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IX - The Lirmaments

Dear Journal,

What are we afraid of? What fills us with dread each night? What forces our eyes to open wide, against the percussion of our panting breaths, so that we may determine whether we are actually dead or just sleeping?

What gives shadows their sharp edge? What makes a black doorway so foreboding, a dusty corner so full of shapes and whispers? What tugs at the hairs on the back of our necks so harshly?

We've grown accustomed to a world that is safe, warm, and tranquil. When the slightest chaotic event undermines the sanctity of our domain, we become uneasy. We discover the taste of trepidation, a very bitter bile that sits in the back of our throats. We cling to our loved ones and we dream of them being eternal, just as we wish our anxieties to be impermanent. We shudder in our homes, beds, and tears, thinking that we are afraid.

I have seen the land between the firmaments. We are not afraid enough.

My name is Lyra Heartstrings. Two days ago, I became the first mortal pony in a millennium to have performed a damnable symphony, and yet I have come back from the freezing shadows. I am alone with the memories of what I have witnessed. As of this moment I am alive, and I have much to write about.

It started with a song, as all things do. The melody poured into every corner of the room, filling the air with a haunting, mournful frequency. When it ended, its echoes lamenting the final chords of my lyre, I opened my eyes to see Twilight Sparkle standing in the library before me, on the verge of tears. Her mouth hung open, and very numbly my foalhood friend stammered:

"'Twilight's Requiem.'"

And with that, Elegy #8 had a name.

"'Twilight's Requiem?'" I repeated. I lowered the lyre back into my saddlebag and sat on my haunches across from her in the afternoon's glow. "That's a rather interesting choice for a name," I said, though my voice came out in a drone. I had just finished the usual routine with Twilight, telling her all that she needed to know in order to help me come up with this title. "You sure you haven't gotten it mixed up with something else?"

"I... I'm sure," she murmured. Her ears were folded against her head. She sat in a slump, looking like a wilted bouquet of violets. Her eyes searched the shadows of the room as her mind reached solemnly into the past. "There's no way I could forget the name of that instrumental. When Princess Celestia first taught it to me during a history lesson, I remember being instantly intrigued. I was a young filly at the time, and I guess I read a little too much into the word 'Twilight' being an important piece of Canterlot music history."

"And just how important a piece is it really?" I asked her in a pointed manner. "Please, Twilight, anything you have to tell me could be immensely helpful right now."

"Helpful?" Her lips quivered. She looked up at me with sad eyes. "How could anything help you, Lyra? If what you've said is true, then-"

"Please. There isn't much time." I stood up and trotted firmly towards her. "This Requiem... what connections could it have had with Princess Luna?"

"I... I-I studied up on it one summer while Princess Celestia was away on a meeting of diplomacy with the Queen of the dragons," she said. "I listened to the recording and I thought it was one of the saddest instrumentals I had ever heard. Shortly thereafter, I asked some of the royal archivists in the Palace Library about it. I wasn't told much, only that the song had its origin during Shadow's Advent."

"Shadow's Advent?" I remarked, squinting in thought. Every unicorn scholar knows about the poetically labeled era immediately predating the Civil War. Princess Luna, secretly on the verge of becoming Nightmare Moon, had withdrawn into seclusion. Her total and unexpected isolation had a negative effect on all of Equestria. Rumors filled the land that the alicorn goddess had developed some sort of unearthly affliction. Even Princess Celestia herself was consumed with worry. When Luna came out of her self-imposed exile, she wasn't the same. Nightmare Moon had consumed her, and the civil war that followed ravaged much of the countryside. My first thought was a curious one: just how could Luna have found the time to compose a requiem during such a dark chapter in her life? "Did the archivists have any knowledge of who wrote the piece during that era?" I ultimately asked Twilight.