“So,” Bon Bon asked Lyra as the two entered their shared living room. “What do you think we should do today?”
The two had woken up rather late that day, and had spent some time lazing around, doing nothing in particular. They had lunch, made themselves presentable, and were now faced with the prospect of what to do with the rest of the day.
“Well, we’ve got pretty much the entire afternoon ahead of us,” Lyra said, pondering what to say next. “Wanna waste it just lazing around?”
“Not gonna argue with that,” Bon Bon said with a smile. It was a Sunday, and the sweet shop the earth pony ran was closed on Sundays. As Lyra was still a student of sorts, she could spend all the time in the world lazing about, in theory.
“You don’t have any big papers, or massive studies you need to be attending too?” asked Bon Bon, her smile never wavering. Lyra giggled and shook her head, then cocked it to the side.
“Well, actually... it’s more of an abstract concept that I’ve been meaning to flesh out and send to one of the professors back in Canterlot... you wanna help me out?”
“I don’t see why not.” Bon Bon trotted over to the couch, and curled up in the way ponies customarily sat. Lyra totted over, and sat in the way she had taken to sitting; on her rump, with her back legs hanging down, and her forelegs on either side of her. It made Bon Bon feel phantom pains just by looking at it.
How can she stand that? Bon Bon wondered to herself. Lyra turned her head to look at her partner.
“So, I’ve had this theory about... reincarnation,” Lyra said.
Bon Bon nodded. “Right, reincarnation... isn’t that generally accepted to be what the ‘hippies’ believe?”
Lyra smiled a knowing smile. “Aha! But I want to see if there’s a bit more to it. I talked to Twilight over at the Golden Oaks Library, and she said the theory is entirely plausible. And why wouldn’t it be? Nature runs in cycles; season cycles, water cycles... so, why wouldn’t life do the same? We will be born again!” Lyra took a short breathing pause. “Besides, new souls just can’t come from nothing... makes much more sense to reuse them. Recycling and all that.”
“That’s on the assumption we have souls,” Bon Bon said, a look of skepticism on her face.
“Oh, you silly filly,” Lyra laughed. “Everypony has a soul.”
“You can’t prove that.”
Lyra sighed. “How did I ever get stuck with such a cynical mare as yourself?” She flopped out of position and up next to Bon Bon, giving her marefriend a hug. Bon Bon grunted, but hugged the enthusiastic unicorn back.
“Anyway, I’ve been trying to get some info on acounts of ponies’ former lives— if they can remember them, that is.”
Bon Bon disengaged herself from the hug, and moved down the couch a bit. “So what, you think we’re all just souls moving from body to body or something to that effect?”
“Pretty much.” Lyra nodded.
“Well then, I have the soul of a nether-dragon,” Bon Bon said with a laugh. “In a past life I used to guard the astral meadows!” Bon Bon paused. “Only a small section of course, because they're infinitely huge.”
“You laugh,” Lyra said with a smirk, “But I know about my own past lives for certain. In a past life, I was a shrew. And before that, I was a pegasus who was blue, and before even that, a poor pony that was made into glue.”
Bon Bon let loose a loud laugh. “You do know that they never made glue out of ponies, right? Our mothers told us that to scare us, it’s an old pony’s tale!”
“Shh... do not encroach on my poetic license.” Lyra batted a bit of Bon Bon’s poofy mane affectionately.
“In any case, now I’m stuck here with you!” she said, completing the poem. "Well, everypony runs out of luck sooner or later." Bon Bon set a little soft punch into Lyra’s chest, and the minty-colored pony snorted in laughter. “Oh, you know I’m teasing.”
“Do you know anything about your past lives?” Bon Bon asked of her partner.
“As a matter of fact,” Lyra said, her eyes twinkling. “The blue pegasus: I was born about fifty years ago, I died in the late summer seventeen years ago, in a carriage crash; as a shrew I lived to the age of two, where upon I was eaten by an overzealous owl. And now I am a unicorn, living here, right in front of you!”
Bon Bon still wore the look skeptics so often do. “If you don't mind my asking, how did you come upon rediscovering your memories?”
Lyra looked around, as if hoping there was no secretly hidden stallion spying on the pair, then lowered her voice as if she were revealing a great shame. “My mother is a hippie. “
But a high-functioning, non-stoner hippie,” she added hastily. “She did some crystal meditation thing last time I was visiting her after I told her about my wanting to look into reincarnation, with the only outside influence cheap incense. Sometimes ponies resort to psychic healers 'bruteforcing' the karmic process, which actually uses negative energies. The way I did it pretty much was all natural, and karma friendly! Kept things from getting damaged.”
Lyra shifted her seating a bit, and continued to describe her experience. “And I had odd information flashes... they were not visions, but rather the feeling you get when a teacher recites passages from a textbook in a sweltering classroom just before school gets out for the summer.”
Bon Bon decided to humor her crazy lover. “Did she at least use natural incense?”
“I believe so,” responded Lyra, completely serious. “They’ve got a couple of really cool, pretty legit places up in Canterlot with imports from those places waaaaaaay out east.”
“Was there any pain though, headaches or anything? Excessive loss of energy? Sounds like that could be draining to your ‘spiritual mumbo-jumbo’ or whatever.”
“Nope,” Lyra confirmed. “Just drowsiness. I had more than just one session with her, you remember when I was back in Canterlot for a month and a half a little while back. We spent a lot of the time working on it. Multiple sessions were held, around... ten if I remember. More than a few for sure. There’s no way I could expect anything to manifest from just one session with her.”
“Okay, I guess that makes sense...” Bon Bon wasn’t sure she was entirely convinced. Still, she continued to play along, going along with Lyra’s wild ride.
“And it wasn’t a lot of recalling, keep that in mind,” Lyra clarified. “Mostly informational flashes.”
“How much do you remember of your past life as a pegasus?” Bon Bon asked, now intrigued a bit despite herself.
“Not a lot,” confessed the unicorn. “I know that I was born in Cloudsdale about fifty years ago... and that I grew up in, or at least near, Manehattan.”
“Do you remember anything like a first name or nickname? Anyway to identify who you were?” Bon Bon asked. “That could really help with your studies.”
Lyra looked a bit crestfallen.“Sadly, no.” With a sigh, she added: “Which I think might be a sign that my brain just made something up under the presence of the calm environment.” Remaining ever hopeful, she smiled a sort of sad smile. “But, I like to think otherwise.”
“No past life as one of those strange creatures you’re so intent on studying for your cryptozoology course?” Bon Bon said with a smile.
Lyra smiled back. “Afraid not.” She looked down at her hooves. “Hrm... maybe I should put this whole reincarnation study thing on the back burner for a bit. Grab some more evidence, you know?”
Bon Bon smiled, and put a foreleg around Lyra. “Hehe, who knows? Maybe I’ll end up having a sudden flash of one of my past lives, and you can use that in your paper.”
Lyra giggled, and gave her marefriend a quick kiss. “I’m gonna get a small snack to eat, you want anything?”
Bon Bon shrugged. Lyra hopped to her hooves, and trotted off to the kitchen. As she went, Bon Bon called out.
“Hey, when we... you know, um, die? Our souls go into other bodies... is there a way of finding ponies from your past lives?”
Lyra smiled back at Bon Bon. “Maybe I’ll see you in the next life, Bon Bon.”
And with that, she entered the kitchen, leaving Bon Bon confused on the couch.
