What Dreams May Come
It was another perfect day in Equestria.
Lyra closed her eyes and took a moment to let the warm summer breeze blow through her mane. She couldn’t help but smile. The weather ponies had outdone themselves again. The passing rainstorm they had pushed through the town overnight had cleared the clammy humidity the town occasionally suffered in the heart of the summer months. She couldn’t have asked for better conditions for a day of running down a lead on what might, just might, be an artifact left behind by pre-pony settlers. An artifact that could help vindicate her “Humans in Equestria” theory. She couldn’t wait to excavate it with the help of her trusty assistant, Bon Bon.
Her trusty and slow assistant.
Bon Bon had fallen behind, preferring a slow, meandering pace through the park carrying their picnic lunch. Lyra couldn’t help but feel irritated. Didn’t she appreciate the urgency of uncovering this artifact right now? It was almost like she thought the whole expedition was just a flimsy excuse to spend an afternoon together in Ponyville Park!
Lyra tried her best to hide her irritation. She knew it had been kind of Bon Bon to agree to come along at all. She might have some frustrating moments here and there but Lyra couldn’t ask for a better roommate. They’d gotten to be so inseparable that there’d been more than a few leers and crass rumors that their relationship was even more than it was. Those pervy little rumor-mongering colts could go buck themselves, for all Lyra cared.
Lyra looked back down the path for her best friend. As she turned her head to scan behind her, she felt a small twinge of pain on one side of her neck. She made a mental note to pay a long visit that weekend to Aloe and Lotus for one of their deep tissue neck massages. If today paid off, she certainly would have earned the right to treat herself. After a moment Lyra caught sight of Bon Bon a ways back, where she had stopped to chat with Colgate.
“HEY! BON BON!” Lyra called at the top of her voice, “LET’S KUMQUAT!”
Kumquat? Why had she said that? She shook her head, suddenly feeling dizzy.
“SORRY! I MEANT WE SWIFT TO RETICULATE!”
OK, that definitely hadn’t been what she meant. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she focus, all of a sudden?
In slow motion, she felt herself beginning to lean dangerously far over to her side. She tried to reach out to brace herself, but both of her right-side legs were sluggish. Even as she concentrated as hard as she could on what should have been an effortless gesture, they hardly budged. As she toppled over she saw Bon Bon dropping the picnic basket and sprinting in her direction. The last thing she remembered was her head hitting something on the ground. Something hard.
“Lyra? Lyra, can you hear me?” said a voice Lyra couldn’t place. “Can you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yeah, I hear you.” Lyra tried to open her eyes. Even the hint of light sent a new lance of pain stabbing through her brain. She quickly squeezed them shut again. “My head... It really hurts.” was all she could manage. She brought hand up to her temples, covering her eyes and trying to massage away the disorientation she felt.
…. her hand?....
“Somebody page Doctor Heuves, tell him she’s waking up” said another voice.
Lyra was suddenly aware that she felt different. Very different. Her entire body seemed alien, but at the same time it was all... strangely familiar. Still covering her eyes with her palm, (her palm!) she flexed what she knew were her fingers, one at a time. She decided to brave the light again. She had to see this for herself. This wasn’t happening. Not really. There was absolutely no way it could be.
Slowly opening her eyes again, giving them time to adjust to the room’s light, she hesitantly pulled her hands away. She was lying in a bed in a sparsely furnished, bare room. The gray paint that adorned the walls was chipped and peeling. A single half-withered flower on the nightstand next to her was the only feeble attempt anypony had made to spruce up the room. There were three figures standing around her. She recognized them instantly from all of the sketches in mythology texts that she’d spent hours poring over.
“Are you... Are you humans?” she asked, dumbfounded.
One of the figures chuckled. “We sure are, honey.”
Lyra held up her hands in front of her face, studying them. They were a little gaunt, with long, thin fingers that she wiggled as she stared at them in awe. Suddenly, other parts of her body started registering in her mind as well. She had cramps in muscles she didn’t even know she had. That she hadn’t had, a few minutes ago. She started poking and massaging different spots, at first hesitantly but then with greater enthusiasm as she started to discover her full range of motion. She could use her hands to wrap around and touch her back! Brushing over the front of her torso, she found... were these boobs? She’d practiced walking on her hind legs before... Well, she supposed now they were her only legs, but these were definitely going to throw off her balance.
“So... am I a human, too?” she asked, afraid to believe her own senses. This was so weird.
“Well what else would you be, dear?” asked the second nurse. Lyra realized that she recognized their uniforms. They reminded her of Nurse Redheart. So if they were nurses, that would have to mean this was a hospital of some sort. If this was a hospital...
