The little filly sat down in the chair on her family's front porch and breathed in the fresh spring air whistling through the Dubh Linn sky. She gazed out into the dark night sky, looking in frustration until she finally found the constellation forming the same instrument as the mark on her flank. "Mother! There it is! The constellation Lyra! That's what you named me after, right?" She asked excitedly. "Why, yes it is dear. Beautiful, just like you darling, since the day you born." The white-coated unicorn mare placed a plate with a slice of cake down in front of her daughter.

A dark green earth pony stallion casually strolled out the front door and sat down with his wife and daughter. "Your family may be from across the sea, but with Aine as my witness, you've cooked Eirish Stew better than any earth pony mare in me family has." He remarked. "Thank you dear. That means a lot coming from you." she giggled. Watching her parents talk, Lyra thought about her brother, and wondering if he'd talk like that with his marefriend when he returned from the fighting.

She went to bite into her slice of cake- A volley of rifle fire ripped through the front of the house. The pastry exploded in her face, and the next she knew, her mother had picked her up and was rushing to the back door with her. She briefly glanced back, and saw her father laying on the front porch, while several unicorns in black and tan uniforms leapt over him in pursuit of his wife and daughter.

Suddenly, the filly felt a jolt as her mother stopped where the back porch stairs met the grass in the backyard. She was met by the bayonets of several more black and tan clad soldiers, causing her to drop her daughter. "Alright lady, where are the bloody weapons?" one demanded. "We have none! You auxiliaries killed my husband! MURDERERS!" She screamed at the uniformed stallions. "You wench!" He slapped her with a front hoof. "Where are the fucking weapons?!" Tragically, pushed beyond the point of return, Lyra's mother returned in kind, at which point the other black-and-tan uniformed soldiers pulled out revolvers and shot the mare dead.

Lyra screamed as she saw her mother hit the grass with a sickening thud. "Mommy!" She cried. She looked up at the stallions standing around her. "Where are the weapons?" The leader asked impatiently. "No!" She levitated the largest rock she could find and smacked the leader right in the face. She ran as fast as she could around the side of the house. Several shots rang out, and she later noticed that a bullet had taken part of the fur from her tail. She continued running for several blocks before she thought she was safe. Suddenly, the leader from earlier appeared from around a corner, levitating a pistol with his magic. "You little sh-"

Another shot rang out, and the stallion fell to the cobblestone streets, blood pooling around his head. "A unicorn filly? Aine damnit! Cowards attack their own!" Lyra glanced over to a group of earth pony stallions in winter coats and ski masks. "Hey! I'm not British!" Lyra snapped. The next words stopped her dead in her tracks. "Lyra, is that you?" One of the green camouflage-clad soldiers pulled his mask up, causing the filly to recognize him instantly. "Barley? Is that you, brother?!" She leaped up to the stallion and embraced him a hug.

"What in Erin's name are you doing out in Tory territory? Given your cutie mark, the limeys wouldn't hesitate to kill a fellow unicorn." His voiced turned to a sterner tone, but his anger died almost immediately when he heard his sister weaping. "The Soldiers! They came to our house and they..." She paused, fighting back tears "and they shot mom and dad!" She began bawling uncontrollably. Barley took several moments to digest the new information.

One the way back to base, Barley began to panic. A war zone was no place for a filly like Lyra, but she had nowhere else to go. He thought about sending her to Cork, but they didn't have any family in Munster. He had to put these thoughts aside as the shack came into view. The two squad members left to guard the run-down shack were still standing by the doorway waiting for them. "Any movement by the Huns lately?" Barley asked. "No. You find anything?" The taller one replied. "Nothing until the end of the patrol, then I find some black and tan trying to shoot me fuckin' sister. She told me they already got our folks. I swear, if I find the rest of those bastards..." He drawled.

As they rested inside, another stallion introduced himself to Lyra. "How ya holding up, lass? Name's McCormick by the way." she simply groaned. "We've all lost someone in this war, someday it'll be over and we'll be able to get on with our lives." he tried to comfort her. "What are we going to do with her? This is no place for a filly of her age." The guard from earlier asked Barley. "I haven't the slightest. We haven't any relatives outside of Leinster, and Ulster isn't a better alternative." he concurred. "Send her to me grandfolks! They'd have some money to send her to Euqestria." McCormick said. "You mean Áine's Kingdom? You got to be joking!" Barley said skeptically. "I ain't fuckin' with ya. They put some money into a shop down in Cork and moved down to Munster." "Well, young lass, looks like you're on the next train to Munster, and then on the boat to Aire's Kingdom." Barely told his sister. "Okay." She yawned. As the soldiers laid down in their bunks, McCormick pulled out a guitar from under his own. "How's about a tune before we doze off, lads?" He asked. Receiving a generally positive response, he immediately began playing. "I was born on a Dublin street where the Royal drums did beat, And the loving English feet walked all over us; And every single night, when me Da would come home tight, He'd invite the neighbors outside with this chorus:

Oh, come out you Black and Tans;

Come out and fight me like a man;

Show your wife how you won medals down in Flanders;

Tell her how the I.R.A. made you run like hell away

From the green and lovely lanes in Killeshandra."

With the otherwise warlike ballad's peaceful melody ringing in her ears, the tiny filly drifted off to sleep. To the casual observer, this would appear odd, given that she was old enough to understand the violent overtones of the lyrics, but she had been surrounded by this violence her entire life. She had seen one of her playmates killed when they wandered into angry mob just before it was riddled by with rifle fire by regulars from Great Britail. Lyra had watched her school burn to the ground after being struck by artillery fire, watching as the classroom where she had played with her friends caved in on itself. This, just moments after she saw a teacher collapse from asphyxiation after carrying her just far enough for her to make it rest of the way to the rear exit of the burning building.

