Those First Halting Notes
Sweetie Drops knew monsters were real, and the biggest monster of all was bedtime. Only a monster would make her go to sleep just because of some numbers on a clock.
She gave her mommy her best cute eyes and said, "Can't I at least stay up until Daddy gets home? I'm six now! I'm a big girl!" She made sure to hold her glasses against her head. If Mommy got them off, there would be no going back.
Mommy smiled, but shook her head. Playdates had shown Sweetie how weird it was to have a mommy whose colors matched hers so much, like she wasn't letting herself stay up. "I don't know when he'll be in, Sweetie."
"But he said he'd be back in time for my birthday. He always is." Sweetie only remembered a few birthdays, but Daddy had always been there.
Mommy got really sad and sighed. "I know he'll try his best, dear, but—" She cut herself off as both heard a key in the front door's lock.
"Daddy!" Sweetie sprang out of bed, racing downstairs.
"Careful, Sweetie!" Mommy came after her. "Dead Drop, catch your daughter if she—"
"Daddy Daddy Da..." Sweetie trailed off. There was Daddy, grey on grey like a shadow who gave the best hugs. But while he smiled a little when he saw her, he didn't look happy. And next to him... "Uncle Top Man?"
Uncle Top Man nodded at her and turned to Daddy. "That's why right there, DD. Officially, we have to disavow all knowledge of you. Unofficially, I'm not leaving my goddaughter out in the cold because of an honest mistake." He snarled, his dark pink skin—which Sweetie wasn't supposed to call pink, but everyone knew was pink, because grown-ups were silly sometimes—going all red. He tugged at his blue hair. "If I could get my hands on that bi—"
Daddy put a hand on his shoulder. "I know, Top, but she's already gone, and there's no getting her back."
"Honey?" Mommy stood next to Sweetie. "Honey, what's going on?"
Daddy gulped. "W-well, dear, something happened at the office..."
"I definitely heard the words 'disavow all knowledge,' Dead Drop. I suspected something, but—"
Uncle Top held up a hand. "Sugar Loaf, I'm going to ask you to keep your conclusions to yourself, for your sake as much as anyone else's."
Mommy glared at Daddy. "We are going to have a long talk about this."
He just sighed. "We are. But it'll have to wait."
"Obviously. Sweetie, it's still your bedtime. Come on, now."
Daddy opened his mouth like he was going to say more, but then just shut it, nodded, and tried to smile at Sweetie. He didn't do a very good job. "Happy birthday, Sweetie."
Uncle Top grunted. "It is, isn't it? Talk about bad ti—"
"There's a reason you're still single, Top."
"I deserved that."
Sweetie didn't remember much after that. Part of it was Mommy taking her back to her room. Part was the bedtime monster making her sleepy.
"We're moving!?"
Sweetie looked up from her cereal at Mommy's shout.
"It's... complicated," Daddy said. He kept playing with a spoon even while looking at Mommy. "Officially, we're entering witness protection. Unofficially..."
After he was quiet for a little while, Mommy said, "What?"
"Technically speaking, I'm no longer authorized to explain what happened."
Mommy gave him an angry look. "Or how you got the scar?"
Daddy rubbed his shoulder and didn't look at her. "Officially, there is no scar."
"You expect us to uproot our entire life because... what?" Mommy threw up her hands. "Because you're a Man in Black?"
After more quiet, Daddy looked at Sweetie and started looking sad. "Can we talk about this later?"
Mommy grumbled something Sweetie couldn't hear, then said, "I suppose we'll be changing our names, then."
Daddy nodded slowly. "They... did advise that, yes."
"Then from now on, you can call me Aspartame."
Daddy sighed. "Sugar..."
"Exactly. You're expecting me to lead a fake life, Drop. It'll be easy for you; you've been living a lie this whole time."
"Sugar, that's—"
Mommy crossed her arms. "I'm taking a fake name to go with it."
"Sugar, if..." Daddy frowned.
"We're moving?"
Mommy and Daddy both looked at Sweetie, looking scared. That scared Sweetie more than anything. They were Mommy and Daddy. They weren't supposed to be afraid of anything. "Oh Harmony," said Mommy, "Sweetie—"
Daddy held up a hand and looked Sweetie in the eye. "Yes, Sweetie, we're moving. Do you know what moving is?"
She frowned. "I'm six now. I know what moving is. I saw it on cartoons." Though Sweetie was pretty sure the movers wouldn't be parrots. Or pirates. Or both. She bit her lip. "Will we ever come back?"
Daddy shook his head. "I'm sorry, dear. We won't."
And very quietly, Sweetie said, "Oh."
