Chapter 9
"There's nothing crazy going to happen. There certainly won't be a mad caterer getting the chefs to make extremely spicy food, for a start." Twilight looked at Lyra with a raised eyebrow.
"Somepony did that?" Firelance asked. When he noticed Lyra grinning, he face-hoofed. "Of course you'd do that."
"I asked Zecora for her spiciest recipes. Given the average Canterlot upper-class palate has trouble dealing with paprika, they were not ready for what we served. Princess Celestia wanted to promote me for that."
"Why didn't she?" Firelance asked.
Twilight cleared her throat to interrupt her two guards while Rarity pinned various pieces of cloth over their armor. "Because there's a requirement that to promote a pony in the E.U.P. Guard, they must be present to receive the promotion." Feeling proud of the mare she'd taught how to teleport, Twilight grinned. "The princess tried to find her for a week, if I remember correctly. When she finally found Lyra, she got halfway through pronouncing the promotion and Lyra vanished again."
"It's a lot harder to track down one unicorn than it is to keep track of a pursuing alicorn." With the biggest grin on her face, Lyra gave a firm nod.
"Please don't move your head, darling. This is hard enough to fit over all that metal already." Rarity was in the process of pinning the pattern fabric over Lyra's shoulders, which the armor did a great job of exaggerating.
"Sorry, Rarity. Thank you again for doing this." Lyra could stand still for any duration, it was just a problem when Twilight was feeding her such great lines. "You're going too, I hope?"
"I wouldn't miss it for all the gemstones in the Crystal Empire…"
Lyra could tell Rarity wanted to ask something. The way she'd trailed the end of empire off spoke of a favor she wanted to ask but had no way of delicately asking it. "But?"
Rarity sighed, though given the circumstances she didn't know if it was relief or anxiety. "You're in Canterlot regularly—and know royalty there—will he be present?"
"'He'?" Lyra asked.
"Blue Blood," Twilight said. "One of the first—"
"It was my first," Rarity said.
"Right. Rarity's first Grand Galloping Gala, she tried to make a move on him, but he—"
"Was an absolute, ignoramus of a brute. That stallion doesn't deserve to see me!" Rarity was so incised she stomped her hoof. "Will—he—be—there?"
Lyra wanted to face-hoof herself now. "I'm going to ask you some things, Rarity, and I want you to be absolutely truthful and try to spare a modicum of trust in me, okay?"
"That's the oddest thing anypony has asked me"—Rarity quickly did some comparisons in her head—"barring Pinkie, all month."
"And if you didn't exclude Pinkie?" Twilight asked.
"Then it's the oddest thing anypony has asked me in the last hour." The setup had very much been to Rarity's liking. "Oh, very well. I'll try to keep an open mind."
"Okay, imagine for a moment you were a very talented pony at looking vacuous, but had a sharp mind and were employed by Princess Celestia. Imagine you were working on an important job at a big party—and you met the most amazing pony. The kind of pony that only comes around once a lifetime. The kind of pony who you don't get a second chance to make a good impression on.
"Now imagine that your job that night requires you to act the foppish fool. Then you have to play that foppish fool for this special pony and shut them down at every juncture." It was as close as Lyra could come to saying that Blue was a spy.
"You can't be serious. Prince Blue Blood is a—" Rarity stopped. She had done a little research since that night and found that most considered him just as terrible as she had. "He's a self-obsessed, foppish, vacuous…" It had started to sink in. "Really?" she asked, starting to entertain the idea Lyra might be telling the truth. "But he—"
"He was on the clock. He's always on the clock. Please don't ask for more details on him, nor try to ask him about it. Just—Just cut Blue some slack, Rarity." Before she realized what she was doing, Lyra hung her head.
"Lift your head back up, dear. Oh, I understand what you're talking about now. Has he found somepony since then, or does he still pine for me?" Getting back to work, Rarity started to wonder how fabulous a dress she should wear to the gala. That was just a mental exercise, of course, she would always wear her most fabulous creation.
"He has. Not some thoughtless noble filly for him." Lyra leaned closer and whispered to Rarity, "Don't breathe a word of it, but he's fallen head over fetlocks for a cook."
Eyes widening, Rarity lifted a hoof to her mouth to bite it. "He didn't?"
"He did. You'll be invited next month, of course, when it is discovered that her family is actually a lost line of nobility that traces its heritage all the way back to an earth pony kingdom nopony but Celestia, Luna, and a quickly written and aged lineage book remembers."
Twilight cleared her throat. "Rarity, you can't breathe a word of this to anypony." As soon as she said it, Twilight could see the realization dawn on Rarity's face. "Lyra shouldn't have told you any of this, but I doubt Blue or Princess Celestia would mind."
