Life of Lyra
Chapter 33
Previous Chapter Next ChapterLyra had to focus for all she was worth to not do the thing she did when bat ponies tried to get into her dreams. The result was that she was drawn into Tufts' Dream with her father holding his head. "What's wrong?"
"Would you believe me if I said I had to battle a thousand knights who kept shouting ni at me?" Tufts fought back at the headache for all he was worth. He'd given away the bulk of his magic—what should have been trivial was undeniably a fight. "Now to get Scootaloo."
As Tufts seemed to focus, Lyra looked around the world she'd found herself in. It was Australia. Perched on a treeless hill, there was a hot sun in the sky above, scrubland as far as she could see, and a sense of serenity.
It took a little time for Lyra to think back to her last time in a Dream. Closing her eyes, she focused on a beach umbrella and a banana lounge to relax on. When she opened her eyes, neither were there. "Apparently I'm just terrible at this."
"You are, but that's because you're too literal." Tufts lifted his wing off Scootaloo and gestured around them with it. "Welcome to my Dream."
"What do you mean I'm too literal? I make magic happen in real life!"
Scootaloo tried to tune out the silly argument taking place. She'd been alone in her house before—plenty of times—but the world around them showed nopony but the three of them. They were truly alone. If it wasn't just a dream, it would be scary. "So what are we doing here?"
Turning his attention back from Lyra, Tufts gestured expansively around them. "Out there is two trees that are the perfect size and length, and being eaten out by termites."
"Wait, what?" Lyra was confused. She'd expected Tufts to find a tree and bring it back to Equestria to be cut up. "That'll take forever!"
Tufts shook his head and let out a little screech. "It won't take forever. I know there's two trees out there that are just right."
"But it will still take a long time, won't it?" Scootaloo asked.
"This is a Dream. Years and years could pass and yet we would wake up in the morning. Come on. Let me show you what you need to look for." Tufts picked a direction that felt right and walked down the hill and into the scrub—that consisted of small bushes and trees.
Scootaloo and Lyra looked at each other, and they both looked a little like they were regretting agreeing to the dream.
"Well, come on. Tufts is a lot of things, but uncaring isn't one of them." Lyra turned and started following Tufts down the hill with Scootaloo at her side. "Okay, so what should we be looking for?"
Walking up to one tree, Tufts unfolded his wing and hooked his claw around it. "This is what you are looking for. See how the tree has this little mound at its base, and there's some bark broken here? That's where the termites burrowed in.
"They eat the tree from the inside out so they don't get caught in the hot sun. We need two trees like this, one smaller than the other, and you'll need one about twice as round as this for yours, Lyra, and only a little bigger than it for yours, Scootaloo."
Looking closer at the tree, Lyra couldn't see a single termite on it, though she could see the little hole Tufts had pointed out. "Sooooo… We have to find more trees like this, but just the right size?"
"Yes, but it's more than that." Tufts Started walking while stretching his shoulders. "You have to do it as bat ponies." The moment he said the words, Tufts stretched his wings out wide and let his magic flow. It might not be as potent in the waking world, or when trying to pull someone into his Dream, but here he was the master.
Lyra had been ready to craft a quick composite spell to find the trees she needed, but when Tufts' power hit her, her magic faded. She gasped at the feeling of her body changing and an extra pair of limbs growing from her back. "Tufts!"
Barely hearing Lyra's shout, Scootaloo had frozen to look at her wings. As far back as she could remember, her wings were small—tiny. Now? Now her wings were as long as she was. She stretched them out instinctively and let out a little screech of excitement—then covered her mouth with a hoof.
"How do you like them?" Tufts asked as he walked over to Scootaloo. "How do you like them?"
"They're amazing!" Scootaloo ran in a few circles trying to look at her wings before she stopped and leaned further to the side. "They're so big! Why is there so much of them? Can I fly with these? How long will this last? Will it work when I wake up? How do I—" She gasped as Tufts stretched a wing out and scooped her up in it.
Settling Scootaloo on his back, Tufts let out a happy screech. "So, let's look for your trees. Why don't you stand up there and try to find one?" He started walking forward again.
