Pinkamena's Tribulation

by TheAccidentalBrony

4. Down

The salty seawater pooled gently beneath Pinkie Pie’s pursed lips, rinsing off a bit of the white crust that had collected on them. With each breath she took, tiny pockets formed on the water’s surface in front of her; the air forced from her nostrils by her shallow exhalations creating small rings that rippled outward in all directions. A small wave broke over the edge of the basket, a spattering of ice-cold droplets scattered over the length of her motionless body. The sudden chill of the water soaking through her matted fur and into her retreating skin, her eyelids began to flutter rapidly, her body squirming suddenly against the basket floor. As she tossed about, her skull smashed into a hard surface nearby with a sickening crunch. Her eyes flew open, flooding her fully-dilated pupils with the blindingly bright sunlight of midday. Her ears were filled by a high-pitched whine that seemed to penetrate her skull and rattle about sharply in her head. The light refused to coalesce into recognizable shapes, instead showing nothing but a hazy blur all around. Without notice, her muscles locked as her stomach began contracting rhythmically, eventually forcing out a small volume of bile and water that lazily trickled out of the corners of her mouth.

Pinkie's nose wrinkled as she wiped the remnants from her mouth with a foreleg. Painstakingly, she planted each of her hooves squarely beneath her barrel and gingerly pushing her body upwards. Her eyes rolled as the blood suddenly rushed to her head, the world momentarily blanking white as vertigo threatened to overwhelm her. Her hooves clattered against the firm surface below as she frantically attempted to remain standing, her chest knit with nausea and anxiety. Unsteadily, she forced down the knot in her throat, waiting as her vision slowly returned until her surroundings finally came into focus. Certain enough that she was not going to topple over, Pinkie twisted her body rapidly, shaking every drop of unwanted dampness from her coat. Her legs were still quite unsteady, prickling along their entire length from disuse and primed to buckle from even the slightest breeze. Even in such a time-worn condition, though, she could feel the vague sensation of water periodically striking against her fetlocks.

That’s strange, she thought, the last thing I remember was..hmm..I was…

She froze, a sudden chill coming over her. Her heart had caught mid-beat; her lungs tight with agitation, as she felt something try to make its way to the fore of her consciousness.

Her mind blank, Pinkie forced out an uncertain breath, her heart thumping to life once more. It was just so hard to remember...she'd been in Ponyville...and something had happened there - something bad. Pinkie looked down again, scanning the surface below for any details that might kick-start her mental facilities.

Without warning, red burned across her vision as a searing pain struck her foreleg. Blinking away tears, she glanced down, but saw nothing the seawater slapping against her knees, washing away a trail of crimson with it. No longer matted by the coagulated blood, her fur swayed gently with the flowing water, intermittently revealing raised patches of inflamed skin, speckled by darker patches of blood. As she tried to determine the extent of damage to her injured leg, below it, she could make out the hard pink surface of the…

She squinted as if straining to make out some detail, her brow furrowed as she struggled to recognize her surroundings. It all seemed so uncannily familiar, and yet, she couldn't seem to place it. She drummed her temple with a hoof, knowing she'd seen this somewhere before, if only the fog in her head would clear. Unfortunately, she still felt like she was floating, as if in the hot air balloon high up in the clouds...

The hot air balloon!

She slumped downward into the rising water as the scant memories she had of the last day flooded back to her, not dissimilar from the way the water was leaking through the seams in the cabin's walls. Which still didn't make sense...after all, hot air balloons typically traveled in the sky.

She nervously turned upwards, hoping to reveal some explanation for the worsening situation. She certainly wasn’t expecting to see what she found, however, and her breath caught at the sight. Tumbling towards her, far too quickly for her to escape, was the bright pink envelope of the balloon. She gave out a tiny shriek as the pink bubble completed its descent, settling in a jumbled pile directly over her precariously poised capsule.

---

Pinkie Pie giggled.

So, yes, it was true that she was now completely immersed, totally lost in the heavy, wet folds of the fabric that surrounded her. But, even so, there was sort of a chaotic amusement about it, like being rolled down a hill in one of those big burlap sacks that they haul apples in or building a blanket fort in your bed and then forgetting which way is out again.

