1) Bon-Bon: Haha! Well, I don’t know if anypony is eating the stuff, but candy corn is a pretty reliable seller around Nightmare Night.

Lyra: I like candy corn!

2) Well, there isn’t really that much to maintain. I’ve never had to replace anything on any of my lyres other than the strings, and I don’t physically touch them so even then only rarely.

I saw Battle Network being played quite a bit when it first came out. The combat style was completely uninteresting to me. The whole reason I played Network Transmission was because it didn’t play at all like Battle Network.

3) B: How very illegal for you to possess. Also convenient that you’ve no desire to share what you shouldn’t have in the first place. Though I suppose if you were responsible enough to realize that you wouldn’t be attempting to justify it. In vain, if you were wondering.

Strawberry, I thought these were just old spell books. B’s right; that stuff is outlawed and illegal to own. You have to get rid of them. Turn them in, destroy them, whatever you have to do.

4) I’m sorry, but I already know how to bowl! I’m not pro or anything, but I almost got a 150 last time I played. And that was after not playing for a lo~ng time.

1) Historically? Hair. Easy to replace, abundant, and cost efficient! Mine are metal, though. Not too expensive and very durable, but Luna help you if it breaks and flings the wrong way. Cut my foreleg once. No scar or anything, but a lot of blood and it hurt like crazy! Whole thing scared the crap out of me!

Megaman Legends is my favorite series. I loved it. Loved it. I gave up on there ever being a sequel, though.

I didn’t care for Battle Network, but I don’t know anything about Star Force. I played Network Transmission. It wasn’t bad; it was just… More like okay in spite of it’s mechanics instead of because of them.

2) The gang lifestyle arose from the emergence of a now extinguished drug trade. Upper class has always existed in Canterlot, as far as I know. In fact, some families were ruined from the break-ins.

But there’s an upper Canterlot and a lower Canterlot. Lower Canterlot isn’t visible from the skyline. That’s where ponies with less bits lived and that’s where gangs festered until the source was tracked and eliminated.

3) I don’t mean for a public library. I mean colleges! Scholars! Historians! Why are you being so difficult about this?

4) Hello! Fantastically well I am; certainly not fine by far, but you could say I’m close to spectacular.

You seem to have caught Fluttershy since last we spoke. Is it contagious?

5) You gotta remember that unicorn magic beyond the basics is, for the most part, pretty rare anyway. Most of what I know came as secondary education.

Amplification won’t make any noticeable changes to a body’s natural healing process. At least, nothing that’s yet been accomplished has. It’s just not focused enough. There are healing magics, though.

1) Well, yes. The real world does tend to be real.

2) Every now and again, certainly!

3) Stupid, huh? Charming.

Maybe I don’t want to follow around some windbag as she spouts existential jargon. Maybe I wanted to play at the concert level. But you know how good you have to be to do that professionally? You think I’m the only one with a special talent for playing the lyre? Special talents aren’t all created equal. You know how infrequently lyres are used in contemporary performances? The few spots available are taken by ponies that are just better than I am.

4) I don’t want to leave Equestria. As for where ponies came to Equestria from, historically those willing to put aside their differences followed our ancestors here. Those that couldn’t let go of their hate, stayed behind and perished.

I don’t really want to talk about marriage anymore…

5) I go by Lyra but my legal name, the stuff I fill out on official papers, is Liora, surname: not available. I could tell Jane McRandom that my surname is Freechmen if I felt like it, but it wouldn’t make it true.

6) I direct you here. Here. Here. And initial here.

Well, then that’s good! You just keep going and you’ll be drawing all awesome and stuff in no time!

1) Don’t know for sure. The ponies that took care of me when I was young celebrated it on the 6th of April, so I’ve always just gone with that.

Evidently, when they were still trying to find my parents, they had somepony come in to approximate my age. All they could get out of it was that I was born sometime between May and the end of April.

Good luck with your sleepover!

2) For like the third or forth time; no. Not yet, not ever.

3) I can see why you’d try making that connection, but I’d be lying if I said yes.

Try this one. Maybe not the best fit for the both of us together, but I like it. We’ll call it my Favorite Song for the day! Haven’t done one of those in a while.

4) Had to look for that one. Thought this was from a advert at first. In fact, I wish it was.

The full song I found instead was… Just awful…

I was going to link to this when I thought you were talking about a advert, now I’m doing it to get that song out of my head.

5 and 6) I’m gonna try. Thanks for the encouragement!

And as an aside, I’m not pitifully asking for ponies to cheer me on with some sad sap routine. I’m just telling the truth. I can’t draw, I’d like to be able to draw. Time will tell if the desire for the later is strong enough to fuel a change to the former.

Oh… Cels… That wasn’t even a very big deal.

Far from the more terrifying experiences of my life, that was just a school-yard tussle. Some fillies didn’t appreciate my attitude and took it upon themselves to try and “correct” me.

They beat the crud out of me and during the fight I fell on my saddlebag where my lyre was. That was all there was too it.

Of course, they were also the ones I was trying to get revenge on when I accidentally pranked Twilight with Poison Joak. Never got them back after that prank misfired.

