Lyra was sitting still in the cozy armchair Bon Bon had bought her a couple of days ago, as a pre-birthday present. It still felt amazing and Lyra felt like she was the happiest mare on the whole planet, for having both the most incredible, heavenly armchair in the world, and the best, kindest and absolutely most beautiful marefriend in the world. Life was starting to feel close to perfection as she was able to peacefully enjoy the calm evening and the presence of her special somepony. Bon Bon was lying on the couch across the room, eyes locked on Lyra’s.
It was a late-summer afternoon, so the attic was just perfectly warm for the mares to spend some time in. The city was starting to get silent, even the last stands on the marketplace getting closed for the arriving night and the owners of them heading to their own safe and cozy homes to enjoy the afternoon with their loved ones, just like Lyra and Bon Bon were doing.
Lyra adjusted her position a little as she felt her left hind hoof get a bit numb. That was one of the downsides in her style of sitting, the style everypony always found something to complain or note about. Everypony but Bon Bon. Bon Bon, of course, saw this and decided to take immediate action.
“Enjoying the new chair?” Bon Bon asked for the umpteenth time. Most ponies would have gotten rather upset by now, but Lyra just couldn’t possibly be mad at her beloved. She just simply smiled and said:
“Like I told you the last twenty times, it’s absolutely amazing, but not as amazing as you are.” This simple sentence had the same effect every time. It made Lyra wonder how she could be so cheesy and it made Bon Bon get that cute little hint of red on her cheeks. Bon Bon had always been a sucker for Lyra’s compliments.
“Aww shucks, Lyra, you’re at least twice as amazing as I am. I mean come on; you play the lyre like a pro and can do such impressive magical tricks. I’m just a plain ol’ candy maker who has nothing else to do than sit on a sofa and bake candies hardly nopony ever buys…” Bon Bon answered, both the look on her face and the tone of her voice gaining hints of arriving depression when she finished the sentence. Lyra knew that this was not good; she knew that she would have to cheer her love up a bit.
“Aww, come on Bons, you’re not a plain ol’ candy maker. You’re the best damn candy maker in the whole town! Remember that stuck-up snob trying to set up his candy business here? He went bankrupt in a week because everypony bought their candy from you. And why did they buy it from you? Because it’s the best candy in the whole world! No Canterlot born-and-raised snob can beat it,” she said, trying her best to turn that small start of a frown upside-down. But it wasn’t being too effective.
Lyra knew that this called for some harder methods. She got up from her chair, which on its own seemed to amaze Bon Bon, and started walking towards the cream-colored mare. As soon as she got close, she extended a hoof and pulled the mare closer, facing no form of struggle or refusal. When she could smell the breath of the mare in her grip, a breath with the slight scent of creamy taffy, she quickly locked her lips with Bon Bon’s and let the amazing feeling take over.
They stayed like that for what seemed like an eternity, and when they finally pulled out from the kiss, she could see Bon Bon’s eyes starting to tear up.
“Thank you, Lyra. You’re amazing,” Bon Bon said, the tears of pure happiness now taking completely over. Lyra embraced the mare in a warm hug and held her there for a while. If there was something she was good at, it was making Bon Bon feel better. The hug seemed to last forever, as well, but soon, maybe too soon, it was over and Bon Bon was once again standing on her own hooves without any support, neither physical nor mental, from Lyra.
“So, Bons, what would you say about a nice cup of tea and some of those rather delicious taffy squares of yours? The sun is starting its set and I’d love to watch it with a cup of tea, some tasty taffy and a beautiful mare cuddled next to me,” Lyra said, silently hoping for Bon Bon to say yes, deep in her mind knowing that she would.
“That sounds like a splendid idea, Lyra. Why don’t you handle the tea while I make sure the taffy is top-class?” Bon Bon answered with a lot happier look than just minutes ago.
“Suits me. The tea should be ready in ten minutes, feel free to start watching the show without me if you’re faster than me,” Lyra said before dashing down the stairs to the ground floor where the store, the bakery and the kitchen were located, Bon Bon following soon after her.
