Chapter Ten: I'm Sorry
“So, Twilight, Am I getting out of here anytime soon?” I asked through the bars of the holding cell.
Twilight had a frown. “Sorry Lauren, They aren’t going to let you go. Don’t worry though I’ve wrote to the princess explaining everything. Hopefully she will step in and help.”
I slid down the wall behind me. “Great, just great, I’m going to die in here. They’re going to kill me aren’t they?”
Twilight’s eyes widened. “What! Nopony is going to kill you. They’re just going to magically banish you about five thousand miles away to the Sahayra desert.”
“How, is that any better?”
“Well if you’re lucky you might be able to make it to a city in Haygypt.”
I facehoofed. “Okay, let's ignore the fact that I don’t know the language and can only write one nobody on this planet can read, then sure, yea, Egypt or Haygypt, whatever.” I got up off the floor and went back to the cell bars. “Twilight, how likely is the princess going help me get out?”
“She should. I am her personal protégé.”
I sighed. “Okay, so letter, we’ll find out in what? A week?”
“A week,” Twilight laughed. “Nah, we’ll know in more lik-”
“Twilight! Twilight!” Spike came running into the cell block. “Twilight, letter from the princess!”
Twilight grabbed the letter from Spike’s claw with her magic. “Dear Twilight,” she started reading. “Haven’t you learned yet that I just cannot get involved with every little issue that comes up in Ponyville. I have the utmost confidence that you and the others in town will handle this issue fine yourselves. Princess Celestia.”
“I better start learning my Haygyptian.”
“Spike take another letter,” Twilight said.
Spike pulled out some paper and a quill from some unknown pocket. “Dear Princess Celestia, I urge you to please read my last letter in full detail. I need your help to not get an innocent pony banished for something I caused. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.” Spike rolled up the letter, breathed some fire onto it and the letter went up in a puff of green smoke.
“How is burning the letter going to help?”
“Spike's fire breath can magically send letter to the princess,” Twilight explained.
“Oh.”
Spike burped and a letter came out in the same green smoke. “Dear Twilight,” He started reading. “I really don’t have time for this right now. I’m in the middle of moderating a major dispute with the Cake Bakers Union of Canterlot. Celestia.”
“I’m in jail and she’s worried about cake.” I sat back down on the floor. “I’m doomed.”
“Spike take another letter.” Once spike pulled out more paper, Twilight continued. “Dear Princess Celestia, I don’t think you unde-” Twilight was interrupted by Spike burping up another letter. Twilight grabbed this letter with her magic and began reading. “Dear Twilight Sparkle, My sister doesn’t seem to want to listen about this one. I already know what is happening there in your town. I asked Celestia to help you but she is too worried about her weekly cake order or something. Hold off any trial until tomorrow. I will be there this evening. Sincerely Princess Luna.”
“Oh, I like this one,” I said jumping up off the floor. “Why isn’t this one the leader?”
“She became Nightmare Moon and tried to plunge the world into eternal night. Then she was banished to the moon for a thousand years until Twilight and her friends used the Elements of Harmony on her, turning her back into Princess Luna,” Spike said nonchalantly.
I blinked for a few second. “Well, nobody is perfect.”
“She tried to become a tyrannical dictator,” Twilight exclaimed.
“And right now she’s going to help me so I’ll take eternal night dictator over no help sunny leader.”
Twilight shook her and started walking away. “Whatever, I have a trial to postpone.”
“Wait, how did she live on the moon for a thousand years,” I yelled but Twilight ignored me. Spike shrugged, and then ran off after Twilight.
“Well, I guess I could write some more,” I said to myself. I moved myself over to the small cot in the cell, opened up the journal, levitated a quill and began writing again.
So where was I? Ah!
We just made contact with my mother on Earth through some weird magic walkie-talkie. I explained everything that happened and Lyra confirmed she was in my body on Earth. Well that’s not quite right, she’s in her own body, so am I, we just now look different. Inter-dimensional travel is weird. And as it turns out unless I learn to do what Lyra did and reverse it, we’re stuck. Oh, but I found out my mother is actually a dimensional traveling super spy, so there’s that.
Turns out we only had about fifteen minutes before our power crystal died. Thankfully these orbs actually have some kind of power indicator on the small screen so we were able to let my mother know we’d contact them tomorrow when Twilight got some fresh ones.
Oh, and to make matters worse, Twilight took a look at that machine. Turns out I damaged more than a panel. I also somehow managed to damage so of the internal components, the internal components for a machine older than me, the internal components for a machine that should be in some warehouse somewhere. I hope you can see the problem here. Yeah I’m boned.