“Um... How long was I asleep for? Or unconscious, or... whatever it was?” she asked.
The nurses suddenly went silent. They glanced at one another, strenuously avoiding Lyra’s gaze. None of them spoke.
“How long?” Lyra repeated, an edge creeping into her voice.
“Lyra, the doctor should be here in a couple of minutes, I’m sure he can answer any questions that you have about-”
“HOW LONG?!?” Lyra screamed at the top of her lungs.
“...Two years, Lyra” one of the nurses answered at last. “You collapsed two years ago, and... well, this is the first time...” the nurse continued, but Lyra wasn’t listening anymore. Two years? That couldn’t be. None of this could be happening. Where were her friends? Why was she here, in this strange new place in a strange new body? It was impossible. It was obviously impossible. It was impossible but it was happening anyway. Lyra felt her head spin as realization crashed down on her.
“BP is spiking!” Shouted one of the nurses.
“Lyra! Listen to me! You have to focus! You need to hold on! Please Lyra...”
“Please wake up! Oh Lyra, please be OK! WHERE THE BUCK IS THE AMBULANCE?”
“It’s on its way!”
“You’re gonna be OK, Lyra, everything’s gonna be OK. You’re gonna be fine. Everything will be fine. Oh Celestia, please let everything be fine.”
Lyra’s head felt like it had been smashed in by somepony with a sledgehammer. She could feel something wrapped around the side of her head and some kind of padding around the base of her horn. The side of her face was coated in something sticky. Sticky and warm.
“Bon Bon?” she said. Her voice came out quieter than she’d meant it to. She opened her left eye to look up at the teary-eyed Earth pony kneeling over her. “Why are you crying?”
This brought on a fresh round of sobs as Bon Bon wrapped her legs around Lyra and squeezed her in an uncomfortably tight hug. “You silly filly... Colgate says she thinks you had a stroke, but the ambulance is coming to take you to the hospital, OK? You’re gonna be just fine, I’ll make sure of it.”
“Here they come!” called out Colgate. Lyra looked up to see two Earth ponies galloping down the path with a gurney. As they approached, Colgate matched speeds with the front one and began to talk to him about... something medical sounding. Even though she knew, abstractly, that dentists received general medical training as part of their instruction she had a hard time grasping the idea that Colgate was actually, well, a doctor doctor. With the speed and efficiency born of constant practice and experience, the two emergency responder ponies quickly but gently lifted her onto the gurney, taking special care to keep her head and neck immobilized, and began taking her back to the edge of the park, where a wagon waited to bring her to Ponyville General Hospital.
“Bon Bon, I had the weirdest dream after I fell...” Lyra said.
Bon Bon chuckled as she trotted quickly to keep up with the gurney. “Let me guess, there were humans?”
“How did you know?” asked Lyra.
“Because I know you, of course. You’re always talking about how you dreamed about meeting one, or finally finding proof they used to really exist. Isn’t that why we came out here this morning? I would have been surprised if you had a dream that wasn’t about them.”
Lyra was silent. It was true, she did spend a lot of time thinking about humans. Bon Bon had, in the heat of an argument one evening, gone as far as accusing her of outright obsession with them. “This wasn’t like that, though. This time it all seemed so real...” she trailed off as the Earth ponies loaded her gurney into the wagon. Medical devices and equipment adorned the interior of the wagon, velcroed or tied down for quick access. The gurney was secured by a passenger seat for transport. Bon Bon climbed in after her as the wagon began to pull away.
“Lyra, you hit your head really hard. Colgate thinks you might have a concussion. You’re going to get through it though, right? I’m going to be here to help you with whatever you need. Focus on getting better. That’s what’s real.”
Lyra smiled through the pain. “Thanks Bon Bon. I’m... I’m really lucky that I have a friend like you, and I just wanted to say, even if you get on my nerves some of the time... You’re my best friend.” Bon Bon smiled. Even though her tears were still flowing, Lyra could tell it was genuine. “I’m feeling kind of tired now, though. I’m just gonna... rest my eyes for a sec...”
Lyra heard Colgate’s voice from the front of the wagon as she closed her eyes, overwhelmed by another wave of exhaustion. “Try to keep her awake, Bon Bon, it’s better if she stays conscious until we can get her checked out.”
Lyra distantly felt Bon Bon’s hoof shaking her. “Lyra, did you hear that? Colgate says you need to stay awake. Lyra? You’re supposed to stay awake. Come on Lyra, you need to stay...”
“The nurses told me she wasn’t awake for very long, unfortunately.” Another new voice. They’d reached Ponyville General more quickly than Lyra had expected. “Thank you both for coming so quickly. I don’t want to get your hopes up, but I do believe this is a positive development. Still, until we know exactly what her mental status is I need you both to be prepared for anything.”