Looking around for the mounds of dirt, Scootaloo couldn't help but shift and move her wings. They were entirely different to the ones she had in the real waking world (her mind quickly corrected itself, willing to take Tufts' word for this being just as real), but they felt real now. Her eyes latched onto a tree to her left, and she pointed a wing at it. "There's one!"
Lyra had wandered a little away from Tufts and Scootaloo. She looked around the bush and let out a sigh. "I'd left this place, but I guess I forgot how much I liked the hot weather and…" Fumbling to remember another thing she liked about the Australia she'd left, she let out a short screech of laughter. "Robin."
Robin, not just a name—the concept of her sister.
Her shorter coat didn't get too hot in the bright sun filtering through from above, despite her dark colors (at least, her dark bat pony colors). Arching her back, Lyra kept walking as she thought about Robin. She was practically all grown up and had a life and destiny of her own—one of the guardians of Thestralia, much as Lyra felt herself to be a guardian of Equestria.
There was her mother, too. As she walked, Lyra remembered everything she could think of regarding her mother. From her earliest years she'd only had her mum as a guide in life—and it'd been fine until she started high school.
High school, for Lyra, was not a high point of her life. She ruminated, however, on the bad things that had happened. Drugs, people using her, a lack of purpose… "I was kinda fucked." Swearing in such a way surprised Lyra. What was more surprising was saying it in English.
It would have been depressing if it weren't for the rest of her life. Leaving Queensland and heading to Victoria had been a huge change. Not just the temperature, but also not having thousands of other kids in school. "There wasn't even a thousand people in Cowwarr."
Simplicity had been key then. The kindness and friendship of her pony friends combined with the focus of Candela had been good for her in a way she would never have dreamed of in Queensland.
What had happened—what had really changed her life completely—was that time in Equestria. Standing in a field with Pinkie Pie and watching the rainbow waves flow across the sky had been the biggest step on the path to becoming who she now was.
Walking slowly through the bush, she wasn't even looking for a tree like Tufts had described, yet she had to stop when one was directly in the middle of her path.
Just the thought of that, of it being her path, had Lyra a little confused. There wasn't a path in the scrub. Half the time she had been stepping aside from such trees, but this one was just there. It took a few moments of looking at it and not understanding what she was seeing before she realized what exactly was odd about it. "A termite mound."
The revelation that the tree—mostly straight and a little thicker around than her leg—seemed to have the exact thing she'd been looking for was too much. "Dad! Scootaloo!"
"And that's our cue." Tufts turned toward the sound of Lyra's voice. "She needs time to think sometimes."
"Lyra?" Scootaloo asked.
"Yes. Remember what I said about her?"
"She's literal?"
"Lyra Heartstrings lives in the world and fits everything in it to her rules. Even magic bends to the rules she was taught." Tufts walked easily through the bushland of his Dream, branches flicking and falling away from him as he walked. "It's why she's so hard to bring here. You know I had to fight through the most horrible shouting to even reach her? Back when I had all my—"
Scootaloo was surprised at what he'd said—but more than that she was curious about what he hadn't. "When you had all your what?"
"Magic. I gave a lot of it away to a filly who had a gift for Dreaming. She needed it more than me." A smile spread across Tufts' face as he thought back on Dream Thunder. "When I first met her, she hadn't even gotten her cutie mark."
"Is she a bat pony like you?"
"She is now, but she started off as a pegasus—Misty Rainfall. She'd be… twenty now." Tufts could see Lyra in the distance, but didn't see a need to speed up to reach her. He could easily see she'd found her tree. "What do you want to do with your life, Scootaloo?"
"I wanna be in the Guard, and then I'll become a Wonderbolt!" Spreading her wings out to the sides, Scootaloo made flying noises and tilted from side to side. She didn't even question that her wings never caught on a tree or a bush. "And then I'll be able to do all the best stunts and protect Equestria!"
Tufts cocked an eyebrow, not that Scootaloo could see it. "How long have you known Lyra for?"
