Author's Note

Hopefully you haven't abandoned this story yet, for those that have, I can't blame ya. For those that haven't, thank you for being loyal. Things have just been really difficult in my life lately, for one thing I'm balancing College at Algonquin, I might be getting a job at a marketing firm for my animations, and I have a ton of other things to worry about. I know there are a few of you that want me to write more, so I will try my best to find time in between homework assignments and interviews. As a reward for being loyal, you'll finally get to see what Anthro looks like. I apologize in advance for how crude the style is, but I like it. Anyways, enjoy this chapter.

Chapter 28

Lyra had finally been allowed back home, painfully awkward didn't even begin to describe how her life felt now that Bon-Bon, the pony she had been friends with since she was young, had finally got to see her friend only to find her paralyzed. Incredibly, within a heartbeat, Bon-Bon volunteered to be a caretaker for her seeing as she had weak magic. Lyra's first day home was depressing, she worried about Bon-Bon's friendship would suffer due to the new stress. How was she supposed to take care of Lyra while she was living in Ponyville and only visiting?

"Well I might as well move back here," said the cream-coloured pony with no second thought, "besides, Ponyville is getting boring."

"Bon-Bon," Lyra began, her eyes looking up at her friend with concern as she mumbled, "you don't have to do this."

"You're my friend," she replied, "and I care about you."

The majority of the day was spent inside Lyra's room, where she stared at her cat from her wheelchair, wishing she could pet him, "Oh Darwin," she sighed, "if only you or any pony else could understand how I felt right now."

As she sat in her chair, staring blankly at the sleeping cat while her friend prepared food, there was a knock on the door.

Lyra's ears perked at the sound of his voice, "Ms. Lyra?"

The unicorn did her best to listen to the silent conversation happening at the doorway, "P-p-p-prince Blueblood," stammered the stunned friend of Lyra, "what an honour to be in your presence."

"You don't need to kneel before me," replied the prince, "and please… just call me Blueblood." There was a short pause, the sound of hoof-steps entering the house. Their voices, especially the prince's, showed little excitement and instead had a tone of sorrow, "Where's Lyra?"

There was a brief moment of silence before the sound of a door opening behind the crippled unicorn was heard, she suddenly felt her chair swivel around to face the doorway to her room only to find a prince without his usual clothing on him. Prince Blueblood was wearing what appeared to be a nice buttoned shirt, and properly combed hair, an incredible difference from his usual look.

Lyra could feel her cheeks bunching up into a smile on their own as she spoke, "Oh, Blueblood, what are you doing here?"

The prince took a few more steps towards her as he asked, "I was on my way to the weekend gathering, it's sort of a ritual for Faustism, we do prayers and we sing, and there's free snacks afterwards. What I'm asking is, would you like to join me for this?"

Almost as though Bon-Bon had forgotten Lyra was still able to speak for herself, Bon-Bon chimed in, "Erm… Lyra isn't really"

Before she could finish her sentence, The chair-bound pony interrupted, "I'd love to."

Bon-Bon turned her head towards her best friend, the pony she knew her entire life, and had a look of surprise and borderline shock on her face. Lyra had much the same feeling, it was as though something else spoke through her instead of her own mind, something urged her to say yes without thought. She looked towards Bon-Bon with her brows raised and asked her, "Would you like to join us?"

It took a few seconds, but Bon-Bon eventually shrugged as she rambled, "Well… I'm not religious either, and I wasn't really ready for this, but if you're going I might as well too, as long as the Prince here is okay with it."

The prince's eyes brightened up with joy as he nodded, "Absolutely," he began, "the temple is always looking for new ponies to join. Don't worry about dressing nice, this was sort of last minute."

*****

Blueblood, Bon-Bon, and Lyra made their way through the park, ponies from every direction had their eyes focused on her. After all, it wasn't often there was a serious case such as hers where she was bound motionless for life. The constant staring gave her a sinking feeling in her stomach, she felt uneasy being looked at like a creature not from Equestria. Yet for some reason, she also felt a glimmer of joy, like she was needing something that was finally being given to her. As they strolled through town towards the large stone building ironically placed across from Canterlot Institute of Science and Technology, Lyra thought to herself as to why she had agreed to come with Blueblood to some silly cult gathering. Perhaps, subconsciously, she realized she had a lot of extra time on her hands with being let go by Blueblood's research team, and a hobby was probably good for her mentality. That, to Lyra, seemed to be the most logical answer, but something didn't quite feel right with her.

