Seven Years Ago

Lyra’s Story

Celestia’s sun shone brightly in the middle of an expanse of light-blue sky, casting a warm light upon the small town of Ponyville. Ponies of all sorts milled and wandered about the brightly colored buildings, buying wares from the vendors or chatting with their friends. Pegasi flew above the town, clearing the sky of any unwanted clouds that lingered in the area. There was a general atmosphere of cheeriness and contentment among its citizens, with the exception of one particular unicorn.

Heartstrings, more commonly called Lyra by her friends, lay curled up on her bed, crying into a pillow. She was an average-sized unicorn with an aqua coat and a silver colored mane. Adorned on her flank was the picture of a lyre, representing her talent with the instrument. Whenever she was upset or stressed, she would always play a tune upon it, taking comfort in the soothing melodies that it produced. Today, however, the lyre would have done nothing to ease her sadness. She had been humiliated and ridiculed by some of the only ponies that had understood her, and now she wanted nothing more than to be alone. Her sobbing was interrupted when Lyra heard a knocking on her bedroom door.

“Lyra, are you okay? Do you want to talk about what happened?”

Hearing the familiar voice of her roommate and friend, Bon-Bon, Lyra lifted her tear-stained face up from the pillow and sniffed.

“Go away, Bon-bon. I don’t want to see anypony right now,” Lyra said before lying back down and pulling a blanket over her face. “Just go away.”

Bon-Bon sighed and turned away from the door to her friend’s room and trotted down the hallway, her hooves echoing off the wooden floor as she walked. She had no idea what to do. Lyra was normally a tough pony and wasn’t easily upset by anything, and when something did upset her, she always bounced back within a few hours. Yet here was her best friend, crying like a small foal. Bon-Bon sighed a second time and sat down on the plush, burgundy couch in their house’s their main room. She had expected that Lyra would come home from that Human Research Society convention of hers as giddy as a schoolfilly, but she had instead walked into the house without a word and locked herself in her room.

Now Lyra’s gotten me depressed, Bon-Bon thought to herself before standing up from the couch. Stretching, she contemplated what to do to pass the time. Maybe I should go visit Roseluck. She always knows how to make a pony smile. She might have a way to cheer Lyra up. Stretching once more and popping her neck she walked out of her house and into the glorious sunshine of the afternoon.

***

Roseluck was a very pretty mare that ran the flower stand in the Ponyville market district. She was a bit shorter than most other ponies and had a red mane with a buttercup colored coat. Her cutiemark was a single rose, representing her talent of growing and caring for roses. She was, at the moment, setting up a display on her market stall that showed off her new breed of roses she called Rainbow’s Delight. The roses had been named after the various hues of color that adorned the petals, mixing together to form a beautiful rainbow on each flower. Roseluck had spent weeks working on cultivating the roses, adding different amounts of liquid rainbow into the soil until the flowers came out just right.

Within minutes of finishing her display ponies swarmed her stand, oohing and aahing at her gorgeous flowers. Business picked up soon after, with colts buying bouquets of the colorful roses for their mares. Even an orange pegasus filly bought some, leaving with half the flowers after seeing the name.

That Scootaloo sure does admire Rainbow Dash, Roseluck thought to herself. Then again, so do I, along with half the mares in Ponyville. She giggled a little, wondering how the pegasus would react to seeing the flowers and the name. Rainbow would probably say something about them being 20% cooler than her normal roses.

Roseluck was pulled out of her thoughts when she heard a voice say “Roseluck, can I talk to you for a bit?”

Glancing up from her flowers Roseluck saw her friend Bon-Bon standing in front of her stall with a worried look on her face.

“Sure thing, Bon-Bon. What’s got you down?” Roseluck asked, putting her hooves under her chin.

“Well, it’s about Lyra.”

“Oh, are you two having relationship issues?”

A blush appeared on Bon-Bon’s face as she sputtered out “I’ve already told, Roseluck. We’re just friends.”

“Oh come now. I’ve seen you eye her flank plenty of times. You should just-’’

“ROSELUCK! We’re just friends. And even if we were dating, which we’re not, that would have nothing to do with this,” Bon-Bon said, stomping a hoof on the ground to emphasize her point.

The red-maned pony chuckled. “I was only teasing. Now what seems to be the problem? It doesn’t have anything to do with her research into humans, does it?”

“That might just be the problem, only I’ve never seen her like this. She got back from that Human Research convention in Canterlot and she’s been crying in her room ever sense. I’ve tried talking to her but she said that she wants to be left alone. I don’t know what to do.” Bon-Bon’s head drooped dejectedly and she pawed at the ground with a hoof.

“Oh my. That does sound bad. I’ll see if I can get her to tell us what wrong. I just need to pack up my stall,” said Roseluck, as she started to place her roses and gardening tools into the cart that doubled as a stand. With the help of Bon-Bon she finished packing in five minutes and the two mares began to trot down towards the shared house.