"Just a few days."
"She found her tree. Did you want to go looking for yours?"
Scootaloo thought about the question and looked away from Lyra for a moment. "It's safe here, isn't it?"
"Yes. You'll never get hurt by anything in my Dream." The wording was more than he felt obliged to say, but Tufts felt he needed to be extra clear. When Scootaloo jumped from his back and trotted off into the bush, he let out a soft sigh. "But what you bring into it may be upsetting."
Walking away from Tufts was easy at first, but the longer Scootaloo walked, the more she felt alone again. Lyra had, in just a single day, made her forget what being alone was like. A slight chill rose in the air causing Scootaloo to instinctively wrap her wings a little tighter around herself.
As she walked, Scootaloo tried to block out the cold and memories of the past. She focused on the here and now, forsaking all else.
The day seemed to stretch on, but still Scootaloo kept walking. When the hot day started to turn cool, she felt her wings start to twitch. And that brought up her worries about the future.
Flying.
It was literally all she wanted to do. Whenever she'd seen a pegasus flying, Scootaloo felt envy. She wanted to fly like a pegasus should.
Finding a clear patch in the scrub, she spread her bat wings out and gave them an experimental flap. So unlike her pegasus wings (those took furious buzzing to get anything done at all), her bat wings almost lifted her off the ground with just one weak flap.
A rebellious thought wormed into Scootaloo's head: she could just stay in this Dream and keep her wings!
Reality started to intrude on her as night fell in earnest. Her friends from school—Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle—would be worried about her, and she'd miss them.
With full dark descending, her mind wandered to the times she'd spent huddled in bed, cold and worried about noises she'd thought she'd heard, unable to get properly warm or get to sleep.
She walked through throughout the night and into the early hours of dawn. Every step she took left her hooves and heart feeling heavy.
The days—distant in the past to her now—when she'd lived with her parents, seemed so far away. Her mother's… Scootaloo's mind slipped for a moment and she felt a few tears slip down her cheek. Squeezing her eyes closed, she remembered her mom and then her dad. Both were huge and there.
The chill of her loneliness fell away before the heat of her parents' memories. She smiled—still with tears leaking down her face—as she remembered her mother showing her a rabbit hole. Another time her father had let her ride on a cragodile's back. The memories came one after another, everything she could recall of her parents poured through her—it almost felt to her like they were walking beside her.
Scootaloo's eyes opened and her parents weren't there.
The cold pulled in again and was twice as intense as before. She squeezed her wings and still couldn't get warm. The day carried no heat with it, and despite her best efforts to shake her sorrow, it clung to her like a chill mist on a still day.
"Hey. Dad said you'd be ready to come back now."
Her head snapped around at the sound of Lyra's voice, which resulted in Scootaloo walking right into a tree. "Ow!"
As Lyra got closer to her, Scootaloo realized she was getting warmer. All the memories of her parents crowded in on her loneliness from one side and Lyra's vitality attacked it from the other.
"You found yours too, huh? Damn bat had a plan all along." Lyra paused a moment as she realized something was wrong. Scootaloo looked like she'd been crying, and it almost broke something in Lyra to see her like that. "C'mere."
Scootaloo rushed to Lyra's side and shoved her face against the soft fur of Lyra's neck.
Wrapping her foreleg around Scootaloo's shoulders, Lyra tried to ignore the growing damp patch on her fur. "I can't ever try to replace them, nopony can. I'm also not the best at this stuff. I mean, I've had little sisters before, and they turned out okay."
Confusion warred with Scootaloo's other emotions. Of how long she'd been walking in the forest she was unsure, but the way Lyra spoke it had been only hours. Shaking her head, she focused back on Lyra's words.
"I don't want a big sister." Scootaloo reached a hoof up to rub one of her eyes to dry it. Wanting to have her mother back was one thing, but she couldn't ask Lyra to be her mother—not now and maybe not ever. "I just want…"
"Would Auntie Lyra work better?"
Snorting, Scootaloo looked up at Lyra. "I've got aunts already. They're kinda focused on each other a bunch."
