“…And here’s your change,” Bon Bon said, sliding a small stack of coins onto the counter.
Her customer, a lemon-yellow pegasus stallion wearing an equally-yellow hard hat, grinned as he slid the stack into his saddlebag, along with the bag of candies he’d just bought. “Thank you kindly.”
“Have a nice day,” Bon Bon said, as the stallion turned and left the shop, taking to the air a few seconds later.
Lyra, who was sitting next to Bon Bon behind the counter with a notebook, waited until the door had jingled shut to speak. “…Hard lemon drops?”
“Yes, he bought hard lemon drops.” Bon Bon said. “They’re great. You can carry around a bunch at once, they last a while, and they make your breath smell nice. What’s strange about that?”
“Bon Bon,” Lyra said, turning to reveal a playful grin, “if that stallion had been any brighter yellow, Princess Celestia would be moving him instead of the sun. He comes in here and buys the yellowest candy we have, and you don’t even bat an eye?”
“I sure don’t,” Bon Bon replied. “Our business is selling candy, not making jokes about it.”
“See, that’s only because you haven’t tried candy jokes yet,” Lyra said, moving to stand behind Bon Bon and sweeping her own hoof through the air. “Picture it: there you are, on the stage…”
“-I’d rather not.”
“…with dozens of ponies watching you. You walk to the edge of the stage, open your mouth, and wait for just a second - ‘I had a lollipop joke,’ you say, ‘but I’ve forgotten it.’”
“Please don’t.”
Lyra grinned. “The crowd leans forward. You smile, and say, ‘I’ve almost got it… it’s on the tip of my tongue.’”
Bon Bon groaned, but she felt a smirk spreading across her face. “Sweet Celestia, Lyra. That was terrible.”
“I do my best,” Lyra replied, brushing her hoof off on her coat. “Oh, hey, that reminds me. Have you gone by Town Hall lately? There’s a hole in the walls big enough, you can see the stage through it!”
Bon Bon looked up sharply. “The Parasprites got that far?” She’d learned what the bugs were called only two days before; the Mayor - accompanied by Twilight and her friends - had held a speech not long after Pinkie had led the Parasprites back into the Everfree.
“Yeah, there were a couple other buildings that got hit over there, but the Town Hall got the worst of it,” Lyra said, flipping open her notebook as she took a seat. “I was looking at it, though, and I was thinking - it really helps open up the building!”
Bon Bon snorted. “Well, I guess that’s true.”
“Hey, don’t take that tone with me,” Lyra said, mock-offended. “Listen, I know the Town Hall is already all open and all, with the arching ceilings and the windows and pillars and things, but don’t you think it’s a little… I don’t know, stuffy?”
“It can get a little gloomy when there’s no banners in there,” Bon Bon conceded. Especially in the winter, once the Hearth’s Warming Eve decorations come down.
“Exactly!” Lyra said, smiling over the top of her notebook. “But with that hole there, and all the natural light coming in, it feels like… I don’t know, like a real public area, where ponies can hang out. Like a… a picnic shelter or something, instead of just some wannabe-fancy office building in Manehattan.”
Bon Bon looked over at Lyra, half-grinning. “I think you might be forgetting that Town Hall is a government building.”
“So?” Lyra shrugged. “It’s the government building where all the fun stuff happens. I just think it should feel like it, that’s all.”
“Alright, I get it,” Bon Bon said. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll mention it to the Mayor next time I see her. I have to head in a few days from now, make sure some paperwork gets filed. …Come to think of it,” she added, glancing back into the kitchen, “I’m about out of confectioner’s sugar, too, and there’s a few other things I could stock up on. Sorry to drop this on you, Lyra, but could you watch the shop while I’m out?”
“No problem!” Lyra said, grinning. “Oh! Hey, what do I do if somepony orders in bulk?”
“They won’t,” Bon Bon said, standing up and stretching her back.
“Okay, but what if they do?” Lyra asked, looking over top of her notebook.
“Then say you’ll check with the head cook, write down what they want, and tell me when I get back,” Bon Bon said, trotting over to the door. “Oh, and if Big Mac comes by, tell him I delivered that cider barrel like he asked me to!”
Lyra cocked her head. “Wait, what cider barrel?”
“…The ‘get-well-soon’ cider, remember?” Bon Bon said, pausing with the door open. “For Lapis?”
“Oh,” Lyra said, her ears half-flopping back. “Yeah. That, right. Don’t worry, I’ll tell him!” she added, plastering a smile back onto her face.
“…He’ll be fine, Lyra,” Bon Bon said. “Remember what Zecora said? We’ll see him up and about any time now.”
“Well, yeah,” Lyra said, grimacing. “It’s just… well, my aunt had a Cascade once, and she was nervous about using her magic again for weeks. I just… I hope he’s okay, that’s all.”
“Me, too,” Bon Bon said, sighing. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”
Lyra sighed, then smiled again. “Let me know if you see him, okay?”
“Of course,” Bon Bon replied. “Back in a bit, Ly-Ly.”
“See you, BB,” Lyra replied, as Bon Bon stepped outside.
Bon Bon got about ten steps in the direction of the market streets, then stopped.
He’s just a private pony, she thought. He’s got perfectly good reasons. It would be uncalled-for to invade his privacy, especially while he’s unconscious. I can wait until he’s awake, and then ask him.
She’d been thinking the same things every time that Lapis was brought up. But, no matter how many times she’d thought them, there were too many strange things about the second-newest-pony in Ponyville to ignore.
His dogged refusal to meet, talk to, or even go near Pinkie Pie or her friends, for one thing. Lapis had provided almost half-a-dozen different reasons for his behavior, and a few of them were valid, but the others - especially the earlier ones - rang more and more hollow the more that Bon Bon considered them.
Then there were the odd gaps in his magical ability. From talking with Lyra, Bon Bon knew that Mend-All spells were especially nasty for most unicorns - not too taxing, if done right, but with a long, complex, and messy incantation that carried severe consequences if mis-recited. Lapis could cast them in an instant, multiple times a day, with no apparent ill effects beside fatigue - and yet, it had taken him weeks of living in Ponyville to learn any other spells, even a Hornlight. Not to mention that the next spell he’d learned was invisibility - why in the world would a repair-pony need to know an invisibility spell? It just didn’t add up.
Not to mention the secret basement. The smith’s workshop, Bon Bon could almost overlook. But not quite. There was too much scrap paper and metal down there for Lapis to have been using it only for making repairs, and besides, why had he been down there just after the Parasprite attack?
But the final straw, the one that niggled at her now, was the oldest of the bunch. When Lapis had first arrived in Ponyville, he’d stumbled over a few strange words - ‘everypony,’ ‘hooves,’ and a few others. Lapis had revealed he was raised by griffons, and Bon Bon had assumed that was the explanation. Bon Bon knew for a fact that the griffon dialect of Equish used ‘everygriffon’ and ‘claws’ in place of their Standard-Equish equivalents, and - as Lapis’ friend - she strongly doubted anything else could be the case.
