Just about everypony knew they were a couple, and virtually nopony understood why.
If asked what Lyra and Bon-Bon had in common, the majority of Ponyville residents would have hemmed, stalled, hawed just long enough to wonder what the word 'haw' meant, and finally ended their torment through tentatively suggesting "...the marriage certificate?" Because when it was seen from the outside, for those who hadn't been there from the beginning (which was everypony in town: Bon-Bon was from Lipizzaner and Lyra had attended the city's legendary music academy), the pairing didn't seem to make any sense. Take those two personalities, their public actions, perceived traits, cross-match on the largest chart available and no line would ever reach the other side. They loved each other, and... that seemed to be it.
In so many ways, they came across as opposites. Lyra was Ponyville's most talented musician. Bon-Bon was effectively banned from choruses: when the confectioner's allergies began to act up (ten moons out of every thirteen), her voice could change register three times in a single line. The unicorn was typically soft-spoken: she most readily expressed herself through music and because there were certain hazards in that, would frequently substitute by jumping around a lot. The earth pony's default level of public volume was often set near the top of the scale and came with an abrasiveness which had her words ignore the usual option of vibrating an eardrum in favor of scraping their way through.
Bon-Bon generally impressed others as being staid and inflexible: an opinion which frequently arose immediately after somepony had collided with her because it wasn't as if she was going to move out of their way. By contrast, just about all of Lyra's body was double-jointed: she reflexively assumed postures which nopony else could replicate, and that tendency was a leading cause for two of Ponyville's most frequent medical emergencies. Ponies who'd merely watched her stretch could wind up having a therapist help them get past minor trauma, while those who decided that every pony body had to be capable of moving that way and they just hadn't personally tried it until now would wind up in the chiropractor's office, where the diagnosis would consist of nosing over a carefully-assembled photo album and asking exactly which mistake they'd made. (#4 was rather popular with victims and treating party, as it both looked relatively easy from the outside and required the largest number of follow-up visits.)
And one was a recovering addict, something where the nature of the addiction meant she would never find the relative safety of the past tense, not when the thing which kept calling to her was embossed into her very soul. The other was the pony who knew to watch her, who helped to balance work against need, and kept her beloved from falling.
But they loved each other. Each was the only pony the other had ever gone out with. And in many ways, they were just like every other happily married couple. There was a casual level of affection which demonstrated itself in public, and a deeper level which only came out when they had privacy. (It was generally accepted that any public makeout session between them would have two outcomes: a very large audience and a nearly-as-large number of delusional ponies trying to unkink their jaws enough to sign the hospital admission forms.) They had fights, although Lyra's personal trick meant the verbal aspect seldom went very far: Bon-Bon had compensated through becoming the settled zone's foremost master of offensive foreleg gestures.
And like all married couples, there were things they didn't talk about. In fact, for the last moon, they had spent entire nights in very openly not talking about something. They hadn't been talking about it several times a week, and they seemed destined to fail at discussion for a long time to come. Because there were things they had in common and when it came to the topic which was being settled by silence, each was going through the same fear.
They'd been married for a few years: long enough for the topic to not come up a few times. But now it was not being raised just about every night, because it was spring. It was spring again and it felt as if for all the years they might have together, spring would always find them not talking.
Lyra blamed business marketing practices, while Bon-Bon assigned some of the fault to the sheep. Neither was completely wrong. But in the end, it was the holiday. It was always the holiday, every single year. And this time, it would also be the day after.
They weren't talking about it.
They would soon be not talking about it for the last time.
The easy part was making the fluff, and fluff was expected. It was the very last day of creating the specialized treats, and the confectioner knew exactly how to do it. For the last two weeks, she'd been doing very little else, with the exception of the continual non-talks.
The holiday itself meant the candy shop was running at full staff -- which, for practical purposes, mostly meant Bon-Bon. When it came to the candy itself, the earth pony created her own recipes, managed the mixes, oversaw the molds, did the bulk of the decorations, and did it all just about solo up until the moment she collapsed on top of a sugar sack. The shop technically had a full-time employee in the form of Caramel, but Bon-Bon viewed his ongoing receipt of pay vouchers as an odd and dual form of charity: she was preventing a pony who lived in the darkest well of self-imposed debt from sinking any deeper, and she was also keeping everypony else in town from experiencing the joys of his labor.
It wasn't that Caramel was a bad employee. You couldn't justifiably call him 'bad' when the word 'horrid' existed and possessed its own permanent bookmark in Bon-Bon's inner dictionary. He had a certain particular set of skills. He could smile, nudge boxes across the counter, he rather surprisingly made fully accurate change, and was perfectly capable of doing anything which gave him an opportunity to interact directly with attractive mares. This was more than counterbalanced by his total lack of ability when it came to cleaning the equipment, being present when anything bad was happening, actually maintaining a relationship and therefore causing the shop to not lose a customer with every breakup (after one last trip through the door, and Caramel's preference for pegasi could be seen in every electrical scorch mark which never came out of the floor), and every last aspect of making candy. Bon-Bon had been employing him for some time and she was still trying to figure out what his mark was for.
As for Lyra... the love of Bon-Bon's life had her own business, and it usually didn't intersect with the shop. Original works were played in the town square during market days, carefully gauged for audience reaction, and then the rights would be sold to traveling performers: the usual deal was that they could press albums, hold concerts, and take most of the public credit, but Lyra could play those songs in Ponyville as much as she liked and they would refer other such artists to her. Most of the celebrities who purchased from Lyra considered it to be fair trade, because a talent for performance didn't always include the ability to compose and besides, it kept Lyra in Ponyville. Those who were at the current top of Equestria's public recognition charts knew they needed a steady flow of fresh material to stay there, and several of them dreaded the day when the unicorn left the market and found a stage of her own.
(It hadn't happened. Neither Lyra nor Bon-Bon could risk it.)
