Hooves Holding Hearts

Chapters

Chapter 1: Allegro, the Opening Sonata
Chapter 2: The Choral Prelude
Chapter 3: The Moving Reprise
Chapter 4: Pomp and Circumstance

Chapter 1: Allegro, the Opening Sonata

Chapter 1: Allegro, the Opening Sonata

One Hour to Showtime...A hoofstep into the front door, Bon Bon could already smell disaster.“Lyra!” Bon Bon sighed as she undid her saddlebags, relief flowing into her back as they hit the floor. “Lyra, get out of the kitchen!”

Silence greeted her as she traversed the living room, which Bon Bon slowly paced through like a drill instructor reviewing her troops. Bookshelf surfaces had been dusted and mostly swept clean of toys (action figures, she imagined Lyra would have corrected). The overflowing mess of the paperback shelf had been mostly whittled down to a tightly shoved-in collection, looking like a mass-market fantasy brick wall built in a hurry. Lyra’s record collection had been straightened from an unruly mess to a slightly ruled mess about to topple into anarchy. Well, she considered, I could be rid of that disaster onany day I choose to remind Cheerilee to check which are hers.

As always, the only surface with which the spirit of organization touched was the tiny, glass-doored cabinet filled with chef figurines. It was, not by coincidence, the only thing in the room which was wholly hers.

Bon Bon shrugged. Not perfectly baked, but close enough to serve. “Lyra! I know you’re there, Love!” Making her way to the kitchen, Bon Bon gave the immense, stain-scarred dining room table an appraising look. The candelabras were well placed, the four places set, and the patterns matching well. She nodded to herself as she entered the kitchen, steeling herself for horrors.

Lyra stood inside, balancing on her hindhooves as she threw vegetables into a pot. Bon Bon saw an onion bulb fly across her vision, cut with the delicacy of one of those retro-horror slasher stories Lyra relished. The cook in question wore a triumphant grin as she stirred the broth with a knife, and Bon Bon twitched as she heard the groaning metal scrape across the bottom of the pot.

Compared to the kitchen, Lyra seemed off and out of place. It wasn’t just the two spinning spice racks, whose filing system seemed like calculus to the hapless unicorn. The poor, long-suffering sink was filled with unnecessary dishes and tools, thrown in and replaced instead of washed and put back. This still wasn’t the excluding principle.

The ancient bricks of the kitchen were a dusky gray that Bon Bon loved. They spoke of age, family traditions, and old remembered recipes. The kitchen walls represented everything about her art that Bon Bon loved, and her beloved green spouse looked fundamentally out of place inside it, as if a painter started with respectful watercolors and switched to crayons.

Bon Bon sighed. “Lyra, I ordered you out of the kitchen.”

“Sorry, Bonny.” Lyra turned from the pot, levitating the knife into a pile of instruments without looking, and Bon Bon swallowed as the metal mountain shifted. Holding the cutting tray in one hoof, Lyra used a green forelimb to sweep a jumble of ingredients onto the tray before dumping it into the pot. “I couldn’t hear you over the sound of how awesome a chef I am.”

Bonny twitched. “Lyra..."

“I started out wanting to make bouillabaisse, because it sounds cool. Bouillabaisse!”

Lyra jumped into the air, rattling the kitchen table with a bump. Bon Bon’s internal monologue raised a few decibels as she grit her teeth.

“But,” Lyra admitted as she scratched her nose and picked up a hoofful of vegetables, “I must admit, I didn’t know what it was. Cookbook indexes suck, so I picked another recipe. Even threw in some tortillas for a strong base,” she said, using the only one of Bon Bon’s culinary terms she remembered. “The eggs will make this the awesomest gazpacho soup ever.”

Bon Bon blinked before snorting and giggling simultaneously. Helpless with laughter, she fell to the side, narrowly managing to avoid hitting the fridge with her head.

Lyra scowled. “Do I detect doubt in your voice?”

Fighting through the wheezing, Bon Bon rolled onto her stomach while supporting her head on her hoof. “Stringbean, you’re adorable. Gazpacho soup is a vegetarian soup.”

Lyra returned her gaze briefly before returning to the pot. Her horn flashed, pulling out a half-dozen uncooked eggs and dumped them into a nearby bowl with a splash. “There. It’s still simmering nicely.”

“It’s also prepared without heat,” Bon Bon said as she stood up.

Lyra deflated, a bashful expression crawling into her features. “It’s... griffon cold fusion cuisine gazpacho.” She sighed as she leaned back onto her haunches.

Bon Bon planted a kiss on her nose. “Honey, it's cute. I know you want to show off today. Let me in there, and I just might be able to salvage it.”

"No way," responded Lyra. “I'm showing how good a husband I am.”

“Wife,” corrected Bon Bon.

Lyra grit her teeth. “Husband. You own more aprons.”

Bon Bon patted her on the head and sniffed the soup. Her eyes crossed as she waved a hoof in front of her nose. “Greenbean, I wake up in the morning to go to a job. You occasionally tour Canterlot and sleep until noon otherwise. I love you, but I’m the husband and you’re in my kitchen.”

“Tonight’s going to be special, and I’m going to help!” Lyra crossed her forelimbs, readying the stare of marital disagreement.

“I invoke the roommate agreement.”

Lyra’s shoulders sagged. “Bonny, we’re married now!”

Bon Bon replaced the scattered cooking utensils with a possessive air. “And where in those touching vows you wrote did we ever repudiate the roommate agreement? My kitchen, Lyra. I remember your cooking. Recall the noodle incident, be any chance?”

Lyra stood onto her hooves as she pouted. “You said we’d never speak of that again!”

A raised eyebrow was the only response she received. “Lyra,” Bon Bon said in a controlled tone, “you could make a good impression by tidying your Humanworld bookshelf. You don’t want your fairy tales everywhere. Work on your records, too.”

Lyra nodded.

Bon Bon lifted a mass of unidentifiable plant matter into a wok. She poked at it in a distrustful manner with a chopstick.

Lyra bore her defeat with silence as she fled the kitchen. At the last second, she struggled to salvage her flagging dignity.

“They’re fantasy novels, not fairy tales.”

Bon Bon sighed as she scraped something unidentifiable off the sink. “I know that, dear. Fairy tale books sell for half as much at twice the page count, and they don’t make three new ones a year. Pardon me, I have fifty-three minutes to cook a dinner.”

A spicy smell tickled Bon Bon’s nose from across the kitchen. Moving over, she gave a cautious sniff to the bowl in question. Bonny’s eyes widened as she picked up a spoon with her teeth and poked the green and white mass.

“Hmm.” A toothy smile grew across her face. “That’s actually usable, Stringbean. Ah, well. Infinite monkeys and typewriters.” Bon Bon clicked her hooves together. “Omelet. Ranchy omelet.” She whistled. “This would work as a side dish.”

Bon Bon’s eyes narrowed. “I can cook this in only twelve minutes.” She spun around, lunging at her spice rack like an aging actor for a last award. “Must have chives and paprika!”

Through it all, Lyra watched through the doorway with a smile. Upon first meeting the couple, many ponies assumed that their relationship worked because Bon Bon’s level-headed nature kept Lyra’s craziness in check. The pair had rehearsed smiles for the inevitable comment at any dinner party.

What most ponies didn’t realize was that two complementary types of insanity balance each other pretty well if one type can pass for sanity.

Turning away from the epic feats of food preparation, Lyra closed her eyes. She wasn’t thinking about the “fairy tale” remark, a comment she filed under “Standard Bon Bon Sniping, Topic B.” More personal worries were available to concern herself over. She slowly opened her eyes and cast quick glances around her home, finding fault with everything, everywhere.

Lyra rubbed an eye with her hoof as she willed her heart to stop pounding. You’re just nervous about tonight. You’re allowed,after all.

Lyra concentrated harder than necessary as her horn flared, rearranging her novels one by one without disturbing the tiny figures set up with care on the shelf.

After all, if tonight works, we become parents.

___

Ninety-Seven Days to Showtime

Natural selection had left the ancestors of ponies with a tendency to bare their teeth when confronted by a predator. An ancient grunting mesohippus pony confronting a wooly manticore at the front of its family cave would have recognized the terrified smile Lyra displayed now out of cold, sweating terror. The main difference was that Lyra was terrified of a pleasant, bespectacled mare with a clipboard.

The oak-paneled walls of the Hooves Holding Hearts foster care service seemed to close in on her as a pleasantly smiling earth pony sat on a stool behind the paper-covered desk. The white-coated mare who held Lyra’s future in her hooves calmly brushed a scarlet curl out of her vision as she scanned the hopeful couple’s application.

A tap on Lyra’s shoulder drew her attention to Bon Bon’s reassuring smile.

“Hey,” the cheerful mare said with a wink. “Stop fretting. We’re in control.”

Lyra nodded with a swallow. A hyperactive imagination trained on composition and amateur fantasy writing tried to rein in thoughts of five possible impending disasters.

The earth pony cleared her throat and smiled.

“Welcome to Hooves Holding Hearts. I’m Heartmend, and I’m happy to be your case worker.” She tilted her head, continuing her spiel with rehearsed ease. “Have either of your ever been involved with the foster care system before?”

Lyra glowered at the question while Bon Bon played diplomat.

“We had applied at the Family Fixing Farm Foster Service, but..."

“It just might be that we... lacked some of the equipment they were looking for.”

“Really.” Heartmend adjusted her glasses. “May I ask what equipment in question it was?”

Lyra sighed. “Get me a copy of Playmare magazine and I’ll circle it.” A mischievous grin ran across her face. “Alternately, we could play charades.”

Bon Bon nudged her spouse. “I’m sorry,” she said with a practiced feigned calmness, “but they upset my wife.”

“Husband,” Lyra said as she lay down and crossed her forelimbs pensively. “Also, there was a thing that may have been important. We had a thing there. With a table.”

“Ah.” Heartmend furrowed her brow, quickly jotting down a few notes with a mouth-held pencil before continuing. “Well, I’m glad you’ve survived that initial heartbreak. It’ll make the next few times a bit easier.”

Lyra and Bon Bon exchanged a glance.

Continuing without missing a beat, Heartmend said “So, how did you hear about us and our practices?”

“Well,” Lyra said as she scratched the back of her neck, “two of our close marefriends have adopted into their families. I understand your agency helped them both with the legal paperwork.” She sat up straighter. “We’re both so very happy to meet you for this opportunity.”

She stretched out a grin just wide enough to swallow a foal. Heartmend raised a skeptical eyebrow and looked at Bon Bon, who returned a slightly more uncomfortable smile that would still have left most ponies vaguely uneasy and thinking of manticores.

“Misses and Misses Sweetie Drops,” she started, “I’d like to know just why you entered the foster care system.”

Heartmend noticed Lyra almost imperceptibly lean toward Bon Bon, breathing deeply as their shoulders touched. Bon Bon responded with a gentle nuzzle across Lyra’s cheek before turning to Heartmend, who had the decency to pretend to be idly looking at a framed display of thank-you notes.

“My... spouse and I are a family,” Bon Bon said as she skirted Lyra’s favorite pet argument. “We moved in together into her tiny, overpriced studio before buying our own home. We’re on our hooves financially.” Straightening her posture, Bon Bon presented a triumphant smile. “If we’re living our lives in order, I want to take the next logical step for a family, and that’s having children in our lives.”

Heartmend nodded. “Miss Heartstrings, is that your answer?”

Lyra breathed in.

“My family sucked,” she said quickly with a shudder. She closed her eyes and licked her lips, staying still for a second. Heartmend flashed Bon Bon a worried look during several moments of silence before Lyra continued, eyes still closed.

“My father and mother parted ways, leaving my sister and I as the wreckage.” Lyra’s breath was coming in short, rapid gasps. “Is... this too much?”

Heartmend carefully stepped off of her cushion, shaking her head. She stepped closer to the couch, drawing herself up into a position of polite attention. “Not at all, Miss Heartstrings. If you can, go on. If you can’t, we can pause for a little while.”

“No,” Lyra said as a glowing hoofkerchief pulled itself out of her saddlebags. “They’re not beating me. My sister is the worst, though. Ballad is perfect.”

There was a pause.

“Go on,” Heartmend said, curiosity flickering in her eyes.

Gritting her teeth, Lyra slowly tilted her head from side to side. “She’s just... perfect. She snagged a rich husband. She snagged a stallion husband, and that made my dad even happier. She’s a popular songwriter and playwright, and my little nephew is smart as a tack.” Lyra calmly folded her hoofkerchief and set it down on the couch. Bon Bon wordlessly picked the damp piece of fabric off of the cushion and placed it on her forelimbs.

“Miss Heartmend, my sister is everything that would make my parents happy, and she reminds me that I’m not that. My family life was awful.” She sighed. “So, I want to help somepony like that. I know they’re out there. Tartaurus, most of your kids have it much worse off than a spoiled Canterlot girl with a music career. I was lucky; I found a few mares who saved me. I want to save someone.”

Heartmend bit her lip. Gently but swiftly, she leaned forward and patted Lyra on the shoulder. “Miss Heartstings, as a professional I have to say that making me like you is not playing fair.”

While Lyra froze at the unexpected words, Bon Bon recovered with a snort. “Yeah, she’ll do that every time,” she said with a grin.

Heartmend primly nodded and returned to her cushion. “All right,” she said while shuffling papers, “let’s be clear about what we do here. This organization licenses foster parents. That means we take children from untenable situations and place them elsewhere. Often it’s temporary, as the family resolves their problems or finds another relative to become the caregiver. On occasion, when that proves impossible, we move to find adoptive parents for the child. The foster parents are given first shot at becoming the new parents.” She paused, leaning onto her hooves as she crossed them on her desk. “I assume that’s the part you two are interested in?”

Lyra’s head bounced up and down emphatically, whereas Bon Bon only gave a pleasant incline.

Heartmend smiled. “That’s common. Just remember; that way is a long, twisting path of pitfalls, ambushes, and paperwork.” She leaned back, relaxing on her haunches. “So, tell me about yourselves.”

Bon Bon bit her lip and nodded. “Well, I--”

“I’m Lyra and this is Bon Bon and we’d make great parents because we’re lovely ponies and...”

“Stop.”

Heartmind raised an eyebrow at the command from Bon Bon. It was said softly and kindly, but the effect was immediate. Lyra took several deep breaths and looked to her spouse. Bon Bon gave an indulgent smile as she gestured with one hoof.

“Now, start over.”

Lyra nodded.

“Okay. I’m Lyra, and this is my wife Bon Bon.”

“Husband,” corrected Bon Bon with a smile.

“Overseer.”

“Handler.”

“My... spouse and I live in Ponyville. I’m a chamber musician with a lot of time on my hands--”

“Hooves,” corrected Bon Bon as Heartmend tried to take in the odd dynamic. Normally, when a pair of ponies argued this much in front of her, it was in a custody hearing. For all the back-and-forth sniping, she couldn’t detect any actual tension between the two prospective parents.

“... and I,” continued Bon Bon, “work as a chef at a local cafe. I’m hoping one day to run my own restaurant. Part-time, I keep this lunatic in check.”

Heartmend nodded without certainty. “So Lyra, I understand you’re under contract to the Canterlot Symphony?”

“Yup! I commute during the on-season and play gigs in town in the off-season.”

“Just so you know, every time you take a child from Ponyville to Canterlot requires my permission.” Heartmend focused her attention on the unpredictable mare’s body language. The first reaction to the agency’s control was always a telling moment.

“Oh.” She scratched behind her ear. “Um. Sure! I mean, it’s for good reasons. You wouldn’t want me to--”

“--do anything worrying,” finished Bon Bon, jumping in before Lyra’s imagination ran away with their chances.

Heartmend tapped her desk. “Do you have sitters available, such as family or friends?”

The couple exchanged a glance that Heartmend wished she could decipher. As she waited for clarification a stallion stuck his head into her office. “Hey, boss? Could you come look at some paperwork for a second?”

Heartmend gave her a polite smile that somehow reminded Lyra of inviting caves and howls in the night. “Pardon me, ladies. I’ll be back in just a second. Please wait here.”

The moment she left, Lyra scooted over to her spouse. “I’m bucking this up, aren’t I?”

“No! Not at all!” Bon Bon prepared herself for the explosion.

Lyra smacked a green hoof across her face. “If I buck this up for us, I’m going to kill me and bury me in the back yard.” She bit down on her forelimb, hard.

“Stop it!” Bon Bon whispered harshly. “You’re fine. I’m fine.” She pulled Lyra’s leg out of her mouth, noting the reddish area where she was biting. “Now sit with that against a chair or something and calm down!”

Lyra nodded, lying on the nearly bruised limb. She started to stammer something before Bon Bon planted a kiss on her nose. Lyra’s eloquent reply came out as “Whuba?”

Heartmend opened the door slowly, peeking in. Most ponies would have expected the two strange mares to be at each other’s throats at that point. Instead, Heartmend saw creamy beige lips wrapped around an aquamarine snout. Lyra’s eyes had rolled back in her head as her limp, open mouth tried to make sounds. Bon Bon’s eyes were open, drinking in the sight of her incapacitated lover.

Heartmend smiled to herself and gently coughed. Bon Bon met her gaze and removed her mouth from Lyra’s nose before giving it a final quick peck.

“Well, are we ready to resume?”

The pair nodded, only one of them not wobbling. Heartmend turned away toward her desk, allowing herself a brief and jealous smile before resuming a business-like look. She rested her hooves on each other as she leaned forward. “Now, I believe we were talking about sitters?”

Bonny nodded. “Yes, we have a few friends in town who volunteered. We’re close with the mailmare, for one. My parents live close to town, also.”

With a nod, Heartmend swivelled to Lyra. “And your parents? When was the last time you spoke to them?”

Lyra looked down. “Uh. Pass.”

“No,” Heartmend said with finality.

The silence blanketed the room.

