• Published 24th Dec 2020
  • 381 Views, 8 Comments

Liza Doolots and the Candy Factory - Fluttercheer



Liza Doolots lives a happy and content life with her parents Lyra Heartstrings and Bon Bon in their small candy store. But when a candy factory rises in Ponyville, Liza and her parents have to fight hard to save their candy store from gentrification.

  • ...
5
 8
 381

Chapter 2: Candies from a Factory?

.
.
Chapter 2: Candies from a Factory?
.

It was a calm and peaceful Saturday morning, as Liza Doolots awoke in her bed on the second floor right above the candy store. The sun was casting beautiful specks of light onto her blanket and Liza blinked at the celestial body as its rays blinded her through the window pane.

Liza sat up in her bed and pushed the blanket off her body. She rubbed her sleepy eyes and stretched her hooves and arched her back until the last bit of sleep had left her. Not the slightest bit drowsy anymore, the young filly jumped out of her bed like a whirlwind that happily tossed and blew around leaves on the forest floor. Liza smiled widely, like on every morning. She trippled and danced to the door of her bedroom and pulled it open with ease, then continued her exuberance out in the corridor.

As Liza trippled into the kitchen, her moms where already there and welcomed their little daughter with love and affection. Their smiles lit up an already happy room as they saw Liza enter and Liza increased the bright happiness with a smile of her own.

“Good morning, mommy! Good morning, mama!” Liza greeted her parents, as her cute eyes flitted from one mom to the other mom, and her voice chimed like a silvery bell throughout the tiny kitchen.

Bon Bon stood at the counter, not far away from the kitchen table, and held a pan over the stove top. It smelled delicious from it, tart and with a bit of sweetness. Liza trippled at the side of her mommy, lured by the intoxicating smell that fondled her nostrils. She reached onto the counter with both tiny hooves and pulled herself up to take a look at what was being made for breakfast. The sight of pancakes greeted her: Thick and brown, with a glistening surface.

Liza's eyes and her mouth grew wide as her mom lifted the pan and, swiftly and with skill, flipped the pancake from one side onto the other. Satisfied with the result, Bon Bon placed the finished pancake onto a white plate that she had standing to the right of the stove top. It increased the size of a pancake stack that was already on it. She gave Liza a noogie with her left hoof, before she poured new batter into the pan to prepare another pancake. Bon Bon was making a rich breakfast for her little family.

Liza jumped down again and, still trippling, joined her other mommy at the breakfast table. Lyra put away her newspaper, leaned down to Liza, who was reaching out for her, and gave her a tight hug that Liza acknowledged with a squeal of delight and comfort. She snuggled and squeezed her mommy for a long time, before the two of them released each other and Liza took seat at the opposite side of the table. She held her little nose up into the air and sniffed quite strongly, taking in the wonderful pancake scent that filled the kitchen and made her stomach grumble. It was a perfect morning, as far as Liza was concerned. And her parents thought the same.

On the opposite side of the table, Lyra had picked up her newspaper again and her eyes whizzed over the pages that it was a huge joy for Liza to watch her. Her mommy had a bright smile on her face and, all of a sudden, that smile grew wider and a childish curiosity sparked in Lyra's eyes. From her position, Liza could see that her mommy's eyes moved faster from left to right. Then they stopped and Lyra called for her family with an excited shout.

“You have to see this! This article talks about something really interesting! Somepony is building a candy factory in Ponyville!” She laid the newspaper on the table and turned it around for Liza to read.

Coming from the counter, Bon Bon's deep voice filled the kitchen as she erupted in amused laughter. “Oh, Lyra, you're pulling our hooves!” she managed to say in-between. “Who would ever build a factory to make candy?” She refocused on the pancakes as her laughs faded out.

“But it's really true! I'm not joking!” Lyra defended herself.

