//------------------------------// // Calliope // Story: A world with no giants // by TheSexyMenhir //------------------------------// In a world with no giants Ch.08 “Calliope” A mint coloured hoof rapped against wood. Lyra twiddled with her tie, trying her best to look professional, but along with her uneasy cantering it made her look like a school filly that’s too embarrassed to ask where the toilets are. The hinges creaked fiercely announcing that her knocking hadn’t gone unnoticed. A young grey unicorn filly stared out of the half closed door. Lyra twisted her mind, trying to remember the fillies name. She was sure that she had met her at least once, after all there was nobody in Ponyville that didn’t get at least one “Pinkie-Party”, but actually remembering the hundreds of ponies that lived in the small town was an entirely different matter. “Hi there, sweetie. Is your mother home?” she compromised. The filly only stared at her. The gaze from the young golden eyes made her feel uncomfortable. Somehow they looked far older than they had any right to be. “You’re not here to make fun of her, are you?” the filly finally asked. Lyra flinched. Of course she had seen the newspaper articles, and heard the rumors, but she had never believed it to be bad enough that even this kid would notice it. “No, I’m her because of work. I just want to ask your mother some questions,” she replied. That much at least was true. Once again she felt the gaze of those golden eyes rest on her. Suddenly the filly broke into a smile and turned around. “Ma! We’ve got a visitor,” she shouted inside, now looking just like a normal filly her age. Since she hadn’t closed the door, and was trotting deeper into the house, Lyra took it as an invitation and entered. “Oh? Who is it? Tell them to get comfortable in the living room, I’ll be with them directly,” another voiced yelled back, similar to the fillies voice, but a few octaves deeper. The living room was small but comfortable. None of the furniture seemed new, but it was clearly only the wear of daily living, not of neglect. The walls were lined with shelves and cupboards, each filled to the brim with knick knacks and souvenirs. Lyra was just inspecting a porcelain lamb, when a horrible racket filled the house. Several loud metallic clangs, were accompanied by the sound of glass breaking, and for good measure even a short honk could be heard! Lyra looked around the room, unsure what to do, but before she could decide whether to look what had caused the noise, someone yelled, ”Don’t worry, I’m okay, I’m okay!” The outburst was followed by another crash. Lyra stepped away from the suddenly very fragile looking shelves, and set down on the couch, pressing her legs close to her body. After a few minutes a slightly bruised looking grey pegasus entered the room, balancing a tray with glasses and a bottle of apple juice on her back. “I hope you don’t mind applejuice,” the pegasus mare said, setting down the tablet and sitting down on the other side of the table. “You’re Lyra right? I saw one of your performances in the park,” she continued before Lyra could say anything. “And you’re Ditzy Hooves?” Lyra finally managed to interrupt. “Yup, that’s me,” Ditzy answered with a small laugh. Lyra grabbed a glass, and filled it with juice. Her eyes wandered over the shelfs... “It’s okay to stare, you know,” Ditzy said still smiling. There wasn’t even the slightest bit of annoyance in her voice. Lyra gulped and looked at the pegasus’ face. Her eyes were of the same brilliant colour as her daughter’s, but while the right eye was focussed on her, the left one wandered around the room. “It’s a sort of muscle-spasm, a bit disorienting at times, but mostly it doesn’t bother me,” Ditzy explained, the unspoken question. “Dinky said you were here for work, but I don’t know how I could help you, I don’t know anything about music,” she continued the conversation as if nothing had happened. “Erm, no, that’s more of a hobby,” Lyra said with a laboured smile. Not many ponies worked in fields that didn’t fit their cutie mark, and she had to explain her reasons far too often. “Ah, okay. What can I help you with then?” the grey pegasus mare asked her. Lyra levitated her saddlebags closer, and took out a old and battered exemplary of “The Canterlot Inquirer.” The sorry excuse for a newspaper normally wouldn’t have found it’s way into Lyra’s household, but her marefriend BonBon insisted on buying the tabloid rag. In this case however, an article had provided an important clue for her work. Ditzy’s smiled faltered, as she saw the article which Lyra had highlighted. “Mad mare reports alien creature,” read the headline from a few months before. The picture of the pegasus with mismatched eyes was unmistakable, Lyra’s host. “There’s nothing to say, I must have mistaken what I saw... who knows, it could have been anything really. I mean with these eyes, I can barely see my own hoofs at times!” Ditzy said, laughing awkwardly. “Please, Ditzy. You just told me that you can see perfectly fine. I’m not here because I want to make fun of you. I work at Celestia’s school for gifted Unicorns, in the biology department, and I want to start an expedition to study the specimen you have seen,” Lyra interrupted the pegasus angrily. She knew what it felt like to be shunned, but in her case it had always been for her own choices, she couldn’t imagine what it feel like to be picked on because you were different. Even so she couldn’t stand the thought of someone demeaning himself, only to avoid getting hurt again. Ditzy looked at her, shock visible on her face, but beneath that Lyra could see a sliver of hope as well. She leaned in closer and said, “How about you tell me about the biped.” --- “Tell me why I’m here again?” Bonbon asked, pulling her hoof out of something which she was only willing to call “gunk,” since otherwise she’d have to acknowledge what it was made of. “Well... do you remember that the budget I’ve been granted was smaller than I expected?” Lyra replied, readjusting her backpack. “Yes,” grunted Bonbon. “And you also remember how I had to buy all this expensive equipment?” Lyra continued, pointing at the heavy backpacks the two of them were carrying. “Uhu...” Bonbon said. “And there might not have been enough money to hire an assistant... or a balloon... or a wheelbarrow...  