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?
Why is black licorice a bad thing?
6286523
Have you ever tasted it?
6286560 You dare call black licorice a sin? HEATHEN!
(Okay, admittedly, it's not something you want to eat for every dessert, but it's good on occasion.)
YEP JUST GALS BEING PALS.
Drive a horn into MY heart, why don't you.
6286889
You are entitled to your opinion, sir or madam, no matter how wrong it is.
6287087
This particular Lyra is the sort who actually would poke Bonbon with her horn while saying "bother, bother, bother" over and over again. At least, she would if she didn't think she'd get pelted with poison joke-flavored taffy. That stuff will mess you up. So, instead, she goes for the well-meaning passive-aggressive approach.
So the Fan of Most Everything isn't a fan of liquorice. Fair enough, and more for me, but I can't help but wonder about your liquorice experience. Schoolkrijt is quite mild, more similar to a mild anise candy than it is to traditional black liquorice. ("Schoolkrijt" is Dutch for "school chalk", and the candies are so named because they're shaped into rods and given a matte white coating of hard candy.)
The confection known as black liquorice is traditionally made with molasses instead of sugar. That's factual; the rest of this paragraph is speculation. Since a good portion of the population finds molasses vile, it's made very strongly flavoured in an attempt to mask the molasses. This works for some people, but fails for others, and turns off some who would be fine with molasses but can't handle the concentration of liquorice flavour.
6457196
Yeah, my only experience with black licorice effectively consisted of flavor so intense, it was like getting punched in the face by an anise plant. That said, I have had the flavor at lower concentrations in other dishes and found it enjoyable.
I may have to borrow some of your Bon-Bon ideas for my own fic, particularly the weaponized candy. Hope you don't mind!
6580958
Go right ahead! I love inspiring people.
this is the best :D
....
6286523
Have you ever tasted it?! It might as well be prison candy!
When I realized it was Sweetie "BonBon" Drops... dang.
7013641 "Candy" BAH! Black Licorice is the heartstrings of the darkest hell beast, infused with the hate of a thousand arch-fiends. The venom of the manticore and the stony gaze of the cockatrice infuse it, and it is wrapped up in that most evil of herbs, anise. To call it 'prison candy' is to underestimate the depths of pure hate and evil this so-called confection can conjure, even from the most saintly of beings!
7196020
This is beautiful. I kind of want this embroidered and framed.
7196020 I guess that explains why my grandmother loves the stuff...
Wow. That is a lot of uses for Combat Candy.
Black licorice is an acquired taste. As a child, I absolutely hated it. Now that I've matured, so have my tastes. As far as black licorice goes for me, the stronger, the better.
7337192
...You're a monster.
I love how Lyra isn't oblivious. She knows something is up but is letting Bon Bon decide to tell her what it is when she's ready.