//------------------------------//
// The Name is Heartstrings 
// Story: Lyra Heartstrings v. Republic of Terra 
// by PegasusKlondike 
//------------------------------//

Kraemer and other property owners governed a restrictive covenant brought as a class-action civil suit to the state court of Illinois, seeking to block the entry of Shelley, the defendant, from owning property in their township. The Shelley family, a family of African-Americans, sought to purchase property in the district. When brought to the Illinois State Court, the plaintiffs lost the case to the defendants, but this decision was turned over a few months later by the Missouri Supreme Court. However, this decision was appealed before the federal Supreme Court, where it was decided by the federal Justices that restrictive covenants based on race and enforced by private organizations were both unconstitutional and hurtful to the nation at large.

Lyra took in a deep sigh, leaning back in her chair and rubbing her hooves over her aching and tired eyes. Slipping a hoof to her back, she rubbed in slow circles just above her rump, trying to loosen the tightened muscles. Aaron's office chair was not a pleasant place to sit for hours on end, especially for the poor quadruped who sat in it at least five hours a night.

Looking back to the open book in front of her, she sighed as she snapped it shut, levitating it back to the book shelf where it belonged. The Supreme Court case of Shelley v. Kraemer of 1948 had not been an enjoyable read. Most of it concerned property law and the discrimination against races when buying and selling lots of residential property by associations of home and property owners. 

It was boring with a capital B to say the least. 

And with a quick check of the basic set of Terran property laws, she could say with certainty that there were no explicit laws forbidding ponies and other creatures from purchasing property in supposed "humans only" districts of the city, nor any laws specifically enabling humans from preventing the entry of a would-be pony property owner into their neighborhood. Ponies were just too poor to afford those sites. So she had wasted four hours reading about the most boring case to have ever concerned the rights of man, and it didn't even concern anything that she stood for in court.

Her main objective was to get ponies and humans on a legal level where they could see one another as equals and hopefully forge a greater relationship. They were barely on the first date with each other, and it would just be crazy to ask the humans if they could move into their place. So she forgot about applying Shelley v. Kraemer to her next argument, and stared at the ceiling until she could work up the willpower to rifle through another thick law book, seeking some kind of all-powerful answer in the precedents, a veritable diamond in the rough that would make her entire case a snap decision.

But the more and more she read, and the more she considered herself an expert on the history of human civil rights, the more she knew that the deus ex machina did not exist. Human civil rights movements had always been solely about humans. Like the Dean of Medicine in the Undercity hospital had said before, there had never been a situation in history when humans and other intelligent creatures had existed peacefully in the same time and place. So there never could have been any case to concern their rights to ever reach the courts.

Lyra groaned out loud, reaching out with her magical aura to grab the next book in the series, unceremoniously plopping it down on the desk, flipping it open to the first page, and starting the long process of looking for any relevant mote of information. Propping her head up on a hoof, she skimmed over the page, and flipped through the book one page at a time.

"Boring crap," she murmured, flipping the page. "Surprise, more boring crap. And what's this? I can't use any of it? Joy."

"And yet, you're still going to read every paragraph as if it were a wealthy relative's last will and testament," a ghastly voice said.

Lyra's amber eyes peeked up from the pages of the law book, watching the flickering spirit orb of her legal counsel materialize through the western wall of the study. "Where have you been?"

The orb seemed to turn a shoulder to her. "Out talking to the locals."

"Locals? Are there other ghosts just following people around, bothering them?" For a moment, Lyra's mind treated itself to a comical farce where everyone had a ghost following them around and pestering them, and everyone also thought that nobody else was burdened by the constant presence of an undead companion. "Or did you get drinks with a pretty necromancer down at the ol' pub?" she asked sarcastically, knowing that his place was here, actually giving out advice instead of just wantonly vanishing every night.

The ghost of Mr Darrow gave a loud harrumph, settling into a habit of circling around her head like some kind of obsessive firefly. "Local spirits. The little woodland sprites, spook-lights, the lesser entities of the spirit world. The least of the Earth Mother's children, whatever you want to call them. They're chatterboxes, and they tend to hear things that most other beings tend to ignore. So I've been asking around, seeing if any of them know anything that might be helpful to you."

Surprised that a possible lead might have come from odd little nature spirits, Lyra brightened up visibly. "And? Did they say anything?"

"What they didn't say is the more proper question. Once you start talking to one, they never shut up. Mostly it's about what they saw a grasshopper do, or which oak trees are going to grow slightly faster than the others, or even how to best avoid becoming a snack for an elemental. But no, they did not say anything useful. So get back to your reading."

Lyra groaned loudly, rolling her eyes. "There's nothing here that matters," she replied, waving a hoof towards the open tome on the desk.

"Why don't you say that to the men who will write this country's history? Why don't you go into that courthouse and say that you withdraw your argument? With that kind of attitude, you might as well!"

"But it's all useless! None of this stuff even matters in my case!"

The ghostly orb flared red in anger, spinning about to face her. "None of it matters?! None of it matters?! These were the cases that changed a nation, these were lives that were placed in front of the whole world to be judged, these were men and women who were enduring the same thing as you! These people, all of them, they understand your struggle, and it is only fair and goodly that you understand theirs. Only if you understand their struggle can you learn how to overcome your own."

The mare sat quietly, taking a deep breath. Inside her head, she endlessly shamed herself for forgetting about that. It was the struggles of people that she was meant to be studying, not the endless minute details concerning cases that were dead even to the descendants of the people that had created them.

"I'm sorry," she said, lowering her eyes to the desk. "I'm... I'm just tired. I haven't slept right in a week. And I... I can't help but think about all the people who I'm gonna let down if I can't do this."

The glow of Mr Darrow dimmed, as the ghost felt ashamed himself. "Don't apologize."

"Why?"

"Because I forgot that you're only huma-... that you're only a person. You're not some restless phantasm with millenia of free time on your hands. You're an average person, and sometimes I forget that."

The smallest smile crept onto Lyra's face, and with the look of absolute love and adoration that she was wearing, Clarence began to feel slightly uncomfortable. 

