//------------------------------// // 2024-02-03 Point of No Return // Story: Lyra and the White Mares // by publiq //------------------------------// Dust clouds eddied in the savanna air as Vinyl galloped away from the greyed-out fjord horse chasing her, Lyra closely following. For the past three days, Lyra had been on edge that someone was tracking them down. The way the zebras tried to hide their natural water-digging habits spooked Lyra in the way only false nicety can. This afternoon, they finally encountered their stalker. A fjord horse with shocking remaining agility, considering the state of her mane. A strange horse who knew their names. When she commanded them not to run, they made the only smart decision and sprinted into the distance. Wherever they turned to shake off their pursuer, zebras revealed their true stripes and blocked their way, allowing the strange horse to gain ground from her straight path each time. “She wants you. You can jump the blockades that I cannot,” Vinyl said between gaping breaths. Four zebras gathered between two trees dead ahead. Vinyl Scratch and Lyra kept up the gallop, yet they did not yield to avoid collision, Vinyl ignoring the sudden sting in her quarters. Mere feet away from creating a pile of broken bones and interlocked limbs, Lyra soared into the sky as Vinyl put all her weight into an oblique blow between the right two zebras. Lyra tumbled hard along the packed ground. The blunt end of a halberd interrupted her jump to freedom. Vinyl galloped to save herself until she collapsed mere meters from her successful charge. Vinyl was too weak to stand, fight, or flee; her muscles were on union break. She could only watch in anguish as the mystery mare—or at least she had a mare’s voice—leaned over Lyra while shaking something from her saddlebags. Wraps, gauze, and needles spread across the floor as the mare emptied her fully stocked med kit. “Lyra, why do you keep running?” asked the off-white mare. Before Lyra got over the shock of her tumble, she continued, “If you kept that up, you’d be dead of heatstroke. Or at least collapsed into free lion food.” Vinyl tried to shout, only to find her mouth refusing to cooperate. “Ma’am,” one of the zebras near Vinyl called, “shall I remove the dart? Unicorns seem too sensitive to its drugs.” “I don’t pay for dead ponies. If she runs, she runs. My primary can no longer gallop herself into being leopard snacks, so that goal is close to fulfilled.” The fjord mare turned her attention to the jagged breathing of her primary while the zebra reached uncomfortably close to Vinyl’s groove to yank the mostly empty dart from her quarters. “What made you want to run as if from the cats?” Lyra dared not speak the truth, let the changeling disguised as an elderly mockery of her lost lover drop her affable pretense and drain her completely. The waivers lied about Earth’s natural antipathy toward changelings. “It should only have been two moons. Do you not remember me? Did the grief at being unable to return really wipe your Ponyville past?” Vinyl’s voice shocked the three Equestrian mares in its clarity. “Only two moons, then why so old?” Only after her mouth shut did she realize that she would now be the changeling’s next feeding, not Lyra. “It’s been twenty years,” answered the changeling. “Bon Bon? I told you to find somepony else.” Lyra took several breaths made painful from the tumble. “You can still go back to be happy in Equestria.” “I wasted the first ten years after that letter following those instructions. When things inevitably ended, there was no Lyra for me to return to.” Four striped ponies recessed themselves behind the tree, attempting not to hear the intimate conversation between the mares. It was Bon Bon’s turn to be hesitant. “Are you two…?” Her voice trailed off in uncertainty of her next word. Silence answered in the affirmative. “Traveling companions,” somepony clarified, the shock of flight and fight being replaced by the shock of the news. Nopony paid attention to who spoke. A nod signaled the zebras to grab the waiting jeep. “If you no longer wish to be with me, I can think of a reason or three,” Bon Bon sighed to Lyra with a gesture toward her lowest ribs. “I stumbled into being a pirate queen of the zebras and can live out my life that way. Please do join my camp for at least a week while you heal. We will help you onto the jeep.” In the camp, Bon Bon opened a trunk of trinkets. Spread before the gathered ponies were many shiny discs. One arc contained DJ P0N3’s posthumous collection, all the unfinished projects completed by her favorite peers. The second larger arc, as Bon Bon explained, contained all of Octavia’s releases from the past two decades. “She was alive when I departed; it will probably be an incomplete collection. Assembling this was the trickiest part of my preparation. I know it’s about a moon late by the human calendar. Consider it a Hearthswarming present from Octavia and me.” Lyra gazed absently at the shiny memorabilia. Could she accept Bon Bon back? Not if it meant cutting Vinyl loose. Might Vinyl find a stallion to solve the dilemma? Did either of their situations count as “’til death do us part?” “I’m willing to share if you remain indecisive.” Bon Bon’s ability to read Lyra’s quiet moments remained as sharp as ever. “Can you cuddle my other—my good—side? That may help sort my thoughts,” Lyra said without considering the implication of offering close personal contact. Bon Bon, now cuddled to feel where Lyra’s breath hesitated, grew ever more grateful that so much less time had passed for her and Vinyl. If nothing else, that would have been curtains for her if she had taken the same fall as Lyra. Her younger (late?) wife could at least walk with support and the six other ponies to pull her to standing within an hour. “Vinyl,” nickered Bon Bon, “can you please cuddle me? I need to test something to make Lyra’s life have one fewer decision. It’s the least I can do to help her mind recover. Lyra, even if you can’t stay, tell me everything.”