And besides, laughing about her situation sure seemed better than screaming her head off, which most ponies might see as the more reasonable reaction to it.

“Isn’t there anything more, you know, useful you can do?” Rainbow Dash’s voice echoed in her head.

“Nopers!” she’d replied, “After all, what makes a situation better than laughing at it?”

A giggle crept out.

“Any situation?”

“Yep!” she smiled broadly, “Any situation.”

“Oh yeah?” Rainbow Dash’s mouth curved in a sly smile, “What about that time Queen Chrysalis sicced her squad of changelings on us?”

“Well,” she replied thoughtfully, rubbing her chin with a hoof, “surely nopony’s mopey-dopey frowns made it any better. And the ponies who smile together, win together, right?”

“Oh geeze,” Rainbow rolled her eyes, “Where’d you get that one from?”

“Oh, nowhere. I just made it up.”

Pinkie paused, watching Rainbow Dash’s face for any hint of a reaction.

She didn’t get one. Her face dropped a little, but just as suddenly, her eyes shone with mischievousness.

“And anyway, if laughing doesn’t fix it, well, then, my party cannon sure will.”

Rainbow crossed her forelegs sternly.

“Right,” she scoffed, a sharp edge to her voice, “But, you know, not all of us can just pull the answer to any situation from our tails. Some of us…some of us...and feather it all, if you tell anypony I said this, I’ll deny it, but some of us, have to actually have some kind of a plan for things.”

“Ooooooh,” Pinkie gasped, her eyes wide as dinner plates, “Tell me more!”

Dash rolled her eyes, waving a hoof dismissively. “Oh, Pinkie...you’re so random. I’d better get back to weather duty, though. It’s been...fun...talking to you, Pinks.”

Pinkie sighed. Her friend had been wrong about one thing, though she hadn’t been bothered to correct Rainbow. Actually, she suspected that all her friends felt the same way, even if they hadn’t been as bold as Rainbow in saying it. They’d usually just dismiss her sleight-of-hoof as a “Pinkie thing” and move on. But it wasn’t that she just had the exact right thing hiding in her mane all the time, or that she could just appear wherever a pony was least expecting her to. It was more like her Pinkie Sense, but different…

Like, one morning, when she just got a feeling that she should bake a triple layer chocolate and cranberry cake with lemon frosting, even though it sounded really yucky to Pinkie, and then a donkey by the name of Dusty Trails stopped by Sugarcube Corner later that day, looking for that very cake!

Or like when the changelings had invaded. She’d gotten a hint that she’d need her party cannon, though she figured it would be for the party after the wedding. Boy, was she ever surprised when it turned out she needed to blast nasty bug-ponies with it instead. And it’s not like she’d really hidden it in her tail, or anything. That would be crazy, even for Pinkie! Nope, she’d hidden it...hmm...

Where had she hidden it again?

Pinkie blinked, and the pleasant memories faded into the pink fabric of the balloon, which had unfolded around her a bit, but had now been dragged completely underwater by the weight of the liquid it had absorbed.

She was completely underwater, too, she surmised as a turquoise-streaked minnow flitted past her face and slammed directly into the thick net of the balloon. As she returned to consciousness, the pleasant fuzz of the dream fading quickly, she felt her body once more scream with agony. The salty brine all around her was like a firebrand, striping her body with pain. The ocean water felt like sandpaper on her eyes, but the growing pressure in her chest was able to push its way ahead of the other discomforts. Taking quick stock of her circumstances, it seemed clear the only way she would get the air her body craved would be to swim straight up, even with the balloon in the way. She kicked powerfully with her hind legs, thrusting her body up into the thick blanket above. She dug her hoof into the seams between two of the gores, pushing against the thick panels forcefully until a narrow divot began to form at the top of the balloon, her body surrounded by it as though in a tube.

There! Light! Pinkie’s brain screamed insistently, even as a sort of fog seemed to dull it.

The ocean’s glistening surface was barely visible through the veil that surrounded her, but the sight of it provided enough encouragement for Pinkie to redouble her efforts, straining with all the force she could muster against the barrier.

