Chapter Nine: Thievery
"Bon-Bon... where is Dinky?" Derpy sniffled; she tilted her head over towards Bon-Bon and whispered into her ear.
"Don't worry Derpy, we will find Dinky and we will find her soon. Let's just stay together and find her together." Bon-Bon reassuringly explained to Derpy, hoping to calm her down.
"But why did Lyra and Carrot Top disappear?" Derpy asked Bon-Bon, still curious as ever.
"I told them to split up Derpy, if Lyra and Carrot Top split up they can search more places around town that we can't go to. In a few minutes were going to meet up at the park, do you understand?" Bon-Bon calmingly spoke to her friend, tightening the grip on her hand making sure she did not let go of Derpy holding her hand as if she was a small scared child.
"I think so..." Derpy scratched her head with her other hand which was free, still feeling confused about what Bon-Bon was trying to say to her.
"Now, the reason why I decided to go to the marketplace with you is because I can open up my candy stall and get some candy for you." Bon-Bon used her free hand and rubbed Derpy's arm keeping her warm from the cold. Derpy returned herself by smiling back to Bon-Bon and trying her best to look at her.
"Can I have some cotton candy?" Derpy asked Bon-Bon.
"Sure you can." Bon-Bon smiled.
Both Derpy and Bon-Bon began to walk down the path that began to spread further outwards, little stalls covered up by sheets of plastic and held together by weak wood were scattered around the street. Small tents and large tents were scattered around the whole area with massive signs on all of them. Butcher shops, Vegetable shops, Toyshops, Alcohol and even foreign books. Lively boldly colored names shined in the moon bright light.
"Okay, we're now in the market, let's just walk to the Candy Shack and I'll get some cotton candy out for you." Bon-Bon looked around, feeling a slight tingling in her spine. She loved business. Especially with the pink haired woman who works in the Sugarcube Corner, not just so much of a friendly competition.
Derpy and Bon-Bon arrived at their destination; they had finally reached the candy shack in all of its own beauty. The stall was closed down for the nighttime and the windows were boarded up with wooden planks that could easily be removed with a simple hammer. Bon-Bon put her hand in her pocket and began to rummage around for the keys within her pocket; she then grabbed hold of her house keys and pulled them out of her trouser pocket.
"So you say that you want a small bag of cotton candy?" Bon-Bon asked her friend again.
"Uhh..." Derpy put her finger on her mouth, trying to think. "Yes please." Derpy nodded up and down.
"Let me just open up the back door and I'll get you some cotton candy. I think Lyra left one of her hoodies in the store last time I was working here, if I can find it, you can wear it. I'm sure Lyra wouldn't mind." Bon-Bon smiled.
"I can wear Lyra's hoodie?" Derpy questioned.
"Yes." Bon-Bon nodded.
"Cool!" Derpy yelled out, raising her fist into the air.
Bon-Bon and Derpy started to walk around the Candy stall to get to the back door, Bon-Bon held up her keys and looked through each single one and saw the right key to open up the back door. She held the correct key into her hand and proceeded to walk around the Candy stall with Derpy slowly following, hoping that the green hoodie that Lyra left in the stall was still there.
Bon-Bon was the first to turn round to the back of the stall; she saw small pieces of wooden ranging from small chips to large chunks all over the floor where the door is. Her heart skipped a beat for a minute as she looked at where the possible source of the damage would have happened; she saw that her back door had a massive hole going straight through the middle of it. Derpy soon catched up to her friend and saw Bon-Bon standing in front of the damage before her.
"W-what happened, is Dinky here?" Derpy walked over to Bon-Bon and lightly tapped her on the arm, Bon-Bon seemed to have frozen up, she did not move at all. Bon-Bon's mouth was standing wide open and her pupils had shrinked to the size of peas.
"N-no Derpy..." Bon-Bon unfroze herself; she moved her hand up to her face. Her movement seemed a little jittery and very slow, but she finally placed her hand up onto her face and groaned out loudly.
"Are... are you okay?" Derpy put her hand on her friends shoulder; she wrapped her arms around Bon-Bon's chest and softly hugged her.
"I- I'm okay D-Derpy..." Bon-Bon stared at the damage done to her wooden door; she looked at the damage by spacing her fingers past her face allowing her to see properly. Derpy tried to hug Bon-Bon once again, and Bon-Bon accepted the hug once more.
