The Serenade of Silver Belles

by Your Antagonist

The Sixth Bell Rings- The Bittersweet of a Midnight's Interlude

Silver Spoon rubbed her head and slowly opened her eyes as she slipped back to consciousness. She could have sworn that it was still light out when she passed out in the forest. In fact, she remembered that there had been nary a cloud in the sky, and the pegasi’s weather schedule for the week hadn’t mentioned anything about rain. Yet, despite that, here she stood alone in a darkened, cloudy clearing. “Apple Bloom? Scootaloo? Sweetie Belle?” she called in vain. The only response she received for her troubles was a sullen silence.

“Well, well, well,” dripped a familiar venomous voice. “Back so soon, Silver Spoon?”

Silver Spoon turned to face the source of the voice and froze as her eyes fell on the hideous shadow from earlier. It had grown in size since the last time she’d seen it.

“You know, it was awful rude of you to just leave so abruptly like that. Don’t worry though, I’m not mad. We have plenty of play time now.” The shadow trotted predatorily around Silver Spoon, much like a manticore circling a hapless rabbit. “Hmmm… what to play, what to play?” the beast mused to itself. “The others have all ‘left’, so it’s just the two of us… oh! I know, how about—” the shadow turned to face Silver Spoon, or rather the spot where Silver Spoon had once been standing. While the monster was absorbed with its monologue, Silver Spoon had taken the opportunity to sneak away. “Hide and seek it is,” the beast chuckled as it sank into the shadows.

Silver Spoon galloped through the darkened clearing as fast as her legs could carry her, barreling through bushes and over gnarled tree roots. She didn’t dare turn around. She didn’t want to know how close it was. All she wanted was to put as much distance between herself and that beast as she could. Silver Spoon ran herself ragged until her advances were finally halted by a solid wall of mangled vines. “No, no, no, no, no!” she screamed. The vines began to elongate and encircle Silver Spoon, trapping her in a flora-filled dome.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Found you, Silver Spoon.” the shadow’s mocking, venomous voice spoke from behind. “I thought you were going to make this interesting for me.” The creature shook its head in feigned pity. “Whatever. It would have turned out this way anyway. It’s not like you could have escaped me. After all…” The beast smiled a smile befitting of the lord of Tartarus himself, revealing rows of sharp, wicked teeth. “You belong to me, and I’m going to make sure that nothing ever comes between us again.”

Silver Spoon watched in horror as dark tendrils erupted from the shadow’s body, racing towards her with frightening speed. Before Silver Spoon could react, one of the tendrils seized her forelegs and hoisted her, kicking and screaming, into the air. Try as she might, Silver Spoon just couldn’t break free of the tendril’s grip.

The monster began to retract its appendages, Silver Spoon helplessly being drawn in. “Don’t worry, we’ll be together soon enough, and no one else will ever bother you again, because you’re going to become a part of me. Heh, heh, heh…” The shadow opened its gaping mouth wide enough for Silver Spoon to look upon the void that lay between its jaws.

“No… no! No! No! No!!” Face to face with oblivion, Silver Spoon squirmed and struggled twice as hard, but the monster only cackled maniacally as it drew her into its mouth. She bucked and screamed against the creature’s hold until she finally found herself totally engulfed by the darkness of the monster’s mouth. Frantic, the filly turned, thrashing and clawing towards the exit, when the shadow’s jaw drew shut, locking her into the lightless abyss.

“Now you’ll become a part of me, and we’ll never be apart. Won’t it be wonderful, Silver Spoon?”

Silver Spoon could feel the darkness surround her, dragging her deeper into the dismal atmosphere. The miasma was so thick she was practically drowning in it, but amidst her panicked breaths and muffled screams, an acidic voice pierced through the veil.

“Mine, forever…”

“No!” Silver Spoon jolted awake, heart pounding away in her chest, fur covered in a cold sweat. She cradled her head in her hooves, sobbing softly as she recovered from the nightmare. “It’s just a dream,” she told herself. “It’s just a dream,” she chanted again, holding onto the words and the comfort they provided. Silver Spoon could feel the hammering of her heart slowly begin to subside as she let the words sink in.

“It isn’t real. You’re safe.” Silver Spoon held her head up, wiping her eyes as she did so. As her vision cleared however, it became immediately apparent that something was very wrong. Silver Spoon looked to the left and the right trying to figure out where she was, but all she could see were shadowy blurs. Thinking something had to be wrong with her glasses the filly reached up to adjust the baby-blue frames, but was taken aback as her hoof made contact with her naked eye.

