The next morning, the trio were seated on cushions set in the center of the room. This was mostly because that's where they'd found Sonata sprawled out on the floor. "Alright," Adagio began, "we're all rested, time to go over yesterday's events. Sonata, do you remember any of the spells from the first book?"
She grinned brightly, casting the projection spell with the image of a big, glowing 'YES' in the frame.
"That's new," remarked Aria.
"Indeed. Now," Adagio and Sonata turned to look at Aria at the same time. "about what you were doing while we were out..."
Her cheeks lit up as she scowled. "I told you, I was just getting the hang of using these stupid things!" She didn't flap her wings hard enough to lift off the ground, but hard enough to get the point across.
"Then how did things go with Blueblood?"
Aria froze, badly wishing she could stop herself from sweating. "I-I, it, uh, h-he was-"
Orange eyebrows furrowed dangerously. "Aria?"
Gulping once, she took a deep breath and told them the whole story of that evening, from when Kibitz woke her up to when she slammed the door upon return. More terrifying than standing in front of Celestia the day before was the way Adagio glared at her for the first half of the story. Worse than that was when she began to smile, the grin getting wider and more sinister as she went on, to the point even Sonata looked scared on Aria's behalf. When she ended the story, trembling, Adagio let out a low, slow-building laugh that nearly made her underlings hug each other, one last time, for support.
"Excellent work, Aria."
Aria and Sonata both blinked, thrown. "Huh?"
The killer grin hadn't gone anywhere. "I hadn't even thought of such a strategy, this is perfect. While I don't think you meant for this outcome, he's grown to despise you just as much as you do him, correct?"
Having gotten roughly that impression, she nodded, her fear cautiously subsiding. "Uh, yea?"
"Good. What I said about you being nicer? I take it back, keep up what you're doing." In response to the confused stares she was getting, she went on. "It's simple, if he hates you, I'll look all the more appealing by comparison. If anything, that's more viable than trying to win him over on my own. With his view of me tinted through how he looks at you two, this will be all the easier!" There was a short cackle, but Aria felt like it was on her side now. "You've done well, make no mistake of that, it's just a matter of how we play our cards."
The feeling of not-going-to-die was warm in her chest as she smiled back. "Thanks." Sonata smiled too, looking at her with relief.
"On that note," Adagio continued, looking at Sonata, "inconsistency in our behavior would likely draw his attention, you keep doing what you've been doing as well."
Aria rolled her eyes. "Not like we have to worry about him liking her either."
Sonata scowled. "Oh, yea? Well we'll never have to worry about anypony liking you!" She projected an image of a tomato being squashed by a mousetrap. Nopony particularly cared to ask.
Before the bickering could escalate, Adagio stamped a hoof. She wasn't done yet. "Which brings us to what I learned in the library." She shook her head. "I peered through the newspapers of the last year or so. A twisted freak stealing the magic of the entire nation? An invasion of the capital by creatures that don't exist? Pies raining up and dancing bufallo being the least of anyone's worries? False, all of it, I must have found some hypothetical interest section, or a crackpot's passion project. There's no way the population would carry on peacefully with their lives if such disasters happened within the span of one year." She huffed, crossing her forelegs with more than a hint of annoyance. "There's no mention of us anywhere, either, though I guess that's a point in our favor." The bit she found about Celestia apparently having a particular fondness for cake was amusing, but hardly relevant.
Judging by her tone, Aria still had bile to expel from the deflected argument. "You took time to tell us we don't know any more than the day before?"
"I took time to tell you to be careful what you say outside this room," Adagio replied with just a tinge of venom, "being from an unspecified region of great distance only gives us so much leeway."
Sonata raised a hoof in schoolfilly fashion. "Creatures that don't exist? Then how'd they get in the papers?"
"Changelings," Adagio deadpanned, "bug-like shape-shifters that feed not on misery, not on the pain of others, not even something as powerful as hatred, but love? Love is weakness! How could anything draw real power from that?!"
Aria chuckled, having known better than to ever believe in changelings.
Wait, what did those guards say about somepony wearing somepony else's face...?
She shook her head. It couldn't be the same thing, probably one of those skin-'em-alive deals. Or illusion magic. Still, that reminded her of something. "Hey, I overheard some of the guards yesterday..."
---
"So," Sonata summarized, "everypony the prince so much as talks to will probably rob a bank or something?"
Ignoring her uncanny choice of words, Aria turned to Adagio, who looked flummoxed.
"He... He, just happens to...? That's quite a coincidence, if he isn't some kind of living warning system. But, if that were the case, why weren't any of those mares stopped before they could carry out their deeds?" Pausing for a long moment, she let out a breath. "I suppose we'll just have to be careful, but if everypony is suspicious of us due more to proximity to Prince Blueblood, perhaps their fears can be assuaged with time? We need only refrain from spreading disaster to break the pattern, after all."
