//------------------------------// // Chapter Twelve - Releasing the Kraken // Story: The Science of Magic // by cammerhammer //------------------------------// Lyra slipped through the darkened palace, hoodie securely fastened over her head and body and her lyre in a velvet pouch slung over her waist. The few night guards awake and standing watch let her pass unhindered. Lyra knew that the message had been passed to give her a wide berth, and words like "cursed" and "evil" were often used in the message. She ignored them for the most part, as it had the desired effect. Since the incident in which she accidentally vanished a stallion's wings (temporarily, of course), she figured it would be better to err on the side of caution. Lyra nudged open the door to the statuary garden and passed by each monument in turn. She made her way to the heart of the maze of hedges, stopping again at the pedestal of a familiar pony with wings and two horns, as well as mismatched legs. "Hello, Leyline." She sat down on the grass and looked up at the stallion's stone face, frozen in fear. "I guess it's been awhile since someone has called you by your real name, huh?" She gave an awkward laugh. "Anyway, I came out here to..." Lyra paused, scratching her head. "I don't know why I came, actually. To talk with somepony who understands what's happening to me, I guess." She sighed as she looked at the stone pedestal Leyline stood on. She levitated her lyre out of its pouch, as if to play it, then set it aside. She gave the instrument an apologetic look. "It's awful. I can feel it crawling in my skin and burrowing into my bones. I can't do anything to stop it, only slow it some. It itches and burns and aches all over." Lyra ran her tongue across her new fang, able to see the moonlight glistening off it. "I was talking to Celestia about freeing you. They don't know you aren't the spirit of Chaos in the first place, and I'm not allowed to tell them, but I think I can get them to see that you aren't a threat." Why are you talking to him? He can't hear you. You are wasting your breath, my dear. Lyra chose to ignore Eris, focusing instead on the statue. "I wonder what it's like for you? Being alive thousands of years after you were born, that is. It has to be awful for you. Everything is so different, and everyone..." She winced as she realized that the topic she had just brought forth was undoubtedly a painful one. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up.” The statue’s expression remained unchanged. Lyra searched his face. “You really did love her, didn’t you?” She earned no response from him. “For what it’s worth, I think Dulcet would have said yes.” A cloud wisped across the face of the moon, shrouding them in darkness for a brief moment. Lyra took it as a sign that she should leave. “I’m sorry.” She stood slowly, gathering her lyre again and slipping it back into its pouch. Lyra plodded away, unaware of the small droplet of water that gathered in the corner of the statue's eye and eventually tumbled down its cheek as she resumed her aimless wandering brought on by insomnia. Morning found Lyra curled up in the hallway outside the throne room. The first pony to realize that she was camped out right outside the door was none other than Celestia herself. The princess, dressed for the day in her traditional regalia, nearly trod upon the mare accidentally, as Lyra, for whatever reason, appeared to have become the same color as the tiled floor. Celestia had felt her magic brush against a surging tide of chaos and looked around curiously, noticing the aura centered upon a spot directly in front of her. She bent down and looked curiously, probing with her magic until she felt a body resting on the floor in front of her. As she touched at the nearly-invisible mare with her muzzle, the spell abruptly collapsed, revealing a soundly asleep Lyra curled up on the tile. Curious as to why she had decided to sleep in the hallway of all places, Celestia nudged the minty mare with her muzzle. Upon receiving a bleary mumble in response, she nudged Lyra again. "Wake up, sleepyhead..." "Fie more minuus..." Celestia chuckled, the garbled phrase reminding her of the times she found Twilight similarly curled up next to a book. "Here, I'll move you so you aren't tripping up other ponies, okay?" she whispered kindly. Lyra nodded amiably, yawning and shifting into an even more adorable ball of tired pony, sprinkled with a dash of draconequus. Celestia gently levitated the mare off the floor and knocked on the doors to the throne room. The doors swung outward to allow entrance, revealing Luna on her obsidian throne. Her eyes