needed to rain in Canterlot. It was built on the side of a mountain after all so there weren't any crops to grow and the constant sunshine was a steady reminder of who resided in Canterlot castle. Water came into the city via aqueducts from the surrounding countryside by some sort of magical means that some teacher likely explained to her at some point even if it didn't stick. It was fully functional as it was.

Still a little boring for Lyra's taste.

The great royal castle of Canterlot actually stretched and weaved it's way through the city like some great octopus or spider with the main body in the center with the legs looping here and there throughout the city. The legs as they were consisted of various bureaucratic wings of the castle as well as guard stations and posts. The city had not seen attack in over a generation. A changling assault on the city a few decades back was the last anyone had attempted to assault the city and she had a professor at some point who had been there for the attack. What the professor had to say about it was questionable as she was getting up there in years and there were questions of whether she was 'all there' all the time. Still guards stayed posted throughout the various battlements at all times as if there were some impending attack coming even with years of peace.

Her history professor stated that bad things usually all came suddenly in a short period of years like a cycle and they were coming up on a high probability period again based on some statistic someone had come up with. So guess you can't be too careful.

Cadence had moved into the main castle a few years before. Her sudden appearance in court one day when Celistia had announced she was adopting the young alicorn had caused a large stir everywhere in Equestria. There was a second alicorn suddenly and it completely upset some ponies mindsets of the world. There had been some sort of religious sect that was devoted to Celestia believing her a goddess that had a complete implosion due to there being a second alicorn. Most simply learned to accept the idea of there being a new alicorn others declared crazy things like Cadance was the legendary Nightmare Moon returned waiting to finish Celestia off and plunge Equestria into eternal night.

Lyra questioned the reasoning of anyone who thought the pink alicorn princess of love could be a mythical alicorn devoted to enternal night. She heard some ponies say Queen Crystalis come back again in disguise. At least she could see the reasoning in that one even if she knew the princess well enough to know that was a load of buck.

As Lyra reached the gates to the main cadtle she had to pause and wait for the guard to approve her and wave her on. She came here at least three times a week and she was pretty sure the same guards were on duty each time. Yeah it might be different guards since it was near impossible to tell the majority of them apart but you would think that being there three times a week for the past year or so would have gotten her recognized by just about every guard that had to take a shift at the front gate and she wouldn't have to go through showing her special papers allowing her access to the castle and select areas within.

After the guards once again finished inspecting her paperwork as if they had not done so at least one-hundred times before Lyra finally was granted access to the castle. Once inside it was a very quick walk to reach the love princess's quarters since she kept to the ground levels unlike her adopted aunt.

Walking up to the huge double doors that practically screamed 'important pony inside' she stopped after hearing voices from inside. Pressing her ear to the doors Lyra listened intently and heard the voice of the princess and a stallion. Lyra let out a groan as she definitely recognized the stallion's voice. Shinning Armor, Twilight's older brother, and more to the current point Cadence's latest stallion crush.

This was going to be one of 'those' study sessions. The princess did teach her during such sessions but they were extremely awkward. When it came to certain things the young alicorn had an extremely liberal view on what was considered perfectly decent. Typically these types of sessions ended with Lyra locking herself in the bathroom for the majority of the time or finding a nice corner to stare at while she tried to vsmainly plug her ears with her hooves. Princess Cadence never chidded her for doing so but she seemed to take great pleasure in her personal student's discomfort with what was going on. Lyra's enthusiasm for today's study session took a pronounced decline.

Nothing to do but get it over with. She knocked on the door to announce her arrival and waited to be allowed in. The voices paused for a moment and she heard Cadence call from within "You may enter."

Turning the door handle and opening one of the doors with her magic and Lyra hurried inside and shut the door firmly behind her. She knew what was inevitably coming and she definitely didn't want to have any ponies walking by and seeing her teacher in a compromising position. Cadence might not have any decency concerning her exploits in the bedroom and likely had little care if anypony happened upon her but Lyra could have some for her.

"Hello Lyra," Cadence said in a voice that had that content bliss that came after love making. Perhaps her teacher had already sated her appetite for such things already and this wouldn't end up being such an awkward study session after all. Lyra could only hope.

"Hello Princess," Lyra said giving Cadence a bow "Shinning armor," the second part of the greeting with a nod of her head towards the stallion. Cadence was on her bed and Shinning Armor was by the princesses nightstand getting dressed. Yep this was a good sign. The smell of sex hung in the air and the smell of sex in the air when she walked in was a great thing because it meant her teacher wasn't about to ask her to watch for educational purposes.

