//------------------------------// // Chapter Seven - Nigh Indestructible Lyres // Story: The Science of Magic // by cammerhammer //------------------------------// “Leyline! Hey, Leyline, over here!”          Leyline gripped his lunch tray in his teeth and trotted over to the frantically waving orange colt at the nearby lunch table. “Hey, Rockslide, how’s it going?” he asked as he set the tray down next to his friend. “I just got outta ‘The Bruiser’s’ gym class. How do ya think it’s goin’?” “Well, if you had taken Herbology 132 this semester, you wouldn’t be taking her class.” “You’ve been telling me this all semester, an’ I keep telling ya that I don’t wanna take another herbology class.” “Why not?” Rockslide huffed as he levitated the drink from his tray to his lips. “It’s boring. I don’t care if it’s an easy ‘A.’ I’ll pull my mane outta my head if I hafta go through another class of learning how to cure hemlock poisoning.” “We learn more than that, you know.” “Whatever. It still ain’t for me.” “Fine, fine. What’s up, anyway? Is there something you need my help with, Rox?” Leyline started digging into his hay fries as his friend’s face lit up with excitement “Oh, yeah!” Rockslide levitated a sheet of paper from his saddlebags and waved it in front of Leyline’s face. “I’m competing in spellcasters’ duels and I need a second to help me.” Leyline raised an eyebrow. “Why are you asking me? In case you forgot, I’m an earth pony.” Rockslide rolled his eyes in return. “I don’t need you to do magic, ya dunce. A second just spots for the spellcaster. You help me suit up and train and stuff. You would basically be a trainer for me. You’re great at figuring out counterspells and all that jazz, so I thought you’d be my best option.” “I’ll think about it. I’m busy enough as it is, what with tutoring and classwork.” “Right, ‘tutoring.’” “What’s that supposed to mean?” Leyline wasn’t sure, but he felt like Rockslide was implying something. “Nothing, I’m sure you’re gettin’ a lot of tutoring done with Miss Music Flank over there.” “Of course I am. I help Dulcet study for classes and she helps me design spells. What else would be going on?” Rockslide facehooved at his friend’s total obliviousness. “Nothing, apparently. She’s right, you are clueless.” “I’m not sure what you mean.” “Nevermind. If you haven’t figured it out by now, you never will.” Rockslide looked over Leyline’s shoulder, noticing a light blue figure bolting towards them. “Heads up, tackle-hug coming in five, four, three...” “What?” “—eeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!” Leyline felt his lungs implode as Dulcet hit him at full speed, wrapping him in a vice-grip of a hug. “Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!”          “Dulcet, ya might wanna loosen your grip a little. You’re killing him.” Rockslide gestured to Leyline, who was busy trying not to lose consciousness.          “Oh, sorry.” She quickly released him and gave the brown earth pony a little space as he propped himself with the table.          “Why did you feel the need to remove all the air from my lungs?” he wheezed.          Dulcet waved a test paper in the air around her, squeeing with delight and hopping in place. “I got a B+ on the test!” She beamed proudly and waved the paper in the air around some more. “I couldn’t have done it without you! You helped me so so so much and I’m so grateful!”          “You got a B+? Great job, Deets!” Leyline felt the blood in his veins freeze as Dulcet stopped abruptly and glared at him. Actually, glared wasn’t the right term. It was more like she used her eyes to peel away his flesh and trap his soul in an iron box before lowering the box into a block of ice and sealing it away for three months.          “I told you. Never. Call. Me. Deets.”          Leyline flashed her a nonchalant smile. “And I told you before, I’ll stop calling you Deets when you stop calling me Tracy.”          They held each other’s gaze for a few seconds until Leyline wiggled his eyebrows at her. With a snort, Dulcet broke eye contact shook her head at him. “So, can you help me with something tonight?” Leyline asked.          “More spells?”          “Just one this time.”          “Just one? What’s wrong, running out of steam?”          “Hardly. This one’s a pretty big spell, though, so it’s going to need a lot of attention.”          Dulcet narrowed her eyes at him. “This isn’t going to end up like the last time you worked on a huge spell, is it?”          Leyline shook his head emphatically. “Oh, no! This one isn’t anything like the last one. Trust me, that’s the last time I try anything to do with alteration like that.”          Rockslide held up his hooves. “Whoa, whoa, time out here. What’re you two talking about?”          “I swear to Solaris, if you tell him, Tracy, nopony will find your remains.”          “Relax, Deets. I don’t feel like talking about it any more than you do. I’ll just let him know the gist of it. Hey Rox,” he turned to the baffled unicorn, “do you remember a few months back when the school was broken into?”          “Yeah, a few rooms got trashed. They said it looked like a rogue familiar gettin’ revenge on a mage.”          “Let’s just say that there are reasons why there hasn’t been much headway in the field of shapeshifting.”          “Right, right.”          Dulcet cleared her throat to bring the attention back to the matter at hoof. “Anyway, what kind of spell will we be working on tonight?”          Leyline pulled out a book and flopped it on the table. “I can’t tell you the specifics yet, since all my notes are back at the dorm, but I got this book to help with the majority of the spell.”          Dulcet read the cover and immediately paled. “How did you get this book?”          “I have my ways.”          “I don’t see why you would even need it. Most of the spells in here are forbidden magic.”          “I just needed this spell as a guide for a part of what I was doing.” The earth pony turned to a bookmarked page.          Rockslide turned the book so he could see. “Soul snare?! What are ya trying to do, get us expelled or killed?”          “I’m fully aware of the spell’s capacity to be used for harm. All magic can be used for either good or evil. I’m trying to use it for something that can be useful. Dulcet, you know that I would never use arcane knowledge to hurt anyone. Please, just help me with this.”          “Fine. Seven tonight in the gymnasium?”          “Same as always. Thanks, Deets. I knew I could count on you.”          “Don’t thank me yet.” Dulcet hummed nervously to herself as she trotted through the empty hallways towards the gymnasium. The school always gave her the creeps when it was empty but she could never convince Leyline to let them practice somewhere else. Every time she brought it up he would give a full discourse on the importance of being in a safe and magically inert location for all tests of this nature, or something like that. She never actually paid enough attention to him when he went on these rants to catch most of what he said. She always got distracted somewhere around the point where Leyline would toss his head emphatically and that adorable lock of his mane that always looped funny would give a quirky bounce in response. She wondered why that one piece of his mane did that, anyway. The rest of it stood straight up, looking like a black bristle brush and not moving an inch no matter what he did to it. Did he make it loop on purpose, knowing how cute it looked? Dulcet shook her head at herself. No, that colt never cared how he looked as long as it didn't interfere with his studies. That's not to say he wasn't clean, though. He just had a tendency to look a little scruffy. It didn't matter. He was simply too cute for his own good, even though he didn't notice it. Did he even realize that mares existed? Probably not, she mused to herself. She had been trying to get his attention for a while now and it flew right over his head. Maybe the goggles he wore while running those experiments cut off the flow to his brain? Dulcet silently resolved to find a way to get him to stop wearing them long enough so his brain would work right again. She pushed the door open to the gymnasium. There he was, in his goggles and adorkable lab coat again, writing notes on a table hastily set up next to one of the incantation circles inscribed on the floor. The moment her hooves clacked against the floor, he looked towards her and dropped his pencil as he beamed at her. “You made it!” “Of course I did, silly. I told you I would be here,” Dulcet replied as she trotted in the door to the gymnasium. “So, are you going to tell me what we are doing?” “Well, to put it simply, I want any unicorn to be able to move themselves from one point to another without going through all the points in between. You disappear here, you appear there.” “That’s it?” Leyline flipped through a reference book he had on a nearby table as he spoke. “Dozens of unicorns have tried to write a spell like this one, with most labeling it ‘teleportation.’ Unfortunately, all have ended disastrously.” Dulcet shuffled nervously. “They have?” “Oh, yes. In fact, Prince Solaris banned any further experimentation with the subject one hundred and seventy years ago when his personal student, Frostfall, died after a failed attempt. It seems that almost all unicorns who have tried it have met with the same problem. They rematerialize properly, but they get to their destination unresponsive, dying soon afterwards.” “And you think that you have solved this problem?” Dulcet, as usual, had no idea what Leyline was talking about, but she had figured out by now what to ask him in order to keep him on track with his monologues. “I know I have. You see, they all forgot that there is more to the pony than mere body. There is a soul involved as well! That’s why I have been studying the soul snare spell. My solution is two different spells woven together into one cohesive whole. The first moves the body. The second traps the soul, but instead of channeling it into an item or jewel, it carries the soul with the body to its destination before pouring it back into the body.” Leyline whipped a positively enormous sheet of paper out from