• Published 2nd Dec 2012
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Xenophilia: Further tales. - TheQuietMan

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54: You taught me most of what I know.

You taught me most of what I know.
Chapter published 21st July 2015
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Late Summer 1224 AC
Maternity Wing, Candy Cane Hospital
The day after Sweet Spirit’s birth.


Amidst the usual hustle and bustle of a busy maternity ward, Bon Bon’s hooves clicked sharply against the hard, tiled floor. As she weaved her way down the corridor, she passed a number of different herds just hanging around; either waiting attentively outside of particular rooms, pacing back and forth with barely contained worry, or just crashed out wherever they could find space.

Stopping for a second, the confectioner scooped a small plushie duck from the floor, glancing about for its owners, before gently tucking it between a pair of sleeping stallions, curled up together as they were in a two pony dog-pile on one of the world’s most uncomfortable waiting benches.

This was Bon Bon’s third visit to her old house-mate’s bedside in the last twenty four hours and she could swear that, in all that time, these two first-time herd-fathers had yet to move from their spot outside of their herd-mate’s doorway. Leaning closer, Bon Bon could just make out three... no, four different feminine voices coming from the other side of the closest door - all coo-ing over what was most likely the herd’s first foal.

After a few seconds, the foal in question must have decided that it’d had enough of all the coo-ing and what he or she reeeeally wanted was a good feeding and, by Celestia, he or she was going to make the best use they could of these brand new lungs to let everypony know alllll about it.

Outside of the door, the two sleeping stallions both jerked awake, the unicorn of the pair accidently poking his partner in the neck as the sudden cries of their child made him jump. Blinking and bleary eyed, the duo looked around, reality reasserting itself in their foggy minds. She knew she shouldn't, but the sight made Bon Bon laugh out loud.

Wishing the boys well, Bon Bon carried on making her way down the corridor towards the last door in the hallway. Nodding to the pair of royal guards who flanked the door, waiting for the few seconds it took while they ran a quick horn-scan over her body, Bon Bon knocked a forehoof against the door, letting herself in once she heard the occupant beckon her inside.

The room looked much different from the last time she had visited. For one, Lyra and her child were alone - or at least they would have been if not for the gently snoring Wonderbolt Captain curled up asleep in the corner of the room.

All around the room - perched on every available surface - were more cards of congratulations and salutations, brightly coloured balloons, small stuffed toys, overflowing bowls of fruit, and bouquets of mouth-wateringly tempting flowers than Bon Bon had ever seen all in once place. The strong morning sun flooded the room though the wide open curtains, letting the many bright and bold colours of the veritable sea of gifts pop pleasingly to the eye.

In the middle of it all sat Lyra Heartstrings, propped up in her hospital bed, cradling her day-old daughter against her chest. Looking up from her child, a wide smile spread across a mint green face, golden eyes lighting up as the unicorn found her oldest friend standing across the room.

“Bonnie! Back for more, then?”

Shrugging off her saddlebags, Bon Bon made her way around the bed so she could take a seat by Lyra’s side.

“Of course. There’s no way I’d ever get enough of this little cutie.”

As Lyra turned her body, moving her daughter closer to the bedside, Bon Bon reached out and planted the most gentle of ‘boop’s on the tiny filly’s noseicle. Cream coloured eyelids flickered open for second revealing the most vibrant golden irises that the world had ever seen. A huge yawn swiftly followed, the child flashing her quartet of tiny canine teeth to the world before burbling herself straight back to sleep.

“Well, sorry, Bonnie. Looks like that’s all you're getting today.”

Bon Bon laughed. The kid was exhausted... and so was her mother. Bonnie had never seen her old friend quite so worn out before. But then, she’d never, ever seen her quite this happy either.

“Well, if that’s all I’m getting, I’ll take it.”

The two talked for a spell, mainly about everything that had happened in the whole nine or ten hours since Bon Bon’s last visit, Lyra occasionally flagging, her eyes drooping as her body tried - and failed - to catch up with everything that had happened.

The royal sisters, it turned out, had come to visit, in disguise this time - the ward’s head nurse having quietly yet firmly admonished both of them for causing quite the stir the day before, something the stern old mare was insistent that the collection of convalescing young mothers under her care could do without.

