//------------------------------// // Conversation 42: Lyra Heartstrings // Story: Aporia // by Oliver //------------------------------// I’m not afraid of heights. I’m actually quite comfortable when walking on clouds. Pegasus ancestry. Riding giant birds, however, is where I draw the line. It’s unnatural, and it’s disrespectful to birds. “O-o-o-o-o-o-ho-ho-ho-ho!” Bon-Bon made a motion to smack Trixie over the head, but I caught her hoof in my magic and shook my head. The last thing we need right now is Trixie losing concentration and dispelling the bird while we’re still five floors above the ground. All those changelings scattering away from it will do nothing to soften our landing, that’s for sure. Spectral guardian spells fell out of use in the Third Celestial Era because they discovered that there’s a chance for the caster to suffer permanent damage when their “summoned” beast receives a brain injury. Because it’s not really a summoning, but a projection, which only became apparent when post-classical theories took root. If I ever needed any proof Trixie is completely bonkers, that would be it. Did she even graduate properly? I don’t know. And I don’t have the guts to ask. But seeing the two titans wrestling on the horizon, I am sure it makes no difference. We’re late. I’m out of my depth. We’re all out of our depth. This is a Celestia-herself-level mess, end of the world, chthonic myth stalking the land, and wherever that dragon came from, that won’t hold him, not for long. I don’t know how much truth there is in the griffon ballad of the fall of the centaur kingdom, but it’s very graphic. I feel more lost than I was in the castle… Trixie never admitted she was actually lost too. She just found a window, opened it up and jumped out with a battle cry, and we had no choice but to follow. I kept regretting it all the way until the bird finally landed and sank into the crystal beneath my hooves. “O-o-o-o-o-o-ho-ho-ho-ho! Fillies and gentlecolts, the Great and Powerful Trixie has arrived!” Evidently, just one round of this maniacal cackling wasn’t enough for her. “Can you stop that horrible noise for a moment, Trixie? What are you even doing here, looking for the letter ‘I’?!” Twilight hissed, turning towards us. Her eyes were tinted a not so subtle green, and faint purple trails were oozing out. Oh no… no, no, no, no! I know they sometimes fight fire with fire, but this would be way too much! “The Great and Powerful Trixie has an ample supply of ‘I’,” Trixie retorted. “But if you’re offering to share one of your ’I’s, Trixie graciously accepts. What exactly have you gotten us into this time, Twilight Sparkle?” “I don’t have the time for this, Trixie!” Twilight choked out. It sounded like she was desperately trying to keep a reverberation chamber from escaping her lungs. “Too busy playing the heroine?” Trixie quipped. “Because if you are, Trixie, as your designated rival, is here to counterbalance you. But if you aren’t, Trixie has more important business to attend to. Like searching for the ancient artifact of great power that will get us out of this mess. Because somepony has to!” Twilight inhaled, as if planning to blow Trixie away by huffing and puffing. She was inhaling for so long, that I had time to briefly wonder if there’s a hole somewhere in her belly. And then she squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. Here it comes… Are you listening? I’m sure you’re listening. You said “no strings,” but I’m sure there is one string. You said you’re reading the story of my life together with me. You wouldn’t do this if you didn’t care. Whatever happened in your ascension, somewhere deep down, you’re still a person. So listen up. I want you to understand what I feel. It’s important for my character development. Ask me to name the smartest pony I have met, and I’ll name Moondancer. Give her a theorem, and she’ll find three new proofs without fail. The most knowledgeable pony I have met? Sunburst from my class. Ask him for a spell to do something, and he’ll name three before opening the books, and four more afterwards. And then he’ll tell you what happens if you combine all seven. The most inventive pony I ever met? Trixie, as long as she isn’t nearby to hear me say it. Leave her alone in a room with three sticks and a rope, come back in an hour. She will surprise you. There will still be half of the rope left over, and one more stick than she started with. But ask me to name a genius, and I will say “Twilight Sparkle.” She is a prodigy, but in the School for Gifted Unicorns, we had no shortage of those. That’s not why she’s Princess Celestia’s personal student. I don’t know how she does it. I don’t think she knows, either. It tends to take a while. But suddenly, there is that spark in her eyes, and she does the impossible. Or tells you to do the impossible. Same thing, really. And then, it turns out it isn’t really impossible at all, and nopony knows how the hay she figured that