I Dream Of Music And Magic (Lyra II)

The caverns were filled with water. No matter where they turned, they never found a dry space. Not that anypony was complaining, the chase had woken them all up well enough and nopony felt like complaining about anything right now. Not even Lyra and she had every reason to. The moment those creatures had shown up her leg had started throbbing. The small spot, which hadn't acted up at all when the water had touched it was hurting more and more, she couldn't even put a bit of pressure on the leg without the pain making her want to scream out.

They had gone through the caverns, seeking to go deeper, but Lyra didn't find the concentration to cast another spell. On the other side of the collapsed tunnel a faint whisper could be heard. The one thing they had done was to move away from the noise and then they sat in a circle, the water touching their coats. They tried to pay as little attention to it as possible, instead keeping their ears perked.

"Not quite how I expected our first camping trip to go," Lyra tried to jokeafter a while and much to her own surprise, Octavia giggled at that. Raindrops and Derpy soon joined in, Twilight, too. Lyra just looked at them detached. Somehow she had forgotten how to laugh.  "I wanna go home."

"I don't," Twilight said bluntly. "It's scary, yet. . . We're going to save world. All of this is just one big adventure, like I never thought I'd have. Being the hero is super." The darkness was all around them but Lyra heard the sound in her voice, the faint sadness, the longing for something else, she could hear that there was truth in the words but also lies. "The only thing I ever had was books. I just read, and I think I hate books. I don't want to read about fantastic stuff, I wanna see it, touch it, live it."

"This here is better than the Dark. Sure, those things are horrible but we're together in this and that's wonderful," she heard Raindrops suddenly chime in, in quiet manner. "It wouldn't be if any of you weren't here, though."

Derpy agreed, "And if we'll stay together everything will turn out alright." Lyra heard the laughter, the heartwarming laughter of her friend.

She looked at the ground, at the blackness, felt the water. "I don't remember my parents," she said after the others shared a few happy moments. "I lived with uncle Tattletale. He could spin a story like no other but he only ever told me one story, every night. How he had met his special somepony. She was gone by the time I came into his life and he said that a unicorn was a filthy, luckless thing and that I would keep her away. So he tried to make me an earth pony. He proudly proclaimed me his niece once my horn was off, but still hated me and whenever somepony would find out that I wasn't what he said I was he would go on about how my parents had been bad ponies and I had been their punishment. He said I was responsible for why they're gone. I didn't even know them, but Tattletale said that nopony in their right mind would ever love a unicorn.

"When the Celestial Hall burned down he was beaten up in an alley near it and as the flames spread they reached him. They told me that and I ran, Celestia knows I ran. He had tolerated me, a unicorn, when even my parents had left because of it. He loved me and he took my horn because he did and stil I ran, not even knowing to where I would go."

The unicorn had no idea why she said all that but she felt the water running ever so slowly and the pain in her leg felt like it grew.

"Hugh and Madame never hurt me, they never beat me and they never did anything but smile and work for us. I want to believe that what we're doing is right, but they are up there and we are down here."

She felt a hoof on her shoulder. "Don't worry, it's as Derpy said," she heard Tavi's voice. "We'll make everything right and then we're going home and there'll be muffins."

The pain was hurting enough that she knew she couldn't stand for a while. "Thanks, Tavi. It means a lot," she said.

Lyra Heartstrings had always looked for a family and found it in this small group, or at least that's what she thought at this moment. Her coat was white and her mane of pale color. She looked at the world with eyes of a dark gold and found it so sad that at this moment, darkness was all around them and she couldn't see her friends at all.

"The Seapalace, your grandfather played that, right?" she then asked.

Tavi sounded taken aback, she could tell, "What? How do you know?"

"It's just. . . I was there and I guess I took something from it. There's magic in music, right? It can spread laughter and if music reaches all the corners of the world again, then harmony is truly restored, right?"

"That's how the tale goes," Octavia said, her voice hushed.

"I'm sorry," Lyra felt her own voice failing. She felt the pain in her leg and only now started to grasp it. There was a silence that would've been deemed awkward by any other pony but Lyra listened and the faint roaring had disappeared, the voices of the Night Terror and its minions had vanished. She knew why. "The river flows past me, south. I think we can bet that the Lunarium will be there. We should go."

"Really, you think?" Twilight asked and Lyra then knew that everypony was standing up and started moving, though only carefully. They still wouldn't look back, would they?

"Lyra, you coming?"

"I don't think I can," she said and tried to smile. For whom, she did not know.

There was no movement around her. "What do you mean?" Derpy asked, "Do you need help?" She was kind as always.

The whisper started in her head. "I want to sleep and dream of music and magic, Derpy. Just let me take a nap here."

Then she felt a spark as Twilight used her own bit of magic. She heard her grunt and she heard the magic spark but in her own eyes, nothing happened. Sure enough, Twilight wasn't a wizard. Lyra was a wizard now. Wizards could make anything possible, normal ponies couldn't.

She heard gasps around her but didn't understand why. Everything was dark around them still.

"Lyra?" Twilight asked.

"Yes?"

"Are you really feeling sleepy?"

"A bit. I'll just take a small nap, catch up to you later. You ponies go on."

"Lyra. . ." Twilight seemed to struggle for the next words. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

She thought about that for a moment, the pain growing, the whisper echoing through her head. "If you reach the Lunarium before I can catch up. . . Could you bring the laughter back? Tattletale cried when I last saw him and he probably cried when I left, he's still alright, burned maybe, but alright. Everypony can laugh at jokes but there's always something missing. I want that to come back, there's just as much good in laughter as in honesty or kindness."

"Lyra," she heard her friend say and then felt herself pulled into a hug. At first she only felt Twilight's arms around her, then the ones from the others.

Kill them.

They all hugged her, embracing her with such warmth it felt truly wonderful. She knew the feeling of every arm around her. She felt Twilight, who had so little strength in her little legs. She felt Octavia, who in turn was so strong and fierce she could've easily lifted Lyra up on the spot. She felt Derpy who hugged her so tightly it nearly stopped her from breathing and she felt Raindrops who smelled of fields and knew songs older than all of them together were. She couldn't help but smile. There was a whisper in her ears and in her head, though. It told her to do things.

Slaughter them, butcher them.

It told her those things with such bitter anger and dark terror. Lyra felt the embraces leaving her and with them the warmth of her own body. Was her time running out already? She heard the distant voices of ponies she had once known and the memory of life was slowly fading from her grasp. She sat there in the darkness, suddenly on her own, with everypony having left. Poor Lyra, she thought, always losing all the things she loves. And she felt her heartbeat, steady and normal. Then even it grew fainter and fainter as the pain from her leg took over her entire body and then every bit of feeling vanished. First from her hooves, then her arms and legs, her tail, her body, her neck and then her head stopped working.

Lyra Heartstrings laid on the floor as the black liquid was oozing from her mouth, eyes and ears. She had stopped breathing and her body was unmoving, until a faint green light found itself in her eyes. A poisonous thing that let her body twitch in ways terrifying to behold. The dead body stood up and turned around to where the filly's friends had run. The beast opened its mouth and more of the liquid splattered across the water. Then it let out it's terrible shriek.

Lyra was gone but she dreamt once more of magic, music and two ponies holding her hooves, telling her that they loved her.