//------------------------------//
// The Sunrise Sonata, Part 9 
// Story: The Evening Sonata 
// by Daniel-Gleebits 
//------------------------------//

The Sunrise Sonata Pt9


Sonata Dusk

At the same time as Sunset Shimmer’s emotional turmoil was taking place, Sonata was going through an upheaval of her own. She wondered openly to herself, whether she had been right in her evaluation of what Sunset had done.
She’d found Aria close to the school, rolling by in her wheelchair.
“I’m sorry,” were the first words out of Aria’s mouth. 
Sonata was reminded irresistibly of Sunset not a few minutes ago. “For what?” Sonata asked.
Aria seemed puzzled by the question. “For... for everything!” she looked at Sonata as though unable to believe she could ask such a question. “I mean, I... I tried to drive you away. I hurt you, I yelled at you, blamed you for everything, and...” she tapered off, looking with growing concern at Sonata. “What’s happened?”
Sonata wouldn’t say. Aria seemed to realise that pursuing the subject wasn’t going to yield anything, and so pressed on with her former topic.
“You shouldn’t have left the hospital,” Sonata interrupted suddenly.
“I wanted to talk to you,” Aria said quietly. “Alone. I heard about what you’re trying to do for me.” She flushed a little.
“You don’t think that I’d let you get away with giving up like that, do you?” Sonata asked. “You tried to kill yourself, and so did I. It’s hardly fair that I get off so well and you don’t.”
Aria had been looking pretty ashamed of herself. Her eyes downcast, she had a dull colour in her cheeks that vanished almost instantly as Sonata spoke. 
“What?” she exclaimed. 
“Don’t be so surprised,” Sonata said listlessly. “What chance did I have if you couldn’t take being alone?”
“Stop it!” Aria snapped. “Just stop it! What are you even talking about?” Aria scowled at her, wanting to stand up and shake her. Being unable to, she pushed herself forward a little and took a hold of her hand. “Listen to me. Anything I said to you... then, just forget about it. I wasn’t thinking clearly, you know I wasn’t thinking clearly. How many times had you tried to tell me? Look,” she said, sitting back in her chair, “did Sunny-britches tell you about...” she gleamed the truth from Sonata’s reaction. “Right. Well let me tell you something then. I deserved every bit of it. And I don’t mean that like I feel I deserve that I got what was coming to me. I mean, she was right. I thought about it a lot after she left, and I realised that I wasn’t just trying to help myself. I genuinely didn’t see that what I was doing was hurting other people. It wasn’t like we looked out for each other back when Adagio was around, was it?” 
She tried for a smile, which Sonata attempted to return. Neither quite managed. “The point is though, what she said about not letting you hear about my... decisions, it made me realise that what happens to me isn’t just my business. You... care about me?”
Sonata heard the question mark, but knew what it really was. It wasn’t a question to her, it was more of a question Aria was putting to herself, as though the disbelieving part of her were genuinely confused by the concept. She knew all-too-well what that felt like.
“I do,” Sonata said, smiling more successfully.
Aria managed a pursed-lipped smile of her own, looking at the floor. “Well,” she said, in a more upbeat tone. “I still don’t like Prissy much, but don’t be too hard on her, huh? As much as it hurt, I kinda needed that kick, you know? A lot more than I needed these ones.” She indicated her legs. 
They waited on the street side under a bus shelter out of the rain, Sonata having called the hospital.
“Hey,” Aria said, as the ambulance pulled up. “Do you reckon I could come see the show?”
“You don’t have to ask,” Sonata said, laughing for the first time. Aria’s cheeks flushed a little.