out. “Lyra,” Twilight said without opening her eyes. “Call upon the Crystal Heart.” “W-what? How?” I stammered out. It’s never something you expect. Twilight opened her eyes and stared at me. The green and purple were gone, and instead, what I saw was that spark. “She said some ideas are universal. Taking the hero’s mantle for a spin… You’re a magical girl, Lyra. Sunlit Seen was a magical girl. Is. You’re the best poet I know. Figure it out. If you do, we can beat this monster!” I was about to ask who “she” was, but Applejack interrupted me, “So we’re not doin’ that dark magic thing, then?” “Let’s keep it for Plan B, AJ,” Twilight replied. “If Lyra can invoke the Heart directly, we have a much better option. I’m sure she can.” I opened my mouth to object again and shut it immediately. Is. Not was. It’s always how obvious this should be that gets you. That magical leap that logic will never get you through. This castle, this whole city, exist because they kept the Crystal Heart alive, they tended this flame for centuries. It’s not Sunlit Seen as she was before her sacrifice, that pony died, giving up her heart to light the way for others. But that’s still her actual heart, in a very real sense. It’s continuous with her, just like I am continuous with the silly girl who wrote a poem to describe the candy that the princess of love bought at a street fair. That was the pony who became the Lyra of today. Sunlit Seen, whoever she really was, is alive. She’s alive in every single crystal pony. And there are no ponies who can’t sing! “Do your thing, Lyra,” Bon-Bon said, putting on sunglasses and taking an ominous looking thing out of her sleeve bag. I think it’s an army issue flash grenade. “I’ve got your back.” That was all the encouragement I needed. My crystal companion helpfully gave me a short list of songs to choose from, and I settled on another one in that strange language with a smattering of Equish words here and there. The criteria for this one are quite specific, but I need as much freedom in rewriting the lyrics as I can get. I know exactly what they need to hear. I took a deep breath, as the sharp voices of violins filled the air and quickly ramped up to the opening verse. When all is lost and light is gone, A voice answered me out of nowhere, floating on the wave, and I couldn’t tell if it’s a pony, or the music of harmony itself singing the duet with me. But I knew it was the line I thought of. — Be faithful! We finished the opening verse together, as the transformation magic spun up and I saw myself rising above the awed faces of my friends. Hope and despair are born as one, — Embrace them! Don’t give up until the world has frozen still! Strange. The transformation didn’t hurt at all, this time. I spread my fingers out in front of my face, watching the razor-thin strings glittering in the air, vibrating gently to the music. These are my heartstrings. One of them is red. I know where it goes, now. They don’t just slice things apart, they also bind us all together. With a leap that I would call ridiculous at any other time, I landed onto the great hall balcony of the castle, shaking the strings in a deep, sustained chord. With a verse, I sent them out to cross the city in all directions, binding it in a web, mirroring the snowflake of the crystal streets. When sun is rising over the ice, — Rainbows are shining bright Out in the northern sky. All mortal things will come to an end. Even the Moon might fall, — Even the Sun might die. Yet in the darkness we will sing, “I love you!”… As the chorus started, underneath the castle, and all across the city, thousands of crystal ponies joined the song. It’s a reflex that you can’t take away, something you can’t forget, because this is what you are, a resonance, an oath, deeper than a memory, more important than knowing your own name. Golden lightning sparked between the ground and my heartstrings, ran across them, thickening, assembling into one bright stream that went through me and shot upwards to the sky, curving towards the point at the top of the spire. Where have all the changelings gone? I don’t see any. Stargrass! We almost whispered this line, echoing through a sudden beat of silence. It was a line I neither planned for nor expected, an exclamation of surprise, as I saw what was going on far above me, on the other end of the curving stream of power. A huge bubble of gold collected atop the castle spire, bright enough to light the city up beyond what Celestia’s sun could possibly achieve. Around it, thin, long sheets of magic were spinning slowly, like a flower of stargrass. Six petals, each a color of its own, a rainbow unwrapped. The Elements! The battle of the titans abruptly concluded, as the centaur finally threw the dragon off and sent him flying through the air to land somewhere beyond city limits. The ground shook slightly as his body made contact. Suddenly, the petals twisted, curling into a tube directed straight at Tirek’s face. The ball became a