Devotion

by _Undefined_

Chapter 4 - The Unexpected

Three years can go by fast when you spend them with the pony you love.

But Bon Bon wouldn’t have traded the preceding three years – plus another month and a few days, if she was forced to be precise – for anything else in Equestria. Her relationship with Lyra wasn’t always perfect, of course. It had been tested both when Lyra learned about her former life as Sweetie Drops as well as when Lyra left to explore the human world. But both times, the challenges resulted in renewed confirmation of their dedication to one another. Those rare, brief rough patches had only served to make their love stronger.

Bon Bon found herself appreciating their love that particular summer night as the two walked home from town hall. Torch Song had found a stallion to marry, and even though Lyra only knew the vocalist casually, that was enough to get her and her plus-one invited to the wedding. During the ceremony, as the mayor spoke about finding love, Lyra and Bon Bon held hooves. When they left the reception, they discussed the evening’s events, walking side by side even more closely than usual.

“I still can’t get over Sweetie Belle’s song,” Lyra said as they turned onto their street. “She’s really become an amazing singer.”

Bon Bon nodded. “I can’t get over how big she’s getting. She’s practically a full-grown pony.”

“Wasn’t she only this tall just recently?” Lyra asked, motioning with her hoof.

“It sure seems like it. Nothing like seeing a foal grow up to make you feel old, huh?”

“I’m not old. I refuse to be old. I’m a firm believer that you’re only as old as you feel.”

“Is that why you made a blanket fort in our living room last week?”

“That was because blanket forts are fun. And I seem to remember you having just as much fun in Fort Polyester as I did, Miss Responsible Adult.”

They reached their front door. Bon Bon opened it. “Touché. We’re still young, and we still act young.” She stepped inside. “Some of us more than others.” She lit a lantern for the living room, then sat down on the loveseat that only recently had been moved back to its proper position.

Lyra followed her in, sat on the other side of the loveseat, and breathed out as she relaxed into the cushion. “That was a good wedding.”

“Yep, it was.”

Lyra opened her mouth, then closed it again. “Have you thought about…” she said, trailing off at the end.

Bon Bon waited. After a moment, she said, “Have I thought about what?”

“You know…” Lyra said. “A wedding.”

“Have I thought about a wedding while we were at a wedding,” Bon Bon stated dryly.

“I mean having a wedding.”

“Oh,” Bon Bon said. Her eyes darted off to the side.

Lyra just stared at her. Bon Bon looked back at Lyra.

“For who?”

Lyra gave her a look that made it clear she was not amused.

“I’m joking! I’m joking! You know that. Of course I know what you mean!”

Lyra waited for Bon Bon to continue. When she didn’t, Lyra said, “So? Have you?”

With a smile, Bon Bon said, “What, are you afraid I’m going to run off with somepony else?”

Lyra didn’t smile back. “You’re not answering my question.”

Bon Bon sighed. After a couple of seconds, she said, “I… it’s just… well, isn’t a wedding kind of like… bragging?”

“Bragging?”

“We know that we love each other and we’ll be together forever, right?”

“Right,” Lyra said.

“The whole town knows it already, too. So why do we need to make a big formal announcement about it?”

“Because our love is so special. Isn’t that something you want to celebrate?”

“By putting ourselves front and center before all of Equestria?”

“Well, why not? You have to admit that what we have is extraordinary.”

“Of course, but…”

“I want to show the world that we’ve found true love.”

“But we’d be…”

“We can be a great example.”

“But I…” Bon Bon sputtered. She struggled to come up with words. “Look, it’s just… I… we… I never wanted to be the poster couple for mixed-race same-sex marriage.”

Lyra scowled. “We wouldn’t be an example because of that. We’d be a great example because of our dedication to each other.”

“Yeah, but at the same time—”

Lyra cut her off. “Stop that. I know you don’t like the spotlight, but I also know that that isn’t what’s actually making you drag your hooves here. So what’s the real reason you would never want to do this?”

Bon Bon raised her forelegs defensively. “I didn’t say never. Hay, if you want to go to the mayor’s office tomorrow and get a license…”

Lyra glared at Bon Bon.

“…but that isn’t what you want. I know.”

“Right. So why isn’t this something that you want?”

“I guess I just don’t see the point of doing it.”

“Bon Bon… a wedding is a way – a beautiful way – to express our commitment to one another.”

“Exactly. We’re already committed to one another. Getting a whole bunch of ponies together in one place just to say it in front of them isn’t going to change anything. It’d just be showing off.”

