Just A Small Wound (Lyra I)

It was completely silent and neither Trixie nor the soldier ponies had returned. Lyra still couldn't believe it, how she had only been able to sit there and watch as Trixie went off on her own. The unicorn leaned against the rock and looked at the crystals around her, yet didn't look at them at all.

She had thought to bring joy to the other ponies and had found her magic in happy thoughts and laughter. At least, that's what she had thought but now, sitting here, she hadn't really done much. Not one joke had been cracked to lighten the mood, not once had she felt really giddy. Proud, yes. She had cast magic, that was an unbelievable thing and a great feeling but the reason why she had been able to summon that orb as it was was because she had wanted to make her friends a bit happier with it.

Her leg still itched, there where the scissors had scraped her. If there was a scar it was obscured by her fur. Yet, even though it was just a small wound she had felt it ever since she had regained both her identity as a unicorn and the powers that came with it. Luckily, it was only annoying and not really bothering her too much when she was walking. She let out a sigh and closed her eyes for a bit.

The sound of rushing water ran through her ears and the sand felt soft beneath her rear. She let the two frontlegs move in circles, imagining how she'd put fingers inside the sand, feeling the cold of the earth and then she'd move each of the eight and the thumbs, too. If you had hands, you needed them to have thumbs. Those were important.

A smile formed on her face and she remembered the first question she had ever asked Trixie: "If you're a wizard, then can you give me hands?"

Trixie had denied her that sweet thing, because magic had not existed. She would have never grown hands or walked on two feet. She had tried, once, twice, though. Standing went well enough for a bit of time, you could lean on things then. Walking was hard, it hurt her back and after but a few steps she'd always fall forward. Hugh had told her that ponies weren't meant to walk on just two legs, that's why they had four. And fingers weren't necessary for them, too. You could grab things just fine with hooves. Basically, ponies were fine as they were. Still Lyra had yearned for more.

She remembered the Celestial Hall and how she had sat there with her guardian when the celloist had gotten onto the stage and with a smile on his face, dedicated to somepony in the audience, began to play 'The Seapalace'. Lyra remembered her guardian, Tattletale, a light brown stallion with a blonde mane. She remembered how he had looked and had tried to enjoy it, despite everything. They had gotten the seats farthest away from the play, the ones where one could hardly hear anything and the ponies that had been seated before them just wouldn't stop talking. The two of them still tried to listen and soon enough, as the music reached its high and the orchestra started everything before them fell quiet. Everypony was looking at the stage with sheer awe and Lyra could only imagine what the celloist saw and felt in these moments. Waves of emotions as ponies felt what the lone seapony was struggling through and they all hoped for the story to have a happy ending.

She remembered widening her smile, so much that it hurt and turning around. Tattletale just sat there, his hooves covering his face, sobbing and crying. She looked at him and the music in the hall was exchanged with him saying one thing over and over again.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. . . "

He had died in the flames.

Poor Tattletale who had wanted to give Lyra a good home, poor Tattletale who had lost the mare he had loved and everything else that had made his life good, and poor Tattletale, who had called her filth and cut off her horn.

Poor Lyra, she thought, always looking for something that isn't there anymore.

The seapony had struggled, the seapony had yearned. Lyra had yearned, too. For how long she didn't remember but it was the seapony that inspired her to become proactive. She couldn't read but still she had asked everypony and had looked at every picture that could have hinted at the existence of humans and then she would draw pictures of them. Innocent things they had been and tiny, but important. Then, after a while, she had begun dreaming about them, being one of them and most importantly: Living in their world.

She had no concept what a world populated with humans looked like so she just imagined it like Equestria under the princesses, only in better.They would be ruled by the smartest men who only cared about making everyhuman happy and they could control the weather with mighty machines. In fact, they had machines for everything. For making food, for feeding the animals, for keeping the forests in good shape. Since humans were imaginative they would even do a better job with technology than ponydom. So good, that they probably wouldn't even know what pollution was, or racism. All the human parents loved their children, too, she thought. Nohuman was ever hurting anyhuman else and there was a day every summer where families would just go out. A mother with a sickenly sweet smile on one side, because life was just so good. A father on the other side, grown a bit fat because of the luxury and telling his wife how much he loved her and how he would never leave her or her child because of some differences in their skincolor. A child between them, her skin white as milk and her hair a pale blonde, wearing her finest summer dress and holding each of her parents tightly, not even thinking of letting them go.

"Don't worry," they said. "We love you. We will never leave you. Lyra. . . "

"Lyra!" She heard Twilight call. The Filly was leaning over her, her hoof touching the forehead of the cyan one. "What's wrong with you?" She asked. Lyra was amazed how scared Twilight appeared to be, but then it hit her again.

The poor pony was afraid of losing another friend, wasn't she?

"I-", she started, her gaze drifting to her left front leg. A dark spot had appeared faintly beneath her coat, she saw it, she felt it. "It's just a small wound, no biggie."

Lyra gave her best smile, "That and I'm a bit tired."

"We need to get going. Trixie. . . She knows what she's doing. She's smart and all," Octavia said from their side. She looked tired, too, if not more so than how Lyra felt.

The unicorn only knew that they now had one more reason to go to the Lunarium. If it would fix everything, then surely all this here too. Laughter would come back to the world and they would all be happy. That was what needed to happen, that was what they needed to make happen. This was Lyra's resolution now. She wanted everypony to be happy and for that matter, even if it meant sacrificing her own ability to smile, she would get to it. Being brave enough to do just that was what she decided to do.

Slowly she stood up. "Yeah;" Lyra said and looked to Twilight and gave her a smile, one she believed in herself. "We go on, Trixie's going to manage and if we find the Lunarium quick enough, maybe we can even help her."

That seemed enough for the little brown filly with the thin legs that could barely support her own weight and she nodded. Derpy offered Twily her help once more and their looks turned from where the river came.

Lyra already knew one thing, there was something she had gained while fighting Magia but she had lost it already. The feeling of hope, the faint magic she had felt. She knew the color of her coat was fading and the horn would soon disappear, she knew that the magic she had used was foul. She understood that now but somehow she also knew that that was just the reason to keep going.

She really would have liked a voice in her head to tell her where to go as she stepped forward, following the others. That thought lingered, just as the feeling of hopelessness did, yet it appeared again: The distant voice of something that waited.

Don't worry, no sacrifice will be forgotten and in the end, the laughter of the children will fill these caves once more.