"Well, I can't exactly use princess, since that's already taken. Aunt is the only other one I know."
"It's okay if I call you Lyra, right?" Scootaloo didn't want to move and didn't want to let go, but she mostly didn't want to be left alone again.
Lyra was not entirely sure where the conversation was going, but for the first time since meeting Scootaloo she felt at ease with the way it was going. "Sure you can. Did you want me to call you anything in particular?"
"Just Scoots is fine. My name's a bit of a mouthful to say sometimes."
"It's a pretty cool name, though. I used to ride something a bit like your scooter. Come to think of it, are there skateboards here?" Sitting there with Scootaloo was oddly comfortable. They might both be in bodies that weren't strictly their own, but it helped them relate to each other more, rather than less.
"Skateboards are cool, but they don't work so good on dirt roads. You kinda need something to hold onto." The sound of angry screeching behind her made Scootaloo turn to look back in the direction Lyra had come from. "Is he having trouble with it?"
"He's a bat pony, Scoots, and this is his own Dream. Of course he's having trouble, but trouble is usually nothing more problematic than a mango giving up a fight."
Scootaloo relaxed a little more against Lyra. She tried to put the feelings about her parents aside for later examination. "Mangoes can fight? I thought they were just fruit?"
"Mangoes are not just fruit!" Tufts walked into the clearing with the trunk of Lyra's tree tucked under his wing awkwardly. "Mangoes are life. Even when they are a bit under ripe, they're still the most wonderful thing ever."
"Scootaloo found her tree." Lyra shifted her stance a little to give Scootaloo room to move if she wished. "This was some kind of vision quest or something, wasn't it?"
"Vision quest?" Scootaloo looked between Lyra and Tufts. "What's that?"
"Something like that. An old tradition for Aboriginal men was to go walkabout. They would live alone—which gave them time to center themselves and connect with the land and the spirits of the world. But this wasn't that. You both had things you were keeping bottled up inside. You needed some time to reflect on them." The answer soothed Tufts' self-imposed rule to always answer questions in full.
"Y-You knew—know—what we were going through?" Lyra stared at Tufts in shock.
Tufts shook his head and tried to shrug off the hurt that Lyra's accusation caused. "No. I'm not omniscient—not even in here. I could see you both needed to look inward. Did it help?"
"Yes." Biting her lip, Scootaloo looked up at Lyra. "I—My parents aren't coming back, but I don't want their memory to die. Pretending I was on an adventure wasn't working, and living alone didn't work either."
Bowing her head, Lyra reached around Scootaloo's shoulders and squeezed her in a hug. "I'm sorry, Dad. I did need it, but I just—" She fumbled for the words she wanted, and in the end simply couldn't find them. "Thanks. I needed it."
"I'm still getting a didgeridoo, right?" Scootaloo asked.
"Of course you are. You have earned it." Walking up to Scootaloo's tree, Tufts didn't need to tap at the wood to hear the hollow sound echo back, or even check that the termites hadn't eaten too much of the wood. This was the right tree for Scootaloo's didgeridoo, and that was simply a fact in his Dream. He still went through the motions of checking it anyway.
"How's Robin and Dream?" Lyra asked.
"They're both doing well. Dream Thunder is growing into her power, and Robin Mango is powering into her growth." Tufts enjoyed a little screech of laughter at his joke. He ran a claw tip down the outside of the tree until he found the right spot. Turning his claw, Tufts dug it into the wood effortlessly and sliced the top half of the tree free.
Scootaloo looked from Tufts to her own wing, wondering if her claw could so easily slice trees. She was so distracted she missed Tufts asking her to come over the first time. "S-Sorry." She left the shelter of Lyra's warmth and made her way over to Tufts.
Tufts tapped at a spot a little further down the severed tree than Scootaloo was long. "Use your claw and cut here. This is an ancient tradition for bat ponies."
"I thought bat ponies were recent?" Doing as instructed, despite her question, Scootaloo dug her wing-claw into the wood and sliced. "Wow!"
