Language check. Anything wrapped in < > in this chapter is spoken Batstralia, everything else is in English.
"What?!" Despite two days of dealing with the rush of Batstralia magic, Lyra was still not able to keep her voice to a normal range. It wasn't that people sounded quiet, which they didn't, but it seemed to her that she needed to shout to get over the background magic noise.
Joyce just looked at her daughter with a flat expression. "You heard me. Let's go and get ready. There's no sense hanging around here with you like that." With a sigh, she reached over and finished off her cup of tea.
Leaving for Equestria had seemed like a distant thing to Lyra—something she would be doing later rather than sooner. "Now?!" And, as far as Lyra was concerned, she couldn't get over this problem of yelling soon enough.
"What about tomorrow? Give us time for our last goodbyes." Joyce walked her cup to the sink and rinsed it out. "Are you sure you still want—"
Lyra had moved quickly, rushing up to Joyce and wrapping her in a hug that cut her mother off. "I still want to, but it always seemed like something for the future, you know?!"
Joyce's ears were tucked down tightly against her daughter's voice, but it did reinforce the need to move sooner, rather than later. "We need to tell Robin first. But wait, don't reply, sweetie."
Groaning, Lyra nodded her head. She went to open her mouth, and snapped it closed again. Of course, she had other friends to talk to: Rose Quartz, Dream Thunder, and Candela, but she also suddenly realized there were others in and near the town she wanted to at least give a hug goodbye to. She nodded to Joyce again, feeling the weight of the journey ahead as if she hadn't already visited Canterlot.
Together, they walked through the house to Robin's bedroom, but found her and Dream in Dream's room. Unsurprisingly, both were hanging from their tails from the perch that now replaced Dream Thunder's bed.
Robin turned her head the moment Joyce tapped on the door. "<Hi mum>!"
"<Hi Joyce>." Dream Thunder, likewise, turned from the third and hidden bat on the perch.
Spreading his wings, Tufts flapped twice to carry him to Joyce, where he caught on and hugged her neck with his expansive wings. "I was just giving our foals some lessons in dreaming." When a huge wing-claw approached his ruff, Tufts leaned into the attention from Joyce.
"Dreaming, huh? Well, we have some news." Joyce gestured to Lyra standing behind her. "We'll be leaving tomorrow."
Shock registered on both girls' faces, but it was Robin who reacted first. Jumping down from her perch, she rushed toward her mother and practically jumped into a hug with both forelegs and both wings.
Lyra squeezed up beside her mother, and put one foreleg around Joyce and Robin, but her eyes were on Dream. She lifted her other leg up, holding it out to Dream Thunder. "You're our other sister, Dream!" Lyra hadn't thought before shouting, and to her disgruntlement, everyone started giggling at her. "Oh, stop it! I can't help this!" Of course, now she was playing it for laughs.
Dream Thunder flipped off her perch and walked up to her adopted family. "Have you tried whispering?"
Reaching out with her extended leg, Lyra pulled Dream into the hug. "Of course I tried whispering! What do you think I'm doing now?!" She had everyone giggling now, which in her mind was better than tears.
Joyce squeezed her foals, including Dream in the grouping. "On the plus side, if Lyra doesn't stop with the yelling, you'll be able to hear her from Canterlot."
"Ha! Ha!" Lyra affected a droll look for maybe a second, before breaking into loud giggles herself.
Tufts squirmed at Joyce's side, adjusting how he hung from her and turned his gaze on Dream. Then he nodded.
Lyra observed the interaction, and she turned her head and raised a dark eyebrow at Dream.
"Well… we might be able to fix that. Tufts told me—" Dream froze for a second, then her eyes slid from side to side. "Well, what I mean is, Tufts is teaching me how to use dream magic. I don't know how he worked it out, but he's really clever with it. We should be able to talk, with some practice."
It was Joyce's turn to raise a skeptical look at Dream Thunder, and then she turned her head to eyeball Tufts. "Whatever this is, you and me are going to have a talk." She turned back to Dream. "I guess we had better learn that, then. How long will it take?"