Lyra in the shop itself... watching Bon-Bon work for years had let her pick up on some of the basics, and her spouse never turned away a helpful ignition of corona: not having to shift everything by mouth saved a lot of time. But beyond that, most of what she contributed was accounting. Bon-Bon had manifested a mark for the confectioner's art, and was still trying to reconcile the idea that actually making a living from her talent involved rent, equipment maintenance, payroll (for some reason), and the horror known as customers. When it came to actually operating a business... Lyra had been trained for that. A quiet half-hour of flipping through tax code revisions would send the shop hurtling through multiple licorice loopholes. Lyra could make most enterprises work at doubled financial efficiency just by moving a few numbers around, and it was a sign of just how much she loved Bon-Bon that she was willing to spend a few minutes in every week making sure the totals came out correctly. (This included figuring for the Caramel Drain, because his flirting came with the offer of free samples -- well, they were free for him.) For anypony else in town, the most she would do was compose a store's background soundtrack: for Bon-Bon, that included the music which came from jingling bits.
However, she'd also created the shop's soundtrack, and it was an extensive one. There were multiple albums which only existed on the turntable of the shop's gramophone and for the holiday itself, in the last minutes before the doors opened, it was a double-time composition. Hooves didn't tap to the beat: hooves couldn't keep up and besides, it was a reminder that time was running out.
"More sugar," Bon-Bon said, and gold levitated a full sack towards the spinner. (They were alone in the back of the shop. Caramel typically didn't turn up until the doors opened or, on a typical post-date day, after they'd opened several dozen times.) The sparkles of Lyra's field interacted with the micrograins of sugar which hung in the air as their own sort of permanent dust, and the kitchen twinkled.
"It looks good," Lyra softly said. "Better than last year. More like proper wool."
"I changed the mix a little," Bon-Bon admitted. "It's fussy, but I don't have to do it again for twelve and a half whole moons." Her teeth clamped down on a crank, and she wound up the mixer's clockwork before speaking again. "Are you sure you can come in tomorrow? I know it's a market day --"
"-- it's the day after," Lyra finished. "It's always about the day after. I'll be here, Bon-Bon. Do you think you're making enough?"
"I'm afraid I'm making too much." Because that was what always happened. Somehow, even after a few years of steadily adjusting her production, it was still too much.
More mixing. A little food coloring was added to the giant bowl's rim, because few things were purely white and a little bit of grey and blue did a lot to simulate reality.
"The day after the holiday," Bon-Bon sighed. "Another holiday, and another day after..."
"It's the last one until the Summer Sun Celebration," Lyra gently reminded her. "It's a break."
They both thought about the day after the Celebration. Each briefly considered divorcing the other, mostly in the vague hopes that it would keep them from having to go through it. (Lyra would be automatically freed at the moment the judge signed the papers, while Bon-Bon had forgotten that courtrooms shut down for the holiday and thus hoped to still be in the middle of testimony.)
"And then it's Return Day three days after," Bon-Bon glumly said. "In the summer, a whole summer of -- you know. Hanging around the shop, trying to lick the sugar out of the air. And then it's Nightmare Night. And the day after Nightmare Night..."
This time, the mutual fantasy went on for a while, although it did eventually diverge: Bon-Bon preferred to stand among the smoking ruins of earthquake -- she'd never figured out how an earthquake was supposed to produce smoke, but she liked it that way -- while Lyra was still field-blasting things into ever-smaller pieces. The composer didn't have the raw strength for that sort of thing, but a mare could dream.
"This holiday shouldn't even exist," Bon-Bon sarcastically declared. It was another area where they differed: sarcasm was frequently her default response, and there were times when she dropped one level down to open mockery. Lyra tended to go quiet for a while and then if anything came out, it would be all at once and fierce. It would have been a significant part of the unspoken discussion, if any talk could take place at all.
"It's an extra opportunity to sell candy," Lyra wisely stated. "And cards. There's lots of cards."
"Cards they can't read --"
"-- and gifts," Lyra pressed on. "Some ponies like to give gifts. The same as they would for --"
She stopped, for the next words would have been part of what they weren't talking about.
"-- gifts," she eventually finished, knowing that Bon-Bon had both spotted the gap and wouldn't mention it, for doing so would constitute raising the true subject. "It's part of why you sell so much, love: for gifts."
"Gifts," Bon-Bon grumbled. She appreciated the sales. She still didn't quite understand how to deal with customers. And thinking about the recipients for so many of the gifts...
"Stupid sheep," the confectioner muttered. She didn't mean it, not in a prejudicial sense. Bon-Bon was utterly equal in her treatment of every species, and it was proven again with her next sentence. "Stupid ponies being stupid for celebrating stupid sheep."
In a lot of ways, Bon-Bon wasn't good with ponies. With just about anypony or anyone. Neither was Lyra. They both knew it, each thought it was worst with themselves, and so they didn't talk.
Lyra dipped her head. Two glow-enveloped sacks duplicated the motion.
"Stupid businessponies for making a holiday," she contributed. "Like they don't have enough bits..."
Both sighed, and they said the next words together. For each, it was the first time that year where they'd dared to name the thing, and they both only did so because it was so close to being over. They could risk it now, because it was just today and the day after. (There was always a day after.) They thought they were nearly safe, and they were wrong.
"Stupid Lambvent."
Legally, sheep were a protectorate species: one of the sapient races which wasn't capable of making it on their own. The vast majority of sheep were hosted at tenant-friendly farms, and they seldom had pony interactions with anypony who wasn't their landlord. There was a certain danger involved in speaking to sheep, and it started with the fact that they listened to everything you said.
You hardly ever saw sheep in the actual settled zone and when you did, they would inevitably be accompanied by at least one pony. To meet one (under supervision), you typically had to go to a host site. And for most ponies, that happened once a year, because there were so many ways in which sheep weren't like ponies at all. The oldest history texts claimed that ponies had once possessed a breeding season: a single time of year when they would be interested in sex, and it would just about always lead to foals. Modern ponies didn't have that. Lyra and Bon-Bon looked towards each other because they wanted to, not because they had to -- and at any other time of year, there was a lot of looking. (In many ways, it was good that Caramel didn't come in early and as it was, they were lucky that he never thought about some of the more interesting impressions left on the sacks.)