"What are you grinning about?" he asked gruffly.

"You almost said, 'You're only human'. Thank you." The ghost found himself trapped in a light golden magical aura, being dragged closer to Lyra's face. And to his chagrin, she gave him an honest peck on the face, along with a thankful nuzzle. 

"Alright, stop it. Cease! Desist! I demand that you release me at once!"

After a moment, she obliged him, and released her magical grip on the specter. "You enjoyed it and you know it."

Clarence grumbled something, then resumed floating around the study, murmuring to himself about cases he had seen and been in concerning civil rights, plumbing the deepest depths of his memories for the one tactic or smidgen of information that would allow their side to gain the upper hand. And with Bennett holding the simple advantage of being a human representing a case before a panel of humans, he held the advantage, no matter how much tenacity Lyra fought with. Even now, so many court days and so many good arguments in heavy favor of Lyra, the deep set mistrust of her kind might just lose this for her.

Whistler's opinions, as well as his status as a pony whose very job and existence tore down several of the barriers that separated the two species, had been helpful. But they needed something that would hit harder, something that would be more official. 

"Where is today's paper?" he asked, ceasing his endless circuit to hover before the mare.

Lyra wordlessly tilted her head over to a crumpled pile of newspaper by the waste bin. And already, Clarence knew that to be a bad sign. Had it been neat and orderly, Lyra would not have felt the need to toss it away in such a disorderly manner. Well, it could be taken one of two ways, neither of them exactly good. 

The papers could have dug up some dirt on Lyra or one of the other major leaders of the movement. They could have started a slander campaign aimed at driving a wedge between the ponies and their hard-won human supporters. Anything that wasn't an article casting the creatures of Lazarus in a better light was potentially detrimental, and it could be one of the reasons why his client was in such a mood.

Or, there could have been nothing at all. The paper could have mentioned absolutely nothing about the movement, the case, the rise of the creatures of Lazarus, or even the growing international response. Which in itself could be the worse alternative, meaning that the civil rights movement and Lyra's case were losing public interest, and would soon lose all of the headway that it had made.

Clarence shuddered as he zipped over to the crumpled up paper, diving in without the need to unfold it in any way. The words and letters hung around him in the ethereal world that he inhabited, and the ghost did his best to pick out any key words that pertained to them. After a moment or two, he zipped out.

"Fifth page. They have you relegated to the fifth page. Damn it!" he swore loudly.

Not even looking up from her current page, Lyra shrugged. "What are ya gonna do about it? We're old news now."

"You're behind an interview for the basketball team's captain! How can you not be outraged?"

"Because I don't have time to be outraged, or pissed off, or to relax, or time to read anything except these books," she said rather quietly. And in those words, Clarence could see that his regimen of court, study, and meeting with movement heads was hurting her. When he had met her for the first time, he had found a broken mare lying there on a bench in the shrine of the Singing Crystal. And he had taken her, broken down and misshapen, and began to rebuild her into a creature of politics and procedure, one who could step into the ring of the justice system and put her foe on the defensive.

And it was destroying her. 

His process was hurting the person that she had been before he met her, and he could only feel guilt about doing that to a person that he learned had once been so happy and carefree. If he had been back at law school, and seen somebody like Lyra slaving away so fervently at a case, deep down he would have known that the poor bastard was going to burn out, that he wasn't cut out for law. 

A soft knock at the door drew Lyra's attention away from the law book, and she nodded to her undead legal counselor. Clarence did his typical routine, hiding away in her earring. 

"Come in," she called softly.

The door carefully cracked open, and to the mare's slight surprise, a familiar blonde-haired woman poked her head in. 

"Hi. Um, Aaron and I were just gonna fix up some dinner, you want to join us?"

Lyra shook her head slowly. "I'll pass. I've got a lot of stuff I need to work on, and it's all just a mess right now. Maybe some other night." 

"Okay. Offer still stands if you get hungry in a little bit," Anita replied, quietly closing the door as she left.

As soon as the door gently shut, the ghostly attorney left his safe haven, as if it was even needed. The most he could ever affect Ms Cook was giving her a slightly chilled feeling if he passed through her, or perhaps raising goosebumps on her skin if he focused hard enough. Even though she had come to the house for a few days in a row by now, she had just been a presence on the fringe of Lyra and Clarence's private world of study and rhetoric coaching.

"She seems nice," he said offhandedly.

"She really is," Lyra replied just as noncommittally. "She manages to put up with Aaron's crap all day. In my opinion, that guy has some issues with relationships. Not to mention having a job that I would take any day of the week."

"Huh? What does she do?" the ghost asked, less out of real interest and more out of a need to make mindless chatter to hopefully undo some of that damage that he realized he was causing his client. 

The mare looked up from her current book, taking in a breath and letting out a dreamy sigh. "She gets to check up on  all the new human babies in their homes. She's a social worker or something like that. Came and checked out the human homes in Ponyville."

The words "social worker" and "Ponyville" tingled the senses of the ghost, and he snapped back to the situation at hand. "Wait, what did you say?"

Lyra just cracked a grin. "That she's the luckiest gal I know. Got a healthy relationship, gets to work with kids, good job with good pay. I kinda envy her."

"No, about her being a social worker! Did you say that she went and visited your home town?"

Lyra's dreamy moment began to fall away. Slowly, she raised her eyebrow and leaned forward in her seat. "Yeah, she came for a week to inspect the Coppell's home, the schools, Ponyville hospital..." Her jaw nearly hit the desk with how low it fell. 

The ghostly orb glowed brightly in glee. "She's a government worker who has professionally assessed the potential living conditions of a human in your society. Do you understand what that means?"

The wide smile on Lyra's face could only say yes. "Her word is technical precedent! Every single one of Bennett's arguments saying that we can't live safely together could be made void!"

Mr Darrow laughed loudly. "And you thought that all that I've taught you was useless. And all she has to do is testify in your favor! Sure, it's not a huge leap forward in civil rights, but it is a massive step forward in the cohabitation and coexistence argument. Mrs Heartstrings, do you know what you should do?" 

