“They did it!” the Doctor gave a little laugh of joy. He began to clap his hands. “Oh, brilliant! Everybody lives! I need more days like this.”
“Yeah,” I commented with a hint of sadness, “I’m glad everyone’s safe.” I sighed heavily, and I looked to the Doctor, “I guess now it’s time to take me home, eh Doctor?”
“It doesn’t have to be like that. You can always come with me, with all of time and space as our destination!”
I sighed again, “No, Doctor. I’m tired. I don’t need to see anything at all. Just take me home Doctor; I just want to be left alone.”
“Now that’s no good!” I heard a familiar voice say. Both the Doctor and I whirled around to see Lyra appearing from beneath my invisibility cloak with two satchel bags around her midsection and she had a big smile on her face, “How about you turn that frown upside down?”
“Lyra!” I exclaimed as I ran over to her and squatted to give her a hug. As she leaned up to give me a large embrace her satchel bags fell off of her back. “What are you doing here?” I asked, still utterly surprised by her presence.
“As I was walking Princess Luna out of here, I overheard your talk with the Doctor. So I immediately ran home as fast as I could and packed. I waited here because I thought the Doctor wouldn’t let me come along, so I hid.”
“What about your family? What about Bon Bon and everypony you know?” I started to think about it: she abandoned everything for me. “You should have stayed. You followed me to a darker place.”
Lyra looked at me in frustration, “Adam, I don’t care! I wrote Bon Bon a note, and my family probably won’t even notice I’m gone. It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it does! You’ll never see any of them again. Ever!”
“I knew what would happen, and I made my choice. I decided that nothing else matters; I wanted to be with you, no matter where you go, or what you do. You need me, and I need you. I just want to be with you forever.”
Suddenly, a panel on the Tardis console burst wide open, revealing a large bright light. “Adam, get back!” I heard the Doctor call out as he grabbed me from behind and dragged me from the wall of yellow and orange light.
“What’s happening?” I asked in half panic. I couldn’t see Lyra in the blaze of light.
“It’s the Heart of the Tardis. The Tardis isn’t just a machine; it’s alive. It can telepathically enter into being’s minds and it can hear their greatest desires in the secret corners of their hearts. And sometimes,” the Doctor looked at the light himself, “miracles happen.”
“I’m going in there,” I blurted.
The Doctor held me firmly, “No! Don’t interrupt the process! We have no idea what damage that’ll do. Besides, it knows what it’s doing.”
I was briefly granted vision into the blinding but smoothly swirling vortex of light. I saw Lyra’s silhouette, but it was changing. Her forelegs and head were spread upward , while her hind legs and tail were spread downward. Her body began to grow and lengthen, and each of her limbs began to lengthen and grow as well. Her tail slowly shrank and disappeared, while her forelegs grew in biceps, then forearms and palms, and finally hands. Her hind legs grew downward into well-defined quadriceps, forward facing knee joints, and her hooves became feet with toes. Her snout scrunched back into her face, and her ears shrank and receded into an expanding cranium. Her horn, bizarrest of all, disconnected from her head, and thinned and lengthened into a baton like shape, which her new formed fingers delicately but firmly grasped.
The light faded, and before me stood a full human being where a pony had once stood. Her hair was still mint colored, but her skin was an olive toned complexion. The clothes covering her body were identical to mine, apart from the mud and stains on my weathered clothes. She opened her eyes, which I immediately saw were her golden eyes from before. All doubt I might have had was gone; this was the Lyra I knew. It was my Lyra. The Doctor let me go, and I walked over to her. She looked up to me, and she nuzzled her nose to mine, “I’m going to be with you forever, whether you like it or not.”
The Tardis landed, and for me, I was home. For Lyra, it was a whole new beginning. We stepped out on to the top of a hill covered in a small frost.
“Where are we,” I turned to ask the Doctor.
“Montana, the United States. It’s a bit out of my usual purview, but this will be the best place for you two to start a new life away from most prying eyes. All the same, my offer still stands. Do you want to come with me? We could tour the stars, all three of us! Seeing all the wonders the universe has to offer.”
I shook my head, “Sorry Doctor. Like you said, I’ve got to make the world a little brighter.”
Lyra looked up to me and softly took my right hand in hers, “And I’m going to help him to hope. Besides, since both of us can do magic now, I can teach him the basics, and we can help others in our own little ways.”
The Doctor gave a small smile, “Okay. Oh, before I go, I’ve got something for you both.” He slipped back into the Tardis. After a minute or two he came back out with a stone plague which he placed into our hands. “This is the Tablet of Ran’kron. It’s a string-based pulse transmission communication system. Basically, it’s a trans-dimensional communicator. I left an identical Tablet with Ditzy Doo, so that you can ‘reach out and touch somepony’.” He grinned.
I reached out and took the Doctor’s hand in mine again. “Thank you for everything, Doctor.”
“It was all my pleasure.”
Lyra also took the Doctor’s hand. “Goodbye, Doctor.”
“Goodbye, Ms. Heartstrings. Remember you two: Live to make a difference, no matter what! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to meet Queen Elizabeth I in 1567!” He walked back to the Tardis doors and looked back to us, “Good times to you, and good luck!” We waved to him, and he disappeared into the Tardis, and soon after, the Tardis itself disappeared as well.
We looked out across the hill, and we saw a little town not too far off, but that could wait. The sun was almost clear of the horizon before us, and we wanted to usher in our new life along with the rise of a new day.