But the pony who stood on the street, doubting her friend and her judgement, had two names. And Agent Sweetie Drops of S.M.I.L.E., the Secret Monster Intelligence League of Equestria, knew full well that there was another possible explanation. One that was beginning to make a disturbing amount of sense. And so, slowly, she turned down an alley, then set off at a brisk, businesslike trot toward the suspect’s place of residence.
…Sorry, Lapis.
But I can’t take the risk.
Applejack was halfway through nailing the doorway-joist for the new apple-cellar into place when the far end splintered and fell from the wall, the damaged end hitting the red brick of the floor first with a crackling bounce.
She didn’t swear; she was proud of that much. The Pink Lady orchards were right next to where the rest of the barn would be, and Pink Ladies were far too prim and proper to tolerate foul language - and far too sweet to risk souring their mood. But Applejack had to admit, as she looked at the jagged nub of torn wood that once had been a joist, that she was angry enough to swear at whatever carpenter-pony hadn’t thought to give that board a close enough inspection.
So, instead of swearing, Applejack huffed and clambered down the stepladder, tucking her ears back and craning her head down to inspect the damage. And sure enough, it was bad - the board might yet be useful for table legs, if she could find a sharp enough saw to rip-cut the broken portion off the rest of the beam, but she wasn’t making furniture yet. She was making a doorframe, and now, she’d need to find another board for it.
“Horseapples,” Applejack muttered, quietly enough that the Pink Ladies wouldn’t hear. Lumber wasn’t cheap in Ponyville - most of it came from the only group of ponies foolhardy enough to harvest it from the Everfree, and foolhardy as they were, they were too clever to do it for cheap. That meant she’d have to break down some spare apple-cart for lumber, and that was an hour-long project she’d rather not undertake just then. Consarn it, when’s Twilight gettin' here?
Applejack heard a familiar set of hoofsteps coming up behind her, and looked back to see Big Mac walking up to inspect the fence. At a glance, his face looked about as neutral as usual, but she knew her brother well enough to read that tightness around his eyes.
“Any ideas?” she asked, gesturing to the piece of scrap wood. “Ah was gonna leave it till Twilight shows up, and see if she can do something about it.”
Big Mac thought for a moment. Then - “Nope.”
“…Nothin’? Nothin’ at all?”
Big Mac shook his head. “Ah can’t splint it together mahself - that’d take too long, and I gotta finish truckin’ those support beams up the hill anyhow,” he explained, waving a hoof toward the bottom of the hill, where a large pile of large, sturdy wooden posts waited on a sled. “And Ah would call in the town’s repair-pony, but he’s not feelin’ too well just now.”
Applejack hesitated, her ears pricking up at the last few words. “Whoa, hold on now. Ponyville has a town repair-pony? Since when?”
“He moved in three days ‘fore Princess Luna returned,” Big Mac said, cocking an eyebrow. “Ah thought Ah’d told you about him already. He stopped that big pot o’ oatmeal from fallin’ on me while you were out in the Everfree, remember?”
The image of the enormous, town-sized pewter cooking pot that sat in a storeroom of Town Hall suddenly flashed through Applejack’s head, and her eyes went wide as she turned to face her brother. “When what-now almost fell on you?!”
Big Mac cocked an eyebrow, and after a moment’s pause, Applejack looked down at the ground. “Well, shoot. Ah guess Ah don’t remember, do Ah?”
“Nope.” Big Mac shrugged. “Although, it was plumb in the middle of apple-buckin’ season, so Ah s’pose you weren’t at your best when Ah mentioned it.”
“Huh,” Applejack said, her ears flopping back. “Darn it. Well, Ah’m sorry, Big Mac. Ah shoulda been payin’ better attention.”
“No harm done.”
Applejack smiled apologetically, then cleared her throat. “So, you said this feller helped you out back then? Y’all will have to tell me the details on that pot o’ oats, by the way. If Ah hear you almost got yerself hurt pullin’ some silly stunt again…”
“Anyway,” Big Mac said, and Applejack quickly hid her grin. Gettin’ Big Mac to talk ain’t hard, you just have to know how to go about doin’ it. “Like Ah said, he’s indisposed. From what Ah heard, which ain’t much, them para-sprites got to somethin’ pretty important of his an’ the shock of it did a number on him. He’s been out cold in Ponyville General for ‘bout a week now.”
“Gol-ly,” Applejack muttered. “An’ he’s the only repair-pony in town? He’ll be a busy feller when he wakes up, that’s for darn sure.”
“E-yup. Certainly seemed that way earlier that day,” Big Mac added, bending down to pick up the former beam.
“Hold on again,” Applejack said, her ears tucking back again as she raised a hoof to her forehead, Big Mac pausing as he put the scrap board on his back. “And just what do y’all mean by that?”
“Ah mean Ah’d just had him over here, the mornin’ before that mess with the para-sprites,” Big Mac said, cocking his eyebrow again. “…Though this time, Ah don’t think Ah’ve mentioned to you ‘fore now.”
“An’ you didn’ keep him over fer dinner?” Applejack asked, sighing as she started down the hill toward the sled of beams. “Big Mac, that’s no way to show hospitality to a pony what saved your hide! What would Granny Smith say?”
“Not much, seein’ as he’d just told the both of us the old house had rotten timbers,” Big Mac said as he trotted down alongside her, and Applejack winced. They both knew all about Granny Smith’s stubborn streak. “’Sides, he already had an appointment to keep. Somethin’ about a concert, if Ah recall.”
“So that’s how you knew the house wasn’t safe,” Applejack muttered. “Huh.”
“Fer what it’s worth,” Big Mac added, yoking himself to the sled of beams, “Ah was sure to get him the better of the two test-barrels of cider from this year’s batch. He wouldn’ accept any payment for the consultation, so Ah felt it was about right, both for compensation an’ for a get-well gift.”
“The tart one, or the spicy one?”
“The tart one. It’s still summer yet, an’ I figured it’d do as well as lemonade.”
“Huh. Well, Ah s’pose that’s all right then,” Applejack said, and they both grunted as they began to haul the sled up the hill. “Still, the next time he’s over here, he’s stayin’ for supper, busy or not.”
Big Mac rolled his eyes, but grinned. “E-yup.” And in very little time at all, they’d pulled the entire sled up the hill.
The archives of Town Hall were the epitome of the word “stuffy.” They were an old, slate-brick room buried below the rest of the building, at the bottom of a staircase that was almost apologetically hidden away behind the stage. There wasn’t a single ray of natural light in the whole of the long, narrow space, which was almost more like a hallway than a room.
Most of the archives were toward the middle of the room, and were made up of two rows of four shelves crammed full to bursting with bins of paperwork, loosely organized by date. The older papers were bound and kept on shelves against the walls, while the very oldest surviving were stored inside of separate folders inside of filing cabinets, at the very back of the room.
Mayor Mare absently hummed to herself as she sorted through one of these filing cabinets. She wasn’t sure what the song was, but somewhere, some crowd of ponies was surely singing it. That was how Heartsongs usually worked, after all.