“We’ll try. It’s been so long, Arthur and I were almost ready to give up hope that she’d ever come back to us.” Yet another new voice, but this one was familiar, though Lyra couldn’t place it. She opened her eyes to find herself looking at three human strangers. There was a tall, thin woman with a golden blonde mane, wait, make that golden blonde hair, speaking to a man in a lab coat. The voice she’d recognized a moment ago seemed to have come from her, and even though it had seemed so familiar a moment ago, the women was a stranger to her. The man in the lab coat, whom Lyra inferred must be the Doctor Heuves the nurses had mentioned, was a stocky man with a scraggly, disheveled look about him. His unruly brown hair hung over his sunken green eyes, which looked like they hadn’t benefitted from a good night’s sleep in some time.
The last figure belonged to a second man, standing between the other two. Shorter than both the doctor and the women, his black curly hair and deeply tanned skin were also totally unfamiliar to Lyra. She was studying his face, trying to jog her mind into remembering who these humans were, when he glanced over and noticed her staring.
“Lyra! You’re awake!” he said as they all turned to look at her. The doctor hung back and allowed the other two to rush over to her. They threw their arms around her and before she realized it, Lyra was in the middle of a group hug, unable to move.
“Um, sorry. Do I know you?” she asked. A moment later she felt both of the humans holding her stiffen, the warmth and enthusiasm of a moment before had disappeared.
“Lyra... You don’t remember us?” Asked the women, backing away from Lyra. Something seemed to have drained away from her demeanor, and she looked at Lyra like she’d just reached out and slapped her.
“This is what I was talking about. Her memories are still spotty.” Doctor Heuves explained from behind the women. “Lyra, these are your parents, Celeste and Artemis Rogers.”
“Call me Arthur, please. Or better yet, dad.” Arthur interjected.
“Nice to meet you? Again? Or... I’m sorry, you seem nice, and I want to remember, but I just don’t understand what’s going on. Why am I here? What happened to Ponyville?” said Lyra.
Celeste and Arthur glanced at one another in confusion. “What’s a Ponyville?” Celeste asked.
“Maybe it would be easier for all of us if I started from the beginning?” suggested Doctor Heuves. “Since her breakdown two years ago, Lyra has been living in a world of her mind’s creation. It’s been her way of trying to process the cognitive dissonance that led to the breakdown in the first place. Based on what we’ve overheard her saying in her sleep, that world is inhabited by some sort of anthropomorphized pony species, and she’s one of them while she’s there.”
“Why ponies, though? Lyra never particularly cared for horses as a child.” asked Celeste.
“There’s a lot we don’t understand about these cases. The framing narrative for the delusion can be almost anything, with little rhyme or reason. I treated another young woman Lyra’s age who believed she was living as some sort of vampire slayer” explained Heuves.
“What happened to her?” asked Arthur.
Lyra saw a flash of something pass across the doctor’s face, something she couldn’t quite place. Fear? Regret? Guilt? Whatever it had been, it was gone as quickly as it had come, replaced by a mask of professionalism. “I’m afraid I can’t give out that sort of information. It’s protected by doctor-patient privilege.”
“OK, let’s say that I believe you. I’ve been here for two years and you’ve all done what, exactly? Why didn’t you do anything to wake me up?” Lyra felt her cheeks grow warm and her face flushed with anger. Was she just supposed to accept all this at their word? She didn’t even know any of these people, now they were talking about her like they’d been familiar all her life. No, not her life, the life of this human girl whose body she’d somehow found herself in.
“I understand how frustrated you must be...” began Heuves.
“Doubt it” muttered Lyra, making no effort not to be overheard.
“...However,” continued Heuves, ignoring her comment “it was a delicate balancing act. After you’d shown no progress for nearly a year. We did decide to try an experimental new antipsychotic drug. In theory, it would have broken down the imaginary world you’d constructed and brought you back to us.”
“So what, you tried some medicine that didn’t do anything?” said Lyra.
“Oh, it worked, just not in the way we’d intended. Your perception of Ponyville started to break down, but you didn’t wake up.” said Heuves.
“You just kept screaming, Lyra. It broke our hearts.” explained Arthur. “You wouldn’t eat, or sleep, or let anyone get near you unless we restrained you. You kept babbling that the chaos was getting you, that it was tearing everything apart. After a week we couldn’t take it any more, we stopped giving you the injections. It was bad enough that you were lost, but to watch you suffering like that...”