Once downstairs, they parted ways as the kitchen was apart from the bakery where Bon Bon both made and stored the treats. Lyra went to the large kitchen of the house and started digging for the antique kettle Bon Bon had inherited from her mother. She had said that it was a valuable heirloom that had been in her family ever since her great-great-great-something-like-that-grandmother had acquired it during the times of the Lunar Rebellion. The look of it pretty much confirmed that fact. It had carvings of Luna in her corrupt form and some of the Rebellion’s slogans either carved or written into it. Bon Bon was not ashamed by the fact that her family-member had been on Luna’s side on the civil war, and Lyra found that to be a good thing. Nopony should be ashamed of his or her history.
Lyra filled the kettle with water from the sink and put it on the stove to heat up. In the meantime, she started to go through the layers of teabags to find something that would suit her needs. After finding loads of regular, unflavoured ones, she found one with a rather interesting flavour: lotus. It seemed exotic enough for her.
Just as she closed the lid of the teabag container and put it back to the shelf where it belonged, she could hear the kettle letting out the high-pitched whistle, informing everypony in the house that the tea was ready. Lyra quickly trotted over to the kettle and lifted it off from the stove. She placed it on the counter, opened the lid, let the extra steam get out and dropped the teabag in. She let it be for a few minutes and fished it out, careful not to ruin the flavour of the tea by dipping one of her hooves into it. She managed to pull the bag out by the string it was hanging from and placed it into the trashcan next to the stove. She tried smelling the tea, managing to get a hint of the aroma of the sweet liquid in the kettle. She held onto that aroma, trying to absorb every single bit of it. As soon as she could not smell it anymore, she put the kettle on the tray waiting on the counter, pulled out two decorated porcelain cups from the cupboard and placed them next to the kettle. She took a final look at it before approving the simple setting, took a good grip of the tray with her magic and started heading upstairs.
Judging by the fact that the lights of the bakery were off, Bon Bon had been faster than her. That didn’t really bother her; the most important thing was that she was going to spend another beautiful night with that wonderful mare.
Soon she arrived at the top of the stairs and the scenery of the small attic room opened in front of her. On the other side of the room was Bon Bon, looking at the distant sunset, a bowl of fresh taffy next to her. Lyra walked close to the relaxed mare before putting the tray down next to the bowl of taffy and lying down next to Bon Bon. They shared a look and Lyra spoke up.
“I took the right to choose a different flavour of tea this time. Lotus, it seemed rather exotic. Want to have a taste?” she said and lifted the kettle up with her magic.
“Yes, please,” Bon Bon answered with a smile and Lyra poured her some tea. She then proceeded to pour herself some, too, and placed the kettle down.
After the kettle was safely back on the tray, Lyra just couldn’t wait. She levitated the cup of tea over to her mouth and took a small sip, immediately tasting the incredible, sweet and exotic taste of the lotus on her tongue. The tea was still quite hot, but it didn’t matter. The feeling was heavenly.
Lyra could see Bon Bon also take the first sip and, judging by the amazed look on her face, she experienced the same sensation as the tea made its way down her throat.
“So, how is it?” Lyra asked before grabbing a taffy square from the bowl and placing it in her mouth, the always-so-amazing, sweet taste of it mixing together with the last remains of the lotus-flavour, creating yet another sensational mixture of flavours.
“It’s amazing! I’ve never tasted anything like that before,” Bon Bon answered with an excited tone. Lyra smiled silently. The tea had been a success. “Well, how are the taffy squares?” Bon Bon added, catching Lyra off-guard and a mouth full of sticky taffy.
Lyra struggled for a bit, swallowing the rest of the taffy before providing Bon Bon with a reply.
“As amazing as always,” she happily declared, causing her marefriend to blush once again.
There was kind of an awkward silence after that, both mares staring into nothingness, but Lyra was a master at breaking those.