Pinkie Pie discovered Sonata walking by the Book Farm car park, and immediately invited her back to her house, perceiving her unhappiness. It should be mentioned that whilst Sonata and Pinkie Pie are similar in many ways: taste in music, taste in extracurricular activities, and taste in... well, food, they differed on several key points. One of which was their methodology for cheering someone up.
Sonata, who valued a sober level of closeness and intimacy when comforting her friends, generally listened to their problems or comforted them with her vicinity and warmth, often in the form of a hug. Pinkie Pie on the other hand tended to have a more hands-on, eccentric approach that, in general, tends to distract the person from their sorrows by bombarding them with cheer and gaudy celebration.
“Oh come on!” Pinkie complained, trying not to inhale the white cloud as it enveloped the two of them. “This always works on the Cake twins.”
“Thanks Pinkie,” Sonata muttered, taking her hand away from her eyes. “I’m just not in the mood for antics right now.”
She hadn’t said it harshly, but Pinkie looked somewhat hurt. She threw away the empty sack of flour and sat on her bed, legs crossed and leaning her head on her hand. Sonata sat on the floor, legs pulled up to her chest, staring into space.
“So you’re not even going to tell me what happened?” Pinkie asked, sounding disappointed. 
“Sunset and I had a... an argument, I guess,” Sonata replied.
“What about?”
“I’d rather not say,” Sonata mumbled into her knees.
There was a pause, and then Pinkie said in one breath “Did Sunset go and visit Aria, say some really mean things that needed to be said but went overboard and now you’re disappointed in her because you didn’t think she would do something like that?”
Sonata frowned at her, but then her face gave over to bland assurance as she realised who it was she was talking to. “Do you think I’m wrong?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what happened.” Pinkie shrugged.
“But you just...” Sonata sighed. Without enormous detail, she gave Pinkie the gist of what had happened, and her opinion that Sunset had gone too far. At the end of it, Pinkie’s face was alternating between a wide, eager smile, and a downcast frown that literally cast a sombre gloom across her room, not unlike the one her sister Maud was able to bring about. Sonata might have been affected if she hadn’t been insulated within her own cloud of unhappy miasma.
“So she loves you!” Pinkie squealed, waving jazz hands and grinning widely. “But on the other hand. She was kind of a jerk to your sister,” she ended, sadly, dropping her hands. After a few moments, she seemed to rally slightly. “I knew me and Applejack were onto something.”
“Should I be so mad at her?” Sonata asked.
“Are you mad at her?” Pinkie asked, tilting her head to one side, puzzled.
Sonata considered that question. “I think I have to be.”
“You don’t look mad,” Pinkie observed. 
“I don’t feel mad either,” Sonata admitted.
“Well, then you’re not mad.”
“But shouldn’t I be?”
Pinkie shrugged. “What does Aria think?”
Sonata scrunched her lips up. “Well... she said it was okay, but—“
“Then what’s the problem?” Pinkie cried, throwing out both arms. Confetti exploded across the room, raining down onto the flour coating the floor. From somewhere the sound of a party horn blared. Sonata didn’t answer, and after a few moments, Pinkie lowered her arms. “Well come on,” she said uncertainly, “if Aria’s okay with it...”
“I guess you’re right,” Sonata sighed. “Maybe I’m overreacting.”
Pinkie gave her an unusually shrewd look. “Sunset said that she loves you,” she began, “but do you love her?”
Sonata sat a long moment contemplating this question, and Pinkie gazed at her narrowly the whole time. “At first, I thought I did. I had a talk with Rarity and I thought, maybe I did. I liked all of the things that Sunset was, but then... what she did wasn’t like any of those things.”
“Those things?” Pinkie narrowed one eye.
“She’s kind, thoughtful. She listens to me... I mean, people. She does everything she can to help people and is always there. I’ve never heard her say a nasty thing to anyone, but then she said those things to Aria, and... and I just didn’t think she was capable of that.”
Pinkie opened her mouth, but then closed it again. In all honesty she was about to say something of all those years Sunset Shimmer had been Queen Bee at Canterlot High, how she’d ruled the school through fear and bullying. But since Applejack wasn’t around to stop her, something internal kicked in to cut her off before she could drop that particular dollop of reality onto Sonata’s uncertain mood.