“Once we stopped administering the antipsychotic, Ponyville reasserted itself in your mind and you returned to, well, whatever you’ve been doing there. We don’t exactly have a clear picture, just what we’ve been able to piece together from those times you talked in your sleep. At that time we switched over to long term care and hoped your mind would heal itself in time.” concluded Doctor Heuves. “I’m happy to see we made the correct choice.”
Lyra lay back in her bed and let everything these humans were telling her soak in. It was all completely absurd. She didn’t remember anything about them, and besides she had way more than two years worth of memories. Even if she only moved to Ponyville two years ago, before that she could clearly remember living in...
Living in...
Lyra desperately searched her memory. The answer was on the tip of her tongue, she’d been asked this dozens of times making small talk with other ponies, why couldn’t she recall the answer now, of all times?
Her daze was suddenly shaken by a voice emerging from out in the hallway.
“I don’t WANT to go back to the waiting room! I want to see Lyra! Let me go!”
That voice. Lyra felt like she’d been punched in the gut the moment she heard the first word. She knew that voice, not just vaguely the way she knew Celeste’s, she was more sure than she ever had been in her life that the person attached to that voice was important. Her mind went to retrieve a name, but her mouth was quicker.
“BONNIE!” she screamed.
“LYRA! I said LET ME GO!” there was a loud ‘thunk’ and a grunt of pain, followed immediately by the sound of small feet rushing towards the door. “I’m here Lyra!”
A young girl appeared in the doorway to Lyra’s room, and a thousand images hit her at once. Her sister. How could she ever have forgotten her sister? How could she have forgotten all the walks through the woods behind her house with her, or teaching her how to tie her hair into pigtails. How Bonnie always tied ribbons into them, but would never settle for a single color. Even now, she had a pink ribbon in one and purple in the other. Bonnie didn’t hesitate for an instant. She took three steps into the room before catapulting herself at Lyra with open arms, the way Lyra suddenly remembered her doing hundreds of times before. Her arms reached out instinctively, and before she could think she’d pulled Bonnie tightly against her, afraid if she loosened her grip even a smidgen she’d slip away again.
“I always knew you’d wake up, Lyra. I always knew.” choked out Bonnie as she clutched Lyra against her. An orderly appeared in the door a moment later, but Heuves shook his head and waved him on. The orderly limped away muttering under his breath. “I came to visit every week, to tell you all about what was happening, so when you woke up you’d know. I even learned to do different voices for all the different people. I’m really good at voices.” she informed Lyra solemnly.
Lyra didn’t say anything. So it was true. Wouldn’t it have to be, if it felt this real? Even if she didn’t remember her parents, or her life before whatever had happened to her, shouldn’t this be enough? Maybe the rest would come back later.
“I love you, Bonnie” was all Lyra could choke out before both girls broke down crying again. They weren’t the only ones. Celeste and Arthur embraced one another, happy to watch their two daughters finally reunited with one another. Even Doctor Heuves seemed to have something in his eyes.
Memory after memory bubbled up from the depths of Lyra’s mind. Celeste dropping Bonnie off at her first day of kindergarten before taking Lyra to middle school. Helping to bandage her skinned knee when she fell off the swing at the playground. Her seventh birthday party, the one Pinkie had helped Lyra host at Sugarcube Corner.
Wait, what?
No. No no no no no NO NO NO NO! This wasn’t fair. It WASN’T FAIR! Just when she had something solid she could grab onto, it wasn’t fair for it to be taken away like this. Still the memories came, no longer welcome but no less powerful than before. Lyra and Bonnie watching the Sisterhood Social together. Lyra and Bonnie sharing a dandelion sandwich and hay fries on a sunny afternoon. It shouldn’t have been possible, it didn’t make any sense. But she remembered it clearly anyway.
Bonnie felt that something had changed. “Lyra? Are you OK?” she asked.
Lyra wasn’t OK. Waves of pain were flashing through her head, and the world spun around her, tilted and out of focus. Doctor Heuves called for a nurse to come assist, to take Bonnie away from there so she wouldn’t have to watch whatever was about to happen to her. Lyra saw an orderly pull her screaming out of the room before she blacked out.
“Well, she’s stabilized but I’m afraid that between the stroke and the impact when she fell, there’s definitely been some damage.” Nurse Redheart’s voice this time. So she was home, whatever that meant now. “Good evening Lyra, how are you feeling?”
“Confused” said Lyra. It was an understatement.
Nurse Redheart chuckled. “Yes, I’ll bet you are. As I was just telling Bon Bon, you’ve suffered some serious brain trauma. We haven’t been able to assess the full extent of the damage while you’ve been unconscious, but it seems to be extensive.”
“So... That’s bad? It sounds really... Bad” said Lyra.