“What?” Lyra finally responded.

Heartmend picked up the couple’s papers and balanced them precariously on the side of her desk. “Miss Heartstrings,” she began with a long-suffering tone, “you do not get to ‘pass’ here.”

Bon Bon was surprised at the lack of friendliness in Heartmend’s smile.

“I expect you to tell me everything I ask, Miss Heartstrings, or I will,” she said gesturing to the tottering paperwork, “tip your papers into the trash and call it a wash. I’m placing a child in your care, not a gerbil. You will tell me more about your parents, your favorite foods, which sister you pray to, if any, and how you decide who gets the bathroom first in the morning.” She paused. “I like you. That’ll only get you so far, though.”

Bon Bon open her mouth to no avail. She turned, seeing that Lyra was shaking. Seconds passed.

“Well,” Heartmend said with a shrug, “I’m sorry that--"

“My father ruined my life and first love for his family ambition. My mother strapped on a cute little saddle and allowed herself to be ridden all the way up the social ladder. Both live in Canterlot. I love pungent cheeses and peppers that make me fart interesting smells. A close friend introduced me to Luna at a work-related thing, and I respect how she hurts inside and gives so much to others. This cream-coated harpy always wakes up earlier than me.” She drew a deep breath. “Are we good?”

Heartmend blinked. “Are you good?”

“I want this, Miss,” said Lyra with almost no choking. “I want this so much I cry into my pillow at night when I worry that this won’t ever work out for us. I cry because I fear I’ll screw it up.”

Heartmend stared at her for a long time. Finally, she nodded with the first genuine smile Lyra and Bonny had seen her give. She gently picked up their papers and reopened it. “Let’s work through these questions, then. Any past criminal history?”

Bon Bon nervously shrugged. She turned to Lyra, her heart stopping and imagination racing as she waited to hear Lyra say...

“Nothing that stuck, no.”

“Nope, and thank Celestia for juvenile sealed files!”

“They had it comin’!"

“No.”

Bon Bon blinked. Lyra gave her a quick hoof gesture under the visual level of Heartmend’s desk that she always confusingly referred to as a “thumbs up.”

Bonny saw that Heartmend noticed the pause, but for some reason the caseworker declined to comment. “There’s a strict rule for all of our parents prohibiting the use of physical discipline. I hope that shouldn’t be a problem. Are the both of you all right with that?”

Bon Bon nodded. “Of course,” she said as she shot a look at Lyra.

The moment of silence extended.

“Miss Heartstrings?” Heartmend shifted on her stool. “Is there some kind of issue?”

Elsewhen, the angry mint teen shattered the bottle with telekinesis, roaring in rage as shattered it on the bar. Nervous patrons stepped away as the bartender took cover from the livid unicorn. A dark red mare with a teased mane and lightning bolt earrings tried to hold Lyra back from the three shocked ponies she was shouting at.

“Come on, then!” Lyra snarled through gritted teeth. “Say that again to her face!”

Lyra’s ears could hear Cheerilee making sounds with her mouth, but her brain was too angry to translate her marefriend’s words. Cheerilee was trying to pull Lyra away as the bartender galloped into the back.

“Ly-Ly, let’s go!” Cheerilee’s eyes teared up as she strained. “They’re not worth it.”

Lyra quivered with rage as the trio of mares pulled back. The one closest to the hovering bottle-end lifted a trembling hoof. “W-we’re s-sorry! We’re leaving!” The bottle flew in place underneath her chin.

Cheerilee swallowed, scanning the room for security. Lyra’s grinning face was a rictus of imminent revenge.

“I’m sorry, all I heard was the words ‘fillyfooling deviant.’ Care to speak up again?”

“Lyra!”

The distracted musician snapped out of her memories. She nodded to Heartmend.

“Sorry, just remembering something. I thought Bon Bon said it all. No anger problems, not going to nag-slap the kid.” She smiled pleasantly. “Next point?”

Heartmend sighed as she leaned back in her chair. Crushing those hopeful smiles was a regular duty in her office.

“Let me be brutally honest; I’m not here to help you. I’m here to help the children. Our goal is always the reunification of the family. I might be rooting for you personally, but unless the parent is an active pyromaniac cultist of Discord who’s been caught twice, blood trumps love. You only adopt if the family renounces all claim to the child.” She leaned onto her desk with both hooves. “I will most likely break both of your hearts time and time again before you’re ever offered the opportunity to adopt. As long as we’re clear on that, we can begin.”

As the two mares contemplated this, Heartmend leaned back and continued.

“There’ll be classes for you take. You’ll also be asked to attend certain group meetings and submit your house to a safety check. We’ll interview your friends and family. I hope you’re prepared to write a concise life story. Any questions? Ready to give up yet?”

Lyra leaned in. “Are you trying to scare us?”

Heartmend cheerfully nodded. “Is it working?”

Lyra sat up onto her haunches and stared into the case worker’s eyes. Bon Bon placed a restraining hoof on her spouse’s back leg.

Heartmend beamed. “That’s the spirit! Well then, I need some information on your preferences. So, are we looking for an earth pony, unicorn, or pegasus?”

The prospective parents turned to each other in confusion. “I think you misheard,” Bon Bon said after a brief consideration.

Heartmend shrugged. “Sorry. Then what are you looking for?”

“Wait,” said Lyra, her head still reeling. “We actually get to..."

Bon Bon snarled. “We’re here to help somepony in need, not pick out a dress. Our ‘preference’ is a child who we can help.”

Lyra quietly ground her hooves together. She resolved to never mention how close she was to voicing her choice.

With a sigh, Heartmend took off her glasses. She wiped them with a lacy hoofkerchief covered in long-faded smiling faces. “Listen, most couples come in here with a preference. I’d rather place a child with accepting parents then worry about one more thing that can go wrong. Look, do you want to at least settle on an age? Most of the time we can find relatives who are willing to take a baby. It’s not the same for a preteen or a teenager. Tiny fillies are rare unless you’ll take an earth pony. ”

Bon Bon rolled her eyes. “I happen to be an earth pony, you know!”

“So am I,” said Heartmend, “but I’m also a realist. Most prospective parents want horns and wings.”

Bon Bon stood up, turning to Lyra. “I may be a businessmare, but this shouldn’t feel like shopping and selling. I’m..." She rolled around the next thought in her head. “I need to step out. I might be forever. Want to come?”

Lyra looked down. “I want the kid who doesn’t have a chance.”

Heartmend blinked. “Pardon me?”

“Not yet, but I might,” Lyra said with a smile. “I want the kid who’d most need us. I don’t care if they're a minotaur or a changeling. I want the desperate ones.”

Bon Bon’s lips moved quickly before actually producing a noise. “Um. I think I’ll sit back down, if that’s okay.”

Shrugging, Heartmend gestured to the couch. “Fine with me. I get that reaction twice a week. Now, I think I have someponies who could use your help. Lets get your licensure out of the way and then we can talk. That is, if you don’t mind working with a heartless manipulator like me.”

Lyra stood up and offered a hoof to shake. “No problem, as long as you don’t mind working with... ponies like us.”

“Well, let me be... straight,” Heartmend said as she averted her gaze. “I had some compunctions about working with ponies like you. My main job is helping the child, though. You’re free to live your life with the incorrect lifestyle choice of working for the Canterlot Symphony.”

The simmering rage building inside Lyra transformed into giggles. “You... you’re a Torchy!”

“Trottingham Orchestra all the way,” Heartmend said as she lifted a record jacket out of her paperwork pile.

Bon Bon raised an eyebrow. “I never would have expected you to like classical.”

As she answered, Heartmend walked across the room to a bin marked “Prospective Parent Paperwork.” “In a proper orchestra, everything comes together. I find that relaxing.” She carefully bit down on a packet of forms just slightly smaller than Celestia’s autobiography would be and dropped them on the couch between the shocked couple. “Are we ready to begin, Misses and Misses Sweetie Drops?”

“No way,” Lyra said with a puckish smile as she watched Heartmend’s mental gears visibly grind to a halt.

“Wha... Celestia’s flank, what now?”

Bon Bon facehooved, already dreading the expected comment.

With an air of victory, Lyra levitated a pen off of Heartmend’s desk and flipped open the packet. “It’s Misses and Misses Heartstings,” she said with a toothy smile. “Now, let’s get started.”

Author's Note

Yes, dear readers, this is the same Lyra that first appeared in School Daze and starred in Choices, and although I'm writing this for new readers they'll be nods for older readers to pick up.

Chapter 2: The Choral Prelude

Hooves Holding Hearts
Chapter 2: The Choral Prelude

Ninety Days to Showtime

Either she’s trying to kill the carpet monster, or she’s nervous, thought Bon Bon as she watched Lyra bounce from one pair of legs to another. The waiting room of the Hearts Holding Hooves agency contained many comfortable chairs, numerous magazines that were almost recent enough to be interesting, a shag carpet becoming increasing more battered, and a dozen prospective parents eyeing Lyra nervously.

“Um,” Lyra said quickly to the slumped-over secretary behind the window, who spoke volumes with her stony apathy. “Um. Is the group starting now? Soon? Sometime?”

Bonny allowed herself to stare at Lyra’s moving hindquarters for a few more seconds before dropping her culinary magazine and shuffling toward her spouse. She carefully nipped Lyra’s ear from behind, drawing a quick breath from the now blushing unicorn.

“Woo. Later,” Lyra said with a smile.

Gently, Bonny reached a hoof around Lyra’s neck and began pulling her back to the seats. Noticing that most eyes had stopped watching the pair, Bon Bon reveled in the fact that few things discourage attention more than public displays of affection.

Well, except that stallion in the back, but since he came in alone, Bonny didn’t begrudge him the show.

“Okay, time to sit down, Greenbean.” Bon Bon patted Lyra on the head as she tried to steer her. “Back to the nice, comfy cushions before they throw us out.”

Lyra strained away from her spouse, drawing an exasperated sigh from Bon Bon.

“But, but, we have to not miss the meeting. And we have to be in the right conference room--"

“The door on the left, you mean?”

“O-okay, I’ll just go get some of the coffee to calm down and--"

“No!”

Lyra stepped back from the force of Bonny’s voice. Breathing fast and wide-eyed, Bon Bon pulled Lyra close to her and whispered into her ear, “No coffee.”

The eyes of the assembled ponies started to flicker back towards the pair as Lyra shook.

“Bonny,” she said slowly. “Let me have just a little to calm me down, and I’ll be good.” She started to will the cup towards her but gasped as Bon Bon flicked her hindquarters at it, wrapping her tail around the cup and depositing it on the counter.

Lyra gaped. “Honey, what are you doing?”

“Table,” Bonny simply replied. “Remember the table incident. I love you, and I’m sorry if that was a little much, but we both need to calm down and remember the table.”

Lyra bit her lip hard before slowly releasing a pent up breath. “Okay. No coffee. Calming now. Willing calmness.” Her eyebrows furrowed as she turned to peer at Bonny. “Did you just win with an apology?”

Bonny nodded, her attention already back inside a cooking magazine. “Yup. That’s why I’m the husband.”

Lyra’s reply was cut off as the secretary slammed a bell on the counter. “Group’s on!”

___

Seconds later, Lyra found herself standing at an exaggeratedly lavish table of snacks, while behind her a large number of ponies swarmed like sharks over the smaller number of seats at the conference table.

“Bonny,” she said with trepidation, “we really should get our seats now.”

Bon Bon raised a single hoof into the air without turning, a master artist rebuffing the uninitiated. “Ly, give me a minute. I just have to put my plate together.”

A backwards glance told Lyra that Heartmend, while pleasantly conversing with the other parents, had started to look in their direction. She wiped sweat away from the base of her horn as she learned closer to Bon Bon.

“Bon Bon,” she whispered forcefully, “you’re not filling your plate.” She pointed at the larger stallion at the other end of the table, who currently was doing his best to reassemble a whole watermelon on his flimsy paper dish. “That guy is. What you’re actually doing is rearranging the plates. Rearranging someone else’s stuff, Bonny.”

“Well, why in Equestria would you put the dips and sauces closer to the plates than the entrée ? I mean, no thought was--"

As the stallion next to the pair pointedly ignored them (he was balancing pastries on fruits with total concentration), Lyra started breathing heavily.

“Bonny,” she managed to croak out. “Please. Table.” Bonny turned, seeing the tears in Lyra’s eyes as the shivering unicorn said, “Remember the table.”

Bon Bon sighed deeply, remembering that nopony is always head chef of life’s kitchen.

“Okay, Greenbean.” She placed her hooves onto Lyra’s shoulders, pulling herself up to kiss the wet bottoms of her eyes. “Let’s grab some food and get a seat at the table.”

“Ladies?” Heartmend shuffled a stack of papers at the head of the filled-to-occupancy conference table. “Is everything all right?”

Lyra bit her lip.

“Fine. Just fine,” Bonny said as she pushed herself in front of Lyra. “Little Miss Trouble here may have had an allergic reaction to something in the cooking. Probably an herb.”

Lyra snuffled behind a napkin. “Yeah. Maybe it’s the cinnamon.”

Bon Bon kept her smile while her teeth ground together. “Herb,” she whispered. “Herbs are green. Cinnamon’s a spice.”

“Oh.” Lyra used Bon Bon as a barrier to hide behind while they walked to two cushions in the back of the room, away from the table. “So,” she whispered, “is garlic a spice or an herb?”

Bon Bon sucked in her breath as she sat down. “Nope. Not here. We’ll talk later.”

Lyra plopped down on the cushion, sitting upwards with her plate in the mysterious area she called a “lap” while she leaned against the wall. She instantly heard a sharp intake from Heartmend at the very distant other side of the table.

“Miss Heartstrings,” she asked with a lowering of her glasses, “will you be comfortable like that all night?”

Nodding quickly as if the question asked was the choice of cake or death, Lyra giggled. “Oh, yeah. I do this all the time.” She glanced at the steely gaze of Bonny to her left, then scooted towards her as a large stallion,his overflowing plate held together only by honey and engineering, sat to her right.

“Yeah,” she said to herself with drooping shoulders. "This’ll be a great meeting.”

___

Introductions passed, as did the making of stand up paper name-tags. Bon Bon was worried that a name-tag reading, “Hi, I’m Lyra!!!!!” may have been too much, but they moved on. As the meeting dragged on, the arcane rules of fostering were thrown out for repetition.

“So,” Heartmend said as she chewed on the side of her pencil. “Who can tell me how many days advanced notice I need before you can take the child out of Ponyville?”

Lyra’s hoof shot up as a mare far in front casually said, “Three days.”

“Great!” Heartmend clapped her hooves on the ground before reaching over and affixing a shiny sticker to the mare’s name tag. “You get a golden star. And, what is ‘respite,’ again?”

Bonny facehooved as Lyra levitated her note-taking pencil into the air and wiggled it.

“When another foster parent foalsits your kids,” offered a polite stallion sitting immeasurably far away in the “up-front” region.

Bon Bon’s eyes widened at the whispered profanity that flew out of Lyra. “Calm down,” she said out of the corner of her mouth. “It’s just a sticker.”

Lyra sighed. “It’s a tangible sign we’re doing something right. What happens if we’re the only couple without any at the end? They’ll vote us off the cloud or something.”

Bon Bon lifted a hoof to Lyra’s back, quietly but forcefully massaging between her shoulder blades.

“Listen, Lyra, I know--"

“Let’s get a few answers for this one,” Heartmend announced. “So, what’s the worst thing you can think of for a foster child to do?”

As she lifted her hoof, Lyra’s determined glare could have stared back from a Stalliongrad propaganda poster.

“Take bits out of my purse!”

“Talk back to me?”

Heartmend smiled, basking in the glow of her audience’s attention as she stopped before Lyra. “So, Miss Heartstrings, would you like to share your opinion?”

Lyra beamed. “Worst thing?” As she drew in a breath, Bon Bon said a silent prayer to Celestia.

“Um. We get a dog. Yeah, the kid makes us get a dog.” Lyra grinned at the nonplussed audience. “And doesn't feed it.”

“Okay,” Heartmend said as she passed by, reflexively placing a sticker on Lyra’s name-tag.

Bon Bon breathed a sigh of relief, which quickly fled when Lyra said, “Wait. I’m not done.”

Heartmend blinked, turning as the entire class craned their necks to see Lyra. “Oh?”

“Well,” she said with an intake of breath before launching into a verbal torrent, “they only make us get the dog to torture the dog, like as a sacrifice to Discord or the Windigoes or something, and after the ritual she locks Bonny and me in our bedroom and sets the house on fire.”

Side conversations and whispers stopped as the room became so quiet you could hear a pin not only drop but, in fact, could hear a stationary dropped pin just keep being a pin. One of the mares covered her mouth with a hoof as a stallion nearly choked on his carrot.

Heartmend studied Lyra, her face emotionless. “Anything else?”

Bonny closed her eyes as Lyra nodded.

“Well,” she continued, “if we left the medicine cabinet unlocked and she drugged us that night at dinner--"

“Stop it!”

A mare in a large hat, one possibly designed as a back-up pegasus landing strip, stood up indignantly. “Just, stop it! How could you come up with such things?”

Lyra ignored a deep wish for a broken bottle as she wiggled up, presenting as much dignity as she could in her awkward posture on the cushion. “I’m a creative entertainer who reads fantasy, ma’am. I also spent the past few weeks getting used to the idea that every possession I love may be destroyed by a kid.”

Bon Bon smiled desperately, throwing her forelimbs around Lyra’s neck in a theatrical hug. “Isn’t she a kidder?”

“Anything else?” Heartmend asked as she tapped her chin thoughtfully.

Lyra shrugged. “Well, if there’s other kids in the house--"

Lyra’s vocal detractor raised a hoof to her forehead, dropping down as if to faint. Her stallion embraced her while glaring at Lyra. “Why on Tartaurus would you let a kid like that into your house?”

