Chapter 61
“Ahh, you must be Princess Celestia?” Professor Dumbledore asks, opening the castle doors after the Princess’ industrious knocking.
Princess Celestia smiles, and nods. “Yes, I am. I heard one of my subjects was injured on these grounds?”
“Ah, yes,” Dumbledore answers smartly. “We’ve already punished the student responsible for knocking her off her broom; as for the instructor that messed up his spell… We’re still waiting for him to wake up.”
It’s at that moment that Rita’s eyes pick out something potentially important: Dumbledore is wearing one of those black things that a bunch of Celestia’s people seem to like wearing. That their liasion, Ginny Weasley, was wearing two of. Are those, perhaps, communications devices? If so, that would certainly explain how well-coordinated her people seem to be.
“Would you like to speak with her?” Dumbledore offers, without interruption. “I hear they’ve managed to wake Miss Heartstrings up.”
“That sounds like an excellent idea,” Celestia smiles. “Please, lead the way.”
Rita smiles to herself as Dumbledore acknowledges her presence, gesturing her in with Celestia and her guards. He seems a little surprised to see her, though not enough for him not to have expected someone there. Perhaps he was told to expect a journalist to come with the Princess, but wasn’t told who it would be?
Professor Dumbledore leads them through the familiar passageways of the castle- probably not familiar, Rita reminds herself, to the Princess and her guards- up to the Hospital Wing.
Here, she’s met by a surprise. The Hospital Wing is easily a dozen times the size it used to be, with more doors going off, giving it the appearance of a fully-fledged hospital. Dumbledore, and Princess Celestia, go straight to one of the occupied beds in the room- the one Madam Pomfrey is fussing over, with the assistance of what looks like a second-year student, while Bonbon, Sunset Shimmer, and Ginny Weasley watch calmly from the far side of the bed. She notices the other three students involved in the rescue the night before- Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, and Hermione Granger- seated calmly against the opposing wall. The girl sitting in the bed, with her white and light blue hair, seems to be taking the nurse’ examinations with a practiced grace.
Until, that is, young Miss Weasley rises to greet both Dumbledore and Princess Celestia. When she does so, including bowing to the Princess, Celestia does exactly the opposite of what Rita had expected: She walks calmly forwards and ruffles the girl’s hair. “Just couldn’t wait to start saving lives, could you?” she asks, with a chuckle.
Miss Weasley blushes as red as her hair and nods meekly, rising cautiously from her bow.
Fortunately for her, Celestia turns away, smiling instead at Heartstrings. “Good afternoon, Lyra. How are you feeling?”
The girl shrugs in response, a sharp contrast to what really anyone else she’s seen has done in the face of the Princess. “Eh, decent. I can still do wand magic without issue, even if he damaged my innate magic so badly I’ll be without it for months- and I must thank Madam Pomfrey for the Skele-Gro while I was out cold last night. We should probably get some of that for our hospitals- it should help quite a bit with those near-fatal cases of fractured ribs or whatnot, where it would be easier- and safer- to simply remove the offending bone and regrow it.”
The second-year student standing next to Madam Pomfrey blinks. “Huh, yeah. That’d improve the surgery success rate at the Ponyville General Hospital by almost a quarter of a percentage point all on its own.”
Rita looks at him.
He looks back at her. “When it’s already ninety-nine point six three percent, there isn’t much higher you can go.” He shrugs. “Probably get a larger increase at other hospitals. Ponyville General does have the highest in the nation.”
Lyra chuckles. “Yes, Doc. The second highest belongs to Canterlot General, at ninety-six and a half percent.” She then looks at Bonbon. “Come to think of it, I hear wizardkind has a special hospital of their own, with tons of long-term patients?”
Bonbon blinks. Sunset nods. “That is true; I heard just this morning that St. Mungo’s suffers a casualty rate of close to three percent… and that over thirty percent of their patients are long-term. Though, the ailments they deal with tend to be rather different from the ones our hospitals deal with, so I don’t know if that’d be a comparison of apples and oranges or not.”
“Definitely worth looking into,” Bonbon mutters. “In friendly manner, though. Perhaps we could negotiate some kind of medical exchange program- complicated by how their healers can’t cross the Gate- to get some of ours in to evaluate what we can do?”
Sunset tilts her head, then shrugs. “Certainly be within the law, but you’d have to negotiate that with Minister for Magic Fudge and his entire cabinet. Possibly even the Department of Magical Welfare and the Office of Foreign Relations, too. And even then.” She shudders, and looks at Rita. “There’s so many departments in your Ministry of Magic that it’s hard to figure out where to go. One of the main reasons we haven’t formally initiated contact with them just yet.”
