Unity

by Doctor Fluffy

Rating: everyone
Tags: Adventure, Princess Celestia, Crossover, Alternate Universe, Human, Main 6, Lyra, Princess Luna, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Thriller
Length: 5213

A maddened tyrant, possessed by a dark force. A powerful human with a bloodstained history. A world at the brink of war. And an impossible convergence of heroes and villains. Does this story sound familiar to you? THINK AGAIN.

You've seen this before, haven't you?

A human from a world menaced by an evil Equestria that seeks to convert and destroy the last remnants of humanity. He appears, bedraggled, tired, enraged, only to find himself in an Equestria much more like the one we know. A place of honesty, laughter, loyalty, kindness, generosity, and magic. A place that only the most bitter, joyless, mentally unbalanced misanthrope would ever think would dream of trying to destroy humanity.

You've seen a Lyra, fascinated by humanity, finding this human. You've even seen a passenger from this dark Equestria coming with this human, at least once.

But this time, things are different. The wrong humans have come to the right universes. And things will be forever changed. Jed R and Doctor Fluffy present to you, Unity:

The triumphant return of Convergence. For Jed, who deserved better than Red as a cowriter, for me so I can enjoy myself with one of the best friends I've ever made, and for you. For all the fans of Convergence that dealt with delay after delay, and my obsessive focus on Light eclipsing this when I was panicking, trying to get my story out before Spectrum inevitably collapsed.

Published 2018-02-18 20:40:07 UTC
Last updated 2018-02-18 20:40:07 UTC

Prologue: Through The Looking Glass

Unity

Based on an idea by Doctor Fluffy and Jed R, “Convergence” by Doctor Fluffy, “Albion” by Jed R and Spectrum” by TheIdiot and the Spectrum Crew.

Prologue: Through the Looking Glass

Written by:

Doctor Fluffy,

Jed R,

and

TheIdiot.

Editors

RoyalPsycho,

The Void.

With segments quoted from Spectrum by TheIdiot and the rest of the Spectrum Crew.

Are you paying attention yet? If not, you’d better start, because there’s a lot more at stake than you thought there was. You don’t understand yet… but you will.

You know these tales. There is a man, a dangerous journey to another world, and most importantly, a plea for help answered by a noble and wise Princess. These stories, you know.

But, just possibly, we can still surprise you. For what if there was another person to come with this man? Or, indeed, what if it was a different man?

Perhaps things could be far happier.

Ponyville. May 5th. Year 3 of the New Diarchy Calendar.

The Freeverse Equestria.

One day, in the magical land of Equestria, a purple Unicorn mare named Twilight Sparkle sat alone on the edge of a pond near the Everfree Forest, pondering the water as she tried thinking of precisely what to write for her latest friendship report.

The last few days had been… interesting, to say the least. Which was to say, a group of travelling Moles had come through Ponyville, drunk half the town dry of alcohol and then proceeded (while still drunk) to start digging themselves a mine - the foundations of a Molish city - in the centre of the town. It had taken all of Twilight’s not-inconsiderable diplomatic skill - not to say luck - to convince them that mining in the middle of an inhabited piece of flatland of all places was perhaps not the best place for them to start. They hadn’t been convinced until one of the inebriated party had noticed the looming form of the Smokey Mountain in the distance. Twilight had told them it was free land (she wasn’t certain, but then the only time she’d been up there the only inhabitant had been a Dragon so she was reasonably sure) and they had packed up and headed off.

Twilight admittedly didn’t know much about Molish culture. This group had ridden great big, scaly worms (or what they had called Wyrms) and most had been at least lightly armed to some degree, and that alone had intimidated many of Ponyville’s residents (apart from Lyra Heartstrings, resident cryptozoologist and something of a cultural historian, who’d spend most of their visit drinking Ol’ Trotspur with them and asking about the Wyrms and Molish history and - well, everything). Still, given how she’d had to improvise her solution, Twilight found herself feeling quite proud of it. After all - they’d left, and done so without causing lasting harm (the town’s severely decreased alcohol stock and the giant pit they’d temporarily dug in the town-centre notwithstanding).

