“Ma’am, when you said you wanted to take some photographs, I thought you wanted to go to a museum, or sightseeing,” Bon Bon muttered as she tightened her scarf against the chilly January air. It was a few degrees above freezing, but last week’s snow was still melting, leaving the city covered in a blanket of thick slush that clung to her fetlocks no matter how carefully she stepped.
“Nonsense!” chortled Princess Luna as she trotted across the cold marble of the World Trade Center Plaza. “Museums are for when you’ve run out of things to see in the real world, and this is a whole new world to explore!”
She snapped a few photos of the towering office buildings with her camera as she said this, and not for the first time the S.M.I.L.E agent cursed the Canadian Prime Minister. He’d given the Canon camera to the Princess as a diplomatic gift last year; it was something that was likely meant to be put on display and never used, however Her Majesty had taken to the machine like a duck to water, and was rarely without the silver camera and her camera bag.
“Can you at least tell me where we’re going?” Another aggravating thing about being on the Lunar Princess’ detail was her tendency to gallop off without a plan or a security detail. Doing that in Equestria had caused the guards many a headache, but after Princess Celestia’s misadventure in Philadelphia several years ago, certain precautions had been made to avoid … unanticipated responses on the part of the Royal Protective Detail.
Now, whenever the Princess (Luna mostly, but Celestia had recently started going off-script every now and again) went off on her own, an agent from one of the Crown intelligence services tagged along to make sure they didn’t cause a panic. On this trip to the United Nations, S.M.I.L.E had been up for the guard duty rotation, and so off Bon Bon went to New York.
“Mine sister has developed a soft spot for human rail transport. When we made our royal visit to Canada last year, several pieces of rolling stock attracted her attention. At the time they were unobtainable, but since then they have become available here in the United States.”
“So we’re going to buy a present for your sister, and not go sightseeing?” The Princess’ explanation had taken long enough for them to enter the lobby of a squat black building next to the shining silver towers, allowing Bon Bon to loosen her scarf a little in the warmth of the building’s heaters.
“Oh, we shall be doing both” Luna said, turning towards a sign that read: PATH ↓ 1•9•A•C•E•N•R ↓ MALL ↓ WTC 6 →. Next to the sign was a flight of moving stairs leading deeper into the complex. “But we shall not be doing them here - we shall be going on an adventure!
Without waiting for her escort, Luna trotted off towards the stairs, leaped into the air, and soared gracefully over the humans using them normally before vanishing out of sight.
It took the humans on the stairs a few moments to realize what was going on, and Bon Bon’s hoof met her face as the first shouts of surprise rose from the stairs.
“Celestia preserve me, it’s going to be a long day.”
After navigating the moving stairs and the surprisingly large underground market beyond them, Bon Bon eventually caught up to the Princess. For such a large mare, she moved quickly, and was perusing the candy rack of a Duane Reade drug store inside the market.
“Your Majesty, my assignment requires me to ask you to not do that again.” The earth pony’s voice was dry as a salt lick - she knew exactly how futile such a request was.
“And yet it will likely happen again.” Luna said without looking up from the brightly wrapped confections. “Dost thou desire a ‘Kit-Kat’ or a ‘Skor’?”
“What are they?”
“Kit Kat appears to be chocolate covered wafers. I am unsure what Skor is other than it appears to contain toffee.”
“I’ll try a Kit Kat.” As one might expect for a mare with a candy-making cutie mark, Bon Bon hated mass-produced sweets. Chocolate wafers seemed like the safer of the two options; she might not be able to contain herself if the toffee was as bad as she expected it to be.
“A sound decision. We shall have one as well.” With that, Luna levitated two red packages over to the clerk. In a notable difference from Equestria, where everypony in sight would have been bowing and scraping until they left, the pimply-faced youth behind the register barely reacted, ringing up the purchases with a minimum of fuss. In fact, the only time he seemed to show emotion at all was when the Princess paid with a dollar coin - paper currency was much more popular in the United States, and many humans found large-denomination coins unusual and inconvenient, if Bon Bon remembered her briefing packet correctly.
Leaving the drug store, both mares unwrapped their chocolates. They hadn’t made it more than five steps away from the Duane Reade before Luna’s Kit Kat had vanished into her mouth.
“It ish verhy delhectablhe!” She exclaimed through a mouthful of chocolate.
Bon Bon’s professional demeanor slipped for a moment as she took in the sight of the supposedly regal and poised Alicorn wolfing down the cheap candy like a starving animal. “And I thought Princess Celestia was the one with a sweet tooth.” She smirked.