A more delicious piece of gossip Rarity hadn't heard for years. She thought about how wonderful it would be to mention just a single sliver of it off-hand to somepony. Looking at Lyra, though, Rarity could see trust in the mare's eyes. "I don't forget that I owe you, Lyra, but this shan't be the time to collect. I won't spill a word of it—so long as you tell me one thing."
"Fire away," Lyra said.
"How did he feel after that gala?"
"Devastated." It was the honest truth and Lyra was sticking to it. "I'm not sure if you realize this, Rarity, but you're interesting. Unique. Talented beyond compare. Standing beside the bland and beige nobles Blue has to deal with, you would shine like the brightest star."
Rarity froze at the barrage of compliments. The frequency of them startled her but, with the strength of character to be able to believe them, she simply fluttered her eyelashes. "Darling… Really?"
Nodding, then stopping so as not to annoy Rarity, Lyra said, "Yes, really. I'm pretty sure he's spoken-for now, but I am sure he wouldn't mind a friend."
It was a weird situation for Firelance to be in. They were all so invested in maretalk that he felt left out. And left out of what, exactly, he wasn't sure. Here he was, a newly graduated stallion in the E.U.P. Guard, getting a dress uniform fitted along with a princess, one of the greater heroes the Guard had ever had, and a mare who had helped fight the biggest threats Equestria had ever seen. Who was he to be here?
Before Firelance could finish his thoughts, Rarity was fiddling with the cloth over him. Lyra and Twilight were talking about some deep magic mystery (stuff that went right over his head), but Rarity seemed focused on him so he had to ask, "What's it like being friends with a princess?"
Rarity snorted while pinning the pieces of fabric in place. "You could tell me. You're part of her guard after all."
"That's different."
"Really?" Rarity asked.
"Yeah. When everything is said and done, I can't tell her when she's doing something stupid." Firelance could, of course, though it would likely mean he wouldn't be her guard much longer.
Humming as she worked and thought, Rarity finally asked, "Can't or won't? And can you tilt your head left and right for me?"
"You're right. I wouldn't tell her she was doing something stupid. That's your job." He did as asked, moving his head and feeling some tightness on the right side. "It's a bit tight up here aroun—"
"Yes, I see it." Adjusting, Rarity mulled over the thought. "You could try becoming her friend as well as her guard. It would make things easier since you could see when she's doing something stupid and tell her about it."
Rolling his eyes, Firelance let out a little laugh. "Right. What could I find in common with Twilight? Just listen to her and Lyra talk." Together, he and Rarity both paused to listen.
"… just have to adjust the flux of the motion magic and you'll get a twenty-percent gain on magic-to-speed efficiency," Twilight said.
Lyra countered with, "But the flux is already within three percentage points of optimal. Any gains there will be insignificant. Why not adjust the jitter I'm seeing in the friendship field instead?"
"Because more efficient means more efficient. You can trim the jitter later. No, what you need to do is—"
Rarity closed her eyes for a moment and attempted to forget everything she'd just heard. She decided some ice cream would help, but that was for later. "I see your point, but I know one thing that you both have in common."
Waiting for him to jump to the same conclusion as her, Rarity felt a jolt of realization that he wasn't going to. "Your training." He still looked at her blankly. "I guess that's one she hasn't told you? Twilight, dear, is it such a big secret that you attended that Guardpony college in Canterlot?" she asked, voice raised.
"Not anymore," Lyra said with a grin.
"I never really had the right time to say it. Uh, so. I guess I should let you know, Firelance, I took the Guard training as a unicorn and as a pegasus." Twilight gestured first to her horn and then to her wings. "Sweetie Drops personally trained me in using earth pony magic, since she said I'd given the Guard trainers enough to worry about twice over."
"Yeah I—I guess it just didn't click that we'd both have an interest in protecting ponies like that." It took Firelance's brain four seconds and one smirking princess to realize what he'd just said. "I didn't mean it like that! I mean, you don't—I couldn't—I…"
Lyra walked over and patted Firelance on the withers to calm him down. "Would you like some sauce with that hoof? Just relax. Everypony sort of expects Twilight to be this bookish nerd all the time." She gestured to Twilight for effect. "But remember, she battled Tirek to a standstill when he had all the magic of everypony in Equestria. There was no rainbows then. She used all the tricks and methods the Guard could teach to exploit every situation he left open to her."
Twilight tried not to blush, but it was an impossible task. "Thanks to all this"—she gestured to her wings—"I was officially a commander for the Guard. I could ask ponies to put themselves into danger. I wanted to make sure if I did, or if I was putting myself into danger for them, I would know what I was doing."
Relieved he didn't have to try explaining himself again, Firelance asked, "S-So what rank does that make you? In the Guard, I mean."
"She's a princess. If she gives you an order, it's a step above mine." Lyra gave ground back to Rarity as she moved in to return to fitting Firelance's uniform.
"For now," Twilight said under her breath.