Still, it left Twilight the unenviable position of having to explain to Princess Celestia that there was a Molish caravan heading off to the Smokey Mountain and taking residence on (or technically under) Equestrian soil. An unenviable task.

She couldn't complain too much about it though: at least it was a nice day for it. The sky was blue, birds chirped as they flittered hither and thither through the trees, and there was barely a cloud to be seen.

Another idyllic day, Twilight found herself thinking with a smile. Moles or not, it was good to live here. Taking up her quill, Twilight began scratching out her letter to Celestia.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Over the past couple of days, Ponyville has been playing host to a group of travelling Moles. Though they didn’t hurt anypony and they seemed friendly enough, they did decide that they wanted to dig a mine in the middle of town. I think Lyra knew why, but she got a little -

She stopped writing, feeling a sudden chill prickling at the back of her neck. She turned, but there was nopony there.

Just my imagination,[/i] she thought, before continuing to scribble.

Everfree Forest, Equestria. First Day of the Month of Rophon, Year 3 of the Era Harmoniae.

The Harmoniverse Equestria.

It was a beautiful day in Ponyville, but since moving in from Canterlot, Lyra Heartstrings knew better than to take it for granted. After all, in Ponyville, any normal day could be a prelude to the latest magical mishap, malady or madness to hit what Equestria’s leading insurers had dubbed the nation’s ‘trouble capitol’.

‘Never trust a beautiful day. Word is, things always hit the hardest when it seems nicest.’

And yet, wasn’t that the fun of it all? In Ponyville, it seemed anything could happen. So if you were a pony of a curious mind or an adventurous bent, what better place to call your home? And what better thing to do on a fine sunny day, than get out and about, go looking for the next discovery, chase the next adventure, seize that fine day by the ankles and shake it until the spice of life fell in a heap from its saddle-bags.

‘Well, that was a weird mental picture,’ Lyra thought to herself. ‘Strike one for the day.’

Still, perhaps that was why, instead of staying back at the town she was lucky to call home, she now trotted along a half-forgotten old path through the Everfree Forest, never minding that, except as a shortcut to the brickyard or the water reservoir – or, more recently, to make a friendly visit to Zecora – most ponies still avoided the forest paths unless they could help it. It was a golden rule that had been drilled into Lyra ever since she’d agreed to move in with her girlfriend.

‘Never take the Everfree for granted.’

But here she was, a cheery smile coming to her face as she hopped across a small brook. Yes, taking a constitutional into the Forest was somewhat silly, possibly even dangerous, but her curiosity had finally nibbled away enough of her common sense to outway caution. It all returned to what Professor Shriek, that dear old earthpony who always smelled vaguely of mushrooms, had told her back in Canterlot University;

‘Love your silly idea.’

She’d had some quite unusual teachers in her history. Although it could have been argued that they all took a leaf from the same book the kooky old Headmaster of Celestia’s School had used. It suited her just fine as a learner and probably explained a lot about her outlook on life; to think, in other words, that even if you knew an idea was silly, didn’t mean there was nothing to be learnt from it. She could ask herself why she’d first conceived the idea, whether it had any potential, and why she truly thought it silly in the first place.

‘In challenging your preconceptions, you may unearth something entirely unexpected.’

In this case, her silly idea had been that there was undiscovered history in the Everfree Forest. It was a premise Lyra had formulated based on the wide variety of local folklore that surrounded the tract of wild woodland, from the curiously well-preserved remains of the Castle of The Two Sisters – which rumour said even Princess Celestia dared not enter – to outlandish stories of a lost village hidden inside the Forest.

‘Heh, I’m probably not going to find that village on my first ‘expedition’,’ Lyra thought lightly. ‘But maybe I can find discover the source of those stories in the Castle’s library? After all, every legend is anchored to some fragment of truth.’

