A Million Miles from Home

by TooShyShy

Part 19: Found

Manehatten was busy late at night. Ponies coming down from the holiday high swarmed the streets. Euphoria was in the air, as was the scent of nutmeg. Big cities were often the last to take down the decorations and prepare for the months to follow.

Lyra liked the holiday-esque atmosphere. It made her forget where she had spent Hearth's Warming. In hindsight, everything felt distant and surreal. How much time and bits had she spent chasing the truth?

She passed the hotel she'd stayed at. She wondered who—if anypony—had her room. She hoped they were putting it to good use.

Eventually Lyra came to Five Stallion Apartments. The sight of it made her feel as if she'd started her journey over from the beginning. The last time she'd stood outside the place, she'd been preparing for a grand adventure. In a rare moment of naivety, Lyra had thought she was ready for adventure. But as it turned out, she wasn't ready for much of anything.

This time she actually waved at the bored-looking mare at the front desk. The mare didn't even lift her head, but Lyra smiled. She felt as if she'd been there years ago and her senses were being flooded with nostalgia.

Lyra took the stairs. The elevator was in perfect working order, but she needed time to assess her situation.

Why did she suddenly feel so empty? Had she been chasing the truth so long that a part of her needed it? Did a part of her really long to bypass her ending and continue on some unknown path?

But that had been her life even before she'd started on her journey. She'd been Lyra Heartstrings, fearless truthseeker. She'd written articles, she'd braved slander, she'd chased cover-ups. Maybe in some reality torn asunder long ago, things had been different. But all Lyra really had was the present.

Lyra paused on the stairs. She realized that if she continued, she'd be veering off the path forever. Everything behind her lay either in ruins or behind locked doors. She couldn't go back to any of it.

But if she stepped onto the path once more, Lyra would never have to face a conclusion. There were so many more things she could discover.

“No.”

She said it out loud, her tone firm. Without giving herself time to reconsider, Lyra galloped the rest of the way.

She found herself in front of the apartment she'd stayed in. The apartment bought for her by the mysterious pony she'd never seen face to face. Lyra hadn't thought much about the identity of this pony. But when she started to put things together, it all made a strange kind of sense.

She knocked, although she had a feeling she could have trotted right in. Lyra was certain she was expected by this point. She might have been a little late.

There was a somewhat long stretch of waiting. Lyra heard hoofsteps, followed by a pause. Presumably the pony on the other side was peering through the keyhole. Then Lyra heard a series of clicks. There seemed to be multiple locks on the other side of the door.

The door opened slowly. When the gap was wide enough, a head—a very familiar head—poked out. The mane was off in some respects—it was much shorter and less curly—and the eyes had a subtly haunted expression to them. The pony looked suspicious rather than happy, but Lyra would have recognized her in any crowd.

“Lyra?” said Bon-Bon.

Lyra nodded. She wanted to save the tears for later, but it was too late. She was already on the edge of sobs. Even though she'd been sure, there had always been that doubt squirming around at the back of her mind.

Bon-Bon opened the door wider. She was wearing a nightgown. Ironically, her attire clashed with the fact that she clearly hadn't slept soundly in a long time. There were bags under her eyes. But despite her rather haggard appearance, she was smiling.

Lyra threw herself at Bon-Bon, propelling them both into the apartment. She flung her front legs around Bon-Bon's neck, hugging her tightly as they both fell to the floor in a heap. She was weeping uncontrollably. Bon-Bon was saying something, but Lyra couldn't hear anything over the pounding of her own heart.

To her, Bon-Bon didn't look tired. She looked like a vision of paradise. Lyra wanted to bury herself in that paradise. She never wanted to let go.

Finally, Bon-Bon's words penetrated Lyra's thoughts.

“Get off,” she was saying. “You're suffocating me.”

Lyra reluctantly let go. She fell backward onto her back. She lay there as a happy sobbing mess, reaching up to wipe away her tears. Lyra could hardly believe this was real life. She would sooner believe she'd hit her head and fallen into a coma.

“Is this real?” Lyra said.

Bon-Bon gently nuzzled Lyra's side. Every sleepless night had vanished from her face. Bon-Bon now looked refreshed and alive, as if some purifying light lived underneath her fur.

