//------------------------------// // Lyra Heartstrings // Story: Interviews At The Canterlot Exchange // by billymorph //------------------------------// Sitting human style in the plastic Hayburger bench is one of the most infamous ponies in modern history. She is a russet red earth pony mare and before her sits the remains of a burger. Next to her, in a far more normal position, is a periwinkle pegasus, whose eyes never seem to stop scanning the room. Their names are Lyra Heartstrings and Bon Bon respectively. “I still don’t know how you recognised us,” Lyra grumbles, crossing her forelegs across her chest. “You can’t change your cutie-mark,” I point out, gesturing at their flanks with my pen. “Though I’ll admit that I have a bit of a talent for picking unusual people out from the crowd.” “I think she’s calling us ugly,” Lyra says, elbowing Bon Bon in the ribs. Bon Bon rolls her eyes. “But seriously. We’re different tribes, colours, everything, what gave us away?” “You sit like a pony pretending to be human, not a human pretending to be a pony.” I smile. “But don’t worry, I’m not going to tell anyone. I was wondering if I could ask you some questions, I’m writing a book, you see.” Bon Bon frowns. “What kind of book?” “About me?” Lyra adds, her face lighting up. “Not just you.” Her face falls. “But I’d still love to hear your thoughts. You revealed Equestria to Earth after all.” Lyra rolls her eyes. “Psh, that’s not how they phrased it at the trial. Or what the press called it. Or what my mother said I’d been up to. Then again, when have I ever listened to my mother?” “She’s a lovely mare, Lyra,” Bon Bon says with a long suffering sigh. “You should give her the benefit of the doubt once in awhile.” “She’s a bigoted old shrew,” Lyra shoots right back. “You should hear what she says about earth ponies when she thinks nopony is listening. Hence—” she pointed a hoof at herself. Bon Bon’s glare was murderous. “You said that was about getting closer to the earth, not scoring points off your mother.” “It can be two things!” “Ah-hem,” I interject, struggling to keep up with their bickering. “Earth?” “Oh, right.” Lyra turns back to me. “Well Sandy, where would you like me to begin?” I shrug. “The beginning is my favourite place.” She rubs a hoof on her chin. “Hmm. Well, in the beginning Equestria was without form and–ow!” Lyra shoots a nasty look at Bon Bon, rubbing the back of her head. Bon Bon, to her credit, has already folded her wings back against her barrel and is whistling innocently. “Everypony’s a critic. Anyway, skipping over how Equestria was made, it all began when Twilight Sparkle decided that she needed to make up for ignoring me for a couple years.” “Lyra...” “Yeah, yeah, Princess of Equestria and all that.” Lyra waves her off. “I don’t know how she of all ponies ended up in charge of friendship. I never had to be ordered to go make some friends.” “But you did spend Nightmare Moon’s return hiding in my pantry.” “Nevertheless!” Lyra exclaims, hastily changing the subject. “It all began when Twilight invited me to her castle and I discovered that she had an interdimensional portal in her closet.” She pauses for effect. Both Bon Bon and I raise an eyebrow at her. “No gasp?” “We’re in the Canterlot Exchange sweetie,” Bon Bon points out. “Everypony here knows Princess Twilight had the first portal to Earth in her castle.” “Urgh, you two have no sense of drama,” Lyra grouses, pushing a fry around the table with her hooftip. “Okay, so we’ll stick to the unromantic facts then. Now as I was saying, I was exploring Twilight’s castle–” “Snooping you mean.” Lyra doesn’t miss a beat. “–when I came across a magic mirror. Now, I may have only done Magic of Music at school, but I could tell at a glance it was incredibly powerful. I had no idea what it did, of course, but I’ve got a well earned reputation as a curious mare, so I decided to have a closer look. As it turned out, in a different world an equally curious Lyra Heartstrings was doing almost exactly the same thing. We both got far too close to the portal and there was, shall we say, an explosion.” She shakes her head and shudders. “Anyway... long story short, I ended up on Earth and she ended up in Equestria. There was this long comedy of errors where I was trying to pretend I was a human and she was trying to pretend she was a unicorn, but after three days or so Twilight finally puts two and two together and everypony and everyone