She was suddenly awoken by a pounding on the door of the shack. "Open up! Royal Army!" All the occupants of the shack immediately jumped out of their bunks, including an instantly alarmed. "Run, lass!" McCormick hissed from the bunk across the way. "Don't stop 'till ye get to me grandfolks place in Munster!" The door gave in with a smash, and the regulars burst in. Rifle fire tore both sides of the shack, and when the gun smoke dispersed, a figured loomed over the cowering filly, which turned out to the officer of the regulars. Lyra looked away from him, and glanced down in horror, as her last family member laid one the wooden floor, dead. "Barley?" She said in panic. "What are you doing in a place like this, young filly?" The British officer was clearly taken aback by the presence of a foal in what was clearly a rebel hideout.

"NO!" She screamed at the top of her lungs. She squeezed her way through a hole in the back of the house and began galloping across the field into the woods. The British Officer called after her, at which point she began weaving frantically through the forest, weaving over and under branches. Finally, she came to a mud road with sign pointing to Dubh Linn. She felt her torso over to make sure she hadn't been shot, and suddenly froze. She began to panic, having realized the saddlebag Barley gave her was gone. She wouldn't make it to Munster, let alone Equestria.

She kept following the road until the lights from Dubh Linn appeared in the distance, beckoning to her with their pulsating heat. When she got close enough to see the streets properly, she was horrified by what she saw. The buildings had been burned out, crumbling in every corner and intersection. She finally made her way down to the docks. They, too, had taken a pummeling in the brutal fighting days earlier, and were on the verge of falling into the sea. Without even double thinking, Lyra bolted onto the nearest freighter and leapt into the cargo hold, landing on a stack of crates. The stack almost immediately gave way with a crash, but she found another crate to hide behind before the nearest crew member could investigate.

After the sailor had gone, she realized found herself in a small indent in the wall of the compartment, with a small heating pipe. She curled up under the pipe, with the crate blocking any light from disturbing her rest. She awoke to a fierce growling and looked down, realizing that she hadn't eaten anything since she was at the hideout with Barley. Fortunately, one of the sailors had taken an apple with him as he was patrolling the upper deck, which he carelessly dropped into the hold. It rolled right into the crate, and as soon as the sailor turned away in frustration, she levitated it in through the gap between the crate and the outer wall.

The apple kept her for four days on the fruit, and she lasted another three chewing on the core itself, after that, even the core was no more. She resorted to licking the codensation off the hot water pipe to keep hydrated and chewing on the crate to give her body the illusion of eating in order to survive, not wanting to leave the safety of the indent in the wall, except to use the bathroom in another corner of the hold. On the eighth day, she woke up, not in her hiding spot, but in what appeared to be an officer's bed. Groaning in pain, she glanced to the left and saw an old earth pony mare sitting next to her in a rocking chair, and a middle-aged earth pony stallion standing next to the old mare with a hand on her chair.

"Oh, thank heavens your awake, deary! You look like you haven't eaten in days!" The mare said, pushing a bowl to the filly's side of the nightstand. Lyra groaned in pain again, as she sat up and tried to reach the bowl. "Oh, poor dear! Don't hurt yourself! Here." She began feeding the filly herself. After Lyra had been fed, the mare turned and asked the Captain "How did she come to this condition?" She asked. "I don't know, Sister. One of the boys found her hiding behind a crate. She was skinny as a railing. The boy said he thought she was dead." "Dear child, what were you doing hiding in this ship?" She inquired. Lyra explained the disasters that had befallen her in the past few days.

The Nun, who's name was Sister Green, helped her off the boat as soon as they docked in Baltimare. Sister Green nursed Lyra back to health at the Nunnery, and, a while later, took her to a orphanage in the the Equestrian capital, Canterlot. She showed an incredible knowledge at a young age, spending a great deal of time in library, (thought not as much as her new friend from the wealthier part of town, Twilight Sparkle) and was particularly interested in a mythological creature known the "Human".

XXXXXXXX

Shortly after the parasprite invasion that damaged almost all of the buildings in town, Lyra left a floral shop in Baltimare, carrying a bundle that she held closely to her torso. The first time she had seen the parasprites, when they made that slice of cake disappear almost instantly, had immediately reminded her of that exact moment her life had fallen apart. That exact moment she had lost those she cared about most. That exact moment she had lost everything. To the casual observer, she was merely acting childish by crying over a stolen slice of cake. That was the most humiliating part. They would assume that to be the reason, and she couldn't be mad at them, because they had no way of the horrible truth. In her entire life in Equestria, only Sister Green, The merchant marine captain, and her housemate Bon-Bon knew of her life before the orphanage.

She walked down the sandy, clear beach to the ocean shore. She unwrapped the bundle, revealing it to be a trio of Easter Lilies. She gently put them down into the water. As the water gently carried the Lilies out to sea, she reminisced on all the wonderful memories of home. "Hey, Lyra, I don't mean to bother you, but I noticed you seemed upset when the parasprites took ate your cake. Since I cast that spell to try and stop them, I'd figure I'd pay you back. Making a piece of cake from thin air is all I could do after running myself ragged using my magic rebuild all the buildings in Ponyville."

Lyra sighed. "Listen, Twilight, it isn't that simple. I've known you my entire life in Equestria, but I was lying to you the entire time. I do remember where I came from, and who my family was." Twilight then settled in and listened to the tale you have all just heard. She was deathly silent by the end. "Wow, I can't believe you survived all that without going berserk!" Twilight finally said. A tear dripped down Lyra's face, and Twilight immediately wrapped her forelegs around her. A minute or two later, Lyra and Twilight parted. "If you ever need to talk, you know where to find me." She said. "Thanks, Twilight. It means a lot." With that, the green mint and purple unicorns parted ways.

The End