“Excuse me, darling.”
The shopkeeper looked over at the low, sultry voice. There stood an earth pony mare with a two-toned mane, eyes half-lidded, a coy smile on her face. Her tail flicked.
Lyra couldn't hear very well from how far away she was, but Bon Bon’s body language was clear; and when she came back, she was holding two pretzels when she had definitely only had the bits for one.
“You’re pretty good at that whole flirting thing,” Lyra said uncertainly.
Bon Bon grunted distractedly as she passed her friend a pretzel. “Top of my class,” she said nonchalantly. “Once I convinced a border patrol minotaur to look the other way as we moved a nest of cockatrices out of the way of a railroad just by giving him a peek at my goods.”
Lyra flushed slightly and kept her eyes on her pretzel. “Is that what they’re calling it these da-?”
“Literally,” Bon Bon growled, cutting her off. “My next option was going to be to knock him out, probably by garrote, because minotaurs have super thick skulls.”
“Gar-what?”
Bon Bon put the pretzel in her mouth. In one move, she’d grabbed onto the setting knob on her watch and pulled it out, revealing that it was actually the tip of a long, thin wire. Before Lyra could even blink, Bon Bon was behind her, that wire now wrapped tightly around her neck.
“Squeeze, and down they go,” Bon Bon said pleasantly. “If they resist, you might end up slicing a few important arteries. So that’s not a wise course of action.”
Lyra made a panicked squeak. Bon Bon chuckled lightly and retracted the wire.
“How do you know so much about pony anatomy, anyway?” Lyra had to ask.
Bon Bon shrugged and took another bite of her pretzel. “Not all monsters are bugbears and timberwolves. Sometimes you're fighting revenants, impervious to pain until you slowly—and it's gotta be slowly—pull the enchanted nail from their neck. Sometimes it's ehowolves, and you're carrying silver blades and wearing spiked shoulder pads. Those work well against the -blixes, too. Vamponies. All pony-shaped and more dangerous than their monstrous counterparts.”
Lyra couldn't speak. “You know a lot,” she finally said.
“I do,” Bon Bon agreed.
They walked a bit longer.
Bon Bon sighed as she tossed the empty napkin into a trash can. “Sometimes I think I know too much,” she admitted. “We have a saying. She who fights with monsters must take care that she herself does not become the monster.”
“You’re not a monster,” Lyra said, wrapping her foreleg around Bon Bon’s shoulders. “You’re my best friend.”
Bon Bon exhaled. “Thanks,” she said, accepting the touch. “I’m sorry you’re in this mess, though.”
“Yeah,” Lyra said quietly, looking down at her half-eaten pretzel, “me too.”
There was a lengthy pause.
“Where are we going now?” Lyra finally asked. “It’s getting kinda late.”
“I had an idea. It’s… a risk, but it’s something crazy. Someplace nopony will think to look for us, so we should be safe,” Bon Bon answered. She looked up. “We’re going to Canterlot,” she explained.
“Oh, I lived in Canterlot,” Lyra said.
“I remember,” Bon Bon said. “Let’s get moving.”
“Wait. On hoof?” Lyra looked up. It wasn’t that far away, but that was a lot of walking.
“We’ll have to. I don’t know how many more train fights I have in me, I like room to maneuver. We can’t go by hot air balloon or take a taxi, too open from pegasi.” Bon Bon pursed her lips. “Let’s go find a crowd to get lost in.”
Lyra let out a shaky sigh of relief as the lake around Canterlot came into view. Bon Bon had taken main roads with plenty of traffic, but had backtracked and ducked into shops and paused to ‘window shop’ (really, looking at the reflections of ponies walking behind them) that their trip seemed to have doubled in length. She had definitely not imagined this happening when she walked into Bon Bon’s shop early this morning. The pretzel was long since gone, and her stomach was grumbling, and even Bon Bon looked like she was flagging slightly.
But Canterlot shone brightly in the setting sun, and there was a brief moment of peace. They’d finally made it to the lake entrance.
This moment quickly evaporated as Bon Bon pulled Lyra aside. “I'm not feeling so good about this bridge,” she murmured, jerking her head towards it. “Too many guards. We'll have to find another way across.”
Lyra nodded. Now that Bon Bon said it, she realized she was right; she'd been out here before when she was a student and had not seen this many royal guards at one time.
As Bon Bon tried haggling with the nearest boatkeeper for passage (an older mare that looked like she would not be falling for her seductive act), Lyra looked over the river, not really focusing on anything in particular. How had this all gone so wrong?
"Need help going across?"
Lyra looked over to see a younger colt, lounging on the side of the docks. Seaweed strands hung in his long mane, which he lifted out of the way with his hoof to see her better. He grinned. “It's cheap.”
