Chapter 4: Party All Day (Or Night Depending on Your Level of Maturity)
Pinkie Pie’s weekend was like almost any other weekend. It was full of fun party-oriented activities for someone in particular, whether they liked it or not. Today, she was planning a very special party for her guest who should be here any second. That is if all of the calls she’d been receiving all day warning her about Adagio Dazzle’s “Friendship Adventure” were to be believed.
It was getting late in the day, and the sun had begun to set already. But Pinkie Pie wasn’t concerned. Adagio would come. They always did. ALWAYS.
*KNOCK KNO-
“HI ADAGIO!”
Dazzle flailed wildly backwards as her knock was interrupted by so much good cheer she thought she’d stepped on a Christmas mine. She was saved by the indignity of falling on her behind, however, as Pinkie Pie grabbed one of her flailing arms and dragged her into the house, only to be encountered by another, far worse indignity.
Giant party hats.
Pinkie’s sisters had all gathered around a table in their kitchen, which looked to be decorated with any and all kind of sugary treat. Each of them was wearing some form of party hat or another: Limestone and Marble sported the classic conehead look, while Maud had somehow found a plastic glittery tophat that matched her steel-blue dress. Pinkie, naturall, was wearing a party cone ON TOP of a bright pink tophat. Before Adagio could react, protest, or otherwise acknowledge her situation, she had bestowed upon her a much smaller cone hat that sat daintily off to the side of her now snake-free but rather frazzled hair.
“Uh-oof!” Adagio declared, as a chair was pushed into the back of her legs. She fell into it as Pinkie pushed her up to the table. “Um… hello?”
The other, significantly more stoic girls just waved politely, though Marble offered a small smile. Party girl, on the other hand, was all about the greeting.
“Ohmigosh Adagio I’m so glad you came by I heard you were trying to make friends so I thought maybe we could ALL be friends and I made cake and cookies and stuff but I didn’t know if you were allergic to anything I mean I don’t even know if sirens can have sugar or human food or are you even still a siren now I mean-”
“Pinkie?” Adagio tried to interrupt, to no avail.
“-we did kind of take all your magic away but I don’t know really what else happened cause you girls were all like ‘La LA la La lA’ with your bad singing-”
Adagio’s eyebrow twitched. “Pinkie.”
“-and I thought maybe a musical theme to your party but I didn’t know if you still even liked music or if that would make you sad or whatever and I totally didn’t want my new friend to be sad-”
Adagio softened up a little. “Oh, Pinkie,” she tried, but the pink girl was on a roll with no signs of stopping.
“-so I thought maybe we could have like a sexy party cause you’re all about being sexy-” to which Adagio just shrugged and smiled, garnering a few eye rolls from the other sisters “-but then I thought my parents would get SUPER mad if we did that cause they can be kind of strict or whatever but mostly they’re just not as big into parties as I am so I thought maybe just like sugar and party hats cause you’ve been doing a lot of running and you need your energy and so I threw a sugar party and I called it ‘Adagio’s Excellent Friendship Adventure Party’!”
Adagio waited for a moment to see if Pinkie was going to start talking again, then noticed everyone was looking at her for a response. She coughed, and straightened herself in her chair. “Well, Pinkie Pie, I must admit you did surprise me. I do have to ask, though, why are your sisters here? I MEAN I KNOW THEY LIVE HERE,” Adagio added, with a little more force than necessary, before Pinkie could give some kind of sarcastic answer.
Maud, to Adagio’s surprise, spoke up first. “I like it when Pinkie throws parties. It makes her happy, and I like seeing her happy.” The siren was sure it was supposed to be a heartfelt statement, but Maud’s delivery was so deadpan and dry it might as well have been automated.
Marble raised her hand politely, and squeaked out, “Well, Pinkie Pie says you and Rarity made friends, and Rarity’s always nice to me, so I thought maybe you weren’t… all bad?”
“I just wanted cake for dinner,” Limestone chipped in, reaching slowly for the cake knife.
Pinkie swatted her hand. “Nuh-uh! You know the rules, guests get the first slice!” She cut a large swath of what Adagio noticed to be some kind of yellow cake with orange frosting, the same color as her hair. There were even frosting balloons on the cake, in the same shade of purple as her regular outfit. Given their minimal contact with each other, The siren was impressed to see how well Pinkie had remembered. Flattered, even.
A large slice of the two-layer cake was put in front of her with a typical plastic fork, and Dazzle noticed none of the other girls had taken a bite. It appeared as though they were waiting for their guest to try it first.
Now, Adagio had heard rumors of Pinkie Pie’s culinary expertise. Stories of the Mona Lisa cake had circulated wildly through the school after the Friendship Games, and any time she threw a party the next Monday was all about how much fun they’d had and how good the food was. But nothing could have prepared her for the sugary lemon daydream that was the first bite. As if a heavenly orchard had bloomed in her head, all of her senses were inundated with a soft yellow haze as the buttery confection melted on her tongue.
“So? DO you like it? Huh? Huh?”
“Mrrmmmblgrgblrmmmmm…..” Adagio muttered, taking another bite almost on autopilot.
