Love’s Étude For Heartstrings; Opus One

The next weeks went by uneventful. Twilight and Lyra’s joy continued to increase as did their love. Their friends, both Twilight’s and Lyra’s, were by often. It turned out that the Cutie Mark Crusaders were good friends with Melody, so the castle was often filled with visiting friends and joyful children.

Applejack wasn’t seen without Rarity, and the group of friends were so happy when they found out about Fluttershy and Pinkie.

After a few weeks of testing their relationship, they all got together to help Pinkie move in with Fluttershy. That is, after Pinkie and Fluttershy had a meeting with a large brown bear. To Pinkie’s delight and relief, Harry approved and even gave Pinkie a substantial hug.

Although a couple of the friends were curious about the amount of ropes and straps in Fluttershy’s bedroom along with some black clothing and a wicked looking black flexible rod.

Rainbow couldn’t stop laughing after they’d left, remembering Pinkie calling Fluttershy; Mistress Shy-Shy. I’ll just have to ‘accidently’ fly past Flutters’ window one night, she thought to herself.

The three couples had to make sure that Rainbow didn’t feel like a fifth wheel or the odd pony out. And all the friends tried their best to include their unattached friend in outings.

With the ‘dig season’ many months away, Lyra would regularly work on some research paper to be published and Twilight was there to help with any research she could do. In fact, Twilight started helping with the research so much that the name;

Princess Twilight Sparkle D.M.A. Consulting Contributor.

Started appearing right under the name;

Lyra Heartstrings Ph.D.,

In the professional publications.

This thrilled Twilight to no end.

It was about six months later, Spike was returning from the Crystal Empire where he’d spent the better part of a year assisting Cadence and Shining Armor to renovate the library system. Spike was so well trained in library work, he didn’t need supervision from Twilight, and this made him so proud.

They’d been receiving messages from Twilight that often cryptically referred to;

‘The greatest thing that’s ever happened to me’.

They were assured that the surprise was going to be worth the wait.

Finally, the day came for Spike to go home, he was pleased that Shining Armor and Cadence were going to go with him for a visit. They too were anxious to know what this event was.

When Spike, Cadence and Shining Armor arrived at the castle, they went looking for Twilight. Naturally they went into the library first. As they entered the library, they were in time to witness Lyra creep up behind Twilight, spin her around and plant a deep kiss on her lover. She was wont to do this a lot, her ‘surprise kiss attack’ as Lyra called it.

They broke the kiss when they heard ponies enter. The trio at the door were standing there dumbfounded.

Twilight, still in Lyra’s embrace, smiled a most innocent smile and said;

“Hi guys, what’s new?”

Cadence started squealing like a little filly. Then she rushed to the two mares and embraced them, her strength was greater than either mare expected. She just stood there holding Lyra and Twilight; bouncing, laughing and crying at the same time.

“What’s going on?” asked Melody hearing the ruckus and coming down the stair.

“Who’s that?” asked Cadence excitedly.

“My daughter, Melody,” said Lyra.

If possible, Cadence smiled even more, tears of joy flowed. A blue aura appeared around the filly and she levitated to Cadence. She released Twilight and Lyra and embraced the filly.

“You’re just so precious!” said Cadence crying. “I could eat you up!”

“Are you another princess,” asked Melody in awe, noticing that Cadence was an Alicorn and was wearing a tiara. The filly would’ve never believed that another real-life princess would be in her home (she now considered the castle as such) and hugging her.

“Yes Sweetie,” said Cadence, “but I’m also Twilight’s sister-in-law and I was her foalsitter when she was younger than you. So I’d really like it if you just called me Cadence or Aunt Cadence.”

Shining and Spike had entered the room and were talking to Twilight. Spike was also excited to have a young pony around. Though technically younger, because of their species development, the dragon was eager to be a big brother. Afterward, he and Melody hit it off great.

After dinner and the ‘kids’ had gone to bed, they sat around and talked. Cadence and Shining had to know every detail of the romance up to this point. How Lyra and Twilight shared classes in school, and was an academic just like Twilight and even had a doctorate in Paleohippology. Also the two had had secret crushes on the other for years.