That, right there, was why the Everfree piqued her interest.

Above and beyond the stories, myths and legends, it was simply strange, scientifically speaking. Any unicorn, or indeed, any pony with a pair of dowsing rods could tell at a glance that it was a nucleus of magic. Plot the land of Equestria’s leylines on a map, and you’d see the overgrown Forest was second only to Canterlot in the number of lines that intersected within its confines. Lyra’s own past attempts to measure the Everfree’s energy flux, with tools ranging from a ten-bit thaumic crystal to a Geegee Counter she’d sunk the better part of a month’s earnings into, had all left her with the same result – egg on her face. Quite literally in the case of the crystal, which had transformed into an ostrich egg.

She could feel the magic all around her now as she happily trotted deeper into the brush, wild and primal and alive. And, for all that the Everfree had a bad rep, she felt surprisingly uplifted by that raw vitality. From above, rays of sunshine gleamed gold upon the verdant leaves and the damp, loamy undergrowth. Her path snaked through small valleys rich with ferns and old growth, watered by clear, fast-running streams, incubated in the muggy warmth of the summer afternoon. The Forest, whose dense canopy enclosed all life which grew, trod and crawled within its boundaries, felt more than ever like a living entity, a great beast with a moist breath and lifeforce of its own, deep and slow and timeless, and a heart that beat but once each spring, driving trees and flowers to bloom and colour. Although Celestia’s rays ultimately fed it, the Forest would always be its own domain, an unknown mind, remote and untouched by the ponies who elsewhere governed nature’s cycles, growing the plants and shepherding the clouds.

‘How strange is it, then,’ Lyra thought, ‘that the two Princesses once elected this location as the seat of their power, their place of rest? Could it be that the Forest hasn’t always been this way, it’s just some old thing which has grown over something even older…’

Admittedly, she was spitballing, which, to be fair, was what ninety percent of research in her field consisted of anyway, so it wasn’t anything new. For every premise that stuck, nine others went straight to Tartarus. But if she sought out the Castle, there was the possibility she’d uncover some forgotten archive detailing, well, something, right?

‘And heck?’ she mused, looking back at her saddlebags, packed with camera, film, trowels, water, and other essential supplies. ‘Even if I don’t find anything, this’ll still be a lot of fun!’

She was going to walk among ancient ruins that had barely known the hoofsteps of ponies for a millennium, she would read through ancient texts of lost lore and law. This could truly be amazing. A part of her began to wonder why more ponies hadn’t already taken a look. Surely Twilight, at the very least, would have been curious to investigate the archaeological significance of the site.

Freeverse.

Lyra Heartstrings, nursing the hangover to end all hangovers, was stood at the edge of the Everfree forest, finishing a sketch.

She had honestly had more fun in the last week than she had had in four years: she had never had the opportunity to meet Moles before the little ‘invasion’ of the last week. Sure, there were Moles from Mol Trotspur up near Trottingham, but that was Trottingham and she’d rarely had enough time to go there. She barely made enough money from odd jobs or from the paltry amounts of money she made from busking with her lyre to fund her need for new books and papers and drawing materials, and she barely got by. Actually going to Trottingham? Ha, no chance, not unless she won the lottery, and she didn’t even play the darn lottery (should I play the lottery? If I won I could finally fund that round-the-world trip I’ve been planning since High School).

Maybe I could write a book…. No, silly Lyra. That’d take too long, and there’s more editing to do. There’s always more editing to do. She sighed.

So it had been amazing for Moles - real, proper Moles - to come to Ponyville. She had talked extensively to them, though she had needed to imbue perhaps a shade more Ol’ Trotspur (a particularly famous - and strong - Molish beer) than she strictly should have just to gain some modicum of respect from them. She liked to think, though, that she had held her own with the gruff Moles, and once they got chatting they had told her a lot about themselves, their culture and their beliefs. It had been fascinating.

