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// 2 - Nothing You Can Sing That Can't be Sung 
// Story: All You Need is Love 
// by AugieDog 
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Not allowing her hoof to shake, Sapphire brushed on what she called her in-person face, the make-up smoother and subtler than the stuff she wore on stage. She was expecting a visitor, after all. Or two. Or maybe a whole battalion...

But when the tap-tap-tap came at her dressing room door, it was a lot more polite than she would've expected from officers bent on hauling her away. She'd already sent Gildy home for the night—no use getting her assistant caught up in whatever was about to happen—so she took a breath, rose from her place in front of the mirror, and pulled the door open.

A slightly twitchy Proscenium Arch stood there. Not that she'd ever known him not to be slightly twitchy: apparently managing Canterlot Square Gardens didn't do a pony's state of mind any good. "Wonderful show as always, Sapphire!" he said, and an actual smile twitched across his snout. "The princesses must've thought so, too, since they—" His lips twitched downward. "They've sent three guards to escort you to the VIP box. Instead of sending Ms. Inkwell the way they normally do when they ask to say hello after a show..."

Her quick mental sniff got her no dead fish feelings, so they'd sent actual ponies to pick her up. Plus one for her, maybe?

Rolling her eyes and her shoulders, Sapphire kept her voice appropriate to the small size of the room and the audience. "Princesses rate high on the mystery chart, Archy." Part of her wondered if whatever she said next might go down as her last words, but like before, it wasn't a part she was willing to pay much attention to. Paranoia was one thing, the Queen used to say, but when it starts affecting your poise...

"I'll see you next show," she decided to say, and moving past Archy, she gave him a gentle shoulder bump.

Taking another step, though, she upped her swagger for the guards standing in full regalia at the end of the row of dressing room doors beside the 'Artists Only Beyond This Point' sign. "Fear not, my little ponies!" she announced even though the smallest of them, the pegasus mare, seemed about a hoofspan taller than her. "You may now fulfill your lives' ambition by escorting me into the presence of the august Sunbutt and Moonsides!"

They tried not to react, but even without tasting their emotions directly, Sapphire could read a room. And what she was getting from them was a lot of good nervous and no bad nervous. Seemed likely, then, that as far as they knew, they were here to collect the Pony of Pop, not to round up the last deep-cover infiltrator trained by Queen Chrysalis herself. Another plus, she let herself believe.

Might as well keep things friendly, then. "So!" She took one of the sweet-but-sexy stances she'd perfected over the course of countless magazine shoots. "Where d'you all want me?"

The earth pony and the pegasus were trying hard not to show their excitement, but Sapphire knew the hot-and-crunchy aroma of it. The unicorn, though, she could see that colt's horn vibrating. "Oh!" He shook himself like he was coming out of a dream. "Right! If you'll follow me, please, Ms. Shores?"

"Call me Sapphire," she more purred than said, and all three just about lost it, sparks, wing quivers, and knee shakes telling her the whole story. Sidling in among them, she started for the back hallway that led to the VIP Suite, her escorts trailing her like ducklings after their mama. "They allow you fine folks to see the show?" She gave a half-lidded look over her shoulder. "Or were you too busy being vigilant?"

"We could hear it," the earth pony said, his gray face getting redder and redder. "You sounded really great, Ms. Shores— I mean, uhh, Sapphire..."

"Better than great!" The pegasus seemed barely able to keep her hooves on the floor. "I've loved you since I was in grade school, but this is the first time I've ever seen you in concert!"

The unicorn was nodding so fast, Sapphire wondered how his horn stayed attached.

"Well, now!" And how could she not flutter her eyelashes? "Why don't you tell me all about it?"

Their gushing critiques took the rest of the trip. Any other time, Sapphire would've let herself sip discreetly of the love that went along with their commentary, but, well, sending fans like this to pick her up? She couldn't help but think that this was a calculated move on Celestia's part. Either Sapphire was supposed to take advantage of the free snack and therefore show herself to be the parasitic monster they all expected, or she was being given the opportunity not to indulge in order to look good in front of King Thorax.