Unfortunately, it seemed that was the extent of her luck, as no amount of pressure caused the precious air to draw any nearer. She struggled, desperately flailing her hind legs, but the balloon was now committed to its fate. The light on the other side of the fabric faded away again, Pinkie’s precious air burbling out the sides of her lips as she spent the last of her efforts. Finally, the last of her energy spent, she pulled away, no longer resisting as the full weight of the balloon began to bear down against her.

With each passing moment, she could feel the dull thud inside her skull increase it's insistent intensity, a searing pain now extending out from her lungs to the rest of her body, begging Pinkie to suck in the darkening water around her. She could feel her body being pulled down, succumbing to gravity as the lifeless balloon had moments before. Down was the only way left, and, she thought, fairly accurately described her state of mind as well. She knew now that she’d never see her friends again. Twilight, Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack...they were all lost to her. Lyra, Derpy, Time Turner, and all the other ponies who'd counted on her to brighten their days, as well, She'd let them all down.

Including, of course, the pony she wanted most not to remember right now.

Down there, down at the bottom was where she would end…

Down!

Pinkie’s eyes sparkled suddenly, for when she looked down, there was nothing but the darkness of the sea that separated her from the basket of the balloon far, far below. At some point, the crumpled mess that had surrounded her must have been pulled straight by gravity as it sank. As it was, all she had to do now was to get herself to the mouth of the envelope, fling herself around the skirt, and she’d be free. She clumsily grasped at the water beneath with her hooves, flinging her body at the murky darkness. Her head pounding, a light approached, cutting through the darkness…

“No, Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash had said, rolling her eyes sarcastically.

“Fluttershy’s not a …” Pinkie cut herself off, the image of her friend disappearing before her eyes.

The burner was about twenty hooves away, and she was flagging.

“Twiiiiiiiiiilight…” Pinkie called to the door in a soft voice; at least, soft for Pinkie.

“What,” the flat response came from the bedraggled-looking unicorn who’s head appeared in the top half of the now-open door.

“Oh, nothing!” Pinkie said cheerfully, bouncing on a trampoline that, by all appearances, hadn’t been there a moment before.

“Pinkie,” Twilight sighed, “Can’t you, I dont know, Pinkie somewhere else? I’m kinda busy here, you know.”

“Well I coooould…” Pinkie said with forced thoughtfulness, tapping a hoof on her chin. “But where’s the fun in that?”

The pink mare beamed, flinging confetti and party favors at the nonplussed unicorn.

“Pinkie.” Twilight began, her mouth set in a thin line. “GO AWAY!”

“Oh. Okay,” Pinkie said, hopping cheerfully enough down the path, her mane only slightly less alive than before. In a quieter voice, she mumbled, “I only wanted somepony to be a friend back to me, for once…”

Pinkie blinked the tears out of her eyes, washing the memory with them. The burner was now directly in front of her.

Just...another…

Her vision was abruptly blocked by a tangle of olive-hued kelp, its thick stems weaving around her flailing limbs. She kicked at the wide, heavy leaves with her hooves, but the damage had already been done. Her lips, pursed tight for so long they were going numb, betrayed her, giving way to the urges that had been pulsing through her body for minutes. It seemed as though a dragon had breathed liquid fire straight down her throat into the depths of her chest, where it smoldered and reached out in thin tendrils to the rest of her body. Immediately, she began convulsing, water leaving her lungs only to be replaced by more of the same, each moment reducing her vision until it the world had shrunk into a single pinprick of light.

So...close…she thought as the dot faded into the background, a strange warmth enveloping her as her consciousness was dispatched by a final jolt of pain.

---

“Hey, Bon Bon, I’m home!” Lyra gleefully declared as she walked through the open entryway.

From where she stood, it would be easy to judge that the apartment she shared with Bon Bon was fairly unfortunate. It was true that the unadorned, white walls spoke to its utilitarianism, but they’d added things over time to imbue it with their own special flair. Sure, purchasing a hanging violet here or a Pintocasso print there didn’t do much to help make ends meet, but their careful placement went a long way towards making the spartan space feel a bit more like home. And each little thing they added was another token, a symbol of their growing union.

