It all started with a letter.
I was in between sliding trays of cinnamon sweets in and out of the ovens when I paused for a breath and decided to read through the pile of letters that the mailpony had brought in. One envelope in particular stood out from the rest. I could immediately tell from the sender and the style of postage that it wasn't something business related. Normally, I would have glanced past the item, or at least stacked it onto the ever-growing pile of materials that fanatical patrons send me on a regular basis. After all, having the most highly-rated confectionery in Ponvyille does contribute extensively to one's inbox.
What I discovered inside was a simple request. The pony who had sent the letter was a musician of sorts: a lyricist. She had already written a folk ballad about the life and times of Ponyville, but somewhere in the chorus she had let slip the name of my candy establishment. Evidently from a stab of conscience, the mare had postponed the distribution of her song for the sole sake of contacting me and asking if she could be allowed to mention my store in the lyrics, as she had apparently frequented my business and was an avid fan.
I was surprised, mostly at myself for giving the request a second thought. I was always appreciative of ponies who asked for permission before referring to my establishment's name in business ventures, but rarely had such a request been made so formally, and in relation to a song of all things. So, on a whim, I replied to her with an affirmation and mailed the response the next day.
Little did I know that twenty-four weeks and two days later, I would be sitting with the mare on this bench, watching the citizens of Ponyville trot by, having my ears filled to the brim with her jokes, anecdotes, and occasional gasps of whimsical joy. I still don't know whether or not I'd call this friendship, but it's certainly noisy enough.
"The first thing I'm gonna do in Griffonvale is sample the food!" Lyra chirps into the wintry air, her mouth full of grinning teeth as she rocks back and forth on the bench beside me. "I’ll be sitting in a chair, feeling the salty ocean breeze in my mane, and forking through some of their best dishes! Mmmm! I can smell it now! Berry Seed Stroganoff! Avianoli with Mountain Butter! Heehee! I don't care what most Equestrian critics say about griffon vegetarian foods, I'm going to be in for a treat!"
"Don't forget that you're going there for an internship," I drone, my eyes locked on the frost clinging to the blades of grass beneath us. "You don't want to get yourself a case of Maretezuma's revenge while you're brushing up on your International Music Studies."
"I know, I know!" Lyra leans back, resting her neck against a pair of crossed hooves in her usual, bizarre fashion. "Every applicant in the Canterlot Orchestra has to do this two year course, but it's not like it's gonna be nothing but dust and music sheets!" She grins at me with a wink. "I, for one, am looking forward to a change in scenery!"
"Okai..."
"Pfft! Don't 'okai,' me!" She rocks her dangling legs back and forth beneath her. "I get to see the Razor Beaked Highlands in spring—right when the Northern Blossoms are in bloom! And then there're the ruins of the Great Talon Empire! Oooh! And don't get me started on all the local scenery and music, such as feather folk violin and stratospheric opera and—!"
"Yes... Yes." I groan. "I get it, already. You've been going on and on about your trip to Griffonvale for the past year."
"Hah! We've only known each other for half a year, ya silly filly!"
"And will you stop sitting like that?" I mutter, rolling my eyes. "You're making everypony stare..."
"Heeheehee!" She giggles and only leans back all the more, dangling her head until her horn is pointed over the edge of the bench. "Admit it! You're gonna miss it once I'm gone, Bon Bon!"
I look into the sunlit vistas of Ponyville and say nothing. What can I say? In less than twelve hours, Lyra will be gone, packed up and seated in a train, being carted away on her cross-country trip to prepare for her respectable career in the Upper Canterlotlian Symphony Orchestra. This should mean very little to me, to my business, to my day to day life of solitude and contentment.
Perhaps if it was months ago, it would have been easier for me to say something. Months ago, when I was the same mare with the same life but with a few less bars of music to give it a soundtrack.