Always came back to politics, didn't it? At least the energy she'd picked up during the show meant she wasn't too tempted here and now...

The employee stairway she'd picked led to a door just down the hall from the VIP Suite, but it wasn't till she stopped on the landing in front of the door that her guards seemed to realize where they were. "Oh! Uhh..." The unicorn—Moonglow, he'd said his name was somewhere along the way—half-stepped, half-stumbled past her, the pulse of his horn sending a cloud out to press the door's crashbar. "Lemme get that..."

So all looked well and proper when they entered the hallway, Sapphire making sure the guards surrounded her in case any compound eyes were watching. The guards out front of the VIP Suite registered to her senses as one hundred percent pony, and they opened the door to let her and her little phalanx inside.

Show time, then. "Party's started!" she called, modulating her voice to fill the remembered layout of the suite. "The guest of honor has arrived!"

Several squeals rose up, and Sapphire actually looked at the scene for the first time. Celestia and Luna on cushions in the middle of the room immediately drew her eye—find the power centers, the whispered voice of Her Stony-Even-Before-She-Became-Actual-Stone Majesty hissed scuttling through her mind, then undermine them and bleed them dry. Escape routes also suggested themselves: the massive windows overlooking the arena, that whole part of the room empty now that the show was over. Most of the crowd had moved to the buffet tables along the wall to Sapphire's right leaving her a straight shot if she needed to do any galloping and crashing.

The two smaller alicorns, the two who actually qualified as rulers nowadays, pulled her attention next. Twilight reclined beside her predecessors, and Cadance stood a bit off to the left with her husband and child.

More children had provided the squeals, she saw now, at least half of them and the adults in the room not ponies: a shiny-eyed young hippogriff with two larger and more sedately smiling examples beside her; a yak in braids shuffling her hooves and grinning in front of a couple whose size alone would've made this Suite the only choice to host this party; a trio of griffons, one just a colt, the second a female not much older, and the third a one-eyed relic who was chomping away on little cheese-covered crackers and trying hard to look bored. Trying just as hard were the two dragons, one of whom Sapphire recognized as the Dragon Lord herself.

And the changelings, of course. Three of them as well, all out in the open and done up in their fancy new carapaces: King Thorax, unmistakable with his giant orange antlers and carefully constrained power; a glowering and more darkly hued ling a step to Thorax's left, his narrow eyes and struck-match scent making Sapphire think of the enforcers who'd always surrounded Her Majesty back in the hive; and one barely pupated, her front hooves covering her mouth, a blush firing along her baby blue cheeks.

"Well, now!" Sapphire couldn't look away from the changeling nymph, memories of her pre-pony days surging through her with an intensity that almost made her gasp. Not that she did, of course: she was on stage. Waving a hoof, she included the whole room. "Princes and princesses of all kinds joining the party tonight!"

Wings popped from the little nymph's back, and she leaped forward, the love that poured from her completely alien and completely filling. "Oh, Ms. Shores! Your songs are just so...so...so—"

"Ocellus?" King Thorax's voice had a juvenile quality to it that set the Chrysalis in Sapphire's head to spitting words like weak and unworthy and dilettante. "What did we agree about conducting ourselves properly when we met Ms. Shores?"

Sapphire blew a breath through her lips, her whole body quivering at the onslaught of the unprecedented changeling love. "Like I've got anything to do with 'proper'!" Moving out from among her three guards, she had to step carefully, the ichor fiery and swirling inside her. But she had to have more of this, had to bathe in its warmth, had to open herself to its light. "How 'bout you tell your new pal Sapphire what your favorite song of hers is?"

"'Get Your Pony On!'" the nymph shouted. Landing on her hind hoofs, she burst into green flame, became a buck-toothed earth pony filly, and began gawkily dancing.

"Yes!" The yak began hopping, the room shaking just a bit, and warbled out the first lines in a gruff alto: "Stomp across the floor, get your pony on!"