“It’s not showing off. It’s a celebration.”

“It sort of feels like we’re asking for their approval.”

Lyra was momentarily dumbfounded.

“I love you and you love me. That’s always going to be true, no matter what. We don’t need to prove it to anypony else.”

“The fact that we love each other is the reason to do it. It’s a chance to formally declare that love in front of everypony. I want to invite all of our friends to a big ceremony and shout to the world, ‘I love Bon Bon.’ It’s romantic.”

“But inviting ponies is the big problem.” Bon Bon turned away from Lyra and began to project toward the open space in the living room. “You know you should put certain ponies on the guest list, and maybe they feel obligated to come, but they don’t really want to be there, and it makes you upset that they don’t want to be there, and then that becomes all you can think about… it spoils the whole day for you, and the entire point of having a wedding in the first place is because it’s supposed to be your day.”

Lyra remained quiet.

“So it’s a whole bunch of work, but you wind up feeling miserable, so you try to force yourself to be happy in spite of it all, and that just makes you more miserable.”

Lyra simply watched. Bon Bon turned to face her marefriend again.

“Lyra, what we have is amazing. The best thing that’s ever happened in my life – the thing that means more to me than anything else – is our love. And I don’t want a big, stressful wedding to put a damper on that.”

Lyra had a frown on her face. She looked down and quietly replied, “Okay.” She looked back up. “I don’t want anything to put a damper on our love, either. I won’t say anything more about it.”

The disappointed tone in Lyra’s voice did not escape Bon Bon’s ears. She put her hoof on Lyra’s shoulder. “You know that I love you with all of my heart, right?”

“I know.” She put her hoof on Bon Bon’s shoulder. “And I know you meant it when you said we’ll be together forever.”

“Absolutely. Forever. Eternity.”

“Eternity?”

“For all eternity. I don’t need a big ceremony to promise you that.”

---

Another month passed, and Lyra and Bon Bon found themselves in the middle of a lazy summer day. Neither one had any work she needed to take care of, so they were each relaxing in the living room. Lyra was sitting in the plush wing chair, reading a magazine. Bon Bon was standing at the side window, watching a couple of squirrels play in the grass.

Out of nowhere, Lyra spoke up.

“What would our couple name be?”

Bon Bon turned to look at Lyra. “Our couple name?”

“Yeah. You know how ponies refer to couples by combining parts of their names into one word?”

“Don’t they only do that kind of thing for celebrity couples? You’re the only celebrity in our relationship.”

“I’m not a celebrity. Our band hasn’t even recorded an album.”

“Yeah, but you went on that tour across the middle of Equestria.”

“That was just to get our name out there. We’re not famous by any stretch of the word.”

“Mm-hmm,” Bon Bon said flatly.

“It doesn’t matter – we should still have a couple name. So what would it be? Bonra? Lyron?”

Bon Bon put her hoof to her chin. “Lyra Heartbon? Heartbon. No – now that I say it out loud, I hear the problem with that one.”

“Bonstrings?”

Neither spoke for a few seconds.

“I think Lyron is the best so far,” Bon Bon said.

“You’re barely in that name at all. Bonra would be better.”

“Your name should be first – you’re going to be the famous one.”

Lyra ignored the comment. She let out a “hmmmm” as she thought. Finally, she said, “Our names don’t really blend together well, do they?”

Bon Bon pondered the original question for another moment. “What about just LyraBon? One word, capital B in the middle. It uses the first word of your name and the second word of my name.”

“That doesn’t seem fair. Shouldn’t it be the first word of both of our names?”

“You mean LyraBon?”

“Yeah.”

“Instead of LyraBon.”

“Exactly.”

A momentary pause. “You’re right. That does sound better.”

Satisfied, Lyra went back to her magazine and Bon Bon resumed watching the squirrels chase each another around outside.

After a couple of minutes, they heard a scream. Or more accurately, three screams in unison. It was the familiar sound of Ponyville’s flower vendors. In response, the squirrels ran up a nearby tree.

Bon Bon casually walked over to the front door. Lyra didn’t even bother looking up from her magazine. “What’s the ‘crisis’ this time?” she asked.

Bon Bon opened the door and looked down the street to see if she could determine what had gotten the vendors’ manes in a tangle. After a couple of seconds, something came into view. “Whoa…” she said with trepidation.

That caused Lyra to get out of her chair and join Bon Bon at the door. “Whoa,” she agreed.