glowed as she sat motionless, her horn pulsing frequently. Celestia stood and waited patiently, recognizing that her sister was dreamwalking and shouldn’t be interrupted. Luna’s eyes flickered back to their normal form shortly thereafter, and she smiled at Celestia. “Hello, my sister. Is it that time already?” “It is. How was your night?” “The dreams of ponies are troubled these times. I have been quelling nightmares since I started floating through the aether.” Luna rubbed her forehead, massaging the base of her horn. “Well, I suppose I shall relinquish my post until nightfall.” Celestia carefully levitated the sleeping Lyra with her as she walked to the base of the dais. Luna squinted at the oddity of it, blinking several times in rapid succession. “Well, now, Tia. I would never guess that you were the bogeymare this whole time. ‘Tis not a healthy pastime to snatch sleeping ponies from their beds.” Celestia gave a regal snort and rolled her eyes, floating the mare to the cushion next to the throne where the royal advisor usually sat. “I found her sleeping outside the doors to this room. Were you aware she was here?” Luna looked bewilderedly at her sister. “Certainly not. I’m surprised my guards didn’t let me know of this, if they knew themselves. Why was she there in the first place, I wonder?” “I tried asking her myself, but as you can see she isn’t much for conversation at the moment. I’ll try again once she is a little more coherent.” “And you are just going to keep her next to the throne whilst you field petitions and she sleeps? That seems rather odd to me, Tia.” “So is sleeping in the hallway.” Celestia walked up to the dais and met her sister halfway as the thrones rotated, placing the day throne towards the front of the room. “Luna, I need to ask you to do something for me before you go to bed for the day.” “Oh? What is it?” “I need you to prepare an area for us to release Discord.” Luna grimaced. “This idea is madness, sister. Why should we take the advice of a mare infected with the taint of Chaos?” “I don’t think she would suggest anything of the sort unless she was sure that Discord would be of no threat to us.” “Still, I think we should take our time with this.” Celestia sat on her throne, looking worriedly at Lyra. “I’m afraid we don’t have time, sister. It has only been a week, and already she looks like this. Can you promise me that her mind will not be corrupted in another week’s time? No, we need to act carefully, but haste is of the utmost importance here.” Luna nodded begrudgingly. “Very well. I’ll get it ready. Just so you are aware, though: if everything does not go as planned, I will not be cutting my sleep short to help you.” Celestia frowned at her sister. “Fine. Have a good day, Lulu.” “You too, Tia.” Lyra opened her eyes lazily, flicking her tongue out past her fang in a feline style yawn. She stretched out, digging her hooves into the cushion she was resting on. As she concluded her yawn, Lyra noticed a pony, down on a red carpet opposite her spot, recoiling in what appeared to be terror. She blinked confusedly, wondering why there was a pony in her bedroom. The pony—an earth stallion noble—cleared his throat nervously. "Your highness, why is that... thing... in your advisor seat?" Lyra squinted and moved her gaze over the room, trying to figure out what the hay was going on. A regal red carpet. Marble columns with gold accents. Plush, royal purple cushion that she had been sleeping on until a few moments ago. Sun and moon insignias everywhere. A slightly amused Princess Celestia seated on the throne to her left. She doggedly forced her mind to churn through the information, gradually coming to an important conclusion. This probably wasn't her bedroom. "Uhhh... Princess Celestia, what's going on?" "Welcome back to the land of the living, my little pony." Celestia's eyes twinkled as she greeted the mare. "I found you sleeping outside the throne room this morning, and decided to give you a better place to rest so you wouldn't be trampled by my petitioners." "I was sleeping in the hallway? Why was I there?" Lyra stretched again, revealing a few more misshapen body bits, including a newly scaly hindleg. She noticed a very disgruntled advisor sitting to her right, probably because Lyra was in her spot. "I was hoping you would be able to tell me." She turned to address the noble, who was looking at Lyra with a combination of disgust and fear. "Is she contagious?" He ventured, backing away slowly. Celestia gave him a longsuffering smile and shook her head. "No, Lord Bit Coin. You needn't worry about her. So, would you like to finish your proposal?" The stallion