Lyra Heartstrings and the Bench of Doom
Chapter 1: Emerald Equine Exudes Exasperation
Lyra Heartstrings saw Princess Twilight Sparkle and her friends running in her general direction. It was hardly an unusual occurrence. About once a week those six – seven now, Starlight was with them – would be running to one part of town or another, and for some inexplicable reason Lyra was often in the general area. It was no longer a sight worth panicking over.
But they were moving directly towards Lyra, which posed a more serious problem. Nopony wanted to go down as the mare that got trampled by a stampede of heroines. Thus did Lyra do the most natural and obvious thing any pony might do in this situation: she stepped off the path. More specifically, she approached a bench and started to sit.
“Lyra, no!”
Of course, she looked up when Twilight called. But she’d already been halfway sitting. Muscle memory kicked in and she was set, flank firmly planted and forelegs resting, before she could register what had actually been said. Not a second later, a distraught septet of mares all stopped before her, dust kicking up and inexplicably not obscuring everypony’s vision at the sudden halt.
Starlight Glimmer was dancing on her tip-hooves and staring at Lyra’s flank in a manner that made the mare uncomfortable. “No, no, no, no! You can’t sit there!”
Lyra blinked owlishly at them. “I can’t?”
“You can’t!”
“Oh.” Lyra blinked again and took a closer look at the bench. It was… just a normal bench. At least, it looked like a normal bench. It was a freshly painted red, with metal supports, set on the side of a dirt path in the middle of Ponyville's pristine eastside park. “Why?”
Rainbow Dash, flying little circles over Lyra’s head, fretfully asked, “Can’t we move her?”
To which Twilight Sparkle responded, in the typically flamboyant manner of a mare in over her head, “Are you crazy?”
“No, really.” Lyra’s ears folded flat against her skull as she hunched back, unaccustomed as she was to having all six – seven – of Ponyville’s local heroines getting all worked up over her little self. “I can move.”
“No!” Twilight pressed a hoof to her shoulder as if to stop her from doing exactly that. There was a mania to her eyes, familiar by now to every pony that lived in the (un?)fortunate town, that left Lyra squirming. “If you get up, all of Equestria will be destroyed!”
Lyra’s heart slammed into her ribs at this naturally shocking revelation. “What?”
“Now hold on, ya’ll.” Applejack pulled Twilight away, her calm and patient manner easing the drum solo in Lyra’s chest just a smidgen. “We don’t know that for sure. We only know that there's some spell.”
Starlight Glimmer’s horn gave a quick flash as she frowned. “Hmm, I’m not detecting anything, but this is the bench.”
“The terrorist might be able to hide the spell,” Twilight noted ominously. “We can’t risk it, Lyra’s just going to have to sit there.”
“Oh, you poor thing.” Fluttershy set a hoof on Lyra’s shoulder. It was as if Lyra was already dead but, to her growing consternation, nopony could be bothered to tell her how or why.
Pinkie hopped the bench in one easy bound, landing behind Lyra to begin bouncing in place. “Don’t worry, you just sit your flanksy right on this benchy while Twilight and Starlight study and then the world won’t go kablooey!”
Rarity, now standing beside the bench, tried to offer her kindest smile. “And I’ll be sure to bring you something warm to help you if it takes too long and you have to stay out here all night.” What did she mean, all night?!
Twilight and Starlight already had their heads together:
“We’re going to need a really strong detection spell.”
“Excuse me.”
“Waldo’s Where’s It At?”
“Excuse me.”
“Too specific. Maybe Sandy Ego’s Where Could It Be?”
“Excuse me!”
“Not specific enough. Perhaps if we could combine—”
Lyra threw her hooves up high and made a loud chiming sound through her horn. “Excuse me! Can somepony please, in plain Equish, explain to me why my sitting on this bench determines the fate of Equestria?”
Pinkie, somehow now in front of her, began waving a hoof wildly in the air. “Oh, oh-oh, pick me! Me, me, me!”
Lyra promptly caught the pink hoof in her magic and shoved it back to the ground. “Can anypony else explain?” She tried not to feel guilty about Pinkie’s pout.
Starlight and Twilight stared blankly at her, as if having forgotten she was even present. The other mares were in various states of anxiety or uncertainty. Lyra looked at each of them in turn, her forelegs crossed and an eyebrow raised. She had to remind herself that while these were the saviors of Equestria several times over, they were also all certifiably crazy at times.
It was Twilight who finally snapped out of her daze, rubbing the back of her head with an apologetic smile. “Right. Right. Sorry, we’re all just a little excited and, y’know, the fate of all Equestria does hang in the balance.”
“Yes, we’ve established that. But why does me sitting here—” She bounced lightly, not enough to leave the bench, but even that little movement made her entire unexpected audience gasp and dance backwards like spooked cats. “—prevent Equestria from going kablooey?”
When nothing happened, Rainbow promptly lowered to press her forehooves against Lyra’s shoulders, keeping her securely pinned in place. “Don’t do that!”
“Sorry, Miss Heartstrings,” Applejack offered after she pulled Rainbow away by the tail. “We got an anonymous threat at the castle sayin' that this here bench has been cursed to blow when next somepony gets off it.”
Lyra blinked, taking in all the pensive, fearful faces before her. She looked at each and every one of them, but somehow couldn’t detect any sign that this was an elaborate prank. Just because she had to make sure, “You’re saying that if I get off this bench, it’s going to explode.”
Rarity's tone was laced with sincere regret. "That does summarize the problem, yes."
After a moment of processing this, Lyra then brought her attention to the two ponies presumably best equipped to answer her next puzzler: Twilight and Starlight. “All of Equestria. In one fell swoop. That’s some serious magical firepower.”
To that Twilight could only blush and rub at her leg awkwardly. “Well, in truth we don’t know how big the explosion will be.”
“It might not even be an explosion.” Starlight, with all the appropriate horror, elaborated. “It could be some sort of disintegration bomb, or a time freeze spell, or an aging curse, or—”
Applejack bumped the mare in the side, ending what had been quickly growing into a bout of Twilighting. “Point is, we don’t know what will happen, only that it’ll be worse than a frog's butt in a watermelon seed fight. But to be fair, it’s probably not gonna destroy all of Equestria.”
“M-maybe it’ll only reach as far as Canterlot,” Fluttershy added in. “Or just Ponyville!”
