Lyra looked through the treehouse’s window. It was raining again. Gentle raindrops were washing against the glass, dripping down like trails of tiny streams. The lake was covered by a thin layer of mist, the grasses bending in the soft wind. In weather like this, the green lamp above her bed was as faint as the flicker of a firefly. She sighed and wore her saddlebags. If she was back in Ponyville, she wouldn’t even think about going out on a day like this, but this time it was different. She has been running away from this for a whole two days. She knew she couldn’t put it off. She knew it had to happen.
Nightjar was already waiting at the door when she went downstairs. She didn’t bring an umbrella or any kind of cover, allowing the rain to splash against her feathers. Violet and ember irises locked onto each other. Lyra could read a thousand words behind those eyes, while even more words rushed into her throat. But ultimately they only nodded to each other. Lyra lit up her horns, summoning a golden dome above their heads, blocking the rain as they walked side by side into the New Moon Forest. A spark of magic sizzled in the long crack of her horn. Her dome dangled, but didn’t dissipate.
The forest was silent. There was no sound apart from the gentle swinging of leaves and bushes. The Gray Tempest hadn’t done any real damage to the forest’s ecosystem, but it did give the lesser critters quite a fright. Nearly all birds, rabbits, and insects had fled from the forest’s center. But still, Lyra could smell the scent of newborn buds and branches, sprouting out towards the sky—it was the scent of life. A persistent force that does whatever it takes to survive, no matter how hard it was struck done. A force even impossible for the Gray Tempest to shatter.
I wonder if you can see this, Grey? This is our world. The world you wished so hard to protect.
This is your home.
“So…she had the termination code all the time,” Nightjar was asking. Some of her feathers were so wet that they were sticking onto Lyra’s coat. It felt tickling, but not unpleasant.
“Yeah…” Lyra said, “she never gave all the rights to me.”
“But why? Doesn’t she trust us?” Nightjar swung her head towards her.
“I don’t know…” Lyra pressed a hoof onto her chest, cringing after her lie. Of course she knew. She knew how well Grey Wind had got to know her. She knew how Grey Wind was perfectly aware that she’ll never be able to make that choice.
She hopes for the best outcome for our world and for us. But never for herself.
Locating that boulder was never difficult. The countless grey nanite debris had practically covered the entire area with blackness. They entered the hidden tunnel together, descending into the Xa’natars’ control chamber. It was almost exactly the same as last time. Lyra guided her eyes away from the still-pulsing ember magical sephere shielding the portal and the dark red stain on the floor beside it and went straight to the hidden side room. Beside her mother’s tomb, a new gravestone had risen, a similar tiny candle placed in front of it. On its side was a neatly folded black cloak, the emerald gems reflecting the candle’s orange flame. It was the first and only gift Grey Wind had received from her friends.
“Hey, Grey,” Lyra muttered. A strong wave of sadness was grinding her heart, but she managed to push them away and generate a beam, “I…I’m not sure if you can see this, but we are both here. Me and Nightjar.”
“Yeah!” Nightjar nodded hard, “and we are both alright! We managed to shut that second portal! Lyra’s horn got a bit cracked, but Warmhoof said it was no big deal! And—and—” she was stammering. Lyra could see that she was trying to keep herself from crying out, “—every pony in the town is fine! Well, of course we were scared by such an enormous mountain of nanomachines, but nopony was hurt! You stopped them before they could slip out of the forest! Everyone is returning home! We even got the Moonlight Festival kicking! There will be a carnival, a circus, a huge market…it’s going to be so much fun!”
“I received Bon-Bon’s letter,” Lyra immediately followed. They couldn’t allow themselves a single second to think, “that competition was finished, and she got the second place! She’s the second-best cater in Baltimare right now! Do you know about Baltimare? It’s an enormous city! Well, nothing compared to the cities of your creators, for sure, but still the second-largest city in all of Equestria! There was--" she couldn’t stop herself from talking. She talked about Baltimare, about Canterlot, about the Princesses, about Ponyville, about Twilight, about Rainbow, About Pinkie, about Rarity, about the other elements of harmony, about all that Grey Wind had said she wanted to see but never got the chance. Tears were welling up in her eyes, but she didn’t let them show. There was one last thing she had to do, and she couldn’t do it if she was crying.
“Grey…I heard what you had to say. I know you want to hear my music again…so…here it is, I guess…” she put her saddlebag onto the floor and opened it, then her body went stiff. Her reached-out hoof for her lyre was frozen mid-air.