“My glasses! Where did they go?” Silver Spoon patted herself down from head to hoof before turning her search to the ground. As she couldn’t see very well, she had no choice but to rely solely on her sense of touch and hope that she wouldn’t accidentally crush her spectacles by pressing down too hard. “Wait a minute…” she mumbled as her hoof landed on something much, much softer than the hard ground she’d been expecting. “Is this… a bed?”

“Oh, good! You’re awake!” Sweetie Belle’s cracking voice chirped from somewhere nearby.

“Sweetie Belle?” Silver Spoon squinted her eyes in a vain attempt to distinguish the unicorn from the rest of the blurs in the room. “Where are we? What’s going on? The last thing I remember we were in the Everfree Forest and we’d just… we’d just….” Silver Spoon leaned forward, clutching her head as a surge of painful memories came flooding in all at once. Falling. Screaming. Helplessness. Silver Spoon started to hyperventilate as she relived each second of the fall. “Make it stop… make it stop…” she pleaded. Silver Spoon was taken off-guard when she felt Sweetie Belle’s forelegs wrap around her head, drawing her close. “S-Sweetie Belle? What are you—”

“Shhh… It’s okay Silver Spoon,” Sweetie Belle cooed, tenderly stroking the earth pony’s mane. She remembered how, as a foal, Rarity would often do the same for her whenever she’d wake up screaming from night terrors. “You’re safe now. It’s over, and everything’s going to be just fine. I’ve got you Silver Spoon.”

Silver Spoon opened her mouth to speak, but only a choked sob managed to escape. Sweetie Belle took note of this and pulled the quivering earth pony even closer, nuzzling the top of her head as she did. “Feeling any better, Silver Spoon?”

Silver Spoon gently pushed herself away from Sweetie Belle, wiped her eyes, and nodded. “Mmhm. Thanks for that, Sweetie Belle.” she sniffled. “But, where are we? What happened after we fell off the cliff? The last thing I remember I was looking at Apple Bloom and Scootaloo in the Everfree Forest. Then it just kind of goes black after that.”

“Well, after you passed out in the forest, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo got into a really big argument about taking you to the hospital. Apple Bloom was really worried about you and wanted to get you checked out right away, but Scootaloo said that since you survived that huge fall, you were way too tough to need a hospital.” The second-hand compliment managed to put a faint smirk on Silver Spoon’s face. “So, long story short, right now we’re at my sister’s boutique, but if you want, I can take you the hospital.”

“No, I think I’ll be fine. Besides that, I wouldn’t want to worry my parents too much. I don’t even want to think about how they’d react if I told them I went bungee jumping.” Silver Spoon chuckled weakly. A small gurgle rose from the earth pony’s belly. “Oh, I’m sorry.” Silver Spoon’s face flushed a light shade of pink. “I guess I haven’t eaten anything since lunch.”

“No problem!” Sweetie Belle said. “I’ll go whip something up for you!” With that, Sweetie Belle leapt, giggling, from the bed and cantered out of the room.

Silver Spoon smiled after the white blur of a unicorn before resting her head against the bed’s headboard. She was about to close her eyes when she felt something leap upon the bed. “Sweetie Belle? Is that you?” she asked. She received no response. Squinting, Silver Spoon scanned her immediate surroundings. The only thing she saw was a small white blur slinking towards her. “Sweetie Belle? My, that was fast.”

The white blur wordlessly moved closer, until it was standing right before the sight-impaired filly.

“Ummm… do you need something, Sweetie Belle?” she asked, leaning closer towards the blurry unicorn. To Silver Spoon’s surprise, Sweetie Belle reached up and began playing with her long braided ponytail, batting it around with both forelegs. “O-Oh… you wanted to play with my mane.” Silver Spoon felt her face grow hot as Sweetie Belle had her way with her mane. “I-I guess it’s f-fine. I don’t really mind… I guess.” Silver Spoon bit her lower lip as she contemplated what would have spurred Sweetie Belle to do such a thing, but her mind was absolutely blown at what the unicorn did next. Sweetie Belle leaned forward and, faster than Silver Spoon could react, licked the earth pony’s cheek not just once but thrice. “S-Sweetie Belle! What are you—I mean I… I… ohh, I didn’t realize you felt that way about me.”

“Feel what way about you?”

