Bon Bon's Chocolaty Cure (Edited)
Bon Bon's Chocolaty Cure (Edited)
“Bon Bon's Chocolaty Cure”
Bon Bon walked into her house and sighed. She kicked the front door closed with one of her hind legs with a bit too much force. It slammed shut and Bon Bon winced as her ears drooped.
"Geez, I'm lucky Lyra isn't here,” she muttered and removed her saddlebags, placing the pair onto the holder beside the door. She could only hope that she hadn’t given her neighbours too much of a scare.
She stretched and reveled in the feeling of having the weight from a honest day’s work leaving her. Creating delicious treats and seeing the enjoyment her customers had when they sampled them has always been her passion. Yet, an entire afternoon behind the counter and in the kitchen did wonders when it came to making a pony drowsy.
Naturally, a yawn escaped her lips.
"I'm going to take a nap before Lyra comes home," Bon Bon thought with some amusement and trotted towards the living room.
Her hooves lightly clippity-clopped against the wooden floor as she neared the reddish-pink couch. However, upon setting her eyes upon it, she couldn’t help but scrunch up her muzzle.
A small pile of blankets and bedsheets sat bundled together on top of the furniture, occupying more than half of the available space. Bon Bon moved in to take the pile off to the hamper in the lavatory but another yawn forced her to reconsider.
“It can wait,” she thought, slowly climbing onto the couch. “Plus, it’ll give me something to scold Lyra about later.”
As she moved one of her hooves accidentally kicked the lump of sheets and she jerked her hoof away from it. “Ow...” a small, hoarse voice pathetically whined in pain.
"Lyra, is that you?" Bon Bon asked curiously with a hint of surprise in her voice.
"Yes," Lyra replied back and poked her head from beneath the opposite side of the covers. The earth pony’s ears instantly fell upon seeing her wife. Gone was Lyra’s normally upbeat physique, replaced by a frail-looking, exceedingly tired unicorn with reddish eyes and a running nose.
"Oh, you poor thing!" Bon Bon exclaimed with concern.
“It's just a cold,” she said, smiling. “I probably caught it from one of my orchestra members." She started coughing into her forehoof, something that made Bon Bon cover her mouth with both of her forehooves in worry when she heard the throaty, raspy sound.
"You sound like you're going to cough up your lungs," she said after the episode came to an end and placed one of her forehooves on Lyra’s forehead. "You definitely feel warmer.I'm going to get our cough syrup. I'll be back shortly, sweetie," she said withmotherly affection and hopped off of the couch, galloping up the stairs and into their bathroom.
"Noooooooo,” Lyra weakly whined. “Bon Bon, please don't get our cold syrup!" The silence she got as a response told her wife didn’t listen. She had only one option then, and it was hiding from Bon Bon. She reluctantly and slowly got off the couch, barely managing to levitate her blanket over her.
“Curse you, cold! You always make it harder for me to do anything,” Lyra thought to herself with a small sigh. She looked around the living room, trying to find somewhere that could both hide her from the awful medicine and be cozy enough so that she could remain hidden long enough to possibly doze off.
Her head throbbed, seemingly weighing double its weight as she slowly walked towards the kitchen. She heard her wife’s hoofsteps coming down the stairs and, in a moment of panic, flung open the cabinet beneath the kitchen sink and hurried inside as sneakily as she could manage.
Bon Bon arrived with the bottle and the cap/measuring cup in her mouth, but couldn’t find any trace of her wife. "Honey, I know you hate this kind ofsyrup,” she said after taking the bottle and placing it on top of the living room table. “But please, you need to take this. It'll help you to get better faster," she cooed as sweetly as she could, given the infuriating situation.
Lyra didn't respond.
“Are you hiding from me again?” she asked, all gentleness gone from her voice, and let out a quiet sigh. “Our home has few good places for you to hide in to begin with. And you can’t possibly magically hide yourself given your cold. I'll find you eventually.” She furrowed her brows.
She began to mentally elaborate and tick off items in a checklist: she knew Lyra didn't go upstairs and their living room didn't have any good places for Lyra to hide. And she doubted Lyra would rather sneak away from home in such a condition. This left her with their kitchen at the top of the list.
BonBon walked into the kitchen and thoroughly checked if anything was moved from its place. Seeing no culinary items thrown about crossed more items off her checklist: she couldn’t be hiding inside a cupboard since they all contained an assortment of pots, pans and appliances. All but one, that is. The earth pony grinned to herself and stood in front of the kitchen sink, taking care to make her hoofsteps as silent as possible.
She slowly opened the double cabinet doors, ready to mock Lyra about finding such a silly place to hide in. Bon Bon, however, remained silent after she noticed that her wife had fallen asleep.
“Oh honey...” she simply muttered and sighed worriedly. She barely managed to get the unicorn out from her hiding place and transfer her to her back without waking her up. Lyra instinctively wrapped her forelegs around Bon Bon's neck, earning an earnest smile from her wife. She carefully walked towards the couch and gently deposited her there.
Her eyes caught a glimpse of the bottle sitting atop the table. “Surely it can’t be that bad, can it?”. She took the bottle, twisted its cap and carefully poured herself a small amount. “Let’s see what all the fuss is about... Please, Celestia, give me strength!” she prayed silently to herself and hastily drank it.
Her muzzle involuntarily scrunched up and she felt like vomiting. “Yup, tastes like crap!” she barely managed to say in-between gulps of air. She looked at the bottle and saw a familiar smiling face stamped on the label. “No wonder it was low price. I’m never buying Filthy Rich’s brand ever again.”
She took a glass and filled it with water from the sink, drinking three in rapid succession until the foul taste became barely manageable on her tongue.