Unfortunately, as much as she’d love to be in the middle of some musical number, there were some sheets of paper she was looking for. Some records, to be exact, as there was something troubling her about-
“Excuse me, Ms. Mayor?”
“Oh!” Mayor Mare yelped, turning to face the speaking pony. “Goodness, Twilight. You’re quiet on your hooves!”
“Oh my! I’m so sorry, I seem to have a knack for startling ponies lately,” Twilight said, smiling and half-tipping her ears back. “I just wanted to deliver that secondary damage report you asked me to compile. Is now a bad time?”
Mayor Mare shook her head. “No, not at all, Twilight. Go right ahead.”
“Right,” Twilight said, clearing her throat. “Here goes. ‘The magical event that resulted from the Parasprite Incident had a diameter of roughly 100 hooves, centered on Nutmeg Way and extending both vertically and horizontally. Within this hemisphere: all crooked teeth were forcibly straightened, all clouds were made into cubic formations of perfectly aligned axes, all lawns were mowed perfectly level, all fallen acorns’ positions were adjusted…”
Mayor Mare cocked her head. “Acorns? Those didn’t look affected to me…”
“Not to me at first, either,” Twilight said, smiling excitedly. “However, once I made a diagram of their locations relative to each other, I was able to determine that all their positions were consistent with intersections of the lines of a 1-inch square grid!”
“…You diagrammed… the acorns?”
“Mm-hm!” Twilight nodded, then continued reading through her report. “‘Most homes were re-organized, the Carousel Boutique being exempt. All rust, dust, and grime were forcibly expelled from their surfaces to distances as great as 150 to 200 hooves away, and all coat hair, mane hair, and feathers became as clean and tidy as if they were freshly washed, combed, and straightened, regardless of previous curliness, with the exception of flight feathers on pegasi. These effects persist, so far as I can tell, until all affected material has been shed and replaced.’”
Mayor Mare nodded along with the report, her bewilderment only increasing with every sentence, until Twilight reached her conclusion. “‘Based on this combination of effects, I believe the magical incident responsible to be a Magic Cascade of Harmonic frequencies, likely induced in a unicorn by the stress of the Parasprite invasion of Ponyville.’”
“A… magic cascade,” Mayor Mare said, mulling the phrase over in her head. “Like a waterfall, or…”
Twilight blinked, then her ears flopped back. “Oh. You don’t know what that is. Right, sorry.”
“No, it’s quite alright, Twilight,” Mayor Mare said, waving a hoof. “I’m glad to hear I picked the pony with the right information for the job. Could I trouble you to share the broad strokes?”
Twilight smiled, her ears rising a little. “I’d be delighted. Just give me a moment to compose my thoughts…” She shut her eyes, and Mayor Mare briefly glanced back into the filing cabinet. …Still no luck. Well.
“Alright, I think I’ve got it,” Twilight said, Mayor Mare turning her head to look. “So, when a unicorn casts a spell, there are certain emotions that can influence the results.” Twilight’s horn flickered as she spoke, and after a few seconds, a small, glowing orb appeared next to her head, moving in slow, controlled circles around her horn.
“Positive emotions, like joy, contentment, love, and so on, tend to make the results more potent, but still in line with what the spell is supposed to accomplish.” Then, Twilight shut her eyes for a second, a small, soft smile growing on her face, and the orb sped up in its orbit, its glow growing slightly brighter. “…For example, as you just saw, when I thought about some happy memories, this modified Hornlight spell was able to move faster and produce more light.”
“Other emotions, though, tend to have… varied results,” Twilight continued, and her brow furrowed for a moment - then, the magical ball flared with sudden light, its movement slowing to a crawl as its orbit suddenly grew wobbly. “…Frustration, for example, will increase power at a massive cost to stability, and an equally massive increase in difficulty.”
Twilight dismissed the spell, exhaling a quick breath, then opened her eyes and resumed speaking. “There are other emotional influences, of course. Boredom aids creativity, bewilderment is exactly as unhelpful as you think it is, but for this discussion, we need to worry about a few of the really tricky ones: worry, despair, and panic.”
Mayor Mare swallowed. “I take it you won’t be demonstrating their effects?”
“Not intentionally, and hopefully not anytime soon,” Twilight said, grimacing. “Any one on their own is bad enough, but when you end up mixing serious personal worry and despair together, then trying to shove them down and ignore them, you end up making a big, bottled-up cocktail of freak-out. And that cocktail, inside a unicorn, is a recipe for disaster.
“Take… well, me, for example. When I was a filly, I was really focused on my first magic exam,” Twilight continued. “I studied for it for days, and my worst fear, the entire time, was that I would fail. And once I got started on that exam, the worry just wouldn’t stop. I could barely cast any magic at all, and what I did cast was draining my reserves extra-quickly. So, naturally, I… failed.
Twilight sighed, her ears flopping back. “And that’s when the despair hit. Even back then, I knew trying to cast a spell on purpose right then would be a bad plan, so I tried to see myself out with some dignity - but then, well, some big boom went off, and it startled me.
“You remember how I described the worry and despair as ‘bottled up?’ Well, low magic reserves combined with a quick jolt of panic shakes that bottle. And, if it’s a hard enough shake, all that backed-up emotion will pop the cork and… well, kinda explode out.”
Mayor Mare nodded. “And that, combined with magic, is what happened to cause what you just described?”
“…Part of it,” Twilight said, shutting her eyes as her horn began to glow. “All the emotion meets whatever magic is left, and the entire mix gushes out, draining the unicorn of their strength and usually making them pass out: a Cascade. But, there’s another half to the equation.”
Twilight took a slow, deep breath, and slowly, an amethyst glow began to wrap around every box, every bound volume, every piece of paper in the room. Mayor Mare looked around, confused - then her jaw dropped as Twilight opened her eyes and began to straighten out the room. Crooked sheets of paper were re-aligned in their stacks, mis-filed documents floated briefly before Twilight’s face before they were put in their places, and books that were out of order made their way to their proper locations.
“This might surprise you,” Twilight said, her voice strained but her smile clear, “but I’m normally a very well-organized pony.”
“If I’m… left to shape all my own circumstances, I end up trying to create a perfectly-ordered environment. Everything in its place, everything according to schedule, with no misfilings, no interruptions. Perfect harmony.” The last sheet of paper snapped itself into alignment with the others in its stack, and Twilight released a tired breath. “Whoo. Haven’t done that in a while. Guess I’m a little rusty!”
“I might… be able to compensate you, should you want to change that,” Mayor Mare croaked, looking around at the newly-sorted basement.
“We’ll discuss my going rates later.” Twilight cleared her throat. “At any rate. The thing is, when I’m left to create that environment for a really, really long time, like when I was studying for that test, I start to find it… stifling. I want a way out, a break, some freedom to do something that isn’t scheduled, to get off the rails that might well lead to failure. I want a little bit of chaos.” And as she spoke, in one sheaf of paperwork on the shelf, a single piece of paperwork rotated itself by a few degrees - not much, but just enough for the corners to stick out.
Twilight glanced at the sheaf of papers and cocked an eyebrow, then re-aligned the loose paper with a sharp tug. “Not that much.”