Rainbow landed by the bench to give Lyra a critical look. “Whatever the size of it might be, one thing’s for certain: you are going to get caught in it.”
That, at least, had Lyra’s attention. This whole concept sounded ridiculous, but if there was some sort of curse on the bench and her getting up did set it off, then naturally she would be affected. Lyra’s ears were already flat against her skull again as she directed her attention inwards. Was she feeling odd? Was her magic okay? Did her butt feel particularly heavy for some reason? She found herself unironically hoping so, which might be ironic in and of itself.
Grasping at whatever straws would come to mind, she hurried to ask, “B-but, you don’t know for sure, right? I mean, just because some anonymous pony said this bench is a magical bomb, that doesn’t mean it is one.”
“Well, sure, that’s one possibility,” Pinkie agreed. Just as Lyra was starting to feel a twinge of hope for her poorly placed plot, the party pony pressed on. “Oooor the threat is totally real and after sitting here for hours and days and weeks you finally get fed up and stand only to trigger the curse and next thing you know your entire body is melting like you're some evil clone who somehow found her way into a kids show and are wondering how this painful, agonizing, play-doughey moment ever got approved for three-year-olds!”
Rarity promptly pulled her back. “Pinkie Pie, that is the opposite of helping.”
Lyra indicated her agreement mostly via hyperventilation. She readily accepted the brown paper bag Fluttershy offered her.
Applejack, now behind the bench, reached over to massage Lyra’s shoulders. “Ain't no need to fret none. I’m sure Twilight and Starlight will have this resolved in a jiffy. Right, girls?”
Equestria’s two most prominent unicorns shared a look before offering comforting smiles. “Of course,” Twilight said. “We just need a minute to study the situation. I’m sure we can come up with something.”
“That’s right.” Starlight swung her foreleg in a show of confidence. “With all of us working together, I’m sure we’ll have this thing beat within the hour!”
They did not have this thing beat within the hour.
Applejack had a farm to run. Fluttershy had animals to tend to. Rarity had dress orders to complete. Twilight and Starlight headed back to the castle to check the library and study the situation. Pinkie Pie went off to do… Pinkie things.
Which meant that now Lyra was stuck in a staring match with Rainbow Dash, the pegasus hovering just off the ground with forelegs crossed as she glared the lyrist in the eyes. “I’m not budging.”
The eternal benchwarmer rolled her eyes at a line that just had to be a pun. “Neither am I. Come on, Rainbow Dash, I’m not asking for much.”
Unmoved, the color-splashed pegasus lifted her chin in defiance. “The girls are trusting me to keep you in place, and that’s what I aim to do.”
“Oh, please.” Lyra gestured at the bench beneath her flanks. “I’ve got the easiest job in Equestria. You leaving me for five minutes isn’t going to be the end of the world.”
“It might be.”
“But I’m bored!” That came out as more of a whine than she intended, but it was too late to try again. “And uncomfortable, and bored, and annoyed, and did I mention bored? All I’m asking is for you to go get my lyre from my place. You’ll be gone and back in ten seconds.”
“You originally said five minutes.” Rainbow couldn’t resist a smirk, at last breaking out of her cross-hooved posture to rub at her puffed up chest. “But yeah, ten seconds sounds way more realistic.” Then she was right back to cross-hooved glowering. “But ten seconds is more than enough time for the world to end.”
“Come on! You can’t watch me forever.”
“Wanna bet on that?”
Lyra leaned forward, which was more than enough to make Rainbow tense up like a spring ready to snap. “And what happens when you need to go to the bathroom?” A blink of worrying realization. “What happens when I need to go to the bathroom?”
“Uh…” Her persistent and prismatic parallel rubbed the back of her head and averted her eyes. “Let’s try to not think about that.”
With a shiver, Lyra couldn’t help but say, “Agreed.” This didn’t stop her from being aware of a ticking biological clock that was probably going to start ringing within the next hour.
“This isn’t all glorious and pleasant for me either, you know.” Rainbow flew a quick helix, releasing a little of what was most certainly an overflowing amount of energy in her metaphorical tank (and now Lyra was kicking herself for thinking of any sort of liquid-holding object whatsoever). “I could be training for the Wonderbolts right now, or heck, doing my actual job.”
“Or pretending to nap in one of the apple trees at the Acres while watching Applejack flex those leg muscles.”
“Yeah, or— Wait, no! Who told you, I mean how did—?” The pegasus growled and peered at the benched captive, valiantly ignoring that her cheeks were of the same luminescence as a bonfire. “Stop trying to distract me. It ain’t gonna work.”
Lyra rubbed her eyes with a moan, not bothering to voice once again how much her situation sucked. The temptation to lean on the bench’s armrest was back. Alas, it was at exactly the right distance to be reachable but also uncomfortable. The one time she’d tried to scootch over, Rainbow had shoved her back into position. Her butt was getting numb, for Celestia’s sake. “What if you got somepony else to watch me?”
Flying in a tight little double helix without taking her eyes off her ward, Rainbow replied, “Like who? Nopony’s going to want to sit here staring at you for hours on end.”
“I’m not that bad to look at, am I?”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“What are you doing?”
The third voice caught them both off guard, and only now did they notice the three fillies standing underneath Rainbow’s general flight area. Lyra pursed her lips at the familiar presence of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, wondering what kind of trouble they were planning to get into now. Normally she didn’t mind the three, but she was in no mood for shenanigans today. Even so, she wasn’t about to not wave back to Sweetie Belle. It would’ve been rude.
“Oh, hey girls.” Rainbow flew sideways, the better to see the Crusaders and Lyra at the same time. “I’m just making sure Lyra here stays put so Equestria doesn’t explode.”
“Equestria is not going to explode,” Lyra corrected with utmost certainty. “Probably.” Well, something resembling utmost certainty.
Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle shared a ‘look’. “Is it Tuesday?” the latter asked.
Scootaloo was devoting all her attention to Rainbow Dash, as always. Cocking her head to one side, she asked, “How is Lyra staying here preventing Equestria from exploding?”
Rainbow responded in the only way a pegasus with zero comprehension of the finer points of thaumaturgy possibly could. “Magic?”
“Of course it’s magic.” Lyra rolled her eyes and gestured at the wooden slats under her flank. “Unless you can see a bomb strapped to the bottom of this thing.” A vision of a tiny device with a flashing red light taped directly under her tail abruptly had her going rigid. “Uh, there’s not a bomb clearly visible under this thing, is there?”
