//------------------------------//
// -59- Alignment 
// Story: The Anthropologist 
// by Weavers of Dreams 
//------------------------------//

Lyra walked slowly through the slushy streets, her good friend beside her, the two foals close by their sides, and behind them a wagon in tow. Bon Bon was pulling the wagon, not only because she was the stronger of the two mares but also because Lyra had barely just recovered enough to walk again. But she was only allowed to go outside with either Bon Bon, Noteworthy, or another trusted friend lest she get herself into a bad situation.

"Thanks again," Lyra said as she saw her destination come into view. She was dressed in a thick hoodie with a yellow scarf wrapped about her neck and mouth, which muffled her voice some. Even her hooves were encompassed in snow boots.

Bon Bon nodded as she kept even with Lyra's slow pace. "It's my pleasure, Lyra. The post office is on the way to Milky's anyway, so it's really no biggie."

"You sure you want to use her old machine?" Lyra asked, pausing a moment to lift a hoof to her mouth as she coughed. "I mean it's sweet ...(ack)... of her to offer, ...(gaock)... but, you know there must be a ...(wheeze)... must be a reason she replaced it."

Bon Bon rubbed her friend's shoulder as the coughing subsided. "It's just to help me get used to the feeling."

"So, when are you going to tell, Notes?" Lyra asked with a small chuckle. He laughed a bit harder when the mare tripped over her own hooves in shock. This led to another fit of coughing.

"W-what do you mean?" Bon Bon asked nervously, looking around to see if anyone was within earshot. The only other ponies close by were Twist and Henry, and they were too busy making circles around the two mares in an enthusiastic game of tag.

Lyra leaned close to her friend until their noses were touching. "Puh-lease, girl. You may have been able to hide your past from me, but I would have to be blind not know."

Bon Bon sighed in defeat and smiled at the unicorn. "Clever as ever, eh, Lyra?"

"Oh, so I'm right?" Lyra gasped, her eyes sparkling.

"Wait, you didn't know?" Bon Bon asked, giving her friend the stink eye.

"Well, I do now, congratulations," the mint mare chuckled, trying to give her friend a friendly sock on the shoulder. But almost overbalanced in the process. Thankfully, Bon Bon caught her.

"Are you sure your well enough to be out today?" the mare asked in concern.

Lyra nodded. "I'm just a little weak. I'll be just fine."

"Alright, if you say so," Bon Bon said, starting to walk again, but keeping close by the other mare's side just in case.

Inside the post office they bumped into a certain mailmare. Literally.

"Oops, my bad," Derpy said blushed as she brushed herself off and checked the straps on her mailbags, which were stuffed to the point of bursting.

"Wow, sure you can carry all that, Derpy?" Lyra asked in amazement.

The pegasus deflated some. "Boy, I hope so. The mail's really been piling up for the past month. In and out of town. Mostly junk mail from people trying to take advantage of a crisis. Soulless jerks. But, I'm paid to deliver. Ooh, speaking of which I have some for you both. You're in my route, in case you didn't know."

"We know, Derpy," Bon Bon stated with a chuckle as she accepted the bundle of letters from the good mare. "I leave a fresh muffin out for you every other week."

"Oh, yeah, duh," Derpy said, making a silly face. "Sometimes I forget. It's these titanic parcels, they've been cutting off the blood to my brain, I just know it."

"Sure is a lot of letters," Lyra muttered as she looked at the large stack bundled together with a rubber band.

"Wwweeee kind of had an accident a week or so ago," Derpy said, rubbing the back of her head. "It wasn't me, I swear. But, there was a few ponies in the back room who decided to push the mail bins around too fast and crashed... you can figure it out from there."

"Ugh, of course," Lyra grunted as she began flipping through them earth pony style, as she was still forbidden from using magic at the moment.

"Well, don't let us keep you," the earth pony mare told the pegasus, stepping aside so she could exit. "Have a nice day."

"You too, Bon Bon."

The confectioner turned back to her friend. "Anything important?"

Lyra nodded. "Yep. The University of Manehatten did send me the letter I've been waiting for. Mind if I read it now?"

The other mare shook her head. "Of course not. I'm not going to hurry you up."

Lyra pulled the envelope from the bundle and gripped it between her hooves before tearing one end off with her teeth. Then she slickly managed to pull the letter itself out as well. She quickly began to read it over, her expression dropping towards the end. "Of course."

"Is... is everything all right, Lyra?"

The mint mare shook her head. "No. Here, see for yourself."

Bon Bon took the letter and scanned it herself. "Oh... I see. He's aligned."

"The ninth one in all of history," Lyra grunted as she stood back. She cast a look over at the two foals who were looking between the two adults in confusion.

"What's aligned mean?" Henry asked, head tilted to the side curiously.

The two mare's locked eyes and sighed. Which concerned both the foals, especially Twist.

"Ith it dangerouth?" she asked, hugging the colt in a way that almost looked painful. "He'th not going to die, right?"

"No-no, of course not," Bon Bon comforted her filly. "It's just... ooh, how do you say this?"

"What's happened to me?" Henry asked almost pleading.