How had I let it come to this, whatever "this" is? I didn't ask for anything special in my life. If I was guilty of anything, it was of not being abrasive enough when she first smiled my way and launched a conversation from her mouth. I've never felt bad about my antisocialness before. In the years that have limped by in my life, I have successfully detached myself from my parents, my sister, and any ponies who ever pretended that I was friendship material. So, what did I do wrong?
"I just wanted to let you know, I performed the song at Sugarcube Corner last night, and it was a huge hit!" she had said twenty-four weeks prior to now, her amber eyes beaming as she bounced in the middle of my store. "Omigosh! You should have been there! Everypony loved it! They even cheered when this place's name was sung in the lyrics."
"Uhhh-huhhh," I managed breathily before placing a sheet of peppermint drops down on the counter. I spat out the oven grip and squinted at her. "And you are...?"
"Lyra." She smiled and said, "Lyra Heartstrings."
"No need to say your name twice," I droned. "I heard it the first time."
"I just came by to thank you in person for the opportunity you've given me, Miss Bon Bon!" she exclaimed with a noticeable blush to her mint-green cheeks. "If I had slapped any other thing into that part of the song, it wouldn’t have had its... I dunno... its 'oomph!'"
"Uh huh. If you say so." I began wrapping the drops one by one, my eyes glued to my work. It's always so very easy just to stay focused on my work. "So, you know my name...?"
"Pfft! Like who doesn't know your name?"
"Don't spit on the table, please..."
"Sorry, it's just that this place is so fantastic!" she exclaimed, trotting in a dancing fashion across the front atrium, her eyes taking in all of the delectable treats on display. "Everypony young and old loves to come here! 'Bon Bon's Sweet'ems!' Known throughout all Equestria!"
I sighed long and hard. "It's a horrible name..."
"I think it's great!"
"And I'm not exactly known Equestria-wide..."
She snickered, planting a hoof over her cracking muzzle. "Yeesh! Why are you so down on yourself?"
I raised an eyebrow in her direction. "I'm not being down on myself. I'm being—"
"What, facetious?"
I glared. "Realistic."
"Heh, that's what I like about you! You’re realistic! You have a grasp on the world and just where to slip in candy so that it sweetens up right!"
"Uhhh..." I bore an awkward expression. "Lady, you hardly even know me."
"It's ‘Heartstrings,’ remember?" She winked. "Or maybe I should have repeated it for you?" And then she laughed again.
"Well..." I took a deep breath and moved on to the next tray of sweets. "You're certainly rather... chipper."
"I can't help it!" she squeaked, teary-eyed from her social hysterics. "I'm in the most fantastic candy store in the country. There are mares and stallions in the streets of Ponyville, singing my song—"
I snapped her a curious glance. "They're already singing it?"
"Yeah! That surprises you?" Lyra beamed. "It was your place that inspired the ballad, after all. I like to think that the same energy and joy that this place brings is being passed on through the music. That's why I came here to thank you!"
"Something tells me you don't need much help in giving thanks..."
"Life is too fragile to fill it up with frowns, don't you think?"
"Heh... heheheh..."
"See!" She pointed. "You agree with me!"
My eyes crossed. I blinked and glanced at her, deadpan. "What makes you say that?"
She merely clutched herself, laughing.
My nostrils flared with a heavy sigh. "I'm beginning to understand why you habitually stop by to buy snacks."
"Actually, I'm rather famished. I haven't eaten in two days."
"You're pulling my leg." I looked at her, at her pronounced fetlocks and mint-green ribcage. I blinked. "You're not pulling my leg..."
"I save feasts for special occasions. Today could be a special day, but it depends." She toyed with her hooves together and pretended not to look at me. "You have any dinner plans?"
I had work to do; I should have said 'no.' I should have just ditched the maniacal equine right there. After all, the more reasons I gave her to stick around my store, there was no telling how many customers she might have frightened away with her joyfulness being played in stereo twenty-four-seven.
