//------------------------------// // Chapter 9 // Story: A Dazzling Sunset // by Fuzzyfurvert //------------------------------// A Dazzling Sunset Chapter 9 In retrospect, it was the little overlooked details—the ones deemed too unimportant or benign—that hampered most plans. Details as simple as forgetting the key to a locked door. Or taking the key out of an otherwise sealed portal. Sunset stepped forward, hand on her satchel, and ran face first into the solid stone panel that made up the base for the Wondercolt statue. Her sunglasses were sent flying as she recoiled and fell back on her ass, hands coming up to hold her stinging, crushed nose. For such a minor part of human anatomy, it certainly hurt like hell when damaged. “Ahhgg!” Sunset half growled, half yelled in frustration, feeling her sinus cavity start to trickle with blood. Her face felt horrible, her backside wasn’t any better, and to literally add insult to injury Adagio was already laughing at her. Her eyes scrunched closed in pain, and she pinched her nose shut. She wasn’t getting blood on her jacket again. Sunset gurgled, rolling over awkwardly onto her knees and one arm. It was oddly nostalgic, the very first time she’d come through the portal she’d ended up like this, face down and bleeding. Hurt. Embarrassed. Anger, like fire in her core driving a red-hot spike into her mind so hard she couldn’t see and all she wanted to do was strike out at whatever was close. She’d done this to herself. Her list of mistakes the only clear thought in her mind. Throwing away her life for the sake of her pride. Throwing away her dignity with a small oversight. Her satchel fell from her shoulder as Sunset tried to balance herself, the journal spilling out of it. The metal caps on the corners caught the strong early morning sunlight, bouncing it right into her watery eyes. That made her recoil a little, but it did give her self-loathing anger a target. She grabbed the book by the cover, snarling as she did so, and flung it as hard as she could. Sunset didn’t care where it ended up, just that the offending thing was out of her sight for a split second. The sound of parchment pages whipping in the wind mixed with the siren’s guffaws for a moment before there was a dull thud of the book meeting concrete again. Sunset testingly un-pinched her nose and felt the blood start to flow again. She clamped back down, climbing to her booted feet and stomping over to the magical journal, muttering the incantation to her favorite fireball spell over and over. When it failed to combust in a blast of heat and orange-yellow fire, Sunset pulled back and kicked it like she was going for the game winning goal shot. The book didn’t go far, landing where the grass and pavement met, its cover scratched and scuffed up. “Stubid. Stubid! Stubid!” Sunset yelled wordlessly at it, the anger in her willing everything within a ten foot radius of the journal to burn. A hand on her shoulder jolted the visions of fire and ash from her mind, and Sunset turned her head to look at a mildly concerned Adagio Dazzle in confusion. “Hey, Shimmer, calm down! Setting your magic book on fire isn’t going to open any portals.” Adagio paused, reflecting on that thought for a second. “At least I don’t think it would.” Sunset growled again, glancing back at the book. “No, id woulbn’d. Gob, I’m so stubid.” “I’m not go to argue that. Funny as it was to see you smash your face into a statue,” Adagio smirked, her hand bunching into a fist to hit Sunset in the shoulder, “I need you conscious and not loopy from either concussions or blood loss. If this portal thing isn’t working though, we’re not going to be getting my gem back anytime soon, are we?” “You aren’t mab at dat?” Adagio sniffed, her face turning serious, and shrugged her shoulders gracefully. “I can kick and scream about it later. Laughing at you headbutting concrete really helps. But watching you rage out reminds me that we still have a goal to accomplish here, portal or not.” “Aria.” Sunset swallowed and immediately regretted it when a copper-flavored glob of phlegm plummeted down her throat. Adagio made a hissing noise and stepped forward, walking over to where the journal sat halfway into the grass. She watched the siren squat, elbows on knees, regarding her book. Wait...how did she know I wanted to set it on fire? Sunset blinked, the question bouncing around her head a few times until Adagio stood again with the journal. The blonde opened the journal and started flipping through the pages for a moment before snapping it closed. Adagio shot Sunset a toothy grin. “First thing we need to do is get you cleaned up. The nosebleed isn’t a good look on you.” She shaded her eyes against the morning glare with a hand and looked at the main school building. “They have some weekend classes, right? Doors should be unlocked and the bathrooms pretty much empty.” Sunset nodded vaguely, the last of her anger fading quickly as she