somewhere and spread it out on the table, excitedly gesturing to all of the notes taken on the subject while he supplied a generous stream of words to further confuse the unicorn. “Wait, hold on a second. You said this was banned? By the prince himself? Why are you working on it?!” “Because if someone doesn’t get this right, ponies will keep hurting themselves trying to make it work, whether it’s banned or not. I know how to fix it and if I didn’t do it, I would be hurting others by omission of knowledge. "I know it’s dangerous, so I won’t force you to do this. I wish I was a unicorn so I could do the spell myself without endangering anypony else, but I’m not, so I can’t.” Dulcet looked at her friend’s dejected expression, Leyline’s perceived shortcomings weighing heavily upon him. “I’m not going to back out now, silly. I said I would help you and I will.” “Really?!” His expression changed in the blink of an eye, startling her with its abruptness. “Yeah. Now give me the spell before I back out.” Leyline picked up a slip of paper and held it out to Dulcet. Levitating it towards her face so she could read it, she trotted over to a circle inscribed on the floor specifically for testing spells. “Okay, I’m ready. What do I do?” “Just imagine where you want to go. In this case, just go for that circle on the other side of the gym. Then, cast the spell when you are ready.” “Alright.” Leyline watched nervously as a silver glow enveloped Dulcet’s body. With a small flash of light, she disappeared and popped back into existence on the far side of the gym. He rushed over to her as she wobbled about on her legs. “Are you okay? Can you speak to me?” “Am I supposed to feel dizzy?” “That‘ll wear off shortly.”  He pattered in place as giddy elation flowed through him. “You did it! I did it! We created a safe way to teleport! This is so incredible! I have to take more notes on this! This is amazing! Me, an earth pony, successfully writing my own high-level spell!” Dulcet watched him prance, laughing as he struggled to keep from exploding, until something caught her eye. “Hey, Leyline, when did you get your cutie mark?” “What are you talking about? I don’t have a...” Leyline trailed off as his glance fell on his formerly blank flank, where a crossed quill and wand had appeared. “Finally! Yes!” Leyline rushed Dulcet, catching her in a hug and planting a kiss on her nose before running down the hall, screaming like a madcolt and occasionally popping in a classroom to let the teacher inside know that he finally got his cutie mark. Meanwhile, back in the gymnasium, Dulcet Tones sat, frozen, on the spot she materialized. “That was unexpected.” Had she not been so shocked by the kiss, she might have noticed a curious glow to Leyline's eyes and a barely noticeable aura whisking his research papers off the table as he rushed from the gym.         Lyra’s shoulder ached. She would have just rolled over and gone back to sleep, but the pain racking her shoulder and back kept her from doing so. “What happened last night?” She pulled herself out of her sleeping bag with her one good foreleg, stretched as best as she could, and limped out of Twilight’s tent to the final warm coals of the fire in the center of the campground. The sun was almost ready to peek over the horizon, so Lyra adjusted herself so she could watch the sunrise. As the first rays of dawn washed over the edges of the treetops, a metallic glint in the grass caught the green unicorn’s eye. She hobbled over to the reflected light to find her lyre, missing two strings, laying on the grass. That’s not where you are supposed to be, she thought dully as she levitated the bloodied instrument closer to her face to examine it. With a sigh, she made her way back to the fire and rummaged through her saddlebags. With a satisfied grunt, she pulled out a velvet pouch and set to pulling items out of it: A silk cloth; a second set of strings; brass oil; tuning forks; a tuning wrench; and a hooffull of q-tips. Gently, with all the care of an experienced musician, she unstrung all the old strings from the frame, looping them neatly together and setting them aside, cleaning the grass and blood from the lyre as she went. When she was satisfied with the state of the frame, she started to restring the instrument, tightening the wires only after replacing them all. As Lyra was tuning the instrument to her preference, she heard the tent behind her rustle. With the utmost of grace, Twilight tumbled out of the flap in the front, falling head over hooves until she came to a rest fully on her face right next to Lyra. “Have you considered becoming a dancer?” Lyra smirked. “Shut up.” Twilight dug in her pack, pulling out a coffee mug and a packet of ready-mix coffee. With a wave of her horn, she pulled water from a nearby creek, pouring it into the mug and flash-heating it to the perfect coffee drinking temperature. After pouring in and stirring the mix, she took a deep swig and let out a long sigh. Lyra scratched idly at her sore shoulder before realizing it was in a bandage. “Twilight?” “Hmm?” “Why is my shoulder all taped up?” “Well, you got torn up pretty badly by that chimera. I had to stitch you up and patch it as best as I could, but you will want to have that looked at by a doctor when we get back.” The memories of last night came flooding back. The campsite, the chimera fight, some foggy recollections of Twilight standing over her, gauze and thread hovering over her head. It all felt like it was too weird to be true, but it was. She was wearing the proof as she sat there, talking to Twilight. And the dreams. They didn’t feel at all like dreams, and they were about the same earth pony as before. Lyra shook her head as she yawned, trying to focus on tuning her lyre.          