She cleared her throat, then continued. “Magic tries to fulfill the desires of the unicorn using it. So, when I had a Cascade at my test, it ended up creating some pretty random results. I made the judges float, I turned my parents into potted plants, I grew Spike to the size of a tower… you get it. That is what we’d call a Discordant Cascade, magic that is given no instructions but to spice things up a little, and then set loose.
“And the opposite of that… would be what happens if a pony who’s used to leading a varied, chaotic life is finding it to be the bane of their existence. A pony who can usually improvise their way through things, getting forced to improvise for too long, until they feel like everything is spiraling out of control, like they can’t see any kind of order in the world. When their magic gets loose, it knows that the unicorn wants to make some sense of their situation, to feel like everything is under control, in harmony. That everything will be okay. So, it tries its best.
“We call that a Harmonic Cascade, and it tends to take harmony to unwelcome extremes, until the specifics and degrees of organization are just as bad as chaos. As far as I can tell, that’s what happened here,” Twilight finished, taking a deep breath. “And that’s pretty much the entire lecture I attended on Cascades. …Sorry, that got a little personal near the end there. Does it help any?”
“I… think so,” the Mayor said. “Just to be clear, though… these ‘Cascades’ can happen if any sufficiently stressed unicorn loses their composure?”
Twilight shook her head. “Not quite. It’s only really possible for unicorns with repositiories of 567 thaums or more… uh, I mean,” she added, watching the Mayor’s brow contort in confusion, “only unicorns with a certain degree of magical power. About 16 percent, or… four of every twenty-five unicorns are at risk, because if you have a lower power level than that, then you can’t have a low tank while having enough mana to support the waves of a Cascade.”
Mayor Mare nodded. “I see. And why hasn’t this happened in Ponyville before?”
“Well, it’s pretty rare for most ponies to build up the emotional mix that produces a Cascade,” Twilight said. “I’ve read that it’s a lot more common for unicorns that travel abroad, especially to places that aren’t as… stable as central Equestria. But still, you usually need weeks of serious personal worry to build up that kind of emotional backlog, and in Ponyville, most of my problems don’t last longer than a few days. …Except for current events, anyway.” Twilight added.
“Yes. Helping Applejack reconstruct her barn, was it?” Mayor Mare asked. “Unless you have anything else to add…”
“Oh, no. Not unless you had anything else to ask, anyway,” Twilight said, turning to the door.”
“No, I think I have a much clearer grasp of Cascades now, thank you, Twilight.”
“Alright then!” Twilight headed out the door. “See you next festival!”
“Hopefully!” Mayor Mare called back. Then she turned back toward the filing cabinet, shaking her head in amusement. I suppose there has to be some trade-off for magic. Unicorns get it, and the rest of us ponies get to have mental breakdowns in the privacy of our own homes without making it anypony else’s problem.
Still, as magical disasters go… well, I’ve certainly seen worse. Mayor Mare pulled open the filing cabinet with a hoof, relishing the fresh perfection of its organization - and stopped, confused. The documents she was searching for, which by all rights should have dated back nearly to the founding of Ponyville, were simply missing.
Mayor Mare had made the discovery during re-filing day, about a week before. She’d doubted it, however, and that’s what had driven her into the archives today - checking not just recent documentation, but even the very oldest files in Town Hall. And both her checks and her double-checks had confirmed her suspicions:
The Red Repair Shop, home to one Lapis Print, did not have blueprints on file with the Town Hall. Nor did it have records of any of the previous owners - where those files should have been, there instead sat narrow, deep slivers of empty space in the shelves and drawers, as clean and precise as cuts in a pinata.
Agent Sweetie Drops began to sweep Lapis Print’s house, and immediately suppressed the tingle of dread that began to rise in her gut.
The place had barely been touched since Lapis was inside it last. There were still pigeon feathers on the floor, from where Sweetie Drops wasn’t sure - some shifted in the breeze as she moved through the building, but others remained still, in the grid pattern that Lapis’ magic had left it in, along with the half a doorknob that had fallen from the door.
Besides that, though, the building was in eerily good condition. There was no dust or grime on the counters, no motes swirling through the air beside the yellow-tinted window. She felt a twinge of guilt as she spotted the rug that she and Lyra had brought, which was as clean and fluffy as if it were brand-new. The painting of the mustached griffon was there, too - it hung perfectly straight on the wall, smirking at Sweetie Drops without blinking.
Maybe it was just because of the spell’s aftermath, or maybe it was because she had some doubts. But somehow, even though Agent Sweetie Drops knew there was nopony inside, this house didn’t feel vacant.
The problem was, it didn’t necessarily feel like there was anypony inside, either.
Sweetie Drops didn’t close the main door behind her as she made her way through the living room, and into the hallway that led to the other rooms of the building. The obsessive organization persisted as she investigated - the cookware in its drawers was all perfectly stacked atop itself, the blankets on the guest bed were stretched taut across the level mattress, and even in Lapis’ own bedroom, the pillows were right at the center of the headboard - even though Lapis preferred to sleep off to the right side, if the shallow dip in his mattress was anything to judge by.
But the organization was far from the only thing that unnerved her, as she checked the building’s closets, its nooks and crannies and crevices. Every pony she’d ever met, including herself, had amassed more stuff than they knew what to do with over the course of their life. Hay, she still had a box of foals’ cookbooks left over from old birthdays, along with a few other boxes of junk that she didn’t use enough to take out of the closet.
Lapis didn’t have those boxes. He had no mementos or keepsakes, no mess. His home was far from Spurtan, he’d seen to that much with his furniture, but there wasn’t enough depth to it. Yes, Lapis had only just moved in, but as Sweetie Drops looked around the building, she began to feel as if she weren’t inside of anypony’s home at all - only inside a cheap imitation of a home.
She kept her ears pricked up as she approached the closet behind Lapis’ counter, the sound of her hoofsteps seeming deafening on the wooden floor. Slowly, carefully, she stepped inside and pulled the door partway shut behind her, then she attempted to open the secret door. Something wooden thunked against itself beneath her hooves, and Sweetie Drops grimaced. Whatever locking mechanism this is, it’s locked down good. No way I’m breaking it without busting up the floorboards, or something else.
So, with rising unease, she shut the closet door the rest of the way, then pulled the secret door open and descended the stairs into the secret basement.
Even here, Lapis’ house found new ways to unnerve her. This was the only room in the building that the Parasprites had gotten into, and Sweetie Drops could see it everywhere she looked - anything they could sink their teeth into, they had, and their crescent-shaped, serrated bite marks were visible on every piece of wreckage on the floor. But only some of that wreckage was scattered, in the places where she and Lyra had trampled through it - the rest was still sitting in those strange spiral patterns that came together at the place where Lapis had collapsed, tracing ever-widening lines to every wall.
Still, a lot of that wreckage had writing on it, or else handles. That made it mess, and that brought Sweetie Drops a little bit of relief - this space, at least, was a home, not just a space somepony lived in. Looking around the room in greater detail brought her greater relief, at least at first - she’d been suspecting this room would show signs of recent construction, and aside from some fresh wear on patches of the room’s walls, this place looked as if it had been built alongside the rest of the house.
