(Entry 34 down below)
Entry 32, by Kitty
Entry 33, by Chryssalid
In the later days of the Equestrian Empire, while the town of Ponyville suffered from decay, Lyra took a walk. Despite the season being the dead of winter the weather felt like the Dog Days of summer. There wasn’t enough Pegasi on the weather patrol to make the season changes so there was one long eternal summer throughout the fall and winter. The only thing the weather team did was occasionally make a small drizzle to prevent the plants from dying out completely and provide relief to the sun baked ponies below. There was a rain the day before but there was no trace of it as Lyra emerged from her house for the first time in a week. The dirt streets were cracked and hot to the point where a mirage made it look like a great lake surrounded her house and had engulfed the entire town.
She took a moment to water her wilting flowers. Bon Bon always was the one who tended to their flowers being an earth pony and all. Lyra never did so unless Bonbon forced her to. Since her disappearance two weeks ago Lyra tried to take care of the garden by herself with predictable results. She had to keep buying more from the Flower sisters (until they disappeared as well, then she just stole them from their shop) since the ones Bonbon planted died off. That was until a week ago when she gave up taking care of anything. She went to sleep that day and hadn’t gotten out of bed until now when she decided to take a walk. All of her friends and companions were gone. She was convinced they just left the town in the middle of the night to head towards Canterlot to ride out the last days of Equestria’s Golden Age. Bonbon talked about leaving but Lyra tried to convince her that they should stay. They went to bed mad at each other and Lyra figured that her spouse got fed up with her stubbornness and left.
It was hard to believe that just a month ago the town was still somewhat populated. As she wandered the streets of Ponyville she didn’t see a single soul outside. Occasionally she would see a pony looking out from their window who wouldn’t notice her despite waving at them. Their eyes were glazed over or maybe she was swallowed whole by the mirage from their perspective and appeared as a green blur lurking in the depths. The one time she actually had a conversation with another pony was when she saw Rainbow Dash sleeping on some lofty cloud and woke her up.
“Dash, can we talk?” The Pegasus stirred and groaned, obviously not pleased that she was woken to speak with a stranger. Lyra never really talked to the Element Bearers before. Everyone in town knew of them and spoke to them once or twice but Lyra wouldn’t be considered a friend of theirs. She thought that all six of them were somehow directly connected to the Princess and that she could’ve told her exactly if the rumors about some great army that would soon march through from the south and decimate the country side were true. But she held her tongue and kept it simple.
“What is the weather schedule for this week? My flowers are dying again and I almost used up all my own water keeping them alive. I need to know if it’s going to rain again soon.”
Rainbow Dash yawned and stared off into space for a bit before answering.
“I dunno. The Cloudsdayle weather factory hasn’t sent any clouds to the town and we can’t steal any from some other town. Ponyville isn’t the only town that’s dying obviously. We sent a representative today but I’m sure they are going to come up with some excuse; probably because we have too small a population to qualify as an actual settlement or some horse apples like that. ”
Lyra couldn’t think of anything to say. She thanked her and turned around to continue her walk but was interrupted by Dash.
“Wait. Could you do me a favor? I need you to find something from Rarity’s house.” Lyra knew of the Carousel Boutique. She went occasionally but she bought anything excluding once where she picked up Bonbon’s wedding gown. There were some extra fees she had to pay but it was worth it, the dress looked fantastic. Despite that the prices were too high to buy anything regularly.
“Okay. What do you need in her house?” Rainbow Dash put a hoof up to her chin and seemed lost in thought again. She eventually answered though.
“I…need some flight goggles I left there a few months ago. Before Rarity and her family left for Canterlot we held a party at her house and spent the night there. I left early for Weather duty. I keep forgetting to do it myself; can you do it for me?” Lyra had nothing better to do right now so she accepted. Dash simply smiled. She started to thank her but she stopped and just lay back down on the cloud seemingly asleep.