shook his head, backing away from the dais and bowing to her. "N-no, it appears you are otherwise engaged. I shall present the rest of my proposal another time." With that, he turned and trotted quickly away, avoiding eye contact with the unicorn with the weird fang. Celestia waited until the stallion left before chuckling softly. "I should have you be my advisor more often, Lyra. It would make open court a lot less of a hassle." She cleared her throat. "I was beginning to wonder if you would never wake up. I brought you in from the hallway at six in the morning, and it is nearly noon right now." "Oh, I'm sorry..." Lyra yawned again and hopped off the cushion, which was eagerly claimed by Celestia's advisor. "I just don't get a lot of good sleep lately." "No need to apologize." She smiled at the mare, drawing herself upright. "I was just thinking we could try releasing Discord today, and that maybe you would like to be present for it?” “Wait, really?” The smaller mare perked up, walking back down to the foot of the dais so she could properly address the princess. She turned to face Celestia, only to find that the princess was following her down, gesturing to her advisor to take a break. “Oh, I didn’t mean that we had to do it right now or anything. I was just—” “I was planning on going out to release him around this time anyway.” The solar princess started walking next to Lyra, refolding her wings. “I must say that your request surprised me at first, but I can see the merit in asking the original wielder of Chaos if he can help us.” “Know this, though, Lyra Heartstrings…” Celestia’s voice hardened, and Lyra made the mistake of looking at the princess. She was greeted with just a taste of the power that moved the sun across the sky every day without fail. The celestial fire flared in the solar princess’s eyes briefly, searing a warning into the chaotic mare’s brain. “If this turns out to be a ploy to return Discord to his former state, your wellbeing shall be forfeit. Understood?” She gulped nervously, the uncomfortable sensation of a burning heat racing down her spine. “Unders-stood.” “Good.” The fire died away, leaving Celestia appearing as she did before—a regal looking alicorn who cared deeply for her subjects. She refocused back on the hallway they were walking through, her gilded horseshoes clacking quietly on the the tiled floor. “Let’s collect Twilight, then we will convene in the gardens.” “Do you know where she is?” Celestia nodded, an assured smile spread across her muzzle. “I have a reasonable idea of where she is, yes.” She turned down a much shorter hallway, marked at the end by a huge set of double doors with a book chiseled across their faces. “Hopefully you won’t decide to bring an entourage of guards with you this time.” She chuckled softly as a blush spread across Lyra’s face, the reminder of the minty unicorn’s first time showing up in the library apparently somewhat of an embarrassment. The doors swung open, giving the two of them a clear view of the house of knowledge that lay before them. The walls and ceiling soared up to near-cathedral heights, with bookshelves upon bookshelves crammed full of books of all shapes, sizes and subjects. Celestia stopped for her charge to gape at the absurd number of tomes that lined each and every shelf. “Welcome to the Canterlot Archives, Lyra.” She started walking slowly in the direction of the nonfiction area, looking for signs that her faithful student was somewhere in the building. Celestia didn’t have to look too hard, as she began noticing missing groups of books. She followed the gaps to a nearby study table where she found Twilight Sparkle, quietly turning through one of the dozen books she had open. Celestia cleared her throat softly. “What are you studying today, my student?” Twilight jerked her head up and smiled at her mentor. Only her teacher could have noticed her involuntary flinch before quickly recovering and looking back at her book. “Well, since Lyra might be stuck with her condition for a while, I’m looking into methods to help contain her excess magic, both in the short term and the long term, if necessary. I think I can put together a suitable spell in a few days that should be enough to keep her… it… this thing, whatever it is, from becoming a real problem, at least for the time being.” Her mentor looked over the stacked books and the pages of notes Twilight had written down. “Do you have something figured out, Twilight?” “Not yet, but I think I have an idea.” Twilight gathered up the stack of hoof-written notes and levitated them into her saddlebags, along with a couple of the books on the table. She