“Ah.” Lyra scratched her ear as she scanned the room, sweltering under the stares of the assembled ponies. “Um. Because no one else will?”

The silence was deafening as she scanned the shock faces of the room. Next to her, Heartmend’s face was fixed into a noncommittal stare as inscrutable as a statue.

“Okay, group,” she said with her eyes locked on Lyra. “Take a ten minute break.”

Lyra’s future with the agency flashed before her eyes, and it involved a burning wicker effigy of herself, possibly with her inside. “So,” she said as she raised her head, her eyes gleaming with the kind of hope a passenger on the Titanic had when asking if someone had a spare boat. “So,” she said conversationally with tears in her eyes, “do I have to give back the sticker?”

As Heartmend’s face remained attentive and unreadable, the larger stallion next to Lyra stood up. Placing down the ruins of his plate, he shambled by Lyra, stopping to smile at her. “Thank you,” he said as he gently tapped her on the shoulder. “You said what we all should feel.”

Lyra shrugged as he walked off. She would see him again years later, receiving a surprise invitation to his adopted son’s wedding. Lyra would pass the ceremonies in confusion, wondering why she was there, until the father became so drunk with joy and cider he would finally admit while toasting that on that long ago day at Hearts Holding Hooves he’d meant to attend the Cake Decoration Society meeting in the next room, and stayed in the foster parent class initially for the obviously superior snack table.

Watching him leave, Heartmend blinked several times. Quietly and carefully she pulled two stickers from her sheet, pasting them to Lyra’s name-tag. As Lyra’s mouth dropped, she turned away momentarily before spinning back to add a sticker to Bon Bon’s name-tag.

“Um, thanks.” Bonny hefted the paper, examining it closely. “What did I do to deserve this?”

“Somehow, deserve her,” was Heartmend’s only reply as she walked off to the refreshment table.

___

Eighty-Nine Days Until Showtime

Lyra stood stock still in the middle of the living room, staring hard at nothing. The green bucket resting on her head moved slightly as Lyra shifted the weight of the broom slung over her shoulder. In front of her, Bonny sighed.

Well, Bon Bon mused, if we treat it like a show, she buys in more. Bon Bon sucked in a breath, adjusted her own green bucket helmet, and hoped the windows were closed as she paced in front of Lyra.

“All right, girls,” Bon Bon bellowed at the top of her lungs, drawing vocal strength from the imaginary chefs she was shouting at. “Here’s where we separate parents from the pussywillows!”

Lyra straightened to attention. “Sir, yes, sir!”

Bon Bon wheeled on Lyra, spittle flying from her mouth. “We have one month to get this garbage-strewn refuse hole into shape, and I refuse to fail at this! When Heartmend does the preliminary inspection on this place I want her so impressed that her biological clock orders her to jump in that crib and pop out a kid immediately! Do you understand, soldier!”

“Sir, Yes, sir!”

Stamping her hooves onto the floor as she stopped walking, Bon Bon mused on the allure of the armed forces. “Any questions, horse apples? You, with the sexy smile! Speak up, private!”

“Um.” Lyra saluted, halfheartedly. “Bonny?”

Bon Bon sighed. “Yes, Greenbean? Didn’t hurt your feelings, did I?”

“Do you really think we live in a garbage-strewn refuse hole?”

Rubbing the bridge of her nose, Bon Bon shook her head.

“Lyra, do you remember when your orchestra got new uniforms, even though the old ones looked fine?”

“Well, yeah,” Lyra snorted, pausing to remove her bucket helm. “We had to change the dress code since we were moving to more upscale venues.”

Bon Bon smiled. She kept smiling. As Lyra stared at her silently, Bonny tried hard to keep smiling, so much so that Lyra started smiling too in case she missed something.

Her smile beginning to convey homicidal mania, Bon Bon finally said, “And so..."

Lyra’s eyes widened. “Oh.” She giggled. “Sorry, I thought you were just making music talk.”

“B-b-but,” Bon Bon stammered as she removed her officer’s bucket helm, complete with three stars. Lyra and Bon Bon took role-playing seriously. “You were smiling. That meant you got it, right?” She turned, grabbing a feather duster and sweeping the corners of the room to occupy her frustrated mind with tedium. She loved dust. In the right amounts, it worked wonders on a relationship.

Down-crested, Lyra started to levitate the magazines and books from the table (and, really, most flat surfaces around) to two piles on the couch. “I just... thought you wanted to discuss my career. I like it when you do that. I do get it, though.”

As Lyra created the Leaning Tower of Humanworld, Bon Bon filled her dustpan with scraps of paper and filled the uncomfortable silence with not much.

Of course, being married to Lyra for years meant she was only marginally surprised minutes later when a grinning unicorn jumped off the couch and tackled her. The pair rolled around on the floor, Bonny’s rump hitting a bookshelf and triggering a rain of pointy-weaponed action figures to fall on their heads. Sucking in a scream, Bonny looking up at the straddling Lyra, who pinned her to the ground, and said, “What?”

“Yard sale!” Lyra leaned back and clapped her hooves, drawing a spike of pain from Bonny’s back. “We’ll throw a yard sale! Recoup the cash, liven up a weekend, and clear the house!”

Reaching into her hair, Bon Bon pulled out a human. “Well, I think this extra toy you have might net a bit or two.”

“That’s Allied Command Lawyer-Knight Heinfroth Chen-Rosenberg, with spear-swinging and slugthrower-aiming action!” Lyra’s mouth hung open in shock. “You want me to sell him?“

“You have two of him,” Bonny said with a grimace. “And you have like, three of that angry one with the ‘bad night in the bathroom’ face.”

“Royal President Ramses Sally Sweetback, with knife launcher and soccer stick!” Lyra levitated the figure out of Bonny’s grasp, drawing accessories into his hands as he slowly spun in the air. “I need one for collecting, one for playing, and one for in-box display.”

Bonny’s flung her head back in frustration, grimacing at the sharp contact with the floor. “Listen,” she said as she rubbed her forehead, “baby or less toys? Not ‘baby or toys,’ mind you, but ‘less toys.’ You can keep some, but they’re gonna want some for themselves and we need to make room.”

Lyra sighed, rolling off of Bonny and onto the floor. “Baby,” she said as her glowing horn made the toys reenact President Sweetback’s climactic fight with Premier Knifefingers on the Magic Mouse Castle. “All right, so I cut down the collection. Maybe I’ll clear out some collections I don’t display.”

Bon Bon steeled herself as she looked into Lyra’s face, seeing the mix of nostalgia and determination. Here comes the second of reality’s grim one-two buck. “So,” Bon Bon said, preparing herself. “If you got weapons with them we could charge two bits for each.”

The high-pitched sound Lyra responded with might have been spellable without vowels.

“What?” Lyra flipped onto her hooves. “I paid, like, eight bits for that!”

___

As Lyra sputtered protestations, Bonny was far away. She was a filly again, her family manning blankets on their lawn on a long gone summer’s day. A field of her dolls spread out in neat rows on her fabric selling space. At the moment, she was sniffing in offense as a pegasus her own age gestured at her with coins held in a wing.

“I’ll take those two in the dresses.”

Bonny snorted. “I dunno.”

The shocked little lavender girl sucked in a breath. “B-but... the sign says two bits each.”

Bonny nodded. “Gimme a minute.” She walked to her father’s other side, casting a last suspicious look at her potential customer as she crossed the yard sale blankets.

A few hoofs away the ancient art of commerce was practiced by a friendly white-coated stallion. “How about this, my good pony,” he said as he smiled through his blue handle-bar mustache, “This shirt can’t go for three bits, but I’ll give you two for six.”

The bulky customer squinted. “Ain’t that the same price, Spin?”

Bonny’s father shrugged. “I can’t go below four bits for just one sale.” While the customer mulled over the merchandise, Spinning Plates rubbed a hoof through his daughter’s mane. “Bonny! How’s the toy department coming?”

Bon Bon leaned her head onto her dad’s coat, idly nudging around a nearby hoofball priced at three bits.

“Daddy, Lilly Blossom wants to buy my dollies.”

Spin nodded in approval while accepting six bits from his customer. “Excellent! That’s my little salesgirl. When we get our restaurant,” he said, gently wiggling Bonny’s nose with a hoof, “I’ll have you run things one day.”

After spending a few moments watching his wife sell extra kitchen supplies on the other side of his yard, Spin became aware of his daughter’s silence. Looking down, he saw wet eyes stare back at him. Shifting from a selling smile to a parental smile, Spinning Plates drew her into a hug.

“Bonny, you want the new Miss Pinnacle doll, right?”

Bon Bon nodded, eyes wide and hopeful.

“Well,” Spin said as he licked his lips, “we’re going to need some bits for her. She’s expensive, you know. When was the last time you played with those dollies?”

Bonny shrugged, looking away.

Spin patted her on the head. “If you sell some of the dolls you don’t use to people who’ll take good care of them, you’ll be able to afford a Pinnacle doll. You’ll be happy, she’ll be happy, and the dolls will be happy.”

As Bon Bon considered this, Spin turned to a curious bespectacled mare with pencils for a cutie mark. Holding a bronze pencil sharpener, she asked with raised eyebrows, “Where did a chef like yourself ever get such an antique in good condition, Mister Plates?”

Spin leaned in. Letting the customer in on what appeared to be trade secrets was an ancient way of getting repeat business. “I have a soft spot for teachers. Between you and me, Miss Sharpener, we occasionally check the abandoned settlements inside the edge of the Everfree. Found a schoolhouse there from a ghost town. We took the entire old chalkboard and used it to help Bonny with her homework. It’ll be the menu board of the restaurant, one day.”

Miss Sharpener raised a hoof to her chest. “The Everfree Forest? Isn’t that a tad too dangerous for foraging? Why, it seems like yesterday they lost a ranger to that chimera in there!”

Spinning Plates shrugged. “The periphery is perfectly safe for skilled bargain hunters like my family! Why, otherwise I’d never be able to offer you that wonderful little number for ten bits.”

As he took the coins from the happy schoolmare, Spinning Plates cast a glance back to Bon Bon. While one day in the future she’d wish with all her heart that her father would’ve listened more to Miss Sharpener, at the moment Bonny was passing three dolls to Lilly Blossom, accepting five bits in return. Her eyes met his, and she sheepishly smiled.

___

Years later, Bon Bon gently picked an action figure out of Lyra’s hooves. She took a deep breath, and thought of her dad.

“Love, would you rather have extra toys you don’t really use, or extra bits for the baby? Maybe more diapers or formula? You..." Bonny held her breath for a second. “You have to make sacrifices for your kids.”

Lyra turned the figure back and forth in her hooves, taking a moment to pop off his suitcase breastplate and feathered headdress. She rolled over to look at Bonny. “My dad said that, once.”

Bonny rubbed her hoof into Lyra’s belly. “He was right, Greenbean. He was just too much of a plothole to know how to do it well.”

Lyra stood up. Her horn glowed as a cardboard box levitated off the ground and flew past the bookshelves. As it drew by, every second or third action figure flickered with magic and jumped in, occasionally saluting.

Bon Bon picked up her broom, speaking through her teeth as she said, “Show off. Hey, what do humans use a soccer stick for, anyway?”

Rooting around in her box, Lyra raised an eyebrow, “Well, for shooting the puck into the goalie, of course. Didn’t you read the third book?”

“Of course,” Bon Bon said as she rolled her eyes with a shake of her head. “Lyra, if a gate to this Uurth realm ever really opens, I’ll need you to make sense of the darn place.”

___

Sixty-Seven Days Until Showtime

“Come on, everybody!” Lyra shouted as she paced the perimeter of her lawn. “See the most amazing yard sale in Ponyville! Be astounded at how far your bits will take you!

The position was perfect. "Their little cottage sat on the corner of Marketplace street and a lane of small shops and eateries, possibly the most well-trafficked corner in Ponyville. Lyra could not have gotten a better placement for a yard sale if a draconequus had rearranged the houses.

Still, no one was here. A U-shaped fleet of tables enclosed a field of blankets, every surface covered with books, housewares, and more, and no one had arrived to look at anything.

Lyra walked slowly to Bonny, staring at the grass philosophically as she went. While maintaining eye contact with a beetle, she said to her spouse, “I don’t think it’s working.”

Bonny kept her attention inside her magazine as she said, “Finish the pitch.”

“Really? I feel weird..."

“Hey, Canterlot girl,” Bon Bon said as her eyes half-peeked over the pages. “I put myself through the first semester of culinary school this way. This is how you do it in Ponyville.”

Returning to the lawn’s edge, Lyra stared with little confidence at two crates sitting noticeably away from the rest. Out of one stuck out a crop of picked flowers. The other had two bent horseshoes, an umbrella with no fabric left, and a few bent spoons sticking out.

“All right,” Lyra said as she glumly nodded. With a mental switch that most ponies would need something prescription-strength to accomplish, seconds later found her perched on a table, bouncing from one leg set to the other. The table made non-appreciative noises.

“See the amazing yard sale... with free snacks and free stuff!”

Memories of the parasprites welled up inside her and she shrieked as a devouring wave overtook the lawn, some of them so fast she swore they left little dust clouds. She was nearly pitched onto the ground as an elderly mare bumped her in the leg.

“Get off the housewares table, ya scabber. I’m tryin’ ta look.”

Lyra jumped down, trying to miss the family now rooting through her toy collection. Shaking her head, she ran to Bon Bon’s blanket, finding her already making change for two bonnets, a rolling pin, and a cookbook.

“Bonny, they came! They came to buy our stuff!”

An amused eyebrow was the immediate answer.

“This crowd?” Bon Bon shrugged as she passed a box of seed bags to a lanky colt. “This is nothing. What time is it?”

Lyra turned to squint at the distant clock tower. “It’s, um, nine-fifty-nine, I thi--"

A larger mare suddenly slammed into her, sending her off her feet as a dozen ponies crowded the blanket she was standing on. Lyra stared at the clouds for a second before an amused cream-colored face came into her vision.

“The crowds start at ten, Greeny,” Bonny said as she pulled Lyra to her feet. “Now get selling!” A firm smack to Lyra’s rump sent her blushing into her own area, and as she bounded onto her blanket the sounds of bargain-hunting filled her ears.

“Honey, do you think they’ll take five bits for this?”

“Whoo-ee! Looky here. Free fixer-upper umbrella!”

“Wow. The entire Humanworld series!”

Her ears perking up, Lyra saw a scrawny stallion peering through his glasses at her boxes. Letting loose a high-pitched cry of exultation, she leaped in front of him, a toothy grin at the ready. He backpedaled out of surprise.

“Oh,” he said as he steadied his glasses. “If you were going to buy these..."

“Nope,” she said as her front legs bounced up and down. “Selling them! One bit each!”

He rubbed his scrawny mustache as he nudged the books around. “Well, they’re in good condition..."

Her hoof came into his view, holding something with a pink dress.

“I’ll throw in a Business Princess Lauren figure with karate sword action.”

His eyes widened as he accepted the doll. “Pink,” he said, drawing the word out with a grin. Suddenly shaking his head, he chuckled. “Um, and a novel accurate double-barreled karate sword. I-I’ll take her. Uh, and the books also.”

Minutes later found Lyra rolling up her now-empty toy blanket as she watched her humans walk off in the hooves of children. She made her way back to Bonny with a thoughtful look on her face, making change and hemorrhaging possessions as she did so. She sat next to Bon Bon with a coin purse full of bits.

“I, uh, just sold my Humanworld paperback set,” Lyra said while looking away.

Bonny’s eyes went wide. “All of them? Great! Did you get fifteen?”

“Yeah,” Lyra said with a sheepish nod, “but..."

Turning to a customer, Bonny shrugged. “If you had to throw in something to make the sale, that's okay. Yes, sir, the tools come in a set. Seven bits.”

After a second’s dealing, Bon Bon turned back to the silent Lyra, whose eyes were guiltily searching the grass. Bonny lifted Lyra’s chin up with a hoof, staring into her eyes expectantly.

“Lyra, if you made a pricing mistake I’ll forgive you. Did you throw in something big?”

“Yeah. I sold book eight.”

Removing her hoof, Bonny blinked several times. “I’d assume so,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “That’s what ‘complete sets’ mean, remember?”

Lyra drew in a deep breath. “That was one of our first dates, remember? You and me standing in the bookstore yard, waiting in the prerelease line.”

Biting her lip as she picked up and passed a gardening book to a customer, Bonny asked, “What else did you sell with it?”

“Just an action figure.”

Bonny nodded. “Okay. So, we still have the taste of the ice cream you licked off my nose, right?”

At Lyra’s confused silence, Bonny continued while passing the box of kitchen supplies to an eager customer.

“You didn't throw in the feel of our first kiss, and I still own the memories of you knocking over that stack of books and everyone staring. All you sold was stuff.”

Bon Bon tapped the speechless Lyra on the nose, and said “Stuff goes. Memories stay. You didn't sell the night. Just a book.”

Her eyes welling up, Lyra turned to already find Bon Bon staring at a younger, pinkish-purple unicorn. She was pretty in an athletic way, with a yellow flower in her hair and the eyes of a Saddle Arabian street merchant. Silently, they locked gazes with the intensity of hoofball players waiting for the whistle.

“Ma’dam, how much is this set of gardening tools?” She stared at Bon Bon, leaning forward in anticipation.

“Twenty bits,” Bonny said with a daring smile.

As Lyra watched the two, a blue unicorn stepped next to her, levitating a bag of popcorn. “You want some, Lyra? This’ll be good.”

Lyra blinked. “Minuette? What’d you mean?”

“Twenty?” The pinkish mare snorted, throwing her head back indignantly. “Why, may the shades of my ancestors dog my hoofsteps for all time if I happen to waste the family fortune like that!” She took a step forward. “Twelve.”

