Chapter 8
Twilight’s Confession and the Equestria Extension
___________________________________________________________
Sai came home later that evening to find me slumped against the dining room table, bawling my eyes out, my body being wracked by sobs.
When she asked what was wrong, I pointed her to the scroll, rolled up on the table, only able to say two words through my sobs. “Twilight! Lyra!”
Still worried, but confused, Sai had opened the scroll… and learned everything I have.
It’s all there, in Twilight’s letter. It explains everything. Everything. Why Lyra ended up in our world. Why she was a filly. Why she had no memory of her life before I found her. Why she finds herself staring off into space and feeling sad. And why she has those nightmares the same time that scream rings out.
It’s all in the letter.
Lyra is the reason she’s in our world. She wove a spell that would send her here as a human, so she could save humanity. She wouldn’t have had her magic, but she’d have had the only magic she’d have truly need, the magic of friendship.
She’d wanted to bring all the love and light of Equestria with to our world… but it had gone wrong.
Twilight had tried to stop her. She’d interfered with Lyra’s spell.
That’s why Lyra was a six-year-old filly with no memories when I found her. That’s why she didn’t have her Cutie Mark. Because of what Twilight had done when she tried to stop Lyra’s spell from sending her here.
Twilight is also the only reason I could’ve known about Lyra when I found her.
After Lyra had been sent away, Twilight did everything she could to try and get word to Lyra, to let her know what had happened and who she is.
Twilight did everything in her power to make sure the story of Equestria made it to our world… meaning Twilight is the reason the idea for Friendship is Magic entered the mind of Lauren Faust in the first place.
It was Twilight, sending knowledge of Equestria to our world in the hopes of it reaching Lyra… but it didn’t.
Lyra never got the information, because Twilight clearly didn’t know how to send it specifically to her.
Once the full weight of everything hit Sai, she pulled me into a hug and we wept into each other.
All this time, we’d been having such happy times with Lyra, enjoying having her with us… while Lyra’s friends suffered, knowing their friend was lost to them.
How do you cope with something like that?
“Daddy?”
At once, we both got stiff.
Slowly turning around, we see Lyra and her friends standing in the doorway of her room, looking tired, but worried.
“Daddy, what’s wrong?” Lyra steps forward, her eyes wide with concern. “Why’re you and Sai crying? Did something bad happen?”
I almost break down again.
Lyra… even with everything that’s happened to her, regardless if she remembers it or not, she’s more concerned with us than herself.
I look to Sai and she looks back, nodding, sobbing as she says, “It’s time.”
So, we tell her.
We told her everything.
How could we not? You don’t hide such a huge bombshell like this. You just don’t.
How could I call myself her father if I hid the truth from her after what I’ve learned?
We let Twilight’s message play, this time with all the kids listening.
Lyra wept into me as she heard what had happened to her, Sai and I doing our best to explain My Little Pony to her for the full context. In fact, we told her about that before letting her hear the message, so she wouldn’t be confused as to who is talking.
We all know that no one is going to be going to school today. How could any of these kids focus on school work after hearing something so huge about one of their best friends?
And going to have to call in sick myself. I couldn’t be around the kids today. Not today.
“D-Daddy?” I look to my daughter as she sniffles, staring up at me with sadness and… fear? “Does… does this mean I’m not really your daughter?”
My eyes widen and at once, I pull her close. “No, Lyra, no. No, sweetie. Don’t you ever think like that. Family is more than blood. You are and always will be my daughter. I will always be your daddy. Nothing can ever change that.”
“But… but that Twilight said…” she whimpers.
I wipe her tears with one hand. “Yes, Twilight said you wouldn’t be how you are, and we wouldn’t be family, if she hadn’t broken your spell. But that doesn’t change that we are family, Lyra. I could never look at you and see anyone other than my daughter.”
“And you did it!” Kimiko says with firm encouragement, standing up.
We all glance at her, confused.
Lyra sniffles, trying to get her crying under control. “Did… did what?”
She walks over and takes her friends’ hooves in her hands. “You brought friendship to us, Lyra. You done it for all Hokkaido.”
I blink, before my eyes widen as just what she’s saying dawns on me.
Twilight’s letter clearly explains Lyra wanted to come to our world to help it, to spread love and friendship to those around her… and she had.
My family have never been happier. Whenever we video call them, they tell us how much has changed since they met Lyra. How many good things are happening in their lives.
And then there’s my life.
Not only have I become a father and felt the full joys that come with it, but Lyra is the reason I moved to Japan.
Until she’d come into my life, I’d had no real life plans for my future. I’d had vague ones, but hadn’t the courage to follow most of them through.
Now? Look at me. I’m a childcare worker at an elementary school in another country. I have a daughter who brings light into my life every single day. And I have so many friends.
Sapporo isn’t the only city in Hokkaido that has come to accept Lyra as a fact of life. All of Hokkaido has.
Nowhere when we go away on vacation does anyone think Lyra is odd. She makes anyone she encounters on the streets happy.
We even took her when we went to visit Sai’s grandmother in Kyoto and nothing went wrong. Everyone saw Lyra as normal.
Whether or not the rest of Japan feels the same is up for debate, but…
I quickly reach into my pocket and pull out the card with the Tokyo address on it.
Is it possible more of Japan than just Hokkaido and Kyoto know about Lyra? Does all of Japan? And what about beyond?
Has Lyra become known and accepted overseas without us even knowing about it? How else could Lauren Faust have known about Lyra living here in Japan as my daughter otherwise?
I look to Sai, who looks back.
___________________________________________________________
“<So, you came after all,>” Agent Sakamoto is standing under the Rainbow Bridge says as I come around the corner.
He’s wearing a black suit and tie, though I don’t get a Men In Black vibe from him.
