I found Lyra hiding deep within the bowels of the opera house, between the props for “Celestia Superstar.” She was sitting on Discord’s throne in one of her cringe-inducing poses and staring at her front hooves like she was looking at them for the first time in her life.
The Shop was in uproar the moment they got wind that we somehow got an extra princess. Which was when the surveillance team spotted Princess Cadance being escorted through the city while the other Cadance retired for the night with her groom. My resignation had immediately been recalled until further notice – I wasn’t even aware they could do that, but turned out, they could. Grey Matter wears a suit to work just because he needs sleeves to keep tricks up them, crafty old goat. But even then, I had to beg and plead and maneuver to be assigned to deal with Lyra. I’m lucky that all it takes to bribe Joe is Super Sprinkles, or I don’t know what I would do.
Horse-apples like that is the whole reason I resigned when I got the chance, and here I am wading through it again.
“Lyra?” I tried.
“How nice of you to join me, dear Miss Bon-Bon,” she replied, without looking at me, in a voice she reserves for dramatic reading. Especially when the villain is speaking. “So you have come to kill me, I presume?”
She’s always been the crazy one. That smart, witty, happy crazy. But that felt anything but happy. That sounded like something a major villain would say on stage before breaking into a tragic song about himself.
“I’m not sure it’s the right time and place for an aria,” I said.
“It’s the opera house, that’s what it’s for,” Lyra insisted, finally turning to look at me, instead of the wall taking the place of imaginary audience. She had the face of a pony who accidentally ate a whole lemon without sugar.
“I’m not sure it’s the right time and place for you,” I insisted, making a small, hopeful step towards her. “Let’s go home?”
“I’m sitting on this goofy thing for a reason, you know,” Lyra waved her front hooves in the air. “I kinda feel like Discord today. Chaos, panic and disorder, massacre!”
Truth be told, a more transparent pony has yet to be born. “Didn’t you say that none of that ever happened?” I wondered. While she was writing “Celestia Superstar,” she complained about it every day. When it became her first big hit, she had to stop. “No takeover, no cave, no mirror, no rebellion, no war, just a long chase after a rolling unnatural disaster?”
“I did. And the Princess did,” Lyra agreed, “But her version doesn’t make a good story. There are only so many kinds of hero an epic opera can take. I’m not sure which kind I am, now. I’m not even sure if I am one at all.”
“There is a city out there that you saved,” I said, and it wasn’t even a lie. “Lyra… are you feeling alright?”
“Yes,” she tossed back at me. “That’s why I’m not! I killed what, a thousand of these things? I wasn’t counting. Why don’t I feel anything? No regret, no horror, not even pride, it’s just… blank!” she added, tears welling up in her eyes. “It’s like the music took everything, but I know it wasn’t the music doing it, it was me, it was my song, my harmony, my… fingers! Why do I feel just like yesterday?!”
I have no idea what it really was that she pulled, how she did transform like that. She might be good with magical theory, but practice has never been her strong suit. And yet, she’s still the same Lyra. The same glint in her eyes, the same moods that twist her mouth into a shape pony mouths were not meant to have.
“They put thousands of ponies into hospitals, and I’m not sure they felt anything, either,” I pointed out. “Sometimes, you have to do these things. There are too many creatures out there who call us food.”
“How many… how many did you kill?” she asked, looking at me with a blank expression.
I sighed. It would be so easy, so natural to lie this time. Like a thousand other times. But I have been ordered to break cover, and maybe, it really is time to stop. “Yesterday? Seven,” I admitted. “Two more tried to stop me while I was chasing after you. Look… There’s something I need to tell you.”
“That you’re a secret agent?” Lyra smiled suddenly. “I know.”
I stopped, my mouth ajar. “…How?” Was I that sloppy? Did my talent somehow fail me, without me even noticing?
“The alien princess told me. The red, scary human,” she grinned and jumped off her throne. I very nearly jerked away from her. “You sneaky little spy you. How does a candy maker get to be a spy, anyway?”
“I’m… not actually a candy maker,” I admitted. “Well, I guess I am, I’ve been doing that for years, but that’s not really my talent. Just practice and patience.”