There we are. I’m in another universe or something and my only way to get home is now dead because a dragon had to trip and fall on my back. This is what I get for giving into peer pressure. You’ve heard it here first kids, peer pressure. Not even once. Now I’m just annoyed. I’m going to try to get some sleep before my trip to the Sahayra desert…
~~~~
“Lauren wake up.”
I rolled over. “Five more minutes,” growled.
“Wake up now damn it, you have a gig to get to in a couple of hours.”
“I’ll get right on that from this jail cell.”
“Up! I don’t have time for this. I got to get to work.”
I was woken when I was pulled off the bed with my sheets. “Ow! What did you do that for?!”
“Good, you’re up, I can go to work now,” Bonnie said.
I blinked a few times and looked around the room. I was home. I looked down at myself. “Arms! Legs! Oh thank god!”
Bonnie raised an eyebrow. “Yes Lauren. They’re called limbs.”
I jumped up from the floor and hugged Bonnie tightly. “You don’t know how glad I am to see actual hands with fingers!”
Bonnie pushed me off of her. “You okay there?”
“Better than okay. I’m human again,” I exclaimed.
“When were you not human?”
“For the last week, don’t you remember I swapped bodies with some talking pony named Lyra.”
Bonnie sighed. “For fucks sake Lauren, are you high again?” Bonnie started moving things around in my room. “Where is it? I told you I don’t want any pot in this apartment.”
I stopped Bonnie. “Bonnie, I’m not high.” I stared at her for a moment. “What’s… What’s in your eyes,” I asked. Her eyes had a specks in them almost like stars on a night sky.
Bonnie blinked a few times. “Is it still there?” Her eyes looked normal now.
“No, it’s gone,” I said and took a seat on my bed.
“Good. I’m going to go to work then. You better get ready for your gig,” Bonnie said while leaving the room.
I sat on my bed just staring at my reflection in mirror across the room. Before I realized, almost two hours had passed. “Shit!” I snapped out of my trance, grabbed my guitar and ran out to meet my band mates.
I finally met up with my band mates at the club we were playing at tonight. “Late as usual, I see.”
“Bite me, Vanessa,” I responded. “Still using that shitty electric blue hair dye, I see.”
“Okay you two. Enough,” the last band member moved between us to stop the fight about to happen.
“Good evening, Octavia. Is your voice going to be okay tonight? I’m sure there was a lot of screaming between you too last night.”
Octavia blushed. “You said nobody wouldn’t know,” Octavia said while smacking Vanessa.
“Ha! I knew it,” I exclaimed.
“Way to go, blabbermouth,” Vanessa said.
“I… but… you… no….” Octavia stumbled out before being cut off by one of the club employees.
“Two minutes till you guys are on,” the employee said ducking her head back out of the doorway.
We grabbed our instruments and headed to the stage. The club had most of the lights out except for a few special effect lights creating a starscape on the ceiling. “Woah,” Vanessa mumbled as she sat down behind her drum set.
“Yeah, way cooler than anything we’ve played at before,” I said. Looking out at the audience I thought I saw a familiar woman. “Hey guys, where are we playing at again,” I asked.
Octavia put her hand over the mic. “The Lunar Lowdown,” she said to me.
“Excuse me for a minute,” I said rushing off stage. Moving through the audience I went for the lady. About half way through the group of people the lady turned around and rushed out the front door. “Hey! Wait up,” I yelled chasing her through the door.
As I exited the club I entered a void of nothingness. “I knew it,” I said. “Why don’t you just show yourself? I already know I’m in a dream.”
Walking out of the darkness in front of me appeared Princess Luna again. “So what now?”
“Nothing my child,” Luna said in a hushed tone. “I merely wanted to keep an eye over you as you slept tonight until my arrival. You seem to be very keen to my presence in your dreams.”
“Well, you make it easy. You know, with all the stars and whatnot.”
“Yes, I must take some form in the dream. Now you must go back to sleep.” Luna waved her hand and I passed out.
~~~
“Lauren, wake up.”
“Five more minutes,” I growled before being pelted in the head by a small rock. “Ow! What was that for?”
“Lauren, your trial is in ten minutes.”
I got out of the cot and was greeted by a now familiar purple pony and a new, taller, night blue pony. “I’m going to go on a limb here and say you’re Princess Luna.”
