If she was going to be honest, she felt the cold and the pain grow again the moment they tried to move farther into the cave. Whatever they hoped to find there, the blackness seemed to swallow any light and Lyra felt how she grew weaker with every step.
There were tunnels, she didn't dare count them, to all their sides as well as above them. She thought that most of them couldn't even lead anywhere, considering how all of this was placed.
“This place is a labyrinth,” Octavia noted grimly after they stumbled in a circle once.
“I don't know which way we need to go now,” Twilight said after another round, her breaths short and hectic.
Worse yet, no matter where they turned, they didn't find a single dry space here. The entirety of the cave was filled with water. With how dark it was, the feeling of it was uncomfortable, to say the least. At least nopony felt the need to complain.
The chase had woken them all up, they were strong on their hooves and the collapse had left them with one more adrenaline kick. At that specific moment, Lyra felt strong enough to punch a hole through the wall.
She wasn't going to try, though, for fear of hurting her hoof. Instead, she moved onwards with the others. The mood quickly dropped after they circled around the cave once more. Lyra thought she heard the stones from the collapse move.
“How about we just take the tunnel the farthest away from where we came and put some distance between us and the monsters,” Octavia offered after a moment.
“Yeah,” Twilight answered, eyeing the receding light of Lyra's orb. “Are you alright, Lyra?”
“Yep,” she said, or lied.
Nopony was complaining about anything right now, and Lyra didn't want to be the one to start. She had, however, every reason to. The moment those monsters that shouldn't be had shown up, she'd felt the pain of the spot again, if only slightly. Of course, Lyra was worried about it, but right now was not the time to give voice to her concerns.
They moved onwards once more, towards uncertainty. The caverns around them were dark and dank and with every step she felt her leg act up more and more. The small spot, which had been cured for those few precious moments at the lake with the field of flowers, pained her yet again. Every time she put pressure on the leg, the pain went a little bit deeper, she clenched and ground her teeth.
Moments passed without noise, without any voice making itself heard. She felt how everypony got closer to her, to the light she created, but was too busy not looking like she was getting stabbed in the leg to say anything about it. If the orb went out now, she couldn't just cast another, her concentration was far too broken for that to happen right now.
The tunnel continued on before them and they moved around a corner to the right, and then another just like it. Lyra had the faintest suspicion of what that meant and as they stepped back into the cave with the collapsed tunnel again, it was confirmed.
“Of course,” Raindrops noted, aggravatingly stomping her hooves on he ground.
“It's certainly not going as I expected it to go,” Lyra admitted and shook her head.
They stepped back into the cave and Lyra was quick to sit down. “How about we think about which way to take. That'd be the smart thing to do, right??”
The others were quick to form a circle with her, ignoring how the water went up their sides as they seated themselves. Of course they didn't care, it wasn't like they'd had any time to dry anyways. All of them were all looking to the tunnel, from whence they heard the whisper.
It was a ghostly song and rhyming, one that had no words nor metronome. It was different from the violent cacophony from before, but was just as unnerving to the ear. If we remain long enough, we might go mad, Lyra thought bitterly.
“So, we're in a labyrinth,” Derpy said.
The filly nodded to herself, like this was the perfect statement, the one that had been needed to be made. Lyra didn't really care, however. She was just glad that they could turn their attention away from the whisper from beyond the fallen stones. They all were, but they also kept their ears perked, just in case.
“This really isn't how I expected the final stretch to be,” Lyra admitted immediately, before anypony else could ay anything.
Octavia giggled lightly at that, and the others were quick to join them. A bit of humor wasn't that bad, especially in a situation so dire, Lyra figured, but her leg hurt even more than before. It's a sign, she figured and looked back at the wall.
“We'll make it through this, Lyra, don't worry. With what Tavi just did and how you lit our way until here, it's going to be a breeze from now on,” Twilight said, ever the optimist.
Lyra didn't quite feel like she should agree. The light was flickering, her strength was waning and as the whisper continued, her leg started to hurt more and more. Whatever would happen next, they needed to make their choice quick.
“I agree,” Tavi said. “Don't worry, Lyra, everything's going to be okay.”
She rolled her eyes playfully. “You make it sound like I don't believe,” she said with a smile, despite the pain.
“I didn't mean it like that, Lyra. We don't know what'll happen at the Lunarium, so it's okay to be uncertain, but I know that everything will be fine.”
“I believed since Canterlot, Tavi.”