But sheep were different. They still had a season, had no interest in sex at any time outside it. And a little over five moons after that season...
Applejack, who hosted the largest of the local mobs, had once declared there was a definitive test for whether something was a monster: it was anything which could look at a lamb and not coo. Lambs were precious. They were adorable. They were, quite frankly, the cutest things on the continent. You looked at a lamb and you thought about youth and renewal and all the promises that came with spring. You did it while staring into wide eyes which knew nothing of the world and were ready to believe anything they were told, and if you were intelligent, you then remembered that the reason sheep were a protectorate species was because the adults never grew out of it. There was a very real reason why a synonym for 'conned' was 'fleeced,' and sheep had to be kept away from every grand scheme which they were guaranteed to buy into.
But that didn't change the fact that lambs were adorable. You looked at a lamb and your heart felt fluffy. Ponies crowded to the Acres and other tenant sites to see the newborns: the responsible hosts charged a small admission fee, split the proceeds with the parents, and made sure the visitors didn't call out anything which might serve as the foundation of a new belief system. You stood behind the fence -- except for Lyra, who could indefinitely hold a reared-up position with her bent left foreknee serving as prop against the fencepost and tended to clear out the area after it went on for more than ten seconds -- and you thought about the future.
Just about everypony went to see the lambs. (Lyra and Bon-Bon hadn't, not this year. It would have meant thinking about it, and that would have led to more not talking. Or worse, speech.) And somehow, through repetition, tradition, or the need to sell one more kind of greeting card, it had turned into a holiday. Lambvent: the official celebration of spring itself, even moreso than the Wrap-Up. Basking in the renewal of the world, the next generation, and everything the years to come might offer.
There was a holiday, and so there was Lambvent candy: molded lamb faces with dark eyes, and anything which looked like wool sold particularly well. It sold well, right up until the official celebration itself. And in many ways, that was fine: the shop needed business. But it made you think of spring, and all the things that were associated with it. Things they weren't talking about, because both had their own reasons for being afraid.
There was a holiday. There was the day after the holiday. And for the married couple, there would be all the years to come after that. The years after everything changed.
It was a familiar pattern, especially as it repeated itself on every major holiday. Even Bon-Bon, who was still trying to figure out why truly good candy wouldn't just make bits materialize as her creations vanished to be with those who would enjoy them with no interaction whatsoever, had spotted the trend. Some businesses closed for those celebrations: a candy shop couldn't, and so experience had left its impression upon the cream-hued fur, mostly in the form of a painful dent inflicted on somepony else's skull.
The early part of the day would be a rush, because there were always ponies who waited until the last minute. Some would have postponed their purchases, others had forgotten about the holiday until it actually happened, and somewhere in the desperate bit-offering press of ponies would be a fuming Rainbow, forever wondering why everypony else was crowding in on her usual shopping time. But as the hours wore on...
The first two hours: a crush of ponies and a rush of bits. But as noon approached, everything would thin out. Once Sun had begun to dip, just about nopony entered the shop. And all of the remaining special treats which Bon-Bon took so much care to craft, sugar wool and black peppermint eyes (it was so hard to make peppermint black without changing the flavor, and only one unicorn truly appreciated her efforts), rested in the cases. Gift boxes sat on the shelves. Nothing moved.
It was the sort of quiet in which it was possible to take inventory without interruption and so with three minutes left before closing, Bon-Bon walked out from behind the counter, stood in front of the well-polished cases and dejectedly did exactly that.
"They did it to me again."
Lyra (still behind the counter, field-held cloth wiping down a scale) was more comfortable with music than words, and so knew when to place a precisely-directed silence.
"They do it every year. I think I've adjusted. I've made what we need. And it still happens, over and over."
It would have been utter quiet answering her, but the golden corona pressed a little too hard: the scale squeaked.
"They plan this. You know they do. They all get together somewhere and have an annual discussion about exactly how they're going to screw me over. A townwide meeting, and I'm not invited." With dark thought, "And they serve refreshments. But not candy. Because it's about screwing me over, so why should they buy the refreshments from here? It's the bulk stuff from Barnyard Bargains. Mass-produced. Insult to insult to insult..."
Caramel, who had a certain instinct for avoiding non-romantic storms to go with his inherent aversion to anything approaching true labor, was slowly backing away from the till. "I..." He swallowed. "...I think that's 'insult to injury'?"
"Is it?" Bon-Bon calmly said.
"I'm pretty sure," the now-sweating stallion tried.
"Good. In order to keep it from happening again, who should I injure first?" A powerful right forehoof stomped against the freshly-cleaned floor. "I could start with Mr. Flankington. He goes to the meeting, I'll just bet on it. I sell him mints in bulk and he still goes. Because he's out to screw me over. A cartload of mints every moon and he'll be in here tomorrow, you know where he's going to go --"
"-- I think he just likes the boxes," Lyra tried, because using words regularly was important. "All the little compartments. He probably keeps ingredients in them."
"Oh," Bon-Bon said.
Lyra nodded.
"So we'll discontinue holiday assortment boxes."
Gently, "Bon-Bon..."
Music filled the silence. It was one of Lyra's shop-exclusive compositions: a tune meant to settle the mind at the end of a long day. It featured a great deal of strings, a little touch of woodwinds, absolutely no percussion, and it almost worked.
The earth pony sighed.
"Let's close up," she wearily told them. "Usual hours tomorrow. Usual result." She didn't bother with a glance at Caramel, because the usual result there was already searching for a fresh reason to happen and because he wasn't particularly creative, he would just wind up offering the usual excuse. "I'll find the key."
Lyra and Bon-Bon went home together. They went to bed, and -- nothing happened. It hadn't been happening for a while, because that was part of not talking. And while what they both feared would have required deliberate effort (which started with an application, something each had hidden in a different part of the house when holiday sales had started and hadn't looked at since), it was still associated with sex and so they weren't doing that.
