A Perfectionist's Romance

by Timaeus

Rating: everyone
Tags: Lyra, Romance, Octavia, Bon-Bon, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 6764

Proposing to the pony you love, like gardening, requires a delicate touch. Unfortunately, Bon Bon has never had a green hoof.

To earth ponies, there is little more important than tradition. Foals grow up taught everything from family recipes, songs, dances, to folk tales passed down from generation to generation. Of these traditions, none is more valued than a proposal, an offer to entwine your life with somepony else's.

To Bon Bon, nothing is more important to her than Lyra, and nothing matters more than making sure that her proposal is perfect.

Now, if only perfection wasn't so elusive.

And if only it was as easy to grow flowers as every other earth pony makes it seem.

Preread by auramane, Melon Hunter, and Carabutt.

Cover art by Rossby Waves.

Published 2016-12-16 18:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2016-12-16 18:10:01 UTC

Perfect

Earth pony magic is peculiar. That’s not to say that all magic isn’t, but simply that their ‘magic’ is different. While unicorns weave their spells with the horns and while pegasi shape the weather with their hooves and command the sky with their wings, earth pony is much more subtle. Sometimes, its effects won’t be seen for months, or even years.

Several earth ponies find their calling and their magic best suited for physical, down-to-earth work. Farming, gardening, animal husbandry, veterinary medicine are where many discover their special talents. Most without wings or a horn are assumed to have some gift in working with plants and the earth, to imbue what they touch with their nurturing magics that bring bountiful harvests and coax the most beautiful of flowers to bloom.

It was no different for pegasi, where anypony with wings likely had some talent for working with the weather, no matter how small. Unicorns, too, typically had enough skill with their magic to lift small objects and hold a quill.

Ponies would be hard-pressed to find an earth pony without a gift for growing things. Ponies like Applejack, Golden Harvest, and Roseluck all shone in that regard. Their abilities to cultivate food and bloom everything from daffodils to tiger lillies were second to none. Aloe and Lotus took superb care of the garden outside of their spa, Mayor Mare was well-known for keeping several plants in her office, and even Pinkie Pie tended to the planters outside of Sugarcube Corner.

All of this Bon Bon knew. Magical differences between earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns were elementary. She learned it long ago when she was a foal, and she was certain that the foals in Miss Cheerilee’s covered it in their first years of education.

Cheerilee, as a matter of fact, also oversaw the planting of seedlings in the school gardens every year.

Over the course of her life, Bon Bon came to realize she was one of the few earth ponies without a green hoof. Saplings rarely sprouted under her care. Buds withered before they bloomed, and her parents loved to embarrass her with pictures of her barren garden patch from the backyard of their old cottage in Ponyville before they moved to San Franciscolt.

This never really bothered her, of course. Her special talent manifested in other ways, in the candy she loved to make and, as it turned out, in a mean right cross that could send a manticore sprawling. Any earth pony could grow flowers, but how many could make flower petals into sugary treats that kept a steady line-up at the door?

Yet, as Bon Bon stood in the kitchen doorway, she wondered if being a little bit more like most earth ponies wouldn’t be so bad. The pale light of the morning sun fell over Ponyville and her home-turned-candy-shop. Dew glistened on the leaves and petals of every tree and flower up in every backyard, garden, and window planter in sight.

Everywhere except, naturally, the empty patch of dirt in the small yard behind the home Bon Bon shared with Lyra Heartstrings.

Empty, even though Bon Bon knew it wasn’t. Underneath the dirt—well watered and positioned to get plenty of sun—were seeds. There were enough seeds planted to grow at least a few bouquets, with maybe a couple left for snacking on later.

Bon Bon knew this because she planted them, and every day since planting them, she watered them, made sure that the future-garden patch got enough sun, and even talked to them. The last was a silly, offhand suggestion Lily Valley mentioned when she bought the seeds, but dedication and desperation led mares to try crazier things before.

White tulips were planted around the edge of the flowerbed, where they would get less water. They were simple flowers with a cup-shape, but delightful to see sprouting in the spring, and as Lily and her sisters told her, easy to grow. A perfect specimen for the beginner gardener to start with, then.