Strange thing to say, Lyra had to admit, but the memory of that city lingered. She'd lived there for so long, she didn't quite know how she could've come this far without at least trying to look back once or twice.
A sharp sting ran through her leg.
“But I wanna go home now,” she heard herself saying, much to her own surprise.
Then came another quiet moment and there was only the whisper and the sound of their breaths. Silence otherwise, a cold silence that would prevail through anything in the world and Lyra knew that she wanted nothing more than just return to the city.
Ugly houses with red bricks, alleys filled with trash and rats and ponies as hateful as one could imagine, that's how she remembered Canterlot, her Canterlot.
“I don't,” Twilight said bluntly, looking up at the ceiling, remembering the Canterlot she knew. “I know it's scary, even just sitting here. I know that any moment now we might need to run away again and I know that Trixie's gone, too. But, I don't know, I guess all this, it's kinda fun. It's weird to say, but this journey has been like a real adventure, like in one of my books. It's the one thing I always wanted to have, but I never believed to get the chance.”
The darkness was all around them, but Twilight's face was clear in the tiny light of Lyra's orb. The voice of the sickly unicorn carried a faint sadness within it, and the emotion on her face was plain. The way she looked up, like she was looking back at something without regret, like she longed for what was to come. She's braver than me, Lyra noted, rubbing against the wound.
It hurt.
“The only thing I ever had was books. There were lots of them. I had some with pictures, some that were only text. I had books that didn't last twenty pages and some that had four-hundred. I read lots of children's books and lots for older ponies, too. I even understood some of the really complicated science-stuff,” Twilight continued to explain, looking down to the ground. “I hate books, though. I hate reading about how the world works, about the places where the dragons fly and how the princess of love played her harp beneath a lonely tree. I hated to read about everything, because the more I read, the more I thought that I could never see those things.”
Lyra tilted her head slightly as she saw that Twilight shook, not from sickness, but with agitation. Her smile was a forced one, she noted, too.
“I don't want to read about all the fantastic stuff in the world. I want to see it, touch it, live it.” Twilight turned her head towards Lyra. “I'm feeling things I didn't think I would ever get to experience, and as terrible as I feel, as mystifying and great everything here seems. It's like I woke up dead everyday, but now I'm alive and well and this … All of this is the most wonderful part of my entire life.”
“This here is better than the Dark,” Raindrops suddenly chimed in, her voice small. “I hate those Night Terrors and that Magia, too. I want to go back to Hugh and Madame, I want somepony to hug me and put me into a proper bed again, but we're together now. It's great, but it wouldn't be without any of you here.”
Derpy nodded with strong agreement. “And if we stay together, everything will turn out alright,” she said and laughed.
It was heartwarming, to see how comfortable they could be with each other around, how quick to laugh. Lyra felt how it hurt and wondered if she'd been responsible for at least a little bit of their happiness. The blackness grew around them as the light grew smaller, she felt more tired now and the pain became more pronounced by the second.
Octavia was the one to notice that something was up with her. “Are you alright, Lyra?”
“My mother was an ass,” she heard herself say with a cruel giggle. “She was a beautiful pony, Tattletale used to say. I have her colors and her smile, he told me. It made him happy to be with me and he always tried his best. My Tattletale, he could spin a story like no other, but there was only ever one story he told me.”
The light faded into nothingness and she sat there, all alone in the darkness, a cold smile on her face and her leg pulsating with pain.
“He met his special somepony a long time ago, his first love and the truest one. He proposed to her a week thereafter and they married within the month. Their parents disagreed with their decision, but they, the star-crossed lovers, didn't care. They managed to set themselves up in Canterlot, with a nice house in a good neighbourhood. He managed to get a good job even without his family's support and she stayed at home and made sure everything worked out there. It was like they would have their fairytale's happy ending. Imagine two earth ponies, the greatest species of all.”
She cracked a laugh. “Imagine their daughter was a unicorn.”
It wasn't that funny a joke and nopony else laughed, but Lyra didn't care. It was funny to laugh, to talk like this. Talking was like running away, far away from the pain and the darkness and all the bad things in the world.
“She left him soon after my birth, didn't want to live together with a filthy unicorn. He didn't agree with her and tried to keep this filthy, luckless child he had brought into the world. Maybe he could've even killed me without anypony turning an eye, I don't know, but he chose to make the best of it. My brave Tattletale, he even tried to make me an earth pony. He wanted to give me a life worth living, I think.”