"I need to get a drink!" Lyra extracted herself from the group, gave Tufts a significant look, and started walking back up the hall. She wasn't surprised to have Tufts wing his way down the hall and land on her neck.
Diverting from the kitchen, Lyra opened the back door and worked herself into an effortless trot. "What's this about teaching?!"
"I am teaching Dream what I can before we leave. I would never hurt Joyce or you girls." Tufts seemed quick to reply.
"This isn't the first time Dream looked to you for permission to talk! Wh—" Lyra was cut off by a loud screech from Tufts. She stopped her trot and glared at him.
"If you ask me a question, I will answer it, truthfully." Fidgeting, Tufts angled himself and arched his back, looking toward Lyra's one eye that was locked on him. "Ask smaller questions."
"No!" Lyra was calm, her yelling by this stage only because of the strange (to her) magic in the area. "What's going on?!" She had noticed an odd seriousness about Tufts that she had never encountered before.
Tufts ruffled his wings around himself, hanging by just one leg as he reached the other down to scratch an itchy ear. "That's the most direct and broad question you could have asked. Very well. It started——"
Lyra sat still. She was still absorbing the story Tufts had told her. "Tjinimin!"
"Keep it down!" Tufts gave an annoyed screech to punctuate his words.
"But you're not all that now?!" Much as she disliked both having to yell and ask more questions, Lyra needed to know everything.
Licking one of his wings, Tufts poked his snout out over the top of the limb. "Not all that. Don't need it where we're going. I kept a little. It wouldn't have worked right in Equestria, anyway."
Pushing her hooves under her, Lyra stood up from where she had lain. Shaking herself, she shed a small pile of twigs and sticks from her belly-fur. "You're gonna tell Mum eventually, right?!"
"When the time is right, she'll ask me. That's how it always worked. You were not meant to ask me now. I blame you being a unicorn." Finishing his grooming, Tufts gave a little screech to show what he thought of that.
Lyra just broke into a laugh. Loud, and not caring about it, she laughed for a good five minutes. Every time she started to recover, she barely managed to bark the word, "Unicorn," out, and would start again. Finally, she managed to calm down to just giggles. "Tufts, Equestria is full of unicorns!"
"What?" Tufts flapped his wings a few times in agitation. "This is terrible! We can't go!"
"You're smiling! Besides, you already said you would!" Turning around, Lyra aimed herself back toward the house, and started walking.
"That was before I knew it was full of annoying unicorns who ask so many questions!" Settling his wings at his side, Tufts waited for Lyra to almost reach the house before continuing. "You won't tell her?"
Knowing exactly who her was, Lyra stopped and let out a sigh. "I won't tell Mum on one condition!" When Tufts nodded to her, Lyra continued. "You promise me you will tell her within a year!"
"Promises are worse than questions." Tufts folded, and refolded his wings about himself. "Two years. If she doesn't ask me within two years, I'll just tell her."
Lyra shook her head. "Or if you get up to any hanky-panky! We studied Aboriginal culture; I know about you and parrot girls!"
"That was a different—!" Tufts cut himself off. "Okay. I promise to tell Joyce everything if we engage in hanky and/or panky, or if two years passes." He held Lyra's gaze for a few seconds. "It's getting so a god can't have his secrets anymore."
"Don't use the G word. You're just a crazy bat, Tufts!" Lyra used her magic to carefully lift Tufts from her mane and hold him up so they could look into both of each other's eyes. "Were you going to tell her?!"
Tufts smiled wide, and stuck out his tongue. "Yes."
"You know, if Princess Celestia asks me about you, I'm going to tell the truth, right?! That goes for anyone!" Swinging her magic perch back around to her side, Lyra let Tufts latch back onto her mane.
Tufts screeched. "You wouldn't! That's not your secret to tell!"
"Yup! I'll tell them all about how you're a bat with some crazy magic that no one really understands!" Lyra walked for the back door of the house, reaching out with her magic to open it. "That's the truth, after all!"
Tufts let out a tiny sigh. "You are my daughter." The grin on his face was almost ear to ear.