stream, as our song resumed, the golden lightning flowing through me and up to the spire so fast that I could no longer make out the words I was singing. Even keeping track of which thoughts are my own became a challenge, and only by holding onto that one red string was I able to keep any sense of personal identity. Just how many unsolved theoretical problems of high energy magic did the Elements simply brush away to make that thaumic waveguide, like they were meaningless obstacles on the path to harmony? I don’t know. I almost expected the overwhelming power that I just channeled would simply crush Tirek like a rotten egg. But that wasn’t what happened. Instead, what I saw was Tirek opening his mouth and catching the beam with it like a fish desperate for water, and the lump on his throat moved up and down, faster and faster and faster… “Positive remoralization through love energy!” Who said that? It was somepony down on the street, but I can’t tell anymore. I’m not sure I even have ears anymore, or which of the myriad ears I can feel are mine. The flow of burning gold continued in a torrent, sending sparks in all directions as it met the centaur’s gaping maw, and he remained standing there, gulping it down. For a few beats, for a whole verse, I thought that there would be no end to it, that we’d keep standing like that forever, frozen in the moment, feeding the bottomless pit. Worth it. That was the moment when bright, glowing cracks appeared on the red face, running across the skin as if somepony poured boiling water into ice, crossing onto the torso and further down, momentarily drowning the music out with a single clear, sharp note. Just a beat later, the titanic monster came apart at the seams, splitting into thousands upon thousands of smaller and smaller pieces, until I could see nothing in the fading golden light but finely dispersed dust. Even that vanished soon afterwards. “Now that,” I heard Rainbow Dash say with smug satisfaction, breathing heavily, as the final chords of the song died down and silence covered the city in twilight, “That was proper awesome.” That was when the cheering started, and the first of Trixie’s famous fireworks exploded somewhere above my head. ✶                ✶                ✶ With a flick of a finger, I sliced apart the wall behind the throne, revealing the hidden staircase, and stepped through. Some kind of panel on my arm – what a silly thing – was blinking red lights, punctuated by worried beeping in the headphones over my ears, warning me, that instead of the magic supplied by the singing ponies, I’m running on my own reserves, threatening imminent magic exhaustion unless I detransform immediately. It’s okay, Grayswandir. I’m a pony. We’re a bit more magical than the humans you were made for, I should last a few more minutes. I need to last a few more minutes. She’s calling me. She wants to go home. I owe her that much and more. The spiral staircase felt endless. By the time I finally got to the top, it was swimming before my eyes, a kaleidoscope of prismatic reflections of itself, and once I stumbled out onto the platform at the end of the spire, I collapsed onto my hands. These things aren’t meant for walking, are they? Even armored, they’re too fragile, too brittle. But I did not command the transformation to reverse until I crawled over the scorched, pulverized remains of evaporating black crystal and touched the Heart. Whatever traps had existed here were dead, fried instantly when Twilight activated the Heart-powered, Element-guided love cannon. Generations of ponies transformed what must have been a gruesome, horrifying relic into a thing of beauty, a heart not like what hearts look like, bleeding sacs of muscle, but like what they really are. But still, my hoof felt a gentle heartbeat in the solid, clear crystal. I tried to grab it in my magic, but the matrix fizzled immediately, stabbing with a dull pain behind my ears. Magic exhaustion. He warned about that. It’s okay. I’ve had worse after the finals in school. A few days bed rest and I will be good as new. As long as I can get Bon-Bon to feed me grapes and call me a brave girl, this might even be nice. I tried cradling the heart in my forelegs, but navigating the stairs just on my hind legs was way too difficult. After very nearly tumbling down, I had to abandon this idea. Gently, I gripped the Heart between my teeth and eased back onto four hooves. One step at a time. A thousand steps. It felt like a small eternity, and by the time I emerged out of the doors at the bottom of the castle, I could barely feel my legs. Two heartbeats echoed through my skull, synchronous, and I couldn’t tell which originated in my own chest, and which belonged to the heart in my teeth. What a crowd. Bon-Bon is here. Cadance is here. Everypony is here. All the crystal ponies are here. We’re home. Why are they all looking at me like that? I only had the strength for a few more steps, before I collapsed at Cadance’s hooves.