The purple unicorn across from her took another big gulp of coffee. “Are you going to be all right? Lyra?”          “Huh? Oh, yeah, I’ll be fine. I’ll be limping for a while, but I’ll recover.” She tested the strings one last time before strumming them a few times. She gave the lyre a small smile of approval, floating the items she brought out back into the velvet pouch. Lyra held the instrument into the air, admiring the mirror-finish shine scattering light over the campsite. “That’s much better. I’m sorry for using you as a makeshift club again. Don’t be angry at me.”          “Why do you do that, anyway?”          Lyra looked over to Twilight. “Why do I do what?”          “Use your lyre like that. I’m no expert on musical instruments, but I am pretty sure that the lyre was never intended to be used as a bludgeon.”          “Clearly you have never performed in Manehattan.”          “Frankly, I’m surprised that it isn’t totally useless for making music by now. Most instruments would be horribly dented and warped from being subjected to that kind of stress.”          Lyra hefted the instrument and slammed it against a nearby rock before levitating it back towards Twilight. The purple mare examined the instrument, not even finding a scuff mark where it had struck the stone.          “My lyre isn’t like most instruments.”          Twilight quickly snatched the instrument out of Lyra’s aura with her own magic, quickly bringing it directly in front of her muzzle. Her horn flared with arcane power, probing the item for several moments before she turned her attention back toward the other mare, eyes squinted in suspicion. “Who enchanted this for you?”          Lyra chuckled nervously and scraped at the ground with her hoof. “I don’t know exactly. I was performing in Manehattan, like I said before, and I was assaulted after the show. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to beat the attacker back, but I accidentally used my poor lyre to do it, bending the frame terribly in the process.          “Anyway, I took it to a repair shop a few blocks down after I recovered from the shock and had it fixed up. I mentioned to the shopkeeper that it would be nice if my lyre was a little more resistant to damage. To make a long story short, he directed me to a shady establishment in the downtown area where I met up with a green earth pony who picked up my lyre and dropped it off at the same location two days later. All I know is that he went by the nickname “Aces” and I spent quite a pile of bits for my lyre to disappear for two days and come back almost indestructible.”          Twilight looked at the lyre once more, shuddering as she levitated back to its owner. “And you never thought to ask what they had done to it?”          Lyra shrugged. “It came back in one piece and the enchantment did its job. I never really thought about the specifics of it.”          Twilight gaped at her for a second. “You know, you amaze me how you haven’t managed to singlehoofedly cause a national crisis until recently.”          “I’m just lucky like that, I guess.”          “Just try not to put that thing under too much stress at once, like letting a dragon step on it or something.” “Why? What would happen?” “If the enchantment failed, the pent-up energy would be released all at once, rather than over a period of time, causing an explosion that may or may not vaporize everypony in the immediate area.” She tilted her coffee cup back and drained the rest of the mug. “We need to leave soon. Be ready to leave in an hour.”          “Okay.” Lyra looked at her tent on the far side of the campground, still collapsed from the previous night. She silently decided that she would rather sleep out in the open than trust the obstinate fabric to remain upright the entire night.          Princess Celestia silently wished she could massage her temples to alleviate the oncoming headache brought on from listening to the inane babble of the noblepony before her. Sadly, that would clash with her image as a calm and collected ruler, so she merely let her “smile and nod” muscles take over her actions.          “—and that is my proposition for bettering the uptown area of Canterlot,” the unicorn stallion finished, gesturing to a chart he had propped on an easel.          “Lord Signet, I appreciate the obvious thought and planning you have put into this presentation—” the pony beamed at the praise “—but I’m afraid I simply cannot support this plan you want to implement. It is not only impractical for us to simply move out all the businesses in the upper tier of Canterlot not supported by nobles or their families, but it is prejudiced and, quite frankly, offensive to even consider forcing out ponies who have worked hard for those businesses.”          “But, Your Majesty, they would be fully recompensed—”          “For what? Time lost in moving them out of the area? Future revenue lost from being forced to relocate to an area that is not suitable for their businesses? The loss of regular customers? No. There is not enough money in the treasury or your coffers to properly repay them for being treated so atrociously. Now, if you are quite done, there are others behind you who wish to speak with me as well.”          As the unicorn left the throne room in a huff, an earth pony trotted towards the princess in the opposite direction. Unlike most of the ponies seeking the princesses’ attention during open court, she was unclothed except for saddlebags. The cream colored mare quickly trotted to the bottom step of the dais and dropped into a bow.          “Please rise. May I ask your name?”          “My name is Bon-Bon, Princess Celestia.”          “What may I help you with, Bon-Bon?”          “I’m looking for Lyra, and I heard she was around here.”          “I beg your pardon?”          “Lyra Heartstrings. Mint green unicorn, a little taller than me, tealish white streaks in her mane, lyre for a cutie mark. We share an apartment. I need to have a talk with her, and I heard from Twilight’s assistant Spike that she was going to be in Canterlot for a few days.”          “Oh, I see. I’m sorry, but Lyra isn’t here right now. She is gone and won’t be able to be reached for a few days.”          Bon-Bon’s eye gave a slight twitch before she covered it with a controlled breath. “When you say ‘a few days,’ how long exactly do you mean?”          “She left yesterday, and it’s about a two and a half day trip one way, so I would say she will definitely be back within a week, most likely less.” Celestia paused. “If I may be so bold, may I ask why you need to talk to her?”          “She incinerated my flower garden.”          “You traveled quite a way to have a talk about burnt topiary.”          “If I hadn’t spent a decade breeding them to perfection so they would flavor my candies properly, it wouldn’t be a problem.” Bon-Bon dug her hoof deep into the plush carpet. “I spent six years alone making a nonpoisonous azalea extract. It made one of my best candies.”          A glint of pity flashed in Celestia’s eyes. “I’m sorry. What will speaking with Lyra accomplish, though? Do you want revenge?”          “I have no idea. I will have a talk with her, though. There is no doubt about that.”          “Very well. May I offer you a place to stay until Lyra gets back? It is my fault that you have to wait, after all.”          “Thank you, Princess. What did you send her to do, anyway?”          “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”          Bon-Bon gave a funny look. “Really? You sent her on some classified mission? You do realise this is Lyra Heartstrings, right?” “I’m confident that she can handle it.”          “Sweet merciful friendship, what is that?!”          “Calm down, this is no time to panic!”          “This is a perfect time to panic! We have a giant purple THING chasing us and I have no idea what we’re gonna do!”          “First we need to calm down and—LEFT! Break LEFT!”          “Auuuuuuuuuuugh! I’m too young to die!”          “Look, I think I have an idea! Here, hold this.”          “A mage torch? I don’t think our problem can be fixed with light right now!”          “Just trust me, okay? Look, when I give the signal, you stop short and turn around. I’ll boost you up with levitation and you’ll jump and jab the torch just behind its ear.”          “Have you lost your mind?!”          “I know what I’m doing! When I count three, you stop. I’ll be just to the side helping you along! Are you ready?”          “This is insane!” “Well, I don’t see you coming up with any ideas! If you thought of something better that doesn’t involve hitting it with your lyre, please share!”          “Oh, Celestia, I’m going to die!”          “I wouldn’t worry, Bon-Bon. I’m sure that Lyra will be back safely. Twilight went with her.”          “If you say so...”          Lyra slid down the shoulder of the dazed ursine monster, clutching a sparking mage torch in her magic. “I can’t believe that worked.”          “I had a hunch.”          “You based our lives on a hunch?”          Twilight rolled her eyes. “We weren’t doing so well before then, either. I made an educated guess and rolled with it.”          “What did you do to the mage torch?”          “That’s not an ordinary torch. I modified it so it could cast simple spells along with light, depending on the need.”          Lyra gave the torch another look. “That’s pretty cool.”          “Why, thank you.” Twilight gave the downed Ursa Major a sidelong glance. “We should probably get going before it wakes up.”          “Sounds like a good idea to me.”