“Is it?” she said teasingly.

Lyra put her hooves over her eyes. She wanted to sleep, but she also wanted to stay awake forever. Lyra felt that every moment from that point forward should be spent with Bon-Bon.

“Where were you?” she said. “Why did you never contact me?”

Bon-Bon helped Lyra to her hooves.

“If I could, I would have at least sent you a letter,” she said. “I would have written to you every single day.”

The misery of a hundred lost opportunities was evident in her voice. Even if her hooves had been metaphorically tied, Bon-Bon clearly felt as if she hadn't done enough. If she'd been able to contact Lyra, she would have said a lot more a lot sooner.

“You were in the middle of it,” said Bon-Bon. “It was supposed to be a simple cover-up, but then things started circling around you. You were finding things we'd tried to keep hidden. Nopony was sure what to do. If I'd revealed myself to you, if I'd disclosed everything to my bosses...”

She hung her head. She'd moved past the guilt of concealing information from her bosses, but she was still rather haunted by the lies she'd told for Lyra's sake.

Lyra was quizzical.

“But Fleur knew about you and me,” she said.

Bon-Bon smiled.

“She didn't know everything,” she said. “Nopony knew everything. But if I'd revealed my identity to you, they would have found out.”

She hung her head.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I just didn't know what they would do if they knew. I was scared and confused. I thought keeping away would keep you safe. I thought staying in the background and helping you from afar was the best I could do.”

She took Lyra's face in her hooves. Something about her touch sent pleasant tingles up and down Lyra's body. Bon-Bon was so gentle and reserved, as if they'd only been apart for days.

“The organization found me when I was looking for you,” she said. “I told myself it was Ponyville I wanted to find, but it was you all along.”

Perhaps in another set of circumstances, Lyra would have asked about the organization. Specifically, she would have inquired about its supposed lack of name. But she already knew enough about it to draw her own conclusions. Lyra didn't want to know anything else.

Bon-Bon kissed Lyra. The kiss was loving and tender, like a long overdue welcome after an absence. It drew Lyra deeper into paradise, deeper into that previously unattainable comfort. If it had gone on for more than a few seconds, Lyra would have drowned in it.

When Bon-Bon withdrew, Lyra saw that she'd started to cry a little. At the sight, Lyra was hit with a fresh wave of happy tears.

Lyra hadn't been looking for Ponyville. She had not been looking for the truth. She had been chasing something more immaterial than that, something that seemed to exist on the fringe of her life. It lived not in a city or in a house, but within her own body.

Her journey was finally over. Lyra Heartstrings was home.

Author's Note:

Yes, this is the end. And no, I probably won't be writing a sequel.

I purposefully left some questions unanswered because I wanted to leave it up to the reader's interpretation. While I was writing the story, it kind of became more about Lyra's mental journey and less about the big mystery itself. In particular, Lyra's mindset at the beginning of the story versus her mindset at the end.

Comments

[Patchwork Dreams]

Okay, so lemme see if I'm reading between the lines right... Spoilers obviously, even if a lot of it is conjecture.