Rainbow had stayed the night, curled up on the bed with mother and baby, something that Bon Bon was glad to hear. Very few ponies - really only the herd’s most closest of friends or those with definite need-to-know - were aware that Rainbow would most likely never bear a foal herself. Some of them, though they’d never have admitted it out loud, had worried that the pegasus of the herd would find it difficult or distressing to be around the herd’s first-born, but now that the little one had arrived Rainbow was showing all the signs to taking to her role as a new herd-mother like a duck to water.

A number of Lero’s ‘guy’ friends had also dropped by - most notably Captains Hide and Shield, stopping by at the end of their shift, both of them carrying saddle bags stuffed to the brim with cards and gifts from what must have been every branch of the royal guards as well as possibly every department of the castle staff.

Lyra spent a few minutes reeling off a list of who had sent which cards, or bowl of fruit, or bunch of flowers - unsurprisingly most of the balloons had come from Pinkie - before remembering that even more had arrived that morning just before breakfast and had been left, unopened, on the bedside table.

Passing a sleeping Sweetie into Bon Bon’s eager arms - the earth pony coo-ing like a fool as the child slept soundly through the entire maneuver - Lyra pulled the small pile of envelopes over to herself, her magic still a bit wobbly and unstable after months of hardly being used.

“Hey, look. This one’s from my old guard captain, ‘Sour’ Grapes. Haven’t seen him since that bar fight.“

“Really? You should drop in, see how the girls are doing.”

“Maybe. Not sure he’s forgotten about all the property damage yet, though. Oh, this one’s from Octavia and the girls in the Philharmonic orchestra. Ha, have a look at this. Even their cards are classy.”

As the second card was levitated to sit next to the first amongst the many, many others scattered around the room, Lyra tore open a third envelope, the plethora of smiley cartoon faces on the card inside making her smile in response. As she flipped the card open and read the message inside, the smile remained but, to Bon Bon’s eyes, the grin just looked... wrong.

“So, who’s it from?”

No response. The smile wasn’t going away and to any pony off of the street Lyra would have looked just like the happiest pony alive. Bon Bon, of course, knew better.

“Lyra... you okay?”

“Huh? Yeah, never better. It’s... ah, from my sisters.”

“Sooo. What’s it say?”

“The usual.”

“Ah. Want me to take it?”

“Please.”

Taking the card, Bon Bon tucked it under her rump for dealing with later. Turning her attention to the last two envelopes, Lyra tore into the first.

“Oh, hey, it’s from my students. Look, they’ve all signed it, even Short Stroke. I bet Guiding Light had to put him in a choke hold and jam the pencil in his mouth herself.”

After showing Bon Bon the card with all its signatures - some more legible than others - Lyra moved onto the last envelope.

“Funny address on this one. it says Lyra, just Lyra.”

“What, just one word? Lucky it found you, then.”

“No, that’s what it actually says. ‘Lyra, just Lyra’, three words.”

As Lyra pulled open the envelope, it wasn’t a card that fell out onto the bed covers, rather a small but ornately engraved golden key on a long filigree chain. Lyra’s magic wrapped around the unexpected bounty, lifting it aloft so that the sun could catch the finely detailed work, bouncing reflected light-spots all around the room.

“Wow, it’s so pretty.”

“So, who’s it from?”

Lyra let the key drift down on the bedsheets as she checked inside what was left of the envelope. In it she found a single piece of folded note paper, which she carefully unfolded.

“It’s from Aunt Sakura.”

Lyra turned the page slightly so that Bon Bon could see the logo of The New Princess Hospital up in West Fillydelphia stamped across the top of the obviously purloined sheet of note-paper.

“Oh, cool. What’s the old biddy got to say?”

“It says.. ahem. ‘My dearest Kouhai. By the time you read this letter I will no doubt be at peace. Though my time grows short’... oh.”

The unicorn’s voice trailed away, though her lips continued to move. Though, from the glance Bon Bon had seen, the letter was not long, Lyra stared at the piece of paper for what felt like an eternity. After what in reality was probably less than a minute Lyra held the paper out for Bon Bon to take, holding it aloft in her magic so that her hooves were free to take back her daughter.