"What could have done that?" Derpy whispered to Bon-Bon, starting to feel as scared as Bon-Bon.
"I d-don't know..." Bon-Bon sighed. "I n-need to check that n-nothing was stolen..." Bon-Bon walked up to the top of the debris and walked over it, she saw the hole in the door and noticed that the door was now unlocked. Her idea of an animal trying to break in and steal the candy in her store was out of the window, now she fully understood that an actual person had broken into her store.
"I h-have to check Derpy... I w-will be a minute..." Bon-Bon put her hand on the door handle, she slowly turned the handle and the insides of the door had clicked out of place, Bon-Bon pushed the door forward and now saw the full extent of the damage.
Bon-Bon peeped her head on the inside of her precious stall to see the epicenter of the damage that has been done, all of the cardboard boxes that she had placed neatly into the corner of the store were somehow thrown across the entire stall, all sorts of jars and pieces of candy were all over the floor.. It was a complete mess; Bon-Bon could utter a single word for what had happened to her precious candy stall.
"Oh... this is just horrible..." Bon-Bon gasped for air, feeling like the room was constantly losing it.
"Bon-Bon are you okay?" Derpy walked up to Bon-Bon from the behind and tapped her on the back.
Bon-Bon slowly turned around, looking very sad about what had happened to her stall.
"W-What's wrong?" Derpy asked; confused at what was going on.
"It's nothing, Derpy... an animal broke into the store." Bon-Bon lied, feeling a massive knot in her stomach was forming, and she still could not believe what had happened to her stall.
Derpy stepped inside the stall and saw the damage lying around her, wooden debris were all over the floor and pieces of candy were scattered around, the cardboard boxes were all over the places and one of the shelves looked like it had been damaged. Derpy did not understand what was going on, but it looked very bad, and seeing Bon-Bon looking very sad was a sign to the situation.
"Does this mean I can't have any cotton candy?"
Lyra walked down the town square with her hands in the pockets on her hoodie, keeping her head down and low from any possible sight from any of the passersby. She kept her eyes open for Dinky and was definitely on guard for when she saw her, Bon-Bon was right. She needed something to cover her legs, but now was not the right time to complain about the weather. She had a child to look for and some friends to call apon.
Lyra entered the town square; in the middle of the town square was the large fountain, which was always turned off at nighttime to conserve water. Lyra walked up to the fountain for a moment to look at her own reflection in the water, deep in the water was the reflection of her own beautiful face hidden under her hoodie and the gigantic moon shining it's moon light on the whole land. Lyra looked up and checked her surroundings for a moment, she looked at the mayor’s office, for this time of day it was closed, and the mayor had gone home to get some rest.
"Dinky!" Lyra put her hands next to her mouth to create a megaphone and shouted Derpy's daughter's name aloud in the middle of the street.
...
No response, Lyra did not understand the whole situation; she did not understand why Dinky would run away from her mother and Carrot Top. Small ideas and theories began to well up into her head and it was for certain that most of them would not likely of actually happened to the child.
"Dinky where are you?" Lyra called out again.
...
Lyra sat down on the edge of the fountain for a minute, keeping herself intact and making sure, she did not fall into the fountain. She put her hands up to her face and began to rub her eyes, easing the pain that built up over time not being able to get some sleep.
Lyra stopped rubbing her eyes and turned around to look back at the fountain, she saw a small shine at the bottom of the fountain in the corner of her eye. It was a strange white shine and it managed to catch her attention, Lyra turned herself around properly to see a strange gray feather was in the water.
She reached out for the strange looking feather and quickly grabbed it, picking up the soft feather to much of her curiosity. It was a very long gray feather that looked like it belonged to a very large type of bird, it was very strange as Lyra could not imagine rare types of birds coming to the land and stay near actual towns without being chased away by the locals.
"What the..." Lyra took a closer inspection of the strange feather; she saw that even when it was not in the water it was still shining a magnificent color and it shined in the moonlight perfectly. Lyra looked to her left and her right to see that no one was still around at this time of night. She quickly stuffed the feather into her hoodie pocket and continued her search for Dinky.
