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// Chapter 1: The Candy Family 
// Story: Liza Doolots and the Candy Factory 
// by Fluttercheer 
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Liza Doolots and the Candy Factory


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Characters:           




Chapter 1: The Candy Family


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The schoolhouse of Ponyville was filled with foals of all shapes and sizes and colors; obese foals, happy foals, blue foals, attentive foals, bored foals, yellow and orange and white foals, rich foals, unicorn foals, beige foals, thin foals, chatting foals, competitive foals, pink foals, big foals, poor foals, red foals, grey foals, small foals, brown foals, pegasi foals, sleeping foals, writing foals, purple foals, middle-class foals, angry foals, earth pony foals, green foals, interested foals, playful foals and eating foals.
In the front row, at the desk in the middle, sat a candy-loving foal; a little, turquoise unicorn filly: Liza Doolots.
All foals in Ponyville loved candy very much, but Liza loved candy the most of them all. Which is why it came in useful for her that her parents owned a candy store.
At the front of the classroom stood Miss Cheerilee, Ponyville's only teacher, but a dedicated one, she was always eager to teach her students about new things and to increase their knowledge about the world they lived in. And such was the case today. A new development happened in Equestria, one that could shape the lives of ponies forever, and so Cheerilee wanted that the foals of Ponyville understood exactly what was happening in their kingdom.
A chart stood next to her and Miss Cheerilee just folded over a sheet of paper to reveal her next example of industrialism in Equestria. A logo on the next sheet of the chart came into view for the foals, a stylized picture of Princess Twilight with ketchup smeared around her mouth and a burger that was missing a bite next to her, on top of the words “BURGER PRINCESS”. Each of the two words was in its own line and written in a purple font that looked just like the coat color of the princess.
Miss Cheerilee put a pointer at the logo. “Burger Princess is a fast food chain that originated four years ago in Fillydelphia. Unlike other restaurants, or our own burger restaurant here in Ponyville, the hayburgers it offers are smaller, but they also come at a cheaper price and are made much faster than the burgers of other restaurants.”
She pulled the pointer away and looked at her class. “Today, Burger Princess has restaurants in Fillydelphia, Manehattan, the Crystal Empire, Canterlot and even in Appleloosa, where it sells exclusive burgers with a local flair.  Another example of a popular, new fast food chain is McAlicorns, which just opened for business in the Crystal Empire.” A smirk played around her lips. “You see that Princess Twilight has been quite the inspiration for fast food restaurants.”
The foals laughed, getting the reference.
Miss Cheerilee continued. “There is no Burger Princess or McAlicorns restaurant here in Ponyville yet, but the sales of the chains are very successful, so it will only be a matter of time.”
The entire classroom began to cheer at these words.
As Miss Cheerilee turned to the chart again and wanted to turn up another sheet, she was suddenly interrupted by the schoolbell and stopped in her movement and looked back at her class. “Looks like our lesson is already over! This went fast today!” She chuckled. “Class is dismissed!”
Her joyous voice swept over the foals and they didn't waste a moment with packing their saddlebags and leaving their desks for the exit. All the foals poured out of the schoolhouse like the building was a gigantic candy dispenser, laughter and giggling ringing out among the little ponies.
Liza ran with them and she had a smile on her face and cheers left her mouth. Her eyes sparkled brightly as she looked ahead, youthful energy and foalish enthusiasm spreading out to all sides. Right in front of her ran Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle and to her left and right, Dinky Hooves and Ruby Pinch were running. Not far away from her was Tornado Bolt, who was wearing a fierce smirk on her lips as she looked at Cotton Cloudy, who accompanied her.
The cheers and the laughter by the group of foals was deafening and could be heard far down the street. It was a common sound at this time of day, on every single day, as their route and their destination after school was always the same.
“To the candy store!” Dinky's clear and bright voice chimed to Liza's left. Then the same shout came from right of her, from a slightly deeper voice as Ruby Pinch repeated the words.
Liza looked around between them and grinned. “The candy store!” she shouted in glee.
The tempo of the foals carried them to their destination quick and only very few minutes later, they burst into the door of Ponyville's candy store.
Instantly, Lyra and Bon Bon looked up and at the door from their position behind the counter. Their already bright faces grew ten times brighter as they heard the little hooves trippling into their store and as they saw all the smiling faces of the foals who had come to buy candy like they did every day after school.
Soon, they found themselves under siege by colorful, cute faces who stared up at them in joyful expectation, as the foals stormed to the counter, Liza at the front of the group.
The young unicorn looked at Lyra, then at Bon Bon. “Hi, mommy! Hi, mama!”
The mothers leaned down to their daughter and ruffled her mane.