The middle of the bed was filled with green daylily seeds. A little unusual compared to the tulips or any number of flowers Bon Bon could have chosen, but what other choice did she have when they took her breath away? With a striking, rich green colour and long, elegant, curved petals, they were perfect. She was warned they were perhaps a little more difficult and sometimes impossible to handle, but she loved them from the moment she saw them.

They were beautiful. Even if they were harder to nourish and grow, she only needed a few. A handful of daylilies and tulips were all she planned on. Knowing she was about as good at flying as she was at gardening, she hedged on planting more than necessary just in case.

But, after three months of patience and dedication, no green daylilies budded from the ground and no tulips bloomed. The seeds were there. Bon Bon just couldn’t make them grow.

After sparing a moment to scowl at the flowerbed, Bon Bon turned on her hoof and stomped back inside. She made to kick the door shut just shy of cracking the frame on her way back to the kitchen. More than one argument with Lyra or moment of frustration taught her exactly how much to rein herself in and, always a mare of principle, she liked to think she had a pretty good handle on her emotions.

When a crunch sounded from behind her and she felt the door swing back open to bump her in the flank she considered, however briefly, that perhaps she wasn’t as collected as she hoped. Not one to be deterred from a good grump, she trudged on, pausing only to close the door. It squeaked open an inch or two when she lifted her hoof off the latch, and Bon Bon grumbled under her breath.

Making a mental note to fix that later, she crossed the kitchen to the stovetop, lifting her nose as she passed by her planters. What sprouted in them fared little better than the doomed flowerbed outside. As she walked past the fridge, she snorted, turning her head away from the instructions given by Roseluck, Lily, and Daisy stuck on by magnets.

“Just do exactly what we tell you, Bon Bon,” she said, growling as she poured a mixture of butter, chocolate, cocoa powder, brown sugar, and milk into a baking pan. “It’s so simple, Bon Bon. Plant a seed, Bon Bon, then water it and make sure it gets plenty of sun, Bon Bon. Well, if it’s so easy, then where are my flowers?”

Huffing, she set the mixing bowl aside and plucked her rubber spatula from the countertop to smooth over the chocolate mixture. Gardening was, she decided, not simple. Between the quality of the soil, type of fertilizer used, how much water to give, and how much sun or shade a plant needed, it was a wonder anything grew anywhere.

Baking and making candy, on the other hoof, were straightforward. Find a recipe, follow the steps, and voila, delicious goods. Or, if one wanted to experiment, they could find out what tastes good together and what works—both easy enough to do again and again without fail.

Scowl fixed firmly on her face, she stomped each of the six steps to the pantry to fetch the caramel candies to melt. She made an effort to avoid looking at the instructions stuck on her fridge as she reached for the baggie—one of many. There was always an excess of caramels. She managed up until grabbing the bag in her hoof before one of the magnets caught her eye.

The magnet was a garish, green colour and in the shape of a sun that looked like it was drawn by a foal’s hoof. What made Bon Bon hesitate, however, was the picture it held behind its small, glass frame.

Lyra smiled back at her, her lips stretched from ear to ear and her brilliant, golden eyes glimmering. The picture didn’t quite show them that way, but Bon Bon remembered how they did. They were dazzling, drawing in unsuspecting candy-making mares more than the scent of vanilla lingering around a seafoam green coat.

It was a smell that lingered in their sheets, helping lull Bon Bon to sleep at night. That day she made sure to nuzzle well into its source, a rare moment of affection she let get caught on camera to say the least, but housewarming parties weren’t thrown every day.

The corner of Bon Bon’s mouth twitched, and she realized her scowl had fallen into a frown. Even with the constant chatter of customers in the store and the repeated ding of timers in the kitchen, things felt quiet without Lyra around. Everything seemed more mundane and grey without her energy bringing colour to the day and a familiar, burning red to her cheeks with sweet, whispered nothings that teased and led her to bed every night.

Though, after the first week, she realized the thing she missed the most was the music. Musically gifted and inclined by nature, Lyra’s humming, singing, practicing, and occasional serenading brought the most life to their little candy shop. It followed Bon Bon wherever she went, a constant companion embodied by the mare she lovingly called her girlfriend.

And soon, maybe, just maybe, something more.

If she could grow a dozen flowers first, at any rate.

Sighing, Bon Bon slumped against the kitchen counter. Whatever fire fueling her anger doused, rolling off of her shoulders in waves as rested her cheek on the cool surface. Her eyes flicked from the picture to the planters sitting on the windowsill. Three withered, browning, and dead saplings stuck out from the dirt, the product of three months of trial and error.

