//------------------------------//
// A Song of Ice and Lyra. 
// Story: Hand In Hand 
// by Bysen 
//------------------------------//

Her fingers danced across the keys, gently pressing them down before gracefully leaping to another, barely there for a fraction of a second before it was gone once more, off to meet the next note in an endless stream of melody. The lightest weight pressed perfectly on the key, touching hammer unto string. She didn’t even have to think about what she was doing. Her arms, her hands, each individual finger moved on its own accord from hours upon hours of practice until she had mastered it. And she had.

Of course you should expect as much from someone who's been playing the piano for thirteen years. And given that Lyra was only thirteen, it was quite a feat at that. It had started as her smacking one of her toys into her Fisher Price sound board. She’d already broken the one made by Hasbro so her parents thought they’d get her one that was made better than the last. Soon enough though, she’d started playing music on it. Crude smashing music, but music all the same.

From there she began to slowly improve, pressing single keys at a time and by the time she was just two she’d learnt how to play her favourite TV show’s theme song. Though she was young, her parents saw her potential and hired a tutor to teach her how to play. Of course it took a while before they found someone willing to teach a two year old but eventually they did. And by the age of six, before she could even read, she could read music like it was written in plain english and play it as if it were as simple as the spoken word.

From her parents and tutor, to her class of thirty, to a school talent show of a hundred and now this. She was in front of a thousand people, playing as the opening act for the local high school orchestral symphony of which she would be joining the very next year. If not entirely out shining before then. Okay… it wasn’t quite a thousand people. In fact it was slightly less than nine-hundred. But to her, well, if you have a million dollars and spend one dollar, you still have a million dollars.

Suddenly, it happened. Nearing the end of her song, a full four and a half minutes in, she made a mistake. The briefest of hesitations between keys. The one flaw in what would otherwise be her greatest moment. No one but her noticed it but she knew it was there. The imperfection that haunted her... but before she knew it, the final key was pressed. She’d done it. She’d made the performance of her life. The one that would never be topped!

The crowd cheered, amazed by this young prodigy. Roaring and clapping, they began to stand as Lyra turned to face them. She couldn’t see the standing ovation for the spotlight on her but nothing could drown out the thunderous noise they were making. Making for her. She stood from her seat, smile never leaving her face as she turned towards them. She bowed to her left, she bowed to her right… hell she even jokingly did a courtesy towards them in her trousers.

Then, the screen went black. Related videos began to pop up as video ended. Nightmare Night Piano Cover performed by Lyra Heartstrings: 3752 views. Breaking Bonds Piano Cover performed by Lyra Heartstrings: 2104 views. 20% Cooler Piano Cover performed by Lyra Heartstrings: 8235 views. There were more, but instead, Lyra just pressed replay. Discord Piano Cover performed by Lyra Heartstrings: 16723 views. Now 16724 views. Uploaded three years ago.

She sat in front of her computer, nothing but some pants and a bra on like she usually had when alone, watching herself play over and over again. It was the last song she’d ever performed. The person who’d uploaded it… she wonder if they knew. Wondered if they were making a fraction of a cent from her every time she rewatched the video. Wondered how many thousands of the views on it had come from just her. Today alone, at least twenty in the last two hours she’d been there.

For three years, she hadn’t touched a piano. For three years she’s wanted to but couldn’t bring herself to dare even try. For three years… for three years, thats how long it had been since she’d lost her left arm. And until not too long ago the memory of what happened, of what she’d seen that day had kept her from living her life, from trying anything, from even getting out of bed for days, sometimes weeks on end.

And even now she still wept watching herself, her former self play what had once been so natural to her. But seeing herself performing wasn’t the worst part of it. She was still performing, she could feel it. She could feel her arm, her hand, each individual finger as if it was still there, dancing across the keys as if nothing had happened. The sensation of delicately pressing a key, of gracefully leaping to the next in a chorus of endless melody still ran up what remained of her arm, emanating from the place only a cook-clamp attachment was now.

Phantom Limb Syndrome it was called. But knowing what it was called did little to help her cope with it. Even this, without watching herself play from years ago, sitting in front of a computer had given her panic attacks from time to time. Typing. Hitting the keys with one hand and slowly devolving into how she used to type. Still feeling her fingers press the button for a few seconds before releasing half of her words were missing. Or worse, that her claw had destroyed another keyboard.

Even this solid steel board in front of her now had numerous dents on the ASDF side where the JKL: side was free of them. Fifty-two words per minute. Now, down to around fifteen presumable. Much like the piano, she hadn’t dared to find out. Though, had she checked, it would actually be more around forty. Worse, but nowhere near as bad as she feared as even back then she was an hunt-and-pecker. She herself couldn’t see it but although her life had changed dramatically, what was holding her back more than anything else was herself.

No one could blame her though. Stronger people had broken from less. At least that’s what her therapist had told her. How it was meant to be encouraging was beyond her but in some weird way it did. As the video ended once more another crop of her songs appeared on screen, along with some completely random video of a man slapping his friend with a fish: 11756493 views.

Instinctively she went to press replay on the video but something else caught her eye. It was already 3pm. She had to go. Lyra clicked the X and closed the page before shutting down her computer. She didn’t want to leave but she figured it wouldn’t set a good impression if she was late to her therapy session… for the 4th time in a row.

Doing her best to compose herself, she wiped her face clean of anything on it and spun her chair around. Her room was small, just her computer table, a single bed, a basket, a rack of cloth, and another small table. Standing up she grabbed whatever was the closest shirt to her and threw it over herself. Pants? She’d only worn them for two days, these were fine? Underwear? She reached down. Yep, put those on this morning. Lucky because there was no way she could be stuffed putting them on now if she hadn’t. With everything done she opened her door and stepped out into the courtyard and began her short walk.