“Let us enjoy the amazing show provided to us by nature, eh?” she asked, getting a nod in reply. Without a word she snuck closer to Bon Bon, and didn’t stop before she could feel the warmth of the mare. She then turned her gaze towards the window, where the sun was painting the landscape orange and where the stars and the moon were slowly starting to get more and more visible.
They stayed like that for an eternity until both mares fell asleep, happier than they had ever been.
Lyra woke up to a rather fascinating feeling. It was not fear, it was nothing like that, but it wasn’t happiness either. It was something like surprise and suspect with a hint of worry and a smoky aftertaste. Not good.
She turned around so she was facing Bon Bon, just to find her still well asleep. That mare sure was a heavy sleeper. When she was getting some good and long sleep, there was almost nothing that could wake her up.
Lyra smiled a little at the cuteness of the sleeping mare before getting up from the floor, stretching her limbs for a while and starting to think of possible breakfast candidates. Bread sounded kinda dull and boring, but the thought of pancakes and some more of that delicious tea managed to make Lyra’s mouth water. She decided that she would surprise Bon Bon with a meal served to bed, or floor in this case.
She did a little looking around before going downstairs. The kettle and the cups of tea had been safely out of the reach of the limbs of the two ponies, but the bowl full of taffy had not been that lucky. Either she or Bon Bon had managed to knock it over during the night, causing the taffy to get all over the floor, but cleaning that little mess up was no task at all for a unicorn. Soon all the paper-wrapped little pieces of pure deliciousness were all in the bowl again and the bowl was placed next to the kettle and the cups.
Lyra approved of the setup for now and started heading downstairs in order to make some delicious pancakes. She almost managed to forget that making tea requires a kettle, but luckily for her she hadn’t gotten far when she remembered. She decided that she would take the bowl of taffy downstairs too, as it could provide some support for her if her blood sugar would drop dramatically.
She carefully walked down the stairs and made her way to the silent kitchen. The sun was shining through the large window of the kitchen, providing enough light for Lyra to see, so she didn’t bother turning the electrical light on and just placed the tray with the kettle, cups and taffy to the counter, next to the sink. So took a hold of the kettle with her magic and levitated it towards the sink. Once it was directly under the water tap, Lyra twisted the little knob that was attached to the tap, causing fresh water to flow. She filled about a half of the kettle before shaking it a little, getting every piece of possibly-unwanted material off from surface of the kettle and poured the now-dirty water out of the kettle and into the sink.
She then re-filled the kettle, almost to the top this time, and put it on the stove. She turned the stove on and left the kettle on it. The water would warm up to the perfection while she would be making the pancakes.
Lyra didn’t have time to make a pancake batter by herself, so she just dug through the drawers and cupboards until she found a packet of pre-made Cake-family pancake batter that would only need to be poured to the frying pan and they would be ready after a minute. Of course it didn’t give the most delicious taste a pancake can have, but it was a good alternative for busy or lazy ponies.
She left the packet on the counter and drew out a frying pan from one of the cupboards. It was heavy, Bon Bon liked old kitchen equipment over the new ones, but Lyra managed to move it to the stove, next to the kettle of warming-up water. She then proceeded to open the box of batter and pour a part of its contents on the pan. The first pancake would be ready to be flipped in a couple of minutes, so Lyra had plenty of time to take a look at the beautiful hometown of hers from the window.
She started heading towards the large window that gave a good view of the town, actually even showing parts of the town square. It was earlier than she had though, judging by the orange glow coming from the direction of the mentioned centre of the town’s activity.
But the closer Lyra got, the stranger that glow started to seem. It was too orange to be the rising sun. It was also way too bright. And on top of that, the town square was not east, it was north.
As Lyra tried to figure out the source of the glow, a horrifying though hit her.
“No… It can’t be…” was all she could say before turning around and dashing upstairs to both have a better look and wake Bon Bon up if this really was the worst case scenario. She clumsily stumbled up the stairs and when she finally arrived to the top of them, she immediately dashed through the room and pressed her face against the window, waking Bon Bon up in the process.