When Sweetie Drops moved on to the workbench, though, she found cause for concern. There were three books there - one, the most heavily-chewed of the bunch, was mostly blank. There were a few pages near the front that detailed a drawing of some strange contraption, and a few more that looked like… pages copied down from a spellbook, though she wasn’t really sure. She cocked an eyebrow at the page labeled Shape-Shifting, filing that piece of information away for later.
The next book, bound in blue tape that was painted with yellow stars, was definitely a spellbook. Sweetie Drops recognized the title page - it was a copy of Magic 4 Dummies, though a very old and… strangely concealed one. She cocked her eyebrow at the hastily-scribbled, off-center label on the front cover: The Great and Powerful Trixie’s Tome of Untold Magical Secrets.
The final book… perplexed her. The parasprites had taken a strange approach to eating it, preferring to somehow scrape the words off the pages instead of biting through whatever material the cover was made of. This book, too, was full of odd diagrams, accompanied by half-eaten paragraphs of jargon that she couldn’t be bothered to parse.
Bon Bon eventually closed the book, then sat back on her rump with a relieved sigh. What she’d been afraid of finding was written notes on a different subject - other ponies, especially with a focus on their habits, mannerisms, and routines. But, as unsettling as poking through Lapis’ house had been, it seemed like her suspicions were unfounded.
And, she thought as she ascended the basement stairs, the shape-shifting spell didn’t fit either. They already know how to disguise themselves, they don’t need pony knowledge on the subject…
Bon Bon lost her train of thought as she reached the top of the stairs, and saw the hatch that led into Lapis’ attic. She hadn’t checked there yet - but, now that she saw the hatch, she remembered Lapis saying something about there being a magical charging array up there.
Frowning, she closed the secret door and opened the closet, then stared up at the hatch. I’ve never seen a charging array up close before… and besides, I should probably check up there anyway, even though there’s probably nothing else there.
Bon Bon briefly glanced around, making sure nopony was peering in through the windows - then she pulled open the attic hatch, grabbed one of the magic lanterns off the walls, and ascended the ladder into darkness.
The charging array was practically on display in the middle of the room, whirring and clinking away from its brackets against the chimney. Bon Bon stepped over to take a closer look, tracing one especially thick copper rod that connected to the ceiling - and gasped, her eyes shooting wide open as she spotted the place where roof and rod met.
“There you go, little bird,” Fluttershy murmured, smiling as she nosed a small plate of birdseed across the end-table. “How’s your wing? Feeling better yet?”
“Some,” cooed the pigeon on her table, glancing briefly at the birdseed. They were inside her cottage, near the edge of the village and the Everfree Forest. It was sunny outside, but Fluttershy had the curtains drawn - she was taking care of a mole with some broken claws, and she didn’t want the sun to get in his eyes, no more than she wanted this pigeon trying to fly on a sprained wing.
Still, the pigeon wanted to fly soon, and Fluttershy didn’t blame her - her cottage was cozy, but it wasn’t roomy, and it certainly didn’t have the space to let a pigeon spread her wings and fly. Rainbow Dash managed to fly when she came to visit, but not without knocking Fluttershy’s plants off their shelves. Fluttershy had told the pigeon all about it, but she still half-expected the poor thing to try flying anyway.
“So, are you going to tell me how you hurt your wing?” Fluttershy asked, smiling. “It might help me get you better sooner…”
The pigeon shot her a glare to rival a frustrated Applejack. “No. Please stop asking.”
Fluttershy considered forcing the issue, but eventually decided against it. “Well, alright,” she sighed. “If you change your mind, just let me know, Nikki.”
“I won’t.” Nikki started pecking at the birdseed, and Fluttershy turned away, humming to herself as she started mixing a batch of medicine for a family of squirrels. Nikki had been brought to her cottage by Lyra, not too long after the Parasprites had attacked. Fluttershy had been doing her best to clean up after the mess, but she wasn’t quite done yet… well, she wasn’t really done at all. Most of her cabinets were still a mess, and half the food was completely gone - but at least Rainbow Dash had sucked all the Parasprites out with her tornado before they’d started eating everything but food. Hopefully Twilight’s spell has worn off by now… gosh, I hope they’re all okay.
“You know, Nikki, I don’t think I’ve ever met a pigeon with a name like yours,” Fluttershy said, as she carefully nudged a small glass jar out of a cabinet and onto her back. “Are you visiting Ponyville from somewhere?”
“No,” Nikki muttered, shoving a sunflower seed into her beak. “A friend gave it to me-” She cut herself off mid-trill, looking distinctly annoyed with herself.
Aww… “Oh, that’s wonderful,” Fluttershy said, smiling over at the self-conscious pigeon. “Are you somepony’s pet pigeon?”
“No!” Nikki squawked. “And he didn’t name me, either - he started calling me Nikki, but I’m the one who decided to keep it.”
“Oh, I see,” Fluttershy said, giggling. “I’m sorry.”
Birds are so cute when they’re just flown the nest, she thought. They always want to look so independent.
“So who is this pony?” Fluttershy asked, as she started stirring the medicine together. “I’m sure they’ll want to know that you’re feeling better.”
Nikki winced, and Fluttershy thought she saw worry in her eyes. “Please stop.”
Fluttershy paused, wanting to ask whether the other pony was alright. But as Nikki pecked at the birdseed, something in her face told Fluttershy that pushing wouldn’t get her any answers. “Well, okay.”
For a few moments, they didn’t talk, Fluttershy humming to herself again as she finished mixing the medicine for the squirrels. Nikki didn’t pipe up, either, busying herself with pecking at the birdseed.
“He fixed my nest,” Nikki eventually chirped.
Fluttershy blinked. “The pony who started calling you Nikki?”
Nikki nodded. “He’d come over to put a roof back together. My nest - my scrape, more like - was up there. I’d made it in five seconds the night before. I could make another one just as fast. He could’ve gotten rid of it even quicker.”
“And he didn’t?” Fluttershy asked.
“No. He tried to shore it up.” Nikki smirked. “Just made a mess instead. But you pay back your favors. I stuck around until I got a chance to, and he paid me back, and I paid him back…” She absently waved a wing. “It went on. I guess we’re friends now.”
“That’s wonderful,” Fluttershy said, smiling. She slung a pair of saddlebags over her back, tucking the medicine inside. “He sounds like a good friend to have. …Is he alright?”
Nikki’s smirk faded, and that look returned to her face. “I hope so.”
Fluttershy blinked, but before she got the chance to say anything, the window burst open, and another pigeon swooped inside. “Boss! He’s up!”
“…Boss?” Fluttershy asked, bewildered, but Nikki was already on her feet, brushing birdseed crumbs off her beak. “For how long?”
“Just a minute or two, Boss,” the new pigeon replied. “The zebra came and started talkin’ to ‘im soon as he sat up.”
Nikki nodded, then cracked her neck. “Teach him to scare me… I can fly there. Show me.”