“Where are the candies?” an obese colt in the front row, Gallop J. Fry, shouted. He attempted to climb over the counter to reach the huge glasses with candies that stood on top of it. At his side was another colt  who was just as obese, Truffle Shuffle, and he tried to do the same.
Behind Gallop J. Fry, Truffle Shuffle and Liza stood the rest of the foals; Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, Dinky Hooves, Ruby Pinch, Tornado Bolt, Royal Blue, Twist, Aura, Train Tracks, Peach Fuzz, Ginger Snap, First Base, Aquamarine, Pina Colada, Diamond Tiara, Cotton Cloudy, Button Mash, Noi, Alula, Lickety Split, Lily Longsocks and Archer were their names.
The eager question by the greedy colt gave reason for Bon Bon to present Lyra with a prompting smirk. Taking the hint, Lyra smirked back, then she leaned closer to the foals and began to sing a song.
“Who loves a summer sunrise, sweet smell of early morning dew?”
The foals giggled in happiness as the melodic words were sung in front of them. To Lyra's left, Bon Bon came a step closer and joined into the song.
“It feels like candy-making, so it's loved by us two!”
The two mares united their voices and sung the rest of the verse together. “We are the candy mares! And a candy mare cares! The candy mares care 'cause they craft candies with love and love makes candy taste good!”
Bon Bon reached down to the foals, who had come closer and were now almost pressing themselves against the counter, picked up Noi and sat her down on the counter right next to her. She lifted the lid from one of the glasses and gave the filly a few pieces of hard candy in colorful wrapping paper. Bon Bon started to sing again.
“Who loves smiles of fillies, cast by gummy worms?”
Lyra ruffled through Noi's mane as she took over for Bon Bon. “Watching them spoon sugar cream and then they add some s'mores!”
They began so sing together again. “We are the candy mares! And a candy mare cares!The candy mares care 'cause they craft candies with love and love makes candy taste good!”
As they had ended, they beckoned Liza over, signalling for her to join them.
Liza's face grew brighter and she jumped onto the counter and turned around to her friends and classmates with joy in her eyes.
“Mommy and Mama take, whatever they make, their candy work very, very serious!” She leaned down at Gallop J. Fry who had an unhappy expression, still waiting for his candy. “Don't you ever get nervous! We do our best to make our candies flawless!” She hoofed Fry a large candy cane, which finally cast a smile on the colt's face and he began to lick it passionately.
Lyra watched the scene with a satisfied smile of her own, then began so sing again. “Who loves the taste of sugar, the finest of all treats?”
“Take away the sadness with a bag full of sweets!” Bon Bon opened a drawer under her, reached into it with both hooves and showered the foals at the other side of the counter in candies, which all the foals collectively tried to catch. They jumped up and squealed in delight.
Lyra, Bon Bon and Liza continued their song.
“We are the candy mares!”
“My mommies care!”
“And a candy mare cares!”
Lyra and Bon Bon brought their faces close together and looked deeply into each other's half-lidded eyes. “The candy mares care 'cause they craft candies with love and love makes candy taste good!”
The two parents pulled Liza into their midst and snuggled close to their daughter, their faces and cheeks pressed against hers, embracing her with a forehoof each. Together, the mares joined into their song one last time.
“And love makes candy taste good, 'cause the candy mares know that it shoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooould!”
Their song faded out and they nuzzled Liza, who happily reciprocated the gesture to her mommies.
The foals stood in awe for a second, their mouths and eyes opened wide, then broke out in amazed cheers. They raised their little hooves and reached for the candies on the counter; opened glasses, grabbed candy bars and pulled gummy worm, that were longer than some of them measured from the tip of their manes to their end of their tails, out of dispensers. It was like a riot for candy had broken out in the little store, an adorable pandemonium of little colts and fillies demanding what was their right.
Lyra, Bon Bon and Liza tended to foals left and right, giving out candies of all variants and sorts they had available and took bits from the little hooves in exchange for them, until all the glasses and all the dispensers were empty. As the last of the foals who got candy that day, Aura stuffed her mane with gummy worms, then paid and skipped out of the store like she was dancing, with the happiest, mischievous grin a filly could make.
Only Gallop J. Fry stayed behind, not looking happy anymore. “Awww, but I wanted so much more candy!” he said with quivering lips and a mountain of sweet snacks on his back, while looking at the three candy sellers pleadingly. He turned to the right and stuck his hoof deep into a hard candy dispenser, trying to fish for any last pieces that might have remained in there.
Lyra and Bon Bon chuckled at the desperate need for even more candy and Liza added a giggle to the mix.
“For today we are sold out, but we will prepare much more candy for tomorrow,” Bon Bon reassured the colt with a friendly and welcoming smile on her face.
