A Million Miles from Home

Chapters

Part 2: Pages
Part 3: Photographs
Part 4: Family
Part 5: Friends
Part 6: History
Part 7: Memories
Part 8: Dodge City
Part 9: Notebook
Part 11: The Calm
Part 12: The Storm
Part 13: Love
Part 14: The Moon
Part 15: Fleur
Part 16: The Well
Part 17: The Journal
Part 19: Found
Part 1: Manehatten
Part 10: The Wizard
Part 18: Lost

Part 2: Pages

Lyra checked the address again. She wasn't one to judge other ponies' living arrangements, but this simply wasn't what she had imagined.

The building before her was an imposing behemoth. Its many windows gazed at Lyra with blatant disapproval. To the imaginative, it appeared as if somepony had plucked a mansion of immense proportions from some distant part of Equestria and delivered it to downtown Manehatten. Either that or the city had sprung up around this house like a collection of weeds around a gorgeous flower. The sign outside read “Wilted Lily's Home for Lost Fillies”.

“When was the last time this place saw a lost filly?” Lyra wondered aloud.

She returned the directions to her satchel and knocked on the door. Despite her assurances to the contrary, Lyra doubted anypony was home.

The door swung open almost instantly. Lyra cried out and stumbled backwards, one hoof darting into her satchel. She relaxed—but only slightly—when she saw the mare standing in the doorway. This mare appeared too frail to so much as lift a spoon, let alone tackle Lyra to the ground and steal her satchel.

“Lyra Heartstrings?” the mare said.

Her voice reminded Lyra of a violin being plucked after decades of neglect. It was a timid and delicate voice, yet it was filled with obvious purpose.

Lyra pulled down the scarf she had tied around her muzzle.

“I don't know anypony by that name,” she said. “In fact, I'm not sure such a pony ever existed.”

The mare stared at Lyra for a full minute. Then she moved aside and gestured into the dark hallway.

“Follow me,” she said.

Lyra crossed the threshold, her hoof casually upon her satchel. She jumped as a hoof touched her side in the darkness.

“This way,” the mare said.

She led Lyra into a slightly more illuminated room. A series of candles lined a long staircase that descended into pure darkness.

“Downstairs,” the mare said.

Lyra gave a nod of comprehension. She trotted across the room to the open doorway. She peered downward into what must have been the basement. Why did ponies who dealt in “curious wares”--Wilted Lily’s words, not Lyra’s—go to the trouble of establishing needlessly dramatic surroundings? Lyra felt as if she’d stumbled onto the set of a play.

After a minute of steeling herself, Lyra descended the stairs. Lyra stopped at the bottom of the stairs and found herself in front of a door. It was one of those big metal doors ponies used to guard valuable—and often illegal—secrets.

“Fitting,” Lyra muttered.

She gave the door a strong push. Lyra had to lean all of her weight against it, but after a moment the door swung open. She stumbled forward into a large room.

It took Lyra a minute to adjust her eyes to the brightness. Contrary to the upstairs, every surface in this basement room—tables, the dresser, even the chairs—was crowded with various lamps, lanterns, and candles. Lyra noticed at once that the room she had mistaken for “large” was nothing of the sort. It was actually more of a closet than a living space. It was simply the amount of furniture and bookshelves that made it appear huge at a glance.

Sitting at the room's only desk—glasses pushed back on her forehead as she worked feverishly at a typewriter—was Wilted Lily. Wilted Lily appeared very healthy despite her obvious old age.

“It's open,” she said absently.

Lyra jumped as the metal door swung shut behind her. She turned and frantically felt around for a door handle.

“It will automatically unlock after ten minutes,” Wilted Lily said.

Lyra reluctantly stopped beating her hooves against the smooth surface. She turned to face Wilted Lily. In return, Wilted Lily swiveled her chair around to face Lyra.

“The mare from the newspapers,” Wilted said.

Lyra bowed mockingly. The last few months had been absolute Tartarus in that respect, but she'd adapted to her “fame”. Would ponies even recognize her anymore if she shed her disguise?

“You have it, right?” she said.

She wanted to jump straight into business. She had taken Wilted Lily's comment about the door unlocking to be an actual time limit.

Wilted Lily slid off her chair. She moved with surprising grace for such an old mare. She trotted in a somewhat elegant manner to one of the bookshelves and pulled out a thick book. The book had clearly suffered more from age than Wilted Lily had, but it appeared in readable condition nonetheless.

Lyra came closer to give the book a through inspection.

The Illusion of Death: Necromancy in Private and in Practice. The title was written in an ancient language not many ponies spoke, but Lyra had studied dead languages in school.

“First published over one hundred years ago,” said Wilted Lily. “The last book on the subject ever published before necromancy was deemed illegal. All four hundred copies were burned by order of the princesses. Well, all four hundred copies they knew about.”

Wilted Lily laughed to herself.

Lyra reached out to touch the book, but Wilted Lily pulled it away. The humor left Wilted Lily's face immediately.

“I trust you have the bits,” she said.

The nostalgic collector had disappeared. In her place stood the suave businesspony who’d made her fortune through clever negotiations.

Lyra pulled a sack out of her left saddlebag. She dropped it on the floor, allowing it to spill its shiny gold contents.

Wilted Lily busied herself counting the bits one by one.

Lyra wandered over to one of the bookshelves and casually ran a hoof across a row of books. She tilted her head to the side to read the titles. As promised by Lyra's research, Wilted Lily had amassed the most complete and impressive collection of rare and forbidden books that had ever existed in Equestria. Lyra pulled a book off the shelf and studied it with interest.

“May I ask why you're so desperate to get your hooves on this book?” asked Wilted Lily.

Lyra ran a hoof across the cover of the book she was holding. This particular book did not appear to be anything special. It was merely a somewhat old history book.

“There was somepony I loved,” Lyra said. “She died a few years ago in a way I could have prevented. I want to bring her back and apologize.”

Wilted Lily smiled. Ah, the classic tale of two lovers separated by the veil of death. It was a romantic concept, but Wilted Lily found it rather saddening. There was no way this unicorn was powerful enough to master necromancy. If she was, she wouldn't be leaning all of her hope on a rare book. Wilted Lily felt sorry for her, but bits were bits.

“Everything alright?” asked Lyra.

She placed the history book she'd been studying on a nearby table.

Wilted Lily nodded. All the bits were there. She decided not to tell Lyra she'd overpaid just slightly. What Lyra didn't know wouldn't hurt her, right?

Lyra's hooves quivered as she took the book from Wilted Lily. She regarded it as one would a newborn, her eyes lighting up with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. Just looking at it made her feel as if she'd accomplished everything. In her happiness, Lyra backed into a nearby table and knocked several items from it. She cried out apologies as she scrambled to pick them up.

Wilted Lily pressed her hoof against the metal door. As promised, the door had unlocked itself as the enchantment upon it loosened. The door swung inward at her touch.

“I hope you find what you're looking for,” Wilted Lily said.

For once, she meant it.

Lyra slipped the book into her saddlebag and hastened from the room.

As soon as Lyra was gone, Wilted Lily turned her attention to the mess Lyra had made. The things Lyra had knocked from the table had been returned in a haphazard fashion. Wilted Lily trotted to the table and began rearranging the items.

What an interesting pony, she thought.

Wilted Lily picked up the book Lyra had placed on the table. She stared at it, a subtle grin on her face.

Indeed, Lyra was a very interesting pony.

Lyra slowed to a stop. She had put a lot of distance between herself and Wilted Lily's house. She was now standing in the deserted nighttime streets of Manehatten.

“Safe,” she said.

Lyra pulled the book from her saddlebag. She was smirking. Lyra had pulled it off with the mastery of an accomplished thief: the distraction, the performance, the meticulously crafted story. Most importantly, she’d pulled off the switch with ease.

As Lyra watched, the cover of the book shifted. Its hoof-drawn illustrations and title evaporated to reveal its true identity, the book's fabricated age melting away. It was a simple illusion spell, but for a situation like this it was perfect.

A Complete and Objective History of Equestria: Volume 3. This volume had been pulled off the shelves around ten years back and an updated version hastily issued. This was the only original copy of the book that hadn't been cheerfully surrendered during the “recall”. Supposedly the original version contained “several historical inaccuracies that might confuse or mislead readers”.

Lyra felt bad about lying to Wilted Lily. Then again, that story wasn’t entirely a lie, was it?

Lyra hurriedly shoved the book back into her saddlebag and galloped off. She didn't slow down until she saw her apartment building in the distance. She pulled the book from her saddlebag again and studied it. Lyra's stomach clenched. Up until now she'd been working on pure hope and speculation, but now things were about to get real.

“Strategist mode activated,” she said with a nervous smile.

Lyra was about to start a very risky game with a very skilled opponent.

Part 3: Photographs

A week after her visit to Wilted Lily, Lyra found herself standing outside a cheap coffee shop. Next door was the Equestrian Society of Obscure History and Scientific Miracles.

She noted how small and innocuous the place appeared despite its grand name. Very few ponies took an active interest in history and science, obscure or otherwise.

Lyra had spent most of that week casing out the place. It wasn't the smoothest or the most guarded operation in town by any means. No security guards, no cameras, no motion detectors. Lyra was surprised they didn't just leave the place unlocked at night.

Lyra was wearing a large sun hat and a particularly unattractive long dress. She kept raising a pocket watch to her eyes and glancing around impatiently.

After a few moments, the door of the history and science building opened. A mare with a pierced nose and a bored expression stepped out onto the sidewalk. She looked both ways to make sure there were no carts coming, then pulled out her phone and crossed the street. In a minute the mare had disappeared into a clothing shop.

Lyra waited two minutes. When nopony else emerged, she hurriedly ducked into the alleyway. She stripped off the dress she was wearing and stuffed it into her duffel bag. Underneath the dress was a pair of artistically stained overalls. She then pulled off the sun hat to reveal a backwards baseball cap. Lyra tossed the sun hat aside and emerged from the darkness of the alleyway. She hurried into the history and science building.

Risky, but a flawless execution. Anypony walking by would have glimpsed an irritated mare waiting outside a coffee shop. Anypony who happened to glance her way as she entered the building would have seen a mare in a baseball cap carrying a duffel bag that read “Laundry”. Most importantly, nopony was going to report having seen Lyra Heartstrings enter a building she'd been preemptively banned from.

The front desk was empty, but there were two Earth pony mares bringing in boxes from a side door. They didn't seem to notice Lyra as she casually slipped behind the desk and grabbed one of the key cards.

“Bucking boxes,” grunted one of the mares.

Lyra pulled out her phone and pretended to take an interest in it. The two mares passed the front desk spewing muttered profanity. They each gave Lyra a vague but polite nod as they struggled with the boxes. Lyra lifted her bored eyes from her phone, shrugged disinterestedly, then returned her attention to the screen. She didn't lift her eyes again until both mares had disappeared into the back room with the boxes.

Once the mares were gone, Lyra made a show of tucking her phone into her pocket. She could hear hoofsteps that suggested somepony else was coming, but she didn't pause. Lyra casually left the front desk. She used the key card to access a door marked “Historians Only”.

With their nonexistent security, it was rather surprising the place hadn't been bombarded by thefts in the last week alone. In truth, anything of significant value was either kept in a heavily locked room loaded down with security spells or had been donated to their much larger “branch” in Canterlot. Fortunately, Lyra wasn't looking for anything that required security measures.

The whimsically named “Historians Only” room seemed to be a mix between a physical catalog of historical events and a makeshift break room. There were empty coffee cups stacked on top of the file cabinets and a mini fridge stuffed into one corner of the room. Newspaper clippings—mostly recent—were taped all over the walls.

Lyra opened the fridge and pulled out an unopened bottle of lemonade. She popped the cap with her hoof and took a long swig of it. Refreshed, Lyra wandered over to a particularly crowded wall of newspaper clippings.

The clippings were all from the past ten years. Lyra grinned when she saw her name more than once. She doubted the pony who'd collected these was a fan, but she was happy somepony thought she was worth documenting. Granted, most of the clippings were basically the same: a sarcastic header, an ill-conceived poke at Lyra's mental stability, and a single dry takeaway from the whole matter.

To ponies in the news industry and a large amount of the public, Lyra Heartstrings was the infamous “Liar Lyra”, the pony who insisted on the existence of a town that nopony else had ever heard of and could not be found on any map.

“Liar Lyra,” Lyra said aloud.

She liked the name. It had a certain ring to it despite its cruelty.

Lyra opened one of the file cabinets. The date on the cabinet specified ten years preceding this moment. It was filled with documents, photographs, and various newspaper clippings. There was no real system to how things were filed, but Lyra found what she was looking for in minutes. She pulled out a single photograph and examined it.

The photograph was of two mares standing in front of a well. The mare on the left—an Earth pony—was leaning on a shovel. The mare had pushed her stetson back and was wiping her brow with her other hoof. The mare on the right—seemingly a unicorn—had her mane tied back and was holding an open book with her magic.

Lyra turned the photograph over and read the badly-written note on the back: August 1st (year illegible), Princess (name illegible) and Apple (second half of name illegible) pose in front of the Starswirl the (illegible) Memorial Well.

This was it. It was exactly as the letter had described, right down to the note. Lyra tucked the photograph into her pocket. She casually left the room, a bored look on her face.

The mare with the pierced eyebrow was back at the desk. She didn't look up from her phone as Lyra passed, although she did vaguely register Lyra's existence. In the back of her mind, she noted another employee heading out for a long coffee or shopping break before closing time.

Lyra tossed the empty lemonade bottle into a trashcan by the door, then stepped out of the building. Still acting the part of the disillusioned employee, she trotted next door to the coffee shop for a latte and a danish. Lyra took her time eating and drinking, her eyes focused on the hustle and bustle outside of the window. After she had paid and left, she disappeared back into the alleyway and returned without her baseball cap and overalls. She was now wearing a skirt that hid her Cutie Mark.

Evening was drawing near and the city was coming alive to some extent. The sidewalk was steadily crowding with ponies who'd gotten off work. It took Lyra a few minutes to hail a cab.

Lyra had the cab driver drop her off at an apartment building a mile or so away from her own. Next door was an aggressively modern-looking house with a sign outside that read “Home for Lost Ponies”. Unlike Wilted Lily's orphanage-turned-residence, this place seemed to be fulfilling its original purpose tenfold. The outside was deserted, but the inside was bustling with activity.

Lyra emptied the contents of the duffel bag—the dress, the overalls, and the baseball cap—into a clothing donation bin to the side of the building. She then started off on the long journey back to her own apartment building.

Upon arriving home, Lyra pulled the photograph from her duffel bag and put it in her suitcase. She had taken to sliding the suitcase under the bed before she went to sleep. Along with the photograph, it also contained something of perhaps more importance: every single page from An Objective History of Equestria: Volume 3 that mentioned Ponyville. The pages had been neatly torn out using magic, therefore the book showed no actual signs of injury. They had been stapled together and neatly placed in the suitcase like a pamphlet.

Lyra took The Wizard of Canterlot from her suitcase. She opened it and flipped to the start of Chapter 6. She had fond memories of this book from her foalhood. Lyra's mother had read it to her almost every night. Chapter 6 was of special importance to her, as it introduced the wizard and started off his remarkable journey towards defeating the evil queen. She had always loved that chapter.

Lyra turned the page to reveal a photograph she had placed in the book. It was a color photograph of a smiling mare leaning on a counter and reading a cookbook. She didn't seem to notice somepony was taking a picture of her, although she had a faint smile on her face.

“Bon-Bon,” Lyra whispered.

She ran a hoof across the photograph. Her eyes burned with tears.

Part 4: Family

Lyra raised a hoof over her eyes and squinted into the harsh sunlight. To a pony who'd spent most of her life in cities, Appleloosa's heat was almost unbearable. How had generations of ponies and buffalo alike fallen in love with this place?

“I'll be here long enough to find out,” Lyra muttered.

She wiped her brow. Lyra thought she was probably imagining it, but she could have sworn it wasn't this hot at the train station. It was only when she took up her position in front of the general store that the heat really seemed to get to her.

Ponies were going about their business seemingly unaffected by the heat. Some ponies had even attired themselves in thick dresses and hats despite the smoldering weather. Lyra felt hotter just looking at them.

“Need some help, ma'am?”

Lyra turned to face a stallion who'd appeared beside her. He had a wide grin on his face that suggested an ingrained eagerness to help strangers.

“A cold drink would be nice,” Lyra said with a sigh. “Do you know where I can find an ATM?”

The stallion—she would later find out his name was “Braeburn”--gave her a sympathetic look. She must be a city pony. They got a lot of those this time of year—mostly journalists—and they were remarkably similar to one another.

“No ATMs around here,” said Braeburn.

Lyra uttered some colorful profanity.

“Does any place around here accept credit cards?” she demanded.

Braeburn hesitated. He studied Lyra for a moment. She appeared to have just stepped off a boring train ride and was now losing her battle with the aggressive heat. She was dressed in the type of short-ish skirt that had become popular with mares in the big city. Braeburn also recognized her extremely short mane as another city trend.

“Well, there's a place of sorts a little ways away,” Braeburn said slowly. “I'm sure they'd let you stay as long as you want. Free of charge of course, seeing as you're not from around here.”

Lyra gave Braeburn a grateful—although tired—smile.

“Guess I have no choice,” she said.

The Apple Family lived a little ways outside of Appleloosa. Their vast land—bordered by a small field of apple trees—contained a silo, a barn, a shed, and a two-story cottage. It wasn't especially interesting to look at it, but it perfectly captured the heart of Appleloosa.

Applejack greeted them at the door. Upon hearing of Lyra's plight, she instantly became sympathetic and welcomed her like a long-lost sister. She insisted Big Macintosh and Apple Bloom help Lyra bring her bags into the house.

“The least we can do,” she kept saying.

Lyra was too overwhelmed by the Apples' hospitality to respond with anything other than a few polite nods.

“Have you eaten yet?” asked Applejack. “I know you busy city ponies are always forgetting your dinner.”

She pulled Lyra into the kitchen before she could respond. Applejack immediately set about preparing an enormous meal Lyra could not hope to finish in one sitting.

“I don't want to be a burden,” Lyra objected.

Applejack chuckled.

“A burden?” she said. “Why, you're a guest. Consider yourself an honorary member of the Apple family while you're here.”

Lyra was genuinely taken aback. For one brief moment the mask slipped. Lyra stared into Applejack's eyes and was nearly moved to tears by the sincerity in them. When was the last time she'd felt as if she had a family? When was the last time Lyra had felt as if she had a home?

“You're too kind,” Lyra said.

The mask slid back into place. Her facade resumed.

“I for one just love the rustic lifestyle,” she said. “It's so charming in its simplicity.”

What poured forth was a series of somewhat vague compliments and observations. Lyra's words seemed to be the spoils of yet another pretentious thought piece in the making for some cheap newspaper, but Applejack listened attentively.

A quarter of an hour later, Applejack called the Apple family in for dinner.

Lyra didn't say much during the meal, although nopony seemed to notice. Conversation at the table was kept at a lively pace throughout. Apple Bloom recounted her entire day to Big Macintosh and was given enthusiastic nods in response, whilst Applejack and Braeburn spoke of farming and various tidbits from the local news.

Lyra smiled faintly and stared at her food. So this was what a real family dinner was like. She had to admit it was a lot cozier than she'd been led to believe. Lyra let the conversations fade into a gentle background noise. She felt strangely at peace.

Granny Smith was eyeing Lyra across the table. She had a vague smile on her face.

Lyra stared at the food piled high on her plate. A strange feeling had come over her.

Soon after dinner, the Apples went up to bed one by one. It was decided that Lyra would sleep on the couch, although Big Macintosh and Apple Bloom both offered their beds. There was a brief debate on the matter, but Lyra silenced the opposition by claiming she was used to crashing on the couch whenever she stayed with a friend.

Lyra waited an hour. She lay on the couch, eyes half-closed and brain working itself into a frenzy. She tried to focus on the gradually fading sounds—shuffling, hoofsteps on the creaky floorboards, whispered goodnights—drifting from upstairs. But Lyra found her mind divided between the matter at hand and some far more personal wonderings.

Why had the Apple family been so accepting of her? They had no reason to treat Lyra as anything other than an unexpected house guest. But they had treated her as if she was a cousin or a beloved lost relative. They had marched directly into Lyra's heart and made her feel, well, loved.

Lyra clutched the blanket to her chest. Had it really been so long since she'd felt loved? It felt like it had been years. Years since anypony had looked at her with complete, unconditional love. Sweet Celestia, Lyra had missed it.

When the hour had come to a close, Lyra left the couch in a somewhat mechanical fashion. Her mind was still occupied with thoughts of the Apple family, but her body was seemingly moving of its own accord. Lyra ignored the floorboards protesting under her hooves—she had a novel's worth of excuses if she was caught—and made her way out the back door and to the shed.

If the Apples were trying to conceal anything of importance, they seemed inclined towards passive security measures. The flimsy lock fell away within seconds, conquered by a basic lockpicking spell Lyra had learned in high school.

Lyra began digging through the boxes. If it was anywhere, it had to be here. The book—A Complete and Objective History of Equestria—had promised its existence.

The first few boxes yielded nothing. Lyra moved aside countless old toys and photo albums. As Lyra moved on to some of the boxes in the back, she felt a pang of regret. She knew it was necessary, but Lyra felt as if she was violating a history. A history she had no part of.

What's my history? Lyra wondered.

Her history seemed to involve an unhealthy amount of shouting. Shouting from her parents as she pursued a career they thought highly unsuitable, shouting from strangers as she threw herself at the mercy of an unacceptable truth. Occasionally there would be a lull, then Lyra's life would once again devolve into shouting. Lyra wondered how long this particular lull would last.

It took Lyra a minute to realize her tears were falling into the box. She swallowed the lump in her throat. For the love of Celestia, why couldn't she just do this and be done with it? Why couldn't Lyra live in this moment as it was, divorced from her own memories and emotions?

“You're a long way from home.”

Lyra’s hoof went to where her saddlebag should have been. Unfortunately, her saddlebag was back in the house and contained only a notebook and a few useless pieces of technology. She had also chosen to leave her precious satchel in the house, not that it contained any weapons. Lyra whirled around with a look of mingled guilt and fear. She half-expected to discover the disapproving eyes of Fleur De Lis boring into her own.

Granny Smith offered Lyra a gentle smile.

“You're mighty jumpy, aren't ya?” she said.

Lyra blushed.

“I was curious,” she said. “We, um, aren't really big on this stuff in Manehatten.”

She hoped the words “this stuff” were vague enough to keep the lie together.

Granny Smith gave Lyra a toothy grin. It was easy to miss the fierce intelligence in Granny Smith's eyes, but it was also impossible to ignore once spotted. Her eyes were windows to the mind of a keen observer.

“No offense, but I do believe that's a load of manure,” she said.

Lyra's eyes went to the door behind Granny Smith. She desperately wanted to bolt, but she found herself rooted in place.

“You're looking for the letter, aren't you?” said Granny Smith.

She gestured towards the boxes.

“It's not in any of those,” she said. “You'll find it in the house.”

She turned and trotted out of the shed before Lyra could say anything. Granny Smith hummed a bouncy tune to herself as she headed back to the house.

Lyra stared at the open doorway. A part of her wanted to flee. What was she even doing there? It was just a stupid letter. It was just a stupid quest. At moments like these, Lyra wondered why she even cared.

Because I have to know, she thought.

With that thought slowly filling up her brain, Lyra finally left the shed and headed back to the house.

Granny Smith was standing in front of the kitchen table. She hummed an old lullaby to herself as she poured boiling water into a teacup. The scene was so innocent, so normal, that it almost felt like a cruel joke. However, the nurturing smile on Granny Smith's face was genuine.

“I thought you could use a warm drink,” she said.

Lyra sat down at the kitchen table. Her gaze swept from her teacup to the arrangement before her. Her saddlebag lay neatly to one side along with her satchel. Across from these was a plate hosting a single piece of toast. In the center of the arrangement there lay a piece of old parchment. Lyra's heart rate quickened at the sight of it. The letter.

Granny Smith sat down and started spreading butter on the toast.

“Something on your mind?” she said.

Lyra tore her gaze away from the letter. She eyed Granny Smith with sudden wariness. She felt as if she was being tricked, but the intention presented to her was absurd.

“Yeah,” Lyra said.

She stared into her teacup. It could have been a trick of the reflection, but she could have sworn signs of premature aging had appeared on her face.

“You ever remember a place that couldn't exist, a pony who couldn't exist?” Lyra said. “You ever spend every waking moment thinking about that place, thinking about that pony, thinking about things that couldn't be true?”

She smiled bitterly.

“The memories get stronger the more you think about them,” she said. “You try to let them go, but you end up holding on tighter than ever. Then a bunch of ponies start saying you've lost your mind. Soon enough you're bitter and alone. All you have are your memories of that place and that pony. Memories that might not even be real."

Granny Smith nodded.

“I know,” she said.

The simple reply surprised Lyra. She stared at Granny Smith, trying to read something within those wise old eyes.

Granny Smith gestured to the teacup. She had finished buttering her toast, but hadn't taken a bite.

“Your tea's getting cold,” she said.

Lyra's eyes went from her teacup to her saddlebag. The realization hit her directly in the heart. She stared at her teacup in mingled disbelief and misery. Lyra was being given a choice. She could either drink her tea or take the letter. She couldn't do both. She couldn't have both.

Granny Smith spoke in a carefree tone.

“Life's kinda funny, isn't it?” she said. “You'll learn to expect all sorts of oddities by the time you're my age.”

She chuckled.

“I envy you young things,” she said. “I used to be quite the looker when I was your age. But just the other day I saw a pony who would have given me a run for my bits back in the day. Tall, slender, most beautiful eyes you've ever seen...”

Lyra closed her eyes. What was the use of chasing memories? What was the use of chasing a past that seemed too dreamlike to be real? Perhaps in some strange way, this truly was the unraveling of Lyra's fragile mind.

An image appeared in Lyra's brain: a mare offering a toothy grin to an unseen camerapony. The mare's eyes shown brightly with prospects of the future, a future wrapped in the loving embrace of another.

Lyra's eyes snapped open. She wasn't just searching for Ponyville. Lyra was searching for her.

“......a great mystery....,” Granny Smith droned on.

Lyra pushed the teacup away. She leaned her head forward and seized the letter with her magic.

Granny Smith stopped talking immediately, but she didn't look surprised.

Lyra stuffed the letter into her satchel and grabbed her saddlebag, then turned to look at Granny Smith. She felt that all too familiar pang of regret as she looked into Granny Smith's kind old face. Lyra had the curious feeling of having made a mistake, yet at the same time being completely assured in her course of action.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

Lyra had been in this situation before, but this time it felt different. She wasn't an ashamed young mare reluctantly defying her parents and choosing her own path. She was a pony on a quest for closure.

Granny Smith just smiled. She watched Lyra leave without any hint of concern.

Once a few moments had passed, Granny Smith stood up. She picked up the teacup and trotted to the sink. She began humming to herself as she poured the tea down the drain.

Some ponies might have called that a waste. But Granny Smith had a hard time believing anything was a waste.

Lyra wondered where in Tartarus she was going. Back to the train station was the obvious answer, but for what? She'd have to wait until morning to catch a train back to Manehatten. Lyra didn't love the idea of sleeping at the station, but she couldn't bring herself to go back to the Apples. She had the feeling that she might never leave if she went back.

“Great plan,” Lyra muttered to herself.

She slowed from a gallop to a trot. Well, her bed was made. The bench outside the station couldn't be that uncomfortable.

Lyra paused for a minute and looked around. A shiver skittered across her back. She suddenly felt as if a hoof was about to reach out from the darkness and touch her. She whirled around, but the town seemed to have gone to bed for the night.

Granny Smith's words came back to her. They were crisp and clear, almost as if Granny Smith was whispering them in her ear.

“Tall, slender, most beautiful eyes you've ever seen.”

Lyra gasped aloud. No. No. There was no way in Equestria it could be her. But that description—although vague—seemed so precise, so indicative of one particular pony Lyra had come to know.

“No, no, no,” Lyra whispered. “How did she find me?”

Fleur De Lis was here. She was in Appleloosa. It had to be her. But seeing as she hadn't pounced yet, it was unlikely Fleur knew her prey was nearby. That should have provided some comfort, but it instead left Lyra with a cold feeling. How did Fleur know? How could anypony know?

Lyra feared the worst, but she couldn't give herself to such pointless worries. She had to keep steady. She had to adjust herself as if this could somehow coexist with her plans.

Steadily, Lyra's brain began working again. Manehatten was obviously a firm “no”. Where did that leave her? It left her in Appleloosa with her satchel, her saddlebag, and nowhere to stay for the foreseeable future. But there had to be somewhere. Lyra could not accept that she'd left herself completely at sea.

Lyra opened her satchel and pulled out the photograph she'd taken from the history and science society. There was one place she could go. One place she had to go, but Lyra had been putting it off. However, it appeared she'd have to rearrange her plans and move a few things up in the queue.

