Her alarm is going off.
Lyra hasn't had an alarm in years, not since she moved to Ponyville, but her alarm is going off and she is late for class. She hasn't been to class in years but she is late for class. She hits her old alarm and her hooves feel like lead as she jumps from room to room in the house she shares -- she eats a slice of toast and brushes her teeth and looks for her books which she hasn't read at all because somehow she didn't remember that this morning she had class -- but it's not fast enough, her whole body is full of lead and she can't move it fast enough and she is late for class.
She's on the train and the trees and fields blur past her and she cannot tell where she is, but Lyra knows where she is going, she is going back to class because today is the first day of class and she's going to be so late. She's always loved the train because of how far it could take you, how long the tracks could stretch away to the farthest corners of Equestria if you wanted -- the train has always been full of possibility and exploration and galloping forward into the unknown, but now it feels wrong because she is late for class and the train is pulling her back like a rubber band stretched tight and let go, back to class, back to school, back to Canterlot. She takes a book from her saddlebag but none of the words make sense.
Class is starting and Lyra is in the classroom with all her old classmates, Minuette and Lemon Hearts and Twinkleshine and Moondancer and Twilight Sparkle, and class is starting but she is still late and she hasn't done any of the reading. She was done with reading, done with school, done with Canterlot years ago, but she is back in class and class is starting. Minuette is telling her about what she did over the holidays, what they all did over the holidays, but Lyra doesn't remember having done anything; she's missed summer and now she's right back in school. She checks for her saddlebag with all her books and her notes and everything she needs to start class but it isn't with her and she gets a terrible feeling like lead falling in her stomach and she knows she has left it on the train, and she can't go back to the train and look for it because class is starting, you can never go back unless it's back to school.
I don't want to be here, she says, and she opens her mouth and the words come out in a violent red light. I don't belong here. I did this. I'm done with this.
But class is starting. Minuette and Lemon Hearts and Twinkleshine and Moondancer and Twilight Sparkle are taking their seats and taking out their books and the teacher is talking and Lyra doesn't have her books, doesn't have anything, hasn't prepared because she has moved on from this life, moved on and moved away but now she is back and she hasn't prepared.
I don't need to go to school. I'm grown up!
"I don't want to go to school!" she shouts, and her voice cracks.
"You are going to continue to attend school," Mother says, "and that is final, young filly."
Lyra and Mother are at home in the sitting room and Mother is sitting and slowly sipping tea and glaring at her. Mother doesn't mean to but she always looks like Lyra has just done something wrong even after she has told her a hundred times the right way to do it. Mother doesn't mean to but she has this look in her face that is something like disappointment and something like resentment and it is always reserved for moments in private and it is especially reserved for Lyra no matter how hard she tries to do things right. Mother sips her tea and glares and Lyra tries to tell her that she doesn't want to keep going to the unicorn school, she wants to learn to play music, it's what she's meant to do, it's right there on her flank, but Mother will not have her daughter being anything as vulgar and common as a traveling musician, roaming from town to town and haypile to haypile, living hoof-to-mouth, practically one step removed from a dirty beggar, we have standards in this family young filly. Lyra has had this conversation a hundred times with Mother and every time it has turned out the same and now it turns out the same again because you can never go back unless it's to Mother; you can play your little harp thing, but you must stay.
In.
School.
And get yourself a decent education as a unicorn before you even think of leaving this house young filly.
Mother doesn't mean to come off like Lyra's enemy. Mother doesn't mean to sound unreasonable. Mother doesn't mean to.
Mother doesn't mean to, but Mother's mean, too.
Lyra stays in school and she's in class and the teacher is talking and everypony but Lyra is listening. She's hearing music but she's not allowed to play unless she's finished with everything for school and Mother has seen and it isn't too late but still she hears music. She hears the sound of the lyre and it is beautiful and sad together in the way no other instrument can be and she imagines that if she wants it enough she might wake up one morning far away from here, from class, from Canterlot, from Mother, and she can play as much as she wants. She imagines long nimble fingers where her hooves should be that can pluck the strings and feel the vibration of each note as she fills the silences in her new life with beautiful and sad songs; if she reaches with the hands she imagines, reaches hard enough with her mind, then she might wake up away from here. She might even wake up not a unicorn so Mother wouldn't make her come to the unicorn school any more and they wouldn't have to fight for the hundredth time and she wouldn't have to lose the argument for the hundredth time and she could play the music she hears.
Lyra would love to wake up and have hands and to not be a unicorn any more. She would love to sleep and wake up and be far from Mother and Canterlot and class. She sometimes thinks she would love to sleep and not wake up because that too would be far from Mother and Canterlot and class, just puff out of existence like a snuffed candle flame. She tells nopony about these thoughts; nopony at school and definitely not Mother. She tells only one pony in her whole life, and when she tells her they are in bed with their muzzles touching and Lyra tells her with her eyes closed about her dreams of fingers and snuffed candles and beautiful and sad music and her eyes are wet and she kisses the tears away and tells her it will all be okay, that Lyra can come with her when she leaves and they can be together and it will all be okay, they can be far away from class, from Canterlot, from Mother.
Mother doesn't mean to, but Mother's mean, too.
She brings Bon Bon with her for Hearth's Warming and Mother calls her Lyra's friend and she looks at the both of them like they are both to be resented and disappointed in as she sips her tea and Lyra shouts at her and they argue while the snow falls in Canterlot. We're not friends, Mother, Lyra says but Mother doesn't want to hear about it, we've been together for two years, but Mother doesn't want to hear about it, she cares about me which is something you've never done once, and this is something Mother does hear: she has done nothing but care, to care about finishing at a good school which of course you've thrown away to play that silly harp (it's not a harp Mother) and to care about what other ponies in this town are saying about us (so let them say it, why does it matter more to you what they say than what I do) and to care that you don't up and toss your life away just so you can gallivant off to Celestia-knows-where with this with this (with this what Mother what is she what am I what are we that you can't even bring yourself to say) you listen to me young filly I will not be spoken to this way in my own home.
Minuette and Lemon Hearts and Twinkleshine see her off at the station when she boards a train that takes her away from Canterlot; they hug and cry and promise and smile, and Lyra boards the train with everything she wants to take with her packed into two saddlebags and a modest suitcase and she never looks back as she gallops forward into the unknown. She leaves behind her alarm clock and her books and class and Canterlot and Mother and heads for possibility and exploration. The train enters a tunnel filled with a blinding white light it has never been filled with before and
Lyra is in Ponyville, and it is no longer then but now, but she is still dreaming, and all of Ponyville is dreaming with her, bringing stability and familiarity to the dreamscape. Her heartbeat slows. Her breaths deepen. Her mood clears. She is far away; Ponyville is far away, and that is where she is now.
She finds she is attached to Bon Bon in the dream in the literal sense as she is metaphorically in the waking world. She is her anchor, her light, her other half. Lyra hugs her, and Bon Bon hugs her back. She will never let her go. She is her home now; she cares for her, and she will never let her go.
"I was dreaming about you," Lyra says.
"Was it a good dream?" Bon Bon asks.
"No," she says, "but you made it better."
Author's Note
There's undoubtedly many songs entitled "Mother", but the one I was drawing from is by Pink Floyd; on The Wall, it gives a crucial piece of Pink's backstory about his overbearing mother.