Making its way down their street at about the pace of a canter was a large snake. The color of iron, it was a little shorter than shoulder height and about fifteen pony lengths long. Even though it was large, it was still narrow – a slender, round body attached to a slightly larger head. The fact that something that large was moving through town without making any kind of sound was somewhat eerie.

Bon Bon closed the door. Lyra used her magic to push aside the curtains on the nearby front window, where the two of them watched the snake pass by their house.

Lyra said, “That’s the kind of creature you’d need to report, right?”

Bon Bon replied, “It is if it sticks around for more than a week. If it just passes through town, then no. I only… have… to…”

She slowly stopped talking as two ponies about her age came into view, chasing after the snake. One of them was a light lilac-colored earth pony mare with a pink and white mane. The other was a unicorn stallion with a light vanilla-colored coat and a muted chartreuse mane.

Quietly, Bon Bon said, “What are they doing here?”, confused more than anything else.

Lyra watched the ponies run by. “Who?”

“Those are two of my coworkers from when I was a gardener,” she said, using the code word the two of them had come up with to refer to her former life as an agent for the Monster Containment Agency. “But they left. Why would they be chasing after that thing now?” She looked down the street in the direction from which they came and saw nothing. “And just them? Two ponies aren’t nearly enough to try to capture a monster that size.”

Bon Bon quickly stepped away from the window and opened the door.

“Where are you going?” Lyra said. Given the worry audible in the question, it was clear that she already knew what the answer was going to be.

“They shouldn’t be taking that thing on by themselves,” Bon Bon said. “I’ve got to go help them. Stay inside the house and stay safe.” She stepped back over to Lyra, gave her a quick kiss, then ran out the door and down the street.

“Stay safe? I’m not the one chasing a giant snake!” Lyra yelled after her.

Within moments, Bon Bon was gone. Slowly, Lyra closed the door and tried to piece together what exactly just happened.

---

Unlike the two ponies chasing after the snake, Bon Bon wasn’t carrying saddlebags filled with gear. As a result, she caught up to them fairly quickly.

“Hey there! Long time no see!” she called out.

Without breaking their stride, the ponies she knew as Panacea and Soothe Sayer turned to see who was addressing them.

Surprised, the unicorn stallion said, “Hi! It’s good to see you…” he trailed off.

“Bon Bon,” she said. They had told each other their new names the day the agency was shuttered, but five years had passed. Bon Bon assumed that just as she had forgotten his new name, he likely had forgotten her new name.

“Healing Hooves,” he reintroduced himself.

“Gentle Presence,” his wife said.

Because they were all still running, Bon Bon greeted each of them with a smile and a nod. “So, what are you two doing in Ponyville chasing a big snake?”

Healing Hooves answered, “In a nutshell, for the past couple of years, there’s been a new department in the Support Corps. Not classified. We signed up and get assigned to capture monsters that are a minor threat.”

“We’re only called to work a couple of times a year,” Gentle Presence added.

“But it’s a good way to make some extra money now that we have a daughter.”

“Congratulations,” Bon Bon said. “On the daughter. Are you the only two here?”

“Yeah,” Healing Hooves said. “The department’s budget isn’t as big as certain other nonexistent departments’ have been.”

With real concern in her voice, Bon Bon said, “That seems like a dangerous way to do things.” As they followed the snake around a corner, she added, “Let me help you out. It’ll be like old times.”

“Well, like you said, it might be dangerous,” Gentle Presence said. “We don’t want you to risk getting hurt just for our sakes.”

“It isn’t what I was planning to do with my day today. But we all know you should have more than two ponies on the team to safely capture a huge creature like that. So I’m in.”

“If you insist,” Gentle Presence replied. “We’re not going to turn down another set of hooves. Thanks.”

Bon Bon looked ahead. “All right, so what are we dealing with here?”

“That,” Gentle Presence said, “is the giant mamba. It’s your typical venomous snake, just really big. Don’t let it bite you – there’s no antidote for its venom yet. That’s why we need to capture it. Also because this one has gotten too close to where ponies live and needs to be relocated back into the wilderness.”

Healing Hooves took over the briefing. “Gentle Presence has the tranquilizers. I have an extendable hook and tongs. At the moment, we’re just trying to chase it out of this town without it hurting anypony. Then we’ll worry about knocking it out.”

“Copy that,” Bon Bon said. “Whatever you need me to do, just give the word.”

“Don’t get too close,” Gentle Presence said. “We don’t want it to feel threatened. If it’s threatened, it might attack.”