“You know…” Silver Spoon averted her blind gaze from the unicorn in front of her, and fumbled her hooves as she tried to pick out the right words. Mid-thought, it dawned on her that the voice hadn’t come from in front of her. She turned her head towards the source of the question and saw another white blur.

“I know what? What are you talking about Silver Spoon?”

“Wait. Sweetie Belle, if you’re over there, then who’s this?” Silver Spoon reached out, poking and prodding the odd white lump in front of her. For her efforts, she was rewarded with an infuriated hiss not unlike that of a cat. She felt something swipe the air by her nose, followed by a slight stinging sensation.

“Opalescence!” Sweetie Belle yelled as she leapt onto the bed and seized the cat. “Get away from Silver Spoon!” The unicorn hurled the feline off the bed and out of the bedroom door where the cat landed, hissed, and scampered away. “Dumb cat.” Sweetie Belle spat after the creature. “You okay, Silver?”

Silver Spoon nodded, silently praying that Sweetie Belle hadn’t heard or read too much into what she’d said.

“Great!” Sweetie Belle stepped off the bed, and retrieved a small bowl from the doorway. “And lucky for us, Rarity had some leftover tomato soup on the stove, so here you go!” Sweetie Belle placed the bowl next to Silver Spoon.

Silver Spoon squinted down at the bowl and saw that it was indeed full of some reddish soup with a small glimmer of metal that she presumed was a spoon. It was at this moment that a somewhat ironic problem immediately presented itself to the earth pony. Aside from having no depth perception at the moment, spoons were intended for use by unicorns. “Hey, Sweetie Belle?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t want to sound rude, but I can’t really, you know, use a spoon. No magic.”

“But, aren’t spoons your special talent?”

“Umm….” The question absolutely derailed Silver Spoon’s train of thought, but she recovered just as quickly. “No, you see, making spoons is my special talent. I come from a family of silver-smiths. As far as using them, well…” she held up her hooves sadly.

Sweetie Belle however wasn’t phased by the explanation in the slightest. “Well, no magic, no problem! I’ll help you eat!”

“Help me eat?” Silver Spoon asked plainly.

“Watch.” Sweetie Belle bit down on the end of the spoon, and carefully lifted it out of the soup, and over to Silver Spoon’s mouth, taking extra care not to spill a single drop. “Shee? I cangh fgheed you like zgghf! Ophen wygh!” (See? I can feed you like this! Open wide!)

“What!?” Silver Spoon’s face was as red as the soup in front of her. “But it would be so embarrassing if you… if you…” Silver Spoon’s mouth lingered open for a second too long, which was all the time Sweetie Belle needed to lean forward and plunge the spoon into the earth pony’s open mouth. 

Silver Spoon’s eyes went wide as she felt the warm, sweet yet salty broth slide from the spoon onto her tongue. But it wasn’t the flavor of the soup that had brought her to such a state of shock, so much as it was Sweetie Belle’s sudden, unexpected actions. Silver Spoon hesitantly swallowed the mouthful of soup.

“Dere, zagh wushit so bagh, wush ih?” (There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?) Beaming, Sweetie Belle pulled the spoon out of Silver Spoon’s mouth and refilled it with soup, returning her expectant gaze back to the flabbergasted earth pony.

 Silver Spoon fumbled for words to formulate an excuse for why she couldn’t partake in such an uncouth act, or to produce a fit of feigned indignation towards the unicorn’s behavior. She quickly found that she could not. Some part of the earth pony had actually enjoyed that, not to mention she was still absolutely famished. “Could… could I have some more?” she asked sheepishly, instinctively tilting her gaze downward avoid any awkward eye contact with Sweetie Belle, even though she couldn’t see.

“Yugh!” (Yup!) Sweetie Belle said, leaning forward to deliver another spoonful into her friend’s mouth. For the next few minutes, the two indulged in their little back and forth, Sweetie Belle giggling every so often when the spoon would miss Silver Spoon’s lips and soup dribbled down the side of her face. Silver Spoon, on the other hoof, silently pondered whether or not anypony could see them in such a compromising position.

After what felt like too long, the soup bowl—much like the reserves of Silver Spoon’s dignity— had finally emptied. “All done,” Sweetie Belle said, dropping the spoon into the empty bowl.

“Well, that was that,” Silver spoon muttered under her breath. “Thanks Sweetie Belle.”

“No problem. You ready for me to take you home?” Sweetie Belle asked.