“So that’s not a real cutie mark, either?” Lyra danced around me, to stare at my flank. “You’ve been hiding it from me for years and I never noticed a thing! Does it come off?” she added, scraping at the mark with a hoof.
“No, it doesn’t come off,” I sighed, moving my rump out of reach. “Quit scratching me, it’s my real cutie mark. It just doesn’t mean what everypony thinks it does.”
“Oh?” Lyra suddenly bounced up to wrap around my neck. “So what does it mean, m-m-m?”
One thing I know about Lyra’s moods is that they can go away just as quickly as they turn up. “My real talent is sweet talking,” I smiled at her. “They recruited me straight out of school when I got caught cheating on the finals and talked my way out of it.”
“Oh you naughty girl,” Lyra nuzzled my cheek. “So what’s your real name, then?”
I jerked. “That alien princess sure told you a lot of things, how does she know all that?”
Lyra let me go and shrugged. “No idea. Other worlds? She can read thoughts, you know. It’s like she hears if you think in words.”
That’s certainly something to pass on to the ponies downstairs. As if the humans didn’t have us in a twist already. “That’s kind of bad news, you know,” I said.
“I’m sure she’s not actually evil, so it’s okay,” Lyra replied and suddenly switched gears. “So what’s your real name? And will you say you would have to kill me if you told me?”
Now that’s just childish. “No,” I said, making a frowny face. Sometimes, if I try to dissuade her early, it works.
“Oh ple-e-ease?” Lyra whined. “Pretty please with a cherry on top?”
“Oh all right,” I sighed, putting on my best serious expression. “I would tell you. But then I would have to kill you.”
“Damn, I need a fainting couch,” Lyra said, looking around, but none of the props in this dark and cluttered storeroom resembled one even remotely. “You don’t understand how romantic it sounds when you say that, do you?”
“It’s not fun and games, you know,” I scowled at her. “I’ve literally been to Tartarus a dozen times on this job.”
“You, my lovely Bon-bon, have no eye for romance what-so-ever,” she replied, stomping her hoof.
“Sweetie Drops.”
“What?” she blinked.
“My real name is Sweetie Drops,” I repeated. “You can even call me that, if you like. Just don’t do it in public, or I really might have to kill you. I’m kind of responsible for you, now. Got a mountain of paperwork, too. I’m supposed to welcome you to Equestria and everything.”
“Wait, what are you talking about?” Lyra asked, raising her eyebrows.
One thing I’m sure of, Lyra is just as genuine as she is transparent. They tried to make me doubt her, but I just bit my tongue and ignored them. “Well, are you really from around here?” I inquired. “The bosses downstairs don’t think so.”
She made the cutest pouty face I’ve seen for the entire month. “And what do you think?”
“I have decided that I don’t care,” I stated with a proud smile. “As long as you’re the same Lyra Heartstrings I always knew, to me, it doesn’t matter.” Because it really doesn’t, and anypony who disagrees can go fishing in Tartarus.
Lyra hopped onto the throne to sit on the edge, dangling her legs down like they’re double-jointed, and scraped at the back of her head with a hoof, lips curled in yet another stupid grin ponies were never meant to achieve. “Philosophically, I’m probably not. I mean, I didn’t even know you when I first met you, right? I should be continuous with the Lyra Heartstrings that you met originally, but I don’t know if I’m very same before that. Can’t tell. Unless you kept me under surveillance since school, or something.” She threw a pleading glance at me. “Did you? Cause I’m not really sure anymore, honest.”
“Well, you convinced me, anyway,” I said, climbing onto the throne next to her to ruffle her mane. “Only my Lyra would say something so silly.”
Lyra flashed a smile. “Now tell me, what brought this on!”
I stared at her. “You’re doing it right now. Somepony noticed.”
“Doing what?” she wondered, tilting her head sideways at me and propping it up with a hoof.
“That!” I pointed. “Even minotaurs don’t sit like that.”
“So who does?” Lyra prompted.
“Humans do,” I stated. “Don’t tell me you never noticed.”
“I’m wondering why you never told me before, actually,” she said, stretching out on the throne next to me, which suddenly made her look a lot more normal. “Grandma Daisy Fisher used to sit like that all the time. She used to tell me stories… I was very impressionable when I was a filly, so I copied everything, even the mane cut.”