Lyra tucked the photograph back into her satchel. She decided to worry about everything else at a later date. Lyra needed a good night's sleep before she was thrown back into the manticore's lair.

“Sweet Celestia,” Lyra said with a sigh.

She reached into her saddlebag, searching for her watch. Lyra frowned. Had her saddlebag always been so crowded? Confused, Lyra pulled out a little wrapped package. That certainly hadn't been in there before.

“What in Celestia's name?” Lyra wondered aloud.

She cautiously peeled back a corner of the package. The moment she realized what the package contained, her eyes filled with tears. The unfairness and the perfection of it all came back to her like some kind of wonderful curse. This was Lyra's life. This was a fitting culmination of everything she had been chasing.

Sobbing quietly, Lyra clutched the warm package to her face and inhaled. It smelled faintly of cinnamon and fresh apples.

Part 5: Friends

Fleur De Lis was not at the train station. Lyra had expected Fleur to pounce on her the moment she awoke, yet she didn't catch so much as a glimpse of Fleur as she boarded the train.

Lyra should have been relieved at her good fortune, but instead the lack of conflict thoroughly rattled her. It had taken quite a while for Lyra to craft a position of escape last time, so why was Fleur suddenly being so lax?

Maybe she wasn't here in the first place, Lyra thought.

It was a strange line of thought. At its roots it made perfect sense. Granny Smith's description had been rather vague, Lyra hadn't seen any evidence of Fleur's presence, and there was no way Fleur could have tracked Lyra down. But at the same time, Lyra was unwilling to believe in coincidences.

The train ride was surprisingly uneventful, although Lyra jumped at every noise. She almost wished something would happen. A disguise hastily shed, a sudden altercation, a suspicious occurrence, anything. Something definite to distract Lyra from the doubts crowding her mind.

Lyra half-expected to be captured the second she stepped hoof in Canterlot. She grasped the hem of her skirt and tried to tug it a bit further down her flank. While she was sure her Cutie Mark was entirely concealed, Lyra couldn't help her sudden paranoia.

Canterlot looked much the same as it had before. The towering buildings hadn't changed, the excess of shops was still evident, and the air remained thick with magic.

Lyra hailed a taxi carriage. Somepony was going to be very surprised—and pissed off—to see her.

Although Canterlot is usually regarded as a whole, only ponies who've lived there appreciate its diversity. On the surface, it's a collection of businesses and high class apartment buildings occupied by the wealthy and ambitious students. But if one looks a bit closer, they'll see all the illegal potion dealers, the con artists peddling their snake oil in back alleys, and all the other bad seeds tucked into a dark corner of the city.

Lyra was well acquainted with “bad seeds”. It was of her opinion that most of them were not “bad”. They simply misunderstood or shunned by the city's indifferent social hierarchy.

In the middle of the less reputable section of town, there sat a small cottage. To casual passerby, the cottage appeared deserted. The shades were drawn, the garden outside was overgrown, and the entire building had clearly seen better days. However, the mailbox—often stuffed with advertisements—was emptied once or twice a week. Nevertheless, nopony actually saw the house's mysterious resident.

Lyra arrived at this specific cottage and knocked on the door. She waited a moment, then pushed open the unlocked door and walked inside.

The interior of the cottage was surprisingly clean. It appeared to be in a state of chaos, but it was organized chaos.

There was a bed in one corner of the room. Sitting on the bed was a mare with thick glasses and her mane tied back in an untidy ponytail. She looked up from the book she was reading with an annoyed expression.

“Shut the door,” she said.

Lyra hastily closed the door with a backward kick.

“I'm...,” she started quickly.

The mare waved her hoof dismissively. She slammed her book closed and eyed Lyra impatiently.

“You're Lyra Heartstrings,” she said. “I'm Moondancer. There, introductions finished. Coffee?”

She indicated a coffee machine balanced precariously on a stack of books. Before Lyra could respond, Moondancer jumped off the bed and trotted over to the machine. She gave the coffeepot a shake, grumbling about cheap coffee beans from across the sea.

Lyra sat down on the floor.

“How did you know my name?” she asked.

Her and Moondancer had corresponded many times, but they'd used code names. Lyra knew better than to attach her real name to anything important.

Moondancer laughed.

“Who else would you be?” she said. “Your code name was a dead giveaway, Ms. “L Harp”.”

She turned away from the coffee machine.

“Coffee will be ready in a few minutes,” she said.

Moondancer returned to her seat on the bed. Unknown to Lyra, Moondancer had been keeping up with Lyra's story for quite some time. She'd tracked Lyra through the newspapers and even formed a little mental map of her whereabouts. Moondancer referred to this as “research”, but in reality she found Lyra rather fascinating from an entirely psychological point of view.

After studying Lyra for a few minutes, Moondancer spoke.

“Did you know somepony's been following you?” she said.

Lyra shook her head. She now understood the feeling of dread that had been resting in her stomach.

Moondancer trotted across the room to the dresser. She opened the top drawer to reveal a collection of notebooks. The notebooks were of varying color and seemingly arranged from oldest to newest. Moondancer levitated what appeared to be the oldest notebook—judging by its many signs of wear—from the drawer and tossed it at Lyra.

Surprised, Lyra caught the notebook in her magic. She opened it to the first page and started reading the neat and narrow hoofwriting.

Time T.

D. Hooves

P. Pie

Lyra stopped reading, a frown on her face.

“Are these...?” she started.

Moondancer slammed the drawer shut. The sound rang out like a cannon blast in the quiet cottage.

“You're a conspiracy theorist, right?” she said.

Lyra had come to dislike those words, but she nodded. It was as good a description of her as anything else.

“I hate conspiracy theorists,” said Moondancer. “Always going on and on about how the clouds are actually holograms, the princesses are lying to us about the sun, blah blah blah. Peddling your baseless beliefs on street corners and forcing your overpriced magazines on naïve young ponies. Ranting about UFOs and cover-ups like anypony with common sense is going to take you seriously. You're all fools living in some silly fantasy world.”

Moondancer let out a frustrated sigh.

“That being said, sometimes you’re right,” she said.

The coffee machine had begun to beep, indicating the coffee was ready. Moondancer automatically headed towards it.

“I too am a seeker of truth,” she said.

She levitated the coffeepot and summoned two mugs. A grin darted across Moondancer's face as she poured the coffee. There were few things in life she appreciated and even fewer things she tolerated. Coffee fit into both camps.

“I guess we're allies for the time being,” she said.

She offered Lyra one of the mugs. Lyra took it gratefully.

“Why did you come here?” asked Moondancer.

Lyra related the entire story. Although she managed to omit certain details—such as her conversation with Granny Smith—Moondancer was able to glimpse between the lines. The edges of the story were soft, as if Lyra harbored a fondness she herself did not realize.

“I take it you have my photograph,” said Moondancer.

Lyra laid a hoof protectively upon her satchel.

“I take it you have what I want,” she said.

Moondancer eyed Lyra with newfound respect. She did not believe Lyra was a businesspony by any definition, but she appreciated Lyra's realization of where they stood. This was not a friendship. If anything, it was two business partners reluctantly pooling resources for the sake of a common goal.

“I promised information, you get information,” said Moondancer.

She trotted over to the dresser and opened another drawer. This time she withdrew a light brown folder bulging with papers. With little hesitation, Moondancer threw the folder at Lyra's hooves. The folder burst open as it hit the floor, scattering papers, photographs, and newspaper clippings in front of a startled Lyra.

“Holy Tartarus!” Lyra blurted out.

She scrambled to repack the folder's contents. Lyra had expected one or two pieces of parchment, not a novel.

Moondancer took a sip of her coffee, savoring the rich bitterness.

“The photograph,” she said calmly.

Lyra reached into her satchel and pulled out the photograph. She handed it over with the same lack of reluctance.

Moondancer studied the photograph. She didn't smile, but she gently ran a hoof across the photo. She did this lovingly, as if hoping her soft touch could reach one of the mares in the photograph. Moondancer's eyes burned, but the tears never emerged.

“I call them cracks,” she said quietly. “When something breaks through your memories and you get a look at a history that couldn't be real.”

She closed her eyes.

“But you want it to be real,” she whispered. “You'd give anything for it to be real.”

Lyra thought of the other photograph in her satchel. She thought of the smiling face of a mare who only seemed to exist in memories that didn’t seem real. She thought of a home so far away she could not even imagine the distance.

“Anything,” Lyra agreed.

Moondancer's fridge was surprisingly well-stocked. Despite being a shut-in, Moondancer's life had a certain admirable efficiency to it. Dirty dishes were soaked in a magical cleaning solution of her own invention, her few items of clothing—mostly identical sweaters—were neatly folded by her bed, and she'd utilized a spell that caused the smell of lavender to consume all others.

Lyra took a container labeled “Dinner” out of the fridge—prepped a week in advance along with many others—and found it contained pasta and vegetables.

“Deliveries,” said Moondancer before Lyra could ask. “I happen to know a few discreet services that will deliver anything you want, no questions asked. The packages always come around midnight.”

She was lying on her bed again, book open in front of her.

Lyra was too hungry to question the legitimacy of these “discreet services”. She dug into the food with gusto.

Moondancer cocked her eyebrow at Lyra's enthusiastic gobbling, but she didn't comment.

Despite being consumed by her appetite, Lyra's thoughts were racing. She couldn't stop thinking about Fleur. While she could accept that Fleur had somehow gotten wind of her whereabouts, she could not accept that Fleur had missed a chance to nab her.

Maybe she didn't want to nab me, thought Lyra. Maybe she was following me.

She frowned and wiped her mouth with her hoof. That would mean two ponies were tailing her. Were they both on the same side? Was there perhaps a third side Lyra had not yet discovered? More importantly, why would Fleur be shadowing her?

As far as Lyra knew, Fleur had one purpose and one purpose only: keeping Lyra out of trouble. It was a court order that brought them together and that court order was very clear in its intentions. Therefore, shouldn't Fleur have grabbed Lyra and dragged her in front of a judge to report she'd violated the terms of the legal agreement?

She knows I know something, Lyra thought. They know I know something.

She wished she'd been able to clean out her apartment in Manehatten. However, what would Fleur find if she went there? A history book with several pages missing, an old book, and several notebooks filled with one phrase. Everything important was either in Lyra's saddlebags or her satchel.

Lyra glanced at Moondancer. She didn't know how she was going to explain that they were both in danger. She wanted to leave, but where would she go? What could Lyra do, where could she hide?

I might have nowhere to hide, but I have something to do, she thought.

She opened the folder, allowing it to release its bounty. It was going to be a long few days.

Part 6: History

“I need information about Ponyville.”

Those were the exact words Lyra had written in her letter to Moondancer. She had discovered Moondancer—known to her at that time as “Dancing Light”--through a list of allies passed to her by a colleague. This list had contained the names of everypony known to be helpful in various ways to the conspiracy theorist community. Lyra needed somepony who thrived on information and supposedly “Dancing Light” was swimming in it.

Lyra was almost afraid to peruse the folder's contents. What would she find? Would it answer her most persistent questions or merely create thousands more?

Lyra wasn't sure where to begin, but eventually a certain document caught her attention. It looked so out of place compared to everything else. Lyra frowned and gingerly removed it from the folder. Closer inspection revealed it to be a death certificate. The date and other such relevant details were smudged, but the cause of death and the name were legible.

“Applejack, poison,” Lyra read aloud.

She furrowed her brow. That didn't make any sense. Ignoring the obvious contradiction of the whole thing, the cause of death was so vague. It almost sounded like a placeholder, as if the pony who had written it had been pressed to find an alternate—and untruthful—explanation. However, the certificate had the official Royal Seal—this could not be forged by any means—marking it as authentic.

Further exploration revealed that much of the folder's contents concerned the Apple family or a family with the surname “Pie”. Lyra looked through contradictory birth certificates—one with the town name mysteriously smudged—and several old newspaper clippings. There were snippets of articles talking about grand construction projects, feats of heroism, and local events of note. The town or city was never explicitly mentioned, yet Lyra felt a certain connection to these articles, as if her vague memories had at last found their home.

It took Lyra an entire night to peruse a good chunk of the folder's contents. She fell asleep around dawn and slept well into the afternoon.

Moondancer was eating a piece of toast with jam and writing in a notebook. There were two huge books open to either side of her.

Lyra followed a line of bread crumbs to the fridge and prepared herself a modest lunch. Lyra was again in dire need of food. She decided she had to do something about her irregular eating and sleeping schedule.

Attempting to engage Moondancer in conversation seemed pointless. Moondancer had clearly set herself firmly against frivolous interaction. She had the general air of a cynical and disillusioned scholar, rather than that of a conversationalist. Lyra remembered how Moondancer had looked at the photograph, how her hoof had tenderly passed over the unicorn's face. At some point, in some way, Moondancer had had a friend or perhaps something more.

We're the same, Lyra thought.

They had both been left behind. They were both remnants of a past so close it could be touched, yet so far away it escaped their eyes. Survivors of an unknowable history. But there was one significant difference Lyra had noticed immediately. She wanted to go home. However, Moondancer simply wanted closure.

Lyra returned to the folder after her hasty lunch. She pored over its contents with renewed vigor, drinking them in as if they were precious nectar.

There were lists of names. The lists were given without context, but each name hit Lyra like a blow to her side. Most of the names she did not recognize. Some of them subtly struck a cord with her, but this reaction was so commonplace that she ignored it. It was the names Lyra definitely did know that briefly alarmed her. Lyra saw her own name more than once. Occasionally there were words written next to it, but they were always either too illegible to read or too cryptic for her to decode.

One piece of parchment confused Lyra more than the others. It merely read “Deceased” at the top. It contained nothing else. However, a quiver of fear skittered across Lyra's spine when she touched the parchment. She pulled her hoof back at once. Lyra tried to avoid looking at the parchment as she continued her research.

As midnight neared, Lyra looked up from the papers before her. She turned her gaze to Moondancer.

Moondancer raised her mug of steaming coffee to her mouth, then paused and turned to glare at Lyra.

“What?” she said.

Lyra hesitated. She felt as if she was breaking a sacred trust or invading Moondancer's privacy, but she had to know. It was all too much.

“Where did you get all of this?” she asked.

She gestured to the papers and photographs spread out haphazardly around her.

A genuine smile appeared on Moondancer's face. She placed the coffee mug on a nearby stack of books.

“Mostly the Canterlot Archives,” she said. “The place is a labyrinth, but it's filled with secret wings and hidden bookshelves. You wouldn't believe some of the books Princess Celestia keeps under lock and key. Fortunately, I have ponies on the inside who are more than willing to accept a generous amount of bits for some forbidden information.”

Moondancer looked around at her impressive collection of books.

“One of my comrades is a bookseller,” she said. “Sometimes she comes across something strange and passes it onto me.”

Moondancer appeared to struggle with herself. On the one hoof she wanted to return to her work, but on the other hoof she wanted Lyra to understand. In the end her desire to explain herself fully overwhelmed her need for solitude and quiet. It had been a long time since she’d told anypony her story.

“It all made sense when I started my research,” she said. “For the longest time I thought I was suffering from some form of psychosis.”

She scowled. Memories of those wasted months were coming back to her. So many therapists, so many books, so many sleepless nights. Moondancer had wrung her psyche dry in her desperate search for an explanation.

“You've seen the anomalies, haven't you?” said Moondancer. “It's not weird lights in the sky or any of that garbage. It's a series of questions that don't have answers.”

Moondancer tapped her hoof on the bed.

“I sound like a conspiracy nut,” Moondancer said. “Stupid, isn't it?”

Lyra pointed at the piece of parchment with “Deceased” written at the top. Despite jabbing her hoof at it, she refused to look at it.

“What about that?” she asked. “Where did it come from?”

Moondancer glanced at the parchment herself, then hurriedly looked away.

“My bookseller friend found it stuck between the pages of a book,” she said. “I think the book was from an old collection she hadn't gotten around to examining. I stuck it in there because it seemed so out of place.”

Although she would have rather not, Lyra tried to rearrange her thoughts about the parchment. Why did it distress her so much? Why did she feel sick to her stomach every time she glanced at it? There was something about it that seemed wrong. A puzzle piece that didn’t fit anywhere, yet was begging for a place. The more Lyra tried to find its place, the more the piece seemed to writhe and distort in her steady grip.

A fragment, Lyra thought.

Where the word came from she couldn't say, but it seemed to fit. Lyra realized that a great deal of the folder's contents were “fragments”. Fragments of a long story written in the wind and the trees. She had the impression of them spelling out a larger and more intricate narrative than her mind could grasp, but Lyra wasn't certain. The pieces appeared too random to ever exist as a coherent story, yet the connections—vague and uncertain—were there.

I need a bridge, Lyra thought.

If she could connect two fragments together in a more solid manner, surely everything could come together.

Lyra started going through the folder again, this time with even more care. She began spreading the papers and photographs out on the floor before her.

“Don't make a mess,” Moondancer said vaguely.

She returned to her book.

A whole two days passed. Lyra had not gotten any closer to her goal. Every time she built a bridge, it collapsed under the weight of contradictions. It was never strong enough to hold the massive amount of information Lyra intended to transport over it.

One morning, Lyra angrily threw the mostly empty folder against a nearby wall.

“It's all manure!” she shouted.

Moondancer took a moment to react to Lyra's passionate outburst. She turned from the open cabinet before her with her familiar annoyed expression.

“You'd better clean that up,” she said.

Lyra shook her head in frustration. She gestured towards the papers and notebooks that seemed to have taken over the floor.

“How can you be so docile?” Lyra demanded. “Don't you want to find out the truth?”

Moondancer levitated a frying pan from the cabinet and placed it on the stove. She trotted over to the fridge and pulled out a carton of eggs. The way she could just go about her daily life with ease made Lyra almost cry out in envy. Lyra had spent so many days fumbling around in her warped excuse for normality, trying to put aside her personal mysteries and be an average pony. It all seemed to come natural to Moondancer.

“I've spent a good deal of my life trying to find out the truth,” Moondancer said. “I'm getting a little tired of it.”

Lyra suddenly understood why Moondancer hadn't demanded bits in exchange for the information. She understood how Moondancer could stand to remain isolated in her cottage for months at a time surrounded by books and charts. Moondancer had fallen out of love with the very answers she sought. She had given up on any grand goal other than simply knowing. Moondancer still believed in a past that couldn't be true, but it was a past so far out of her reach she'd rather not even try.

The worst part was that Lyra understood Moondancer's plight. She'd gone through it herself over and over again. What had kept her going during those long periods of hopelessness? How had she coped with it?

Lyra reached into her satchel and withdrew a photograph. She smiled. Throughout the doubt and the misery, one face had kept drifting in and out of her thoughts. That smile had been Lyra's light in the darkness for as long as she could remember.

“I promised,” she whispered.

Moondancer tossed two eggs into the frying pan.

“So what are you going to do?” she asked.

She said it in the exact same way somepony would ask “When are you going to leave me alone?”.

Lyra stared at Moondancer for a moment. Moondancer was sour and broken, a pony shattered to pieces by her own conflicting memories. But there was still something akin to sweetness lurking underneath the surface. There was somepony Moondancer still cared for regardless of everything. A pony she could never bring herself to face, but a pony she loved nonetheless. Lyra could relate.

“I think there's somepony I need to talk to,” said Lyra slowly.

No matter what, she was going to build that bridge. She just needed to get her hooves on something more solid.

Part 7: Memories

“.....theoretically creating a portal between worlds....”

A purple unicorn droned on, her voice echoing in the crowded lecture hall. She wore the colorful but somewhat drab sweater and glasses combo that seemed typical of a Canterlot University professor. Her mane was pulled back into a severe bun.

“Can anypony tell me how portals are created?” asked the unicorn.

A light green unicorn sitting near the back raised her hoof. At a nod from the purple unicorn, the light green pony stood up. She was wearing a beret and a comically oversized sweater that could have easily doubled as a dress.

“The unicorn must first locate a reflective surface,” said Lyra. “A mirror is preferred in most cases. The spell itself requires the unicorn to focus their magic not only on the mirror, but also on the place they are attempting to access. In a sense, they must create a detailed model of this place in their mind and then project it into the mirror like putting ingredients in soup.”

Twilight Sparkle—the youngest professor of theoretical magic at Canterlot University—gave Lyra an approving nod.

“Can anypony tell me the exact spell or spells used to successfully create a portal?” she asked.

Several hooves went up as Lyra sank back into her seat.

Twilight smiled and slid a teacup across the table.

“I'm glad my lecture had such an impact on you,” she said.

Lyra raised the teacup to her mouth and took a long sip. Her gaze discreetly wandered the room. Bookshelves were pressed against every wall and crammed into every corner, giving Lyra the impression of being in a small library. She was surprised Twilight had sacrificed precious bookshelf space for the sake of a desk and a table.

“Of course it did,” said Lyra enthusiastically. “Theoretical magic is amazing! I mean, it's just so fascinating. Have you ever, like, tried any of those spells you talk about?”

Twilight looked bemused for a moment, but her face hastily cleared. It wasn't often she came across a student who displayed genuine enthusiasm.

“Well, no,” she said. “I do experiment with magic in my spare time, but the stuff I talk about in class is entirely theoretical.”

She levitated a book from a nearby shelf and placed it on the table. The book was a thick hardcover, the cover emblazoned with a symbol Lyra didn't recognize.

“Modern magic and ancient magic are completely different,” said Twilight.

Twilight was sliding back into her role as a teacher. It was clear from her voice that she was preparing for another one of her lectures. This was fine with Lyra. The longer Twilight talked, the less likely she would be to ask any difficult questions.

“The first spells were more like rituals,” said Twilight. “They involved a whole team of unicorns coming together and combining their magic to perform incredible feats. They moved entire mountains, summoned nightmarish creatures from other dimensions to aid them in battle, and even brought back the dead.”

Lyra took another long sip of her tea and nodded. She had been in and out of school for most of her life. It had been a while since she'd listened to a teacher so intently.

“Magic only started to become more subdued after centuries of study,” continued Twilight. “A lot of the older unicorns died out and their spells died with them.”

She jabbed a hoof at the book on the table.

“This is the closest anypony today has to a record of those spells,” she said. “Most of it is based entirely on conjecture and speculation. Of course none of the spells in this book actually work. No unicorn alive could master them. Even the princesses would struggle.”

Lyra nodded with an awestruck look on her face. She was only partially feigning her reaction.

“What kind of spells are in there?” she asked. “Are there spells for, like, time travel?”

Twilight chuckled. There was something about idealistic ponies enthusiastic about learning that gave her a warm fuzzy feeling.

“Several,” she said. “A lot of our ancestors were obsessed with changing the past.”

Lyra nodded in mute admiration. She took another long sip from her teacup.

“But wouldn't that mess things up?” she asked. “I mean, you can't really change the past, right? That's, um, theoretical.”

Twilight rested her hoof on the book. The mood in the room seemed to shift, but in such a subtle way that perhaps only Lyra picked up on it. It seemed the air grew just a little bit colder and Twilight's voice hardened ever so slightly.

“No, you can't change the past,” she said. “Time is an inflexible construct. Even if you try to tamper with it, the timeline will simply adjust itself accordingly. No magic in existence can truly alter a destined course of events.”

Twilight waved her hoof as if swatting at the idea.

“There's no point in dwelling on that,” she said. “Modern magic might not be perfect, but it's just as fascinating.”

Lyra placed a hoof on the table. She hoped Twilight didn't see her facade slipping.

“Can I, like, borrow that?” she asked. “Please please please! It all sounds so super awesome and I could learn so much and I bet reading it is how you got so smart and...”

Lyra took a deep and exaggerated breath. She told herself to reel it in a little and not get lost in her character.

“I'm sorry,” said Twilight.

Her voice again had that very subtle hardness to it.

“This book is very rare,” she said. “I'm sure you're responsible, but I don't feel comfortable entrusting it to somepony I barely know.”

Taking the hint, Lyra decided to steer the conversation away. She tore her eyes from the book with great difficulty.

“How about spells that make you remember things that didn't actually happen?” she asked. “Do you know anything about those?”

For one panicked moment, Lyra thought she'd been too forward. But the words had scampered from her mouth before she could stop them. It occurred to Lyra that she knew so much, yet knew absolutely nothing. She stood here before a pony she was certain connected these two sets of memories, yet at the same time Lyra scarcely knew what questions to ask.

Twilight frowned at the question, but that telltale stiffness did not enter her voice.

“I guess a basic memory alteration spell would do it,” she said. “The illusion wouldn't hold for too long, but it'd be enough to trick the average pony for days or weeks.”

Again words came before Lyra could stop them, spilling from her like air from a balloon.

“But what if it persists for longer than that?” she asked. “What if the memories never fade but instead become stronger as the days go by? What if they become so vivid you could swear they were as real as this table? What if you become convinced they are real? What if all doubt vanishes and you're left with the impossible, yet the impossible seems so possible to you all of a sudden?”

She was breathing heavily and she could feel tears in her eyes. But Lyra kept going.

“What if the same sweet face keeps coming to you in these memories?” she asked. “What if she's there even when you're not dreaming, just hiding somewhere out of sight in your mind? What if you cried yourself to sleep every night thinking of her wonderful smile and knowing it only exists in some place you can't access? Wouldn't you do whatever it takes to find out the truth? Wouldn't you risk your life and your sanity to find her, if only to reassure yourself that she's real, that there might be a sunny spot in your life of isolation and abandonment?”

Lyra placed her head on the table and sobbed.

“I want it to be real,” she said. “Sweet Celestia, I want it to be real.”

Twilight didn't say anything for several minutes. She reached across the table and patted Lyra's head. The gesture was somewhat awkward in its execution, but at the moment it was enough.

“How about I have my assistant Spike take you home?” Twilight said. “It's getting late.”

Lyra raised her head and stared directly into Twilight's eyes.

“Does a spell like that exist?” she asked.

Was that a flicker of unease or did Lyra imagine it? Was Twilight's pause longer than normal or did the time pass at an agonizing rate from Lyra's perspective? If only her vision wasn't so blurry with tears.

“You need to go home,” said Twilight firmly. “I'm sorry I upset you.”

Wiping her tears away, Lyra hopped off her chair. She flashed Twilight an unconvincing sheepish smile.

“Sorry,” she said. “I get super weird sometimes. Must be all those energy drinks. You ever downed an entire Furious Orange in two minutes? Things get wild.”

Lyra headed to the door. She opened it, ignoring Twilight's protests.

“Really, I'll be fine,” she said. “This isn't the first time I've walked home at night.”

Lyra nearly collided with a medium-sized dragon in her haste. The stack of papers the dragon was carrying flew from his claws as the two crashed into each other. Lyra shouted an apology as she quickly got to her hooves and charged past the dragon. Despite moving quickly, she caught a snippet of conversation before the door of Twilight's office slammed shut.

“What's her problem?” grumbled the dragon.

Twilight's voice seemed to quiver a little as she replied.

“She remembers,” she said.

The door slammed shut and Lyra went on her way at a slower pace.

Lyra broke into a gallop as she neared Moondancer's cottage. Her thoughts were racing. Despite everything, a genuine smirk broke out on her face. Moondancer hadto have a copy of that book. Lyra might not be sure of its importance, but she had a gut feeling that things would change dramatically once she got her hooves on it.

The symbol was something else. It hadn't been one of those ancient runes or magic seals Lyra had been forced to memorize way back during her school days. It was something entirely new to her. However, it did vaguely resemble something Lyra had seen before. Unfortunately, she could not for the life of her figure out what.

Lyra entered the cottage without bothering to knock. She knew Moondancer had altered her defensive spells to allow Lyra access.

“I need...,” Lyra began excitedly.

She frowned. It was late evening, yet the cottage was completely dark. The lamps should have lit automatically. Now that Lyra thought about it, she hadn't felt that familiar tickle across her fur that usually accompanied security spells. It seemed none of the magic in the cabin was working. But why would Moondancer disable her spells?

“Moony?” Lyra called.

She knew Moondancer hated that nickname. If anything would make Moondancer spring from the darkness shouting, that was high on the list. But Moondancer did not appear beside Lyra and start complaining. Nothing stirred in the cottage. To Lyra's unease, she realized that she was alone.

Lyra reached out with her magic and lit all of the lamps. The room came to life immediately in the intense glow. This should have provided relief, but instead Lyra's heart dropped.

The cottage was empty. It wasn't merely the lack of another pony that Lyra had sensed. Some time between her leaving that morning and her return, the cottage had been emptied out. The stacks of books were gone, as were the file cabinets, the notebooks, and the typewriter. It was as bare as if nopony had ever set hoof inside.

Lyra almost passed out. This couldn't be. How could an entire chapter of her life have vanished so quickly and throughly? The hours she'd spent waiting for a chance to talk to Twilight without interruptions seemed like hours wasted.

Maybe I am insane, Lyra thought.