placed the rest in a nearby book return cart and got to her hooves. The unicorn shook out her hooves, wobbling a little as she regained her balance. “Princess Celestia, may I go back to Ponyville to ask one of my friends for help on this?” Celestia pursed her lips and looked around for Lyra, who had yet to catch up with her. “I suppose so. I hate to rush you, but you must return as fast as you can, Twilight. You may take one of my chariots to hasten your trip.” The unicorn nodded, securing the straps on her saddlebags. “Thank you, Princess.” With a flash of her magic, Twilight had vanished out of the library, presumably teleporting close to the guard barracks. Celestia sighed and started walking back, finding Lyra sitting back and looking up at the multiple floors of the library dizzily. “There are so many books. It goes on forever. It’s like… wow.” Lyra pantomimed her head exploding with her hooves, punctuated by an unintentional detonation sound and the illusion of her head disappearing in a cloud of smoke. The princess couldn’t help but snicker as Lyra coughed and waved the smoke away from her face, frowning and poking at her horn to dispel the unruly magic. “Still having trouble keeping it under control?” Lyra’s attention refocused on the incredible architecture of the library, her steps slightly out of sync. “It’s not getting better, I can say that much.” She nearly ran directly into the closed door to the hallway, the door opened for her by the princess as she tore her attention away from the arching supports and refocused back on the hall in front of them. “So, I guess you didn’t find Twilight?” “Actually, she needed to make a quick trip back to Ponyville, so we will be freeing Discord without her." "His na—" Lyra abruptly cut herself off and coughed. "So, the gardens, then?" The princess's gaze flickered over to the mare momentarily, apparently noticing the unfinished words. The silence stretched out for a few seconds before she looked back to the hallway, opening a door to the outside. "Yes, to the gardens." The maze of shrubbery and statues stretched out before them, and Lyra turned towards the path where Leyline's statue was kept. She barely took more than a step when a white foreleg was held in front of her, blocking the musician's path. She looked up at Celestia and noticed her gesturing down towards the heart of the maze. "This way, Lyra. I had my sister prepare a place for us to release him." Celestia took the lead, walking slowly through the neatly kept gardens, winding back and forth through the hedge maze. Statues sat in place all over the grounds, prompting uncomfortable musings from Lyra of whether those were actual ponies under the stone facades, too. After all, that's what happened to Leyline... Lyra visibly shivered. A flash of fear bolted across her face for a brief moment, accompanied by the world around them flickering briefly into sepia tone. "Is something wrong, my little pony?" "Uh, no, not at all. Are we almost there?" "We're going to the center of the garden." Celestia indicated to the left of where they were walking. "Just a few more turns and we should be there." Lyra's gait devolved into an even less steady cadence, most semblance of rhythm lost. The turns in the hedge maze grew ever tighter until it abruptly opened into a circular clearing, revealing Leyline’s stone form and pedestal set up in the center. A casting circle was carved into the earth, formed out of series of runes. “Don’t step on the circle, please.” Lyra stumbled as she nearly trod on the intricate runes, tumbling into the clearing haphazardly. She offered an apologetic smile to Celestia, and inspected the place she nearly ruined. The runes were, thankfully, unharmed, and she noticed that they were all conjoined at the edges, forming an unbroken pattern that butted right up against the hedges. Lyra slowly followed the runes for a few hooves’ distance, admiring the intricacy of them. “Wow… Did you do all this yourself?” “No. Luna did it early this morning, before she went to bed.” Celestia moved in front of the statue and into a smaller circle, looking it over. “Do you really need all this preparation to release him? I thought that it was just a simple spell to release or trap him.” “This isn’t for releasing him, Lyra. This is for containing him afterwards.” The princess gestured to an inner circle made from similar markings, indicating for the green unicorn to join her. Lyra hesitantly joined the princess in the runed circle, careful to step over the lines. Celestia nodded in satisfaction, then began to send power into the runes. The lines inscribed in the earth quickly filled in