She lived in the hospital’s psychiatric ward and had for just over three months now… again It wasn’t the first time she’d been in here and probably wouldn’t be the last. She was free to leave the premises at any time, well ,at any reasonable time, unlike some of the other ‘guests’ in the higher security area, and was for the most part fine and completely normal.

It was just that three months ago she’d lain in bed for nearly two weeks straight, not having the will to leave and towards the end of it the strength to get out of it either. It happened from time to time and that’s why she was here. Though it wasn’t as common as it used to be, for the first year after the accident she had spent over 90% of her life laying in bed. Now, with that being said, she lived that other 10% to its fullest still. And the second year it was way down to about only 20%, and further down this year at less than half of that.

Right now for instance, she was fine. Both mentally and physically. But when the mind holds her down, her body soon follows. Along with the loss of her left arm from the elbow down, she’d broken her right lower leg and left ankle. With the damaged that had been dealt to them, whenever her lackadaisical episodes occurred, the muscle mass of those areas quickly degenerated, leaving it so even once she’d mentally recovered, she’d have to physically recover all over again.

As such her therapy was also both mental and physical. It didn’t take her very long to get there, five minutes at most. She even managed to arrive a couple of minutes early today. She opened the door to the physical therapy lounge, seeing the other patients walking between arm bars holding themselves up or suspended from support apparatus from the ceiling. There were five patients in the gym at a given time, all with a constant slotted time allocation and so they all knew each other. Though given the circumstances, they rarely spoke.

Including herself though, today there were only four people here. Not surprisingly, the bald guy, a former DEA agent who’d been attacked by two cartel assassins had been walking with nothing more than a cain in their last session. His will, his grit, his sheer determination, he had probably left thinking or even knowing he could take care of himself from then on. Lyra wasn’t aware of it, but subconsciously, she was envious of all that. Deep down she knew that even though she was walking fine now after over a month, it was only a matter of time before she was set back to square one. It had even once been that thought alone that had made her unable, or unwilling to leave her bed.

For now though, she had free reign. Her personal doctor wasn’t here yet, likely seeing off the patient before her and with one less person here, she had all the more room. That and with the bald dude gone there was a lot less swearing. Still some from the others but a lot less all the same. She made her way over and sat down on an exercise ball. It was easily her favourite work out. Mostly because it was sitting on a ball. And who doesn’t love that? However today…

She fell off of it and landed with a thud on the ground, drawing the attention of the other docs and patients. She’d put her right hand on the ball to balance herself. Unfortunately, she’d also, at least she’d thought she had, put her her left hand on the opposite side and leant on it. It was something she’d never experienced before the accident and yet the sensation of a soft giant inflatable rubber ball against her non-existent hand was akin to that of her real one.

She pulled herself together as she sat up on the ground, reaching around awkwardly and rubbing the spot on the back of her head where she’d bumped it. The floor in here was made out of weird kind of foam that was hard to press against but springy on sudden impact. Reaching over with her right arm, she felt the stub of her arm and rubbed it too. It took her a moment to realise that her prosthetic had come off in the landing. It never did stay on all that well.

She looked around for it and saw something she wasn’t expecting to see in here. A girl, roughly her age, maybe a bit younger, maybe a bit older, with medium-long dark curly hair leaning down gingerly picking up her fake arm with both hands. The doctor who’d been helping the bald guy leant down with her hand grabbed it as well. Once the new girl was fully upright once more and holding the arm in her own, the doctor let go.

“Thanks.” Lyra said as she stood up and walked towards the girl. The girl took a few slow steps towards Lyra inturn, her doctor right behind her. Lyra stretched her arm out and grabbed the limb. The girl daintily and slowly extended both her arms and placed it in Lyras hand. Lyra made a brief attempt at putting it back on but the straps just wouldn’t slip onto her stub and after a few attempts she just sighed and gave up. Putting the thing under her armpit she faced the new girl, extended a hand and said “Name’s Lyra.”

Lifting her right hand to meet Lyra’s, the girl replied “My name’s Bon-bon. It’s nice to meet you.” she winced as she said it and shook Lyra’s hand. Lyra had always been a small bit of a tom boy and had taken the habit of squeezing someone’s hand while shaking it. This was not exactly the smartest place to do that and it was emphasized by how light Bon-bon’s grip on Lyra’s hand was.

Realising her mistake, though not acknowledging it, she told the girl “Let me show you around a bit. Over there’s the torture chair, that’s the torture rack, that thing’s the torture rails and that’s the toilets… you don’t wanna know the torture of that room.” Lyra smirked.

“Lyra!” Bon-bon’s doctor scolded.

She just chuckled and replied “Fine. But seriously though, don’t use those toilets. Not everyone here had full control over their lower half.” she said, getting a mild laugh from Bon-bon. “That guy’s name is Soarin’, that guy’s name is Beard Face.”

“It’s Beardfacé!” he called out.

“Whatever. And that guy there! His name is Jerky McJerkhole!”

“I will shove my boot up your arse girl!” the man holding himself up on two bars while trying to walk yelled back.

“Yeah? Why don’t you walk over here and do it then?!” Lyra replied.

“That’s enough.” Bon-bon’s doctor stepped in.

Lyra just waved her hand towards him dismissively “Eh, he loves me…” she said with a smirk. “Right McJerkhole?” who just muttered something back to her. “See.”

“Sure…” the doctor said as he gently lead Bon-bon away. “Well, it’s about time we started our Session. Come along Miss Sweetiedrops.”