Truthseeker

by RB_

Her Mother's Daughter 1 (Rewrite)

That’s odd, Lyra thought to herself. It had only been a few minutes since she had finally managed to drag herself out of her bed, and she was only one-third awake at the moment, but she was certain she didn’t recognize the little paper flower tucked behind her ear. She examined it in the vanity’s mirror.

It was a simple little thing. The petals folded out into a square-ish shape, with more poking out from the center. In fact, it appeared to be made from a single sheet of plain, if slightly thin, paper. Actually, Lyra had heard about this sort of thing; apparently it was some sort of foreign art or something, what was it called? It took a minute for her still-groggy mind to come up with the word.

Oh yeah. Origami.

Lyra yawned. Must have been Bonnie, she decided. Didn’t know she knew how to do this sort of thing. That’s pretty cool.

Now slightly more awake, she made her way downstairs in search of the coffee she would need to get up to 100%.

“Morning, Bon Bon!” Lyra said to her marefriend as she entered the kitchen, pulling a pot of coffee out of the fridge with her magic and placing it on the stove to heat up.

It took a few seconds for her to notice the lack of response to her greeting.

“Bonnie?” Still no response. Now that she thought about it, the house was oddly silent; normally it was filled with the sounds of passionate candy making or ponies making orders in the storefront. Today, it was quiet.

Mildly confused, Lyra began to search the house. “Bonnie? Are you here?”

There was no sign of her in the house, nor was there any response to her calls.

That’s odd; Bonnie never leaves the shop unattended during open hours. Maybe she needed to get something from the market?

Shrugging, she returned to the kitchen and retrieved her coffee, grabbing a scone from the cupboard as well.

-----

Lyra stepped out onto the street, her lyre in her saddlebags. It was a nice day, though it looked like the weatherponies had been slacking off; numerous clouds drifted through the sky haphazardly. Still, the air was pleasantly cool, and the sun was shining through in defiance of the cloud cover. Lyra began the short walk from the house to her favorite public rehearsal spot, a bench in a nearby park that sat beneath an oak tree. She had been practicing there for years.

“Hey, Lyra! Any luck?”

Lyra turned to find the source of the voice, Berry Punch, standing alongside Time Turner and Carrot Top. “Oh, hey guys! Luck with what?”

“With finding Pinkie Pie! We’ve been checking up and down this side of town all morning, but no luck. What about you?”

“Well, I haven’t seen her. Why are you looking for her?”

Berry blinked in confusion. “Because… Uh… Huh.” She looked over to Time Turner. “Why are we looking for Pinkie Pie?”

“I… Have no idea,” he replied. “We were supposed to bring her to Twilight’s castle though, right?”

“That’s right,” Carrot Top affirmed. “I don’t think it matters why.” The others nodded their agreement, almost looking relieved.

Something’s wrong. Lyra swallowed.

“Oookay then! Well, you guys keep looking over there, and I’ll… go search that way! I’m sure we’ll find her in no time.”

“You got it! Good luck!” Berry turned around, giving Lyra a full view of the side of her head— and the paper flower tucked behind her ear. Checking quickly, Lyra saw that the others also possessed similar origami figures.

“Hey wait, where did you get those?”

Berry looked over her shoulder. “Get what?”

“The… Nevermind.” Lyra made her escape, heading towards the middle of town.

OKAY! Something is VERY wrong. I’d better find Pinkie myself, and I bet I know exactly where to look!

It wasn’t long before Lyra found herself outside Sugarcube Corner. She made her way past the two stallions guarding the entrance without trouble, and made her way to the rear of the store and the back room that Pinkie usually used for Owl meetings. Making sure she was unobserved, she knocked on the door.

“Pinkie? Are you in there? It’s Lyra. I’m me, I swear.”

After a moment, the door opened a crack. Lyra took this as a sign to enter and did so, pulling the door shut behind her. She took a few steps into the room before she was suddenly forced to the ground by an unseen force. A faint tone rang in her ears, like the sound of a tuning fork but with more reverberations; the musical side of her brain placed it as C sharp.

“What do you want?” an unfamiliar high-pitched voice asked from behind her.

Lyra tried to look in the direction of the voice, but her head was being held still against the floor. “I was looking for Pinkie Pie. Who are you? What are you doing in here?”

“Why?” she asked, ignoring Lyra’s question.

“Because something weird is going on, and she’s the most likely pony to know why. Now, answer my questions!”

A more familiar high-pitched voice broke in. “Wait, Wait! I think she might be okay!”

“Pinkie, you are here! Do you know what’s happening? Bon Bon’s missing, and the ponies I ran into in town are acting weird, and there are these paper flowers—”

“See, she knows about the flowers! None of those zomponies outside noticed. Let her up, Bloo!”

“If you’re sure…” The tone abruptly ceased, and Lyra felt the force pressing down on her let up. Getting to her hooves, she dusted herself off before turning to face the two ponies. There was Pinkie, her eldritch form as bizarre as ever, and standing beside her…

“Oh! It’s you!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked the little blue unicorn filly with the white mane and the spiraling markings that traversed the length of her body.

“Ooh, introductions time!” Pinkie said, clapping her hooves together in excitement. “Bloo, this is Lyra Heartstrings, Truthseeker!” She gestured towards the filly. “Lyra, meet Winter Bell, Child of the Far Plane!”

Author's Note:

Winter Bell is the blue unicorn filly that appears about 20 seconds into Pinkie's Smile song. The MLP wiki lists her name as 'Bloo'. Here's a screenshot:
http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/e/ef/Bloo_ID_S2E18.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/150?cb=20120224191003&format=webp