"Not here," Lyra said, looking about the post office. Some ponies quickly turned to face the other direction. "Too many big ears."

"We could stop off by the park," Bon Bon suggested.

"Correction, Henry and I will stop off at the park," Lyra stated, her tone broking no argument. "You and Twist go ahead to Milky's. I need to do this alone."


*	*	*


The park was mostly empty, save for a certain group of fillies dragging a loaded catapult across an open field. Neither the mare nor the colt questioned it, just threw them a friendly wave and went on their way. They eventually arrived at a bench.

Lyra deposited Henry on the wooden seat and then clumsily climbed on herself. Once there, she sat up in her usual unusual position and lifted Henry up onto her lap so they could share each other's warmth better.

"I like this bench," she mentioned as she looked about the snow covered park. "This is the very bench I tried to sleep on my first day in Ponyville. It's also where I met Bon Bon. Being here helps me think. It's also where we take lunch during the summer. But, you don't really care about that. You wanna know what's going on."

"Uh-huh," Henry said as he blew at some snowflakes that threatened to land on his nose.

"Well, normally when a human crosses over, they exist in both worlds at the same time, while at the same time they are only present in one," Lyra explained, then looked at the absolute confusion on the colt's face. Why did she even think that would work? Even most adults had a hard time understanding the concept without an illustration. "Okay, let's try something else."

Using her hoof, she drew a line in the snow next to them on the bench. "Let's pretend this is the wall between our two realities. You understand that?"

He nodded. "Yeah. I understand that."

"Good," Lyra said with a small smile. It felt good that she was actually managing to teach him in a way he understood. That was a thought. Maybe she'd become a teacher after she was no longer needed as an anthropologist. Anyway, back to the simplified lesson in quantum mechanics. "Now, let's pretend this is a human."

Again, without magic, she made a crude little snowman, which she set on one side of the line. Henry looked up at her and nodded to show he was still following her.

"Okay, now the human gets pulled through a portal," she lifted the snowman up and set in on the other side of the portal. "What did he leave behind, Henry?"

"A hole," Henry said, pointing a hoof at the small patch of bare bench where the snow had clung to the bottom of the snowman, only to be taken away with it. Though he was unsure if that was the correct answer. "Right?"

Lyra nodded slowly. "That's it exactly. Though, 'impression' would be a better word. He left behind an impression. That's the part of him left on the human side of the portal. That would be peoples memories of him, the things he's done... his mark on the world, as it were."

"So I left behind a hole?" he asked, looking up at her, trying to understand what she was getting at.

The mare sighed sadly and shook her head. "No, Henry." She then proceeded to wipe away the snow on the human side of the illustration, then set the snowman back down on the bare bench. "If I pick up the snowman now, what will it leave behind?"

He thought for a minute just in case it was a trick question. "Nothing?"

Lyra lifted the snowman and deposited it unceremoniously on the pony side of the portal. "Exactly. Look at the human side of the wall, Henry. There's no evidence that the human was ever there. As if he never existed."

"Are you saying I don't exist?" Henry asked in a quiet voice as the message was starting to sink in.

"Over there?" Lyra pointed to the human side. "You did but..."

"I did but I don't anymore," Henry asked, grasping at the mental threads within his reach.

"Kind of, but...," she was really not sure how to explain it. Even in simple words it would be confusing. "You may have been born over there, loved over there, eaten, slept and played over there, but you never existed over there. Ugh... this is impossible to explain."

"I never existed over there now?"

Lyra stared down at him with wide eyes. Was he actually getting it? Well, as they said: 'from the mouths of babes'. "Yes. That's a perfect way of saying it. You never existed over there after you crossed over. You never existed there now."

"So my family forgot about me, but not really, because I was never born after I came here?" Henry asked, fighting through the confusion that threatened to overcome him as it became all the more complex.

"Easy there, kid," Lyra said, running a gentle hoof through his mane. "Don't hurt yourself. You're hurt enough as it is. But, yes. That's essentially it."

"Good," Henry then said, looking down and sniffing a little. But he didn't cry.

"Excuse me?" Lyra asked in shock. "Did you just say 'good'?"

He nodded. "Yes. This way they won't be sad. I won't upset them anymore. I made them upset lots of times. I didn't like making them upset, but I just did. I couldn't help it. So, it's good."

Lyra shook her head and hugged the colt to her chest, a lone tear crawling down her cheek. "That's horrible, Henry. Losing a child is bad enough. But to forget them because they never existed is... is... just too horrible to imagine."

"Am I making you upset, Miss Heartstrings," Henry asked, looking at her worriedly, with a hint of shame.

"No, of course not," Lyra told him with a soft nuzzle. "It's just part of being a mare. We're just a little more emotional then you colts. Hehe. Remember that, kid, it'll help you later in life more than you realize at the moment."

Henry wasn't really paying attention. His eyes were set upon the illustration the good doctor had created. The falling snow slowly starting to erase it. "So, I'm all alone? I never had a family anymore?"

"No," Lyra said, turning his chin up to face her. "That's not true at all. I promise you, Henry. And you'll never be alone again."

Then she leaned down and kissed his forehead in a most motherly manner.