It became apparent that the ghost town was becoming harder and harder to navigate. Lyra looped around Ponyville multiple times, always seeming to be drawn back to the foundation of City Hall. Last month the last bits of the structure toppled over finally finished off by a cool breeze that blew through the town. This was a surprise to no one Lyra least of all. The roof already caved in 2 months before hand from a sky carriage collapsing into it. They couldn’t find the Pegasi who were flying it but the carriage appeared to be one that would carry passengers; they were absent from the crash as well. A few months before that event a lightning bolt ignited part of it on fire during a scheduled rain. No pony was injured in the fire or in the effort to put it out and save the building but the ordeal scared the Mayor into deserting Ponyville. Lyra could still see the flames burning the pieces of rubble on the foundation now. Only it was ignited by the sun and not by the weather. She also imagined that the passengers of the carriage burnt up gloriously into ash before impact and that’s why there wasn’t a trace of survivors. Perhaps she would find their ash strewn about in some lofty serpentine out in the Everfree or perhaps the rain washed it away denying them of a burial. Whatever the reason was Lyra felt like the City Hall was akin to a graveyard as she kept wandering back to it.
Lyra eventually waded her way through the heat waves and mirages and found the Carousel Boutique. Like most buildings that were abandoned signs of decay were evident. But the Boutique seemed to be wearing down at an alarming rate. The usually bright paintjob was fading and bits of it were peeling off. The soft blues and pinks were getting lighter and lighter and the sun beating down made this effect even more apparent. The windows were boarded up with wood that was rotting already. The store’s sign was taken off and blocking the entrance. The eeriness of the Carousel Boutique froze her where she stood but like she forced herself out of bed in the morning she forced her body forward towards the door. The sign wasn’t nailed on so Lyra was able to levitate it out of the way with ease.
As she entered she was greeted to an overwhelming darkness. Even the light from the door only allowed her to see a few feet ahead of her. It was as if the darkness was artificial. When she looked back outside she saw that the heat haze had swallowed all of Ponyville now, making it seem like there was no turning back. She made her horn light up to provide enough light and closed the front door. Even with the light spell the Boutique was still dark enough that she couldn’t see much of the room in front of her. This would make looking for the Goggles much more complicated. Lyra thought about tearing the boards off to provide more light but decided that it would be rude to mess with one of the Element of Harmony’s old homes. Dash didn’t give her permission to touch anything and she didn’t want to upset her. Lyra wouldn’t want anyone touching Bonbon’s things even if she invited them inside, so she could see how it could offend Dash.
All around the room there were manikins strewn about in various poses. Despite having lack of mouths someone drew eyes onto them to display emotion. One manikin was looking at their hooves with dilated pupils to show its apparent shock. Another one seemed to be stuck in a snapshot of it wringing around while crying. There were drawn on tears to perfect the image. As Lyra looked around the Boutique, having completely forgotten her purpose for coming here in the first place, she found three mirrors lined next to another that was used so the customer could see every angle of their garment before purchasing it. There, lay another manikin on its side with a horn strangely, which was unconventional. She noticed a half opened door near this scene which seemed to tempt her to open it. Lyra opened the door slowly anticipating what lied beyond but flung it open in fear. The closet was filled to the brim with manikins of varying sizes and colors all strung up on stands. There was something awry about them though despite being identical to the other ones she saw around the Boutique. Before she could put her Hoof on it a voice called out.
“Is this all Rainbow could get today? I guess we are getting closer and closer to our goal.”
Lyra jumped from this noise and tripped into the closet. The darkness disoriented her and she staggered around knocking over a few Manikins until her eyes rested on a light spell that was being casted. She instantly recognized the Unicorn.
“Twilight? What are you doing here?”
The Element of Magic left town long ago as did most of the Element of Harmony. Only Rainbow Dash and Applejack bothered to stay, one was too stubborn to leave and the other had nothing really to chase after when the Wonderbolts were disbanded and turned into a solely military service. It was quite the surprise to see her here but she felt safer around the one unicorn she could trust. She then noticed a figure standing next to her though who had a lit horn as well.
