I own absolutely no characters in this story. Only the plot. So please enjoy.
A Harp and It’s Candy
Chapter 1: Propositio
There are days. Different types of days. Good and bad being the main two kinds. Then there were several others that tied into one of those two.
There are stressful days which one exerts his or herself to a point where at the end of the day, you just want to lie down and do nothing else. There were days when you were just excited that they had arrived and a special occasion was on that day. And there were also days that would at first be thought to be nothing more than a normal routine day, and then turn out to be a complete surprise.
For one pony in the small town of Ponyville, this would be one of those surprising days.
But the surprise was only going to come to one out of a pair of ponies. One, a cream colored Earth Pony with a navy blue and pink mane and tail. And the other, a cyan coated unicorn with her mane and tail the same color with a white stripe added. The earth pony’s mark is three small wrapped candies. Her name is Bon-Bon. And the unicorn’s cutie mark is a simple golden rimmed harp. And that earned her the name of Lyra.
One of them had their minds set on this surprise for quite a long time bet never took any initiative to actually do it. But today, she was gonna do it. Even if it meant the last breath in her body, she was gonna do it. That’s how determined she is.
Bon-Bon works in a candy store out of hers and Lyra’s house. Pinkie Pie often stops by for candies to add to her pastries she makes in the bakery. And Lyra is a talented harp player as her cutie mark would suggest. She’s basically a pony who plays harp for cash at weddings and other fancy parties. She’s very good too. And she works for a reasonable price. But some seasons are better than others of course.
The two of them live together in one house. They have been for the past seven months now after Lyra got tired of living next to that pony that pops balloons for a living. It was very irritating having to listen to those things pop every five seconds while trying to get a good night’s sleep. So Bon-Bon, already being Lyra’s girlfriend, asked her to move in with her. And the cyan unicorn happily accepted. Now she sleeps like a foal every night. What makes it even better is that they share a bed with the mare they are in love with.
The sunlight of the new morning breached through the glass of their window radiantly. And Lyra, being on the side that faces said window, got hit by light first. Her eyes sensed the light was trying to tell her to wake up. Thus it was so.
Her golden eyes fluttered a bit as they adjusted to the light. Then when they were ready to take on the full daylight, they stayed open. But before she got out of bed, Lyra turned and looked at the mare next to her. Her beloved Bon-Bon.
“She is so cute when she sleeps.”
Then Bon-Bon began to stir. Her own light cyan eyes opened up and turned to meet the gaze of her marefriend’s.
The two mars smiled lovingly at the other.
“Morning.” The both buttered at the same time.
Soon after they made their way out of bed, the day for them began. Bon-Bon’s candy store always has early customers. And Lyra practices her harp probably six hours straight every day. And that’s on days when she doesn’t perform at a gig. Her gigs aren’t very big. They’re mostly small weddings and birthday parties for snobby rich kids. She’s not very fond of those. Hard work for little pay from ponies who don’t appreciate the favor. Probably the most awkward gig she’s ever gotten was when she got hired to pluck her harp at a funeral. That really made her change her policy on gigs. Her music is for happy occasions. It’s the only music she knows. Funerals aren’t really her kind of area.
But it wasn’t just Lyra who had the weird job. Sometime’s Bon-Bon’s store gets a bit hectic. It’s a candy store. The main target for stores like that, kids. And every day, there are at least a few kids who end up throwing a screaming tantrum because their parents won’t spring for an excessive amount of candy. Sometimes Bon-Bon and Lyra put bets on those kids. If over five kids scream and whine in one day, the loser cooks dinner. That’s the basic bet. Rules vary. Today, THAT was the bet. And Bon-Bon was going for over.
She lost. Only four kids ended up having whiny tantrums. So it was her job to cook dinner tonight. She wasn’t very fond of it considering she has no magic to help her lift things. As soon as the store closed hours later, the doors became locked and Bon-Bon prepped the kitchen for cooking. She was gonna have to keep her attention in the kitchen fully for a good hour.
Just like Lyra hoped.
As soon as Bon-Bon stepped into the kitchen, Lyra snuck out of the house to make a super secret errand run. And when she got back, there was a small container in her magical grip. Her horn glowed with a silver aura and so did the small container.
She smiled upon seeing that Bon-Bon had finished cooking dinner in the time she was gone.
“Where’ve you been? I’ve been waiting for ten minutes.” Bon-Bon said to her loved one.
“Whoops. I must have lost track of time.” Lyra said back.
She knew what time it was perfectly well. She wasn’t an idiot.
“I was just getting desert for us.” Lyra gave her reason for being gone.