All of my life, being alone has been the easiest accomplishment I've set my heart to, if one can call it much of one: a heart, that is. I have blood pumping through my arteries and veins, but a heart? If Lyra feels that my baking fills the spirits of Ponyvilleans as much as their stomachs, that's her choice to believe in such. Everything she's ever done in life has been up to her, just as everything I've ever accomplished has been molded by the choices I've made, and not by some sort of predominating spirit.
"We are all chemicals, after all," I said. It was three weeks after I had first opened her letter. We had gotten into the habit of eating outside the local salad shop every Tuesday and Friday. Lyra decided the schedule on a flip of a bit; I wasn't one to argue with happenstance. "There's no spirit to it," I said between bites of green lettuce and celery in the afternoon glow of warm summer. "We are born out of matter that just doesn't have the good sense to become inert on its own, so the chemicals burn themselves out through us. Even magic, as much as it's fused to the leylines of your own horn, follows an established set of universal guidelines that end in only entropy and decay."
Sure, it wasn't exactly casual dinner conversation. However, our "acquaintance" was still fairly fresh. A part of me wanted to scare her away. It's a tactic that worked several times before with ponies silly enough to think I was a warm and relatable mare.
Lyra, on the other hoof...
"Wow, that's really, really fascinating." She leaned forward, her eyes as bright as the lemon peels lying discarded on her plate. "So you truly believe that when we're all dead, we become nothing? POOF—gone?"
I shrugged. "What else is there to believe in?"
"Well—heehee—plenty! But I've never had a friend who thought the way you do before."
I groaned into my salad. "Lyra, how many times do I have to tell you—?"
"We're not 'friends?'" She winked at me before slurping from her cup of hay soda and adding, "Well, I know for a fact that's not true."
"Do you, now?"
"You've stopped calling me 'Miss Heartstrings!"
I paused before hoofing a fork of lettuce into my mouth. I sighed, took a bite, and swallowed. "It's only a means of simplifying things."
"Heehee... If I can say anything about you, Bon Bon, it's that you love to simplify!" She crossed her forelimbs and leaned against the table. "So, what about Princess Celestia and Luna? They're practically goddesses! What part do they play in this GRIM and DARK universe we apparently live in?" Her grinning teeth glinted in the sunlight.
"If there was some sort of afterlife in store for us, or if there was some means of extending the lives of mortal ponies under their rule, then I'm quite sure either one of them would have done something about it by now."
"So you think they're just sitting back and letting the universe run its way into the ground?"
"Pretty much. I'd do the same."
"It's incredible," Lyra murmured.
"Why should it be?"
"No, I mean..." She exhaled with a soft smile and gazed at me while leaning her cheek against her hoof. "That somepony who has brought such joy and meaning and contentment to so many villagers' lives would think so little of the gesture."
"That's because the gesture is artificial," I said. "That 'joy' and 'contentment' you speak of is just a sugar rush that my products bring to those who consume it. I don't see what the big deal is."
"I think you're hiding something," she uttered with a squinting stare. "I've never heard of a candy-maker without a sweet heart!"
"All I do is manage a business in competition with hundreds more like it across the country," I said. "Even my employees know it's all about making bits."
"If that was true, they'd be working anywhere else! Both you and I know that there's something that draws them to you! Just like so many ponies are drawn to your store again and again!"
"I guess I'm just lucky..."
"Pfft!" She smirked. "Try the same letter 'l', but change whatever follows it."
"I've no clue what you're talking about."
"What of your parents?"
"Huh?"
"Do you love them?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Do you love them or don't you?"
"I'm used to them, I suppose."
"I bet they're really darn proud of you to have made it so big in the confectionery business."
"I wouldn't know."
"You mean you don't talk to them?"
"What's it matter?"
"My parents split up years ago," Lyra said. "But I still love spending time with each of them. They bring a sense of happiness and purpose to my life."
"You sure that's true?" I asked, giving her a sharp look. "And it's not that you just believe it's true? Because you're forced to believe it?"