“Oh please dear don’t knock over those…manikins. They are quite fragile.”
Once Lyra saw Rarity she knew something was horribly wrong. She still couldn’t piece together what any of this meant but still she screamed out in terror. They were blocking her only exit so she headed deeper into the closet. Her legs gave away under her though and she was lifted up in the air.
“Don’t worry. There’s no reason to resist everything is going to be fine. The worst is going to be over soon enough.”
Twilight’s attempt at calming Lyra just made her scream louder. She thought that the only way she could get out of this was by getting some pony to hear her and come bargaining in to her rescue. But she realized that there were no ponies left that would do such a thing, and the only ones that would were currently dragging her out of the closet and back into the main room. She flailed helplessly trying to get out of Twilight’s grasp with predictable results. Rarity began casting a spell as well, but it wasn’t levitation. Lyra began losing feeling in her legs and she looked down in horror to see that she was being transformed into a Manikin herself.
Lyra in her panic began trying to lift a manikin near Twilight and Rarity with her telekinesis. She failed to get a grip on it the first few times and when she finally was able to she was almost done with her metamorphosis. She sent the Manakin flying at both of them catching them off guard and sending them tumbling downwards. Lyra fell out of Twilights grasp but everything from her neck downward was immobile. She ripped the cloth out of her mouth and spoke.
“What is going on!? Why are you turning ponies into manikins? I thought you were going to work on saving Equestria in Canterlot?”
Twilight and Rarity forced themselves up; they looked to each other and sighed.
“Twilight. She deserves to know.”
The purple unicorn nodded and spoke.
“Alright. This is the way we are saving Equestria. At least it’s culture and history. We already know that Equestria is going to fall, this is inevitable. Sure, ponies will live on undoubtedly, but all the records and memory of this time period will be lost.”
“What does this have to do what’s going on here?” Lyra replied.
“Celestia told us we needed to preserve some citizens from this time period. That years into the future these living fossil be able to lead Equestria back onto a righteous path. The Elements of Harmony alone keep this golden age going on forever. So this is our solution. Immortalize ponies and keep them lock away for when the time is right.”
Twilight lifted the darkness which turned out to be artificial after all. Lyra was able to look at the Manikin near the mirror and noticed from its texture that it wasn’t a Manikin at all. The material however seemed different from normal stone that would be used in statues. So the ponies weren’t turned by simple petrification. Rarity noticed her examining the statue.
“We developed a spell that turns pony into pure adamantine. They can never be broken. But unlike being turned into stone the victim still is conscious the entirety of the time he or she is under its influence. A very useful side effect is that after a millennia or so it wears off.”
Lyra shivered with her head.
“That’s horrible! Being stuck like that for a thousand years sounds like a fate worse than death…”
“Well I certainly don’t sleep well at night knowing that they are suffering like that. But it’s the only way Lyra. And I can give you a good reason to let us do this to you willingly.”
“What. What could possibly make anyone willingly paralyze themselves to the outside world for that long?”
Twilight levitated a few manikins out of the closet and set them down in front of her. She began sketching various cutie marks on them; including a very familiar set of wrapped candies.
“We’ll let you go if you want. But we can’t let your friends go. We actually approached them and asked them to join the project. And Bonbon asked me personally as her last request to get you on-board with her so she could see you again. If you leave you’ll be long dead by the time they wake up.”
Lyra hung her head and tried to think of her choices. She could either suffer a fate similar Luna suffered and be imprisoned for 1000 years. Or leave her friends and stay and die along with her everything she held dear. Both choices weren’t exactly ideal. But she had a feeling regardless of what she said it didn’t matter to them. At least in due time she could see Bonbon again, and she couldn’t bear to think what Bonbon would feel if she endured for a millennia only to find her spouse long gone.
“This is who I am, isn’t it? This is why I exist…Alright let’s do it.”
As the last light she would see flashed before her it seemed to be flowing outwards into parts unknown- into an immense heart of darkness.
Entry 34, by Anonymous