//------------------------------// // New York City // Story: Luna and Bon Bon's Day Out // by jz1 //------------------------------// New York City, January 1983 “Ma’am, when you said you wanted to take some photographs, I thought you wanted to go to a museum, or sightseeing,” Bon Bon muttered as she tightened her scarf against the chilly January air. It was a few degrees above freezing, but last week’s snow was still melting, leaving the city covered in a blanket of thick slush that clung to her fetlocks no matter how carefully she stepped.  “Nonsense!” chortled Princess Luna as she trotted across the cold marble of the World Trade Center Plaza. “Museums are for when you’ve run out of things to see in the real world, and this is a whole new world to explore!”  She snapped a few photos of the towering office buildings with her camera as she said this, and not for the first time the S.M.I.L.E agent cursed the Canadian Prime Minister. He’d given the Canon camera to the Princess as a diplomatic gift last year; it was something that was likely meant to be put on display and never used, however Her Majesty had taken to the machine like a duck to water, and was rarely without the silver camera and her camera bag.  “Can you at least tell me where we’re going?” Another aggravating thing about being on the Lunar Princess’ detail was her tendency to gallop off without a plan or a security detail. Doing that in Equestria had caused the guards many a headache, but after Princess Celestia’s misadventure in Philadelphia several years ago, certain precautions had been made to avoid … unanticipated responses on the part of the Royal Protective Detail.  Now, whenever the Princess (Luna mostly, but Celestia had recently started going off-script every now and again) went off on her own, an agent from one of the Crown intelligence services tagged along to make sure they didn’t cause a panic. On this trip to the United Nations, S.M.I.L.E had been up for the guard duty rotation, and so off Bon Bon went to New York.  “Mine sister has developed a soft spot for human rail transport. When we made our royal visit to Canada last year, several pieces of rolling stock attracted her attention. At the time they were unobtainable, but since then they have become available here in the United States.”  “So we’re going to buy a present for your sister, and not go sightseeing?” The Princess’ explanation had taken long enough for them to enter the lobby of a squat black building next to the shining silver towers, allowing Bon Bon to loosen her scarf a little in the warmth of the building’s heaters.   “Oh, we shall be doing both” Luna said, turning towards a sign that read: PATH ↓ 1•9•A•C•E•N•R ↓ MALL ↓ WTC 6 →. Next to the sign was a flight of moving stairs leading deeper into the complex.  “But we shall not be doing them here - we shall be going on an adventure! Without waiting for her escort, Luna trotted off towards the stairs, leaped into the air, and soared gracefully over the humans using them normally before vanishing out of sight.  It took the humans on the stairs a few moments to realize what was going on, and Bon Bon’s hoof met her face as the first shouts of surprise rose from the stairs.  “Celestia preserve me, it’s going to be a long day.” After navigating the moving stairs and the surprisingly large underground market beyond them, Bon Bon eventually caught up to the Princess. For such a large mare, she moved quickly, and was perusing the candy rack of a Duane Reade drug store inside the market.  “Your Majesty, my assignment requires me to ask you to not do that again.” The earth pony’s voice was dry as a salt lick - she knew exactly how futile such a request was.  “And yet it will likely happen again.” Luna said without looking up from the brightly wrapped confections. “Dost thou desire a ‘Kit-Kat’ or a ‘Skor’?”  “What are they?”  “Kit Kat appears to be chocolate covered wafers. I am unsure what Skor is other than it appears to contain toffee.” “I’ll try a Kit Kat.” As one might expect for a mare with a candy-making cutie mark, Bon Bon hated mass-produced sweets. Chocolate wafers seemed like the safer of the two options; she might not be able to contain herself if the toffee was as bad as she expected it to be.  “A sound decision. We shall have one as well.” With that, Luna levitated two red packages over to the clerk. In a notable difference from Equestria, where everypony in sight would have been bowing and scraping until they left, the pimply-faced youth behind the register barely reacted, ringing up the purchases with a minimum of fuss. In fact, the only time he seemed to show emotion at all was when the Princess paid with a dollar coin - paper currency was much more popular in the United States, and many humans found large-denomination coins unusual and inconvenient, if Bon Bon remembered her briefing packet correctly.  