She was too excited to properly think, and she shook her head rapidly. "No, what do we do next?"

In the swirling mists of Mr Darrow's immortal essence, she could swear that she saw a broad smile. "I think you should go have dinner."


***************************************************


"We're so glad you could join us," Anita said sweetly, laying down a large bowl of pasta on the dining room table. 

"Yeah, thrilled," Aaron grumbled under his breath. This dinner was meant to be a little more romantic than anything else, hence why he was using a stream of arcane fire to light a candelabra at the center of the table. 

Lyra sat down at a hastily brought in third chair, not caring in the least that she had interrupted a possibly romantic evening that could have ended with some "intimacy" between him and his girlfriend. "I hope I'm not imposing," she said more out of a sense of manners than an actual feeling of imposition. 

"Not at all!" Anita replied.

"Kinda," her boyfriend muttered.

Anita shot Aaron a scathing and acidic look, one that shriveled what was left of the man's defiance and crushed his masculine spirit under the weight of her feminine power and wiles. With a smile she turned back to Lyra, passing the large bowl of freshly made pasta to the mare.

"So, Lyra, what do you do for a living?"

Lyra scooped a healthy helping of pasta onto her plate with her magic, wondering if Ms Cook knew about cutie marks or not. Typically, if a pony got a good look at another pony's flank (which in Equestrian society, where pants were almost unheard of, was not considered impolite or perverse) they could generally tell what the other pony did for a living. "I'm a musician. Mainly the lyre, but sometimes I do play the harp for orchestras and such. I actually came here to Lazarus to play my harp at the gala in the park." 

Now was the time to start working her way towards earning Anita's trust. "And how about you? What does such a successful person as yourself do to pay the bills?"

The young lady in question dipped a ladle into a steaming pot, laying a thin layer of some of the most delicious smelling tomato sauce that Lyra had ever smelled onto her plate. "Oh, nothing much. I'm just a social worker for Republic Social Services, specializing in childcare and early life welfare."

"How interesting," Lyra said, leaning closer. "You know, I've heard that social workers meet such interesting people."

Anita chuckled under her breath, passing the pot onto Lyra. "Well, it could be better, and it could be worse. I could be one of the two that have to do work for entire families, or my friend Janet who is specializing in the field of community development and higher education. So when all the little kids under my jurisdiction get old enough, they transfer over to her jurisdiction. And after that, they move over to Mr Hinkley, who specializes in trade and union workers as well as social security for the elderly. It's all a thorough system."

"Fascinating," Lyra said, not caring about the technicals, yet leaning forward and resting her chin on her propped up hoof. 

The man of the house narrowed his eyes at Lyra, knowing that the minty unicorn was up to no good. "I'm a wizard," Aaron chimed, trying to derail Lyra's efforts. Both Anita and Lyra glanced at him with a less than interested eye. "Well it's true! Just thought I would throw in my two bits."

"Sure you are," Lyra said sweetly. "Oh, wait a minute, so am I!" she said with a victorious smirk, lighting up her horn with magic and layering a heap of sauce on her pasta.

"She's gotcha there," said Anita, twirling few strands of pasta onto her fork and taking a bite.

But Aaron wasn't concerned with that. "Hey, Archmage of Ponyville, you ruined your own supper," he replied with a victorious grin on his face.

Lyra raised an eyebrow, looking down at her plate. Everything seemed normal; the noodles were cooked to perfection, there was just the right amount of cheese, she even ground up a little peppercorn to add some kick. Everything was fine, except the sauce seemed a little... lumpy. 

She looked closer, trying to determine what exactly was giving the tomato sauce such a texture. And then she remembered her journeys through Kali'Gryph and its sister kingdom across the sea, Gryphonia, in search of evidence to vindicate her belief in humans. Every time she dined with one of the friendly avian/felinoids, they would make her food separate from their own to prevent contamination from....

"Is... is this... meat?"

Aaron scooped a large chunk from his own plate, forgoing cutlery to prove the point with his fingers. Popping it in his mouth, he chewed it loudly. "Italian sausage. Cost me an arm and a leg to buy it from the delicatessen. Who knows, there's probably an arm and a leg somewhere in here!" he said, laughing to himself at Lyra's obvious discomfort.

Anita realized the implications, that as a strict herbivore the consumption of meat was one of the greatest taboos in her society. "Aaron, you're being a jerk!" she hissed to the man across the table. Turning back to Lyra, she said as apologetically as she could, "I'm so sorry, I didn't know that he was cooking with meat tonight. I'll see if there's a can of regular sauce in the kitchen."

It was a good sign that Anita was willing to go out of her way to ensure Lyra's comfort, but to actually be such a bother would be a detriment to her goal. "No need," Lyra said. And as soon as she said that, both of the humans went silent, staring at her like she was leaking snakes and spiders out of her mouth. "I'll just eat around it. And besides, this ain't my first little tryst into... meat. Yeah, I've been around the world, a little... sausage, is no big deal for me." 

She was bluffing. Of course she was bluffing! The closest she had ever come to actually tearing voraciously into the flesh of another living creature had been eating a single sardine aboard a minotaur passenger ship, and that had been by accident! Even the thought of ingesting it was making her stomach churn. And as a filly-fooler, she didn't even like the suggestive shape of sausage! Well, she figured, if there was one way to prove that humans and ponies weren't so different, it was this way.

Swallowing her trepidation, she levitated her fork, jammed the tines down into the pile of desecrated pasta noodles, rife with the ground up flesh of some poor livestock creature, and brought a forkful of it to her mouth. Carefully sliding the noodles onto her tongue, the sweet flavor of tomato, and the tasty sharpness of the cheese was overwhelmed by an alien flavor, one that reminded her of iron. And when her teeth came down on the little chunks of meat, they squished in her mouth, reminding her of tiny seeds filled with juice. It had a chewy feel to it, one that was totally unlike any kind of fruit or vegetable that a pony normally dined on.