Eventually they turned around the corner of the street to find a large stone cathedral, built around the time Canterlot was founded, being flooded with ponies from town as the weekend gathering began. She took a nervous sigh, looking up at Bon-Bon as she nervously joked, "Let's make the best of this."

She then turned her attention to Blueblood, who continued pushing her chair, and she suddenly felt a lot less nervous. It was strange to her, but this was the first time where she felt entirely comfortable around the pony who paid her. She listened as the prince spoke to the two of them, "Hopefully you mares are okay with this, I wouldn't want to impose on you."

Bon-Bon and Lyra both shook their heads, to which Blueblood joyously responded, "Well, girls, welcome to the Temple of Faustism." Blueblood then used his magic to push the doors open, revealing a massive room that took up the entire building. The ceiling had beautiful paintings within them, depicting ponies in the clouds, where none of them were anything but alicorns. The large stained-glass windows shined a beautiful spectrum of warm lights into the room, flooding the place with reds, greens, yellows, blues, oranges, and whites. Upon the windows were paintings of times before the two sisters existed, images of larger-than-life creatures looming over the barren and untouched land of Equestria. It showed images of two Equines as they stood before an apple tree with the sole apple on it being a zap-apple.

Both Lyra and her best friend were left breathless, they had never been to a place so beautiful and with such incredible art. What captured their attention the most was the statue at the very front of the room, an Alicorn standing triumphantly over a pile of stones. The alicorn, who appeared to have wings and a horn bigger than all the princesses combined, appeared to also be much taller than all of them as she wore a large silk gown and a crown above her head that added extra height to her overall.

Lyra had completely forgotten that Blueblood was still moving them along the long benches towards a row with a few empty seats, although in the centre where Lyra wouldn't be able to reach with her chair. When the three of them approached the row, Lyra expected the ponies to either move out of the way, or give Blueblood some flack. Yet, to the surprise of the two mares, they watched as Blueblood leaned over to the family of ponies and whispered, "Excuse me, Mr Silkthread, my friend isn't able to reach the spot all the way down there, could you and your family perhaps scoot over a little?"

The colt, who appeared to be focusing on the book floating before him, gave a look towards Blueblood and then towards Lyra before smiling, "Absolutely," he whispered back while motioning his family to make room, "here you go."

The prince nodded towards the stallion with a smile, "Thank you, sir." He then proceeded to allow Bon-Bon to sit first, it was like he was no longer a prince. Once Bon-Bon was seated on the wooden bench, Blueblood, turned towards Lyra as he asked her with a look of concern, "Would you like to be seated next to Bon-Bon or are you okay in your seat."

With no hesitation, Lyra nodded, "I need to get out of this chair, I'm sure my rump could use some air." She then noticed Blueblood's eyes dart from right to left to the ponies that heard her, their heads turned to look at her with looks of offence, only causing Lyra to blush.

Blueblood got close to her ear and whispered, "You might want to be a bit more formal, some words just aren't appropriate in this house of Deities." It didn't matter though, Blueblood was already using his magic to try and lift her up, but it quickly became apparent that Lyra was still to heavy. Before the prince's magic slipped, causing Lyra to fall into a crippled heap on the carpeted floor, another pony from the other side of the building rushed to Blueblood's aid.

The stallion looked up at the prince without that familiar look ponies give to royalty, "Let me help you, madam and sir."

To Lyra, this was painfully embarrassing to need two ponies to pick her up and place her next to her friend, but it seemed Blueblood welcomed the helping hoof as he promptly thanked him before sitting down next to her.

Eventually, the pony assigned to lead the ritual, also known as the priestess, walked up to the podium, her long white gown trailing behind her. She cleared her throat before speaking in a booming voice, perhaps caused by the dimensions of the room, "Fillies and Gentlecolts, welcome. Please turn to your neighbour's right and greet them, for they are your equals." Immediately, the room began to fill with murmurs, mostly repeated greetings that were directed to ponies to each one's right side.

