Secrets

by bahatumay


Ponies Can't Live on Bread Alone

Bon Bon flew around corners and sprinted around ponies like they were standing still, weaving through groups. As she ran, she scanned the ponies rapidly, looking both for any possible threats and for Lyra. She was pretty convinced that Twinkle had not been the one who had a dart at her, which meant there was at least one more pony hunting her. Probably more. And now the idea to split up was sounding worse and worse; doubt gnawed at her stomach. Lyra was a good pony, but she doubted she could hold her own in a fair fight, let alone a street fight like these were shaping up to be. She wouldn’t have known what to look for.

Still continuing her crazy run, she passed various shops. A bookstore, good for hiding but also good for getting ambushed, a small fruit stand, a little bakery with a single baker in a really bulky wheelchair and covered by a blanket…

Bon Bon quickly changed course, burst through the door, and one diving slide later, she was on her back behind the front counter. 

The baker looked down at her, shocked. Her mouth worked wordlessly as she tried to process this unexpected turn of events. “You're not supposed to be here,” she finally said.

“I just need a little time to lose some ponies. You won't even know I'm here.”

“What?” She shook her head. “No, get out! This is my bakery!”

Bon Bon smiled wryly. “Sorry. Extenuating circumstances.”

“I'll call the Royal guard,” she threatened. 

“I'll kick your wheelchair over and reveal you as a lamia,” Bon Bon returned. 

The baker’s eyes narrowed, and she looked out over her counter again. “Agent of SEMHA, I presume?” she asked coldly. 

“Former, yes.”

“I had nothing to do with that mare disappearing, I swear. I've never even eaten pony.”

Bon Bon sniffed. “I'm more likely to report you for not cleaning your floors properly.” She dragged the tip of her hoof across the ground and examined it critically. “I know the regs, there's no way this has been sanitized in the last four hours.”

The lamia looked down angrily. “I work alone and it is hard to clean from a wheelchair,” she hissed. 

“Look up and don't talk to me,” Bon Bon hissed back. 

She scowled as she obeyed the first half of that order. “How did you know?”

“Lamia forelegs are a bit longer and higher up on the torso, for easier gripping. You don't notice it unless you're looking for it. And most of the lamia I’ve met have been bakers. It's always warm, the floor has to be tile or polished wood which lets the wheelchairs roll easily, and you get to practice your swallowing with fresh, pony-temperature loaves of bread.”

“That is a filthy rumor spread by scalehaters and nothing more.”

Bon Bon squinted, sizing her up. 

She looked down, feeling her gaze. “What?” she demanded.

“Bet you can do at least, I'd say, a foot and a half diameter.”

The lamia scowled. “One foot, seven inches and a quarter,” she corrected sullenly, both not wanting to prove her right and wanting to prove her wrong. 

Bon Bon smirked. As ‘toothless’ a predator as they had become, lamia were to a one proud of their swallowing ability. 

The bell over the door jingled. The lamia smiled, putting on her most welcoming voice. “Welcome to the Small Scale Bakery, what can I get for you?”

Bon Bon snorted a laugh, and quickly covered her face. Why did she laugh at everything?

But it was already too late. Her eyes flicked down, and his followed. 

His face twisted into a smile. “I think you've got something else here. Like a rat that needs exterminating.”

“No, no rats,” she said, but her ears pinned. “Just… just bread. And other… bready things.”

Bon Bon scowled. Civilians. No good under pressure. 

He gave her a patronizing smile, then leaned over the counter, dagger held up threateningly-

But nopony was there. 

She held up her hoof disarmingly. “S- see?” she said shakily, wheeling back a bit to put a little more room between them. “Just… just me here.”

There was a clattering noise in the kitchen behind her.

“A- and my assistant,” she stammered. “Bakery assistant. In the back. Of my shop. Where assistants usually are.” 

He jumped the counter.

“Hey, you can’t-”

He hit her in the face with the butt of his knife and kept walking.

In the back, Bon Bon looked up from her stack of baking pans and put on her best ‘surprised’ face. “You can’t be back here,” she said.

“You know exactly why I’m back here,” he said, leveling it at her, “Special Agent Sweetie Drops.”

“I’m afraid I don’t.” She picked up the pan and spun it over her hoof. “But please, tell me more about it.”

He flipped his knife around his hoof and started to circle. “You want to dance?”

“In all honesty, no. Four left rear hooves, you see,” Bon Bon admitted. 

“Well, I do, hope you don’t mind if I-” he slashed, “-cut in.”