"So we guard Twilight?" Firelance asked, eyes scanning the crowd gathering in the royal ballroom. The evening was a little cooler than usual, Canterlot's altitude and winter combined to make his natural fur coat, the armor covering him, and his new dress uniform that covered his armor quite welcome. "Without tackling anypony who looks important?"
"Oh, you can tackle ponies who look important, you just want to make sure you have a good reason to. Saving their lives from that guacamole for example." Lyra nodded toward the spread of food on a nearby table. "Whoever made that deserves a promotion. Perhaps we should see if they'd be willing to transfer to another castle?"
"I'm standing right here, you know?" Twilight kept up her big smile as ponies walked in, greeted her, then walked off. "And no foalnapping any of Celestia's chefs."
"Yes," Celestia said. "No foalnapping my chefs."
"With all due respect, Princess Celestia, but you hold no authority over Princess Twilight's Guard." Lyra didn't have to smile, like Celestia and Twilight did, but it was a perk of her job that she could.
"If you wish to foalnap Bread Basket and myself, I would appreciate it." Blue Blood had to keep up a royal smile too, since he was here in official capacity. "I could use a little time off."
"You don't get time off, Nephew, you get royal privilege and nothing more."
"Two hundred bits," Lyra said.
"I'll have it for you by morning," Blue replied.
"Twilight," Celestia said, "surely you can't let your guards foalnap royalty?"
Holding back a giggle, Twilight nodded her head to another noble walking past her before replying, "I try to set good examples for them, Your Highness, but the truth is they're completely out of—"
"I'll pay you fifty bits tomorrow if you don't finish that sentence," Lyra said, stone faced.
Turning her head to look up at Celestia, Twilight let out a whimsical sigh. "Lovely party."
Blue lost the contest first, starting to giggle at the game playing out. "I can't help it. You three are just—I'll be in the bathroom powdering my nose." Turning on his heel, Blue marched off to the side hallway that led to the bathroom—and the kitchen. He didn't stop at the bathroom, instead marching past several of the palace wait-staff and through the door to the busy kitchen.
The entrance of Prince Blue Blood would have been remarked by the staff, except he immediately stepped aside and into the little table-alcove to be out of everypony's way. That he was also a common sight in the kitchen for the last year also helped.
Directing her staff to make little cucumber sandwiches, Bread Basket walked out of the busy part of the kitchen and over to Blue. Slipping up beside him, she nuzzled his cheek and kissed him. "I hope the party is going well?"
"It's going great, if you don't count Twilight, Celestia, and Lyra cracking jokes and trying to make each other laugh at the wrong moment." Blue shifted along the bench to make room beside him then, when Bread sat down, he leaned slightly against her.
"Awww, are they picking on you?"
"A little." When this didn't satisfy her, Blue revised his answer. "Yes."
"Well, you're a big colt now, you can stand up to those bullies." Keeping an eye on the kitchen, Bread relaxed against Blue. "I wish I could just drop everything and foalnap you."
"That's what I just—" Blue halted as the door beside him opened and another pony walked in who didn't actually belong in the kitchen. "Lyra?"
"You don't need to pay me the two hundred bits. If you want to get away from Canterlot for a bit, just say the word." Taking a seat opposite the pair, Lyra settled herself down. "Twilight and Celestia both okayed it."
"W-What?" Turning to look at Blue, Bread quickly glanced back at Lyra. "What do you mean by 'get away'?"
"Abscond. Depart. Make yourselves absent. You can come back whenever you wish, but there is a plan that will take a good month to sort out. You can thank me later for it. Grab your things tonight—both of you—because you're going on a holiday."
"You can't just order us to—" Bread stopped and turned to Blue. "She can't just order us to do that, can she?"
"I could and I would, but I'm not. Let me explain it in a way that Celestia would get annoyed at me for. It will take almost a month of careful work to forge an entire thousand-plus years of lineage for a royal line that was heretofore unknown until a particular princess known for her bookish traits finds it in an old disused library. It will denote the fall of a mighty house of royal unicorns, completely separate from the descendants of Princess Platinum, that culminate in a direct line of first-born foals to one remaining mare and her parents." Looking at Bread, Lyra had a huge grin on her face. "Then, once that's uncovered, the hunt will be on to find you, only to discover that you'd been meeting with Prince Blue Blood all this time, in secret, with him somehow sensing your royalty."
"That'd be lying," Bread Basket said. She looked back from Lyra at Blue, who was staring with his jaw hanging open. "They can't just make that up, can they?"
"'Make it up'?" Lyra shook her head. "I would never make something up. I definitely wouldn't make up something like this, Your Highness." She kept her voice low, and with the noise of the kitchen her words were hidden better still. "So, get whatever work you need done finished, pack your bags for a month holiday, and come back to the castle in Ponyville."
Bread slumped back in her chair, staring through Lyra and into the kitchen. "But what will I do?"
