"Bons, you really need to calm down."
The atmosphere within Bon-Bon's confectionery store was as taut as a bowstring, ready to snap and implode at any moment given the slightest provocation. It was unnerving; usually the shop, with its bright furnishings and cheery decor reminiscent of an ice-cream parlour she'd frequented as a filly, was friendly and inviting, but today it felt like everything was more focussed and perhaps even a little on edge. What was even more unnerving was that the source of this tension was the proprietor of the store itself. While Lyra, who had arrived no more than ten minutes ago, couldn't see into the kitchen - the hulking, nondescript wooden slab of a door had been locked by the pony inside - she could certainly hear what was going on in there and she didn't particularly like it much at all. She scrunched her nose up pensively, well aware that the usually unflappable, rock solid mare she'd known for years was in the middle of one of her rare panic attacks. Standing in the open doorway of the shop's entrance, she stared at that big, brown door behind the display on the front counter, internally debating with herself about what the best way to approach the situation may be.
"How can I possibly calm down?" came the frantic reply, muffled by the oak door separating the sugary machinations of Ponyville's resident confectioner from the relative sanity of the rest of Equestria. "This is the biggest opportunity that I've ever had, and I - we - can't afford to blow it, Lyra! You know this needs to go perfectly as well as I do. You don't come across chances like this every day and if this all goes well we won't need to worry about money anymore! We won't have to worry about our house anymore!"
"That train of thought again, huh?" Lyra muttered quietly to herself and rolled her eyes. Her gaze involuntarily drifted over to the bit register next to the display case. It was a gigantic metal box that she never really could understand the operation of, despite Bon-Bon's efforts. All those buttons just made it way too complicated, especially when each button seemed to have a different purpose dependent on entirely arbitrary circumstances. The entire contraption was just utterly excessive and couldn't accomplish anything more than a simple bit pouch could. Lyra gave it a contemptuous little glare before clearing her throat. "Bons, I know that this is a huge opportunity for us. Really, really huge. You read me the letter the other night, remember? It's the opportunity of a lifetime. It'd be foolish of me to not want you to pounce on it, because I want all of this to work out just as much as you do, I seriously do. But Bonny, you are freaking out right now and you need to try to calm down! Things must really getting out of hand in there if I, of all ponies, have to be the rational one."
Lyra could almost feel Bon-Bon's venomous glare boring through the door as the mare in the kitchen barked out her angry retort. "You think you're being the rational one here? I think it is perfectly reasonable for me to be a little bit stressed out right now, considering that Princess Celestia is coming here. Here, to my confectionery store, to personally sample my goods and see how I run my business. Here, to determine whether I'm capable of fulfilling the contract that the tender is for. Lyra, this has to go absolutely perfectly! Pulling this off this would mean that I'd be making sweets for every royal event in Canterlot for goodness knows how long! All things considered, I think it would be reasonable to say that you aren't being the rational one, because taking into account how huge this is any sane pony would be, as you put it, 'freaking out' a little."
The sound of pots clanging against one another somewhere in the kitchen cut short the momentary silence that punctuated Bon-Bon's outburst. Lyra jumped slightly at the sudden noise. Shaking her head, she took a couple of steps inside the store and nudged the door behind her shut with a hind hoof. The overhead doorbell's merry jingle announced her approach.
There was definitely reason for her to be concerned, Lyra concluded as she scrutinised her surroundings. Even disregarding her partner's unnatural state of sheer panic, she quickly noticed several subtle things about the state of the store which were patently un-Bon-Bon. Her mate was typically a very tidy mare when in a professional setting, almost to the point of it being a compulsion. However, Lyra observed that the couple of chairs which sat at the round café table situated in front of the shop-front window had been clumsily placed around the perimeter, and that the red-and-white chequered cloth which was spread across the table had been hurriedly laid out and terribly wrinkled. Under the golden sunlight filtering in through the window it resembled a patchwork mountain range, wild and untamed. Also glaringly obvious was the dirt which clung to the checkerboard tiling that made up the shop's flooring, no doubt unthinkingly tracked in by the confectioner on the back of last night's thunderstorm. Such sloppiness would have gotten Lyra quite a scolding back home; she couldn't imagine how long she'd be in the doghouse if she had set up Bon-Bon's shop as sloppily as it looked right now. It was all definitely at odds with the normally calm demeanour of the mare whom she shared her life with.
