The gargantuan doors leading out to the main hall creaked open with a strong push of magic, allowing Lyra to take her leave from the dark chamber and break free from Luna's intimidating vibe. The unicorn’s head hung heavy with deep thought, with no help from her physical exhaustion; subduing a tsunami was one thing, but speaking with the headmare of personal matters was another entirely. All Lyra was looking forward to after both such things happening in the same day was a long, undisturbed rest.

But her preparedness was immediately delayed the second she lifted her eyes.

Standing in a huddle before her was a blockade seven ponies wide. Fourteen curious stares shone white against the otherwise shadowy foyer. Anticipation filled the very hues of their eyes as accompanying smiles - however uneasy or over-confident - sparkled like the stars in the sky.

“Well?” Quirky Q dared to speak up first.

The others leaned in, pressing for the answer, but Lyra merely let out a long sigh. The seven standing before her only leaned in closer as alarm shot their eyes wide enough to span the distance between their retreating ears.

“Well, what?” Lyra replied weakly.

“You know, how’d it go?” Vinyl clarified, or at least tried.

The large doors to Princess Luna's boudoir suddenly slammed shut, sending a jiggle through the bodies of those standing before it. Lyra's head turned with a jerk, only to roll back so her eyes pointed skyward. She raised a hoof to her forehead, sat herself on the smoky marble tiling and moaned.

“How do you think it went?” Lyra answered with a whine.

The others suddenly exchanged concerned glances. Some would have whispered had not the foyer fallen completely silent from their shock.

“I guess we thought it was going to go well,” Twilight stated, looking to each of the others for confirmation. “What happened that it didn't?”

Lyra, whose eyes were closed and teeth bare as though in intolerable agony, sprung onto all fours and stated abruptly, “Just who said it didn't go well?”

All eyes fell on the mint-colored mare as she assumed a defensive stance, back to the doors and eyes avoiding those of the others. Another silence ensued, though swarmed with far more confusion than the last. The seven would have shared their concerned looks with one another, but their speechlessness and muddled body language left the lot unable to collect themselves not just individually, but also as a whole.

After a bit of a pause Pokey Pierce broke the silence with his slow, low voice. “You were just moaning like something went really bad, Lyra.”

“Oh please, I moan about everything,” Lyra stated matter-of-factly. “I'm just tired, that's all.”

Twilight flipped her head back and forth as though it were a bobble-head sorts, stealing glimpses left and right of others’ eyebrows raised and mouths agape like barn doors swung wide open.

“You mean... everything went just fine?” the bookworm inquired.

Lyra groaned, this time with obvious irritation. “Yes, YES! Everything's perfect! Never better. You all are acting as though you've seen a ghost.”

“Or a clone,” Starlight mumbled. “A very, confused, mood-swingi-”

Vinyl, butting in before Starlight could continue and Lyra could further inquire, stepped forward, “So-ho-hooo, you switched classes and all, huh? Looks like you'll be joining Team Awesome in the elemental track.”

Lyra took her turn in displaying a genuine expression of curiosity. “Team... Awesome?”

“Yeah, Windy and 'Equestria's Next Top Guard' are in the ranks too,” Vinyl stated with pride. Windchaser smirked and added a nod of approval, while the third member, Gallant, had not yet returned from his break. “Trust me, you'll like studyin’ the elements. I personally think it's boring at times, but Doctor Marie's not all that bad.”

“I sure hope she's not ‘all that bad',” Lyra remarked. “I'll be working with her on this ancient spell I may have rediscovered. Princess Luna thinks I should return to Canterlot and work with her and Professor Marie when our time here is through.”

“Shnazzy,” Vinyl said with a smirk. The others ooh'd and ahh'd appropriately. “So what all happened, anyway? I know most of us were chillin' in the dorm lounge when we saw some huge wave at sea.”

“Too scared to come out and see what was happening, hmm?” Lyra teased.

“As if!” Vinyl laughed. “Professor Yorsets from the lame light magic track came and told us to stay put. I can see why you'd want to leave his class, 'Strummer Girl'; he's grade-A boring-”

“Wait a second, guys,” Pokey Pierce suddenly interposed, pausing shortly after as he stared into space. “There was a huge wave at sea!?”

Lyra giggled as the others collected themselves from the brief rewind. “It really was something else. From where I stood it looked taller than the cliffs down at the beach! Why, if it hadn't been broken, it very well might have flooded the grounds!” The others gasped. “Luckily, I learned a spell that dispelled... well, whatever it was.”

“How did you learn that?” Twilight asked. “I've seen some pretty powerful magic spells myself, but stopping a natural disaster like that must have taken some serious studying and practice. When did you learn it? Did you read about it in a spell-book?”

“No, no reading required,” Lyra answered. “It just... came to me, this evening. I don't even know how to explain it all myself. That wave seemed hardly natural, if you ask me. Speaking of unnatural, there was this voice inside my head, as though something were right beside me teaching the song the entire time.”

She thought back to the mysterious voice that echoed through her head; its clarity was so astonishing that she could still hear it perfectly then.

Lyra continued, “Exactly what it was, even I'm not sure. There are a couple of ideas split between Doctor Marie, the headmare and myself at the moment. All that really matters, however, is that the mysterious spell worked, and that we're all safe as a result.”

“Safe from what, though?” Windchaser asked.

Silence. Lyra caught herself thinking back to what she had been told by the mysterious voice.

“The words that you have heard; sing them, and they shall save you from the cause of this disaster.”

“I-It didn't say what all was happening,” Lyra replied, unnerved.

The group collectively asked, “It?”