“It is serious, yes, but there’s good news too. While the damage won’t heal on its own, we do have a potion that our alchemists are synthesizing for you right now. Once we inject you with it-” Lyra winced when she heard the word ‘inject,’ she hated needles “-why you’ll be right as rain! All the damage should reverse itself and you’ll be able to walk out of here before lunch tomorrow.” said Nurse Redheart. “The only thing you need to do is relax and wait until we’re finished preparing it. I can’t emphasize this enough, it’s vital that you remain as relaxed as possible to prevent further damage. Oh, and that reminds me. No magic until we can administer the potion. Nurse’s orders.”
“No magic? Why no magic?” asked Lyra.
“Lyra, when you hit your head on that rock, it cracked your horn. You can’t channel magic until they can fix it.” explained Bon Bon.
“The potion should take care of that as well. However until then, any magic you try to use will be unable to escape properly and will further irritate your damaged brain tissue. Bon Bon mentioned that you said you were having vivid dreams before you got to the ambulance?” asked Redheart.
“Yeah... Something like that.” said Lyra. She didn’t feel like elaborating, but that what she’d had wasn’t just a normal dream. It had all been much too real.
“Textbook symptom. Buildup of magic in the Parietal lobe can cause incredibly lifelike hallucinations. You’re also likely to be suffering from some memory loss, disorientation, and loss of time from the concussion. Put them all together and I can only guess how bewildering this whole experience must feel to you. I promise, it’ll be over soon.” Nurse Redheart checked a few more boxes on the chart at the foot of Lyra’s bed. “I’ll be back in a few hours to check in again. Bon Bon’s offered to stay here and keep you company. Just try to stay relaxed, but alert. Unicorns tend to channel magic in their sleep, so if you can stay awake there’s less of a chance that you’ll do something that aggravates the injury. Any questions?” asked Nurse Redheart.
Lyra could think of a couple dozen questions she had about the last few hours, but none she thought the nurse would take seriously. “Nope, I think I’ll be fine.” she finally answered.
“That’s the spirit! I’ll see you in a little bit” with a final smile at Lyra and Bon Bon, Redheart left to go check in on her next patient, leaving the two of them alone in the dusky light. Lyra looked around at her new surroundings, appreciating for the first time how impossibly colorful the room was compared to... that other place. A framed oil painting of Cloudsdale made the room feel a bit more spacious than it really was, and the east facing windows had been left open, allowing the nighttime breeze to waft through the room. The air currents carried the pleasant smell of the floral bouquet that sat on her nightstand throughout the room. It smelled like the flowers had been picked only a few hours before, the perfect combination room freshener and, if necessary, midnight snack. The windows offered a wonderful view of the town below winding down for the evening, it was dusk and the sun had nearly vanished completely.
Lyra looked over at Bon Bon, who was studying the ceiling and generally making every possible effort not to stare at Lyra’s bandaged head. “You know” Lyra began “it doesn’t sound like anything’s really going to happen tonight, so you don’t have to... I mean, you’d probably sleep better in your own bed so I won’t mind if you decide to...”
Lyra didn’t get a chance to finish the thought. Bon Bon turned to her with a strange look on her face. She was more determined than Lyra had ever seen her before, and the glint of steel in her friend’s eyes made Lyra flinch.
“Don’t you DARE ask me if I want to go home, Lyra Heartstrings. I am not leaving this room until we walk out together tomorrow morning.” Her eyes softened a bit and the corner of her mouth twitched upwards for just a moment. “Wild humans couldn’t drag me away.”
“...Thanks, Bon Bon.” Lyra appreciated the gesture. She certainly didn’t want to sit in a hospital room alone for the night, and Nurse Redheart had obviously given her the OK to stay beyond the hospital’s usual visiting hours.
An unquiet part of her mind protested that, all of a sudden, Lyra Heartstrings seemed like a really weird name.
“Hey, Bon Bon?” said Lyra “Do you remember if I’ve ever told you where I lived before I moved to Ponyville?”
“Of course, we did the whole small talk, where are you from, what do you do, getting to know you thing the week after you rented the apartment. Why?”
“I’m having trouble remembering where I was before I came to Ponyville.”
“Oh, well Nurse Redheart did say there would be memory loss from the concussion. You came from Manehatten. You told me that you’d had some big blowup with the conductor of the symphony you used to work with, and decided to try your luck in Canterlot instead. But you couldn’t afford a room in the city itself...”
“...So I decided to sublet the spare bedroom above the sweet shop to save money.” Lyra finished the tale for her. She felt better knowing the answer to the question that had been nagging at her. While she still couldn’t remember the events herself, the story did sound familiar. She was a harp player, she knew that much for sure...