Lyra's stomach rumbled. She trotted over to the fridge in a daze. It seemed bizarre to her that such basic bodily functions were still active. But at least this simple equine need gave her something to focus on while she wrapped her head around everything. Lyra was surprised to find the fridge was as fully stocked as it had been before. She pulled out a candy bar and slammed the fridge door shut.

The chocolate helped steady her thoughts. Lyra was able to piece together some possibilities and start working on a solution.

Somepony had obviously come for Moondancer and her stuff. Whether it was Fleur or somepony else was unknown. Granted, the idea of another player entering the game made Lyra shudder. She could deal with Fleur—Fleur was predictable in some ways—but Lyra wouldn't bet on her chances with a complete stranger. So where had Fleur—or whoever--taken Moondancer and whyhad they taken all of Moondancer's stuff?

One thing was for sure: Lyra had to get out of there. Anypony who knew about Moondancer probably knew about her as well. They might come back any minute to nab her. But where in Equestria could she go?

The university, Lyra thought. Their security spells are pretty flimsy. I bet I could break in and camp out there for a while in some abandoned classroom. They won't know to look there.

It was a desperate plan, but worth a shot. Lyra swallowed her last mouthful of chocolate. She was about to throw the wrapper to the floor, but she instead froze. A thought had come to her. Lyra stood rigid in the middle of the room, her heartbeat increasing with every passing second.

They had her satchel. Lyra had left it at the cottage because she was sure it would be safe. She'd trusted in Moondancer, trusted in all of Moondancer's security spells and her intellect. Lyra thought of her picture of Bon-Bon, of the important files she'd stuffed into her satchel. Whoever had taken Moondancer had them all now.

“I'm sorry,” Lyra mouthed to the empty room. “I'm so sorry.”

She was apologizing both to herself and to Bon-Bon. This had been one of the worst blunders of her life. Lyra couldn't rearrange her plans to make things better. She was going to have to live with her mistake.

Lyra gathered herself after a few minutes. She reminded herself that regardless of her mistake, she had to leave. Lyra started to stuff the wrapper into her saddlebag, but she again stopped. An idea had hit her.

That candy bar had been on the top shelf. It had been the only candy bar on the top shelf. The rest were stacked on the middle shelf. Why had Moondancer moved it?

Lyra smoothed out the wrapper. There was hoofwriting on the inside. Moondancer had unwrapped the candy bar, then re-wrapped it with some kind of spell. From the outside it was indistinguishable from the others.

The note read: DoCit

Lyra puzzled over it for a moment. “DoCit”? Was that some kind of secret code? Was it perhaps an anagram? But however Lyra rearranged the letters, she couldn't come up with anything. She squinted desperately at the note, trying to turn it into something she could follow.

Cit, she thought. Sit? Cite? City?

Lyra's eyes lit up. City. If the second word was “City”, the first word was probably “Dodge”. Dodge City. That had to be it.

Lyra shoved the note into her saddlebag. She realized it was about time she got going for real. She extinguished the lamps and trotted to the door. Lyra opened the door a crack and peeked outside. The coast was seemingly clear, but that could change at any second.

Getting to Dodge City wasn't going to be easy, but Lyra was confident she could make it. She just had to stay in the shadows and keep her head down.

“Don't worry,” Lyra whispered. “I'll be fine.”

One way or another, she was getting her satchel back.

Part 8: Dodge City

Dodge City was a small insignificant speck on the map, its population hardly breaking the double digits. Tucked into its own lonely corner of Equestria, most of its relevance was wrapped up in the local cherry farm. If it wasn't for that farm, the town wouldn't have even registered as a tourist destination. Even then, visitors were scarce and newcomers even scarcer.

Lyra didn't bother with a disguise. Dodge City was such an isolated town that she doubted her story had reached there. Even if her exploits had somehow reached this practically unknown little town, Lyra wouldn't have wasted time covering up her Cutie Mark. She was tired of hiding. She was tired of feeling hunted.

Now that she was in Dodge City, what was she meant to do? For the first time in a while, Lyra was completely lost.

The town's only hotel looked friendly enough, but Lyra realized that she'd reached a lot deeper into her wallet than she meant to. Fortunately, Lyra happened to see a Help Wanted poster outside the general store. A pony named Cherry Jubilee was looking for an “able-bodied pony to do some light work on th local cherry farm”. Lyra didn't know what that entailed—she'd never worked on a farm in her life—but the poster mentioned an especially generous salary and a place to stay.

Cherry Jubilee was surprisingly understanding. She waved away Lyra's concerns about having never worked on a farm before.

“Half the ponies I hire can't tell a plow from a cart,” she said with a laugh. “I take what I can get.”

There were three other ponies working on the farm, all of them out-of-towners. Cherry introduced them to Lyra on her first day: a stallion named Hard Luck, another stallion named Trouble Shoes, and a mare named Marble Pie. None of them seemed too enthusiastic about having another pony in their already limited living quarters.

At Cherry Jubilee's insistence, Trouble Shoes took Lyra to the small room the three—now four—of them occupied. It was a practical and scarcely furnished room on the second floor. There were four beds lined up in the middle of the room, a dresser, and a door leading to a tiny bathroom.

“It's not much, is it?” commented Trouble Shoes.

Lyra placed her saddlebag on one of the beds. This all felt oddly familiar: the farm, the hospitable Cherry Jubilee, the sudden rush of homesickness coupled with an intense feeling of comfort. Life in Dodge City must be so simple. It was a place where everything came to a standstill. Lyra could already sense the constant noise in her head fading to a pleasant background murmur.

“It'll be fine,” said Lyra. “It'll all be fine.”

She ran a hoof across the blanket and smiled.

Mornings and afternoons at the cherry farm were hectic, but evenings and nights were pleasant. It was during these evenings and nights that the four of them would sit in front of the fireplace and talk. They told stories, crafted tales of exquisite horror, and recounted cherished memories from their pasts. Even timid Marble occasionally volunteered stories about her fillyhood, her voice so soft and hesitant that everypony practically had to press their ears to her mouth.

Trouble Shoes had been working there for over a year, Hard Luck for two. Marble had been working there for less than a month, but she had already proved herself a hard worker.

After a week of working at the farm, Lyra had already begun to feel like she was part of a family. In a way, they were her family. Having no prior knowledge of who she was or where she came from, they welcomed her with open hooves. Lyra felt as if she'd known these ponies all her life. However, despite how close she felt to them, there remained a sort of barrier. Lyra attempted to ignore it, but the more the others talked about their pasts the thicker the barrier became. Lyra realized that she could never tell any of them about her past, could never reveal her true identity to them. She could be Lyra the Farmhand, but she could never be Lyra Heartstrings.

On her tenth night, Lyra had her first nightmare since coming to Dodge City. She found herself trotting down a dark hallway lined with mirrors. She kept glancing in the mirrors as she passed, expecting to see her reflection. Instead each mirror showed her the twisted face of her beloved Bon-Bon. Bon-Bon was screaming silently, her hooves pawing at her face as if trying to remove her fur. The faster Lyra trotted, the more distorted Bon-Bon's image became. By the time she felt she was nearing the end of the hallway, Bon-Bon's face was merely a warped smudge upon the glass. Bon-Bon's screams were becoming more and more audible as the hallway went on, the volume increasing as Lyra practically galloped past the remaining mirrors and into the darkness beyond.

Lyra awakened with a shout and almost fell out of bed. Bon-Bon's agonized screams had followed her into the waking world, the sound so shrill and tortured that Lyra felt her ears might burst. She pressed her hooves into her ears and silently begged for it to stop, for Bon-Bon to forgive her for her failings and leave her alone. But the screams continued, squeezing their way past Lyra's hooves and into her eardrums. Her hooves still in her ears, Lyra reached out for the lamp with her magic and switched it on.

Marble was thrashing around in the bed next to Lyra's. Her covers lay in a heap on the floor. Marble's features were arranged into an expression of anguish. Her eyes were closed tightly as if attempting to block out some horrifying vision and her fur was standing on end. Marble was screaming, the once incoherent sound slowly arranging itself into words.

“The mold, the mold, the mold!” she was screaming, her tone increasingly frantic.

Hard Luck and Trouble Shoes stood at either side of Marble's bed. Hard Luck was trying desperately to grab Marble's flailing limbs, whilst Trouble Shoes was brandishing a glass of water.

“What's going on?” Lyra demanded.

Neither of them answered. As Lyra watched in confusion and fear, Trouble Shoes flung the glass of water into Marble's face. The instant the cold water hit Marble's face, her limbs settled. Her body stiffened, her head shaking violently for a moment. Then she lay back against the pillow, panting. Slowly, Marble opened her eyes and turned a distant gaze to Hard Luck.

“Sister?” she said.

Hard Luck patted Marble's head.

“No, little darling,” he said gently. “You were having a nightmare.”

While Hard Luck attempted to soothe a trembling Marble, Trouble Shoes left the room.

Lyra glanced from Hard Luck and Marble to the bedroom door. She contemplated for a moment, then jumped out of bed and departed the bedroom. She wanted to gallop, but she forced herself to walk slowly over the creaky floorboards. Lyra felt like a teenager trying to avoid being caught out of bed by a strict parent.

Trouble Shoes was in the kitchen. He was carefully picking up everything he'd knocked over in the dark, including the table. There were four teacups on the counter and a small pot of boiling water on the stove. Four packets of exotic tea—undoubtedly from Cherry Jubilee's exclusive collection—lay in a row on the counter. Lyra hoped Trouble Shoes wasn't breaking some unspoken rule.

“I reckon you're a bit confused,” said Trouble Shoes.

Lyra sat down at the kitchen table. She was yet again surprised by how familiar this all was to her. The feeling of family, the feeling of belonging, the bemusement and worry as the situation slipped out of her hooves. The first time, there had been some warmth underneath it. This time Lyra felt unusually cold.

Trouble Shoes moved the pot from the stove to the counter as it began to boil.

“Marble has bad dreams on occasion,” said Trouble Shoes. “She left home because they were getting worse and worse. Coming here helped for a while, but they started back up again. They're worse than ever now. Fortunately, she doesn't get them as often.”

Trouble Shoes emptied the packets of tea into their respective cups. He appeared to do this haphazardly, but Lyra sensed deliberateness.

“Her family's got a history of clairvoyance,” Trouble Shoes continued. “Mares in her family usually have what we call “The Sense” or “The Sight”. She says she's been having visions since she was a foal. Her sisters have The Sight or The Sense too, but I reckon theirs is a lot less powerful.”

The Sight was one of many strange and supernatural concepts Lyra considered worthy of study. Beliefs of this nature permeated Earth pony culture, regardless of various levels of academia dismissing them as pure nonsense.

“What are the dreams about?” Lyra asked.

Trouble Shoes placed a cup of tea before Lyra. The tantalizing aroma of berries drifted into her nostrils.

“She won't say,” Trouble Shoes said. “Must be pretty bad if she can't even talk about them.”

Lyra briefly questioned why Marble had chosen to confide in Trouble Shoes. But one look into his eyes gave her the answer. There was sadness in those eyes, but also a sweetness. Trouble Shoes was clearly a kind soul who invited the troubles and histories of others. For a moment, Lyra was tempted to tell him her story. It was with great effort that she did not.

“Drink your tea,” Trouble Shoes urged.

He left the room with a cup presumably intended for Marble.

Lyra sipped her tea and thought. She'd been spending a lot of time inside her own mind as of late. She found that when she wasn't reading important documents and sorting through photographs, Lyra could focus on Lyra. Not Lyra the Conspiracy Theorist or Lyra the Lost, but plain old Lyra Heartstrings from Canterlot. She had somewhat lost track of herself during those chaotic months. Without her satchel or Moondancer, Lyra had been left alone with herself and her mysteries.

I could stay in Dodge City, she thought. I could make a life here. I could forget.

But did she want to forget? Did she want to simply let go? Perhaps that was why Moondancer had sent her there. Maybe Moondancer had sensed that the one thing Lyra needed was to become somepony else. The prospect was looking more and more attractive to Lyra.

Lyra drained her teacup. The tea seemed to have worked as intended, as Lyra now felt drowsy. Leaving the teacup on the table, she hastily left the kitchen. All Lyra wanted was her bed.

The ordeal with Marble was going to follow her into her dreams. Lyra remembered every detail of Marble's face, the way she thrashed around as if having some kind of fit. The sight of Marble in the grip of some terrifying vision was going to haunt Lyra's dreamscape for a while. But most of all, Lyra remembered the shudder that had darted across her body when she realized what Marble was screaming.

“The mold, the mold!”

Marble's voice went off in Lyra's head like the screech of some tortured creature. Lyra stopped in her tracks and shivered. The house felt unusually cold again.

It seemed Marble's streak of mostly peaceful nights had come to an end. For the next three nights, she had to be forcibly awakened from what sounded like a horrifying dream. She would scream and thrash around in her bed until Trouble Shoes, Hard Luck, or Lyra rescued her with a splash of water to the face. Then Trouble Shoes would make them tea and they'd fall back asleep within minutes. It became a strange little routine for them, to the point that they were hesitant to sleep at all.

On the fourth night, Lyra awoke from her own nightmare. She sat up in bed, her hooves hopelessly tangled within her covers. She'd been dreaming about flying, but the dream had taken an unexpected turn for the surreal. A moment before she woke, Lyra had been staring into what seemed to be the gaping maw of a sobbing Moondancer. Lyra had taken one step forward, only to be blasted backwards by a shriek of agony.

Panting, Lyra looked around the dark room. She was surprised to notice that everypony else seemed to be asleep. She was instantly relieved, believing Marble's horrifying nighttime activities to have finally ceased. Lyra looked forward to a normal night of sleep if she ever managed to conquer her own nightmares.

Am I really acting like I'm going to be here forever? she wondered.

Perhaps more worrying than the thought itself was how little it disconcerted her.

Lyra benched that thought as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Her eyes fell upon Marble's bed and she frowned. In the darkness, she had mistaken the lump on the bed for a peacefully dozing Marble underneath her covers. Lyra realized it was simply a pillow. Where in Celestia's name was Marble?

She untangled her limbs from the covers and got out of bed. Lyra glanced at the sleeping forms of Hard Luck and Trouble Shoes. The corners of her mouth rose into a tender smile. Friendship really could be found in the most unlikely places. With this thought firmly in place, Lyra opened the bedroom door and stepped out into the dark hallway.

Lyra descended the stairs. Her hoofsteps sounded almost like hammers on wood in the silent house. She hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, expecting Cherry Jubilee's angry shouts to come floating down. When the house remained quiet, Lyra cautiously tiptoed to the kitchen. If Marble wasn't in there, she could at least make herself a hot drink.

Marble was standing in front of the closed refrigerator door, her back to Lyra. Her hooves were pressed against the fridge door. Before Lyra say a word, Marble began to speak. She spoke with the urgency of somepony facing complete ruin.

“Rotting, rotting,” she said. “It's all rotting and I can't, I can't, I can't...”

She lightly beat her hooves against the fridge door.

“I'm trying, I'm trying,” she said. “Just hold on. Hold on. Don't leave without me.”

Marble pressed her face against the fridge door, her body shaking with sobs. She slid her hooves over the smooth surface, her body quivering with emotion.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered.

A forced and slightly unhinged laugh burst from Marble's throat. Any further laughter lost its fight against her heavy sobs. Marble sank to the floor, her hooves still clutching desperately at the fridge as if begging it to hold her. The sound of her hooves descending the slick surface twisted Lyra's heart strings.

Lyra trotted over to Marble and placed a hoof on her head. The instant Lyra's hoof touched Marble's mane, Marble's eyes flickered open. She tilted her head upward and stared in bemusement at Lyra for a second. Then her gaze darted around the kitchen, her puzzlement clearly growing. A question formed in Marble's throat, but all that came out was a timid squeak.

“You were sleepwalking,” Lyra said.

Marble blushed. She scrambled away from Lyra and got to her hooves. Her gaze immediately dropped.

“Sorry,” she said.

She nervously dug at the floor, refusing to make eye contact.

Lyra wondered why clairvoyance always seemed to manifest itself in the least talkative of ponies. It was as if this ability was predisposed to seek out those who'd be hesitant to share it. Either that or Marble's gift was the reason for her shyness. Lyra had come to believe that histories were inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but now she wanted to know everything about Marble's past.

“What do you dream about?” Lyra asked.

Marble made eye contact for a second, only for her gaze to drop instantly. Perhaps the fact that Lyra wasn't chastising her was what compelled her to speak.

“A town,” said Marble. “I don't know what town exactly, but I always feel as if I should know it.”

Lyra's heart neither sank nor lifted. She simply remained quiet and still as she waited for Marble to continue. A flicker of some distant emotion—perhaps regret—drifted across the lazy river of her mind.

“It used to be so pleasant,” Marble said. “Full of life and friendship. I see cottages, market stalls, a bakery. Ponies were happy here.”

An involuntary shudder skittered across Marble's back. She didn't dare close her eyes. Marble was afraid the images from her nightmare would flush every happy thought from her brain.

“It's deserted,” said Marble. “Businesses are boarded up, cottages abandoned, statues broken. It's so cold and alone. No friendship here, only sadness.”

She reached deeper into her memories, digging out more of the dream's contents.

“They're all gone,” said Marble. "Time Turner, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Caramel, Mr. and Mrs. Cake....”

She didn't seem to realize at first that she was rattling off names. But after Mrs. Cake's name, Marble immediately stopped talking. She closed her mouth as if abruptly compelled by some otherworldly force. Marble's gaze rose at last, her fearful eyes fastening onto Lyra's.

“My sister's not dead,” she said. “She's not. Then why...? Why?”

Marble shook her head.

“It's not a vision of the future,” she said. “It's something bad. Something I don't understand.”

She quivered.

“Something my parents didn't understand,” Marble said.

Lyra wrapped her hoof around Marble. Her emotions had finally caught up with her thoughts. First and foremost, Lyra felt bad for Marble. Marble hadn't asked for such a both fortunate and unfortunate talent. Nopony asked for these burdens, a fact Lyra knew all too well.

“I know how you feel,” said Lyra. “I'm running too.”

She told Marble her entire story from start to finish. The dam burst and what seemed like a life's worth of questions and regrets poured forth. Retelling her entire history to somepony who slightly understood, Lyra realized how much of her life had been spent defying others. She'd defied her parents, defied supposed friends who'd laughed at her chosen career path, defied newspapers that tried to paint her as some kind of lunatic. This had always led to Lyra running away in some way or another, be it from the home she had once shared with her unsupportive parents or some particularly persistent journalists. Lyra was a runner through and through.

But what happens when somepony whose used to running decides they'd rather stand still? Lyra wondered.

Lyra stared into Marble's timid eyes.

“I think you should go home,” she said.

Marble looked startled.

“But...my parents...,” she said.

Lyra gave Marble a perhaps overly friendly pat on the head. They might have been the same in many ways, but the difference in experience was obvious. Marble was still hindered by her somewhat limited perception of life. Her eyes reflected back the innocence Lyra had lost in her late youth.

“You need to go home,” she said. “But first you need to decide where that is.”

She stepped away from Marble and yawned. The late hour was finally catching up with her.

Marble stared at Lyra. Those bright eyes attempted to hide a layer of sadness and pain, but the illusion was failing. Lyra herself didn't appear to comprehend the extent of her troubles. She'd been running and hiding so long that she couldn't strip away her own layers. Yet however oblivious she was to what lay at her core, it was still eating Lyra's heart from the inside.

“Would you like to come with me?” Marble asked.

Lyra started to decline automatically, but the words froze in her throat. If she left Dodge City, she'd be going down a path that hadn't been laid out for her. While Lyra had ultimately been the master of her own actions, there had always been another pony behind the scenes. Lyra realized she was free from all that.

“Can we leave tomorrow morning?” asked Lyra.

Marble blushed and her eyes dropped to her hooves again. She was suddenly aware of Lyra's closeness and the hoof around her. As quickly as it had overtaken her, Marble's boldness vanished.

“Mm hmm,” she said.

Lyra felt somewhat guilty at having wanted to leave so soon. She had noticed the strong bond Marble seemed to have formed with Trouble Shoes. She herself had come to like Trouble Shoes and Hard Luck immensely in a short period of time. Nevertheless, Lyra wanted to get Marble home. She had a feeling something important was waiting for both of them.

The name “Pinkie Pie” had been on that mysterious list Lyra had found what seemed like ages ago. She had no idea what it meant, but she had a feeling she was very close to finding out. The question was whether or not Lyra wanted to know.

Marble sensed the subtle shift in Lyra's emotions, but she said nothing.

Lyra was afraid.

Part 9: Notebook

Lyra couldn't shake the feeling that she was trespassing. While her life had been filled with an unhealthy amount of literal trespassing, this was the first time she felt unsettled by the notion. It was as if she'd stepped hoof on hallowed ground without express permission from its guardian.

Maybe that's the point, Lyra thought.

She found herself wilting under Igneous Rock's suspicious gaze. Lyra knew she looked like a stuck-up city pony, even though she'd spent time doing manual labor. Lyra seemed predisposed to give an aura of smugness, even though this wasn't at all a prominent personality trait. It was a side effect of living in Canterlot.

Perhaps for his shy daughter's sake, Igneous Rock merely gave Lyra a penetrating once-over before allowing her into the house. While this might have seemed a gesture of acceptance, his eyes didn't leave Lyra as she stepped inside. He watched her as if expecting her to commit some heinous offense upon being allowed over the threshold.

Cloudy Quartz was slightly more pleasant than her husband in regards to their unexpected guest. She was more concerned with Marble's safe return to the farm than she was with the mysterious pony Marble had brought with her. Lyra preferred being ignored over being watched like some kind of specimen.

However, nothing could compare to Limestone Pie's reaction.

“Who in Celestia's name are you?” she demanded.

The question was even more abrupt and rude when combined with Limestone's angry stare. Limestone was eying Lyra as if she'd had kidnapped Marble and held her hostage.

“Lyra,” said Lyra simply.

She offered no further explanation, even as Limestone's eyes burned into hers.

“Well, who in Tartarus said you could stay here?” Limestone said.

She was staring at the shabby secondhand bag filled with Lyra's meager possessions. The bag contained the bits Lyra had made on the cherry farm, a hoof-knitted quilt and a slice of cherry pie from Cherry Jubilee, a book from Trouble Shoes, and a deck of cards from Hard Luck. Cherry Jubilee hadn't been thrilled to lose two of her workers, but she'd been understanding and had wished them both the best of luck.

Marble turned away from her mother. She swallowed hard, her cheeks burning.

“I-I did,” she said.

Limestone's eyes moved sharply from Lyra to Marble, then back to Lyra. She clearly wanted to say something insulting, but her sister's sudden boldness had caught her off guard.

Igneous jumped in to defuse the situation, although he appeared reluctant. His old-fashioned views on hospitality seemed to be battling it out with his distaste of city ponies. Igneous forced a smile that portrayed the barest minimum of tolerance he was expected to offer.

“We'd be happy to let you stay for as long as you want,” he said. “You can use Pinkie Pie's old bedroom.”

He spoke as if Lyra should be offering him the moon in return. His tone of voice made it clear that if Lyra stepped out of line—not that she knew where the lines had been drawn—she was out on her flank.

“Thanks,” said Lyra sweetly.

Despite everything, she was sincere.

There were three bedrooms on the second floor. The first was occupied by Igneous Rock and Cloudy Quartz. The door was ajar. Lyra peeked in as they passed and noticed that Igneous and Cloudy apparently slept in separate beds. The second belonged to Limestone and Marble. Strangely, the sisters apparently shared a bed even though their parents did not. Marble led Lyra to the third and final bedroom, the one that had once belonged to Pinkamena Diane Pie.

According to the photographs on the walls, there were four Pie sisters. Two of them had moved out sometime in recent years. Lyra wondered if the set-up had been two per bedroom or if Pinkie had been gifted with her own room for whatever reason. Lyra had never had any siblings, but she imagined it must be nice to have an older sibling close at hoof after a nightmare.

Pinkie Pie's bedroom had been turned into a storage area, but it clearly functioned as a bedroom. Lyra and Marble had to step past several overflowing boxes to reach the bed. There were photographs all over the walls, mostly of the family or Pinkie Pie celebrating various accomplishments. Even though nopony had used the room in years, Lyra detected the faint scent of cotton candy.

“Do you see your sisters often?” Lyra asked.

Marble shook her head.

“Usually only on Hearth's Warming,” she said.

Lyra tried to recall her last Hearth's Warming. All she could remember was getting drunk out of her mind and peeing all over her rug. She imagined it must be normal for other families, but Lyra had no memories of falling asleep in front of a fireplace or drinking hot cocoa while being read to from a book of Hearth's Warming fables. Lyra could not remember a single Hearth's Warming that had involved caroling or anything remotely celebratory, other than opening presents and weakly thanking her parents for another book of spells.

Lyra opened the room's only window. She shuddered as a cold breeze wafted across her fur. Fall seemed to be drawing to a close and winter was poised to set in. Time had been largely irrelevant over the past few months, but now Lyra was forced to accept that a very long year was drawing to a close.

Marble quietly slipped out of the room, leaving Lyra to her thoughts.

Lyra drifted off to sleep easy enough, but she found her slumber troubled. She kept waking up, her brain alerting her to some disturbance. But despite the urgency with which her mind roused her, Lyra would lie in bed and hear nothing to suggest anything amiss.

At one point, Lyra awoke in a state of horror. She was utterly convinced that somepony was in the room with her. However, after frantically stabbing at the gas lamp with her hoof, the room flooded with light and Lyra realized she was alone.

This final incident marked an end to Lyra attempting to sleep. While she was reassured by the sight of the vacant bedroom, Lyra could not will herself back into dreamland. She instead jumped out of bed and grabbed the gas lamp. Lyra departed the bedroom in somewhat of a hurry, leaving the door open behind her.

She peeked into Marble and Limestone's bedroom first. The two sisters were sleeping peacefully, each tucked into their own side of the bed. The same seemed to be true of Igneous and Cloudy. Lyra could only make out two lumps that she assumed were their sleeping forms buried underneath their covers.

The living room and kitchen were empty. Lyra tried the front door and found all the locks to be in place. There were no broken windows or similar indications of a break-in. The eerie silence reminded Lyra of what had happened with Moondancer, but nothing in the house seemed to be missing.

Lyra lowered the gas lamp and sighed. She detested her own paranoia. She couldn't believe what had clearly been the aftermath of a nightmare had caused her such panic. Would Lyra ever feel entirely safe? Would she ever shake this overwhelming sensation of being watched, followed, and prosecuted?

She returned to her bedroom. Now that her little adventure was over, she felt it was time to get some sleep.

I'm safe here, Lyra thought. Nopony whose after me could possibly know...

Lyra stopped in the doorway. She sensed that something was out of place. Uneasy, Lyra's gaze swept the empty bedroom. Everything appeared to be in order. The boxes were undisturbed, the window was firmly shut and latched, the dresser and bed maintained their correct placement. But even as her eyes told her differently, Lyra was convinced something had changed in the time she'd been away.

It was just a stupid nightmare, Lyra told herself.

She got into bed and returned the lamp to her bedside table, her hoof lingering on it for a moment. The idea of her room being invaded—as improbable as it was—made her want to take her chances with the darkness outside. But if she fled this place, where would she go? Back to Dodge City?

Lyra laid her head on the pillow and closed her eyes.

Just a stupid nightmare, she thought.

She frowned. Her pillow felt more uncomfortable than before. Annoyed, Lyra lifted her head and gave the pillow a swift whack with her hoof. Her hoof sank into the soft surface and touched something solid. It felt as if Limestone had left a present—most likely a rock—for her. She lifted the pillow, wondering if throwing said rock at Limestone's face would be an appropriate response.

But the object under the pillow wasn't a rock. It was a book. A very old but well-maintained paperback with an illegible name scrawled on the cover. It was a first edition of The Wizard of Canterlot.

Lyra was thunderstruck. It wasn't her copy of The Wizard of Canterlot—she would have never defaced her favorite book—but the sight of it stunned her. There was nothing supernatural or astounding about the book, yet it had appeared in her life again without warning.

After a few minutes of staring in numb surprise, Lyra flipped the book open to a random page. The moment she did, her shock turned to confusion. She was looking at a page filled with elegant and cramped hoofwriting she did not recognize.

Lyra started flipping through the book. She saw more writing and some bemusing diagrams, but the book's actual contents were absent. It seemed to be a notebook upon which the back and front cover had been replaced for some unknown purpose.

A disappointed Lyra almost shut the book, but she instead began to read the first page. Her interest was immediately piqued. It appeared that the notebook's mysterious owner had been studying obscure types of magic, particularly “old magic”.

Lyra suddenly thought of the book Twilight Sparkle had shown her. Her heartbeat increased as she realized that this notebook might be the next best thing. But how had it gotten into the bedroom? Everything about the notebook—its sudden appearance, the strange choice of deception—made her uneasy.

The only thing Lyra knew for sure was that somepony had been in her bedroom.

