“RIIIIIING! RIIIIIING! Am I doing okay? Hey, you aren’t waking up! Ooh, ooh, I know! BEEP BEEP! BEEP BEEP! BEEP BEE-”

  “Dammit Pinkie, put a sock in it! We’re trying to sleep!”

  “Sorry! Beeeep, beeeep. Beeeep, beeeep…” Pinkie Pie whispered.

  “Pinkie!”

  “Sorry!” Pinkie Pie flinched. This was so unfair. Bon Bon had asked her to wake her up at precisely 11:30 PM tonight for some reason, and she was waking up everypony but Bon Bon.

  “Ugh… Sorry, Pinkie… It’s 11:30 now, right?” Bon Bon said, rising from her sleeping bag, not bothering to open her eyes properly.

  “Yay, I did it! Could you guess what I was? Could you?”

  “Yeah, you were an alarm clock… or something. Listen, I have to go now, okay? Try not to wake up everypony else, please…” Bon Bon replied.

  “Sure! Where are you going?”

  “I just have to go to… I don’t know, uh… You don’t need to know, okay? Just go back to sleep. Thanks, Pinkie.”

Pinkie Pie frowned.

  “Okay. When will you be coming back?”

  “I probably won’t be coming back tonight.”

Bon Bon snuck through Ponyville, struggling to see - it was pitch black out there. She darted from corner to corner, hiding behind barrels and in alleyways whenever she heard the slightest noise. Really, she didn’t even need to be sneaking around - she just didn’t want to wake anyone. She looked back at Sugarcube Corner, where they had been sleeping overnight. The party wasn’t planned to be a sleepover, but Pinkie Pie insisted, so most of them stayed overnight. Lyra Heartstrings, however, said she wasn’t feeling too well, and had decided to go home. That’s where Bon Bon was going now. She was going to go and get Lyra, just like they had both planned.

Lyra Heartstrings was completely out of it. She laid strewn across her bed, sleeping like a log, dreaming about who-knows-what. She was dead to the world, and in her subconscious, she was loving it. That was until she was instantly awakened by a loud banging on the door. It took her a minute or so of muttering to herself and being mad at whoever was knocking on her door before she remembered what time it was and what she was supposed to be doing, and rushed to answer her visitor. Bon Bon stood in the doorway, waiting for her.

  “What took you so long? It’s freezing out here! We need to get moving,” Bon Bon lectured.

  “Sorry, I forgot about everything.”

  “Wait, so you were asleep just then? You were meant to be awake by 11!”

  “I know, I know, but I was just so… sleepy…” Lyra yawned, and closed her eyes for a few seconds, saying nothing. Bon Bon simply waited. Suddenly, Lyra’s eyes burst open.

  “Aah! Oh, wow. I think I just had a microsleep…” Lyra said.

  “You are not fit to be doing this… But I can’t do it alone, so get it together, okay? Maybe the cool air will wake you up a bit, or something.”

  “Sure, Bon Bon. Thanks.”

After a long trek out of Ponyville, the two friends finally arrived at their destination - Canterlot.

  “Alright, Bon Bon. You remember the plan?” Lyra asked, full of energy again. Bon Bon laughed.

  “What plan? Our ‘plan’ was to go in there, get Twilight, and ask her what’s going on.”

  “No, there was more than that, I think… Was there? Actually, I have no idea.”

Bon Bon laughed again.

  “Quit kidding around, Lyra! C’mon, let’s just go in there and ask Twilight some questions,” Bon Bon joked.

Lyra looked to her friend and smiled.

  “Yeah. Let’s go get my friend back…”

Getting past several groups of Royal Guards, avoiding spotlights, and avoiding Princess Luna herself wasn’t easy. For a lot of the guards, Lyra had just used a sleeping spell that Twilight had told her years ago, but it only worked on a few before she didn’t have the energy to do it anymore - so after that, they resorted to sneaking around.

  “Hey, Lyra. I never knew Twilight very well, so tell me - what’s she like?” Bon Bon whispered.