Finally coming out of his fugue state, Blue reached his foreleg around Bread's shoulders and pulled her against him. "Whatever you want to, but I can think of one thing this would let us do."
Lyra beamed and climbed out of her seat. "I'll leave you to tell her. I need to get back to the party and do the boring—"
One of the waitstaff blocked the door to stop others from leaving. "Nopony go out there! Some kind of monster got in!"
"Ah, they're playing my song. Don't let whatever's going on bother you. Go, pack!" Lyra walked up to the pony at the door. "Good work! I'll head out and get the princesses to safety!" Being confident and sounding like she knew what she was doing, Lyra knew, was absolutely the best way to get someone to do something she wanted. They opened the door for her and let her through.
Walking down the hall, Lyra reached the main ballroom and realized things were maybe getting out of hoof. She rushed her way to the stage, but was halted from getting further by a huge, white wing. "Princess?"
"Relax, Lyra. Discord's upset because Fluttershy didn't include him as her plus-one. I made sure Discord got a ticket anyway, hoping something like this would happen." Celestia couldn't shake the big smile on her face.
Looking around, Lyra saw Twilight (with Firelance beside and just behind her), talking to Fluttershy. "Isn't he going to ruin the party?"
It was definitely teaching time. "Lyra, what did I tell you about these parties after I had you serve extremely spicy food at one?"
"'There is no way to ruin a terrible party'?"
"Exactly." Inhaling deeply, Celestia let loose a satisfied sigh. "He's learning things how a pony does, with little mistakes that are easy to deal with. I would like it very much if Discord continued to make pony mistakes rather than lord of chaos mistakes."
It was the most Celestia thing Lyra had seen yet, and she could see the wisdom in it. Taking her own deep breath, she slotted herself beside Celestia and watched the minor chaos unfold. It was obvious, when looking from afar, that Discord really cared for Fluttershy, but what was equally obvious was that Smooze was getting bigger whenever it devoured anything remotely shiny. "Remind me not to take off this uniform."
"Oh? Shine-up your armor, did you?" Celestia asked.
"Yeah. Regretting that now." Watching Discord lock Smooze into a closet, Lyra spotted a glint of gold from within before the door closed. "This is only getting worse before it gets better."
"I know. I reinforced the protection around the room. Hopefully it can contain all the magic within the room." Giggling at Discord's jokes, Celestia watched things spiral to the inevitable explosion—albeit a controlled explosion.
The door gave way a moment before Discord's willpower could. A tsunami of Smooze rushed out and flooded the room. Lyra barely avoided getting her new uniform covered by jumping back onto the dais—but Celestia was not fast enough.
What caught Lyra's attention wasn't Discord, wasn't Smooze, and wasn't Twilight trying to avoid Smooze while giving Discord a talking-to. She spotted the pony stuck to the wall beside Fluttershy and felt her world shift.
It wasn't love, not at all, but Lyra felt a connection to the mare. Even upside down, her green coat and red-orange mane and tail (done in dreadlocks) inspired Lyra to just relax because everything was going to be fine. She radiated, Lyra realized, Harmony.
"I talked to her." Pulling himself up on the dais, Firelance had given up trying to get Smooze's smooze off himself, but at least on a higher level he wasn't getting any more. "She reminds me a lot of you."
"Huh?"
"You can't sense it? Destiny and Harmony twist around her, flow through her, and she smooths them both out for anypony around her." Lifting his hoof, Firelance stopped himself a moment before prodding Lyra with it. "Just like you. I've been practicing, like you said, opening up to new things."
"Lyra!"
Twilight's shout drew Lyra's attention. She looked over to see Twilight and four of her friends inundated with Smooze. "I really hope Rarity doesn't get angry with me for getting this outfit dirty. What do you need, princess?!"
"Just—Just get us out of this!" Shouting still, Twilight had finally had enough of the situation and demanded some normalcy. "Deal with Smoze while we take-on Discord!"
Snapping off her best salute, Lyra prepared a plan of action. "Scoots! I need your help. Firelance, you have been keeping up with your guitar practice, right?" The worried look she got from him told her all she needed. "Right, you're on percussion. Okay, time to flex some of this magic…"
Lyra hadn't been spending too much time working with her expanded magic capacity, and so this was her first time actually really pushing it. She located Scootaloo's didgeridoo, her own bass guitar, and set of clapsticks all in her house in Ponyville. "Hold on to your hooves, this should be—" Lyra summoned the items, a great rush of magic leaving her stored magic very slightly lower. "Huh. Okay, Firelance, give me a beat. Just tap these together and try to keep your notes even."
Scootaloo was almost up to her shoulders in smooze when she reached the top of the dais. "You want me to play my didge?"
"You got it. Firelance has the beat, I'll build melody, you weave." When Lyra got nods from both, she turned her guitar's built-in amp on and gave it a little jolt of her magic. "When you're ready."
