//------------------------------//
// -94- The Talk 
// Story: The Anthropologist 
// by Weavers of Dreams 
//------------------------------//

While she would have loved to talk for hours with her friends, Lyra had an appointment to keep. And, unlike other doctors, she was very punctual.

"Eight o'clock," she grumbled as she looked at her watch, curtesy of Mark Smith. He was so insistent she have it. "Now where is she?"

The archaeologist looked at her own watch, one with a glowing dial. "Late. That limp of hers may be slowing her down... or she's just lost."

"No... just slow."

Both mares and a colt jumped and turned around to see the peach mare and her little filly coming up the stone pathway to the tree. She looked nervous, looking about the colony and kept her filly close.

"I'm sorry," she apologized, "it's just that... it's a new place... and..."

"You read the book?" Lyra finished for her, slightly amused.

She nodded. "It... took some convincing to come here. It seemed like the only way to give my Precious a decent life."

"Convincing?" Lyra quirked an eyebrow.

The Peach mare nodded. "Equestria needs to claim and populate this territory. I received an application in the mail along with a multipage pamphlet listing all the benefits coming to the colony would offer."

Daring nodded understandingly. "It takes some convincing to get sensible people to come here."

"By making them lose their senses," Lyra asked, not quite sure what to make of it.

"Have to have a viable population somehow."

"That just sounds crooked."

"So does grave robbing," Daring shrugged. "Archaeologist just sounds more professional."

Lyra blinked a few moments. "Touché."

When the pegasus had gathered both foals and headed off in the direction of the observatory, actually large enough to be seen from where they sat, they took a moment to size each other up. Lyra was ready to argue and push things, the peach mare was nervous and looked as though she wanted to just bolt at the first opportunity.

"I've really got to know your name," Lyra spoke up, taking the opportunity to be the first one to speak and control the conversation.

"Agate of the Chipper family," the mare replied in a small voice. Good grief, she could almost give Fluttershy a run for her money. Almost.

Lyra tilted her head to the side, curious. "I've heard of a large Chipper family in Canterlot. They're rather wealthy. Any relation?"

"I was their daughter," Agate said, rubbing a leg with a hoof.

"Oh?" Liar was surprised. "I didn't hear that they fell on hard times. Or did they just send you here to stake a new claim?"

"Hoe can you say that?" the peach mare cried, a tear trailing down one cheek. "I'm not trying to do anything but provide for my baby."

Lyra couldn't help but feel a little bad, now that she was getting a good one-on-one look at the mare. She was not how she remembered. The confidence, the cunning manipulative expression that cheated her out of a brother, it was all gone. What remained was so much less. Something broken.

"What happened after you threw me out of that house?" Lyra asked in a softer tone, not really feeling angry anymore. She just wanted answers.

Agate took a couple of deep breaths as she thought back. "I remember the events quite clearly, Lyra. That day was my greatest mistake. You always remember those. Horrible, isn't it?"

She rose up onto all fours and began pacing about as she spoke. Lyra didn't mind, many of her patients preferred wandering about her office as they talked.

She nodded. "As long as it gets me the answers I never knew I wanted."

"We got drunk," Agate said, placing a hoof upon her brow in shame. "We partied, and then Roller Dee's Parents came home and called us a few cabs due to the storm. I recall that they were none too happy about the mess."

"Cake and sewage will do that," Lyra scowled, looking aside.

The peach mare sniffed and wiped her eyes. "The next morning... afternoon, actually, I found myself rudely awaked by my mother and aunties. They literally dragged me through the house to where my father and his first wife were 'discussing' my future."

"Your future?" the doctor raised and eyebrow.

Agate gritted her teeth as though the next words were physically painful to say. "More like... figuring out how to disown me and erase my name from any official documents that could ever tie me to them."

Lyra couldn't help but recoil in shock. That was disgusting. "What?"

"Rather than let me shame the family name, they made it as though I never existed, okay?" Agate spat out, crying large tears. "One day I was being groomed by maids and treated as this beautiful princess, and the next they give me a suitcase and throw me out on the street. They told me never to come back to Canterlot."

"But the airship was docked there," Lyra pointed out.

"Me and my daughter hid in our cabin," Agate explained with a shiver. "That's why we hadn't run into each other earlier. I wanted to be sure we were far away from that place."

"They wouldn't hurt you, would they?" Lyra asked, feeling some pity for the peach mare.

Agate shrugged and looked a little lost. "I don't know. I haven't seen them in years. I don't even know if they would recognize me. I'm just not prepared to take the chance."

"What about your herd?" the mint mare didn't recall seeing a stallion anywhere close by.

This elicited another sob from the peach mare. "I don't have a herd. I wandered Equestria alone for years, afraid your family was hunting me down, being thestrals and all."

Lyra held her tongue, but narrowed her eyes warningly. the mare noticed her reaction and cringed.

"I'm sorry. My family warped my view of thestrals," she quickly defended herself. "I got over it while hopping towns on the Frontier."

Lyra raised an eyebrow but didn't speak. The peach mare seemed to have been through a lot.

"I met many good thestrals. And many bad ones." She rubbed her legs together as she took a deep breath. "But I still traveled anyway. Chasing jobs."

"Is the Frontier where you had your daughter?"

Agate nodded. "I... I... I was getting tired of being so lonely. I tried sneaking into a herd."

Lyra closed her eyes and sighed. "Idiot."

"It was a decently sized herd; the stallion had five mares," she described slowly, appearing to be in pain at the memory. "After it was all said... and done... I was chased out of town by his wives."

"I'm guessing you didn't try to get revenge this time," said Lyra.

"Of course not," Agate sniffed. "I at least learned that much. What is worse is that, before we were caught, his mares actually liked me."

"You're your own worst enemy."

Agate nodded. "Story of my life. Born into a wealthy family, and wound up a single mother who can hardly put food on the table." She wiped her eyes and tried to sit up straight. "And then there's you, little Lyra. Adopted into a wealthy family, successful, famous, and, I assume, the star addition to a handsome stallion's herd."

"Well, your not wrong," the good doctor sighed. "You'll forgive me if I don't have much sympathy at the moment."

The peach mare shook her head. "Of course. the fact that your allowing me to get this off my chest is more than I deserve."

"Yeah, well, we all have our faults," Lyra stepped closer to Agate and laid a hoof on her shoulder. "I wish you good luck, Agate Chipper. I hope both you and your daughter find the life you've been seeking."

"Make willing," Age managed to smile.

Then a great chorus of alarms began sounding off all over the colony.