“Yeah, we have. Bored now.”
In a way, it took enormous effort for Spitfire not to let the first sign of progress in many hours bring a smile with it. In another way, though, she’d been there for many hours, and the boredom was quite sincere. She watched Sonata half-heartedly with a hoof propping her head up on the arm of her chair.
Sonata reached a hoof up to the top of her head and appeared to push it into the crown of her mane. Before Spitfire had much chance to react, Sonata withdrew her hoof again, now holding a folded piece of paper. It was like that time Spitfire had seen a travelling magic show as a filly, only Sonata wasn’t wearing long sleeves to hide anything in.
“This was fun,” Sonata said as she held her hoof outstretched, offering the paper to Twilight, “we should do it again sometime.”
Dumbstruck but nevertheless desperate for any clue that might help, the princess reached for the paper with her magic as if in a trance, unfolding it in the air in front of her. Spitfire meanwhile fretted about what else Sonata might possibly be concealing in her magical mane, but happily couldn’t think of any weapons that small which would prove a serious threat to an alicorn. Unless rumours about certain amulets were to be believed, but even then, weren’t they for unicorns only?
“It’s a letter from Fluttershy,” Twilight said after scanning the first line. Spitfire felt her eyebrow wander upwards of its own accord, and saw the same expression mirrored on Starlight. The princess, now the sole focus of their attention, moved the letter much closer to her eye to peer at it for a few seconds, then added, “It’s definitely her hoofwriting, too.”
Finally, a solid clue! After hours of speculation and fruitless questioning, just the certainty of a letter existing was a huge leap forwards, whatever it said. It might not be reliable, of course, since a pony could be forced to write anything they were told to, but it was definitely something. Nopony in the room made a sound whilst Twilight read through the letter as quickly as she could.
“It says she’s agreed to be teleported across the desert by Adagio Dazzle,” Twilight reported. Adagio was the lead siren, from what Spitfire had gathered from Sonata over the course of the day. Perhaps hoofwriting experts would be able to offer some guidance on how willingly Fluttershy wrote the letter, based on how relaxed her writing looked?
And if it was genuine, then how far could they narrow it down? ‘Desert’ covered most of Equestria south of the Everfree Forest, from San Palomino to Dodge Junction.
“Does it say where?” she asked, not daring to get her hopes up.
“All it says is ‘her castle in the wasteland,’ ” Twilight replied with a frown. Not the most useful of specifics, but it did at least rule some places out. There were no castles in Appleloosa, for example.
“ ‘Wasteland’ could be anywhere,” Starlight said. Spitfire lowered her chin to her chest, regretfully agreeing. Still, a castle wouldn’t be hard to spot from the air, so perhaps pegasus search teams might be able to find something, if enough were sent out.
Starlight finished, “Even my old village could have been described as being in the wasteland.” That was somewhere east of the Neighagra Falls, from what Rainbow had said. So much for just the South. Spitfire felt a tightness in her chest. They would end up having to search half of Equestria! She held herself back from cradling her head in her hooves.
Twilight said, “I guess if you’re being teleported by somepony else, you don’t really need to know the exact address.” Teleporting somepony else was only possible with a buddy system, as far as Spitfire knew, but then, not being a unicorn, she was hardly an expert. So Adagio would have had to teleport into Fluttershy’s cottage, and then holding onto each other Adagio would have teleported them away again. Did it make any practical difference that Adagio had been there? Would that lead to any more clues?
Not to mention that that was a lot of effort to go to, and if Fluttershy had had time to write a letter then it couldn’t have been too pressing, so there’d probably been other, easier methods available, like hiring a balloon.
“And... why?” Spitfire asked.
The princess read on a bit further, then stopped and chuckled. “Adagio’s pet needs her help, apparently.” Twilight smiled, perhaps at her friend’s dedication to her favourite cause, perhaps at how far-fetched that explanation would have been for anypony else.
“He doesn’t, he’s fine,” Sonata scoffed, “she’s worrying about nothing.” She held a pose much like Spitfire’s had been shortly before, head leaning on one hoof on the table, and she rolled her eyes as she spoke. “I told her, but no, she was all ‘find me Equestria’s most calming vet.’ ”
“Sound ominous,” Spitfire said, biting her lip. “What kind of pet are we talking about here?”
Sonata’s eyes lit up, and a big grin quickly covered her face. “Not telling!” she said. Spitfire tried to spot malice in the expression, but saw mostly childish excitement. That was a minor reassurance, maybe?
Princess Twilight, who had been ignoring the last few bits of conversation to get the rest of the letter read as quickly as possible, then spoke up from where she had her muzzle buried in the paper.
“Fluttershy’s said she’s not sure she’ll be able to help, but she wants to try.” Twilight’s voice had a gleam to it, pride in her friend shining through. “She says please not to worry about her, as she’s sure anypony who cares that much about animals can’t be evil.”
Everypony’s smiles slipped a bit at that – perhaps except Sonata, who was barely listening anyway, but then Spitfire wasn’t sure if Sonata would have picked up on naivety to begin with.
“I hope she’s right,” Spitfire muttered, not making too big a point of it so as not to further worry the princess.
Before responding, Twilight’s eyes flicked through the letter a final time, and her eyebrows drew down. “No clue about what the pet is, though,” she then said.
Starlight’s lips flattened into a thin line, and her eyes were hard as she glared at Sonata. “She could be helping out a hungry shark by being fed to it, for all we know.”
A peal of laughter broke the atmosphere, and heads turned to Sonata. Silver Tongue – still there, as it turned out – looked openly worried. Sonata seemed genuinely mirthful, though, not mocking their frustration. “Wrong Bond villain,” she said.