It was a simple excuse. But it was also the truth. Bon-Bon just didn’t know there was more to it than that.
After eating the scrumptious pasta dinner Bon-Bon had made for the two of them, Lyra brought out her desert. She went to Sugarcube Corner and picked up two cupcakes. One for each of them. Lyra had gotten herself a white mint vanilla one with white frosting. And Lyra knew what Bon-Bon’s favorite flavor of all time was. Chocolate.
The brown cupcake adorned with white and tan frosting made Bon-Bon’s mouth water. But right as she went in to take a bite, she stopped wondering something.
“Why did you go and get these tonight?” she asked Lyra. “You’ve never gotten desert before.”
“Just eat it, silly.”
Bon-Bon took a sigh and easily gave in. She picked the cupcake up as best as she could with her right hoof wrapped around the base of it. Then she chomped into it. As she began to chew, she let the chocolate flavor she loved so much swirl on her taste buds. But then her tongue began to feel something else other than cupcake remnants. This new feeling didn’t have a distinguishable taste.
Opening her mouth, she stuck out her tongue and scraped off whatever was stuck to it. And as she looked down to see what it was, she saw that it was a tiny folded piece of paper. After unfolding it, she let her eyes become wider than normal. Because that piece of paper was a note and this is what it said.
“Bonnie, I love you.
Will you marry me?”
When she looked to her left after reading the note, Bon-Bon gasped at the sight in front of her. Lyra was kneeling down and she was magically levitating a hoof ring big enough for Bon-Bon and there was a diamond on top.
Bon-Bon’s eyes began to well up with tears of mixed emotions. But the dominant one was happiness. No. Happiness is an understatement. More like she was in a state of total euphoria. Before she started to break down crying, she had to give an answer.
“YES! YES! OH CELESTIA YES!”
As Bon-Bon placed her left hoof out in front of her, Lyra moved the ring over to her and slid it up her newly christened fiancée’s hoof. THEN she broke down crying. Lyra began to cry a bit herself. She was so happy she said yes, she didn’t care if she let a few tears loose. But it had to stop.
“Oh come on you big foal. You’re gonna make MY eyes overflow.”
That however was inevitable. Lyra’s emotions got the best of her and she began to cry with Bon-Bon. The happiness was just too much, how could she NOT cry?
After a good hour and a half of bawling their eyes out, and then spending another five minutes wiping up the small puddle they made together, they shared a very passionate kiss with each other and decided to call it a night.
They were gonna start letting people know as soon as they set a date. And that date got set the very next day when Lyra woke up to see Bon-Bon looking at bridal magazines in bed.
“Um…good morning.”
“Oh good morning, sleepyhead. I was wondering when you were gonna get up.” Bon-Bon said with a smile.
Lyra shed her morning yawn and then sat herself up to take a look at the pages Bon-Bon was also viewing. The page was on dress designs.
“I guess your bridezilla has already been unleashed.” Lyra assumed.
“Just give it time, Ly. Yours will come out too.”
“Oh how I fear it.” The unicorn joked.
With a small giggle, Bon-Bon turned the page with her hoof.
“Hey, I was up last night thinking.” Bon-Bon started. “Octavia and I keep in touch via letters and I told her about us. She’s happy of course. But she’s a big celebrity musician in Canterlot. And she told me that she can pull some strings so we can get married in the garden of the Canterlot Castle. How great would that be?”
The Canterlot Castle. The fanciest place of them all. One could only dream of having an event such as a wedding there. That’s why when Lyra heard Bon-Bon say they could actually do it, she hugged her fiancée with a tight squeeze.
“Oh my gosh that’s fantastic!” the cyan unicorn cried out of happiness.
“Of course it is!” Bon-Bon agreed whole-heartedly.
But there was just one little complication that she hadn’t mentioned yet.
“But…see the thing is….as popular as Octavia is, that doesn’t make her as powerful as Celestia. So the only timeslot she was able to get for us was….the 28th of this month.”
And boom. Lyra could have sworn she just heard glass shattering all around her. It was such a happy moment and it just got put on hold with that little detail.
“Th….the 28th? Of THIS month?” she repeated it hoping she misheard Bon-Bon or Bon-Bon misspoke.
But the cream pony’s words were crystal clear.
“Yes.” Was all she muttered out as a response.
Lyra was at a loss for words. But she managed to find some for her voice box to use.
“But…Bonnie, that’s only three weeks away from Friday. Less than a month.” Lyra pointed out. “I don’t think we can get everything ready with such little time.”