“My shishter,” Luna finally swallowed. “Excuse me - my sister must never find out about these. We may enjoy a confectionery on the occasion, but she would gorge herself until she was the size of Castle Canterlot.”
She paused to giggle slightly at the mental image, before noticing that her escort had not yet touched the confection. “Does thou not like it?”
“Hmm? Oh - no, I’m just looking at it for a moment - I’m amazed nopony back home has ever thought of this.” Instead of one large wafer like Bon Bon was expecting, the Kit-Kat turned out to be four small wafers coated in chocolate, with each one capable of being separated from the others. The concept was novel, and the idea of an easily shareable candy was one that Bon Bon had never considered before.
“Indeed,” Luna agreed. “The multiple wafers would be most efficient for sharing amongst friends.”
Or ravenous Princesses, Bon Bon thought to herself - Luna was staring at her candy bar intently, and she had a feeling that if she didn’t like the Kit-Kat, it would not go to waste.
Biting into the chocolate, she was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t terrible. The chocolate had the unpleasantly smooth feel that came with mass-production, but she’d had worse in Equestria. The wafers were a pleasant crunchy sensation underneath the smooth chocolate, and separating the wafers into four smaller bars of the same length meant that she was able to eat the same bar four times over.
“Considering thou ate all of it, are we to assume that it was enjoyable?” Luna looked mildly annoyed that she didn’t have any more chocolate, but also was pleased that the candy had passed muster.
“It’s not bad,” Bon Bon said once she’d swallowed the last of the Kit-Kat. “Although I do wish I had something to drink - this kind of chocolate tends to linger in the back of your mouth for a while.”
“Yes. We can see that becoming an issue very quickly.” Luna said, smacking her lips as though it would dissipate the lingering chocolate taste. “Although I would also not mind having another of these.”
Both mares looked back - the Duane Reade was still within sight.
“We are not on any kind of schedule today…” Luna said slowly.
Minutes later
“Why is this called Tab?” Luna asked as she inspected the pink-and-white soda can.
“Dunno,” Bon Bon said as she washed down her cake with the fizzy beverage. “But it tastes good.”
“Verily. How is thine cake?”
While Luna had found the drinks, Bon Bon had rummaged through the candy rack - aside from another Kit-Kat for the Princess, she’d also found a plastic-wrapped cream filled sponge cake called a ‘Twinkie’. It was terrible to the point of possibly being one of the worst confections she’d ever eaten. The cream was a mass manufactured paste that probably had never even had a tangential relation to dairy in its life. For some reason it was vanilla flavored, but had the harsh taste of artificial vanilla. The sponge cake was sticky and oily, with a strange cloying taste that coated the inside of her mouth. It was inexplicably yellow, and stuck to the paper base of the packaging, leaving part of the cake and cream stuck to the bottom. As a further insult to baking, they made no attempt to conceal the cream injection marks with frosting or more cake, instead merely hiding them on the underside of the cake as if nopony would ever look there.
Twinkies offended her on a base level, she noted as she ate the first cake - she’d made better baked goods in her sleep. While battling a fever. She had no idea why they were sold in pairs - surely no one would ever willingly eat the second cake after being exposed to the first one.
She swallowed the last of the second cake, and licked the scraps of cake and cream off of the paper base. “I hate it. I want ten more.”
“What a contradictory statement.” Luna’s eyebrow rose.
“It’s very good, even though it shouldn’t be.”
The Princess watched with amusement as Bon Bon used her teeth to scrape any lingering cake residue from the packaging. “Perhaps we shall try this Twinkie on a different date, lest we consume all of the candy within the store.”
Bob Bon agreed - unless S.M.I.L.E wanted her to go undercover as an airship, no good would come from eating everything in sight.
Discarding their trash in a bin, they made their way towards the train station. Bon Bon had been a last minute addition to the protective detail, but she’d been able to skim her briefing packet enough to understand the difference between the different transit systems in New York. This one was known as PATH, and was operated by the city’s Port Authority, making it a separate system from the City’s Subway network, although they both ran underground rail services.