Silver Spoon nodded and slid herself cautiously off the bed. She landed on the floor with all of the grace of a molting phoenix, that is to say none at all. Had Sweetie Belle caught her a second later, the blind filly would have tripped over her own hooves. Sweetie Belle helped the unbalanced filly to a stand, taking one of Silver Spoon’s forehooves in her own to guide her along.

“Don’t worry about a thing, Silver Spoon. I’ll get you home safe,” Sweetie Belle declared. “Who knows, maybe I could even get a cutie mark for that!” she exclaimed as she started guiding Silver Spoon out of the boutique.

The unicorn’s sudden influx of enthusiasm put a grin on Silver Spoon’s face. The crusaders really were dedicated. “Cutie mark for what?” she asked playfully.

“Hmmm… escorting ponies without glasses?”

“That doesn’t sound like much of a special talent to me,” Silver Spoon teased.

Sweetie Belle puffed out her cheeks in mild irritation. “I could let you walk home yourself, you know.” The unicorn pouted.

“I’m just kidding,” Silver Spoon giggled.

Sweetie Belle stuck her tongue out playfully at Silver Spoon as the two stepped out of the boutique and into the darkened Ponyville streets. “So, which way?”

“I live just up the hill past Quills and Sofas,” Silver Spoon said.

“Oh, that’s not too far from here then. Huh, I honestly thought you lived up in Ponyville Heights,” Sweetie Belle admitted.

“Why’s that?” Silver Spoon had a strong feeling she already knew the answer to her own question.

“Well, because you’re always hanging out with Diamond Tiara, and kind of… you know…”

Silver Spoon raised an eyebrow at Sweetie Belle and decided to finish the unicorn’s thought for her. “Look down on the rest of the class, like a spoiled brat?”

“Yeah…” Sweetie Belle’s voice trailed off uncomfortably.

Silver Spoon sighed, shaking her head. She was afraid that was what Sweetie Belle was going to say. “Look, I know how I acted in the past, but believe me, I’ve been trying my hardest to put that all behind me. I’d been friends with Diamond Tiara so long that I forgot what it was like to have other friends.” Silver Spoon tightened her grip on Sweetie Belle’s hoof as she delved deeper into her confession. “After a while it was like bullying everyone below us was all I knew. But after the way she reacted to Granny Smith’s story on family appreciation day, I could finally see Diamond Tiara for what she really was, and what she was turning me into. I decided that I didn’t want to be that kind of pony anymore. And then this afternoon…” Silver Spoon’s words trailed off as she tried to push the thought back to the depths of her mind.

“What happened this afternoon?” Sweetie Belle asked.

Silver Spoon looked at the blurred outline of Sweetie Belle and grinned weakly. “I finally put my hoof down. Let’s just leave it at that.”

“Ugh, fine…” Sweetie Belle groaned at Silver Spoon’s response. She hated not having closure. But this seemed personal, so she chose not to press the matter any further. “Anyway, we just passed Quills and Sofas. Which one of these is your house?” Sweetie Belle asked as she guided her blind companion up the row of gated villa style houses.

“Do you see a house with two hammers and an ‘S’ on the gate?”

“Hmmmm… yeah, I see it.”

“That’s my house. You can just take me to the front gate, I wouldn’t want to keep you out too late,” said Silver Spoon.

“It’s alright, Rarity’s probably asleep anyway,” Sweetie Belle said as she finished guiding Silver Spoon to the front gate.

“Thanks for taking me home, Sweetie Belle. And… I had a lot of fun today, despite almost dying.” The two shared a laugh together, but soon found themselves standing in silence. “So, I was wondering, you know, maybe if you and Apple Bloom and Scootaloo don’t mind, maybe we could do this agai—”

Silver Spoon’s words trailed off as she felt Sweetie Belle’s lips press firmly upon her cheek. The kiss itself was brief and above all confusing for the earth pony who had no idea how to respond to such an out-of-the-blue gesture.

“Any time Silver Spoon,” Sweetie Belle giggled. “And thanks for saving my life.”

“But you— I…”

Blushing fiercely, Sweetie Belle turned and galloped away, leaving behind a dumbstruck, gibbering Silver Spoon who would reflect back on this moment fifteen minutes from now while crawling into bed. Tonight she would sleep soundly, dreaming not of shadows and monsters, but of a certain white unicorn with green eyes and a smile full of boundless benevolence.

However, as the filly was too enraptured by the insanity and suddenness of the moment, she failed to notice the sounds of a second set of hoofsteps disappearing in the opposite direction.

Chapter 6 end