Lyra hummed softly to herself as she walked home from the train station, her hooves leaving faint prints on the damp cobblestone. She had just returned from visiting family in Manehattan, and she couldn’t be happier to be back in Ponyville. Her family was fine, and she loved seeing them, but the big city always made her feel weirdly lonely and claustrophobic at the same time. Now that she was back where she belonged, she could finally breathe easy.
It was still the wee hours of the morning, not even sunrise yet, so Lyra chose to take the long way home through the park. The pond in the middle was always calming to look at, and the low fog rolling lazily over its surface painted a beautiful picture in the gray dawn light. She stood for a few minutes at the water's edge, taking in the scene and plucking her lyre to see if any early birds would join her in a song. It was a little disappointing when none did, but she didn't let it bother her. She soon waved goodbye to the pond and continued home, her ears picking up the sound of brisk hoofsteps coming from the main road. It seemed like at least one other pony was awake now, perhaps out for a morning jog.
By the time Lyra reached her house, the sun was finally starting to peek over the horizon. She entered as quietly as she could, and as she closed the door behind her, she was struck with the urge to surprise Bon Bon somehow. Maybe she could lie across the sofa like a model and give smoochy eyes at her when she walked in. Yeah, she would hate that. Bonnie could tolerate Lyra’s silliness during the day, and sometimes even at night, but right after waking up was when she became anti-Bon—no kisses, no laughs, no smiles. Only pure, unfiltered grump. Lyra knew that even a whole week of missing each other wouldn’t smooth that rough edge.
So of course she would try it anyway.
Placing her saddlebag by the door, she tiptoed to the couch, chose a suitably seductive pose, and started practicing her smoochy eyes. Her attention never wavered from the hallway door as five minutes turned into ten, ten into twenty, twenty into thirty. She was determined to make this work.
As the hour mark approached, her initial excitement was beginning to wane, and Lyra wondered if Bon Bon had forgotten how to wake up. Deciding to save her new morning strategy for a rainy day (her smoochy eyes could use more practice anyway), she rolled off the couch and crept to the bedroom.
“Bonnie?” Lyra whispered as she cracked open the door. “Bonnet? Bongo? You still asleep?”
No response.
She opened the door wider, poking her head in to see an empty bed. The covers were messy, but the candy-stamped grumphorse was nowhere to be seen. Her alarm clock was on the floor, and her slippers were scattered about, so she had either left in a hurry, or…
Lyra gasped at the realization. “Bonnie’s been kidnapped!”
It was the only explanation, or at least the only one that made sense. Bon Bon refused to move any faster than a stiff shuffle in the morning, so the idea of her rushing off was laughable at best. Kidnapping, on the other hoof…
Bonnie was fit, sure, but she wasn’t exactly known for her physical prowess, and her being all alone in the house at the time meant she would have been a prime target. Add in the fact that she was such a ridiculously attractive mare, and it was no wonder she had been taken.
“Don’t worry, Bonnie,” Lyra said aloud, clutching one of the slippers. “I’ll get you back safe, I promise.”
First things first, though. She needed help from someone she could trust. Someone who would be willing to do whatever it took to bring Bonnie back. Reporting to the police could take hours, and that was time Lyra didn’t have. It was time Bonnie didn’t have.
There was only one pony she could turn to at a time like this.
Pinkamena Diane Pie, private investigator, scribbled furiously in her notebook as Lyra recounted the morning’s events to her.
“And you said you waited for a whole hour?” she questioned, raising an eyebrow. At Lyra’s nod, she scribbled something else down. “Did she forget how to wake up?”
“That’s what I thought, too! But when I went to our bedroom, she wasn’t there!”
“No way!" Pinkie exclaimed. "Was she kidnapped?”
“She must have been! I mean, there’s no other explanation.”
“She is ridiculously attractive,” Pinkie hummed, tapping her chin with a pencil.
“Right? It was bound to happen at some point.”
Both mares nodded solemnly, acknowledging the unfortunate reality that Bon Bon’s angelic beauty was both a blessing and a curse.
“Be that as it may,” Pinkie said, nearly cracking a smile at the opportunity to use that phrase, “I won’t rule out any possibility just yet. Maybe she was kidnapped for a different reason. Something besides her irresistible good looks.”
“Like what?” Lyra asked, bewildered that someone would kidnap Bon Bon for any other reason.
“Like her candy!” Pinkie shouted, slamming a hoof on the desk. “Oops, sorry. That was too much, wasn’t it?”
Lyra gave a so-so motion.
“Right. Anyway, what I mean is somepony might have taken her so they could force her to make free candy.”