While most of the New Yorkers on the streets outside had barely acknowledged the two ponies, entering the PATH station drew more looks than Bon Bon had been expecting. As soon as they entered the massive set of moving stairs under the sign labeled PATH Trains to New Jersey, up-bound humans started giving them startled double- and even triple-takes as they realized who was going past them in the opposite direction. While regular commuters seemed to breeze past with nary a second look, there must have been a higher concentration of tourists and non-locals here at the transit hub, and the attention they gave Luna was much more in line with a normal state visit to one of Equestria’s neighboring countries. Luna would have flown down these stairs as well, but the roof overhead was low enough that she was forced to ride all the way to the bottom. Being the kind of pony that she was, the Princess spent most of the descent waving to those who said hello, even going so far as to ruffle the hair on a small child on the step below them, who spent most of the short descent trying to bow, drawing a giggle from the Princess. Children aside, most of the humans who did react did so in ridiculous fashion, and Bon Bon adopted a neutral expression mostly so that she wouldn’t burst out laughing at their antics. Even Equestrians were not immune from this, as evidenced by a unicorn and two griffons all running into each other on the concourse level as they stopped and goggled at the Pony Princess rummaging around in her camera bag for the “exact change” required by the station’s turnstiles.
Bon Bon facehoofed as the unicorn bowed so deeply that his face almost smacked into the grimy station carpet, while the griffons appeared to have a brief argument as to whether or not they should bow or not. The bigger of the two argued that he was an American Citizen now, and bowed to no one, while the other claimed that it would be rude not to. The argument was brought to a premature end when a human commuter tripped over the prostrated unicorn and collided with the griffons. A cup of coffee went flying, the griffons squawked indignantly, and the bowing stallion was shoved face first into a wad of chewing gum stuck to the floor.
Bon Bon was just barely able to hold back her laughter, until she looked back at Luna, and realized that her Royal Highness had been so engrossed in extracting the correct coins that she hadn’t even noticed. A snort of laughter escaped her, causing Luna to look up, two quarters and two dimes floating in her aura.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Bon Bon said, jamming her leg against her mouth to stifle her giggles as the commuter berated the trio of (former) Equestrians. She quickly grabbed her fare out of the Princess’s magic and went through the turnstile ahead of Luna - a small break in protocol, but it was better than making a scene in public at the ridiculous spectacle.
“We thought that you prided yourself on retaining a ‘professional demeanor’?” Luna asked as she followed Bon Bon through the turnstile.
Suppressing the last of her giggles, Bon Bon smiled at the Princess. “I thought that you Royals were supposed to be dainty homebodies, not fearless explorers of alien worlds.
“Touché.”
They continued down another set of moving stairs, Luna staying on the ground to allow herself time to swap lenses on her camera and attach a flashbulb apparatus. Fortunately, the crowds leaving the station had lessened - they must have been between inbound trains, so the upward moving stairs were empty.
Arriving on the platform, Bon Bon trailed behind Luna as she made her way towards the platforms marked NEWARK. The lights of a train were receding into the tunnel, but some commuters were already queuing up on the platform, implying that another would be along shortly.
Bon Bon followed Luna to the far end of the platform, near where the train’s front would be. “Let’s try to not raise the sun indoors this time, your majesty,” she snarked.
“Hush, you.” Luna glared back. She might have been fairly experienced with the use of her camera, but the flash unit had been bought just the day before at a store in Manhattan. Turning it to its highest setting had proved to be ill-advised, unless one wanted to temporarily blind the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Presently, another train rolled in, its arrival heralded by the screeching of wheels against the track and the whirr of its electric motors. As it approached, Luna’s flashbulb strobed several times as she photographed the arrival, throwing unusual shadows across the platform. In the cab, the motorman had to hold his hand in front of his face, drawing an apologetic smile from the Princess. Unconsciously, Bon Bon waved to the lead car, numbered 745, and was surprised it remained silent as it rolled towards her. It took until the train ground to a halt and began disembarking passengers that she realized why.
“These trains don’t talk, do they?” She asked Luna quietly.
“Neigh,” The Princess said as she entered the car. It was mid-morning, so most commuters were heading into the city, not out. As such, the car was empty. “Mine Sister and her scientists have yet to come to a conclusion, but mechanized sapience is believed to be caused by some sort of interaction between the Earth-machines and our magic.
“Mechanized sapience. That’s a new one.” Bon Bon rolled the words around in her mouth a few times, trying to get a feel for the unfamiliar words.
“Verily. We only learned of the term a few weeks ago; the relevant research has not yet been published.”
As she said this, the doors for the train car slid shut, heralded by a garbled announcement from the intercom system. Luna sat down on a seat, while Bon Bon - who didn’t have the same height advantage as the Princess and would therefore have to sit up - opted to remain standing as the train lurched into motion.