As her ears splayed back, folding against her two-toned pink and blue mane, she opened the fridge and reached for a bottle of maple syrup and the carton of cream. Once she put them on the counter, she nosed her way back into the pantry and emerged a few seconds later with a small block of white chocolate.

She may not be able to grow flowers for her girlfriend, but she could certainly welcome her home with a fresh batch of maple fudge, her very favourite. Chocolate-caramel fudge was a top seller, but for Lyra, Bon Bon would always make at least one batch of maple fudge.

“Too bad I can’t make a wreath out of it,” she muttered as she set the first baking pan aside and got another mixing bowl ready. While the caramel melted down over the stove, she could start on Lyra’s favourite treat.

Bon Bon glanced at the clock. Two hours. Plenty of time to make the fudge and have it chilling in the fridge—perhaps somewhere further back, behind the eggs where Lyra might not notice.

While the caramel candies were slowly melted, she set another saucepan on another burner and started to bring all of the ingredients for the maple fudge to a boil. Managing two pans for two different recipes at the same time was a task she had mastered over the years. Lyra offered to help more than once, but her skill in the kitchen mirrored Bon Bon’s in the garden.

Instead, she offered to sing or play her lyre while Bon Bon worked. The melodies Lyra weaved created easy, soothing rhythms for her to fall into while she cooked from early in the morning to late in the evening. Humming one of her favourite tunes was a poor replacement, but for the time being, it would have to do.

By the time Bon Bon put both sets of fudge in the fridge to cool, she still had a little less than an hour before Lyra’s train would pull into the Ponyville train station.

Ears pinned back, she went through the motions of washing her hoofs and sighed as she wiped them dry on her apron, stained here and there with the byproducts of years of candy making. Just one hour. A rippling tingle travelled up her back at the prospect and rolled over her shoulders, making the fur at the nape of her neck stand on end. Her tail swished as she poured some soap into the sink.

Very soon, she would be leaving to pick her girlfriend up at the train station. The smile that started to tug on her lips froze as she glanced at the door and caught sight of the flower-less planters. With another sigh, she slipped her mixing bowl into the hot, soapy water. The steam was a sharp contrast to the cold weight that settled in the pit of her stomach. It was an ugly, familiar feeling that came with a failed recipe or the odd angry customer, but this time there was no Lyra to comfort her. There was no Lyra to hold her and stroke her mane until her warming heart melted that sensation away.

This time, Bon Bon would have to cope on her own. Lyra couldn’t know. The whole point was to make it a surprise. Dead planters and empty flowerbeds were no way to start the next step of their lives together.

A knocking at the kitchen door dragged her out of her thoughts and she yelped as a growing pile of bubbles tickled her chin.

“Come in!” she said, turning the water off.

“Everything okay, Bon Bon?” a smooth voice, coloured by a Trottingham accent asked. The voice’s owner sniffed and hummed. “Something smells delectable. Have you been making fudge?”

Bon Bon nodded, reaching into the sink to unplug the stopper. “Chocolate-caramel and maple. I just put both batches in the fridge to cool.” Once the water drained to a more manageable level, she replaced the stopper and pulled a washcloth in to soak. “I could save you a piece, if you like.”

“The day anypony resists a piece of your chocolate-caramel fudge is the day I eat my cello and learn how to play the banjo.” While she tittered at her own joke, Bon Bon let out a halfhearted chortle as she cleaned. The sound of hoofsteps against the hardwood floor followed the mare’s approach, and the presence of a soft, grey hoof on her withers halted her scrubbing. “And don’t think you can avoid my question.”

“Eat your cello, huh?” Bon Bon bit her lip, ducking her head ever so slightly as her tail curled around her hind leg. “I could always make you a chocolate one. Dark chocolate is your favourite, right? Maybe for your birthday, or Hearth’s Warming.”

“How very sweet of you, but we can talk about that later. I think we have more important things to discuss.” The hoof on her back pushed, and Bon Bon let herself be turned to meet her friend’s purple eyes. Octavia Melody’s expression was, as always, composed—as neat and orderly as the bowtie so carefully tied around her neck. Few could tell what she was thinking behind her grey-coated muzzle, though her lips were pulled into a tiny frown.

