The alarm sounded, but Moondancer was already awake. In fact, she hadn’t slept at all. Her anxieties and doubts had kept her up all night. She just turned it off and stayed in bed. She had some classes that day, but who cares? Nothing she was gonna do from now on will matter. Not to her and especially not to anyone else.
What was the point of keeping up with the world if she never goes out? What’s the point of looking nice if nobody ever pays attention to her? The only thing she bothered to do was take her meds. No use in tacking on any more anxiety and imbalances onto the pile of crap she’s currently experiencing.
She just laid there under the covers, completely motionless, staring at the ceiling. Maybe if she stayed like this she could die in peace. Of course, the universe liked to fuck with her, because there was knocking on the door.
“Hey? Moondancer? Are you in there?” Her roommate called out from the hall.
There was no use in keeping quiet. The jock was always persistent.
“Yes!” She shouted at her.
“You okay? I realized that you hadn’t gotten your morning coffee. I don’t think you even set it up last night.”
“I didn’t. And I don’t plan on anymore.”
“Well okay? I’m going to soccer practice so Sonata is gonna stay behind, alright.”
Rainbow left without getting a reply. She wasn’t going to get one anyways. At least the dorm room was mostly quiet, aside from the tv being on. That vagrant at least had manners.
Moondancer eventually started flipping through her phone, nothing changing from the same old stories. There wasn’t anything that caught her interest, aside from one thing. A news update from the prestigious Antares University regarding its two star students. They had apparently captured a beast that resembled a chimera rampaging about.
That sort of news wasn’t surprising anymore. Cryptids have been popping up all over the country the last few years, and these students have been breaking ground on studying them. As she read through the article, she immediately regret doing so, since there was an imbedded picture. It showed the two girls that caught the monster, with said beast in the background. Moondancer personally knew the girl on the left, Twilight Sparkle.
Twilight and her were so similar growing up. Same interests, same education, same friend group, same aspirations and even the same speech patterns. Twilight went on to Crystal Prep while she decided on home school in hopes of surpassing the standard curriculum. And look at her now. Wallowing in misery while Twilight is practically a celebrity. It probably would’ve made her cry if she wasn’t so angry at the other girl.
How the hell did Sunset Shimmer of all people get into A.U.? She literally had a criminal record! Extortion, assault, coercion and attempted murder! All these are publicly known about her. Her life and aspirations should be over and done with, but she still got picked as one of the annual new students! Sunset’s the happy and successful one and it pissed her off to no end.
There was the sound of something breaking, forcing Moondancer up. Now what? She forced herself out of bed and practically stomped her way to the living area. In the kitchen was Sonata holding a whisk, with broken ceramic on the floor.
“What the hell are you doing?” Dancer pointed at her.
“Ah! I’m sorry! I just needed a plate and I grabbed one but I didn’t notice the smaller one on top and it slipped off and it fell and I’m really sorry!” Sonata blurt out.
Moondancer noticed that the counter was full of a mishmash of ingredients. In fact, it looked like all the cooking ingredients were taken out.
“What are you even trying to make?” She asked.
“Rainbow needed to leave early and I said I could make breakfast on my own, but there aren’t any eggs so I found all these things and I thought maybe I could make some pancakes?” The vagrant said timidly.
“So, Sonata, right?” The girl nodded back to her.” Sonata, we don’t have any pancake mix. None of these things here can possibly make pancakes. If you made something resembling pancakes out of all this stuff, I guarantee it would kill you.”
Sonata just clutched onto the whisk she had, looking downtrodden. Moondancer didn’t like this feeling she was getting. Was it guilt? She shouldn’t be feeling guilty, she just stated a fact. So why can’t she look directly into her eyes?
“We could go buy some instead.” Dancer slipped out. Fuck, why did she go and do that?
“We can!? Let’s go right now!” Sonata exclaimed, a smile back on her face.
“H-hey, calm down, I need to get dressed first.” She said, going back to her room.
As soon as the door closed behind her, she immediately felt like banging her head against a wall. There was absolutely no reason for her to do any of this! Then again, she couldn’t leave that girl completely on her own. She’d burn the whole building down! That’s the reason she decided to be so nice right now. Self-preservation. Moondancer got a clean change of clothes, quickly brushing her hair into a knot and grabbed her keys.