“Oh, goodness,” Fluttershy said, as Nikki approached the window. “That wing might still be sprained, please be careful-”
Nikki crouched, spreading her wings - then took to the air, straining from the effort but still flying. Fluttershy watched, helpless, as Nikki fluttered uncertainly for a moment, then shot out the window after the other pigeon, cooing no more goodbye than a “Thanks,” over her wing.
"Oh my goodness," Fluttershy mumbled again. Then, carefully, she closed the window again, drawing the curtains and glancing over at the mole in his box. He hadn’t woken up, so Fluttershy turned and headed for the door.
Well, at least I’m not the only pony in Ponyville that talks to animals, she thought. And it’s nice that Nikki is concerned for him.
Gosh, I hope he’s okay.
Lapis hadn’t been talking with Zecora for very long, but he was finding the zebra to be surprisingly good conversation.
Sure, the rhyming was a little hard to get used to, and sometimes he had to think for a second to figure out what she was saying through the accent, but to his surprise, they had more than a little in common. She was far from home too, as it turned out - Lapis didn’t share the details of his situation with her, but he did mention that he was from afar, and that he didn’t plan on staying in Ponyville permanently. Zecora had shared that she hailed from Farasi, a nation that was overseas from Equestria. She’d left her home in search of new discoveries, and was finding the Everfree to be full of exotic ingredients for potion-brewing, as well as a few other oddities.
“Oddities?” Lapis asked, cocking his head. “Are we talking wildlife, or magic, or what?”
Zecora smiled. “Both the wildlife and the magic are strange, it is true. But the strangest of all, was not mentioned by you. Many old places wait below the canopy, many ancient ruins - only some explored by me.
“I have found and read through a few old inscriptions, and from them have gleaned most intriguing descriptions. The Forest Everfree was once the heart of this nation, before the Princess of the Moon fell to fear’s cold temptation. There is a castle within the Princesses called home, where they ruled over this land from atop twin thrones. It is where your pursuers found the Elements of Harmony, and of yet more ancient powers, signs are now clear to me. I am sure that more secrets await inside, though deep enough to find them, I have not pried.”
“Huh,” Lapis muttered. “About how deep in the forest are we talking, here?”
Zecora blinked, her ears cocking forward. “From the edge of the wood, it is four hours’ trot. Of joining my search, do you perhaps have a thought?”
Lapis blanched. “Not if it’s an eight-hour round trip, I don’t. I’m already a week behind on my work, I can’t afford to take any more days off anytime soon. …Especially if the Everfree still has as many big animals as it did the last time I went in there,” he added.
Zecora cocked an eyebrow. “There are still many monsters in the forest to rue. But the Everfree Forest, it is not new to you?”
“Yeah,” Lapis said, wincing. “I… kinda reached Ponyville after traveling through a part of it. Had an encounter with a Manticore, but I made it out alright. Just barely, though.”
A memory flashed through his head, of waking up on a dirt path in an unfamiliar forest, and staggering onto his hooves to take his first slow, clumsy steps in Equestria. “It was a learning experience, I’ll say that much. Anyway, I’ll need some real equipment if I want to go poking around in there again, and even then, it won’t happen until I’m all caught up.”
Zecora nodded, but she seemed confused. “…I fear on your privacy, I must intrude. Yet I find I must take the chance to be rude. Are you drawn to the search only by the mystique, or is there something else in the ruins that you mean to seek?”
“You know how I said I was from a long way out?” Lapis muttered. “Yeah, it’s far enough out that it isn’t on any maps in the village. Still, if I’m lucky - which I don’t think I am - maybe some older records might point me in the right direction.”
What is Equestria in relation to Earth, anyway? Lapis’ initial belief was that he’d somehow gotten trapped in a TV show, but a few days spent living life here had convinced him otherwise - Ponyville seemed, as far as he could tell, like a genuine small town, though one populated by tie-dye equines. So far, the only theories that Lapis could come up with were that he was somehow in a random alternate dimension that happened to match the details of the TV show his little sister liked to watch, or that the TV show somehow existed because of the alternate dimension. Or maybe I’m just in a coma, but we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.
Anyway. If Equestria was an alternate dimension, then that proved interdimensional travel was possible, just by virtue of the fact that he’d arrived here. That meant, at least in theory, that getting back home was definitely possible. And if the Ancient Civilizations here are just as super-advanced as most ancient civilizations are in the movies, then maybe - just maybe - there might be something for me to find inside those ruins.
“I see. It is a terrible thing, to be lost,” Zecora said, and Lapis blinked as he was snapped out of his thoughts. “But to think only of return… is too high of a cost. Are you sure you can’t find, in your present condition, some way to see good inside your situation?”
A shiver ran down Lapis’ spine. “Absolutely not. I’ve got to find a way back, and that’s final.”
“If you’re sure,” Zecora said. “…Then I’d advise you to finish the tea. It is a most ancient brew, made from shimmerberry.”
“The tea?” Lapis glanced over at his cup, and remembered suddenly that it had liquid inside of it - a transparent purple liquid, with an a sheen on its surface that was somewhere between oily and metallic. It was cold, now, but he took a drink anyway - even cold, it wasn’t half bad. “…Huh. ‘Shimmerberry,’ you said?”
“An ancient fruit, which casters of magic found quite to their suit,” Zecora said. “Your magic reserves hold only so large a store, to which the opening this tea will widen yet more. To recover your magic, there is no safer brew - drink. Let it be my gift to you.”
“You don’t say,” Lapis muttered, grinning as he looked down at his mug. “This stuff isn’t too expensive, is it?”
Zecora chuckled. “You will find no difficulty in purchasing it. Though I stock my own mix, should you be willing to visit.”
Lapis nodded, then downed the rest of the mug. “You know, I think I might take you up on that offer. Though, I might end up needing some help to find your house.”
“If you do, I’d advise that you ask Twilight. She could guide you to me, I suspect, even in blackest night.” Zecora stood, then turned for the door. “And now, I fear my visit must come to an end, for I see you’ll be visited soon by another friend. Farewell, Lapis Print, and good luck to you. Come see me if ever you again need my brew.”
“Thanks, see you around!” Lapis called. Though if I gotta ask Twilight to find you, odds are good I’ll never see you again, he thought, as Zecora left the room.
…Wait. Visited by another friend?
Lapis frowned, then looked around the room, for any sign of another visitor - but no, the clean, sterile-white hospital room was empty besides himself. There was indeed a heart monitor next to him on the bed, connected to a strap of some kind on his foreleg rather than to a clip on his finger. Frowning, he glanced out the window, but saw only the edge of Ponyville, silhouetted by the setting sun - as well as Zecora stepping out of the building, and headed off toward the boundary of the Everfree Forest.
Ancient ruins, Lapis thought. Huh. Definitely a for-later project, then-
“Lapis Print!” a voice shouted.
Lapis gasped, turning to look at the speaker, then sat back in bed. “…Jeez, Bon Bon, calm down a little! I know I was out for a week, but you don’t need to yell… what’s wrong?”