The giant mamba reached the edge of town and slowed down as it approached an open grassy area bordering the Everfree Forest. The three likewise slowed down in their pursuit. Other ponies who had been enjoying themselves out in the grassy area screamed and ran away.

Instead of entering the clearing, the snake tried to slither into some bushes adorning the side of a nearby building. Bon Bon, Healing Hooves, and Gentle Presence stopped on the opposite side of the street, one building back.

The three gave the mamba its space and watched. It was trying to wrap its body around itself behind the bushes, although it was only finding partial success. Its tail still stuck out in the open.

“It’s probably going to head for those woods,” Healing Hooves observed.

“I hope not,” Bon Bon said. “The Everfree Forest is a dark, dangerous place. We do not want to go in there if we don’t have to.”

“I can try to tranquilize it now,” Gentle Presence said. “Tell me if anything happens.” Turning away, she reached back into her saddlebags and began to assemble a piece of equipment.

“Will do,” Healing Hooves said. While continuing to watch the snake, he said, “Did the Exotic Creature Relocation Agency ever try to contact you, Bon Bon?”

Bon Bon also kept her eyes on the snake. “Nope,” she said. “Of course, I didn’t have as much field experience as you two.”

“Do you want us to put in a good word for you? The agency could use a few more ponies on reserve, and you’re certainly capable.”

“Thanks but no thanks. I’m just doing this today to help you two out. I’m really happy with my life here in Ponyville. I’ve got a great job and the best marefriend in the world – I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

There was a brief second of silence between them. Bon Bon recognized it as the silence that came when a pony who assumed she was straight suddenly found out she wasn’t. It always seemed to momentarily catch them off-guard. She was used to it.

“What’s your job?” Healing Hooves finally said.

“Candy maker. Once we take care of this snake, I’ll treat you to some. And you?”

“I’m a healer in South Pastern,” he said. “All-natural remedies. Gentle Presence keeps the patients calm and I find ways to make them feel better.”

Bon Bon remembered Gentle Presence’s natural gift for speaking in a soothing manner that seemed to make any creature docile, no matter how tense the situation. It had come in handy on more than one mission – and that was just with the agents.

“Sounds like we all got to follow our gifts,” Bon Bon said. “I’m glad to hear it.”

Gentle Presence broke in. “Sorry – I’ve almost got it. This blowgun doesn’t want to fit together right.”

Bon Bon still hadn’t taken her eyes off of the snake. Its head was barely behind the bushes – she could see its tongue every time it tested the air. “Blowgun?”

“Like I said, it’s a smaller budget,” Healing Hooves explained.

“Okay, there,” Gentle Presence said. She inserted a tranquilizer dart and brought the blowgun to her lips.

At the same time, the giant mamba decided to slither forward into the forest.

“Oh, that’s not good,” Bon Bon said. “That place is filled with the kinds of monsters we used to deal with you-know-when.”

“We have to go after it,” Gentle Presence said. “And at least if it’s a dangerous place, there won’t be any other ponies at risk of meeting the mamba.” She placed the blowgun sideways in her mouth so it would quickly be at the ready.

Bon Bon realized, “No, but there is a zebra who lives in a hollowed-out tree.”

“Then let’s hope the mamba doesn’t try to live there, too,” Healing Hooves said. “Let’s go.”

The three of them ran into the Everfree Forest. Bon Bon stepped slightly ahead.

“Stay on the path and stay alert,” she instructed the others. “There are plants here that want you just as dead as the animals do.”

Following Bon Bon’s lead, the other two reduced their speed to a slow trot. Despite it being early in the afternoon, within moments, the sky disappeared behind the thick canopy of the forest, plunging them into relative darkness. Small trickles of light filtered their way through the leaves, but it took a few seconds for the ponies’ eyes to adjust.

Occasionally, they could hear the growls and otherworldly chittering of unidentified animals. Healing Hooves and Gentle Presence looked ahead to Bon Bon, who seemed unfazed by the sounds. She did, however, routinely sniff the air to confirm that there weren’t any timberwolves nearby.

“Hold on,” she suddenly said as she stopped walking altogether. The others promptly stopped behind her. “Stay away from that root.”

She pointed ahead toward a large tree root sticking up out of the ground, lying perpendicular across the path. She found a fallen branch lying on the ground nearby, picked it up, and threw it onto the root. In an instant, the root curled around the branch, whipping it toward the opening of what had looked to be an old, hollow tree trunk.