"This is now an ancient tradition. What happens in the Dream was always, is now, and always will be. This is your didgeridoo." Tufts lifted the bark-covered length of hollow wood. "Now we have to shape it up and decorate it."
"What about mine?" Lyra walked over to her own tree—where Tufts had dropped it—and tried to use her wing to pick it up. On her third go she managed to hold one end.
Walking over to his daughter, Tufts gestured vaguely at the tree trunk she held. "Just cut it wherever you think is best."
"You're joking, right?"
"Of course I am. Cut it where you think is right."
Lyra was about to say something else, then closed her mouth. So far, or so she reasoned, everything had been a searching out and finding experience. She looked down at the wood and brought her free wing claw over to it. Tapping gently on the wood, she started to hear notes in the echoes it made. Each tap brought it closer to a pure note, and when she finally found a minor, she paused. "This isn't the right spot."
"What do you mean?" Scootaloo asked.
"This is a minor note. My didgeridoo should be a major. Bright and happy." Lyra tapped a little further until she came to the next pure note. "There. That's the right spot. A major A." She didn't even look at Tufts, bringing her free claw down and slicing the wood like it was butter.
Turning her head towards Tufts, Scootaloo watched as he started stripping the bark off it. "How do you know all that?" she asked Lyra.
"Music is my thing." Lyra gestured to her flank where her lyre sat in embossed gold. "Trust me when it comes to music."
"Except playing a didgeridoo?" Scootaloo asked.
"Except that. But if I have my own, I can work on it. This isn't too weird for you, is it?" Gesturing with her free wing, Lyra tried to indicate where Tufts was diligently trimming Scootaloo's didgeridoo.
"When I was younger, Mom and Dad would take me with them on their adventures. It was—Okay, it wasn't as weird as this, but it was close. Dad had a pet cragodile, did you know that?" The memories didn't hurt as much to bring up. Scootaloo could remember them for the happy times more than the sad—though there was still sadness there.
Lyra shook her head and sat down. "What was its name?"
Scootaloo had to think harder on the memory, but she brought it up after a little work. "Marshmallow. Mom named him. He was a big softy."
"My mum found an odd friend like that back home. It was a kangaroo before the magic got loose, then it became a bunyip. It was—It scared me once, before it got to know me. I turned my back on it and it was about to attack me. Mum made it understand that ponies weren't food." Tilting her head to the side as she watched Tufts, Lyra brought her own didgeridoo up and started to strip the bark off it in the same way Tufts did. "I don't even know why I mentioned it. It was—"
"No. It's cool. I get that sometimes there are…" Fishing for a word, Scootaloo waved her hoof around vaguely. "… creatures that just… don't know better. Cragodiles aren't known for how much they don't eat their friends."
"Wait, cragodile? Aren't they one of the rock-based monsters?"
"Yup!" A twinge of pain grew brighter and Scootaloo found herself frowning. "I wonder what happened to him?"
"We'll visit your aunts and find out. Hopefully they'll know a little more."
"Were—Are they bad ponies? My aunts, I mean. Shouldn't they have stuck around to find out what happened to me?"
"That's a good question, Scoots. I don't know, but if I found out my little sister had—that she wasn't around anymore, I'd be pretty upset and not thinking right." Lyra looked down at the bark she was slicing off the wood and sighed. "That's something for Princess Celestia to get to the bottom of. I have three important jobs right now."
"Three?"
"Try to get us out of here without Tufts doing anything really strange to us, get you back to Ponyville in time for school tomorrow, and make our house a home again."
Spreading her bat wings, Scootaloo gave them an experimental flap. "Is two out of three okay? I kinda like the weirdness."
Lyra's eyes narrowed to pinpricks. "Don't let Tufts kno—"
"Finally!" Tufts rushed over to Scootaloo with her unfinished didgeridoo in tow. "Finally somebatty appreciates my efforts!" He looked at Lyra pointedly and stuck his tongue out.
"I like the wings a lot. Can I keep them?" Scootaloo looked up at Tufts.
