//------------------------------//
// ...so at one point you meet up for no reason at all... 
// Story: Blue Sunny Days and Pink Lemonade 
// by Masterweaver 
//------------------------------//

"...Oh." Lemon looked around. "Right. Sonata's looking for her sisters."

"Mmmhmm."

"...well crud. I was hoping to ask if wavetongue had a word for fruit."

"Doubt it. Kelp and all that. Your best bet is yellow-sour-land-plant-egg of lively-taste or something on those lines."

"I'll check the notes and see if I can make something like that."

Sunny sipped her coffee. "Why are you still worried about that? We've already finished our paper."

"I don't know, why are we even here if we're not going to be working on wavetongue?"

"Do you have anything better to do?"

Lemon shrugged. "I mean, I could go visit my cousin, but the sanatorium doesn't like it when I drop in without warning."

Sunny quirked an eyebrow. "Principal Cinch is a mother?"

"And a grandmother, technically. Dean Cadence is..." Lemon trailed off for a moment. "...Let's just say her situation is complex."

"It's very unusual for you to show restraint," Sunny mused. "You generally only do that if you feel serious mental imbalance is involved. I suppose I can understand in this instance--Dean Cadence is quirky, but not imbalanced in any significant way."

“Yeah.”

The two of them sat quietly at the table, not really looking at anything for a moment or two.

“...You know what bugs me?” Lemon finally managed.

“Any semblance of order?”

“Why do pirates bury their treasure?”

Sunny Flare blinked. “I’m... sorry?”

“I mean, you go out, raid a merchant ship, get this great haul, and then... instead of spending it off in some way, you just stick it in a beach somewhere. What’s up with that?” Lemon asked. “What’s the point?”

“Money laundering.”

Lemon blinked. “Wait, what?”

“A boat comes in and says ‘Captain Knotbeard stole treasure from us! Look, here’s what’s missing from our manifest!’ Then two days later, a man with a tangled goatee comes in with exactly the stuff that was lost. Instant noose.” Sunny sipped her coffee again. “By hiding the wealth for a bit, say two to three months, our pirate captain lets his crime fade from the public memory while still preserving the wealth. Or so the theory goes, anyway.”

“Oh. Huh. That makes a lot of sense, actually.”

“You do realize real pirates mostly stole things like food and sailcloth and other practical materials, right? The whole treasure-burying thing is made up whole cloth.”

Lemon Zest gave her a flat look. “Yes, I know that. I’m not stupid. I’m asking why a theoretical pirate with treasure would bury his chest of gold, not suggesting that the pirate in question is anything more then theoretical.”

“Why are we even talking about this?” Sunny asked. “It’s... what is the point?”

“The point is just two friends talking about stuff, you know.” Lemon shrugged. "Not every meeting has to have some large dramatic impact. We can just chat about nothing in particular."

"Like the weather."

"Yeah, that's a conversation starter."

"I've never really liked weather conversations. It feels like..." Sunny Flare gestured vaguely. "Like, I don't know... it's sort of vapid. Why talk about something that's not really that important."

"Hurricanes, typhoons, tornadoes--"

"Okay, that is reducto ad absurdium and, as a matter of fact, not really weather in the sense of casual talking about weather. They're weather events, tragedies--it's not like you'd just open up a conversation with 'so how bout that twister we had last week, eh?'"

Lemon Zest smirked. "I'm pretty sure they do in the south."

"Oh, there's a stereotype. Next you'll be saying that the apple girl drives a truck."

"No, she does, she actually does." The pink girl leaned forward. "I honestly think she's trying to act as stereotypical as possible because she feels it connects her to her parents."

"She can't just talk to them?"

"They're dead."

Sunny Flare took a slow breath. "I... see."

"Nah, it's cool. I think it is. It's not like it happened recently, it's one of those things that she's incorperated into her worldview." Lemon shrugged. "Like my brother. I miss him sometimes, but--"

She noticed the way the other girl was gripping her cup.

"Oh. Right. Your parents are dead too, aren't they..."

"Yes." Sunny Flare gave her a flat look. "And if you know what's good for you, you will drop the subject right now."

"Ooookay, no-tread-zone." Lemon fiddled with her hair awkwardly. "So, um... if you ever need to talk to somebody--"

"I have a therapist, thank you."

"If you ever need to talk to somebody as a friend--"

Sunny Flare leveled a tight expression on Lemon Zest.

"...I'll... trust you to find somebody to talk to."

"Good."

Lemon Zest let out a slow breath. "Um. Just... I know you want me to drop this, and I will, but... you know, you kind of seemed okay to talk about them before--with the, uh, walking in on them memories."

Sunny Flare sighed. "Lemon, look, I... There's a time and a place for that. And while I'll admit you aren't necessarily the worst person to be pouring my heart out to, you certainly aren't the best, and frankly I don't want to be unloading my issues at the moment. I just want to..."

She trailed off.

"...just hang out?" Lemon suggested.

"Yes. That."

"Mmm." Lemon nodded. "You know, it's been a while since the Shadowbolts hung out. I mean, as a group."

"Yes, well, after the friendship games--"

"No, I mean I get that. I do. But... I don't know. Maybe there's something we can do, some big gettogether we can have."

"You mean like a convention?"

"No no no," Lemon held her hands out, "conventions are all... themed, and for everyone? I mean something more like a party. Yeah, a party, for the bolts. I don't know."

"Summer vacation's starting soon," Sunny Flare pointed out. "Maybe... maybe we could do something then."

"Probably not right off the bat, I... I kind of want to help Auntie Abby finish with her packing." She sighed. "I mean, you know, she's not the best, but she is..."

"She's family." Sunny Flare nodded. "I understand. I certainly put up with a lot from my own aunt."

"Yeah?"

"Crescent is..." Sunny sighed. "Auntie Crescent is basically every 'Girls Gone Wild' story rolled into one very loving fool."

"You're kidding. You've got to be kidding."

"One time I came home to find my bed broken. She told me she'd filmed porn on it."

"Oh my fucking god, are you serious?!" Lemon tried, and failed, to keep a grin off her face. "That's horrible!"

"Mmm. Granted, she did buy me a new bed. And sheets. And used the money she made from the porn vid to pay for a computer upgrade I wanted. Apparently that was the whole reason she decided to do the video--she didn't just want to use her inheritance to buy it, she wanted to earn the money to show she loved me."

"That... is... actually very sweet, in a very twisted way."

"Yeah, there are worse people to have as your legal guardian." Sunny Flare rolled her eyes. "Let me tell you about the time I found her naked in the park with five other people..."