Lyra and the Crystal Fair
Imagine a city covered in crystals. Everything is crystal. Even the citizens of this city are crystal. Now imagine that this beautiful city, with its beautiful citizens is an enormous kingdom with futuristic, sharp edged architecture, all made entirely out of diamonds, sprawled out in the shape of a snowflake with a beautiful diamond palace as its bejeweled centerpiece. Now what if I told you this city was an empire. An empire ruled by a beautiful, pearlescent pink unicorn with wings, better known as an alicorn, with a mane with bright streaks of blonde, purple, pink and red, by the name of Princess MiAmoré Cadenza, better known to her subjects as Princess Cadence. This is the story of one of her subjects, a unicorn by the name of Lyra Heartstrings.
Lyra was just like any other unicorn, or pegasus, or earth pony that inhabited the lovely Crystal Empire. She was aquamarine green with a slightly lighter tail and mane color, both with a single horizontal streak of white in the middle, and a harp on either side of her flank as well as a aquamarine green horn sticking out of her forehead, and she, like everything else in the kingdom, was also encrusted with diamonds. She enjoyed hanging out with her friend, Bon-bon, sitting on benches for no particular reason, and, above all else, playing her harp as it was, after all, her special talent. Lyra, like all other unicorns, also possessed magic that went along with her talent, allowing her to strum the strings with magic provided by her horn, which was extremely useful on account of the fact that she had no fingers, and therefore would not be able to do so otherwise. She could also do small levitations of objects to help her to carry things such as her harp or books, but other than that, her horn was useless.
One day, while sitting on a bench outside the castle at the heart of the kingdom, the princess approached her. Her first response, being a rather excitable unicorn, was to jump up and down, which is exactly what she did. “Ohmigosh it's Cadence!” she thought to herself, “Omigoshomigoshomigosh! She is the best princess ever! Wait… she’s the only princess, but still! She’s the princess of love! She spreads love everywhere she goes!” Lyra paused in her thoughts, “Wait, if she’s the princess of love doesn’t that mean that she could just make me love her? How do I not know she is not doing that? Oh, who cares! Ohmigosh she’s talking to me!”
“Hello Lyra. Having a good day?” asked Cadence noticing the excited state of Lyra. Cadence was flanked on either side by two royal guards, each a pegasus, and carrying large crystal spears.
“Oh yes I am Princess Cadence!”
“Just Cadence is fine,” replied Cadence blushing slightly. “So, I was wondering if you would like to play your harp at this year’s annual Crystal Fair? It would be much appreciated.”
Lyra was stunned. She didn't know what to say. The princess wanted her to play at the Crystal Fair? The purpose of the Crystal Fair was to power up the Crystal Heart with happiness because whatever the people of the Crystal Empire felt, so did the rest of the world; therefore, if she screwed up, and everybody hated it… Lyra didn't want to think about that. After a moment of deep thought, she realized that she did not have time for deep thought, and answered with an enthusiastic “YES!”
She then rushed back to her crystal house and pulled out every songbook she she had in her library and forced herself to memorize all the songs. By the time she was finished memorizing those, she needed more books. When she had finished practicing, she had been at it for months, and had mastered every song known to the world. (Well, at least in the Crystal Library). After that, on the night before the fair, she finally allowed herself some time to relax.
The next day, she woke up, grabbed her harp, and ran out the door to the center of the Kingdom to make her place next to the Crystal Heart in the Palace Square. The Palace Square was a beautiful place with a huge overarching dome that was actually the base of the Crystal Palace, with six diamond arches, each leading to the other branches of the snowflake layout of the city, with a huge crystal mosaic of the symbol of the crystal empire, a white snowflake on a blue background for a floor, and at the center of the snowflake was the mysterious Crystal Heart.
She had never been so excited, or so nervous. She had never done anything like this before. she was so nervous she could burst! She then calmed down, got to her place, and began to play. The entire square was filled with the beautiful sound of Lyra’s harp. The music swelled up inside of her, bursting with happiness. She had never felt such sheer joy! She wished that the evening could last forever. She became so lost in the music, and the joy of it all that she did not notice that the Crystal Heart began to glow a bright pink, the bright pink of love.
When Lyra went home that evening, she was exhausted. All of the magic that was required to play such beautiful music took a lot out of her. But in the end, she figured it was all worth it. And worth it, it was, for that night, the Crystal Heart was more fully charged than it had been in centuries; all thanks to a unicorn named Lyra Heartstrings, and her passion for the harp.
