Pearl

by A Hoof-ful of Dust

Blown Glass Bird

Sweetie galloped onto center stage, bathed in blue light. The strobes fed her sights in half-second glimpses, catching a flash of Moxie waving to the crowd, Stardust whipping back her mane, the roaring stadium stamping and shouting. The into to Gonna Party in Canterlot began to play, and the crowd erupted in cheers.

In her mind, Sweetie was far away as she sang. The entire concert passed by in what seemed like a few blinks of one of the giant lights.

-/-

"Good show, right?" Stardust said as the band waited in the wings.

"It was a show," Cacophony remarked. Stardust gave her a look.

"We still have an encore to do, ladies," Moxie said, glancing out to the stage.

Sweetie was listening to the sounds of the crowd. After a few minutes of going off-stage the cheers and applause would howl like a cyclone, but would coalesce into a group chant: Encore! Encore! or Explosion! Explosion! were typical, but some shows they had been brought back by the crowd to cries of Want Want U!, their standard encore number.

But what the crowd began to shout this night was none of those things.

"Guys," Sweetie said, "listen."

It sounded like the entire stadium was calling with one voice, over and over: "Blown Glass Bird! Blown Glass Bird!"

"Sweetie," Stardust said with an excited smile, "that's one of your songs."

"I know," Sweetie said in a small voice.

"They want us to do one of your songs," Cacophony said.

"I know. ...Can we do that?" Sweetie looked at each of her bandmates. "Do you want to do that?"

"It's no Want Want U," Cacophony said with a wan smile, "but I could probably keep the beat." She had made a rare joke.

"Sure, I'm in," Stardust said, flicking her mane away from her eye.

"Girl," Moxie said, "you give me the go-ahead to play a wicked solo and I'll be right there with you."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Sweetie asked, and stepped back on to the stage to a thunderous uproar.

Coming back for the encore felt like waking up after a long sleep. There was just one thing missing. Sweetie lifted her wig off her head, tossed it to the side, and shook out her mane, sending the stadium into a frenzy. This wasn't a song that the Sweetheart needed to perform.

Cacophony counted the song in, a shade slower than the version with Vinyl and Lyra had been. Her drumming was uncharacteristically soft, but more complex than anything required for a Filly Explosion! song. Stardust's keyboard played counterpoint to Moxie's guitar, the blend better suited to a filled stadium. Sweetie was a little surprised when Moxie leaned in to the microphone to join her for the chorus, but the sound worked with the mix of her low voice and Sweetie's high tones. After the bridge, Sweetie pointed to Moxie, who took center stage for her solo while she backed her with wordless vocals. When the song was over, the four of them turned to each other, ecstatic grins on their faces, the noise from the crowd making it impossible to hear anything else. They had finally sound their sound.

Sweetie turned back to the microphone. "Do you want to hear another one?" she asked out into the throng.

The response was overwhelming.

Filly Explosion! ended up playing every one of Sweetie Belle's songs that night.