“Hey Bon Bon?” She began again
“Yes dear?”
“...How do I play the harp?”
“Beg pardon?”
Lyra sat up in her bed “How do I play the harp with my hooves? Shouldn’t I need fingers to pluck the strings? How do I play?”
Bon Bon looked pained by her friends confusion, but after a moment she answered. “Very well, in my estimation.”
“Bon Bon, I’m serious. This is important.”
“I know Lyra, and I know it feels like you’ll never feel oriented again, but you’ve always been very private when you practice, so I don’t really don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know anything about the harp, except that I enjoy listening to you play it. I figured unicorn magic was involved somehow. Maybe once you can channel it again it will come back to you.”
Lyra lay back down, unsatisfied. This was going to be a long night. One more thing had been gnawing at her, though.
“Hey Bon Bon?”
Bon Bon sighed. “Yes, Lyra?”
“Sorry.”
“No it’s fine, go ahead.”
“What are my parents like?”
The sun had set entirely by this point, only the glow of the streetlights below lit the room. Even in the low light, Lyra could see Bon Bon tense up as she asked the question.
“You never told me. I asked you, and you said they were back in Manehatten but then you always changed the subject. I know you never call or write to them, so I just figured it wasn’t something you were comfortable talking about.”
“I see” said Lyra, levelly. She did her best to hide the pain in her voice, but she was devastated that she didn’t have a family here that she could remember. She’d hoped that something could have assuaged all the doubt that had suddenly been cast over everything she thought she knew. A long moment passed in silence. Bon Bon looked downcast, like she was a bad friend because she couldn’t tell Lyra what she needed to hear.
“Tell you what Lyra,” said Bon Bon at last “let’s not focus so much on what you don’t remember. What do you remember about today? Just walk me through what’s happened since you woke up.”
Lyra’s brow furrowed as she collected her thoughts. It was harder than it should have been, but the memories of the morning were still pretty clear.
“Well, we got up and had breakfast, then we went out to the market to pick up some odds and ends we were running low on. I remember stopping by Applejack’s stand and chatting with her for a while.”
“OK, how did that feel?”
“How did it feel?”
“Yes. You and Applejack were talking for almost 15 minutes. How did you feel about the conversation?”
“Hmm... I remember that I was kind of down in the dumps when I got there because... Right, because I’d burned our pancakes and we had to make oatmeal for breakfast. I felt like I couldn’t do anything right. But AJ, she’s just so upbeat in kind of a quiet but determined way. It’s infectious. I don’t think it was anything she said, specifically, but by the time I left her stall I felt like I could take on all of Equestria single-hoofedly. It made me, well, happy I guess. Just spending time with her.”
“OK, so after the market we went home” prompted Bon Bon.
“We went home and ran into Pipsqueek, who’d been playing in the park yesterday and found something that had been buried. He was telling me about it and mentioned that he didn’t think it was of pony origin”
“Lyra, he’s a foal, I don’t think he said ‘it wasn’t of pony origin’” said Bon Bon.
“Fine, maybe he said that it was like nothing he’d ever seen in Ponyville before. But that’s practically the same thing!”
Bon Bon let that pass without comment. “How did talking to Pipsqueek make you feel?”
“It was exciting! A new lead, an adventure in Ponyville Park, to uncover the evidence of an ancient civilization right in our own back pasture! Pipsqueek was so excited to tell me about it, he knew I’d be interested. He didn’t have to go out of his way to tell me about it, but he did, just because. I guess another pony thinking of me, and going out of their way to make my day a little better just because they can... That made me happier than the news that he’d found something. It felt... good. Sorry, I guess I’m not being too eloquent tonight.”
“You’re doing great, Lyra, keep going” said Bon Bon with an encouraging smile.
“So we packed up a picnic lunch and I somehow talked you into coming to the park with me to go check out the artifact. So we went over and... wait, no, first we stopped at the library because I wanted to look something up about the geography of Ponyville. So I asked Twilight, and while she was looking for the book she asked me why I was looking for the information, and I told her about Pip’s find in the park” said Lyra. “But she just rolled her eyes and was all like ‘oh I can’t believe you’re still trying to find that stuff don’t you know the weight of the evidence blah blah blah’ and we had, uh, we had a spirited exchange of ideas.”
“It sounded a lot more like an argument from where I was standing” said Bon Bon.
“Whatever you want to call it. I can’t believe what a jerk she was! Like there’s no evidence that ponies weren’t the first people to live here. She won’t even consider the possibility. She’s so wedded to her ideas that she can’t see what’s right in front of her OW!” A fresh wave of pain emanated from her head, stopping her in mid-sentence.