She hoped that, actually, because she had loved her Tattletale more than anything in the world and he'd smiled at her and hugged her and had always been good to her.
“He proudly proclaimed me his niece before everypony,” she said, tears running down her cheek. She took a moment, breathed in and out, calmed herself slowly before she continued. “He told the world that he hated me for what I was whenever somepony would notice that I wasn't an earth pony. He said that I wasn't his and that my parents had left me because of what I was. He said I was responsible for all the wrongs that happened around me when others were looking. I didn't know who he talked to and he tried to avoid saying anything when I was with him, but he told someone that nopony in their right mind would ever love a unicorn.”
She spat those last words out, for she had believed them herself. She'd believed that unicorns were filth, that Trixie was an idiot and that her own make-belief in humans made her even more worthless. She had believed until the three of them had found themselves in the rainbow-colored field, where the air had tasted of lemons and her horn had returned to her.
“When the fire of the Celestial Hall happened, we were there and barely escaped. He saved me from being trampled, but we got separated. They told me later that he got beaten up in an alley and the flames took his unconscious body. Heh,” Lyra laughed. “I ran.”
She felt so cold, her laugh lost itself in sobbing and crying. She felt snot running from her nose, felt the burn marks on her face like that day, when Tattletale had saved her from a fiery grave. Maybe she should've stopped, at least she thought that she should, but then again, she didn't. What strength remained in her, she used it to move her mouth, to form the words.
“Celestia knows, I ran! He had tolerated me, a unicorn, when everypony in the world just wanted me gone. He loved me and he took my horn because he did.”
The unicorn didn't know why she was still talking, darkness and pain were with her now, they and nothing else. The water was running past her leg ever so slowly and the spot felt like it was growing quicker than before.
A wordless whisper rung in the air, added itself to her weeping.
“Hugh and Madame never hurt me, they never beat me and they never did anything but smile and help us,” she then said. “I want to believe that what we're doing is right, that it's going to help, but we're down here and they're up there. It just … I just ...”
She felt a hoof touching her shoulder, a strong hoof.
“Don't worry,” Octavia Quarternote said. “It's as Derpy said, we'll make everything right and then we're going home and there'll be muffins.”
The pain was hurting far too much for her to bear and the whisper took a voice that spoke to her.
“Thanks, Tavi,” she said into the nothingness. “It means a lot.”
It did. Lyra Heartstrings had always looked for a family. Tattletale had shown her hatred and regretted to not have stayed with his beloved, and neither Hugh nor Madame had ever truly made her feel like a part of theirs, like there was something superficial about the love they showed. At this moment, this group felt more like a family to her than any other before.
Her coat was white and her mane of a pale color. She looked at the world with eyes colored like honey and found it so sad that at this moment, she couldn't see their faces. Twilight with her sunken-in cheeks, Derpy who had too much fat even on her face and two eyes gazing in different directions, Raindrops whose blackness made her incredibly stealthy at night and Octavia, with her tiny little hooves and her proud gait.
“The Seapalace. Your grandfather played that one, right?” she asked.
Tavi sounded taken aback, she could tell. “What? How do you know? Did you ever see him play?”
“I went twice to see him, but the second time the fire happened. I know you were there the first time, too, so that's awesome. He smiled and he made me see them all smile. Everypony who listened, their sadness was washed away by the sound of his cello. There's magic in music, right?” she wondered.
“Uh-huh,” Octavia's voice said.
If it weren't for the blackness, she could've seen her face, too.
“It can spread laughter and when harmony is truly restored, music will reach all the corners of the world again, right?”
“Yeah, that's how we'll make it,” Octavia said.
“I'm sorry.” Lyra felt her own voice failing.
Pain was in her legs, in her torso and in her back. It ached in her chest and in her lungs. Every word hurt her and every breath. Every muscle she tensed and relaxed protested against the movement and she felt a terrible dread within her. She only now grasped what the spot was.
There was a silence that would've been deemed awkward by another pony, but Lyra used it to listen. The faint whisper had disappeared, the choral from the fallen stones had vanished. She felt the water's movement against her ankles, how it moved. Another thing she only noticed just now.
“The water flows, probably into the third hole to our left. I think if we follow it, that'll be the right path.”
“Really, you think?” Twilight asked suddenly and she heard the filly stand up.