Two of the Crusaders possessed the self-preservation instincts necessary to back away. Apple Bloom was not one of them. She practically dove under the bench. Rainbow looked as though she was about to do a rainboom to get her out of there. After a second or two, the filly’s head reappeared, dirty and with nonsensically big bow smushed. “Nope, no bomb.”
Sweetie Belle, with a level of doubt perfectly suited to the situation, asked, “Do you even know what a bomb looks like?”
“Sure I do! How do you think we get rid of the more stubborn tree stumps in the orchard?”
The three fillies shared the ‘look’. It was not the same ‘look’ as the prior one, but a very familiar one that everypony in Ponyville understood meant it was time to go home, close and lock the doors, and shutter the windows. Oh, Luna, those three were about to try and get their cutie marks in bomb making, weren’t they?
By the horrified look on Rainbow’s face, she’d come to the exact same conclusion. “H-hey, Scoots! Wanna see a new trick I’ve been working on?”
The little filly’s wings buzzed with all the energy of a parasprite on a sugar rush. “Would I?”
“Yeah, sure! Heck, you three can help me train.” Rainbow shot a pleading look Lyra’s way.
Lyra, still stuck with a mental image of the three fillies trying to use a hammer on a landmine, nodded frantically and waved her off. “Yes, go, go.” Sitting here and being bored was infinitely better than attending a funeral service, and she tried to let Rainbow know with her gaze alone that she wouldn’t be violating this show of trust.
And so Rainbow left with the Crusaders in tow, the three fillies distracted from what might have been a total disaster. Lyra tried to relax on the bench, ignoring the growing numbness of her butt and the armrest that was a few inches too far away to be helpful. The discomfort was worth it, she told herself. Everything was going to be fine.
…until five minutes later when that biological clock finally rang.
“Tirek damn it.”
The sky was gradually darkening. In a half hour at most, night would fall upon Ponyville. Its citizens were well on their way to shutting down for the evening, and the park was entirely empty by now.
It was then that Starlight Glimmer appeared around the street corner carrying a steaming bowl, an extra large glass, a blanket and a pillow in her magic. Her smile was strained as she approached the hunched, whimpering, squirming mare on the bench. “Hey, Lyra! I’m so sorry, Twilight and I got so involved in our research we forgot to come check on you. Have you had anything to eat? Spike whipped up this amazing pasta for you, and I brought some water—”
“Please,” Lyra moaned just as the reformed villain stopped in front of her. “Don’t talk about water.” She bounced slightly, ears folded back and teeth gritted.
The Apprentice of Friendship blinked, understandably caught off guard by the reaction. Glancing around, she asked, “Where’s Rainbow?”
“Starlight,” Lyra hissed with enough ferocity to make the mare step back in alarm. “I’ve got enough piss in me to fill Twilight’s castle. Tell me I can get off this bench.”
“Oh. Uh…” Starlight rubbed the side of her head, teeth exposed in a lopsided, frail smile as her eyes darted every which way. “Right. Completely overlooked that too. Um, so listen, Twilight and I, we haven’t… actually…”
“Starlight.” Lyra wobbled, forehooves between rear thighs, and leveled the wrath of Chrysalis herself into her glare. “If I lose control now, I will be sitting in my own mess. If I am sitting in my own mess, I swear I will get it on you too.”
“Okay!” Starlight very carefully set the pasta, water, blanket and pillow on the ground, well away from Lyra and her insufferable bench. “Okay. Let me think for a minute.”
Lyra’s tail flicked. She could have sworn the pee was about to start leaking out her eyeballs. “Better make it a fast one.”
“Just hold on!” Starlight pressed her hoof to her forehead, rubbing just below the horn. “Think, think, think, I know there’s something…”
Though she was the opposite of patient right now, Lyra didn’t dare speak lest her only potential salvation get too distracted to help. It was so stupid, she was in a park surrounded by nature, why couldn’t she just get up and go?!
“I got it! There’s a spell, it was learned for…” The mage sucked on her tongue at the teeth-baring snarl aimed her way. “Aaand you don’t care, of course you don’t. Silly me! I’ll just skip the fascinating lecture and move on to casting the spell, how about—?”
“Starlight!”
“Sorry! Just hold still, the spell is a lot less dangerous if you don’t move.”
Only the desperate need for relief prevented Lyra from asking about that ‘danger’ bit. Slowly exhaling, she tried to think about distractingly pleasant things. Her lyre. Bonbon’s caramel turtles. Bonbon’s tail. Bonbon’s eyes. Bonbon’s famous milksha— No, no, something else!
Not sitting on this bench. Yes, not sitting on this bench was a very pleasant and relaxing idea. What would she do once she left? Not sit on anymore benches for the rest of her life, that was for sure. Maybe move out of Ponyville, this town was just plain crazy. But then she’d have to get Bonbon to go with her, and Bonbon had her roots buried deep. Darn, no getting away then. No matter, she could cope. It wasn’t like she’d ever get stuck on this bench twice.
Surely not.
Celestia, please no.
“Alright, Lyra. When I give the word, let it go.”
“Wait, what?” Lyra squirmed and stared in wild-eyed horror. “But if I do that, I’ll—”
Starlight shot her a commanding look, horn blazing bright., “Lyra, trust me.”
“I do not!” Although if she didn’t get some relief soon, trust would be a moot point. “You and the others are the reason I’m in this mess to begin with.”
“It’s not like we wanted somepony to booby trap a random park bench! Now do you want my help or not?”
Tail lashing, ears quivering, eyes watering, Lyra bit her hoof and nodded frantically. Please, please, just do it already!
“Alright.” Starlight’s eyes went up to her horn, her brow furrowing in concentration. “Aaaaand… now.”
Lyra did as she was told, clenching her eyes in preparation for a warm, nasty feeling between her legs. It never came. She was definitely, finally starting to drain her bladder, thank Celestia, but where the messy results were going was unclear. Not that she cared at the moment, her relief was far too great to consider such things. She let out a long, slow sigh, indescribably grateful.
She said nothing, too busy relishing the ongoing release.
Starlight said nothing, too busy focusing on her spell.