The lights of the station vanished as the train rumbled into the tunnel, and the car soon began to sway from side to side as it picked up speed. Lights on the tunnel walls flicked by every few seconds, and the Earth Pony mare studied the ads on the inside of the train in an attempt to distract herself from the realization that she was underneath a massive river. There was a reason that Pegasus immigrants to the human world had begun setting up communities further away from the New York Portal - the human world’s obsession with vast subterranean infrastructure did not calm them down at all.
New York, New York. It’s a hell of a town - where ponies ride in a hole in the ground. She couldn’t remember where in her briefing packet that bit of cultural minutiae was from, but it was very appropriate.
A few minutes later - a time that didn’t feel long enough considering how big the river looked from the surface - the train began to slow, before suddenly bursting into the bright lights of the next station.
“This is Exchange Place Station. This is a Newark-Bound train.” The voice over the intercom was much clearer than it had been at the last station, but it still sounded a bit crackly.
“Are we getting off here?” Bon Bon asked as passengers streamed into and out of the train.
“Neigh.” Said Luna, who had produced a book from her bag and was idly paging through it. “We will be travelling to Newark.”
Newark was the end of the line for this train, and Bon Bon decided that she wasn’t going to stand for the entire journey, and hoisted herself up onto the hard plastic of the train’s seat as the doors slid shut with a chime. Their carriage was still empty as it rattled back into the dark confines of the tunnel.
The next station came as quickly as the last had. This one was called “Grove Square - Change here for Journal Square-33rd Street Trains”, and it was at this station that Bon Bon realized that their car might not have been empty just by chance - a young human, fiddling with one of those portable music players that had started turning up in Equestria, made it halfway through the doors of the car before looking up. His observation speed was visible to the naked eye as he looked first at Bon Bon, before his eyes worked their way up the car and took in Princess Luna. Upon seeing her, he made a choking sound and turned on his heel, fleeing the car through the connecting door and into the rest of the train.
“It seems as though we art still capable of being terrifying.” Luna said bemusedly as the door to the next car slid shut.
“That didn’t look like terror…” Bon Bon noted as the doors to the carriage slid shut. “Well, at least not because of who you are.”
“Pray tell, what is it then?” The Lunar Princess inquired. “That young man looked like he was about to soil himself.”
“I think that most beings - human or pony - would not want to be the only one in a train car with a visiting dignitary.” The secret agent reasoned. “You’d be afraid you’d stick your hoof in your mouth and start a war or something!”
Luna snorted as the train screeched into motion. “Only if thou is traveling with Yaks would that occur.”
“Probably.” Bon Bon snickered at the thought. “They’d be all ‘this train car empty! Yaks Smash!’ and then we’d be off to the races… Celestia above, I don’t want to imagine Prince Rutherford trying to pick a fight with a train!”
Both mares managed to hold their composure for about thirty seconds before bursting out laughing, and they kept laughing until the train finally burst out of the tunnel and into the open air of New Jersey.
The Tannoy crackled as the train rumbled out of Harrison station. “This train is now departing - the next and last stop is Newark Penn Station.”. Luna’s camera clicked one final time as the station receded from sight, before she rewound the film and popped the back open to change rolls. Crowds at the previous stations had meant that humans had finally started trickling into their car, and several humans sitting near them raised eyebrows as rolls of Ektachrome flew through the air in the Princess’ dark blue magic, but said nothing.
Loading the film and snapping the back of the camera on, Luna returned the exposed film to her bag and stood up in preparation for their arrival at the next stop. Half the carriage did so as well, before realizing that they probably didn't need to follow any sort of Royal Protocol in the middle of their commute.
Bon Bon did have to follow Royal Protocol, and was on her hooves before Luna had fully stood up, bracing against the braking train to remain in position by the Princess' side.
The train ground to a halt, and the doors slid open with a chime. Luna and Bon Bon joined the flood of commuters leaving the rest of the train as they cleared the fare control area and made their way out into the station concourse.
Now outside of New York City's hustle and bustle, crowds really began to notice the Princess, and Bon Bon's hackles raised as the humans parted around them like water around a ship. They were drawing a lot of attention, which was never a good thing to a protective service agent.
As if sensing her growing unease, two police officers materialized out of the crowd, flanking Luna and Bon Bon and projecting a sense of calm and order as they ushered people to either side. With the addition of the two humans, Luna and Bon Bon were able to quickly exit the station.