The Pie family kept simple schedules. The tedium of their daily lives was so deeply programmed that they hardly noticed Lyra's existence. She existed somewhere outside of their routines, therefore she was consistently overlooked. This worked in Lyra's favor. The implication that Igneous Rock disliked her had evolved into an undeniable fact.

The notebook was a fascinating read. It was like a condensed and unedited version of Lyra's old university-issued spellbook. Although there were comments dotted throughout, it was more of a textbook than a journal.

Lyra noticed one ritual in particular was mentioned more than once: “The Cracked Mirror Ritual”. The ritual was never detailed, but it seemed to be of great interest to the writer.

A week after Lyra's discovery of the notebook, Marble Pie began to have nightmares again. Lyra was in bed fast asleep when the first one occurred. She almost fell out of bed when Marble started screaming. It took several moments for Lyra to get her wits back, by which time the house had come alive with shouting and hoofsteps.

Confused and scared, Lyra jumped out of bed and sprinted into the Pie sisters' bedroom.

The scene was unfortunately familiar: two ponies standing next to a bed while a third thrashed around and screamed. Cloudy Quartz was standing with her hooves on the edge of the bed. She was whispering tenderly, her voice lost in Marble's agonized screams.

Lyra wanted to rush in, but she instead stood in the doorway and waited for the Pies to handle the situation.

Limestone shoved Lyra out of the way. She was balancing a saucer and a cup of tea on her head.

“Move it!” she said.

Igneous Rock turned to look at the sound of Limestone's voice. Igneous hadn't noticed Lyra before, but now a pair of stern eyes focused on her. He looked accusing, as if he blamed Lyra for his daughter's troubles. Lyra would have defended herself, but she Igneous's severe gaze rendered her speechless.

Limestone placed the tea on the night stand.

“How is she?” she asked.

That seemed a very silly question, as Marble was still thrashing around and screaming. Nevertheless, Igneous answered.

“She should be through the worst of it,” he said. “No use waking her up.”

Marble's screaming had turned into coherent words. Her parents and sister seemed to be ignoring them, but Lyra absorbed every one like a kick to the flank.

“You don't have to!” Marble was screaming. “Look at their eyes! Their eyes!”

Lyra recalled a line from The Wizard of Canterlot. It was in the middle of the book, after the wizard had started his journey but before he met the Wise Witch and started following her sage advice.

“How curious! The wizard was quite amazed by what he was seeing. For upon eating the berries, their eyes had turned the most delightful shade of red. “Their eyes!” the foals cried. “Look at their eyes!” They had never seen such a wonderful trick.”

Lyra backed out of the bedroom. She was beginning to feel queasy.

To Lyra's surprise, she slept that night. Once Marble's screaming had died down, she fell into her own deep slumber.

The next morning, Lyra approached Marble Pie. Despite the previous night's ordeal, Marble appeared her usual self. Only the bags under her eyes hinted at her rough night. Regardless, her daily routine suffered no variance or even a moment's lapse. She was heading out to the field when Lyra blocked her path.

“Good morning,” said Lyra quickly.

This politeness out of the way, Lyra jumped right into it.

“What were you dreaming about last night?” she demanded.

Marble did not look offended or taken aback by the question. She actually smiled a little, seemingly touched by Lyra's concerned expression.

“I don't really remember,” said Marble apologetically. “I put it out of my head as fast as I could.”

Lyra was disappointed for a moment, then she felt guilty. Marble hadn't asked for whatever power she possessed. She was just an ordinary Earth pony who wanted to conduct her life in a purely normal fashion. These nightmares were Marble's curse and it made sense that she wanted to distance herself from them.

“How about you get some extra sleep?” Lyra proposed. “I'll do your work for you today.”

Marble's cheeks reddened.

“Oh, no!” she said. “Mother and Father don't like y--”

She ducked her head and blushed even harder.

“I mean, they wouldn't like that,” she said hastily. “I'll be fine.”

As red as a tomato but very pleased, Marble rushed past Lyra and out of the house.

Lyra trotted into the kitchen.

Igneous Rock and Limestone Pie were already outside, but Cloudy Quartz was washing the breakfast dishes. Lyra hadn't had breakfast with the family at all during her stay. This had come as a great relief to more than half of the Pies.

“Good morning,” said Lyra. “Nice day, isn't it? Unusually warm.”

Cloudy Quartz nodded curtly.

“Warmer than yesterday,” she said.

The two carried on with their meaningless small talk for a whole five minutes. Lyra could sense Cloudy's impatience the more she spoke, but she wanted to at least make an attempt at being pleasant. When it was clear she was playing a doomed game, Lyra dropped all pretense.

“Hey, do you have an old copy of The Wizard of Canterlot I can borrow?” she asked.

Cloudy Quartz stiffened. She continued to move the dish towel in circles, but she was no longer holding a plate. She was staring at the empty space as if transfixed. The words that fell from Cloudy's mouth were almost mechanical, as if she was reciting from a memorized script.

“The Wizard of Canterlot?” she said. “No, I don't think so. My daughters were never big on reading.”

She draped the dish towel upon the counter. This time her words were sharp and somewhat accusatory.

“Why?” she demanded. “Why is that book so important to you?”

Lyra took a step back. Even though Lyra had magic on her side, she suddenly felt threatened by Cloudy Quartz. Perhaps it was the unexpectedly fierce glint in Cloudy's eye. Lyra was reminded of the nature films she'd watched as a foal. A prominent feature in those films had been examples of animals protecting their young from a perceived threat.

“It's not,” Lyra lied. “I have a friend who was always bugging me to read it. I thought I'd get around to it if you had a copy.”

Cloudy Quartz whirled around to face the sink again. Lyra couldn't tell if her story had convinced Cloudy.

“You should get some fresh air,” Cloudy Quartz said.

Lyra muttered a farewell, then hastily left the kitchen. She galloped upstairs and into her bedroom. Only with the door closed behind her did she feel entirely safe. Safe from what was something else altogether. Whatever it was, Lyra had escaped it for the time being.

She waited ten minutes, her ear pressed against the door. She couldn't be sure, but finally Lyra thought she heard Cloudy Quartz leave the house.

Emboldened, Lyra eased open the bedroom door. She peeked into the hallway as if expecting Cloudy Quartz to be staring at her in disapproval, but the house seemed truly empty. She tiptoed out of the bedroom and into Limestone and Marble's room.

Lyra hadn't gotten a good look at the sisters' bedroom. She now realized that a through inspection wouldn't have done much good. It was a dull room devoid of personality. Neither sister had made the slightest imprint upon it. It was an utter contrast to the explosion of character that was Pinkie Pie's former bedroom.

Lyra dug around in the dresser for a moment. When she found nothing other than incredibly drab gray dresses, she shifted her search to the closet. She found even more gray dresses, plus an old-fashioned bathing suit.

She levitated a box from the closet's top shelf. The box was marked “Foal Clothes” and seemed to be filled with outfits and toys the sisters had stopped using. Lyra emptied the clothes from the box. She was surprised to find two layers of books underneath the clothes.

The books were mostly cheesy romance novels and old classics Lyra hadn't heard of in years. Lyra remembered snuggling under the covers with one of these titles on more than one occasion during her fillyhood. The memories reminded her that there had been good times. Those good times had simply become infrequent—and then nonexistent—after Lyra turned to the unexplained.

Lyra found what she had come for at the very bottom of the box. It was falling apart, but Lyra tentatively flipped it open and found it was still mostly readable. Levitating it above her head, Lyra carefully packed the clothes, toys, and books back into the box.

She returned to her temporary bedroom in a state of mischief-fueled giddiness. Lyra felt like a teenager who'd sneaked out of the house for the first time.

An energized Lyra sat down on her bed to finally re-read The Wizard of Canterlot.

Part 11: The Calm

Lyra and Marble kept away from the main roads during their journey. While both wanted to avoid civilization at all costs, Lyra had to face facts: if they were going to find out anything, they needed information. Information was unlikely to be wandering around in some dense forest.

They made camp in a secluded little wooded area several miles from the rock farm. They'd been walking all night and were in dire need of a rest.

Lyra laid out her quilt on the hard ground.

“We should travel under cover of darkness,” she said.

She thought the nearest city was their best chance. Fleur would find them within days in any small town. The general chaos of the city was enough to hide them for a few weeks or months at most.

The two mares settled upon the quilt to sleep. Lyra rested her hoof across Marble's back as they slept. While this appeared to be an act of affection, it was actually a precaution. If Marble got up for any reason, Lyra would instantly wake up.

When the sun finally sunk below the trees, Lyra was the first to awaken. She stretched for a moment, then reached over and gently shook Marble.

“Time to get going,” Lyra said.

They packed up their things and started out again.

“Where are we going?” asked Marble.

Marble had clearly been holding in that question for hours. She'd been sneaking uncertain glances at Lyra since their journey began. While Marble's loyalty to Lyra and her cause were steady, she seemed to be questioning Lyra's leadership skills.

“The city,” said Lyra.

She was well aware of how cryptic and unsatisfying the answer was, but she didn't care. It was all Lyra had.

Marble stared at her hooves.

Giving Marble a curious glance, Lyra appreciated how difficult it must be for ponies like Marble to speak up.

“And then what?” said Marble.

Lyra didn't like this line of questioning, but she submitted to it.

“Then we find a library or something,” she said. “You have a map, right? Finding a well should be easy.”

However, this particular well might not exist in a place they could reach. It might not be something they could lay their hooves on. But Lyra shoved this possibility out of her mind. She wished she didn't feel like she was chasing smoke.

“What if Fleur finds us before then?” said Marble. “What will she do to us? Why are you so scared of her?”

The questions fell out of her one after the other in a rush. Marble didn't mean to ask them, but they escaped the moment she opened her mouth. She blushed at her own boldness.

Lyra considered the questions Marble had laid before her.

“I'm not scared of Fleur,” she said. “I'm scared of who she might be working for and what they might do to me.”

She chuckled sourly.

“I used to think she was just some poor unicorn hired by the legal system to keep an eye on me,” Lyra said. “Why wouldn't I think that? I'm the crazy conspiracy theorist whose suffering from delusions. But after the thing with Moondancer, I think I woke up a little.”

Lyra tilted her head upward to look at the moon. She thought it was a beautiful night for a leisurely stroll. Lyra imagined herself trotting in the moonlight, laughing as she counted the twinkles in the sky. Lyra gave another sour chuckle at the image. It wasn't an idle creation of her brain. It was a wonderful memory from her carefree younger days.

“Fleur is part of something bigger than me,” she said. “Do you know what's the worst part of realizing that?”

Lyra stopped in her tracks, her gaze pointed at the ground. She had never meant to say those things aloud.

“The worst part is that I don't know if they're the good guys or the bad guys,” she said. “I don't know if I'm the heroine in all this. I'm on the side of truth, but what side is that?”

Lyra dug a circle into the dirt with her hoof. She dragged her hoof down the middle of the circle, cutting it in half.

“I just don't know,” she said.

Marble patted Lyra's back. She wanted to say something encouraging, but words deserted her. A thousand things were running through Lyra's head and Marble had only been given a small percentage of Lyra's thoughts. Everything else was speculation.

Lyra stepped over the circle and started forward again. Unloading hadn't made her feel better, but Lyra was powering through.

After four days of aimless and surprisingly uneventful traveling, the two mares ended up in Los Pegasus.

Years in the city had taught Lyra about chaos, but Los Pegasus was a different manner of discord. The streets were packed with carriages and carts, the sidewalks crammed with vacationing ponies. If everypony in Canterlot and Manehatten were moving at a sprint, everypony in Los Pegasus was moving at some kind of leisurely trot.

Lyra was as overwhelmed as Marble. They stood in front of a shop, awestruck at the hotels and casinos lined up before them.

“Oh my,” said Marble. “Where do we go?”

Lyra snapped out of her daze. She realized they shouldn't be in Los Pegasus. It was civilization, but Lyra doubted there were any well-stocked libraries. On the other hoof, they'd been traveling for hours and Lyra needed a rest. She was tired of sleeping on the hard ground as paranoia drilled its way into her dreams.

“There,” said Lyra.

She pointed at one of the hotels. It was a glimmering behemoth of a building. The roof was adorned with an immense plastic dragon spewing holographic fire into the sky. The massive neon sign declared it to be the Emerald Eyes Hotel.

Lyra began counting her bits. They had about enough for a one or two night stay, but they'd be hard up afterward. Lyra scowled. She doubted any of the other hotels were cheaper. But if they were going to continue their journey, they both needed a soft bed and a good sleep.

Marble and Lyra entered the Emerald Eyes Hotel.

The interior decorators had run away with the dragon theme. Everything in the colossal room—the wallpaper, the tiles, even the chandelier—bore something reminiscent of dragons. There was even a massive dragon-shaped fountain in the middle of the room.

Marble gawked as her and Lyra approached the front desk. Her shyness vanished as she openly stared at every little thing.

Lyra booked them a one-night stay. She flinched as she watched her precious bits vanish. Lyra anxiously chewed on her hoof. She recalled all the back-breaking labor she'd done to earn those bits.

If only I'd settled down in Dodge City, she thought.

Why hadn't she? Lyra had left behind a steady job, several good friends, and a simple life. What had driven her away from peace and happiness? Was she simply not used to staying in one place for long?

It's not like I have a home, Lyra thought.

She took the room key in her mouth and trotted to the elevator, Marble close behind. Lyra pressed the button for the third floor.

That was the only rational answer, wasn't it? No matter how cozy and accepted Lyra felt, she could never tie herself to one place. If Lyra stayed somewhere too long, she'd come to believe it wasn't really her home. This wasn't new. Lyra had felt this way since she was a frustrated young pony escaping her parents' oppressive household.

It's because of what I know, Lyra always told herself. If I wasn't such a hardened truth-seeker, I'd have a home like everypony else.

Lyra could feel the lie slithering into her throat. She felt it cutting off her oxygen. But she kept repeating it to herself, like some kind of demented mantra. Lyra needed to believe, even if it hurt.

The elevator arrived on the third floor and the two of them went to their room.

Marble nearly fainted. The hotel room was almost bigger than her house. The room seemed to explode with color, the tables, chairs, sofas, and beds all contrasting shades of green or red. Lyra felt as if her eyes were being assaulted, but Marble was delighted. Marble galloped over to the huge green sofa and flopped down on the soft cushions.

Lyra put down her saddlebags. She smirked at Marble's excitement. Lyra was dazzled as well, but she'd stayed in fancy hotels before. Based on her experiences, the room was mostly standard.

“Should we order room service?” said Lyra.

Marble—who thought room service only existed in books—jumped off the sofa. She saw a small old-fashioned phone on the nightstand separating the two beds. With an uncharacteristic squeal of delight, Marble galloped over to the phone and yanked the receiver from its cradle. She punched the “Room Service” button.

While Marble was babbling into the phone, Lyra quietly slipped into the bathroom.

After everything that had happened, this felt like an actual vacation. It felt normal.

Lyra didn't like it. She didn't like the idea that there could be “normal” in the midst of her adventure. There had been brief reprises, but nothing as aggressively ordinary.

The calm before the storm, she thought.

Lyra looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her mane was starting to grow back. If she styled it a little, Lyra would look like her old self.

No, not my old self, she realized.

For her face had subtly changed. Lyra looked somewhat older. She realized with a start that she was older. At some point, Lyra's birthday had come and gone. She'd aged a whole year and been blissfully unaware.

Hearth's Warming Eve loomed over Lyra's shoulder. Normal ponies would be spending the impending holiday finishing their gift shopping.

Lyra left the bathroom.

Marble was curled up on the sofa. She was staring in awe at the gigantic television before her. Marble had the remote in her hooves and was flipping through channels. She appeared mesmerized.

Lyra slipped out of the room, softly closing the door behind her. She hoped to be back before Marble noticed she was gone.

Los Pegasus was beautiful in the daylight, but it really came alive at night. Signs lit up. Loud music from nightclubs spilled onto the streets. The city's entire aura changed under the cover of darkness. It became a place of pure liberation and fun, inhibitions drowned in a sea of alcohol.

Under any other circumstances, Lyra would have lost herself to the city's charms. She would have trotted into some sleazy club and knocked back a few drinks. But fun wasn't what Lyra was after.

She went into one of the little shops across the street from the hotel. This modest place of business seemed to be the only one not selling cheap trinkets or mass-produced nonsense. It was the only shop with any character. The shop was appropriately named Curiosities.

The mare behind the counter smiled at Lyra.

“I sense you desire something that is one of a kind,” she said. “Perhaps it is for somepony who has been on your mind?”

Lyra realized that the mare behind the counter wasn't a pony. She couldn't help staring. Lyra had never seen a zebra before.

The zebra gestured to a display of wooden figures.

“One of these should do the trick,” she said. “Go ahead and take your pick.”

Lyra trotted over to the display. There were over a hundred wooden figures by her estimate. Most of them were ponies engaged in regular everyday tasks. There were also manticores, dragons, and various birds. Lyra marveled at the craftsmanship.

“Are these hoof-carved?” she said.

The zebra stood beside Lyra. She was smiling with unrestrained pride.

“A skill from my homeland far away,” said the zebra. “A useful way to spend a day.”

Lyra reached out and touched one of the figures. She was astonished at the level of detail. They were remarkably lifelike in appearance. It was almost uncanny.

“How much?” she said.

The zebra didn't answer immediately. She eyed Lyra with curiosity.

“I am Zecora, if you wish to know,” she said. “Remember that I am friend and never foe.”

Lyra gave Zecora a bemused look. But she brushed away the odd introduction. Her attention was again stolen by the figurines.

“How much?” Lyra repeated.

Zecora took one of the figurines from the table. This one was a timid-looking mare with a flower crown. The mare was curled up, her head bowed. There were birds perched all along her back.

“I believe this is the one you desire,” she said. “I can tell you are a pony who longs to inspire.”

Lyra smiled.

“How much do you know?” she said.

Zecora held out the figurine. Her eyes were filled with motherly kindness.

“We will meet again at a later date,” she said. “Until then, your questions must wait.”

Lyra took the figurine and examined it closer. She noticed the mare had flowers braided into her tail. The flowers were so meticulously detailed that Lyra could have identified them. But lacking any extensive knowledge of flowers, Lyra was lost.

“How much?” said Lyra again.

Zecora shook her head.

“We will talk about bits very soon,” she said. “For now you must follow the moon.”

Lyra frowned. The questions were building up inside her, but she knew she wouldn't get any answers. Lyra looked into Zecora's eyes and wondered. How much did Zecora know? Were ponies being cryptic or were they simply giving Lyra all the information they had on hoof?

Zecora lay a hoof on Lyra's head. Her touch was reassuring.

“There are many questions in your mind,” she said. “But there are answers for you to find. You understand more than you know. For now, you need to go.”

Lyra bid farewell. She rapidly left the shop, the door swinging shut behind her.

Lyra paused on the sidewalk. There was seemingly no escape from her adventure. Even in a place like Los Pegasus—a city in which nopony really knew anypony—her quest followed her. Perhaps it would follow her even after she'd completed it, looming in the background like a specter of death.

I want it to be over, Lyra thought.

Perhaps not then, but someday Lyra wanted the whole thing to be a memory. But could it ever be a mere recollection?

Lyra trotted back to the hotel. Her thoughts going at an exhausted sprint, she entered the crowded lobby. Despite her mind's discord, Lyra expertly maneuvered around several ponies. She arrived at the elevator and slipped inside seconds before the door closed. Her mind somewhere else, Lyra hit the button for the third floor.

A flare of guilt briefly shone through Lyra's thoughts. She hadn't been gone too long, but she suspected Marble might have noticed her absence. Lyra hoped Marble wasn't on the verge of panicking.

A second before the elevator doors slid closed, Lyra glimpsed somepony standing near the front desk. The pony was facing away, but Lyra could see their Cutie Mark.

Abruptly, the doors closed and the pony was gone. Lyra was left to contemplate what she had seen. There always existed the chance—albeit minuscule—that two ponies with the same Cutie Mark inhabited Equestria. Perhaps a long-lost twin or a very particular tattoo job to cover up an unwanted talent. But Lyra bet on neither of those explanations.

It made sense that Fleur would be on their trail. However, how in Celestia had she tracked them so easily?

She can't be here for us, Lyra thought.

There had to be something else in Los Pegasus that Fleur wanted. Something perhaps more important than the notebook.

The elevator arrived on the third floor.

Lyra trotted to her and Marble's room. She tried the door, but it was locked. Lyra swore to herself. Of course a fancy hotel room would invest in auto-locking doors. Annoyed, Lyra knocked on the door.

“Marble, it's me,” she said.

There were several clicking sounds, then the door swung open. Marble was balancing a plate of food on her head. Room service had apparently arrived sometime during Lyra's absence. The smell of real food was exhilarating.

“How much did you order?” said Lyra.

Lyra laughed as she stepped into the room. Her question was answered by the array of plates across one of the beds.

Marble blushed.

“I got carried away,” she said.

She clearly expected Lyra to scold her, but Lyra just laughed. Lyra was in too good a mood to get angry over Marble's excitement. She understood how Marble felt. The experience must be twice as amazing for a pony who'd lived her entire life on a rock farm.

Lyra gave Marble the wooden figurine. Marble stared at it, flabbergasted.

“What's this for?” she said.

Lyra patted Marble's head.

“Happy Hearth's Warming,” she said.

Marble's entire face glowed red with embarrassment, but she smiled in delight. Much like Lyra, Marble seemed to have forgotten that Hearth's Warming was almost upon them.

“I kind of wish I was at home,” said Marble softly.

Lyra remembered what Marble had said about Pinkie Pie and Maud visiting for the holidays. Lyra felt guilty yet again. Marble had made her own choice in the matter. However, Lyra realized that Marble would be at home if it wasn't for her.

“Do you want to go back?” said Lyra.

Marble placed the figurine on the nightstand.

“I don't know,” she said.

Lyra trotted up beside Marble. She wrapped a hoof around her and gave her an empathetic smile.

“You can always leave if you want,” she said. “This doesn't have to be your journey.”

The words seemed to make up Marble's mind. She shook her head, a look of resolution on her face. Marble looked into Lyra's eyes, her face suddenly reminding Lyra of Cloudy Quartz.

“I want to help you,” she said.

Lyra accepted that with a smile. She wasn't happy about pulling Marble away from the Pie family. Nevertheless, Lyra let it go. Another thought had achieved dominion. This thought—and the others it had sprouted—burst hastily from Lyra's mouth.

“I think we should follow Fleur,” she said.

The words were like bittersweet poison. As soon as they reached Lyra's tongue, they became an inevitable course of action. The idea had been hanging somewhere in the messy closet that was Lyra's brain.

Marble's face went unnervingly blank. She waited for Lyra's next words.

“She must know where the well is,” said Lyra. “If Fleur is deeper in this than I am, she's our best source of information. She might even lead us to Moondancer or somepony else who could help us.”

Lyra didn't appear to be addressing Marble. Her thoughts were going straight from brain to mouth.

“She might catch us,” Lyra said. “This might be what she wants. But you know what? I don't bucking care anymore.”

Lyra slammed her hoof on the bed in a sudden burst of passion.

“I'm tired of being scared of Fleur,” she said. “I'm sick of not knowing what or who she really is. If I let this chance get away, if I let Fleur become that figure in my nightmares....”

She stopped. Lyra hadn't meant to say that last part out loud. She inhaled deeply. The serenity rippled through Lyra's nerves. It was out there. Now Marble knew the full extent of it.

“The mystery I can solve right now,” she said. “The answers I can get if only I'd stop being such a coward.”

Lyra turned abruptly to the door.

“I saw Fleur going out,” she said. “Her room should be empty if she's here alone.”

It was a wild idea that depended on several unstable factors, but Lyra had good fortune to spare. She was excited. Lyra could have trotted into a manticore's cave and looked the beast dead in the eye without flinching.

“You coming?” she said.

Marble cast a longing gaze upon the uneaten food. The two of them eating, laughing, and enjoying themselves would have been the ideal outcome. It would have been a nice bit of rest early in their journey together. But Marble understood that in a way, that wasn't Lyra's idea of a vacation.

“Mm hmm,” said Marble.

All those casinos seemed prophetic. After all, gambling with fate and consequence was Lyra's idea of a good time.

Part 12: The Storm

Lyra slipped a hoof under her collar and tugged. Her maid outfit was too tight, but she couldn't grumble about it. It wasn't hers and Lyra wasn't in any position to have it altered.

Marble was trotting behind Lyra. There was a covered plate of food balanced on her head.

Lyra's mane was stuffed into an old-fashioned maid cap. She'd discovered the cap in a formerly locked supply closet. Supply closets in fancy hotels were especially vulnerable to experienced lock-picking.

“I hope this is the right room,” Lyra said.

If she'd been duped, Lyra was going to hunt down that maid and exact a fitting revenge. They'd had to bribe the maid to an absurd degree for the outfit alone. The information came at a much higher cost. If everything went down satisfactorily, it was worth the bits.

Parking the maid cart behind her, Lyra motioned to Marble.

Marble reluctantly approached the door. She quivered as she raised a hoof to the door. Marble knocked three times.

“R-Room service,” she croaked.

There was no answer.

Marble knocked again. When she spoke, her voice had a more confident air to it.

“Room service!” she said.

She heard nothing from the other side of the door. Marble had expected either the door to swing open or somepony to yell from inside that they hadn't ordered room service. But nothing stirred in the hotel room. It appeared to Marble that Fleur had indeed left the hotel, perhaps for a long dinner. Marble motioned Lyra closer.

Lyra trotted up to the door and put her ear against it. She too heard nothing. Lyra straightened up and nodded at Marble.

“We're going in,” she said.

Lyra pulled out the spare keycard she'd gotten from the maid. She swiped it across the reader. Lyra smiled as she heard a familiar click. She gave the unlocked door a gentle push and watched it swing inward.

Marble slipped inside behind Lyra. She closed the door behind them.

Lyra stopped, tensing herself. She was ready for anything, be it a blaring alarm or an attack. But the room seemed to be entirely vacant.

She stepped forward slowly, her eyes searching for trip wires or concealed explosives. The room looked extremely ordinary. It looked much like Lyra and Marble's room, except there was only one bed.

The room was noticeably cleaner. It had the familiar obsessive tidiness that was characteristic of most unicorns. Despite the room obviously having been used sometime in the past day, everything was in order. The bed was made, books were stacked neatly on the nightstand, and everything was spotless. Some unpacked luggage stood in one corner. The luggage bore Fleur's Cutie Mark.

Lyra started with the books. She flipped through each of them, but they all seemed straightforward. They were generic romance novels written by authors Lyra didn't know. There were no hollowed-out pages or suspiciously circled bits of text.

Marble searched the bathroom. She found various make-up products lined up neatly on the sink and some medication in the cabinet. Marble hesitated over the latter. She recognized the labels as various remedies for headache or stomach pains.

She picked up one of the bottles and shook it. It was empty. She picked up another bottle and gave it an experimental shake. That one didn't sound empty, but it also didn't sound as if it was filled with pills. Frowning, Marble popped the top off the bottle and peered inside.

Lyra was searching the closet. She pressed both hooves against the back wall of the closet. No secret compartment as far as she could tell. Perhaps there was something in Fleur's luggage. Lyra was hesitant to look. She didn't want Fleur to know they'd been in her room.

Marble came galloping out of the bathroom with the bottle.

“I found it, I found it!” she said.

Lyra trotted up to her and took the bottle. She analyzed it, confused. It looked like a common headache remedy. Lyra had seen it countless times over the course of her life. Curious, Lyra popped the top off.

Instead of pills, the interior of the bottle was occupied by a slip of paper.

Lyra's face lit up with comprehension. She pulled the paper from the bottle and unfolded it, her gaze dancing over the hoofwritten message.

Anomaly 63-C.

She frowned. Where had Lyra heard that before? In the notebook? In a book she'd read? For that matter, why had Fleur hidden it?

Lyra trotted into the bathroom. She emptied the cabinets in a rather hurried fashion. She had ceased to care if Fleur discovered evidence of her and Marble's snooping. As Lyra opened each bottle in turn, her mind surged with excitement. Lyra tried to dig out some buried memories. She was searching for some hidden reference to the mysterious “Anomaly 63-C”.

The remaining bottles were devoid of anything suspicious. However, Lyra didn't want to leave. They had found something of possible significance, but she refused to accept that alone. They'd taken an immense risk and Lyra wanted a grand payout.

“What haven't we checked?” she wondered aloud.

She idly tapped on the sink as she thought. Lyra's eyes drifted from the polished porcelain to the gigantic mirror above the sink. She stared at her own reflection, her head tilted slightly in thought. The mirror looked slightly odd to her, but she couldn't put her hoof on why. Lyra looked behind her, then back at her reflection. She squinted.

It hit Lyra so abruptly that she jumped. She stared in astonishment at her reflection. She dismissed it as some trick of the light for a moment, but Lyra soon realized it couldn't be. She experimentally raised a hoof and lightly tapped her maid cap. The action confirmed the oddity Lyra had noticed.