Bon Bon smiled. It felt withered and weak, just like her tulips. “Hi, Octavia.”

“Hello, Bon Bon.” With a smile, however brief, Octavia shifted around to Bon Bon’s side and led her to the kitchen table where she and Lyra took most of their meals. For the last couple months, however, it served a different purpose. “Why don’t you have a seat while I put the tea on? You look like you’ve already been on your hooves for ages.”

There was no point arguing with Octavia, especially when it came to tea. Nodding, Bon Bon slumped on her chair and mumbled her thanks while the other mare fetched the kettle from the cupboard.

“Now, while I was walking over, I wondered what kind of mood you would be in today,” Octavia said as she put the kettle on the stovetop and lit a burner. “Excitement came to mind first, naturally, but then I thought that it would only be proper for you to be nervous. Crawling the ceiling, in fact. Three months is a very long time to be away from the pony you love.”

Bon Bon dipped her head and crossed her forelegs over her stomach as her insides squirmed.

The chair opposite her squeaked against the floor as it was dragged back. Octavia sat in it, and peered over her steepled hooves at Bon Bon. “You’re neither of those things, are you? You’re beating yourself up over something.”

“You really don’t have to be stopping by like this every day, Octavia,” Bon Bon said. “It’s sweet of you, but I’m a big girl. I’m fine.”

“Nonsense.” Shaking her mane, a dark, charcoal colour, Octavia waved her hoof. “I’m confident Lyra asked me to more for her benefit than for yours, and I’m glad to do it. Besides, don’t you think it’s a little late in the game to be hashing this topic of conversation out again?” A smirk appeared on her muzzle, a decidedly wicked look on the musician. “And really, you’re dreadful at changing the subject, dear Bon Bon.”

Bon Bon shifted in her seat. “How’s Vinyl doing? I haven’t seen her around the last couple days. Does she have another set in Manehattan?”

“She does, in fact. She’ll be back by the weekend, and I’m afraid your attempts at small talk to avoid the issue are futile,” Octavia said, folding her hooves over the kitchen table. Her eyes twinkled with amusement, but steadfast. They never left Bon Bon as she fidgeted, feeling the ball in her stomach make her skin crawl. “So futile, in fact, that I won’t deign any more attempts with an answer. Once you quit being so stubborn—a trial for you sometimes, I know—then we can talk like proper mares.”

“I-I was wondering what I should wear when I go pick Lyra up at the train station,” Bon Bon said, trying not to buckle under the weight of her friend’s stare. She licked her lips and unwound her hooves to fiddle with the hem of her apron. “A dress is too formal, don’t you think? But I don’t just want to go without looking like I care, you know?”

Octavia arched an eyebrow and held her stare. She didn’t blink.

“I was thinking maybe a hat? Or a scarf, but I guess it’s not very cold outside, is it? The weather team sure did a great job of clearing the clouds.”

Octavia didn’t budge. Besides the rising and falling of her chest with each breath, she might as well have been a statue.

“I really wish I bought a sundress from Carousel Boutique when they were on sale a couple weeks ago, now,” Bon Bon said, clearing her drying throat. “That would’ve been perfect, don’t you think?” Her voice trailed off into a squeak, one that made her wince.

Nothing.

The silence held for a full minute, then two, then three. As it dragged on, sweat started to bead on Bon Bon’s brow and she sucked her lip between her teeth. However stubborn she might be, the last few months taught her that she had nothing on Octavia.

The kettle whistle shattered the silence. Bon Bon jumped and shrieked, while Octavia barely twitched.

“Okay!” Bon Bon whined, putting her head in her hooves. “I’ll stop being stubborn!”

“Very good, Bon Bon.”

While Bon Bon groaned, she heard her friend step towards the stove. A few seconds later, something was pushed on to the table, followed by the clinking of ceramic plateware. She flicked her ear at the sound of something being poured and looked up only when the citrusy scent of earl grey tea reached her nostrils.

“Now, then,” Octavia started, stirring a spoonful of sugar into her cup, “what’s bothering you?”

Bon Bon frowned into her tea while her friend poured a dollop of cream into hers. She clasped her cup in her hooves, letting its warmth seep into her, and exhaled through her nose. “Did you see the garden on your way in?”