A union that, right now, connected Lyra to her partner by a steady, fixed glare from the other side of the room.

“You’re late.” Bon Bon regarded her friend with a flat stare, sprawling lazily across the length of their slightly-tattered burlap couch, her hoof dangling off the edge.

Lyra hopped from hoof to hoof, each squeaking as they slid across the pink linoleum floor.

“Guess what?” Lyra beamed, not to be dissuaded by any disaffected attitude her partner could throw at her.

“Uhhh…”

Lyra’s excitement could be contained no longer, and her jaw flew open to loose the bottled-up ambition she’d been storing in her mind.

“Princess Luna came to town and I walked with her and ohmigosh she made me her agent whatever that means and she wants me to talk to all the ponies and listen to the gossip and it’ll be so awesome when I get to tell them that I’m working for the princess and wow mrphrgl”

Lyra’s eyes shrunk down to pinpricks, her attention now drawn to the white foreleg that extending outwards from her mouth. She blinked a few times, lifting her eyes hesitantly until they found a pair of soft cerulean eyes awaiting them.

“Lyra,” she began, “Uh, I don't mean to be rude, but have you thought about this plan? At all?”

As she spoke, a single eyebrow lifted questioningly, though the corners of her mouth had turned upwards slightly as well. Lyra met her gaze with a pleading expression as she gazed back down at the hoof between her lips, but her partner didn't budge.

Bon Bon shook her head.

“Lyra, think. What does the princess want you to do?”

The hoof finally emerged from Lyra’s mouth with a loud pop, and she rolled her jaw to reset it.

“Well,” she began more slowly, giving Bon Bon an irritated look as she rubbed her chin with a hoof, “She wants me to collect...information for her. The kind that can be difficult to come across if you're, say, one of the most recognizable and powerful ponies in all of Equestria." She raised an eyebrow, but Bon Bon remained stone-faced. "You know, the talk of the town, the local gab, the barroom brags, the…”

Bon Bon's expression shrunk to a stern glare as she lifted up a foreleg threateningly. Lyra's eyes grew wide, snapping her mouth shut before she found it full of dirt and keratin once more.

“Yes. And these individuals that you’ll be speaking with I'm certain are amongst Equestria’s finest, most upstanding citizens,” she deadpanned.

“Yes...I mean, no...no, of course not! You know, room for all types and all that. And some of the most interesting characters hang around Berry’s joint too…” she trailed off, a frown settling upon her face. She rubbed her hoof against her chest, her face reddening slightly. “Oh. I guess...you mean...I can’t tell...anyone?”

Bon Bon snorted, smirking visibly. “Well, I wouldn’t. You...you’ll do what you do, of course.”

She gazed at the unicorn through half-lidded eyes. Even with the revelation that she couldn't shout her good fortune from the rooftops, Lyra wore her unflappable optimism on her withers proudly, and Bon Bon couldn’t help but let a chuckle slip from her lips. It was true that that pony wouldn’t be winning any poker tournaments, but she was just too adorable to resist.

“If you’re about done,” Bon Bon enticed, waggling her eyebrows suggestively at her sudden change of subject, “I can think of better things to do with that wide mouth of yours.”

“Tsch! You!” Lyra giggled, playfully shoving her marefriend, knocking her flat on the couch’s thin surface. Giving her a mischievous smile, Lyra pushed off the floor with her hooves in an ever-so-slightly ungraceful dive, landing atop Bon Bon in a mishmash of green and white limbs that splayed out in all directions, the abused furniture below them giving off a tired, disharmonious groan in reply.

---

A sharp hum filled Pinkie Pie's awareness as her vision snapped into focus once more.

It was white. White everywhere.

The world had, from Pinkie’s vantage point, been reduced to a luminescent plane, devoid of any perceptible features whatsoever. It was, apparently, just the whiteness and her.

She looked down. Nope, that was wrong, too.

There was no her. That's weird, she thought, I've never lost myself before.

Just the whiteness, then.