Bon Bon barked a laugh as she swatted his hoof away with the flat of the tray. “Alright,” she said, slapping him across the face with the edge, “we don’t have to talk.” 

The pan had better range than his knife, so when he stabbed again, she just batted it down and poked him in the face, cutting his lip on his own teeth. She circled, trying to get him with his back towards the ovens and her back towards the entrance for an escape. 

A sharp gasp made her look over. The lamia was staring at the fight in her kitchen. 

Civilian interference! She could never get away from it! “Why are you in here?” Bon Bon hissed. 

That moment of distraction was enough; he pulled out a grenade, ripped the pin out with his teeth, and threw it. 

But there had been far too many grenades recently, and Bon Bon was having none of it. She kicked it back blindly behind her, and in one motion, she grabbed the lamia by the neck, grabbed the edge of the table with the other hoof, and launched herself; using her weight to pull the table over as a shield and bringing her with her. “Get down!”

And not a moment too soon; the grenade exploded, sending flour flying everywhere and embedding shrapnel into the table. 

“Enough stinking grenades,” Bon Bon grumbled even as her ears rang and her vision shook. She poked her head out, her trusty baking tray held up and at the ready; but she brightened grimly as she noticed that her retort had been fatal. He had not managed to kick it back in time. Relieved, she looked back down at the lamia. 

Part of her snake tail had not made it behind the table, and she now bore burns and shrapnel dangerously close to her most sensitive organs. Bon Bon pursed her lips and began to work. Grabbing a rag from the clean pile and a small container, she filled it with water, sniffed all the metal containers until she found the baking soda, and made a paste. She had the rag soaked and pressed against her burns before she had fully regained consciousness. 

Bon Bon winked. “Keep it elevated and don't slither on it for at least two weeks. Gotta go.” She turned to leave and nearly stepped on the body. She paused, looked down at it, then looked back at the lamia and winked before running out onto the main floor. She paused long enough to flip the sign to ‘closed’ before running again. 

The lamia stood up, raised up (very carefully) on the uninjured portion of her tail. She slithered forward hesitantly, propelling herself forward with her snake half for the first time in a long time during the day. It… it wouldn't matter too much, right? The SEMHA agent had basically tacitly approved, hadn't she? How else was she supposed to interpret that wink? And technically, he was already dead. It's not like it would make much of a difference, she certainly wasn't going to report it; and she'd probably never get this chance again. Besides, he'd attacked her. Self-defense was in the law. Her tongue ran across her upper lip as she scooted forward, her torso lowering, her lower jaw unhinging…

Outside, Bon Bon smirked. She’d always had a bit of a soft spot for lamia, mostly because throughout all her years as a Special Agent, they’d never given her any real trouble. And every once in a while, she got fresh bread as-

A sharp stabbing pain in her flank dragged her thoughts back into the present. She looked back and her heart skipped a beat.

A dart.

She ripped it out of her flesh and swore under her breath. She didn’t know what it was or who had shot it at her, but she didn’t like it already. She took a steadying breath, held it, and let it out slowly, trying to keep her heart rate down because she knew that freaking out would just spread whatever poison it was through her bloodstream faster. She needed a safe place to hide and wait it out, maybe figure out an antidote. She couldn’t go back to the bakery, not so soon. She walked slowly, ears flicking, trying to slow her breath, trying to ignore the slight misstep from her hooves as dizziness brushed against her mind. 

Where was Lyra? Would she be ok? Bon Bon had been her protector all this time and what was she going to do now? Alone? Hunted? Stuck in a world she didn’t understand? 

She shook her head, trying to clear it. Her hooves stumbled, and she looked around more desperately for someplace to hide. But it was futile; ponies were starting to look, some even started whispering. Too much attention! 

She was starting to sweat. She’d definitely been poisoned. She tried to force her brain to think. What did she have that could help? Her bag, it was mostly weapons but-

Her saddlebag!

She had to hide it. If she was caught with it, that would bring up too many questions, least of all why she was carrying a bag with a recently-murdered Vanilla Swirl’s name on it. She headed down an alleyway and shoved it behind a dumpster, and kept walking, hoping she’d done it well enough to not draw attention. Her vision was getting cloudier now, and she briefly considered hiding herself back there, as well, and hoping to just wait it out, but it was too late for that. She had to get away from there, in case she could come back.

But as she stumbled out of the alley, she landed right in front of a pair of Royal Guards. And sticking out from under the wing of one was the tip of something that could be a flute… or a blowdart gun.

“Looks like somepony had a little too much to drink,” one said, stepping forward.

Crooked royal guard, she seethed as her world turned to blackness. I hate it when I’m right.