I remember the day that I first met Bon Bon in eighth grade. I remember it really well, because Bon Bon and I have this thing where she asks if I remember that day and I tell her the same story about it that I told her a million times already on top of her having literally been there and she just closes her eyes and listens and smiles and it’s nice, you know?
She’d just transferred to our middle school, and was sitting alone in the cafeteria at lunch when I came up to her table and showed her this really weird bug I found. But she didn’t react like most other girls did. She didn’t even flinch. She just kept chewing her sandwich and looked at the weird bug with a slight, curious smile.
She started musing about how the hairs on its legs would make sense as a way to protect its eggs as it crawled around the short grasses that are so common around here, which I thought was so cool! I just liked weird bugs because they looked weird, and never thought those weird things could have a reason for being.
And that was so exciting for me! I actually wasn’t that great at having friends back then because all I’d do was talk excitedly about the things that interested me and now I realize that yeah, duh, of course I wasn’t going to have many friends if I kept acting that way! But that didn’t seem to matter to Bon Bon. Even if I wanted to just blather about a random HayTube video that she’d never seen, she’d always respond with that slight, curious smile, and just ask me more about it.
We became pretty inseparable pretty quickly! We took practically every class and elective together, and on top of that would hang out after school a lot, too! Usually at my place because it’s pretty chill there and my parents love her. I mean, not that Bon Bon’s place is weird or anything. I’ve met her foster parents, they’re nice! But Bon Bon always said it felt more like living with a teacher than living with parents, and I saw what she meant! I mean, I still don’t know what happened to her original parents. She never talked about them or even anything about her life before the eighth grade, ever. She always said it’s something she gets sad thinking about, so I never pried. I wouldn’t even know what to say anyway, since I’ve never experienced anything as sad as that.
And I kinda hate to say it, but there was something it took me a bit to realize. Whenever we’d hang out, it would always be doing what I wanted to do. Whenever we’d pick a movie to go to or a TV show to watch or what music to put on, Bon Bon would always just go along with what I chose. We were in every class and elective together because she would always just pick the same ones I picked, and it never seemed strange because no matter what it was that I was interested in, she always seemed to match my excitement for it. No wonder I loved hanging out with her so much when I was thirteen. She was the kind of best friend I could only dream of!
It took me a couple years of growing up to realize that I had no idea what something that’s “Bon Bon” and not “Lyra” would even be, and how weird that was for someone I spent almost all my time with.
I have a theory about people. It’s that we all have a finite amount of mental energy, so if we have some obsession that we’re really focusing on, we’re not going to fully be there for the other parts of our lives. Rainbow Dash has her sports, Flash Sentry has his music, and I have my own thing, too. That’s why I’m so forgetful about stuff around school. It’s actually Bon Bon that has to remind me all the time about tests and assignments and stuff.
But it’s not like school stuff is that thing for Bon Bon. She’s a B student in all her classes, even though she’s super smart, and when she gets her papers back I always see her nodding along with that little smile at each of the red marks, like she expected them to be there. Again, she’s like, super smart, and I literally spend half of every day with her, and I have no idea what it is that drives her, but there has to be some special thing, right?
I know there has to be a special thing, because I have one, and that’s noticing that something’s really strange about Canterlot High. I don’t even remember what it was that got me to start being suspicious, but it’s something I’ve been keeping track of ever since sophomore year. And once I was suspicious, there were just a lot of strange little things to find out about all over the place.
Like how Ms. Cheerilee should really be called Dr. Cheerilee, because she started her career getting a Ph.D. in Mathematics from one of the top universities in the world. But she’s never mentioned that even once. When I brought this up to my dad, all he said was that he was glad one of my teachers was not only so brilliant, but humble, too.
And that wouldn’t be too weird by itself, but a lot of our teachers are like that, working for fancy universities and research labs until all of a sudden they decided to stop publishing and start teaching high school instead. And it’s not just the teachers. Dr. Dreams was the youngest-ever winner of the Harmony Award in Psychology, which I guess is a super big deal to those guys? But now he’s just the school psychologist for Canterlot High. All of these people somehow all ended up in this same school, and all within the last five years, starting when Principal Celestia took over.