But, as she defied every instinct within her and swallowed it down, she actually managed to surprise herself. "Not bad." But the second it hit her stomach, a loud rumble and groan erupted from her belly, and Lyra doubled over as her body fought against the intruding proteins. "But not good," she groaned, clutching her stomach.

Shaking his head, trying to hold in his laughter, Aaron stood up from the table. "I think I have some salad greens in the kit-"

"That would be nice!" Lyra said before he could even finish, still clutching her complaining stomach.

"Get me a glass of wine while you're in there!" Anita called as Aaron left the room for Lyra's replacement meal.

"Make it two!" Lyra shouted after her. If she couldn't gain Anita's trust by betraying her own basic biology, maybe a little bit of free flowing alcohol could help dissolve that barrier. And time was short, Ms Cook typically left Mr Patterson's house right after dinner each night, and there was no knowing if she would be available for the next convention of court.

"So, yeah, I'll admit it, I'm not much of a meat-eater," Lyra confessed as soon as Aaron left the room.

Anita nodded. "I kinda figured as much. But hey, just because we can eat meat doesn't mean it's good for us. I mean, when I was in college I became a vegetarian, partially because meat cost too much, and partially because it was something I could do to make myself feel smug. But I'll confess something, around three months in, I pretended to be some frat boy's girlfriend for an hour so that he would buy me a steak."

Despite the loud complaints of her gut, Lyra smiled. "Tell me about it. One time I was in northern Zebrica, you know, the part where it's not all zebras, but more camels than anything, and I paid some kid fifty bits to find me a piece of fruit. Took him six hours, and after I ate it I got really sick for a couple of days..." She stopped herself, remembering what she had been told so many months ago, that it was a disease that she had picked up in northern Zebrica that had rendered her infertile. Perhaps that camel youth had felt slighted that she ordered him around like she did, maybe he had given her an intentionally poisonous melon. Maybe that hadn't been the case at all, maybe it had been one of the dozens of mosquito bites or any of the hundreds of encounters with isolated tribals, always asking about their most ancient mythologies.

"Are you alright?" Anita asked, seeing that the look on Lyra's face was not one of pain, but of regret.

"Yeah, I just remembered something. Something that I probably shouldn't have said or done."

A glass of red wine and a bowl of salad greens appeared by her hoof, and she looked up to see a sympathetic face. Aaron had heard, and he too remembered that night in the basement of Golden Oaks Library, when a "certain entity" had divined the root cause of Lyra's problems. And though still wary of Lyra's intentions with his girlfriend, he backed down on his hostilities. 

The meal passed with hardly anymore problems, except the occasional empty glass. Lyra and Anita chatted almost non-stop for a full hour, even to the point where they disregarded Aaron's proposal of everyone pitching in to help clean up. Instead, the man ended up grumbling and groaning beside a tall stack of plates and bowls, and ended up doing it all himself while the girls went and retired to the den with the bottle of wine. 

It was the chivalrous thing to do, and for a moment the man thought of himself as honorable for relieving the burden of such a menial responsibility from the two fair ladies. And then he remembered promptly that he was in fact not a hopeless romantic from sixteenth century Italy trying to favor his way into a woman's bed, and he silently cursed at the intrusions of some other desperate jerk's memories into his own. 

But for Lyra, the evening was turning into a pleasant surprise, despite the meat fiasco. The mare didn't think she would actually make a friend out of this, but she found that Anita's gentle nature, entertaining stories, and her outgoing personality were really starting to catch her interest. At first it had been all subliminal schmoozing on Lyra's part, just trying to gain the woman's trust, but as the evening went on, she found herself just telling stories and honestly laughing more than anything.

"And then... and then, there I am, drunker than I've ever been before, somehow I managed to get on top of the statue of Princess Celestia in the middle of Canterlot. And I'm screaming it to the world, "Lyrica ain't got nothin' on me!" Because back in high school, Lyrica and I were always butting heads for first chair harpist, besides the fact that our teachers ALWAYS got our names mixed up! I mean, how hard is it to tell? I'm a unicorn, she's an earth pony; she's purple, I'm green; she's a stuck up bitch, and I'm at least tolerable in small doses!"

The woman laughed, a gentle and sweet laugh that reminded Lyra almost too much of the clarion laugh of Dreamy. "My god, that's so much like this one woman I knew back in my sophomore year of college! Her name was Tracy... something, I can't really remember. Anyways, I think she was some kind of crazy stalker, because she was a natural brunette, but after I moved in to the sorority, she dyed her hair the same color blonde as me. And she only signed up for her classes after I signed up for mine, and then comes the first day of class, guess who's sitting a row behind me! Every class, every day for two semesters! Thank god she flunked out."

The mare chuckled, levitating the glass of wine to her lips to take a sip. "Some people just can't take a hint. But who am I kidding, I used to be that way."

"How so?" Anita asked, topping off her own glass from the increasingly empty bottle of wine.

Lyra sighed, leaning back into the soft cushions of the couch, one made by the skilled hooves of her people, with the comfort of a pony in mind. "Well, everypony says I've always been more bullheaded than a minotaur. I mean, before... well, you guys came around, I always believed in your kind. Nopony else really thought anything of it, they just thought I was crazy and left it at that. They told me I shouldn't waste my life chasing old mare's tales."

"So, we're like fairies to you guys? All mythical and stuff like that?"

"What? No, everypony knows fairies are real. And flitter ponies too. Believing in humans was more like... believing in the Olden Pony. Humans were just something that old timers would tell to their children to scare them."

"Wait, so fairies are real? What do they look like?" Anita asked, growing very curious very suddenly.

Lyra shrugged, going by memory about what she knew. "Well, they don't look as pretty as a human, that's for sure. They're these little bug people, only about three or four inches tall. They have four wings, and they look kinda like a naked rat, if that makes any sense. Why do you ask?"

Anita sighed. "Well, in Aaron and I's time, it wasn't too odd for a girl to fantasize about fantasy men. Like, some women would die for a chance to be a vampire's girl, or my mom always wondered what it would be like with a merman." Taking a longer drink from her glass of wine, the woman sighed once more. "Can I tell you a secret?"