"Unless we end up doing whatever 'PON-3' did, they wouldn't talk about that one."
"So long as we behave, I'm sure it'll be fine."
"You're not worried Blueblood himself is up to anything?"
There was a light eyeroll. "No, Aria, I'm not, because he'd almost certainly get nothing out of it. Think about it, all that we do is to return to what we were before, to spread our songs and reap the power and adoration that came with doing so. What does the nephew of She Who Raises the Sun stand to gain, really? If I'm not mistaken, he already lives in the palace in the capital, -I confirmed it yesterday, this is the pony capital- with money and leisure with which to do whatever he pleases." She brushed her chin thoughtfully. "I suppose it's possible that this dayjob of his, whatever it is-"
"Accounting," Aria deadpanned, "he told me he's an accountant."
Adagio nearly laughed. "Alright, so he might have a dull occupation, but I imagine even the worst days he deals with are easy compared to managing a country. As such, usurping the throne would be senseless, no matter what power he might gain in doing so, for all the risk and hassle that came with it." This was why Adagio never wanted to actually rule a territory, of any size. To be adored was all the power she'd ever want over a population.
Aria didn't quite look satisfied. "Don't peop-ponies, well, both I guess, tend to do senseless things all the time?"
"Yup," Sounded off Sonata, projecting an image of Twilight Sparkle and her flunkies holding hands in a circle in the gym, shouting 'friendship is magic' in the early phases of the Battle of the Bands back in the other world, to the amusement of the other sirens.
When the chuckles subsided, Adagio went on. "True. Suppose we'll have to hope a coup isn't in his plans?"
"Just hope it isn't?"
She shrugged. "What else can we do, Aria? It won't matter when he serves me in the next few days, so it's best to leave him to his own devices until then."
The image of a big question mark appeared over Sonata's head. "So what's the plan for today?"
Adagio grinned at her. "I'm glad you asked. We learned from Aria's efforts that he probably doesn't have a lot of excitement in his life, tonight we'll learn a bit more. Show me that you can learn as much from a pony as you can from a spellbook once we've arranged for the two of you to be alone for a while."
"We're leaving Sonata with that guy?!"
The image over said unicorn's head would have been something between a frowning face and one blowing raspberries, but the note of worry in Aria's voice gave her pause.
Adagio spoke calmly, but firmly. "While I understand your concern, any information at all may make a considerable difference. If he's as suspicious of us as you are of him and not acting on it, nothing she could say is likely to make much of a difference." She quickly turned to Sonata. "Not that I don't want you to be careful, understand?"
The Projection spell fizzled out as Sonata nodded twice, smiling nervously.
"I still don't like it," Aria muttered as she folded her forelegs, "there's definitely something fishy about that guy..."
---
Standing in his chambers, Prince Blueblood fixed his bowtie in a mirror, ready to face the day, his guests in particular. The previous evening hadn't been pleasant, but definitely a step above some other dates he'd been on. Dealing with Miss Blaze again might be a tad awkward, but he had an idea. With any luck, they'd go along with it, whatever their plans here were.
"There's definitely something fishy about those three..."
---
Breakfast was tense for the sirens with two princesses and Blueblood all in the room at the same time, but other than Aria and Blueblood avoiding eye-contact, the meal was actually uneventful. Pleasantries were exchanged, some confections were ingested, (most of all by Princess Luna, who seemed more focused on the meal than conversation. It was something she and Sonata had in common) a little small-talk was passed around, and then everypony moved on with their day.
Blueblood walked with them on the way out of the dining room. "Might you three have any plans today?" He went on before they could answer. "I ask because I was tasked with filling in for Princess Luna at the opening of a new museum in town this afternoon and was told I could bring a guest." Technically, it had just been that one, tired joke again, but this time he'd had a retort.
"Oh?" inquired Adagio, who was only about half as surprised as her face suggested, "what might you be doing that called for the attention of a princess, Mister Blueblood?"
"Just a standard ribbon-cutting ceremony, followed by a short tour of the building. We'll be free to roam at leisure afterward, if there's anything in particular you'd like to see."
Aria pointedly didn't look at or speak to him, glancing instead at Sonata, who bore her usual vacant smile. A quick elbow to the ribs seemed to wake her up. "Ow! I mean, I'll go! I totally like looking at, uh, old stuff."
He smiled a little. "Splendid. The museum opens in a few hours, would you like to be escorted or meet at the ceremony?"