Huh?
Still rosy-faced, but calmer, Sonata continued a few moments later. “No siren would ever keep a pet shark, I promise you that.” She sounded reassuring, a definite first for her that day, and Spitfire almost gasped aloud at how much more mature Sonata immediately seemed. It was like somepony had flipped a switch from child to adult in her brain.
“Fluttershy will be quite safe with Hades,” Sonata soothed, “and will come back as soon as she’s done.”
And Sonata sounded honest, and believable. Spitfire scarcely would have thought it possible, just a few seconds earlier. A whole day as an impetuous child, and then... But which side of Sonata was the act, and which the real thing? Hardly anything she’d said through the day could be trusted; was her new angle any more reliable?
Beside Spitfire, Twilight breathed a sigh of relief, several hours of tension visibly leaking away from her frame. While she hopefully hadn’t dropped her guard entirely, the further she was from anger or panic, the better.
“How did you do that with your mane?!” Twilight asked. Had she been itching to ask that ever since the letter made its appearance, but put it off until she had some confidence Fluttershy was safe? Or had that preoccupation meant the question only occurred to her now? “I’ve only ever seen Pinkie Pie do that, and just assumed she could do it as her mane was so big.”
Sonata blinked. “It’s a funny dimension thing,” she said. “I am the only one here to have lived in a different dimension, you know.”
And to think, I was worried about concealed weapons. Spitfire might have sat down hard, if she’d been standing, already feeling her skin tingling. Twilight didn’t look to be doing much better, trying to deal with shock, concern and excitement all at the same time.
“How does...?” Twilight began, petering out as she stared open-mouthed into the distance, as if they weren’t all sitting in a small room. “I mean, if your mane can...?”
Unnoticed by the princess, Sonata looked unamused. Her brows were drawn sharply down, underneath which her eyes were fixed on Twilight. “I’m being sarcastic,” she slowly explained. “I have a friend with big hair, and she taught me.”
That was one occasion on which Spitfire could definitely put up with embarrassment of not realising somepony was joking. As long as she didn’t have to think about inter-dimensional manes again, and in Sonata’s hooves, it was fine. Twilight looked less enthusiastic, but a lot of confusion still remained on her face. She raised a hoof to tug on her ear, and Sonata’s annoyed look became more bemused.
“It’s easy once you know how,” she said unhelpfully.
The sound of rustling papers came from behind Spitfire, and she glanced back to see Starlight leafing through a few pages in her hooves, frowning down at them. “Her file said she didn’t get sarcasm,” Starlight muttered, but the whole room heard.
“After somepony smashed our gems,” Sonata said, eyes boring into the princess, “Aria only talked in different levels of sarcasm. I had to learn quickly.”
Spitfire clamped her mouth shut to avoid laughing. Only talking in different levels of sarcasm wasn’t far off normal for Fleetfoot, and it sometimes spread to Misty Fly too when the two of them were working together. Sonata made it sound more abusive, though, and a glance sideways showed Twilight again shifting about in her chair.
“And why did you withhold this letter from us until now?” the princess asked, more steely than before, but also soon averting her gaze.
Smiling simply, Sonata still shot suspicious glances at Twilight, like she couldn’t quite believe she honestly had to explain it. “It’s the next letter in the comedy alphabet I learned: S for sarcasm, T for trolling.”
“You learned a comedy alphabet?” Spitfire asked, rubbing her eyelid. If somepony were truly that clueless about social interaction, then it made sense – vaguely – but still, that was quite the length to go to.
Then Spitfire noticed Twilight blushing, and her eyes widened. Oh, she didn’t...
...That did fit with some of the behaviour Dash had mentioned of their newest princess. Only a lifetime of public parades kept Spitfire from closing her eyes in despair. Sweet Celestia, Wonderbolts were normal and well-adjusted in comparison...!
“S and T are easy, though,” Starlight’s voice cut through Spitfire’s despair. “What’s X for?”
“X-Ray humour,” Sonata answered without hesitation. “It’s where you’re laughing on the inside, but nopony on the outside can tell.” Starlight pursed her lips but said nothing. Sonata continued, “That’s what Adagio usually does, when she’s not angry.”
Ok, Starlight was evidently a master of goading Sonata into revealing more details about her sisters, even if Spitfire was pretty sure that time it had been accidental.
“...Z?” Spitfire asked, partly in the hope of getting any further information with Starlight’s method, and also out of perverse curiosity towards a pony who had been giving them strange, confusing but sometimes compelling answers the whole day.
“Meh,” Sonata said, “there were two for S, and zlapstick sounded better than zarcasm, so...”
Before Spitfire had much chance to lament her question not leading to anything useful, Sonata reached up to her mane again and pulled out a handle. Followed by something round and metal attached to it, and only when she was holding it in front of her face did Spitfire realise it was a frying pan. Not a full-size one, maybe only a couple of hoofwidths across, but still. A frying pan. From her mane.
And then, without further ado, Sonata held the frying pan in front of her face and headbutted it for them all to see.
“Zlapstick!” she announced, lowering the pan in her hoof as it still rang with its impact on her skull, and rubbing her forehead with the other.
Nopony watching moved, said anything, or reacted in any way. They just stared. She’d somehow had a frying pan in her mane the entire time. Spitfire remembered considering concealed weapons there, but not frying pans. Or the thought that Sonata would use them on herself.
Spitfire’s head sunk into her hooves, and she groaned aloud. They had been too long stuck in a small room with a crazypony. More than anything, a frying pan reminded her she’d missed lunch.