Lyra shrugged. "I admit that sometimes they bug me from time to time... especially about my career." She shivered with a grimacing expression, but almost immediately dissolved it with a bursting grin. "But that's part of having a family! It's not always a smooth ride, but my life is more complete just for being with them! Even if it's not at the same time!"
"Well, kudos to you for having something that makes you feel so special."
"Heehee!" She slapped the table between us and pointed at me. "That's what I also like about you! You're brutally honest."
"Now there's an adverb..."
"Seriously! You have your own view of the world, and yet you're content to let others have their own opinions, all the while letting ponies know what you think about them!"
"What I think doesn't matter," I said. "None of it matters in the end."
"'Cuz we'll all be dead, right?"
"Meh."
She leaned in and winked. "Well, you matter to me, Bon Bon. I'm a happier pony for having known you."
I looked at her. I looked at her for a few seconds more. "You're a total sap." And I returned to my salad to the chorus of mint-green laughter.
We talked about other things, mostly things that she was doing, things that she was interested in. As a matter of fact, most of our "conversations" consisted entirely of her rambling about one thing or another while I sat there, planning out the next week's worth of baking or nodding my head in a convincing act of paying attention. I knew deep down inside that whatever I had to say—whatever words were mine to give with any weight of sincerity—would only come across as a cold attempt to bring her bouncy spirit down.
It's not like I've ever been able to help it. There was once a time in my life where I was as joyous, whimsical, and talkative as Lyra, but that changed. I like to think that I had discovered my true self. My parents say differently, especially my mother. She pretends to think that she knows the "real me," as if that same little smiling filly could ever be salvaged from the jaded adult that has since trotted out of her and her husband's home.
I've been told by ponies once close to me that I've built a wall around myself, a barrier against which all of the feelings and concerns and fears of the world stop dead in their tracks. I almost want to tell them that the only reason I've ever perceived the wall is that they've illustrated it in the first place. So many ponies are quick to identify things about me—be they problems or interestingly cold details. I believe that if everypony just stopped and looked at themselves instead, then they'd realize that they have no choice but to take the same philosophical path that I have.
We are all alone, after all. We are dead long before we are born and we will return to that darkness when all is said and done. I've been told that I'm a "fatalist" for having this perspective, but "fatalism" is a word, and all that life can hope to be is a pretentious jumble of words trying to make sense out of the bright accidents happening ceaselessly around us everyday.
If I have any feeling whatsoever, it's fear: a fear for when ponies like my parents or my customers or—yes—even Lyra find themselves upon the final hinge of oblivion, and all of life's platitudes and theologies and hopes fail to pierce the stagnant veil through which only our dust can pass. Just what existential horrors and terrors await such joyous ponies who save all their whimpers for their last breath? I do not envy them; I do not wish to be them.
But I have never felt for them, not until I met Lyra.
"What do you think about foals?" she once asked.
I looked up from a catalogue of mail-order kitchen utensils. "Hmm? Foals?"
"Yeah. Y'know." She pointed across the park. It was a cool autumn day. Several blank flanks were chasing each other around, pushing and pulling a bright red wagon. Their giggles filled the cool, crisp air above our wooden bench. "Children. Don't they make you think of innocence lost? Joys of the past and such?"
I shrugged. "I don't think much about my foalhood."
"Awww..." Lyra cooed. "I bet you were downright adorable!"
"I was stupid."
As always, she laughed. And, as always, she came down from her giggles with a mild sigh and a reflective tone in her voice. "I love foals," she said warmly. "They're so happy, so sweet."
"They can be really damn cruel too."
"Yes, but not if you raise them right," Lyra exclaimed. "Not if you share with them your heart, show them all the secrets of the world, and prepare them for both the good and bad things that are to come. I think that's why we get old, Bon Bon; it's to help kids after us get old slower."
"Why so foal-frenzy all of the sudden?"