Being that she and Adagio might not have found their way back to the castle yesterday if not for it being a big, towering castle, Sonata decided that looking for this place on her own might be fun! But following Blueblood was probably faster. "I'll go with you, I guess."
"Understood. That reminds me, did you find what you were looking for yesterday?"
"Huh?"
"Yes," Adagio cut in, forcing a reasonably convincing smile, "she was so enamored with the availability of spells, she just didn't want to stop!"
Agh, I'm technically telling the truth again. Why does that make me feel so... off? It's fine, I can stop any time I want.
She felt better already!
He nodded. "Good to hear. I'll see you in a bit, good day."
When he was out of earshot and it was clear there was nopony else around, Aria turned to Adagio, but was answered before she could ask. "Yes, it's a little odd that he didn't ask all of us to join him, more-so in that he didn't specifically ask me. Regardless, with the information gained by the end of today, I'll know enough to ensnare him myself the next time I get him alone."
She started walking back to their room, her cohorts following. "You really think you'll get enough info on his head from what we've got so far plus whatever Sonata can figure out?"
Now there was a face blowing raspberries, but as she hadn't figured out the spell for making sounds yet, (let alone how to integrate it into the Projection spell, that was SUPER tricky!) it was silently ignored.
"No, I think I'll get it from what we have so far, what she picks up on today, and what you can tell me after investigating his chambers."
"Huh?"
Adagio nodded once. "You were likely onto something this morning. Did you notice that he waited until the princesses had gone before asking if we had plans? It may have just slipped his mind until after the meal, perhaps they take their dining very seriously, and it may be that he doesn't want them to know what he's up to, to say nothing of Princess Luna looking perfectly healthy when we saw her. You know what to do?"
Aria grinned with barely-contained delight. "Ohh, yea."
They walked quietly through the halls for all of four seconds before Sonata spoke up. "What?"
Adagio almost facehoofed, but barely kept from tripping and falling while walking on three legs. "She'll wait until you're out with Blueblood and use that time to sneak into his chambers. There, she'll find whatever she can, perhaps a diary, that might tell us a little more about what he's thinking. Got it?"
"Ohh! Got it!"
Aria rolled her eyes. "Y'know, a pony that wasn't stupid might've recognized a pattern by now."
Sonata's face scrunched up in annoyance. "Oh yea? Well at least I'm not a bird-pony who can't fly!"
"Y-you little-!"
"Quiet," hissed Adagio, barely over a whisper, "your quarrels can wait until we're not at risk of being overheard." When they got back to the room and closed the door, she turned to look at Aria. "On that note, how did flight go yesterday?"
Her cheeks lit up, but for different reasons than before. "Uh, well... I can get off the ground...?"
Sonata snickered, Aria scowled, Adagio raised an eyebrow. "Landing was the problem?"
"Kinda."
"I see. Ordinarily, I'd suggest practicing that or something, but flying indoors seems akin to sprinting at full speed through a crowded hallway-"
"Hey," Sonata complained, "it only happened that one time!" The day they arrived in the other world and first stood on legs had been quite the educational one.
"-so I would advise against it. For the sake of keeping a low profile, we'll need to find somewhere open, yet secluded." She sighed a little, not sure how to work out such a paradox. "Perhaps there's a location in Canterlot that suits our purposes? It's a big enough city, after all."
Aria silently noted the irony in possibly being able to find a place like that herself while airborne if not for fear of crash-landing into it.
"On that note," Adagio said while approaching the door, "let's see what we can find. Come on, Aria."
As the pegasus moved to follow, Sonata held up a hoof. "What should I do?"
There was a shrug. "See what you can do with the spellbook? Just don't burn the castle down, please." Adagio wouldn't admit to it aloud, but she'd said that just as much because it'd be hard to find their way back without the structure still standing as for the obvious reasons.
Sonata made an angry face. "I won't burn anything down, I'm not stupid!"
Aria chuckled. "Right, catch ya later."
As the door slammed, (Aria could stand to be a little more careful herself, she'd have to point that out when they got back) Sonata huffed, taking a seat on her bed with The Wonders of Magic, the book they'd picked up when she'd managed the harder spells in Your Horn and You.
Oh, boy, the spells in this one are ALL kinda tricky-looking!
She wondered if there was some kind of relation between book title and how hard the stuff inside was. The few times she found herself away from the others in the other Canterlot's library, she noticed that the books in the kiddie section all had happy, fun titles, like The Places You'll Go or Three Little Pigs, whereas the stuff Adagio actually looked at was more like Human Anatomy and The Art of War. Those were always more...
What was the word? Business-y? The covers were dull and un-decorated, the letters were all the same blocky font. This book was more like those than the first one. Was there some kind of connection between a book's hardness to understand and the friendliness of the title? And cover? And the stuff inside?