Lyra chuckles. “Well, aside from our focus on our ongoing magic research with Hogwarts here. Though, I suppose, now that Math Head has joined us, that will be going very quickly indeed.” She chuckles. “Oh, and speaking of which, Celestia- I perfected the Papa Echo a couple days ago, with Math Head’s help, and I’m starting to think it was the making of the spell, rather than the spell itself, which resulted in my ascension.”
Celestia blinks, staring at her for a second, before bursting into laughter.
Rita blinks. “Uh… I don’t get it.”
Sunset turns to her, merriment in her eyes- though Rita is able to pick out the remnants of surprise in her expression. “Oh, it only means that Lockhart didn’t just nearly kill an Equestrian envoy, he nearly killed a member of the Equestrian royalty.”
Rita puts her hands to her mouth, eyes going wide. “Oh.” Then her face splits into a wide grin, and she starts giggling almost childishly at just how lucrative this scoop really is. They had promised, but she had no clue it was going to be this good.
“Yeah,” Lyra sighs. “The ascension, by Equestrian law, makes me Celestia’s equal.”
Celestia chuckles. “Indeed it does. I don’t suppose we’ll have to find something for you to preside over, hmm?”
Lyra shrugs. “At this point, I don’t see any way around it. Princess of… oh, I don’t know. Music?” She lets out a small snort.
Celestia shrugs. “We’ll have to consider that at a later date, I suppose. So, where’s this Lockhart?”
Lyra points at the neighboring bed. “He’s still out cold from the backlash. Before we wake him up, though, there is something you might want to do. The Vault, position Lima-Three-Zero-Niner-Seven. The unlock is a Uniform-Four-Seven-Bravo; activation Delta-Niner-Quebec-Five-Zulu.”
Celestia raises an eyebrow. “The Vault?” she asks, with an are-you-serious tone.
Lyra nods. “Yeah. It’s the Papa Echo.”
Celestia shakes her head, letting out a small huff. “Alright.” She then vanishes on the spot.
Bonbon looks at Lyra. “Uniform? You sure she can do that?”
Lyra nods. “Yep! You should meet Selene sometime. She’s very proud of her daughters, and what they’ve managed to do for the nation.”
Bonbon raises an eyebrow at her.
“... Right. Sorry.”
Celestia then appears out of thin air again, this time heralding a veritable wave of magical energy- and her hair is positively sparkling, waving in a way it didn’t quite do earlier. “Ahh…” she mutters, staring wide-eyed at nothing in particular, in Lyra’s direction.
“Yeah,” Lyra nods. “It really helps your magic flow better, doesn’t it?”
Celestia blinks, and nods. “Ahh. Yeah.” She shakes herself out, and the overwhelming magic tones down to a nearly nonexistent yet powerful- and commanding- undertone, telling of long experience. This must be how Princess Celestia maintains her rule- Rita could hardly imagine defying a command- or even a request- made with that in the background. “Then I suppose it’s time to speak to Lockhart, isn’t it?” She turns to the man, still unconscious on his bed.
“Roger,” Lyra responds instantly, drawing her wand- which she certainly didn’t have before- and pointing it at the man. A bolt of white lightning momentarily connects her wand to him, and he bolts awake with a gasp.
“Gaah!” Lockhart yelps, flying up into a sitting position, wide-eyed. He blinks, then looks around. “What…?”
Princess Celestia draws a newspaper from her pocket and tosses it onto his lap. She waits three seconds, long enough for him to read the headline- it’s this morning’s paper, Rita notices- before speaking. “Well?”
Lockhart instantly flounders under her glare, frantically looking between the Princess and the article as he attempts to assert his normal dominance… and fails dismally.
While he does that, stuttering like a maniac, Rita notices Bonbon stiffen in the corner of her eye, and go for her black thing. “Say again,” she demands. So, that must be a communications device.
“He’s faster than I expected,” Sunset sighs, leaning back. “This ought to be amusing.”
Lyra and Bonbon make eye contact.
Bonbon goes for her black thing and starts saying what sounds like random words out of the dictionary into it, while Lyra turns to face the three students seated along the opposite wall. “Index Eye, guide Silver to take Math Head to base.” She then barks what sounds like a few random words as well.