Lyra exhaled gently, hugging herself as she leaned back against the bench in her own particular way. "I visited Cheerilee's class the other day to give a lesson on local music, and they were just so..." She sniffled slightly. "They were so sweet. I knew that each and every one of them loved me—like truly loved me, even without knowing a single thing about me. They were so... pure..."
"Reminds me of somepony I know." I flipped a sheet in the catalogue.
"It makes me wonder what I'm doing with my life," Lyra murmured, brushing a hoof through her mane as she gazed at the children at play. "I like writing music, y'know. I like visiting your candy store and singing with other ponies and watching the local stage plays and stuff. But I wonder if all of it is just filler."
"Filler?"
"Like I'm trying to make myself feel all of the innocent bits of joy that made me so happy as a foal," Lyra said. She sighed again. "Only, it's too late now. That pure sweetness is gone, and I'm only fooling myself when I give in to silly little distractions these days."
"Distractions from what?"
"I dunno—That I have to be more concerned with my responsibilities... I guess?"
I flipped another page and muttered, "There's nothing wrong with a little hedonism, Lyra."
"Heehee—Sure! But that works for you! But not so much for me!"
"Why not?"
"Cuz I believe in something!"
I glared at her. "I never said that I believed in nothing."
"Oh?" She crossed her forelimbs and smirked my way. "Then remind me: just what do you believe in?"
"I believe... I b-believe..."
"Yessss?"
I sighed and flipped another page. "I believe in not having a need to believe."
"Heeheehee... Ohhhh Bon Bon, you're one in a million."
"And you're too damn young to be thinking so much about a foalhood lost."
"Pfft!" She rolled her eyes and grinned. "And just how old are you again?"
"I'm..." I took a deep breath and absorbed myself in the catalogue. "I'm old enough."
“So what do you think about foals?"
"You already asked me that question."
"But you didn't answer it, did you?"
"Meh."
"Well?"
"They're fat little accidents in their goofiest form."
"Hah! How'd I know you would have said that?"
"Then why'd you ask?"
"Because I bet you always wanted to say that out loud," Lyra said with a wink. "But thanks to me, you finally got a chance to."
I looked at her. My eyes narrowed. "Whatever," I muttered.
Lyra laughed her little laugh, and I pretended that my pulse wasn't racing at each fluttering note of it.
I'm not sure when it began: the knifing edge that emerged from my darkness. I mean, it had always been there in a way, waiting for me, looming around every corner of my house. I have seen those shadows often in the dead of night. I have always had a habit of pacing, trotting around the house with the lights off. It was how I thought; it was how I could go about planning the next order of business with the store. Lyra may have been too ambitious in her praise of my establishment, but that didn't make me any less proud of my work. Even today, I continue to have wild, waking dreams of building the most popular, most successful candy retail empire in Equestria. It's led to my suffering a continuous bout of restlessness, and it's precisely what keeps me up at night, alone with the darkness.
But that darkness didn't use to affect me. It used to be a comfort, a second sheet to wrap around myself besides the duvet of my bed. I had come to expect that darkness after every blink, only now it was becoming stale, worn-down, as if it would peel away at any second and reveal something beyond the shadow that was blacker than black and twice as alarming.
I never imagined that being alone could feel so... lonesome. But parting ways with Lyra after every dinner, seeing her walk away from the bench at sunset, hearing the air grow thin as the mute universe attempted to fill in the gaps of her laughter, I was starting to perceive something that was at one time formless. The murky threads found its way to my center, and when they coalesced, the obsidian sarcophagus was in the shape of a heart. I was very afraid to open the iron lid and see what lay inside.
But one day, I discovered that I didn't have to.
"I'll be leaving in winter," Lyra said. She bore a calm smile in the store’s lamplight. "But only for two years!" Her voice had a melodic tone, as if she was trying to smoothe out whatever hairs had stood up on the back of my neck upon hearing that. "I've been ordered to go for Griffonvale, can you believe that?"
"For your music career, right?" I droned, trying to invest myself deeply in the material behind the counter.