This was it! The ultimate show of trust! If she said yes, then she might just have enough of the woman's trust and friendship to ask her to testify, or leverage in case she didn't want to testify. "You can tell me anything," Lyra replied, zipping a hoof across her lips.

Taking another sip from her wine glass, she readied herself. "Okay. Aaron is the sweetest, kindest guy I have ever dated. And I really, really like him. But... he's just not the type of guy I go for."

"Really? I thought that you two were Terra's sweethearts right now."

"I know! It's just that, I tend to go for... manlier guys. A guy who has a hard, rocky exterior, but a soft heart. I mean, I saw his friend the other day, Mr Mattson, and if I wasn't already in a relationship, you better believe I would be flirting with him! But with Aaron, it's all reversed. I mean, he's really affectionate and sweet on the outside, but inside... I don't think I could ever understand what's going on inside of him. He tries to lock away his real emotions, and sometimes I can't even tell if he's with me or not. Like he just stares out into space, like his mind is always elsewhere."

Lyra nodded slowly. She knew what it was. She had talked to Twilight and Dr Whooves for hours on the subject of Ponyville's resident humans. That even though they seemed like perfectly normal functioning members of Equestrian society, there was something that plagued their minds that actually made them deviant from normal human behaviors. The questioning pony in Dr Whooves had quickly determined that a good portion of the human race was undergoing some kind of shock from their introduction to a new world, and that many of them suffered from some effects of post-traumatic stress. 

But to say that might offend her new friend, and with Aaron it would only be the partial truth. "It's the magic. We unicorns go through that phase in our development. Get really introspective and stuff like that. In unicorn terms, he's just settling into his new power. It's kinda like a second puberty for unicorns, except that it happens at the same time as normal puberty. Which is also why it sucks being a unicorn parent. I'm guessing that it will also be the same for magi children. But, maybe if some unicorns were to step in, maybe help out all those confused humans by taking some of that burden off their shoulders, it could all work out."

Not exactly subtle on her part, but time was growing short, and Anita could ungraciously stumble out of that front door at any minute.

"So, what do you think about the civil movement?" Lyra asked, gently pressing the subject while adding just a tad more wine to Ms Cook's glass.

Taking another long sip, Anita chuckled. "S-S-D-D, that's what I think."

"Huh?"

"Same shit, different day," Anita explained. "This kind of stuff isn't exactly novel. I mean, back in my day. Hey, look at me, I sound like a dusty old woman! Anyways, back in my day, you couldn't go three days without some group marchin' on Washington, demanding that some long-standing law get repealed, or for the government to enforce equal opportunity to the point where it wasn't even equal anymore."

"So it's the same old stuff for you? Don't you care about the rights of the people?"

Anita groaned, even the haze of her slight drunkenness lifting as she was put on the defensive. "Look, I know who you are, Lyra. Your name is all over the papers, and you're the talk of the whole nation. And I know what you're trying to accomplish. But... I can't say that I agree with that."

A look of shock and awe fell over the mare's face. "How can you say that! I mean, look at us, less than five minutes ago we were telling each other our deepest secrets! I mean, how can you say that our races can't get along when we were pals just a few minutes ago?"

Anita set down her glass, her aura of friendliness and cheer melting away. "I never said that our people can't get along. I never said that we can't live together. But your whole point is that we are so alike that we can raise one another's children! How would you feel if a human came to Equestria and tried to adopt a pony? What if they wanted to raise them like a human, feeding them meat and teaching them to dress and talk like one of us? Even if they got it all down just right, they won't be human. They'll be a pony that acts like a human, and will never truly be a part of human society. And... and I don't know if it's the fact that in my life horses made the transition from farm animals to... you, and I don't know if it's the fact that my species is now on the endangered species list, but I just can't support my people letting you raise one of our children."

"But I wouldn't have a problem with it! Nopony I know in Equestria would say anything bad if a human decided to adopt one of our foals. We don't judge people based on who they are!" she replied angrily.

An offended look crossed Anita's face. "I'm not doubting that your kind would be fine with it, I'm doubting your kind's ability to raise a human child! It's not even my professional opinion, I just don't think that you can handle one of our children!"

A long silence fell over the room, and Lyra's eyes drifted down to the floor. "I'm sorry. And if you honestly feel that way, I can understand. But, maybe we can still be friends, right?"

Anita sighed, nodding once. "Yeah, we can still be friends."

Levitating her glass, Lyra gave a hopeful, yet defeated grin. She took a sip, then drained the rest of the glass as an afterthought. "I've got things I need to do early tomorrow, I better go to bed." 

Walking out the door to the den, she almost ran into Mr Patterson, who was leaning against the wall outside of the den.

"Do you really have to spy so much!" Lyra growled.

The man shrugged. "It's my house. Nothing is said or done here without me knowing about it. Nothing," he said with emphasis. "So, you and Anita getting along?"

Lyra sighed, her head drooping down. "Not so much anymore."

"Mm, that's what you get for trying to make a friend into a tool."

Lyra looked back up, and a quizzical look crossed her face. "You knew I was just trying to get her to testify in court? So, you knew the whole time that her testimonial could have cut short the whole case?"

Mr Patterson tapped a finger to his temple. "I have God's WiFi password, I know things that I really shouldn't know, and things that I don't want to know. Yes, I knew that Anita could have gone before the court, said that everything between the Coppells and the citizens of Ponyville was honky-dory and that little Ms Sophia was a shining example of a human being safely raised in pony society. But I know that Anita doesn't want to jeopardize her career, her social life, and her future on a gamble like your case. You know that I can't do anything to influence your case, and as long as Anita and I are together, she has my proxy. In fact, anyone that I care about, anyone that I'm close to has that same immunity." 

Lyra snorted. "You think that everyone you're close to isn't already involved?" She leaned closer to the magi, hissing to him in a voice that was barely above a harsh whisper, "I know things that you don't know. You think you're the only one with friends in high places? Think again."