Bon Bon was marching toward his bedside from the door to the room, and something about the cold, hard look on her face brought to mind how she’d switched into drill-sergeant mode on the night of the Summer Sun Celebration. She had a single saddlebag slung over the side of her back, and a glint in her eye that implied she was willing to get physical.
“You are,” she said, coming to a stop beside his bed and glaring down at him. “This has gone on too long, Lapis. No more excuses. No more secrets. Why won’t you go near the Element Bearers?”
Lapis frowned, his heart starting to speed up. “The what? …Oh. You mean Pinkie and her friends. Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about when it comes to excuses, everything I’ve told you about why I’m avoiding her is true-”
“Horseapples,” Bon Bon said, leaning forward and narrowing her eyes. “First it was that you could cast invisibility spells, then it was your basement workshop, and now it’s what I found in your attic.”
Lapis blinked. “My attic? Bon Bon, I checked up there already, there was nothing there but the charging array and some cobwebs. Also, ‘spells,’ plural, is definitely an exaggeration - I know one invisibility spell, I cast it once, and for my troubles I got a headache for two hours. And as far as the basement workshop goes - well, let me put it this way, Bon Bon. I want you to say, to my face, that if you found a secret room in your house, you would tell everyone about it.”
His words didn’t seem to quell Bon Bon’s sudden suspicion, as her ears only tucked back further on her head. She straightened up beside his bed and spoke. “Lapis, because I believe there is a tiny, miniscule chance you are telling the truth right now, I am going to be perfectly honest with you. I have sufficient grounds to arrest you on suspicion of espionage, foalnapping, and treason. What you say to me in the next ten minutes is going to determine whether you spend the night here in this hospital bed, or inside of a cell.”
“Bon Bon, wha-” Lapis began, his heart racing, but Bon Bon cut him off with a stomp of her hoof. “Nopony - nopony - puts that much effort into avoiding a party, no matter how antisocial they are. Why are you so against having a party at your house? Why won’t you go near the Element Bearers, and why are you studying every spell you can find that will help you disguise yourself and evade pursuers?! Why won’t you stop running from Pinkie Pie-”
“Because I CAN’T!” Lapis shouted. “I just… I can’t, okay? Why is this so hard to accept, what part of the word ‘no’ isn’t making sense to you?! Go ahead, you can tell me - is it the ‘N,’ or the ‘O?’”
“It’s the part where you arrived in Ponyville three days before the last Element Bearer did,” Bon Bon said, her voice icy cold, “and managed to get your hooves on the one book that would help her find the Elements of Harmony. It’s also the part where you knew what book to grab to use the tools in your ‘discovered’ secret basement, even before you arrived there. Or how about the part where repeatedly push yourself to the brink of collapse, to the point of having a magic mental breakdown, working on something in your basement while the rest of Ponyville is fighting off a swarm of house-eating bugs?” She put her hoof down again. “There are too many coincidences about you, Lapis, and they don’t line up. What are you hiding? Who the hay are you, and why are you running?”
“Because of my family!” Lapis shouted, and he felt something inside himself snap as he said it. “It’s… my family, okay? They trusted me, I messed up, and now I’m fixing it.”
Bon Bon blinked, then sat back, her gaze still suspicious. “Keep talking.”
“Why should I?” Lapis snapped. “What’s your problem, what’s going on?”
“The kind that will land you in prison if you don’t. Keep. Talking.” Bon Bon replied.
Lapis sighed, resting his head on his hoof. Okay. I’ve gotta tell her something. The human thing is off the table, that’d just make me sound crazy. Same for the show thing. I don’t think I could predict Bon Bon’s future, and I could only predict… maybe some major events here? And even then, she still wouldn’t have reason to believe me until after they happened.
“…You know what?” Lapis asked. “Fine. Sure. But remember, you asked for this, okay? You knowing about this is your fault.”
“Where I grew up, it’s called… A-mare-ica, and things aren’t great there. We have plenty of food, but a lot of us don’t have enough money to go around, and that means a lot of folks go hungry, for the crime of not being lucky enough. Take that, add disease, war, summers getting hotter and winters getting colder, and you’re halfway there.”
“I’ve never heard of it,” Bon Bon said, her eyes narrowing.
“Yeah, and you won’t find it on any maps, either,” Lapis said. “Believe me, I checked. That’s the problem. But I’ll get there in a second.
“My family was lucky enough, but not by much. I wanted to fix that. I wanted to get some higher education, get a high-paying engineering job, pull us up to someplace better. For that, I needed money that I didn’t have, so I took out a loan. But my signature on it wasn’t enough, because if something ever happened to me, the loan company still wanted some way of getting their money. They wanted another signature, and…
Lapis sighed. “My parents signed.”
“They knew they couldn’t pay that debt. I knew they couldn’t pay that debt, and they knew I knew, too. But they signed anyway, because they trusted me.
“So I got the loan, and I studied. For two years. And then… there was some kind of accident. I don’t know how or why it happened. One second, I was inside the Sciences Library, and the next I was waking up on some dirt road in the middle of the Everfree Forest. I found my way out, I saw a village, and that’s how I got to Ponyville.”
Lapis didn’t mention his reaction upon waking up. He didn’t mention how he’d looked down at where his hands had been, and seen hooves there instead. He didn’t mention the way his stomach had lurched when he’d looked along the length of his foreleg and realized all of his joints were backwards, following his new fur all the way onto his torso.
He didn’t mention how he’d just gone numb for a second, after looking down the length of his own furred, barrel-shaped back from above.
“I could fix stuff. The Mayor saw after I bumped into her, and fixed her glasses. She practically threw the repair-pony job at me. I wasn’t sure, but then I realized something.
“Back home, back in Amareica? My family probably thinks I’m dead. And so does the loan company. I know what my parents make, and it’s not enough to pay those sharks off for long. If I didn’t get myself back there, fast, I’d be putting my own family out on the streets.
“I can’t stay here. But I had to get my bearings, I had to get a steady source of food and water, and I had to find a way back home. So I took the job, I did the best I could do, and when I found a book on magic engineering, or ‘artifice,’ or whatever you want to call it, I started tinkering in my secret basement,” Lapis said, sitting back in his bed. “And the one thing I’ve put together literally blew up in my face the morning before the Parasprites arrived. That’s who I am. That’s why I was in my basement. That’s why I’m here now. You happy?”
He glanced over, and saw that Bon Bon’s expression was… odd. She looked either conflicted, or concerned… or constipated, maybe?
“But… what about Pinkie?” she asked. “That still doesn’t explain why you’re so desperate to avoid her.”
No, it doesn’t. Lapis sighed and leaned back into his pillow, shutting his eyes and trying to think of something. And then an idea came to him.
It wasn’t the whole truth. But - with some shock - Lapis realized it was a part of the truth, a big enough part that it hurt when he thought about it. And that made it better, at least marginally, than a lie.
“Bon Bon, Pinkie throws a party for every pony that comes to stay in Ponyville,” Lapis said.
“Yeah, she does. Why does that matter?”