“Hello!” she called out longingly to the void, her voice echoing atop itself around her in infinite undulating layers of sound. As she observed, she could see peaks and valleys appearing in the ocean of nothingness, not dissimilar to the ocean that had swallowed her up right before...well...whatever this was.

“Losing her…time…” an airy, masculine voice eventually seemed to call back, the world seeming to shift around her in its wake.

This, she supposed, was The End. The end of everything. The kind of end that everypony is at least just a little bit scared of, even a silly pony like Pinkie.

In a selfish moment that she cursed herself nearly instantly for, she made a silent wish to herself that, somehow, her friends could be there with her. She tried to picture their faces, to form their uniquenesses amongst the emptiness of the universe she found herself in.

To just see everypony smile one last time.

Though she tried to focus on such happier thoughts, they only reminded her of how much things had changed, and how quickly. Soon, sad thoughts crept into her mind, ones that she’d been trying her hardest to keep out. Her darkest fears that had emerged in all of this.

What if she no longer deserved them?

What if they couldn’t forgive her?

What if she really was a bad pony?

“Need...fifth...bind her,” a female voice followed the last.

Pinkie closed her eyes (which didn’t make sense to her, as it didn’t seem like she had eyes here, but...Pinkie’d been through stranger things before), finding the darkness a soothing respite to the light.

Even if she’d done bad things, that didn’t really make her a bad pony, right? Even Princess Luna had told her so. And besides, she owed it to her friends, to all the ponies that had cared for her, to give herself a chance. She knew this was probably the end, but even if it was, she still had a choice.

It wasn’t much of a choice, but it was what she had.

Even if she couldn’t choose whether or not she was going to die here, she could at least choose, in her final moments, if she wanted it. And, the faces of her friends fresh in her mind’s eye, she knew there was only one choice.

“Start...now…” the first voice roared, seeming to shatter the world like a glass ball that contained her. She seemed to have been released from whatever suspension she’d been in, the peculiar feeling of tumbling through space overwhelming her senses.

During this time, the echoes of the unknown voices hadn’t faded, but had seemed to blur together into a loud buzz, akin to the heavy grind of a chainsaw. It seemed to herald something more, something that was approaching rapidly. Her heart pounded fearfully against her chest, every Pinkie Sense she had sounding the loudest alarm they could muster.

In short, this was bad.

She had to find something, though. If it had to end, she'd at least keep herself. Any memory would do, as long as it was a happy one.

There. Almost by instinct, Pinkie’s mind drew up an image containing a pair of bright cerise eyes held below a cyan muzzle that bore an upside-down smile, pressed firmly against her own. The sound rushed up against her now, like the swell of a cresting wave bearing down upon her. A warmth spread within her as the smile would have upon her face. She knew the force before her might shred her existence entirely, but with her memory, with the strength of her friends, she was ready to face it.

Yes. It would do.

---

The black, murky ooze just stared back at her. It fluttered slightly, though, almost unnaturally, and Twilight Sparkle squinted to get a better look. Two eyes looked back at her; sad, tired eyes, wrinkled sacs drooping beneath them. Beyond them, nothing but the dark abyss; when looked at from above, it seemed no different than the tar pits that could be found in the Badlands (not that she’d ever dared venture there, of course. Such places weren’t fit for ponies). But, when poured from the cup, it looked barely different from the water it was made from.

She blinked, an audible vibration in her ear distracting her to the degree that she almost fell out of her chair. She returned her attention to the mug, whose dark secrets seemed ever so far from her grasp. If nothing else, it would be worth a sip; she switched her manual grasp on the cup for a magical one, bringing the mug to her lips.

Hm. Cold. Shrugging, she tipped the cup back a second time, then drew it back slightly, suspended in front of her. Unfortunately, tasting the coffee had provided no assistance in convincing it to betray any secrets it may or may not have held, so she slumped back into the hard chair again with minor dismay.

That buzzing, though…

She swatted a hoof absent-mindedly by her right ear, presuming to strike away some manner of pest or another.

Instead, a purple dragon tumbled to the floor, his displeasure with the turn of events made clear instantly. And not too quietly, either, Twilight noted as she covered her ears with her hooves.

“Geeze, Twilight, what was that for?”