Lyra heard Blueblood speak to her in a smooth and calming voice, "Hello, neighbour." It suddenly became clear to her why the prince seemed to behave so differently, it was because he was no longer a prince under this roof but instead just another pony like everyone else.

Then the priestess spoke again, her voice echoing through the room, "Now, turn to your left and greet your family, for we are all children of the deities."

*****

It seemed to last forever, story, after story, after story. All of them seemed no more than fairytales to Lyra and Bon-Bon, for they were all stories of great and powerful ponies conquering and defeating incredible beasts. Lyra would look to her side, or as best as she could, to see Bon-Bon nodding away like a filly would after a bedtime story. The words began to numb Lyra's ears, going from crisp and clear to a fuzzy mumble as her focused changed to the incredible at within the building. Suddenly, the priestess announced in her incredible voice, "Now, we must pray, for we are grateful for our gifts."

As though on command, everypony in the room bowed their heads and closed their eyes as they began to pray. Lyra tried her best to remember what a prayer was from her younger days in a religious daycare, it was a time where you pretended to talk to the deities so you could feel good.

Not wanting to be odd one out, Lyra bowed her head and closed her eyes… nothing. She never quite understood how to properly pray to the deities, and how to know if one was doing so properly. She spoke in her mind to the empty blackness, "Hello?" The silence was her answer, like every other time she was forced to pray. She rolled her eyes inside her head, once again she was proven that there was probably no such thing as the deities. Yet something pushed her to wait a little longer, like waiting for a letter in the mail to arrive, so she kept her eyes closed. After waiting another few minutes, all she was greeted with was silence and the feeling of emptiness.

Finally, the priestess exclaimed, "Brothers, sisters, raise your heads. Our day together has ended, but your days alone await. Be thankful for the time together, and pray for those that do not have this time."

Lyra wanted to chuckle as she thought of a witty comeback to the priestess, "Yeah, I think we are good on our own."

Once every pony had gotten out of their seats and began to converse with one another, and Lyra had been placed back in her chair. The three of them stuck together as the prince asked, "So how was that?" He gave a hearty chuckle as he jokingly continued, "Feel enlightened at all?" This seemed so odd to Lyra, then again everything Blueblood has been doing lately has been incredibly odd, but the fact Blueblood was okay knowing that Bon-Bon and her were not convinced by this religion was so weird.

"Not yet," Bon-Bon began, "unless you count losing weight from hunger then yes I was enlightened by a few pounds." The three of them had a good laugh, slowly moving down the hallway towards the exit.

Blueblood once more turned to Lyra, focusing his sky-blue eyes on her as he asked her, "How about you? Feel different at all?"

"Not really… you seem to be okay with that though."

"Of course, I was taught that it's okay to believe what you want, even if it's not to believe. The fact that you wanted to join me shows that you respect that, and you accept it."

Lyra prepared a counter argument for the sake of debate, but the familiar voice of the priestess called out, "Excuse me, Mr. Blueblood?"

The crowd of ponies split in half to show the stunningly beautiful mare trotting towards the three of them with a look of concern on her face as she continued, "I couldn't help but notice you have brought some guests today."

Blueblood nodded his head and chuckled, "Yes I did, sister Heartfire, they decided to accompany me today, I didn't have to nag them at all."

The mare gave a soft laugh, her voice sounded so beautiful and smooth when she wasn't trying to move mountains with it. She lifted her long gown to reveal a book, a small circle was engraved on it with bronze and the book was bound in a silver binding. She used her hoof to bring it towards Lyra as she softly cooed, "I couldn't help but notice your situation, and I'd like you to know that I as well as every pony here will pray for your recovery. I'd like you to have a copy of the Good Book if you don't already have one."

Lyra stared at the beautifully crafted book, her eyes switching from a nodding Blueblood, to an unsure Bon-Bon, to a concerned priestess, back to the book. She eventually gave in to the pressure as she nodded with a forced smile, "Thank you, sister." She had knots in her stomach, it seemed so awkward to be given a book about something you don't even believe in. Similar to the time her aunt gave her an ugly sweater for Hearth's Warming Eve, she can't say no and have them take it back cause that makes it awkward for everyone. Besides, the book would look nice on the shelf in her room.