The Running of Lyra

The Running of Lyra is a short story by Lurks-no-More. It was inspired by a July 2011 image depicting Lyra participating in the Running of the Leaves on two legs instead of four like all the other ponies. As such, the story is a take on the popular Lyra-behaves-like-a-human motif; like most fan fiction featuring Lyra, it also portrays her as in a romantic relationship with Bon Bon. Bon Bon works in a sweets shop, Lyra as an at-home music teacher.

Style
The story is segmented into four brief chapters, each taking place on a different day. Except for the second, they are narrated from Lyra's perspective in the third person. The story uses the past tense consistently.

Summary
The story opens with Lyra practicing standing and walking on her hindlegs in her and Bon Bon's basement. We learn that she has had the desire to do this since childhood, much to the confusion and even dismay of other ponies. Bon Bon doesn't understand either, and worries for Lyra's health, but is accepting of her partner's quirk.

Either later the same day, but probably a few weeks laterThe story isn't entirely clear about this., Bon Bon surprises Lyra during one of her practice sessions, which she had kept secret from her partner. It turns out all the practice is for the Running of the Leaves, which Lyra intends to participate in, bipedally. Upon hearing this, Bon Bon is skeptical, but supportive.

The day of the race arrives, and Lyra still plans to go through with her plan. She dons special horseshoes that are supposed to relieve some of the physical stress on her body, and starts racing. Other ponies give her weird looks, but she ignores them and focuses on keeping her balance. Bon Bon never strays from her side, even when it becomes painful for Lyra to maintain her bipedal gait and she has to slow down, letting many other ponies pass her.

When it's clear to Bon Bon that Lyra is in no state to actually finish the race like that, she instructs the unicorn to put her forelegs on Bon Bon's back. Despite Lyra's protestations the Earth pony won't take no for an answer, and soon the weird-looking couple enter the final stretch. At one point, Twilight Sparkle closes in from behind, remarks that "it's now time for [her] sprint", tells the mares to "have fun", and dashes off.

As they come within eyeshot of the finish line, they see Applejack and Rainbow Dash, who are concentrated more on beating up on each other than they are on winning the race. Spurred on by the possibility that they may not be last, Bon Bon and Lyra put extra effort into reaching the finish line, and do so before the two brawling ponies. Lyra even does so on two legs, having gotten enough rest that she can make do without Bon Bon's support.

The next day, Lyra is sore and achy all over. Bon Bon gives her a massage, lightly teasing her partner about her foolish little quirk.

Derivatives
The story's first chapter has been turned into a comic, and the comic has in turn been used as the the basis for an illustrated audio play with full voice-over realization: captions are read by a male narrator, and two women read Lyra's and Bon Bon's dialogues. Both derivatives are very faithful to the source: most of the dialogue is quoted verbatim, and while some of the narration is paraphrased and abridged, there are no massive changes to the text.

External link

 * The original story on deviantArt