The reflection wasn't a reflection. While Lyra should have been mirrored, she wasn't. She was staring at herself exactly as she was, the image not reversed.

“L-Lyra?” Marble said nervously.

Lyra didn't hear her. She extended a hoof towards the mirror. She was quivering, afraid but driven by curiosity. Lyra's most prevalent fear was that it would be nothing. But in her heart she knew it would be something.

Marble gasped.

Lyra's hoof slid into the mirror, the surface rippling like water. A frigid sensation spread from her hoof to her neck. It was like she'd thrust herself partly into a pool of icy water. The cold almost bit into her fur. Lyra reached even further, more of her front leg disappearing into the mirror. Lyra was leaning forward, her head steadily nearing the mirror's rippling surface.

“Don't!” Marble said.

But when the tip of Lyra's muzzle touched the surface, it was inevitable. Lyra leaned into the mirror. Her head slid through the false glass. Frigid air raced from the top of her muzzle to her eyebrows. In an instant, Lyra's head had breached the world beyond the mirror.

She found herself peering into what appeared to be a library. There were shelves lining the walls and a few sensible chairs in the middle of the room. However, most of the shelves lacked books. They were instead filled with all kinds of items, ranging from broken toys to unidentifiable gadgets. Lyra's eyes were attracted to a beautiful music box sitting on a high shelf.

Marble was saying Lyra's name over and over, the urgency in her voice rapidly increasing. But her voice was distorted and therefore easy to ignore.

“A pocket dimension,” Lyra said in awe.

Lyra had read about magic like this, but she had believed it virtually impossible. Surely no unicorn was powerful enough to master such an intricate spell. Even the great unicorns of a lost age would have struggled with it. Lyra was thunderstruck and a little worried. Any unicorn capable of doing this was not a unicorn Lyra wanted to cross.

She levitated the music box from the shelf. It looked ordinary, but Lyra sensed magic within it. She flipped it over and examined the bottom. Lyra nearly gasped.

“For now you must follow the moon,” Zecora had said.

There was a crescent moon symbol on the bottom of the music box. Could that be what Zecora had meant? Was the music box special in some way? It certainly had a subtle aura of magic around it.

Lyra spotted something else. The only reason she noticed it was because it was one of the few books in the room. Lyra's gaze was drawn to it due to how out of place it looked. It was on one of the farthest shelves, but Lyra could see the cover. She instantly recognized it, her heart going into a frenzy.

It was a spellbook. But not just a normal spellbook one could grab at the local bookstore. It was the spellbook. Lyra recognized the symbol even from a distance. It was the spellbook Twilight had shown her all that time ago.

Lyra withdrew from the mirror with the spellbook and the music box. She was struck speechless by her good fortune. How had she never realized, never even suspected? Of course Fleur would have it. It needn't even be a copy. Fleur could have gotten it straight from Twilight Sparkle.

When Lyra could speak again, she turned to a bemused Marble.

“We're going,” she said.

Their vacation had come to a sudden end. They were getting out of Fleur's room, out of Los Pegasus, and hopefully somewhere far away from anypony trying to catch them. They had everything they needed, perhaps more than they needed.

“Where?” said Marble.

Lyra trotted out of the bathroom, Marble hurrying behind her.

“Anywhere,” she said.

Fleur was going to find out they'd taken the music box and the book. Her next move would be calculated. Whatever Fleur planned, Lyra doubted her and Marble would see it coming. With the spellbook in hoof, Lyra felt they were officially out of their depth.

“We need to find a library,” said Lyra.

First things first. They needed to find out about Anomaly 63-C.

Part 13: Love

Anomaly 63-C wasn't mentioned in the notebook.

Lyra checked and double-checked. She reread the whole notebook, dragging her gaze from letter to letter. But it was a wasted effort. If the notebook's author had ever encountered such a thing, they chose to leave it unstated.

Lyra raised her head from the notebook. She rubbed her bloodshot eyes and squinted. How long had she been awake? A day? It felt like thirty. Lyra turned her head to look at Marble.

Marble was curled up next to Lyra. She was fast asleep, her head resting on her saddlebag.

Glorious sleep, Lyra thought longingly.

She looked out the carriage window. The sun had risen an inch or so above the tree line. They'd been traveling all night and Lyra had spent most of that reading.

Lyra longed for mastery of the elusive teleportation spell. Perhaps some day she'd be powerful enough—and care about magic enough—to do it. For now she had to settle for what she called “workarounds”. In this case, Lyra had cast a basic mobility spell on the carriage. The carriage was moving on its own with very little interaction from her, her magic subtly guiding it.

The carriage itself had come from the hotel. Lyra had bought it from one of the bored hotel carriage-pullers. The legality of such an exchange—the carriages did belong to the hotel—was questionable, but it was an escape and a break for Lyra and Marble's poor hooves. Having stripped it off all identifying decorations, Lyra was confident nopony would find them on the seldom-traveled back roads of Equestria.

Marble turned over onto her back. She had begun mumbling in her sleep. Most of it was unintelligible, but there were some coherent snippets.

“Lyra,” Marble was mumbling.

Pretending to have gone deaf, Lyra levitated the spellbook out of her bag. She opened it up and lit up her horn, casting a light over the first page. Lyra had already read some of it, but she wanted to look at the illustrations again.

The spellbook was written entirely in some ancient language Lyra didn't understand. It was a strange cross between ancient moon runes—Lyra was familiar with those—and some incoherent hybrid of various lost languages. Occasionally symbols would be grouped together in ways that suggested an incantation, but Lyra couldn't make anything of it.

The illustrations were of more help. They were mostly depictions of ponies in various states of graphic distress. One illustration was of a pony standing in a circle, their eyes blank. There was a symbol on the pony's forehead. It was the same one from the book's cover, except it was upside-down.

Possession? Lyra wondered.

She shuddered, the book suddenly feeling heavier in her hooves.

Possession was serious dark magic. The princesses had outlawed the teaching and practice of such malevolent spells centuries ago. The majority of books that discussed the topic even in passing had been banned. Opening one's body as a vessel for creatures from the depths of Tartarus was considered the ultimate act of dark magic.

Lyra closed the book. She was uncomfortable. One of the first lessons unicorn foals learn is to stay away from dark magic. Delving into the forbidden arts was the classic mark of a truly twisted and malicious unicorn.

But what if it's also my only road to the truth? Lyra wondered.

She reopened the spellbook. Perhaps it was worth the risk.

Marble awoke with a cheerful sigh. She remembered having had a good dream, but she couldn't recall it in detail. However, it had left Marble feeling refreshed and determined. She was ready to take on Equestria in the name of truth.

She peeked out the window. It was around midday and the carriage was still moving.

“Lyra?” said Marble.

She gently nudged Lyra, expecting her to be asleep. Marble uttered a startled squeak when Lyra snapped her head around to look at her. There was little light in the carriage, but Marble could instantly tell that Lyra hadn't slept. Having pulled the occasional all-nighter on the rock farm, Marble knew that look all too well.

“Lyra?” Marble repeated.

She smiled uncertainly.

Lyra grunted, dragging a hoof across her face. The spellbook was open before her. There were scraps of parchment all around her. A few stray bits of parchment were stuck in Lyra's mane.

“Yeah?” Lyra said.

Marble wanted to implore Lyra to get some sleep. But she decided that wasn't the best line to take.

“What are you doing?” she said.

Lyra groaned and rubbed her forehead. She could feel the threat of a headache pulsing at the back of her skull. She was holding it at bay with sheer willpower.

“Decoding,” Lyra said.

The pieces of parchment were filled with symbols from the book. Lyra was attempting to compose some makeshift key for the mysterious language. So far she'd figured out where sentences began and ended. That was a start, but an actual translation would have been better.

Marble analyzed the situation. They'd been traveling for hours, Lyra's mind split between translating and controlling the carriage. They hadn't hit a town or a city yet. Marble wasn't even certain where they were going. She'd left it all up to Lyra.

“I'm stepping outside for a while,” said Marble.

Lyra nodded idly, her eyes dropping to the spellbook.

Marble clambered out of the carriage and up onto the roof. She stared at the vast stretch of land before them. Did Lyra even know where they were going? Was she relying on the fact that they would eventually hit a town if they kept going forward?

Marble curled up on the roof of the carriage. She had just woken up, but the vibrations were making her sleepy all over again. Her eyes were beginning to close. Marble tried to keep herself awake. She stared off into the distance, trying to find an object to focus on.

Marble's eyes abruptly snapped open. She squinted disbelievingly. Was that a house? An actual house in the middle of nowhere? Granted, it looked like a box in the distance, but Marble was sure she saw windows.

She scrambled back through the carriage window.

“Lyra!” she said.

Lyra's head was drooping over the spellbook. At the sound of her name, her head shot up.

“Wha?” she mumbled.

Marble grabbed Lyra and shook her. She pointed desperately at the window as if it held something important.

“A house,” she said. “I saw a house.”

Lyra immediately closed the spellbook. Her sleepiness fell to the wayside. Lyra quickly got to her hooves. She stuck her head out the carriage window and stared in the direction of the supposed house.

They were approaching slowly, but Lyra could see that it was indeed a house. More of a shack than an actual living space, but regardless what one would call a house. Lyra could make out a pair of windows and a door.

“We're stopping,” said Lyra.

She spoke as if she expected protest, but Marble didn't say a word.

Lyra brought the carriage to a halt a few feet away from the shack. Perhaps stopping at a shack in the middle of nowhere wasn't the best idea. Lyra was not even sure where such a notion came from. But Lyra's brain was running on borrowed energy. Her thoughts were firing at an incredibly low speed.

Lyra jumped out of the carriage. She trotted up to the door. The shack looked abandoned, as if nopony had lived in it for ages. However, Lyra peeked into one of the windows. She saw a few dark shapes that could have been furniture. Nothing was moving inside.

“Should we knock?” said Marble.

Lyra jumped and screamed. She hadn't heard Marble come up beside her.

“Sorry,” said Marble, blushing.

Lyra shoved a hoof against her forehead. She pressed it deep into her fur, as if trying to hold the headache at bay. It was no use. Lyra could feel it clawing its way to the forefront.

Marble gave the door a series of polite taps.

“Hello?” she whispered.

She knocked again, then squeaked as the door swung inward. Marble watched in surprise as the door detached from the frame and collapsed into the room. The thud of the door hitting the ground went off like a cannon blast in the utterly silent shack. Marble pressed both hooves to her mouth, a look of mortification on her face.

“I'm sorry!” she said.

Lyra entered the shack, stepping around the fallen door. She could smell dusty books and old clothes.

“I don't think anypony's lived here for a while,” she said.

Nevertheless, Marble still looked ashamed. She tried to put the door back into its frame, but to no avail.

Lyra lit up her horn. From what she could see, the shack was pretty straightforward. There were two chairs, a table, a chest in one corner of the room, and a bed. There were books piled on the bed. Lyra felt a pang of sadness at the sight. It reminded her of Moondancer's cottage back in Canterlot. She missed that place.

Marble trotted to the chest and opened it. She thought it might contain a hammer or something else she could use to reattach the door. Unfortunately, the chest was filled with filthy clothes. She wrinkled her nose at both the smell and the sight.

Lyra went over to the bed. She picked up one of the books. Lyra expected something mundane, but she wanted to get an idea of who had lived in the shack.

The book's pages were falling apart, but wiping the dust from the cover revealed the title: The Great Friendship Conspiracy.

Lyra was startled. She knew that book. She owned that book. Lyra had read it cover-to-cover at least four times less than three years ago. Puzzled, she picked up another book from the bed.

One Hundred Mysterious Creatures and Where To Find Them. Lyra knew that one all too well. She'd done her fair share of “monster-hunting” in her youth. She'd kept that particular book around for nostalgia purposes and research.

The Chains of Truth: The Story of Grim Fact. Another one of Lyra's favorites from her early days as a self-proclaimed truth-seeker. She'd always been enamored with the story of Grim Fact. Grim Fact had dedicated their life to solving the hidden mysteries of Equestria. Lyra had looked up to them.

The Princess Conspiracy: Equestria's Greatest Unsolved Mysteries. Lyra had never gotten around to reading that one, but she'd meant to read the whole thing in one sitting. Unfortunately, that particular copy was falling apart and scarcely in readable condition.

Lyra's heartbeat was increasing. The remaining books on the bed were all the same. They were all books she either had read or had been planning to read. Every single one was about conspiracies or notable truth-seekers. Lyra felt as if she'd walked into her own brain.

Who lived here? she wondered. Was it me?

She wanted the idea to sound far-fetched, but it wasn't. After all Lyra had discovered, every possibility was worth just consideration. How had they even stumbled across the place? It felt like luck, but Lyra wasn't sure anymore. Things that could have been coincidences were starting to feel more like somepony else was pulling strings.

Am I a puppet? Lyra wondered.

If she was, everything about her adventure were preordained. The outcome was planned from the start and Lyra was merely following the path. If she was a puppet, everything she did was meaningless. If this was all planned, there was no truth and no Bon-Bon waiting for her.

Lyra sank to the floor. Could she keep going? Could she keep going while doubting herself every second? Could Lyra keep going knowing that she might never see Bon-Bon's smiling face?

“I'm so sorry, Bon-Bon,” said Lyra.

She thought she'd whispered it, but Marble heard her.

Marble closed the chest. She trotted over to Lyra, a concerned and confused look on her face.

“Are you alright?” she said. “Who's Bon-Bon?”

Lyra shook her head. How could she explain? It might make sense in her mind, but it would sound like paranoid garbage. Lyra could feel doubts pounding somewhere in her skull, pounding harder than the incoming headache.

“Somepony I might have known,” said Lyra.

The story poured out of her. She told Marble the full truth about the memories, the dreams, and her real reason for going on her journey. It had been a while since Lyra unloaded herself. She felt better, the headache ebbing away with each word.

Marble listened, her face blank.

Lyra stopped to take a deep breath. Somehow she'd been speaking for about ten minutes, pausing occasionally to suck in some air. Lyra hadn't realized she could talk so long about Bon-Bon. If Marble hadn't cut in, Lyra could have gone on for hours. Lyra would have talked until she devolved into meaningless sentimentality.

“Oh,” said Marble simply.

She hung her head. She didn't cry or make any sounds indicating distress, but there was torment in that single word. Marble's world wasn't crumbling. But cracks were appearing at the edges of her reality.

The guilt wound itself around Lyra's neck. Marble had said Lyra's name in her sleep. She'd looked at Lyra with adoration that went beyond the awe of discovering another world. But Lyra had ignored all that because it wasn't relevant. She had cast it aside because she didn't think it was important in the long run. It seemed Lyra was half-right in a sense.

Then Marble did something that astonished them both. Marble wasn't one to give herself to impulse. It went against how she'd been raised. But then again, everything Marble had done so far went against how she'd been raised. Life on the rock farm had been restrictive. Life with Lyra Heartstrings was not.

It was in the heat of this newly realized liberation that Marble acted. She leaned forward and kissed Lyra.

It was not a passionate kiss, nor was it an experienced kiss. It was the kiss of somepony who had the basic idea of what a kiss should feel like, but was hampered by inexperience.

Marble felt tears stinging the corners of her eyes. There was a subtle hunger at the back of her kiss, a muffled want that would lay forever unfulfilled. A miserable kind of acceptance had settled into Marble's chest. There were things she could have. She could have change, she could have freedom, and she could have adventures. But there was one thing that lay miles from where Marble's hooves could reach.

The kiss only lasted a few seconds. Then Marble withdrew, the tears flowing down her cheeks.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

Marble didn't have it in her to be embarrassed.

Marble took the bed that night, while Lyra slept on the floor. Granted, they both knew Lyra wasn't going to sleep. But Marble didn't say anything and Lyra didn't bring it up. They seemed to have a mutual understanding on that front.

Lyra pored over the spellbook. If only she had somepony to translate it for her. There had to be somepony who understood the language.

Lyra glanced at Marble's sleeping form. She would have preferred it if Marble had simply run away. Then Lyra wouldn't have to feel so guilty while at the same time understanding that guilt was pointless.

She squinted at the page in front of her. The illustration told Lyra absolutely nothing. It indicated some kind of ritual, but Lyra didn't know what said ritual was for or what it entailed. The illustrations surrounding it were so vague she wondered why they even existed.

Am I even meant to translate this? Lyra wondered.

Perhaps it was written in some lost language no modern pony could understand.

She ran her hoof over the page, resting it on each illustration in turn. Lyra glanced at Marble again. Marble was as clueless as she was, but Lyra would have liked to bounce some ideas off her. They could have speculated together.

Lyra's hoof began to circle one illustration in particular. Where had she seen that before? It was important, wasn't it? It was something she'd come across recently.

“Oh please,” Lyra muttered to herself. “When was the last time I saw a mu--?”

She almost slammed her head into the page. Of course. How could she have been so forgetful? Then again, Lyra was running on zero hours of sleep. She should have expected herself to forget things.

“The music box!” she burst out.

Marble sprang up.

“Whazzat?” she mumbled. “Ly-Lyra?”

But Lyra was going through her saddlebags. She pulled out the music box, scarcely daring to hope she was right. But one comparison with the illustration told her everything she needed. It was the right music box. The design was exactly the same, right down to the crescent moon on the bottom.

The music box was apparently used for some kind of ritual. But even if Lyra knew that, she still had no idea what it was actually for. She also didn't know why Fleur had the book in the first place.

“The moon,” said Lyra to herself. “It has to do with the moon.”

She galloped over to one of the shack's windows. Lyra gazed up into the sky. The moon was full that night. She expected to see something there—a shape or perhaps a sign—but there was nothing. Yet no matter how Lyra looked at it, she was sure the moon had something to do with everything.

Lyra pushed open the door of the shack. She stepped out into the cold night, her eyes on the moon in the sky. She began to trot towards it. Lyra didn't know where she was going or why, but she couldn't stop herself.

“Lyra!” Marble called.

But Lyra didn't hear her. She was following the moon.

Part 14: The Moon

Lyra trotted for what seemed like hours, hypnotized by the glowing orb in the sky.

She remembered stories from her foalhood. Tall tales about tribes of ponies living on the moon. Cautionary tales of Nightmare Moon and fables about the moon guiding the lost to their families. In a way, Lyra had been following the moon since her adventure started. She'd been chasing something just as elusive and just as beautiful.

Lyra came to a halt, blinking in the darkness. She swung her head back and forth, taking in her surroundings for the first time.

Where am I? she wondered.

The question was more relevant than usual. In her trance-like state, Lyra had wandered further into the uninhabited wilds of Equestria. She had found a few trees, but civilization was still a mere want. Lyra couldn't see the shack in the distance, nor did she see any sign of Marble following her.

Lyra pressed her forehead against a tree. Her head was throbbing with the light but vivid agony of a fresh headache. Where was she meant to go? How could she get back? Lyra tried, but her thoughts couldn't squeeze past the pain in her head.

Her mental map stopped short miles back. At some point Lyra had been on complete autopilot, her hooves moving with no direction from her brain. If there had been landmarks, Lyra had missed them.

Sleep, she thought.

That was what Lyra needed above all else. She wanted to doze under the protective light of the moon.

Her eyes had just begun to close when she heard the hoofsteps. Lyra's senses were working at half their usual efficiency, but each one reacted to the unexpected sound. Her eyes shot open and darted around groggily. The openness of the landscape and the lack of hiding places sent her brain into a mild panic.

“Hello?” Lyra called.

A protest rose from a distant corner of her brain, but she had already given herself away.

A shape—Lyra's size—casually strolled into view. They stood there, observing Lyra with interest rather than malice.

“I see our paths have crossed again very soon,” said the shape. “You were wise to follow the moon.”

Lyra nearly burst out laughing in relief.

“Zecora?” she said.

The shape stepped into the light. It was indeed Zecora. She was wearing a traveling cloak and carrying several saddlebags. Despite the late hour, she looked completely awake.

“How did you find me?” said Lyra.

Zecora gave Lyra that gentle reassuring smile she seemed to have mastered.

“I knew we would meet again some day,” she said. “But I did not think it would be this way. I had no idea you would be here. I was simply traveling to a place very near.”

Lyra sat down, back against the tree. Questions were queuing up in her brain. Most of them were things she did not think Zecora could answer. Then again, Zecora obviously knew more than Lyra could ever imagine.

“Why did you tell me to follow the moon?” she said. “If you didn't know we would meet, why did you want me to follow it?”

Zecora placed her saddlebags on the ground. She curled up with her back legs underneath her, her front legs laying somewhat possessively across the saddlebags.

“The moon has fascinated ponies for years,” she said. “A single glance could bring certain ponies to tears. But sometimes this fascination would turn tragic. For the moon is the source of all dark magic.”

Zecora gestured at the moon, her expression turning completely serious.

“The night was a time for mischief and sorrow,” she said. “Ponies plotted for a darker tomorrow.”

It was Lyra's turn to raise her eyebrows. She was always in the mood for a good long story, but she wasn't sure about the point.

“What does this have to do with Ponyville?” she said.

Zecora shrugged.

“All roads lead back to that place,” she said. “Ponyville is merely a single piece of the mystery. A larger truth you will soon have to face. You must look deeper into history.”

Zecora got to her hooves.

“You must figure this out on your own,” she said. “Only then will you be able to go home.”

She reached into one of her saddlebags. She rummaged for a second, then withdrew a mirror. The mirror was oval in shape and about the size of Lyra's hoof. It didn't look special in the slightest. However, Zecora turned it around to reveal the familiar crescent moon shape carved into the back.

Lyra took the mirror from Zecora. She gazed at her reflection. She didn't see anything unusual, but Lyra was mostly focused on how utterly wrecked she looked. The lack of sleep seemed to have aged her.

“Use this to find what is hidden in the light,” said Zecora. “A mirror reflects what is wrong and what is right.”

She picked up her saddlebags. With a kind farewell to Lyra, Zecora started on her way. However, she stopped after a few moments and turned back to look at Lyra.

“If you keep going, you will eventually face the city,” she said. “To stop now would be a pity.”

Lyra was about to ask which city in particular, but she stopped. It had to be Canterlot. Lyra was going back to where it all began.

“Thank you,” said Lyra.

She heard a shout in the distance. Lyra instantly recognized it as Marble's voice calling out her name. It didn't sound too far away.

“Marble?” Lyra called.

She could hear hoofsteps approaching at a rapid pace. Lyra did not even notice Zecora making a discreet exit. She was focused for the first time in a long while. Lyra remained sleep-deprived, but her brain had temporarily upped its productivity.

Lyra looked up at the moon yet again.

“The light,” she whispered.

Lyra looked at the mirror. She had an idea of what she was meant to do. Hopefully she would get the chance.

The moon would be full again the next night. Lyra had a plan.

Marble—having actually slept—had accurately mapped out her journey from the shack to Lyra. She was able to get them back there in less than an hour. Lyra hadn't wandered too far away after all, as Marble herself confirmed. The worst part was re-navigating all the twists and turns a very transfixed Lyra had taken during her impromptu quest.

“I'm so glad you're okay,” Marble kept saying.

She guided Lyra over the threshold, her face still alive with worry. Marble seemed to think that Lyra might run off again if she didn't cling to her. She needn't have held onto such a notion. Lyra was in no state to do any running.

Lyra collapsed onto the bed. Between yawns, she told Marble the whole story.

While the entire account was undoubtedly important, Marble chose to focus on one specific thing.

“Canterlot?” she said in awe. “We're going to Canterlot?”

The Pie family knew a lot about Canterlot. It was—according to guidebooks—the “most beautiful city in the entire land”. It was “a wonderful triumph of ponykind” and “a land of scholars and wonders beyond the imagination”. Marble never dared admit it, but she'd always wanted to visit the so-called “greatest city in Equestria”.

“It looks like it,” said Lyra.

She was thinking about a potential encounter with Fleur or anything of that nature. Lyra was thinking about all the libraries, all the information she would finally be able to access. If she could answer at least one question, Lyra would risk running into Fleur.

“But won't ponies recognize you?” said Marble.

Lyra shrugged, disinterested in the prospect. It had not even occurred to her.

“Its been a while,” she said. “I'm sure half of Equestria has forgotten about “Liar Lyra”.”

She was going to miss the fabricated importance that title gave her. Lyra had once been all over the papers. It had been stressful and altogether invasive, but a part of her had reveled in the attention. She had believed that when—not if, but when—she found the truth, she'd have an audience. Perhaps there were some ponies still following her and waiting for the big reveal, but it wasn't the audience Lyra had wanted.

“We'll start out right away,” said Lyra.

But Marble shook her head. Her face had become stern, reminding Lyra of Cloudy Quartz.

“No,” she said. “You need to sleep.”

Lyra opened her mouth to object. What came out instead was a particularly immense yawn.

Marble patted Lyra's head as one would a tired foal.

“Canterlot will still be there when you wake up,” she said. “There's no hurry. The truth will wait for you.”

Lyra pressed her head to the pillow. When it came down to sleep vs. truth, she knew sleep would win.

Two minutes later, Lyra had fallen into a dreamless sleep.

Lyra slept until the next night. She woke up immensely disoriented, briefly believing she'd stumbled back into her hectic university days. The place definitely smelled like her old dorm room. But when Lyra rubbed her eyes and looked around, she saw that it certainly wasn't. It was a lot cleaner.

Marble was outside. She was packing things into the carriage, humming a cheerful tune as she did so. She didn't turn around when the door of the shack opened and Lyra stepped out.

“Almost ready,” said Marble.

Lyra rubbed her eyes again. Previous events had been coming back to her at a steady pace.

“The mirror,” she said blearily.

Lyra looked up at the sky. The moon was indeed full again that night.

She went back inside and retrieved the mirror. Lyra departed the shack once again, mirror held aloft in her magic. She reflected on the perceived insignificance of the object.

At least I can look at myself, Lyra thought.

She lowered the mirror, balancing it on one hoof. Her reflection hadn't changed much. Lyra appeared healthier, but otherwise the same. However, Lyra couldn't stop looking into her own eyes. She thought she saw something there, something that perhaps everypony else had seen many times before.

Sadness, she thought.

But it wasn't mere turmoil. It was a kind of deep and inherent feeling of defeat. Lyra told herself she'd discovered many things, that she'd gotten far. But had she? There were so many things Lyra needed to know. There was no guarantee that a library in Canterlot would drop all of the answers onto her back.

Lyra held the mirror up. Its reflective surface caught the moon in the sky.

Marble had finished packing up the carriage. She trotted back into the shack. Marble was sure they had everything they needed, but she wanted to give the shack one final shakedown. Perhaps there was something useful in that chest.

Lyra felt the mirror shift in her hoof. She felt ripples across its smooth surface, followed by a light vibration. Puzzled, Lyra lowered the mirror back to her eye level and peered into it.

The mirror had changed. It no longer showed Lyra her reflection. The reflection of the moon lay frozen upon it, as if the mirror was buffering between scenes.

Another pocket dimension? Lyra thought.

But it was too small for her to stick her head into. Lyra wasn't certain whether this was a relief or a disappointment.

As she could barely fit a hoof into the mirror, Lyra reached into it with her magic. She almost expected it to be empty. She trusted Zecora, but she didn't want to let her hopes soar at such an important moment. But the second Lyra reached out with her magic, she felt something within the mirror. She wrapped her magic around it, steadily and carefully easing the object out into the real world.

A small book about a size or so smaller than Lyra's head emerged from the mirror.

Another book? she thought.

She was somewhat disappointed. Books had been a recurring theme during her adventure. Lyra had wanted something new, something vague. There wasn't even anything on the book's cover for her to decode. However, Lyra's heart leaped for a second. Given the book's small size and the fact that it was hidden, it could very well be the key she needed to translate the spellbook.

Lyra opened the small book. An incredulous expression took over her face.

The book was blank. It lacked a title, cover art, or anything of note both inside and out. The pages were utterly bare. Lyra tried holding the open book up to the moon, but nothing appeared.

Marble emerged from the shack. She was carrying two traveling cloaks from the chest. She felt bad about stealing, but she had a feeling the shack's former inhabitant wouldn't mind.

Lyra was casting some basic revealing spells on the book. But even though the spells confirmed that text certainly existed, the words never stayed long enough for Lyra to read them. She caught some words—the name “Spike” appeared more than once—but nothing Lyra could string together. There was something about the book that was resisting Lyra's magic.

“Are you ready to go?” said Marble.

But Lyra was still casting spells. She was holding the book in front of her, concentrating on yet another revealing spell. Surely one of them had to work. Lyra's arsenal was rapidly emptying, but she was determined.

Marble trotted up to Lyra. She waved a hoof in front of Lyra's face, but Lyra seemed entranced.

“Um, hello?” said Marble timidly.

She placed a hoof on the book.

Lyra continued to cast spells, oblivious to Marble. She was trying—and failing—to combine two revealing spells in the hopes of strengthening the overall effect.