The next morning, having slept over at Pinkie’s house at her insistence, Sonata made her way home, less sure than ever whether or not she was in the right. It came to her that it might be preferable, if not right, to simply apologise for her reaction, and go on with their friendship as it had been before. But one thing interfered with this happy conclusion.
“She loves me,” Sonata sighed, plucking a daisy of its petals. “She loves me, she loves me, she loves me...”
“I don’t think that’s how you play that game,” said a familiar voice. Sonata stopped in her solitary walk, and realised that without meaning to, she had nearly walked straight into Fluttershy. She blinked.
“Huh?” she asked, confused.
“You’re picking the petals off,” Fluttershy pointed out with her free hand, her other clutching a rabbit. “I think you’re supposed to say she loves me not too.”
Sonata looked at Fluttershy blankly, noticing the pet shop behind her, whilst Fluttershy herself turned pink as her hair, clearly under the impression that she’d said something wrong. Then Sonata laughed. She wasn’t sure why, but she found whatever was going on between them simply hilarious. Fluttershy, clearly very much wrong-footed, gave a few nervous chuckles as Sonata’s laughter wound down.
“Are you okay?” Fluttershy asked when she thought it safe to do so.
“I’m fine, thanks for that.” Sonata grinned to herself. “I kind of needed that.”
“I’m glad,” Fluttershy said breathily. “Because you didn’t look okay, and just going by what you were saying to yourself, I guessed maybe something had gone wrong with Sunset Shimmer. But if it’s none of my business, that’s okay too,” she added in a hasty breath.
Sonata was unsure how to respond while Fluttershy was gabbling. Instead, she asked a question.
“Have you ever been in love?” 
Fluttershy nearly dropped her bunny, which skittered down her shirt before she managed to pull it back into her arms. Pinker than ever, she stared at Sonata, mouthing wordlessly.
“N-No,” she stammered. “W-Why w-would you ask s-something like that?”
“No reason I guess,” Sonata muttered, losing her nerve. “Well, see you later.”
“No wait!” Fluttershy squeaked as Sonata turned away. “If you really want to know, I think I might... I don’t know if it counts, but... it was just a crush I think, but...” she continued to dither for a while, ending a lot of second thoughts in ‘but’ for several seconds.
“So you have?” Sonata asked, cutting across her embarrassment.
“I’ve had a crush,” Fluttershy clarified. “But why did you ask?”
“I wondered,” Sonata said, pulling absently at her fingers, “what did you do when you found out you had a... what was it? A smash?”
“A crush,” Fluttershy corrected. “You’ve never had a crush?”
“I swear, words change far too quickly,” Sonata mumbled to herself, enigmatically. “So what did you do?”
“Um, well, I, err...” Fluttershy cleared her throat. “Well, I followed him around for a while.”
“Yes?” Sonata prompted after a short pause. “Go on.”
“That was it.” Fluttershy shrugged.
Sonata’s shoulders slumped. “You... followed him?” She gave Fluttershy a pitying look. “That’s all?”
“Yes,” Fluttershy answered, not meeting Sonata’s eye. “Is there someone you have a crush on?”
“I don’t know,” Sonata said. “I thought I did.”
“Oh,” Fluttershy said knowingly. “Did something happen between you?”
“I just need to get some advice from someone. Someone who knows about this stuff.” Sonata said, kicking petulantly at a pebbled.
“Have you talked to Rarity? She knows a lot about having crushes.”
“She said to listen to my lungs or something,” Sonata mumbled, trying to remember. 
“Your heart?” Fluttershy asked.
“Yeah, that,” Sonata said, snapping her fingers. “Did you know that in medieval times the liver was thought to be the love organ?”
“I did not,” Fluttershy admitted, looking puzzled as to why she would say that. “So Rarity couldn’t help?”
“I think I might have been kind of vague about it,” Sonata chuckled nervously. “So it’s not really her fault I guess.”
“Well, I’d ask someone you repose a lot of confidence in,” Fluttershy said, sounding more confident herself. “Couldn’t you ask Sunset for some adv—“ she stopped when Sonata’s face went suddenly red. “Um, I mean, someone you’ve known for a long time,” she altered, changing direction at top speed.
“Someone I’ve known for a long time,” Sonata repeated, nibbling her thumbnail. An idea came to her, and the brightness must have shown on her face, for Fluttershy smiled at her. “That’s a good idea.”