listened to Adagio. This was yet another side of the siren she hadn’t seen before. Adagio was calm, under control, and reasonable. It was weird, but a good sort of weird. Plus, Adagio wasn’t wrong, the school should be unlocked and she really didn’t want blood on her clothes. “Okay,” Sunset swallowed again with a cringe, “let’s go. I’m gebbin’ tire of holbing my node.” Sunset led the way to the stairs and front door, Adagio lagging behind her. She opened the door with a firm pull, relief washing over her that at least one doorway at the school still opened like she expected it to. The interior AC-cooled air washed over her a second later, the trophy-filled atrium empty and unnaturally quiet. Normally, whenever she passed through this section of the building, it was with at least one of her friends surrounded by a hundred other teenagers on their own way to or from some class. It was a noisy, busy place. Devoid of humanity, it was instead filled with light and dust motes floating through the air. I always thought schools were supposed to be creepy when no one is here, but it feels more like being at Pinkie’s while everyone else is asleep. Sunset frowned, the few times she’d been here in the empty atrium during classes flashing through her mind. Last time I was here and it was empty like this was the day I met Adagio and the other sirens… “Today id jusd full od deja vu.” She grimaced at the sound of her voice, letting go of her nose again to see if the blood had congealed. Her nose still ached, but she didn’t feel anything immediately start flowing. There was a girls room just across the from the entrance, near the hall that led toward the library and lab classes, where she could wash up. Sunset looked back, holding the door open for her companion, but Adagio was still at the bottom of the stairs. “Adagio?” The siren blinked, hearing her name, and hurried up the steps after Sunset. “You got blood on your face.” “No duh.” Sunset shook her head, sighing. She headed toward the bathroom like a girl on a mission, not bothering to check to see if she was still being followed. She passed the wall where her old fall formal crowning pictures had hung until recently. The images—frames and all—were long gone by this point, but so far, Principal Celestia hadn’t replaced them with anything. It left an uneasy feeling in her stomach, like there was a hole in the wall, waiting to be mended. Maybe someday I’ll do something good that will be worthy of that spot again? Sunset frowned, shoving the girl’s room door open as dark thoughts swirled around her mind. The sharp scent of citrus hit her working nostril a moment later, wafting up from the shiny floor. She gagged on the air, letting the door close behind her while she headed for the sink. Adagio came to a halt, half way across the big circular room with its big bay windows and glass cases of trophies and pictures of students on the walls. She turned slowly on her heels, thinking to herself. With Sunset in the bathroom cleaning up, it felt like she was the only living thing in the building, but oddly she didn’t feel alone. Dust motes danced in the sunlight in front of Adagio and she held out her hand to catch them. The glowing spots swirled around her hand, disappearing whenever she tried to track one with her eyes. Sunset’s voice played in her mind from the night before. ”So...now there is a lot of magic at the school and it seems to be getting stronger due to the constant leakage.” “Some sort of ambient magic, huh?” Adagio frowned, wishing she knew more about how magic worked. It had always been a normal part of herself, that it seemed odd to think of it as something separate and not just another arm or leg. But if the magic was stronger at the school, that might explain what she’d seen outside. She clinched her fist, looking back up at the closed bathroom door. “Damnit, Sunset, why did you have to make this complicated?” Adagio turned on her heels, stalking toward the trophy cases and the blank spot on the wall. She knew what used to hang there, pictures of the crowned queen of the Fall Formal. Pictures of Sunset. Again, the girl’s voice echoed in her mind. ”Not before I fireballed your scaly ass.” Sunset had meant that then, even if she said it in passing. Adagio knew the look the girl had given her yesterday was one of determination. The kind that says ‘I will do what I say I will or die trying.’ The same look Sunset had pointed at the book outside a minute ago. The will to destroy and a mind that knew magic well enough to set the world on fire. It was a hell of a combination and one that she was still surprised to find in a pony of all creatures. ”I stole the Element of Magic and transformed into a she-demon, destroyed half the school and successfully enslaved a couple of hundred humans to my will.” That was what Sunset had told her that first day, back in the barn at the horse park. The school rumor mill was lousy with stories about Sunset’s ‘transformation,’ but it was something all the students talked about as if it happened to someone else and was merely re-told to them. None of them could give a consistent tale, let alone say how the event started or ended. It was one of the more frustrating holes in the little research she’d forced Sonata to do when they first found Canterlot High. ”I’m not your average goody-goody pony.” Adagio came to a stop near the wall, scanning her reflection in the glass doors of the cases. Sunset was far from what she’d ever known when it came to pony mares. They were all sweet and bubbly, always looking for friends and ways to help. And then there was Sunset. The pony that stole. The pony that tried to conquer an alien world. The pony that lied and cheated and had the most perfectly kissable lips in the world. Adagio’s frown softened and she shoved her hands into her pockets. She could think about that part later. Right now, she needed to know just how the magic in the human world worked. It didn’t—or hadn’t—responded to her voice, but there had to be something else. “Sunset triggered it a minute ago and didn’t even notice it.” She sighed. “Nose bleeds don’t look good on her, but those black eyes…that I could get used to.” Adagio tapped the toe of her boot against the school floor. “Full on she-demon, hmm?” No sooner than she finished saying that when the bathroom door opened with a painfully loud creak in the quiet atrium, and Sunset walked out with a paper towel pressed against her face. Adagio bit her lip, watching the other girl move while Sunset continued to dry her face. “Better?” “Yeah, thanks.” Sunset crumpled up the towel, wiping under her eyes before tossing it into an open trash can. “Listen, while I was washing my face, I had an idea; why not try using your voice to activate the magic here at the school?” The siren rolled her eyes. “You think I haven’t tried that already?” “But did you try it here?” Sunset grinned, hooking a thumb over her shoulder. “Plus, CHS has a pretty well stocked AV room, if you want musical accompaniment.” “It hasn’t worked yet.” Adagio growled, facing her reflection in the glass case. “But I suppose it’s worth a try, I mean, what have I got to lose at this point, right?” “Right.” Sunset beamed at Adagio and spun around. “Sorry about flaking out back there, I was operating under the assumption that the portal would be there. I’ve gotten so used to it since Princess Twilight figured out how to open it off schedule. I was so focused on getting us there, I completely missed the part about taking the ‘doorstop’ factor of the journals out and it slamming closed as a result.” Adagio huffed, keeping her mouth shut as Sunset rambled and led them on to whatever she thought might help things along. She watched the former pony out of the corner of her eyes, looking out for any hint of magic. Surely, she has to know more about the magic here and how to turn it on? Adagio ducked her head when they turned a corner and she saw several other teenagers at the far end of the hallway. “Do we have to go past them? I’d like to avoid uncomfortable questions.” “Or an angry mob.” “That too.” Adagio pulled up her hood, stuffing her mass of curls into the back of it. Thankfully, the weekend students were busy waiting around for a class to open and didn’t take any notice of them. Soon they rounded another corner into an empty hallway lined with lockers and empty classrooms. Near the far end of the hallway, right before reaching the big doors that would lead out to trailer classes and the back parking lot, Sunset stepped over to an unmarked door. She tested the handle, making it rattle, but the door refused to open. “Damn, it’s locked.” “So now what?” Adagio frowned at Sunset and the door for a moment. She huffed, pinching the skin between her eyes and stared down at her feet and the school’s worn tiles. “This whole thing is turning into a bust, Sunset. Given both our past experiences with plans that aren’t working out, I say we cut and run and try this again later. We can...I dunno...go back to your place, or send a message to the Princess pony to put the book back? I don’t want to face Aria without a clear advant—” Adagio looked up, eyes wide with surprise when she heard the distinct click of the door opening. She blinked at Sunset’s smug grin while the redhead slipped a plastic card back into a black netted wallet. “Wait...did you just…?” Sunset nodded, pocketing her wallet and zippering the pocket closed again. “CHS is actually pretty dated. Almost all of the internal doors have a simple latch lock. No deadbolts, alarms, or anything that’ll stop a girl filled with determination and some practice.” Adagio slowly picked her jaw up off the floor, eyeing Sunset Shimmer critically. It was becoming increasing clear that this was not a pony she could afford to underestimate again. And she has to do it all with that look on her face...that cute, smug, little smirk. Be careful