“Spike! Sorry, first, my coffee was trying to tell me something…then, there was a bug, and...oh….” she trailed off, noticing the stern glare he was giving her.

“Twilight!” he growled, snapping his claws in front of her eyes as a trickle of coffee ran down his face from the now-tipped cup. “Snap out of it!”

She shook her head, then gave Spike a small smile. “You’re right, Spike. I’m sorry. What’s going on, anyway? Are Rarity or Applejack here? It’s been a day or two…”

“Twilight”, Spike groaned, scrunching his face as he attempted to wipe the liquid from it. Twilight had a habit of becoming excessively focused on her tasks, but it was never good for anypony when she lost track of time (or coffee) like this. “It’s been over a week…”

“Really? Wow...oh, they aren’t disappointed with me, are they, Spike? I promised I’d fix this...and I will...but…”

Twilight trailed off, her body slumping downward.

“Ahhhh!” she shrieked, wincing as a sudden pain coursed through her right eye, whose lid now batted furiously to remove the unwanted intruder. Looking upward, she finally noticed the tilted mug that was barely suspended by a weak magical thread. Its contents dribbled over the green ceramic barrier, splashing on her muzzle as she watched. Her horn glowed with greater intensity as she brought the pool of black gold carefully back into her hooves. This time, she’d taken the extra effort to weave a heating spell into her levitation, so that by the time she held the mug once more, the warmth held by the liquid was sufficient to penetrate her frogs quite pleasantly. It wasn’t that she particularly liked using her hooves as an earth pony or pegasus would be forced to, but there she needed the comfort right now.

Comfort. Now there was a thing in short supply, Twilight considered despondently. Two weeks had slipped by, and she’d made no progress. No progress in cracking the secret of the Elements, no progress in locating Pinkie or Rainbow. Really, she wouldn’t blame her friends for giving up on her. After all, she was Twilight Sparkle! Having the answers is what she does!

The books around her seemed to menace her from their shelves, mocking her inability to find the answers they hid somewhere. It was true that she’d read through all of them at least twice, but she must have missed it, somewhere. After all, she’d proven that reaching out blindly wasn’t going to work.

She rubbed the base of her horn, wincing in response to the too-recent memory. The fur had only barely begun to grow back; the scorch marks were still visible if anypony knew to look for them. It’d seemed so promising...

“Rarity,” Spike interrupted her thoughts, “has been working day and night on that big order she got from Sapphire Shores, and Applejack’s been making preparations for the zap-apple harvest.”

“...buuut...you knew all that already. So, what’s this really about, Twilight?”

She frowned, a certain thought clouding her mind. “It’s nothing. Anyway, Spike, you wanted something?”

“Oh yeah!” his face brightened, “I’d been trying to get your attention for the last 10 minutes to let you know that you’d gotten got a message.”

“Princess Celestia!” Twilight said excitedly, a smile working its way across her face, “She must have news about Rainbow Dash!”

“Not quite…” Spike replied, gingerly gesturing towards the midnight blue seal that adorned the scroll in his hand.

“Oh,” Twilight said, her face falling again. “Right. Well, I guess I better get this over with…”

She reached out with a lackadaisical hoof, fetching the message from her assistant and bringing it up to her muzzle. Luna’s seal was simple; consistent with her livery and regalia, the freshly-dried wax contained only a shallow impression of an unadorned crescent moon. In the short time Twilight had known her, it had become clear that while certainly regal in her own way, Princess Celestia’s younger sister preferred a simpler, more straightforward approach to her rule.

Straightforward, Twilight groaned to herself, More like rude.

She shook her head. It was one thing when Luna was still freshly back to Equestria, thinking it was a-okay to make the townsponies submit to her royal highness. But now, to think she could make Ponyville her own private demesne – it was patently absurd. Come to think of it, Princess Celestia had to know by now, if Spike’s record of the passage of time was at all accurate. Why hadn’t she put a stop to it? Why hadn’t she found her friends?

Twilight glanced again at the scroll in her hooves. Submitting to expectations, she ran the sharp wall of her hoof through the seal, opening the parchment with a sharp tug.

The letter only contained one sentence.