Miss Weasley blinks as Granger and Malfoy stand and start trotting over. “Wait. What about the normal procedures?”
“No time for that,” Lyra answers. “Fudge is here now.”
Weasley blinks, eyes going wide. “Oh.” She then rises in time to take Malfoy’s hand, before all three students vanish into thin air.
Dumbledore blinks. “Fudge?” he asks.
Lyra nods; Bonbon’s still barking random words. “He’s here to meet ‘the Equestrian liaison, Ginny Weasley’.”
Dumbledore looks over at Lockhart. “Ahh, this ought to be a good place for that.”
Bonbon glances up at him, and barks more random words into her black thing. Rita blinks- is she speaking in code? Granger, Malfoy, and Weasley had seemed to understand Lyra’s random words! She looks down at her notepad, and winces. With Fudge coming as well, this ought to make the story of her career- and she might need more pages.
Lyra speaks some more random words- no, codes- into the black thing attached to her robes… and moments later, someone appears out of thin air right next to Rita to offer her an empty notepad to match hers. “Just in case,” he states.
She makes sure to thank him as she accepts it.
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Lockhart gets to learn the meaning of FUBAR, SOoL, SNAFU, and other Effing Acronyms.
FUBAR- F***ed Up Beyond Recognition
SNAFU- Status Nominal: All F***ed Up
SOoL-????
EFFing- Everthings F***ing F***ed
Maybe I can take vacation every now and leave it to the new 'Royalties'.
Speaking of ascension, has Fluttershy been coronated yet?
9938899
sool shit out of luck
9939007
Damn, It is oblivious once you pointed it out...
9938940
That... is a very good question. She's had time to be, certainly. But the "Princess of Kindness"... makes about as much sense as the Princesses of Love and Friendship, so to hay with it, she's the Princess of Kindness.
And Celestia may be thinking something to that end, yes- but if she is, she certainly won't be voicing it here.
9938940
Trollestia's real plot revealed...Ascend Ponies so that she can one day take a vacation...
on another note...what would the trio's domains be?
9939105
Hermione = Lore
Harry = Power
Draco = still uncertain.
Going more by concepts than something narrow with how curve bally this story is.
I know that Lyra's obsession with Anthropology in general and human hands in particuler were given to her by said brony community... but didn't they make that canon after episode 100, and before she joined S.M.I.L.E.
I thought she had a master's in Mythological Anthropology from CSGU... damn I can't remember.
Anyhow, I say Lyra should be The Princess of Gates (or portals). She has already proven she can make and manipulate one such magical opening, who's to say she can't open more to other realms and dimensions... like the MLPEG world. It would also mean she wouldn't need to be given lands and ponies to rule over, something I don't see her wanting to do. It would also mean she would have to leave Ponyville for thats Twilight's domain.
No, Lyra likes to help Bonbon with her sweet shop and working for the Secret Monster Intelligence League of Equestria... and obsessing over humans.
Princess of overly complicated spell analysis and construction and overly complicated conversational devices and obfuscation.
Who is Rita?Lyra Princess of Calculus
Selene? Did you make her up? Is she Celestia and Luna's mom in the universe your story resides in?
9939434
most likely but Selene is the Greek goddess of the moon, take from that what you will
edit: dose that make the sun god Helios there daddy?
Okay, time to Fudge thing up...
9939434
Princess Selena Luna's old name
9939537
I thought as much but wasn't sure, now it makes me wonder about Helios...
9939708
Yeah, but int he chapter it said "daughters". For a second I did think it was Luna's codename, but then it said daughters.
Things are heating up.
Most excellent.
9940334
Oh, you ain’t seen nothing yet... *rubs hands together*
9939344
wait, i thought we were discussing Lyra? why are you suggesting domains for Hermione?
9961655
To be fair, it does describe what Lyra has been doing so far rather succinctly...
After several rereads, I think I finally figured out what this means. Here is my guess:
10037565
... Mostly correct, yes. Still one little clue you're missing, though... Yes, Lyra does say there's only two ponies with envelopes going to Hogwarts... but she doesn't stop there. There's also a clue to indicate where said second pony lives... No, unfortunately, it's not Luna.
There should be enough clues to deduce the identity of the second love envelope, but I'm not entirely certain- those clues are awfully vague, and rely on semiextensive knowledge of canon/fanon, to the point that I would miss them by a long shot if I didn't already know who it is. (And yeah, the first is Lyra.)
All the rest, though, you're completely accurate! And it's nice to know you like my story so much!