"Well, I'll give you that! You could call nearly everyone in Cowwarr your foal now, what with the wings and tufts!" As she stepped inside, Lyra had to adjust her thoughts to back away from Tufts' secret. She didn't like keeping something like this from her Mum, but she couldn't see that it would actually hurt her.
Lyra did resolve to keep an eye on her "dad" for any Tjinimin-related behavior, but she trusted him enough to tell the truth when she asked. She walked inside to find Joyce and Candela hugging in the living room.
"Go in." Dream Thunder reached out a wing to Tufts, and he practically leaped away from Lyra. She looked significantly between Lyra and Tufts.
"I told her. She asks way too many questions." Tufts stuck his tongue out at Lyra, before snuggling against Dream Thunder's shoulder.
Glaring at Tufts, Lyra Heartstrings made her way into the living room, where Candela quickly caught her with a wing and pulled her into a hug. "We're only going to Canterlot! You can send mail that far!"
"But I am used to having you around all the time, Lyra. So much has happened this year. We've been through so much that it's impossible to not get closer." Candela hugged Lyra tightly, and let out a little sigh. "It might be true I have only birthed one foal, but I feel like I'm the mother of three."
Lyra tried to aim her mouth away from Candela's ears. "Take good care of Robin! I'm glad she still has a big sister here to take care of her!"
"I can hear that, you know!" Robin's voice came from the kitchen.
Dream Thunder poked her head in the doorway, a wide grin spreading on her face. "Does that mean I can boss Robin around now?"
Nodding her head, Lyra replied, "Of course!"
Again, Robin's voice came from the kitchen. "I can still hear you!"
"We should invite our friends around for a goodbye." Joyce tapped her chin with one wing-thumb, a characteristically human gesture. She walked through to the kitchen. "Robin, can you start making up some salads and things for dinner?"
"Sure thing, Mum!" Robin's reply was quick.
"It's actually happening! We're actually going to live in Equestria!" Still trying to get used to the immediacy of the fact, Lyra disengaged from Candela (after another little squeeze), and sat down on the couch.
Joyce poked her head back in the living room. "You can wait here, Lyra. I'll have a quick fly around. Anyone you particularly want here?"
"Rose! Dave too, I guess!" Lyra didn't try to hide the grin on her face at including them as a pair. It had been hard to think of them together for all of twenty seconds. Rose was Lyra's friend first, and seeing the smile on his face when he was with Dave was better than any awkward times they had when together. "If you see them, let Pinkie, Maud, Marble, or Limestone know I'll drop in at their farm tomorrow morning—early!"
"Got it. I'll be back lickety-split!" Joyce turned back, let the door close behind her and jumped into the air. A flap of her wings pushed her higher, and she was away.
With a sigh, Lyra was glad that at least her non-spoken exclamations weren't in a shout. She opened her mouth, then closed it. She got halfway through reaching for the remote when she remembered what had happened to the poor television, the place where it had sat was still empty—electronics didn't work all that well in magic areas, and when it did nothing but show distorted, snowy pictures it had been relegated to storage.
Lyra opened her mouth to say something, again. Once more, Lyra closed it. Filling silence with sound was how she operated normally. If she weren't talking, Lyra was usually playing her guitar, eating, or sleeping. Which gave her an idea.
She pushed up from the couch, and walked through the house to her bedroom. Packing was in order, but Lyra wanted some music to accompany her task. Her bass was out of the question: after what had happened to the television, all their radios, phones, etc, Lyra was not going to turn on either her amp or her guitar's preamp. They were the only technology that actually mattered to her, and if she damaged them by turning them on, she would never forgive herself.
The guitar she had given Pinkie and Marble to practice with was the same one she had learned on, but she had another. With her magic, Lyra slipped her bass into its carry case, and lifted out the only guitar she owned that she had never played. It was a Fender, of course, and had been a gift from her music teacher. The old guitar had scuff marks, and she knew the strings would be out of key.
Sitting up on the bed, letting her back legs hang, Lyra plucked at each string one at a time. She used her magic to turn the pegs until everything sounded just right. One strum. Two. Lyra began to play, but focused on packing.