Leaving the drug store, both mares unwrapped their chocolates. They hadn’t made it more than five steps away from the Duane Reade before Luna’s Kit Kat had vanished into her mouth.  “It ish verhy delhectablhe!” She exclaimed through a mouthful of chocolate. Bon Bon’s professional demeanor slipped for a moment as she took in the sight of the supposedly regal and poised Alicorn wolfing down the cheap candy like a starving animal. “And I thought Princess Celestia was the one with a sweet tooth.” She smirked.  “My shishter,” Luna finally swallowed. “Excuse me - my sister must never find out about these. We may enjoy a confectionery on the occasion, but she would gorge herself until she was the size of Castle Canterlot.”  She paused to giggle slightly at the mental image, before noticing that her escort had not yet touched the confection. “Does thou not like it?” “Hmm? Oh - no, I’m just looking at it for a moment - I’m amazed nopony back home has ever thought of this.” Instead of one large wafer like Bon Bon was expecting, the Kit-Kat turned out to be four small wafers coated in chocolate, with each one capable of being separated from the others. The concept was novel, and the idea of an easily shareable candy was one that Bon Bon had never considered before.   “Indeed,” Luna agreed. “The multiple wafers would be most efficient for sharing amongst friends.”  Or ravenous Princesses, Bon Bon thought to herself - Luna was staring at her candy bar intently, and she had a feeling that if she didn’t like the Kit-Kat, it would not go to waste.  Biting into the chocolate, she was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t terrible. The chocolate had the unpleasantly smooth feel that came with mass-production, but she’d had worse in Equestria. The wafers were a pleasant crunchy sensation underneath the smooth chocolate, and separating the wafers into four smaller bars of the same length meant that she was able to eat the same bar four times over.  “Considering thou ate all of it, are we to assume that it was enjoyable?” Luna looked mildly annoyed that she didn’t have any more chocolate, but also was pleased that the candy had passed muster.  “It’s not bad,” Bon Bon said once she’d swallowed the last of the Kit-Kat. “Although I do wish I had something to drink - this kind of chocolate tends to linger in the back of your mouth for a while.” “Yes. We can see that becoming an issue very quickly.” Luna said, smacking her lips as though it would dissipate the lingering chocolate taste. “Although I would also not mind having another of these.” Both mares looked back - the Duane Reade was still within sight.  “We are not on any kind of schedule today…” Luna said slowly.  Minutes later “Why is this called Tab?” Luna asked as she inspected the pink-and-white soda can.  “Dunno,” Bon Bon said as she washed down her cake with the fizzy beverage. “But it tastes good.”  “Verily. How is thine cake?” While Luna had found the drinks, Bon Bon had rummaged through the candy rack - aside from another Kit-Kat for the Princess, she’d also found a plastic-wrapped cream filled sponge cake called a ‘Twinkie’.  It was terrible to the point of possibly being one of the worst confections she’d ever eaten. The cream was a mass manufactured paste that probably had never even had a tangential relation to dairy in its life. For some reason it was vanilla flavored, but had the harsh taste of artificial vanilla. The sponge cake was sticky and oily, with a strange cloying taste that coated the inside of her mouth. It was inexplicably yellow, and stuck to the paper base of the packaging, leaving part of the cake and cream stuck to the bottom. As a further insult to baking, they made no attempt to conceal the cream injection marks with frosting or more cake, instead merely hiding them on the underside of the cake as if nopony would ever look there. Twinkies offended her on a base level, she noted as she ate the first cake - she’d made better baked goods in her sleep. While battling a fever. She had no idea why they were sold in pairs - surely no one would ever willingly eat the second cake after being exposed to the first one.  She swallowed the last of the second cake, and licked the scraps of cake and cream off of the paper base. “I hate it. I want ten more.” “What a contradictory statement.” Luna’s eyebrow rose. “It’s very good, even though it shouldn’t be.” The Princess watched with amusement as Bon Bon used her teeth to scrape any lingering cake residue from the packaging. “Perhaps we shall try this Twinkie on a different date, lest we consume all of the candy within the store.” Bob Bon agreed - unless S.M.I.L.E wanted her to go undercover as an airship, no good would come from eating everything in sight. Discarding their trash in a bin, they made their way towards the train station. Bon Bon had been a last minute addition to the protective detail, but she’d been able to skim her briefing packet enough to understand the difference between the different transit systems in New York. This one was known as PATH, and was operated by the city’s Port Authority, making it a separate system from the City’s Subway network, although they both ran underground rail services.  