The Ballad of Xyclone

Deep in the Everfree Forest, early morning

That was probably one of the best night sleeps I'd ever had with Lyra there with me. Although, when I woke up the next morning, Lyra was gone. I exited our tent to see that she had made me breakfast. After eating, just like every morning, Lyra taught me another magic lesson while packing up. She once again asked me to move a stick, but this time, I struggled a bit.

"Don't worry, Xyclone, you're just having a bad morning," Lyra said to me, trying to console me when I started to get angry.

If it were anypony else, it wouldn't have worked. But Lyra actually managed to make me feel better. I just didn't quite know what it was about her voice that made it so calm and soothing. As I went to help everyone pack, I saw Rainbow Dash. Something was off about her, she looked like she was...guilty of something. I trotted up to her and asked her what was wrong. "Rainbow Dash, are you alright? You look scared, frightened."

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine, Xyclone!" she denied. "I...I just...I just had a bad dream last night, that's all."

"Are you sure? We could talk about it, if you'd like."

"Xyclone, I mean it! I'm fine!!" she snapped.

"Jeez, Rainbow! Okay! Calm down! There was no reason to yell!" I angrily trotted off.

"Xyclone, wait!" I heard Rainbow Dash call back to me. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean it like that!"

I turned back around and looked at her.

"I've just been really...stressed lately," she said sadly.

"Don't you wanna talk about it?" I repeated.

"N-No. I'm sure everything will work out fine. I'm sorry I snapped at you like that."

"It's okay, Dash. I know how it feels to be stressed, trust me." Rainbow Dash smiled meekly and I helped her roll up the tent.

Not too long later, we set off for another camp, leaving the cave behind. For most of the trip, I gazed at Lyra. She was just so beautiful, I couldn't stand it; Not to mention how nice she was. There were just so many amazing things about her, I couldn't name them all. Something else puzzled me during that trip: Twilight and Bon-Bon. Bon-Bon looked just as crazy as Twilight now. It was as if they were sisters, as if they'd teamed up or something. I shook it off. We reached the next campsite earlier than scheduled, so I decided to take a nap.

When I woke up, it was the middle of the night and everyone had gone to sleep. I decided to roast a marshmallow for a midnight snack before I went to bed. As I put a marshmallow on a stick, I thought heard something. I didn't know what it was, but it sounded like crying. After a few seconds the sound vanished. Being away from civilization is beginning to get to me, I thought to myself. I returned to staring hungrily at my marshmallow. Then, several moments later, I heard the noise again. This time I was positive I heard it. I trotted around the campsite, inspecting it to see where the crying was coming from. I eventually reached my tent. When I came around to the back of it, I couldn't believe what I saw.

There sitting behind my tent, was Lyra, sobbing softly. She sat in a pool of her own tears, revealing that she had been crying for a while. Her mane and fur were sopping wet, and her face was buried in her hooves.

"Lyra?!?!" I exclaimed.

"Wh-What?!?!" she gasped. "X-Xyclone?! W-What are you doing here?! I thought you were asleep!"

"I-I was...but then I woke up and I heard crying...WHAT IN BLAZES IS GOING ON HERE?!"

"Just-Just go!" cried Lyra. "L-Leave me alone!"

"Lyra, what's wrong? Why the hay are you crying?"

"I-I d-don't w-wanna talk about it," she quivered. "P-Please...just leave me be."

"Lyra, please tell me what's wrong; It makes me sad to see you sad." I placed my hoof on hers. She gasped at the gesture. "Lyra..." I continued. "Tell me, please. I'm your friend here. I want to know what's wrong so I can help you. Lyra..." I felt a tear flow down my cheek. It killed me inside to see her like this. "Please..."

Lyra sniffled. "O-Okay...My entire life, I've been bullied; B-Because of my obsession w-with creatures like you...humans."

"Really?" I asked.

"Y-Yes," she sniffed.

"B-But I'm not a human anymore! I'm a pony now, remember?"

"No, you're not! Inside, you're still a human!"

I didn't respond.

"Anyway, they would always call me a creep and a weirdo. They-They played countless pranks on me, p-pranks that hurt me emotionally. Eventually the bullying got too serious, I...I started cutting myself."

That statement felt like a dagger to my heart. I wanted to murder whomever hurt my darling little Lyra.

"...The-The self-inflicted abuse didn't work. The bullying j-just got worse and w-worse. I gave up cutting myself and started attempting s-s-suicide."

This time, I started to cry. I never knew this side of Lyra. I didn't know she had so much in common with me. It made me love her even more.