Shining mentioned that he did remember Twilight saying something about a Lyra when she was in school.

“Two brains in love!” said Cadence snickering.

“We love each other’s brain,” said Twilight, “but we’re pretty taken with the bodies they’re attached to too!”

“You better believe it,” said Lyra leaning over and giving Twilight a kiss.

Then Shining thought of something.

“Excuse me,” said the stallion, “but are you the Dr. Heartstrings, the Paleohippologist with connections to the Cryptozoology community?”

Cadence shot a puzzled look at her husband.

“In fact,” said Lyra, “I am.”

“Honey,” said Shining to his wife, “she’s the pony I mentioned when we found that book in the library while doing the renovation.”

“You mean the one about...

Humans?”

Twilight and Lyra froze, looking intently at Shining.

“There’s an actual book about humans in your library?” asked Lyra.

“Actually, we found an entire section,” said Cadence.

Lyra looked faint, Twilight held her hoof.

“These books appeared to be of very ancient origin. They were in a language that was close to Pony, but not quite. With a little diligence, you’re able to understand what it was saying. One of the books even had old illustrations, it appeared that the surroundings looked like the areas north of the Crystal Empire, without snow and ice. There was a picture of a human with a pony,” said Cadence.

“Not a pony,” said Shining, “a horse.”

“But the race of horses don’t live that far north,” said Twilight, “they live in and around the deserts of Saddle Arabia.”

“It wasn’t just the horse, it was also what the horse was wearing,” said Shining.

“What was he wearing?” asked Lyra.

“What appeared to be a saddle and bridle with bit and reins.” Said Cadence, “they appeared to be made for somepony or something to ride on him, perhaps the human. That’s the strangest part, it appeared that this is normal for this animal. I say animal not as an insult, but it appears that the poor creature was a throwback to ancient equines, or perhaps was an ancient equine, including no cutie mark, externally visible genitalia, and he also appeared to have been gelded.”

Lyra and Twilight gasped, Shining Armor cringed.

“Something that’d be right up your alley, Dr. Heartstrings,” said Shining Armor.

“Lyra, please!” said the green Unicorn with a smile and reaching out and taking Twilight’s hoof. “Twilight’s partner, remember. Hopefully the same as family.

We’re having our six-month anniversary party this weekend. And after that, we’re going to go to Canterlot to talk to Princesses Celestia and Luna, Twilight wants to introduce me. After that, perhaps I can talk to the Paleohippology Department at Canterlot Natural History Museum.”

“Better yet,” said Cadence. “After meeting with Aunt Celestia and Luna. We can go to the Crystal Empire. Our Natural History Museum is about a thousand years out of date.

Perhaps if you’d come there and check it out, we could see if there’s any validity to this or if it is just old fairy-pony stories and forgeries.

On the outside chance it’s real, we could convince our Natural History Museum to fund an expedition. Even if it was something true only in the past, perhaps evidence could be discovered and brought back for study and display.

We’d convince them just how big of a coup this would be for them and get them back on the level with the other Natural History Museums in Equestria.”

“But these are scientist,” said Twilight, “do you think that they’d fund an expedition for bragging rights?”

Lyra chuckled.

“Twilight, Sweetheart,” said Lyra, “you’re used to pure academics. Research for research sake, usually between the pages of a book and on the blackboard. Museums go in for research that’s more ‘active’. Think ‘Daring Do’, the bigger the find the more ponies come to see the exhibit, that means the more bits that come in.

You asked if they’d fund an expedition for bragging rights. The answer is ‘in a heartbeat’!”

Being it was only Tuesday, Cadence and Shining Armor took a side trip to Canterlot to check in with the Princesses. They promised not to say anything about Twilight and Lyra’s relationship. Plus Shining was going to drop in on the Museum of Natural History and see if there was any credible evidence of humans in their archives, as discretely as possible.

They promised they’d be back for the party.