Tufts let out a sad sigh. "I wish I could, but my magic will be stretched just taking these from the Dream. Maybe Dream Thunder could take you to visit Thestralia? All you'd have to do is get your cutie mark there, and it'd be a one-way trip to bat town."
The idea made an odd kind of sense to Lyra. Scootaloo might have trouble with her pegasus wings, so why not get her bat wings? "Fate. Destiny. Princess Celestia would be upset with me if I didn't say it."
"Huh?" Scootaloo asked.
Passing her didgeridoo to Tufts, Lyra stretched out a wing to the side to its full extent. "We can go visit Thestralia in the school holidays, and if it's your destiny to become a bat pony, that'll be your chance. But it might not be."
Scootaloo tilted her head to the side. She'd heard similar things from her teacher—that ponies should try all sorts of things in case their destiny lay outside the familiar. "Th-Then, if it's my destiny to be a bat pony, I just won't get my cutie mark until then, right?"
"That's how it's supposed to work, yeah. Princess Celestia said destiny can be as subtle as a gentle spring breeze, or it can be as blunt as a bat pony with a mango." Lyra made sure to poke Tufts in the rib with a wing tip.
"I'll have you know," Tufts said, "bat ponies are very pointy when it comes to mangoes." He then opened his mouth to show off his fangs.
Rolling her eyes, Lyra brought her wing down and over Scootaloo's back. "How long until your school break?"
"I-In about five weeks, I think." The prospect of going somewhere for her school break wasn't exactly new, but going somewhere without her parents was. "What about our house?"
Lyra felt Scootaloo's wing claw hook her own and hold her wing, and she smiled at the little action. "We'll find somepony to check in while we're gone. I happen to have two friends in Ponyville already."
"Two? You work fast. Who did you meet?"
"Well, I cheated. The new baker at Sugarcube Corner—Pinkie Pie—is one of the friends I grew up with. Rainbow Dash is a new friend, though. She was the reason we were visiting the Wonderbolts." She watched as Tufts continued working on the trees, finishing the removal of the bark and now using a stick to scrape out the insides.
"Yeah. You mentioned Rainbow Dash when we were there. She's one of the weatherponies in Ponyville, right?"
"Yup," Lyra said.
Scootaloo let out a sigh. "I haven't exactly been able to keep up to date on what's going on around town. Kinda busy, you know?"
"Right, but you don't have to work anymore. You'll have enough bits to do what you want—which will include going to see the Wonderbolts a few times, visiting Thestralia, and maybe even having a fancy dessert every now and again."
Tufts cheated only in the ways that didn't matter. He was forcing things a little, but ultimately this was more about the spiritual journey he'd set up for Scootaloo and Lyra than about the legitimacy of their didgeridoos. That said, of course, he considered the instruments as authentic as any other—after all, he was the magical embodiment of an Aboriginal god. If what he made wasn't authentic, nothing could be.
Finally, getting the insides hollowed out completely, Tufts walked back to the others with their prizes. "Now we just have to paint them."
Lyra lifted her head to look at Tufts, only to jerk in surprise at the bowls scattered around him on the ground. Each seemed to have a different color of ochre paints in them. She walked over to where the larger didgeridoo was laying and sat down beside it. "So how do we paint them? I don't see any brushes."
"You don't use brushes for this. Sticks and hands were traditional, and I see no reason that we can't use wings, claws, and hooves too." Taking his own place beside the two art stations, Tufts reached for Lyra's didgeridoo. "There are patterns that are old. Old as my spirit. This—"
Scootaloo watched in fascination as Tufts dipped his wing claw in the darkest ochre and made three U shapes all facing one another. He added two lines to the side of one, radiating out from the middle.
"—is us. Two females and a male, sitting together. If there was a campfire, I'd put circles here." In his Dream, and with his history, this was an important thing to Tufts. This was culture, and it was that culture that had brought him into being. "The patterns are important, but more important is what they mean to you. Please, paint what you want."
The reasoning for turning them both into bat ponies became quickly apparent to Lyra—Tufts had planned this out. She looked at the little picture he'd started on her didgeridoo, and smiled at the symbolism that it gave. It was a moment in time, but she had to wonder if it was the start or the end.