"Hello Lyra," Shinning Armor said with a bit of embarrassment showing in his color and tinting his voice. He at least wasn't as comfortable as Cadence with every pony knowing he was bucking the princess which earned him points in Lyra's book. He was the princess's latest stallionfriend and Lyra actually hadn't had to be present for any of the two of them going at it like the previous ones as of yet. Perhaps Cadence had not convinced him as of yet that having an audience was perfectly fine. Lyra held out hope that the stallion's resolve held firm on the issue if that was the case. If it did she hoped Cadence wouldn't get bored with him to quickly or he do anything to anger her so she wouldn't have to deal with those kinds of study sessions for a while.

"How is my little sis doing?" Shinning inquired trying to get attention away from what had clearly just transpired. Lyra smiled at this, yes princess please keep this one.

"Oh you know Twilight," Lyra replied. "Nose in a book and barely aware of the world outside of her books and the professor's lectures."

Shinning Armor laughed. "Yeah that's my sister. Princess Celestia tries hard to get her to be more social but the efforts fall flat. You'll keep trying to keep her social right? It bothers me and our parents too that she is so focused on just studying."

Lyra took on a evil grin. "Maybe I should tell her about her brother's exploits and dating life. I think that might get her to get her head out of her books for a bit."

Cadence and Lyra both giggled as Shinning Armor turned from white to a deep red. It was amazing how much a pony's fur was capable of changing color. "I think that won't be necessary." Shinning replied.

"Lyra I am proud of you!" Cadence said with some mirth still in her voice. "You were just showing some openness about talking about sex. You are normally such a prude."

Now it was Lyra's turn to turn a deep shade of red. "Just needling him princess. I don't think that I could actually go through describing what goes on here to anyone."

"Aww," Cadence lamented. "We will get through your prudish nature yet. There has to be something that works. Repeated exposure doesn't seem to do much to desensitize you so you can accept lovemaking as a natural beautiful thing." The princess set her head on her hooves in thought as she lay in her bed.

"I really need to get going," Shinning Armor said with some hurry. "Have to be on duty in about an hour and want to not get yelled at by the Captain for anything."

"Goodbye Cream Bottom," Cadence said as Lyra chortled at the nickname and Shinning Armor turned red yet again. Honestly with how often Cadence made him turn red he was going to need a new nickname at this rate. Velvet Cake perhaps? "Meet me at the theater at seven tonight promptly. After the play is done we can go meet your friends to engage in your game." Lyra really didn't want to know what game was being discussed. Some sport she hoped and nothing involving bedroom rollplay with an audience.

"Will do," Shinning said as he exited the room.

Turning her attention to her student Cadence spoke "We really do need to figure out something to make you more open to lovemaking. You are have a lot of potential in love magic and what goes on in the bedroom is just as much a part of love as the rest. Anyway first things first. Contraception spell please."

Lyra did the spell on her teacher as commanded. She really didn't mind this so much and it was fairly routine for her at this point to make sure the young princess didn't suddenly come down with foal. It wasn't love magic but it was a needed support spell for anyone who was going to be serious about learning thevends and outs of love magic. She was very well practiced at this spell at this point but proving that she had this much at least down was always something she was willing to show.

"Now that is out of the way we can turn back to the problem at hoof," Cadence said in a serious tone. "I think I am going to try pushing you a different way. I think you need to get laid."

"PRINCESS!" Lyra shouted with alarm. Making to break for the door.

"Not with me silly," Cadence laughed. "I don't really swing that way and only keep one partner at a time. Though......" the princess inspected her student with a look of deep thought. "Perhaps part of the problem has been stallions. Maybe you have been so disinterested in sex is because you would prefer two mares."

"I AM NOT A FILLYFOOLER!" Lyra said with some outrage. "The very idea of it is dirty. It is not the way things are supposed to be. Ponies are supposed to be a mare and a stallion who love each other very much and get married and have foals."

Lyra immediately regretted her words as Cadence's mood visibly darkened in a way that Lyra had never seen from the princess. Cadence spoke "Excuse me? Am I to understand that my own personal student. The first personal student I have taken. Is bigoted about the types of relationships many ponies have and should feel proud of having?" The tone had an undercurrent of contained rage.

Lyra gulped and considered her words carefully but not for too long because she did not want to leave the princess with no answer. No answer is an answer unto itself and not one that she thought her teacher would be accepting of. "It's just the way I was raised! My parents always stressed to me that ponies like that were abnormal and not properly contributing to pony society."