Healing Hooves swallowed. “You weren’t kidding about the plants,” he said.

“Mm-hmm,” Bon Bon said. “You can step over it too, so long as you’re careful not to touch it or brush it with your tail. But better safe than sorry.”

Bon Bon led them farther down the path, studying the dirt on the open ground as they walked along. “I don’t see any signs of a giant snake along here. And it didn’t trigger the oak trap. The mamba might have moved into the undergrowth.”

“It prefers to stay hidden,” Healing Hooves confirmed.

The three looked all around them, unsure of where they should be focusing their attention.

Healing Hooves asked, “Do you want me to illuminate my horn, see if we can spot it?”

“No, don’t,” Bon Bon said. “The extra light would attract the mothsquitoes. Just keep your eyes peeled.”

“Got it,” he said. “At least because we have it on the run, it’s unlikely that it’ll try to ambush us as prey.”

“Be grateful for small mercies,” Bon Bon replied facetiously.

Slowly, they walked ahead. Their eyes scanned the woods for any sign of movement. Their ears pivoted constantly, listening for any sound that might suggest slithering.

“Not every snake tail is going to be the mamba,” Bon Bon quietly cautioned the others. “This forest has its own snakes and snake hybrids. The cockatrice’s tail is green, if I remember correctly. And smaller. What else… we’d see the pony half of the nurekouma before we saw the snake half. And um… I think the serpopard is still just a myth.”

Healing Hooves and Gentle Presence stepped a little closer to one another.

In the near distance, some bare tree branches shaped suspiciously like claws waved up and down over the path at a height just slightly higher than a pony’s head.

“Do we need to stop…?” Healing Hooves asked hesitantly.

Bon Bon looked back at him, then followed his gaze up. “Don’t worry about those,” she said. “They’re just ordinary branches being blown by the wind. And no, nopony knows where the wind comes from.”

They continued to walk. Just as Bon Bon had said, the branches didn’t do anything as the three passed underneath. In turn, each pony shivered as a chilling breeze seemed to cut right through their coats.

After they passed through the wind, the forest became deathly quiet. The only sounds were the muffled hooffalls of three ponies walking even more cautiously than before.

No animals. Not even an ominous background hum. Just silence.

Suddenly, a rustling off in the distance. All three heads turned toward the direction of the sound and saw the mamba dart across the path.

Bon Bon ran forward in the direction of the snake. The other two followed. The mamba saw the three ponies and tried to move deeper into the woods, but a dark stream running through the forest blocked its way. So instead it moved ahead, parallel to the path.

The mamba was fast, but it also had to contend with plants, rocks, and trees. As a result, the ponies were able to make up some of the distance.

As they ran, Healing Hooves said, “If we get it to hold still, can you quickly take the shot?”

Gentle Presence, with the length of the blowgun still clenched between her teeth, replied with a muffled “Uh-huh.”

A row of oversized brambles that were covered in large thorns was forcing the mamba closer and closer to the path. Knowing that the ponies were closing in on it, it chose to stay the course rather than briefly move out into the open in order to cross to the other side. Finally, there was a small break in the brambles, just narrow enough for the snake to fit through. The ponies watched as it disappeared.

Of course, if the snake could fit through the gap, a pony could, too. Especially because the brambles only rose about a meter off the ground. Bon Bon ran through the opening, while Healing Hooves and Gentle Presence jumped so the bags sticking out from their sides would make it over the surrounding branches.

The three found themselves inside a relatively circular enclosure about ten yards in diameter. After the “entrance,” the brambles twisted and turned around themselves, rising quickly to about three yards high all around. The ceiling was open, but since none of the occupants could fly, that was irrelevant.

Upon entering the enclosure, Bon Bon had stepped forward just enough to let Gentle Presence and Healing Hooves in. Gentle Presence moved to the left and Healing Hooves moved to the right. Bon Bon took a step back.

At the other end, the giant mamba was frantically looking for a way out. Aware of the ponies on the opposite side, it repeatedly zigzagged near the brambles, trying to locate another opening to escape through. However, the thorny branches were far too dense to provide anything even approaching a viable exit point. The only way out was through the break from which it entered.

Gentle Presence adjusted the blowgun in her mouth and stood at the ready. The blowgun only held one dart at a time – missing the shot and needing to take time to reload was a mistake she might not be able to afford to make. She waited for the snake to hold still, even for a moment.