Moving wasn't nearly as funny as Celaeno's Swabbies made it look. It was mostly just sitting around watching strangers put all of Sweetie's stuff get in a big van, then sitting in the car as Daddy drove for forever, and then watching the strangers take all the boxes back out of the van in a house that wasn't home.
And it still wasn't home, even that night. It was too small and too dry and the stairs were in the wrong place and no one had been able to find Sweetie's night light. She didn't need it anymore—she was six—but it would've been nice to know where it was.
She tried to go to sleep, but everything around her just felt wrong. And then she heard voices.
Sweetie got up. Everything might have been new and wrong, but that meant Mommy hadn't found anywhere to hide her glasses. Once she found those, she felt her away around the boxes that were full of her stuff that everyone had been too tired to take out. She opened the new door as quietly as she could and edged her way out to where she could hear better.
"You mean they would've..." said Mommy's voice.
"It's standard procedure," said another of Daddy's work friends.
"It's horrible!"
"It's also out of the question for Dead— Excuse me. For Bon Mot. The terms of the death curse were quite clear on what would befall those who harmed him."
There was a thump, and then Daddy said, "If there hadn't been a beehive right there—"
"I know, DD," said his friend. "I know."
"Thank you for telling us this, Luna," said Mommy. "Hard as it is to believe."
"Commissioner Man was happy to sign the release forms. You deserve to know. Besides, it's a good excuse to get Celestia out of the business as well. I might even manage to keep her out. She's always wanted to go into education."
"And you?" said Mommy.
"Not so much, but it can't be too different from the old job. Just fewer options for venting my frustration. Though at least it's a high school. I can only imagine how exhausted I'd be dealing with first graders." Then Miss Luna raised her voice and said, "On that note, Sweetie? Could you come downstairs, please?"
Sweetie flinched. Maybe the top of the stairs hadn't been the best place to listen, even if she could hear everything really well from there. Maybe if she—
"Come on, Sweetie Drops. Time to face the music."
Phooey.
As Sweetie went down the stairs, Mommy looked at her with her hands over her mouth. "Oh Harmony, how long was she there?"
Miss Luna got up from the weird new couch and put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry. She opened the door just after we explained the standard procedure for international incidents of this sort."
Daddy just smiled a funny, sad kind of smile at Sweetie from his big leather chair. At least they'd been able to bring his chair. "Hi, little girl. Couldn't sleep?"
Sweetie shook her head.
Miss Luna got up, walked over, and crouched down in front of her. "Hello, dear." She was smiling too, more like she thought this was all funny.
"Hi, Miss Luna."
"You're not the only ones who moved to Canterlot, you know."
"I heard," said Sweetie. "You and Miss Celestia are teachers now?"
Miss Luna nodded. "That's right. We'll be at the high school. You'll have to pretend you don't know us if you see us, but we'll be looking out for you."
Sweetie nodded back. There were a lot of people she had to pretend not to know now. Her old friends like Sugar Belle, her old teacher Mr. Chalkdust, Grandma, Grandpa, Nana... She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, but only because she was sleepy. "Okay."
Miss Luna sat down and put her hands on Sweetie's shoulders. "I know change can be scary, Sweetie."
The little girl frowned. That wasn't right. Well, it was kind of right, but it wasn't right in all the ways. She didn't just have to be a big girl. She had to be a different big girl. She looked Miss Luna in the eyes. "Bonbon."
Everyone else in the room looked at her, eyes wide. "What did you say?" said Miss Luna.
"Bonbon," said Bonbon. "That's my name, isn't it?"
Bonbon had before never seen Miss Luna look like she did now, her eyes wide, her mouth hanging open. Miss Luna smiled after a bit, even if her eyes looked sad. "Yes, I suppose it is."
"Swee..." Daddy paused. He had that same sad look. "Bonnie."
"Yes, Daddy?"
Daddy;s smile went all crooked. "Could you at least pretend to sleep, please?"
"It is late, dear," said Mommy.
Bonbon rubbed her eyes again. Dumb bedtime monster. "... Okay."
"Class, this is a very exciting day. We have a new student! Say hello to Bonbon, coming to us all the way from Baltimare."
Bonbon squirmed. Cartoons had taught her how being the new kid in school worked too. Especially being the new kid with glasses. "H-hi."
"Hi Bonbon," everyone droned. No one cared. Not many even really looked at her. She missed Sugar Belle already.
Bonbon knew she was pretty smart. She was already reading chapter books. But that just meant she didn't have to think too hard about the work, which meant she could think more about how alone she was. That kept up until lunch, when her sandwich stuck in her throat and her juicebox didn't help much.
