Reduplicate

by TheNitroPony

On All Fours

Previous Chapter

Lyra awoke smelling the pungent scent of wine, causing her to crinkle her nose instinctively, and turned over to see Sweetie Drops sprawled out on her own bed without a care in the universe. Snorting in half-derision and half-humor, Lyra edged herself off of her bedspread and tiredly walked downstairs, setting the coffee machine to brew and procuring some cereal for breakfast, humming to herself a little melody she'd been working on lately.

Not too long after the coffee brewed, Sweetie hobbled downstairs, wincing at every step she took. Lyra glanced over with no small amount of sympathy.

Sweetie Drops wordlessly took her seat at the table, clutching her head in her forelegs and letting out a long, low groan.

"How are you doing, Sweets?" Lyra asked.

"I'd be doing better if I could figure out why I have such a horrendous headache this morning," Sweetie mumbled. "Otherwise, not that great."

"Do you still remember... you know? You being human?" Lyra asked.

"What?" Sweetie glanced at Lyra with a weak glare before returning to her curled-up position leaning on the table. "Don't know what you're talking about, and to be honest I don't want to devote too much brainpower to thinking about it."

Lyra nodded, more to herself than to Sweetie's answer, and silently ate her breakfast, caught up in thought.

"Well, headache or no headache, I'm opening up the shop today," Sweetie said, her voice thin and quivering but determined. "I let it stay closed way longer than I should have for reasons I can't even remember."

"Do you-" Lyra bit her tongue and swallowed her sentence.

Sweetie Drops raised her head to stare at her. "What?" Lyra shook her head. Sweetie held her gaze for a moment longer before flicking her eyes to the cereal bowl in front of Lyra instead. "Should probably get something for myself too."

Lyra finished her morning meal before Sweetie did. "Uh, I guess I'll go do my usual morning thing at the park then."

Sweetie nodded, wincing at what no doubt was a whanging migraine.

Lyra collected her lyre case before hustling off to the park. At least she could play some music to escape her dark thoughts for a little while.

Finding her favorite bench vacant that day, Lyra sat down before opening her case and magically lifting out her lyre, causing a folded paper to flutter into the air along with it. Catching it with a hoof, Lyra opened it to reveal a letter. Setting her lyre back in its case, Lyra began to read.

Dear Lyra Heartstrings,

I'd like to start off by saying thank you. You don't remember it, and the details are getting fuzzy to me now too, but from the first moment of us getting thrown into Equestria without warning you were the most supportive and caring about me. More than anypony else these last few days, you've been the rock I needed despite not even remembering anything concerning the situation, and you trusted me on little else other than faith. That is almost certainly why I'm not a gibbering mess, or even in the hospital or worse from any number of silly things I could have done out of desperation. You worrying for me helped a lot, because I was so terrified that everyone would forget me. That I would just lose everything I had and not even know what I'd lost, and be powerless to stop it. But you cared, you were there telling me that I wasn't being ignored, that my words did mean something, and that I still meant something even as I was fading away as far as anypony else was concerned.

I'm sorry if I was ever a burden on you; I know I caused you a lot of grief agonizing over what was happening to me, and that it might have come off as selfish. But I hope that even once I'm gone, you can keep this letter as a reminder that when you were faced with a difficult situation, you buckled down and helped me out of nothing more than your altruism and a sense of duty to your and Sweetie's friendship. You could have ignored me, you could have told me to just "get over it," you could have just left me on my own every time I stewed in my thoughts, and saved yourself stress without any negative repercussions. You could have even slapped me and I never would have remembered it after a few days. But you stood by me despite my unstable behavior and mixed messages and bore it all in the name of doing the right thing.

I really can't thank you enough. For being my friend, and for being Sweetie's friend. And the thing we agree on most in this mixed-up head of mine is that we are the luckiest individual in the universe to have you as a friend.

-Bon Bon

Lyra struggled not to let her sharp breaths descend into bawling as she wiped tears from her eyes. Fighting mightily to keep her hooves from shaking, Lyra carefully replaced the lyre with the letter before snapping the case shut and cradling her instrument, rocking silently back and forth as she let the tears roll down her face.

After taking several minutes to calm herself down, Lyra sniffed loudly, wiped her face one last time, and began playing her lyre, closing her eyes and plucking out the melody she'd first had the idea for when Sweetie Drops discussed what she knew of music where she had come from.

Ending on an outro that sounded right to her, Lyra opened her eyes to see a filly and her mother staring wide-eyed at her on the bench.

"Wow, miss," the filly said in wonderment, "that's a really pretty song."

"Oh," Lyra said. "Well, thank you very much."

"What's its name?" the filly asked.

For the past few days Lyra had been stuck on a name, but this time it flowed out of her mind as easily as the melody had on the lyre strings.

Lyra smiled at the filly, and said "I call it 'Bon Bon's Song.'"