Bonny shook her head with amusement. “Twelve, she says. Twelve.” She grinned with a dark chuckle. “They should take away my right to raise a family if I let that go for twelve. No dice, Sparky. I might not feel broken-hearted for sixteen.”

Lyra stepped to the side in confusion as several bystanders moved in to watch.

With an analytical look, the young bargainer flung a hoof across her forehead. “Sixteen? Well, I am stunned at the cold disregard you have for other ponies, seeing as you’d probably steal the dentures from a starving stallion.”

Shrugging, Bonny snickered. “Hey, you’re the one who’d offer him a half bit for his last sandwich.”

As whispers streaked through the growing crowd, Lyra turned to Minuette. “What in Celestia’s name are they doing?”

With a snort, Minuette passed over the popcorn bag. “Ly-ly, you moved here from Canterlot a few years before I did. You don’t know?”

Lyra shrugged, blushing.

Leaning in, Minuette whispered with growing enjoyment. “Let me guess. Bon Bon does all the buying in your house?”

Lyra meekly nodded, eyes wide in anticipation of the coming revelation.

Minuette wrapped a forelimb around Lyra’s neck, rubbing her mane playfully with a hoof. “Honey, this is how Ponyville girls go shopping. Sparky may be foreign, but aside from the sexy accent she’s a Ponyville girl through and through.” Turning back to the economic struggle, Minuette shrugged. “Oops. Looks like we almost missed the ending.”

“Fine! I am defeated!” Bon Bon’s adversary fell back onto her haunch and threw up her hooves. “Fifteen bits, and I will return to my parents in shame to deliver the goods and to ask them which daughter they can afford to keep.”

Bonny smiled as she took the girl’s bits. “Here you go, Sparkler. Tell Ditzy and your father I’d love to have you all over for dinner sometime soon.”

“Great,” Sparkler said with a nod. “Dinky always loves that carrot pudding thing. Minuette, let’s hit the ground hard and fly away. There are more dealings to be done.”

“‘Hit the..." Minuette’s eyes crossed in confusion.

With a sigh, Sparkler asked, “Is it not being the hip saying about leaving?”

Blinking several times, Lyra leaned in and offered, “Let’s bounce?”

“Indeed!”

As the two left, laughing, Bon Bon called after them. “Hey, Sparky!”

Sparkler turned with an embarrassed grin. Bon Bon stepped forward, pointing a hoof at recently sold tools.

“You totally could have knocked me down to twelve,” Bonny said with a smirk. “You were going easy on me.”

Sparkler blushed, and turned redder as Minuette let loose flurry of amused giggles. “This is the sale for fostering and adoption, no?” Sparkler bit her lip. “It is being for a good cause, after all.”

Bon Bon nodded, giving her a quick hug as she returned to her blanket. She was gratified to see Lyra in her place on the blanket.

“And may a thousand parasprites nest under my saddle if I sell this for less than six bits!” Lyra raised a hoof to her chest, swaying as the customer passed her a half-dozen coins.

Huh, Bonny thought. Theater girl’s got some potential. She took her seat next to Lyra and began counting through her change purse. “I like those kids,” she said, idly watching the two giggling unicorn girls disappear down the street.. “Let’s hope we can get a daughter like them.”

“Yeah,” Lyra agreed as she stood up. “Bet they’ll be making out in an hour.”

Bonny’s hooves steered in the wrong way as she dropped a hoofful of coins onto the blanket. “Huwbuwha?”

Lyra winked. “Bonny, you do selling. You know what ponies want. I make music. I know what ponies need. Those two are crazy over each other, and one of them just has to break down long enough to admit it.” She batted her eyelashes. “Remind you of anyone?”

Sputtering, Bon Bon picked up her bits. “You know, if I count this right, the good news is... Wait a second, Miss ‘What Ponies Need.” You make music and I make food, remember?”

“What’s the good news,” Lyra said with glee, “aside from the fact that I have a very keen wife?”

Bonny grit her teeth in mock offense. “Your very keen husbandcan count. We can afford the big crib, now. We just have to buy it... and assemble it.”

___

Sixty-Two Days to Showtime

As the sounds of woodworking filled the cottage, Ditzy Doo-Smith beamed at Lyra over tea, or as Ditzy’s Bronxian mother would have said, she ‘kvelled with joy.’ “I’m so excited for you two!” Ditzy exclaimed as she nearly hugged her teacup, her golden eyes spinning with joy. “You’re both going to make great parents.”

“Thanks. Thanks for bringing over John to build the crib, and filling out all that paperwork, too.” She sighed. “I know the forms are annoying, but we need it done if we have to leave you and John with the kid.” Lyra looked up from her tea, casting a thoughtful glance at the nursery door.

“You know, John’s not a very common name. Where does he..."

“Croupwich,” Ditzy added automatically. “John’s from Croupwich. It’s a very traditional Croupwich name.”

“Oh.” Lyra sipped her tea in thought. “That’s a far village. Never ever played Croupwich on tour.”

“Yes,” Ditzy said as she nodded emphatically. “Few ponies ever go there.”

A chestnut-colored face covered in sawdust poked out of the nursery door. “I think I have it, love,” said John Doo-Smith, Ponyville’s town repairpony. “Just a little more jiggery-pokery and it’ll be set up.”

A loud clank from the nursery made Lyra jump. Ditzy narrowed her eyes as softer clanks could be heard moving across the room.

“Honey,” she said to her sweating husband. “Is anypony in there?”

Lyra noticed a strange emphasis of the word “pony” in Ditzy’s words.

“Um.” John fiddled with his tie. “No. Nopony.”

“Did you follow the instructions exactly, dear?”

Across the house, Lyra could swear she heard something fiddling with the far nursery door.

John nervously scratched behind his neck. “Yes, Definitely. Well, almost totally mostly. Well..."

Ditzy placed her teacup down, folded her hooves, and looked at John with a polite smile that promised an imminent night on the couch. “Honey, should there be anything moving in the nursery?”

Lyra was now certain that someone was scratching at the nursery window. As she took a curious step towards the door, John quickly jumped in front of her with a pleading grin.

“I’ll take a look at that! Might have added one or two extra parts from the repair shop that may... disagree with me.” He pulled out a small metal wand with a glowing tip. “Be done in a jiff.”

Lyra opened her mouth, but turned to Ditzy first. Ditzy produced a wide confident smile, and Lyra sat down in her chair, reassured.

As her husband’s hourglass-bearing flank disappeared into the nursery, Ditzy called back after him, “Maybe do it by the instructions this time?”

Staring into her swirling tea leaves, Lyra’s mind swam in a distant pool away from the Doo-Smith’s banter. Taking a deep breath, Lyra looked straight into Ditzy’s eyes. She was one of the few people who could do that, having gotten used to placing bizarre strains on her body, and knew that Ditzy appreciated it.

“Whoah.” Ditzy carefully placed her cup on the table. “That’s the serious look.”

Carefully resting her head on her hooves, Lyra asked “Is it worth it?”

Ditzy shifted in her chair. “What are you going to have to change?”

“Well, there’s work.” Lyra gently slide her cup around on the table from hoof to hoof. “I’ll have to tour with the kid. Bonny will need at least as many hours at the cafe as she has, if not more. We’re going to need either child care or rearranged schedules. Know any babysitters?”

Ditzy began frantically waving her forelimbs in the air as if waiting for a hoofball pass, and Lyra nodded before continuing.

“We’ll have less time for hobbies. Stuff will break. I’ll have to sit through some really obnoxious kiddie plays.”

“Some will be on ice,” Ditzy offered. “Go on.”

As Lyra paused to tally marks in her head, Ditzy reached across the table and gently placed her hooves over Lyra’s. “Are you happy with the way your life is?”

“Yes,” Lyra said without thinking.

“When you’re old and wrinkly, would you be happy if you never changed this? I mean Bon Bon can get her own restaurant, you both get better jobs, but the dynamic never changes.”

Lyra stared at the table before slowly shaking her head. She jerked back up in her seat when Ditzy learned over and licked her nose before leaning back into her cushion, giggling and shaking her wings.

“Ditz’? What was that?”

“My anti-moping lick, silly moop.” Ditzy picked up her tea cup again, wriggling in her seat. “Lyra, I left behind a life of constant travel and adventure for nailing myself down for my kids, and I’ve never once wished I hadn’t.”

Lyra’s smile spread until the loud noises of something being disassembled somewhat involuntarily filled the house. As the sounds of John grunting in pain as he apparently kept hitting himself with a hammer filtered through, Lyra smirked.

“Man,” she said to Ditzy, “I don’t know what that guy would do without you to keep him on track.”

Ditzy blinked, keeping a polite smile on her face. “So, how’re you holding up with Bon Bon at her parents this weekend?”

“Sweet Celestia, I ate good! She always makes a bunch of my favorites before she goes. I might have gone through them too quickly, since I’ve stayed up reading ‘till morning for a few nights, so I’ve been ordering out for two days. I misplaced the coin purse this morning, though, and..."

As blushing Lyra looked away, Ditzy took a particularly victorious sip of tea.

___

Fifty-nine days to showtime

The front door slammed open as a soaking wet Bon Bon did her best impression of an equine battering ram. She stood in the doorway, momentarily panting as she took in the living room. In a moment of mercy, the universe did not provide an irritated Heartmend staring back at her from the couch. Good, she’s late too. Bonny hung her saddle-umbrella on the rack of various and sundry Lyra possessions (including a Hay Fawkes mask, an Zebfro wig, and an ancient candy cane). Dropping her dripping saddlebags at the door, she rushed into the kitchen.

As a pile of salt spilled down onto the floor from a half-drenched and vegetable-slathered counter, Lyra sat on the floor. Leaning against the back counter, she ignored everything else on the menu as she dug her teeth into her hoof. Above her a cloud smelling of onion clung to the ceiling.

“I can’t do this,” she said as she rocked back and forth. “I can’t do this.”

A sharp smack knocked Lyra’s hoof out of her mouth. Bon-Bon’s glare was a casserole of emotions garnished with a dusting of concern.

“No, Lyra. Not that bucking thing again.”

“Bonny! You’re home!” Lyra slowly spread the smile her brain had to appease predators as she leapt to embrace her stern taskmistress.

Bon Bon, as if two forelimbs weren’t clutching her neck for dear life, whispered back, “No.”

“What, the hoof biting?” Pulling back, Lyra turned to levitate a dishrag across Lake Countertop. “That’s harmless. That’s small.”

Bon-Bon continued to stare as she let out a deep sigh. “That’s how it always starts, Hun. Very small.”

Lyra nodding, starting several unsuccessful sentences that ran into each other. “I’m just trying to get this right, and I... I can’t..."

Bon Bon nuzzled Lyra, terminating any hope of an explanation as the overwhelmed chef sagged on her feet. Giving Lyra’s ear a quick nip, Bonny gently pushed her aside.

“No, love, don’t explain. I see what you’re trying to do.” Rearing up onto the counter showed Bon Bon the remains of what must have been a particularly brutal vegetable civil war. With a look of resignation, Bonny dipped a shaking ladle into a bubbling pot. She met Lyra’s eyes as she sipped it, being reminded of what Twilight Sparkle’s eyes looked like years back, staring into Celestia’s after that magically-compelled riot.

Well, at least we got our game of “Lonely Wizard and Shy,Compelled Mare” from that debacle.

Bon Bon drew out a breath, preparing for diplomacy. “The salt’s a good start, but there’s a little too much. You have aromatics in the pot, mixing about. That’s a good thing. Onion’s a useful thing to learn. There’s all these..." Bon Bon said, and stopped as she scraped the inside of her skull for words to describe things chef knew but rarely spoke.

“There’s nothing in there. You have a bunch of things waiting around for a main attraction.”

Lyra shook, staring at the floor.

Turning back to the counter, Bonny began assessing the disaster. “Look, Greenbean, do you want to be useful?”

“More than anything,” came the reply.

Bonny bit her lip.

“Lyra, get the table clear and get your harp out. Play some relaxing numbers for when Heartmend arrives. I’m going to make macaroni, and leave the vegetables just onto the side, as you like, and use that noxious runny cheese, just like you like. I’ll make some tomato and pepper sandwiches on the side.”

”With..." Lyra said with a sniff, “with the tomatoes...”

Bon Bon sighed. “With mayonnaise directly on the tomatoes to lower the acidity. I swear, Cheerilee needs to keep her chemistry out of my kitchen.”

Lyra lifted her head up, determination pulling itself upwards for another round in the ring.

“I’ll go clean up the table now, if you don’t mind.”

“Yes, dear,” Bon Bon agreed with a slight nod as she surveyed the disordered tools spread out across the kitchen.

Lyra swallowed. “Then, I’m going to hold you the entire time you’re cleaning the counter and cry into your mane.”

Bon Bon nodded again. “Yes, dear,” she said before gasping as she was pounced from behind. Lyra hung onto Bon Bon, and Bonny felt Lyra’s quick, warm breath on her neck.

“I love your mane,” Lyra whispered. “If we have a kid, I want them to have your mane.”

Bonny furrowed her brow as she cleaned the counter. “Honey, we’re adopting, remember?”

“No prob. We’ll use scissors and glue.”

___

The collective breath of the house was held as Heartmend walked down its corridors with an appraising look. Bon Bon and Lyra stood a few steps behind, taking notes on suggestions and passing the time. Lyra passed the time by nervously vibrating her front foreleg to the point that telegraph operators would have heard messages in it, and Bonny passed the time stopping her.

For Lyra, the most nerve-wracking part was being judged by the imaginary. At least, that’s what it felt like as Heartmend made her rounds. Lyra would watch her stop, stare at something too small to notice, and then begin whispering to herself with movements of her head. Looking like she was consulting an invisible council, Heartmend made Lyra want to scream.

“Is this..." Heartmend poked a hoof at the nursery door, jumping back as a green blur appeared beside her.

“Yes?” Lyra’s grin would have made dentists and serial killers proud.

Heartmend blinked, then turned back into the nursery. Pursing her lips momentarily, she shrugged and smiled. “Nothing, dear.”

As Heartmend walked into the nursery, Bonny saw veins bulge on Lyra’s forehead. Quickly but quietly, Bon Bon stepped to her side and buried her face into Lyra’s neck in a forceful nuzzle. Her spouse tipped back and forth for a second before breathing out, but any thanks from Lyra was cut off by Heartmend.

“Okay, I need your help, ladies!” Heartmend sounded perfectly calm and sane, which was why Lyra’s mind froze and Bon Bon chuckled nervously as they walked into the nursery.

They had worked on it for months. On one side of the room, a mobile of ponies with musical instruments twirled above a large crib framed with elegantly carved wood, looking like it had grown into place. Across the room stood a normal bed, ready for older children. Between the two was a bookshelf of colorful toys and books, including the human doll that was the end result of a hard-fought compromise. A cuckoo clock hung over a cabinet near the door, the cuckoo peeking out of his hole at disbelief at what he was seeing.

Heartmend was in the crib.

The adult mare was squeezed into the small wooden area, eyes looking up expectantly at the pair of prospective parents.

Bon Bon did a double-take while moving, colliding with the side of the clothes cabinet and nearly knocking the blue canary nightlight onto the floor and setting the fireflies inside to work in bathing the room in blue light.

Lyra blinked several times. The cuckoo made eye contact with her, chirped while pointing at Heartmend, and retreated into a gear-filled world of order and sense.

“There’s a monster in my closet,” she said. “Do something.”

As Bon Bon tried to form a response, Lyra’s eyes lit up. “It’s role-play! Like what Cheerilee’s family does with the weird dice. Bonny, we can do this!”

Bon Bon raised her eyebrows and silently nodded.

“I mean, Miss Heartmend, when Bonny and I role-play, normally I’m the dancing mare and...”

Lyra’s sentence trailed into a smile as Heartmend heard a sharp smack on Lyra’s flank.

“So,” Hearmend said. “Pop quiz, hot shot. There’s a foal in this crib and a monster. What do you do?” Her eyes flew from Lyra to Bon Bon. “What do you do?”

Bon Bon walked out of the room.

As alarm bells went off inside Lyra’s mind, she saw Heartmend’s unimpressed gaze bore into her. Chuckling madly, Lyra went up and caressed Heartmend’s mane. “I’m right here,” she whispered. “Don’t worry.”

“There’s a monster in the closet,” Heartmend said with watering eyes that could have made any parents buy her a puppy, if not several.

Lyra sighed, closed her eyes and started to sing a wordless melody, notes keeping keeping pace with her moving hoof. After several seconds, the sound of stomping feet shocked her into opening her eyes.

That was when Bon Bon walked in with a foam club in her mouth.

Both of the mares in the crib stared wordlessly as Bonny walked to the crib and spat it down in front of Heartmend.

“Here,” Bonny said with a confident smile. “If any monster comes out, smack it in the face. They’re wimps. They turn tail at the first sign of trouble.”

“That’s my Humanworld re-enactment--”

Bon Bon shoved a hoof into Lyra’s mouth. “It’s an official Royal Guard monster-whacking club. It's how they drove the monsters out of Canterlot.”

Heartmend adjusted her glasses for a second before stepping back into character. “But, what if I go to sleep and--"

Bonny shook her head. “Monsters have to wake you up before they come out of the closet. Union rules. They lose their benefits otherwise.”

Heartmend looked from Bon Bon’s grin to the open-mouthed stare Lyra was giving her spouse. Nodding, she said,”All right, you passed that test.”

A moment of silence followed.

“Miss Heartstrings, you can stop stroking my mane now.”

___

In the light of a guttering candle, Heartmend stood up from the living room cushion while gathering stacks of completed paperwork into her saddlebag. “All right, I think we’re done here.” Sparing a glance at Lyra (currently sprawled out, using Bon Bon’s stomach like a pillow), she smiled. “Miss Heartstrings, I hope when you were comforting me it didn’t get... uncomfortable.”

