//------------------------------// // Nothing Bad Happened // Story: Welcome to Batstralia // by Damaged //------------------------------// Language check. Anything wrapped in < > in this chapter is spoken English, everything else is in Equish. Joyce shook her head at the antics of her daughter. She had a wing around Robin, and the other around Dream, and not for the first time did she realize how ironic it was that Dream Thunder looked more like Joyce than Candela. "I think Bob and Maureen said they were having a get-together at the pub after the ceremony. What do you two think?" Rubbing Robin and Dream's ears with her thumb-claws, Joyce managed to break her gaze from Lyra accepting her graduation paper to look between the girls flanking Joyce. "Will everyone be there?" Robin's eyes were big as she looked around those gathered. There was more than just the usual town residents, the full Pie family having attended, as well as Dave O'Brian and Paul Harrison (the latter now sporting a pair of bat wings and being in the last stages of his change, he was keeping quite close to Porcelain Clay). Robert picked then, of course, to lift his voice. "!" With his announcement made, the very ponyish general store owner put one bat wing around his wife, the other his daughter, and made his way off towards the pub. Murmurs rose, and more family groups split off to head in the same direction. When Lyra rejoined with her family, Candela with her, Joyce repeated her plan and it was agreed. The walk to the pub was slow and sedate, and it revealed that not everyone was as familiar with new hooves as they would have liked. With two winged adults and three children, Joyce and Candela managed to keep close contact with each of their foals. "How's Bitey going, Mum?" Lyra looked to Joyce, using their nickname for the bunyip Joyce had rescued at the behest of the Rainbow Serpent. "Well, she doesn't think of ponies as food, which is good. She is hunting up in the hills, and I am pretty sure she's the reason some of Frank O'Brians cows have gone missing. You'll keep that to yourself, of course." Joyce had made her mind up about following her daughter to Equestria with one goal as her target: she wanted to learn Equestrian medicine. Robin squirmed under her mother's wing, twisting free so she could look up at Joyce rather than have to crane her head. "What are you going to do with her when you leave?" "I have a filly who is going to be staying here. And I was thinking of asking someone to help me talk to Bitey in a dream and tell her to take care of my foal, and let my foal take care of her." Smiling between Robin and Dream, Joyce got big grins from both girls. "So I think she will be fine." It wasn't a long walk to the pub, and once there Candela and Joyce slipped into the bistro entrance with their foals. The pub itself had been in a low-magic area before, but with the recent changes, there was enough magic that Joyce saw Lyra having to focus herself on fending off a magic build up. "You okay, hon?" Joyce found a seat at a table and urged Lyra to take the one beside her. "Yeah. This magic mix-up is playing merry hell on me. The books Candela got for me said I would just get used to handling this after a while, but until then it takes effort not to spark, or worse." Lyra gestured up at her horn and, for a moment, obviously relaxed her grip on her magic. "I know, dear." Joyce shielded herself from the shower of sparks that shot from her daughter's horn. "Where'd Robin go?" She looked around, suddenly realizing she was a daughter short. "Dream took her out the back with the other foals." Candela settled at the table beside Joyce and Lyra. "You might have warned me you were going to be putting on a show." She aimed the comment at Lyra. Lyra grinned like the Cheshire cat. "If we warned you it wouldn't have been as funny. Maud and I wanted to make it a memorable end." Joyce slipped from her seat. "Getting some drinks." She slipped away without taking orders, knowing already what Lyra and Candela would want, not that she planned to get what they wanted. Walking up to the bar, Joyce had to rear up to get her forehooves on the wood and her head high enough to see over the bar. "Five glasses, a jug of squash and a bottle of champagne." Paying, Joyce made her way back to the table, with the barmaid following with a wine bucket, jug, and glasses. When she reached the table, she found Lyra and Candela listening to Robin recount a story of something magical they had found behind the pub. Thanking the barmaid, Joyce turned and carefully opened the champagne bottle with a loud pop. "We have a little celebration. One of my little girls is all grown up, and the other is moving to Equestria!" She poured three glasses of wine and looked to Robin and Dream. "You can try a little if you like." Being offered her first taste of alcohol was a big thing to Robin, and she nodded to her mother solemnly. Candela gave her daughter a pointed look, and then smiled. "It's a special occasion. You can try some if you like, Dream." Dream Thunder actually gave a squeak of excitement and nodded to Joyce. "Yes please!" Joyce poured barely a shot of wine in the bottom of the two remaining glasses, then tipped the bottle back upright and set it in its ice bucket. "I guess I might as well go first." She used her wing to pick up one of the glasses (the full ones), and smiled as her family each picked up one of their own with various methods. "To long, fruitful lives, and to friends and family to share them with." Five glasses clinked together, and each of them took a sip. "Ooo! It's grape juice!" Dream quickly tipped her glass up and gulped down the remainder of her drink, prompting her mother to groan. "What?" "It's alcoholic. Like dark cider." Candela reached out with a wing and used her feathers to lift the jug of squash up. "You should stick to this, dear." She poured her daughter out a glass of the lemon-flavored drink. The interchange brought a smile to Joyce's snout, and she realized that she could taste the wine with a lot more intensity than when she had drunk when she was human. "Wine could easily become a bat pony's favorite drink. Maybe grape juice would be a good idea, too?" "To living, loving, and always being able to laugh." Lyra Heartstrings smiled over her floating wine glass. All of them clinked their glasses together and sipped again. "Family and youth. Nothing is more important, and no matter how far you travel you will always have both." Candela ruffled her wings a little and smiled around. She lifted her glass up and clinked it with the others, and followed their sip. "Fun and excitement!" Dream Thunder froze, and looked between Joyce and Candela with confusion. "Was that wrong?" Lyra giggled. "It's a great toast, but a lot of people take 'have an exciting life' as a curse. Those people are boring." She offered her glass to Dream's, and together they clinked them. Robin joined the toast to fun and excitement, although she was sipping the wine in every approximation of what she had seen the adults do. She was about to put in her own toast when a strange shimmer of strange light ran through the room. Everyone stopped talking, and the entire pub went quiet. Lyra was the first to speak. "That was magic. A lot of magic." She was the first to action too, and jumped to her hooves and ran for the door. "Michael, what's going on?" Joyce barely had a chance to put her glass down and rush after her daughter, and only realized moments later that she had goofed on Lyra's name. When she looked out the door past Lyra, she couldn't tell what had happened. "Magic. Magic is everywhere." Stepping outside, Lyra turned around. "Dream? Dream!" "I'm here. Want me to check on the circles?" Dream Thunder pushed out the door past Joyce, and started to stretch her wings once outdoors. "No. I could see those if they were there. You need to talk to the Rainbow Serpent." Snapping her attention away from the rush of magic, Lyra looked at Dream. "Try to work out what happened." Joyce picked up Dream's trepidation first. "Dream, what's wrong?" She reached out a wing and put it over Dream's back, pulling her "adopted" daughter into a hug. Candela left the building next, and took up the other side of her daughter. "Th-The Rainbow Serpent said she could hold it all. She…" Dream Thunder gave Lyra a significant glance. "I need to find out what happened."