  “Well, she was pretty nice when we first met. For a while, she came to this really neat café that we all used to go to, but eventually she just stopped hanging out with us. Whenever we would ask her to do something, she’d just kind of brush us off. I think that’s part of the reason I left Canterlot, really. Something just wasn’t right there anymore… But hey, I guess it was a good idea, right? Because then we met! And honestly, Bon Bon, I don’t think I ever thanked you. Without you in Ponyville, I don’t know what I would have done. You’re just so kind, and honest… I don’t think there has ever been a secret that we have kept from each other!” Lyra replied.

Bon Bon managed a weak smile in response.

  “Yeah… no secrets…” she said.

Lyra started opening and closing doors as they wandered down a long, nameless hallway. They didn’t know where they were - just that they were in some random hallway in the Canterlot Castle, a hallway just the same as the dozens of other hallways in the castle.

  “Twilight isn’t in any of these rooms… I really thought that after what was happening, she might have stayed here or something… you know, to recover. Maybe we were all wrong…” Lyra said.

  “Hey Lyra! What about this door? I think you missed it,” Bon Bon called.

  “Oh, whoops. Wanna open it?”

  “Yeah, let’s do it. Actually, I have a good feeling about this one,” Bon Bon replied.

  “Let’s do it together!” Lyra exclaimed. To Bon Bon’s surprise and confusement, Lyra placed her hoof on the other handle of the door, and started counting from one.

  “One…”

  “Two…”

  “Three!”

The two ponies opened the door and rushed into the room, only to stop dead still. Both of them went ghost-white at what they saw standing before them. About as white as the coat of the Alicorn Princess standing before them, on her bed, glaring.

“What in Equestria are you two doing here? I would expect such misconduct from you, Sweetie Dro-- er, Bon Bon, but from one of my old students, Lyra, I… What are you two doing?” Princess Celestia lectured. Both Lyra and Bon Bon flinched.

  “W-we were just… we just wanted to look for Tw… Twi… Uhh… Bon Bon, help me out here!” Lyra attempted, before turning to Bon Bon for help. Bon Bon took a step forward and straightened her back and neck, her face turning rigid.

  “Secret Age-- Bon Bon, at your duty, M’am! My friend and I were just looking for a certain Twilight Sparkle, when we accidentally stumbled upon your bedroom. We apologise for the inconvenience!” Bon Bon spoke, sounding just like one of the Royal Guards. Lyra looked at her in bewilderment.

  “Drop that act, Bon Bon. You resigned from your job a long time ago. Now, you say you two were looking for Twilight Sparkle. Then why, pray-tell, did you come here? And why didn’t you just wait until morning and ask one of the Royal Guards or even myself about her?”

  “We… didn’t know if we were allowed, so…” Lyra tried to explain. Princess Celestia shook her head.

  “Nevermind all that, then. Well, I unfortunately have bad news for you. Twilight Sparkle is not in Canterlot - rather, she is staying in Ponyville, at the Golden Oak Library. I have no idea why you thought she would be here, but--”

  “We just thought she would be here because we saw her fighting those things, and she might be recovering here because she couldn’t get back to Ponyville or something like that, so we just… we just… oh, did I just interrupt you?” Lyra said.

  “Yes. You did. Now both of you, please leave. I will have my guards escort you back to Ponyville where you can visit Twilight Sparkle”.

Bon Bon and Lyra were stunned. They had gone through all the trouble of making it to the castle, past the guards, just to see Twilight, and it had been for nothing, except for a rather scary and intimidating encounter with the co-ruler of Equestria herself. Lyra, however, wasn’t really thinking about any of this. She was trying to piece together what Princess Celestia had mentioned, about Bon Bon ‘resigning’ from her job, and what had gotten into Bon Bon when she had talked to the princess… Was her best friend keeping something from her after all? She decided to let that go for now. Maybe she would ask Bon Bon about it later - for now, their only goal was finding Twilight Sparkle.

The two ponies gathered up the rest of their friends - Lemon Hearts, Twinkleshine, and Minuette, much to Pinkie Pie’s dismay. The five friends then made their way to the Golden Oak Library. Next Chapter: 07 - Traitors Estimated time remaining: 35 Minutes