Cadence's mood did not seem to improve at all as she replied. "'Those types of ponies' as you put it do contribute a lot to pony society. They help adopt orphan foals giving them good homes they otherwise wouldn't have. Even when not having adopted they still lead the same lives as every other citizen of Equestria. They tend our shops, teach our foals, serve in the guard, tend our fields, and work in our universities and libraries. They are good ponies who deserve to be with who makes them feel happy and loved. Citizens who feel happy and loved are productive citizens. Do you know what happens to ponies who feel like they aren't allowed to be happy or loved? They become problems. They either get depressed or they act out or worse try to make others as miserable as they are. Letting ponies love who they want to love is not only important to them but it is important to Equestria as a whole because what comes of suppressing that love brings the entire society down. This is a fundamental to why love is so important and one that you will take note of Lyra Heartstrings!"

Lyra could only cower under the force of the angy monologue by the princess. She could not object. How can one try to contradict a princess. At this point she was desperately hoping for an out to stay in Cadence's good graces.

Cadence looked down on the cowering unicorn and decided to give her that opportunity. "We are going to address two issues at once next time we meet and I am telling you now what they are so you can mentally and emotionally get yourself prepared for them. First we are going to make you see that two ponies of the same sex having relation with one another is a perfectly natural and fine thing." Lyra nodded dumbly. "The second is you are going to actually follow through with watching consenting ponies make love with one another. I am going to find a mare couple who enjoy audience and you are going to watch every last minute of it. You will not turn your head, cover your eyes, shut your eyes, run away, or cover your ears. You will sit there and watch it and see that there is no problem with it. Otherwise you are done. Do I make myself clear!"

"Crystal," Lyra squeaked.

"Now out of this room so I can calm down. And think long and hard on what I have said. If you come to the conclusion you refuse to try to accept this then that is your choice to make. It won't be one I will allow you to continue your studies with though."

Author's Note

Sorry for the delay. Had to really consider how to deal with this chapter. Please note that these are versions of the characters years before the show. I am trying to establish who they were back then. The actual adventure part of the story should start next chapter where we meet our next primary character and a major turn in the story that will be unexpected.

Also note that no sex scenes will ever be described in any detail. Trying to keep the mature filter off it at all possible.

Three unicorns and a mirror

Lyra wandered fairly aimlessly around main castle halls. The guards kept watch on her but didn't stop her from for walking around as most of this section of castle she was allowed access to. It was getting fairly late but there was no real curfew on when ponies had to leave and she really didn't feel like going back to her dorm room.

How had she messed up this badly? Cadence was ready to end her tutelage because Lyra didn't believe fillyfooling was right. It didn't seem fair. Ponies were allowed their opinions weren't they? It wasn't like Lyra was actually capable of stopping ponies from fillyfooling she just didn't want to think about it, hear about it, and definitely not see it. She was going to have to see it though. A large part of her questioned whether Cadence's insistence on consentual voyeurism was even a healthy thing. She guessed for most ponies it would be considered really inappropriate but she was supposed to be learning about love and sex was part of that and she certainly had no sex life of her own to work with--so voyeurism with consenting ponies she guessed made some perverted sense.

Looking at scenes in stained glass windows she passed she continued to contemplate. Was she too much of a prude to be a good love magic unicorn. She had talent for it; all her professors, both princesses, and everyone else agreed. When she channeled her magic into her music playing it did things to the listeners. If there was something there between a couple, anything at all, it strengthened and fanned whatever flame of love they had. She was so proud when she got her cuttie mark years before playing her music and bringing a squabbling couple to heartfelt tears and close embrace of one another as they listened. Her music made them focus on their love for one another. And soon after ponies took notice and had her enrolled in Celestia's school. Just this past year it was decided Cadence was old enough and experienced enough with love magic that she could take a student of her own and Cadence had chosen her as her first student. Lyra had been thrilled.

Studies with Cadence had been up and down. Cadence wasn't a formally trained teacher so she had a very casual way of handling lessons. She had spent a lot of time testing Lyra on what she did with her lyre. Spent a lot of time helping Lyra learn to detect the love between ponies. Spent time teaching her support spells like the contraception spell but also spells like ones that help ponies control their anger, spells that helped ponies be able to focus more while under extreme emotion, medical spells that treat sexually transmitted disease, spells to help ease thebpain of foaling, and so much more. As of late is when it had gotten awkward with Cadence learning Lyra was a virgin and completely barren in her knowledge of sex. First the princess had tried teaching about it by book which was okay for a bit but seemed to fall short of the princess's standards. So Cadence had turned to actually trying to get Lyra to watch the princess have sex which was extremely awkward.

Overall though Lyra felt like she had been a fairly good and attentive student even if she fell a little flat on the whole sexual relations studies. Maybe she just wasn't cut out for this kind of study. Surely most ponies had to be uncomfortable with learning about sexual relations by actually observing them.