And with a huff, she passed him by, going straight back to her bedroom. Standing alone in the hallway, Aaron was dumbstruck. If he was guessing right, those who claimed to be purely neutral in any human affairs were taking sides. And apparently, his matron had already picked. Shaking his head, he determined to himself that he would try to salvage something of tonight's dinner travesty, and he summoned another bottle of wine, stepping into the den to his waiting lady.

And when Lyra tossed herself between her sheets, not even bothering to do her little evening hygiene ritual, she took a deep sigh, closed her eyes, and tried to sleep. But sleep was hard to come by when one had a dead soul hovering inches from their face.

"How did it go?" Clarence asked.

Lyra rolled over in her sheets, taking in another deep breath. "Sometimes things just don't work out."

Back out in the den, Aaron was having a tough time trying to relax his girlfriend's mood. And when he found out she had far too many glasses of wine, he insisted that she stay the night. And without another word of argument, they both went up to Aaron's bedroom, and fell exhausted into the sheets.


***************************************************


He couldn't see a thing, but he knew he was somewhere familiar.

Perhaps it was the fog of the unknown, and as Aaron walked through it, all he could see through the thick shroud that encompassed the entire world were the ruins of house and home as they came within touching distance of his fingers. There was silence, the veritable sound of winter ringing in his ears. Walking through the streets of a ruined city, he stopped to touch the stone of a blasted home. He screamed as the stone burned his skin like the hottest fire, and he stumbled back, clutching his hand. He gripped it close, knowing the burn to have gone down to his bones and turned his flesh to ash. Peering down at his limb, he found it unharmed and whole. And without questioning the stones that burned with cold fire, he determined that he needed to leave this place.

Aaron walked through the thick mist, seeking the edge, trying to find his way out. But the more he walked through the misty ruins of an unknown city, the more he became convinced that the entire world had been enshrouded. 

"Hello?" he called. His voice echoed through this empty place, flowing out into eternity without any calls back. He waited, listening for any response. And just when he began to turn away, to seek another way out, he heard it.

Aaron stopped himself, straining to listen to the voice in the mist. A child's voice, by the sound of it.

"There," he said quietly, pinpointing the direction. And with no end to this foggy disaster area in sight, he stumbled on towards the growing sounds of children laughing in mist.

As he came closer to it, the sounds grew louder, the mist grew ever thicker, and he found himself without breath. Aaron struggled to breathe as the laughter of children at play surrounded him. And finally, after walking through what seemed like miles of this city in ruins, filled with the obscuring mist, he saw her.

A single child, a little girl. Standing alone, staring down at the broken pavement at her feet. Her stringy hair covered her face, and her dress was torn, burned, and tattered. 

"Little girl?" Aaron called with what little breath he could draw in. Taking a few steps closer, his skin crawled and his mind screamed at him to run.

She raised her arm, slowly pointing to the man as he approached. 

"One, two, he comes for you," she began to sing. "Three, four, pray no more. Five, six, shadow and tricks. Seven, eight, lies and hate. Nine, ten, the devil within."

Aaron reached out with a trembling hand, and parted her hair. The little girl looked up, and instantly Aaron knew this to be his darkest nightmare. Her ashen skin was covered in sores, and her once shining and beautiful eyes were nothing more than rotted pits in her skull.

Opening her mouth, the walking corpse began to scream, a wail that pierced through Aaron's bones and brought him to his knees. Clutching his head, he tried to drown it out, but the screams came through. And all around him, the mist began to recede.

The city in ruins, the avenues running slick with blood, the burnt skeletons of homes filled with the living corpses of those who had once loved and cherished this place, a city that Aaron knew all too well. This place, this ruined city, was Lazarus.


********


Aaron sat bolt upright, clutching at his chest and feeling the blood pound through every vein in his body. His trembling hands came up to his face, wiping away the cold sweat. He was still in his bed in his home in Lazarus. Beside him, the form of his girlfriend filled the sheets, her chest slowly rising and falling, a sign that he hadn't awakened her.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he murmured. Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, he sat for a moment, holding his head in his hands and reassuring himself that it was just a bad dream. "The fuck was that about?" he asked himself. 

Carefully rising from his bed, he walked over to the open bathroom door. Leaning himself over the sink, he took a deep breath, and tried to calm his racing heart. Fumbling with the knob, he turned on the coldest water he could get, cupping his hands under the flowing faucet and splashing it onto his face. 

He repeated that process several more times, until his cold sweat was washed away and his feelings of dread were scrubbed off. Aaron grabbed the nearest towel, gently dabbing at his face until he was patted dry.

He looked up into the mirror. "What the fuck is really going on in my head? Am I going nuts?" Carefully he pulled an eyelid back, looking for any signs of dilation that came with stress induced psychosis. He checked the other eye, finding no physical signs of anything being amiss. "Maybe this one really was just a bad dream."

Huffing at himself for getting so worked up over nothing, he grabbed on the edge of the mirror, and pulled it open to get at the medicine cabinet behind it. He quickly chose a single aspirin to help with his heart troubles, and popped the pill into his mouth, swallowing it down with some difficulty. 

But when he shut the door to the medicine cabinet, he knew something was horribly wrong. 

Though it was his face that stared back at him, it was a form of his own body that he had only seen once, in a form that would haunt him to the end of his days. Aaron stared into the mirror, into his own eyes, eyes that had gone from his normal hazel and become an endless abyss of dark fire. He lifted a trembling hand, one that in his mirror image was tipped by claws and touched his ash-skinned cheek.

"No..." Aaron whispered. "No! You're gone!"

And to his endless horror, the monster in the mirror moved on its own, cracking a broad smile with its row of jagged teeth. 

"Miss me?" his dark doppelganger asked.

Aaron fell back to the wall, screaming in horror as the demon god began to reach through the mirror, stepping out into the world. 

"No! NO!" Aaron screamed as the Devil himself laughed at the pitiful creature before him. His laugh shook Aaron to the very core, and Aaron felt the cold arms of fear close around him as the demon latched his clawed hands around his throat.