The sight from the window confirmed Lyra’s worst fears. The others had found out and were heading towards the house.
“Lyra? What’s going on?” Bon Bon asked in a sleepy tone. Lyra couldn’t see her as her eyes were still nailed to the group of ponies, but she knew that Bon Bon was rubbing her eyes intensively, trying to remove everything unwanted from them and gain back the sharpest form of her vision.
“No time to explain. Is there any other window up here?” Lyra asked while still trying to process her pathetic-sounding plan in her head. It was pretty much bound to fail, but it was the best they had.
“Well, there are no windows, but there’s a little crack in the ceiling in the bathroom that leads to the roof if your remove the hay I stuffed to block the water leakages…” Bon Bon answered with a tone of surprise. That was all Lyra needed.
“Come!” she shouted and grabbed a hold of Bon Bon’s hoof and started pulling her towards the bathroom, located next to the stairs. Lyra continued pulling, even though Bon Bon protested pretty loudly. Soon they were in the bathroom and Lyra was furiously scanning the ceiling with her eyes to find the small crack Bon Bon had mentioned.
“It’s over here,” Bon Bon said with a bit of anger present in her voice and stuck a hoof through the ceiling, causing hay to fall from the hole. Lyra quickly trotted over and started poking the hole, trying to make it bigger so she and Bon Bon could fit through.
After a couple of minutes of intensive poking and refusing to answer Bon Bon’s questions, she finally managed to make the hole big enough so she could start pushing Bon Bon through. She focused her magic, took a good hold of Bon Bon and started pushing her through the hole. For every complaint she heard, she just replied “no time to explain, will explain when on the roof”.
After what felt like forever she finally managed to convince Bon Bon that she was not going to tell anything before they both would be on the roof. Bon Bon stopped struggling, but judging by the nasty look of hers, she was cursing Lyra in her mind.
Soon Bon Bon was on the roof and it was time for Lyra to go through the hole. But with the equipment there was in the bathroom, she couldn’t have gotten high enough to get a good hold of the roof and pull herself up. She was forced to ask help from Bon Bon.
“Hey Bons, mind lending a hoof?” she asked, knowing that her marefriend was still at least a bit angry about all the “pushing a mare through a small hole in the roof of the mentioned mare without providing a good explanation to the mentioned mare”.
“Only if you explain your actions right now,” Bon Bon answered, causing a slight groan to escape Lyra’s lips. But she had no options right now. Bon Bon could be even more stubborn than Lyra when she was like this.
“Fine. Pull me up first and I’ll show you. I promise,” Lyra said, offering her hoof to Bon Bon.
“Okay, but you better keep your promise,” Bon Bon answered before grabbing Lyra’s hoof and starting to pull. She pulled hard and Lyra felt a sharp pain shoot through her hoof, but she knew that it was just Bon Bon paying back Lyra’s rather rough way of getting her into the bathroom.
Soon Lyra was on the roof next to Bon Bon, the latter giving the former a demanding look.
“Okay, follow me,” Lyra said and started carefully walking towards the direction where the front door of the house was. Bon Bon hesitated for a while, but decided to trust her marefriend and followed her towards the edge of the roof.
“Okay, I warn you, the sight is really shocking. There is the reason why we have to go as soon as we can,” Lyra said and pointed a hoof towards the edge. Bon Bon carefully continued to go closer to the edge as she wanted to see what was so important that Lyra had dragged her to the roof just to see it.
But when she reached the edge, she immediately pulled back. There were ponies. Loads of them. Every single one of them had some sort of a weapon in their hooves, the ones in the front carrying lit torches and the others having pretty much something sharp that could be used to kill a pony. The ones in the front looked like they were prepared to torch the house any time soon.
‘But why? Why would they do this to us?’ Bon Bon thought. And then realization hit her. Because she loved Lyra.