Twilight had expected clever use of magic, friendship, and some kind of wild plan from Lyra to deal with all the problems. Instead she got clever use of magic, friendship, and a very wild plan from Lyra—and a song.
With the deep thrumming notes of a bass guitar and soaring voice of the didgeridoo dancing all over the regular beat of the clapsticks, Smooze felt peace once more descend upon him. Wiggling and slipping along the floor, he left a trail of shiny objects and freed ponies behind him as he got closer to the three ponies.
Every note Lyra produced trembled through Smooze. The three of them watched him vibrate and tremble in response to their music. Glancing over to Twilight, Lyra gave her friend, commander, and princess a wink.
The three kept their focus, kept playing, and made sure that Smooze was distracted from the telling-off that Fluttershy gave Discord, the sparkly rift that Discord had ripped through dimensions, and the general unease of the room around them.
Even when Discord relented and apologized, Smooze was just relaxed and calm. Of course, Discord removed the remainder of the gold from Smooze, reducing his size back to what passed for normal.
When the real band struck back up, Lyra let her bass slowly fade out and nodded to Scootaloo and Firelance to finish up. "That was perfect, thanks Scoots, Firelance."
"Lyra?"
Turning in the direction of the speaker, Lyra smiled when she saw Fluttershy and the mare she now knew was Tree Hugger. The sense of Harmony Lyra felt from Tree was almost off the chart. "Fluttershy, glad you made it. Who's your friend?"
"Oh!" Blushing without knowing why, Fluttershy used one of her leathery wings to gesture to Tree. "This is Tree Hugger. We met at a—We met recently and are—" She looked around, making sure Discord couldn't hear. "… special someponies."
"Trying to be, at least. That was a pretty mellow tune," Tree Hugger said, holding out her hoof to Lyra. "Totally cleaned my chakra after all this… clouding."
"This is Lyra, her daughter Scootaloo, and her… uh…" Fluttershy was a little lost for words when it came to Firelance.
"My special somepony," Scootaloo said, "Firelance."
Lyra threatened thermodynamics with how much she wanted to vibrate with pride. It was the first time she'd heard Scootaloo admit to Firelance being her special somepony, and she had to admit that it was an absolute joy to hear. "Right, Firelance." It took everything Lyra had to not say, my future son. "That was some pretty cool stuff you did with Smooze, Tree."
"Everyone is just moving through their own space, you know. Smooze was getting harshed and needed a little chill. Magic wasn't cutting it, and, like, he's made of a liquid. Liquids totally vibe with sound." It was a string of conclusions that all were perfectly justified to Tree's thinking.
Tree's attention, though, was being pulled toward Lyra. Lyra didn't just have clean-flowing chakra, she wasn't just in a vibe—she was the most in-tune with herself and the world around her of anypony Tree had ever met. It was weird, but at the same time totally amazing. "We should totally catch up sometime and, like, discuss the universe."
The grin that covered Lyra's face was irrepressible. "That'd be great. You're in Ponyville, right?"
"Totally."
"Well, want to meet up tomorrow for lunch? Sugarcube Corner sound good?"
Tree nodded. "I'll, like, totally be there."
"We should be going now. Thank you again, Lyra," Fluttershy said, walking up and hugging her friend.
Squeezing back, Lyra eventually let go and let Fluttershy and Tree wander back into the party. When Twilight walked over, looking dazed, Lyra asked, "What's up?"
"I tried to apologize to Princess Celestia for not being able to handle everything at the party. She said—She told me it was all exactly as she'd hoped and she wouldn't have changed a thing. Lyra, am I going insane?" Twilight slumped and sat down on the dais. "Oh, right, thanks for—for figuring out what I needed you to do. I guess I expected something else. It was weird to not understand what needed doing, just that something had to be done."
"Twilight, what are your thoughts on Tree Hugger?" Lyra asked.
The question caught Twilight off-guard. "Uh, I guess she's a nice pony, if a little eccentric. Why?"
"If you were born as an earth pony, and if you had a strong connection to Harmony and destiny, wouldn't you try all kinds of strange things to find ways to explain what you feel and work out ways to make things better?" Lyra asked.
Twilight paused before she said something stupid, and thought about it. "There are rumors that some unicorns in Equestria's past weren't unicorns at all—that they were earth ponies or pegasi that just found other ways to do magic."
"And I think we have one here. I don't plan to let her slip away."
"Uh, commander?" Firelance asked. "I don't think she's the kind of mare you could recruit."
"Into the Guard? For sure. I doubt she'd enjoy the running. But recruiting as a friend? Well, I know a pony who seems to think that anypony can become your friend with a little work." Lifting her foreleg, Lyra elbowed Twilight with it.
"What?" Twilight asked, amused. "You thought I'd tell you not to go and make new friends? You're the Friendship Guard, I expect you to—to rampage around making friends with everypony you can."
"Rampaging?" Lyra asked, trying to keep from giggling and failing completely.