“I think that means ‘yes’ Pinkie,” quipped Limestone as she cut herself a slice.
The next couple of hours floated by in a sugary daydream.
---------------------------------------------
“Oh, my god….” Adagio grumbled, holding her poor stomach as she walked home. “I ate too many everything. Why did it all taste so goooood…. Even the hot sauce cupcakes were fantastic.”
Trailing along at a snail’s pace, she walked under the light of the streetlamps, it being well past sunset now. In her current overstuffed condition, she figured she’d make it home in about half an hour or so, provided she didn’t stop to rest. Which of course she did, at the first bench she could find. Throwing herself onto the public seat, she closed her eyes and relaxed for a moment, giving herself time to digest.
She found, however, that the bench was partially occupied. “Hello,” said a dry voice. If she didn’t know better, Adagio would have sworn one of the Pie sisters had followed her. She opened an eye and rolled it in her socket to see a familiar girl: the blue-skinned, pigtailed student she’d been crossing paths with all day. She was sitting on the bench, reading a book by streetlight.
“Oh, hello. Not bothering you, am I?” Dazzle grumbled, half-sarcastic.
“No. Good to see you aren’t running screaming. Also your hair looks less disastrous now.”
Adagio ran a hand through her copious curls. One of the girls had taken to brushing her hair and helping her clean up a bit while they “partied”. Or, more accurately, ate way too much sugar and talked a lot. “Well, thank you. Who are, you, anyway? I’ve seen you around town almost all day. And why are you out here reading a book at this hour, anyway?”
Sugarcoat closed her novel and set it on the bench beside her. “My house is kind of rowdy right now. I’ve been spending all day trying to get away from the noise while my parents are renovating. It’s hard to read while your dad tries to install a pool by himself.”
Dazzle flinched. “Now that sounds disastrous.”
“It is,” Sugar agreed. “Although I must admit I’m more curious as to what you’ve been doing all day. Besides the running and screaming and snakes, that is.”
Tapping her chin thoughtfully, Adagio mused, “That’s actually most of it, unfortunately. I’ve been… trying to make friends. Dealing with the same two people over and over got much too old, and I thought It would be easier than it’s worked out to be.”
“And you’ve been at this all day? When did you plan on calling it quits?”
Adagio puffed up proudly, just for a second. “It became something of a challenge for me, partway through. Trying to see how many people I could get along with in one day.”
Sugarcoat smiled slightly. “And your results?”
Her answer at first was a rather impressive sigh. “Well, first I found out hitting on people doesn’t work. Then I found out I don’t like science. After that I got run out by a bunch of fruit elitists. Then chased down the road by a couple of homicidal parents. I did seem to connect with Rarity pretty well, and had a much needed spa day. Which of course was instantly offset by having a bunch of snakes thrown at me. Gardener snakes, of course, nothing dangerous, but mighty scary. Then I ate way too much sugar. And now I’m just trying to get home without passing out from rapid-onset diabetes.”
“I think I would have cut my losses after the first time I ran down the street screaming my head off,” Sugar mused.
Dazzle shook her head, embarrassed. “Today was not one of my finer moments. I’m still not sure if I want to go home yet or not, though, given what’s probable waiting for me there. Speaking of which, what about you? I don’t think they allow people to perform construction at this hour, so maybe your house has quieted down by now?”
The eye roll she received in response was rather impressive. “You have not met my father.”
“That bad?”
“Worse.”
The siren cringed. “Wow. I’d invite you over to my place, but I don’t suspect you’d get any sleep their, either.
Sugarcoat shrugged. “That’s ok. I have a friend coming to pick me up in a few minutes. I’m spending the night at her place-” her sentence was cut off by a car horn not too far away. She looked up and saw a familiar face sticking out of a car window.
“Hey, come on, Sugar! The movie’s gonna start soon!” Yelled the boisterous blue-haired girl.
Adagio raised an eyebrow at the newcomer. “That’s your friend? I thought you wanted some piece and quiet.”
Sugar stood up, picking up her novel. “She’s not as bad as she sounds. Plus she tends to pass out relatively early. Well, it was nice meeting you.”
Dazzle nodded with a smile. “Agreed. Hopefully I don’t have to run the gauntlet like I did today to see you again.”
“Hey Sugar! If you’re gonna lez it up with Goldilocks over there just bring her with!” The begoggled girl yelled from the car, honking the horn again.
“Still not a lesbian, Indigo,” Sugar called back. Then she turned to Adagio. “Well, it appears you have an open invitation. And I believe you said something about not wanting to go home?”
“Oh my GOD yes,” Adagio all but cheered, standing up a little too quick. Sugar watched with amusement as the bushy-haired girl gained her balance with little grace. “What movie are we watching, anyway?” the siren asked, eager both to avoid the long walk home, and her chaotic sisters for a whole night.
“Knowing Indigo, probably something horror,” Sugar guessed, as they piled into the car.
Adagio had just buckled her seatbelt when Indigo tore out of the lot. “Hold onto your tits, girls!”
“……..aaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH………”
Sugarcoat raised an eyebrow as Adagio experienced Indigo’s driving for the first time. “Yeah, that’s par for the course.”