"Bon Bon! Didn't you hear me?!" Lyra hopped in place. "Griffonvale! I'm going to be in the most beautiful country that side of the Marediterranean, studying avian music with griffons!"
"I certainly hope you wouldn't be studying with chipmunks."
"Heeheehee! Oh Bon Bon, don't pretend you're not gonna miss me..."
I shrugged. "It's your career. I figured a long time ago that you were going to do something like this. I wish you good luck."
"I'll be thinking about Ponyville the entire time I'm gone," Lyra murmured, strolling through the store on light hooves. "I'll be thinking about the beautiful homes, Cheerilee's classroom, the wonderful ponies, this delightful store..." She giggled and winked my way. "And I'll be thinking a lot about you, Bon Bon."
"How could I have guessed?"
"Heehee! Oh! All the moments in between studies in Griffonvale—it'll give me more time to write songs about us! I should have a whole album's worth of ballads by the time I get back! I'm pretty sure half of them will make you roll your eyes. I'll promise to make less references to Neighzstche this time!"
"You... uh... r-really need to stop writing songs about me."
"I can't help it! You’re so cool!"
"No, I'm just what I want to be." I pointed at her. "You're the one with talent. You're the one with a grasp on art. If you should be doing anything in Griffonvale, it's setting yourself up to sell a bunch of songs by the time you get back. Because in this hungry world we live in, it'd be an utter crime if you didn't get paid back for all of the creativity you have."
She blinked steadily at me. Her next smile was a placid one. "Have I ever mentioned how much I love it when you give compliments?"
"Ehhh... maybe?"
"Because you're just so... blunt about them." She shrugged. "That's how I know you're being honest, aside from the fact that you don't compliment often."
"You and what you do is enough to compliment yourself."
"D'awwwwww!" Lyra's amber eyes sparkled. "If I was a touchy-feely mare, I'd totally leap over the counter and nuzzle you right now!"
"Lyra, compared to me, you're practically a mother-hoofer."
"HA HA HA HA!" she bellowed.
"Yeesh!" I dropped a plate of muffins and clamped my hooves over my ears. "Would it kill you one of these days not to laugh like you're quoting a newspaper headline?"
"I can't help it!" she wiped a tear away. "You're just so awesome." She sighed heavily. "As awesome as Griffonvale is, I'm really gonna miss you these two years." Her ears perked up. "Oh! I know! Maybe we could write each other!"
I was in the middle of picking up the plate and fallen muffins as I droned, "You're going to be in Griffonvale, Lyra. I very much doubt any pony postal service can reach that far."
Her ears instantly drooped. "Hmmm... Well, you could be right. I guess... uh... we'll find out when the time c-comes, huh?"
I nodded without looking, muttering to my dull reflection in the plate. "I guess we will."
She left quietly later that afternoon. Perhaps it was cold of me to not be more optimistic for her, but when did I ever try not to be? Cold, I mean. All I ever did around Lyra was act true to myself, and still she seemed to adore me. I could never understand why. Perhaps the reason I allowed us to associate for so long is because I wanted to understand. I wanted to know the reason for her constant joy and fanatical appraisal of me.
For surely there had to be a reason. Even now, I wonder about her. Well, no, I worry about her, and I haven't worried about anypony in a long time.
I worry that there's a side of her that sobs just as much as she sings. I wonder if the "Lyra" she has given me is a facade, a fantastic trick worthy of shaming any professional showmare in Equestria. All this time, I had been proudly giving her only bits and pieces of what lay beneath the surface of me. Has she been doing the same on her end, but with greater stealth? Is the joy of her exterior just a means of preserving a feeling that I've merely been a accessory to?
I'm not sure how this makes me feel. There has to be a sad side of her, a side of her that crumbles, a side of her that collapses beneath the weight of ominous night. What's more, there has to be a side of her that gives in to the darkness, as I did long ago, only I had become an undeniable part of it.
