Last Thing She Ever Saw
It was a beautiful day in Ponyville. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and the bees were humming sweet melodies. There were pegasi lazing about on clouds, and earth ponies snoozing on park benches. The unicorns were nowhere to be found - a mystery unto itself. But let us not talk about that one insignificant detail. In fact, instead focus on this one mint green mare. The only unicorn out and about, it seemed. She wasn't really, though.
Lyra Heartstrings was staring intently at a small book lain on the grass in front of her. She held her head in her hooves, and her hind legs kicked back and forth in the air. A feather, levitated by a misty green haze, floated above the book. The book itself was old, and many pages were frayed. Its cover was stained leather, and had fading golden words printed onto it. Harper Notely, 1994, it read.
The mint unicorn looked out on the Equestrian Pass. It was a flowing river that had worn down the bank from centuries of running its course. Even when Celestia herself had been born, this river was reaching all corners of Equestria. Lyra liked to sit here, because it was a quiet and undisturbed place. She also loved this spot because Harper had come down to this spot every sundown to watch the sun set. It was beautiful, the way it cast its glorious rays in a multitude of colours before bidding the day goodnight. This place held so many memories.
The sun was nowhere near its resting bed now. Only clouds, white crispy clouds, marked its descent. A storm, somewhere far in a different country, spewed thunder and lightning on the opposite horizon. Lyra glanced up at these clouds, and smiled - it looked like a game of Ponese checkers in the sky. Another, far more complex thought crossed her mind - a battle between good and evil, light and dark, life and death. Strength against weakness, insecurity. Lyra was definitely feeling insecure at that moment.
Harper Notely, known back then as Harper Neverstray due to her tendency to focus on one thing at a time, had been her grandmother. She had died in the Ash War, when the famous fires erupted around Equestria. She had risked her life to save a colleague from a burning building, but she had never followed him out. Days later, she was found, her dead body crushed by the falling bricks.
Tears welled in the young mare's eyes. Her absentminded gaze drifted back to the old book. When she was first given this journal, she had skimmed through it, hoping to find something about the adventures Harper had a young filly or something, but it was blank. "She probably was given it one Hearth's Warming and never used it," her mother had said. "Why don't you use it? Fill in the pages with your own stories, and pass the lessons we learnt on so that no pony else makes the same mistakes of the past."
The feather quivered slightly. It was a dazzling white, bright as snow. Its top was an inky black, as if it had been dipped into the inkwell the wrong way. This, too, had belonged to Harper - it had been salvaged from the rubble. It always broke her heart whenever Lyra sat here, with both of these two possessions. With both memories to tear at her already severed ties to hope.
Biting her lip, she pressed quill to paper. It bled ink as dark as Luna's night, tattooing the pages with stories of distant realms, adventures never to be relived and lives that have to end. With these words she could take a journey into the very lands she wrote so indignantly about. Her flowing words were a stream of ideas, connected by emotions she out into every incomprehensible scribble.
Her graceful writing became faster and messier as she raced to recite all the events that had happened her in the past few days. The friends that had betrayed her, the family that had disowned her, the princesses who turned their noses up at something "so very unroyal". Tears dripped onto the pages as she cried her heart out into the pages of the past.
A flurry of emotions whistled through her head - fear, anger, confusion, hurt. She felt all of this, and more. She couldn't comprehend what her mind was telling her when her heart was screaming louder. She lifted her hooves to cover her ears, eager to block the sad, sad sound that rang in her soul. To no avail, however. The melodious wailing became her truths, her failures, her flaws. The sound became her very essence. She could not escape the memories that would haunt her forever.
Flustered thoughts entered her brain to be dismissed without a second glance. The things that had never seemed so obvious were now only lies. The hidden deceit revealed itself - all those hours of planning to turn in her. All that time of being shoved from one leader to another. Her heart had been broken countless times. She knew it could not bear much more-
-trickery. The interruption was a explosion of sorts. It came from the fine gardens of Canterlot Castle. Lyra was not concerned with these small affairs - why would she be, when everypony refused to listen? When she had been rejected countless times by those she trusted? Even BonBon had turned on her, in the end. There wasn't much left for her here now. Already her fate had been retold as legends by the ponies that witnessed her supposed slaughtering.
Lyra had had enough of being lied to, of being manipulated, of being made advantage of. In fact, she could go as far as to say she was furious. When had anypony been there for her? When had anypony listened to her cries of help? When was she ever noticed? When did she last laugh, a joyous sound that could be heard for miles around? She tried to, but her voice croaked from lack of use, and her attempted chuckles ended without an echo.
Returning back to her journal, she ran a hoof along its spine. It had been through so much, yet it still hadn't given up. The leather was cracking, but it wouldn't break any time soon. Lyra didn't know it then, but her journal would last for millenia to come, teaching the ponies of the future just how - there was no other word for it - bad life had been. The ponies of Equestria would benefit from her excellently chosen words.
She focussed on her journal, completely and fully, a trait she had earn from the passed Harper Notely. Her severe determination to write and write and write had never held her back before - it didn't now. Lyra attacked the pages of the book harder, faster, more harshly, but the only reply was a single bump in the page. She cursed under her breath, for a large, black ink splotch had pierced her thoughts and intruded her page.
Slowly releasing the pen, the mare sighed. This had happened only once before, a long time ago. She was just a filly. Sighing, and turning back to her destroyed work, Lyra let her terrible memories slip away, lost in the darkness that drowned hope - reality. Reality refused to let her hide away by this stream forever. She would be found, and when she was, imprisoned by the ones who had committed the crime she was to be jailed for.
A sudden gust of wind blew, tearing the trees from their roots and messing with their leaves. They fluttered down confusedly, swirling in intricate patterns that never she would she again, nor anypony else. The breeze blew her beloved feather into air channels far above. Lyra was on her feet immediately. "Come back," she whispered hoarsely.
It didn't listen.
The feather danced above Lyra's head as if it were teasing her. She growled and leapt, only to have it evade her attempts instead. It flew above the rushing rage of a river. She shook her head solemnly. The quill smiled cheekily - or perhaps it was the wind, or the black-clad stallion in the corner of her vision. Whatever the cause, it dropped into the currents below.
Lyra leapt in after it, not wanting to lose one of her most precious possessions. As soon as she hit the surging water though, her mind shattered. Goose pimples rose her coat on all of her legs, causing her to appear to have stockings. Her lungs gasped for air as she was dragged beneath the surface.
The water tore at her limbs as if daring her to give in. She ignored the pain, and the aching in her chest,angling her legs awkwardly and swishing them back and forth. It did her no good, and neither did the rocks she was passing. She collided painfully with every one, turning the waters around her a crimson red. The pain in her chest intensified.
The last thing she saw was the black stallion, covered head to die in dark cloth. She saw his hoof reach through the water to her. With invisible tears in her eyes she grabbed it, just as an impenetratable darkness entered her mind and blurred her vision. The last thing she ever heard was a panicked voice yell her name. And the last thought that ever crossed her brain brought a smile to her lips before she was swept away in a unrelenting tide of pain and death.
A fate sad enough to pluck your heartstrings.