Octavia’s ears perked and she blinked. “Garden? Why, I don’t think I did. I must have—ah.” She stirred her tea, her face pensive, and looked to the windowsill. “Yes, I think I understand.”

Bon Bon’s ears folded back as she reached for a sugarcube. “Nothing’s growing.”

“Bon Bon, of course—” Octavia stopped herself short. She let out a long, tired breath and lifted her tea to her lips. After blowing over the rim of the cup, she took a cautious first sip. “What did you expect to happen? Even Daisy or Roseluck couldn’t make flowers bloom from nothing overnight.”

“I know that,” Bon Bon muttered, watching wisps of steam roll off of her tea. “I just hoped maybe something would happen. A sprout or two. Something growing, even if it would mean waiting for another three months.”

“And buying flowers is still out of the question?”

Lips pulling into a scowl, she lifted her head and levelled the other mare with a withering stare. It worked on the odd chimera, and it worked on Octavia. “Would you ‘buy’ music if you could for performing in front of the Princesses?”

Octavia winced. “No, of course not.”

“Then I’m not buying anything, either. Lyra’s worth more to me than store-bought flowers, even if the best florists this side of Canterlot grew them.” A fire flickered to life deep in Bon Bon’s chest, lifting her higher up in her chair. Emboldened, she swallowed a mouthful of tea, cooled just enough to not burn her tongue.

“Of course she is,” Octavia said, sipping from her tea. A small smile flickered over her muzzle as her gaze wandered to the window. “I wonder if Lyra realizes how lucky she is that you love her so much.”

That drew a dry chuckle from Bon Bon. “Probably not, but I know she loves me just as much. You ever think Vinyl realizes the same about you?”

“Celestia, no,” Octavia said without missing a beat. Her smile turned coy and she shook her head. “That mare infuriates me to no end. It’s hard being the romantic half of the equation, isn’t it?”

Bon Bon hummed her agreement. “It’s not that she doesn’t love me—I know she does. It’s just ... she doesn’t think about certain things the same way I do. She’s happy where we are now, and I am, too, but ...”

“But now you want to marry her?”

A slow burn started up in her cheeks. One of the downsides of having a light, cream-coloured coat was an unfortunate ease of blushing, something Lyra took advantage of far too often. Bon Bon ignored the tingling of heat spreading across her muzzle and sipped her tea. “Yes. Do you ever think about marrying Vinyl?”

A tittering laugh was Octavia’s answer. “No, at least not right now. Maybe one day, but we’ve hardly been together as long as you and Lyra have. I think I’d like to see how the two of you make out, first.”

“If we can ever get there, that is.” The frown returned, and so too did the ball of ice in the base of her stomach. Bon Bon gulped down another mouthful of tea, but it did little to warm her. “At this rate, it’s going to be never. Everypony growing up made it sound so easy to make wreaths that match our coat colours. What if I was brown? Are there even brown flowers?”

“Well, if the earth pony way isn’t working out for you, have you ever considered trying the unicorn approach?”

“But I’m not a unicorn.”

“No, but Lyra is. I don’t see why you couldn’t propose to her the way she learned in Canterlot. You’d be surprised how many earth ponies and pegasi I’ve seen get down on one knee, so to speak, for their unicorn partners at my performances.”

“I—really?”

“Classical music is romantic, don’t you think? Especially when it’s live at the Canterlot Philharmonic Orchestra,” Octavia said, her chest swelling as she refilled her cup. “And it is quite romantic, isn’t it? Ponies going out of their way to propose the way that their beloved was taught to propose—unexpected, sweet, and meaningful.”

While Octavia added sugar and cream to her second cup of tea, Bon Bon stared into the dregs of her own. “It doesn’t involve growing flowers, does it?”

“It could, but in your case, no. Traditionally, the unicorn way is a bit more, ah, expensive, but no less special.” Slowly, Octavia sighed, her next words light with whimsy. “Almost enough for me to wish that Vinyl would do something similar for me. She is a unicorn, so one would hope she’d have that ingrained into her to some extent.”

Bon Bon bit her lip as her tail curled around her haunches. The earth pony way was what she knew—two wreaths, made of flowers that match the colour of each ponies’ coats. On the day of proposal, the wreaths would be given, a symbol of two lives forever entwined like the flowers worn around their necks. It was what she and the other foals in her class were taught. For a time, at least, it was how things were done in Ponyville.