Lyra's hooves clacked a cautious rhythm on the ceramic tiling, masking the ongoing commotion coming from the kitchen as she turned and trotted over to the table. As she drew near, her horn suddenly lit up with a gentle golden ambience which was shared by one of the chairs haphazardly placed near the table. With a little bit of mental exertion Lyra telekinetically pulled the chair around towards a more presentable orientation. Nodding softly to herself, she repeated the process with the other chair and then quickly went about straightening the finicky tablecloth with a remarkable degree of inelegance. Whether it was due to the imprecision of her magic or her general disinterest in presentation she couldn't be sure, but the obscenely creased piece of fabric really was too much of a bother. After struggling with that particular item long enough to finally illustrate to herself the futility of her doing so, she pivoted on her hooves and made a beeline for the heavyset slab of oak. She was careful not to tread on the dirt which had caked on the floor; no need to scuff it all about and make even more of a mess, after all. As soon as she reached her destination she plonked herself down on her backside.
Calming Bon-Bon down would undoubtedly be a rather complicated process, given the gravity of the situation at hand and how far her hysteria seemed to have progressed. Perhaps letting her set off to work today on her own had been a terrible idea, in retrospect. Letting her operate in isolation probably had made a considerable contribution towards her current state of mind too, permitting her to settle into an uninterrupted cycle consisting of panicky feedback which amplified her inner turmoil by the minute. Such was the nature of Bon-Bon's rare bouts of instability. Doubts igniting like kindling, burning away rationality with the indiscriminate ruthlessness of a wildfire. If left unchecked, Bon-Bon would undoubtedly be unable to function on a level required to face Celestia, let alone impress her, and if she were to collapse as spectacularly as she was looking like doing her recovery would not only be a protracted one but also potentially painful for Lyra. Earth ponies were well known for being uncannily accurate when throwing around hefty objects during arguments and similar stints of less than impressive temperament.
All of this made Lyra feel a little guilty. While she was certainly musically talented enough to work a proper job with regularly scheduled performances either on her own, as a member of a band or perhaps even an orchestra, she had found out by experience that doing so felt just too rigid for her. The result of this was that Lyra only worked, if one could consider it proper employment (she herself wasn't sure if she did), whenever she felt like seeking out a nice corner of the streets of Ponyville, plonking down her open saddlebags and busking for a few hours until she managed to accumulate enough coin to make her feel like a contributing member of society. It was a wonderful way to make a few bits and the ponies of the township were all very friendly and appreciative of her talent, and she really did love playing in such a relaxed and free environment. Bon-Bon, while initially unconvinced, had grown to accept that this was what made Lyra happy and never again spoke a word against her source of income. It put a lot of strain on Bon-Bon though, both emotionally and financially, and Lyra knew that if she were to become a regular fixture of the lucrative music scene in the nearby city of Canterlot - and doing so was likely within her reach, she often humbly opined to herself - then Bon-Bon wouldn't have to work half as hard as she did, nor would she have to apply for these incredibly intimidating contracts and job offers like she had been as of late. But on the rare occasion that Lyra brought those aforementioned concerns up, her marefriend had simply waved her hoof dismissively and told her to do what she loved and that bits weren't a concern.
Money was always a concern, though. The fist of Canterlot was forever tightening its squeeze around the lives of ponies such as her and Bon-Bon, disfiguring wonderfully simplistic existences where ponies were free to pursue their talents with increasingly complicated expenditures spanning a spectrum as vast and varied as the hues which make up a rainbow. Neither of their vocations were even close to approaching being necessities in a bare-bones society, and when a pony has less money to play with due to convoluted taxation and increasing living costs they'll have less money to throw at luxuries such as sweets or a concert. In the past their arrangement had worked out fine, but over the past few months things have gotten a little tighter than comfortable for the two of them. The workings of Parliament and the laws passed were not something that Lyra understood, nor would she ever strive to, but she certainly felt the repercussions. Maybe she should try to have that talk with Bon-Bon again about seeking employment in Canterlot.