“Look, I know this is pushing it, but think about it, Ly.” One could look at Bon-Bon right now and see her eyes literally sparkle. “The wedding you and I always talked about. Outside in a beautiful garden, close friends all around us, slow music in the background, it’ll be perfect!”
The idea of that scenario does sound grand. But the time crunch is still something to worry about. A wedding like that requires more than three weeks time to prepare.
“Bonnie, think more practical here. I mean sure, that’s the type of wedding I’ve imagined having ever since I was four years old but…”
“Then why deny it?” Bon-Bon interrupted. “We could have our fantasy wedding together.”
“But all the preparations.” Lyra was still going strong with that argument. “It’s gonna take more than three weeks to get done.”
“No they won’t. I’ve thought about that too. And if you and I split up the tasks we can make this happen.”
Bon-Bon then presented Lyra with two pieces of paper carrying fresh writing on them. They were lists. Lists of things to do for the wedding. There was one for Bon-Bon and another for Lyra. Apparently somepony has been thinking about this a lot more than some have thought.
Bon-Bon’s list had a certain amount of tasks that needed to be completed before the wedding. Lyra’s list had the same amount.
“Oh come on! It’s the opportunity of a lifetime! How can you possibly pass it up?”
“But what about money?” Lyra presented another problem. “Do we even have enough for all of this?”
“We have MORE than enough.” Bon-Bon explain. “Just last month was Nightmare Night. And of course you know that means everypony buys candy like crazy and in large amounts. I made more than I did last year. Trust me. Money isn’t going to be a problem.
Lyra gave a sigh. Bon-Bon did put a lot of thought into this. And with one more close examination of the lists, she found that she could pull this off.
“Oh there’s just no way in Equestria I can pass this up.” She gave in. “We’re getting married in three weeks!”
That made Bon-Bon happy again. Then she and Lyra began to jump up and down squealing in joy. Two seconds later however, they were forced to stop upon hearing the sound of the bell on their door ring when it opened up.
The pony who entered turned out to be a purple unicorn with a light magenta streak in her mane and tail.
“Oh. Hi Twilight.” Bon-Bon greeted her. “What are you doing here?”
“I placed an order for three boxes of chocolates here about a week ago. You said it would be in today. Remember?” The purple unicorn told her.
Bon-Bon did remember that upon hearing it explained to her.
“Oh that’s right! I’m so sorry, Twilight. I must have forgotten about it.” Bon-Bon went over to her stock room and looked around.
In no time at all, she found Twilight’s order. Three big boxes of chocolate tied together by a big red ribbon. She brought it out to her and placed it down on the front counter as Twilight paid what was owed.
“What do you need all this chocolate for, Twilight?” Bon-Bon asked.
“It’s to have around the house in case Spike gets fussy. I tried to go looking for gemstones but I had no luck anywhere. So I went with Spike’s second favorite food in all the world.”
“Well I can’t blame him there. Chocolate is pretty awesome.” Bon-Bon agreed.
“It’s pretty good. Thanks, Bon…” Twilight got cut off when she saw a shine come from Bon-Bon’s left hoof. “Hey. What’s that on your hoof?”
Bon-Bon knew what she was talking about. She looked over at Lyra to see if it was okay to tell her. The cyan unicorn nodding was her way of saying yes.
“It’s an engagement ring, Twilight. Lyra and I are gonna get married!”
Now it became Twilight’s turn to smile for them. She’s the first pony they told.
“Oh my gosh! That’s great! Congratulations you two!” she almost shouted.
“Oh thank you, Twilight.” Bon-Bon said. “I’m sorry but I have to go! Lyra and I have things we need to get done before three weeks!”
Bon-Bon clenched her list of tasks in her teeth and ran out the door leaving Twilight with Lyra.
“You’re getting married in just three weeks? That’s not very long to wait, is it?” She asked a bit confused why they would make such an early date.
“It was the only date we could get for the Canterlot Garden.” Lyra explained. “Octavia was able to get us slotted in.”
Twilight noticed the list meant for Lyra lying on the ground in front of her. She picked it up with her horn glowing with red magic and examined it.
“How are you going to go through all these arrangements in three weeks?” Twilight asked. “It looks like there’s a lot to do on these lists.”
Lyra gave Twilight a reassuring smile. She was cool as a cucumber. A few seconds ago, she wasn’t though. But seeing Bon-Bon smile like that made her light up and calm herself.
“I know a few ponies.” Were the words she used to back up her calm feelings.
With that, Lyra regained the list with her own magical telekinetic grip and ran out the door to get started. That left Twilight alone in her and Bon Bon’s house and that made her a bit uncomfortable since none of them were there. So she left and closed the door behind her.