Hot breath, reeking of decay and the smoke of burning corpses, poured over his face, and the demon leaned close, his face barely an inch from Aaron's. 

"Tell me," the monster hissed, "What's your worst nightmare?"


*********


"Aaron, wake up!" a woman's voice said to him. 

Aaron continued to kick and scream, trying to free his arms and legs from the bedsheets that had become wrapped around him like a cocoon. 

"Shh, shh, you're alright, you're alright," the gentle voice said to him. "It was just a bad dream, you're okay."

Aaron slowly began to calm, and he reached out for the voice in the dark. And to his surprise, the person that embraced him did not have the smooth, warm skin of a human. But rather the silky fur of a pony. Cracking open his eyes, Aaron's gaze was met by the sight of a body of aquamarine fur.

"Lyra?" Aaron whimpered.

The mare held him gently with her hooves, nodding to him and softly saying, "Yeah, it's me, it's Lyra. You're okay. It was just a bad dream."

Not knowing what to do, and still reeling from the inescapable horror of his nightmares, Aaron curled into a small ball, clinging to the mare as if she could protect him and banish away the hideous face of the monster that he had seen in the mirror, so much like himself, yet so perverted from his natural form that it could only exist as a demon dragged from the most damned circle of Hell. Lyra's hoof slowly stroked his back, and she hugged the man to herself. "Shh, shh, it's alright now. Nothing's gonna hurt you," she whispered.

It felt odd having to reassure a grown human that the boogeyman was not going to get him, but something about laying there in his bed, softly crooning to him and reassuring him felt right. It felt like the motherly thing to do, and right now, that man needed someone to hold on to.

Finally, after a few minutes of holding him, telling him that it was alright, Aaron regained his composure. He still breathed heavily, and as he leaned up in his bed, he felt his bedsheets clinging to his body from all the cold sweat. 

"Ann?" he asked, seeing that her side of the bed was empty. Lyra let go of him, and nodded over to the doorway. Anita stood there, holding a hand over her mouth in utter terror.

"I... I didn't know what to do," she quietly said. "You were screaming so much, and-and I couldn't wake you up. I thought you were gonna hurt me. I had to go get Lyra." Anita looked over to the quiet unicorn, her eyes giving silent thanks for amending the situation.

Aaron ran a hand through his hair, taking deep breaths to try and calm himself. "It's okay," he said to her. "I'm alright." He said it more to reassure himself than the woman or the mare. "Did I hurt anybody?"

Lyra placed a comforting hoof on his arm. "No, we're all fine. Now you should get back to sleep, it's late." Her horn lit up with magic, and she concentrated on a spell that would ease him into a dreamless sleep. Aaron nodded, and he lay his head back down on his pillows.

"Lyra?" he said.

"Yeah?" the mare answered, appearing by his side.

He reached out, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Thank you," he said before slipping away into a deep sleep.

Satisfied that he wouldn't endure anymore nightmares tonight, Lyra turned to leave the room, only to meet Anita at the door.

"Can I talk to you for a few minutes?" the woman asked. The mare nodded, and a few short minutes later the pair sat in the kitchen, a pair of hot tea mugs sitting in front of them. "I'm... I'm sorry for what I said earlier. I thought you didn't have what it took to raise a human. But what you did in there..."

"Don't mention it," Lyra said quietly. "I just did what I thought any person should do. He needed someone to help him, and I stepped up."

"Lyra," Anita said, pressing onward. "I was wrong. I thought you didn't have the same moral compass as a human, but you proved me wrong. I mean, I broke down, I didn't know what to do. But you... you handled everything with a level head."

The mare shrugged. "I was just doing it the way I was raised." But that was only the partial truth, for it had not been her mother or her father who had comforted her just like she had comforted Aaron, it had been Bonbon. Bonbon had held her closely, whispering to her that everything was alright when she would awaken at night, screaming as she saw the fanged face of the changeling queen dominating her mind and ripping away her power of choice. Using her as a puppet to accomplish tasks of an evil ilk which Lyra could never let herself live down.

It had been sympathy that drove Lyra to risk her own safety by jumping in to calm the tempestuous soul of the mage.

"Just... did what needed to be done."

A silence fell over the table, and Anita peered down into the depths of her mug of tea, anxiously tapping a finger on the table. She didn't drink from her glass, instead the woman seemed to be having some kind of clash of interests within her head. Lyra could only speculate what thoughts were racing through her mind.

"Lyra?"

The sudden break of silence surprised the mare, and she looked up from her drink. "Yeah?"

"Earlier tonight, it felt like you were working your way to a point. It felt like you wanted to ask me something."

Lyra shook her head, her eyes drifting back down to her tea. "No, it's... nothing. I shouldn't have tried to use you like that."

"No, I wanna know, what did you want to ask me?" Anita asked.

Lyra sighed loudly. "You know who I am, and you know what I stand for in court. I want to adopt that girl down in the hospital."

"The Appleton girl," Anita murmured under her breath, knowing exactly who Lyra was talking about, the little brown-haired mage baby in the hospital nursery, a child who was weeks older than all the nursery's other occupants. And with the rampant suspicion and paranoia of even the most minor show of magic, it didn't seem like she was going anywhere soon.

"Yeah. I saw her, I felt her mind and her magic, and I knew that she needed a parent just as much as I needed a child. I knew that what I am shouldn't matter when the life and happiness of a child is on the line. I knew you came to Ponyville to inspect the Coppell's home, to see if Equestria could fulfill every want and need that a human could ever ask for. I wanted to ask you if you would give your official report before the Justices. To tell them what you knew about Equestria being safe for a human child."

"Jesus," Anita whispered. She took a deep breath, taking her head into her hands looking down at the table.

After being around humans for so long, Lyra knew that invoking that name was some kind of expression of shock. "I know, that's why I didn't ask you. I like you, Anita. I want to be your friend, and Aaron told me that if you did that, you'd be putting your job and life on the line for something that you didn't even believe in-"

"I'll do it," Anita said quietly, interrupting Lyra in the middle of her apology. Looking up from the table, she stared Lyra right in the eye. "I'll testify."