ends up in their own bodies on their own worlds.” Lyra frowns. “Then nothing happens. Literally nothing. Twilight has this other world locked away in her castle, a world with technology we could barely imagine, with music that has never been heard by pony ears, with philosophy and natural science that ponykind have barely scratched. And Twilight was going to let it sit there gathering dust, using it to hold a couple of mouldy old monsters that Equestria had forgotten about. I couldn’t let that happen.” “This is the part where she commits treason,” Bon Bon says, covering her eyes with a wing. “Hey! Aggravated trespass against a monarch,” Lyra shoots back, slamming a hoof on the table. “Technically it wasn’t treason because Twilight never explicitly told me to keep quiet.” Bon Bon sighs. “That’s a very flimsy excuse.” Lyra shrugs. “It held up in court. Anyway, so after a few weeks of waiting around and gathering supplies I set out to reveal Equestria to Earth. Equestria already ‘knew’ about Earth, or at least the princesses were aware and willing to just let it sit there. I wasn’t going to stand on a soapbox yelling about aliens in the Ponyville marketplace–” “Again...” “–so I decided to go to the human’s princess.” She glares at Bon Bon. “After slipping through the portal with a saddlebag full of enchanted objects I found myself in front of the White House. It turned out that getting to see the President is harder than getting yourself before Celestia. But on the other hoof, it is extremely easy to get arrested when you start firing magical flares over the fence. The rest is, as they say, history. It took a week for the US government to accept they had a genuine magic-wielding alien in custody, but things moved pretty fast from there. Once Twilight showed up and managed to get herself arrested too, then Equestria pretty much had to say, ‘yes we exist, sorry for not telling you earlier’.” She shook her head in mock sadness, grinning to herself. “It’s fun to watch the Princesses squirm like that, though I did end up spending six months in prison for ‘Aggravated Trespass’ afterwards. Everypony knows that’s all they could make stick because revealing Equestria’s existence isn’t a crime, but hay, six months in a minimum security prison was a small price to pay.” “So, you think revealing Equestria was a positive?” I ask. “Always have,” Lyra replies, shrugging. “Sure, there’s ponies and people on both sides of the gate suffering because of what I did. I still maintain it was the right choice, though. Change is always good and Equestria wasn’t changing. All tradition does is ensure you make the same mistakes your parents did, and that’s something I’d never wish on my kids.” For a moment her gaze goes distant, and she lets out a long sigh. “I just wish other ponies could see that.” She bites her lip, opens her mouth to speak, closes it and then rises to her hooves. “I’m going to get a round of sodas,” she declares, and walks away. Bon Bon and I share a look. “Sorry about that,” she says, ducking her eyes. “Lyra is... a dreamer. Always has been, always will be. She truly believes that what she did she did for the best, but there’s a lot of ponies who think she should have ended up in the Canterlot gardens. Hence the disguises.” “And what do you think?” “I think...” She frowns. “I think I would have tried to stop her. It wasn’t her call to make. But you have to stand by your friends’ mistakes as well as their successes. What do you think, Miss Sandy?” I’m a little surprised by the question. “Me?” I pause, chewing the tip of my pen. “I’m always on the side of the travellers. Ever since the first gate was made I argued that it should be left open, not closed.” Bon Bon’s eyes narrow suddenly. “The first gate?” Lyra arrives an instant later. “Bonnie!” She bounces up and down on her hooves like an impatient foal. “We missed the announcement, we’ve got to get to our portal now! Sorry, Sandy, but Hollywood awaits, and boy am I looking to get my horn back after all of this.” “Going back to a unicorn then?” I enquire. “Going to Hollywood as myself, even,” Lyra continues, beaming. “Stars it will be good to have my magic back. I love being able to get up at dawn, but I miss my spells. You’re a unicorn, you know where I’m coming from right?” Bon Bon blinks. “What? Lyra, Sandy is an earth pony.” They stare at each other for a moment, then turn back to my chair. I, however, have already slipped away.