She had tried telling Twilight that all the Moles wanted to do was finally settle down, start a Mol (their word for ‘City’, though it really just meant ‘Place of the Moles’) of their own and, according to their religious practices, find a way to return to their Gods (‘...the Gods of the Mol-kin were born at the heart of the world, and they sent their children forth to seek paradise…’).

Of course, when she’d tried explaining, it had mainly come out as, “Moles want to build a Mol for the Moles, so the Moles of the Mol can find the Mole Gods of all Moles and worship their Moliness.” All this while trying to do the traditional Molish Molochai dance, which was incredibly difficult for a four legged being.

In short, Lyra Heartstrings was not exactly a sensible or coherent drunk.

She looked up from her sketch, frowning as she tried to remember the exact curve of the Molish snout, the exact cut of their tough clothing and their stout figures before the images vanished from her mind. And then she blinked, wondering if she had been out here just a tad too long, but the image she saw before her didn’t change a jot.

Further along the edge of the forest was a bipedal figure, slowly stumbling out of the forest. Lyra quickly pulled up her pencil and jotted a rough sketch of the lines of the figure: the long legs, the strong arms, and the flowing jacket it wore. She cross referenced everything she knew about every strange creature from Equus’ vast history and landscapes.

Not furred, so not any of the ape-kindred. No tail, so likely not a Kitsune in one of its forms, or a Nekomata. Easily too short to be a Minotaur. No spider legs or permanent, prominentmammary glands, plus there's no pheromone haze, so not a Jorogumo. Her eyes widened as she realised what it had to have been. Two legs. Two arms. It couldn’t be - but there’s nothing else that it could be… but that’s just…

She took a slow, calming breath, before saying what it was aloud, confirming it in her own mind.

“A human.”

She grinned. A human - the holy grail of cryptozoological research. Rare was the book that mentioned them, rarer still was there any notion of what they might have actually been. There were stories of cannibals from the south, ancient lost Empires of the East, adventurers in the North… the ancient Horssian tribes spoke of the great riders, brothers in arms. The Jorogumo writings lamented the loss of the first husbands and fathers. Even the usually staid mythologies of the Griffon Empire had their own tales… but there was nothing at all concrete about them.

Gathering her thoughts, Lyra moved slowly out of cover. The human was still stumbling its way out of the forest, but stopped as soon as it saw her.

“Ly-Lyra?” the human whispered. “Lyra Heartstrings?”

“Yes…” she whispered in reply, eyes wide with shock. It knew her name?

“This… this must be Heaven… unless...” the figure said, something like a smile gracing its strange features. “You… you did it. Lyra… you actually… actually did it…”

That was all it said, as it lapsed into unconsciousness on the spot, collapsing heavily to the ground in front of the tree. At once, Lyra dashed over.

He was breathing - definitely a ‘he’, gender dimorphism confirmed, unless their traits are radically different from our own - and injured in several places.

Drawing upon what she’d learnt of how the recovery position applied to two-legged creatures, Lyra rested his head against his hands – hands![/i] she thought, regretting that she had no time to marvel – and wincing at his unconscious groan. Then she turned and dashed back for town, stumbling slightly as she did so. She was, after all, still a little drunk.

The human behind her had a perplexed look on his face as she stumbled into town.

Harmoniverse.

Being Lyra Heartstrings meant your mind couldn’t sit still for any great length of time.

On her way, she had taken a detour to merrily prance about a field of wild flowers – and out here in the Everfree Forest, the flowers could get very wild, with big pointy teeth and all – then, after this had resulted in a chunk of her tail getting nipped off, she’d changed course again to pop by Zecora’s hut, only to be greeted by a sign in some mystic language which, after careful processing, she’d figured said that the local zebra witch-doctor would be back in five minutes.

Lyra had decided, then and there, that she couldn’t wait five minutes. Though her minty tail might have a tuft missing, though there were other strange encounters to be made in the forest, it was all small potatoes, in her book. The important part was, she told herself, patting her camera fondly, that she still had research to do. Perhaps she could have her little mishap looked at afterwards by Bonbon, though her girlfriend wouldn’t be pleased to hear where she’d gone off to.