After what seemed like a ridiculous amount of time, Lyra was decidedly empty. Letting her back rest heavily against the bench, she flopped like a broken ponnequine, tongue out and eyes in the sky. “Thank you, and I’m sorry for being nasty.”
Starlight heaved her own sigh and let her horn go dark. “No, I’m sorry. We should have considered things like this. We were so convinced we’d have you off that bench by now that it didn’t even occur to us to feed you, much less anything else. That’s definitely our bad.”
Lyra gradually shifted so that she was resting on her belly atop the length of the bench, taking extra care not to actually lift off of it in the process. “Well, at least you remembered eventually. Can I have that pasta now?”
“Sure.”
There were many things ponies might say about Spike, but everypony agreed on one thing: he was a phenomenal cook. He’d actually been invited to train under some nationally acclaimed chefs, but he would never leave Twilight’s side. Right now Lyra was very happy about that, every bite of her pasta sending waves of garlicky delight through her entire being. Was that a shiver?
Starlight chuckled as she watched from where she sat beside the bench. “Yeah, I know.”
“I am so jealous,” Lyra groaned between mouthfuls. “Must be nice living in the same castle as someone who can make you food like this every day.”
“Hey, you’ve got Bonbon,” Starlight countered with a grin.
“Bonbon makes candy.” Wiping her chin with a napkin and pushing the empty bowl away, Lyra took a moment to stretch a little. “Her candy is delicious, but you try to get her to make anything else and she’s… well, okay, above average. But certainly not at Spike’s level.”
To that, Starlight had nothing to add. Instead she started to scan the local area as if searching for something that should be there, while at the same time levitating the pillow and blanket onto the bench beside Lyra. “Where is Bonbon, anyway? Pinkie was supposed to tell her you were here.”
Lyra’s spirits promptly dropped, her chin resting on the bench and her ears drooping. “I sent her home. Didn’t want her sitting out here all night when she’s got a business to run. Especially since she thinks this is all nonsense anyway.”
“Nonsense?” Starlight’s ears perked, her attention once again fully set on her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean she doesn’t believe for one second that there’s some cataclysmic spell hidden on this bench. Every minute she was here, she complained about how if ‘Princess Twilight Sparkle can’t find it, it must not exist’ and how I must be ‘ridiculously gullible to believe otherwise’.”
Starlight looked away, probably to hide whatever she was really feeling. “That doesn’t seem very… ‘friendship is magic’ of her.”
Lyra could only shrug. “Bonny’s a practical mare. I like that about her, she keeps me from being stupid.”
Her companion’s head whipped around, all the better to display her aghast expression. “Does she actually call you stupid?”
That and an assortment of fond memories were worth a grin. “Only when I’m being intentionally obtuse. It’s fun poking her buttons. She complains and acts all high and mighty, but I know for sure she secretly enjoys our little spats.”
Starlight’s incredulity lasted for a few seconds more before, finally, she shook herself out of it. “I’ll never understand how relationships work. Seems like a lot of trouble.”
“More than you know, but it’s worth it.” Lyra shifted, no longer finding her position comfortable. Now on her side, she stared beyond the street at the park as night gradually took over. “What if she was right? About there not being any spell, I mean.”
The query was met with hesitation. Starlight’s tail flicked. “I thought about it. I mean, how can we trust the pony who wrote the letter was telling the truth?” She looked away once more, following Lyra’s gaze. “The risk is awfully high. Twilight doesn’t want to chance it.”
So Twilight decided it was too risky, and that meant Lyra had to be stuck here? How unfair. How very, very unfair. Worse, Twilight didn’t have to deal with the consequences of the decision. The only pony who suffered under these circumstances was Lyra. And maybe Bonbon, but mostly Lyra. “But she couldn’t detect a spell.”
Starlight ran a hoof through her mane, agitation washing over her features. “Neither could I. Maybe the pony in question is just that good at magic.”
Lyra went through the extra effort to raise her head from the bench just so that she could give the mare a deadpan look. “Better than Starlight Glimmer the Timetraveler and Princess Twilight Motherbucking Sparkle? Combined? Don’t you think that’s a bit far-fetched?”
Agitation retreated before nervousness. Starlight brushed her mane a few more times, seemingly as a distraction, and couldn’t meet Lyra’s gaze. “To be fair, nobody would have thought a mere unicorn would be able to go horn to horn against an alicorn, but I did.”
“And how many unicorns are going to be better at magic than you?” Now Lyra was sitting up again, all the better to demonstrate her annoyance. “The odds have to be astronomical. Alicorn-level mortal is a pretty high bar.” She noted Starlight and how she was anxiously rubbing one of her forelegs and staring at the ground. The sight… bothered her. “Why are you acting all shy? It’s true.”
“Yes, but…” The prodigy couldn’t look Lyra in the eyes for more than a second. “Being all proud of it is part of what led to all my problems to begin with. Shouldn’t I be more humble about it?”
“We’ve already got one Twilight Sparkle in this town.” Lyra snorted and rolled her eyes. “Look, you’re good, you know it, so own it. I mean, so long as you’re not going all megalomaniacle again.” Starlight’s wince barely evoked a reaction, as Lyra had more important things on her mind than a former cult leader’s guilt-induced self-deprecation. “We don’t know there’s a spell on this thing. In fact, I think Bonny’s right and there is no spell at all.”
Starlight took a daring step forward, raising her hoof as if to stop Lyra from moving. “N-now hold on, you’re not planning to get up, are you?”
Lyra pressed her forehooves to the bench and eyed her flank. “How big is this explosion supposed to be?”
“We don’t know it’s going to be an explosion.” At Lyra’s dour look, Starlight amended, “All the letter said was that it would be bad.”
The incredulity couldn’t have been more obvious. “They didn’t even give you a proper scale for this thing? That’s it, I’m moving.”
“No!” Starlight’s horn lit up, promptly cementing Lyra’s flank to the bench. “I can’t let you do that.”
But Lyra was having none of it. She thrashed and squirmed and pushed against the magical hold, knowing full well she wouldn’t stand a chance. “It’s literally my butt on the line, it should be my decision!”
The magic, and Lyra, didn’t budge. “What if it’s not just your butt on the line?” Starlight insisted. “What if it takes out the whole block? Or the whole town?”