“Your great-grandparents sure had a weird sense of humor,” I commented. “Who ever heard of fishing for daisies?!”
“Maybe they had,” Lyra shrugged, “Nopony knows who they were.”
“How does that work?” I wondered. The chances are infinitesimal. Their Highnesses’ Civil Service is royally strict about those records, I lost count of all the strings the old goat pulled to make them lose mine.
“No idea. I asked, but she always dodged the question,” Lyra sighed, “Mother just told me that one day, a pegasus filly came out of the Everfree forest and stumbled into Sweet Apple Acres. Had no cutie mark yet, could barely fly, and the only thing she could remember was her name. They never found her parents.”
“Strange.” And bordering on weird, but that’s Everfree for you.
Lyra grinned ear to ear. “And she used to fish for daisies. She’d park a cloud over her flowerbed, sit on the edge and try to hook daisies up. I always wanted to sit there with her.”
I planted a hoof into my face. “Now I know why you turned into a human. Your entire family is just plain crazy like Pinkie Pie!” Her mother is also a unicorn. And she’s a skydiving instructor up in Cloudsdale.
Lyra laughed. “No, I just was there at the wrong place, the wrong time, galloping all over the city looking for you, worried I’d never see you again, and that human princess suddenly pulls me by the tail into some kind of hole in reality and offers power, just so that I can fix everything,” she said, tapping the crystal dangling on a thin chain off her neck. “Now I have a new friend. Grayswandir, meet Sweetie Drops, also known as Bon-Bon. She’s my very special somepony spy. Be nice and try not to turn her into anything.”
The crystal remained very nonchalantly silent.
“Wait, so you did it… just for me?” I suddenly realized, and felt my ears press tightly to my head.
“No,” Lyra shook her head. “I would. But she said that if I don’t have a different reason, she’s going to pick somepony else.”
“Why would she even care for your reasons?” I wondered. “Something’s fishy here.”
“I think it was important to her. She needed me to have a particular reason,” Lyra replied. “It’s all about the rules of storytelling. Do you know what every author really wants out of life?”
“Hmm… Fame and fortune?” I offered, but immediately realized that if anything, that’s something Lyra herself never actually wanted. She wanted her poems to be popular, but she never wanted to be popular. Back when her career in musical theater was just starting, she used to hide in a closet at the sound of a camera. “No idea. I’m no scholarship student, you know that.”
“Are you sure?” she grinned provocatively at me.
Today’s the day when every lie comes back to bite me. “You went to Princess Celestia’s school. Just trying to imagine what kind of horse-apples would I have to tell to do that gives me a headache,” I replied. All true, once again. “So, if not fame and fortune, what?”
“It’s not like I never wanted these things,” she admitted grudgingly and rolled around on the seat. “But I’m sure that deep inside, what every author of every story really wants is to tell the universe how things should be, and have it listen. You don’t tell stories to say how it really happened, that would be news. You tell them because you hope to change the world.”
I felt a sudden itch in my cutie mark.
“And the universe doesn’t like to listen. It took equinity over a thousand years to finally build a world where most things work like they should.” Lyra made a poignant pause. “We take it for granted now, but objectively, it’s still a very, very small world. Tiny. When the humans came… I don’t know about you, but I was reminded just how tiny it really is.”
“So you just thought that if you had something to kick the universe in the teeth with, you could make it bigger?” I wondered.
“Yes,” Lyra agreed. “That, and I realized something very important when I saw you out on the street.”
“Oh?” I prompted. That’s the sort of thing she says when she’s struck by inspiration. If I don’t let her procrastinate, in a month or two, something beautiful is usually born.
“That I can’t be the one to protect you, and shouldn’t try,” she told me with a very serious face. “All I can really hope for, all I should hope for, is to be more like you.”
I turned away, because I felt my cheeks heat up. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve spent my entire life lying through every obstacle and smashing those I couldn’t lie my way through. That’s… that’s not something decent ponies should want.”
Lyra giggled, twirling my tail around her hoof. “Who said I was a decent pony? I think I’m positively indecent!”
I facehoofed so hard, it almost hurt.
“So-o… are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Lyra chirped, jumping up.
Well, I’m sure I have an idea. “With chocolate chips and strawberry?”
“Yes!”