‘Remember, Lyra,’ she’d thought, ‘if you stumble upon any oats out here, you’ve got to make it up to Bonbon by bringing ‘em back to her. You owe her, anyway.’

And so it was, a little battered, but otherwise unharmed, that she’d reached the chasm splitting the Castle of the Two Sisters from the rest of the Forest. There was only one tiny problem; the sole bridge to cross was gone.

She recalled what Twilight had told her of that night her friend, together with the five special mares who’d cottoned on for the ride, had travelled out into the wild to find the Elements and Harmony, and thus free Princess Luna from the curse of Nightmare Moon. Several trials of character had awaited them; Rainbow Dash’s, naturally, had involved flying across this very canyon to fix the bridge.

What a surprise, Dash’s workmanship had proven pretty shoddy. Or not built to last, at any rate.

‘That’s what comes of only having teeth to grip things,’ Lyra thought, staring down at her forehooves crossly. ‘How am I going to get across? No way am I turning back!’

Across the chasm, the moss- and vine-covered ruins awaited, seeming to almost taunt her with how close they were, and yet so far. What was it, she wondered, about wanting things so hard that it felt as if they took on a mind of their own, usually so they could mock you? Or perhaps that was just something the Everfree did. The very clouds in this place moved on their own, for heavens’ sake.

It wasn’t such a wide space separating her from the other side. Stepping forward to the edge, which loosened a few pebbles beneath her hooves, Lyra peered critically at the broken remains of the bridge hanging over the cliffside.

All that it’d require was a little focus, and she could magic her way forward. Maybe lift the opposite half of the bridge and join the pieces back together. Or, better yet, why not simply teleport?

Lyra wetted her lips, feeling a bead of sweat on her forehead. ‘Well, no shame in trying.’

Taking a cautious step back, she gritted her teeth, willing the spark to form at the tip of her horn. With concentration, a fleck of gold appeared, channelling the magical energy stored within her body from birth as a unicorn. Most unicorns specialised in two or three spells at most, and teleportation was notoriously difficult, but she’d been to Celestia’s School. She could do this.

“C’mon, Lyra,” she muttered, silently cursing herself as a fool for cutting class. “You’ll do fine, just think happy thoughts.”

That had been her Headmaster’s advice at the old school. Nice as Equestria was, sometimes she felt that ‘good cheer’ and positivity were treated as a bit too much of an all-purpose solution. She wasn’t sure they were doing much to help at this moment.

They had done only so much for her, after she got released from the Changeling Queen’s control.

Needles pricked her brain as the unwanted memory washed over her, and her spark died. Groaning, Lyra clutched at her forehead, feeling herself teeter on her three hooves, suddenly very conscious of how the sheer drop yawed ahead.

After living for years in a town where assaults from strange beasts were a fact of life, to have experienced such a close brush with doom back at her home city sent fear rippling down her coat. Although, as always, things had ended happily, the Royal Wedding a roaring success, a piece of her heart would ever carry the burden of knowing she’d been placed in thrall to a devil.

‘Think... happy thoughts…’ Lyra urged herself. ‘Sunshine and rainbows...’

Bonbon had been there to comfort her, in the night after, and for many nights beyond.

Such grand music Octavia Melody and Vinyl Scratch had made for the wedding.

The train ride in the company of Twilight and friends back to Ponyville.

… And it had been sort of interesting to meet a new species.

‘That’s better.’

With a raise of her head, Lyra smiled a little as she felt the spark reignite atop her horn. Confidence flooded her, confidence that nothing would, or could, ever keep her down for long. She was a mare of simple tastes, leading her own small life, content to leave duty to others, but none may call her idle, although they often did. When she wanted something dearly, she’d climb mountains for it. Or cross chasms, as the case may be.