Lyra paused in her physical resistance to glare at the mare. “Starlight, you don’t know me all that well, so maybe you aren’t aware that I went to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. I may not be as smart and studious as Twilight, but I do know that if a spell is strong enough to do more than blow a single pony to smithereens, you would be able to detect it.”
Though her hornlight remained as strong as ever, the firmness in Starlight’s face wasn’t so sturdy. “W-well, what if this pony found a really clever way to conceal it?”
Lyra, too frustrated to appreciate how smoothly she recalled the knowledge she’d not bothered to utilize in years, thrust a hoof at her. “You’ve got no foundation on which to base that conclusion. You’re just making it up in the name of avoiding the worst case scenario.”
Starlight leaned back, aghast. “Isn’t that reason enough?”
“No!” The same hoof smashed against the bench. It might have even cracked were the wood not so flexible. “We don’t base our conclusions on wild guesses of things we’re hoping or fearing do or will someday exist. If you and Twilight can’t detect the spell, and you’re among the most magical mages in all the land, the most likely reason is that it’s not there.”
“But the letter—”
“Screw the Luna-damned letter!” Lyra paused upon realizing how deeply she was breathing, her lungs taking in sharp but deep intakes of air. She took a moment – okay, maybe a few moments – to control herself. In the back of her mind, she noted just how quiet it had gotten in the park. She gradually leaned against the bench and let her head tilt back. When her eyes opened again, it was to get a good look at the stars.
Those twinkling little lights gave her an idea. “Okay, so you think the worst case scenario justifies me sitting here to rot forever, do you?”
Starlight’s brow furrowed. “I never said you’d be here forever.”
“No, only for so long as it takes you to find a spell that doesn’t exist.”
“We don’t know it doesn’t exist.”
“And when will you be satisfied that it doesn’t exist?” Lyra was black to glaring, but she kept her temper in check this time. “Tomorrow? A week? Next year? And in the meantime, I’m the one suffering for your mistake.”
The pressure of the magic on Lyra’s body increased, briefly making it feel like she was getting squashed by an invisible vise. “You think Twilight and I are enjoying this? We’re not any happier about it!”
Lyra waved her hoof about. “Except you get to walk around, visit friends and family, go out to eat once in a while, see new things! Oh, yes, you’re suffering just as much, I’m sure.” Shaking her head, she recentered her focus. “But we’re getting off-track. Let me just pose this to you, oh wise and masterful decider of fates: if somepony sent Celestia a note warning that the sun would be stuck at high noon and burn the entire world if she dared to touch it again, should Celestia move it?”
Starlight appeared genuinely shocked by the idea. Then confused. Her final act of her emotional routine was to facehoof. “Of course she should. That’s a stupid question. Only Celestia controls the sun.”
“Discord can.” Lyra smiled at Starlight’s glower. It was not a friendly smile. “Twilight did once. So did the Storm King. I bet Tirek could, or Chrysalis, if the circumstances were right.”
The former villain groaned and made a cutting motion with her hoof. “All of those are or would be under specific circumstances! Except Discord, and he’s reformed.”
“Ah, but you can’t prove that someone else out there can’t do it,” Lyra pressed, feeling a certain wicked pleasure at the nature of her argument. “What if there’s somepony else who can reach for the sun?”
Starlight shook her head, growing more and more frustrated with every word. “She can disprove it just by reaching out and touching it with her magic!”
“Ah, but what if you’re wrong?” Lyra leaned forward, unable to resist a smirk. “Then an entire country dies because you just assumed you were right.”
The sputtering came to an abrupt stop. Starlight hardened her features, even going so far as to run a hoof over her mane and chest. “I see what you’re doing. It’s not the same thing.”
“Isn’t it?” Lyra patiently asked.
“No. She’s Celestia.”
Raising an eyebrow, still feeling oddly satisfied with herself, Lyra asked, “So it’s different because you choose to put her on a pedestal but keep yourself off of one?”
“I’m not an alicorn!”
“Twilight is.”
“Twilight’s not… I mean she is—” Lash went the purple tail. “The risk is too great!”
The mare’s frustration shouldn’t have been so pleasing to Lyra. She knew it shouldn’t. Who knew she could have such a vindictive streak? She might want to talk to Bonny about this later. For now, Lyra focused on the argument. “So next week, when you get a letter saying someone’s house will melt if they leave it, or a bridge will collapse if it’s used, or the schoolhouse bell will detonate if rung, you’re going to assume it’s true and accede to every demand this wannabe terrorist makes?”
For the first time since the argument started, Starlight was given genuine pause. She blinked at Lyra, then blinked at her own forehooves. “That… That does sound stupid.”
Finally! Lyra was starting to think none of her arguments were going to get through. If this worked then she was going to have Bonbon send a batch of her best treats to her old debate teacher at CSGU. All her frustration and anger faded with the glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe she could get Starlight to see reason. “You have to know that this is probably just a test by some con-artist trying to see what they can get away with.”
Back came the furrowed brow, but this time Starlight was carefully considering the possibilities. “But the letter didn’t demand anything.”
Lyra shrugged. “Some ponies just like to cause mayhem. Surely we can both think of a few right here in quiet old Ponyville.”
In perfect concert, they both declared, “Rainbow Dash.” The unintentional timing was enough to make them share a brief smile.
“Not that I’d ever accuse Rainbow of this,” Lyra admitted.
“Yeah,” Starlight agreed. “She likes pranks, but this isn’t really her style.”
“Wouldn’t be Discord,” Lyra noted. “He can be mean sometimes, but even before he was reformed he never caused anypony physical harm.”
“We talked to Discord, actually,” Starlight admitted. “But yeah, we already didn’t think it was him. We did ask him to check for any magic we might not be able to detect.”
There came an image in Lyra’s head of Discord staring at her flank with that wicked smirk of his. Her tail promptly flicked to cover her cutie mark. If there was anything she didn’t want, it was any part of her anatomy coming to his attention for longer than five seconds, and even those five seconds demanded great need. “Did he?”
“No.” Starlight glowered at nothing in particular, tail flicking. “Said he had better things to do than play pretend with us.”
How rich was that? “Even Discord thinks you’re crazy!” Starlight’s scowl bounced off her tungsten grin. “You know that if he thought there was even a chance of there being a real spell with deadly consequences, he’d be here.”
Those puffed up purple cheeks were a delight. “No we do not. We don’t understand him at all.”
