Lyra and Henry, as well as everyone else in the room, stared at the large scorch mark on the floor and the ceiling, directly above and below where the portal had been. The mages, though exhausted, looked about ready to panic.
"Is that supposed to happen?" Henry asked, innocently scared.
Lyra shook her head and dumbly said, "No."
At which point, the room seemed to erupt in cries of horror and confusion. Ponies, friends of the homebound, rushed forward, crowding each other to stand in a circle around the scorched floor. The foals all managed to squeeze through the adults' legs and get to the center, where they began pawing at the ground in distress.
Golden Harvest seemed to be takin it the hardest.
"What happened?" she cried loudly as she rushed up to Lyra, who was sheltering Henry from the stampede. "Are they alright?"
Lyra didn't know what to say. This caused the orange mare to burst into tears.
"No! Oh-no. I was so cruel to Brady. Why? It was just a stupid carrot patch," she wailed and sobbed. "He... he could be dead, and the last thing I said to him was horrible... just like everything else I've said to him. Now he and Jessi could be in terrible danger... or worse."
WHAP!
Lyra had just slapped her. Not hard, just enough to get her attention. "Don't say that, Harvest. Don't even think that. They are just fine. No one is dead."
"I killed someone?"
Lyra quickly looked down at the face of the colt, who bore an expression that could hardly be described. This pushed the panic button in the mint mare's brain. "Oh, no... of course not. It was just a fluke in the spell... you know... magic can be complicated and... stuff. Just some technical difficulties, everyone's just panicking... you know, like... like... when the power goes out during a lightning storm. Get what I'm saying?"
"Y-y-you're lying," Henry cried, shrinking in on himself, trying to appear extremely small. "I... I k-killed someone... and... a-and..."
"No-no-no-no-no," Lyra began to squeal in terror, gripping the sides of her head with her hooves as if she were trying to crush her own skull. Not knowing what else to do, she grabbed him in said hooves and shouted, "Bonny! Bonny, get over here, I need you."
The earth pony mare quickly appeared by her side. "What do you need, Lyra? Oof."
Lyra had all but shoved the child into her hooves. "Take him home, now. Do mother stuff. And, by all that is holy, do not leave him alone? Got that? Good. No time to argue, I'm on damage control. Go-go-go."
Whether it was the forcefulness in Lyra's voice or some subconscious response to orders, Bon Bon actually saluted her and then took off Henry like a bullet. The mint mare didn't have to think about how oddly cool that was, she had a situation to defuse.
"Everypony," she shouted, magically augmenting her voice so that everyone heard her clearly. "If you're not an anthropologist, or a mage, please calmly exit the premises. Nothing is wrong, our friends are just fine. We're just gonna need to a minute to figure out why the portal closed like that on our end. Let me repeat, 'on our end'. Jessi and Brady are just fine."
To her surprise, Lyra found that she had managed to mostly convince everyone, save herself. Still a little shaken, the muttering and mumbling ponies began filing out of town hall. Carrot had to be carried by Time Turner, as she was still in shock, with Derpy hovering close by, holding her hoof. Their foals kept close, fussing worriedly while casting glances back at the scorch marks.
"Okay," Lyra began as soon as she was sure everyone was gone, "I've bought us a couple minutes. Now, what the heck just happened? That's never happened before."
"You think we don't know that," one mage, a mare, hissed. "We've done this before. Not to mention we practiced weeks in advance to get everything perfect. Nothing went wrong on our end."
"Well, obviously, something did," Lyra growled, stomping a hoof aggressively.
"Nothing was going wrong until you decided to let that colt touch the portal," another mage accused her angrily. He immediately found himself regretting his choice of words.
"What did you say?" the mint mare hissed, her face hardening as she edged towards him with every word that proceeded from her mouth. "Are you blaming a child who hasn't even been in this world twenty-four hours? Or me? Lyra Heartstrings, world's greatest anthropologist and a literal humanitarian? I've dedicated my life tending to the wellbeing of those humans unfortunate enough to be torn from the only world they know. Are you accusing me of endangering two children?"
The other mare stepped forward in her friend's defense. "Please, Ms. Heartstrings, he didn't mean anything. We're all very passionate and dedicated to our work. This... this... anomaly, we'll call it that, it's putting a lot of stress on our minds at the moment. We won't be able to figure out what's wrong with aid from the colleges, if not the University."
Lyra sighed heavily in apology and sat down with a thump. "You're right. I'm sorry. This is just too much to take at the moment. I'll take care of calming everyone down, you three, go inform Princess Twilight about what happened. Tell that I want all earthbound travel suspended until further notice. Also, see if she can't get the University and the League to help us figure this out."
The three mages nodded and tried to act casual as they let, followed shortly by Lyra.
Cordoning the place outside, the Ponyville populace were waiting expectantly for some news. In fact, they were packed so thick with newcomers who had just heard about the incident that the mages, already magically exhausted from forming a portal, used what little they had left to teleport in the general direction of Twilight's castle. Leaving Lyra to address the crowd.
"I really need to learn that spell," she groaned after they vanished in bright flashes of light. This was going to be a long day.