Lyra silently rolled that thought about in her head, as if she were tasting it, and she lifted her hoof. Rap-rap-rap-rap-rap!
She was greeted unceremoniously by the sounds of culinary cacophony and mumbling made unintelligible by goodness knows how many inches of wood the door was made of. She knocked again, receiving a similarly cold response, and took a deep breath.
"Hey, do you mind if I come in?" the unicorn asked, tilting her head inquisitively at the inanimate fragment of multifurcated tree trunk that stood before her. "It sounds like a bit of moral support might be rather helpful." She paused momentarily before adding, "What exactly are you making anyway?"
There was a terse moment of silence followed by the acquiescent clop of hoofsteps and the click of a latch. Lyra sighed quietly in relief. It was probably a good thing that Bon-Bon was feeling agreeable regardless of her situation. As a younger pony, Lyra had possessed a distinctly mischievous streak which led her to learn some very simple spells that would enable her to accomplish rather ignoble (though relatively benign) tasks. One of those spells was a lock-picking spell - it would produce a crude magical approximation of a skeleton key shaped to fit the tumblers inside the lock - and was quite handy at that, but while she was certainly prepared to sneak into the kitchen with the help of the spell, she really didn't want to run the risk of Bon-Bon starting to ask questions regarding what she'd no doubt perceive to be some heinous strain of deep-rooted delinquency. Not to mention that painting herself as some kind of regressive latchkey foal, deliberately or otherwise, would be yet another very efficient means of finding herself sleeping out in the metaphorical doghouse.
Lyra's quiet internal monologue was interrupted a moment later by a sudden warmth washing over her as the door before her swung inwards. A beige face with striking blue eyes quickly appeared to occupy the emergent crack in the barrier, a visibly forced smile adorning it. Matted against cheeks, brow and pretty much everywhere else was an unkempt, sweat-soaked, blue-and-fuchsia mane which deviated so far from the tidy curls that Bon-Bon was so fond of wearing it was almost unrecognisable. It was also downright sexy, but Lyra reasoned that now was probably not the best time to be angling for hanky-panky kitchen bench antics.
Not that the kitchen is ever an appropriate place for that kind of thing anyway, cough-cough-ahem.
"Yeah, come on in Lyra. I... I'm sorry that I snapped at you before. It's just--"
Lyra smiled playfully, keen to interrupt her marefriend's unnecessary apologetics and lighten the mood. "Don't worry about it, it's cool. I get why you're so worked up and I got thick fur anyway - sticks and stones have nothing on me! So, um, mind moving over a bit? I'm assuming that you're not just pulling my tail about letting me through, but you're kind of blocking the doorway."
Bon-Bon laughed and rolled her eyes. Mission successful. "Oh, come on. I opened the door about two seconds ago. Besides," she smirked, eyes half-lidded, "you've gotta tell me the password to get in."
Lyra tapped a hoof to her chin. "Hmm, lemme think. If my memory serves me well it was something along the lines of, 'Lyra rules, Bon-Bon drools', right?" She nodded in self-affirmation and motioned with a swipe of her hoof for the other mare to step aside.
"Hmmph, ungrateful," Bon-Bon huffed indignantly. "I give you the chance to score a kiss and you buck it right back in my face with silly insults. Now I guess I'll have to just go back to stressing about the incredibly critical visit I have tomorrow without any relief. No thanks to a certain seaweed coloured unicorn, of course."
"Seaweed?" Lyra squawked as she gesticulated wildly. "I'm aquamarine! What kind of seaweed is coloured aquamarine?"
"No idea. I'm not too fond of the beach; all the sand and stuff, y'know? Anyway," Bon-Bon sighed apologetically, standing to the side to grant the flailing mare passage, "you coming in?"
"Well I'm not sure if I really want to now, seeing that you've been so insulting," Lyra hammed away, much to Bon-Bon's chagrin. "What's next? You accusing my horn of being an ice-cream cone stuck in my mane?"
"Yes. Yes, that's exactly it. Now please come in before I close the door on your nose, Lyra. I'm feeling pretty under as is, and having you waving about like that is giving me motion sickness."