They shared the bed. But they didn't touch. Each was at a different edge of the mattress: Bon-Bon with legs tucked beneath her, Lyra on her back, with her forelegs behind her head. (#12: three sessions and one follow-up to see if the shoulders had been properly recentered in their sockets.)
"I talked to Dulci today," Lyra finally said. (There was a little bit of a hum in the words, and Bon-Bon's ears went all the way up.)
"Oh?" It was something they had in common: to be among the few to not only remember the mailmare's real name, but actually use it.
"She asked for another class." A long pause. "You know."
A slow nod. "Well, it's not as if Dulci can do it. A pegasus with..." The earth pony managed a slight shrug. "You know."
"Do you mind if she comes over? I mean -- if she brings... here..."
"Sure." And this time, the sarcasm felt forced. "It's not as if we're keeping... I mean, there's only so much damage we could --" stopped. "Yeah. It's fine. Let's get some sleep. You know what tomorrow is."
They didn't.
The married couple arrived at the candy shop at ten minutes before it opened, well within the realm of Sun, because there was no point in arriving any sooner than that. On a typical day, Bon-Bon would open the door for herself alone a good two hours before sales began, because candy took time to make. But when it was the day after a holiday... she'd tried making fresh product, in her first year of business, and that was all the time required to realize there was no point. New creations only confused ponies.
Ten minutes before opening: it had taken a few years to work out the exact timing required. Half of that was for making their way through the crowd.
It was a few dozen ponies this time. (The confectioner's art meant that when it came to math, Bon-Bon's mind was used to processing numbers in either very small quantities or extremely vast ones. In this case, things got confused and decided that when measuring in the dozens, anything under twenty counted as 'a few'.) And despite the fact that they were blocking the one who held the very literal key to their joy, they didn't seem to have much interest in moving. Fortunately, it was one of the few areas where Bon-Bon's usual approach to both life and movement actually worked to her benefit: you just kept going forward until you got what you wanted, and anything blocking you was obviously in the wrong.
It had been a cloudy day in Lipizzaner. An unbearably cute adolescent unicorn wandering the streets (cute, but far too thin, looking as if she hadn't had a proper meal or trot in moons), visibly lost and almost horrifically panicked, looking as if one more second of dislocation would send her galloping away, never to return. The earth pony had approached, offered help, and -- that had been enough to trigger the terror: the unicorn had turned, fled, the earth pony had desperately galloped after her...
She'd just kept going forward. She had to know what was wrong. And eventually...
Not that she wanted this.
"Coming through," she muttered, took a hoofstep forward, and watched as earth pony strength knocked a pegasus about half a body length to the side. "Coming through..."
(She took more care around the children. The day after the holiday was on a weekend, and so there were a lot of children.)
Several well-earned semi-bruisings later, she reached the glass door, with Lyra quietly trailing in her wake. Far too many ponies watched her work the locks.
"There's a limit of fifteen ponies in the shop at any one time," she told the air, because it wasn't as if anything else was listening.
No vocal answer. Some of the most desperate breathed a little faster.
"You all know who arrived first." Still facing the door, which had a piece of paper on it. This group wasn't even worth looking at. (Neither was the paper, but it was in the way.) "If there's any dispute, you settle it. If it keeps going, I settle it."
Two previously-settled ponies shuddered.
"There's no shouting. No arguments." Some of them -- those who didn't truly qualify as part of the first wave -- were ignoring her. She knew it, and kept going anyway. Some things became tradition simply through sheer pointlessness, while others turned into ritual. "And if anypony takes it too far..."
Lyra's horn briefly ignited. Nopony ignored that.
Bon-Bon raised her head. Looked at the paper, and couldn't even be bothered with a snort. She just glanced over her right shoulder, surveying the herd.
"Who put this up?"
A rather pretty, somewhat sweat-dampened pegasus mare timidly extended a wing.
"So he sent you?"
She nodded.
"To post a note saying he was sick and couldn't come in today." Exactly as Caramel did every time it was the day after a holiday.
Another nod.
"I'm surprised he had the strength," Bon-Bon sarcastically declared. "To write the note. I was sure that in his sickly condition, spending the entire night with you would have taken the last of it."
The wing curled in, mostly to make it easier for the pegasus to finish tucking her blushing face under it.
The married couple, who truly loved each other, exchanged a look. Dreams of divorce overran the settlement, burned down the Everfree, destroyed the very institution of marriage, and incidentally enforced several new laws among the scant surviving population, all of which were about proper behavior in candy shops.
The door opened. The mares went inside, with Lyra taking up her position behind the counter. Bon-Bon locked the door behind them, then went into the kitchen, to where her seldom-personally-used desk was kept in a sugar-dusted corner. She briefly looked at the ledgers which had been covered in Lyra's fieldwriting, then glanced away: there was never any need to review them.
There were also two framed family photos, because that was what you got on a desk. One showed Bon-Bon's clan, and the pegasus photographer had needed to pull a long way back and up before the entire crowded pasture was in frame. The other displayed two mares: one cream-hued, the other light green.
She looked at that for a few seconds: she always did. And then Bon-Bon retrieved the little key, unlocked the most hated of drawers.
The contents came out. They adhered to her jaw. They were enchanted to stick: a hard pressing would transfer them, but they would stay up all day after.
She didn't look at them before they emerged. She didn't have to. She knew what they said.
Bon-Bon walked into the main shop, went to the inner surface of the glass door and made the first pressing. Others were distributed against cases, while a few went on shelves. By the time she'd placed the fourth one, she could hear the crowd beginning to drool.
The confectioner stepped back from the cases, standing in the exact center of the sales area. Looked at her spouse.
"Ready?"
Lyra sadly nodded her lie. Her corona reached for a record, placed it on the gramophone and wound up the turntable. It was an uptempo piece: come in, shop fast, get out. It was actually a rather beautiful work, and Bon-Bon would have given much to never be in a situation where she had to hear it again.
"Okay."