"Yes." Standing up and spreading her wings up into the traditional alicorn display of authority. "I expect you not to leave any stone unturned in your duty of finding friends."
Stepping back, Lyra bowed deeply and brought her nose all the way to Twilight's hoof in her show of difference. "As Her Royal Highness commands, so shall I make it done!"
"Should I bow too?" Firelance asked, trying his very best to keep a straight face.
Celestia, having reassured the few guests who hadn't run screaming from the room, approached and took her place on the dais again. "I think she's bowing enough for both of you. Lyra, why did you ruin all the fun?"
"Orders are orders, Your Highness. My princess commanded me to act." Lyra stood back up as gracefully as she could. "And I am a loyal member of the Friendship Guard—I'd never leave a friend frustrated while Smooze is smoozing up in their smooze."
Clearing her throat so that she wouldn't accidentally break into a laugh, Celestia looked across at the other Guardpony present. "So, Corporal Firelance, what are your plans for next year's Grand Galloping Gala?"
"Wha? Me?" Like a deer in headlights, Firelance stared in utter panic at Celestia. "But I'm"—he turned his head to Twilight, eyes begging for help—"T-T-Twilight's Guardpony."
"Right. He is." Twilight moved to stand between Celestia and Firelance. "And he won't be forced to cater any galas until he is at least a sergeant."
"Then Lyra will have to—" Celestia cut herself off at the look on Twilight's face. "Oh, come on, Twilight. I need somepony to make these things exciting."
"Upper Crust," Lyra said. "Tell her you want it to be exciting and I'm sure she can manage something." When Celestia looked at her with surprise, Lyra gave her best and most authentic smile. "Or you could ask my mum."
"Or Tufts."
Everyone turned to look at the new voice to see Scootaloo standing on the other side of Celestia. She gave them all a nervous smile.
"He would just fill the ballroom with mangoes," Lyra said.
Grinning and ruffling her wings a little in anticipation, Celestia said, "Perfect!"
Tree Hugger had spent a glorious morning meditating, and had worked several hours at her normal gig while doing it. Helping ponies was something she loved doing, and helping ponies hone their art skills was an outstanding way for her to stack her karma.
As she walked through the town of Ponyville, she spent her karma in little ways by smoothing out Harmony to a more consistent coverage.
Tree knew her destination, but she was in no hurry to reach it, though she did eventually reach it. Slowing at the door, which was astounding given how slow she'd been navigating the town, she felt a great amount of positive force nearby. No, not just nearby—behind her. "That groovy aura could only be Flutt—"
Turning, Tree paused. She'd misjudged her target. It wasn't just a positive force—it was overwhelmingly positive in a dozen ways (many of which Tree didn't have names for, but still knew they were karmic positives).
"Hey," Lyra said, trying to contain her own excitement at what she'd seen Tree doing. "What you were just—? No, we should save discussions for over food. Good morning, Tree."
"For sure. It's a blast to see you again, Lyra." Leading the way, Tree inhaled deeply within the bakery and absorbed all the fruit, grain, and sugary smells—all things that were perfect for ponies to eat. "Like, good morning, Mrs. Cake. Can I have a…"
"Y-Yes?" Cup asked.
"Surprise me," Tree said.
Stepping up beside Tree, Lyra looked through the glass of the cabinet. "I'll take a caramel and cream eclair, and a large chocolate shake, thanks."
Nodding in acknowledgment, Cup could see that Lyra had made her bakery into an impromptu office yet again. She didn't mind—particularly not with the times Lyra had helped her—but she was still vexed as to what to provide Tree. Then she remembered the pie Pinkie had baked earlier. "I'll have your things over in a moment if you'll take a table?"
Pausing for a moment, Lyra shook her head. "You know, I think I might take this one to go. Would you like to see the castle, Tree?"
For a moment Tree was confused as to why she'd want to see a castle, then she remembered the castle. "It would be, like, so interesting to see the castle of friendship."
Collecting their cakes and drinks (Mrs. Cake had insisted that Tree have a shake as well), the pair walked to the castle with a companionable silence that should have taken two friends years to develop. Both could feel the connection each had to the world.
As Tree approached the castle, she was confused at first. It was like there was a tree overlaid on top of the huge castle. It was more than just crystal and timber—the castle felt alive. "Whoah."
"It's like that, yeah." Lyra reached a hoof out and touched the castle, only to feel a sense of excitement about it. "I—I've never felt it like this before. I think it's saying hello to you."
Raising an eyebrow, Tree turned straight-on to the castle and held out her hoof to it; touching the wall. "Like, hello there, gnarly tree-friendship dude. It's nice to meet you, too."
Lyra felt the shift in the very field of friendship magic that was wrapped around the castle, but there was also a second resonance—harmony magic. Inhaling deeply, Lyra felt a distant echo of the time she'd held up and protected friendship magic.