“Oh, heck no!” Lyra snorted. “I mean, I didn’t think about it that way at all.” Giving Heartmend’s leg a playful tap, Lyra continued. “Don’t worry, you’re not remotely my type.”

Bon Bon’s head jumped up as Heartmend stared back.

Looking into Heartmend’s blank eyes, Lyra’s teeth chattered with trepidation as she worked to pull herself up. “I mean, I like my girls with a little more meat on them.”

Heartmend paused a moment before saying, “You’re on the list.”

“No!” Lyra threw herself to the floor in front of her caseworker. “Please, I didn’t mean..."

She stopped as a snorting Heartmend tousled her mane. “No, that was a good save, Miss Heartstrings. I meant you and your... spouse are on the official waiting list. I approve of you.” She giggled. “A lot, in fact.”

“Really?” Tears ran down Lyra’s cheeks.

Clicking her tongue, Heartmend turned to Bon Bon. “Is she always like this?”

Bon Bon giggled as she stepped forward, sitting down across Lyra. “Yup,” she pronounced with a nod as Lyra struggled to rise. “And she’s all mine.”

“Well,” Heartmend said as she knelt down to Lyra’s eye level. “Lyra Heartstrings, I hereby announce that I would be happy to place a child in your home. I give you the official seal of being a decent and responsible pony. After all,” she said with a lift of her head, “you order your Humanworld books in chronological story order rather than publishing date. Not bad for someone in a second-rate orchestra.”

As Heartmend turned onto the street from their yard, she could still hear Lyra laughing.

Forty-seven Days Until Showtime

Relaxing in front of the fireplace (with the child safety gate installed), Lyra gently floated the book in the air. At her side, Bonny’s eyes were wide in rapture at the tale of levitating swords and sorcery. Reading together, the two mares breathed in the poetic world of barbarian stallions and swordsmares for entirely different reasons. Lyra secretly fantasized of swooning into the grasp of some charismatic heroine. Bon Bon, on the other hoof (or hand, depending on whose fantasy novel it was), dreamed of carving out a kitchen kingdom by her own will, swinging spatula in her mouth as she trod her workplace’s tiles with her sandaled hooves.

“Her mighty thews strained,” Lyra read aloud, “as she finally pushed the foul monstrosity off the Tower of the Giraffe. She suddenly turned like a panther, the spirited Cimarronian staring at the freed temple maiden as--”

Blushing, Lyra caught her breath as a knock sounded at the door.

“Man,” Lyra said as she glared daggers at the door, “we’re at my favorite part.”

“I know,” Bon Bon said as she teasingly licked Lyra’s nose and trotted to the door. Opening it let in the sound of pounding rain and the sight of a bedraggled pegasus shaking his dripping, long mane.

“Hey,” he said conversationally.

“It’s late,” Bon Bon said as she narrowed her eyes. “So, there are at least three good reasons that you’ve got the wrong house.”

“Yeah.” He pawed the ground nervously. “Hey. Um, I’m from Hooves Holding Hearts?”

Lyra jumped to the ground, squeaking as she nearly dropped her book into the fireplace.

Bon Bon stared at the stranger as he stood in the downpour. “So..."

“You, uh, totally passed the inspections, right?”

“Yes,” Lyra screamed as she galloped to the door.

“Desired age is newborn, right?”

The mares looked at each other quizzically. Bonny gestured for him to go on with her hoof. “And...?”

“What? Oh, yeah, right.” The stallion snorted. “Well, want a kid? We kinda just got one, and it kinda needs to go to a home tonight.”

Raising a hoof to her chest, Lyra’s breath caught in her throat as she started laughing. Bonny’s mouth opened as she turned to Lyra, mumbling her words in incoherent joy.

“So,” he asked with a raised eyebrow, ignoring the rain. “You up for it?”

Chapter 3: The Moving Reprise

Hooves Holding Hearts
Chapter 3: The Moving Reprise

Pain crept up on the sleeping Lyra, shook her rudely by the shoulder, then forced her eyelids awake by pulling itself through her ear cavity and jump-kicking her brain. As she woke up screaming, the pain decided to stay awhile.

“Ugh.” Lyra lifted herself upright on the nursery bed, rubbing her eyes with an unsteady hoof. By now the pain in her head had made itself at home, put up curtains, and rearranged the furniture. “Whut happa’?”

“Hey,” said something that sounded like manic depressive roadkill. “You’re awake. Come get a look what the little tyke’s up to.”

Lyra forced herself upright, grabbing consciousness tightly. Her bleary eyes revealed the nursery walls bathed in dozens of flickering candles, every one of them perched on a miniature birthday cake. She saw Bon Bon sitting by the crib in the dimly illuminated center of the darkened room, and briefly thought of the beginning of a Canterlot play as the lights first come up.

“Heya, Hun,” Bon Bon said with a grin, her eyes bloodshot. She rubbed a hoof maternally down the side of the crib, which was entwined all over in slightly pulsating roots. “She’s awake. Take a look at our baby.”

Lyra leapt onto her hooves. “Bonny, are you all right?” She walked forward, staring into her spouse’s grinding forced grin before she looked into the crib. There was something growing in it, certainly, but Lyra would be hard-pressed to call it a foal.

Her breath caught in her throat as she saw the wooden mass in the center. Expanding and retracting as if breathing, a tangle of roots and vines in the shape of a young foal stared up at Lyra with eyes made of acorns that swiveled in her direction. As it rolled onto its back, hooves kicking into the air, she could hear a wet sound like someone breathing through moss. The odor of compost drew tears from her eyes.

“Bonny,” she said with a swallow and a deliberate step backwards, “what’s that thing in the crib?” As a forelimb was thrown around her neck, Lyra let out a cross between a scream and a shriek.

“That’s a maredrake, silly,” whispered Cheerilee as she stepped out of the shadows and pulled Lyra into a proud hug. “Well, you never did pay attention in science class to anything but me. I’m proud of you, Ly-Ly. It’s really progressive of you to foster one.”

A wingtip from out of the shadows tapped Lyra’s shoulder, drawing a slight jump from her.

“She’s real pretty!” Ditzy Doo stared at Lyra with two stationary golden eyes, and Lyra would always remember that as the most chilling moment. “I’m so excited for you, Lyra! I baked a muffin cake as a going away present! His name’s Enrique!”

“Hola, señorita.”

The candles flared on a nearby table, revealing a giant muffin with glazed raisin eyes, a sombrero filled with candles, and a vibrant mustache.

“Um. Hi?” Lyra waved weakly in his direction, and felt the back of her mind crack as the thing somehow bowed.

It smiled. “I am honored to be consumed by you for this occasion.”

She kept nodding as she pulled out of Cheerilee’s grasp, the sweet smell of her mane bringing painful memories to the surface. “Bonny, can we go somewhere to talk. Something’s wrong.”

Bon Bon rubbed the squirming wood-pile in pony form along what might have been a belly before nodding. “Sure. After all, we have two babysitters. What could--”

The candles in the room flared, sending streaks of flame across the rainbow-patterned wallpaper. A deep laugh came from the doorway, bellowing out of a hooded figure too wide for sanity’s sake. It leapt in front of Lyra, landing with four loud knocks upon the floor. The three other mares shrunk back from it, sharing terrified glances amongst themselves.

Lyra gritted her teeth, wishing she had a bottle to break. “Who in Tartaurus are you?”

“I come as the harbinger of doom, Lyra Heartstrings! I return to finally end your chances at parenting!” With that pronouncement, the mysterious figure threw back its hood, revealing an oak-panelled finish. “I am... the Table!”

Lyra stepped back at the sight of the familiar furniture, knees shaking, and her rump rammed into the crib. A piercing cry filled the air, a sound like warped wooden instruments in a high pitched chorus. Lyra plugged her ears with her hooves, leaning against the crib as she stared at the table through tear-filled eyes.

“No. It can’t be you. This doesn’t make sense.”

As Lyra’s mind decided that the featureless table was somehow smiling, the pain decided it was in well-over its head and fled out of hers. Lyra looked away, the pain only a momentary comfort as she noticed the three sprawled and motionless mares around her.

“No,” she whispered, rolling Bon Bon over with a hoof as the room filled with flame. “Bonny, wake up.” A single look told her that her spouse was unlikely to comply soon, or in fact ever again.

“Thus,” said Enrique solemnly as his sides caught fire, “is the way of all batter.”

As the table laughed, itself wreathed in flames, Lyra felt a steadying hoof on her shoulder. She turned to look at a middle-aged grey stallion who wore a disapproving look Lyra knew well.

“Dad?” She grabbed his hoof with both forelimbs, tears running down her eyes. “Dad, help me. I don’t know what to do.”

He shook his head with a weary sigh. “I expected that. I’d want to say it’s good to see you, Lyra. In any case, I have a non-optional obligation to appear here, but don’t expect much. Just remember that what happened here to your marriage, house, and friends is completely your fault.”

Her shaking hooves fell off of her father’s forelimb as he walked through the flames, melting like wax.

Lyra shook as she drew in a deep, impossible breath amidst the smoke, “Why... why aren’t I dead, Dad?”

The remains of Jazz Heartstrings snorted. “Silly girl. I’ve always said that, in the long run, you’re only responsible for yourself. When the time comes, it’s always been your responsibi--”

Lyra gasped as she rolled off of the nursery bed, slamming into the floor with a thud. Aching with pain, she rolled to her side and meticulously pulled out the embedded alphabet blocks she had sprawled onto. As she threw the last painful vowel to the side, Lyra raised her bleary eyes to see Bonny staring down at her, comfortably sitting on a cushioned stool next to the crib.

“Shh,” Bonny whispered reproachfully. “You’ll wake her up.”

The best tears of that night flowed out of her eyes as Lyra staggered onto her hooves. Quietly and carefully, she walked toward the crib, peeking inside despite something nearly forgotten in the back of her mind screaming a warning.

Inside, a tiny purple pegasus snoozed away inside the crib, sucking on her hoof while her nose continually blew a lock of white and green mane into the air.

“She’s... she’s beautiful,” Lyra concluded as memory flowed in where the tide of sleep had withdrawn.

“Yup.” Bonny gently snaked her forelimb around her spouse’s shoulders. “She certainly is. And you know what else she just might be, Greenbean?”

Lyra shook her head slowly, unable to take her eyes off of the foal.

“Ours,” Bonny said.
___

Twenty-One Days until showtime...
All things considered, the day was going wonderfully for Lyra until she found Heartmend in the kitchen.

Twenty minutes earlier, Lyra had been running from the kitchen to the nursery in a seemingly never-ending relay race, a gurgling bundle calling the shots from the crib. As the fifth song of pleading cries rose from the crib, Lyra horn-lifted the now-empty bottle and sighed. Some babies had colic; hers (for the moment, at least) was more of a food processor.

“Snoozy, you can’t still be hungry!” Lyra sighed as the little bundle squirmed, looking at her with a pleading stare proclaiming the unfairness of the universe. Running a hoof through her frazzled mane, Lyra forced a grin onto her face as she carefully levitated the baby out of the crib.

A ball of dark purple fur and feathers hung in the air, topped by a striped mane of white and pale green. Snoozy’s eyes rambled around the nursery as she gurgled. Soon and with a wide yawn, she began gently breathing, her eyes closed as a tiny bubble flickered in and out of her nostril.

The baby’s sleepy breathing was a soft pattern that had transfixed Lyra over the past three weeks of parenting. She woke up in the middle of the night occasionally, frantically rushing into the nursery to make sure she could still hear it. Last night had seen several such checks, and Lyra yawned herself as she lifted Snoozy through the air.

The sudden repeal of the laws of gravity seemed not to bother Snoozy, most likely because it didn’t obviously involve a source of food. Lyra attached a baby-holder saddle, pulled out the straps that met under her belly, and gently tucked the tiny pegasus into them. She trotted off with her slightly swinging bundle underneath, wishing she had one of the fancy numbers where the kid rode on top.

Halfway to the kitchen she stopped, her knees buckling and her eyes wide. Breathing wildly, Lyra fell back onto her haunches, her horn glowing as she pulled a clutching foal away from her midsection.

“Don’t do that, baby,” she said softly. “The only girl who gets to do that wears a ring on her tail...” She swallowed and shuddered. “...and those won’t work anytime soon. Give me a minute and I can compensate, though.”

Standing up, Lyra carefully loosed the saddle buckles, dropping Snoozy a few more inches below her now-aching underside. She stared at the baby’s grasping winglets reaching for her before nodding and bouncing toward the kitchen.

“Here we go! Everything’s gonna work out! After all, you’re here, the fridge is here...”

She stopped in place just inside the doorway, staring at the mare sitting at her kitchen table.

“Heartmend is here,” Lyra whispered.

___

“Bonny! We need hay fries dropped, two bluebell crepes, more pumpkin muffins, and an order of pan-seared pinecones. Where is that soup?”

A broad, brown unicorn marched into the back of the Ponyville cafe, a stained chef hat crowning his spiky red mane. He was the kind of pony who would have loudly described his bulk as “all muscle,” but still would have darted his eyes around to see if anyone snickered.

The kitchen was concisely filled to the brim with equipment. Haute Cuisine specialized in cultivating the image of of a small, elite cafe. As his business increased, he realized that he had to expand his potential while keeping the small business charm and style. Thus, shoved into a kitchen and a converted storage room was enough equipment to run two or three smaller cafes.

The chef carefully walked between the rows of flower pots hanging from the ceiling, checking between the tightly-spaced rows of ovens as he went. Luckily enough, it wasn’t quite time for dinner preparation. When that hour approached, the phalanx of stoves would keep the kitchen feeling like a comfy volcano. Stopping to turn off an over-simmering pan of tomato soup, he found his quarry at the back of the kitchen, ducking under bunches of hanging dried herbs as she leaned over the preparation table. She held a knife in her mouth and slammed it into the table again and again. He carefully walked around her, rolling his tongue around as he saw the crazed look in her eyes.

“So, Bon Bon,” he said conversationally, “what are you workin’ on?”

Her eyes lit up as she spun on him. “Bread Bowl! Just mincing some garlic! We need to mince more garlic to make our ingredient quota.” She swept her tail towards the table’s edge, pointing toward a pile of garlic powder large enough to hide a baby in.

Bread Bowl pursed his lips. “You, uh, sure you okay, Bonny? Nuthin’s wrong?”

He wondered if she was trying to bite her own teeth, but decided she was just smiling too hard.

“I’m fine,” she announced. “I’m just making sure we have ingredients.”

He pointed at the huge pile of chopped garlic. “What, in case your roommate’s a vampire, or somethin’? Bon Bon Bunny Babe, I’m worried.”

Bon Bon carefully placed the knife down on the table, grinning bashfully. “Okay, maybe I went a little too far. Everything else is okay.”

Over generations, the stallions of Ponyville had adapted to their mares’ mental habits. The peaceful town ambience mixed with the occasional apocalyptic afternoon had created a culture where a girl had to switch from a garden party mentality to a chimera attack survival mindset effortlessly. In response, the malefolk passed down the skills of dealing with mares on the mental edge of breakdowns. Take an average Ponyville schlub and put him to work under an insane dictator or mad genius, and he would easily outlast most grand viziers and Number Ones in terms of job survival. Mister Ponyville would be running things, calmly chewing their oats and thinking about upcoming anniversaries, while their rivals would constantly end up in the boss’ shark tank or strung up by peasant heroes..

With this legacy of caution behind him, Bread carefully approached Bon Bon, placing a hoof on her shoulder as he eyed the knife. “You let the marinara simmer too long,” he whispered.

“No!” Eyes wide with shock, Bon Bon’s bottom lip trembled. “I’m sorry, Bread. Please don’t tell Mr. Cuisine! The baby kept me up so late, and I never would have--”

“Shh. Head chef is about to speak,” he intoned as he stared into her eyes.

She shivered. “I can do this, Mister Bowl.”

He scratched his chin as his inspected the garlic mountain. Nice technique, he thought with a nod. “Bonny Babe, when’s the last time you got a good night’s sleep?”

“With a loud baby?” She shrugged. “I’ve been thinking of hiring the Elements of Harmony to help with the noise. While Lyra’s up with the baby, I’ll pay Twilight Sparkle to turn me to stone. After a while, we switch off. I mean, only one of us has to be flesh at a time, right?””

Bread rolled his eyes. “Look, I am your head chef. This makes me beholden to the sacred responsibility between cooks, and I need to lay something down right now.”

Time stretched out interminably for Bon Bon as she waited for Bread’s next word.

“I want you on the sandwich counter ‘till your lunch break.”

She blinked. “Bread, you can’t really mean that! You nearly fired Fry Basket for touching your tools!”

He waved a hoof in the air, as he nodded. “Go to the sandwich counter, Bonny. On a day like today, you need a little bit of meditatin’ that only the perfect arrangin’ of nature’s bounty will allow. Spendin’ an hour makin’ sandwiches will realign your cookin’ chakras.”

She threw her forelimbs around his neck. “You are the best head chef a cook could ask for.”

“And you’re a great soup/dessert lady, but you need to relax. You’re spendin’ so much thought worryin’ that your efficiency will drop ‘cause of the baby that you’re causin’ it ta happen. Ya gotta accept the disorder of parenting.”

Bon Bon blinked. “How... how did you...”

Bread Bowl sat on his haunches and crossed his forelimbs, closing his eyes. “I have been made one wit’ everything.”

She snickered, and he opened one eye up.

“Really. It was on rye. Now go! Get yer stuff done if you gotta take off early!”

Bon Bon saluted. “Right away, sir! Thanks for that, by the way. I’m sure Lyra’s okay, but I want to make sure today’s baby shower goes off without a hitch.”

___

At home, Lyra was wearing a grin she hoped epitomized calm in the face of danger. It was the smile of a relaxed dinosaur, kicking back while other nervous nellies all pointed at the sky and discussed the descending coming attraction. She hoped it would work.