Three months.

The chair squeaked as she shifted her weight. “What would I need?”

“First, you would need a ring to present to her. That much should sound familiar. You would get a matching set of earrings or a necklace later.” Octavia’s features softened as she reached across the table to pat Bon Bon’s foreleg. Stubborn as she was, nothing broke through the musician’s guard like a good love story. “The next part is what’s really special.”

“I-I should have enough saved up for a ring,” Bon Bon said, running her tongue over the roof of her drying mouth. She reached for her teacup and found it drained. “What’s the next part?”

“The proposing party usually does something for their fiance-to-be that relates to their special talent. For example, if Vinyl were to propose to me—around the same time Tartarus freezes over—and if she were to propose to me in the unicorn custom, she would write and perform for me a classical piece.” A hint of longing crept into Octavia’s voice, but Bon Bon held her tongue.

“So,” Bon Bon started, scrunching her muzzle up as her thoughts coagulated, “if I wanted to propose to Lyra the unicorn way, I would need to get her a ring. Then, since her special talent is music ...”

“It would be very similar to how Vinyl would hypothetically propose to me.”

“Write her a song?” The breath caught in Bon Bon’s throat in about the same instant her blood ran cold in her veins. A broken, squeaking sound burst from the back of her throat before she hook her head. “B-but I can’t play an instrument! I played the triangle in music class at school!”

“It doesn’t have to be complicated,” Octavia said, refreshing Bon Bon’s tea and pushing the saucer closer to her. “Here, drink. Calm yourself. It could be something very simple, enough to show that you care. I wouldn’t expect Vinyl to compose Werner of the North for me.”

Bon Bon did as instructed, though perhaps a little too quickly. Tea, kept hot within the kettle, scalded her tongue as she gulped down half her cup in one go. “But I can’t music!”

“Lyra sings as well,” Octavia said, her tone level and calm, a counterbalance to the panic rising up Bon Bon’s chest. “You could write a short little tune about what she means to you and sing it to her.”

Sing? Music? Everything about Lyra was musical—from her bubbly, melodious laughter to the honeyed notes that flew off her lips when she sang. When Bon Bon sang, on the other hoof, ponies around her flinched and covered their ears. One time, a foal cried.

“I-I really don’t know.” Chewing her lip, Bon Bon fidgeted with her teacup, sloshing its contents back and forth. Her gaze bounced around the room while Octavia took another measured sip from her cup. “I mean—maybe. I could try. I-I’d have to think about—” she cut herself off with a sharp intake of breath when her eyes found purchase on the clock mounted above the oven.

She had less than half an hour before Lyra’s train pulled into Ponyville Station.

Any thoughts about proposing, flowers, and songwriting fled from her mind as she leapt to her hooves, knocking her chair over as it screeched across the floor. Her heart leapt into her throat. At first, the only sound she could make was a strangled, squawking noise as her hooves scrambled over the hardwood floor.

“Bon Bon?” Octavia shrieked as she found herself yanked away from the table and her tea. “What’s gotten into you?”

“I’m late! I have to go! Lyra!” With her heart beating a staccato rhythm, she pulled and tugged Octavia out of her chair. “Her train will be here soon!” Gasping, Bon Bon’s hooves flew to her face, dropping her friend. “I’m not dressed or cleaned up at all!”

“Bon Bon, I—”

Sweaty, grimy, dirty in places from ‘tending’ to the ‘garden,’ and wearing her stained, worn apron was not what Lyra deserved for her homecoming. At the very least, her girlfriend should be showered.

Letting out a keening whine, Bon Bon squeezed her eyes shut and ran to the door. “No time!”

Like the maple fudge chilling in the fridge, she would have to do. It was more important that she was there to greet Lyra off the train, wasn’t it?

“Thank you so much for the tea, Octavia!” Bon Bon called over her shoulder as she gripped the doorknob. The cold weight growing in her stomach made her insides writhe. So much for special. “Can you lock up when you leave? Thank you, bye!”

With her eyes squeezed shut, Bon Bon didn’t notice the flowers hovering outside the door until she swung it open and walked face-first into them. The fragrance—roses?—barely had a chance to tickle her nose before they were brushed aside and somepony else’s lips found her own. She squeaked, every muscle in her form tensing as a foreleg wrapped around her neck and pulled her deeper into the impromptu kiss.