He glances around. “<I’d have thought you’d bring your daughter with you.>”
I scowl. “<Lyra is still recovering from realizing what that message meant. You know damn well a child couldn’t just bounce back from something like that.>”
Sai has taken time off to look after Lyra. They’ve gone to her grandmother’s house in Kyoto for the time being.
I’m here to get some answers. Namely, what the government has to do with us getting the message in the first place.
Agent Sakamoto blinks, before his expression becomes one of understanding and nods. “<You are right. To expect her to just be okay with it is foolish.>”
I fold my arms. “<Now, what’s this all about? And don’t play stupid games with me. This is my daughter we’re talking about.>” I narrow my eyes. “<I will not let anything bad happen to her, you got that?>”
He nods, if feeling at all intimated or annoyed by my tone, hiding it well. “Come with me, Walker-san. We have much to talk about.”
I follow him away from the bridge to a non-assuming white square style car.
I can’t help cocking my eyebrow.
“<What?>” he asks, raising an eyebrow. “<Were you expecting a black, slim car or something?>”
I nod slightly. “<Actually, yes.>”
Agent Sakamoto moves over to the car and I get in, but remain wary.
I know full well this could go south, fast. I have to keep my wits about me at all times.
He starts the car and we begin driving through Tokyo.
“I imagine you have many questions,” Agent Sakamoto says as we pause at an intersection. It was a statement, not a question.
I nod slightly.
Lauren Faust’s second letter was all I’d needed to become skeptical as to how far down the rabbit hole this all goes.
Her second letter had been directed solely to Lyra. She wanted to speak with her, to apologize for not knowing sooner the implications of the show she would be responsible for being so wide spread… and she’s going to be here in Japan, today.
Agent Sakamoto remains silent until we pull up in an underground parking lot.
I follow him upstairs to find myself standing before the Tokyo Tower.
I cock an eyebrow at him.
“Things are more complicated than one could ever believe,” he simply says and leads me inside.
We get into an elevator marked Staff Only and go down for about twenty minutes.
When the doors open, it’s too a large room with plush chairs.
I glance at Agent Sakamoto.
He indicates to a closed door on the far left of the room.
After making it clear I will over go after him, he opens the door and I walk in to find what looks like a broadcasting room.
People are moving around, talking facts and figures that I can’t even pretend to comprehend. It’s the screens themselves, however, that have my attention.
I’ve seen enough TV shows and played enough video games about alternate worlds to tell the diagrams are relating to some kind of wormholes.
Though, the screen that has my attention the most is one looking at what seems to be a house in an ordinary neighbourhood… but a familiar one.
It’s the house I found Lyra outside.
“<Walker-san,>” I turn to my right as a man in a military uniform steps forward. “<Thank you for coming.>”
“Japanese is fine. Are you guys trying to figure out how to open a portal between our world and Equestria?” I demand, pointing to the screens.
You’d have to be someone pretty inexperienced in the idea of such things to not immediately figure that out, especially after hearing Twilight’s message for Lyra.
The military man seems surprised for a moment, before closing his eyes, chuckling. “I guess we should’ve expected you’d figure it out quickly, considering the circumstances.”
I fold my arms. “Care to explain those circumstances?”
He chuckles again, before shaking his head and extending his hand. “I am Admiral Akitaka.”
I take the hand and shake.
“You are partly correct, but also partly wrong,” he says, turning attention to the screens again.
“After that letter from Faust-san was arrived in Japan a year ago, we got in contact with several scientists who are experts in the fields of nuclear and astrophysics,” he indicates to several people in the room who turn their heads and bow, before returning to doing whatever it was they were on their screens. “Both here and in Australia.”
I blink. “In Australia?”
He nods. “Since your daughter appeared in Australia, it stands to reason the end point of her travel from her reality to our own was within the vicinity.”
“And the need for nuclear and astrophysicists?” I ask. I have a guess, but I’m not above checking to see if my knowledge based from science fiction is incorrect or not.
“We’re corresponding with the Australian astrophysicists to compare the data and maintain watch should the portal reopen,” a female says from… somewhere in the room.
“No need to pretend, Walker-san,” Admiral Akitaka says, his expression serious. “It is clear from her message that this Sparkle Twilight intends to find a way to reopen the portal between this world and her own. We have been preparing for the last year, to be sure we are ready for when that happens.”
I glare. “To invade Equestria?”
The admiral slowly shakes his head. “To welcome her. The Japanese Government wants no ill feelings between this Equestria and Earth.”
I cock an eyebrow. “Alright, I’m curious. I’ll bite: Why?”
He smiles, a warm, understanding smile. “You’re daughter has lived among the Japanese public for two years, Walker-san. We know she means us no harm, in fact the opposite. Even without that being stated in Sparkle-san’s message, that much has been made clear.”
“Plus, there’s the fact their rulers control two celestial bodies,” a nerdy sounding guy’s voice says from… ugh, this room has too many people in it for me to keep track. “Picking any kind of fight with such beings would be foolish. Especially as we do not know if this Princess Celestia will be able to control our sun like she can her own. Much better not to take any chances.”
I can’t help feeling uneasy by that statement. That’s a pretty morbid way of looking at it. Accurate, but morbid.
After I’ve managed to regain my composure, I look to the admiral. “So, you’re saying you’ve been monitoring where Lyra appear in this world to ensure good relations when the ponies find a way here too?”
The admiral nods. “And, if it isn’t too much trouble, we were hoping your daughter would be willing to work with us. We feel we can help her further her original goals.”
I remain quiet, arms folded, thinking it over.
“Wait. She’s not here?”
The sudden additional voice pulls me from my thoughts and I turn around to come face to face with the creator of Friendship is Magic herself, Lauren Faust.