Fry pulled at the dispenser with all his might, trying to get his hoof free again. He stumbled backwards as it finally slipped out, losing a few of his candies by the sudden motion, then breathed a sigh of relief as he looked down on his hoof. Then he looked at the candy makers again. “Promise?” he asked. Fry popped a piece of candy from his supplies into his mouth and started chewing while expectantly waiting for an answer.
“Promise!” Liza shouted. “When did we ever not have enough candies to fill all of your belly, Fry?” She giggled in hilarity.
“Okay, I'll be here again after school tomorrow,” Fry announced. “Make sure to have lots of candy.” He turned away from the two mares and the filly and staggered out of the candy store, carefully balancing his load.
As the door had clicked shut and they were alone in the now silent candy store, Liza turned around on the counter to face her parents. “We sold out already, isn't this amazing?! We didn't have a day that was that good in a long time!” Liza's face seemed to radiate sunshine and rainbows as she spoke the cheerful words.
“You are so right!” Lyra cheered with her. She picked Liza up, pulled her close and hugged her tightly, which the filly answered on with a happy giggle.
“It really was a success today,” Bon Bon confirmed, watching her marefriend and their daughter with a satisfied smile. Then her face became a little more serious. “But of course success also means that we have to keep working hard to live up to our name and the expectations of our customers.” She trotted to a door that was behind the counter and opened it. A spacious kitchen decked out in bright pastel colors came into view. “We should get to work for the sales tomorrow.”
Lyra and Liza released their embrace and nodded, not stern-faced, but smiling. While Lyra followed her marefriend to the door, Liza jumped down in front of the counter and approached the front door. She ignited her horn and hovered over a key that hung down from a nail on a board that was on the wall behind the counter. With the magical proficiency of a unicorn foal who cares to do the work right, she inserted it into the keyhole and turned it around, locking the door.
Her task done, Liza jumped back onto the counter, down on the other side and hovered the key back to its place, before she joined her mommies at the entrance of the store's kitchen. She closed the door behind them and together, the tree candy makers entered the kitchen.
Inside, Liza aimed straight for the cupboards at the bottom of the kitchen unit. She opened one and hovered out a set of sturdy, 3-quart copper pots and a double boiler. She let them fly across the room. In the middle of the kitchen was a large table with several work spaces, two ovens with the accompanying stove tops and a sink that was equipped with a motion sensor faucet. Liza placed the pots on the stove top opposite of her.
Above her head, Lyra giddily rummaged in a drawer and hovered out several candy-making tools – among them a liquid measuring cup, a pastry brush, several wooden spoons, dipping tools and a candy thermometer. Bon Bon was lifting two large squeeze bottles and a kitchen scale. The mares brought them to the work space right next to the stove top Liza has put the pots on.
Soon, all three work spaces were equipped with the same set of tools, safe for the kitchen scale, which was expensive, so there was only one. The candy makers got to work.
After a while of working in content, concentrated silence, Bon Bon started a conversation. She had just dipped freshly-cooked and hardened candies into chocolate and placed them onto a big, white plate, as she looked over to a calendar that hung next to the kitchen door.
“It's going to be another Hearth's Warming season soon,” she determined. “Just a few weeks more, then we have to speed up our candy production and probably make three times as much candy.” She whistled, in happy anticipation.
“Yeah, soon, all ponies in Ponyville will gift candies to others during the holidays!” Lyra happily answered her at the other side of the table. She was busy garnishing small pralines made of white chocolate with thin lines of strawberry cream.
Liza stood at the stove top next to Bon Bon while her mothers were talking. She looked up from the pot in which she stirred a cooking candy mass with a wooden spoon, beaming brightly. “And Fry and Truffle will buy even more candy than they normally do! For the holidays, because that's when you celebrate the founding of Equestria and friendship, so that makes it okay to eat thrice as many candies each day!” Liza looked down at the sweet mass in the pot again. “We are the candy mares! And a candy mare cares!” she sung quietly.
Her mothers chuckled. “And the best thing is that they are right!” Lyra shouted in glee.
Bon Bon nodded, smiling. “Not to mention custom candy orders,” she said, looking at a row of photos that hung at the opposite wall of the kitchen and showed many unique candy creations. “Those will see an increase in the gift-giving season again.”
“I bet! Gosh, I can't wait to work on some crazy ideas for this year!” A squee left Lyra's throat.
“We all can't wait for it!” Liza added and clarified at the same time. “The Hearth's Warming season is always the best time of the year and I'm sure this year it will be even greater!” She presented her parents with a wide smile and a glow in her eyes.
Lyra and Bon Bon smiled in the same way. Filled with anticipation towards the busiest month for their small candy business, but also the one with the most cheer, they lapsed into pleased silence while continuing with their work.
A peaceful, festive atmosphere spread out in the candy kitchen.
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