The hippogriff sprang into the air and took the next lines in a bouncy soprano: "Swooping through the door, get your pony on!"

The transformed nymph's forehead sprouted, and she continued squeakily: "Power up your horn, proud of how you're born!"

And a fair number of the assembled guests—Celestia and Twilight and every member of the new ruling council as well, Sapphire couldn't help noticing—jumped in with the kids to complete the verse: "Dusk to early morn, get your pony on!" The singers all whooped, the rest blinking around as if they weren't quite sure what had happened.

Laughing, Sapphire reared back, kicked her forelegs, and drew the crowd's attention back to her. "You're all hired for my next tour!" She settled as gracefully as only she could back onto all fours and made a point of meeting every non-pony's gaze including the changeling's. "Looks like I oughtta be updating the lyrics a bit, seeing as how I got so many fans from beyond Equestria now."

"What?" The youngest of the griffons waved his talons, his head fronds spiking. "New lyrics? You can't! They're perfect!"

"Perfect?" The smaller of the two dragons raised an orange eyeridge. "You a fan, Gallus?"

"No!" The griffon slapped his claws over his mouth, spun with wide eyes to Sapphire, and blurted out, "I mean, yes! I mean—!" His face wrinkled into a scowl, and he swung it back to the dragon. "You're here, too, Smolder!"

Opportunity smacking her in the face, Sapphire curled her tongue to her upper teeth and shot out what she called her missile whistle, a sound guaranteed to jab the ears of even the most overactive drummer during rehearsal when she had to administer a correction. "Say," she said into the sudden silence, all eyes again on her, "how 'bout we write up a new song, kids, right here and right now! A song that'll bring all y'all into it and show us how to get our creature on!" With a nod, she trotted to a nearby table and turned an arched eyebrow at Twilight Sparkle. "'Cause I'm guessing somepony has a quill pen and some parchment we can borrow..."

The big smile on the snout of Equestria's current ruling monarch went a little sheepish, but the glow of her horn pulled a pen and a stack of pages from under her cushion. A little purple dragon Sapphire hadn't noticed before—Sparkle's assistant, she remembered now—rolled his eyes at her, took the items in his claws, and flapped over to the table with a tiny scowl.

"And a volunteer!" She tapped him on the nose. "Gonna need a scribe, right?"

His scowl vanished, and the next hour or so let Sapphire forget the solid ice of the two adult changelings behind her. 'Cause the love and the warmth and the laughter and the music and the creativity swirling from these eight or nine kids filled the air so completely, there wasn't room in her vicinity for anything else.

And yes, they didn't have anything near to a song when Celestia stood up from among the adults on the other side of the room and announced, "All good things must come to an end, children, but if we don't get downstairs to where the ice cream is waiting, it's likely to be nothing but colorful puddles."

Expressions of displeasure rose from her audience, but Sapphire knew how to handle that. Going into full strut, she circled the table, leaned over, and left a lipstick print on the page in front of each kid. "That's my blessing," she said. "You take these home, finish 'em up, sing 'em out loud, and don't ever let any creature tell you they're no good." She nodded to the adults. "And don't let me hear any bad reports 'bout you folks from my new collaborators here, y'understand?"

The kids, their papers clutched in claws or teeth or magic, ran to their parents, their voices tinged equally with excitement and sleepiness. At the urging of Prince Shining Armor and the guards, most of the crowd moved chattering and warbling out of the suite, and in less than a moment, Sapphire stood alone with four alicorns and two changelings, golden magic from somewhere closing the door with a soft but solid click.

A smaller audience again, but she doubted she'd ever need to give a better performance. Turning to Celestia, she pouted. "You want a private show, Sunny, all you have to do is ask."

Celestia's smile never looked anything but sweet and gentle, but emotionally, she was as blank as a chunk of shale. King Thorax had an equally blank look on his face, but the other one, the enforcer, his grin was spreading as sharp and nasty as if he still had fangs. "Agent Pheropsoph," he more growled than said. "We meet at last."