“Except that he doesn’t like physical harm coming to ponies.” Lyra crossed her forehooves and leaned back against the bench, her amusement battling with her lingering annoyance and discomfort. “Look, you’re a superpowered mage, right? Don’t give me that look, and stop pretending to be humble! You’re a powerful mage. So put a shield over me.”
Starlight started to argue, but cut herself off mid-word. After a moment’s blank staring, she finally asked, “What good would that do? You and the bench of doom are still inside the shield.”
“Exactly. So when I stand up, if the bench goes boom, the blast is contained.”
“But then you’ll die!”
“It’s my risk to take,” Lyra declared with confidence. “And at this point I’m one-hundred percent confident there’s no spell.”
Starlight considered this.
For exactly two seconds. “No.”
The angry pony could be contained no longer. Or rather, she could, but she was now fully prepared to fight her containment as much as possible. Lyra lashed and twisted and snarled and pushed, doing everything she could to escape. Starlight held her down, watching the scene with a sort of bored curiosity. “You let me go! Let me go! I’m tired of sitting on this stupid bench! I wanna go home, I wanna snuggle with my Bonny, I wanna live in a world where ponies aren’t crazy!”
Starlight, as intimidated as a dragon before a housefly, maintained her deadpan stare along with her magical grip. “You’re not breaking free of my magic.”
Gritting her teeth as she tug-tug-tugged on her own tail, Lyra growled, “You can’t maintain that hold forever. The second you let it slip, I’m off this thing.”
“Hah!” The laugh was mocking, sharp, and confident. “This isn’t even that hard. I could do this all night.”
Lyra met her glare for stare, maintaining a constant pull against her foe’s magical aura. “Let’s see you prove it!”
“Gladly!”
They both went silent, glaring daggers at one another. Lyra knew her magical rules, holding a pony against their will wasn’t half as easy as non-unicorns liked to think.
All she had to do was wait.
Had Lyra paid attention to anything at all the day before, she would have come to the fundamental truth that waiting sucked raw carrots. With apologies to Golden Harvest.
When Celestia’s sun peeked over the horizon, it bore witness to two mares still locked in a battle of patience. Lyra, forelegs stinging, maintained a slouched posture, but was still keeping her forehooves firmly planted so as to apply pressure at the slightest sign of weakness in her opponent. Everything looked, sounded and felt dull to her, but she refused to lay down.
Starlight Glimmer was sitting as well, though she kept her back arched in a proud pose. Or as proud as she could manage with her shoulders perpetually slumped and her head frequently bobbing under threat of sleep. Her horn still glowed, not so much as a waver in its strength all night long. Even so, the effort required to maintain such a strong spell for an entire night had taken its toll.
Starlight was going through a routine. Right now it involved the eyelids gradually sliding down, her vision undoubtedly becoming narrower and narrower. There would be some brief head-bobbing, followed by a demonstration of the pony’s neck gradually arching downwards. Then, just as her chin was about to touch the grass, her entire body would go ramrod straight and her eyes would pop wide open. This would last for a second or two before a few rapid blinks – Lyra was certain she heard the impact of each one reverberate faintly in the air – allowed her to resume her determined glare, at which point the routine would start anew.
It was like watching one of those perpetually drinking bird toys; fascinating the first dozen or so times, but losing its charm after a hundred.
For all her weariness – who knew sitting down could be so exhausting? – Lyra had to admit being impressed. Holding any spell, even basic levitation, would be a strain for most ponies. Holding down an actively resisting pony? That was on a whole other level.
More important, however, was the grim awareness that she was probably going to lose this little contest. It was only a matter of time before somepony came by to check on the situation – or simply visited the park – and then Twilight Sparkle would just take over where Starlight left off. A revolving door of captors determined to keep her miserable for no other reason than their wild imaginations.
And then a familiar pony stepped in between them. “You’re still stuck here?”
Lyra blinked. And again. Finally she rubbed her eyes, which allowed her blurry vision to resolve. “Bonny? Hey. Yeah, still stuck.”
Bonbon reacted to this with only the perfect level of dry slight-disbelief. “Seriously?” Then she turned to regard Starlight, who was currently in the ‘chin not-quite acquainted with grass’ stage of her water bird toy performance. “And… what’s she doing?”
Lyra yawned and sat back, no longer seeing any point in the act now that Bonny was here. She’d get back to it after she left. “She just stayed up all night using magic to pin me to the bench. For my own safety.”
Her ‘best friend’ looked between Lyra and Starlight once. Twice. Three times. Then she casually reached out and pushed the latter’s shoulder. With an indignant squawk and a flailing of legs, the Sleeping On Your Hooves Theater Show came to an unillustrious conclusion. Lyra was too exhausted to even consider not laughing at the sight.
“Hey!” Starlight was back on her hooves in a second… two…. five seconds, glaring at Bonbon with all the fire and fury of a pony with not enough sleep to maintain it. Which is to say, exactly enough to fail to frighten a mouse. “What’s the big idea? I’m working here!”
Bonbon, every bit as worried as the aforementioned mouse, simply replied, “Teleportation.”
The response was enough to wipe away the preschool-grade rage on the mare’s face. Lyra didn’t blame her, she imagined she was no less mystified. The world was coming at her through the stupor of sleep deprivation and, unlike Starlight, she hadn’t been trying to maintain a spell all night. Maybe that was why she was quicker to ask the obvious question. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Her marefriend shot her ‘the look’, the one that kept foals from banging on glass display cases and shut down any attempt at doe-eyed adorableness as a con to get free sweets. “Did you or did you not attend CSGU?”
Ouch, harsh much? Lyra’s ears folded back as she petted her tail. “I’ve been up twenty-four hours.”
“You wake up at eleven AM at the earliest. It’s been twenty-one hours tops.” At Lyra’s pout, the stony facade finally cracked. With a sigh, Bonbon offered her an individually wrapped caramel turtle. “But that’s still a long time.” The unspoken apology (and candy) was accepted with as much gusto as a bone-weary pony magically superglued to a bench could offer. Lyra would have hugged the mare had she been able.
Starlight, meanwhile, shook her head and rubbed at her temple, likely where a night-long headache had been uncomfortably nestled in her skull. “For the sake of hoping for a solution to this stupidity and maybe getting some sleep, I’ll hear you out. What’s this about teleportation?”