Fueled by such thoughts, the picture of where she wished her magic to lead her coalesced within her mind, and a golden aura enveloped all of her. She closed her eyes at the brightness, feeling her body momentarily grow weightless in the space between spaces.

When she next opened her eyes, Lyra was surprised to be standing at the bottom of the chasm.

Freeverse.

Twilightsighed as she heard the sound of hooves galloping towards her. She had still yet to finish her letter (just how did you mention that you made a diplomatic decision unilaterally without so much as consulting the Mayor?), but if somepony needed her help, she had no issues with doing so.

“Hey, Twilight! Twilight!”

‘On second thoughts…’

She looked up to see Lyra Heartstrings catching her breath.

“Hi, Lyra,” Twilight said. Lyra Heartstrings was an odd mare, to say the least – convinced of wild theories and the existence of impossible creatures. She and Twilight has clashed on more than a few theories over the course of Twilight’s time in Ponyville.

Lyra grinned. “You’ll never believe what I just saw.”

“What?” Twilight asked, feeling a mite impatient.

“There was a human at the edge of the Everfree Forest!” Lyra grinned.

Twilight blinked for a moment, taking in the words that she had just heard, but somehow she didn’t register it properly.

“I’m… what? A what?” she asked, the words stumbling out of her mouth.

“A human!” Lyra repeated. “Came out of the Everfree! It’s hurt, we’ve got to help it!”

“That… seems unlikely,” Twilight said slowly. “For it to be a human, I mean-”

“And that’s what I said about Nightmare Moon,” Lyra said. “And look at you now! You know what Pinkie says -”

She took a deep breath, and her horn glowed. There was a sort of pinkish shimmer over her body.

“Pony legend is usually true, and most often painful!” she chirped, imitating Ponyville’s premier party pony.

“What about the legend of the Ponies With The Mouths of Ducks?” Twilight asked.

“That’s a horrible legend and we should never speak of it, ever again,” Lyra said. “That was definitely false, and we’re all happier not thinking about it. Unlike the human that’s right here, and you gotta see it now, Twilight, you gotta, how’d he even get here and I’m so excited-”

“Lyra-“

Twilight shook her head slightly, but Lyra was already dashing off, back in the direction she had come from. One part of the maddened-sounding gabble had been distinct, at least.

Whatever Lyra thought she’d encountered, it was injured.

‘And here I thought today would be relaxing.’

Harmoniverse.

“Now how’d I get down here?” Lyra grumbled aloud. “And how do I get out?”

There had to be a mishap in the magic. She’d wanted to transport herself to the other side, not wind up caught slap-bang between two cliffsides, a rock and a hard place, whichever was which. Vaguely, she supposed it was lucky she hadn’t utterly missed her mark and teleported in mid-air. Without any clouds to catch her, the fall would have been cruel.

‘Maybe I could create some stairs?’ Lyra thought, looking towards a large, flat brown rock. ‘Just one rock in front of the other, and I’ll be fine. Easy as piling oats.’

She took a deep breath, imagined holding the rock, and felt her magic grip it...

The rock shattered to powder underneath her grip.

‘What!’

Lyra had barely touched it with her TK. Barely even felt it in her magic. Either that had been particularly weak sandstone, or something weird was happening.

Her eyes darted the dry canyon bed for another rock, finally settling on something sturdier. Limestone, by the looks of it. A small slab, just to test it out. Tongue sticking out, she tried again, feeling her magic wrap around the rock, ready to lift. Except this time, whereas her magic had pulverised the first rock, this time, she could barely hold onto it. It was as if the rock weighed about fifty pounds more than it should.

‘This doesn’t make any sense. Every teacher said I had above-average precision, whatever that means. So how’m I doing this? Something has to be wrong with...’

Lyra froze, and let the rock drop to the ground.

‘The magic.’