The box mom had left her was leaning against the ground. The green energy barrier on its lid was nowhere to be seen, and the lid had slid to the side. A piece of white cloth was resting inside it.
“It is…open?” Nightjar leaned forward, “but how?”
The barrier was drawing energy from the Gray Tempest, she suddenly remembered, when the Gray Tempest dissipates, the barrier dissipates.
With a trembling hoof, she grabbed the cloth and pulled it out, bathing it in her horn’s magical glow. Then she saw it--the last relic her mother had left her, her final heritage apart from that goodbye.
A piece of musical sheet.
Everything was so strange yet so reasonable. Lyra smiled. Mother must’ve known that she would get a lyre as a cutie mark when she modified her genes. She placed the sheet onto the floor, catching her lyre with her magic. She’d actually picked a song for this, one used for the royal gatherings of the Canterlot Castle, but now there’s obviously a better choice.
And so she played. The music itself was weird, composed of alternating periods of harmonic and non-harmonic choruses, but the whole thing bore a distorted beauty. It was like a frozen lake slowly melting off under the sunlight of spring, with shrimps, fish and crabs scurrying all the way through the water. The music reminded her of that afternoon back in the Cosmetic Balcony, when Grey Wind finally bested her artificial program and became a real pony. She could almost see her, sitting right there across from her, her wings locking tightly against her body, her eyes closed, her ears drooping in comfort, a small smile around her muzzle as she silently listened. She saw her eyes again, they were clear as the finest pieces of jade, gently gazing into hers as if muttering “it will all be alright.”
All those happiness was no more for them all.
The song was finished. The lyre dropped powerlessly from her lap. Lyra buried her face into her hoofs. She couldn’t bear it anymore. She cried, long-held tears shattering against the floor.
A soft, powerful wing was wrapped around her torso.
“Lyra, we agreed on this…” Nightjar whispered, “Grey would not want to see us like this. She’ll want us to be happy…”
“It’s—it’s not fair!” Lyra sobbed, “she has only just learned it…there was so much she could’ve done…so much…”
Nightjar made no sound. She shuffled her other wing forward, pulling Lyra into a hug. Her long, black feathers were already dried, sending a pleasant warmth across Lyra’s coat.
“But we’ll have something to remember her with,” she said, “you and me both.”
Lyra sniffed, wiping her eyes. Nightjar was right. A nanomachine wing was embracing her right now, one that had mended a soul which would otherwise never touch the sky. And within her chest, a nanomachine heart was bouncing healthily, working non-stop as if it was an original part of her body from the very beginning. They’ll survive, brave and happy—
HUMMMMMMM
Nightjar gasped, her wings harshly retreating back. Lyra’s irises shrank into pinpricks. They were both too familiar with that noise.
The hum of the Gray Tempest.
All her muscles tensed up as Lyra jumped onto all fours and rushed back into the main chamber. Her mind jumped for a moment when she realized that the magical seal around the portal was still intact. But then she saw a condensed ball of grey settling on the floor in front of them. The ball was rapidly taking shape, first a bright grey arm, then a wing, and then a flow of green mane. It happened so fast. She watched, breathless, as the body of a grey pegasus reformed beneath her eyes. She rubbed her eyes and looked again. The pegasus was still there. She pounced forward and pressed her ears against the pegasus’ chest. She heard her weak yet steady heartbeats.
It was Grey Wind. Unconscious, but ALIVE.
Nightjar was covering her beak with her front claws.
“Oh my—oh my,” she stammered as if someone just smashed her head into the chamber’s metal wall. She blinked, then the stammer was lost in a high-pitched squeak:
“GREY!!!!”
She wrapped her claws against her neck, huddling into the pegasus’ chest.
“It’s her! It’s--it’s really her!” she exclaimed, unable to hold her cry, “it’s really her…but…but…”
Their eyes fell onto the musical sheet together. Lyra grasped the sheet with her magic, floating it in front of them. Her tears had damped the upper half of the cloth, where a line of black text had emerged above the first line of notes:
The Reconstruction Code
“Mrs. Heartstrings…the reconstruction code!” Nightjar screeched happily, “she’s had it all the time! And she left it to you! This is—ha! Ha ha!”
“We have to get her a doctor!” Lyra exclaimed. She floated Grey Wind onto Nightjar’s back, and they ran out through the tunnel, back into the sunlight.
The rain had stopped.