//------------------------------//
// Sweetie Belle Feels Like Singing 
// Story: Stage Fright! 
// by Ezn 
//------------------------------//


Stage Fright!
by Ezn


Chapter One: Sweetie Belle Feels Like Singing

Sweetie Belle felt frustrated. On the kitchen table in front of her sat a half-finished page of homework. She absently chewed her pencil, trying to figure out the answer to a math problem that had her well and truly stumped. She wrote some numbers down on the paper, ruled a line, began to add them... and then reread the question and dropped her pencil. Sighing, she reached for her eraser.

From outside the window to her left, Sweetie could hear birds chirping. She knew that it was a sunny day outside, warm but not hot – perfect crusading weather. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were probably off having fun somewhere out there, and she wished she could join them. But Rarity had insisted that she finish her homework before going anywhere, so that was that.

Just then, Rarity stepped into the room. She was wearing her red sewing glasses and had a look in her eyes that told Sweetie she was hard at work on some new designs.

"Rarity?" Sweetie Belle asked, making her eyes go wide as she looked up at her sister. "Um, I know you're working right now, but can you maybe help me with this math problem?"

"Sorry, Sweetie," Rarity said. "But I'm incredibly busy with this order. I have to finish making twenty new outfits by the end of the week, and so I simply don't have time for anything else!" She was already walking into the next room with a glass of water floating behind her.

Sweetie frowned. "But Rarity, it's just –"

"I haven't any time to spare, Sweetie Belle!" Rarity called from the other room. "I'm sure you'll figure it out soon enough!"

Pouting, Sweetie looked down at the paper again. But no matter how many times she read the question, she still couldn't figure out what it was supposed to be asking. How could she even begin to answer it if she didn't even know what it was asking? It felt impossible.

"Calm down, Sweetie Belle," she said to herself. "It's just math. Nothing harder than two plus two. I just have to think, and there'll be nothing I can't do!"

Sweetie Belle's mouth started stretching into a smile. There was something she always did when she felt like this, something that helped a whole lot.

"All it is is math,
and I can do it if I think.
Rarity is right,
I'll have this finished in a blink."

Sweetie was feeling much better, feeling almost like she was ready to pick up her pencil and look at the incredibly difficult question again, but then she heard a sudden frantic clopping of hooves against tiles. "What is that heavenly sound?" called Rarity, as she rushed into the kitchen.

Sweetie Belle found herself staring into her sister's excited blue eyes, and blinked a few times, wondering what she could possibly have meant by "heavenly sound". The kitchen was quite silent. But then, Sweetie knew, Rarity did behave quite strangely sometimes. One day she would scold Sweetie Belle for making a mess of her sewing room, or of breakfast, and the next day Sweetie would make a bigger mess and Rarity would get this awed look in her eyes and buy her "dearest darling sister" enough ice-cream to make her sick.

"Sweetie, was that you singing?" Rarity asked.

Sweetie Belle's face felt hot with embarrassment. The songs she made up when she felt frustrated and sad were her special, private thing – even Apple Bloom and Scootaloo only heard some of them. Sweetie couldn't believe she'd been singing this one loudly enough for Rarity to hear. "Sorry if I was bothering you..." she said meekly.

"Bothering me? Perish the thought, dearest sister!" Rarity cried, speaking in the way she sometimes did when she was trying to sound dramatic. Sweetie thought it sounded quite silly and not at all dramatic, but she never said so. "You have a marvellous singing voice, Sweetie Belle! Has anypony ever told you that?"

"Well, uh, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo..." Sweetie began, before looking down at her homework again. She really needed to solve this problem, in silence, without grown-ups showering her with praise. Even her own sister's compliments made her feel weird.

"Sweetie Belle," Rarity said, speaking with a commanding tone, "it would simply not do for you to let this voice of yours go unnoticed. Did you know that the Sapphire Shores Singer Search is going to be having auditions right here in Ponyville in less than a week?" Rarity giggled. "Sapphire told me herself."

Sweetie tried even harder to focus on her homework and said, "No, I didn't, uh, know that, but –"

"You simply must participate, Sweetie! It would make Mother and Father ever so proud!"

"Uh, I guess, but –"

"And me too, Sweetie. I would be honoured to be the sister of a filly – nay, a young lady who shared such a beautiful gift as her lovely voice with the whole of Equestria."

Sweetie's ears perked up. "You would?"

"I would, Sweetie Belle," Rarity told her sister, looking her directly in the eyes.

"Uh, okay then... I guess I can do it." Sweetie Belle smiled a little at the way Rarity said "honoured".

"Wonderful!" Rarity clapped her hooves together. "I'll finish this dress, and then I'll help you rehearse. It'll be a tight squeeze with all the other dresses I have to make, but I simply must make time for my dear sister!"

Sweetie Belle grinned at the idea of spending more time with her sister, the most sophisticated pony in Ponyville, and continued smiling until Rarity had left the kitchen. Then she realised that she'd just agreed to sing in public. To strangers. Lots of strangers. Strangers who would be judging her on her singing. That made her smile less, and less, and less, until she wasn't smiling at all.