After several hours of practice on her lyre, she was completely exhausted; she retreated to her bed, in her new room. It was a luxurious place, with her own personal performance stage by a large window and door, leading to a balcony, a perfect place to experiment with her new instrument.
“Lyra?” She nearly jumped out of her skin, she wasn’t expecting visitors.
“Hi…do I know you?”
“Um…no, but I’m Twilight Sparkle, I heard that you moved in here at the castle, and I spend a lot of time here, being Celestia’s star pupil, so I thought I would come and make your acquaintance!”
“Nice meeting you, Twilight Sparkle, I um…it’s nice to meet you, it’s cool to have someone to talk to and all…I mean I don’t really have many friends…” or any for that matter, she said to herself.
“Well I hope you enjoy staying here! See you around Lyra! Oh, and you can just call me Twilight. Goodnight!”
“Night!” Is making friends really this easy? They just come to me?
…
The next morning she awoke to the sun shining into her room. Another day of lyre sounds like a perfect plan. She played for three hours, and noticed her stomach rebelling against another note to be played. What is there to eat in this castle? Probably anything I could imagine, but where do I go? She opened the door of her suite to find Twilight standing outside, shifting from hoof to hoof.
“Oh! Um, hi Lyra, I wanted to know if you want to come eat with me, I’ll give you a little tour of the palace if you’d like.”
“I would love that, thank you!” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this happy.
So Twilight and Lyra walked throughout the palace, Twilight introducing her to important ponies and rooms of Canterlot Castle.
“And this is the library!” said Twilight in an endearing tone, “This is my most favorite room of all, there is so much information I have yet to learn, just think of all the possibilities! All the spells I have yet to cast, all of the facts and history of Equestria, would you like me to walk you through each section?”
“Uhm...I appreciate your enthusiasm but I am starving…”
“Oh, right, sorry I just get carried away when it comes to these things; let’s go to the dining room then!”
Twilight and Lyra went to the dining room, and she was surprised at all of the food. She didn’t even know this many types of food existed in all of Equestria! She stuffed her face full until she couldn’t eat any more.
“Wow, this food is delicious, I could eat this everyday!”
“And you can, if you’d like, but uhm…Lyra? Why are you sitting like that?”
“What do you mean? Oh like this? I don’t know it’s just comfortable I guess.”
Twilight continued to give her the full tour, and gave little bits of information about every room they passed through.
“Wow, have you ever done this before? You seem to know a lot about this place!”
“ Oh no, I read seven books about the Canterlot Castle this past year, they were actually quite interesting, I could tell you the section they are in at the library if you’d like?”
“No that’s fine, I don’t really read…” she said in a shy tone.
“Oh okay, well if you ever get the chance they are in section 354c00, well, actually, that’s exactly where they are, just trying to save you some time” Twilight let out a little laugh, and kept moving.
“I really appreciate you helping me Twilight, it means a lot to me,” she scuffed the ground with her hoof.
“Anytime Lyra, you can count on me!”
…
Anytime Lyra, you can count on me, anytime Lyra you can count on me. She repeated it to herself in head. Where are you now? I’m counting on you…
Several years had passed and Lyra and Twilight were the best of friends. But Twilight had been paying less and less attention to her, and more to her books. Twilight discovered a book, a book about the comeuppance of Nightmare Moon. She spent hours in her study reading all about it, she shunned everypony, because she knew that this could be disastrous to all of Equestria.
“I just wish she would listen to me instead of those books.” Lyra said to Sparkler.
“Well here she comes now, why don’t you talk to her?” Sparkler siad as she talking around the shopping bag she held in her mouth.
Her head shot up in excitement, she had been wanting to talk with her all day, she missed being with her best friend. She was running, and she tried waving at Twilight, but she didn’t even seem to notice her.
“Ooh. Tough luck Lyra, better luck next time! But seriously Lyra, she too obsessed with her books. This will all blow over after a while.” She joked, but Lyra has had enough.
“I think I’ll go and practice my lyre for a while, see you later Sparkler…” she suleds back to her room in the palace and played her lyre as her mother used to play her harp. A few hours passed and she heard a knock on her door. What if it’s Twilight! She jumped up and answered the door, only to find Princess Celestia standing in the doorway.
“Oh. Good afternoon, your Majesty.” She was extremely disappointed. Probably the only pony in all of Equestria to be disappointed to find the mare that raises the sun and sets the moon knocking at her door.