“It matters,” Lapis sighed, “because I haven't come here to stay. I can’t stay here.” He swallowed, then continued.
“Look, you and Lyra, you’re right. I get it. I’ve done the math. The longer I evade Pinkie, the harder it’ll be to avoid her, and the bigger the eventual party will be. And you know what? I want to have that party. I want to take a second to catch my breath, to smile, laugh, joke around, meet more ponies, act like nothing’s wrong. I want to just have fun for a night, I want to be happy here. I want to stop.
“I can’t,” Lapis said, and he realized his voice was shaking. “Because it’s not Pinkie I’m running from.
“It’s guilt. For letting my parents sign those damn loans, for letting myself disappear, for not making things right yet. It’s a great big boulder of guilt, and it’s rolling downhill after me, and it’s faster and heavier than any job, any workload, any pony could ever be. And if I stop, if I even slow down, it will crush me.
“I can’t stop, Bon Bon.” And for some reason, Lapis’ throat was too tight, and he could barely get the words to come out louder than a whisper.
“But I’m getting so damn tired.”
He couldn’t meet Bon Bon’s eyes, so he kept his own closed, forcing his forehooves to stop shaking atop his blankets. “...Okay, you know what? It’s stupid, you don’t believe it, and honestly, I’m not sure why I said anything. Maybe it’s something in this tea, I don’t know. But it’s the truth. So, do you want me to trot to my cell, or are we gonna roll-”
Something soft, warm, and heavy wrapped around Lapis’ chest, squeezing gently around his body. Lapis frowned, then opened his eyes.
Bon Bon was hugging him. She’d done it awkwardly - he was still lying on his back on the bed, so she’d had to sort of worm her hooves underneath his torso. On top of that, a good half of her weight was on him, so he was finding it a little difficult to breathe.
But all the same, she was hugging him, and the last time Lapis had gotten a hug was when his parents had dropped him off at the end of winter break. He wrapped his own forelegs around her.
Eventually, they let go, and Bon Bon took a few steps away from the bed, grimacing again. “I… I’m sorry, Lapis. I didn’t know, and… I’m sorry.”
Lapis chuckled. “Bon Bon, I never told you. Honestly, if you had known, I’d be worried.”
“Well, yes. But still, I…” She sighed. “I found something in your house, Lapis, and I guess I overreacted a little bit.”
Lapis frowned. Found something? I don’t think I ever wrote down anything about Earth, or being human. “What do you mean?”
Bon Bon hesitated, then she reached into her saddlebag with a hoof and pulled something out. “Do you know what this is?”
Lapis leaned forward, peering down at the object in the center of Bon Bon’s hoof. For a moment, he was confused by the matte-black, almost burnt-looking lump of dark material, until he spotted the flecks of copper glinting in its surface. “…Some kind of artifice-compatible solder, I think. Whatever pony built the collection array used the stuff to weld the central copper rod to the roof. Why, does it matter?”
“Yes,” Bon Bon said. “Yes, it does. It’s not solder, it’s wax. And it’s made by a very secretive, very dangerous kind of shape-shifting monster. I found it, and I thought… that you were one of them.”
“A shape-shifting monster…” Lapis muttered, then - wincing at the pain in his horn - he levitated the chunk of wax off Bon Bon’s hoof, trying and failing to mush it around in his grip. “Well, it’s definitely harder than beeswax.”
Bon Bon scoffed, then actually giggled. “Unfortunately, yes. …Listen, I’d prefer not to talk about it too much, but if you find any more of this stuff, in Ponyville or anywhere else, then… come get me, as soon as you can, and be on your guard until you do. If you can do the job you were paid to do, then do it and get out, but be careful until you get to me. Just in case somepony around you turns out not to be a pony.”
Lapis chuckled nervously. “Bon Bon, what is this, Invasion of the Pony Snatchers?”
“Yes,” Bon Bon said, not a trace of humor in her voice. And suddenly, Lapis remembered one of the episodes. A two-parter, one his little sister had watched over and over again. The wedding, the princess and the royal guard, the succubus-bug-pony-thing with the green fire.
Princess Celestia, in a pod on the ceiling.
“…Right,” Lapis said, and suddenly the chunk of wax in his magical grip seemed a lot heavier than it had before. “I’ll keep an eye out.” Yeah, Bon Bon definitely isn’t just a cop.
“Thanks,” Bon Bon said. “I’ll be taking that wax back. I’ll need to show it to Lyra.”
“Sure thing,” Lapis said, giving her the wax. “…Hey, so, listen. Thanks for-” He paused, cutting off as he heard a tapping at the window.
Bon Bon frowned, looking over. “Huh. A pigeon. I don’t think that’s Nikki, though.”
Lapis opened the window, and the pigeon fluttered inside, then called out a quick coo. Frowning at the unfamiliar bird, Lapis looked back toward the window and smiled as he spotted Nikki winging her way toward them. “There she is! How’d you know I was-”
Nikki briefly tucked her wings in, swooping in through the window at top speed, then snapped her wing to its full length as she cruised toward Lapis’ face. He just had time to shut his eyes before the impact, and the force of Nikki’s maximum-force slap tipped him to the side just enough that he ended up falling out of bed.
“Ow,” Lapis muttered. Overhead, Bon Bon gaped, and Nikki pulled a tight banking turn to perch atop Lapis’ head, glaring down at him over the top of his horn. “Okay, yeah, I’ll try not to do that again.”
“…Poor Fluttershy,” Bon Bon muttered.
Nikki shot Bon Bon a look as Lapis climbed to his hooves. He was still a little shaky, probably from not getting out of bed for a week, but - to his pleased surprise - he felt up for a walk. “Alright, so I guess I’m out of bed now, and my backlog is waiting for me. What do you say we find out how I check out of here?”
“I don’t think-” Bon Bon began, but a sudden, loud beeping from the heart monitor next to Lapis’ bed cut her off. Lapis glanced down at his hoof, and found that the cable connecting the cuff on his foreleg to the heart monitor had been snapped in the fall.
A brief jolt of realization shot through Lapis, and he turned toward the door, from outside of which the sudden sound of galloping hooves was growing louder. “I’M OKAY!” he bellowed. “I’M NOT DYING, I JUST FELL OUT OF BED! SORRY!”
A sigh came from outside the door, and a white-coated mare with a pale pink mane and a nurse’s hat poked her head around the corner, a bright red bag that looked suspiciously full of defibrillators slung across her shoulders. “Thank you, sir. Please keep your voice down.”
“Right. Got it. Sorry again,” Lapis said.
The nurse briefly looked around the room, taking in both Nikki and the second pigeon now sitting atop Lapis’ headboard, then added, “And no pets, either.”
Nikki squawked, outraged. Bon Bon sighed and shook her head, and all Lapis could do was grin. He’d done it. He’d spilled part of the secret, and he hadn’t been ostracized or sent to any kind of secret lab. On top of that, thanks to Zecora’s chat, he might even have a new place to look for a way home. All in all, even with the week-long backlog, things couldn’t have turned out any better.
…Even if that boulder is just a little heavier now.