Toffee

by Regidar

Rating: everyone
Tags: Caramel, Slice of Life, Sad, Lyra, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Bon-Bon, Pinkie Pie
Length: 1625

Pinkie Pie visits a friend in need.

Pinkie Pie loves her friends.

She's very good at showing this, too.

Even if it seems like there's nothing anypony can do—least of all her—she'll be there for you.

In memory of CoffeeBean.

Originally written for the April 2020 Quills and Sofas Speedwriting Candy Contest.

Preread by darf and r5h.

Published 2020-10-26 18:00:02 UTC
Last updated 2020-10-26 18:00:02 UTC

Garden

My name is Pinkie Pie, and I love my friends.

I’ve got a lot of friends too; some ponies ask me how I make time for them all, and the answer is really simple. I actually can’t remember it right now but when it comes back up I’ll be sure to mention it.

Friends are a bit like plants. Fluttershy got me into that one, and it’s become one of my favorite ways of looking at my friends. One giant garden of everypony you know and love! Some friends are like ferns, where you gotta water ‘em constantly and look after them. Some friends are like snapdragons, where you need real extra care at the beginning but they’ll stick with you through anything once you get them rooted. And some friends are like moss, where they show up whenever it rains and they’re always there for you growing on a rock. Only one of my friends is very specifically moss, but she’s still my friend so she counts.

Bonnie is like a cactus. You don’t really need to water or pay attention to her very often, unless something really bad has happened—but you’re always glad she’s there. Even if she isn’t a high-maintenance friend, she’s important to check in on, and a wonderful part of the garden.

I opened the door to Bonnie's Sweetshop. “‘Heya, Bonnie!” I called out, stretching and squeezing my voice into an off-key melody.

Something really bad had happened.

Bonnie wasn’t there at the counter. Caramel was, though! I like Caramel. He’s been a real good friend of mine for a while, and he’s super sweet. Really lives up to his name. He looked up from the mug in front of him beside the cash register. “Oh, hey Pinkie! Bon Bon’s in the back doing some inventory. She said she was expecting you, though, I’m sure she’ll be right out now that she’s heard me say your name.”

With a couple of thuds, thumps, and even a skrtch, Bonnie scuttled her way out from the backroom. “Heya, Pinkie! Very glad you could make it.”

“I am too!” I sproinged over to the counter to come muzzle to muzzle to muzzle with my two candymaker chums. “How are you doing, Bonnie?”

I guess my tone wasn’t as bubbly as I coulda made it. Bonnie raised her hoof and nodded slightly towards Caramel, who pretended not to see what she did. I got the message.

I made my smile extra wide, and I barely even had to force any of it. My belly still felt really weird, like a ghost of a stomachache was haunting it. “I got you both presents!”

Caramel smiled, and I got that nice little flutter in my stomach I get whenever any of my friends smile. “Oh yeah? That was super sweet of you, Pinkie!”

I chuckled knowingly. Not sure if he meant to do it, but “sweet” is a nice little pun there.

“First up, the mare who got me here to begin with,” I said, glee saturating my voice like sweet syrup. “Bonnie!”

I flicked my hoof into my mane and knocked out a small little wrapped candy. Bonnie took the wrapper off with her teeth and curled the candy into her mouth with her tongue.

“It’s a toffee,” I said with a giggle. “A coffee toffee.”

She smirked at me with her best nature. “I’m just glad you didn’t go with a bon bon.”

“Why?” I asked earnestly.

She gave me a wide, distant look. I turned to Caramel and I placed a small wrapped candy on the counter before him. “And here’s yours!”

Caramel nudged the wrapper with his hoof and removed the small amber square inside. “It’s a caramel.”

“Hehe! Get it?” I winked at him and bounced slightly in place. Caramel and Bonnie swapped shared glances, although I really couldn’t tell what those glances were. Two tablespoons of restrained laughter, small pinch of exasperation, half a cup of confusion? It was a tricky recipe for sure.

Caramel had left for the backroom. Important inventory stuff to do, and all. It was just Bonnie and me at the counter now.

“Pinkie, how do you have time for all your friends?” Bonnie asked.

Ponyfeathers. Some ponies really do ask that question.

“Whaddaya mean?” I asked, even though I definitely knew what she meant.