Adagio, you could fall for somepony like this. A part of her had to wonder if that would be such a bad thing. Inside the room was almost as big as the normal classrooms, and included the usual spartan furnishings such as a big desk in one corner for a teacher and a blackboard covering most of the front wall. Unlike a regular classroom however, there were no student desks, but long tables instead, all of them covered with a barely organized collection of spare monitors, loose speakers of multiple sizes, cables by the mile, mics, and something that looked like an old record player. Sunset walked in first, putting her fist on her hips while she surveyed the mess. “Okay, let’s see what we can use here.” She paced in between the tables, lightly running her fingers over the dusty electronics. “Some of it hasn’t left this room since I first came here, and the Principal is just as bad as her Princess counterpart when it comes to not throwing away junk properly.” Adagio smirked, pushing the door closed. “Are you calling your Princess a hoarder? I’ve heard worse, but that feels kind of damning, to be be honest.” “If we find cursed 8-track tapes in here, I wouldn’t exactly be surprised.” Sunset stopped at one of the desks and lifted a microphone the size of her head, its metallic grill starting to rust along the edges. “One of them keeps obviously dangerous magic objects for centuries in places where any foal could come across them. The other keeps tech so outdated that somepony from a pre-industrial society is embarrassed for her.” Adagio raised an eyebrow, wandering slowly into the room, her path taking her past the unlevel shelving that lined the room’s three non-blackboarded walls. Human electronics weren’t a subject she stayed in touch with much. So long as it worked, she didn’t much care how it worked or what it looked like. Most of the time during their exile, Adagio had the human thralls deal with it for her. She did have to admit that their technological advancements were interesting, and useful most of the time, but she also found herself to be a slow adopter of whatever new gadget everyone seemed to go gah gah over. Still she knew enough to identify some of the plastic junk. Most of it was, again, useless to her in this situation. What she needed was some sort of radio with loud speakers, or maybe some sort of playback device. Adagio’s eyes skipped from one useless piece of obsolete trash to another, until they landed on a large, black, rectangular object she hadn’t seen the like of in years. “Like a boombox…” Her voice was quiet, a smile on her lips as she remembered a time from decades past when such radios would blast loud music from nearly every corner and at one informal event after another. Times when the sirens had fed well and the opportunity to take new thralls was plentiful. “What?” Sunset paused where she was, a cardboard box in her hands. Adagio grabbed the huge block-shaped boombox and hefted it from the bottom shelf where she’d found it to the top of the nearest table. She pushed a box full of snapped headphone sets aside and spun the radio around to inspect the knobs and buttons that operated it. Everything seemed intact, the buttons under the dual tape decks clicking with a satisfying sound and resistance. But when she flipped the power switch, the box remained dark and lifeless. “Broken? Or are the batteries just dead?” Adagio flipped the switch a few times, but that changed nothing. She spun the boombox around again and tilted it onto its front, working open the small hatch that led to the battery compartment. “Where the heck would we even find batteries for this old relic anyway? No one carries nine volts anymore.” “Wanna bet?” Sunset grinned, tipping the box she held. Inside it was a loose pile of batteries of all sizes, including some very niche sizes. She reached in and pulled out a thick cylinder that looked like it could be used like a weapon just as easily as it could power certain things. “How many does it need?” “Uh,” Adagio popped the cover off the boombox, peeking inside, “four of ‘em” She looked up just in time to awkwardly catch the batteries as they came sailing through the air at her. “Hey! Those things could have hurt me!” “But they didn’t, did they?” Sunset dropped the battery box back onto the table. She grinned and squatted down to check inside the other unmarked cardboard boxes that sat on the floor. “You get it powered up, I’ll see if I can find those tape things it plays.” “Cassettes, Shimmer.” Adagio growled to herself and started to put the batteries into the boombox. She worked at it for a moment until the batteries were properly aligned and placed the cover back. She spun the radio back around to face her and when she flipped the power switch this time, the set rewarded her with static coming from the built-in speakers. When Adagio looked back up, Sunset was just standing again with another open box. “These?” The redhead turned, the box in