The room was lit with gold magic. Mementos, private items, and even a few garments made their way into Lyra's backpack. The beanie with pony-sized ear holes cut in it. A few of her favorite shirts, and a hoodie she loved to wear despite the heat of wearing it over fur.
She looked down at her acoustic guitar and sighed. "I need to hear it!" Wincing at her voice, Lyra dulled her horn down and reached for her bass. The thing weighed much more than the acoustic guitar, and even just hefting it in her forelegs made her feel more complete. Without turning its power on, she strummed once, then plucked a series of notes rising from the depth of her hearing to a gut-wobbling hum. Of course, that is how it should sound.
Just using her hooves, Lyra managed to get her guitar lead plugged into both amp and bass, then switched on her bass' preamp. No sparks, no fountain of fire, and not even a pop.
The little practice amplifier she had could run on mains or batteries. Lots of batteries. Hitting the toggle, again there was no explosion. For just a second, Lyra dared to hope she could play her bass. She repeated the series of plucks, and on the fifth she heard an off-note.
Reaching up to the pegs, she plucked the string again, and this time it sounded clear. Furrowing her brows, Lyra Heartstrings plucked up and down the scale with her ears perked forward to listen for a bad note. None came.
The moment Lyra tried to play, she heard another off-key sound. Without thinking, she reached to the pegs with her magic and plucked again. The warbling sound that came from her amp shocked her. Lyra quickly damped her magic, and strummed again.
"Huh! It's noise!" Tucking her ears back in annoyance at her inability to moderate her voice, Lyra strummed a few more times. She began to strum and pluck, building up a fair tune before adding a slap in here or there. The deep notes of the guitar sounded weaker than normal from the little amplifier, but it was better than nothing.
She played. Lyra's voice might be out of commission, but her hooves knew the guitar, and her heart knew the tune. She played for all she was worth, and somehow the tiny, battery-powered amplifier sounded as good as the best Marshall stack. The magic she wove into songs, it seemed, would not interfere with her ability to play.
As the last note faded, Lyra Heartstrings jerked her head up from the guitar.
"You know I'm going to have to come visit you, right? No one on earth plays that as well as you do." Rose cocked a smile at Lyra, giving her his best lopsided grin. "Can I come in?"
Opening her mouth to reply, Lyra snapped it shut again. She nodded and shuffled to the side on the bed.
Rose made his way in, and closed the door behind him. "Voice still…?" When Lyra nodded, Rose continued. "I can't believe you're going tomorrow." His voice held no accusation.
Lyra could hear a note of regret there. She hoped against hope that it wasn't love, but rather friendship. Trying to focus her throat down, she drew a tiny amount of air and shouted, "I'm going to miss you!"
Laughing at Lyra's grimace, Rose reached a wing out and hugged her. "You're a good friend, Michael Robertson, I don't doubt Lyra Heartstrings will be just as great a person—pony." He laughed a little more at his own screw up. "You're going to find someone, you know. Someone who you are going to see, and talk to, and things will just work."
Freezing in her mental tracks, Lyra listened to Rose with a heavy heart, though she tried not to betray it.
"Mark my words. You are too nice a—a pony. There is a pony our there, I can promise it." Rose looked surprised at what he had said, blinking rapidly for a moment. "I can't believe I said all that soppy crap. What the fuck has happened to me?"
"Quiet little girl has grown up!" Rolling with the joke now, Lyra didn't try to modulate her voice. "So. What's he like?!"
Rose blushed, or he looked like he was blushing under the dark fur of his face. "Dave's really nice. We're trying to come up with a new name for him—and by we I mean me—but he is resisting. I told him he needs a pony name, since everyone will have one."
"Pony!" Lyra sighed at Rose's confused look. "Everypony!"
Looking at Lyra with a deadpan expression, Rose managed to blink a few times. "You're kidding? I thought that was just something Dream and Candela say."
Lyra giggled and reached a hoof up and booped Rose Quartz on the nose.
"That's so—so silly. Silly and cute." Rose shook his head from the boop. "Well. This changes everything. There are so many more word-puns I can use! Somepony?" He laughed when Lyra nodded excitedly. "What about nopony?"
When Lyra nodded again, she watched Rose fall backwards on the bed laughing.