Never one to ignore a subordinate - even if they weren't from her government - Luna went to thank the officers. Bon Bon paid little attention, instead scanning the streets outside. New York City had paradoxically felt more secure, the hustle and bustle providing a somewhat insulating atmosphere in regards to threats, while Newark was emptier and felt more dangerous somehow. The city's run-down and dingy streets did little to alleviate those fears, and Bon Bon was not looking forward to escorting the Princess through the streets of this town.
A disgusted noise escaped one of the police officers. Luna had apparently told him their destination, and neither human was very impressed with it.
"Ma'am, with all due respect, you two should not be going down there by yourselves." The higher-ranking of the two men said. "It's a shithole."
"Distasteful it may be, but we have made an appointment at that locale, and we must make it." Luna stated definitively.
We have? Bon Bon thought to herself as the officers continued trying to convince Luna to not go into Newark.
After a few more back-and-forth exchanges, the superior officer threw his hands up in defeat. "Alright. I see that we can't stop you, so we'll take you there ourselves." He turned to his junior. "Go get the car."
The younger officer walked off to collect the patrol vehicle, and Bon Bon sagged in relief. Additional security and an official vehicle? What more could a protective services agent need?
After another minute or so, the patrol car pulled up. Much to Bon Bon's surprise, it was not a Newark Police vehicle, but instead one belonging to Amtrak's police force.
Amtrak Police was very well known to the Equestrian military, and even Bon Bon knew that they had no jurisdiction outside of passenger rail services. That they were doing this out of the goodness of their hearts was not lost on the mare, and she shot the officers a grateful look as the door to the car was opened for them.
Clambering into the back of the car, the ponies sat back as they were driven towards their destination. While Luna snapped pictures of the sights out of her window and chatted with the officers, Bon Bon tuned out the small talk and watched the buildings go by with increasing levels of relief - the city's industrial areas grew increasingly more dilapidated block by block, and the secret agent would have been jumping at every alleyway if Luna had insisted on walking through this part of town like she did everywhere else.
The environment around the police car continued to get worse and worse until they finally crossed under a massive bridge. Their destination was heralded by a small, dirty sign proclaiming the location to be NAPORANO IRON & SCRAP - NO TRESPASSING. The officers stopped the police car outside of a small building on the property, and they disembarked from the car.
“Would you like us to wait for you two?” The older officer asked, raising his voice to be heard over the cacophony of sounds.
Bon Bon swallowed nervously as she shook her head - this was not a happy place, but the officers weren’t needed, no matter how much she’d want them here. Looking over at Luna, the Princess appeared unbothered, but looking closely, her tells were on full display - subtle twitches of her wings, a tightening around her eyes, and her ears pinning themselves back against her head. She voiced no oppositions - both mares understood that this place felt wrong, in a way that the humans clearly couldn’t understand.
To start with, the noise was unbearable - the human road on the bridge was packed with traffic, which echoed off of the underside and into the open area they were in. A few furlongs away, another massive roadway bordered the industrial area, throwing more noise their way. The industrial area itself was also bursting with new and unpleasant sounds: high pitched squealing of metal on metal, loud motors of heavy machinery, shouting of laborers, and the blaring horns of railway equipment.
But underneath all of that, there was a definite sense of wrongness that permeated the very ground. Bon Bon could feel her Earth Pony magic cringe at the sensations caused by trotting over the broken and stained patches of ground that poked through the material of the building’s parking lot.
Leaving the police officers at their car and walking towards the building, a human in stained flannel and denim protective clothing met the mares at the door. “You the ponies?” he asked, his accent nasal and grating. A lit cigarette dangled from between his fingers, and he looked decidedly unimpressed by the arrival of a visiting dignitary.
“We are indeed.” Luna was speaking in the firm tones of her “Royal Voice” - another sign that this place was getting to her.
“Right. Mr. N said to take ya back to ‘im, come on.”
Without waiting for a response, he set off around the side of the building. Following in his wake, Bon Bon noticed that both she and Luna unconsciously stuck to the concrete pad the building was placed upon - the earth here felt wrong, and standing on something artificial lessened the sensation significantly.
As they walked away, Bon Bon heard the police car finally drive off. She swallowed her concerns at the thought of being out here alone - she was an Agent of S.M.I.L.E. for Celestia’s sake! She could do this!
Then they turned the corner, and were led past a razor-wire topped fence and into the facility. Bon Bon’s eyes widened immensely as the scrapyard came into view, and she could hear Luna unsuccessfully stifle a gasp.