“Very observant of you,” Luna continued. “We’re going to try and make this trial go as quickly as we can. You are going to just stand there. Do not say anything. Do not do anything. Let us do all the speaking. Most of all do not panic.” Luna paused for a moment while she opened the cell and led me out. “It is an open forum trial out in the courtyard. If this goes well we will be done in a matter of minutes.” We paused again before exiting the building into the courtyard. “Ready? Deep breath; here we go.”
Luna opened the door and led me out to the central platform. Once I stepped outside the crowd around the platform starting yelling. “Burn the changeling!” “Give us back our friend!” “Change back!” “The only good changeling is a dead changeling!” “Exile is too good!” I felt a lump in the pit of my stomach.
Once at the center of the platform Luna directed me to stand to the right of the stage, she then stood behind the podium. “That will be enough of that!” Luna’s voice bellowed out as if coming through a megaphone. The crowd instantly fell silent. “Now that’s better. I Luna, Princess of Equestria will proceed over this hearing. Would the accusers please take their place on the platform.”
The two ponies I ran into a few days before had taken their place. “Would the accused please face the accusers.” I turned to face the grey and white ponies across the platform. “Good, now, I am officially pardoning the accused.”
Half of the crowd cocked their heads; the other half started yelling again. “Quite,” Luna stepped out from the back of the podium, walking between myself and the other ponies on the platform.
“It is true, the pony to my left is in fact not Lyra Heartstrings; but she is also not a changeling. This pony you see here is Lauren Hammonds; she comes from another world. There was an accident in Twilight’s lab with Lyra which caused Lyra and Lauren here to switch places.” Luna waved me to walk over to her. I stood next to her and smiled sheepishly. “Lauren is an innocent victim in this mess and is to be treated like any other pony until Twilight figures out a way to swap them back.”
~~~
“So wait, that worked,” I asked into the makeshift multiworld walkie-talkie.
“Yeah,” Lauren’s voice came out of the device. “They just mumbled a bit and all left. Your friends apologized to me then left also. Luna spent the rest of the day trying to help Twilight figure this out but since I broke the machine it looks like we’re a little s.o.l. until they can fix it.”
“Bummer.” I leaned back in the chair. “So what do we do until then?”
“Well, you act normal. I don’t think Earth is going to be as accepting of the whole ‘I’m from another world’ thing. Otherwise, I don’t know.”
“Twilight, How long do you think it’s going to take to fix that thing?”
“I don’t know,” Twilight responded. “I’ve never seen anything like this before, Luna said everything else from the old project it was involved in has already been scrapped.”
“Okay. I guess just let me know. Bye,”
~~~
“The end,” an elderly woman said to the three children sitting in front of her rocking chair.
“Oh that story wasn’t any cool,” the first child said.
The second child jumped up off the floor. “Yeah! Where’s the dragon fighting?! Or the bugs that eat everything?!”
“Or the chaos man?!” The third child interrupted.
“Okay, time for bed you three,” a voice said from the other room.
“But mom!” all three cried in unison.
“No buts,” their mother said coming into the room. “Now go,” she said in a harsh tone.
After the three children went upstairs the mother turned to her own mother. “You know mom, I know you love these ‘stories’ but I don’t like you telling them all the time you’re from some other world.”
“Oh there’s no harm in it,” the old lady waved her hand at her daughter. “Nobody ever believes me anyway.”
The woman sighed, “Goodnight mom.” Then went upstairs herself.
The old lady rocked back and forth for a few more minutes before retiring to her room too. Once in the room she slowly walked to her closet and pulled out a small box buried under years of unused items.
She placed the box on the bed and ran her hand across the seamless sides. When her hand reached the middle of the top she stopped moving it. Resting her hand, she concentrated and both her hand and box were enveloped in a golden glow. “It’s been too long,” she said as the front of the box popped off slightly allowing the top to open.
Inside the box was a familiar white orb faintly blinking on and off. “That’s strange,” the elderly woman said as she took the orb out of the box and placed it on the bed next to her. She tapped the orb, “Hello?” she asked into the orb. “Weird, it usually only glowed when they would call me.”
“Hello, Lyra, is that you?” A voice came out of the orb.
The elderly woman jump back a second before replying. “Yes… is this Luna?”
“Oh it’s so good to hear your voice again. How have you been?”
“I’ve been fine. Why are you calling? I thought we all agreed years ago that we’d stop calling.”
“Yes, we did. I thought it would be appropriate to try and contact you. I’ve actually been trying every night for three years now.”
“Why,” Lyra asked shifting nervously on the bed.
“Lyra,” Luna’s tone softened. “Lyra, I just wanted to let you know that Lauren passed.”
“Oh,” Lyra said, her eyes tearing up.
“Don’t worry; it was peaceful, in her sleep. I just wanted to let you know.”