The grin shone headfirst into Heartmend’s patented “I Know What You Did, But Let’s Start With the Pleasantries” smile. As an irresistible force met an immovable object, Cheerilee sneezed in the middle of a physics lecture and wondered why.

Heartmend was sitting on the kitchen counter, tapping her hoof patiently. She had a newspaper in front of her, turned about halfway through. The crossword was almost completed (not being a history major, Heartmend had become stuck on a five-letter word for “Bringer of Darkness”).

She had been sitting in their kitchen for a while, Lyra realized as she felt a cold hoof massage her heart..

“So,” offered Lyra in high, hopeful tones.

“So,” Heartmend said as she inclined her head down slightly, eyes never wavering.

“Ah.” Lyra’s mind raced in an effort to stall for time. “Glass of milk?”

Heartmend nodded. “I always find that makes these kind of conversations go more smoothly. So, how’s the little one?”

“Oh. Um. Great!” Horn light and sweat played across Lyra’s forehead as she carefully put the baby into her high chair. As Snoozy leaned forward and yawned, Lyra’s eyes flickered towards Heartmend. In the pause that followed, Lyra half-expected Heartmend to hold up a card with a number.

“Good form.” Heartmend idly flipped a newspaper page. “Excellent dismount.”

Awesome, Lyra thought as she exhaled. That should be at least a seven point five.

“So.” Heartmend looked up. “The baby...”

“Snoozy, we’re calling her,” Lyra said as she interrupted Heartmend, grabbing for control of the conversation with both hooves. “Any luck on finding her parents?”

Heartmend shook her head slowly as her brow furrowed. “I’m just glad that Everfree Ranger found her out on his patrol. Who knows what difference a few hours made in this case? After these past few weeks, we’ve almost given up hope.” Heartmend closed the paper, sighing as she stared out the window. “Snoozy,” she said with a smile, “didn’t seem like an abandonment case. We might never figure this one out. She’s doing all right, I assume?”

“Wonderful!” Lyra opened the fridge, levitating a small cloud of milk, baby food, and minicarrots onto the table. “I’ve just had to change a few diapers and keep her fed today. We were just going through some of my favorite lullabies.” Lyra slid the milk glass down the counter like a old-time bartender.

Heartmend smirked. “You unicorns are always so positive about diaper changing. You should try doing it with hooves sometimes. I wish the humanworld novels mentioned diaper changing.”

“Wasn’t there one in ‘Starlord Hawkings and the Infinity Chair'?"

“Eh, that’s noncanon. So, I didn’t come over just to interrupt you and her from singing...” Heartmend’s eyebrows raised in question.

“Well,” Lyra said with shrug, “these songs don’t really have names. They’re tunes I’ve been meaning to use. Some of them are things my mother used to whistle to us.”

Heartmend nodded. “Has she seen the baby yet?”

“So, what brings you over?” Lyra turned back to the open fridge door and away from the uncomfortable question. “Here for the baby shower, I assume?”

“I came to ask a few questions,” she said as she took a sip of her milk.

“Shoot.” The sound of rattling fridge dishes continued as Lyra pretended to look for something while she steadied herself.

“Well, I had to drop off some paperwork at the Family Fixing Farm Foster Service, and I said hello to my old friend Huggy Snug. She couldn’t chat long. She had to meet her wife at a cafe for her ten year wedding anniversary. Still, she remembered being your caseworker when I asked.”

Lyra’s head slowly pulled out of the fridge. “Really?” She blinked as a hovering purple puff ascended to eye level. Her wings flapping like a hummingbird, Snoozy was slowly lifting upwards and loudly snoring. Lyra carefully nudged her back down into the high chair, where she hovered an inch above the cushion while peacefully unaware of the world around her.

“That’s just adorable,” Heartmend said while dropping her head onto her hoof, a satisfied smile like one of a spider with a twitching web splashed across her face. “So anyway, since I know that business about them kicking you out of the program for being two married mares is horse-apples, I want to know the real reason you left them to come to us. Unless it’s a particularly satisfying one, the two duly-authorized pegasi waiting patiently on your front lawn and I are taking the baby.”

Lyra’s forelimb briefly wrapped around a root beer bottle before she realized what she was doing. She placed it in the far back of the fridge, ignoring the roar of remembered barfights in her mind. Carefully, she pulled her head out of the fridge, closed the door, and sat down across the kitchen table from the two accusing eyes that filled her vision..

“Huggy alluded to it, but wouldn’t tell me.” All trace of Heartmend’s smile was gone now. “You briefly mentioned it, back when we met. I have to know about it now. Tell me about the table.”
___

One hundred and twenty-five days to showtime...
Surrounded by strangers and on the spot, Lyra always thought of her lyre.

Musical notation filled her head as she made a cup of complimentary coffee in the FFFFS waiting room with an unsteady hoof. Sweating, she locked eyes with the concerned looking secretary manning the front desk. Lyra smiled back much more confidently than she felt as notes played inside her head.

Ponies of a kind tend to gravitate together. Almost anywhere they went, Lyra and Bon Bon would soon find themselves in separate situations, a recipe swap on one side and a musical style debate on the other. Countless times, Lyra had seen her conversation partner’s eyes widen as they finally caught a look at her flank. Usually they would then comment about how they expected to see a guitar, drum, or synchronized dynamite cutie mark on the hyperactive unicorn.

Lyra would just smile, knowing that they had her completely backwards. She didn’t play the harp to release the chaos inside. When her strings rang out, Lyra Heartstrings spun her nervousness and insecurities on a loom of melody, calming all of the mental cacophony inside her head.

When dropped into a nerve-wracking social arena, Lyra wanted nothing more to lead the confusing herd of ponies around her into something that made sense, something she had control over. Often, this meant being a ridiculous party animal and throwing herself forward with wild abandon as onlookers followed behind her, caught in her wake. At those times where a table dance and traffic cone hat wouldn’t work, Lyra always tapped her hooves together and thought of her harp.

As the uncomfortable symphony played inside her head, Lyra felt a hoof dig into her shoulder and start forcefully massaging. “Greenbean, lighten up. Things will work out.”

“What if they don’t like me?” Lyra looked around nervously, checking to see if any of the other patrons had heard her desperate whisper. “If they don’t like us, then--”

“Everybody inside,” called out a mare from an opened door down the hallway, and Lyra’s heart jumped.

Some of the most important choices in life resolve before you realize them. A spare cigarette thrown to the ground changes the course of a war, and a sandwich ordered elsewhere starts several more. Lyra once mused about the fluidness of history to Ditzy Doo, and stopped immediately after the pegasus collapsed into giggles. For the next heartbroken two months after her only visit to FFFFS, Lyra would often reflect on the devastating decision made in the heat of the moment. Levitating her full coffee mug, she briefly glanced at the sink inconveniently located across the room.

Nah, she thought, I just got the sugar/milk mix right in this one. I’ll take it in with me. She walked into the room, having made a decision that changed the lives of herself, her spouse, and the children she would now never foster or adopt.

The FFFFS meeting room was a larger classroom, chalkboards spaced around intermixed with brainlessly happy motivational posters. It oozed the kind of schoolhouse cheer only found in adults who spend just enough time with children to forget how adults think. The majority of its furniture was pushed to the edge of the room, the center being occupied by a ring of cushions.

Lyra looked down at her coffee, and history unfolded.

Okay, she thought with a swallow, I can’t just put this down on the floor. I’ll knock it over and stain the cushions, and then they’ll hate me and I’ll never be a parent. She bit her lip. I can’t just levitate this until I’m done, that looks neurotic. Maybe...

Lyra took a careful sip of the coffee, quickly swallowing it.

Okay, too hot to down it all here. Maybe if I head back out...

The door shut behind her, the last prospective parent having walked through. As he passed her, she realized that standing just inside the room was drawing curious stares. Bon Bon’s eyebrows were raised, worry and concern written across her face as she watched Lyra shiver, paralyzed with fear.

Lyra grinned. Okay, this will work.

As she walked towards the cushion Bon Bon had saved for her, Lyra’s horn flared up. A small table lifted itself from the other side of the room, and traced a sparkling pattern in the air as it flew toward the cushion circle. One of the other applicants turned in its direction and yelped, ducking to avoid the wooden weapon that clipped the top of his mane. With a smug look, Lyra carefully set it in place in front of her, smiling to a bevy of confused faces as she carefully set down her coffee mug upon it. The soft, muted click of the mug sounded like tirumph.

Bonny learned over. “Lyra, are you okay?”

“Fine!” Lyra grinned for dear life. “Everything’s fine.”

In the center of the pillow circle, the agency representative tapped her hooves on the wooden floor. “Miss, is there some kind of problem?”

Coldness flew across Lyra’s heart for a moment before she closed her eyes and laughed. “No, nothing! Just had to find a place for my coffee!”

__
Twenty-one days until showtime...
Heartmend stared at Lyra. Her milk, half-finished when the conversation started, had long since turned lukewarm from neglect. She swallowed as she composed her thoughts.

“So, you didn’t hit the guy, right?

Slumped against the fridge door, Lyra meekly shook her head as tears ran off of her muzzle onto the tile. “No, I... I didn’t need to. I never need to do too much to screw things up.”

Heartmend relaxed, the tense body language of the interrogator giving way to the forward lean of a mare watching someone break down. She stepped down off of her stool and grabbed a clean diaper wipe in her teeth before walking over to Lyra. Dropping it into Lyra’s hooves, she watched silently as the sobbing mare cleaned up her puffy face. After she had been dry and silent for a few seconds, Heartmend softly asked, “So, what else happened in that meeting? That couldn’t be it.”

Lyra shrugged. “Well, I apologized afterwards.”

Heartmend smiled.

“That made it worse. I didn’t realize it until they sent somepony to stop by a few days later.”

__
One hundred and thirty-one days to showtime...

“Heyo!” Cheerfully, Lyra flung open the front door. “Miss Huggy, it’s wonderful to see you!”

Huggy Snug adjusted her glasses, smiling back in an uncomfortable way. “Hello, Miss Heartstrings. I’m afraid I have some uncomfortable news.”

Lyra blinked as the seconds of silence drew on. “What, is the meeting cancelled this week? Man, I was just making some soup for the potluck. It’s going to be a garlic-cheese-egg broth with capers and raisins!”

Huggy shifted nervously on her hooves. “That sounds like an interesting mix of ingredients.”

“Tell me about it.” Lyra stepped back from the doorway. “Come inside and see. I started out with just a cheese soup, but when I added the raisins I had to temper the taste, and then the carrots started changing the texture and I thought, hey, why not add the--”

“I’d rather not come in, Miss Heartstrings. I’m here to tell you that you’ve been dropped from the program.”

The stirring spoon that Lyra had been levitating absent-mindedly dropped to the ground.

“What? Why?” Lyra drew in a quick breath. “Look, I know I might have freaked ponies out when we started talking about self-injury and I started to comment on why kids--”

Huggy tapped her hoof onto the cobblestones, and Lyra stopped talking, her mouth still hanging open.

“It’s not that. It’s the table.”

Lyra blinked. She snorted. She laughed, still staring at Huggy.

“You’re not serious.”

Taking a step back, Huggy took a deep breath as she stared into Lyra’s moistening eyes.

“Look,” she said softly, “you made myself and several other parents uncomfortable with what seemed like an aggressive action.”

Lyra galloped a step closer to Huggy, sending her a step backwards. For a second, Lyra marvelled at how, just outside Bon Bon’s garden, she could make out the villagers going about their daily business with a smile and a song while her world fell apart around her.

“I apologized,” she said in a quavering voice. “I said I was sorry afterwards.”

“That you did. A lot. Quite a lot. In fact, so much that I was worried that you have some kind of emotional issues to work out.”

Lyra’s legs dropped out from under her as she sat down suddenly and uncomfortably onto the rocky walkway. She was shuddering when she spoke up.

“Please. Please give me another chance.”

Huggy shook her head. “You wrote that one of your best friends was a teacher. What would she do if some student walked into her class the first day and started rearranging the tables?”

Lyra bit down hard.

“She’d go up to them, realize they felt out of place, and find a way to get them back into their comfortable area.”

“Hmm.” Huggy rested a hoof on her chin. “I’m not sure how I’d feel about that course of action.”

“That’s because you’re no Cheerilee.”

Lyra saw the offended look in Huggy’s eyes and knew that a bridge had not only been crossed a while back, but also been cut into pieces and set on fire.

Huggy turned away, shaking her head. “After receiving a complaint from another parent, there’s nothing I can do. I think you have some deep things you need to work out before my agency would be willing to work with you. I’m sorry.”

She jerked to a stop, turning around to see Lyra’s hoof hooked around her back leg.

“Wait, please.” Lyra’s teeth chattered as she talked. “I’ll get therapy. I’ll get a note from a shrink. I’ll venture into Tartaurus weaponless, and I’ll... I’ll write a five-paragraph essay.” Her hoof shook as she pulled it away from Huggy. “Please.”

With a deep breath, Huggy shook her head. “I think it would be a long while before the Family Fixing Farm Foster Service would be able to work with you, Lyra Heartstrings. Well, good luck anyway.” She said while edging away, keeping an eye on Lyra’s forelimbs. “Good bye.”

Five minutes later, Bon Bon had returned from the grocery store to find an overflowing cauldron of mismatched ingredients spilling all over the stove and her wailing spouse rolling around in the garden.

___

The two mares sat in the silence in the kitchen for a while before either of them spoke. Lyra finally raised her eyes from the floor, daring a look at Heartmend before shuddering and looking away.

“I’ll go get her things. You can take her now if you need to, and I’ll just drop the stuff off at the agency.” She turned, dreading to see Heartmend’s expression and clutching the hope that they wouldn’t have to speak again. As she stepped into the hallway, willing her legs not to fall out from under herself, she heard Heartmend say, “Stop.”

At the sound, Lyra lifted her hoof towards her mouth and nearly bit down. Consciously breathing regularly, she slowly placed it back on the floor and turned around.

Heartmend scratched her mane before shrugging. “Lyra, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in all my years in this business.”

“What?” Lyra snorted. “Really?”

Shrugging, Heartmend walked back to the kitchen stool and slumped down. She patted the stool next to her, and Lyra obediently trotted over to it. Once she sat down, Heartmend reached over and tousled her mane.

“Listen,” she said softly, “I love them dearly, but that agency has a reputation for making neurotic and bizarre decisions. I will never finish mocking Huggy for letting a prospective foster parent like Lyra Heartstrings slip through her hooves and letting me snap her up. Do you understand?”

Lyra nodded, laughing to herself as she wiped her eyes. Opening them again brought her face to rump with a hovering purple puffball. Snoozy hung in the air, legs dangling like a ragdoll in front of Lyra’s face. With a soft laugh, Lyra pushed her nose forward, sending her slowly rump first towards Heartmend.

“No baby butt!” Heartmend whispered forcefully and eloquently as she dropped to the ground, and Snoozy gently sailed over her towards the door. She sailed on, the most adorable example of Neighton’s First Law that Lyra had ever seen, until her butt gently bumped against the front door, sending her into a stable hover a few inches back.

Heartmend stared in maternal admiration at the baby, commanding Lyra to do the same with the most mature vocabulary she could muster, coming out as “Wook at the widdle fluzzyfwump!”

Lyra nodded. She was already wooking by the time that Bon Bon opened the door.

Slumping against the door, Bon Bon stared at Snoozy with tired eyes. The baby slowly spun, completing stationary barrel rolls in her sleep. Bonny’s eyes went wide as a mischievous grim appeared.

“Oh, no.” Lyra covered her mouth to suppress a giggle. “Don’t you dare.”

“What?” Heartmend looked back and forth between the two, searching for insight or sanity and finding neither. “What’s she going to do?”

Hours of frustration shone out of Bon Bon’s eyes as she bellowed the phrase, “Snoozdozer!”

Snoozy’s eyes opened, but before her instincts could compel her into a post-nap cry she was overwhelmed by the sensation of Bon Bon blowing full force on her stomach. Giggling uncontrollably, Bon Bon rushed into the room while pushing Snoozy forward, rude noises following all the way. After a few steps she stopped, sending the hurtling baby steadily careening towards Lyra, who repeated the process in the direction of the high chair. Soon, Snoozy rolled around on her back, quaking with laughter as Lyra continuing the assault.

Heartmend shook her head, trying not to laugh and compromising at a snort.

“Two point pass,” Bon Bon remarked as she hung up her saddlebag. “By the way, my parents are right behind me.”

Lyra stared at her, stopping in mid-tummy blow.

“So are yours, Greenbean.”

It was the third most frightening thing Lyra had heard today. Surprisingly, Heartmend’s earlier threat was only the second most terrifying statement said to Lyra today.

“Well,” Heartmend said with a smile, “I had better leave it to you two, then. Enjoy your party.”

Lyra said nothing, staring at the door.

Bonny sat at the kitchen table, sighing as the tension of work fled her muscles. “You sure you can’t stay?”

“I have some paperwork to do. Thanks, but I expect I’ll be up all night, locked into my office.” Heartmend waved as she trotted out the door “I’ll catch you some other day.”

The scariest thing that Lyra would hear today, the sentence that would really stop her heart, would be said later. She would always remember hearing it just after Ditzy made Cheerilee snort ginger ale through her nose, and she never forgot the break in Heartmend’s voice as she said it.

Chapter 4: Pomp and Circumstance

There are certain elements in the cosmos that must be kept apart. Knowledgeable magi-physicists will mention matter and antimatter, or poison jokes and ampli-flowers. One worldly theoretical cosmologist wrote an award-winning paper on the reactions when Manechester United and Trottingham Toughs soccer fans are placed in close proximity. As Lyra’s father and mother approached the front door, Lyra wished that any or all of those things filled her living room in a giant pile rather than those two ponies.