"I can't believe how silly that is, but it works!" Rose flopped to his side and let out a long sigh. In just a moment his mood went from laughing to morose. "I'm going to miss you, Mike. Dave is great, but even he can't make me laugh like you do."
Replying to that was impossible for Lyra, even if she had her normal voice. She looked away from Rose, and tried to build the courage she needed. When Rose sat up on the bed, Lyra struck.
Rose was half worried for his friend, but when Lyra's lips pressed to his cheek he looked like he was going to explode. It wasn't a passionate kiss, nor even an inflamed one. One moment Lyra's warm lips were there, the next they were gone again.
"I'm really going to miss you. You were my first—" Rose froze and tilted his head. "Well, I know we didn't do anything, but it was my first real date, and you were a lot of fun, and… and…" He just kept trailing away, unable to finish the sentence. Finally, Rose reached out for Lyra and wrapped both wings and both forelegs around her. "I will come visit."
The hug was much like the kiss for Lyra, just something for friends. She squeezed Rose for all she could. The soft, tight wings that wrapped around her felt good, but again there was nothing more than friendship in their embrace. Lyra didn't hold back the tear that rolled down her face.
"You're going to miss me too, I hope?" Rose unfolded his wings, pulled them back to his sides and looked at Lyra.
"Yeah!" Rolling her eyes, Lyra had forgot about her voice. She nodded to reinforce her answer, then held out her hooves really wide.
Rose chuckled. "I knew this was coming. School was all that kept you here, wasn't it?"
Lyra shook her head and pointed at her bedroom door, then at Rose.
"Friends and family will only get a pony so far. You're looking for—" Cutting off mid-sentence, Rose groaned. "Now I'm using 'pony'!"
Poking Rose with her hooves, Lyra let fly, not trying to modulate her voice. "Pony! Pony! Pony!"
"Settle down, you nut." Rose reached over and ruffled Lyra's mane with one wing, while the other pulled something from the little bags he had rigged to sling under each thin membrane, where it met his body. "I got you something. I've been working on it for a while—since you called me Rose Quartz."
Lyra looked at the little gemstone Rose passed to her. It was worthless, so far as gems went. It was exactly what would remind Lyra of Rose, however.
"It's rose quartz, from Rose Quartz."
Turning the gem over, Lyra Heartstrings let out a little sigh. "The only things I can make are laughs and music!" With a huff, Lyra set the stone down beside her, and reached for the guitar.
Rose seemed about to say something, but when Lyra's hooves found the guitar, just the first note was enough to stop him in his tracks. Lyra's songs had become somewhat of a legend around the town, but Rose had experienced them enough to know when to shut up and listen.
Hooves moving automatically, strumming, plucking, and slapping the six big strings of the bass, Lyra put how much Rose's friendship meant to her into the song, since her voice didn't seem up to the task.
Time stopped around Lyra. Nothing mattered except for her feelings for Rose and the song. She didn't dare open her mouth, she knew it would break the spell that her music wove. So she just played.
The warmth of Mike's feelings poured through the music. Then came the shock of the transformation they had both shared, but in opposite directions. Lyra's song seemed to fray a little, as their relationship had, but under the failing rhythm was something stronger. Friendship poured through each chord, each note, until the air trembled with it.
When the song stopped, suddenly, Lyra Heartstrings realized that chapter of her life was closing. Rose, she realized, had every intention of wanting to come visit her but Lyra just knew it wouldn't happen.
Rose almost recoiled when Lyra, tears suddenly pouring from her eyes, fell against his side. He spread his wings and wrapped her in them. "It's not 'goodbye'."
Lyra shook her head and hugged against Rose. "It will be!" Her shout, against Rose's barrel, startled even her. She pulled back and forced herself to smile through the pain that seemed to bite deeper than it should. "Thank you, Rose!"
"I'll go distract every—pony. Everypony. It does roll off the tongue." Rose booped Lyra's nose. "Let me head out first. Then you can dry your eyes in the bathroom while I regale them with, well, bullshit."
