I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve you.
I have done terrible things in the name of Princess and country, turning my mark-given talents towards the dark arts of combat confectionary. I’ve burnt timberwolves to ash with augmented red-hots. I’ve poisoned an entire changeling hive with emotionally resonant sourballs. I’ve blotted out the stars of a Canis Major with black licorice infused with the faint light of the new moon, as if making black licorice weren’t sin enough. There is as much blood on these hooves as there is sugar.
I'm as much of a monster as anything I’ve fought, and while I was active, I had accepted that. But then that bugbear slipped out of Tartarus, and Celestia shuttered the entire operation. Everypony from Director Bestiary down to the janitors officially didn’t exist anymore. I was given a pat on the back, a final pay envelope, and a buck out the door.
I’ve been all around the world. I’ve pointed Daring Do at Ahuizotl three different times (Between disguises and the voice-changing lozenges that earned me my cutie mark, she never did connect the dots.) I knew that just because the Princess shut us down, that didn’t mean that the monsters would stop coming. I put myself in one of the country’s biggest hot spots for monster activity, Ponyville.
I’d never really seen the place when there wasn’t a disaster in progress. For a town on the edge of a forest out of nightmares, it was, well, nice. Quaint, even. Some of the friendliest ponies I’d ever met, who never seemed to mind the stumbling of a mare who was still getting used to the mask she’d wear for the rest of her life.
Then I met you, and you made the rest of the town seem like the worst sort of jaded Manehattanites, the kind who see a mare wrestling a sewer gator in their bathrooms and demand to know who’s going to pay to fix the place.
I’d never met somepony like you before. You were smart. You were funny. You had a heart so big that just sitting next to you on a park bench meant the world to you. All those nights we spent just talking about music, about candy, about the magic of both…
I don’t deserve you. I love you. I love you so much, it hurts. But I know you don’t love me. How could you? You don’t even know me. I’m no better than a changeling, putting on an attractive identity that you’ll adore while hiding the monster underneath. I’m a chalky Hearts and Hooves message heart wrapped up like a fancy truffle, yet you bought me sight unseen.
That’s why we can never be more than friends. You deserve better.
Besides, even if we could be together, my work may yet catch up with me. Cerberus abandoned his post for hours before Twilight Sparkle was able to get him back. That’s plenty of time for some of the most cunning horrors sealed in Tartarus to slip out. Tirek, Scylla, Grogar… And that’s not taking the bugbear into account. It was clever enough to slip past even Cerberus’s vigilance. If it’s smart enough to do that, then it might be hunting me down even now. And if it ever found me...
Bad enough that you might lose your best friend. I'm not going to take your love away from you as well.
"Hey, Bon Bon."
Your words shake me out of my thoughts. "Yeah?"
You have the mail gripped in your magic. You pull one letter out of the clump and set it down on the kitchen table next to my oatmeal. "You got another one of those black envelopes with no return address. Or anything else. And after that time I tried to open one and it burst into heatless flame and didn't even leave ash..." You trail off with a chuckle that stabs at my heart. "Well, I learned my lesson."
"Thanks." They say if you wear the mask long enough, you become it. It's been years, and the smile on my face still feels as artificial as synthetic food coloring.
You beam back in spite of that. "Hey, what are best friends for?"
I hold back the cringe. Just drive your horn into my chest, Lyra. It'll have the same effect. "Right. Best friends forever."
"And ever." We nuzzle. Beautiful, artistic, and oblivious. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were part of the severance package.
One day, Bonnie. One day you'll tell me what you're hiding. I know you too well to miss it. I can see the little twitches of your ears when you hide your true feelings. I can hear your voice quaver the tiniest fraction of a pitch, no matter how many voice changers you suck on. And I can most definitely feel the magic on that mystery mail of yours. Even if the whole "featureless black envelope" thing weren't suspicious, I've seen the security spells in action. I didn't go to Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns for nothing, you know. I can recognize when something's keyed to a specific pony's magical signature.
But I'm not going to say anything before you're ready. I trust you, and I respect you. I know that one day, in your own time, you'll explain what the hay is going on. Then we'll be able to move past longing looks and lingering touches. I look forward to that day, and I know you do too. All those times your eyes were glued to my backside when you thought I wasn't paying attention sure say so.
Still, there's no rush. Playing a piece out of tempo can be fun, but it always sounds best when performed as the composer intended it. We'll make beautiful music together one day, Bon Bon. Just not yet.
Until then, well, best friends can tease each other, can't they?