"Unfortunately, none of my suicide attempts worked. That's when I met Bon-Bon, one of the very few ponies who never made fun of me. She liked me for who I was, for being...different. She taught me that it was okay to stand out from everyone else. We became the best of friends, all the way to the point that when she bought a house, she asked me to move in with her and be her roommate, to which I gladly accepted. But even after that, the bullying never stopped. I continued to try and prove to everypony that humans existed and-and...!" Lyra began sobbing again. She suddenly reached over and pulled me into a tight embrace. "I'm just so glad I met you!!" she wailed. She then retreated, burying her face in her hooves again and sobbing uncontrollably.

"Oh, Lyra..." I said.

"Y-You know, S-Sometimes I still w-wonder..." she said. "I wonder...if I suddenly d-disappeared...w-would anypony miss me?"

I held up her head. "Lyra!...Lyra, look at me. You don't have to worry about that stuff anymore, okay? You have me! I'm here for you! I don't wanna go back to Earth, not when I've made friends with all you wonderful ponies! If I see anypony hurt you ever again, I'll bash their miserable little faces in! Now, I don't ever want to hear you talk to me about committing suicide ever again! Okay?"

Lyra dipped her head back down and continued to sob. "Why are you so nice?!" she bawled. "You're the nicest pony I've ever met!!"

"Oh, but I'm not a pony..." I said suavely.

Then I leaned in and kissed Lyra right on the lips.

She gasped, blushing heavily. "X-Xyclone, I..."

I moved away from her abruptly. I couldn't believe that I had just done that. "I...I-I'm sorry..." I said, embarrassed. "I've...I've k-kinda been w-wanting to do that f-for a long time..."

"D-Don't say sorry..." said Lyra, starting to smile. "I-It's not like I didn't e-enjoy it..." she blushed. "It just took me b-by s-surprise, That's all."

"D-Did I at least cheer you up?"

"I am feeling a l-little better now... Th-Thank you. It's just that sometimes everything all becomes too much, it just piles up and I just...I just break down. Bon-Bon was the only one who kept me going...b-but now we're separated..." Tears welled up in Lyra's eyes as she once again began to cry.

I held her head up to me again. "Hey, hey, come on, cheer up. I told you, the problem will work itself out. I'm positive that you two will make up eventually. And also like I said, you have me now. I won't ever let anything bad happen to you. I know how you feel."

"W-What do you mean?" she sniffled.

"I was bullied when I was younger, too."

Lyra sniffed again. "You were?"

"Yes. I was bullied for having a girly name: Skyler. I was bullied for how I looked, how I spoke, everything. I was even bullied for liking you ponies. Just like you, the bullying got to the point where I tried killing myself too. But eventually, with the help of my horrible family and time, everyone stopped bothering me and I got over it."

"That's another thing that puzzled me," said Lyra.

"What?"

"You never told me about your family; about this Veloci character!"

"Oh..." I said awkwardly. "Yeah. Well, firstly, there's my father. He used to be an inventor. He created some crazy contraptions, but probably his best/worst one was a dysfunctional time machine. When he first used it, he went back to prehistoric times, the age of the dinosaurs."

"I've heard of dinosaurs. They came up quite a bit in my intense study of humans."

"Anyway, while he was there, he found an immensely intelligent velociraptor; so intelligent that he actually had the ability to speak. My father brought him back to present times and introduced him to me and my older brother Devon."

"Tell me more about Devon."

"I'm getting to it; calm down! We named the velociraptor Veloci, because we have absolutely no creativity whatsoever. Veloci shocked all of us with his unfathomably high metabolism. He was hungry all the time! My father would go back in time and capture other dinosaurs for Veloci to eat. But here's the kicker: Veloci wouldn't rip his prey to sheds like normal dinosaurs."

"He wouldn't? Well, then, h-how'd he eat?"

"He devoured his prey whole...like, I mean, he'd literally open his jaws insanely wide and completely swallow his prey whole and alive."

"W-Wouldn't that hurt?"

"Didn't seem to harm him any. In fact, he seemed to enjoy doing it. It never ceased to creep me out."

"Now can you please tell me about your brother? I'm curious!"

"Fine! Okay! Jeez, you're pushy!" Lyra smiled girlishly. "But how could I ever say no to that beautiful face?" I bit my tongue as we both blushed again. Clearing my throat, I continued my back-story. "Okay, my brother Devon. He was your typical jock; He loved football and video games. He wasn't very smart, although he was unusually technologically savvy."

"Ah, I see."

"Now can I finish my story?!"

Lyra giggled. "Sure!"