The tears still stung Lyra's eyes, and felt like they were streaming down her cheeks—which they were. She tried with all her might to smile for Rose, as he left, but her heart wasn't in it. Alone in her room again, Lyra reached out with her hooves to turn off her amplifier and guitar, then climbed off the bed completely.
Heading to the bathroom, Lyra jumped up to look at herself in the mirror. Michael was completely gone, physically; there was nothing of the young man left except what was in Lyra's head, and maybe what friends she knew. But, even Michael's friends had spent nearly as much time knowing Lyra as they had Mike.
"When did I stop being Mike?!" Lyra winced at the volume, but held the thought in her mind while she used her magic to wash and dry her face. Mike had thought coming to Cowwarr would be a breaking point, even his mum had, but he hadn't dreamed just how big a break it would be. Opening her mouth to speak, Lyra stopped herself just in time to not scream another of her intimate thoughts out. Is there any Mike left? she thought.
Staring in the mirror, searching for the traces of Mike that might still be there, Lyra was not aware how much time was passing until Robin shoved the door of the bathroom open. "What's up, Spud?!"
"Mum says you need to come out for the party." Robin had to back up to turn, her quadrupedal stance keeping her from simply spinning around in the doorway. "So come onnnnn!"
"I'm coming!" The normalcy of the interaction actually made Lyra smile. Her reaction had been exactly how Mike would have handled it, even if her voice was both too loud and too high to have been her former self's.
Jumping down from the sink, Lyra felt significantly better. She made her way to the living room and froze at the doorway.
"Here she is. Come on in, Lyra." Joyce beckoned Lyra into the room.
Dave and Steve had made it, with Rose of course, but so had Maud Pie, and it was the latter Lyra was most surprised by. "Hi everypony!" She caught Rose's rolled eyes and smiled wider. "What are you all doing standing around?! This is meant to be a surprise going-away party for,"—she stopped mid-yell and looked around feigning confusion.
Rose Quartz heaved a melodramatic sigh. "We're not getting out of this until we finish the joke, are we?" Her question was met by a cheesy grin on Lyra's face. "Alright. We're here for Lyra Heartstrings and Joyce Robertson."
"That's them!" Lyra walked into the room and used her magic to lift one of the armchairs away from the wall, then slipped in behind it. "Shhh! I think I hear them coming!"
Maud, moving as swiftly and quietly as possible, slipped from the room dragging Joyce with her. Not five seconds later they returned, Maud's expression animated and capped off with a folded toilet-roll-tube held to her forehead in some manner. "Oh boy, Mum, I can't wait to go to Equestria!"
Still hiding behind the couch, Lyra poked her head out to the side and tried to get Rose's attention. "Psst! Are they here?!" The shouted question got everyone's attention but Joyce and Maud's.
Unable to keep his giggles at bay, Rose nodded to Lyra. "Yes. You twit."
Everyone was outright laughing or giggling now, which was Maud's cue. "I wonder why we chose this obviously empty room to walk into? It's almost as if there was somepony behind the couch, ready to jump out and yell—"
"Surprise!" Lyra yelled, jumping out from behind the couch. When she saw Maud's face, though, she realized her previously flat expression was hiding her emotions. Maud was trying her hardest to look the part of a surprised unicorn, but Lyra could tell there was sadness just under the thin veneer.
Tripping as she tried to step over the couch, Lyra rolled into a heap and flopped at Maud's hooves. Tilting her head up and back she just grinned like a fool, and then she saw what she would happily take a tumble for: Muad's smile.
"You're a very silly pony, Lyra Heartstrings." Maud reached up and plucked the tapered cardboard roll from her head, and reached to Lyra with it.
Gasping, Lyra got up to her knees and bowed her head before Maud, as if accepting a crown.
Joyce cleared her throat. "I now pronounce you: Queen Lyra Heartstrings!"
Maud leaned across and pretended to shield her voice from everyone but Joyce with one hoof. "We don't do queens. Make her a princess."
"I now pronounce you: Princess Queen Lyra Heartstrings!" Joyce wore the biggest, silliest grin ever on her face. Everyone was laughing outright now, even Lyra.
Robin poked her head into the room, and looked at the scene before her. "Food's ready!"