Something hadn’t felt right when she’d tried out teleportation. When she’d lifted the first rock, she had gripped too hard without intending to. Now she was unable to lift something that, by all rights, ought to have been a piece of cake. What could have–

Lyra turned, heart caught in her throat.

There was something on the air; a kind of humming which had gotten stronger after her attempt to move the rock. She could almost, not quite hear it, but feel it. It wasn’t a noise. It was more as if someone had tapped a tuning fork to a rock, and Lyra’s horn was vibrating in tune with it.

‘Magical fluctuation!’ she thought, harried. ‘Oh, this could be bad! This could be very bad! Is it Saturday already?’

Twitching, she looked all around for a way out of the chasm.

Instinct took over. Barely checking to ensure she still had her saddle-bags and everything she needed inside, Lyra fled. She galloped as far away as she could from where she’d appeared, winding down what path the chasm’s had to offer, in desperate hope of finding some way out.

After a few moments, she caught a glimmer of… something, only to find herself near what looked like some kind of natural rock formation, not unlike a staircase.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Lyra breathed out, panting. “Didn’t expect finding a way’d be that easy.”

Before she could climb the stairs, however, the light caught her eye again. It was glimmering from the inside of a cave a little way from the bottom of the ‘stairs’.

Curious, Lyra began trotting towards it.

‘Some sort of natural crystal formation?’ she postulated innerly.

The cave was deep, but it didn’t take her long to find the source of the light. Her eyes widened with wonder as they beheld a most extraordinary sight.

It looked, to all intents and purposes, like a giant tree. But not just any tree. This one, majestic and towering within its lonely cavern, had apparently grown from the living crystal, sprouting five jagged branches which embossed at the ends by diamonds of different colours. Colours that looked oddly familiar to Lyra, though she couldn’t quite place them. At the heart of this tree in which the crystalline formations of the branches met, where a knothole might have been found upon an ordinary tree, was an arrangement not unlike a star.

‘Not unlike Twilight’s mark,’ some part of her mind thought, unbidden.

Below that, strangest of all, between the roots, were the imprints of the Sun and the Moon.

“Is it… you?” Lyra asked aloud, looking at the tree. “Are you the source of the magical disturbance?”

She felt almost stupid for talking to it, but reassured herself - there were many entities that existed within otherwise static objects.

The tree scintillated, twinkling as if in reply.

“Why?” Lyra asked simply. “Why am I…?”

There was a sudden rumble. Lyra turned around, frowning, before looking back at the tree. Another rumble came, stronger than the last one, and then another.

‘Is the cavern unstable?’ Lyra wondered, taking a step back.

Suddenly there was a flash of what almost looked like lightning, and Lyra jumped.

“What was that?!” she yelled, more out of reflex than anything.

Another flash lashed out, seemingly from nowhere, and then another. Lyra backed away, feeling the urge to run, but something compelled her to stay – whether fear or morbid curiosity, she couldn’t say.

The flashes continued, one after the other, then more, until in a sudden blaze of light there was a flash that filled the cavern, and when it receded, a figure was standing in front of the tree. It was dressed in a simple shirt, with a long metallic… something slung over its shoulder. A pair of daggers was sheathed as its side, as well as some sort of wooden and metal thing popped in a holster on its hip. It looked like a crossbow, but without the limbs. Didn’t the Griffons have something like that? But this was so much smaller...

Lyra blinked at it. ‘Bipedal. Clothes. Mostly hairless, except–’

“Lyra?” it said quietly. “What are you doing here?”

“I… I don’t understand,” Lyra said. “Who are you?”

“It’s me,” the thing said, stepping into the light. And Lyra could see that, beyond a doubt, it was a human.

“It’s me,” the thing - the human - said. “David Elliot. I was worried I might never see you again, after… but… hey, here you are.” He looked around. “Wherever here is…”

“What?” Lyra asked, looking up at him. “I… I’ve never met you before. I don’t-”

A look of what could have only been pure confusion spread across the human’s face.

“Well,” the human said. “This was not where any of us expected me to end up.”