Little Lyra and You

Chapter Nine: How Did I Get Here

Lyra snapped awake on what felt like soft shag carpeting beneath her pelt. There was a there was a soft light coming from the corner of her eye, like the light from a lamp. Whatever room she was in it reminded her of her old home back with her family. Bu the ringing of that mysterious voice was still in her ears and reminded her that she was not at home, or if it was she couldn't stay here long. There was a reason why she left her home and never looked back until now.

Lyra sat up and rubed a hoof against her head, it was then she noticed the wooden box resting on her chest. Bit she didn't have time to notice it before she noticed the bed a few feet to the right of her, which wouldn't have been a problem if there wasn't a pony resting onit. It was a skinny white mare with a curly lavender and a bright pink streak running down the center of it all. She looked familiar but Lura couldn't match the face with a name.

Lyra slowly stood up, the box clutched to her chest by one of her fore hooves and she slowly began to make her way to the door. She had practiced moving silently at night when she was just a filly and it seemed that she hadn't lost her touch. Bit it was just as she reached the door that everything went bad.

She wrapped her hoof Round the door knob and the door swing open, but it wasn't her who had opened it. On the other side of the door stood a wide eyed changeling with a deep red shell adorning his back.

"Who in Celestia's name are you and why are you in my bedroom?" The changeling said reading to his right with a single wing. Lura heard the distinctive hiss of metal scraping on metal and in an second there was a polished steel sword pressed against her throat.

"Kuray, is that you dear?" The mare said from the bed. She lifted her head from the pillow and yelped when she saw Lyra. She crossed her hind legs to hide her personal areas and drew them close to herself.

"Don't worry sweetheart, it's all going to be okay." Kuru said pressing then blade a little harder against her neck. Lyra instinctively threw her free forenoon up while moving her head back to knock the blade back, but the changeling was expecting this. He expertly controlled his wing as he steadied the blade, brought the handle around and slammed the pommel into Lyra's skull.

The blow sent her reeling and she dropped the box in the process. It hit the ground and the lid flipped open on the hinge and something metal clattered out and onto the floor. Lyra recognized it instantly and dove for it. She felt her hooves connect with the metal and she institivly wrapped her hooves around the grips and put the tip of her hoof into the trigger guard.

Writhing seconds Kuray found himself on the unhappy end of a .45 mm Colt model M1911. Being a veteran of the changeling army he learned these things.

"Now take it easy with that thing." Kuray said. He lowered the blade slowly and folded his wing calmly though there was fury in his eyes. Lyra turned to the mare who had curled herself into a ball on the bed but kept the gun trained on the changeling.

"Get over here with your colt friend." Lyra said. The mare uncurled herself and rolled off of the bed. She walked unsteadily over to the changeling, fear showed in her eyes. Lyra retrieved the scabbard from behind the door that the changeling and slid the sword into it and strapped it onto her back. Lyra picked back up the box and tucked it into the crook of her forehoof and pressed it into her chest.

"Please, leave my home." Kuray said, the fury still present in his eyes but his tone had leveled out. Lura checked to make sure nothing else had fallen out of the box and began to back towards a window. The used her magic and opened it up without taking her eyes off of the angry changeling. Immediately a cold wind blew into the wind making her shiver. Lyra looked out of the window quickly and saw fresh snow falling from the sky, and in the instance that she looked out of the window the changeling charged her. Lyra had little time to react. She quickly squeezed the trigger of the hoof gun and a bullet loud bang tore through the already tense air. A single billet tore through the air and collided with the changeling's shoulder and flew out of his back and colliding with the wall behind his girlfriend and spattering her with blood. The changeling tripped but his momentum carried him forward and into Lyra.  The bug pony slammed into her and knocked her off balance and out the window and into the snow.

You awaken to the sound of a rusty door creak open. In the doorway stands a tall pony silhouetted against the weak light from the hallway of wherever you and your compadre in chains are locked up. The two of you were still strapped to the walls. You had struggled for a good hour or two against the clasps but they held fast and the only thing you had to show for your efforts were cut wrists and a this trail of dried blood running up the length of your right foreleg.

"Waley wakey!" The pony hissed banging what sounded like a metal pipe against the stone walls. The pony next to you snapped awak and began to thrash about. The silhouetted pony stopped banging the pipe and trotted over next to the other pony. You hear something whip through the air and connect with a torso with a stomach churning thud followed closely by a sharp cry of pain.

"Do you not appreciate my hospitality princess?" Princess, could that be Luna? The silhouette said as the scream died down. "Do you want to go home?" The pony asks. a muffled grunt comes from the pony chained to the wall followed by another blow from the pipe and a muffled scream.

"We'll too bad. I'm going to make sure you know the pain of being locked away for a thousand years. I'm going to make sure you know exactly how I felt for those thousand years I was locked away from my kingdom." The pony said.

"Luna, I'm going to get us out of he-" you began but were cutoff by a swift blow from the pipe to the ribs. Pain spread up your side and you let out a cry, half of surprise and half of pain. But the scream is cut off when the silhouette clamps your mouth shut.

"The more you scream the more I hurt you and the princess." The dark pony said taking his hoof hoof of your mouth. He takes the pipe and jabs you in the stomach with the tapered end off it. A sharp pain spreads up your body. Your body goes rigid but you stay completely silent through it all.

The honeysuckle bush Lyra landed in didn't do much to cushion her fall, but It did succeed in making her smell like a cheap candle. But there wasn't really anytime to worry about that. Most likely the guards or somepony else had heard the gunshot and were rushing over.

She glanced down at the box in her hoof and wondered to herself what else it had inside. As a matter of fact, how had she gotten it and why had she woken up in some random ponies' home. She remembered the voice asking her to do something in exchange for something else but what those two something's were she had no idea, or simply couldn't remember.

She considered opening the box right now to see its contense so she could find out what the hell she was doing here but the thundering sounds of hooves on the cobblestone streets snapped her attention back to the present. She closed he eyes and focused all of her energy into her horn. She felt the tip of it heat up as she initiated the spell and she disappeared with a bright flash of light. Even though she didn't know wherein needed to go, she knew where she could stay safe enough to figure that out and with the guards that would no doubt be searching for her safe places would be few and far between, but there was one place she knew, one place everypony else feared, the Everfree Forest.