"Your wings are showing," Twilight said from the door.
Lyra looked back over her shoulder and let out a gasp. "I'm not even doing magic! Make them go away!"
"I can't and, even if I could, I wouldn't. Equestria itself has decided your course, Lyra. You've never wavered on a task before." Twilight looked at Tree and gave her a warm smile. "Here for the tour?"
Barely noticing Twilight, Tree's attention was on Lyra. It didn't take a lifelong devotee to harmony to get some idea of what she was seeing. "That is far out! Like, you're going to be an—" She stopped talking mostly because there was a hoof pressed to her snout. She looked at the mint-green hoof's owner with a raised eyebrow and a knowing grin.
"You'll have to forgive Lyra. She's suffering from a unique form of blindness where she can't see the obvious, and she's deathly allergic to the A word." Twilight opened the door wider and made room for the two to follow her inside.
Focusing as best she could, Lyra managed to fold the two golden wings to her back and followed Twilight and Tree inside. She listened to Twilight explaining how the castle came to be while Tree replied with a few "far out"s and "whoah"s. It wasn't a standard spiel, Lyra realized. Twilight was leaving things out—mostly explanations and observations.
When the reached the map room, Twilight ushered Lyra and Tree inside. "You might as well eat in here. There are no requests for missions right now, but we're expecting more."
"This is where Lyra did it, right? It's like the world has a chakra point right—right here." Tree walked around the map, hoof reached out over it but not touching. "Like, she bonded with magic that night."
Twilight tilted her head to look at Lyra. "You're absolutely correct. We are still studying the full changes, but it seems like when she bonded with friendship magic, then passed that bond back to me, it left her open to all kinds of magic. She's not sustaining any of them, but I've read three research papers that all report every type of magic as being more stable since that night."
"What?" Lyra stared at Twilight. It was true that she'd been a little behind on reading new papers, but three on the same topic meant that somepony was tampering with her weekly delivery. She looked at Twilight and narrowed her eyes.
"You said you didn't want to hear anything about magic wings for a month." Sticking her tongue out at Lyra, Twilight giggled. "The papers are in the library, filed in the index cards under M."
"That's why my chakra feel like they're constantly being, like, cleansed just being around you?" It might have been inflected like a question, but Tree put the facts together and they made sense. "Far out. Is it like this every day here?"
"Every day? Probably about once or twice a week at most." Lyra started unpacking their cakes, breaking her own one in half and offering a piece to Twilight. "Speaking of week, do you still have that summit in Canterlot next week?"
Twilight might have, once, been capable of turning down such an offer. She had once thought Celestia was a bit of a glutton for sweet things—until she'd experienced the metabolism of an alicorn first-hand. "I hardly think I'll need guards for—"
"Right. I've already asked Spike if he can take care of things for you. Firelance and myself will be doing refresher courses with the Guard." Sipping at her drink, Lyra let out a happy sigh. "If you need us, you know where to find us."
Tree felt the good vibes coming from the pair and basked in the harmony present. She looked into the bag she'd gotten from the bakery and found an apple pie slice inside it. Just inhaling the sweet scent from the treat told her so much about how carefully it had been baked, how happy the pony had been who'd done so, and that all the ingredients had been brought together with joy in a pony's heart. But, what Tree in particular got most from the smell, was how relieved the apple trees had been to see their apples loved. The metaphysics of it would have probably driven her two companions a little crazy, but Tree could just accept that this was part of her talent.
"Uh…" Lyra stumbled as she realized that she and Twilight were excluding Tree. "Sorry, Tree, shop talk. Oh, that reminds me, how were you doing that thing where you were walking around town and boosting the level of harmony?"
A little confused by the description, Tree figured out what Lyra meant by the action described. "Karma? Yeah. I try to maximize my karmic intake and then share it to ponies who haven't had such a good morning."
"That's not how that should work," Twilight said. "Magic doesn't—Okay, I'm not going to finish that because if Lyra said that's what happened, then that's what happened. I'd like to know how, though."
"That's, like, just how it makes sense to me. Can I borrow some paper and a pencil?" Tree asked.
Lyra and Twilight both summoned the items at the same time, only with Lyra's magic her golden wings flared a little brighter.
Tree smiled and accepted both. Touching paper wasn't easy for her, she could feel the trees that had been cut to make it, but even as she braced herself she realized the scrolls she'd been passed were made from bark and not wood. The trees, she could feel, were still alive. "Gnarly. Alright, so there is karma—what you call harmony. That tends to build when you do something to help somepony else better their talents. Three mornings a week I volunteer my time at the art school in town—it, like, gives me such a rush of karma that I can help make everypony in town have a good day.
"Then there's your chakra." Tree sat back on her rump and crossed her back legs before her. "The power of your chakra come from your heart—"
"Emotive," Lyra whispered.