Her father Jazz, his coat as gray and dour as his tweed suit and grimace, hopped onto the step a second before his ex-wife. Extending a hoof, he bowed as he said, “Mares first, dear.” Jazz’s smile failed to hide all of his gritted teeth.

Strawberry Lime snickered, a pink mane whose styling cost more than most ponies’ grocery bills bouncing around her shoulders. “Of course, ‘Dear.’ If you want to hide behind proprietary, I’ll let you get a good view.” She lifted her green rump exaggeratedly, showing off a gold-trimmed tail ribbon and saddle. “Are you mostly focusing on solo performances lately, hmm?”

She watched her mother’s tail play across her father’s nose, and as an angry retort brewed behind his eyes, Lyra Heartstrings wracked her brain. She agonized to find any sentence that could have defused the situation before it began. “Act like grown-ups” always made each claim to be the only grown-up. “You’re embarrassing me” was a sure trip to a litany of how she had embarrassed them. If she made them promise not to fight, it would lead to a series of escalations just to see who could provoke the other enough to recognizably start the fight.

Diplomacy was useless, violence absolutely counterproductive. Her choices grew small.

“Hey, Mom and Dad,’ Lyra said through her pained smile, “we have a minibar set up on the kitchen counter.”

Jazz and Strawberry shared an interested raise of eyebrows, and before he could retort she was mixing a drink. Her musical laugh tinkled through the house, and Lyra saw her father’s eyes focus on her and go very far away. A genuine smile nearly played across his face before the muscle remembered that they belonged to Jazz Heartstrings.

Lyra Heartstrings was generally considered one of the biggest nonpink extroverts in Ponyville. That perfectly fit her outside appearance, but anyone who could look inside her mind at a party would see a blinking, red button marked ‘Danger.’ She had learned from years of her parents’ parties that a gathering was like an orchestra; unless you stepped in to conduct it, things veered into chaos. Rather than be at the mercy of the other musicians, Lyra always preferred to lead the tune. Ponies following you in shock as you galloped on a counter with a traffic cone on your head were still, in the end, following you.

The downside was that Lyra knew very few ways to deal with having more than six ponies in the room without an instrument or a drink, and that was why sharp social terror pierced the back of her mind.

Lyra breathed a sigh of relief, and the two loud strains of complaints beat separate violent harmonies into the conversational symphony. The orchestral started to bloom as ponies trotted in through the front door. As conversations started, softer instruments congregated in groups, and louder ones lead them in melody. congregated. Music was good, Lyra thought. Music makes sense. Still, some of the accompaniment was silent, some chairs stood empty. “So, Dad, how’s step-mom?”

“What?” Jazz stepped away from the door, settling into the other end of the living room from Strawberry. “Fine. Absolutely fine, especially because she’s not here.”

Lyra bit her lip.

“I-I-I mean, well,” he stammered, “you know. She doesn’t get along with Strawberry much. She does like you, Lyra. She’s just been too busy to visit, after all.”

Nodding, Lyra’s horn sparkled as a drink flew from the minibar, spilling droplets as it sped towards her lips. It nearly clipped the nose of an earth stallion awkwardly pulling himself into the living room. He was lying on a cushion outfitted with two large wheels, dragging himself forward on his front and only pair of legs.

“Whoa, there,” he said with a smirk, “I forgot what a Heartstrings family gathering was like. Is it time for the alcoholic artillery yet?”

As he locked eyes with Jazz, another glass flew threw the air to hover in front of the dour unicorn.

“Mister Plates,” Jazz said as he levitated the glass closer. “I’m glad to...” He pursed his lips as he knocked back a quarter of the drink. “Well, I’m just glad I guessed.”

Her eyes moving from father to father-in-law, Lyra embraced the newcomer’s neck like a life preserver. Spinning Plates was a welcome tuba, full-voiced and boisterous even if he had left a few parts behind along the way.

“Whoa, Nellie,” Spin managed to choke out. “Less hug. Not Bon Bon. Same colors, one less limb.”

Pulling back, a smirk grew on Lyra’s face as she settled into a familiar routine. “One? I count two.”

“Count ‘em up.” Leaning in, Spinning plates spoke in a stage whisper that could have reached the back of an auditorium. “The dang chimera got the two back legs, which leaves me two to stand on and one to--”

“On that note,” Jazz said with the most impolite smile he could manage, “my glass appears to be very recently empty. I’ll see you later, Mister Plates.”

Spin’s eyes sparkled at Jazz. “You sure, Jazzy? ‘Cause I’m on a roll.” He grinned.

Lyra could have sworn she heard a accompanying rim-shot as her father walked off.

“Yes,” he said, shoulders quivering. “I see.”

“Get it?” Spin roll pounced next to Jazz. “Because, y’know--”

His pace increasing, Jazz trotted towards the kitchen. “Yes.” He said through gritted teeth “I do.”

Turning to Lyra with a shrug, Spin smiled. “Celestia, why’s he so glum? Did the damn monster leave mine alone because it bit off his?”

Lyra stepped forward and gently kissed Spin on the cheek. “I have to go play conduct things,” she whispered pleasantly while her brain stomped any sign of the rising storm of anxiety inside her off her face. “I’ll be back, Mister Plates.”

“Well, get me a drink and stop calling me ‘Mister Plates,’ and I’ll forgive you while I ogle your mom’s hinder. You married my daughter, Lyra. Call me ‘Poppy,’ remember?”

A nervous giggle rose up out of Lyra. “Please behave, Poppy.” She turned and walked her way towards Bon Bon through a haze of cheerful greetings. Lyra had two responsibilities: compose the symphony and be composed. She had been lectured with stern love on how the drunken party-girl wouldn’t fly today, and her only shot was staying in motion, to keep the different sections playing harmoniously before her own embarrassing tune came out.

Beside Bonny was the source of awe and adoration. Every visitor lingered in awe at the sight of the crib, cooing their approval at the sleepy bundle inside. Bon Bon reigned as regent, organizing the list of petitioners who wished to kiss the fuzzy belly and leave their gifts. Courtiers in Canterlot could have learned things from Bon Bon.

Okay, Lyra though as a bittersweet taste filled her mouth. She can do this. I just have to stand behind the crib. She handed off her half-empty glass of cider that she hadn’t noticed picking up and pushed through the crowd to the front door. She was almost at a trot as she arrived, breathing quickly as she asked, “How’s Snoozy holding up?”

Bon Bon raised an eyebrow. “Not screaming at all the smiling strangers and doubtlessly running herself ragged. Is there anything that would help?” She closed her eyes, leaning close to Lyra, and before the startled unicorn could protest proceeded to crush her expectations by licking across Lyra’s lips before and sniffed them.

“Aside from getting drunk, I mean,” Bon Bon added.

“That’s how I deal with my parents! This is a violent disaster waiting to happen.”

“With presents. A violent disaster with presents at the end, and that makes all the difference.”

“Okay, so we’ll end the day with presents, embarrassment, and a drunken parental brawl.”

“Reminds me of our wedding, Greenbean. Look, when you were only the kid, that was a fine coping strategy. You’re the parent now.” Bon Bon, nonplussed, gently plucked from the air a glass of cider Lyra hadn’t remembered grabbing and refilling. She passed it to the first guest within hoof’s reach without looking. “Greenbean, I want two ideas. Let’s think. What are two ways to deal with your parents without alcohol.” Her eyes narrowed. “Or the other thing.”

Lyra bit her lip. “Run away to sleep on a loveseat. Move out of Canterlot and marry a baker.”

Rubbing her eyes briefly, Bon Bon reached a hoof into the milling group of gossipers and grabbed a high-pitched, feathery bundle of energy.

“So I said, that’s ridiculous, you can’t get a high energy reaction with nutty peanut but--”

Bon Bon gently lead Ditzy by the wing to the crib. As her shocked conversation partners watched, Ditzy blew a kiss to her husband.

“John, I’m being captured! I’ll catch up with you later!”

John Doo-Smith stared blearily into the latest drink in a long line that ponies kept forcing into his hooves. It wasn’t a bad trend. “See you later, dear! Don’t blow up the house when you escape!”

At the crib, Ditzy made the proper ritual motions of belly rubs and cooing before looking away from Snoozy. “So, what’s up?”

“I need to help to prevent this place from exploding.” Ignoring Ditzy’s stunned look, Bon Bon continued. “Ditzy, can you fly wingmare for Lyra a second?” Bonnie scanned the room. “I’m going to run interference on her parents and try to keep them apart. Lyra needs someone to keep her calm and as sober as possible.”

Giggling, Ditzy saluted. “So, except for the baby, just like college. Aye-aye, captain!”

Lyra stared after Bon Bon’s retreating flanks with purer thoughts than usual, breathing heavily like a Royal Guard on some distant battlefield watching the last evacuation airship disappear into the distant clouds. As her mouth hung open, she felt a gentle wing softly wrap around her neck.

“Shh,” Ditzy whispered into her ear. “We all like you here. You don’t have to work to impress anybody.”

Lyra kept her vision focused on the crib. The world breathed in and out with Snoozy’s belly. “I’m okay.” She grinned. “Well, maybe not okay, but better with you. We’re the parents now, aren’t we? When did we become the grown-ups?” Lyra swayed on her hooves, prompting Ditzy to advance a steadying wing against her side. “What does a grown-up do when bad things come calling.”

With a smile, Ditzy gently nuzzled Lyra behind her ear. She gently leaned into the crib with both wings and picked Snoozy up in a feathery hammock. “We stand our ground,” she said as the precious ball of purple fluff cooed up at her. “We make the bad things run away. ‘Mother’ is the name for Celestia on the lips and in the hearts of all foals. That means we don’t let them down.”

The distilled sensation going through Lyra was not unlike what a caterpillar feels when it first thinks, “I’m so glad to be out that awful sack thing. What are these things drooping off of me?”

“No, that’s not appropriate,” Ditzy said to the pleasantly warbling baby. “You can’t call her ‘the Fat One.’ It’s not appropriate.”

Lyra blinked. “What?”

“It’s what Snoozy calls Bon Bon.”

Lyra’s mental train missed the station and was hijacked for Manehattan. “You understand ‘baby’? How does that happen?”

“Oh, it’s just a thing mothers develop,” Ditzy guiltily lied.

Digesting this, Lyra walked over to the babbling Snoozy. She ran a hoof down her cheek, trying to find meaning in the seemingly random syllables. “What does she call me, Ditzy?”

Ditzy cocked her ear, her eyes nearly straightening in concentration. She lowered Snoozy into the crib before looking Lyra up and down. “She calls you “The Singer in Darkness,' Lyra.”

A choking breath tore out of Lyra's throat. “Yup, every night before bed. I-is this what it feels like to be grown up, Ditzy? Is this how it feels when it happens?”

“Well,” said a similar sounding, amused voice behind her, “you told me that happened in the back of one of the Apples hay carts on Nightmare Night. Where is Cheerilee, anyway?”

Lyra almost willed a drink to her. Her heart jumped as she heard an identical harp strike up in the same concert, playing much more skillfully.

“Hi, Ballad,” she said with a sigh.

___

Elsewhere near the kitchen, Bon Bon patrolled for Strawberry and Jazz, pushing through the throng of gossiping baby-watchers. Remembering one Hearth's Warming Eve, she stepped into the kitchen to check on the wine cabinet and ended up nose to nose with Cheerilee.

At the warm smile that greeted her, Bon Bon only thought, Well, Tartaurus.

“Bon Bon!” Cheerilee wrapped her fore-hooves around her neck. “I missed you at the door. How're things?”

Bon Bon continued to scan the kitchen. “All right. Have you seen Lyra's mom?” She squinted. “You've met her, right?”

“Ah,” Cheerilee said as she poured herself a mug of cider. “Strawberry Lemon. Wonderfully perfect name. Tarty sweetness and a sour aftertaste. Haven't seen her.”

Bon Bon allowed herself a chuckle. “Yup, you've met her.” She turned away, moving towards the Kitchen exit before Sparkler stepped in front of her.

“Hey, Bon Bon! Where is Lyra to be found? Minuette's chomping at the bit to catch up with her.”

“Over by your mom, Sparks.”

As Cheerilee walked to Bon Bon's side, Bonny sourly realized she had missed her chance to extricate herself from the impending conversation. Looking for any kind of distraction, she lifted the lid of a simmering soup pan on the stove. A sniff sent her gagging, and she quickly tipped it into the sink. She plugged the drain, then stacked a cutting board and the pot over it to be sure before turning back to a bemused and curious Cheerilee.

“Bon Bon, I didn't think Lyra had friends that young.”

Bonny shrugged, her eyes playing around the crowd. No quick escape conversation provided itself, so she surrendered to the idea of talking to Cheerilee. “It goes back to the wedding. Lyra tried to explain it to me once. She said that there’s a bond that forms when find yourself trapped underground with somepony, and--.”

“Say no more,” Cheerilee said with a roll of her eyes. “Trust me, I understand perfectly. So how is the party going? The baby's absolutely adorable.”

Bon Bon hopped onto a stool, looking down at Cheerilee. “Yeah, it's okay.”

An uncomfortable second passed.

“So where's Lyra? I'm so excited to see her!”

Bon Bon nodded, carefully refilling her drink only halfway. “I bet you are.”

Blowing breath out of her mouth, Cheerilee looked around at the nearby ponies. She stepped closer to Bon Bon, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I've always gotten the feeling that you don't approve of me, Bon Bon. Did I say or do something wrong? I'll gladly and sincerely apologize.”

Kicking back a half glass of cider, Bon Bon sized up the pleasant and smiling mare she had long distrusted. Little Miss Perfect, isn't she?

“You know, it's a little uncomfortable to have you show up and watch Lyra's eye's light up.”

Cheerilee's smile faltered only slightly. “She's my oldest friend. We've shared a lot.”

“I know,” Bonny said with her eyes fixed on the bottom of the quickly emptying cup. “Everybody used to talk about it. You shared the Apple's hay cart, Miss Sharpener's desk at the schoolhouse, the Winter Wrap-Up equipment storehouse.” Lifting her eyes, Bon Bon saw the smile finally crack, raising a pang of guilt that only made her angrier. “So, which one do you think about when you look at my wife?” She stepped forward. “Did I miss any?”

Cheerilee tapped a forehoof rhythmically on the ground. “Right now? I think of how happy she was on her wedding day. I think of how happy I am she found someone who finally completes and understands her.” She sighed. “I never managed to.”

Bon Bon leaned in until Cheerilee could smell the cider and stared into her eyes.

“You know,” Cheerilee said conversationally, “if you drink and stare long enough and we start making out, Lyra may get a big kick out of it. I'd have to excuse myself at that point, unfortunately.” She grabbed a mug of cider and sucked up the foam instantly. “I'm happily married.”

The staring continued unabated.

“Bon Bon, I--”

“Bonny. Call me Bonny.” She took a small sip and smiled. “Okay, 'Lee. You've earned one chance, but if I find you and her--”

“My husband will be there, and you'll have been invited first. Should we invite John and Ditzy as well? It'd make finding a babysitter hard, I admit, but...”

Spitting up, Bon Bon filed the mental image away for careful consideration later. “You teach schoolchildren with that mouth?”

Cheerilee leaned against the kitchen counter and grinned. “Bonny, I teach sex education to pre-mark children. I have no shame.”

___

In the far corner of the living room, Jazz reflected on the unfairness of the universe.

“So then, Dinah and I decided to pop for a cooking cart. I figure one day our daughters will be able to buy their own restaurant, and we'll help out.”

His head on his hoof, Jazz's mind fought against hundreds of years of herd-influenced pacifism as Spinning Plates continued to talk. He blearily nodded, having realized long ago that nodding was the action that require the least effort while being talked at. His first marriage had taught him to feign interest well.

Spin gleefully chattered on, as oblivious to danger as a dodo diplomat to foreign sailors.

“So, we thought we'd name it “Dinah Counter's Counter! Get it? I mean, her last name is Counter, you know, and--”

With a titanic mental effort, Jazz's snapped through societal controls that had taken Celestia pony lifetimes to engineer.

“Spin,” he said through gritted teeth, “I know your wife's name. Our daughters are married, remember. I also get the joke, since I'm old enough to not be in diapers.”

“But one day you won't be!” Spin's hoof smacked Jazz on the back. “So, I’ve heard Lyra's last performance went well. We usually go, but we had a festival to cater. We were down in Appleloosa, and--”

“I wouldn't know. I wasn't there.”

Spin tapped Jazz sympathetically on the shoulder, and Jazz wondered how long it would take Spin to drive Marehoofma Gandhi to violence.

“We all get busy, Jazz. Why, one day I--”

“No!” Jazz dropped the empty mug onto the floor, drawing stares from the other ponies on the couch. “No, you cretin. I didn't go because Lyra asked security to exclude me from her shows.”

A moment passed awkwardly between them before Spinning Plates pounced on the poor thing and gave it a hug.

“Have you tried apologizing?”

Jazz stepped off the stool and stared at Spin, his mouth opening to a few false starts before he was able to find the words. “Plates, you don't even know what happened.”

“Nope. But she's your kid, and you don't get to enjoy that unless you apologize. If they really do get to adopt Snoozy, do you want to miss out on your grandkid?” He carefully lifted Jazz's mug off the ground. “Let's get you a refill. It'll loosen you up for the apology.”

“Yeah, I fix things and sell clocks. Time was always my hobby, back when I was a doctor.”

“So, you deal in timepieces?” Strawberry Lemon batted her eyelashes at John Doo-Smith. “I hope you have something grand for sale. Young man, I'd love to see what you could put on display. Do you have anything unique? Possibly in a shade of blue?”

“Yes!” He suddenly blushed and scratched the back of his neck. “Um, well, no. Not her. She’d never forgive me if I sold her. Can I interest you in a grandfather clock?” John Smith leaned in. “I tried to turn one into a grandmother clock, but the wife said noon and midnight became a little obscene in mixed company.”