also, did I ever mention just how much I love you?” Lyra said turning towards Bonbon and gazing deep into her eyes. Bonbon stared back with a deadpan look. Lyra chuckled apologetically. “Look at it that way. You’ll be right there when for the first time in centuries a new mammalian species is discovered,” she said, changing her tactics rather abruptly. Lyra looked at her blankly. “She’s screwed up every single task she’s been given for both the winter preparations and winter-wrap-up, ever since she moved to Ponyville. She was send to the border regions, because here it wouldn’t matter if she did any damage,” Bonbon said, dropping her saddlebag and sitting down on a fallen tree. “You shouldn’t believe all those nasty rumors,” Lyra chided the beige coloured earth pony, “I’ve talked to her, and her observation all sounded conclusive.” Truth be told, she had heard those rumors as well, and from no other than the head of Ponyville’s weather team, but she couldn’t help but defend the walleyed pegasus mare, after all she had promised her that she would investigate the creature properly. “We should be leaving the Hayseed Swamps soon,” Lyra said as she sat down next to Bonbon. A quick search of her saddlebag revealed a map, which had cost a sizeable part of her research grant. The woods south of the hayseed swamps were close to dragon territory, and nobody in their right mind went close to dragon territory. Dragons lived for hundreds of years and quite a few of them thought themselves above such trivial things as state borders, ownership, the law, and quite frankly good manners. A problem that was only amplified by the lack of a central dragon government. After a time even the most optimistic ponies had given up on living close to dragon territory, which had left quite a big stretch of land to fend for itself. Of course the occasional pegasus was  still sent there, but the borderlands had proven surprisingly adept at surviving without pony influence, and as the years passed they had turned into a region almost as wild as the Everfree forest. And now two ponies would venture into this place full of dangers in the name of SCIENCE! Okay maybe only one pony ventured there in the name of science, and the other had been left clueless about the nature of the trip, until after it was too late to turn back, but it was for a good cause. “We just need to pass this gulch up ahead, and we should finally be leaving all this mud behind us,” Lyra said, pointing at the map. The prospect of dry land seemed to invigorate the confectioner-turned-research-assistant, and the two of them continued on their way. Both Lyra and Bonbon weren’t the most athletic of ponies, and the last paved road had ended a few miles prior. The worst part however wasn’t the exhaustion, but the water. They could hardly walk a few meters without having to wade through knee deep swamps, and their coats clung to them uncomfortably in the cold autumn wind. As such it came as no surprise that they felt great relief as the gorge, which marked the edge of the hayseed swamps finally came into sight. The nameless canyon was several miles long, and went all the way from the mountain ridges in the west to the sea in the east, it was however barely five meters wide. As Lyra peeked over the edge she could see several waterfalls burst out of the walls below her and rushing into the depths below. “Any ideas how to get across?” Bonbon asked from her resting place on a stone nearby. A life with a constant access to candy, not to mention the sampling that was required for her job, had made the beige earth pony clearly the less physical reliant of the two. “Help me test if the tree can take our weight,” Lyra motioned to her marefriend as she gave the rope a tug. As soon as the tree proved sturdy, she secured the rope on her side as well. The second rope followed soon, hanging roughly at withers height. Bonbons gaze wandered between Lyra and the makeshift drawbridge. “If you think that anything could make me crawl across that thing, you are more crazy than I thought,” she deadpanned. ... “OH GOD, OH GOD, I’M GONNA DIE!!!” ... Bonbon sank to her knees, and kissed the ground on the other side of the chasm. Meanwhile Lyra was busy observing her surroundings. Apparently the chasm served as a natural barrier for the groundwater, since this side of the canyon was far drier than the swamp they had just left. In fact it looked almost like the whitetail woods near Ponyville, but only on the first look. The longer she looked, the more obvious it became that it had been a long time since the forest had felt the organizing touch of a pony hoof. Broken branches and fallen trees lay all around, making the brush almost impassable. Dead leaves still adorned the branches of the trees, and the thick canopy shadowed the land beneath the tree’s in a eternal dusk. “The place looks eerie,” Bonbon commented. Apparently she was finished with worshiping solid ground for now. Lyra chuckled nervously, “Nonsense, it’s just a bit of shrubbery, no need to be scared, am I right?” It didn’t escape Bonbons notice that Lyra huddled closer to her, no matter her words. Momentarily she thought about suggesting to turn back, but as much as she disliked being here, she knew that this expedition was a huge thing for her mate, so instead she said, “Come on, we’ll have a lot of ground to cover if we want to find your creature.” “Yeah, you’re right,” Lyra replied with newfound confidence. “Got any plan on how to find the creature?” Bonbon asked, looking around the large forest ahead of them. “For now I’m hoping that whatever it is is not magical, which means it needs to eat and drink. We’ll try finding a good observation point near a freshwater source and wait,” Lyra explained. Once again she took the map from her backpack and held it in her magical aura. “See? That small river over there should be the only source of fresh water,” she said pointing at a miniscule blue line, that went straight through the biggest part of the region. After an affirmative nod by Bonbon she continued to explain her plan, “I want to see if there are any natural lakes or ponds along the rivers course.” She folded up the map, and waited for Bonbon to gather up her saddlebag. --- It had taken them almost five hours until they located the river which, as it turned out, hardly deserved the moniker. The had followed the small trickle of water, until they reached a pond that Lyra deemed promising. The earth on its edge had been disturbed by a number of animal feet, and for a moment Lyra considered investigating the tracks, but ultimately she decided against it. She didn’t know anything about the creature other than the rough description that Ditzy had given her, and she didn’t want to risk alarming it before she could take a good look at it. She surveyed the surrounding area for a good vantage point, and finally she found it. She turned towards her marefriend and asked, “Say Bonbon... how good are you at climbing?”