Bonbon gestured to her marefriend. “Teleport Lyra off the bench. It does its thing, she’s safe, we all go home.” A beat. “Or rather, you go home. Lyra will cling to my side at my shop for comfort for the rest of the day, whining about everything that happened and getting in the way of my work.”
Lyra huffed, cheeks burning, and crossed her forelegs with a pout. “I’m not that needy.” Bonbon’s response consisted of only a deadpan stare. She was really good at those. Lyra wondered if she and Applejack practiced together in secret.
It took a moment of consideration, Starlight’s brain having gained a certain sluggishness that might not be all that different from the water bird toy she’d been emulating all night. “That won’t work,” she finally answered, although she at least appeared contrite about it. “It’s the bench that’ll explode or whatever. It might put ponies at risk.”
Bonbon took a long, slow, fortifying breath, only allowing her tail to lash twice. Lyra knew from experience: three lashes meant trouble. “Then teleport the bench.”
Starlight frowned.
Starlight stared at the bench.
Starlight clenched her eyes tightly closed.
Lyra watched Starlight, biting her lip and gritting her teeth.
Bonbon offered Lyra another candy – chocolate truffle this time – and eyed the slowly rising sun.
At last, Starlight heaved a long, slow sigh. “Okay.”
Lyra pumped a hoof. “Yesh!”
Bonbon didn’t even look. “Swallow your candy, dear.”
“Buff if sasthes so cood.”
“But I can’t do it as I am now,” Starlight continued, regaining their attention. “I’m beat, and probably couldn’t teleport an apple, much less a whole bench.” She turned her attention to Bonbon. “Why don’t you go get Twilight? She won’t be up yet, but don’t let that stop you. If you can’t get her or Spike up, go tell Trixie ‘Starlight grants her permission.’ She’ll know what it means.”
Bonbon huffed and sent Lyra a sour look. “The shop’s opening late today, I see.”
“Wha-? It’s hardly my fault!”
“Of course it’s not.” With one last sigh, the confectioner slipped a lollipop into Starlight’s yawning mouth and marched towards the distant castle. Three lashes. Lyra groaned and slumped back on her bench, wondering what she'd have to do to not sleep on the couch tonight.
With an appreciative hum, Starlight popped the candy out of her mouth and gave it an appreciative look. “I normally don’t care for lollipops, but this one’s alright.”
Twilight Sparkle stood before Lyra, her face a testament to seriousness.
“You understand that we cannot guarantee that using teleportation magic won’t trigger the spell?”
As tempted as she was to snap, Lyra knew as well as the princess that there were certain procedures for this sort of thing. “Yes, I understand.”
“And you still insist on trying, despite my being against it?”
“Yes,” Lyra repeated firmly. “I insist.” She refused to look at Starlight and Bonbon, both of whom were watching the scene from the sidelines.
Twilight’s hard face grew a little extra stony, which only reiterated how much she didn’t like this idea. She glanced to the two witnesses. “And you, Bonbon? Any objections?”
“I want her off that bench.” Bonbon scowled as though the bench had itself caused her great offense. “I don’t have any legal ability to stop this even if I wanted to. Your highness.”
“Technically, you do, it just requires the use of a few loopholes in—” At the earth pony's sour stare, Twilight stopped herself with a grumble. “Fine. Fine. Legally speaking, if you want to take the risk we can’t stop you. And as the only pony in town currently able to perform the spell, with the highest qualifications and the least likelihood of—”
“Twilight,” Starlight wearily interrupted. “You’re stalling.”
“Of course I am!” Twilight stomped in small circles, tail lashing and wings flicking. “This is inherently dangerous, and if something goes wrong then I’m the one to blame!”
“Technically, that guilt falls on me,” Lyra pointed out.
“Legally, even logically, sure!” Twilight glared at Lyra, tears forming in her eyes. “But that won’t change how I’ll feel.”
There wasn’t much Lyra could say against that. So she didn’t even try. “This is my decision, Twilight.”
“And what if you die?” the princess challenged. “I don’t want to be responsible for killing one of my oldest friends.”
“Then it’s a good thing you’re not going to kill me,” Lyra answered back with confidence. “You’re the Princess of Magic.”
“I’m the Princess of Friendship,” Twilight bitterly countered.
“And friendship is magic.” Leaning forward was painful, Lyra’s every joint aching with her tiredness. “Come on, Twilight. Even if I did believe that there was a spell on this bench – which I don’t – do you think I’d make you do this if I didn’t have total confidence in you?”
“Yes.” Not an ounce of frustration departed Twilight’s stare. “Because you are a reckless pony.”
Bonbon, without so much as a twitch of a smile, dryly announced, “I feel seen.”
Lyra shot her a piercing look that achieved nothing whatsoever. “Not helping!”
“Lyra,” Twilight pressed, and once more her eyes were threatening tears. “Are you really making me do this?”
There was no hesitation in the response, though there was pity. “Sorry, Twi, but somepony’s got to draw the line and make a decision. If you won’t, then I will. Do it.”
Those wide purple eyes spoke of betrayal and pain, so much so that they were almost enough to make Lyra doubt. Almost. She pushed back by shoring up her defenses and remembering that this entire debate was moot from the get-go. There was no spell, and they’d soon see that for certain.
Twilight must have recognized that big, shiny eyes weren’t going to dislodge her, for she finally nodded and turned to Starlight and Bonbon. “You two better get back, just in case.”
Starlight immediately turned to obey, but Bonbon remained right where she was. At Twilight’s questioning look, she said, “If I can trust you not to blow up my marefriend, I can trust you not to blow me up too.”
“Greeeeat,” Twilight grumbled. “No pressure.”
Starlight looked at Bonbon, then at Lyra, then finally at Twilight. With a sigh, she trudged back to Bonbon’s side. “I trust you too, Twi. I guess.”
The grumbling grew louder. Lyra might have heard teeth grinding.
“Let’s get this over with before anypony else recklessly decides to trust me with their very lives,” Twilight groused. Her horn lit up and, gradually, her purple aura covered the bench.
Lyra braced. Part of it was to try not to fall too hard when the bench disappeared from under her. Another, not-so-quiet part: the sudden realization that she wasn’t 100% sure there was no spell on the thing and, consequently, she may or may not go kablooey. It was tempting to look to Bonbon, to just stare at her and commit her every feature to memory. Just in case. She resisted, because she couldn’t show even the slightest sign of doubt before Twilight, but oh, how she wanted to.
