//------------------------------// // "I step out for fifteen friggin' minutes, and this is what I come home to?!" // Story: Sunscarred // by Masterweaver //------------------------------// "Sonata--" "LOOK AT OUR LAWN!" Sonata screeched. "Our beautiful, pristine lawn, burned and crisped in criss-cross-crassery!" "Sonata, you need to calm down." "I need to calm down? I need to calm down?" The siren shook her bag. "Do you know. Do you know how much, just how much, your favorite fish costs, Adagio? Well do you?!" "I used to buy it," Adagio pointed out. "Yeah, sixty years ago! Inflation is a thing, Adagio! And we don't control Funafuti anymore, what we've got in the bank is pretty much everything!" Sunburst adjusted his glasses. "Should... should we go?" "Oh you are staying right where you're standing nerdy mcWizard, because I am done holding back, and everyone is about to get the tonguing they deserve." "Tongue-lashing," Aria deadpanned. "SHUT UP. Shut up, shut up, just SHUT. UP." Sonata took a breath. "Just... let me get my thinkings organized. Right. Right. Look. I get, right, that I'm the youngest and that I'm easily distracted and that, right, like, I... get that this was just an errand. Grocery shopping. Fine. Whatever. I'm good with that. The least you two could do is try, you know, to not have everything fall apart while I'm out buying your stuff, right? Like, no fires on the lawn, no, no damn cars through the wall, no raccoons in the bed, no, no no, no stupid blaring noise that masquerades as music or angry cops or, or, or---" She fell to her knees, eyes wet. "Just stop. Just... just stop, okay? Just... can we have this thing we had, where we, we didn't have everything falling apart all the time? I want that back. Okay?" "...Uh...." Flash Sentry glanced around awkwardly. "Um. Hey... so... uh... I guess, you know... we'll help fix the lawn." "Yeah," Sunset agreed, awkwardly rubbing the back of her head. "This was kind of my fault anyway--" "I was the one that designed the experiment," Starlight pointed out. "I'll... stick around too." "And.... if you need help to get on your feet..." Twilight swallowed. "Well, I... my family's kind of got a little more money than is strictly necessary..." Adagio grumbled. "By the torrid waves... Look, morons, our problems are our own, we don't need your help, we don't want your help, now skedaddle!" "They are kind of responsible for the lawn being a wreck," Aria pointed out. "Yeah, and can you see them actually fixing it?" "Hey, look." Sunset held up her hands slowly. "I'm sorry, alright? For ruining your lawn, and... your lives, I guess. I'm not sorry for saving the world, but I should have done more than a token check on you after the battle of the bands. And I know just saying 'I'm sorry' isn't going to undo that, but I'd like to think... maybe I can help you, moving forward?" "Yeah!" Pinkie cried out. "We'd all be willing to help you get your feet under you! I mean, we're okay with Sunset, and Twilight after that thing she did that she likes not to talk about, and Juniper after that thing with the mirror, and Starlight after... wait, did that even affect us?" "I kind of agree," Rainbow said reluctantly, "but... I'm sort of focused on the whole 'Sunset got split into multiple parts' thing right now..." "Well, that's over," Applejack pointed out. "Sunset's all one person again." "Standing right here," Sunset pointed out casually. "I'm just saying, though, this is just completely randomly something else. It feels like... we haven't even finished with the Sunset thing, we need some sort of... part where we all talk about what this means to us." "Real life ain't a storybook, sugarcube. Sometimes things just happen and we roll with it." "While I agree in principle," Rarity mused, "we do deal with extreme magical circumstances rather regularly. And they're usually handled by some sort of revelation on the nature of friendship and helping each other heal and all that. So I suppose we could, just to satisfy Dash, talk about what we all learned through this experience." "Still standing right here," Sunset pointed out with a smile. "Hearing all of this. Not deaf." "I mean, that kind of happens once a week in Ponyville," Starlight mused. "Something crazy goes down, and we all talk about how friendship works and what we've learned." "Wait, are you saying magic forces people into a storybook model of life?" Fluttershy asked. Starlight threw up her hands. "I'm just saying! This isn't really that weird, wanting to talk about things. That way we all learn something!" "I learned a valuable lesson about self worth," Sunset offered. Nobody noticed. "This is all very fascinating," Adagio drawled as she crossed her arms, "but you are all still on our lawn, a lawn which you wrecked in the process of cleaning your latest magical screw-up. As much as I want to just send you packing, the other sirens seem to want to enjoy watching you perform back-breaking manual labor in retaliation--a prospect which I do find to be amusing anyway, so for the moment I'm willing to concede. So long as said events actually happen, instead of just a bunch of teenagers gabbing away about storybooks and life." "Hold up!" Applejack countered. "If'n we want tah fix yer lawn, we'll need to get new topsoil first, which means drivin' to the supermarket." "And drawing up a shopping list," Rarity added. "I don't think they sell dirt at supermarkets," Rainbow hesitantly pointed out. "You've been to the wrong supermarkets," Fluttershy countered. Sunset rolled her eyes, turning to Sunburst. "So... hey, thanks for coming out for me." "Hmm? Oh, not a problem. Well, not a big problem. It was just a matter of scheduling, which isn't a matter at all. Unless you ask mother, of course--" "I'm sorry," Flash Sentry interjected, "who are you again?" "Flash, this is my older little brother Sunburst. Sunburst, this is my somewhat dense but well meaning ex Flash Sentry." "Older little brother?" Sunburst adjusted his glasses. "I'm older than you, actually." "And you're still mostly a hikikomori, right?" "A... what?" "Sorry, human slang from a foreign country. I mean you're an asocial shutin." "...well, no, I'm dating Thorax," Sunburst pointed out. "Or I was, anyway." Sunset winced. "Bad breakup?" "No, not a breakup, just... he kind of became the new leader of the changelings, and that takes up a lot of his time and we're living on opposite ends of the continent..." "Long distance relationship, ouch. Bad enough here where we all have cell phones..." Flash held up a finger, glanced over to where the other girls were busy arguing over dirt, and lowered it. "So... Sunburst, huh? I guess you've got a lot of stories about Sunset's childhood days?" Sunburst chuckled. "Oh, no, not like that. But... you know there was that one time with Blueblood--" "Oh don't you dare," Sunset growled. "Don't you even dare, Sunburst!" "See, it was the Summer Sun Celebration, and Sunset decided to buck the trends and wear a tuxedo. Now I was alright with that, and so was princess Celestia, but the nobles of Canterlot are a bit too eager to interpret things for a scandal. And, as it turns out, Blueblood had a hangover from, well, let's just say there were a lot of mares involved..." Sunset buried her face in her hands. "Why.... why do you do this to me, fate?"