A wave of disgust and disbelief hit her. The citizens of the town had always been so nice to her and seemed like a lovely bunch of ponies. Now they were there, on her front door, preparing to burn her house down just because she loved a pony.
Bon Bon turned around, speechless, and shared a look with Lyra. The gaze of her marefriend told her everything. They had to leave now.
She carefully walked back to the spot where Lyra was and shared another look with her, a hint of worry present in the eyes of both mares.
“Okay, here’s the plan. The front door is blocked and the whole front part of the house is going to be on fire soon, so there is no going back to the house. We have to jump,” Lyra said, the final sentence managing to shock Bon Bon, even though deep down she had known that Lyra would say that.
Lyra peacefully walked over to the edge of the roof and looked down. The fall was long, but it was their only option. There were some bales of hay lying on the ground near the building. Those would serve as the landing platform.
She turned to face Bon Bon who was now standing behind Lyra, a worried look on her face. Lyra tried her best to make a comforting face before turning back to face the edge of the roof.
“I’ll go first,” she said, took a single step back, bent her knees a little and jumped into the air between the rooftop and the bales of hay, ignoring all the protests Bon Bon made or was about to make. She felt the air rush past her, she felt her mane get all messy, she saw the ground coming closer and closer. Just as her body was about to connect with the merciless, hard surface of the ground, just as she was about to prepare for the worst, for the feeling of bones snapping in pieces inside her, she hit the bales of hay that stopped her perfectly, the biggest damage they did being the little stinging here and there as a single sharper straw poked through her skin.
She quickly got up from the bales and looked up where Bon Bon was now facing the horrifying decision of whether to jump or not to jump. Lyra knew that Bon Bon was quite short on courage right now, so she decided to do her best to help her marefriend.
“Come on Bons, you can do it!” she shouted, completely aware of the fact that the mob on the other side of the house could hear her pretty easily. This basically gave them up, but it also managed to give Bon Bon the little push she needed. She just simply nodded, took a few steps back and started sprinting towards the edge of the roof, preparing for the jump. And when she was at the edge of the roof, when she was just about the bend her knees and jump, the worst happened.
She slipped.
Lyra watched in horror as her marefriend flew through the air, desperately trying to get a grasp of something, a look of pure terror on her face. Lyra tried to react quickly, she tried to move the bales of hay under the spot where Bon Bon was about to land, she was about to take a magical grip of the falling mare, but she was not fast enough. She could only watch as the love of her life connected with the hard, cold ground. She could hear the bones breaking. She could hear the screams of pain. She could see the face twisted of unbearable pain. She could see the eyes rolling in their sockets.
All of this because of her stupid plan.
She quickly ran over to Bon Bon. As she got closer, she could see that a puddle of blood had already started forming around the body of the mare, but she didn’t care about it, she just trotted over to Bon Bon and embraced her in a warm hug, as of trying to make the pain go away with the power of pure and innocent love.
She could hear the ponies coming. She could hear the fire crackling. She could hear the angry voices. She could hear the hoofsteps coming closer. She could hear the sound of forks clinging onto each other. She could hear a single “kill them!” from the group. But she didn’t let go of Bon Bon. She didn’t let her grip loosen even a bit. She didn’t let the warmth of the dying mare go anywhere. She would be there for her.
Bon Bon slowly lifted her head up from the ground and achieved in making an eye contact with Lyra. For some reason, the eyes of the mare in her hooves were full of calmness and beauty.
“Lyra?” Bon Bon asked in a weak voice that still sounded extremely beautiful to Lyra. She smiled at her love, hugging her even tighter. She was fully aware of the murderous group behind her, she was fully aware of the burning house behind her, she was fully aware of the sharp fork getting lifted up and prepared to strike behind her. But she didn’t stop smiling.
“We’re going to make it,” she said, tears starting to form up in her eyes. She pressed her lips against the lips of Bon Bon for one last time.
“We’re going to make it.”
