Find Her, Stay With Her

Lyra and Bon Bon had both made it to Canterlot, and decided to rent a room at a hotel. Fortunately, it was not very expensive for them to stay at this time of the year, since tourists usually came in a different season, and it was a fairly low-end hotel for the city (which, compared to what Ponyville offered, was still fairly nice and luxurious).

Bon Bon was just sitting in the room watching television that evening, while Lyra was just finishing up a shower.

"Ah..." Lyra said, wiping out her mane with a towel after using the hair dryer. "...that was refreshing."

She then picked up a comb from her travel bag, and took the hand-mirror off of a hook on the wall, since the mirror above the sink was too cloudy with condensation. The Unicorn started to comb her hair back into its regular shape, simultaneously levitating the mirror and comb.

She always made this process a fairly lengthy one...

Later that evening, following the night he had his intense dream, Kyle was working on some digital artwork for a client on DeviantArt. He had spent hours staring at the dual computer monitors (but fortunately, he keeps all his screens fairly dim so as to avoid eyestrain), and he was becoming a bit hungry, since he did not eat dinner at the time he usually does. And he was especially so after spending a long, hard day having to make some physical adjustments to the photovoltaic solar panels on the roof of his mansion, as he noticed they had been misaligned due to loose bolts. He also had to get some new cables to link to the backup batteries, as the old ones snapped due to the weight of the loose panels.

No wonder my electric bill's been a few bucks higher recently... Kyle thought.

He stood from his desk to get something to eat from the kitchen. There were probably some leftovers that he would just throw in the microwave. As he was making his way past a decorative mirror on a support beam, however... he happened to notice something strange. He could swear that he saw a faint light in it, but looking at where the reflection was in the real world, there was nothing from where it could be coming from. It was fairly dim, so it was easy to make out the light in the mirror, but still, there was something not right about it.

Curious, Kyle grabbed an opaque blanket from the living room, draped it over the mirror, and stood under it to see if his theory was correct... and to his surprise, it was. The light was still there, ominously faint and lingering...

"Oh, jeez... did I buy a haunted mirror by mistake...?" Kyle asked out loud.

He tried shifting his head around to see if it would move, and it appeared to be two feet away relative to the mirror pane, yet there was absolutely nothing in the real world. Kyle looked at the general area where it seemed the light would be coming from if there was something on his side of the mirror.

"Listen, demon... I didn't do anything to you... so don't do anything to me!" Kyle said to the air in front of the mirror.

Staring at it a bit closer, and right as he was about to take it off the wall... Kyle was able to make out the glowing shape... a Unicorn horn. And the color... it was one he was quite familiar with...

...Lyra! he thought, his jaw dropping and his eyes wide.

It was almost like he was looking through one-way glass. There was no doubt in his mind. That horn most definitely belonged to Lyra. As the realization hit him, he realized that this might be his only chance to try and communicate with her. He tried tapping the mirror, but it did not appear to signal anything to her. The glow was still stationary. Even shaking the mirror around did not do anything, as the glow still sat in the same spot.

Nothing appeared to be working. It seemed like Lyra was not getting the message.

"I have to communicate with her somehow!" Kyle said. "I have to let her know about this link between Earth and Equestria, and fast, before she leaves the mirror!"

Realizing that, if he could see light, she might also, he rushed into his bedroom and pulled a flashlight out of his end table. He then rushed back over to the mirror, and began to flash the light on and off, hoping it would grab her attention.

While Lyra was in the process of brushing her mane, and just about to finish up... she happened to notice something strange in the mirror. There was a very faint, flashing light. Curiously, she glanced around, looking for anything in the restroom that might be blinking... but there was nothing. She even switched off the bathroom lights, and still saw it.

"Hm... I wonder..." Lyra said.

With that, she lit up the tip of her horn with a light, and started flashing it on and off in sync with what she was seeing in the mirror.

"Bon Bon!" Lyra called. "Come in here! You won't believe what I'm seeing!"

Kyle assumed that it was working, because Lyra appeared to be flashing her horn back at him through the mirror. In the meantime, he had loaded up an International Morse Code chart on his phone (sitting on the small table below the mirror) while flashing the light continuously.

"I have to let her know that it's me. She might think it's some sort of specter or ghost or something..." Kyle said to himself.

So, he simply settled on telling her his name in the code. He began to flash the light according to International Morse Code chart that he was looking at.

"Let's see... dash-dot-dash..." he mumbled to himself, flashing the light in said pattern. "...dash-dot-dash-dash... dot-dash-dot-dot... dot..."

He repeated the pattern, leaving a bit of room in between each one.

Bon Bon happened to take note of the flashing light by turning off the bathroom light and holding the mirror close to her face.

"Lyra... what's going on?" Bon Bon asked. "What do you think this is?"

"I don't know... and that's why I want to find out!" Lyra answered.