No wonder it feels so bad out here. Bon Bon thought to herself as she took in the mechanical charnel house. The scrapyard dealt primarily in railway equipment, and was packed from end to end in locomotives in varying states of dismemberment. Paint schemes from American railways that she had never heard of (and the briefing packet had been unusually thorough, thanks to Princess Celestia’s interference) gave the yard an incongruously colorful appearance, in comparison to the grisly scenes of mechanical destruction.
Everywhere they looked, broken locomotives and railcars looked back, huge holes cut into their bodies. Over in one corner, a pile of diesel engines were stacked like so much cordwood. Engineer’s cabs were strewn about in a line by a crane, which was loading a freight car with piles of loose metal - the bright colors of the individual pieces giving some hint to whom they’d been.
What, not who. Bon Bon reminded herself, trying to bring her emotions back under control. Here in the human world, trains weren’t alive - at least, not really. She shuddered as she looked over at a line of yet-untouched locomotives. Several stood out to her - she knew some of their kind from her daily commute in Equestria. A few she even considered friends. Living, speaking, friends.
Here, though, they were just metal.
Hopefully.
Unaware of the mare’s discomfort, the human led them up to two trains in the back of the yard. They were mostly obscured behind a towering pile of scrap metal, but they looked like nothing else in the yard. They were long and low to the ground, with only a few hooves of space between the the top of the tracks and the bottom of the body. Bright yellow paint and a blue stripe, grimy with dirt and muck, and covered in scuffs and dents, still managed to stand out from the drab surroundings. Each train had a large glass dome on the roof of the lead carriage, and big front doors that opened like a clam shell.
They looked like spaceships from another world, and Bon Bon got the distinct impression that these two trains were more alive than most. There was a definite air of sadness around these trains, one that was different from the aura radiating from the rest of the yard - these two knew why they were here, and her heart went out to them.
In front of the two trains were two muscular humans. One had a thick mane of dark hair and a thin white shirt, with a cigarette hanging from his mouth. The man standing next to him looked like a carbon copy of him, save for a few scars and wrinkles, grey hair, and a massive cigar instead of a cigarette. The older one - presumably the proprietor - turned as the employee called for “Mr. N”, his cigar never leaving his mouth as he greeted the Princess.
Bodyguards were best seen and not heard, and Bon Bon tuned out most of the conversation between the two, instead keeping her back against the train closest to her. This allowed her to keep an eye on the younger human and the rest of the yard, but also meant she could lay a hoof on the battered yellow skin of the train.
It felt like cold, dead, metal, but deep underneath the plating there was a bare flicker of something more. It felt like she could just reach out and touch it with her Earth Pony mag-
Nope. She broke herself out of her own reverie, yanking her hoof off of the train’s plating and planting it firmly on the gravel beneath it. She was here to protect the Princess, not bring trains to life. That was something best left to the eggheads back in Canterlot, if it was to happen at all.
Bringing her attention back to the Princess, she just managed to catch Luna making a sweeping gesture at the rest of the yard.
“And what, pray tell, whilst thou be doing with the rest of thine railway fleet?” She asked imperiously.
“Lady, I run a scrapyard.” The older human said in total defiance of every Royal Visit Protocol Bon Bon had ever heard of, his oversized cigar puffing like a chimney. “Take a wild guess.”
“So thoust will kill them?”
“I don’t know what happens in Magic Fairy World, but they ain’t alive.”
“We understand.” Luna said slowly, inspecting the yard. Her horn lit up, and a sizeable bag of bits was deposited on the ground in front of them with a decisive CLONK. Bon Bon raised an eyebrow - unless the Princess was paying in small change, there was no way that a bag of that size would be necessary, unless-
Bon Bon’s eyes shot open just as Luna announced. “We will take everything.”
Later
It took some time for Luna’s new purchases to be dealt with - it would take several days for transportation to be arranged, and the scrapyard had turned into a veritable hive of activity as plans were made. This took most of the morning, and the sun was high in the sky by the time Luna and Bon Bon left.
Their departure from New Jersey was much simpler than their arrival - Luna had decided that seeing the city from the air would be preferable to returning on the subterranean PATH train, and was therefore flying back to Manhattan, her camera clicking away the whole time.
Quite naturally, this meant that Bon Bon had to go with her.
Bon Bon is an Earth Pony.
Earth Ponies don’t like flying.
“The views art most astounding!” Luna shouted over the rushing wind, her camera clicking away. “Look, there is Ellis Island!”
“Why couldn’t we have teleported?!” Bon Bon shrieked into Luna’s ear as she clung to the Princess’ back, her eyes screwed shut as they soared high above New York’s harbor.