"Of course!" Lyra slapped her forehead. She felt stupid for not seeing it before! Bonnie’s candy was her second most valuable asset, of course it would be another possible reason.
Pinkie continued speaking as she donned a trench coat and hat. “Somepony with a strong enough sweet tooth would have all the motivation in the world to kidnap the Bonster," she said. "Her perfect features would only be a bonus.”
“That fiend!” Lyra growled. “What if they’ve got her in a kitchen right now working her poor hooves to the bonebone?”
“Then we have no time to lose,” Pinkie said determinedly. “To the scene of the crime!”
“Mhm, yes,” Pinkie muttered, holding a magnifying glass up to the haphazard mess of blankets on the bed. “Interesting.”
“What do you think?” Lyra asked nervously.
“Oh yeah, definitely signs of a struggle.” The magnifying glass shifted to one of the slippers. “Ooh, these are super cute!”
“Thanks, I bought them for her birthday,” Lyra smiled. “I have a matching pair.”
“Aww, you two are so adorable,” Pinkie cooed.
“Oh, stop it,” Lyra giggled.
“Alright, so it seems the culprit was either a pegasus, a griffin, or a dragon.”
Lyra gasped. “Not a pegasus! How awful!”
“I know,” Pinkie grimaced. “But the signs are everywhere. And by everywhere I mean nowhere. No hoofprints at all other than Bon Bon’s. The culprit was clearly flying.”
“Oh no," Lyra groaned. "So they could be anywhere.”
“That’s not all,” Pinkie held up the alarm clock. Its hands were still. “Lucky for us, they broke her clock in the struggle. So we now know the kidnapping happened somewhere around 5:15 this morning.”
Lyra felt her face drop at the mention of the time.
“Did you remember something?” Pinkie pounced.
“My train got here at 5:00,” Lyra said shakily. “But I took my time coming home. I could have stopped this.”
Pinkie placed a comforting hoof on Lyra’s shoulder. “Stop that. We can’t waste time thinking about what could have been. Bon Bon’s out there somewhere being forced to make candy and look pretty. She can’t make candy forever, Lyra. We’re on a time limit, we have to focus.”
Lyra shook her head. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I just… sorry.”
“Save the apologies for Bonnie once we save her. Do you remember seeing anything weird when you first got home?”
“No, it was all normal.”
“Hmm.” Pinkie started pacing. “What about on the way? If the kidnapper was making an escape, you might have seen or heard them. There aren’t too many ponies out that early.”
A light clicked on in Lyra’s mind. “The jogger!”
Pinkie spun around to face her. “You saw somepony?”
“No, no! I heard hoofsteps, and I thought it was a jogger, but what if it was-?” Lyra frowned. “Wait, no. If the kidnapper could fly, they wouldn’t be running. Darn it.”
“Or would they?” Pinkie pointed her magnifying glass at the unicorn's nose. “Think about it. If it were a griffin, they could maybe fly while carrying a pony. A dragon could absolutely do it, no problem. But a pegasus…”
Lyra stomped her hooves. “They’d have to carry her on their back! They’d have to run!”
“Quick, which direction were they going?”
Lyra thought frantically for a moment before realizing. “The train station! They’re trying to skip town with Bonnie!”
“Let’s go, hurry!” Pinkie yelled, running to the door.
Lyra beat her to it, flinging it open and nearly falling flat on her face. Right in front of her, glaring daggers at the world, was the beautiful, scowling face of Bon Bon. She looked tired, haggard, and 300% done with absolutely everything.
“Bonnie, you’re okay!” Lyra exclaimed, leaping straight into her marefriend’s warm embrace. In her head. In reality, she leapt forward, Bon Bon sidestepped, and Lyra faceplanted into the dirt. She was unfazed, however, scrambling to her hooves and immediately checking the other mare for injuries. “Where have you been? Are you hurt? You look amazing!”
“You do look amazing,” Pinkie agreed.
“Where have I been?” Bon Bon’s eye twitched. “Where have I been?! I’ve been waiting at the train station for three bucking hours, where have you been?!”
Lyra’s ears flattened and she shared a fearful look with Pinkie. “…Looking for you? So you weren’t kidnapped?” she smiled nervously. “That’s good.”
Bon Bon closed her eyes and breathed slowly through her nose. Pinkie used this opportunity to carefully step around the nuclear Bon, trying to find an angle out the door. As soon as she was in the clear, she tossed her bill at Lyra and booked it.
She was hired to find Bon Bon, and Bon Bon had been found. Another happy ending, another successful case for Pinkie, P.I.