“I think you know what I mean.”

Drat. I did. Fortunately for me, something was beginning to crawl out of the soup of my mind like that one snail I saw crawl out of Zecora’s cauldron while she was making some hair potion thing for Rarity. Really should have asked her about that at the time. Seems sort of weird and awkward to do it now.

“My whole life is my friends,” I said. “It’s not hard to want to spend as much time with them as possible! Even though there’s a lot of them, when it’s as important as it is to you as it is to me...” I trailed off, the thought floating away from me again like clouds in the sky.

Bonnie nodded. “Do you think that maybe spending less time with ponies would be better? I’m not asking you specifically to do that, I suppose I was just... wondering. Sort of just, in general.”

Now that I couldn’t exactly wrap my head around, even if I had Discord make it all stretchy like silly-putty. “Huh? Sorry Bonnie, but I really don’t get what you mean by that one.” I tried my best to sound apologetic. I’m usually pretty good at it! But this time for some reason my voice sounded all weird and crack-y and raspy and raw.

“Conceptually, I guess. Would it maybe be a better idea in the long run to have never known anypony too well? Sure, to be friendly, to be kind, to be polite, to be helpful—to be useful—to be loyal, to be a good pony—” She rolled her hoof over itself. “—to get along with everypony and live in harmony but not getting too close, never too attached, never too ingrained and involved in the fanfare and melodramas of their lives—so that you make sure that you can never be hurt when they’re no longer there, the same way one wouldn’t miss a specific tree or bush or—”

“Cactus,” I mumbled.

Bonnie looked at me funny. Not ‘haha!’ funny, though. “Or a cactus, sure.”

“I’d miss a cactus,” I blurted out. The way she had said “useful” had made my stomach feel really weird, all tangled and blank. I really did wanna lean forward and give her a hug, but her body language—the skew of her hooves, the cock of her head and the way it bobbed like it was just a little too heavy for her to lift all the way right now, the complete stillness of her tail without even a restless twitch—made me think twice, and also glad that I knew her well enough to notice these things.

“If I may ask you one last thing, Pinkie, and then I would like to return to work.”

“Of course, Bonnie.”

Bonnie closed her eyes, and she inhaled deep. “Pinkie Pie, do you believe in reincarnation?”

I really didn’t know what to say to that. Of course I knew what it was, I don’t ever not think about those kinds of things—especially with all the time I’ve spent with Fluttershy lately—but as I did right then, I slowed down from the speeding gallop in my head to a wandering, dazed trot.

“Heh, am I the right pony to ask about this?” I immediately felt the tangled mess in my stomach sink. This was a really gross thing to do, but I didn’t want to make Bonnie any sadder.

“You’re not gonna make me any sadder,” Bonnie said, and my heart leapt against my ribcage. “It’d make me feel a lot better, actually, to hear whatever you have to say about it.”

I was very, very quiet. I didn’t have anything to say about it. It was kinda scary, really. Ponies have all these different ideas about where they go when the party’s over and I’m sort of the kind of pony who really likes to focus on the party while it’s still going. Still, I had to say something, anything, and if Bonnie was right and anything I said would help, I might as well just say something, right?

“There are other parties,” I said slowly. My mind was a mess, one of Pumpkin and Pound’s collaborative hoofpaintings, all smears and smudges of colors. “I don’t know if she’s gonna come back to this one, but this party’s not over yet for you.”

“What’s a party without your friends though, right?”

I was really quiet again. “Right.”

I lifted a hoof again. “Can I...”

Bonnie didn’t do anything for a moment, before she finally nodded, and extended her own. I felt mine touch hers; it was a lot colder than I wanted it to be.

I pulled Bonnie into a deep hug, holding her as tight as I could. She made a face at first, like a lot of ponies do, but she returned the hug anyway.

Holding her tight as I could, I asked something very obvious but very important.

“You miss her, don’t you?”

She looked me right in the eyes. “Every day, Pinkie Pie. Every damned day of my life, forever—until I die too.”

I hugged her with every single ounce of my energy. Words aren’t enough for some things.

Bonnie closed her eyes and sighed, and it was long and low but it wasn’t lonely—I don’t know how I was able to tell that right then but I could and I was right.