her hand rattling with row after row of plastic cases and magnetic tape. She tilted the box, like the batteries before, to show the siren the contents. “Those look like a bunch of marching band tracks. What is wrong with this place? Do none of you know what makes good music?” “Well, that thing is a radio, Dagi, why don’t you pick something, hmm?” Sunset frowned. The siren’s insistence of her apparent poor taste in music was annoying, but if they were going to make this work, she had a feeling that Adagio would have to be in the zone to get the magic to respond to her. I bet she’s just being a snob about this. Pick something and let’s see what you got already. She folded her arms and leaned back against the table, the blonde girl already starting to twist the largest of the knob. The static popped and hissed, ghosts of words appearing and vanishing again before they could be identified. Sunset’s frown softened at the edges while the dial spun up the frequencies from the public broadcasting upper eighties to the commercial stations in the mid-nineties. The words were joined by flashes of music. Snippets of pop and rock. Country and rap. Band after band of FM signals until Adagio reached the end of the tuner. Then the girl started back in the other direction. “Oh just pick something!” Sunset huffed in mostly mock exasperation. “Stop being so damn picky.” “I’ll be picky if I want to be...I’m trying to decide if I want to try singing or dancing.” “Wait.” Sunset dropped her arms to hold the edge of the table and leaned forward. “Sirens can do magic by dancing?” “No, but we’re trying out unpredictable magic in the air, right? I like dancing, so maybe it’ll respond or whatever.” Adagio smirked, making small twists to the boombox tuner until a station playing salsa music came in crystal clear. “I might try both.” Adagio tapped her foot to the beat, patting her hip with one hand in-time with the steel guitar melody. She closed her eyes, letting the music wash over her and wrap itself around her like a sweet embrace, until she could feel it on her skin. Dancing wasn’t so much a conscious action as it was relinquishing control over your body and letting rhythm, momentum and gravity work their own sort of magic. She ran her fingers up through her bangs, pushing away her reservations at the same time. This will work. Just do what comes natural. Adagio felt the beat of the song build, rising higher, and her body followed. Her hips led the way, swinging out and widening her stance. Her arms, already raised, kept languidly rising, counter-balancing her swaying lower body. The drums dictated the orbit of her pelvis, driving her to motion with every muscle moving in sync. It had been a while since she’d last danced to music other than her own. Years ago, when the fashion trends had been much more angular and everyone had huge hair, Adagio had stepped out on stage, Sonata and Aria at her side, and wowed the crowd. She could hear the roar of approval, smell the hot, wet air and tropical flowers. She could see her companions out of the corner of her eyes, moving in perfect step with her. Oh how the crowd had cheered, chanting the names they’d carried that decade. The entire amphitheater rocked with them, locked on the moves of three hungry sirens. They’d eaten well that night and gained new thralls to replace the old as they moved up the coast in a slow crawl that kept the humans from getting too suspicious. They were powerful back then. Adored. And she was the center of attention, the focus of all that adoration. It made her feel alive. Adagio’s eyes snapped open when she felt something familiar and electric zap across her. She froze in place, the feeling passing almost instantaneously. The hollow of her throat felt raw, exposed in the absence of her jewel like it hadn’t since the night of the Battle. That fleeting feeling of power. Magic. Gone again, just like when the gem had shattered. But it was there, even if only for that split second. It was there. She felt it. Sunset was watching her, arms folded. Sunset hadn’t noticed it. Maybe it was too quick, too subtle. But she had triggered it. But how damn it? What was it about that time that activated it when all the other times had been dismal failures? I’ve willed it, sang it, and now I’ve even tried dancing like a moron in a glorified closet! The beat continued to thump quickly, the horns and strings bouncing along towards the song’s climax, but Adagio slowed to a halt, turning the last minute over in her mind. I’m at the school this time. Sunset’s mumbojumbo about it being rich with magic seems to be right. But is that it? I get the feeling if I was just singing at myself in the bathroom mirror, nothing would happen, so what’s the key here? Sunset raised her eyebrows when Adagio stopped dancing, but she kept her mouth shut. Adagio was thinking pretty hard about something and she didn’t want to throw off the siren if Adagio figured out how to tap