Soon enough, they happened to notice the light flickering in a repeating pattern. They observed for a few moments, and Lyra realized, very slowly, what was going on...

"It's Horse Code!" Lyra said.

"Yeah, but... do you understand it?" Bon Bon asked.

"Let's just say... Celestia put some useful memories in my head when I returned to Equestria." Lyra responded.

"Let's see..." Lyra said. "...one long, one short, one long... that's a 'K'..."

Bon Bon just watched silently while Lyra deciphered what it was.

"...Y... L... E..." Lyra said. "...and after a pause, it repeats--WAIT!"

She put the letters together to realize the name they spelled.

"...Kyle..." Lyra uttered in surprise.

Bon Bon's eyes opened immensely.

"No..." the Earth Pony said. "...you don't think..."

"He's communicating with me... through this mirror!" Lyra said.

"But... what if it's not him? What if that mirror's... haunted, or something?" Bon Bon said.

Lyra stared blankly. "...I know Kyle. He is extremely resourceful! He's a genius! It HAS to be him!" she said.

"Well, okay..." Bon Bon said. "...assuming it's Kyle... how is he even able to do this? I thought he lived in a dimension where magic doesn't exist!"

"Who cares? We can communicate!" Lyra said. "And I'm going to let him know that I received his message. Gimme the mirror..."

Lyra took the mirror, and flashed her horn in Horse/Morse Code to spell out her own name.

Kyle watched as Lyra's horn started flashing in a pattern. He made note of the pattern with the chart he had on his phone... and after a few repeats, realized that it spelled "L-Y-R-A".

...I knew it was her. he thought blissfully.

He stopped flashing his light, and stared at the mirror. He put his hand against it, hoping he could fall right through and into Equestria...

"I hope he understood my message..." Lyra said. "...oh, who am I kidding? Of course he understood!"

Lyra then took the mirror out of the bathroom, and tucked it into her saddlebag. Bon Bon looked a bit uncertain by what she was doing.

"Lyra..." Bon Bon said. "...that mirror is hotel property. You can't take it!"

"But..." Lyra said, looking at it. "...it might be the only thing I can talk to Kyle with while I'm here, and he's there!"

Bon Bon shook her head. "I really don't know about this... you're gonna get us into trouble!"

"You're not gonna tell on me, are you, Bonnie?" Lyra asked.

"No, but..." Bon Bon trailed off. "...this still isn't right. Stealing is stealing, simple as that."

"Well, I'll leave some extra Bits to replace it! I'll even leave a note for all I care! I just want to be able to communicate with Kyle!" Lyra said.

The two mares just stared at each other, each one having thoughts that conflicted with the other's.

"Now that we can communicate... we have to see Princess Celestia! She needs to know that we still know about each other, and about this link we've found!" Lyra said.

"Well... we didn't come all this way for nothing, so... I guess so." Bon Bon said.

Lyra looked back at her saddlebag.

I might just have a chance to be back with my true love... she thought in immense delight and excitement.

Kyle stood at the mirror with his hand against it for a long while, a pleasant smile on his face... however, someone who was entering the room happened to notice...

"Kyle...?" Jan asked. "What are you doing?"

"Hm?" Kyle said, just before looking at his mother, his smile fading. "Oh, Mom! Well... there was a..." he tried to think fast. "...a spot on this mirror, and I... just cleaned it off! I'm pleased that it looks like new again!"

Jan looked a bit confused.

"Kyle... you've been acting a bit strange." she said. "Are you sure everything's okay?"

Kyle nodded promptly. "Yep! All's fine and well!"

"Okay, but Kyle..." Jan spoke. "...I understand if everything recently has been stressful for you. If you have a problem, you know you can tell me, okay?"

"Okay." Kyle responded.

"Well, I just came out here to get some water. So, goodnight Kyle." Jan said.

"Night, Mom!" Kyle said, just before heading back to his office.

He then closed out of his artwork, shut off his computer, and went to his neighboring bedroom, where he laid on his bed, so lost in thought. He was not hungry anymore; his thoughts were more filling right now than food. For the past couple of months, he had come to grips with the reality that he would never see Lyra again, but with what just happened...

Kyle felt, just felt that he could finally be back with the mare of his dreams, and hopefully have her back for life. Even though he blocked it out of his mind, he could not remove the desire from his heart to have her back. And the fact that she could be doing what she could on her end made him ever more excited.

"Wow, this is getting me even more hyped than I was for Code Lyoko: Project Eradication before it came out!" Kyle said to himself. "But..."

The one thing he could not get off his mind was how his mother would take it. She might think that he is crazy for talking to some entity through a mirror. The worst part was that he hated lying to her. Sometimes, he had to just to avoid coming off as bad or strange. This made him start to wonder how everything could go down if Lyra did come back to this world...

If she saw that Lyra was real... Kyle thought. ...would it be better or worse than telling her that I am a brony?