Liza stood on her chair, bent over the table and the newspaper. She was reading with the same curiosity as Lyra did before. “It's really true, mama!” she then shouted as she was finished. “Somepony does build a candy factory in Ponyville!” Liza's eyes glistened and her cheeks were red.

Now Bon Bon wrinkled her forehead and she took the pan off the stove and turned around. “You aren't pranking me both, are you?” she asked while coming closer, raising an eyebrow.

“No, it's the truth, mama! Look!” Liza hovered the newspaper into the air with her magic and showed her the article in question.

Arrived at the table, Bon Bon squinted at the article and gave it a quick read. “Really,” she said after finishing. “A candy factory. What a ridiculous idea.” She shrugged her shoulders and left the table again, returning to the stove.

“Ridiculous? This is amazing, Bon Bon!” Lyra squeed. “Just imagine it, candy made in a factory! I'm so curious how that looks!”

Opposite of her, Liza surpassed her excitement. “Yeah and just think of it how many candies can be made in such a factory! Once it is built and starts to produce, everypony can eat more candies than ever before!” She was still standing on her chair.

“Now, calm down, you two.” Bon Bon approached the table again, this time with the pancake plate on her right hoof. She placed it in the middle of the table and sat down between her wife and her daughter.

Liza sat down, as well, her attention now on the delicious breakfast. She ignited her horn and let two pancakes fly on the plate in front of her. Next, her magic reached for the red syrup bottle that already stood there prepared. She held it over her meal, squeezed it and let a thick stream of strawberry syrup cover the uppermost pancake. Her magic still hovered the bottle over to Lyra, who had requested it, as Liza already grabbed the pancake, rolled it in and bit into it. A bit of syrup trickled out at the corners of her mouth as she chewed.

For a few minutes, the two mares and the filly ate their syrup-coated pancakes in silence, then Bon Bon picked up the conversation about the candy factory. “A candy factory sounds like a funny thing, Lyra, but it's also a completely ridiculous idea.”

“Why?” Lyra asked simply, disbelief over the fact that her wife was so harsh with this idea on her face.

“Why?” it came from the right side of the table a second later. Liza wore a very similar expression.

“Because candies can't be made in a factory.” Bon Bon bit off another piece of her pancake and occupied her mouth with chewing.

“Why not?” Lyra questioned the statement.

“Why not?” Liza repeated her words from the other side of the table.

Bon Bon sighed and hung her head. “You two should know why,” she spoke with a slight annoyance in her voice. “Making candies is a hoofcraft. It needs to be done by a pony who puts love and effort into their work. Machines making candy? That's going to fail. A machine doesn't have the same care that a pony has. Nopony will buy anything from this factory and it will close down again soon.” Bon Bon continued eating, convinced that her explanation made everything clear.

The excitement of Lyra and Liza hadn't become less, though. “We should go there!” Lyra shouted. “We should check how it looks!”

Liza was on fire for this idea. “Yeah, we should! We can watch how they build it, maybe we'll even meet the owner of it and get to talk! He can tell us how the candies will be made!”

Bon Bon watched them, eyes going from left to right and back to the left, while she was eating. There was a sceptical glance in her eyes.

Lyra looked at her, trying to get attention as she noticed her silence. “Let's go there, Bon Bon! You'll come with us, right?”

Bon Bon finished chewing before she answered. “I guess so. But only because we wanted to go for a trot after breakfast anyway. We can drop by the factory on the way back.”

“YAY!” Liza cheered and she bit into her pancake again, hurrying with finishing her breakfast now.

“That's going to be amazing!” Lyra voiced her cheer, as well.

“If you say so,” Bon Bon commented, an audible lack of enthusiasm in her voice.

On their way through town, Lyra and Liza pattered about the candy factory the entire time, much to Bon Bon's displeasure. She was nearly ready to snap and tell them off, when a very unexpected encounter at Sugarcube Corner prevented her from doing that.

“The candy factory is going to revolutionize Ponyville! It will make everypony so happy!” Lyra just finished another round of praise and compliments, Liza wholeheartedly agreeing next to her.