It was just stuck. She was a big girl. She didn't need to cry.
Recess came, and Bonbon just sat on a bench. She knew better than to try for a swing. Even at her old school, that was how Diamond Mint got bitten that one time.
"Hi!"
Bonbon blinked. She wasn't sure when those pretty golden eyes had started staring into hers, but she did know that they were way too close. She tried to back up and just ended up trying to press herself into the bench.
The eyes sat next to her. They came with a green girl who was smiling so wide, it looked like it hurt. "You're new!"
"Uh... yeah?"
"Me too! I just moved here last week! I wanted to say something in class but Ms. Pfeffernusse gets mad if it doesn't look like I'm paying attention and then I couldn't find you when I got lunch. So hi!" The girl leaned in too close again. "What's Baltimare like?"
Bonbon bit her lip. Daddy and Miss Luna had made it clear that she couldn't talk about home, but they hadn't told her what she could say. "It's, uh... nice?"
"Neat! I'm from Canterlot."
Bonbon just stared at the other girl for a little while. "Aren't we in Canterlot?"
"Oh." The other girl blinked. Bonbon wasn't sure if she ever had before then. "I guess. We moved here from... Crystal City, I think? It's probably a lot closer than Baltimare, but I still miss my old friends. Twinkleshine, Minuette, Twilight..." The girl perked back up. "But hey, that just means we can make new friends here, right?"
"I guess? I don't even know your name."
"Oh, right!" The girl stuck out her hand. "Hi, I'm Lyra. Lyra Heartstrings. Do you like unicorns?"
Bonbon blinked. "Yes?" She was pretty sure she'd missed some part of the conversation, but Lyra was actually talking to her, and she didn't want to ruin that. And besides, it was something she could be honest about. She took the hand to shake it.
Instead, it grabbed hers and held tight. "Great! Me too." Lyra hopped off the bench, taking Bonbon with her as she raced across the blacktop. "Come on! I can show you a game Lemon Hearts came up with. It's called Get This Flask Off My Head."
It was everything Bonbon could do to follow Lyra's words and pace. Trying to actually understand it was a bit much. "What?"
"Okay, so no matter what any of them says, it wasn't my fault..."
"So Twilight and Moondancer both ended up with black eyes, and neither of them got to read the book first!" Lyra threw up her hands. "Minuette did!"
Bonbon laughed harder than she ever had after the move. Eventually, she recognized the sound of a certain car horn.
"Oh hey, is that your dad?"
Bonbon looked and nodded. "He says he doesn't trust our bus driver. He's funny like that." She waved to Lyra as she raced for the car. "See you tomorrow!"
Lyra waved back with both arms. "See you!"
Once Bonbon was in the car and buckled up, Daddy looked at her in the mirror and smiled. "Looks like your first day of school went well."
Her face was starting to hurt from smiling so much. She didn't care. "I made a great friend! Her name's Lyra and she likes unicorns and she's new too so she talked to me even though it was my first day! Can I go to her house this weekend?"
Daddy hummed. "This weekend might be a bit early. We'll see about next weekend, okay?"
"Oh." Bonbon turned to look out the window. They were already too far away to see Lyra. "Okay. I guess."
The car went quiet for bit. Then Daddy said, "You remember when you said your friend was learning karate?"
Bonbon nodded. "You said you didn't want me learning from a dojo in a strip mall."
"And I still don't. But I'm going to be working from home for a while. How about I show you a thing or two?"
Bonbon looked back at Daddy. "You know karate?"
He gave a funny smile. "Your old man knows a lot of things."
Bonbon couldn't sleep.
Some of that was because this was still a strange bedroom in a strange house, and she hadn't fallen asleep easily since her birthday. But the rest was because Daddy still hadn't told her if she could see Lyra, and it was Sunday, which meant next weekend was about to become this weekend.
"Your daughter sure knows how to pick them."
The sound of Miss Luna's voice pulled Bonbon out of bed. She didn't leave her room. She didn't even open the door. She just listened through the crack underneath, belly down on the floor.
"And you called me paranoid," said Daddy.
"Asking for a background check on your six-year-old's new friend at school is practically the definition of paranoia."
"But?"
"There is a but, but it's a minor one." Miss Luna gave a little laugh. "And given our track record, Sweetie— Excuse me, Bonbon is probably listening to us right now."
At that, Bonbon hurried back to bed, but not before she heard Daddy laugh. Then everything was too quiet to make out, and the bedtime monster pounced while she wasn't paying attention.
Author's Note
Friendly reminder that Bonbon was the Twist of her generation.
Rune Soldier Dan may or may not have had some influence in the princessipals' former career.