"… your body—" Ready for the interruption, Tree focused on her body-chakra.
"Motion." Now Lyra was taking notes on her own scroll.
"Each primary chakra is split in two. Your heart has positive and negative emotions." Putting her mind to expressing those, Tree let each out into the world—spun around each other—to keep a firm balance.
"Light and dark." Twilight was spellbound at how effortlessly Tree was manipulating real magic. "What about—?"
"Your body, constantly changing and adapting, is—"
"Change and chaos." Twilight was actually flapping her wings a little in excitement. "Tree, can you—" She cleared her throat and bowed her head, then went to one knee. "Tree Hugger, would you allow me to be your student so as to learn your way of doing magic?"
Tree blinked in surprise. "I—Uh—" She took a slow, deep breath, counted to twenty five, then slowly let it out as her chakra and karma reached equilibrium again. "That'd be an experience… uh?"
"Please, just call me Twilight."
"Hoopy." Tree smiled and nodded. "But no bowing, it messes with your karma."
A week. Lyra hoped that Twilight would understand what Tree was teaching her within that time. Finishing off her half of the eclair, she hoped nothing could go wrong in just one week while Twilight was otherwise focused.
The moment she thought that, Lyra tried to backtrack. Panic gripped her as she realized how she'd just tempted fate. "I'll leave you both to it, then? Firelance is on duty, right?"
"Yeah, yeah. He's in the kitchen with Spike learning how to make dragon chocolate cake." Butterflies were going wild in Twilight's stomach as she realized that, despite being an alicorn princess, she could still find a pony to teach her a new way of doing magic.
Stats
Page generated in 0.019 seconds
Total duration
710 users online
1,036,429 hits today, 2,280,440 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Oh, I can only imagine how much *grief* Celestia is going to give Lyra when she finds out L has grown wings. She wont let Lyra live that down for a very long time. Heh.
Oh Gods. So much laughter. I haven't hurt my sides that badly in a while. Love your Treehugger. She doesn't get enough Fandom love.
Wasn't Firelance present for her guard training? Or was this a reference to some kind of advanced training that we didn't see?
11336375 Gah! Teach me not to check my own notes on that detail. Thanks!
Sweet chapter.
Treehugger would accept Linen sheets due to the flax stalks having reached the end of their growing life for carrying the linseed, and they have the chance of instead of falling back to the ground and continuing supporting local plant life, they go on to be worked into fabrics that keep ponies safe and warm for many years?
Not exactly sure what her towels are made of though. Always knows where her towel is.?
Dragon chocolate Cake? Is that wher you start with Death by Chocolate, then add a dozen confenctionary options, extra cream, and Chocolate?
11336330
I believe My Little Guard Princess would be Celestia's words as she mercilessly trolls on Lyra.
Ask a Question: So Tree Hugger, Did you enjoy the Gala and what did you think of meeting Lyra and Twilight?
Excellent depiction of Tree and her special skills.
On the contrary. With Twilight, you'll probably get a commendation.
Twilight following in her mentor's scheming hoofsteps. Some have greatness thrust upon them, and someone's got to do the thrusting.
Pretty sure there's historical evidence that some non-unicorn ponies have lived in Equestria before.
Interesting. Seems like Lyra may end up an alicorn of balance. Whether she likes it or not.
Tree Hugger is an incredibly together frood who knows where her towel is. Great use of her. Looking forward to seeing what insights she can provide.
Alicorn Lyra is in the horizon
11337017
Gah. That was my brain automagically steering away from using a similar word too near to another instance of itself. It should be "some unicorns in Equestria's past weren't unicorns at all"
And, yes, I believe Tree is always underused. She's a great character with so much potential. (I am pretty sure I say this about every character.)
Little secret about Earth magic, it will get you the best quality, ah, "medicinal herbs".
Also, we must address the postulate that if dark or chaos magic might affect one's state of mind, it's only reasonable to consider the effects of light or harmony magic.
And for a final note, I really do hope to see them find someone with a natural Talent for dark magic, and figure out how to destigmatize the discipline after Sombra's mess.
11337047
And plenty of Alicorn Lyra fanart to choose from.
This was a great chapter I liked Tree Hugger’s presence and how she does magic.
I noticed an error though
I don’t think Fluttershy is a bat at the Gala.
11343167 In a previous chapter, based as a fallout of the episode Bats!, Fluttershy got some mental care from Tufts and decided to embrace her batty side a little more. When she gets a little flustered or excited, her wings lose their feathers and become far more batty.
Aww. I got to the end of the quadrilogy again and made myself sad.
11368341 Soon™
See, unlike Twilight, Lyra has had time to grow into it. Betcha ponies will still not notice.
Curious that Tree transparently exercises her magic so fluidly. Wonder if there are others with similar ability that don't realize how special that is at the moment?
Hrm, so is Discord still pining after Fluttershy? That's going to make a fun triangle.