The second Marble's hoof touched the book, her intention was lost. What felt like a jolt of ice cold water rocketed through her body. She froze in place, a quiver scampering across her back. Pain burst inside Marble's head, but her hoof remained firmly planted on the book. Images—vivid and bare—pounded at the edge of her skull. With every pulse of her mind, the images became clearer. They came in faster succession, shoving aside rational thought and leaving Marble on the precipice of scared tears.

Lyra was pulled from her trance. Noticing Marble's alarming state, Lyra yanked the book away.

“Marble!” she said.

Marble fell to her hooves. She lay there trembling and perspiring, the aftermath of the shock coursing through her body. Marble knew precisely what she had seen. She didn't understand how or why, but she knew what it had been.

Lyra dropped down next to Marble and patted her head.

“Are you okay?” she said. “Please say something.”

Words came shuddering out of Marble's mouth. Her head shook slightly as she spoke, every sentence a gargantuan effort.

“The well,” she said. “I can take us to the well.”

Part 15: Fleur

It seemed Canterlot would have to wait.

Once Marble was steady—both mentally and physically—enough to talk, Lyra had no trouble getting the coordinates from her. They were vague, as they had come in brief flashes. But Lyra was able to make something of them.

“Under the floorboards,” Marble kept saying.

As they started off in the carriage, Lyra wondered. She brushed her hoof across the newly-discovered book. Other than apparently hiding some important secret, it didn't seem special. So why should its effect have been so dramatic and strong for Marble?

Zecora meant for this to happen, Lyra thought.

It was not a question or a theory. Lyra had abandoned all those bothersome maybes.

Marble was lying on her back, head propped up by a pillow from the shack. She was sweating and pale, but she had otherwise recovered from the shock.

Night fell and their journey continued.

Lyra peeked out of the carriage window. She couldn't see civilization in the distance, but she knew it was near. They'd be hitting a familiar place soon enough.

Is my adventure just a big loop? Lyra wondered.

First she thought they were heading back to Canterlot, now this. There had to be a reason. As soon as they arrived, Lyra was going to look for it.

Appleloosa hadn't changed.

But Lyra hadn't expected change. There were certain places in Equestria—Appleloosa, Dodge City, even Manehatten to an extent—that seemed immune to change. The entire world could have shifted and Appleloosa would have remained hot, intimate, and rural.

Lyra almost implored Marble to stay in the carriage. She was afraid that Marble—in her weakened state—might collapse from the heat. They had arrived early in the morning, therefore the temperature was especially oppressive.

However, Marble didn't even flinch as she stepped into the domineering Appleloosan heat.

Lyra wondered if it was an Earth pony thing. Alternatively, perhaps Lyra had spent too much time in cities.

Marble squinted into the bright light. She blinked rapidly to adjust her eyes.

“Are we here?” she said.

Lyra nodded. Her memories of the place were as fresh as ever, even though her last visit felt like a century ago. The vague taste of Granny Smith's cooking came back to Lyra. Tears prickled at her eyes. Lyra wiped them away before Marble could see and ask questions.

“There's an inn...,” Marble started.

Lyra shook her head.

“There's a family we can stay with,” she said. “I think at least one of them has been expecting us.”

Lyra and Marble unloaded the carriage. They temporarily abandoned it next to the saloon, leaving it alongside many others. Neither knew if they would be using it again.

The trek from the town to the Apple family house took longer than Lyra had anticipated. It took her a few moments to realize that she was intentionally taking her time. But even with this knowledge, Lyra couldn't increase her pace. Her heart was slowly withering with dread.

It'll be fine, she thought. Why wouldn't it be?

Lyra couldn't answer that question, but she also couldn't calm herself.

They reached the house after nearly an hour of procrastination on Lyra's part. It looked exactly the same as Lyra remembered it. It was the same old house occupied by the same old family. It was Lyra herself who'd grown up, who'd become something entirely different in her time away.

Marble knocked on the door.

Lyra stood a little ways back, somewhat trying to make herself invisible. Her mind kept dwelling on Granny Smith's kind face and the last words they'd spoken to one another.

The door swung open. Lyra braced herself. She didn't know if she expected anger or kindness. She felt she deserved both in equal measure.

“Um, hi,” said Marble.

She stepped back and Lyra was able to see who stood in the doorway.

Lyra froze. Her eyes squinted at this affront to reality. There was no way. Not in this place, not under those circumstances, not at that moment in time. Lyra must have been trapped in some impromptu delusion.

But then the impossible apparition spoke, her voice all too familiar. Lyra couldn't have mistaken that grumpiness if she'd tried.

“I was wondering when you'd come back,” said Moondancer. “Took you long enough.”

As hospitality incarnate, Applejack rushed to make tea as soon as Lyra was inside. She seemed surprised to see her, but not angry. Then again, perhaps she was too busy playing the part of the hostess to comment on Lyra's reappearance.

Lyra sat at the kitchen table, her head in her hooves. Her mind was sprinting a perfect circle around disconnected thoughts. She thought everything made sense, but here was again something the equation had neglected.

“Why are you here?” Lyra managed.

She sounded more ungrateful than she intended. In truth, Lyra was relieved that Moondancer was alive and well.

Moondancer was sitting at the other side of the table. She rolled her eyes, crossing her hooves on the table.

“Yes, I'm fine,” she said. “Thank you for asking. Am I in trouble? No, I'm alright. Thank you very much for your concern.”

Lyra was not in the mood for sarcasm. As sweet as their reunion was, it had fried her emotions. Everything she felt and everything she should have felt was mixed up in a panicked whirlwind. What spilled out of Lyra's mouth attested to her own unseen turmoil of thought.

“Why didn't you contact me?” she demanded. “If I'd known you were alright, I would have come right away! Do you think it's funny to just leave me in the dark?”

Granted, Lyra had done very well on her own. But that wasn't the point.

Moondancer angrily adjusted her glasses.

“Hey, I was helping you,” she said. “I left a trail for you to follow.”

Lyra opened her mouth to object, but she couldn't. She tried not to see it, but the trail was spreading itself out before her eyes. She saw gaps here and there, but altogether it was a very clear path. Lyra realized why she'd felt as if she was being led. Defeated, she sank down and put her head on the table.

“So the shack...?” she said.

Something—perhaps fear—flashed across Moondancer's eyes.

“What shack?” she said. “I didn't send you to a shack.”

Lyra had a thousand other questions to ask, but she pounced on Moondancer's obvious distress.

“Me and Marble found it after leaving Los Pegasus,” she said. “It was filled with books....”

She watched Moondancer's eyes.

“.....old clothes....”

There it was. A subtle change in expression, a brief lapse in Moondancer's chilly demeanor. It was gone quicker than it had come, but Lyra saw it.

“We don't know who it belonged to,” said Lyra. “Whoever they were, I think they were a lot like me. Somepony looking for the truth. A pony chasing that one lost town.”

Moondancer looked directly into Lyra's eyes.

“You don't know anything,” she said.

Lyra raised her head from the table and smiled. She liked seeing Moondancer shaken up, even if she was concealing it. Perhaps it would give Moondancer some idea of how Lyra had felt for those past weeks.

“Yeah, you're right,” she said. “But I'm trying.”

She hoped Moondancer would interpret that as an invitation, but apparently not.

Moondancer stared disinterestedly in Lyra's direction, their conversation at an unexpected and awkward halt. It was almost a challenge. Whoever broke the silence first won the game.

Applejack placed two cups on the table.

“Tea's ready,” she said.

They drank their tea in silence. They made an effort to avoid eye contact.

Lyra held her teacup in her hooves, smiling into the light brown liquid. Maybe she should be rushing to ask Moondancer those thousand questions, but she was in no hurry. She had waited months for answers. She could wait the few hours, days, or additional months it would take Moondancer to thaw.

I can wait forever, thought Lyra.

She felt as if she already had.

Lyra slept in a bedroom that night. Big Macintosh insisted she take his bedroom. She was too tired to protest. Marble agreed to sleep on the floor, although Lyra would have preferred something even less intimate.

“Where's Moondancer going to sleep?” Lyra wanted to ask.

But she didn't bother. All she wanted was a bed and a good night's sleep. Asking questions would only delay that wonderful serenity.

Unfortunately, Lyra didn't sleep. Big Macintosh's bed was absurdly comfortable, yet she couldn't force her eyes closed. She instead stayed awake, her hooves idly playing with the pages of the blank book.

She was beginning to doubt if the mysterious blank book was anything at all. Maybe it only existed for the sole purpose of triggering Marble's abilities. Perhaps beyond that it was just somepony's journal. But why would somepony go to the trouble of concealing their thoughts with such a powerful spell?

“Moondancer, why?” Lyra groaned to herself.

It was such an easy prospect: apologize for her behavior and ask Moondancer those questions. But at the same time, Lyra wasn't sure she would even answer. Her mention of that shack had shut several doors between them. If only she knew what had scared Moondancer, they could both move away from this unwanted obstruction.

The clothes. Moondancer had reacted to the mention of the clothes. But Lyra hadn't been paying too much attention to the clothes at the shack. Other than the cloaks, there had been nothing particularly eye-catching. There had been a sweater, but it hadn't looked like the kind Moondancer would wear.

“Why can't anything make sense?” Lyra asked the air.

She shot a look at Marble. Marble was fast asleep in her sleeping bag. She hadn't stirred.

Nevertheless, Lyra made an effort to speak quieter.

“Spells,” she said. “A music box. A well that should be here. What does it all mean? What could Moondancer know?”

Out of her control, her voice rose in anger.

“And what does it have to do with Ponyville?” she said.

She pressed both hooves against her head and closed her eyes. Lyra commanded herself to think, to come up with something. But her mind was empty of any of her usual theories. Her brain had taken a break from churning out information and hints.

Lyra heard a tap on the window. She didn't turn to look. Instead, Lyra lay down and threw the covers over her head.

“Goodnight!” she snapped.

But her visitor didn't seem to hear. More likely, they didn't care. The tapping started again. There was no insistence to it, only a patient request for attention.

Lyra realized that she was on the second floor. The pony tapping on her window must either be a pegasus or somepony who had mastered that elusive hovering spell. Both ideas intrigued her enough for her to throw off the covers. Curious but reluctant, Lyra turned to the window.

Fleur was outside. At first glance, she seemed to be calmly standing on the air. A second look revealed her to be floating, her hooves moving as if she was trying to swim. She resembled some miserable specter.

Lyra opened the window with her magic.

“Do you have my stuff?” she said.

Fleur stepped through the window and into the bedroom. In the meager light, she was less of a specter, but there was an eerie quality to her slender form in the semi-darkness.

“I'm afraid it was confiscated,” she said.

Lyra laughed.

“Who are you, the bucking Royal Guards?” she said. “Who gave you the authority to confiscate my stuff?”

Fleur smiled gently. It was a surprisingly motherly smile, like she was a guardian speaking affectionately to her nervous foal.

“You don't care anymore, do you?” she said.

Lyra shrugged. She couldn't muster up the energy to be scared. After all she'd been through in the last days alone, facing her greatest fears seemed like a blessing.

Fleur levitated something out of a bag at her side. It was a small vial of light green liquid. She gave it a shake. Still smiling in a motherly fashion, Fleur levitated the bottle over to Lyra.

Lyra gently pushed the bottle away.

“I'm not poisoning myself,” she said.

Fleur shook her head.

“Not poison,” she said. “An amnesiac. A powerful one. One sip and the whole year is gone.”

Lyra stared at the bottle. At first, she wasn't thinking about the offer itself. She was thinking about the implications of losing an entire year. She could go back to Canterlot. She could return to her old apartment and be a happy oblivious truth-seeker. Lyra could even take a few more sips and hopefully forget everything to do with her journey. Fleur was offering her something she wasn't sure she could refuse. However, her expression was one of defiance.

“Why would I do that?” she said.

Fleur sighed and put the bottle on the table.

“I'm offering you an easy way out,” she said. “I'm making it your choice. If I wanted, I could restrain you and force you to drink it.”

Lyra raised her eyebrows, genuinely confused.

“Then why don't you just do it?” she said. “You're obviously way more powerful than me. Why bother giving me a choice in the matter?”

Fleur sighed again. Any trace of fabricated motherly affection had left her voice.

“I'm being kind,” she said. “You're not a foolish pony. You know what you really want.”

Lyra's head began to spin ever so slightly. Amnesiacs, classified anomalies, ponies tailing her. It was crazy. But somewhere buried in all the madness, there was a nugget of sense. A chunk of pure truth that Lyra was starting to dig out.

It wasn't just Fleur. Lyra had suspected this all along, but now the fact shone brighter.

It was an entire group, a series of ponies interconnected by a combination of technology and magic. Ponies bound to one another by a single goal. Ponyville wasn't even half of it. There was more, so much more that Lyra didn't know about. The words “Anomaly 63-C” leaped out at her, their meaning becoming clearer the more she thought about them.

Fleur must have seen the sparks going off in Lyra's head. She smiled rather sardonically.

“I knew you'd get there,” she said.

Marble turned over in her sleep and groaned, reminding Lyra and Fleur of her presence. But she continued to sleep, cheerfully oblivious to what was going on inches from her.

“A secret organization...?”

Lyra nearly choked on the words. She could hardly believe she hadn't noticed all the signs. But it explained everything. Above everything else, it explained the so-called “Anomaly 63-C”.

“Secret?” said Fleur. “I'm afraid you're only partly right. Our little operation is fully funded by the princesses. Although I am certain they know very little about our actual activities, we're hardly “secret” in the grand scheme of things.”

Lyra couldn't help being somewhat in awe.

“So you chase anomalies for a living?” she said.

Fleur smiled in mocking sympathy.

“Yes, I suppose that's how somepony like you would put it,” she said. “I assure you that it's more than that.”

She gestured to the bottle on the nightstand.

“Back to the issue at hoof,” she said. “I believe you were about to take a swig from that lovely bottle.”

Lyra looked from the bottle to Fleur's face, her childish awe melting.

“What makes you think I'd do something like that?” she said. “What would you give me in return?”

Fleur grinned somewhat wolfishly at the question. It was rather unsettling how she could go from motherly to businesslike and then straight to downright conniving. Her voice and mannerisms shifted with such ease that it was clear she'd had practice.

“The thing you want most in the world,” she said. “Or rather the pony you want most in the world.”

The color drained from Lyra's face.

“B--?” she said.

She didn't dare say Bon-Bon's name. Even though it was the name of a pony she loved, it suddenly felt cursed.

Fleur nodded, the wolfish smile not fading.

“I know where she is,” she said.

She gestured towards the bottle again.

“Take your medicine, Lyra,” she said.

Lyra's hooves began to shake. She could already feel the tears.

Part 16: The Well

Lyra wished somepony would interrupt. She wished some oblivious member of the Apple family would charge in. She wished Marble would wake up and start screaming. Anything to relieve her from this choice.

But nothing happened. The house didn't stir, Marble didn't awaken. Lyra and Fleur were alone, the latter's words seemingly splattered all over the walls like fresh blood upon a crime scene.

“You're lying,” said Lyra.

The words were desperate, but her tone was weak. She might not know how, why, or when, but she knew Fleur was no liar.

Lyra's gaze shot to the amnesiac on the night stand. She was scared that her magic might work on its own. She might grab it and down it in one without even thinking. To keep herself steady, Lyra focused on the bottle and its place in the emerging equation.

Fleur levitated a piece of paper from her saddlebag.

“I'll write down her address,” she said. “One sip and you'll have it. What do you say, my dear Lyra? How much do you love her?”

Lyra fixed her gaze on the piece of paper. What did she want, really want out of this? The truth most certainly, but there was something more important. A reunion between her and a mare whom existed only in her vivid secondary set of memories.

“How many times have you done this?” said Lyra. “How many other ponies...?”

Fleur seemed taken aback by the question, but she responded hastily.

“Oh, a dozen,” she said. “Perhaps more. It's a rather significant part of my job. I've grown accustomed to it.”

Lyra realized why Fleur was speaking so freely. Fleur was giving her frank answers because she fully expected her to take the amnesiac.

“Cover-ups,” said Lyra musingly. “Protecting the citizens of Equestria from the truth.”

She paused as something came to her.

“Do you know the truth?” she said.

Fleur shrugged.

“It's not my job to know,” she said. “It's irrelevant to our mission statement.”

But Lyra could tell that was only half of it. Perhaps Fleur didn't know the entire truth, but she certainly knew things Lyra didn't.

“I'm growing tired of this little game,” said Fleur.

She turned back towards the window. Fleur looked over her shoulder and gave Lyra a knowing smile.

“You want to pretend you have an actual choice,” she said. “I completely understand. It's difficult for ponies like you to admit when they've been backed into a corner.”

She levitated a glowing object from her saddlebag and into Lyra's lap. It at first appeared to be its own independent light source. But when it dropped into Lyra's lap, it became clear that it was actually a small blue crystal.

“Use that if you need to contact me,” said Fleur. “Otherwise I'll be back tomorrow night.”

Her smile broadened. That wolfish quality came back in all its malicious glory.

“You won't be able to run away from this, my dear Lyra,” she said. “We will find you.”

With that, Fleur's horn lit up. A blinding light steadily swallowed up her form. Abruptly, the light seemed to briefly explode outwards. Fleur vanished from sight.

Lyra looked at the amnesiac on the nightstand. She shuddered.

Fleur had said “we”. Not “her”, but “we”. It seemed there might be more players entering the game.

Lyra went downstairs. She wasn't sure why. Everything she needed—all the evidence she'd gathered, all the questions she had—were upstairs in her temporary bedroom. But for whatever reason, Lyra wanted to be away from all that. She wanted to be somepony other than Lyra the Truthseeker.

Moondancer was lying on the couch. One glance suggested she was asleep, but another revealed her to be awake. She was on her back, front hooves against her chest. She was staring at the ceiling as if it had personally offended her, her glasses perched haphazardly upon her forehead.

“Can't sleep?” said Lyra.

Laughing sourly, Moondancer jabbed her hoof at the ceiling.

“Have fun with Fleur?” she said.

Lyra didn't ask how Moondancer knew. She seemed like the kind of pony who knew everything.

“When she took you...,” Lyra began.

Moondancer cut across her with a high-pitched laugh. Even if their journeys hadn't been the same, the physical effects were almost identical. Moondancer too has visibly aged during the past few months.

“She didn't take me,” she said. “Oh, she was going to. I got the hay out of there the second I got a whiff of her expensive perfume.”

Unexpectedly, Moondancer leaned over and shoved a hoof underneath the couch. She groped around for a moment, then pulled out a familiar object.

“Sorry,” she said. “I couldn't let her get her hooves on this.”

Lyra scarcely recognized the object at first glance. She hadn't seen it in so long that she'd nearly forgotten what it looked like.

“My satchel,” she said.

She snatched it from Moondancer with a somewhat rude abruptness. She held it above her head. Lyra hadn't realized it was possible to tie so much emotional importance to an inanimate object.

Her hooves quivering with emotion, Lyra opened the satchel. Her breath almost hitched when she saw its contents. It seemed nothing had been moved or altered. It was her satchel, inside and out. The only thing that had resisted change throughout Lyra's harrowing quest.

She withdrew her copy of The Wizard of Canterlot. Her tears were making it difficult to see, but she hastily opened it. The photograph was still inside, miraculously untouched. Bon-Bon's smiling face warmed her heart in ways Lyra couldn't have articulated.

Moondancer rolled her eyes at this over-emotional reunion, but she allowed herself a subtle grin.

“You're welcome,” she said.

Lyra did something she had never done before. She pressed the photograph to her mouth and gave Bon-Bon's face a light kiss. It was silly, but it made her feel better about the decision Fleur had given her.

Moondancer pulled something else from under the couch. This time it was a simple saddlebag.

“Most of my stuff is in a storage unit in Vanhoover,” she said. “But I did some research while I was on the road.”

She opened the saddlebag and dumped an impossible amount of papers and books onto the floor. She appeared to have been making use of at least one powerful space manipulation spell.

“Ponyville isn't the only town to have disappeared over the past thousand years,” she said. “In fact, it's one of at least twenty I dug up. I couldn't find any names or locations, but the cases are all remarkably similar.”

She picked up a crumpled map and showed it to Lyra. It was a particularly ancient map of Equestria that lacked many of the major settlements or landmarks. Moondancer had drawn question marks in several seemingly empty stretches of land across the map.

“The rate of disappearing towns sparked dramatically after the legend of Nightmare Moon became widespread,” she said. “More than five gone in a year.”

Lyra frowned. She was again seeing connections. Ponies turning to dark magic, ponies creating cults based on these legends, forbidden spells, the differences between modern magic and the spells of old.

“A ritual,” she said. “Those ponies were performing a ritual.”

She had no idea who “those ponies” were. Additionally, Lyra still had at least five questions. She was getting an idea, but there were still some holes to be filled. Above everything else, she needed to find the well.

“Why?” Lyra said.

She hadn't meant the question for anypony, but Moondancer scowled.

“Don't ask me,” she said. “I had to call in at least ten favors just to get the information I have.”

Lyra started towards the door.

“Where are you going?” demanded Moondancer.

Without turning back, Lyra pushed the door open. She was sick of waiting for information, sick of hoping that some new lead would fall into her lap. It was time to be proactive.

“To find the well,” she said.

She'd left her saddlebag by the door. She picked it up and slung it over her back.

Lyra didn't ask if Moondancer was coming with her. She simply left the house. She didn't care either way. This was her journey. Nopony else had to stick their muzzle into it.

But after a minute, Lyra heard hoofsteps following her. It seemed her quest could never be her own.

A part of Lyra expected Granny Smith to be in the shed. With what little reaction Granny Smith had to Lyra's reappearance, she couldn't be faulted for half-expecting—and half-wanting—some kind of pivotal encounter.

But Granny Smith seemed to have withdrawn from Lyra's quest for the time being. She wasn't in the shed, nor did she suddenly appear behind them when Lyra and Moondancer stepped inside.

Nevertheless, Lyra muttered an apology to the empty air. She ignored the raised eyebrow she received from Moondancer and trotted to the middle of the room.

“It should be here,” said Lyra.

She ran a hoof across the solid boards. She hoped Marble's vision—or at least her interpretation of it—had been accurate.

Moondancer closed her eyes. Her horn started to glow with a nearly blinding intensity.

Alarmed, Lyra galloped over to Moondancer and touched the tip of her horn. She pulled her hoof back abruptly as a lightning bolt of heat shot through it. Despite the minor pain throbbing in her hoof, Lyra's action had the intended effect. She watched as the glow in Moondancer's horn suddenly flickered out.

“What in Tartarus do you think you're doing?” Lyra said.

She knew that type of magic. Whatever Moondancer had been planning, it would have caused an explosion of some kind.

“Digging up the floorboards,” said Moondancer.

Lyra rolled her eyes.

“More like leveling the entire shed,” she said.

She trotted back to the middle of the room. Displaying her superior patience, Lyra started using her own magic to tear up the floorboards. It was tedious work that took a careful amount of focus, but she thought it was worth it. It certainly made more sense than tearing the entire shed from its foundation.

Moondancer sat and watched, hooves crossed. She refused to help, even though the slowness of the process was clearly riding her nerves.

After a full ten minutes, Lyra saw her first glimpse of the well. Her heartbeat quickened at the sight of it. She wasn't sure she'd even expected an actual well. With all she knew, it seemed equally possible that the entire thing was metaphorical. But there it was.

A few minutes went by, then Lyra had fully uncovered the well. She stepped back from it. How had she made it this far? How had all of her research and turmoil led her to something so mundane at first glance?

However, the well was not entirely mundane. When Lyra dared a closer examination, she found it to be filled with water. The water itself was not speckled with dirt or otherwise polluted. In fact, it was unnaturally clean.

Lyra started to reach her hoof towards it, but Moondancer appeared beside her.

“Don't,” said Moondancer.

She regarded the well cautiously, as if she expected something within to stir.

“That's purified water,” she said. “If you touch it, something terrible will happen to you.”

Lyra stared at the strangely untouched water.

“Purified water?” she said. “You mean like holy water?”

She knew water “blessed” or “purified” by an alicorn was considered priceless. But she'd been under the impression that the gesture itself was more powerful than the effects.

Moondancer shook her head.

“There used to be a ritual,” she said. “Unicorns would gather around a water source—usually a well—and remove all traces of “impurity” from it. Ironically, it made the water itself undrinkable. But it permanently gave both the water and its “vessel” magical properties.”

Lyra's eyes lit up. It was a long shot—a very long shot—but wasn't that her specialty?

She focused her magic for a moment. There was a blinding flash of light, then the blank book appeared in the air before her.

Moondancer smirked.

“Impressive,” she said.

Lyra paid no attention. She levitated the book above the well, hesitant. It was less than a hunch. But surely the possible reward outweighed how badly her plan could stab her in the flank.

Before the reluctance could overwhelm her, Lyra dunked the book into the well. Even though she was holding it with her magic, she felt a wave of strange energy rush over her as the book was submerged. She fought the urge to lean forward and thrust her own head into the water.

Moondancer seized Lyra's tail with her magic.

“Don't do something stupid,” she said.

Lyra could feel the desire to be purified grappling with her logical mind. At Moondancer's words, the irrational urge loosened its hold. She was able to shake it off and focus on the task at hoof. Her mind clear, Lyra withdrew the book from the well.

The book was seemingly untouched by the water.

Her heart working itself up yet again, Lyra opened the book. Even though it showed no visible signs of having been in the water, she refused to touch it. She instead held it aloft with her magic. It levitated a safe but readable distance from her face.

Words began to appear on the first page. The writing was small, the letters neat and closely packed.

The Journal of Spike the Dragon.

Part 17: The Journal

Despite the word “journal”, the book seemed to have very little actual text. It was mostly crude drawings over short bursts of writing.

The first page contained a drawing of what appeared to be the sun in the sky. It seemed to have been drawn in a hurry, as if the individual drawing it—presumably Spike—had been rushed. Underneath the drawing were words that appeared to have also been written hastily: It won't go down.

The next page was even more cryptic. It consisted of a series of drawings, each appearing to depict—or try to depict—a dragon claw in various states. Due to the below amateur level of art skill, Lyra couldn't figure out the difference from drawing to drawing.

“What does that look like to you?” she said.

Her and Moondancer were sitting on the floor of the shed. They knew they should have gone back to the house, but neither felt ready to leave their discovery. Even though Fleur had assured her she wouldn't be back until the next day, Lyra was still paranoid.

Moondancer had gone rather pale. She shook her head and mouthed some vague protest, but she left Lyra's question hanging.

The third page was easier to decode, although by only a small margin. This one was simply a full page drawing of a pony. The pony seemed to be an alicorn, although it bore no strong resemblance to any alicorn Moondancer or Lyra had ever seen. The mare was tall and her limbs were like those of spiders. She was staring forward, her mane hanging limply over her face. She was frowning, her mouth open to reveal razor sharp teeth. Her eyes were merely two dark circles.

I've been having a lot of nightmares lately, this drawing was captioned.

Lyra scowled. Even though she did not recognize the pony in the picture, she felt she had seem them somewhere before. Perhaps in some book of old pony legends? She'd read many of those in her lifetime.

The fourth page bore a single sentence. It was written neatly, as if Spike had taken his time.

Time Turner and Daisy are gone.

It was so simple and matter-of-fact that Lyra missed the significance at first. When she reread the sentence, it became clear what Spike had meant.

Her thoughts jumped to that piece of parchment she'd touched so long ago. The parchment that bore the words “Deceased” at the top. Lyra didn't know why her mind had landed on that, but it was what had jumped out to her.

The fifth page was filled with drawings, although most of them appeared to be attempts. Spike had been trying to sketch something of extreme importance, but he'd been continuously held back by both his imagination and his meager drawing skill. However, he'd eventually produced something he deemed decent. It was a drawing of some kind of rectangular object with something sticking out of it.

Lyra couldn't figure out what it was, but Moondancer spoke up.

“Music box,” she said.

Lyra squinted. She saw nothing to suggest the thing was a music box, but she took Moondancer's word for it. She was more interested in the caption.

The song I hear in my dreams.

There had been a melody, a melody Lyra had been unaware of up until this point. But she was certain she too had heard a particular song in her dreams. Some kind of beautiful yet sad bit of music woven throughout her vivid secondary memories. But where had the music come from? Where had she heard it before?

The fifth page was filled with writing. It appeared rushed, some of it completely illegible due to Spike's haste.

Only the moon comes out. I can see her in the moon. I'm (illegible) now. Twi says I'm imagining (illegible) and that I shouldn't sleep. I'm scared. My claws are getting weirder and weirder. I can't go outside (illegible). I'm in my bedroom. I can see shadows on the (illegible) every night. They're here now. Watching me. Sweet Celestia, what's happening? I thought (illegible) was just an old pony's tail. The (illegible) isn't helping. I'm trying to draw my nightmares. Maybe then I can understand. Twi won't talk to me. Nopony will talk to me. Am I a (illegible) to them? Applejack is gone. Nopony will talk about her. I think she's (illegible). Oh Celestia save us. They say I shouldn't go anywhere, but (illegible) says I should.