Twilight rolled her eyes. Figures.

HRH Princess Twilight Sparkle,

We request an audience with you outside of the Everfree Castle at 2:00.

HRH Princess Luna

“SPIIIIIIIIIKE,” Twilight shouted, much to the chagrin of the dragon standing at her hooves, holding his hands over his ears. She grinned awkwardly, flattening her ears against her head. “Oops, sorry. What time is it?”

“Uh,” Spike replied, blinking a few times. “Before you shouted every clock in town into tomorrow, I think it was half-past one.”

Twilight chuckled lightly. “Thanks, Spike. I needed that. Now, grab a quill; I'm going to need a list...”

---

The raindrops spattered lightly as they splashed into the grimy pools around Lyra’s hooves. She shivered, her wet mane clinging to her neck as she looked upwards towards the darkening mass of clouds above her. In Ponyville, just a short walk ago, it had been another beautiful autumn breeze. But out here, in the Everfree, nature seemed to have a different plan. The forest was a spooky enough place on a normal day; enough so that the only ponies who generally dared to enter it were Twilight and her friends. Especially the shy yellow one…

Nopony’d seen her since the incident, though. Not that anypony saw much of her typically, anyway. But, since befriending Twilight, she’d seemed to have been making progress on improving her woefully underdeveloped social skills. She attended some (at least, one or two) social events. She got things she needed from the market, herself, without sending an animal friend to do it for her. She’d even, on occasion, sat down with a cup of tea and made conversation with ponies at Sugarcube Corner. Of course, since the disappearances, there had been whispers. Whispers that she’d disappeared too. Whispers that she’d fallen into depression, that she’d hurt herself, though nopony dared seem to check. There were even whispers that she and Rainbow Dash had some sort of a thing going on, but Lyra knew better. She had her own reasons to doubt that.

The sly grin creeping across her face was promptly wiped out by a particularly loud peal of thunder, however, as a spidery lightning bolt ripped through the sky. Her eyes wide, Lyra’s breaths came quick and shallow, panting as she looked side to side. After several minutes passed without spotting a single manticore or cockatrice, she felt reassured enough to allow her rump to settle in the freezing, slimy mud.

Hopefully, the princess would arrive soon.

Princesses, she corrected herself. It had taken some time for Ponyville to adapt to having a resident princess, though said adaptation had largely come in the form of ignoring that any change had happened at all. And Twilight just didn’t act like a princess. She read books, ate hayburgers, and hung out with her friends. Wings aside, she was pretty much the same as any other unicorn.

“GAHH!”

A sudden screech drew Lyra’s attention, although slightly startled, to a fading purple flash located just a score of hooves away or so. Twilight Sparkle, anger written across her face as the cold rainwater stung her still-raw wounds, flared her horn brightly. A pink bubble instantly appeared around the alicorn, who then turned towards the castle before them.

“Luna?” Twilight called out expectantly, “Are you…?”

She paused, a clacking sound behind her gaining her attention. She craned her neck around, jumping with surprise when she saw the sopping wet unicorn planted in the mud behind her. Cocking her head, she couldn’t help but lift an eyebrow as she inspected her unexpected companion, who looked quite ridiculous – and uncomfortable – soaked with mud and rainwater as she was.

“Lyra? What are you…?” Twilight blinked.

“Princess...Lun-na…” she chattered, unable to stop her shivering. She felt as though the rain had soaked through her skin all the way to the bone, and had frozen there.

Why would Luna bring her here? Twilight thought.

“Did Luna tell you...why…?”

Twilight didn’t have a chance to finish, because at that moment the sky split open again, but this time emerging from the shattered sky was, indeed, the princess of the night.

“Twilight!” Luna chided, “You must have lost your charity amongst the raindrops.”

She thrust a powerful hoof towards Lyra, her eyes drawn tightly to thin, dark slits.

“Um. Yeah. Sorry, Lyra…” she mumbled noncommittally to the unicorn, before whipping back around to face Luna. “But why did you summon her here, anyway? I am up to the task, you know.”