“Okay. Give my regards to her family.”
“I will, Lyra, I will. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.” Lyra tapped the device off, put it back into its box and placed it back in the closet under the other forgotten items. Once she got herself into bed she waved her hand turning off the lights with her magic. Before drifting to sleep Lyra said the same two words she as repeated every night for the past sixty years.
“I’m sorry.”
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As far as endings go...it sucks.
I understood what happened, but the ending itself was admittedly weak. I guess it didn't have the impact it could have?
6536100 I'd have to agree with you. I knew how I wanted to end it I just had a very hard time actually ending it.
6536168 The type of ending you went for is tricky to pull off. I've seen it done in published stories before, but even then it was often hit and miss.Even after all those years, Lyra has that underlying mix of hopelessness and remorse, but it's hard to exactly transmit it to the reader.
I think the problem with the ending is how abrupt the shift is. This story is tagged comedy, and it does fit the comedy very well through most of the story, but then we have the skip. And while I wouldn't call the ending sad or depressing, it is a completely different tone from the rest.
I know it wouldn't be quite the ending you intended, but perhaps it would be improved if Luna's last message was to say they'd finally figured it out. Then you could have one last piece of comedy through Lyra's frustration.
Given how much of her life and family is with her, I don't think she'd want to return to Equestria anyway, but the comedy could still be there.
to put it simply the ending sucks
it was a cool story and the it ends so fast and out of nowhere and laves me feeling sad
I can see why, but this ending felt too rushed.
It feels like the trial should've had at least its own chapter & the never fixed it ending was too abrupt.
Personally I think it would've been more satisfying to end it on an ambiguous ending where we don't really find out whether they ever fix things, but that would still feel relatively unsatisfying. Though this is coming from someone who barely remembers any of what happened so...
Okay, let ignore the fact
Spikes fire breath can
Okay you too. Enough
Good, now, I am official pardoning the accused
Half of the crowd crooked their heads
“Quite!” Luna stepped out
it looks like we’re a little s.o.l. until they can fix it
Well, You act normal I don’t think Earth
1. Let's.
2. Spike's.
3. Two.
4. Officially.
5. Cocked.
6. Quiet.
7. S.O.L.? What?
8. Well, you act normal. I don't think.
True as to what you said in your blog post, the experience doesn't show that you have much in ways of ending a story. Heck, I lack even more if mine are any indication but the end results is that you at the very least managed to finish what you started.
The ending is abrupt, yes, somewhat unsatisfying and almost a little... well, rushed like others would say. It would undoubtedly be better with a few more chapters to at least building up to the end result but if you felt that you couldn't move on from this point, then don't for the time being. Maybe one day you will feel like coming back to change things, maybe not. I can't really say whether you're right or wrong in this regard since there are many points of views for this sort of thing though.
Overall, I did have fun on the ride you gave us. Not necessarily loved it like mad but still liked it all the same.
6537385
Fixed the errors you pointed out.
I kind of knew that I'm not that great at any endings but I wanted to end it.
Yeah. I knew this wasn't going to be that good of an ending. It was a bit rushed. I just really couldn't figure out how to get to the ending I wanted. One of the things I've hated from this site is how may stories are started then never completed. I didn't want my story to be one of them. Unfortunately because of that I knew this chapter was going to be bad.
Honestly there's a lot about this entire story I don't like and think now I could have done a bit better.
I would like to go back at this at some point but between work and other life things I don't think I will be. At least not any time soon. In fact, I don't think I'll be writing anything at all anytime soon.
Thank you.
Definitely feels a touch rushed, but this was a beautiful journey. Thank you for sharing it with me.
It feels rushed and in the end the two never regain there selves it was a good story.
6538712 You better get ready for you is this meant to be your?
Yeah, that ending. Trial is over in like 5 seconds, and then after a few more scenes we get an abrupt shift where it's revealed Lyra and Lauren never switched back. Presumably Lauren's mother in the human world helped Lyra to adjust (and she did have children and grandchildren), and probably Lauren got the same help, but basically nothing else.
Is... is it over?
6624369 Your avatar perfectly matches how I feel right now...
Really enjoyed the story up until the last chapter, which felt really rushed. Not only that, I was also really disappointed with the ending. The ending ruined the entire story for me. =(
That was a STUPID ENDING, totally STUPID!
Well, I'll just have to write my own.
And make it turn out better than this stupid shit.
Haygypt......... REALLY?
Egypt is a way better name.
Totally out of character. She wouldn't choose cake over her subjects she loves very much.
6536168