For most of them, it’s even the first school they’ve ever taught at! And the ones who had taught at previous schools? All of them were schools where there had been some freak accident or tragedy during their time there. A gas main explosion or a sinkhole collapse that killed dozens of students. It makes a lot of sense for a teacher to want to transfer schools after something like that, but how did so many of them end up here?
And there were other little things. Like how the vending machines at school seemed a little bigger than the ones you see in other places, and how the company that changes them didn’t seem to actually exist in anything I could find. Or how once in a while, the statue in the courtyard in front of the school would seem to glow.
Or how once, when I was getting something for the Music Club in the school basement, I could swear that I heard voices coming out from one of the vents. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, so I kneeled down next to the vent to get closer, and then all of a sudden one of the voices sounded panicked for a second before suddenly stopping.
So, yeah, it was always little things like that which never really added up to anything. And of course, I wasn’t crazy. I knew that not everything I noticed was a sign of something going on at Canterlot High. Some of them were bound to be the kind of weird little quirk that every ordinary high school had, like how we have six Fall Formals a year even though Fall only happens once so that totally makes no sense at all.
Except I guess it turned out that the Fall Formal thing was important, because at one of those Fall Formals, I saw Sunset Shimmer turn into a magical demon in the middle of the courtyard, rip away the front wall of the school, mind-control the students at the dance, then get hit by a rainbow energy beam that left a smoking crater on the ground.
And yeah, I freaked out a lot about all that happening, so much so that a lot of my memories around it are kind of a blur. But what freaked me out even worse was what happened after. It was how everyone at school talked about it.
I wasn’t actually at the Fall Formal when all that happened. Bon Bon and I were in the library, taking a break from the crowd, so I saw it all through a second-story window, and had to find out the details from just hanging out with other students when they talked about it. That’s how I learned that Sunset Shimmer mind-controlled them with magic and ranted about using them as an army to conquer another world, and how that weird new kid was actually a magical princess from that world who was determined to stop her, and how the portal to said world was the statue right in the middle of the school courtyard the whole entire time. And everyone just laughed about how they always knew Sunset was a bully and how they were glad she got what was coming to her. Then the conversation moved on to how hard the upcoming math test was going to be and if Taco Tuesday was going to happen at the cafeteria next week.
Now that freaked me out. That nobody else was freaking out about it. And it was like that for all of the other crazy magic stuff that kept happening at Canterlot High. Those new kids that almost won the Battle of the Bands turned out to be weird magical dragon creature things that mind-controlled the school, and all anyone could talk about was how the song the Rainbooms put on just proved that Sunset Shimmer was a good person after all. The human version of that Twilight Sparkle girl (isn’t it crazy even just saying that?) turned twelve feet tall and started opening portals all over the school courtyard during the Friendship Games, and all anyone seemed to feel was excitement about not losing to Crystal Prep. Everyone saw the owner of Camp Everfree fight Sunset and her friends using literal magic superpowers, and the only thing that seemed to matter right after was how to hold a gala to raise a few bucks to save it as a summer camp.
And that’s how it all clicked for me. All the weird little things I noticed about Canterlot High started to add up. It isn’t a normal school. It’s a secret government facility meant to keep track of all this weird magic stuff that they knew was going to happen here because of the portal. And the whole school must be under some secret government mind ray or experimental social conditioning or something, because what else would explain how nobody else ever freaks out about it?
And whatever’s behind this coverup has to extend way beyond the school, too, because it’s not like Sunset or any of them are trying to hide their magic powers. Just the opposite! There’s even a video on HayTube of the Rainbooms performing at Equestria Land that got a bunch of views because Vignette Valencia was there, but none of the comments ever talk about how the girls turned into those half-horse things and flew around while performing.
Well, there was one comment that did, screaming in all caps how weird it was that nobody else was talking about the magical transformation and flying thing happening right in the focus of the video. Even if it was all special effects, you’d at least expect people talking about being impressed with how real it seemed, instead of literally nothing at all. But when I refreshed the page, it disappeared.
That comment didn’t come from me, I could tell you that. I knew better than to stand out. Whenever the other students mentioned something like Sunset and her friends using their magic beams to defeat a toaster robot that came to life, I always did my best to match how casually they brought it up, like they were talking about them coming together to help clean up a spill in the gym. And I always hated those conversations because I always had to try so hard to not let it show how freaked out I am. I’d never talk about anything related to any of this magic stuff at all ever if it weren’t for other people bringing it up first.