"Okay! Now, where was I? Oh, yeah! Veloci had some...considerably strange eating habits. He and my father soon became really good friends. And, as crazy as it sounds, Veloci became really good friends with me and Devon. Now, at the time, I was only about 9 years old, so I thought this was the coolest thing in the world. Veloci was awesome; He was the best friend anyone could ever have, he...he was the only friend I ever had..." I looked at Lyra. "...Until I met you." She blushed. "We let Veloci live with us, hiding him in my father's laboratory. He lived with us for so long, he started to act just like a human. He often helped us on adventures into the past with the time machine."

"Ad-Adventures?" Lyra questioned.

"W-Well, because of the sheer unpredictability of the time machine, my father was almost always put in danger, and me, Devon, and Veloci had to go in and rescue him..." I sighed nostalgically. "Ah, those were good times..." I sat in silence for a few moments, until Lyra spoke up.

"S-So...w-what happened?"

"What do you mean?"

"What happened to everyone? Your father, Devon, Veloci?"

"Oh. Well, one day, we had a serious malfunction with the time machine..."

"S-Serious malfunction?"

"You know, I really wish you'd stop interrupting me," I joked.

Lyra giggled again. "Sorry!"

"Anyway, Veloci was standing partly into the time machine. He was going to help my father perform some experiments in the Mesozoic Era. We don't know what or how it had happened, but sparks began flying from the controls of the time machine. The portal where Veloci was standing began to warp and ripple. All we heard..." I started getting choked up again. "A-All we heard was Veloci's blood-curdling cries of excruciating pain as he was slowly vaporized into thin air. The time machine then shattered into pieces."

"O-Oh, my..." said Lyra.

"We were in denial at first; we thought Veloci had just been trapped in prehistoric times. My father fixed the time machine and searched for the next two years for Veloci, but he never found him. We concluded that the only explanation was that Veloci was...d-d-dead."

Lyra saw that I was crying and reached over to comfort me. "I'm...I'm so sorry," she said comfortingly.

"It's fine; there was nothing you or anyone else could've done," I sniffled. "Anyway, after he gave up on looking for Veloci, he returned to improving the time machine once and for all. He said it's what Veloci would've wanted. He eventually did perfect it, and got quite a bit of recognition for it. But he soon let the power go to his head. He became a jerk, and he started ignoring me and Devon. Meanwhile, Devon was having problems of his own. He slowly lost his grip on reality and went insane. He tried to convince everyone that he was friends with a talking dinosaur and everyone thought he was crazy. His psycho-babble eventually got so annoying to the point where my father had him committed. In other words, he sent him to an insane asylum. After that, my father sold his lab and we moved into an apartment complex. He gave up inventing and got a job as a college professor. He started wearing trench coats and calling himself 'The Doctor.' Over the next couple of years, my father has improved. He's no longer a jerk anymore, but he still ignores me."

"Wow," said Lyra once I finished my back-story. "Your life is so fascinating."

"Wait, you mean you actually believe me? Whenever I told people that I was friends with a dinosaur they would just laugh in my face."

"Xyclone, do you realize who you're talking to?" She smiled at me sarcastically. "Don't you remember that I'm the pony who keeps going around trying to convince other ponies that strange creatures called humans exist?"

"Oh, yeah..." I chuckled. I looked at Lyra then. She wasn't crying anymore, to which I was glad. She looked so much prettier when she was smiling. She had a look of wonder on her face. After a few moments of silence, she finally spoke up.

"Xyclone...what's it like?"

"What's what like?"

"Being a human; I've always wondered what it was like."

"Oh. Well...really, it's not that different from being a pony; except for the fact that you walk on two legs instead of four and you can actually pick up things with appendages!" I glared frustratingly at my hooves; Lyra laughed.

"Heh, not only are you nice, but you're funny too!" she said.

"Oh, go on!" I said, blushing confidently. "No, seriously, go on! I wanna hear more!" We both laughed. Then we stared at each other, the both of us smiling sweetly. "You know, Lyra, I'm really glad we met."

"Yeah, m-me too." We hugged then. "Hey, Xyclone?" she suddenly said.

"Yeah?"

"C-Can you teach me...y'know, how to be a human? I-In exchange for my magic lessons?"

"O-Of course, Lyra! Anything for you!" I started heading back to our tent when she stopped me again.

"Oh, and just one more thing..." she said, trotting over to me.

"And what is that?"

Lyra suddenly swooped in and kissed me on the cheek. "That's for cheering me up. Thank you, Xyclone. You're an amazing friend."

As Lyra entered the tent, my heart sank. She called me her "friend", I thought to myself. Oh, damn it, Xyclone, you've gone and done it now. You moved too fast.

My thoughts were interrupted by Lyra's soft voice: "Xyclone, aren't you coming?"

Damn it, damn it, damn it! I thought in my head as I entered the tent with Lyra.

Damn it.