Bon-Bon turned to the first sign. Sun's light streamed through the white portion, was blocked by the black letters. It was easy to read the backwards text. Several ponies had already gone over it from the forward side. A few dozen times.
"You're late!" one of them yelled. "It's five seconds past nine! And now it's later because it took time for me to say that! Now it's even later and you're still not --"
Lyra, who performed in public, recognized the value in working with her audience. Bon-Bon mostly understood customers to exist as a sort of reluctant necessity, because candy existed to be eaten and therefore there had to be a mouth involved somewhere, which was presumably attached. The parts which existed beyond jaw and stomach were mostly annoying.
She didn't recognize the stallion and since it usually took about fourteen visits before she acknowledged ponies as something other than a bits delivery system, that meant he wasn't a regular. And while every shop owner in town knew the rules about alienating ponies -- you could only risk a few -- Bon-Bon, who wasn't always good with ponies or math, privately figured that when measured against those who never kicked out any, she was just maintaining the local average.
Besides, those of the upcoming first wave were glaring at him. It meant he was a true newcomer, and that she had support.
"-- don't even bother coming in."
"...what?"
"I don't care how early you got here or how long you've been waiting. You're out. If you want something, Barnyard Bargains is open --"
Desperate now, "They don't have anything! I was already in there and --"
It was the day after a holiday, and she'd spent half a moon in not talking. Bon-Bon no longer cared. "-- now you don't have anything either."
The stallion fell silent. His tears simply fell.
Bon-Bon took a step back, and Sun streamed through glass and sign, with the blackened words blocking the rays. It meant their shadow fell across her fur. She was emblazoned with her own pain.
ALL HOLIDAY CANDY 50% OFF!
(Current stock only.)
She thought about keeping the doors locked. Then she thought about all the candy she'd made. The way the fake wool didn't keep. No matter what she did, her creations had a shelf life: three weeks before they went from melting on the tongue to breaking teeth.
(For the third year in a row, she had the daydream about starting a special batch one week earlier than usual, keeping it in the back until the day after, and then placing it at the absolute front of the shelves. The earthquakes came in a few seconds later.)
Bon-Bon snorted.
"Fine," she said, and unlocked the door. Stood proud and marginally tall as the herd rushed forward, because it was still everypony else's job to move and nothing would ever change that.
Lyra's field yanked her back just in time.
As with most assaults by enemy forces, the attack came in multiple well-defined stages.
The first wave was ponies who, from all indications, were under a mysterious curse: something which only permitted them to phase into reality on a few select days each year, and the terms of the magic further dictated that they could only appear in the vicinity of candy shops. Admittedly, it could take a while before Bon-Bon really started to spot the presence of a regular, but she was sure the bulk of the first wave never entered the shop unless it happened to be the day after a holiday, and so the curse was mostly on her because to all appearances, the enchanted ponies seemed to enjoy it. Her sign acted as the summoning beacon to those who never paid full price for anything, and there was no way to stop it.
The experienced tormentors came in, got their intended items, paid and got out. Those new to her horrible fate would often try to 'negotiate a better rate for bulk,' which was when she negotiated her own rate for bulk by kicking theirs out of her shop: the abandoned items would quickly be snatched up by others. She had no patience for stupidity on the day after a holiday. She had very little patience for it on any given day. She didn't have patience.
Eventually, she'd made it into the unicorn's dorm room and even then, the young mare didn't really talk to her. She played. She took out her instrument and let the music say how she felt. It had taken a long time to learn how to listen, just about as much to become a good audience, and the earth pony had waited because... somepony had to listen, especially when it was the only true means of communication the unicorn had. It took so long for real words to come, to come back, and she'd waited because the unicorn was worth it...
But that had been completely different. Motivation played a part. Any patience she'd learned, she had learned from and for Lyra. To wait. To listen. Customers weren't worth the effort: kick one out and there would be another along in a minute -- or on this day, a few seconds. And if she had to figure out how to be patient with --
-- they weren't talking about it.
"Your change, sir," Lyra softly said, and a field bubble floated bits and purchase to the earth pony stallion's waiting saddlebags. "Thank you. Next, please?"
But the next was already stepping forward. The first wave was always fairly organized, and could even be peaceful. Those who'd been under the curse for the most time understood how it worked: that fighting each other would simply lead to goods being destroyed, and then nopony would get much of anything. They didn't necessarily cooperate and there was always a race for whatever was seen as a given pony's ideal shelf -- but they would block anypony who didn't follow the unwritten rules. You set an order of arrival, you honored it, you didn't allow cutting, you kept it at fifteen ponies in the shop at all times, and you didn't raise much of a fuss.
She sometimes wondered what they did with the candy, especially for those who purchased gift boxes and asked to have them wrapped. There was also a certain question about what kind of excuses were offered by a pony who was one day late to every holiday, every year, along with whether they could give Caramel any creativity hints. But the boxes were moving, and it was more important to get some bits for them than have her creations go to waste. Uneaten candy was a sin, and the sale kept that taint off her record.
It was just... half off. To first-wave ponies who never came in at any other time.
"Next?" Lyra carefully inquired, and Bon-Bon's ears automatically rotated in that direction. Listening.
Inner rants about the sale were normal. Lyra was important.
The one-pony second wave took the usual amount of time: to wit, about twenty seconds.
The glass door opened. The world blurred and in doing so, blurred pink. The actual words, once slowed down in memory enough to approach comprehensible speech, went something like this.
"HI! Oh, I'm too late for the molded chocolate again, aren't I? I'm always too late! But it's my fault! I get stuck at the bakery and -- well, maybe next year, right? Let's see, I'll take this and this and this and I need to stock up on this for next week's welcomes -- there's still jellybeans left? But that's a lot of red ones! I think ponies are picking out the whites. And the greens. Because they taste really nice together. But I guess you'd know that, because you made them! And you married white and green. Is that why you made them taste so good? Oh, Lyra, HI! Anyway, here's my bits! I counted my budget before I came in, so there's no change. But if there is, you can keep it. See you in two weeks for the gift plates I ordered! BYE!"