“Hello Lyra! Did Twilight tell you?” Lyra’s interest is piqued as frustration simmered inside her. Twilight doesn’t tell me anything anymore.
“No. Twilight hasn’t talked to me in…I mean…she hasn’t told me anything.”
“Well then! I have sent Twilight on a special mission, as my star pupil, to Ponyville! I’m not quite sure if she will be returning, but I have a feeling she won’t, I’m surprised she didn’t stop by.” Lyra started to get angry.
“Wow me too. Well you know Twilight, always in a rush,” she pushed the words through her teeth, trying not to lose it.
“Oh you know her too well, don’t you Lyra?” Celestia chuckled.
“Heh. Yeah.” She was furious. She thought she was her best friend but it seems that her studies were more important. She closed to door and boiled in her room. How could she do this to me? She can’t just leave me here, without her I don’t think I would have made it through Fillyschool. She’s my best friend. She knew she had to do something about it.
She sought out the two guards that saved her those many years ago and approached them.
“I need to ask you two a favor.” she says.
“Anything, Lyra.” One guard said in a friendly yet bass voice. The other smiles.
“I need to get to Ponyville.”
…
She could see it, out on the horizon, a tiny town that took up only about as much space as the Canterlot Castle alone, besides the giant apple orchard, which probably took up the same amount of space as two Canterlot cities side by side.
“Thank you guys so much, I can’t express my gratitude.” She said as she walked off of the chariot. They nodded, smiled, and took off into the skies.
She went throughout the little town and searched everywhere looking for her. She asked everypony she could, and she either just missed her or they didn’t know who Twilight was. She became frustrated, and wished she could just take it all back, she wanted to go home. Luckily she remembered to bring along her lyre in her saddle, the only thing that could bring her peace in times of anger or sadness besides… Twilight. She took out her lyre and started playing it underneath an apple tree. Suddenly a pony with a white and dark blue mane she had talked to before approached her.
“You were looking for a Twilight Sparkle, right?”
“Yes!” she jumped up excitedly.
“Pinkie is throwing a party for her later, at the library.” Pinkie? She thought. Who is that?
“Thanks, I’ll be there.” She pushed herself up, put her lyre back in her saddle, and started walking back towards town. On the way back to town she saw a piece of paper flying around in the breeze. It moved quickly yet gracefully, and stuck itself on her hoof. It waved in the gentle wind as she hovered it in front of her face. It read:
My dear Twilight,
There is more to a young pony’s life than studying! So I’m sending you to supervise the preparation for the Summer Sun Celebration, in this year’s location: Ponyville. And I have an even more essential task for you to complete: Make some friends!
Have fun and good luck, Princess Celestia
What. What? Princess Celestia sent her here to make friends? Why? She knew that I was her best friend. She knew that Twilight was the only friend I ever had. She knew Twilight would make friends, and that she wouldn’t come home! Not only did she take my mother and my home, but she took the only sense of friendship in my life. She even had the nerve to come to my room and talk to me about it! She was pacing back and forth, furious, reduced to the way she was the night her mother was slaughtered. So she was taken back to where she started. No mother, no friends, no money, no food. But she did have the only thing she would…rather, could, never part with. Her lyre. So once again, as she did several years ago, she ran. This time she didn’t run far, she ran back to the apple tree, and laid with her head in her hooves. She was miles from home, with nothing. The only thing she had was her lyre. So she did the only thing she could do. She played. She played hard, with her eyes shut. Everything she learned, that she had taught herself, that she had felt her mother teach her through the lyre. All of her anger, frustration, and grief was being converted through her lyre into song. She had never played with such passion, as every ounce of mental strength she could muster was directly put into her golden instrument.
“That’s…absolutely beautiful…” Her concentration broke and she dropped the lyre on the ground, she quickly collected it from the dirt and grass and brushed it off, embarrassed.
“Wh..Why thank you…I didn’t know you were there, I’m sorry…” She feels out of place.
“You are very talented at that little thing…um… what is it called?” Lyra straightened up a bit.
“It’s a lyre; my mother…gave it to me when I was just a filly.”
“Oh, never heard of one of those, anyways, what’s your name?” the pony asks.
“I’m Lyra, and you are?”
“Nice to meet you Lyra, I’m Bon-Bon.”