In the Footsteps of a Giant

A minty green unicorn mare marched purposefully through the bustling town square of Ponyville. The merchants were at their carts selling their wares. Foals were running around playing in their own little adventurous worlds. Even the weather pegasai were busy preparing a storm for the afternoon. Still, Lyra payed no heed to these distractions, for she was on a mission. She finally had a breakthrough in her research, and with it she knew she could get the proof she so desperately needed. With just a spell, she could decisively lay to rest all doubt the others had about her obsession, she could already imagine the look on Bon-Bon's face as she showed her the artifact, whatever it would end up being.

A bell tinkled as she entered the library, a purple unicorn mare turned and smiled at the sound, the smile only faltering slightly as she recognized her most common patron.

"Ah, Lyra, good to see you! Sorry, no new books on ancient mythology this week." Lyra didn't deflate nearly as much as Twilight expected at the bad news, however.

"That's okay, I'm here for a book on magic this time."

"Oh really? Finally taking on a new hobby?" Twilight asked, hopefully. Bon-Bon had been to the library a few times, complaining about Lyra's obsession, sometimes even blaming Twilight for being an 'enabler'.

"Nope! I found a theory that says the humans are somehow linked to this world, if it's correct, I should be able to get an artifact. Do you have any books on Sympathetic Translocation?"

"S-sympa... Lyra, that's a very advanced subject. I hope you're not thinking about trying a Translocation spell, those can be dangerous and very unpredictable!"

"Well, eventually yes, but I wanted to study the subject first. I have to get this right, and that means knowing the spell structure and theory inside and out. It could take me months, or even years of study until I'm ready."

"Well, okay, I'm glad you're expanding your horizons, and that you're going about this the right way. I'm afraid I don't have any books to loan on the subject, though. I'll have to special order some from the Manehattan library, or maybe even the Canterlot branch. If you can come back in a few weeks, I should have something for you."

"You don't have anything, not even for a friend?" Lyra dilated her pupils as far as she could and began to make her eyes water.

"D-don't look at me like that, it's not going to- look the only one I have is an advanced volume, and it's my own personal copy. I've got notes in there for problems that took me weeks to understand. It's no volume to start on, you'd barely be able to comprehend half of it!"

"Did you- are you calling me stupid? I can't believe you Twilight Sparkle! I'm one of your most faithful patrons, and here you are implying-"

"Okay! I'm sorry! It's just a really advanced book, and I don't like to lend out my personal copies. Most books I can replace, but my notes are one of a kind, and I reference them quite frequently."

"Oh, Twilight, it'll be fine, I promise! I'll be very careful with it, and if I can't understand anything I'll bring it back first thing tomorrow, okay?"

"Alright... but even if you do make some headway, I want it back in three days at the latest." Reluctantly, Twilight went to the back room of her home. A minute later, she came out with a large tome floating by her head, ensconced in a purple glow. "Take extra good care of it, it means a lot to me... okay?"

Lyra looked solemnly at her friend. "I promise, Twilight, I will let no harm come to this book." As she gently took the book from the purple mare, she wrapped it in a thin blanket and placed it into her saddlebag.

Twilight seemed to relax a bit at the extra layer of security Lyra had thoughtfully added. "Thanks, and good luck, I hope you learn something helpful!" she shouted after her friend as she walked off.

"I'm sure I'll find something, thanks Twi!" Lyra called back, no longer hiding her face splitting grin.

Lyra could hardly believe her luck, Twilight had really bought all that hooey about 'studying'! Now that she had what she needed, she couldn't wait to get home. She broke into a gallop the rest of the way, drawing a few looks from other ponies as she passed. When she arrived, Lyra quickly ran up the stairs to her room and slammed her door shut. She yanked the book out of her saddlebags and tossed the blanket it was wrapped in aside. She lay down as she opened the tome to the first page and began to read; "The Tricky Techniques to Translocation, by Starswirl the Bearded." Ominous thunder rumbled in the distance.

Several hours later, Lyra huffed in frustration; "Jeeze, and I thought teleportation was hard!" She had barely made a dent in the book, and she hardly understood half, no, less than half of what she read. "Maybe Twilight was right..." the unicorn sadly admitted. She stared out her window at the falling rain that had turned the world to grey, the gentle hiss on the roof, interspersed with occasional rumbles of thunder, calmed her nerves. She resignedly began to flip through the rest of the book, barely scanning the contents of the pages. As she neared the end, her eye caught the edges of a diagram, her ears perked up in interest. Quickly flipping back to the page, a smile grew on her face as she started to read. This was it! The spell she had been looking for!