Lyra harrumphed and began to squeeze her body through the proffered gap between door and frame. She was slight of build even by unicorn standards, so it wasn't very difficult. Bon-Bon turned to offer a cheeky smile as she let the other mare through, which was reciprocated without a moment's hesitation.
As soon as Lyra slipped by she was immediately stopped in her tracks. All thought processes were shut down by a scent as delicious as it was distinct. It crashed over her in waves, a culinary gauntlet buffeting her senses with the violence of a king tide. It was entirely possible, her mind irrationally suggested, that she was gaining weight simply by breathing it in.
"Bon-Bon... is... how rich is that chocolate?"
Bon-Bon shrugged as she shut the door quietly. "Rich enough for a princess."
"I better count as a princess," Lyra drawled, beginning to zone out a little while her nostrils dilated. Her eyes drifted over the mess, disregarding the plethora of specialist machinery she couldn't hope to name and instead falling on the myriad stainless steel pots and pans which littered not only the marble kitchen benching that lined all three walls before her but the bright linoleum flooring as well. Many of them still contained the remains of deliciously dark liquefied chocolate, folded again and again by the skilled confectioner, and that unmistakable bite in the air continued to assault the musician's senses. Protruding from a couple of the pots remaining on a burning stove installed near one corner were the handles of a wooden spoon and what was presumably a whisk, though the chocolate slathered on the instrument made its identity hard to discern. Next to the pots sat a measuring cup alongside an assortment of paper bags and bottles. Lyra recognised the milk and sugar (and, oddly, packets of tiny foil cupcake cups), but the others were unmarked and their purpose eluded her. On the edge of her sight she also spotted a couple of other bottles thrown carelessly into a sink, accompanied some kind of tray. Initially she thought that it was a baking tray, but quickly discarded that thought; if Bon-Bon was working with chocolate, it was far more likely that it was some kind of mould that was used for shaping the chocolate into a cup of sorts. Just above that a cupboard was ajar, containing similar trays.
And, perched atop a counter furthest from both her and the warmth of the stovetop, Lyra saw the largest pile of chocolates she had ever seen in her entire life. Chocolates upon chocolates were placed on top of one another, forming a pyramid at least a length wide and a length high. The formation gleamed brilliantly under the magical lighting which hung from the center of the ceiling. It was all so very extravagant, screaming 'look if you dare, but don't touch'; laying a hoof on even one of the chocolates without permission would be tantamount to out-and-out defilement.
Lyra took one step towards the delectable treats, followed up by another. Her approach was slow and deliberate, almost verging on predatory, her posture resembling that of a cat eyeing a particularly tasty looking bird that might just be out of reach but perhaps not. She could make out the corrugated surface of the chocolates and her mind immediately connected that observation to the foil cups she'd seen just moments earlier. As she drew closer oh-so-slowly she could also detect another odour, one that was sharp and far more commanding than the relatively gentle aroma of the chocolate itself. If the chocolate had simple bite, what now hung in the air was the gnashing of teeth and the rending of flesh from bone. Lyra thought she might recognise it if she could only just eke a couple more lengths out of her hooves.
Unsurprisingly, it all felt very unfair when she was stopped dead in her tracks by a sharp tug on her tail. New-found lucidity dashed her prior thoughts upon the rocks, and she snapped her head around to eye the mare that held her tail in a vice-like grip. Bon-Bon dropped the mouthful of tail and glared daggers sharp enough to cut through diamond.
"Nuh-uh. Those are for tomorrow. You can't have 'em."
Lyra snorted, thoroughly dismayed. "Well, can you at least tell me what the heck you've put in them? I know you've loaded those chocolates up with something!"
Bon-Bon sat down, tapping a hoof to her chin. "I... guess I can tell you, as long as you don't go blabbing to everypony. So, do you remember that intervention we had for Berry Punch a few days ago?"
Lyra nodded. She remembered the night quite well, having been one of the ponies organising it.
"After we... confronted her and had that big discussion with her about how her drinking was damaging her and everypony else," Bon-Bon continued, "I sat down with Berry and talked to her for a while. This was after you headed home feeling tired and I said I was going to hang back for a bit, y'see. I'm not really proud of myself, but I more or less talked her ear off insisting that she dispose of all of those bottles of booze she has hiding underneath her sink. That's where she keeps her secret stash, though I guess you probably knew that. She's not very subtle."