This of course was not the reason Lyra stared at her reflection in a window. This whole line of thought about whether she was cut out for being a love magic student was avoiding the fact Cadence was angry not for her failures in learning about sex but in her percieved failures in how she saw other ponies. It was a troubling line of thought. Was she a bigot? What if she grew up thinking was indeed right and her princess was just a pervert. She was tasked with considering these questions and while Lyra was not the greatest student overall in most her studies she tried to do her best for her personal mentor and her mentor wanted her to be introspective right now so here she was; questioning herself, her mentor, and what is decent and indecent.

She had to just step up and do what her mentor asked of her. She would watch these ponies make love to one another (seriously what ponies other than Princess Cadence actually enjoyed other ponies watching them do IT). She would know more of how she felt about the whole thing when it was done. It definitely wouldn't be fun though.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a strange sound in the room near her. The guard ponies in this particular section were absent either called away for some reason, changing shifts, or making rounds elsewhere. A terrible bit of security oversight for ponies so picky about checking her papers. She looked at the plaque identifying the room which identified it as simply 'Curious Collection' which was not helpful at all though she felt like it should be something that should be guarded. The security really was doing a cruddy job right now.

The sound continued and with no guards in sight Lyra decided to do something rash. She entered the room to find it was a museum of sorts with odd skeletons put together on display, strange artifacts in crystal cases, and a few other unnamable things sitting on display. It was rather easy to discover what was making the odd noise.

In the far corner stoid a mirror. It would have looked like any fancy mirror you might find in a dress shop in Canterlot or in some noble's dressing room except for the fact that thr surface of tbe mirror was glowing brightly and instead of reflecting showed a swirling vortex of every color you could imagine and a few that caused her eyes to strain to see them. Whatever this mirror was it was magical and something had activated whatever magic it possessed. Weird magical mirrors turning on suddenly was likely something she needed to inform someone about not something she should be trying to figure out herself. She had heard enough horror stories if ponies messing with magical artifacts they didn't understand to be know that much.

As she turned to leave and find a guard so someone could be informed that the mirror in the Curious Collection had somehow turned on there was a bright flash in the room followed by a large crash. Turning to see what had happened Lyra saw two unicorn mares both golden in color both with red and gold hair. One looked a few years older than the other but they had to be family with one another because they looked like.....welll mirror images of one another despite the small age difference. Sisters perhaps? The unicorns looked like they had both been ejected by the mirror which now had stopped glowing or showing a vortex instead displaying a more standard reflection.

Lyra went to aid the two but as she approached the the younger of the two started shrieking as she looked around herself. The young unicorn then looked at her hooves and started shrieking louder. Getting up and panicking she danced around on two hooves in a clumsy fashion and found herself facing the mirror. Seeing herself in the mirror she stopped cold in her tracks for a moment then promptly fainted.

"Heh. Yeah that is about how I felt when I went through the mirror to the other side."

Lyra turned to the other unicorn who had spoken. Actually paying her attention now that the younger had passed out. The older of the two was around her age perhaps a year or two older while the younger was a few years younger. So the older was somewhere between seventeen and twenty and the younger looked to be maybe thirteen or fourteen. The older of the two picked herself up to her hooves and walked to the mirror and gazed down on the younger of the two with an evil smirk.

"Sorry kiddo but can't have two Sunset Shimmers over in that world. But I'm being nice. I am leaving you here in a better world. Of course you might be getting a cold reception since I am not allowed in the castle but that is your problem not mine." The older unicorn chuckled like she had made some joke and turned back to the mirror. Lighting her horn the mirror came back to life swirling vortex and all. "Timed it just right. Less than a minute left before this thing shuts down again for thirty moons. Guess I will be seeing you again in a few years."

The unicorn then hopped in the mirror and in a few more seconds the vortex ended again showing the normal surface of a seemingly regular mirror. The mare had never even aknowledged Lyra's presence which Lyra found to be beyond rude. But the way she talked to the younger unicorn made Lyra think she really wouldn't have enjoyed the conversation much.

Lyra went over to the remaining golden unicorn and did some vasic health scans with her magic that she had learned from Cadence. There wasn't anything physically wrong with her and she seemed to be unhurt. The read on young teen mare's emotions was still a mix if shock and horror even with her passed out. Lura could only imagine that 'Sunset Shimmer' if that was the unicorn's name was having the mother of all nightmares right now.