“Lyra, calm down! Nurse Redheart told you that getting worked up like that would make it worse!”
“Sorry, I’m OK. I just... it makes me so frustrated sometimes! When ponies just dismiss anything I have to say like that.” huffed Lyra.
“Do you remember what she said when we were leaving?” asked Bon Bon.
“When we were leaving?” Lyra searched her mind trying to reconstruct the end of their trip to the library. If only everything in her head didn’t feel so slippery... “I was walking out with the book and Twilight... She called me back didn’t she? Then she... apologized? Really? Wow, maybe I really am hallucinating.”
Bon Bon smiled “Nope, I promise it really happened, I was there. Do you remember what she said exactly?”
“She said... that she was sorry, obviously. Then she said... She said ‘I really hope you find something that proves me wrong, Lyra. If anypony can, it’s you.’ I guess I’d forgotten that part.”
“She believes in you Lyra. We all do. Even if we don’t agree with all of your ideas about humans all the time-” Lyra opened her mouth to interject, but Bon Bon raised a hoof to silence her and continued “-we still want you to do your best to find them. Because that’s what makes you happy.”
“What makes me happy...” echoed Lyra.
“Lyra, it doesn’t matter if you can’t remember your parents right now, or if you’ve been on rough terms with them since you left Manehatten. You still have a family here. Your family isn’t the group of ponies you’re born into. Your family is the ponies in your life who make you happy.”
Lyra didn’t have anything to say to that. She just stared up at the ceiling, waiting for the last 12 hours of her life to somehow start making sense. The room grew quiet except for the ticking of the clock.
“Nopony makes me happier than you do, Bon Bon.” she said at last.
Bon Bon smiled sleepily. The stress of the day was catching up to her. “You make me happy too, Lyra.”
A long silence settled over the room. Nothing more needed to be said.
“Thank you for everything, Bon Bon” said Lyra finally. But Bon Bon had already fallen asleep. Lyra smiled at how peaceful she seemed, when she wasn’t worrying. For the first time that day, Lyra chose to close her eyes and drift off to sleep.
“Good morning, Lyra”
“Good morning, Doctor Heuves” Lyra sat up in her bed, Bonnie and her parents were there, although she had apparently been asleep long enough for them to have left, changed clothing, and come back. “Sorry if I gave you all a scare back there.”
Arthur smiled. “You’re here with us now, that’s what matters” he said.
“Sorry to cut this moment short, but I’m afraid that we have something we need to discuss with you. We can’t be sure how much time we have, so I’m going to cut right to the chase” said Heuves. “Lyra, we have a way to keep you here, in the real world, permanently.”
“What is it?”
“Electroshock therapy.” Lyra furrowed her brow and began to interrupt, but the doctor continued. “Now I know how that must sound to you, but I promise that it isn’t as bad as you’re imagining. We aren’t going to just hook you up to an electric current or anything like that. You’ll be given a muscle relaxant to prevent any spasming, and we’ll direct powerful localized shocks to your brain via electrodes. Meanwhile we’ll need you to concentrate as hard as possible on things you remember from your real life”
“And... that’s supposed to help me stay awake somehow?” Lyra asked skeptically. These medical types just couldn’t make up their minds, Redheart wants her not to concentrate at all, Heuves wants her to focus harder. She wished they’d at least be consistent. That might make this all easier, somehow.
“To put it simply, the shocks are going to ‘lock’ your mind into the perception it has now. The energy will disrupt the neural pathways that your brain keeps using to fall back into your Ponyville fantasy world. That’s why we have to do it while you’re alert.” said Hueves. He sighed. “I know it’s not fair to ask you to make such an important decision so quickly. In any other case we’d want to give you a chance to weigh the pros and cons in your own time, but I’m afraid that’s a luxury we simply don’t have. The next time you slip away from us you may not come back again. Your parents and I are in agreement that this is the best course of action, but the decision ultimately lies with you.”
Lyra looked up at the four expectant faces staring at her. “I guess it’s worth a shot, then” she said, trying unsuccessfully to make herself feel as confident as she sounded.
Celeste gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek, which Lyra was a little too stunned to return. “My brave little girl. Thank you, for trusting us. This must be so scary for you, but it’ll all be over soon.”
“Arthur, Celeste, I’m going to need you to complete the last of the paperwork. I’ll let the nurse know you’ve decided to go ahead. We should be ready to begin in about five minutes” said Doctor Heuves.
“Five minutes?” asked Lyra, suddenly panicked by the immediacy of it all.
“Like I said, we need to move quickly.” Heuves looked down on Lyra, and considered her for a moment. “Bonnie, why don’t you stay here with Lyra while I go with your parents, OK?”