The final paragraph was a series of confusing scribbles that might have been intended as writing.

Lyra gestured towards the legible paragraph and looked at Moondancer.

“Does any of that mean something to you?” she said.

But Moondancer had relapsed into a sort of fearful silence. She seemed less afraid of what she presumably knew and more afraid of what would happen if she spoke. It was as if the words themselves were poison.

The sixth page had more drawings. They were mostly very rough sketches of various ponies. Some of them struck a cord of recognition, others were strangers. Despite variance in Cutie Mark and mane, all the ponies had the same empty circles for eyes.

The page was captioned with I miss them.

Lyra felt a pang of sadness, even though she couldn't begin to comprehend the loss. It was vivid, yet removed from everything around her.

The sixth page contained only a drawing titled “Applejack”. But rather than the pony herself, the drawing appeared to be of the barn. The drawing made the barn look like some kind of abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps that was intentional.

The seventh page was yet another actual entry. It was a short one, due to Spike putting several massive spaces between each sentence.

I hear the music all the time now. I wonder. Twi is crying a lot. Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash are gone. I'm crying too, but I'm by myself. I want to make a list of everypony whose gone. Twi says I shouldn't, but I want to. She says it will be over. I'm worried. What does she mean? Why won't anypony talk to me?

A feeling of dread blossomed within Lyra's stomach, but she wasn't certain where it came from. It was as if she'd lived through the events Spike was cryptically describing, it was as if she innately knew what would happen.

The next three pages were blank. Lyra almost thought Spike hadn't written anything more, but then she came across a page filled with drawings.

The page seemed to contain some kind of crude diagram. Each drawing was labeled like independent parts of an anatomy sketch.

The first drawing was of a pair of eyes. Rather than the expected black circles, the eyes appeared to be bloodshot. But the veins spreading from the center had been colored a dull green for some reason. The eyes, read the label under it.

The second drawing was of a hoof. The hoof looked relatively normal, although the tip of it had been colored that familiar dull green. The label had been crossed out and rewritten at least three times. The final legible one read “the body starts to rot”.

Moondancer gasped aloud and jumped to her feet.

Lyra turned to look at her, thunderstruck. She hadn't expected—would never have dreamed of—such a dramatic reaction. But it seemed Moondancer had finally come across something too upsetting to justify keeping her silence. Lyra instinctively knew what Moondancer had found: confirmation.

“Are you o--?” Lyra started.

Moondancer fled the shed entirely. She looked horrified beyond all reason.

Lyra abandoned the journal for a moment to chase after her. She had no words of comfort—she didn't know what was going on after all—but the questions were swarming. This time she would have answers, even if she had to pry Moondancer's mouth open.

Moondancer had not run back to the house. She had collapsed a little ways from the shack. She lay on the ground, resembling a pitiful lump. Her hooves were pressed over her eyes. But Moondancer's hooves could not hold back the angry tears flowing down her face.

Lyra risked putting a hoof on Moondancer's back. She was surprised—and worried—when this affectionate gesture wasn't met with an outburst.

“What's going on?” said Lyra. “What was Spike talking about?”

Now that she saw Moondancer in such an unfortunate state, her determination had ebbed. She did not feel comfortable pressing Moondancer, even if it might give her the answers she was chasing.

Fortunately, Moondancer had grown tired of maintaining her silence. The words came bursting out of her like somepony had popped a cork.

“The Moon Sickness,” she said.

The name held no significance for Lyra. She expected it to immediately call upon some buried memory, but the words instead just sat in her brain. She forced herself to hold back, to not prompt in any way.

“I thought it was a story,” said Moondancer. “It was a story. But then...the more I researched...”

She shook her head. She wasn't miserable. She was angry, mostly at herself and how many things she'd missed. Moondancer's failures were lining up in front of her, ready to be judged by her discerning eye.

“You should read the rest of the journal,” she said. “I'm sure you'll get a better explanation than I could ever provide.”

Lyra didn't want to leave Moondancer by herself, but her curiosity was too much. She reluctantly went back to the shack. She trusted Moondancer to stay where she was or go back to the house. She wanted to believe that she hadn't made a mistake by leaving her.

Lyra reopened the journal and quickly found where she had left off. Her heart rate having increased, she continued her journey through Spike's cryptic memories.

A few more blank pages followed. Had these pages once contained something? Perhaps photographs or newspaper clippings? If so, they had been taken out a long time ago.

Finally, Lyra found a page that contained something of interest. It was a terrible drawing of what seemed to be the journal itself. On the cover was a square that might have been meant to represent a photograph. But there had certainly been no photograph on the journal when Lyra had found it.

I'll keep it, the drawing was captioned.

Who had stolen the—assumed—photograph? Fleur? No, she would have taken the whole journal. Somepony else must have stripped the journal. But why would they bother?

Maybe they suspected somepony would find it, Lyra thought. Maybe those photographs and whatever else were too valuable. So valuable even this level of security wasn't enough.

Lyra couldn't even begin to imagine what could be that valuable.

There was another blank page, followed by an entire page dominated by the same sentence written in lowercase letters: The music.

This was followed by two more blank pages. Then Lyra came across yet another page covered with terrible but decipherable drawings.

Spike had drawn more claws. But these were more detailed, as if he'd realized his mistake. Lyra could see a distinct difference from drawing to drawing. It looked as if Spike was drawing his own claws in varying states of decay. They seemed to be steadily rotting from the center outward. The final drawing depicted the claws practically falling apart as if they were made of paper.

The next page was filled with writing that was completely illegible. Lyra could not make sense of any of it, regardless of how much she squinted at the page.

Most of the pages following were about the same. The writing could not be read and there were no drawings. It was simply page after page of Spike's unfortunate attempts at putting his thoughts or memories to paper.

At some point, Spike seemed to give up on writing. Lyra flipped past a long stretch of pages that were completely blank. This time she was sure there were meant to be photographs, newspaper clippings, or something of equal importance on each of those pages. She even saw a tiny piece of white paper she assumed to be the remnant of some photo that had been torn from the journal.

Eventually, Lyra made it to the last page. She'd expected it to be blank, but to her surprise it was filled with writing. However, it was not Spike's writing. It seemed somepony else had taken over his journal. Several sentences and even entire paragraphs had been aggressively crossed out.

Hello. I am (name violently crossed out) and this is my confession.

I willingly and knowingly performed an act of magic that caused (crossed out). Despite my assurance in the morality of (crossed out), I still consider it a grave sin that I (crossed out). I am not writing this to ease my guilt over what I have done. I suspect it will haunt me for the rest of my life. However, I wish to express my most sincere apologies. I know ponies will be hurt by my (crossed out). They will be hurt in ways they cannot understand. I consider what I did for the greater good, yet I know some ponies might not see it that way. Once I finish writing down what I have done, I will deliver this confession straight to (crossed out) in the hopes it will be preserved. Some ponies will undoubtedly know exactly what I have done, although they may not trust their memories.

(entire paragraph crossed out)

In conclusion, I can only offer a sincere apology. I might have been just in my actions, but I am fully aware of how I have effectively torn the fabric of reality and disrupted the flow of time. I will spend the rest of my life regretting (crossed out). I believe that in itself is a fitting punishment, albeit I will not object if something more suitable comes along.

(entire paragraph crossed out)

Forgive me if you feel I deserve it.

Lyra ran a hoof over the final page.

“I know what you did,” she said.

She didn't truly remember, but some locked and bolted part of her brain knew. Tears stung her eyes as emotion bubbled to the surface. She wished she could understand. Lyra also wished she could forget. Truly and completely forget about everything.

Lyra thought about the amnesiac. She thought about Fleur's offer. Was the truth worth more than Bon-Bon? Was it really a choice of heart vs. mind?

She considered all the things Moondancer wouldn't tell her. Her questions were building as quickly as they were being answered. She needed to know everything, but would it be worth it? If there was no Bon-Bon at the end of the road, was anything worth it?

The sweater, Lyra thought.

She massaged her temples, trying to remember every detail. What about her mention of old clothes had set Moondancer off? What had she taken from that? What was Lyra supposed to take from that?

“There was a sweater,” she said aloud. “Just a boring old sweater. It had a design on it, but...but...”

But wasn't that design familiar? She could have sworn she'd seen it somewhere. Somewhere important. But she'd passed over it at the time, because it hadn't been something significant to their mission. Now Lyra was trying to conjure up the most vivid mental picture she could manage. There was something about it. Something.

Lyra almost fell over when she realized. How had she ignored it? How had she allowed her mind to leave it so easily? She'd been a little tired, a little out of it, thinking of other things. But still, nothing should have prevented Lyra from noticing.

“Bon-Bon's cutie mark,” she breathed.

That sweater had had Bon-Bon's cutie mark on it. It could have meant several things. It could have even meant nothing. But Lyra was tired of second guessing. Once she idea came to her, she took hold of it with both hooves. It was true. It had to be true.

That shack in the middle of nowhere belonged to Bon-Bon. Bon-Bon was the mysterious truthseeker who'd read so many books Lyra had, who'd perhaps followed a few of the same paths Lyra had taken. Perhaps long ago, perhaps a week ago. But it had definitely been Bon-Bon.

So where is she now? Lyra wondered.

She knew the answer before she finished the question. There was only one place Bon-Bon could be.

I can't go there yet, Lyra thought.

It seemed absurd, but she simply couldn't. There was something else she needed to do. She had realized that however she chose to go, Bon-Bon lay at the end of her journey. They would meet, but not before Lyra had taken hold of the complete truth.

Bon-Bon and the truth were not competing against one another. They were equal partners. Lyra had failed to see that because she'd been caught up in what her journey actually meant. She now realized that the truth was—and would always be—the path she should take towards Bon-Bon.

I'll see you soon, she silently vowed.

She would see Bon-Bon soon. But there were some important stops to make.

Part 19: Found

Manehatten was busy late at night. Ponies coming down from the holiday high swarmed the streets. Euphoria was in the air, as was the scent of nutmeg. Big cities were often the last to take down the decorations and prepare for the months to follow.

Lyra liked the holiday-esque atmosphere. It made her forget where she had spent Hearth's Warming. In hindsight, everything felt distant and surreal. How much time and bits had she spent chasing the truth?

She passed the hotel she'd stayed at. She wondered who—if anypony—had her room. She hoped they were putting it to good use.

Eventually Lyra came to Five Stallion Apartments. The sight of it made her feel as if she'd started her journey over from the beginning. The last time she'd stood outside the place, she'd been preparing for a grand adventure. In a rare moment of naivety, Lyra had thought she was ready for adventure. But as it turned out, she wasn't ready for much of anything.

This time she actually waved at the bored-looking mare at the front desk. The mare didn't even lift her head, but Lyra smiled. She felt as if she'd been there years ago and her senses were being flooded with nostalgia.

Lyra took the stairs. The elevator was in perfect working order, but she needed time to assess her situation.

Why did she suddenly feel so empty? Had she been chasing the truth so long that a part of her needed it? Did a part of her really long to bypass her ending and continue on some unknown path?

But that had been her life even before she'd started on her journey. She'd been Lyra Heartstrings, fearless truthseeker. She'd written articles, she'd braved slander, she'd chased cover-ups. Maybe in some reality torn asunder long ago, things had been different. But all Lyra really had was the present.

Lyra paused on the stairs. She realized that if she continued, she'd be veering off the path forever. Everything behind her lay either in ruins or behind locked doors. She couldn't go back to any of it.

But if she stepped onto the path once more, Lyra would never have to face a conclusion. There were so many more things she could discover.

“No.”

She said it out loud, her tone firm. Without giving herself time to reconsider, Lyra galloped the rest of the way.

She found herself in front of the apartment she'd stayed in. The apartment bought for her by the mysterious pony she'd never seen face to face. Lyra hadn't thought much about the identity of this pony. But when she started to put things together, it all made a strange kind of sense.

She knocked, although she had a feeling she could have trotted right in. Lyra was certain she was expected by this point. She might have been a little late.

There was a somewhat long stretch of waiting. Lyra heard hoofsteps, followed by a pause. Presumably the pony on the other side was peering through the keyhole. Then Lyra heard a series of clicks. There seemed to be multiple locks on the other side of the door.

The door opened slowly. When the gap was wide enough, a head—a very familiar head—poked out. The mane was off in some respects—it was much shorter and less curly—and the eyes had a subtly haunted expression to them. The pony looked suspicious rather than happy, but Lyra would have recognized her in any crowd.

“Lyra?” said Bon-Bon.

Lyra nodded. She wanted to save the tears for later, but it was too late. She was already on the edge of sobs. Even though she'd been sure, there had always been that doubt squirming around at the back of her mind.

Bon-Bon opened the door wider. She was wearing a nightgown. Ironically, her attire clashed with the fact that she clearly hadn't slept soundly in a long time. There were bags under her eyes. But despite her rather haggard appearance, she was smiling.

Lyra threw herself at Bon-Bon, propelling them both into the apartment. She flung her front legs around Bon-Bon's neck, hugging her tightly as they both fell to the floor in a heap. She was weeping uncontrollably. Bon-Bon was saying something, but Lyra couldn't hear anything over the pounding of her own heart.

To her, Bon-Bon didn't look tired. She looked like a vision of paradise. Lyra wanted to bury herself in that paradise. She never wanted to let go.

Finally, Bon-Bon's words penetrated Lyra's thoughts.

“Get off,” she was saying. “You're suffocating me.”

Lyra reluctantly let go. She fell backward onto her back. She lay there as a happy sobbing mess, reaching up to wipe away her tears. Lyra could hardly believe this was real life. She would sooner believe she'd hit her head and fallen into a coma.

“Is this real?” Lyra said.

Bon-Bon gently nuzzled Lyra's side. Every sleepless night had vanished from her face. Bon-Bon now looked refreshed and alive, as if some purifying light lived underneath her fur.

“Is it?” she said teasingly.

Lyra put her hooves over her eyes. She wanted to sleep, but she also wanted to stay awake forever. Lyra felt that every moment from that point forward should be spent with Bon-Bon.

“Where were you?” she said. “Why did you never contact me?”

Bon-Bon helped Lyra to her hooves.

“If I could, I would have at least sent you a letter,” she said. “I would have written to you every single day.”

The misery of a hundred lost opportunities was evident in her voice. Even if her hooves had been metaphorically tied, Bon-Bon clearly felt as if she hadn't done enough. If she'd been able to contact Lyra, she would have said a lot more a lot sooner.

“You were in the middle of it,” said Bon-Bon. “It was supposed to be a simple cover-up, but then things started circling around you. You were finding things we'd tried to keep hidden. Nopony was sure what to do. If I'd revealed myself to you, if I'd disclosed everything to my bosses...”

She hung her head. She'd moved past the guilt of concealing information from her bosses, but she was still rather haunted by the lies she'd told for Lyra's sake.

Lyra was quizzical.

“But Fleur knew about you and me,” she said.

Bon-Bon smiled.

“She didn't know everything,” she said. “Nopony knew everything. But if I'd revealed my identity to you, they would have found out.”

She hung her head.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I just didn't know what they would do if they knew. I was scared and confused. I thought keeping away would keep you safe. I thought staying in the background and helping you from afar was the best I could do.”

She took Lyra's face in her hooves. Something about her touch sent pleasant tingles up and down Lyra's body. Bon-Bon was so gentle and reserved, as if they'd only been apart for days.

“The organization found me when I was looking for you,” she said. “I told myself it was Ponyville I wanted to find, but it was you all along.”

Perhaps in another set of circumstances, Lyra would have asked about the organization. Specifically, she would have inquired about its supposed lack of name. But she already knew enough about it to draw her own conclusions. Lyra didn't want to know anything else.

Bon-Bon kissed Lyra. The kiss was loving and tender, like a long overdue welcome after an absence. It drew Lyra deeper into paradise, deeper into that previously unattainable comfort. If it had gone on for more than a few seconds, Lyra would have drowned in it.

When Bon-Bon withdrew, Lyra saw that she'd started to cry a little. At the sight, Lyra was hit with a fresh wave of happy tears.

Lyra hadn't been looking for Ponyville. She had not been looking for the truth. She had been chasing something more immaterial than that, something that seemed to exist on the fringe of her life. It lived not in a city or in a house, but within her own body.

Her journey was finally over. Lyra Heartstrings was home.

Author's Note

Yes, this is the end. And no, I probably won't be writing a sequel.

I purposefully left some questions unanswered because I wanted to leave it up to the reader's interpretation. While I was writing the story, it kind of became more about Lyra's mental journey and less about the big mystery itself. In particular, Lyra's mindset at the beginning of the story versus her mindset at the end.

Part 1: Manehatten

Lyra watched the countryside zip past the train window.

Had Equestria always been this wild? She recalled the countryside having been much more subdued. But then again, she'd been in Canterlot. One often forgot the intricate discord of nature whilst swept up in the bustling city life.

Resting against Lyra's side was a brown satchel. The satchel was completely unremarkable in appearance. Anypony who'd set hoof in Manehatten or Canterlot had seen a dozen of them. Other than being forcibly violated by train station security, there was nothing significant about this specific satchel. This was both fortunate and unfortunate, as its contents were of a very curious nature.

Lyra allowed herself a subtle victorious smirk. Those idiot security guards had amused themselves playing tough with her, but in the end they were just talentless thugs. If they'd been worth their badges, Lyra would have at least been smacked with a stern warning. She'd gotten away with barely a disapproving glance, satchel's contents intact. Thank Celestia.

Other than Lyra, the train car was empty. She wondered if this was a coincidence or a direct result of her presence.

Lyra gingerly touched her mane with the tip of her hoof. She wasn't exactly in love with the new even shorter length, but it kept certain ponies off her back. With the contact lenses and a long skirt to hide her Cutie Mark, Lyra Heartstrings ceased to exist. The freedom was enough to make Lyra appreciate her new manecut, even if it wasn't to her liking.

A series of guitar riffs exploded from Lyra's saddlebag. She nearly tumbled off her seat as the quiet was unexpectedly broken. Lyra fumbled with the bag for a moment, turning it upside down and allowing its contents to cascade over the seat and onto the floor. Last to tumble out was a bright green ePhone. Lyra answered it hastily.

“Hi?” she said.

She realized a minute too late that she hadn't checked who was calling.

“I told you to stay in the city.”

The voice sounded light and vaguely sensual, but with an undercurrent of motherly sternness. It brought to mind the image of a long-maned unicorn mare applying lipstick whilst bringing her hoof down firmly on the chest of some unfortunate offender. Whilst this image wasn't entirely accurate, it was pretty damn close.

Lyra's laugh was surprisingly convincing.

“What are you talking about?” she said. “I am in the city.”

Her gaze wandered somewhat guiltily to the fields and mountains visible through the train window.

“No, you're not,” said Fleur De Lis. “You're on a train heading to Manehatten.”

A shiver darted across Lyra's back.

“Nope, in my apartment,” Lyra said. “Just chilling on the couch. Wanna grab a coffee or something later?”

She was rapidly doing calculations in her head. It would take Fleur De Lis approximately an hour to get to Lyra's apartment if she took a cab. By that time Lyra would be in Manehatten.

“Awfully quiet in your apartment,” commented Fleur.

Lyra's blood froze. Fleur was outside her apartment.

“Did I say I was at home?” said Lyra quickly. “I'm actually at that coffee place downtown.”

She was doing the math again. Thirty minutes—maybe forty—if Fleur took the bait. If only Lyra knew more than one coffee place in all of Canterlot.

Fleur remained silent for a long moment. When she spoke again, it was with the coldness of somepony who had swallowed their profanity.

“I told you not to leave the city,” she repeated.

Fleur hung up before Lyra could. She had already silently appointed herself the mistress of the conversation, so of course she'd get the last word.

Change of plans, Lyra thought.

She pushed her ePhone off the edge of the seat and onto the floor. Lyra stood up, her face set in somber determination. In one decisive motion, she brought her hoof down on the phone. Her hoof came down hard, cracking the phone's exterior and causing it to spill its electronic guts. Lyra brought her hoof down again and again, smashing the unfortunate piece of technology into a mutilated pile of small components.

Lyra briefly felt bad about losing contact with Fleur. Then again, they hadn't exactly been best friends. Lyra doubted it was normal to form such a close attachment with a pony who'd basically been hired to "keep an eye on her". But despite everything, Lyra did somewhat value Fleur's "friendship". Oh well.

Goodbye Fleur, Lyra thought.

There went Lyra's last connection to Canterlot. Now she was truly on her own.

In Manehatten, Lyra booked a room at the cheapest hotel she could find. This was hardly a matter of bits—she had a pretty nice amount of savings to draw from—and more a manner of discretion. If anypony came looking, they'd comb the high class places first. The lower Lyra went, the more time she had to bail.

Once she'd settled into her cockroach-friendly temporary home, Lyra used the phone at the front desk to make a call. The call was to a pony she knew by name and only vaguely by face.

“Hey Silver Spear,” she said. “Guess who made it in one piece?”

Silver Spear was a pony Lyra had essentially hired to rent an apartment for her. She'd contacted him a month ago and offered him a hefty sum to find and rent an apartment in the lower half of Manehatten. Lyra had given Silver Spear one or two slivers of information regarding why and where, but she'd mostly let the bits do the talking.

“I'm at the Brass and Bronze Hotel,” Lyra said. “Room 501.”

She hung up and returned to her room humming a cheerful song.

An hour later, a delivery pony arrived with a package for “Ms. Lyre Hearthstone”. The name was an honest-to-Celestia mistake of Lyra's terrible hoofwriting, but she accepted the package without complaint.

The package had originally been mailed to Silver Spear by Lyra a week ago, but it hadn't been opened. It appeared nopony had tampered with the contents, but even if they had they wouldn't have found anything significant. For good measure, Lyra had stuffed a card reading “To my greatest love” into a corner of the box. She hoped it would create a completely false narrative involving a desperate admirer.

The box contained a brand new ePhone—purchased from a vendor of somewhat ill repute who specialized in bootleg Quest merchandise—and three completely blank notebooks. There was also an old worn copy of The Wizard of Canterlot, a brand new quill pen, and an unopened chocolate bar.

Lyra snatched up the chocolate bar and unwrapped it. Holding it in her mouth, she started levitating things out of the box and into her open suitcase.

After the suitcase was packed and locked, Lyra—chocolate bar still clenched between her teeth—trotted into the bathroom with her satchel. She opened it and pulled out a small yellow bottle marked “Shampoo”. Despite its deceiving consistency and artificial fruity aroma, the bottle contained something far more relevant. Lyra had snagged it from a dubious shop that sold “magical remedies and beauty supplies” in some undocumented portion of Equestria.

Lyra stood before the mirror and poured the bottle's contents over her mane. She watched with slight regret—albeit mostly relief—as the pristine white of her mane was steadily overtaken by a dirty yellow. In less than a minute, the color of her short mane had been completely and permanently altered. Her mane was now the color of dry hay and about the same length as that of a Royal Guard.

Goodbye Lyra, Lyra thought.

She poured what remained of the liquid down the sink.

Lyra woke up several hours past bright and early. It was her stomach—better than any alarm clock she'd ever owned—that caused her to spring out of bed. But despite the persistent rumbling of her stomach, she pushed all thoughts of food from her mind. One glance at the clock told Lyra breakfast or lunch wasn't in her near future.

Bypassing her daily shower in favor of splashing water on her face, Lyra grabbed her suitcase and satchel. She left an envelope filled with bits on her bed. The money would cover the one night stay, plus a little extra for the maid.

“Farewell sweet bits,” Lyra whispered. “I'll always remember you.”

She unbolted one of the windows and slipped out onto the ledge. Lyra sucked in her breath sharply as she inadvertently looked down. The fifth floor hadn't seemed so intimidating when she was going up in the elevator.

“Good thing I'm a hardflank,” Lyra said.

To prove this to herself, she leapt off the ledge. For several seconds, Lyra was too stunned by her own actions to react. She watched in silent horror as the ground rushed to meet her. But at the very last moment, Lyra using magic to slow her descent. She touched down lightly, her hooves flailing desperately before they finally met solid ground.

“Yep, I'm a hardflank,” Lyra muttered shakily.

Before the adrenaline could wear off, Lyra trotted to the front of the building. She set off at a quick trot, her years of blending into the natural chaos of the city becoming relevant at last. If anypony had been observing her, they would have seen Lyra evaporate into the crowd as if she had become one with some colossal entity.

Despite her late start, Lyra arrived at her destination within the hour. She rapidly left the more questionable side of Manehatten and found herself in the high class portion of the city. Lyra passed several art galleries and cafes before finding herself in front of Five Stallion Apartments.

The apartment--Apartment 308--was “owned” by somepony Lyra didn't know by name. They'd worked out a system of various aliases to communicate with one another. Their initial contact had been Lyra imploring this pony to rent an apartment on the richer side of Manehatten populated mostly by artists and fashion designers. Lyra's mysterious contact didn't actually live in the apartment, but everypony simply assumed the pony renting it was using it as an art studio or something. As long as the rent was sent in on time, nopony actually cared.

Lyra slipped past the bored-looking mare at the front desk. It was lunchtime, therefore most of the residents had scattered to the many upscale restaurants in the area. Nevertheless, Lyra decided to take the stairs instead of the elevator. She was able to slip into the apartment without encountering a single pony.

She closed the door behind her and slipped the copy of the key back into her satchel.

“Nice,” she congratulated herself.

Lyra quickly unpacked her suitcase. She only had two months before the deal ran out and she had to run, but she was hoping she could knock it all out in a few weeks.

“Lunch first,” she said.

Lyra left through the window again. This time she was less terrified, but it was going to take a while to get used to this method of departure. It was a shame her attempts at teleportation had been a bust.

She had lunch at a modest little cafe, then made her way to the city's largest shopping district. Lyra had spent all of her physical bits, but she still had a generous supply of virtual ones nestled into an anonymous account somewhere miles away from Equestria. It wasn't a particularly impressive amount considering she'd been saving for five years, but she estimated it would be enough.

It was late evening by the time Lyra returned. She levitated herself up to the window of her apartment. It was a lot easier not to look down, but she still had to resist squeezing her eyes shut as she left the safety of the ground. Lyra opened the unlocked window and hastened inside.

“Shopping done, Lyra alive,” she announced to the empty apartment.

She had bought a month's worth of food—if she stretched it—along with a few odds and ends she'd decided might have a place in her plans.

Lyra spent the evening getting herself settled, a task that mostly consisted of stuffing food into the fridge and cupboards. Lyra didn't bother unpacking her suitcase or her satchel. If she needed something from either of them, she could simply put it back after she was done with it.

Lyra wasn't usually a fan of turning in early, but she found herself exhausted. Promising herself she'd be up early for once, Lyra began getting ready for bed.

Before crawling under the covers, Lyra retrieved one of the notebooks and her quill pen from the suitcase. She opened the notebook before her, a smile crossing her face as she studied the first blank page. She briefly longed for the comfort of those well-loved pages that had gone up in flames less than a year ago. Lyra had vivid memories of the inferno that had devoured all of her hopes and dreams. But she held no resentment towards its cause anymore. If anything, it had given Lyra the boost she needed.

Her heart pounding, Lyra touched her quill pen to the paper and hurriedly wrote out those deliciously forbidden words.

A town named Ponyville.

Just as before, Lyra would write those words every morning and every night. She was never going to forget the truth.

Part 10: The Wizard

The Wizard of Canterlot was a lot darker than Lyra remembered. In fact, she wondered how she'd ever considered it a “foals' story”.

The Wizard seemed a more morally ambiguous figure than Lyra recalled. He attempted to teach misguided souls compassion, but he was also willing to kill the Wicked Queen's minions without remorse. He always appeared to be acting more in his own interest than in service of either good or evil.

The book ended on a surprisingly happy note. The Wizard saved Canterlot, the Wicked Queen was “drained” of her wickedness, and the ponies who'd been cursed were cured. The conclusion was exactly as Lyra had remembered it, right down to The Wizard's triumphant final monologue.

She closed the book and finally allowed her thoughts to go free. Lyra had expected something from The Wizard of Canterlot, but instead of revelations or answers she had been burdened with a hundred more questions. Strangely, one of these many questions was “Who is The Wizard?”

Lyra knew The Wizard was a fictional character in an equally fictional story. But since she was a filly, she had looked up to The Wizard as a beacon of kindness and a symbol of determination. Her admiration of him as an explorer and an adventurer had fueled her desire to chase conspiracies. But Lyra was now seeing him without the idealistic filter of a young pony.

Maybe I'm The Wizard, she thought.

For if one looked behind the Wizard's intentions, they would see a liar, a murderer, and a trickster. If somepony looked behind Lyra's intentions, they'd see only selfishness and thievery. It was her fault that Moondancer had been kidnapped. What had Lyra gained from her pursuit of truth? Only more questions and more heartache. She was beginning to wonder if keeping her head down and never asking questions would have been preferable.