***

Lyra sat up on the bed and wiped her tears away with a hoof. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot and her throat hurt, but she felt a great deal better after getting everything out of her system. She hopped onto the floor and twisted her back and neck, groaning as her joints popped. Her stomach growled and she realized that she had missed lunch due to her crying fit. Lyra walked over to the door and opened it with her magic, wincing as the old hinges creaked.

“I’ll have to oil those later,” she mumbled to herself.

Entering the kitchen Lyra opened up several cabinets and surveyed the insides, frowning at their contents or, rather, their lack of contents. She managed to scrounge up two a loaf of bread, some daisies, lettuce, and a tomato. Picking up a knife with magic, she cut a few slices from the bread and tomato, and placed the daisies, tomato slices, and lettuce between two pieces of bread. She wasn’t that good of a cook, and sandwiches were about the only thing she could make. She had almost burned down the house once trying to heat up some soup. Bon-Bon had forbidden her from touching the stove ever again. Lyra chuckled slightly at the memory and trotted into the main room, her sandwich floating in her magical aura just ahead of her. Sitting down she began to eat her sandwich, taking a few small bites and letting her eyes wander around the room. The room contained one couch, two wooden chairs that were never used, a brick fireplace, two small bookshelves and a coffee table.

Lyra’s eyes paused and rested on the old book that sat on the coffee table. It was a copy of Curious Tales and Stories of Equestria, by Swiftwind Coltsfoot. The book contained various stories and tall tales from all around Equestria. Lyra had bought it because of the book purportedly had an account about a human sighting, though it wasn’t the most cheerful thing she had ever read. Levitating it over with her magic, Lyra opened the book to the account of the human and began to read.

In the Northern regions of Equestria, right near the very border were several small towns and villages. They were all quite isolated, but one was rarely ever heard of. It was called Frostin. One day, in the neighboring village of Coldstone, located on the opposite side of the Great Equestrian Rockies, the villagers awoke to find a young colt, barely grown and half-frozen at the edge of the village. He stared straight ahead of him, never saying anything or acknowledging the existence of any pony. What concerned the villagers the most was that whenever the colt slept he would always convulse and scream, fighting off some unimaginable terror. Finally, after a week, he spoke. He said that he was from Frostin and that his village had been attacked by a beast of some kind. It was twice as tall as any pony and walked upon two legs. The beast carried a great sword and had the use of magic. When the villagers approached the creature it laid the village to waste, killing every pony except for the young colt. It then left a chilling message for the colt.

I am humanity

The terror that once was

One day my people shall rise

And your world shall end.

The creature had then vanished in a flash of light. Coldstone sent several stallions to the village of Frostin and had found that the colt’s story was true; the village was no more and all the ponies were dead. To this day there have been no more sightings of humans in the North of Equestria, but the fear still lingers there, where ponies tell stories of the vile humans that destroy and kill without care or compassion.

Lyra let the book fall back onto the table from her magical grasp and stretched out on the couch, pondering on the story. Humans aren’t like that. No, they can’t be like that. After all, a human once-

Lyra’s thoughts were interrupted when she heard the door open and two hushed voices, one that she recognized as Bon-Bon and the other as Roseluck, speaking to each other. Sitting up, she waited until they turned the corner of the hallway into the main room.

“So, I’m assuming that you two are here to cheer me up, correct?” Lyra asked, lifting an eyebrow in a questioning look.

“Indeed we are. Bon-Bon here said that you were crying in your room and wouldn’t talk to her, so I came to see if I could help.” Roseluck said as she and Bon-Bon sat on the couch beside Lyra.

“Seriously, Lyra, we want to know what happened to make you that upset.” Bon-Bon said with a worried look.

“Well, I told the other ponies at the convention my story.”

“What story?” Roseluck asked, curiosity apparent in her voice.

“Lyra, I told you that it would be a bad idea.”

“I expected them to be skeptical, but not to throw it into my face and laugh at me. I should have known better.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Roseluck asked again, with a slight amount of irritation in her voice at being ignored.

Lyra looked at her friend at shook her head. “I won’t bother telling you. You’ll just laugh at me like every other pony.”

Roseluck grabbed her friends head between her hooves and lifter Lyra’s face in alignment with hers. “Now Lyra, I’m your friend. I promise I won’t laugh or ridicule you. Now I want to hear that story.”

“Alright, then. I’ll tell you about what happened seven years ago,” here Lyra paused for a moment and took a deep breath.

“I’ll tell you about the day a human saved my life.”

Author’s Note

So this is my first fanfic. I don’t know if I should continue or not, so any criticism will be welcomed. If I continue I can’t guarantee if I’ll update on a regular basis.