into the magic field around them. Plus, she had to admit, she liked watching the blonde move to the music. “Grrr…” Adagio clenched her fists. “What was it? What was it about that memory specifically?” Was it being with Sonata and Aria? No, that would be stupid. We weren’t at each others’ throats at the time, but it’s not like we were on good terms either. Besides them not being here...what else is different? Of course it wasn’t the same place, or the same time of day, and she wasn’t on stage. The boombox wasn’t equal to a concert-level sound system. Sunset was a tiny audience compared to the thousands in the amphitheater. The other girl wasn’t even interacting with her besides watching. She wasn’t in control here as she’d been there, directing the crowd with the turn of her flank. “Wait…” Adagio looked up again, the song reaching its conclusion and being replaced on the air by a voice speaking rapidly about a carwash or something. “What? Did you figure out something?” Sunset pushed herself off the table, smiling expectantly. “Maybe, but I think I need to try something a little different.” Adagio smirked and walked around the table the boombox was sitting on so that she was on the same side of the room as Sunset. The space between the rows of storage cabinets and tables was tighter here, but she wasn’t going to need much room. She just needed Sunset to be able to see all of her. That and the right musical accompaniment. Thankfully, the commercial about the carwash was a short break and the boombox’s speakers started to thrum with the sad whine of a single violin. “I have commanded the attention of millions.” The violin’s long drawn out whine drew out Adagio’s leg, toe out to trace a line between them. “Do you understand that, Sunset?” Sunset’s smile faded a little, her eyes on Adagio’s boot. Drums crashed suddenly, silencing the violin, the music crashing down like a wave. Just as suddenly, the siren crossed the line she’d traced a moment earlier, Adagio’s eyes inches from her own and just as intense as the rumble coming from the old radio. Memories from their fight the night before flashed in her mind, but even though she was surprised, Sunset didn’t feel threatened. “Sway with me.” Adagio took the girl’s hands in her own, chest to chest with the former pony. She pulled Sunset away from the table, keeping them tightly together. The beat thundered. “I was a force of nature.” Trumpets burst from the rolling beat, rising high and fast. “I was desired.” Strings spread below the brass and the first violin returned with a joy that filled the air as Adagio’s hand ran up Sunset’s arm and then down her back. “Everyone wanted to be me when I was on stage.” The siren turned Sunset on her heel, one leg out for the pony’s weight to rest against when she bent the redhead back. Sunset responded by arching her back, kicking her own leg upward and onto Adagio’s shoulder. They reversed, Adagio leading, Sunset spinning on her toes in the other direction in a perfect pirouette as piano joined the tangled tango of instruments. Red and gold swirled around each other to the quickening tempo. The morning sunlight seemed to makes Adagio’s blonde curls glow, just along the edges of Sunset’s vision. The dance was something she’d never expected. When they’d left her place an hour ago, she’d assumed they would be in Equestria by now, combing through Princess Twilight’s library for something about siren magic. Maybe she’d have to keep the ponies in Ponyville from seeing the huge carnivorous sea monster in their midsts and would have comically gotten buried in Adagio’s scaled coils. That’s what Sunset had honestly expected. Not dancing. Certainly not dancing with Adagio Dazzle. But she could understand what the siren meant. She could see how this creature had held the attention of countless humans through the ages. Sunset couldn’t fault them, either. Adagio was captivating. The sounds the siren made. The moves Adagio was showing off, it was the thing human or pony celebrities would dream of. And she wanted more of it. More of whatever Adagio would give her. Adagio smiled fiercely. The sunlight, the music, Sunset, all of it flowing around her was a familiar feeling. The gleam in Sunset’s eyes was one she’d grown to love so much, but seeing it in those bottomless blues was all the more powerful to her. She might have commanded the attention of millions, but the only one she cared about right now was the pony glued to her in the dance. All she wanted was to prove to Sunset that she still had it in her. They moved like a single unit, where Adagio led, Sunset followed. Bodies twisting to the music. Hearts beating with the rhythm. Eyes locked on each other. The song seemed to stretch on forever and world was reduced to nothing but the two of them. But the tempo kept climbing to its climax, and their movements followed. Adagio felt warm and light, free in a way she hadn’t felt in a long time. Sunset was molded to