Two days after Lyra found the book, she returned it to the Pie sisters' bedroom. She waited until everypony was outside, then slipped into their bedroom and pulled out the box. Lyra started emptying it, haphazardly dumping things onto the floor. Lyra carefully placed the book back into its place.

“You're a nosy pony, aren't you?”

Lyra said nothing. She withdrew her head from the box and straightened up. Lyra slid the box back into the closet, the smile not leaving her mouth. She closed the closet door, then finally turned around.

Cloudy Quartz hadn't moved from the doorway. She was staring at Lyra with disapproval, but also a subtle touch of sadness. She did not resemble a mother about to scold her foal. Cloudy instead looked like a very old mare who was losing a fight against herself.

“The nosiest pony you'll ever meet,” said Lyra.

The expression on Cloudy's face more than expressed her feelings for meddling ponies. But despite displaying her feelings so plainly, she did not voice them. She could have ordered Lyra out of the house. However, Cloudy Quartz appeared to realize the futility.

Lyra was tired of being ordered around and even more tired of being intimidated. She had officially run out of bucks to give. Lyra stared Cloudy Quartz down without fear. Her unwavering smile steadily withered Cloudy Quartz's stern expression.

Cloudy Quartz let out a tired sigh. She stepped into the bedroom and closed the door behind her.

“You city ponies don't know what's best for you,” she said. “You never know when to leave things alone.”

She smiled sadly.

“When I was about your age, I lived in the city for a few weeks,” Cloudy Quartz said. “I was so dazzled by it all. Equestria had never before felt so lively and massive. When I came back to the rock farm, it was like waking up from a beautiful dream. I wanted to go back.”

Cloudy Quartz trotted to the bed. She curled up in the middle of it, tucking her hooves underneath her body.

“But I've never been back,” she said. “This is where I belong.”

Lyra went over to the bed and curled up next to Cloudy Quartz. She should have felt comfy, but an invisible wall stood between her and Cloudy. Lyra knew she would never walk past that wall. She would never get a glimpse into Cloudy's brain and see all those emotions straining for dominance.

“This copy of The Wizard of Canterlot was yours, wasn't it?” said Lyra.

Cloudy Quartz was staring down at the blanket underneath them. Her eyes were tracing the beautiful pattern. She seemed to be reliving a history Lyra could not begin to imagine.

“I don't think a lot of ponies know the story of that book,” said Cloudy Quartz musingly. “The author originally intended it for an older audience. He meant it to be some kind of groundbreaking commentary on modern society. But literary critics disliked it so much that it was yanked from the shelves within weeks. The author rewrote it and republished it as a foals' book. It became a bestseller in days.”

Lyra understood why the book had seemed so unusually mature and contrary to her memories. The Wizard she'd idolized as a foal had been the result of a hasty rewrite. But at its heart, The Wizard of Canterlot had never truly changed. Perhaps it was those subtle glimpses into the author's original intentions that had made Lyra cling to this otherwise insignificant example of classic literature. Lyra was so entangled in her thoughts that she almost missed Cloudy Quartz's words.

“That pony said the notebook would help me,” Cloudy Quartz said. “I read it from cover to cover, but I couldn't understand.”

Lyra's thoughts came to a standstill. A theory had been coming together, a series of connections encircling her brain. This vague explanation was shoved aside.

“What pony?” she demanded.

But Cloudy Quartz's mind was somewhere else.

“The well,” she said. “I'd dream about it almost every night when I was a filly. Falling into it, climbing out of it, trapped and then rescued. It was even worse after my first daughter was born. I'd dream about her falling into the well, a well so deep even the world's fastest pegasus would die before they reached her. Igneous never understood why it got to me so much. He said it was just a dream and that we'd never let anything happen to her.”

Lyra nodded, but she was only partially listening.

“What pony?” she said again.

Cloudy Quartz jumped off the bed. She had a tormented look on her face, as if she'd been sifting through her own traumatic memories. Whatever the case, Cloudy Quartz was clearly no longer up to making conversation. She rapidly departed the bedroom without looking back.

Lyra stayed where she was. For the first time in a long while, her mind was bringing her to some conclusions.

Lyra returned to the notebook that night. She started over from the beginning. Lyra drank in all the information the notebook could give her, her brain hovering over every word and diagram. If there was something of dire importance between the lines, Lyra was going to dig it out.

A part Lyra had previously skimmed over jumped out at her immediately. Confounded, Lyra reread the paragraph several times. Certain lines seemed to move out of focus with each new reading. Eventually only a mere sentence stood out to her, a single word in that sentence coiling itself around Lyra's racing thoughts.

I took them to the well.

The well.

Lyra's heartbeat accelerated. The sentence was referring to the notebook's author disposing of some old clothes. Lyra had passed from it with only a lighthearted comment about practicality. But this time those two words had sucked Lyra in. She remembered the well in the picture she'd stolen for Moondancer and she recalled Cloudy Quartz's words. She could not believe this was an innocent coincidence. This felt too designed.

But if Lyra was meant to find a well, where was it? There were hundreds of wells in Equestria.

Moondancer would know, Lyra thought.

She was starting to believe that Moondancer had been holding back. A pony who prided herself on having answers couldn't be as in the dark as she appeared. Lyra's heart twisted itself into a painful knot at the idea. If Moondancer had been keeping things from her, there was a chance that Moondancer couldn't be trusted. How did Lyra know Moondancer had disappeared unwillingly?

Speculations were their own special torment. Lyra wouldn't be content until she knew. Whether the information brought woe or joy, she needed it.

Impatient, Lyra closed the notebook and slid it under her pillow. Having realized that it was Cloudy Quartz who'd been in her room that night, she was less worried. Nevertheless, the notebook was too important to leave out in the open.

She went to Igneous and Cloudy's bedroom. Lyra knocked softly on the closed door. She immediately heard stirring inside, as if somepony had been waiting for her.

The door swung open, revealing Cloudy Quartz. She did not look tired or annoyed. Cloudy Quartz was as austere as ever, her tight bun and flawlessly perched glasses suggesting she hadn't even been to bed.

“How can I help you?” she said.

The questions were piling into Lyra's mind. She opened her mouth, but she didn't speak right away. She was afraid that some garbled mess of queries would come tumbling out. Lyra spent a few seconds rounding up her squirming thoughts, then she spoke.

“Why did you want me to have that notebook?” she asked.

Cloudy Quartz smiled. The smile swept over her face like a paintbrush across a canvas. Years of heartache and struggles were painted over in an instant. In that brief moment before the corners of Cloudy's mouth drooped, the decades seemed to dissolve from her face.

“Who else was going to make sense of it?” said Cloudy. “Unicorn magic is beyond me.”

It made sense, but Lyra was flabbergasted.

“Why didn't you just give it to me?” she demanded. “Why all the secrecy, for buck's sake?”

Cloudy's face turned forebodingly severe. She stepped out into the hallway and shut the door behind her.

“Because I wasn't supposed to give it to you,” she said. “The pony who gave it to me said I was meant to keep it safe until they returned. I never break a promise. But its been years!”

She gave her head a rueful shake.

“If that pony ever comes back, I don't want them to know I betrayed them,” said Cloudy Quartz. “I never should have accepted the cursed thing.”

Cloudy Quartz looked into Lyra's eyes.

“Do you know what that pony told me?” she said. “Do you know what they said to get me to take the notebook?”

That wayward fear was back. Lyra could feel it crawling across her back, burrowing into her fur. But she was frozen in place, waiting for Cloudy Quartz's next words.

“She said I knew the truth,” said Cloudy Quartz. “She said I'd known the truth all along, but it was too much for me to take.”

Cloudy Quartz moved closer to Lyra.

“I dreamed about you,” she said. “I saw you coming here. I saw you reading the notebook. My clairvoyance isn't what it used to be, but I still trust everything I see.”

Her tone had once been calm, but it suddenly turned urgent.

“Another pony is coming,” Cloudy Quartz said. “She'll come in two days' time. You shouldn't be here when she arrives.”

Lyra swore under her breath. There was only one pony who could be following Lyra. Fleur would lurk at the corners of Lyra's life for all eternity, making sure that Lyra could never stop running.

As Lyra stared into Cloudy's eyes, a thought struck her: What if Fleur wasn't looking for her? What if there was an element she was missing? Why hadn't Fleur found Lyra in Dodge City during those months, yet she had found her at the Pies' residence with ease? How had Fleur found her in Appleloosa all that time ago?

Lyra could feel her mind opening up to a thousand possibilities. It was as if somepony had shined a light through a dark hallway, the beam hitting Lyra directly in the eyes. The light blinded her, but within the intensity she could see everything.

“She doesn't want me,” said Lyra. “She wants the notebook.”

When Fleur had arrived in Appleloosa, she hadn't been after Lyra. Her and Lyra had been on the same field all along, perhaps only separated by their motives. Fleur had wanted the letter. She'd followed Lyra all the way to Canterlot in order to get it.

“I have to go,” said Lyra breathlessly.

She galloped back into her room. Lyra grabbed her saddlebag from under the bed and started packing her few belongings. She snatched the notebook from under her pillow and shoved it as deep into the bag as she could. Lyra hardly even noticed what she was doing. Her thoughts were still racing.

Family. It all came back to family. First the Apples, then the Pies. If Lyra was going to find that well, she needed to look towards that word for guidance.

Cloudy Quartz watched Lyra from the doorway for a minute. When it became obvious that Lyra wasn't going to slow down, Cloudy reluctantly stepped over the threshold.

“If you're going to leave, take Marble with you,” she said.

Lyra froze in the middle of folding her quilt. She turned to Cloudy Quartz, dumbfounded.

“Why would I do that?” she said.

Cloudy Quartz appeared to be grappling with her own thoughts. Although her expression told nothing, the internal struggle was apparent.

“She likes you,” said Cloudy. “You've become a good friend to her in a short amount of time. Marble might not look it, but she's a strong pony. We Pies are more resilient than we appear.”

She paused. Lyra was astonished to see Cloudy Quartz's eyes fill with genuine compassion.

“You shouldn't be alone,” said Cloudy Quartz.

She didn't explain herself, but Lyra knew what Cloudy Quartz had seen in her eyes. It was the same thing Marble had seen all that time ago in Dodge City. Cloudy Quartz had lifted the curtain and looked deep into Lyra's heart, deeper than Lyra herself could reach.

“I'll be fine,” said Lyra.

But Cloudy gave a slow shake of her head.

“Take Marble with you,” she said. “You'll be able to keep each other safe.”

Lyra thought of Fleur, of the notebook, and of all the knowledge she now held in her hooves. Would she be able to keep anypony safe? Would anypony around her be able to live a peaceful life after they parted ways?

“I need a map, some food, and some bits if you can spare them,” said Lyra.

Cloudy Quartz nodded, then she hastened out of the room.

Lyra grabbed her saddlebag and levitated the quilt onto her back. She trotted over to the window and opened it.

A blast of cold night air hit Lyra directly in the face, stunning her for a second. She shook her head to clear it, then started through the window flank-first. Lyra didn't know where she was going, only that she was going alone. Nopony else was getting tangled up in her adventure.

Stepping out into the night, Lyra closed the window behind her. She was eager to get away.

Lyra turned around. She shoved a hoof over her mouth, muffling a scream.

A pony stood before Lyra, their form draped in darkness. Lyra could make out a long mane and something bulky at the pony's side. For one petrifying moment, she thought yet another nightmare had bled into reality.

“Um, excuse me?”

The “ghost” spoke in a polite, bashful voice.

The voice freed Lyra from her trance. Regaining her senses, she lit up her horn. The intense beam fell on a familiar blushing pony. Said pony was carrying a bulging saddlebag.

“Marble, what in Celestia's name are you doing?” Lyra said.

She knew the answer before Marble spoke. There was only one reason Marble Pie would be outside in the middle of the night.

“I'm going with you,” said Marble.

The timid little mare seemed to have temporarily vanished. She was staring Lyra down, openly challenging her to object. Lyra wasn't sure if this was the result of her influence. Perhaps there had always been fire behind Marble's shyness.

Lyra started to speak, but Marble wasn't having any of it.

“I know what you're looking for,” she said. “I saw it in my dream.”

Lyra sighed, surrendering to her fate. She had finally confronted the root of that lurking fear: attachment. Lyra could not bear the thought of another pony clinging to her. But as much as Lyra disliked the idea, Lyra knew she shouldn't be alone.

“The well?” she said reluctantly.

Marble nodded.

“I know where it is,” she said.

The timidity was creeping back into her voice. A brief window in which Lyra could leave without protest had opened. But Lyra felt that even if Marble passively allowed her to go, the guilt would be too much.

“Where?” said Lyra.

Marble blushed.

“I don't know where exactly,” she said. “I just know what the place looks like. I've never been there.”

Lyra glanced at the closed window. She had questions for Cloudy Quartz, but another mystery was calling to her.

“Let's get going,” said Lyra.

She started trotting away. Marble fell into step beside her. They trotted close in the darkness.

In two days' time, Fleur would come in search of the notebook. Perhaps she would offer to buy it from the Pie family for a generous price. Little did Fleur know that the notebook was tucked safely into Lyra's saddlebag.

A single question nagged at Lyra's mind: What would Fleur do when she realized Lyra had taken the notebook?

Part 18: Lost

Twilight Sparkle exited the lecture hall, the broad door swinging shut behind her. Her hooves sunk into the fresh snow as she stepped outside. The weather had taken an unfortunate turn at some point.

She trotted to the front of the building. Students were streaming out, most of them seemingly immune to the cold weather. By contrast, Twilight had pulled her scarf up to her mouth.

Twilight was about to head to her office, but a voice arrested her progress.

“I'm sorry.”

Before turning around, Twilight gently shook the snow from her mane. She didn't recognize the voice. But when her eyes fell on the hooded figure standing next to the entrance, she instinctively recoiled.

Lyra stepped forward. Her and Twilight were entirely alone, the students having fled for the evening. The area around the hall had rapidly cleared out in a matter of moments. Lyra was glad.

“I know this is hard for you,” she said. “But I need to know exactly what happened. I can't leave until I find out the truth.”

Twilight closed her eyes and sighed. She'd probably been expecting this day, but she'd been putting it off in her mind. Not next week, not next month, not next year. Some day far in the future, after she'd become comfortably numb to it all.

“You already know the truth, Lyra,” she said.

Lyra pitied Twilight. Keeping that secret must have felt like swallowing a ball of needles. She could imagine the agony as it shredded her throat on the way down. Then it would just sit there, pricking at the inside of her stomach.

However, Lyra was offering Twilight something the latter didn't know she wanted: closure. Perhaps not the perfect closure, but a chance for some kind of ending.

“What do you want to know?” said Twilight. “The Moon Sickness? The deaths? The ritual? What more could you possibly want to know?”

Lyra withdrew a notebook from her saddlebag. She waved it in the air, forcing Twilight's attention towards it.

“I want to know if you wrote this,” she said.

Twilight stared at the notebook as if it was some kind of weapon. She backed away, muffled fear in her eyes.

“I...I gave that to Mrs. Pie...,” she choked out.

Lyra looked at the notebook, a genuinely loving smile on her face. She could appreciate admirable research tactics and determination. Twilight reminded her of herself, although their quests had been different.

“Here,” she said.

She levitated the notebook over to Twilight.

Twilight was so surprised that she grabbed it without thinking. She held the notebook in her magic, her fear morphing into gratitude. She seemed to have abruptly come to regard the notebook as a long lost friend. Giving it away must have been difficult.

“All of my research,” she said. “I spent so many months trying to find a cure. And then, for the good of Equestria, I had to just....”

She pressed the notebook to her muzzle and inhaled. The aroma of ink and paper was a constant she had fallen in love with over the years.

Lyra levitated something else out of her saddlebag. It was the journal. She was not the slightest bit reluctant to give it up. Lyra understood why Spike had hidden it, why he had gone to so much trouble to keep it away from prying eyes. She understood why Twilight had cast the spell on it. She understood why the Apples had built a shed over the well.

A shared secret. A bond of knowing. A stronger friendship might never exist in the land of Equestria.

“Do you have the photographs Spike took out of this?” said Lyra.

Twilight took the journal, staring at as if it too was an old friend.

“He burned them,” she said. “He really didn't want anypony to know. He cares too much about keeping me away from the past.”

She smiled. She knew Spike wouldn't be, but she was glad he'd been unsuccessful. Underneath the suffocating darkness of mistakes, there was a shining light of truth that had fallen over Twilight.

“Moondancer has a message for you,” said Lyra.

Twilight looked up immediately. She apparently hadn't heard that name in years.

“She says she's sorry,” said Lyra. “She says she wishes she could have been a better friend. But she couldn't resist chasing the truth. She left you behind to run after it. She's regretted it ever since.”

Moondancer hadn't quite said all that—in fact she'd only said the first part—but Lyra knew it was true.

Twilight looked at the notebook and the journal in turn.

“Tell her I'm sorry as well,” she said. “I ran away from her because I couldn't accept what I'd done. Everypony else has false memories to help them cope, but...”

She shook her head, reliving perhaps years of nightmares. Lyra wondered if Twilight had ever gotten a good sleep. For that matter, when was the last time Lyra had a decent sleep?

“I could have given myself false memories,” said Twilight. “I don't know why I didn't.”

Lyra didn't know why either. But she didn't want to probe the inner workings of Twilight's brain. Some mysteries would have to remain unsolved forever.

“I forgive you,” she said.

She meant it with all her heart.

Lyra left the journal and the notebook with Twilight. They were rightfully Twilight's—and Spike's—after all. Lyra had gotten everything she wanted.

She took the train out of Canterlot. Lyra would have stayed longer, but she was in a bit of a hurry. She'd—there'd been much protest involved—dropped Marble off at the Pie family residence. It was there that she headed next, although not to see Marble.

She thought about the melody and the ritual. She thought about how everything seemed utterly clear, almost as if a spotlight illuminated the path.

Lyra's thoughts kept returning to The Wizard of Canterlot. Not the version she had cherished as a child, but the original story she'd come to know. She decided that she liked the original better than the sugary rewrite.

In the original, the hero wasn't sure of his morality and neither was the reader. He did what he had to do, but there were moments in which he stumbled on his own ideals. Perhaps that was how Twilight Sparkle felt when the fate of an entire town—and by extension an entire land—was dropped on her doorstep by an unfortunate twist of fate.

She arranged herself across the seat and shut her eyes. Her stop wouldn't be coming for a little while. Lyra had time for a nap.

“Ms. Heartstrings?”

Lyra recognized the voice, but she didn't open her eyes. She rolled over onto her back.

“Sleeping,” she mumbled.

The voice came again. It was softer and more defeated than the last time Lyra had heard it. Its owner did not seem as casually malicious.

“You have done very well,” continued Fleur. “We are all very impressed by your progress. Although this is quite beyond my authority, I would like to formally offer...”

Lyra cut across Fleur. She spoke with the utmost calm.

“Go to Tartarus,” she said.

If Fleur was insulted, she hid her emotions admirably.

“We gave you a chance,” she said. “Are we not entitled to the same? The resources we could offer you...”

She was again interrupted.

This time there was more force behind each word Lyra spoke. But it was not the force of somepony who was barely keeping their anger at bay. It was the authoritative intensity of somepony who intended to be left alone. She punctuated each word, outlining its meaning with her voice alone.

“Go. To. Tartarus,” she said.

Fleur withdrew from the topic without another word.

Lyra knew Fleur could have grabbed her—the train car was empty except for the two of them—but she also knew that no such thing would happen. Despite her lack of compliance, the unnamed organization Fleur worked for must appreciate Lyra's capabilities. They also must appreciate that Lyra wasn't a threat to them or their mission statement.

An hour later, Lyra disembarked. She did not look back to see if Fleur was following her—she doubted she was—before leaving the train.

The Pie family residence looked almost exactly the same. The changing weather had altered its appearance a little, but otherwise the place hadn't changed. Marble was right about how rock farms seem immune to anything other than the inevitable changing seasons.

Lyra trotted up the path to the door. She raised a hoof to knock. The words she wanted to say had already become hopelessly tangled in her emotions. She had so many things to say to both Cloudy and Marble. But who did she really want to talk to first?

The door swung open before Lyra could knock. It was Cloudy Quartz, her glasses perched on her muzzle as always. But unlike the last time Lyra had seen her, she was genuinely smiling. Her smile didn't drop when she saw Lyra standing there.

“I was expecting you,” she said.

Lyra looked past Cloudy. She half-expected to see an angry Marble standing there, but nopony else seemed to be nearby.

“Where's your daughter?” she said.

She knew she sounded rude, but she couldn't help it. Lyra had realized just how many apologies she had to make. She needed to let Marble know that everything was fine between them. She needed to thank her for everything she'd done, even if Lyra had decided to continue on alone in the end.

Cloudy smiled sadly.

“Off on an adventure,” she said. “Igneous Rock is still sulking about it.”

She sighed.

“That makes three,” she said. “Three daughters who decided they don't want to spend their lives on a rock farm. I suppose I can't blame them, but hiring more help is going to be difficult.”

Lyra had expected guilt, but not to that degree. She didn't know how to reply. A part of her wished she had shown up sooner. Perhaps if she'd had a quick word with Marble before dropping her off, Lyra could have prevented it.

“I'm sorry,” she said finally.

Cloudy gave Lyra a stern look.

“Don't start blaming yourself,” she said. “This would have happened eventually. You don't need to be clairvoyant to realize how big and enticing Equestria is.”

Regardless, Lyra was conflicted. She was happy that Marble had decided to carve a path for herself. But she felt responsible for leaving the Pie family in a less favorable position.

“I'm sure she'll come back,” said Lyra. “Equestria isn't that big.”

Cloudy did not look as if she'd complain either way. She seemed to have come to terms with Marble's decision very quickly.

“She knows how grateful you are to her,” said Cloudy. “I'm sure she'll be contacting you if she gets the chance.”

She smiled.

“Thank you for taking care of her,” she said.

Lyra blushed. From her perspective, it had been the opposite. Marble had provided her with something wonderful—companionship--and Lyra was eternally thankful in every possible way. She would have hit several dead ends if Marble wasn't there to keep her steady.

“I have something for you,” she said.

She levitated an object out of her saddlebag.

Cloudy Quartz stared at the object.

“A music box?” she said.

Lyra smiled gently. She'd thought about it a lot over the past few hours. The conclusion she'd come to wasn't quite ideal, but it somehow made sense to her. Lyra wanted to be free from the music.

“I don't need it,” she said. “I'm sure you could find a use for it.”

Cloudy took the music box. Fortunately, she seemed to realize that it wasn't merely a gift. She held it tentatively, as if she sensed it had been used for a ritual. But as it was only one part of something larger, Cloudy appeared to realize that the music box itself was harmless.

“Thank you,” she said.

Lyra guessed Cloudy could sense the memories—good and bad—attached to that music box. It would probably end up at the bottom of a box in a closet. It was a shame, but Lyra didn't try to dissuade Cloudy from her assumed course of action. Some memories were best stashed out of sight.

After promising to visit again, Lyra departed. Both her and Cloudy knew she most likely wouldn't be back.

Another long train ride took Lyra to the Apple family farm in Appleloosa.

She felt as if she'd been there less than an hour ago. It felt almost wrong to be returning after such a meager absence. But Lyra had marked it down in her memory. Wherever she went next, she was going to remember it down to every creaky floorboard.

It was extremely late at night when Lyra arrived. None of the Apples should be awake. However, she knew at least one of them was waiting for her.

Lyra knocked on the door of the shed. She only knocked once. If anypony was in there, they would answer immediately.

Sure enough, the door opened. Granny Smith was standing there, an affectionate smile on her face. If she held any resentment towards Lyra, it was well hidden behind a mask of tenderness.

“I'm sorry I left,” Lyra blurted out.

Granny Smith gave a short laugh.

“If I had an apple for every time I heard that, I'd have a farm,” she said with a wink.

She ushered Lyra inside.

The shed had been repaired since Lyra's last visit. The hole in the floor was gone, replaced with solid floorboards. All evidence of it had been carefully erased. Nopony would have guessed there was a well of purified water directly underneath the Apples' property.

“You must be mighty tired, young one,” said Granny Smith.

She reached into one of the boxes and pulled out a tin. She opened the metal lid to reveal a selection of cookies.

“Hungry?” she said. “They're fresh.”

Lyra hesitantly took a cookie. She took a reluctant bite. A sweet combination of cinnamon and vanilla burst on her tongue. Almost mesmerized by the flavor, Lyra grabbed three more cookies from the tin before Granny Smith put it back.

“There's something you want to ask me,” said Granny Smith.

Lyra swallowed a mouthful of cookie. There were several things she wanted to ask, but she stuck to the basics.

“How much do you know?” she said. “How much could you have told me?”

Granny Smith retrieved a pillow from one of the boxes. She blew the dust off it, then tossed it on the floor. She plopped down on her makeshift seat, a vague smile on her face.

“When I was a little one, my pa used to scare me with stories about Nightmare Moon,” she said. “He said she loved to gobble up fillies who wouldn't listen to their parents. Being the simple foal I was, I believed every word.”

She shook her head, abruptly becoming grave.

“Isn't it unfortunate?” she said. “We grow up hearing all the fables, but the truth is much worse than our silly stories.”

She looked up at the ceiling. Lyra imagined she was picturing the moon.

“Nightmare Moon isn't just a story made up to scare foals,” said Granny Smith. “She was as real as you or me. Ponies used her as a cautionary tale for so long that we all kind of forgot she was an actual living pony.”

Lyra waited, hoping there was a point.

“I remember my pa telling me about The Moon Sickness,” said Granny Smith. “The story was that one of the nightmare creatures Nightmare Moon created somehow became a living breathing disease. An incurable and horrific disease that spread like wildfire. Of course, that was only a story. Who knows if it's true?”

Lyra suddenly remembered the strange creature in Spike's journal. She remembered where she'd seen it. She'd seen it long ago, in a memory that stood on the fringe of her thoughts. It had stood there observing Lyra's happiness, unnoticed by her until after she'd awakened.

Granny Smith smiled a little.

“I learned to trust my instincts at a very young age,” she said. “I learned to be more aware of the truth, even if it didn't make a lick of sense to me.”

She turned to look at Lyra.

“It's not clairvoyance,” she said. “It's something I can't really put into words.”

Lyra knew what Granny Smith was talking about. It wasn't seeing the future, it wasn't a hunch, it wasn't being able to read ponies. It was a feeling, some indistinct line of thinking buried deep within a racing mind. Lyra had experienced it herself, but she'd never known what to do with it. Only when she began her journey did she start subconsciously depending on it.

“I reckon there's a lot of ponies like us out there,” said Granny Smith. “But most of them have no idea what to do with what they have.”

Lyra swallowed the last mouthful of cookie. She was feeling both full and sleepy, a combination she'd missed out on lately.

“Can I give you something?” she said.

Granny Smith grinned.

“I never say no to a present,” she said.

Lyra levitated the mirror out of her saddlebag. She'd managed to get rid of the spell on it. It was now merely an ordinary mirror. Perhaps less useful as a result, but Lyra didn't think Granny Smith would mind.

Granny Smith took the mirror immediately. She appeared to realize its importance without being told.

“Thank you very much,” she said.

Lyra wondered if Granny Smith could sense the mirror's entire back story. She hoped that was the case, because she didn't want to explain it all. Twilight had stashed the journal in that mirror with the intent to keep it concealed forever. How ironic that a variety of circumstances—some of which Lyra would never know—had dropped it into her hooves.

She bid Granny Smith farewell. It was late, but Lyra guessed the town's only hotel would still be open.

This time Lyra didn't say she'd be back. They both knew that if she meant to come back, she would. There was nothing more to it.

Lyra did more reflecting than sleeping that night.

No wonder there were so many gaps and remnants. The ritual had been meant for at least ten ponies. Twilight had probably had to improvise, as well as make a bunch of alterations. She'd done all of this while bodies piled up outside, fueled by the mere possibility of making it all go away.

Maybe Twilight had made it all go away. Maybe the Moon Sickness was gone for good.

There was no Ponyville. There had been one, but unforeseen circumstances had wiped it from existence. The ponies were gone too, although they had been reborn and rebuilt by the same magic that had been used to erase the town. An imperfect solution—Lyra being living proof of that—but nevertheless a solution.

But she was alright with there being no Ponyville. She was alright with being a copy of a pony who'd perished in that very town. The remnants might always exist to remind her of what had once been. However, Lyra could distance herself from those.

What do I want now? Lyra wondered.

To forget? Yes, but there was more. Burying the memories wasn't enough, simply because she couldn't. Lyra had gone on this journey willingly. The consequences and the information were unshakable.

But if Lyra couldn't forget, at least she could be with somepony who could help her cope. Somepony who might understand her pain. Somepony who wouldn't ask Lyra to keep filling in gaps.

She closed her eyes and rolled over onto her side in bed.

Lyra was tired of running, tired of squinting at pieces of information. She just wanted an ending.