Bon Bon opened her eyes wide, hooves moving to push her kisser away, before another hoof cupped her cheek. She blinked at the green hoof, bordering on aquamarine, as its light touch trailed down her muzzle to loop around her neck. A glimmering gold surrounded the flowers, holding them aloft next to her, a matching shade to the set of eyes looking back at her, lidded, glowing, and, above all, familiar.

That glinting gold, twinkling with an ever-present gleam of mischief and steadily burning with a smoldering warmth, was the last thing Bon Bon saw before she slept at night ever since she let herself get talked into coffee and dinner one autumn evening so long ago.

The faint scent of vanilla drew her in as much as the hooves around her did and, when she felt another’s tongue swipe against her lips, teasing and promising, Bon Bon closed her eyes to return Lyra’s kiss properly. Hooves that were ready to shove now rested against her girlfriend’s chest, pulling her closer.

She didn’t moan, whimper, or groan out her content. Instead, as she drank in Lyra’s presence flooding her senses, she revelled in the quiet. Panic, rising like a balloon in her chest, deflated and guilt, a cold, sickly weight in the base of her stomach, thawed as her insides unwound to the puffing of the breath on her muzzle.

The weight of three months rolled off her shoulders, coming down in an avalanche, and left a breathtaking silence in its wake. Half-baked ideas for songs, drawn from corners of her mind as a foal plucks grass from the field, vanished. The only flowers that mattered in that moment were the roses brought to her; a fleeting thought at best.

With her mind empty, it left room for more important things, like the velvety smooth feeling of Lyra’s coat kneading under her touch, or the warm, soft texture of her lips. A low, groaning hum from the back of her unicorn’s throat drew a flick of her ear—one of her favourite sounds. The faint scent of the vanilla on her coat tickled her nose with each breath until at last the kiss ended.

A horn parted Bon Bon’s mane as another’s forehead rested against her own. When she fluttered her eyes open, she found Lyra grinning back at her, the glimmer of her eyes highlighted by the love and want that shone so brightly behind them.

There it was. Bon Bon knew that she was never the most attractive filly on the block. Growing up and throughout her adulthood she was on the chubbier side, the price a pony paid for working in the sweets business. Yet, when Lyra looked at her, and when she felt her eyes roving over her body, she felt her desire. And, as she discovered after many late afternoons of being watched from behind the counter, it felt good.

She wore a stained apron. There was dirt in her tail and sweat matted her coat in places. The saccharine smell of sugar was the only thing that kept her from reeking of a pony who had yet to shower. None of that mattered to Lyra, though, as she nuzzled her way down Bon Bon’s cheek.

Realization dawned on her, sending her heart back to her throat. Her knees wobbled as her legs turned to toffee. At the same time, a ballooning feeling of warmth and affection filled her chest, making her lightheaded and giddy, but paralyzed.

It didn’t matter that she was disgusting. She could have grown a cactus and given a wreath made of bottle caps, and it would not have changed a thing. All that mattered to Lyra was that Bon Bon was there. She could see it in her eyes, feel it in the way she gripped her, and hear it in the way she whispered, “Hi, Bonnie.”

Bon Bon opened her mouth to respond, but found that nothing came out. Her breath was taken away, stolen by the same mare who burgled away her heart.

Lyra’s smile was as bright and infectious as always as she pulled away enough to sit on her haunches. “Guess whose train came in early? That’s right!” She laughed, the sound musical. “Thought I’d try to surprise you. I’m glad I caught you before you left.”

Already, Bon Bon’s smile came easier. The corner of her mouth twitched, pulling her lips into a grin as a steady stream of heat coursed across her muzzle.

The smile itself was small, but it was all that she needed to say. Pretty words and rhyming words could hardly compare.

“Oh! Right, and these are for you!” The bouquet of roses floated into view, bobbing in the precious few inches that separated the two. They were a deep, scarlet red and, though Bon Bon knew little of floristry, she knew enough to tell that they were freshly trimmed. “I know you like tulips, but they didn’t have any that were fresh. Rose said she just picked these this morning!”