with the warm yellow of the solar princess’s magic, seemingly filling the runes like water. A series of smaller runes Lyra didn't notice earlier spiraled outwards to the outer circle, filling them with magic as well. Lyra felt, even through the fog of her chaos, the spell lock a barrier into place in both circles, protecting both them and the outside world from the statue. Celestia took a deep breath and stretched out her magic, sweat beading her brow as she simultaneously maintained the first spell and began undoing the stone enchantment on Discord. A tiny stream of her magic snaked out past the first circle and swirled around the pedestal. The facade surrounding him cracked, tiny fractures traveling up his legs, across his back and up to his face, bursts of light appearing from the cracks. Lyra felt a ripple of magic, even through the barrier protecting them. She backed away from the statue, feeling the barrier’s physical presence forcing her to stay inside. “I’m beginning to think I had the wrong idea…” she whispered. With a final surge, Leyline’s statue was engulfed in light, silence falling across the center of the garden as the spell complete. The light faded, showing the pony trembling on the ground. His ragged breathing broke the silence. The wings on his back were open and lying on the ground, twitching sporadically like he was just now remembering he had them. Leyline tried to stand. His mismatched hind legs wobbled for a bit, then gave out, leaving him struggling on the ground. His scaly tail curled and flicked weakly. "Wh-who..." he managed to croak before he was overtaken by a coughing fit. Celestia's expression was unforgiving. The princess watched him like a hawk as the helpless stallion tried to rise to his hooves again. He prodded at his wings, manipulating them with his hooves to get them to fold against his side with difficulty. Lyra cautiously moved forward and placed her hooves on the invisible barrier. "Can we help him?" she whispered to the princess. Leyline's head snapped upright as he realized he wasn't alone. The malformed stallion came to life when his gaze met Celestia's, and he scrambled to his hooves, backing away from the subdued fury promised by the celestial flame burning in her eyes. He tripped over his hooves once, twice, and cowered behind the pedestal he had previously been standing on. Leyline looked back and forth frantically and bolted for the exit, thwarted by the barrier. He bounced off the invisible wall and tucked into a sloppy roll, getting back to his hooves in the blink of an eye. "Princess, please! Look at him! Stop scaring him like this!" Lyra pleaded with Celestia, who simply stood in place, unmoving, and watched the panicked pony's every move. Celestia seemed to pull herself out of whatever trance had hold of her, and she lowered the inner barrier. Her expression morphed slightly as Leyline's fear seemed to have an effect on her anger at him. "I... you're right, Lyra." The princess wilted slightly. Leyline, meanwhile, had focused on the runes, his eyes flitting around them and sizing them up. The speed and physical dexterity of an earth pony took over, and he flitted from arm to arm of the spiral, digging his hooves into the ground at precise points. Before either mare could figure out what he was doing, Celestia's connection to the outer circle was severed, causing a backlash of freed magic to ripple through the area. The princess grit her teeth in pain as the tendrils of magic snapped back from the broken runes. The backlash of magic reverberated through the disconnected runes, causing the outer circle’s thaumic integrity to be compromised In the space of a few seconds, Leyline had managed to not only disrupt Celestia's connection to the outer circle, but cause the circle itself to undergo a critical failure, nearly blinding Lyra and Celestia both from the backlash. Almost before Celestia recovered, she leapt into the air, her wings spread wide as she beat them furiously to rise off the ground. She quickly looked around and began soaring over the hedges, looking for the fleeing Discord. "I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere!" she called back to Lyra. "He couldn't have gotten too far!" Before Lyra could even respond, the princess was gone, looking for the pony who had never left the clearing. Luna was briefly awoken by the sensation of Celestia's spell being violently broken, followed by the faint shouting of her sister echoing throughout the courtyard. "I told you I wouldn't help if something went wrong," she muttered before pulling the blankets over her head, rolling over and sinking back into a peaceful sleep.