When Luna eventually landed - and Bon Bon finally opened her eyes - the earth pony was surprised to find that they’d ended up exactly where they started - the World Trade Center.
“Haven’t we been here already?” she asked Luna once she’d gotten all four hooves back on the ground where they belonged.
“Aye.” Replied the alicorn. “But there is business that we still must attend to. We have bought gifts for my sister, but not for Twilight or Cadence."
She turned and trotted back towards a different black building than the one they’d entered earlier. Bon Bon followed, and her eyes traced up the side of the building - a big red sign reading BORDERS in white letters indicated the primary tenant, although it gave precious little information as to what the store actually sold.
Following Luna through the doors, Bon Bon stopped dead in her tracks.
It was a bookstore. One bigger than any bookstore Bon Bon had ever seen. It seemed to stretch on endlessly, and easily took up the entire floor of the building it was in. Deeper into the building, moving staircases went both up and down, implying that this store was of a size to rival even the Royal Canterlot Library.
Bon Bon looked over at Luna. "Your Highness, she said slowly. "This wouldn't happen to be related to the massive list Twilight was making last week?"
"Twilight is very easy to buy for." The Princess said as she produced a scroll of paper. Unrolling it revealed a double-sided list that went almost to the floor.
Bon Bon looked at it. Then she looked at Luna.
"Your highness, please don't buy-" she started, but it was too late - Luna had already vanished into the stacks.
Later
Bon Bon had tried to keep up, she really had, but when the Princess started on one of these tasks, it was difficult for any mortal to keep pace.
Bon Bon had clung on for a while, but she'd eventually faltered in the History section on the store's third floor, and had been directed to the store's café by one of the many staff members who were following the whirling dervish that was an alicorn in a bookstore.
Several restorative mugs of coffee (and an absolutely atrocious banana nut muffin) later, and the secret agent felt positively equine again.
And not a moment too soon, as Luna descended from the store's third floor, a mass of books trailing along in her magic.
"Is there anything left in the store?" She asked as she fell into step behind Luna.
"We art not that bad." The Princess responded as she set the mass of books down next to the checkout counters.
Bon Bon eyed the other four equally-sized piles already there, but said nothing.
It took some time to ring up the purchases, and when they emerged from the store it was almost three in the afternoon. Luna had bought so many books that the clerks had offered her boxes instead of bags, and stacking them on the Plaza outside created a tower bigger than Bon Bon.
"Is there anything else you need?" the mare asked, slightly wary of carrying a tree's worth of paper goods around Manhattan. "A cart, perhaps?"
Luna snorted in response, and engulfed the entire pile in her magic. In a flash of dark blue light, the boxes of books disappeared.
Oh yeah. Bon Bon realized. Unicorns can do that. She hoped that nopony was on the receiving end of that teleport spell - that many books appearing at once could be frightening to the unprepared - like Lily, Daisy, and Roseluck, to name just a few.
Then she winced in sympathy - thinking of Ponyville had made her realize that Twilight would probably get so wrapped up in reading her new literature that Spike was probably going to be the one tasked with sorting, shelving, and organizing everything. Poor guy.
“Better him than me.” she muttered to herself as Luna set off once again.
“What was that?” the Princess called as she made a beeline for the street.
“Nothing!” Bon Bon said, galloping to keep up with the Princess’ longer strides.
She caught up with Luna at the side of the road - the Princess had a leg raised to hail a taxi, and one of the many yellow vehicles was already pulling up to meet her.
“Where are we going now?” she asked as they piled into the entirely-too-small back seat.
“We art not sure…” Luna said as she tried to keep her horn from poking through the roof of the vehicle. “Driver? Where is the best jeweler in the city?”
Later - Tiffany & Co. Fifth Avenue
Their arrival at the store had been heralded with Canterlot-level bowing, scraping, and scrambling as the staff of the apparently-prestigious store organized a private viewing room for Luna. It went so quickly that it felt as though magic was involved, and Bon Bon had a difficult time keeping her expression neutral as the humans practically fell over each other to serve Luna.
It really was like being back in Canterlot - sales-humans, every one dressed in severe clothing, brought forth a continuous rotation of breathtakingly expensive jewels for Luna to peruse, and then just as quickly took them away once she decided that it wasn’t something Princess Cadence would like. So far the only one she’d shown any interest in was a small pink diamond ring that she thought would accent Cadence’s coat, but that was it.