She would have liked to have had more time to consider what was about to happen, but time waits for no mare, and Twilight didn’t hesitate. There was an audible ‘pop’, and gravity laid claim to Lyra’s butt in ways the bench had denied it for far too long. She hit the ground hard, flopping onto her back with an undignified grunt.
There was no explosion. Acid didn’t spray everwhere, or a mighty gale arise to slice her to ribbons. Ponyville wasn’t turned into Equestria’s largest snowglobe, nopony’s tail turned into poisonous snakes. None of a thousand possibilities her mind could conjure – given plenty of practice thanks to the existence of a certain Lord of Chaos who shall forever remain nameless – actually happened, except the one where Lyra’s flank ached from a short but sharp fall. She wasn’t sure what was more surprising, the pain of the fall or the fact the fall happened at all.
Rubbing her protesting posterior, she cast her eyes to her surroundings. Bonbon let out a long, slow breath of relief, her entire body relaxing in that way it often did after a long holiday’s work. Twilight and Starlight, on the other hoof, were peering at the sky.
“Well,” Bonbon said with strained relief, “we’re alive.”
Gradually, hind legs aching from spending so long on that dumb bench, Lyra got to her hooves. She flexed them one at a time, hopped from side to side, and finally allowed herself to relax. Only then did the endorphins flooding into her cavernous skull finally trigger the long-awaited reaction: two simultaneous hoof-pumps and a “Woohoo!” so loud it might have shook the windows of the nearby houses.
“I told you!” One hoof thrust Starlight’s way. “You said I was crazy!”
Bonbon, still rubbing her ears, countered, “You are.”
“And proud of it!” Weariness held no ground against the formerly stuck pony’s literally bouncing joy. “I’m alive, we’re alive, I was right. Suck it, stupid letter-writing scam pony, I called your bluff and I won!”
Twilight held a hoof over her eyes, still peering at the sky. “Where is it?”
Starlight copied her mentor’s posture with a thoughtful frown. “I don’t see it. Maybe it blew up after all?”
Lyra was too busy doing a two-legged moonwalk to pay them much mind. “Oh yeah, oh yeah, Lyra’s the best, that’s right!”
Bonbon heaved the sigh of the long-suffering and plopped down in the grass. “She’ll be at this all day.”
“Only if you keep feeding her candy,” Starlight noted, not taking her searching eyes off the clouds. “She should crash soon.”
Watching the ecstatic emerald equine rotating her hips in a manner that really shouldn’t be so easy for a creature with her anatomy, Bonbon threw yet another sigh into the air. “You clearly don’t know Lyra.”
“Oh, there it is,” Twilight finally announced, grinning. “Looks like Lyra was right, it’s intact.”
Lyra was abruptly at her side, leaning close with a hoof over her ear and a smarmy smile on her face. “What was that? I don’t think I heard you clearly. Care to say it again?”
Twilight responded by pushing the mare away with a roll of her eyes.
Starlight brushed a lock of her mane back, ears folding flat as she watched Lyra do a pirouette. “I spent all night holding her down for nothing.”
“And now I’m glad you did,” Lyra announced, pronking from side to side.
“Because you’re alive?” Starlight asked.
“Because now we know the letter was a bluff?” Twilight suggested.
“Because you were right?” Bonbon drolly supplied.
Two hooves thrust into the air one again. “Because I was right!” She pointed at Starlight. “You were wrong.” Then Twilight. “You were wrong.” Then at Bonbon. “You were—”
A beat to stare into the narrowed eyes perched above the slightest, most telling of frowns.
“—never wrong, because you’re my wonderful marefriend who always knows what’s best for me and is kind enough to not make me sleep on the couch tonight as I take her out to her absolute favoritest restaurant in town to make up for worrying her silly.”
“Uh, girls?”
Starlight blinked at the two of them. “She was worried?”
Bonbon, not taking those dangerous eyes off her marefriend, answered, “I bury it deep.”
“But I know her well enough to see it under the fur.”
“Girls?”
Lyra swing her hips, backtracking in little circles and tossing her neck with wild abandon. “And it’s all awesome because I’m alive, I’m alive. Hah, hah, hah, hah, stayin’ alive!”
Starlight slapped a hoof over her face. “I don’t know if I can keep watching this.”
Bonbon quirked an eyebrow. “Try living with her.”
“Girls!”
All eyes shot to Twilight, who was now standing well away from all three of them.
“Get out of the way!”
All three shared questioning looks. “Out of the way of what?” Starlight asked.
Twilight tried to elaborate. The bench beat her to it. Loudly, at terminal velocity, and right on top of a sashaying green unicorn.
Bonbon’s stare was as deadpan as ever. Truly, it was one of her best expressions.
Lyra’s tried to grin back. It wasn’t easy. “This one’s not my fault.”
Deadpan remained the only reaction.
“It’s not.” She would have shrugged, but it would get her nowhere. Except maybe a trip to Pain Land.
More deadpan.
She chuckled weakly, flinching at the sting the act caused. “Twilight promised to pay the medical bills.”
A deepening frown added to the ceaseless deadpanning.
It would be nice to sink under the covers right about now. Nice, but not possible with the cast on her everything. “I’m sorry?”
The deadpan faded only long enough for the sigh to pass. Bonbon walked to the side of the medical bed, dug into her saddlebag, and pulled out a chocolate mint candy. Lyra’s ears would have perked were they capable of moving; those were her favorite. “This,” her confectioner marefriend announced, “is for costing me an entire day of work.”
She placed the mint on the bedside table and turned to leave.
Lyra blinked at it, only able to see the piece of candy out the corner of her eye. “Wait. Bonny. I can’t reach it.”
The door opened.
“Bonny, I need you to—”
“Love you, Lyra. Don’t know why I do, but it’s true. See you tomorrow.”
“Uh, Bonny, the candy—”
The door closed.
Lyra stared at the candy, heart sinking and taste buds whining. She tried moving a foreleg. It refused, and made sure to hurt her in retribution. She bent her neck and stuck out her tongue, thinking she could suck up the chocolate and spit the wrapper back out. Alas, her tongue was of a woefully inadequate length to achieve such a feat.
So she just lay there, staring and whimpering.
In this case, she wasn’t sure what would have been worse: being right or being wrong.