As Bon Bon passed young Sweet Spirit back to her mother, she could see the tears begin to form around the edges of her friend’s eyes. When it came to wearing her own face like a mask, Lyra may have been a grand-master, but Bon Bon could read her like a book. Whatever Auntike Sakura had written in her letter, it had hit Lyra hard.

Taking the letter, Bon Bon read its words in a respectful silence

My dearest Kouhai.

By the time you read this letter I will no doubt be at peace. Though my time grows short, I find that I am ready to face whatever comes next with a smile, safe in the knowledge that I have lived a good life, surrounded by those who love me, as well as those I have loved.

And, as I write of love, I find it important to tell you, in plain and direct words and without any of my usual vagueries, misdirection, or, as you so eloquently used to put it, ‘metaphysical mumbo jumbo’, something of which I am sure you already well aware, though I may never have let it be known before in so succinct a fashion.

You, Lyra, just Lyra, I love with all my heart. You have been, almost from the moment we first met, the daughter I never had.

Over those first few years I saw you grow from a scared, lost, and angry young thing, so full of doubt and self-loathing, into the most radiant, confident, and wonderful mare it has ever been my privilege to have known. I am so very happy that you were part of my life, for without you it would have been so much less of a life.

You are a beautiful pony, Lyra Heartstrings, with a beautiful soul, and you have filled my heart with nothing but joy and pride all these years. You are an amazing individual, and you will be an amazing mother, of this I have no doubt.

Please don’t be sad that we are parting, or that I will no longer be in your life. Has our time together not been a magnificent adventure, our relationship the most bountiful of journeys? If so, then I ask, do not lament that it is over, instead applaud as I take my final bow, and wave me adieu as I exit, stage left. It has been a good show, the best even, but only one of the many. We will do this again, some day, of this I also have no doubt.

If I have but one regret, it is that I will not get to meet your daughter in person. For this, I do hope you can forgive me. But, if somepony is to take my place on this spellbinding carousel of wonder that we call life, then I am glad it will be her.

Just remember, that as one door closes, another opens. Though this transience, this ever-lasting circle of death and rebirth, is the way of all things, I want you to remember that through the Way I will be forever by your side.

おさきにしつれいします

Your loving Sempai.

Sakura Hanami.

Bon Bon had to dab at her eyes a few times. She’d known that Sakura wasn’t long for this world, and that her aunt had made her preparations, and her peace, but to read what was essentially her final goodbyes made the whole thing... well, just so undeniably real. Even when Bon Bon had travelled to Fillydelphia just the previous week the whole thing - the whole concept that this may well be the last time that they would ever meet - had been filled with this air of not-quite-realness about it, like it was something that was never going to actually happen.

Rubbing an eye, Bon Bon held out the page so Lyra could see it.

“What does this bit say? The bit in Neighponese?”

Lyra didn’t turn to look, instead her attention was on her daughter. Slowly she rocked the child back and forth, brushing at the soft golden curls of the filly’s mane with a gentle forehoof. It took almost a full minute before any response was forthcoming.

“Osaki ni shiturei shimasu”

“Oh.”

Bon Bon pondered the strange lettering again, wishing she'd paid more attention in class, letting the whole... whatever this... thing she was feeling sink in.

“But what does it mean?”

Sweet Spirit opened her eyes, giggling at the first thing that she saw, which was her mother scrunching up her face and crossing her large golden eyes before poking out her tongue. Bon Bon had almost given up on getting anything even remotely resembling an answer when Lyra’s softly spoken words made their way across the room.

“It means... it means that she’s really gone.”

“Oh.”

So that was it, then; she was gone... really gone. If Lyra said she was... then she was. Bon Bon had learnt long ago that if Lyra was this sure about something, then she was generally right. She had no idea how it worked but, like Pinkie Sense, it was something one just accepted and got on with.

Bon Bon wished she had more to say... but she didn’t. Instead she just sat there, staring out of the window, looking but not seeing, letting it all wash over her.

In the next room over a baby started to cry, whether in need of food or cleaning or just crying for attention Bon Bon just didn’t know. Outside of the door the guards carried on guarding while up and down the corridor beyond them the visitors, doctors and nurses went about their business. In the city outside the hospital walls the traffic ebbed and flowed, the streets singing the songs of big city life, the background noise of all the hustle and bustle beating the steady beat of the nation’s heart.

And, all over the land of Equestria, life went on.

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