Lyra nodded again. Where this was heading was anypony's guess.
"Okay. So anyway, I talked to her at length about how she really needs to get rid of them A.S.A.P. if she's ever going to get better. She actually agreed with me, which surprised me a heck of a lot. Not really what I was expecting. I don't think that's how an alcoholic would usually react because it didn't make a lot of sense to me given how much she loves the bottle. But, uh, I digress.
"Um, so yeah. She insisted that the drinks were not to be poured down the sink or whatever, because that would have been a waste of bits. I told her that they needed to go and that there wasn't any other way to get rid of 'em, but then she reminded me that I had Princess Celestia coming over later on in the week - I think the entire town knows, to be honest - and that I should take all those bottles and use them to make some chocolate liqueurs because 'you make the best chocolates in all of Ponyville, Bon-Bon'. At first I really didn't feel comfortable taking them, and to be honest I still feel a bit dirty, but she was so adamant about it that after a few minutes of back-and-forth she basically just grabbed them all in her hooves, dumped them in a saddlebag and dropped it onto my back. What in Equestria was I supposed to do at that point, what with her staring at me like it was a matter of life and death?"
Lyra shot Bon-Bon a reproachful look. Surely she wasn't implying... "So you've taken a bunch of half-drunk bottles of booze from an alcoholic and poured them into some chocolate shells to serve to the princess?"
Bon-Bon narrowed her eyes. "I did not pour half-drunk bottles of booze into chocolate shells. I've only used the ones that weren't open, thanks. And before I can even fill the shells I need to mix the alcohol into a syrup, so it's not really pouring it in. More like dolloping. Now" - Bon-Bon forcefully thrust a hoof out, snatching one of the potent cavity catalysts from the pile - "eat this and tell me it is delicious enough for a princess."
Lyra looked the proffered chocolate over, regarding it with caution one might reserve for the most esoteric of arcane artefacts. "But you just told me that I'm not allowed to try one!"
"Well, Lyra, now you are going to eat this one, single chocolate. Then you're going to tell me that it is the best thing you've ever had and afterwards you'll give me a kiss and a hug and I'll stop feeling so darn stressed out. I've been doing this all day and I'm probably going to break down if you don't comply."
That pretty much settled it. Lyra extended her will to encompass the chocolate, floating it over to her muzzle. Nary a second passed before a squeal of delight was coaxed from the excitable mare, the space occupied by the treat quickly and purposefully replaced by emptiness. It was official: the chocolate was indeed delicious. Dark, sensual and luxurious, the chocolate itself was disarmingly smooth. The innards though, they provided the fire - that inextinguishable flame that inspires all true connoisseurs of their crafts. It was a mark as universal as it was unmistakeable and it was also right there in her mouth, melting ever so slowly on her tongue.
The juxtapositioning of those two elements was simply amazing. Bon-Bon couldn't help but giggle softly at Lyra's reaction.
"So, is it good?" the confectioner 'asked'.
"Oh... it's amazing Bonny! So good it's criminal," Lyra moaned.
Bon-Bon gave a satisfied nod. "That's what I thought. Now come on, we better put all these things in the fridge before they melt. I really don't to want to give Princess Celestia the impression that I'm serving her mudshakes instead of the best sweets in all of Equestria. Some of them have already deformed in the heat." Bon-Bon halted for a second before she cracked a smug grin. "Oh, and after we take care of that you can give me my kiss."
Horn and hooves, the two mares then set themselves to work. The rest of the day passed by quickly as they scurried about the kitchen, packing the fridge with the chocolate liqueurs and cleaning up the mess that had accumulated during the day's flurry of activity. There were occasional spots of mischief perpetrated by one mare upon the other and vis-versa, but preparation for the coming day was the number one priority.
By the time the Lyra and Bon-Bon had finally wrapped things up the sun had begun its descent below the horizon and exhaustion was settling rapidly into their bones. Weariness did nothing to dampen their spirits though, for despite the continual waxing and waning of their enthusiasm in the face of both opportunity and daunting challenges they knew one thing with absolute certainty:
Tomorrow was going to be huge.
Author's Note
Yes yes, this is all very contrived and so on.