Bon Bon blinked. Something about Lyra’s tone sounded off, but familiar. When she found her golden eyes again, she found a peculiar sight. The smile that stretched from ear to ear now wobbled into a realm more nervous. The other mare’s gaze flicked between her and the bouquet, her ears angled back and half-folded to her scalp, a sight not seen since that first evening in a coffee shop a lifetime ago.

Smiling gently, Bon Bon took the flowers in the crook of her foreleg. With her other hoof, she brushed the petals, looking down to admire them as she breathed in their scent. Not her favourite, not by far, but enough to send a rippling wave of warmth up and down her frame, bringing with it a swish of her tail against the hardwood floor.

“So, I did good?”

A breathless giggle was Bon Bon’s reply. Worried? About if she’d like some flowers? Her heart was soaring. She shook her head at the notion and, flicking her eyes back to Lyra’s, she tried to convey the affection and love she felt with a look.

When that didn’t quite work, she dipped her head to the side and tried again with a kiss. It was shorter and less passionate than their one seconds ago but it drew a low hum from Lyra all the same. Or, was that her? Maybe it was the both of them?

This time, Lyra blinked her eyes open when they parted. A wide, dumb grin spread halfway over her face before she cleared her throat. “So that’s a yes, right?”

Bon Bon pecked her lips in another, fleeting kiss and rubbed their cheeks together as she nuzzled her way up to her ears. Oh, how she missed the squeaking, moaning noises Lyra made when she nipped on those. She paused for a second by her ear, rejoicing in the tiny shiver that travelled down her girlfriend’s back, before she whispered, “Marry me.”

Lyra laughed, a tired, relieved, but no less musical, sound. “Good,” she said, leaning into the touch. Hooves slid around Bon Bon’s barrel, pulling her closer. She stopped shy of squishing the bouquet between them, an obstacle that would have to be done away with. “Three months is too long away, you know? The tour was great, but I don’t know if I’d do it again. I don’t think I was built to be too far away from you for too long.”

Nuzzling into Lyra’s mane, Bon Bon said, “Marry me.”

Another laugh, this one more like a giggle, and Lyra squeezed. “Glad to see you missed me, too. Oh, hey, Tavi! What’re you doing here?”

“Having tea with Bon Bon, like you asked,” Octavia’s voice said from somewhere behind them, likely at the kitchen table. When she spoke, however, the words came out quiet and shaky, as if she were on the verge of tears.

“Right, right,” Lyra said, though Bon Bon paid their conversation little mind. Stubborn as she was, nothing would distract her from these next precious few minutes. “Thanks for doing that.”

“My pleasure. It’s great to see you, but, ah, look at the sun! I really must get along and water my cello!”

“Um.” Bon Bon felt Lyra tilt her head to the side. “Okay?”

“Yes, I’ll just show myself out, shall I?” The kitchen chair squeaked across the floor. A second later, Octavia slid by the pair, pausing only to share a bright, luminescent smile with Bon Bon before trotting out the door. Her eyes indeed glistened as she mouthed, “Good luck.”

Slowly, Lyra pulled out of their embrace, a frown wrinkling her brow. “What was that about? Am I missing something?”

Bon Bon smiled and looped her hoof around Lyra’s. “Marry me.”

“Bonnie, are you okay? You keep on—”

Oh, how she loved that mare, her thick skull and all. Bon Bon gently pressed her free hoof to Lyra’s lips. “Lyra,” she said, capturing her girlfriend’s attention. When their eyes met, her features softened and she leaned in enough for their noses to meet. “Marry me.”

“Oh,” Lyra said. She blinked once, then sucked in a breath. With her ears standing on end, her eyes widened. A blush poured over her muzzle, turning her cheeks to a darker shade of green. “Oh.”

Bon Bon smiled, tugging on Lyra’s hoof hard enough to pull her in out of the doorway. In the same motion, she kicked the door shut behind them and tossed the roses to the kitchen table.

With her other hoof now free, she snaked it behind Lyra’s head and met her halfway for another kiss, pouring all of the warmth, affection, love, and want she felt beating in her heart into it. Flowers would wilt and wither and songs would one day fade from the mind. All that mattered was that she kept on holding this mare in her hooves.

And, grinning wryly into the kiss, Bon Bon felt Lyra’s answer in the way she squeezed her hooves into her sides, kneading up her flanks and pulling their coats flush together.

Though, in hindsight, Bon Bon realized she knew the answer long before Lyra gave it, anyways.