There are times when I want to feel like Lyra feels. There are times when I wonder what it would be like to laugh without questioning the uselessness of the act. It's not that I'm incapable of smiling or chuckling or even dancing. I just don't feel that enough of myself can afford to invest in such gestures. I look out at the world, and I don't see innocence or hear laughing foals or smell the aroma of foreign griffon cuisine. I see a great deal of staleness, a universe that was old long before it began to spark life, and everything that raises color against the black canvas dies out too quickly to impart any sort of dignified purpose.
This is not sorrow, I don't think. Sadness is relative, after all. Losing something is the epitome of sadness, and I can't rightly call myself sad if I believe that there was nothing to gain through life in the first place. Depression, on the other hoof, is natural. Any finite soul that lives and has the intelligence to perceive itself in an infinite world has no choice but to be depressed, I believe.
If this is true for Lyra, then I don't see the gloss of fake color to her eyes. I don't see the seams in the mask that she is wearing before me to hide her own knowledge of the world beneath this one. This leaves me thinking that she is a blind sheep dangling over the fires of reality, or—even more frightening—she knows something that I don't, and all of this time I've been doing it wrong, seeing life through a lens that has always blinded me. Those who choose darkness in their lives, after all, will see nothing but.
Then what does that mean for me? Am I the one who will suffer an attack of self-purpose when all is said and done? Does the cold hoof of death that holds so much absolution in my perspective be simply playing a practical joke on me? Could I have been living more, singing more, laughing more?
Could I, perhaps, have been crying more? I wouldn't tell Lyra this, and I seldom tell myself, but if I was to live my life a second time, I would willfully experience it with twice the tears. They strike me as the embodiment of true, purified release. As much as I'm proud to have been rid of them in my life, I often miss them. I know that they wouldn't give me happiness, but at least they would give me something.
I'd enjoy, at least, a change in scenery.
"Well, this is it," Lyra says, standing up from the bench and smirking down at me through the frosty air. The world is shaking; I can feel it in my throat. "I'd better go before I miss the train. I love train rides. There hasn't been a single one in the last five years where I haven't gotten the entire car to break out in song." She giggles.
I roll my eyes. "Only you."
"I... uhhh... I know that you aren't much for ceremony and stuff, Bon Bon..."
"Uh huh..."
"But I just want to take the time to say that... that knowing you and talking to you has been one of the best things that's happened to me in my adult life," she utters with a glossy sheen to her eyes. "I think you're smart, strong, intellectual, and infinitely interesting."
"And I still think you should go into the songwriting business for yourself."
She giggles again, and I'm still feeling the quiver in my throat. "You're also stubborn."
"Whatever, you crazy mare."
"What are you gonna do without me for the next two years?"
"Be down one stalker."
She chuckles one last time, then lets out a quiet sigh. "You're the best, Bon Bon. Maybe in two years, we'll actually hug each other."
I shrug, shifting from where I sit on the bench. "In two years time, you'll be so caught up in your music studies, I doubt you'll even remember me."
"Oh, I know for a fact that won't happen!" She smirks devilishly. "And I don't care what you think about Griffonvale and the Equestrian postal service. I'm still going to try and write you."
"Yeah, well, you know where I live."
"Pfft—Chyaaa!" She nods with a wave of her mane. "'Cuz you finally told me only four flippin' weeks ago!"
"Now you know why I hid the address books at the front of my store," I drone.
"Heeheehee... Ohhhh... You don't have to say it, Bon Bon."
My ears twitch. I look squarely up at her. "Say what?"
Lyra winks at me. "I know. And back at ya." With that, she's gone. I am alone on the bench, accompanied only by a slight ringing in my ears. When winter’s night comes, it's the first time in the history of forever that I find myself shivering.
Maybe that's what I'm supposed to feel. Maybe I'll never know. In that sense, Lyra has left for Griffonvale, having given me so much and robbed me at the same time. It's all too much to put into words. So I trot home, illuminated by the gaze of stars, wondering if they too take as much warmth as they give, and giggle the entire time as they do so.