While most of the New Yorkers on the streets outside had barely acknowledged the two ponies, entering the PATH station drew more looks than Bon Bon had been expecting. As soon as they entered the massive set of moving stairs under the sign labeled PATH Trains to New Jersey, up-bound humans started giving them startled double- and even triple-takes as they realized who was going past them in the opposite direction. While regular commuters seemed to breeze past with nary a second look, there must have been a higher concentration of tourists and non-locals here at the transit hub, and the attention they gave Luna was much more in line with a normal state visit to one of Equestria’s neighboring countries. Luna would have flown down these stairs as well, but the roof overhead was low enough that she was forced to ride all the way to the bottom. Being the kind of pony that she was, the Princess spent most of the descent waving to those who said hello, even going so far as to ruffle the hair on a small child on the step below them, who spent most of the short descent trying to bow, drawing a giggle from the Princess. Children aside, most of the humans who did react did so in ridiculous fashion, and Bon Bon adopted a neutral expression mostly so that she wouldn’t burst out laughing at their antics. Even Equestrians were not immune from this, as evidenced by a unicorn and two griffons all running into each other on the concourse level as they stopped and goggled at the Pony Princess rummaging around in her camera bag for the “exact change” required by the station’s turnstiles.  Bon Bon facehoofed as the unicorn bowed so deeply that his face almost smacked into the grimy station carpet, while the griffons appeared to have a brief argument as to whether or not they should bow or not. The bigger of the two argued that he was an American Citizen now, and bowed to no one, while the other claimed that it would be rude not to. The argument was brought to a premature end when a human commuter tripped over the prostrated unicorn and collided with the griffons. A cup of coffee went flying, the griffons squawked indignantly, and the bowing stallion was shoved face first into a wad of chewing gum stuck to the floor. Bon Bon was just barely able to hold back her laughter, until she looked back at Luna, and realized that her Royal Highness had been so engrossed in extracting the correct coins that she hadn’t even noticed. A snort of laughter escaped her, causing Luna to look up, two quarters and two dimes floating in her aura.  “What?”  “Nothing.” Bon Bon said, jamming her leg against her mouth to stifle her giggles as the commuter berated the trio of (former) Equestrians. She quickly grabbed her fare out of the Princess’s magic and went through the turnstile ahead of Luna - a small break in protocol, but it was better than making a scene in public at the ridiculous spectacle.  “We thought that you prided yourself on retaining a ‘professional demeanor’?” Luna asked as she followed Bon Bon through the turnstile.  Suppressing the last of her giggles, Bon Bon smiled at the Princess. “I thought that you Royals were supposed to be dainty homebodies, not fearless explorers of alien worlds.  “Touché.”  They continued down another set of moving stairs, Luna staying on the ground to allow herself time to swap lenses on her camera and attach a flashbulb apparatus. Fortunately, the crowds leaving the station had lessened - they must have been between inbound trains, so the upward moving stairs were empty.  Arriving on the platform, Bon Bon trailed behind Luna as she made her way towards the platforms marked NEWARK. The lights of a train were receding into the tunnel, but some commuters were already queuing up on the platform, implying that another would be along shortly.  Bon Bon followed Luna to the far end of the platform, near where the train’s front would be. “Let’s try to not raise the sun indoors this time, your majesty,” she snarked. “Hush, you.” Luna glared back. She might have been fairly experienced with the use of her camera, but the flash unit had been bought just the day before at a store in Manhattan. Turning it to its highest setting had proved to be ill-advised, unless one wanted to temporarily blind the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Presently, another train rolled in, its arrival heralded by the screeching of wheels against the track and the whirr of its electric motors. As it approached, Luna’s flashbulb strobed several times as she photographed the arrival, throwing unusual shadows across the platform. In the cab, the motorman had to hold his hand in front of his face, drawing an apologetic smile from the Princess. Unconsciously, Bon Bon waved to the lead car, numbered 745, and was surprised it remained silent as it rolled towards her. It took until the train ground to a halt and began disembarking passengers that she realized why. “These trains don’t talk, do they?” She asked Luna quietly.  “Neigh,” The Princess said as she entered the car. It was mid-morning, so most commuters were heading into the city, not out. As such, the car was empty. “Mine Sister and her scientists have yet to come to a conclusion, but mechanized sapience is believed to be caused by some sort of interaction between the Earth-machines and our magic.  “Mechanized sapience. That’s a new one.” Bon Bon rolled the words around in her mouth a few times, trying to get a feel for the unfamiliar words.  “Verily. We only learned of the term a few weeks ago; the relevant research has not yet been published.” As she said this, the doors for the train car slid shut, heralded by a garbled announcement from the intercom system. Luna sat down on a seat, while Bon Bon - who didn’t have the same height advantage as the Princess and would therefore have to sit up - opted to remain standing as the train lurched into motion.  The lights of the station vanished as the train rumbled into the tunnel, and the car soon began to sway from side to side as it picked up speed. Lights on the tunnel walls flicked by every few seconds, and the Earth Pony mare studied the ads on the inside of the train in an attempt to distract herself from the realization that she was underneath a massive river. There was a reason that Pegasus immigrants to the human world had begun setting up communities further away from the New York Portal - the human world’s obsession with vast subterranean infrastructure did not calm them down at all.  New York, New York. It’s a hell of a town - where ponies ride in a hole in the ground. She couldn’t remember where in her briefing packet that bit of cultural minutiae was from, but it was very appropriate.  A few minutes later - a time that didn’t feel long enough considering how big the river looked from the surface - the train began to slow, before suddenly bursting into the bright lights of the next station.  “This is Exchange Place Station. This is a Newark-Bound train.” The voice over the intercom was much clearer than it had been at the last station, but it still sounded a bit crackly.  “Are we getting off here?” Bon Bon asked as passengers streamed into and out of the train.  “Neigh.” Said Luna, who had produced a book from her bag and was idly paging through it. “We will be travelling to Newark.” Newark was the end of the line for this train, and Bon Bon decided that she wasn’t going to stand for the entire journey, and hoisted herself up onto the hard plastic of the train’s seat as the doors slid shut with a chime. Their carriage was still empty as it rattled back into the dark confines of the tunnel.  The next station came as quickly as the last had. This one was called “Grove Square - Change here for Journal Square-33rd Street Trains”, and it was at this station that Bon Bon realized that their car might not have been empty just by chance - a young human, fiddling with one of those portable music players that had started turning up in Equestria, made it halfway through the doors of the car before looking up. His observation speed was visible to the naked eye as he looked first at Bon Bon, before his eyes worked their way up the car and took in Princess Luna. Upon seeing her, he made a choking sound and turned on his heel, fleeing the car through the connecting door and into the rest of the train.  “It seems as though we art still capable of being terrifying.” Luna said bemusedly as the door to the next car slid shut.  “That didn’t look like terror…” Bon Bon noted as the doors to the carriage slid shut. “Well, at least not because of who you are.” “Pray tell, what is it then?” The Lunar Princess inquired. “That young man looked like he was about to soil himself.” “I think that most beings - human or pony - would not want to be the only one in a train car with a visiting dignitary.” The secret agent reasoned. “You’d be afraid you’d stick your hoof in your mouth and start a war or something!” Luna snorted as the train screeched into motion. “Only if thou is traveling with Yaks would that occur.” “Probably.” Bon Bon snickered at the thought. “They’d be all ‘this train car empty! Yaks Smash!’ and then we’d be off to the races… Celestia above, I don’t want to imagine Prince Rutherford trying to pick a fight with a train!” Both mares managed to hold their composure for about thirty seconds before bursting out laughing, and they kept laughing until the train finally burst out of the tunnel and into the open air of New Jersey.