Everypony did so and they quickly started to move. They didn't even wait for her to cast another light spell and just moved in the blackness. Lyra presumed that they wanted to get away from Magia's monsters.
“Lyra, you coming?” Someone asked.
She smiled faintly, but didn't feel like rubbing her eyes or cleaning her face.
“I don't think I can.”
Nopony moved now, she didn't hear anything.
“What do you mean?” Derpy asked, fear rising in her voice. “Do you need help?”
She was as kind as always, but the whisper that started to sing in her head wasn't so.
“I dream of music and magic, Derpy. All my dreams are wonderful, so you should go and let me sleep for a moment.”
Then she felt a spark in the air as Twilight used her own bit of magic. She heard how the sickly filly grunted and she heard how the magic sparked into a buzzing light. But in her own eyes, nothing happened. Sure enough, Twilight wasn't a wizard. Lyra was a wizard now and wizards could make anything possible while normal ponies couldn't.
She hoped Trixie was alright.
Lyra heard gasps around her, but didn't understand why. Everything was still dark around them.
“Lyra?” Twilight suddenly asked, sounding fearful and sad.
“Yes?”
“Are you really feeling sleepy?”
“A bit. I'll only need a bit of rest. My leg also hurts a bit, but if I sleep for a bit it'll be fine. You go on, I'll catch up to you.”
“Lyra. ...”
Twilight didn't say anything anymore, the silence and the dark remained and they were unyielding.
“Can we do anything for you?” Octavia asked.
Lyra giggled. “Well, if you reach the Lunarium before I catch up, there's one thing I'd like you to do.”
She thought of nothing at that moment and the words just came out of her mouth. She felt nothing, too, only the pain's flow through her tiny body.
“Could you bring laughter back? Tattletale cried the last time I saw him and he probably cried when he couldn't find me. I'm sure he's still fine, but maybe a bit burned. No, he's surely alright and I want him to laugh again. I want everypony to laugh again.”
“Lyra,” she heard her friend say and then felt herself be pulled into a hug.
At first there were only Octavia's arms, but soon enough Twilight's own, weak ones joined in. So did Derpy and Raindrops. She didn't know why they were doing that, but she suddenly felt really guilty about Trixie. The chance to apologize to her was gone now.
Kill them, the whisper told her.
They all hugged her, embraced her with such warmth and such fervor that she felt truly safe, truly happy. She knew the feeling of every arm around her.
She felt Twilight, who had so little strength in her little legs that she was probably getting squished by the others.
She felt Octavia, who in turn was so strong and fierce she could've easily lifted up Lyra on the spot.
She felt Derpy, who hugged her so tightly that every breath became a heavy task to pull off. There was something rustling in the pegasus' mane.
She felt Raindrops, who smelled of green fields and knew songs older than all of them together were.
Lyra couldn't help but smile, now that she noticed how close they all were, but there was a whisper in her ears and in her head. It sang to her and told her things she didn't want to hear.
Slaughter them! Butcher them!
The filly knew that it was her own voice, filled with such bitter anger and dark terror, that it felt more like another pony's. Lyra felt the embraces leaving her then and with them went the warmth of her own body. Or maybe she was leaving those things behind.
The distant voices of ponies she had once known and the memory of life itself was slowly fading from her grasp. She sat there in the darkness, suddenly on her own again, with everypony having left her sight and field. Poor Lyra, she thought, Always losing all the things she loves.
And she felt her own heartbeat, steady and normal at first. Then, even it grew fainter and fainter as the pain took over her entire body and then the last piece of life vanished from her body. First her hooves grew cold, then her arms and legs, her tail, her body and her neck. The last thing was her head and the darkness became final as it, too, stopped working.
A carpet of stars, cyan eyes and the light of a lantern awaited her.
Lyra Heartstrings was laying on the floor, cold and dead. A black liquid started to ooze from her mouth, ears and eyes. She had stopped breathing and her body was unmoving, at least until a faint green light found itself within her eyes. A poisonous thing it was, it let her body twitch in terrifying ways. The light turned into a swirl, became red and glowed with a violent madness as the dead body rose up from the waters.
It turned towards the tunnel to which four more fillies had fled and attempted to open its mouth. As it did so, more of liquid spilled from it like saliva, mixing in with what blood remained in the filly's body. Then it let out a shriek so terrible, no words could explain how it echoed through the tunnels.
Lyra was gone, but she dreamt of magic, music and two ponies by her side, telling her that they loved her.