"In exchange for one item of physical value, and one item of emotional value, an object can be retrieved from a parallel plane. The objects' size and worth are determined by the values of the original sacrificial items." Lyra began to read with increasing enthusiasm. "Anchor points must be properly established or- blah, blah, blah, I know, I know!"  Lyra retrieved a piece of chalk and began to hastily copy the diagram from the book onto her floor. She even made extra certain to encircle some permanent fixtures as anchor points, including a really heavy bookcase, just to be sure.

When she finished, the mare stepped back and gave her work one more scrutinizing look. Seeming satisfied, she went over to a nearby table and placed a mechanical eggbeater in the circle for the sacrificial items. The eggbeater had certainly seen better days, but it worked just fine, so it passed the test for physical value. It would certainly fetch a fair price, being an antique, if that was where the book placed value instead. The thing had been in her family forever, Lyras' mom gave it to her when she was old enough to cook, as her mothers mother had before and so on. This satisfied the emotional value aspect, too, but it was only one item. Still, it was made up of multiple pieces, that counted, right?

Lyra cast a sidelong glance at her namesake, sitting near her bed. The lyre was beautiful, a deep cherry wood, carefully carved and inlaid with gold the same color as her eyes; its' value was ten times that of the eggbeater. It had been a graduation gift from her grandfather, one of her last memories of him since he passed a few years ago, the emotional value was undeniable. Even so, she couldn't bear the thought of losing her lyre; what if it never came back? Lyra decided that she didn't need some fancy Human item to display, just something to prove her right was good enough. The spell called for two items, though, that much was clear. Making up her mind, the unicorn grabbed her favorite brush. As with the eggbeater, this had practical as well as sentimental value, if not as much as the other items.

Finally ready, Lyra placed the book in the proper place near the circle. The storm was now directly overhead, and the thunder was deafening, flashes of lightning illuminated the room as bright as day, yet cast strange jagged shadows as it did. Reading the instructions one last time, she began to concentrate. Ignoring the raging storm outside, her body relaxed and began to sway as she felt the magic flow through her. Involuntarily, her horn began to glow a bright minty green. Shadows danced on the walls as the chalk lines began to emit a brilliant blue light. The eggbeater began to glimmer, and soon was levitating in the air, but the brush remained planted on the ground. Seeing the inanimate brush, Lyra looked for the cause of the problem. Ah, the handle was sticking out over the edge of the circle ever so slightly. She stepped over the book towards the brush to nudge it back in...

All Chaos broke loose. A magical whirlwind swept around the room, sending paper and other small objects flying, oddly, the brush remained anchored to the floor. The book and Lyra were wrapped in the same glow as the eggbeater, and all three began to spin faster and faster. Sparks flew as magical lightning arced all around, causing space itself to distort. Suddenly, Lyra felt herself falling, not straight down, but being thrashed violently about, like a ship on a stormy sea. In the distance she caught sight of a figure, something familiar. She couldn't believe her eyes! In the middle of all this madness was a sleeping human! She was accelerating toward it at an alarming pace, thinking she would collide with the thing, she raised her hooves to protect herself. Without any warning she snapped to a halt directly before the unconscious form. She lowered her hooves to see what the delay was and her eyes widened in wonder, she slowly reached out to gently touch its face; closer her hoof got, until it barely brushed its soft skin, then a snap and all was chaos again.

Lyra awoke with a groan, her room was a mess! Papers scattered everywhere, furniture knocked over, there was even a chalk drawing on the floor! Wait... in the center of the chalk drawing... her brush! The eggbeater and book were nowhere to be seen. Oh no, Twilights' book, she'll be furious! And nothing to show for it, either. All Lyra could remember was a dream about seeing and, just briefly, touching a human; but as far as she could tell, there were no new human artifacts in her room. What had the spell even done, then? "Okay, calm down. You have three days to try and fix this..." Lyra spoke to herself.

"Fix what?" A familiar voice asked from outside her bedroom door. Oh, no, Bon-Bon!

Floating...

Floating through the stars...

Untold distances traversed as she floated. One star grew brighter, and bigger... a planet... Equiis? No... different somehow....

The vision faded... a planet... a familiar planet, yes... home.

Floatin- no, wait... not floating, falling! Faster and faster, wind whipping through her mane, tearing at her, then impact! Pain! Panic? No, floating again, safe. Pressure, cold pressure pushing against her on all sides. Calm down, take a breath...

Twilight's eyes shot open as she began to choke, her hooves thrashing in panic. All around her were bubbles... bubbles? She couldn't breathe... water... salty! Where was the surface? Light... that way! She began to swim to the surface when a heavy 'thwump' popped her eardrums and a huge figure dropped beside her, continuing down and dragging her with it in its wake. Finally pulling away, she broke the surface, coughing and retching up the seawater she had inhaled. She only had a moments respite before something very large broke the surface behind her, blowing out a cloud of water vapor before taking a deep, monstrous breath.