"Here you go Derpy." Bon-Bon gave Derpy a small plastic bag filled to the top with soft and delicious cotton candy, Derpy immediately ripped open the bag and shoved the cotton candy into her mouth and let it melt by swirling her saliva around her mouth. Bon-Bon did not look very happy, and Derpy could see that. She had just tried her best to fix her stall and moved all of the cardboard boxes back into the corner and picked up some of the candy using a dustpan and bush, Bon-Bon walked over to Derpy and lightly tapped her on the shoulder.
"Are we going now?" Derpy muffled, not being able to speak properly with all of the cotton candy shoved in her mouth.
"Yes Derpy. Me and Lyra will come back here in the morning and clean the place up, but firstly we have to find Dinky." Bon-Bon walked back over to the counter and picked up the green hoodie that belonged to Lyra, she put it over Derpy and she inserted her arms through the arms of the coat. Bon-Bon took grip of the zipper, connected it up with the other side of the coat, and pulled it up.
"What do you think happened here?" Derpy muffled, still trying to chew on the cotton candy.
"I will tell you tomorrow Derpy, let's go find Dinky..." Bon-Bon rubbed her eyes; feeling tired from what has been going on, first Dinky, and now her precious candy stall.
"So were going to find Dinky now?" Derpy was confused, she did not really listen to Bon-Bon, and she was more interested in finishing off the cotton candy and then getting back to finding her daughter.
"Yes." Bon-Bon nodded up and down. "You can hold my hand if you want and we will go to the park and regroup with everyone else." Bon-Bon held her hand out to Derpy for a moment, Derpy reached out and grabbed Bon-Bon's hand and she allowed Bon-Bon to take her to the park.
Bon-Bon was the first to walk out of the candy stall, Derpy soon followed out with her hand being in grip with Bon-Bon's hand, she reached into her pocket with her free hand, got her own house keys, and locked the door. Bon-Bon just realized that locking the door with a massive hole in the middle of it was a bad idea. People were still going to get inside of it and she could not help but groan a little.
Carrot Top walked down the big streets of Rumsville, she looked from side to side keeping an always-observant eye out for Dinky and any other people that she could be able to talk to. She had just walked past the Sugarcube Corner and the Fashion Boutique looking for the child and there was no luck in finding her.
Ten minutes had passed after checking street after street and there was no sign of Dinky anywhere, not even a single sound or sign of a possible clue anywhere. Carrot Top looked at her wristwatch for a moment to see it was time to regroup at the entrance to the park. She put her hands up to her face and sighed aloud, slowly rubbing her eyes trying to release the pain that built up after not being able to sleep for now.
" This is hopeless... " Carrot Top spoke to herself. " Stupid lesbians... " She looked around the street she was on once again and finally accepted that she couldn't find Dinky at all, she turned around and began to walk to the Rumsville Park.
Ditzy and Dinky walked up the path that lead to the Rumsville Park, the cobblestone path had changed into a long path made out of dirt and a large series of flowers began to appear all over the bright green grass. The pond in the middle of the park was silent and the small wildlife that resided in there were calm and collected. Ditzy decided to check on the child and so she turned her head around but kept on walking.
Dinky was leaning against Ditzy's neck, arms tightly wrapped round and Dinky was making a muffled snoring sound. Ditzy took a closer look at Dinky and saw that she had fallen asleep on her own back, she must have been tired from her lack of sleep and the fact that she was taken away so far from home.
Ditzy saw the horse stables on the other side of the park near the forest, all of the small lights that lit up the ranch had been turned off, she hoped that the ranch owner was asleep so that she could sneak past him and lay Dinky down into the stables with the rest of the other ponies.
"Ditzy..."
Ditzy turned her head again, quickly confused at the strange voice, she looked from her left and to her right to make sure no other person was looking at her or even watching what she was doing.
"Ditzy... you're my bestest friend..."
Ditzy turned her head round and noticed that Dinky had said those words, but she did not understand. The child was asleep, how could she speak in her sleep.
A small heart warming tingle warmed up Ditzy and a small smile grown on her face knowing that the child loved her. In addition, she was so close to the ranch, she felt so happy that she was so close to her objective and the child loved her.
Ditzy's role in the great plan was nearly finished; it was time for the other ponies to achieve the next step in the great plan. All they had to do is wait for Dinky to wake up and the fun would begin.
To be continued.