Lyra privately doubted that Heuves could have pulled Bonnie out of that room no matter how many orderlies he had on staff, but Bonnie nodded seriously. “OK! I will!”
“Great! We’ll be right back” said Heuves as he strode purposefully out of the room with Celeste and Arthur in tow. Lyra was left alone with Bonnie. With the one thing that had made her decide to come back at all.
“Isn’t this great Lyra? You’re gonna be all fixed in a couple of minutes! We’re gonna go home again and be a family like we used to be! We kept your old room just like it was when you left, soon it’ll be like this was all just a bad dream” said Bonnie.
Lyra looked down at the young girl sitting in her lap. She was the one who’d made her decide that she had to come back. Lyra only wished she had more time. “Bonnie, there’s something I want to tell you. Somepony... I mean someone important to me told me something, and I want to make sure you understand it too. Being a family is about the people who you love...” said Lyra trailing off, groping for the right words.
“Aww, I love you, Lyra, you know that!” proclaimed Bonnie.
“I do, and I love you too. But I don’t love you because you’re my family, you’re my family because I love you. That means... it means that anyone you love, they can be family too, just like we are” said Lyra.
“Um... I don’t really understand what that means, sorry Lyra” said Bonnie.
Lyra pulled the confused little girl to her. Both to be closer to her, and because she knew she wasn’t strong enough to do this while she looked Bonnie in the eye. “I know you don’t, not yet. Just try to remember it for now. Maybe when you’re older you’ll be able to understand a little better. I just don’t want you to think, not for a single instant, that I don’t love you very much. So much.” She held her sister as tightly as she could, trying to take in every bit of this moment and hold it fast in her mind.
“Bonnie...” Lyra’s voice broke and she had to stop for a moment to collect herself. “Bonnie, I want you do me a favor, OK? When mom and dad get back, I want you to tell them something, would you do that for me? Tell them... Tell them I said I love them, and that they don’t need to worry about me. Tell them I’m happy, will you do that for me? That it isn’t their fault or anything they did” said Lyra. She had to stop there. She didn’t want Bonnie’s to remember her as someone who cried, at the end. That wasn’t the kind of big sister she wanted to be.
“Lyra? They’ll be back any second, why don’t you tell them all that yourself? I’m sure it’ll make them happy. Lyra?” Bonnie started to squirm, sensing that something was wrong. Lyra placed her down as gently as she could next to the bed again. Then she laid back and closed her eyes one more time.
“I’m so sorry, Bonnie...”
“Lyra? Please don’t leave again Lyra, I missed you so much. I don’t want you to go away again Lyra! You have to stay! Lyra? Lyra! LYRAAAaaa...”
Lyra felt a stabbing pain in the side of her flank as something long and sharp was pulled out of it and a bandage pressed down on the spot.
“The potion should begin working almost instantly. In fact I think she’s already coming around.”
“I’m sorry I let her fall asleep, Nurse Redheart, I guess I dozed off too. Is she going to be OK?”
“We’ll know for sure in a few seconds. This potion is quite powerful. If she hasn’t completely fried her mind she should be able to find her way back to us” said Nurse Redheart.
Lyra opened her eyes. She found herself turned on her side looking out the hospital room window, where the sun was just rising above the eastern horizon. Her head swam with a jumble of memories that all seemed to be fading as the potion did its job, fixing the ravages the last day had inflicted on her mind. She forgot the two humans who thought they were her parents. Her parents lived in Manehatten. She felt foolish that she hadn’t been able to remember that more easily. She knew they hadn’t exactly been thrilled that she’d moved to what they’d called ‘a backwater dead end slop hole’ in their last conversation, but she suddenly realized how much she missed them. How hard would it be, really, to write them a letter and try to reconnect with them? She still loved them, even if they drove her a little nuts.
The memories of the hospital room, of the nurses and orderlies, even Doctor Heuves all faded away, as if they had never existed at all. All that remained was a single fragment of memory. Her sitting in a bed, clutching a small human girl to her chest. She scrunched her eyes closed and tried with all her might to hold on to it.
“I think she just moved! Lyra?” she felt a hoof shaking her shoulder. The shock of the sudden contact made her startle and open her eyes. There was Bon Bon studying her for signs of recovery. Lyra smiled at her. The thing that she had been trying so hard to remember, whatever it had been, was gone for good.
“Good morning, Bon Bon. Guess I fell asleep again, didn’t I? I hope you didn’t worry about me too much...”
“Silly filly, of course we worried! For a second there I thought you might really be gone.”
Lyra hugged Bon Bon close to her. “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.” She looked out the window again at the beautiful sunrise.
It was another perfect day in Equestria.