The glass door closed, and then vibrated for a while. The ponies who hadn't been in the presence of Wave Two before took some time for themselves, which for a few meant seconds used for slumping against the cases in shock or, with the true newcomers, simply falling over. Lyra's field simply encased the bits and moved them to the till.
"...what was that?" somepony weakly called up from the non-comforting floor.
"Pinkie," a veteran said.
"Oh." A long pause. "...what's a 'Pinkie'?"
"You're new in town?"
"...yeah."
Not without sympathy, "You'll find out within the week. Are there any curly shavings left?"
The third wave was where the stupidity started to come in.
In some cases, the dumbness was compounded by herd instinct: there was a certain breed of pony who naturally assumed that if they saw no need to show up until later in the day, then nopony else would either: examples could be found at other sales, sporting events, theater showtimes and, in extreme cases, pregn --
-- well, the point was that some ponies expected the world to operate on their schedule. They were always surprised that they hadn't been the first to reach the shelves (even when they arrived five hours after opening), they were frequently offended that the shopkeeper hadn't put things aside for them, and the truly stupid ones vocalized all of it.
It was possible to deal with such ponies when they arrived one at a time. But where one pony came to the wrong conclusion, herd instinct guaranteed there would be fourteen more idiots right behind them.
"I came for the Cuddle Packs!" Even with the near-shout, it took an effort to hear him over the babble in the shop. Just about everypony was unhappy now, because idiocy had a way of raising expectations. Besides, there was something more important to listen for. "I was in here last week and you had them then!"
"I had them," Bon-Bon tersely explained. "When I opened. They're very popular." And like so many of her most popular items, the sales petered out on the holiday itself, just to make sure there would be something left to grab at the sale. (Despite the Flower Trio's best efforts at recruitment, Bon-Bon had never been much for conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theories were impossible explanations for things that might not even be happening. Her opposition group was well-organized and didn't even bother asking her to cater their meetings.) "If you wanted one, you should have been here when we opened. Or last week."
"Should I?" the very stupid bleached pegasus stallion said. "Should I really?"
Bon-Bon started to turn away from the non-customer. Part of it was making her intent to ignore him visible: the rest was because she favored hind kicks over fore.
"Well, you're still open," the stallion noted. "So make six for me. At half-price. I'll be back in an hour."
She paused in her turn, began to take slow, deep breaths. (It wasn't an attempt to summon patience, for she had very little. She just felt her muscles were going to need the extra oxygen.)
"Really?" It was suddenly very important to hear the stallion's next words, although somepony else would need to find out if they fit on a tombstone.
"It's your holiday sale," he said. "All holiday candy half-price. So make me holiday candy. At half-price."
"The sign," she pointed out as she lined up on his ribs, "says 'current stock only',"
He thought about that.
"You have your ingredients in the kitchen," he concluded. "So anything you can make with ingredients which are in stock is clearly also in stock. One hour. Or less. It's not as if candy is hard to make."
Bon-Bon smiled. It was the warm, contented smile of a mare who sent the police station a very large, totally-not-a-bribe free gift basket on every holiday.
"In that case --"
-- and her ears twisted.
"We don't have that," whispered the voice she could always hear. "We just don't --"
"You've got some in the back! Shops always save some for their own employees!" the unfamiliar earth pony stallion barked in an oddly-accented voice. "Or they steal it away for themselves! Go get it!"
"-- we..."
The word was barely distinguishable, and it wasn't due to the babble of the shop. It was because it hadn't been spoken. It had been hummed.
No...
"What did you say?"
Bon-Bon was the only pony who understood what the answering whistle signified, who had heard enough of the notes to hear the tiny "I..." which lurked in the harmonics.
She moved. The rest of the world began to get out of the way. Some of it crashed into shelves, which in turn used the opportunity to crash down. Her creations were being destroyed, and she didn't care.
"You're not even talking! What are you trying to --"
It is known as falling.
The unicorn was born into a family of businessponies, those whose flanks show ledgers and stacks of bits. They trained her to be just like them, and she mastered so many of those arts. But she was always curious about music, they indulged what they saw as a hobby, and when the mark came...
There was anger.
Then there was worse.
Then she ran.
Then the police found her.
The unicorn is divorced -- no, has been divorced: a court led by the Princess herself separated filly from family. She was free to attend the music school. But the only joy she has is in her music.
It happens to just about everypony after manifest, at least for a little while. Young ponies explore a fresh talent, learn the limits of new magic, and it feels good to use that talent. When something feels good, you do more of it until you're doing too much, and the adults sigh, remember their own mistakes, and wait for the time of flank-brain to pass. But the adults surrounding the unicorn are music teachers and when she performs for them, that's normal. She has no family, no friends, nopony to anchor her or pull her back. She never leaves the school. The only pleasure remaining in her life is the song. She plays more and more. She composes almost constantly. Words become the things you use to note lyrics, and she's rapidly moving towards pure instrumental pieces.
She falls into her mark. She is an addict to her own talent, for that is all she has left. And then a day comes when three strings break at once on a holiday where she didn't leave the school, because there was no home waiting for her. An empty supply cabinet, no teachers, and the music has stopped. Without music, the unicorn barely exists.
But it's a city which hosts a school for music. It means there must be shops somewhere. She forces herself to leave, but she knows nothing of the streets and can't make herself ask for help. An earth pony notices her floundering, tries to offer assistance...
In time, the earth pony will love her, and that love restores her. But she can only be a recovering addict. There is no escaping from that which still calls to her, because the mark is forever. She has to find a balance between the demands of her talent and the needs of life. So she composes, but she sells her work to others. She will not tour. She needs to stay near her anchor. To stay in the real, in a world where words mean as much as notes and 'I love you' should be spoken as often as it is sung.
There are ways in which she struggles every day. To keep the balance. To not retreat, to never fall again, and it makes her wonder if she can do certain things. If she's ready for them, even capable, and it's part of why they're not talking.
