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// Dropped Muffins 
// Story: Sweet Dreams Are made of ... 
// by Scriblits Talo 
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There is nothing like having a best friend. A simple enough fact…

when your friend isn't secretly a secret agent who had been hiding their true identity from you as long as you have known them. 

Although…

There is nothing quite like that either.

Mine and Bon-Bon’s…er... Rather mine and Agent Sweetie Drops' relationship had never been all that simple anyway. My obsession with “Humans” ... and with benches for that matter, her tendency to seemingly randomly disappear in the middle of conversations…and both of our passions for talking over one another… It's a wonder we got along at all… Although I am embarrassed to say, that was part of the reason for my distress when she told me her secret. You see at the time I was harboring a secret of my own, and I didn't feel worthy of her friendship… for a split second I thought that it had all been a lie… that maybe she was only close to me to spy, to keep an eye on the strange pony with a passion for anthropology. An oddity surely the princesses would have an interest in. But no… no. I don’t think that was it. In fact, I'm certain. At the time it was just my nerves.

After all, I ate all the oats. -Lyra







I managed to twirl the fork over my hoof, a task that would have been so much easier with fingers, a trick I had taught myself years ago while trying to imagine how other creatures would have used the implement.

 “I was reading over some of the books Princes Twilight gave me. You know, the ones written by humans… did you know some of them use a pair of sticks to eat, not one in either hand, but in one hand… something like this…” 

Somehow and with some effort, miraculously I managed to balance a pair of forks on my hoof as if they were chopsticks held across the arch of the thumb and between a set of delicate fingers… As if held between a human middle finger and ring phalange. They held there for just the smallest moment, and then fell, clinking to the ground.

“What's that… oh, Lyra, you dropped your silverware.”

A golden gleam of magic radiating about my horn I picked up the forks placing them gently back on the table …Bon-Bon had missed my feat… decidedly more interested in something else, which was fair enough, most ponies were not very into human lore, a subject most found to be more trouble than it was worth. But there was something else to it. Bon-Bon seemed particularly alert, on guard… and only to anypony who knew her well enough to notice. She seemed nervous. Not that the nervousness was really showing all that much. After all, she was really good at her job.  But the nervousness was there, the swish of her tail, the movement of her ears, the light and constant tapping of her hoof, the tightness in her face.

Honestly, in the past, noticing these things about my friend, I had always just assumed her to be the nervous sort, prone to anxiety… but now… knowing of her secret career, I paid more attention. She was watching for something, ears twitching in each direction, alert.

Glancing around in what I hoped could be considered discreetly, I tried to follow my friend's gaze. What could she be watching for?

The busy Ponyvillian street across from our cafe was a bustle, carts and merchants lined it in every direction, ponies trotting and shopping in every which way. A flower merchant here, an apple stand there, Derpy coming up the street barring a basket filled to the brim with muffins, all pretty standard stuff. She was watching the crowd… Watching for something… somepony. 

Suddenly, she turned away from the street; propping an open  Ponyville Chronicle between her face and the crowd, somehow managing to flick her shades down as she did. The message was clear, be cool Lyra, be cool.

I lifted the encyclopedia Twilight had lent me. It occurred to me that I might peek over and ask her what we were looking for… but no I didn’t want to blow her cover…our cover…
She hadn't told me what we were doing, and she hadn't asked me to involve myself, but I was invested, whether she liked it or not. 

I grinned.

Suddenly there was an explosion, or something like one as Derpy tripped over a loose stone, trying to catch herself sending a flower cart careening down the street, its momentum only stopped by a wayward pie stand, flowers and muffins and pies flying in every direction. Mass hysteria. Stampedes, perhaps way too easy to start in Ponyville. I doubt humans deal with quite this much chaos… but with magic invading their world… maybe.

In all this chaos, I don’t think Bon Bon even batted an eye. Trying to keep a calm composure, I glanced over the encyclopedia at my friend. Finding myself not able to see her face I leaned back to glance at her expression beyond the newspaper. She was smiling…Apparently, everything was going to plan. I returned to my book “reading” as ponies screamed and flailed around us, screaming in the mass panic.

And then. In the chaos. Unbeknownst but perhaps anypony but me, Agent Sweetie Drops leaned down and picked up a muffin sliding it into her saddle bag.