Healing Hooves levitated both the collapsible hook and the collapsible tongs from his bags and extended them to their full lengths. He attempted to grab at the mamba with the tongs, but it was moving too quickly and erratically for him to have any success. Instead, he poked at the body of the snake with the hook to keep it on the far side of the enclosure.

After about half a minute of slithering and being prodded, the giant mamba, with no other options, reared up in a display of aggression. It towered over the ponies as it raised roughly a third of its body vertically into the air. The flaps on its neck extended and it opened its mouth wide to reveal an inky black interior.

As the snake began to make itself look larger, Bon Bon momentarily froze in fear. She quickly realized, though, that the snake knew its best chance for survival was to get away from the pony jabbing at it with a pole. And the only way to do that was to escape back through the gap in the brambles. The gap that she was currently standing in front of.

At that moment, Bon Bon’s survival instinct kicked in. Choosing self-preservation over the mission, she turned to her right and began to leap toward Healing Hooves.

At the same moment, the snake lunged forward, its fangs bared.

As Bon Bon leapt sideways, she saw the giant mamba’s head quickly approach her back end. It connected with her left rear leg, slamming her body down to the ground. Before she could even register what was happening, the snake jerked its head back and went in for a second strike, landing just slightly below the site of the first attack.

At the same time that the snake began its initial lunge forward, Gentle Presence saw her opportunity. She shot the tranquilizer dart into the section of the snake’s body still coiled on the ground, scoring a direct hit. It wasn’t until after the snake had attacked Bon Bon those two times that the creature recognized the new pain down its body and reacted accordingly.

The snake brought its head back down to the ground and whipped its body in place. The motion dislodged the dart, but the tranquilizer had already been administered. As the mamba was busy with that, Healing Hooves was finally able to get the tongs wrapped around a section of the snake’s body just slightly below its head. Using all of the strength of his telekinesis, he raised the tongs vertically into the air and planted the handle end into the ground below. With the giant mamba’s head raised above the ponies, out of striking distance, he used the hook to get underneath a section of the snake’s body a couple of yards away, then planted the handle end of that implement into the ground as well.

While Healing Hooves was doing that, Bon Bon was lying on her right side, collecting her wits after her abrupt, unexpected impact with the ground. She looked back at the leg the snake had made contact with. There, just below her cutie mark, were four puncture wounds from the snake’s fangs. She was so startled by the sight that she didn’t even have the presence of mind to scream.

Gentle Presence ran over to Bon Bon and looked at her leg. “She’s been bit!” she yelled to her husband.

Healing Hooves had just finished driving the handle of the hook into the ground. “Don’t move!” he yelled to Bon Bon. “You don’t want the venom to circulate any faster!”

Bon Bon had just regained her breath from the attack. But Healing Hooves’ words knocked the breath out of her again. “There’s… no antidote…” she realized. She looked at the pony standing over her, her eyes pleading for Gentle Presence to tell her that somehow, she misremembered what she had been told earlier.

“We’re going to get you to a hospital,” Gentle Presence said. “Stay calm. Panicking is the worst thing you can do right now.”

Every fiber in Bon Bon’s body told her to panic. It seemed like the only reasonable response. But Gentle Presence kept talking, soothing Bon Bon with her voice. So instead, Bon Bon continued to lie on the ground. She looked at the puncture wounds. They didn’t appear to be bleeding much – she hoped that was a good sign.

She looked up at the snake. It had wriggled off of the upended hook and was thrashing the back half of its body about. However, its head remained suspended off the ground inside the tongs. Bon Bon watched as Healing Hooves ignored the snake’s efforts to free itself and instead levitated a glass jar with a thin piece of rubber stretched over the opening up toward the snake’s head.

“Stay with us,” Gentle Presence said. “The tranquilizer’s going to take effect really soon and then the mamba will be out. We’re going to take care of that bite.”

Bon Bon watched as Healing Hooves worked the jar up to one of the snake’s fangs. She realized that she hadn’t registered any significant pain from the bite yet, although all four of her legs were starting to tingle. Healing Hooves used his magic to keep the snake’s mouth open. Bon Bon’s eyelids began to feel heavy.

“Hang in there, Bon Bon,” Gentle Presence said.

Bon Bon saw a blurry snake bite down onto the jar through the rubber. The aura of Healing Hooves’ magic became an indistinct haze. Gentle Presence’s voice grew increasingly muffled and distant.

All around Bon Bon, the world faded to black.

Comments

[Sunset_Shimmer83]

what.....no please be okay Bon Bon