But this time, somepony is watching her. Guarding her. Waiting to pull her back.
Or, in this case, to charge down whatever's stressing her and turn it into a fine mist.
As earth ponies went, Bon-Bon wasn't all that large: in fact, Lyra was slightly taller and to the eye, just about as sturdy: both traits were mildly unusual for a unicorn. But size didn't change biology. Bon-Bon wasn't all that large, but she was still somewhat heavier than her appearance suggested. And she was an earth pony, the race where some extra strength was built into their very being -- and part of that little boost came from magic. Sometimes it was more than a little. And sometimes, if you were very unlucky, were relatively new in town, had seen #1 and #2 in Ponyville's unofficial physical power rankings (Big Mac and Snowflake, with occasional doubts as to who went where) without asking any questions regarding the most commonly-proposed #3, it was going to be Bon-Bon.
When it came to ponies who had recently upset the one she loved, Bon-Bon didn't think. She just moved.
"GET AWAY FROM MY SPOUSE!"
The single best word to describe the impact was 'rebound'. Bon-Bon lived by a philosophy which said everything else had to get out of the way, and so the stallion was essentially bounced. Unfortunately, the word which described the follow-up landing was 'crash', because he had to fall somewhere and while Bon-Bon had paid quite a bit for her display cases, the reinforcement spells had just been out of her price range at the time.
Some things broke. Others tumbled. A number of creations were ruined forever, but they were only going to be sold off at half-price anyway and so it wasn't much of a loss. And all of it made a lot of noise.
"You --" the stallion just barely got out and because he managed to vocalize it at the instant before Lyra's horn ignited, when it came to the candy shop, it became the last thing he would ever say.
The golden field surged, radiated out from Lyra in a hemisphere, streaked across startled ponies (some of whom had begun to scream and would never finish, with others galloping for the door) and furnishings like a shield spell which hadn't begun to harden: Bon-Bon felt the usual tingle as it crossed her fur, as if her limbs had all fallen asleep at once.
Words ended. A piece of metal which had recently been supporting a now-lost shelf ceased all vibration. The gramophone's turntable rotated, and that was all which was permitted to happen. Within the field, sound did not, could not exist. It was a rather effective way of ending most arguments (unless you knew some very offensive foreleg gestures), it had been the thing which stopped Lyra's parents from yelling at her once and for all, and if it was your first time within...
The stallion, already disoriented, failed to hear his own speech: Bon-Bon easily recognized that moment in his expression, along with the instant when the male realized he couldn't hear his own heartbeat. His breath. His mouth opened in a silent scream, and that was typically when they discovered that bone conduction wasn't working either.
Bon-Bon was used to the hush field, because Lyra never let an argument go on for very long. For those who were having their first experience with what they naturally assumed to be total, potentially permanent deafness, it was terrifying.
She casually walked up to the fallen stallion, stepping around the lost candies. Tilted her head slightly to the left, smiled, and raised her right forehoof before slashing it across her sternum in a very special way. Glanced at Lyra, who was still visibly (if inaudibly) upset.
There would be no way of telling if speech had returned until the field winked out, and that might not happen until the source of that upset was removed. It made the next hoofstep very obvious.
She almost remembered to open the door first, and so the sign adhered to his snout.
Miranda Rights looked oddly tired. She usually did when she was in the candy shop (the only other pony in the public part of the shop), and Bon-Bon usually reconciled that seeming exhaustion through sending the police chief some extra chocolate. There was a little natural caffeine in chocolate.
"You have no idea how lucky you are," the dark-furred unicorn finally said. "He just got off the train. He was looking for a snack. And I think I can get him back on the train without his pressing charges against you, because I pointed out that would mean having to stay here for a very long time. Near you. But if you keep this up..."
Bon-Bon held her ground, which was currently located just behind what was left of the main display case. Waited.
"Where's Lyra?" Miranda eventually asked.
"In the kitchen."
"And how is she?"
"Talking."
Miranda took a slow breath, released it at half-speed.
"Candy," she said. "You wound up with a mark for candy. How?"
"I stopped beating ponies up to take theirs," the reformed bully said. "I had to get a replacement source somewhere. So I tried making my own, and I liked it."
Dryly, "Any outstanding charges?"
"No." Having been caught once had settled most of it.
"Good. Let me go talk to Lyra, verify that he was verbally abusing her, and then I can try to put his tail back on the train. Pushing him with his own words helps." The dark-furred mare began to turn towards the kitchen. "You can't keep doing this."
"When ponies stop upsetting her, I'll stop." More quickly, "And she doesn't upset as easily now. She's getting better, Miranda: she's a little better every day. She wouldn't have been in the shop when I met her. She wasn't even working with ledgers, because it was too fresh. She's recovering --"
"Recovering," the police chief quietly said, now facing away from Bon-Bon. "But never recovered."
It was as if the hush field had returned.
"Clean up," Miranda finally told her. "Reopen, if there's any time left and I don't come back in an hour with hoofcuffs. And talk to your spouse."
It had been more than an hour. Most of the shop had been reassembled, excepting the things which had to be replaced. The gramophone was playing something slow and steadying. Music to take a breath by.
Lyra was silently sweeping up glass. (Fields were exceptionally good at sweeping: you formed a smooth edge, placed it against the floor, and pushed.) Bon-Bon was simply watching.
The silence went on for a while, and did so as an extension of the previous quiet. After all, they weren't talking. Not about the real issue, the thing they very carefully hadn't talked about every spring since the wedding.
"Did you see Lemon Drops come in?"
Lyra looked up.
"No. Did she ask for lemon drops?"
"Yes. Just like she does every day." Bon-Bon sighed. "Did you know there's a school horror story about lemon drops? The candy? That if you name a pony Lemon Drops and raise them just right, you can turn their entire body into the candy?"
Lyra thought about it for a moment.
"That's a school horror story?"
"Confectionery schools are a little weird." Bon-Bon sighed. "Maybe because most students are on sugar highs just about all the time --"
-- a hoof knocked on the door, very close to the fresh crack. Both mares looked towards the little noise, and then they both looked down.