And I definitely didn’t talk about any of my theories with anyone. Not even with Bon Bon, who I talked about literally everything else with. Something in my gut told me that I should especially not be talking to her about this, and at first I thought that maybe I was afraid she’d be freaked out and think I was a weirdo. Or maybe I was afraid I’d tell her everything I figured out, and she’d nod her head along and then continue on like nothing about any of this was weird at all.
But no, in the end I figured it out. If something this big was going on, I really didn’t want to get her mixed up with all this.
And I really liked hanging out with her, just the two of us. I mean, duh! We’d been best friends for so many years, so of course it was nice and comfortable. But it took me a while to realize that wasn’t just it.
Bon Bon also never brought up any of the magic stuff. Ever. Even though we were right there for so much of it and we talked about stuff we’d both been through all the time. But when we talked about the Friendship Games, it was about how we spent the whole spelling bee whispering the right spellings to each other before watching Sunset’s friends get them wrong. Never about how the Friendship Games ended. When we talked about Camp Everfree, it was about how excited we were about being in Rarity’s fashion show and how disappointing it was that it never happened. Never about why the fashion show got canceled.
And once I started to notice that a little bit, I couldn’t help but notice it all the time. And sometimes I was tempted to just start mentioning the magic stuff casually like all the other students did, just to see how she would react. But I never did, because she never did, and it felt like this unspoken thing between us.
And things started adding up.
The entire time we’ve been best friends, Bon Bon always followed what I wanted to do, and I’d started feeling more than a little guilty about that. So whenever she had an idea to do something, I just listened, and happily went along.
It was her idea to go up to the library on the night of the Fall Formal, where we watched Sunset Shimmer transform into a demon from a second story window..
It was her idea to sign up for the Battle of the Bands, where we spent most of our time backstage while the Rainbooms and the Sirens prepared.
It was her idea to get onto the Canterlot High team for the Friendship Games, where we’d be the closest to Sunset’s friends at all the events where they used magic.
It was her idea to go to Camp Everfree the one year most of our classmates skipped out on it, the one year the camp owner turned into a twelve foot tall magical supervillain thing.
It was her idea to go to the mall on the one day the movie concession girl did the exact same thing.
And after I started making those connections, I started remembering other things, too.
Once, I showed Bon Bon a HayTube video of Dr. Dreams I found, the one about his Harmony Award lecture about childhood memory formation after traumatic events. I said that I thought that it might be interesting for her to know, since she had a session with him every week. I’d never been able to find that video again, after it got taken down for “copyright violations”.
And the day I swore I heard those voices in the school basement, Bon Bon was upstairs waiting for me. She made a little joke wondering about why it took me so long, even though I only stopped to listen at the vent for like ten seconds. I just said I thought I heard voices down there but it was nothing. She was the only person I ever mentioned it to. And then the next day we started having to sign out a key to the basement with a teacher every time instead of being able to sign it out ourselves.
And the night of that Fall Formal, the one that’s such a blur because I was panicking so much, I didn’t remember much about what was happening in the library since I was so focused on what was happening outside of it in the courtyard. The only thing I do remember is this clear vision of Bon Bon not panicking at all in the slightest, and instead just looking down at the demon Sunset through the window, her eyes determined and focused. Like she was tracking her.
I’d seen that look before. I’d seen it at the Battle of the Bands, at the Friendship Games, at Camp Everfree, at the Canterlot Mall. In glimpses and flashes while me and everyone else around were panicking.
And I realized that only one thing made sense.
I’d been laying low, pretending that all this magic stuff wasn’t a big deal at all just like everyone else, and not saying a word about any of my ideas to anyone, all to avoid the attention of anyone that was part of whatever was going on behind the scenes in Canterlot High, and Bon Bon was one of them this whole entire time.
I should’ve felt betrayed, or scared, or something very bad, because all that should have made me freak out even more than the day that magic and beings visiting our world from another dimension both turned out to be real. At the very least, hanging out with Bon Bon should’ve felt bad, because how could things between us ever be the same again?
But it didn’t feel bad.
I mean, there is something different between us now, but not in a bad way. I don’t know how to say it.