Luna shook her head silently, her horn’s abrupt luminance surprisingly intense. Without warning, Lyra was lifted in Luna’s magical grasp. The unicorn’s fur ruffled up as though tousled by a powerful gust, while a thick midnight-blue aura built itself around her. Luna gently laid the unicorn to rest aside herself, her eyelids rising solemnly as she faced her sister’s former student once again.

“Oh.” Twilight murmured, her voice small.

“Oh, indeed. Twilight, your behavior today was unbecoming of a princess. But enough of that for now; we shall discuss this with Celestia at a more appropriate time.”

Twilight squared her shoulders, glaring aggressively at the other princess. “I think what needs to discussed with Princess Celestia is when in Tartarus are you going to let Ponyville be its own town again? Night Guard stationed at every corner, hay, you've even got one right outside the library! I only teleported here because he spent 5 minutes interrogating me.”

Luna cleared her throat, unmoved by Twilight’s speech. “The investigation is still open, Twilight, and Town Hall is far from repaired. Important documents, most of them relating to the Equestrian Mail Service, are still missing, and we know not to what ends. Without a pony in custody, the pony responsible for terrorizing our citizens may well still be on the loose. We are well within our rights as a regent of Equestria to—”

“Ensure the safety of Equestrian residents through any means possible...blah, blah, blah.” Twilight interrupted, splashing forward in the mud. “I’ve heard it all before, Luna….but where does it end? I know you were gone for a while, but this just isn’t how things work! You have to let Ponyville go!”

“Celestia is fully aware of the current state of the investigation, and as far as we are aware, she has no quarrel with any actions we have taken. We suggest that you should not, either,” Luna said sharply, turning away from Twilight. “In any case, it is your good fortune that Lyra, here, is assisting us with our investigation. I feel she may have news to bear that may interest you.”

"...Lyra?" Twilight prodded gently after the only reply had, for several minutes, been the pattering of the raindrops against the wet soil.

“Oh!” Lyra startled, eyes refocusing as she finally processed the request. “Well, you see, Luna’s really the talk of the town right now. Nopony can stop talking about her! If you thought it was big news when you became an alicorn, Twilight, well, no offense, but this is waaaaay bigger!”

“Lyra,” Luna interrupted, perturbed. “Not that. The other news.”

“Ohhhh! Well, Cherry Berry said the other day that her cousin, Cherry Jubilee, sent her a letter telling her about some farmhand who’d just come in from Baltimare, who’d told a bunch of stories and she was wondering if they had anything to do with all the recent craziness here in Ponyville. Apparently, he was talking like you wouldn’t believe about some crazy pegasus who refused to follow the city flight laws, even after being warned a few times. You know, tall buildings and all that…”

“Rainbow!” Twilight gasped breathlessly, her mouth suddenly dry.

“Anyway,” Lyra continued, “after taking out a few local landmarks (statues of General Firefly and the like), the Guard finally arrested her.”

Twilight screeched, her horn lighting briefly, extinguishing only after a glance at the Princess revealed a stern face mouthing the word hold.

“Guess she’s been in lock-up for a few days now,” Lyra concluded with a smile, her face full of pride, completely oblivious to the impact each of her words was having on Twilight.

“I have to go! Now!” Twilight hissed, stomping her hoof into the mud, throwing the sticky sludge in all directions. She shook it from her face, giving Luna a hot glare before disappearing in a flash of magic.

Luna groaned, shaking her head slowly. “Thank you, Lyra, for your services. If you hear anything else of interest, please let us know. We...apologize for Princess Twilight’s demeanor today. It is something we shall have to work on.”

Luna clicked her jaw shut, cutting a trench through the sloppy loam of the forest floor with her hoof and growling to herself as she watched the rain pool inside it. Celestia had been quite ambitious with that filly; perhaps, too ambitious - she still had much to learn before she deserved the title of princess. But that would have to wait. Clenching her jaw, Luna’s horn lit aflame with magic, and both ponies were gone in an indigo flash.

Comments

[Winter Quill]

Hum... this story is taking an interesting turn...

[TheAccidentalBrony]

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Thanks for commenting.

And yes, the plot will just continue to thicken from here. Hopefully, you'll continue to find it interesting.