Asking Tufts, Lyra realized, wouldn't get her the answer. She reflected on what had happened so far in the Dream, and what it meant to her. Turning the didgeridoo, she dipped her claw in more of the black paint and started working. Three more U shapes, one with a little line at the innermost curve that made it look like an E, while another got a line from the sides that almost made it look crossed out (except the middle was empty). "Three females. One with a horn, one with wings."
Scootaloo couldn't hear Lyra. She was exploring her own recent history—mostly the walk she took in the bush. She dipped her own claw and started drawing. Without realizing it, the male and two females picture she made copied Lyra's styling perfectly—at least how she'd denoted pegasi.
Wiping her claw clean, Scootaloo then speared some blue paint onto her claw and started telling her story. From her younger years and growing up with some of the most unique creatures in Equestria, to traveling around all the crazy places with them. She cleaned and prepared her claw again and again, smiling as she worked to tell her story.
Lyra had made her choice—her didgeridoo told her present and future. The past, she'd reasoned, was less important than what you do after it. Using blue wavy lines to show the water Sweetie had to travel over, she showed her wife armed with a spear that was nothing more than a long arrow with a small tip, fighting a monster that left large tracks.
Working with both her wings, Lyra showed Sweetie returning to a welcoming fire, meeting Scootaloo, and them sitting together around the fire again. She added a winged Scootaloo soaring through a lighter blue sky and everyone looking up at her.
Something, however, had taken control of Lyra's wings. Instead of Sweetie going off to fight again, she stayed at home with Lyra and Scootaloo. They danced and sang together.
"Dad?"
Tufts looked at Lyra and pondered keeping quiet. By his assessment, she was literally retelling the future in the Dream—not exactly uncommon for Dreamtime, but this was only one Dream. But he had his oath. "Yes?"
"Is this real?"
"It's likely. This is a future that could be." Tufts looked closer at the patterns on Lyra's didgeridoo. "It feels true."
"Does that mean Sweetie will come back and stay with me? What about her career? Is this because of Scootaloo?"
"You ask a lot of questions, daughter. The truth is that none of us will know until it happens." The words almost hurt Tufts to say, mostly because he wanted to tell Lyra something that would make her feel better. "You know I won't lie to you."
Scootaloo was still working on hers. She had her earlier years filled in nicely, but she got as far as her parents' news arriving and it became harder. When she began crying, she almost stopped but for the closing in of a bat pony on each side of her. She used a forehoof to wipe the tears from first one eye, then the other. "Thanks."
Lyra's own worries had evaporated the moment she'd seen Scootaloo start to cry. She left her own Didgeridoo and sat down beside Scootaloo, even put a wing over her back.
Watching Scootaloo continue, Tufts almost cried himself at seeing the dark patterns that circled the filly's instrument. But she went on.
A unicorn appeared, and when she did, all of Scootaloo's darkness started to give way to golden light. After Lyra, she added Tufts, Joyce, and even Princess Celestia. There was so much to add, and she could see the end of the didgeridoo coming up. With only a little room left, she added Lyra, herself, and Sweetie Drops around a fire together. She hadn't even met Lyra's wife, and yet knowing that they cared so much for each other warmed Scootaloo to her.
Finished, Scootaloo noticed that her tears had smudged some of the black paint where she'd portrayed her parents' deaths.
"That's alright. It strengthens the didgeridoo," Tufts said, having to block Scootaloo's wing from trying to correct the smear. "Now we will decorate and embellish them."
Lyra pulled her own work over and remained beside Scootaloo as they both worked to fill in the negative space of their artwork with dots and other patterns. Some of the style was meant to reinforce the main story, while others were just a backdrop for it.
Scootaloo finished hers first, but waited for Lyra to catch up. The style was eerily authentic and natural to Scootaloo, the styling of simplistic shapes and vibrant but earthy colors complimenting to the story she wrought into the didgeridoo.