The little teal pegasus shyly regarded them, took a steadying breath, and knocked again.
Bon-Bon glanced at Lyra, who was simply watching it all. Went to the door and unlocked it.
"Hi," the filly timidly said. "The hours say you're still open. But the lock said you're closed. Um... which is it?"
Bon-Bon looked at the clock first, and then checked what remained of the debris.
"Closed," she said. "We're -- cleaning."
"Oh," the filly tried. "Um... for how long?"
"I'm not sure. It could be until Sun's lowered."
The child's narrow ribcage seemed to collapse from within. Pink eyes dipped and dimmed.
"Oh. Because I don't get a lot of allowance, and Mommy wants me to buy my own candy because that's responsibility. So I thought I could buy some on sale. Responsibly. But if you're closed..."
She sighed. Her tail went between her legs.
"Sorry," the filly softly said. "To bother you, while you're cleaning. Sorry --"
"-- come in."
They'd said it together, and so each looked at the other in shock.
The filly glanced back.
"Come -- in," Bon-Bon tried. "It's... okay."
"We can find something for you," Lyra smiled. "There's always something good in a candy shop."
"Or I could make something," Bon-Bon decided and in doing so, gave herself what was very nearly the surprise of her life. "Since we're closed and not doing anything else."
The filly was now staring at them through the open door, as if regarding the gate into paradise while wondering if she was truly worthy of passing through.
"...really?"
"Really," they both said, and Bon-Bon followed up with "So. Any preferences? You look like a peppermint sort of filly to me..."
The cleanup was finished, which included the polishing of recently-used mixing bowls. Sun was steadily dropping, and Moon would be close behind.
"Want to do anything tonight?" Bon-Bon asked her love.
"Yes."
Lyra visibly relaxed as she stood on her hind legs next to the fence, propped her chin against her left forehoof: easy to do, with that knee braced. (Bon-Bon was considerably more horizontal.)
"They're beautiful," she softly said, so as not to wake them. "They're all so beautiful."
Bon-Bon looked through the wide gaps in the planks: a wall which mostly existed to define territory. At the little white fluffy sleeping balls of new life, tucked up next to their mothers. (Most of the ewes were accompanied by more than one curl: sheep tended towards multiple births.) Soft bleats filled the night, and gentle reassurance echoed up to Moon.
"Yeah," the confectioner quietly agreed. "They are. It was nice of Applejack, letting us come out at night."
"She's a good pony. And she trusted us to -- let them be."
The couple spent a silent minute in simply watching that new life breathe, for there were ways in which that was almost enough.
"I'm scared," Lyra quietly told her love. "I've been scared for a long time."
Fully alert, "Of what?" Bon-Bon was already planning to turn the source into a fine mist.
"Not being there," was the spoken (not sung) response. "Relapsing. Falling again and... having her grow up while she's taking care of a shell. I've even been afraid to keep tutoring Dinky in her magic..."
She's talking about --
-- the thing Bon-Bon had been so afraid of. That which scared them both.
'Her.' With the two of them, it would be a girl.
"I've got a temper," the earth pony said. "Still. Always. And I'm not good with ponies. I'm afraid of getting mad at her. Lashing out."
"You protect ponies," the composer decided. "Everypony you love. If you hurt anypony, it would be somepony who was hurting her. That's just --"
The unicorn stopped then, just for a moment, because they were speaking under Moon. Something very close to an oath, and if the final words emerged, there would be no going back.
But then she pressed on.
"-- being a parent."
Bon-Bon moved a little closer, rubbed her snout against the green hind legs. (She didn't try rearing up to meet her. Holding that position too long was a surefire #17.)
"You came back for me," the earth pony told her love. "You would be there for her."
They both looked at the lambs, and their souls warmed.
"So we're talking about this," Lyra softly noted. "What's the next step, Bon-Bon? What do we do?"
Bon-Bon looked up at her spouse. Back to the lambs again. And then the confectioner began to softly hum.
It didn't take long for the composer to recognize the lullaby.
They were camped out on their living room floor, with most of their bodies tucked under blankets. The covering had to be adjusted frequently: there was a lot of wriggling going on, and the giggles didn't help anything except their hearts.
"So the Most Special Spell only holds for one night per casting," Bon-Bon reminded Lyra. "And it's probably going to be multiple castings, because it doesn't guarantee a pregnancy, any more than a stallion and mare having sex once means there's going to be a foal. We may have to try a few times." She looked down at the official government application which would give them access to the spell. "Maybe more than a few."
"So you're saying we're going to be having a lot of sex," Lyra teased.
Bon-Bon grinned. "Pretty much," and her eyes moved to the next line, just before the lids squinted into a wince. "Um..."
"What's wrong?"
Slowly, "They want family medical history. From both of us, to make sure there's nothing lurking in the blood. Are you okay with --"
"-- it's for her," Lyra decided. "We'll get through it. The whole family?"
"Yeah." The confectioner's mind went back to the picture on the desk. "It's going to take a while. How about you?"
"It's easier," the composer admitted, and golden light took up the quill. "I can start right now."
The tip dipped into the inkwell, and words emerged onto paper.
Family: Bon-Bon.
The earth pony looked at her spouse. The unicorn giggled again.
They had an argument before they went to bed that night, because they were very different mares who mostly had each other in common, and so there were times when they argued. One believed that she should be the one to carry because as an earth pony, she was stronger and so both burden and birth should be easier. The other wanted to do it because she wanted to do it. And right around the time when the argument started to verge into something else, they both realized that they were about to fight for the right to go through labor, and so there was only one sane thing to do.
Technically, the post-sex cuddling outlasted the giggling, but only because Bon-Bon fell asleep while very comfortably wrapped up between all four of Lyra's oddly-bent legs.
(The position technically would have been #107, but mutual agreement meant that particular embrace never happened in public. After all, the only thing worse than pony jealousy was Bon-Bon's open smugness over having been that lucky.)