• Various ponies, having learned of Nightmare Moon, begin looking into the magics of old. Dark magics. A lot of it is probably impossible to pull off, but not all of it. They end up summoning, being possessed by, or otherwise freeing, one of the worse beings Nightmare Moon ever created at the height of her power. An alicorn out of the deepest nightmares, her very form mixed with that of a spider. Let's call her Lolth, out of respect for the classics.
• Lolth is subtle, unlike most of the other big bads - and she is a big bad. Season Finale-tier, even. She can manipulate dreams, much like her creator. Unlike her creator however, she can "infect" ponies through songs shared via dreams, the very idea of the music running through their heads spreading something colloquially known as the Moon Sickness.
• It causes a pony to rot, from the inside out. First go the limbs, falling apart in bits and pieces, then the eyes, becoming bloodshot green before being lost entirely. Then, there's something about mold? Probably another infection vector - given the green colouration of the rot, perhaps it's caused by a parasitic mold/fungus, consuming its host until death and beyond.
• One day, early on, the Sun doesn't go down. One has to assume that this means Celestia either had more important business to attend to, or that Lolth took her out of the picture altogether.
• Then, ponies start having nightmares. Getting sick. One after another, town after town, they fall prey to the Sickness. (Note: to a tee, every named pony that's listed as succumbing is an Earth Pony, with the exception of Rainbow Dash. Noteworthy? Unsure.) All the while Twilight is trying to figure out what's wrong, find a cure. Months go by, her friends dying all around her.
• Spike falls sick too, but seems to last longer - possibly because he's a dragon? Also at some point, a music box is made, matching the songs Spike is hearing in his dreams - and more frequently, while he's awake.
• At some point, the sun goes back down. It does not rise again. Given that Lolth is spawned from Nightmare Moon, perhaps she has similar goals? Or has Luna has turned into Nightmare Moon once more? The loss of her sister does make this a possibility. Either way, Eternal Night rules.
• Twilight finds an old book, full of old unicorn Dark Magic, and in it is the Cracked Mirror Ritual. A spell that can "reshape" a timeline, even going so far as bringing back those that have died in it. It came at a great personal cost, however. It was meant for several unicorns, and even an alicorn princess would have trouble on her own. (Note: it also involved the music box somehow - perhaps representative of the danger that Lolth posed and/or what needed fixing)
• After much thought, she prepared to cast the spell, and save Equestria. She wrote a confession before she did so - she knew that what she was about to do would ruin lives, rewrite memories of those she cared about, and scatter everypony she knew and loevd to the four winds. It would also cost her her alicornhood.
• Afterwards, everything was back to normal - mostly. The unicorn took up a teaching position, and working together with the princesses and their secret police, hushed the entire thing up. Mostly. Memories can't always be suppressed, and there are those that wouldn't ignore them.

How'd I do?

[TooShyShy]

8616624
Wow. You summarized the whole thing a lot better than I did when I first planned out the ending. I actually like some of your interpretations better than what I originally intended. I was worried about leaving things too vague (it is an unfortunate flaw I often find in my own writing) but it seems I actually got the core points across while remaining subtle. Thank you very much for your comment

[Keywii_Cookies55]

This was an excellent story. One I loved from the gate, and although I took a break part way through, I never once disliked any of what I read. Thank you for writing it.

I very much enjoyed how you handled the 'Moon Sickness' (which I won't go into in case a cheeky future reader decides to skip ahead to the comments to see what's been said) I love alternate takes on Nightmare Moon, And just alternate reality stories in general. I had a similar idea when I once conceived my story the Broken Mirror in the form of the Nightmare Fuel. Though obviously I want in a very different direction - and never ended up finishing that story myself - but I still love how you handled what you wrote.

I'm kind of disappointed that Marble left, I think it would have been great for them to stay friends, but that's just my internal cartoon fan speaking, how you handled it was actually very good. I also would have liked if there was no end, and that Lyra continued on and went on more adventures and *blah, blah, blah* you know how it is. But like with Gravity Falls, I highly respect conclusions over continuations. You got in, you told a story, and you got out, telling everything you needed to. If you continued the story instead of ending it, you'd be doing yourself a disservice.

Well I should probably wrap this comment up. Thanks again, and have a nice day ^-^

[Blaster M]

Quite the read.

Lyra: "I want the truth."
Fleur: "You can't handle the truth!"

[Emperor]

8616624

Huh. I somehow completely skipped over the parts about the alicorn in Spike's drawing being a creation of Nightmare Moon, as well as the link with the music in the ponies' dreams. The only weird part is why Marble Pie is having dreams about the mould and hearing the music too (at least, I think she heard the music in her dreams. I may be remembering that incorrectly), when she never lived in Ponyville. I suppose the infection could have spread out that far, or she has some sort of psychic latency with Pinkie Pie, being that they are twins.

[ALittleUnwell]

Very nicely done. As unsatisfying as knowing the truth was by the end, it was still better than never knowing. Plus, it reunited Lyra with Bon-Bon. Well worth the effort.

[BellyCrook]

It was nice lecture but, as bad as I feel saying this, I am a bit disappointed. The description itself caught my eye, and the exciting sense of mystery kept me reading. But because you decided to focus on Lyra's mental side instead of going deeper into this mysterious erasion of cities, I have the feeling that a lot of potential for a story has been wasted.