There was a shout of alarm from the doorway. The guards had apparently finally gotten around to checking out tbis room on their patrols and had stumbled upon them. Lyra hoped this didn't look to bad with her standing her over a passed out stranger. This wasn't her fault. She was completely innocent and completely baffled by what had just occured with her shocked mind still trying to process it. She just hoped this pony was alright.

The guard called down the hallway something that caused Lyra to go from numb shock to horrified shock. " "I need all available units to the Curious Collection right away. It is Sunset Shimmer. Brings the shackles!"

SHACKLES!

Author's Note

And so the actual adventure part of the story begins.

This isn't the unicorn you are looking for

Lyra was in a bit of shock. Shackles? This mare was barely beyond being a filly what in Tartarus could she be guilty of doing that requires shackles. On top of that the strange golden unicorn seemed more terrified than anything else. The other one said something about two Sunset Shimmers there must be another Sunset Shimmer. Lyra didn't know what was going on but her instincts told her they had the wrong mare. This terrified teen could not be dangerous at least Lyra hoped so. The other unicorn who was there seemed more the dangerous type. Yeah the terror could have been that she was somewhere she would be caught but that didn't seem to be the case.

Someone had to speak up for her and Lyra was the only one to do so. She hoped she wasn't speaking up for some criminal but what little she saw made her side with the terrified golden unicorn. As the guards came through the door Lyra shout to them. "Wait! I don't think this is the pony you think she is."

The guard that had made the original shout of alarm alerting the others to this being Sunset Shimmer and to come prepared to chain her up gave Lyra a long look. "I have served in the guard for years and I will never forger who Sunset Shimmer is. I was there when she was Celestia's student. There when she was caught breaking into the restricted section of the archives. I saw Celestia order her permanently banned from the castle. And I was there when we found her again in the castle only to chase her to this very mirror which she vanished into." He point a hoof in the direction of the young mare and the mirror. "It has been a few years now but she looks exactly the same as I last saw her. That is Sunset Shimmer and she is guilty of violating Celestia's banishment from the castle twice over now and guilty of tampering with this artifact. She is going to be taken to the dungeons until Princess Celestia decides what to do with her."

"A few years and she looks exactly the same?" Lyra asked skepticly. "Look at her. If she looked this way years ago shouldn't she have aged some? She is barely beyond being a filly. If she has been gone for years then shouldn't she look a bit more adultish?" Lyra felt a little smug about her logic being something the guard couldn't argue with.

The guard dismissed the arguement as his co-patriots chained the still unconcious unicorn. "Who knows what that mirror does? Perhaps she was just held in stasis in it for a few years until it plopped her back out?"

Lyra decided to go with a full explaination of what she saw. "Wait there was another unicorn here too that went back into the mirror before you arrived. She said something about two Sunset Shimmers. She looked exactly like her but more like my age. Maybe that is the Sunset Shimmer you are talking about. Please don't punish this one for whatever the other one did." Lyra hoped again that she wasn't defending a guilty felon. "She is terrified. I felt her emotions. I am Princess Cadence's personal student I can tell what a pony is feeling and I know she is terrified. She was so terrified she passed out for Celestia's sake! And you want her to wake up in a dungeon chained up!"

The guard paused but a moment. "I am sorry but it is my duty to see that she is apprehended and held securely until the princess decides what to do with her. You may relate what you saw to the princess and you will be questioned at length about what you saw by the rest of the guard for formal record. Your opinions shall be noted as well. But for now she is headed to the dungeons and you will be relating your account to the record taker."

"Can I go down to the dungeons with her?" Lyra considered again what she just said. "Just to be outside her cell when she wakes? I tell you that she is terrified and I am really good at calming magics. You won't find any pony better at calming her down short of Princess Cadence. You can take my testimony anywhere can't you?"

The guard considered with a hoof up to his jaw in thought for a long moment and finally sighed and answered. "The record taker will not be happy about it but your request is reasonable. You will have a several unicorn guards on hand down there already due to this being Sunset Shimmer and they will assure you are doing what you say you are doing. There is nothing wrong with trying to calm the prisioner."

He gave a quick few hushed instructions to some other guards. Lyra was guessing at this point he was someone of rank. He then turned again to her and said. "Celestia is being informed of Sunset Shimmer's capture and will likely wish to see her soon. You will follow my ponies down to the dungeon where your testamony will be taken promptly. The record taker may even meet up with you on the way and start while you walk as he really doesn't like the dungeons and may rush to try to avoid the visit. You are free to use calming spells and speak with the prisioner when she wakes. You will be under constant supervision and the prisioner will have a magic suppression ring on in addition to her shackles."

"I better get going then," Lyra said as she went straight out the door to the waiting guards.

For the love of Celestia what had she just gotten herself involved in!