“No, it won't.....” Pinkie Pie suddenly pushed her face in front of Lyra, startling her and almost making her trip when she halted in her tracks not to bump into the earth pony mare. Pinkie sat on the stairs in front of Sugarcube Corner with heavy, baggy eyes that were red around the edges. Her forehooves hung down between her legs and her mane and her tail were deflated and crooked, pink hairs stuck out of them into all directions. Her exceptional smile was upside down today.

The three candy makers stopped. On Bon Bon's face was a little smile now, but it receded quickly and hid between her lips when she noticed the condition of the usually so happy mare. Before her wife and her daughter could voice their protest against Pinkie Pie's objection, an intention that evidently existed as everypony who would look into their faces could determine, Bon Bon stepped up to Pinkie and addressed her condition.

“You don't look good, Pinkie Pie. What's wrong?” Bon Bon wasn't a mare who prolonged coming to the point.

“Everything.....” Pinkie Pie wailed and shifted her eyes at Bon Bon.

“Everything, what?” Bon Bon probed.

“Everything everything.”

“And what does 'everything' mean? Will you tell me today or do we have to spend the night here, Pinkie?”

Cynicism was always a sign for ponies to duck their heads and take cover when being around Bon Bon, but Pinkie Pie failed to be impressed by it in any kind of way. “There's a new bakery in Manehattan.....” she said and trailed off again.

“And?” Bon Bon's voice had become a tone sharper and her eyelids lowered a bit. The frown on her face changed from compassionate to exasperated.

“And it's outselling Sugarcube Corner.....” Pinkie's frown became deeper, her lower lip started to quiver and tears appeared in the corner of her eyes.

“Outselling?” Now a frown appeared on Liza's face. She came closer, placed a hoof on Pinkie's leg and gave her a worried look.

“Don't worry about it, Liza.” Bon Bon's voice became more compassionate again now. “That bakery is far away, what could it do to harm the business of Sugarcube Corner?”

“Offering ultra-fast delivery? Into all corners of Equestria?” Pinkie Pie suggested with a snark.

Bon Bon stayed silent this time. The words hung in the air and gave her a queasy feeling in the stomach.

“I've seen their pegasi..... They're so bulky and muscular, a Wonderbolt looks like a raddled old-timer next to them. I've never seen a pegasus fly that fast before.....” Pinkie averted her gaze from Bon Bon, closed her eyes and hung her head.

An almost suffocating silence hung over the four ponies. For a minute, Pinkie just stared at the ground, while Lyra and Liza exchanged concerned glances with each other and Bon Bon. A sigh preceded more words by Pinkie Pie and served as an indication that she was starting to speak again.

“Ponies only bought cakes and pastries from Sugarcube Corner..... But now that this bakery delivers to Ponyville, all of them want to eat their exotic Manehattan creations instead. They couldn't get them before, but now they can, and they forget about Sugarcube Corner because of that.....” She sighed again, then lifted her head and looked Lyra, Liza and Bon Bon intently into the eyes. “Be careful about that candy factory. It means doom.”

The words snapped Bon Bon out of her silence and she felt compelled to address Pinkie's warning.

“We don't have to worry about this candy factory, Pinkie,” she dismissed the other mare's words. “This isn't the same situation, the bakery you talk about is far away, but the candy factory is being built here in Ponyville. There's no danger it will outsell us because of some fancy delivery options.”

“But what if it sells more than your candy store anyway?” Pinkie insisted. “That the candy factory is here in Ponyville doesn't mean you're safe.....”

“Never,” Bon Bon brushed off any concern. “This is a factory, Pinkie Pie. They can't make candy like we do. Candies are something that need to be made by hoof if they should be good. A machine that tries to make candy will only create an inferior product. I give this candy factory a few months and then it will close and be knocked down again.”