But sometimes when we hang out, I’d find myself just looking at her without saying anything, wondering if she knew what I knew about her. Sometimes when that was happening, she’d look back at me and we’d lock eyes, neither of us saying anything, her face still except for that slight, curious smile. And I’d wonder if she was wondering the same thing about me.
And for those few seconds while she’s staring into my eyes, she’d bite her lip, as if stopping herself from saying what she was really thinking. I’m pretty sure that’s what it is, because that’s what I’m doing in those moments, too.
And she’s been asking me to tell her stories like the one about the day we first met more than usual. And there’s something different about the way she asks it, too. With a wistful sweetness that I don’t remember being there before. And when she closes her eyes and smiles as she listens, my stomach knots in a good way, and my heart races, and I can’t stop grinning for some reason.
And the last time we hugged, it felt different. I don’t know. We’d hugged a million times before, but that time we just held each other tight, neither of us saying anything. It felt like if I ever let her go, I would never get to feel her skin on mine ever again, and for some reason in that moment that was all I ever wanted and nothing else.
All I can think about now is how hard it must be for her. I’ve spent more time with her than anyone else could possibly have, and she’s had to keep whatever she knows secret from me for all these years. And I can feel her straining at that at the edges of these moments. And last night, something broke.
She was sleeping over at my place, like she does all the time. I had my eyes closed, but I wasn’t quite asleep just yet. And I don’t know how I knew, but I could feel that Bon Bon was awake, and had her eyes open, and was looking at me with that slight smile.
And she whispered, “I will always protect you, Lyra.”
And I felt just so safe then, like a warm blanket wrapping around my very soul. And that’s when I knew.
That’s when I knew that I couldn’t let her live another day like this, carrying this burden by herself. That I had to tell her what I know, and that whatever was going on at Canterlot High with all this magic stuff, it didn’t matter. I’d be on their side, and I’d want to help them do whatever they were doing as much as I could, even if it’s nothing more than just keeping on keeping quiet about everything.
Because I know Bon Bon. Whatever side she is on, I know they’re the good guys. They just have to be.
It took us a week to gather up all the fragments of the Memory Stone from that parking lot. And who knows how many millions of dollars to get the device built. It has a power draw measured in gigawatts, and the noise from the magnets whirling around my head feels as loud as a jet engine. All to mimic a fraction of what a single teenage girl could do with this thing through pure instinct.
But it was all worth it to build, because it’s so much cleaner than the previous methods we’ve used on Lyra. The shards of the memories that remained from them were what let her figure things out again this time, and since I can see them directly now, I can make sure we get all the ones we know about.
There’s only one left.
Her eyes were closed, so I can’t see anything in the memory of that sleepover. But it’s just like she had told me. I can feel the feeling that I was looking at her.
Then I hear my own voice whisper those words, the ones I still remember saying to her that night.
And in this moment, I know what would happen next.
I would form a thumbs-up with my hand, and the darkness would light up with a flash of green before dissolving away into nothingness.
I would open my eyes, but Lyra would not, still deep asleep as the technician removed the halo of magnets from her head.
She would wake up later in my room, still groggy in her suggestible state, as I filled her in on the very ordinary day she’s had so far, letting her own mind do the rest of the work in smoothing out the gaps.
I would tease her about all the time she’d been spending watching those silly videos on HayTube, and how it’s been affecting how much sleep she’d been getting, and how silly it was that she’d ever believe in that stuff.
Later that day, she would open her HayTube account, and see the watch history of conspiracy theory videos we retrojected into her account, choking up her algorithmic feed.
A few days later, or even sooner, she would excitedly bring up one of the ones she had just watched, and insist that she didn’t really believe in them and that they were just so ridiculous that they’re fun and that she was telling me all about them anyway.
I would smile that curiously interested little smile, close my eyes, and listen, satisfied that I’d done exactly what I’d said in the words I’m hearing now. That I protected her. From getting mixed up in all this.
But I haven’t done any of that yet. I haven’t raised my thumb, and as long as I haven’t done that, Lyra still remembers this moment. As long as she remembers this moment, it’s real and alive and precious and unburdened. A moment of a single, wordless feeling. The feeling that I am feeling now.
The feeling of being safe. A warm blanket wrapping up my very soul.
I wish that it could last forever.