"You're both done." It wasn't a question—Tufts could tell that both the didgeridoos were completed. They were filled with character and life, and now the only thing left was to hear them. "Lyra, would you like to play yours?"
"Shouldn't we—I dunno—protect them? Lacquer or clear coat or something?"
Tufts shook his head. "You think making this immutable would be a good idea? Your didgeridoo is almost alive, and nothing alive stays the same forever. Play it."
Bringing the instrument to her lips, Lyra tried to run through all the things Tufts had patiently explained to her earlier in the evening. She set her her lips vibrating, and was instantly lost to the music that came out of her didgeridoo.
Closing her eyes, Lyra began to weave a tune that came to her only moments before she played each harmony. The instrument was very alive and sang the song she asked it to.
Staring in complete and utter surprise at Lyra, Scootaloo couldn't so much as move a muscle as she listened to the song. It was like nothing in Equestria, but it was perfect in so many ways. In the song, she experienced the raw joy of Lyra and Sweetie's wedding, the excitement of their time in the Guard, and even Lyra's fear of the future. But when the last bit could have been full of fear, it was like there was a different musician playing—supplying the reassurance that everything would be alright.
When the music stopped in her head, Lyra stilled her lips and stared off into the bush. Her special talent was literally music, but she'd never played so much of her own life into a song before.
"Scootaloo, do you remember what I told you?" Tufts asked.
"Y-Yeah. I don't think mine will be as happy as Lyra's." Given the magic in the air, Scootaloo almost feared what would come out through her own playing.
"Music isn't about playing things to make people happy. You play things to share your feelings with others," Lyra said. "So long as your feelings are genuine, that's all that matters."
Looking down at the didgeridoo, Scootaloo let out a sigh. Ponies weren't meant to spread sadness, but that was the bulk of her recent life and all her past was colored by it. She also worried that it would color her future, too. "Okay, I got this."
Scootaloo lifted the wooden pipe to her mouth and took a deep breath. There was a lot to think about with playing—at least what Tufts had told her. Letting her lips go loose, she started to "speak" into the didgeridoo.
The note was not very full and fell apart as soon as Scootaloo ran out of breath. "I don't got this."
"You're breathing with your lungs." Lyra stepped forward and sat beside Scootaloo on the ground. "You need to use your cheeks to push air out, and then keep refilling your mouth with air from your lungs."
"That's what you were trying to explain?" Scootaloo glared at Tufts for a few seconds. "Okay, how does that even work?"
"There's a bit at the back of your throat you need to keep tight. That will stop air from going down to your lungs or up into your nose. Then you need to inhale more air and breathe it out into your mouth."
"This is a lot more complicated than I thought it would be." Trying again and again, Scootaloo tried to do the things Lyra was explaining. "How long did it take you to learn to play?"
"We have time. Don't worry about that," Tufts said.
Remembering her walk in the bush that had felt like over a day, Scootaloo could believe Tufts. So she focused on Lyra's explanations and followed along with her. Each time she tried to play, Scootaloo made a little more improvement.
"Are you ready now?" Lyra asked after Scootaloo finished playing for a full five minutes.
Scootaloo nodded, but looked up at Tufts. "Will I still be able to do this outside the Dream?"
"I made things a little easier. You'll need to practice more, but you'll have plenty of time for that." Looking from Lyra to Scootaloo, Tufts gave them both a toothy grin. "Maybe you can show it to your class, too."
Bringing the instrument to her lips, Scootaloo decided it was time to just play.
Lyra's heart fell at the pain that caught her in the instrument's notes. It wasn't expertly played by a pony with a cutie mark for music, but rather by a filly still caught up in the darker emotions of loss and fear. The tune wound on, and though there wasn't as much depth to the winding tune, it finished on a higher note that left Lyra feeling slightly buzzed and excited.
"Pass them here," Tufts said and held out his wing.
Looking left and right at her wings, Scootaloo let out a sigh. "It'd be really cool if I could be a bat pony."
"Maybe. We still don't know for sure your wings aren't going to grow." Despite how chipper she tried to be about it, Lyra could feel the worry in her own words. "C'mon, it's time to wake up."