Lyra sighed and shook her head softly. “The voice, the voice! How many times do I have to say it!?” The others leaned away suddenly, though they still stared at Lyra with their most intent gazes. Lyra, seeing this, calmed herself at once. “You really must excuse me, I'm just very tired from a long day; well, more like a long week. My break wasn't a great stress-reliever at all.”

“We heard,” Quirky remarked, looking to Twilight and Starlight.

Lyra let her eyes focus on the targets as well, but with less delight and more hints at murderous action in her eyes.

“You did, did you?” Lyra asked, slowly. “Look at which ponies have turned into quite the gossipers. Well, it's no skin off my muzzle, it's a thing of the past I have mostly come to terms with. Mostly.” She closed her eyes and swung her head around and exhaled her tiredness once again. “For now, let us be on our way back to the dormitory. I'm in dire need of some beauty sleep.”

“Right, beauty sleep,” Vinyl said with a snicker.

Lyra, before setting a hoof on the stairwell, turned and stared with red-hot irises. “That better not have been sarcasm I sensed in your tone.”

Vinyl rolled her head around and scrunched her lips into a childish smile. “What ever do you mean, Lyra?”

“Oh, that is it!” Lyra said before suddenly taking off down the stairs at a doubled pace. “I'm leaving before my instincts make me buck you in the mouth!”

The others laughed as Lyra took off, who in the end was giggling about the matter herself. By the time she reached the bottom the others had quite a ways to go down the central staircase; all but one, that is.

“Lyra! A word, if you please,” called Quirky Q, who had trotted down the stairs right on the huffy mare's tail.

Lyra continued her walk but turned her head enough to spot the fast-walking, light lavender mare. Her pink eyes grew larger, despite their naturally curved edges, with every step she took.

“Yes, what is it, Quirky?” Lyra asked, feigning offense.

“First of all, I know you're not really upset,” Quirky Q remarked smartly. “However, I do know that something was in fact wrong when you walked out from the headmare's meeting room.”

Lyra's paced slowed down, but only enough to allow Quirky to completely catch up at her semi-hurried pace.

“What makes you think that?” Lyra asked.

“Lyra, my friend, I am an actress. I can spot when somepony tries to hide something in a heartbeat,” Quirky declared.

Her eyes lit up into a hot pink as the two set hoof in the glass corridor, revealing the bright moon glistering overhead. Her silvery hair glowed as the curls bounced with every skip.

“Would you care to discuss what it is that has you troubled?”

Lyra smirked. “There is something on my mind, but it's nothing that I think you would understand.”

“Try me.”

Lyra, truly desiring to not have to explain herself, showed a slight pout. “Oh, well, fine.” Her eyes darted quickly in every direction before the mare lowered her head. “As of lately, Princess Luna has been acting strangely; at least, that's what Twilight and I think.”

“Sounds serious,” Quirky said, suddenly assuming a very earnest and quiet tone as she walked closer beside Lyra.

“Oh it is,” Lyra confirmed as her amber eyes flashed open. “I tried to be subtle and ask exactly what was happening in the princess's life recently, but she avoided my tactics quite well.”

“What were your tactics, exactly?”

“Well, I, that is to say... I asked her directly, of course.”

Quirky squinted. “That's... not subtle in the slightest.”

“Hidden in a larger conversation it is!” Lyra barked, though in an undertone, for the rest of the group began to catch up. “In any case, Princess Luna said nothing of the strange happenings recently. She's been very secretive, almost to an alarming degree. She’s also disappeared at strange times. After all, where was she when that wave struck? Shouldn't she have been the one to stop it?”

“She has been rather out of character recently,” Quirky noted. “I even think I've heard her return to her old speech pattern with particular vocabulary and the way she addresses certain ponies.”

“You've noticed that too?”

“But of course,” Quirky said as the overhead light soon disappeared and the two were in the dim foyer of the dormitory. “The question now is ‘what do we do’?”

“What do we do?”

“That's what I said.”

Lyra cocked her head. “I don't suppose we could find somepony over the course of the next week or two to keep an eye on her, would you?”

Quirky's eyes flashed. “Twilight Sparkle.”

“No, no!” Lyra objected the second it came out of her friend's mouth. “Twilight is pretty unsettled by all of this. She may be more suspicious than I am, and thus not in her right mind as much.”

“But Twilight was the one who helped Luna readjust to regular pony life a few months ago,” Quirky stated. “Although, now that you say that, I have noticed her acting somewhat strange as of recently. If Twilight's acting more suspicious than you, perhaps she knows something that you don't?”

Lyra blew a raspberry. “Please, the only way Twilight could keep a secret from me is if her life seemingly depended upon it, and even then I could probably see right through her.”

Quirky stopped. “But, if not Twilight, then who?”

Lyra looked back at the approaching group, then two-thirds of the way through the crystal clear walkway. She eyed each of the possible members, but none seemed quite suitable in her mind. When she glanced back at Quirky, however, an idea struck like a match in the dark room that was her fragile skull.

“Why not you, Quirky?” Lyra proposed.

“Me?”

“Naturally. What, with your experience dressing up and playing different roles, perhaps you could sneak about and follow Princess Luna while avoiding suspicion. You could most likely find leads of her activity through others as well with your ability to read faces and spot lies. In addition, the headmare hasn't really had an eye on you, which helps with blending into a crowd. I think you'd be perfect!”

“You think I should follow Princess Luna around and see what she's up to, hmm?” Quirky asked. “It sounds like quite a challenge for an aspiring actress, especially if it's for over a week.”

The two exchanged glances once more, until a suddenly mutual consensus spawned in their brains. Lyra grinned as Quirky delivered a most mischievous grin and rubbed her front hoofs together.

“I do love a good challenge.”

Next Chapter: Chapter 25 (Episode 7): Where Inquiry May Lead Estimated time remaining: 5 Hours, 18 Minutes