her comfortably, flowing along naturally with only the slightest bit of guidance. Adagio gazed into those blue eyes, her voice bubbling up from inside her and riding the boombox’s music. “This is what I am, This is who I want to be. Where we are now, Just sway with me.” “On the stage, in the sea, Just stay with me. I’ll show you how To dance and swim and everything between.” The drums stopped, the piano, strings, and trumpets falling off so their final notes faded until just the single violin remained. Sunset’s heart, however, was still jackhammering so hard in her chest, she was sure Adagio could feel it. Their dance came to a stop, and she was suddenly very aware of how she was being held by the siren and just how close they were. She could feel Adagio breathing hard, see the girl’s intensity plain on that gorgeous face. Sunset tied to swallow the lump in her throat, tilting her head and licked her suddenly dry lips. Motes of dust, set aglow by the sun and a-flight by their dance, floated in front of Sunset’s eyes. They added a almost fairy-like quality to the moment, the golden glow from the motes blending seamlessly with the glow coming off Adagio. She knew she should say something about that, but speaking wasn’t what she felt she should really be doing with her mouth. A moment later, Adagio agreed with her, leaning in to take Sunset’s lips and breath away. It was a quick thing, the kiss. Lips pressed against lips, forming a seal and a bond. Electricity passed between them and then it was over. They pulled apart slowly, lips sticking together as long as possible until the elasticity fully separated them. But for all the moment’s quickness, just like the dance before it, it lingered in both of their thoughts overshadowing all else. “Sunset?” “Hmm?” “You have a weird look on your face.” Adagio smirked, her voice low. In the background she vaguely processed the fact that the music had once again given way to some commercials. “What are you thinking about?” “That you look good with those gossamer wings.” Adagio blinked wide eyes at Sunset, turing the girl’s words over in her head. That was when she noticed she couldn’t feel the floor under her. Adagio looked back over her shoulder. Peeking out from under her even more massive curls were a set of semi-transparent wings. They were almost like a combination of butterfly wings and her natural fins and flukes. There was a large primary wing, as well as a smaller secondary wing, each with a scalloped edge like her siren fins. She’d only even seen the wings once before, but they felt completely natural to her. Like a body part she’d always had, but was only just realizing it. “I never noticed they were striped like that.” Sunset murmured, mostly to herself, her eyes tracing the darker pinkish bands that repeated through the wings. The coloration reminded her more of tropical fish than insects. “I couldn’t see them that well from up on the hill at the battle. They’re beautiful, Adagio. They suit you.” Adagio nodded vaguely at that, her sudden transformation just as hard to digest as the way she was holding Sunset. For a moment, she couldn’t tell which she was more okay with, but as soon as she thought about it, the magic seemed unimportant. It was natural. Inevitable that she would get her power back. But kissing a girl she’d tried to destroy on more than one occasion? That seemed like the more weighty situation of the two. She glanced back at Sunset. The pony was still looking at her wings and new ears. Relaxing comfortably in my arms. What’s up with that? What’s up with me? Did I...did we...really just do that? They’d danced. She’d sang. Then there was that little kiss. No more than a peck on the lips. But it was more than that. At least to her. Adagio was willing to bet it was more to Sunset too, but how was she supposed to approach that conversation? I liked it. I liked it a lot. Do I tell her that? She didn’t want to get her hopes up over another girl. Another mare. Sunset was simply a means to an end. Adagio shut her eyes tight, grimacing, and touched down on the AV room’s floor once more. She needed to nip this in the bud before things got out of hand and she was alone again. “Adagio?” The siren opened her eyes and stood them up straight. She set her jaw, her hands on Sunset’s waist. She drank in those blue eyes and tried to not listen to her heart. “Sunset, listen...I like—” She was cut off by a loud snort from behind, accompanied by a bright flash. “‘Ju get it?” “Uhuh...yep!” There was another flash. Snickering laughter in broken pitched voices erupted from the doorway to the hallway. As one, Sunset and Adagio turned slowly to see the door open partially with two hands holding smartphones extended through. Even as they watched, the phone’s cameras flashed again. “I got ‘em kissin’ an’ everything!” Sunset swallowed roughly and pushed Adagio off of her, her blood running cold. “Snips? Snails? What the hay are you two doing here?”