Lyra sat dumbfounded. "But.. why? Earlier you said that a pony was too different from a human!"

"I was wrong. When Aaron started thrashing around in his sleep, screaming at the top of his lungs, I thought I couldn't do anything to help him. Before I even tried to help, I gave up on trying to help him. Look at me, a woman in her prime, a person who is expected to become a mother within a few years, and I even want to have children, and I froze up when my boyfriend started having nightmares. But you, you just leaped right in. You knew what to do. And... and I'm starting to think to myself, that you'll be a better mom than I ever will. Besides, you did me a great favor back there, and did god-knows how big of a favor for Aaron."

She was stunned and absolutely slack jawed. She had not expected this kind of conversion from Ms Cook, and she stood from her chair, walking down the hall to the door on the end and into the study. Without even crossing the threshold, she whisked a pink subpoena form from her recently acquired attache case, and brought it back to the kitchen table.

"I just need you to fill out this form, and show up on the date listed." Anita nodded, scribbling down her name and identification information. "Anita," Lyra said as the woman wrote her flowing signature at the bottom of the page. "Thank you for this."

The woman cracked a slight smile as she put down the finishing touches. "Good night, Lyra." Setting her pen down, Ms Cook stood from her seat, walking towards the living room where she would sleep for the remainder of the night. 

The mare smiled. "Good night, Anita."

But before she rounded the corner into the living room, Anita stopped herself. "Lyra, could I ask you a question?" Stopping herself at the foot of the stairs, Lyra nodded once. "Does... does the word "Lucifer" mean anything to you? Does it mean something in Equestria?"

At the mention of that name, a chill passed over the unicorn's heart. And even though she did not know the reason why, she felt as though the spirits within the house shivered at the barest utterance of that most accursed of names. Like a shadow of evil itself passed over the house. "No, I've never heard it before. Why do you ask?"

"Because Aaron was screaming that name, over and over again in his sleep."


*****************************************


The night passed without so much as a peep from the nightmare-prone magi, but Lyra couldn't help but stay awake, tossing and turning in her bed, considering what a stroke of good luck it had been to gain Ms Cook's testimonial through such a convenient manner. The thought plagued her all night long; was Aaron's dream about his own inner demon just a coincidence, or were there far more powerful forces at work, pushing and prodding at the world to lay down the path for her? And even if it was just a stroke of chance, Lyra had to wonder why his celestial "friend" didn't step in and chase away his night terrors, as the people of Lazarus were saying she did.

Her long evening of thought and restlessness was interrupted right at dawn, just as the eastern sky began to turn the lightest shades of orange, by the sound of crashing and crunching outside the window. Rolling out of her bed and peeking out the window, she was surprised to see that Mr Patterson was up bright and early, despite her best efforts and the most advanced sleep spell that she knew. And by the look of it, he had just finished throwing away a perfectly good bathroom mirror.

Who knew, maybe he just had a sudden urge to redecorate.

There was no point in trying to rest now, and court would be in session in a few hours. Rearing up on her hind legs, Lyra worked to stretch out the muscles in her lower back. Bringing her forelegs together over her head, she tilted back her head and forelegs, feeling the tired and tensed muscles in her back and her belly argue with each inch that she leaned backwards. Finally reaching the limit of the narrow margin of balance that her hooves would allow, she held that pose for a few moments, then leaned forward and dropped back to all fours.

Lifting up her left-rear leg, she stretched that out, holding it parallel to the floor for a few moments, then letting it go. She repeated this process with every limb in her arsenal until she was as limber as a dancer. It would be important to have good blood-flow today, since she hadn't slept properly in weeks, and last night's almost complete lack would have her yawning during possibly critical arguments.

She made her way downstairs, wanting to grab a bagel or something before beginning her day anew. But to her annoyance, all the bagels seemed to have disappeared, and she settled for a piece of toast with a little bit of butter. After the slight taint of meat in her system from last night combined with the half-bottle of wine that she shared with Anita, Lyra would need something light on her stomach this morning.

Trotting down the hall to her study, she carelessly tossed open the door, just wanting to grab her briefcase and head out for the day. But as soon as the door slammed into the wall, she instantly regretted it, for her office was being occupied by the man who truly owned it.

Aaron was seated on top of his desk, legs folded underneath himself, facing out the tall window towards the rising sun in the east. His back was to the mare, but she knew that he was fully aware that Lyra was in the room.

"Uh, sorry to disturb you. I'm just gonna grab my stuff and... get outta your hair."

She snuck as quietly as her hooves would allow to the desk, grabbing up her notes, her forms, and her attache case with her teeth, lest she interrupt some kind of magic spell that Aaron was working.

Creeping back towards the door, she almost made it to safety at the threshold.

"Lyra?" the man's voice said to her.

Dropping her stuff on the floor, she turned slowly to face him. "Yes?" she said, wondering what crime she was guilty of this time.

Aaron stood from his seat and his meditations, and he walked over to the mare, dropping to a knee before her. For the first time in her life, Lyra had to look down to see eye to eye with a human being, and the feeling was making her uncomfortable.

"I know that I haven't been the greatest person in the world to be around. I know I haven't been the most supportive friend, and at times it seems like I've been trying to tear you down. And... I'm sorry. I'm sorry for telling you that your dreams were foolish, I'm sorry for not standing by your side when Bonbon left you, I'm sorry for being a jerk when you wanted to talk to Anita. And... and I wanted to say thank you for being a better person than I am, for being a better friend to me when I needed it."

Unexpectedly, the man leaned forward, wrapping his arms gently around the mare in a warm embrace. "Thank you," he whispered to her.

A warm feeling spread through Lyra's heart, and she reached up with her foreleg, returning his surprise hug with just as much tenderness and appreciation. "It's what friends do," she whispered back.

And as she stood there, a foreleg wrapped around the man's shoulders, she wondered how well today would turn out, considering the way all the pieces had fallen into place for her today.

Of course, the mightiest giant always fell the hardest.