Lyra and Liza didn't meet the prediction of the candy factory's closure with pleasure, as their faces and their dropped ears made evident, but they agreed with Bon Bon that the candy factory won't be a threat for them and nodded over her words.

Pinkie Pie noticed, but her eyes were only on Bon Bon. “Your word in Celestia's ear.....” she whimpered. “Be careful,” she then repeated her earlier words.

“Don't worry, Pinkie,” Bon Bon reassured her, her voice's tone becoming dangerously annoyed again now. “This factory won't be a threat for us, we are in Ponyville's candy business for years and have made a name for ourselves. One competitor in town won't hurt us.” Bon Bon turned at Liza and Lyra, lifted her hoof and gave them a signal to leave, before the depressed party mare could trap them in more of the depressed conversation.

Liza removed her hoof from Pinkie's leg and gave her a tight hug, then she joined her moms and off the three of them went, leaving behind Pinkie Pie, who they heard repeatedly sighing until they were out of earshot.

The three candy makers continued their morning trot in a joyful fashion. And as they had somewhat agreed on, they dropped by the construction site of the candy factory on their way back, albeit under slight growling and hissing by Bon Bon.

The candy factory loomed in front of them. A construction that, much to their surprise, was already half-finished. Brick walls were being erected for some of the outer buildings of the factory site, which would probably house offices and perhaps living quarters for the workers, they assumed. Further back was the main building of the factory. Metal shone in the sunlight and chimneys rose up high into the sky. It wasn't a friendly look for a factory that was intended to produce candy, but Lyra and Liza looked at it with sparkling eyes regardless. Only Bon Bon was, predictably, not enthusiastic and glared and huffed at the construction.

“Just like I said. This factory won't last long,” she began judging it. “You only need to look at it to know that. Is that a promising design for a candy factory? All those harsh brickstones and all that cold metal? Where are the colors? No, that factory is going to fail.”

Lyra pouted and gave her a glare. “Maybe that's still coming,” she countered her wife's argument. “You know it's not finished yet, Bon Bon. Give it some time.”

Next to her, Liza agreed with all of her heart. “I'm sure the colors are still coming, mama!” she spoke and nodded with the conviction that only a filly can have.

Once more, her wife and her daughter formed a close union against her low opinion of the candy factory, which increased Bon Bon's growling. And they weren't the only ones. A few yards away from them, to their left, a filly was standing and watched the construction of the candy factory from wide, turquoise eyes and with puckered lips. She had to be there for a while, as her lavender hooves gripped an ice cream cone larger than her head that she was almost finished eating.

The filly was Aura, the same filly who had stuffed her mane with gummy worms in the candy store on the day before, as Liza recognized. There weren't any gummy worms in her mane anymore, but her forehooves were smeared with sticky, melted ice cream, which she didn't mind at all. Liza waved at her, but Aura did not wave back and not respond to the gesture at all. Instead, she kept her eyes glued onto the arising candy factory and began to form a pearly-white grin, that did nothing to hide a few fillings in her teeth. It crept onto her face in a slow, crawling tempo. There was mischief brewing in Aura's eyes.

Liza cocked her head and gave Aura a look that was only very slightly indignant and mostly stunned, then looked away from her, having unsuccessfully tried to get the other filly to react. She focused on the construction site again. Her face showed a smile and she felt anticipation and excitement while imagining all the candy that would pour out of the factory gates very soon. A good future was ahead for Ponyville.

Comments ( 4 )

Oh dear, is Sugarcube Corner going to go out of business? Maybe they should see if this Manehatten bakery wants a local franchise partner.

10749806

:rainbowdetermined2:

10752700

But would this be a good solution? Closing down would be horrible, but becoming a franchise partner would bring in the business mentality of the Manehattan bakery and then Sugarcube Corner wouldn't be quite the same anymore. This problem is not so easy to solve.

10778201

Exactly! And it's this moment that inspired the owners to name their restaurants like that.

Login or register to comment