Inside Lyra Heartstrings

She strums her last chord and there’s a shuffle of clapping among the café. The pony leans towards the microphone to speak.

“You may have heard that one before. Never gets old and it never gets new. It’s a folk song.”

A few ponies in the café laugh to appreciate her joke. The turquoise unicorn on the small stage wipes her lush cyan mane out her eyes and straps a lyre to her back. She steps off the stage. The pony rambled over to a table. An older pony with a moustache is sitting there. He smiles smugly and greets her as she sits down.

“You were a real mess last night," laughed the pony at the table.

"Yeah, sorry about that. Got a little carried," she replied

"A little? Heh, well anyway nice job up there on stage. Reading your song on paper I thought it sounded like a pile of garbage, but after actually hearing you sing it, it sounded pretty damn fine. Your usual smooth tinge of folk."

“Since when do you know anything about music Pappi?”

“I gotta I know plenty about music Lyra, I run the damn joint! I gotta pick fresh talent to play during lunch hour. I can’t just go hiring any loon with an instrument like you, speaking of which here’s your bits for playing tonight,” Pappi hands Lyra a small bag of bits.

“Thanks. As long as you don’t try singing again Pappi I'm pretty sure the café will be pretty happy.”

“Hey! I was drunk that night, cut me some slack.”

“Some pony threw their glass of cider at you,” chuckled Lyra.

“Dumb broad, she missed and hit the bucking speaker. I swear if I see her in here again she’s gonna get what’s coming to her, great and powerful my ass,” exclaimed Pappi.

Four ponies wearing turquoise sweaters step up on stage and greets the café.

“Ah the Ponytones, these guys were dirt cheap to hire. Might be because their lead singer died in a farming accident a while ago out west. The yellow one got pretty upset when their manager brought it up,” said Pappi as he sipped a glass of cider.

Lyra focuses on the group on stage.

“I think I recognize a few of them.”

“Speaking of someone you should recognize, there’s some pony outside in a suit, says he’s a friend.”

Lyra glanced at Pappi. She gets up and walks to the door while listening to the melodic tune emanating from the Ponytones and stepped out out into the alleyway. It was the middle of the night and what was freezing. Snow laced the sides of the walls. Lyra  spotted a shadowy pony waiting for her on the other side of the dark alleyway.

“Hey. You wanted to see me?” shouted Lyra

The menacing pony starts walking towards her.

“You think you’re funny kid?” spoke the pony in a gruff, raspy voice.

“What?” Lyra replies in confusion.

“What you do?”

“What?” Lyra replies once more.

The pony headbutts Lyra in the face.

“Oh buck..” Lyra stutters as she falls back.

“Think you’re real funny shouting shit at ponies who do the same thing you do?” said the pony as he pushes Lyra to the ground and kicked her.

Lyra struggles to speak as she shuffles about on the ground in pain.

“It’s not an opera jackass it’s a bucking café..” she mumbled as she’s kicked in the gut again.

The suited pony starts walking away in an aggressive stance while remarking back to Lyra.

“Think you can just insult my wife while she’s on stage? Dumb kid. We’re out of this cesspool you can keep it,” says the mysterious pony as he signals a taxi and heads off down the street.

Lyra gets to her hooves and leans against a wall struggling to catch her breath. She checks her lyre to see if it was damaged. She sighs with relief and stumbles out of the alleyway and down the street. Holding her bleeding nose, Lyra steps into an apartment block where she clambers up the old staircase. She fumbles through the door with the surname ‘Gorfun’ written on it and walks in. Hobbling through the exquisitely furnished apartment, she stumbles into the guest room tossing her lyre aside then falling onto a creaky old bed. Yawning, Lyra shuts her eyes while wiping the last of the blood off her nose and slips into a deep slumber.

Lyra felt a gentle weight moving around on top of her. She frustratingly rubs her eyes to see a marmalade cat walking all over her. The cat starts innocently licking her face. Lyra acknowledges the cat and pushes him off the bed. She slowly gets to her hooves. Lyra pokes her head out of the guest room door.

“Hello?” said Lyra loudly.

Noticing that the Gorfuns left for work and the apartment is empty, she trots to the kitchen followed by the cat. She cracks some eggs over a frying pan and scrambles them while the cat sits eagerly expecting food. Lyra ignores him and begins eating her scrambled eggs  while wandering about the apartment. She tosses the plate aside and looks through the apartment for a record to play.

Flicking through a number of vinyl’s she encounters one that makes her hesitantly pause. She wipes the dust off the front to see a picture of herself and another pony on the front. Written on it is ‘If I Had Wings, sung by Bonbon Timlin and Lyra Davis’. Her eyes are fixed on the other pony on the cover. She sheds a small tear while placing it in the record player. A song echoes through the apartment. She hears her own voice alongside another voice. The song is left playing as she gathers her belongings from the guest room. Before she leaves, Lyra scribbles some words onto a piece of paper using her magic.

“Thanks for letting me crash here Mr and Mrs Gorfun. Sorry about the mess last night.

• Lyra”

Leaving it on the counter, Lyra  trots out the front door with Lyre in hand, not noticing the cat who is dodging in between her hooves and speeding out the door.

“No no no no no!” shouts Lyra as she tries to stop him, but he was far quicker than her.

Lyra glances at the cat and then back at the door which has shut before her. She struggles to open it, but it has locked her out. Looking back at the cat to see him moping about near the stairs, Lyra runs over and picks up the cat and puts him on her back.

She angrily paces to the elevator where an old pony who works the elevator is standing inside.

“Ground floor please,” says Lyra to the old pony.

“Certainly,” he replies giving a strange look towards Lyra and the cat.

They both wait patiently inside the elevator as it descends. The silence between the two ponies is broken though when Lyra asks the old pony for a favour.

“Hey, do mind taking care of this cat until the Gorfuns get back?

“Excuse me?” he replies with a tiresome voice.

“The cat? Can I keep him here with you until the Gorfuns get back? I locked myself out of their apartment, the cat is stuck with me.”

“Then you mind that furball, I gotta mind the elevator.”

The elevator door opens and Lyra steps out as the the old pony bids farewell. She fails to acknowledge him and leaves the apartment. Stepping out onto the street, she is greeted by a thick layer of snow and an unforgiving temperature.

She carries on down the dull street filled with busy ponies going to their destinations and carriages travelling along the roads. She received constant stares from ongoing ponies as she carried the cat atop her back. Lyra passes no heed to this unwanted attention and continued to the subway.

Keeping the cat balanced was no easy task, the creature seemed petrified of his surroundings. Lyra wasn't. The subway was filled with a near infinite slew of ponies every day, but she had grown used to the hustle and bustle of this underground world of transportation. The cat however was not so lucky. As soon as Lyra sat down on the train the cat darted down the car leaving Lyra with no choice but to chase after it.

She cared no expense to those around her as she ran through the crowded train to catch that damn cat. Knocking over some ponies coffee was the least of her concern. She grabbed the cat with her hooves and held him close as she walked back to her seat, receiving icy stares from the other ponies in the trains. They were all dressed for work in suits and fine hats. Lyra, unlike the others was not going to work, but instead she was interested in seeing an old friend, so dressing formally held no importance to her.