Lyra smiled. “We'd kinda need ‘free’ at this point,” she admitted wryly.
“That's just fine!” He sat up. “I'm bored, anyway. Need something to do. Might as well help!”
Lyra turned to go get Bon Bon, excited that their luck had turned around.
She had already seen; and had decided that the best way to thank the colt for his kind offer was to launch herself at him. He stumbled under her attack, collapsing to his knees into a protective ball.
"Not today, kelpie!" she hissed.
"Bon Bon!” Lyra gasped. “What are you doing to that colt?"
"Colt, nothing. Lyra, say hello to the common kelpie."
"A seapony?" Lyra stammered.
Bon Bon chuckled mirthlessly as she spun and held him down. "Seaponies are friendly and like rivers and oceans and singing. Kelpies like lakes and drowning ponies in them." She emphasized this with a none-too-friendly cuff on his head.
"You know I'm a kelpie?" the colt grunted as he struggled to free himself. He seemed quite strong for his size; Bon Bon had to keep rapidly readjusting her weight to stay on top, spinning on top, constantly bumping his hips with hers to knock him off balance. "Then you know what happens when I touch the water?" He torqued his body and, now laying flat, reached out for the water.
But apparently, that was exactly what Bon Bon had wanted. Now that he was elongated, she could use her larger size and weight against him; he couldn't get the traction to push off the ground with enough strength to lift them both. Her hips pinned him down and then she reached for her watch.
The strand was out and taut across his neck in the blink of an eye. "And I also know what happens when silver breaks your skin," Bon Bon returned. "There's silver strands woven in this steel cable, and I know the iron in it won't feel too good, either. Keep struggling, I dare you."
Wisely, the kelpie decided to stop. He did seem to hum angrily, though, as if he were full of bees.
“You were right about one thing, though. We do need help across. And, lucky you, you’re going to help us.”
“As if!”
“Wrong answer.” She tightened her grip.
“Alright! I'll take you across!”
Bon Bon leaned back and tightened it further. “Safely,” she insisted. “Swear on your honor.”
“On me honor!”
“Full sentences, now.”
“I swear on me honor to see you safely to the other shore!” he choked.
This was enough for her; she got up and let the wire retract back into the body of the watch. “Well, then, let's get going!” she said brightly.
The trip across was fairly uneventful. The kelpie sulked in the back of the boat, nudging the rudder with an elbow as needed. Lyra shuffled uncomfortably as the boat gently rocked on its journey, and Bon Bon just kept watch, ears pricked.
Finally, the boat ran aground against the opposite shore. Lyra turned to give the kelpie a friendly smile, but his expression didn’t change. Uncomfortably, she climbed out of the boat and landed solidly on the sandy beach. Bon Bon hesitated briefly, then followed. Her hooves hit the sand.
There was a blur of motion behind her. Lyra didn't even have time to squeak before there came a sickening crunch. She looked behind her, and saw the young kelpie, laying on the ground, dazed, surrounded by the seaweed that had been quite literally knocked out of his mane, and with a very distinct red hoofprint mark, seemingly burned onto his face.
"Iron horseshoes," Bon Bon said with a smirk as she trotted forward. "Only ever get the best."
"Was he...?"
"Yep. Promised to see us safely to land, didn't say anything about not trying to drown us again after he did. Typical young kelpie stuff. Older ones know to word it better; the good ones can make it so that they technically only have to take you halfway across. You can guess what happens then."
Lyra looked over her shoulder and almost felt sorry for him.
And then he scowled, revealing murderous, sharpened teeth; and her sympathy quickly fled.
"Come on," Bon Bon murmured, eyes flicking around. "We're not out of danger yet."
"From him?" Lyra squeaked.
"From anypony."
And with that comforting thought, they made their way up the Canterlot streets.
Back on the other side of the bank, the kelpie sat by the edge of the water, irritably rubbing his face, which was still throbbing with a dull, achy pain. Stupid iron. Stupid ponies. Stupid everything.
What made it worse was his pride wouldn't let him tell anykelpie else that a pony had outsmarted him, so all he could do was simmer angrily and pretend the wetness by his eyes was seaspray. He was a good kelpie, really! He was a mighty defender of these waters. He was!
“Hey, you.”
He looked up.
A large pony stood there, looking down her nose at him. “I saw you with them. The cream earth pony and the green unicorn. You took them across the lake.”
The little colt brightened. "Oh, yeah! I remember them. Friends of your’n?”
“Something like that.”
He jumped off the deck and started trotting towards his boat. “I can take you across the lake. I only charge half what everypony else does, even if they're closed.”
Cold steel was suddenly pressed against his neck. “It'll be free, and you’ll tell me anything and everything you overheard them say.”
The colt nodded slowly. “Every word. On me honor,” he said.