Her good mood lasted until she got back home. When she opened the door, she found Sunset in the kitchen, looking flustered. The sight of her acting so frightened and nervous put Sonata’s mood right back down to sullenness. She noticed that the living room was in a semi-state of destruction. She noticed Sunset watching her as she entered, and returned her hurried greeting. 
“Sorry,” Sunset said in a voice too merry to be real. “Tripped just now and haven’t got around to...” Sonata wasn’t really listening. She’d been half hoping to find the apartment empty so she could make a call. With that plan currently on hold, she set an easel to rights and began working again. She noticed Sunset avoiding her gaze, and so didn’t look at her.
“Did you find Aria?” Sunset asked, tentatively. 
“She was looking for me,” Sonata answered, her brain feeling sluggish. “She told me she was sorry. She said that she never meant any of it; that she wasn’t in her right mind and didn’t know what to do. She said that she’d try harder.”
Sunset said nothing to this, but after a few moments, she asked if Sonata wanted some tea. Knowing Sunset was trying to cover herself from the awkward moment, answered in the affirmative and let Sunset slip into her bedroom without remark.
Once Sunset had disappeared, Sonata picked up the tea and sipped some. Sunset could always make good tea. Setting it down and continuing her work, she wondered again if she should just try to apologise. They could deal with Sunset’s feelings as they went, couldn’t they? But no, that’s not how feelings work. She, Sonata, had been devoid of the true feeling of emotions in other people for so long thanks to her magic that in the few months since being free of it, gradual empathy had come upon her, but it was all quite new to her. She had no idea if Sunset could ‘deal’ with her feelings or not. Perhaps the person she wanted to call could help. Maybe not. But it was the last hope she had right now. She had no one else she could turn to.





Sunset left her room two hours later in the early afternoon, a satchel over her shoulder. Sonata looked up, absently splashing a splodge of pink across her forehead as she brushed the hair from her eyes. Sunset had a determined look to her that caught Sonata slightly off guard.
“I’m going out,” Sunset announced, heading for the door.
Sonata hesitated, but as Sunset touched the door handle, she spoke up. “Can I borrow your phone?”
Sunset looked around, frowning. But then her expression settled into acquiescence. “Sure,” she said, taking her phone out and handing it to Sonata. “I won’t be needing it I guess. I’ll be gone for a little while.”
This set off an alarm bell in Sonata’s head. “You’ll be gone?” she asked, feeling a sudden cold.
“Yeah, maybe a few days at most.” Sunset gave a forced smile. 
“Where are you going?” Sonata asked, feeling panic boiling up in her. “What are you doing? Why will you be gone that long?”
Sunset blinked. “It’s no big deal, really,” she said, smiling more naturally. “I just... I need to see someone. Someone I should have gone to see before now.”
“Aria doesn’t hold anything against you,” Sonata said, trying to read Sunset’ expression. “She told me.”
“Oh it’s not Aria I’m going to see. Not yet anyway.” Sunset looked rather touched that Sonata seemed worried about her. She reached out a hand, flinching only once, and gripped Sonata’s shoulder. “Seriously, it’s nothing. It’s just something I think I have to do. I’ll be back, I promise.”
Sonata was silent as Sunset exited, but called after her down the hall. “Thanks for the tea!” she called. 
Sunset looked back, evidently surprised. Sonata saw her chuckling as she waved, and turned the corner to the stairs.
“Thanks for the tea?” Sonata asked of herself, pressed against the door’s interior. “Seriously? Thanks for the tea?” She smacked her own forehead, leaving a streak of pink across her palm when she removed it.
Now was as good a time as ever, and so taking only enough time to wash her hands, she picked up Sunset’s phone and placed the call. The dial tone hummed in her ear for a few moments, until someone on the other end spoke in a pleasant male voice.
“Hello?” Sonata spoke into the phone. “Can you put Adagio on please, Trenderhoof? I kind of need to talk to her.”


- To be Continued