Strawberry blinked and smiled nervously as Lyra, watching from nearby, mentally awarded John a point.

Lyra could never figure him out. Watching Ditzy’s husband talk to other ponies was like watching a crab try to play a saxophone backwards. Most of the time he failed, yet the damn thing would occasionally find a way to belt out the Hearth’s Warming Bell Carol.

“She's adorable, Lyra,” Ballad said next to her, rubbing the baby's belly. “She has your eyes. I hope things work out for you.”

Snapped back to reality, Lyra grudgingly turned to her sister.

Ballad Heartstrings earned a recital before earning her cutie mark. One of Lyra's classmates had commented on how “hot” Ballad's cutie mark was. When Lyra, whose mark was identical, pressed him on it (against a wall), he said that it just looked better on a lavender coat. Her husband was charming, her son was a joy to everyone, and she was too goodhearted to understand why Lyra ground her teeth every time Ballad walked into the room.

The orchestra in her mind was running smoothly. Sure, the chairs had be reorganized, and admittedly two of the most important players were drunk and distracted, but a recognizable and socially acceptable song was coming through. That was all about to change. Things would get better, applause would be thunderous, and Lyra could disassemble her harp as the new conductor took control. If it had happened at her Cuteceneara, it would happen here.

“Thanks, Ballad,” Lyra said with forced politeness. “Careful with her, please. If you--”

A sparkling golden aura lifted Snoozy into the air. On a nearby couch, Berry Punch assumed she was watching the ascension of a new princess, and ordered her twelfth cider from a nearby pony she thought was the bartender.

“It's okay. I had a baby of my own, remember?” Ballad grew quiet as she rubbed Snoozy's belly. “You know, your nephew misses you. He hoped you would make his birthday this year.”

“I was touring, Ballad. I do have a life of my own.”

“I know, Lyra. I keep up with it. We were all in the same city that day, remember? I had...” She smiled. “Look, we're in town for a few weeks. Do you want to come over?”

“I...” A night of being surrounded by Ballad's successes made Lyra's shoulders slump.

Carefully moving around the crib, Ballad ran her hoof down Lyra's back coat. “Take him out, if you want. I'll babysit.”

“No, I--”

Lyra gasped as two feathery limbs wrapped around her head, pulling her into a corner. Looking up, she saw two very angry amber eyes.

“Ditzy?”

“What the lobster nugget farfetched slap-dance are you doing?” Ditzy's teeth showed, two close and gritted rows through which angry breath escaped. “You're a parent now! You never turn down babysitting. Never!”

“Ditzy,” Lyra whispered, “now is not the time.” Ballad was watching, she just knew it.

Unfurling her wings, Ditzy dropped onto her haunches. “What happened to Snoozy's parents, Lyra?”

“We don't know. Heartmend said she was getting top ponies to look into it.”

Ditzy breathed in a few times. “What if you adopt Snoozy?” Before Lyra's smile could finish, Ditzy continued. “What if it finally happens and something happens to you and Bon Bon? Snoozy will go to live with Ballad, right?”

Lyra snarled. “Yes, she'll finally have a perfect mom who raises her right.”

A gentle wing-caress ran down Lyra's cheek. “I don't mean that. She'll raise your daughter because she loves you! Give her a chance. After all, she's the only family you have that's not a horrible pony.”

Jazz stumbled around the potted plant. “She's right you know,” he said with a hiccup. “I'm a terrible pony.”

If the simultaneous “What” from Ditzy and Lyra could have been sampled, it would have been in DJ-PON3's next hit single.

“I'm a terrible, manipulative father and I crushed your dreams rather than...um...do whatever it is I should have done.” He poked Lyra in the chest, and she nearly tipped over at the unreality. “See, I don't even know what I should have done, because I'm that terrible.” He sloshed the second half of his drink down. “Hold on a second. Let me check my notes.”

Lyra froze so completely it would have got her a job as an ambassador to the Elk nations. She stared dumbfounded as Jazz (with difficulty) levitated a stained napkin with columns of notes crossing each other.

Ballad's voice filtered in Lyra's ear. “I could take him outside if you want.”

The party stopped.

As time paused for Lyra, she caught the party-goers turning in her direction. The difficult part of the crescendo was coming, and everyone wanted to see the show. Ancient grudges and intoxicated players were spiraling into one of those shows where every audience member fondly remembers it with a laugh and every performer finds a new job. The players raised their heads, waiting for their mark.

As she raised her baton, Lyra heard the note.

It was a familiar note. It opened up many of her greatest hits. The bridge of recriminations to the chorus of screams was a fan favorite, and she could play it in her sleep. It was so easy to slip back into a old stand-by. At the end, it'd have the emotional punches, ponies leaving, and Ditzy and Bon Bon giving her disappointed looks.

She swept the notes off the pedestal and thought quickly. She only had time for one sentence to run through her head, but it was the right one, and she started improvising at once.

“Ballad, could you help me get him to the couch?”

With a smile, Ballad ducked under her father's forelimb and reared him into the air. Lyra did the same, and the pair steered the amused Jazz towards the couch.

Lyra remembered the title of her symphony, and pressed on.

“Dad, one thing sticks out. Why did you write notes?”

He belched. “Spin. That magnificent bastard and I wrote down every way I had bucked up as a father, and I was going to apologize through them all.” He snorted, grabbing for a napkin to blow his nose into. As Lyra levitated away the note-encrusted one, he snagged another. “I just needed a little liquid courage to do it.”

Tucking the napkin into her bookshelf, Lyra covered Jazz with a blanket. “I'll be right back, Dad.” Across the room, she could see Spin grinning and winking at her. “Ballad?”

Ballad's head dropped ever so slightly, and Lyra knew she now had the perfect excuse to avoid her for the rest of the party, if she wanted to. She played on.

“Look, watch him a second while I move the crib over? We'll plan somethings to do this week as a family.”

Ballad nuzzled Lyra's cheek as she walked off. Returning to the crib, Lyra found Ditzy slow-clapping on the ground.

“That was different.”

“It's a new song,” Lyra admitted. “I call it, 'What would Ditzy Doo do?”

As Ditzy's eyes nearly straightened with her smile, Cheerilee rammed into her from the side.

“You said, 'Doo doo!'” Cheerilee snorted in front of the two confused mares as Bon Bon slammed into her backside. “You heard it, right Bonny?”

Bon Bon leaned over the crib before pointing a hoof at Lyra, still and blinking, and guffawing.

“She did it!” She dragged Cheerilee to her side.

“I told you she still does.” Cheerilee said as she patted Lyra's nose. “She's done it since middle school.”

Lyra raised her eyebrow. “What do I do?”

Cheerilee's hooves waved in gestures meant to be explanatory that only succeeded in driving away mosquitoes. “You know, that thing with your nose, when you get flustered.”

“Yeah!” Bon Bon hugged Lyra's forelimb. “That thing, with the nose! Well said!”

With two drunken mares hanging off of her, Lyra cast about for help. “Ditzy, help me here.”

The response was a chortle. “Oh, Celestia, they're right. She's doing it right now.”

“What?” Lyra's eyes nearly crossed as she peered at her nose. “What is it?”

Ballad sauntered over to Ditzy and grinned. “Yeah, it's adorable. I've been jealous of her being able to do that since we were kids. I used to practice in the mirror for hours, trying to look like the pouty little rebel girl.”

Giving a high-pitched titter that her husband could identify from the other side of the marketplace, Ditzy went off for a plate of ginger ale to serve the tipsy mares.

Lyra's mouth dropped open so wide that her mind must have went rolling out after it. She choked down the growing anger bubbling up at the laughing ponies as she realized that she had actually gotten things right.

Well, mostly.

“Hun, I love you,” Bon Bon said, licked Lyra's nose for emphasis, “but I had to dump your soup.”

“But I had been simmering that for days!”

“Ly-Ly Fluffhead, this kind of stuff goes bad quickly.” She shook her head for emphasis. “It doesn’t keep that long. You have to enjoy it while you can.”

“Yeah,” Ditzy said as she passed out drinks, “that's what my mother said about husbands.”

As Cheerilee snorted ginger ale out of her nose, the door creaked open.

If it had creaked onstage in a Canterlot playhouse, the set designer would have had the cast buy him drinks after the show. In the lull of conversation and the acoustics of the living room, the front door gave a perfectly timed groan of impeccably-chosen duration, achieving with a moment of straining wood the effect that vampony actor Bronco Lugosi took a career to develop with maniacal laughter and fake storms.

Twilight Sparkle stood in the doorway, her hoof leaning on it just enough to continue the creak sound. She was smiling. While normally the appearance of the local librarian and world-saving wizard was welcome, Heartmend stood next to her. She was not smiling.

“Lyra, I'm sorry.”

I didn’t do anything,” Lyra said as she hung her hoof over the edge of the crib, pulling it an inch closer. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

The party's response had been good-natured confusion at Twilight’s unexpected entrance, but Lyra’s statement sent a chill through the listeners.

“I’m sorry,” Heartmend repeated. “I’m so sorry,” she added, making Ditzy and her husband’s ears perk up. With a silent, shared look the two went into action. Ditzy walked hurriedly but inconspicuously toward Lyra, reaching out a wing to hold around her shoulders. Lyra didn’t notice the touch consciously, so focused was she on Heartmend’s morose expression, but she automatically took a step into Ditzy’s feathery hug.

John Doo-Smith stood at the door. His job in the relationship was to do whatever he had to at the moment he needed to when he thought of it. Many ponies might have discounted that as the easier job, but few had a working conception of what John considered the phrase “whatever he had to do” meant. There were ponies and not-ponies in far-away places that had nightmares about him still.

Lyra stared at Heartmend, looking for something hopeful. She saw no trace of sarcastic glee in her voice, and not a single bit of dark humor in her eyes, and at that moment knew that things were truly terrible

Twilight Sparkle, heroine, wizard, and princess, immediately took charge of the social situation by pounding down a glass of ginger ale and laughing uncomfortably. “Nothing's wrong, Lyra. You and Bon Bon did your jobs well.” She tried moving her wings around Bonny in a hug, but lack of practice sent a primary feather up the defensive mare's nose. “Heartmend and I agree that everypony was lucky that you stepped up to the plate.”

“So you’re the ones who nearly stole my baby,” growled a voice from the doorway.

A pair of ponies with overgrown, messy hair and a garden's worth of plants clinging to their coats stood in the doorway. The stallion's eyes flickered without certainty from pony to pony, but the mare's bloodshot eyes rested on Lyra's hoof.

Bon Bon pushed the nearest cider bottle out of Lyra's line of sight.

“Steal?” Lyra swallowed. “We were raising Snoozy like our own while you...”

Twilight walked between the pair. “We found them in the Everfree,” she offered in a triumphant voice. “They fell into a memory moss pit. It’s a kind of plant that feeds by stealing the last day’s worth of your memories. It hollows out a pit, and while the victims symbiotically eat the m--”

The mare pushed past her, throwing off Twilight's lecture and balance. “That’s enough natural history, Miss Sparkle. I’d like to leave with my child now.”

Ditzy's tight, feathery hug held Lyra's sanity in place as she lowered her hooves off the crib. “I'll pack Snoozy's things if you want to take her now.

“Her name’s not “Snoozy,” the father said uncomfortably, scratching his mane. “It’s V--”

“Can we make this quick?” The mother said with a stomp. “You bought those things, you can keep them.” She leaned over the crib, reaching her wings around the sleeping bundle as she raised the hovering infant into the air. “I just want my baby back.”

“S-so, where do you live? I mean, we’d love to have you all over for--”

“No, thank you!” The mother’s wings flared out aggressively as she scooped “Snoozy” out of the crib with a hoof. An indignant gust swept through the room as she quickly disappeared out the front door.

“S-sorry,” the father said as he walked into the yard.

In the overwhelming silence, Heartmend breathed in slowly. “You did such a good job, Lyra. She's back with her family now. Everything's going to be fine.”

Lyra dropped to her knees and wailed into the floor as Bon Bon enfolded her and rested her face in Lyra's mane.

Watching the breakdown, Strawberry Lemon knocked back the rest of her drink in one motion. “Well, this way isn’t working. Time for the old fashioned way.” She snaked a limb around Ditzy's shoulder. “Ditzy, your cup obviously runneth over and I need a grandkid. How would your husband like to knock up my daughter? I’ll make it worth your while. I know it’ll be worth his.”

“That's out of line!” Spin pulled himself into the conversation, wheel creaking.

“I’m sorry Plates, but yours is a little on the pudgy side, and I want him to at least enjoy himself.” She turned back to the blushing Ditzy and winked. “That is, unless he likes that kind of thing. Should we try both?”

As Ballad lead her mother off before murder ensued, and Ditzy cast a curious glance around for the husband in question, Heartmend sat down next to Lyra and rubbed her hoof down her mane.

“I told you I’d break your heart.”

___

An uncomfortable stallion walked through Bon Bon's garden on his way out. He could see his wife clutching their child tightly in her wings as they reclined in the government chariot on the curb. I can't believe that went so well, he thought. Everything worked out fine. After all those horrors in the woods, it must be karma.

The living embodiment of his karma and horrors stepped into the stallion's path. “Go thank her,” John Doo-Smith said slowly and carefully.

“Excuse me,” the father said, “I really must be-”

“The green one. Thank her.” John was nose-to-nose with “Snoozy's” father. “If I do the math correctly, she raised the baby for longer than you did. You need to ask her what her favorite lullaby is, what foods give her gas, what games they play.” He narrowed his eyes. “You go back inside, and you thank her and the other one and ask those questions, or...” John scratched his mane and leaned in.

"Tell me if you've heard this one..."

"There's a pony," he started, "that keeps order. This pony makes sure good things come to the deserving, and that bad things arrive in spades to others. This pony keeps the unjust in anticipation of what they deserve, and ensures that the world flows on as it should, piece by piece. Your little world runs because this pony keeps it running." His mouth was nearly at the father's ear now. "Do you know what they call this pony?"

The shaking of the father's head was more like a vibration.

"They call her," John whispered, "the Mailmare. She's the best friend of the crying mare who's heart just snapped." He patted the shaking stallion on the shoulder. "Let's face it, having the mailmare as an enemy is bad enough when you haven't been declared legally dead for months and have legal and financial paperwork on its way."

He smiled, and the father flinched.

“Uh. Uh. Okay.” With a nervous smile, the father stepped backwards.

Nodding amiably, John hooked his forelimb around the poor pony's neck in camaraderie as he grinned like a manticore at a relay race of asthmatic prey animals. "I have a title too." He gave a thousand-yard stare from a distance of three inches. "It's an older title than 'mailmare'. It means, alternately, things like 'teacher,' 'guardian,' 'protector,' and 'avenger.' Would you," he said as he dropped his voice to a whisper, "want to know my title?"

Looking into John's eyes, he vaguely wished for the memory moss to return.

"My title is 'Uncle.' The mares you just turned your back on bestowed it on me, and you will go back inside, thank them, and ask those questions, or I will be the face burned into your eyes when you close them for the rest of your life.”

There was a pause.

"I'll get r-r-right on that."

“Great!” John spoke with relief reached his mouth into his saddlebag and pulled out a napkin and a pen. “Take notes! Make sure she sees you taking notes.” His smiled stayed for a second too long. “Make sure I see her see you taking those notes.”

The father obediently turned around and galloped back into the house.

___

Decades later, popular children's book writer Violet Lullaby started her career with “The Harp Fairy.” Every nursery in Equestria had a copy of it to read at bedtime, promising the children that a luminescent unicorn would come in and sing away the night terrors. Many foals grew up with a battered doll of the green fairy pony to brandish at bed monsters. Violet would always wonder why her first book, which had brought joy to countless young ponies, frightened her mother into speechlessness and sent her father into quiet smiles when discussed.

___

A day later found Heartmend on her office stool, staring at the immobile pile of paperwork ahead of her. It had been about the same size since that morning. She quite didn't feel up to words today.

As lunch break drew close and flew on by she had moved on to conversation. One by one, she called in the agency's employees for briefings on the progress of parents. Over the course of the meetings she had advanced to forming if not reading words, signing paperwork to let one foster parent pay for daycare or approve a medical procedure for another's child.

She had picked up a quill and written the word “Finally,” staring at it for a full minute, before Lyra shoved her head through the door.

“Busy?” She grinned, eyes bright with bags underneath.

Heartmend placed the quill on the desk. “How are you holding up?”

“Eh.” Lyra shrugged, crawling onto the couch. “Kinda like my heart's been ripped out. How's Snoozy doing?”

“Fine.” Heartmend tapped her hooves together. “Absolutely fine. That's all I've been asked to say.”

Lyra nodded, her grin fixed. “So, Bon Bon sent me to pick up a carton of child on the way home. So, who's next?”

“She's...not here?” Heartmend stared at the door.”She's letting you do this on her own?”

“Well,” Lyra said with a shrug, “if she didn't trust me on this, she wouldn't have married me. Besides, she's watching my nephew for the moment. We went to a festival today.”

“If it comes to reunification, it'll hurt again. It'll hurt as much or more.”

Lyra stepped down off the couch, trotted to the desk, and placed her hooves firmly on the desk. “I’ve never been afraid of being hurt.”

Smiling, Heartmend dipped her quill in the inkwell for some pre-writing soak. “Okay, here's the deal. I have a placement for a earth pony colt with cutie mark. Father deceased, mother is not cognizant, incapable of care and unlikely to change. His last foster family returned him today, and I need to make a placement before sunset.” She spread her hooves wide. “That's all I can tell you before I hear your answer.”

Lyra grinned. “Wrap 'im up. I'll take him.”

Author's Note

Yeah. This is my nightmare. She's smart, beautiful, and breaks me when she hugs me, but I'm most likely going to have to give her back and never see her again.

Props to my pre-readers. Cynewolf, Blue_Paladin42, Ponibius, all good eggs.