“Nopony should have to drink this disgusting syrup!” Bon Bon would’ve stomped her forehooves to punctuate her sentence, but refrained from doing so in order to not wake Lyra up.
“I’m going to make a chocolate-flavored syrup for you, sweetie,” she thought to herself as she approached her wife, still sound asleep. "Right after I put my sweetie in bed."
Bon Bon put the unicorn on her back and began to walk to the stairs after she threw away the poor excuse of a cough syrup in the trash. The stairs were a pain in her plot to slowly climb up with Lyra on her back, but she eventually made it to the top.
"I'm lucky unicorns are the third lightest of pony races," she thought to herself while taking a few minutes to regain her breath.
Bon Bon finally made to their bedroom and moved their bed covers to make room. Then, she gently and carefully moved Lyra to their bed on her back and covered her. She wrote a note and left it on the nightstand on Lyra’s side of the bed. The silence made her aware of the light snore coming from her wife, something that made her smile. She gently kissed Lyra on forehead before leaving, taking care to slowly and quietly close the door this time.
I’m going to town for supplies. Be back soon!
Love, Bon Bon. 
A FEW MINUTES LATER
At Ponyville Hospital, Bon Bon waited patiently for Nurse Redheart’s return. The thought of leaving Lyra alone was eating her up and she wanted nothing but to urge her friend to pick up the pace. Still, she had to be considerate; the changing to colder seasons always filled the hospital up thanks to the cold outbreaks. And as much as she thought about her very special somepony, she knew that there were others also thinking about theirs.
Her waiting came to an end when she saw the familiar neatly-tied red mane of her friend moving behind the reception desks. She smiled when she saw that Nurse Redheart was carrying a small bottle in her mouth.
"Sorry for the wait, Bon Bon,” she said after placing the bottle on a desk next to the cream mare. “That’ll be eight bits." Despite the evident sleep in her eyes, Nurse Redheart’s smile and proactive attitude never faltered. It was one of the reasons Bon Bon liked her as a friend so much.
"No problem, Red," BonBon replied and fished her bit bag from inside her saddlebads. After taking the money, Nurse Redheart gave Bon Bon a clipboard and she signed her name on it.
"Thanks," Redheart said with a smile and took the clipboard back.
"Can you shake and blend my cough syrup for me while we talk?" Bon Bon asked after she put fourvials of liquid dark chocolate on a desk.
“Sure!” the nurse replied warmly while pouring all of Bon Bon's chocolate vials into the bottle of unflavored cough syrup. Her friend had assured her that the syrup wouldn’t lose its magical properties when mixed with other non-magical fluids. “How you been, Bon Bon? It’s been a while since I last saw you.”
Bon Bon giggled. “You would if you didn’t keep taking extra shifts,” she said and punctuated the friendly jest with a smile. “I'm good, but my sweet Lyra got a nasty cold. You were right about Rich's brand,” she exclaimed, somewhat apologetically.
“I feel bad for her, but I told you so,” Redheart replied, with a bit of sternness to her voice. "But don’t worry, this ought to fix her right up!" The now dark-brown bottle sat upon the desk now that Redheart had finished shaking it.
"Thanks for your concern,” the cream mare said and put the bottle in her saddlebags. “And I'm hoping you'll find your special somepony!" she punctuated it with a devious wink when Redheart jokingly scrunched her muzzle.
“You’re welcome and thanks,” she said, smiling. “I gotta go back to work, but do let me know when she gets better! We ought to catch up one of these days.” Bon Bon hugged her friend and watched as she disappeared inside one of the triage rooms.
A FEW MINUTES LATER
As Bon Bon climbed the steps to their bedroom, she heard the still hoarse voice of her wife: “Hey, Bonnie.”
“Hello, Lyra. Feeling a bit better?”
“Not really..." she said and coughed twice.
Bon Bon smiled. “Well, this will make you feel better,” she said and took the small bottle from her saddlebag and placed it on the nightstand. Lyra recoiled slightly and eyed her wife warily:
“You come back and bring this poison back?” she asked, coughing between words.
“It’s our new cough syrup,” the earth pony said after setting a spoon next to the bottle. “I made it especially for you,” she flashed the unicorn a motherly smile and poured a small dose onto the spoon, taking great care not to overflow it. “Now, open wide!” she exclaimed with puerile joviality.
“I don’t know..." the unicorn said, still a bit wary of the thick liquid.
“Pretty please?” she said in a sing-song voice while giving Lyra the world's biggest puppy eyes.
The unicorn couldn’t help but soften up her posture. “Sure, but only if you take a nap with me after.” Bon Bon nodded. “And I call little spoon!”
Bon Bon brought the spoon to Lyra’s muzzle and, to her surprize, Lyra met it midway. For a second, the earth pony worried that her wife wouldn’t like it. She, however, was happily mistaken when she saw Lyra’s eyes widen:
"HMMM!” she exclaimed in her overly-theatrical way, prompting Bon Bon to wonder if she was feeling better already from the taste alone. “Oh, Bonnie, it’s so good... and my favorite flavor too!” Bon Bon breathed a very relieved sigh.
“I’m glad you liked it! Now, about that nap?” She smirked as her wife scooched over to make room for her. They both held each other in a calm embrace, only their gentle breaths breaking the peaceful silence of the world around.
Suddenly, Lyra giggled: “You should consider selling this stuff.”
Bon Bon, for her part, joined with her. “Maybe. We’ll talk about it after our nap.” And she kissed Lyra’s forehead gently, whose only reply consisted in tightening the hug.
And so both ponies slowly carried each other to sleep.
THE END