Sonata was just sitting silently, looking at some history show about ancient structures.
“You don’t really make a lot of noise, do you?” Dancer observed.
“My sisters kinda taught me to stay quiet around people in charge.” She replied.
“Oh, where are your sisters right now?”
Sonata just shrugged at her. She was sorry she asked.
“Well come on, we’re going in my car.” Dancer said, leading her out.
They lived on the second floor, so getting to the parking lot was quick. When Moondancer stopped by her car to unlock it, she jumped in shock when the other girl squealed:
“Oh my goooooosh it’s so tinyyyyyyy!”
Dancer knelt down to pick up the keys she dropped.
“Well yeah, I don’t really need anything big with unnecessary space.”
She didn’t expect her small car to actually impress anybody. Moondancer proceeded to unlock the doors, letting the other girl in. It only had two seats, ran on solar energy and had enough trunk space for a week’s worth of groceries. The very model of efficiency.
True to her word, the ride to the supermarket was incredibly silent. Sonata didn’t say anything to her because she didn’t start a conversation. More like she couldn’t start one. The longer it went, the more awkward it got. She thought she would’ve enjoyed it, but it was actually uncomfortable. She had no choice. She turned on the radio.
“Do you like any particular music Sonata?” Dancer asked.
“Any is fine. I like all music.” She replied with a smile.
What’s up with this girl? Moondancer just left it on some pop channel after a little bit of fiddling. To be honest, she personally never found any music she truly liked, which is why the radio was untouched.
“Oh, I love this song!” Sonata said just a few seconds into a song.
“You heard this one before?”
“Nope.”
That smile of hers didn’t falter with that response. This girl literally has nothing going for her yet she rarely lost that smile since moving in.
Thankfully it was noon on a weekday so the parking lot of the supermarket was nearly empty. A nice perk of living in a small town.
“Um, where are we?” Sonata dared to ask.
“The one store that has the most of anything; Junes.”
As soon as they went inside, the siren was in awe. It was normal as far as supermarkets are concerned, but the sheer amount of colorful promotions and advertisements when you step in must be a lot for someone with child-like wonderment.
It took a lot of effort on Moondancer’s part to keep the two of them together, since Sonata kept straying behind ogling whatever random thing caught her eye.
“Hey, what’s this thingy?” The curious girl asked.
“It’s a vacuum cleaner. We don’t need one because we have a hardwood floor.”
“But isn’t all wood hard?”
She shouldn’t be mad, but that somehow made her mad.
They were able to get the pancake mix quickly, as well as some other groceries, including eggs. It was a bit annoying that Sonata kept grabbing a sugary snack with colorful packaging or an appealing animal mascot and asking to have them. Moondancer eventually caved and let her have a couple of cupcakes with a penguin on it.
After paying for the food and leaving the supermarket, Sonata spoke up.
“Do you think we could come back here again?”
“I come here about once a week, so sure.” Why did she keep doing this? Why can't she flat out say no? If she could physically kick herself she would.
“Are we friends?”
Moondancer was about to put the key into the ignition, but paused. This was something that she needed to legitimately think about and carefully pick her answer.
“I don’t know.” She lied.
Dancer didn’t check to see Sonata’s reaction to the answer, afraid to see how she took it. The car ride back was just as quiet, save for the music from the radio. Moondancer’s mind was also having trouble keeping quiet. This whole experience made her question some things about herself.
Arriving at the dorms, they were able to carry all the groceries in one go. Rainbow Dash was already back from soccer practice; her hair still damp from a recent showering.
“Sonata! I figured you went with Dancer somewhere. Bet you had to force her.” Rainbow told them as they set the groceries on the counter.
“Nope! She offered. It was super nice of her too!”
Without even looking, Moondancer knew she was being pointed at as she quickly put away the produce.
“She even said we can do it again.” Sonata continued.
“Wow.” Dash mustered, probably surprised that she showed any compassion. Dancer was already on her way to the room.
“But what about you? Did you have any fun?” Rainbow asked her.
Moondancer turned around, her hand on the handle. It could’ve been easy to just blow her off.
“I did.” She said, closing the door gently.