Thank you for the gift! I have a carry case for my lyre already, but I’ve never had one with a place for picks too!

Well, thank you for belaying your racism on my behalf.

This should help with most of the points. I’ll run through everything else quickly.

Sitar.

I found out the instrument I saw being played that I didn’t recognize is called a Pedal Steel Guitar. I’d like to play one of those! Here’s a video reference of it being played. Skip to here if you want to see where it gets awesome.

I personally like playing with guitars and bass guitars, but I like playing the bass on a piece, so I guess guitar would be the answer.

But Sweetie does an excellent job on drums.

Telekinesis with a pick.

For more information.

Also.

Traditional seven. It can have more, but mine only have seven.

First Lyre.

How old was I? Mid-teenage by human standards (not that we go by that, but I wouldn’t want to leave any human readers in the dark). Lasted a good while before it was pulverized in that fight.

I just tape a pick to the edge of my hoof when playing my lyre manually. I imagine a guitar player would just use magic on the frets, or their wings.

I have no Equestrian idea how an earth pony would do it, but they always seem to find a way.

I’ve never really paid attention to whether Gilda plays with her talons or a pick.

Well, that’s actually really complicated, because lyre is a broad classification of a number of string insturments.

Some lyres are plucked, some are designed to be played with a bow string. I actually play mine with a pick like the original lyres.

This can give you some historical information.

And here’s a video of a Contrabass Lyre being tested.

What I play when preforming live is the closest approximation of the definition of the word lyre, which sort of just looks like a small harp. But I’ve mentioned before that I actually own three lyres. One of them is a concert-style cithara. That’s what I typically record on.

Well, thank you. It’s nice to get something that doesn’t involve somepony I’ve done everything in my power to distance myself from civilly before tonight.

I sort of fell into the instrument by accident, but I do enjoy it! It is a beautiful and versatile tool. I also play the sitar a little, but I can’t imagine playing anything else as my primary instrument.

My first lyre was loaned to me by the school. The first one I ever owned was broken into about six or seven pieces during a fight. Of the three I have now, I bought one, and two were birthday presents given to me on the same year by accident.

I see all these sweet stories about musicians and still having their first instrument, but I don’t have one of those. None of my lyres hold any sentimental value to me at all.

For bonus points, my sitar is the only one I’ve ever owned. I saw one in a music store in Canterlot and remembered hearing somepony play one in the streets once. Bought it on a whim.

Meta powers and I have conflicting answers…

I play these things on a lyre or my sitar in the unused room in our house. It’s not the best set up, because I can’t, for example, listen to what I’ve got while recording for an overlay or it’ll feedback into the mic while I’m playing.

But meta powers will argue that I use some computer program. But I only use Audacity for minor tweaks to volume.

Rainbow Dash asked me this question, and I accidentally answered privately, so she was kind enough to post it for me. Thanks Rainbow Dash!

Hey Lyra you compose REALLY great music! Could i know when you started to play? :) rainbowdash-answers

When I first enrolled in school it was mid school year. The music class wanted another string instrument so they tried to assign me a violin, but I had a lot of trouble. I could barely hold the thing and I couldn’t get my hooves to press the strings properly. The other violinists all used magic, but I didn’t know magic yet.

They found an old harp in storage and switched me to that. The original harpist in the class didn’t like me because they dumbed down all of my parts, which I guess is understandable. Pretty unfair from her perspective to be lumped together with me. It went on like that for the rest of the school year.

When I returned the following year, my harp, the old one, had mysteriously had all of it’s strings cut and was severally dented up. The school either couldn’t afford another harp or didn’t care enough to buy one. I knew magic by then, so I could have started over with another instrument, but it meant I would have had to go back a year in music and play with a new class. When I saw that smug look on the other harpist face, I knew she was responsible and I wasn’t about to let her get away with it.

I asked if there was anything remotely like a harp I could play instead. And they brought out this little thing they called a lyre. They said they used it as a prop during school plays but that it was real.

I was completely ready to sit down next to that harpist and show her up something good. But I still wasn’t all that great. And with my parts no longer being dumbed down I’d usually have to choose accuracy or speed. I just didn’t seem capable of both and my grade reflected that.

Halfway into the year, the harpist moved and I was told to switch back to harp. The teacher said she’d dumb down the parts for me again and I was all for it at first. Then the thought occurred to me that all I was doing was jumping around trying to find an excuse to be accepted for mediocrity. It reflected in other areas of my life too.

So I refused. The teacher wasn’t pleased. She told me if my performance wasn’t up to snuff for the end of the year recital she’d fail me for the year. I was sort of defiant in my youth, if you couldn’t tell, so I didn’t take that very well. I kinda blew off all of my other classes, memorized the pieces in question, and practiced every night.

When the recital came, I still made one or two mistakes. And I barely passed for the year because I all but ignored my other classes. But my music teacher said she was impressed at my improvement, and I even got an award for most improved performer. At the end of the day I got my award, when I came home and removed my dress, I noticed I had a cutie mark.

And that is the real story, all jokes removed.