“What about this one?” Luna asked, pointing to an enormous yellow diamond that had been brought in on its own black velvet mat.
At some point, Bon Bon had been roped into the selection process - something she was wholly unsuited for, and wasn’t sure how she’d gotten involved. “It’s not very exotic, I think Rarity found a few rocks bigger than this a few months ago.”
The assembled salespeople had made a collective choking noise at that, but refused to elaborate as the stone was taken away.
Several more displays of jewelry were brought in and taken away, and Bon Bon was beginning to get the sense that the sales-humans were getting rather desperate. This was proven to be correct when the next tray of jewels still had price tags attached - the staff had clearly pulled them from the cases in the main showroom, as opposed to “the vault” where all the other jewels had been stored.
“Pray tell, what are these?” Luna asked as she scrutinized a blue stone set into a ring.
“What you’re looking at right now is Tanzanite.” The lead sales human said. “It was discovered in 1968 - Tiffany’s is the exclusive distributor outside of Tanzania.”
He picked up a green stone set into a brooch. “This is Tsavorite, which is found only in Kenya and Tanzania.”
“Fascinating. We would like to see more of this.” Luna said, much to the surprise of the sales staff, who ran off to find more gems.
They returned with almost a dozen trays, each laden with colored gemstones. This pleased Luna greatly, and in a short while a small number of rings, necklaces, and brooches had been placed alongside the small pink diamond ring from earlier.
Bon Bon was still helping Luna pick, and was regretting having learned the bit-to-dollar conversion rate - display jewels were typically less expensive than those kept in the back, but the price tags on these more modest-looking stones were still more than she made in three years.
It was a shame, too - these stones were beautiful.
Another tray was brought in, and Bon Bon’s breath caught in her throat for a moment. On one corner of the tray was a large piece of tsavorite, surrounded by tanzanite and set into a ring. It was a gorgeous piece, and in that moment, she could practically see it on Lyra’s horn.
“Doest thou see something impressive?” Luna had noticed Bon Bon’s momentary loss of composure.
“It’s nothing, really.” Bon Bon tried to deflect.
“It does not appear to be nothing.” Luna examined the ring. “Tis strange, green does not seem like your color.”
“It’s not mine, but my marefriend Lyra… it’s nothing.” Bon Bon was trying to deflect - that ring cost more than her annual salary - but it wasn’t really working.
“We see.” Luna’s magic picked up the ring and put it next to the others in the “buy” pile.
Bon Bon’s eyes almost popped out of her head. “Ma’am, I can’t ask you to - that’s - it’s - the treasury can’t fund my engagement ring!”
“Nonsense,” Luna said with a smile. “We art the treasury, so we can make those determinations. Consider it a gift from a friend.”
The Princess scanned the rest of the trays for a moment, but found nothing else to her liking. “We art done here. How shall we render payment?”
They left the store with multiple pale blue bags suspended in Luna’s aura. Bon Bon had to keep her gaze locked on the streets around her - if she looked up at the bags she’d start thinking about Lyra and get distracted.
Another taxi was summoned, and the two mares piled into it, Luna directing them back to the Equestrian delegation’s hotel.
“Ma’am, I can’t thank you enough for this.” Bon Bon said, not for the first time, as the cab rolled through Manhattan.
Luna smiled. “Thou may repay me by making sure that thine marefriend is happy.”
It was a nice moment between friends, but then the moment was lost when Luna’s stomach growled audibly.
“Mayhaps we should get dinner upon our return?” The Lunar Princess suggested sheepishly.
The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel - After Dinner
“You know,” said Bon Bon as she leaned against the wall of the elevator. “Of all the places we’ve been today, I didn’t expect dinner to be the time that you get in trouble.”
“He was an absolute cad.” Luna retorted.
“That’s what hotel security is for - by Celestia’s Beard, that’s what I’m for.”
“He would not have respected you - ‘tis like the fools in my sister’s court - they only respect power.”
“He made a pass at you and the Princess of Monaco, and then took a swing at you - I would not say that he respects anyone.”
“His punches were weak - we have faced worse from our sparring matches with the guards.”
“So hitting him with a cake was preferable?”
“Yes. He didn’t get hurt.”
“You knocked him out!”
“Not on purpose!”
“It doesn’t matter if it was on purpose! You and the Prince of Monaco knocked out Frank Sinatra with a red velvet cake!”
The hilarity of the situation finally dawned on both mares. By the time the elevator reached their floor, they were leaning against each other, laughing so hard they were crying.
