Conversations on Benches
Once a week, Lyra and Bon-Bon took an hour. One hour, no less, but sometimes a little more, to talk. Of course that wasn't the only time they spent together, far from it. Since Lyra had moved from Canterlot to live with Bon-Bon there really wasn't that much time which they did spend apart. But that solitary hour once a week was unique. Special. It wasn't just time to be spent chatting about their day to day lives and the goings on around Ponyville. It was time spent discussing the big questions. The kind of philosophical debates which they had shared since the day of their very first meeting, and had led to them becoming the best of friends ever since.
"So, it's your turn this week. What's on your mind?"
Bon-Bon looked at Lyra with a warm smile; curious but patient as Lyra sat silently in thought for a moment or two longer. Both mares knew that this was safe space. A place where they could open up without fear of judgement for their questions and opinions. If anything though, this made them take all the more thought and care over what they said and how they said it. Taking the time to formulate thought provoking and interesting comments, rather than just blurting out half-formed musings at the drop of a hoof.
After perhaps fifteen seconds of silence, Lyra raised her eyes towards the sky and spoke with a wistful smile.
"I've been thinking about... love."
Cocking an eyebrow, Bon-Bon giggled.
"Oh good. I was worried you were going to pick something complex. But love, that should only take five... maybe ten minutes to solve?"
Lyra smirked, waving a playfully dismissive hoof in her friend's face.
"Shush. I don't mean love as a general concept. I don't mean my love, or yours, or the feelings of anypony in Equestria, really. I've been thinking about love in places beyond Equestria. Some of the stories I've heard about how they do things in other places seem so... weird to me. And it makes me wonder how weird love in Equestria must seem to others."
For a short while the mares sat still and quiet, Lyra allowing Bon-Bon to digest the topic she'd raised and giving herself a little more time to consider it. They smiled at a couple of other ponies trotting past, and grinned as Pinkie Pie bounced by with not only a bunch of helium balloons on strings clutched between her teeth, but a large frosted pink cake balanced between her ears.
Only after Pinkie had vanished round the corner, in her own time, did Bon-Bon reply.
"So, if we're talking about love outside Equestria... are we talking romantic love or platonic? The love ponies have for friends, or family? Or the kind of self-acceptance one could call love?"
Pressing one hoof to her snout in the time honoured 'on the nose' mime, Lyra beamed at her friend's inadvertent insight into her thought process.
"Exactly. I've been thinking about how compartmentalised love becomes in other parts of the world. How necessary and obligatory those definitions and boundaries have become. It's like... well, take you and me for an example. If we weren't living here, not just in Ponyville, but if we weren't living in Equestria at all, and we told somepony that we were best friends, what do you think they would expect that to mean?"
Bon-Bon only had to think about this for a moment or two, her eyes widening in surprise as what Lyra was getting at finally dawned on her.
"You mean... huh, that's weird. Do you really think that somepony might make that assumption if we weren't in Equestria? That if we called ourselves best friends anywhere else, somepony might automatically assume that was all we were. Just platonic friends, however close. No romance. N-nothing else at all?"
Lyra nodded. Her friend frowned, shaking her head as she attempted to wrap her mind around that point of view.
"But, surely no matter how much any other place might find it necessary, even normal to sub-define love, they must know that at its core love is love. That it doesn't need to be defined or grouped or corralled into separate blocks. That it just... it just is. Right?"
Touched, and honestly rather relieved to see that after giving it some thought of her own Bon-Bon was just as confused and filled with questions as she herself had been, Lyra continued to put forth her side of the conversation.
"Even here in Equestria, everypony has some definitions and preconceptions about love. If two ponies get married, we all know it means they wish to keep their feelings of romantic love between just the two of them. If a mare or stallion has a very special somepony, we all know it means that they and that pony are romantically involved and that they don't mind if everypony knows it. Tell those facts to someone who doesn't understand Equestria's ways, then ask them to define a friend. Even a best friend. Do you honestly think they won't assume that romance is an entirely separate matter. That it is restricted to those prior categories, and very little else?
Staring at Lyra, Bon-Bon didn't just look surprised any more. Quite honestly the mare looked rather aghast at the very idea. She shook her head, and turned her gaze away from Lyra; down to the ground with a frustrated, almost mournful little snort.
"That's... so sad."
Saying nothing at first, Lyra simply nodded. She shuffled over upon the bench, closer to Bon-Bon, and leaned her head gently against the other pony's own. Only then did she softly begin to speak once more.
"I know. I almost didn't want to bring it up because it's been weighing so heavily on my mind for the last few days. I didn't wanna bring you down. But... we always agreed, we use this time to talk about the deep stuff. The hard conversations that we maybe don't want to have, but need to have."
Lyra shuffled closer still to Bon-Bon, slipping one foreleg around the mare's back and cuddling her. She smiled as Bon-Bon returned the embrace, whickering affectionately. With a warm smile, Lyra continued in a more hopeful, light-hearted tone.
"As much as it makes me upset to think about somepony not understanding, somepony missing out on all sorts of happiness because they're too strict, too rigid on their definition of love... it makes me happy, too. Happy that we do live in Equestria. That we are where we are, together. In a place where friendship can mean anything and everything. Where it doesn't have to mean just friendship, and love doesn't have to mean just one kind of love. It makes me happy that when I say you're my best friend, ponies don't jump to define what that means. They won't assume anything about it or about us. Instead, they'll just wait. They'll spend time with us. Get to know us. Become new friends with us, and find out all about us and how we feel for one another that way."
Bon-Bon smiled, nuzzling her beaming snout against Lyra's face.
"Not that it would take long for them to figure it out."
Both mares giggled, and Lyra pecked Bon-Bon affectionately upon the lips as she shook her head in reply.
"No. I don't think so."
For a few minutes the two mares fell silent. Cuddling, kissing, and generally revelling in one another's affection. With one of each of their forelegs still wrapped around the other pony, their free forelimbs reached out before them, linking up tenderly to further solidify their intimate embrace.
Between gentle smooches and pecks, the two mares whispered to one another. Cheeks flushed, eyes almost closed, perfectly at peace in the other pony's company.
"Best friends..."
"Best friends. Forever."
It had been just twenty minutes or so since the pair of ponies sat down upon their favourite bench, and already the conversation seemed to have drawn to a close. Nevertheless, they didn't move. They had set aside at least one full hour for this time together, and intended to make use of each and every second of it.
Besides, it wasn't like anypony passing by them would care. Whether they were sitting and talking, sitting and cuddling, or sitting and kissing passionately with one another, it would make no difference to the citizens of Ponyville. Everypony in town knew that Lyra and Bon-Bon were the very best of friends, and everypony in town knew exactly what that meant.
Quite simply, it meant everything. For that was precisely what the two ponies meant to one another.
Everything.
By Jeeves