Whatever. I know what I mean.
She wondered if that was why Aria and Adagio could be so... stuffy!
"I don't get why they do that," she said to herself, "you can be good at stuff without being a sourpuss! Right?" Looking down at The Wonders of Magic, Sonata felt the fire of determination stir in her chest! "Right! And I'll show them both!" She'd get good at casting all kinds of spells without being snooty, starting with -she flipped to a random page- Transmogrification!
She decided to flip over to the glossary first to see what that word meant.
---
"Um, Adagio?"
She glanced about as they walked, visibly scanning the town. "Yes?"
"Are we just wandering around at random?"
"Of course not!" There was a pause. "Why do you ask?"
"Well, uh," she tried to word it in the lightest way possible, Adagio was looking a little angry already. "it's just that we've passed that hat shop three times now."
They stopped walking, Adagio staring straight ahead without saying a word. In all the time Aria and Sonata had followed her, that pose usually meant that she was either seething with rage, or too embarrassed to look at them. With the way her insanely poofy mane hung by the side of her face, Aria couldn't even read her expression, just waiting in uncomfortable silence until a reply came.
"O-of course, haven't you noticed? That shop is on the corner of an intersection, the roads passing it linking to different areas of the city. We keep passing it because the roads from completely different areas lead back here."
"Uh-huh." That doesn't really explain why we've gone down some of the same roads more than once... "Maybe we should have asked Blu-" She stopped herself, which made Adagio look at her with a curiously raised eyebrow. "Uh, nothing, nevermind! We'll find the right place on our own just fine."
Smiling at her with what might have been pride, Adagio nodded once, returning her attention to a path she was pretty sure they hadn't gone down yet.
Aria let out a quiet huff at the idea of Blueblood coming to their rescue.
As if we'd need help from that stupid, stuck-up...
Asking him would have raised questions anyway, and they didn't need his help! Besides, why would he know where they could find an area with enough room to fly around, but hardly anyone to see and ask questions about an adult pegasus that didn't know what she was doing?
Going up a short series of stairs, they found themselves at the top of a roof, benches and mounted binoculars strategically placed to catch tourists. That there was nopony else there at the time said it wasn't working.
"Damn," Adagio uttered while examining one of the binocular towers, "as suspected, they even charge to look at things here.
There was no way Aria would think about asking that jerk for money, either. Hopefully Adagio's pride would keep her from doing the same.
"I spotted these peeking over the rooftop about a block away, but it looks like we can't use them. No matter, you said you'd mastered ascension, at the very least?"
"Err-" I don't like where this is going! "well, yea, but-"
"Good, fly up and see what you can find." Anything visible from the binoculars is definitely subject to scrutiny anyway, come to think of it.
Remembering that Adagio caught her back in Twilight's village, Aria took a deep breath, spread her wings, and lifted off. Counting the wingbeats, she levitated about as high as the roof would have been back in the room and looked around. Not really able to see much better, she turned in mid-air to get a wider view, realizing a second later that she'd never tried that manuever before. She dared fly a little higher, then a little more. She could see almost the entire city, consciously stopping herself from having a I-can-see-my-house-from-here moment.
Seriously, that's something Sonata would do.
She heard Adagio call out from below. "Can you see anywhere suitable?"
Glancing downward, her wings started beating faster, which was several degrees better than stopping altogether. "Not yet!" She could still see a lot of ponies walking around all over the place. There was a relatively consistent ratio of open space to population in most areas, but for every meter she flew higher, it got harder to see the details below. It was while squinting to see whether a pack of spots below were ponies or more of those display mannequins that she was blindsided by something soft. She whipped to face whoever was touching her, shoving them away. "Hey, do ya mind?! I'm-" It was a cloud. She had just touched a cloud.
Touched. A. Cloud.
Looking down at Adagio, she couldn't quite tell if the lapse in reality registered on her yellow face at that distance. Now seemed like a good time to try going down, she wanted to be on the floor right now. Slowing her wingbeats, she fell, immediately flapping harder as panic needled at the back of her head. Luckily, she had much more time before hitting the ground out here than she'd had in the room, and was able to slow to a stop just about four meters above the ground, where she stopped flying entirely, and impacted a little harder than she'd have liked on the roof next to Adagio.
"Well done. What did you see?"
"Clouds!"
Adagio was not amused. "That's not what we're looking for."
"I touched one!"
"What?"
After briefly recounting her experience with all the composure of Sonata the first time they saw a car, a mix of amazed confusion and child-like wonderment, Aria looked back up at the fluffy, white, tangible thing. "I didn't know you could touch those."
Adagio wracked her brain, trying to reason how it made any sense. "I... You can't, I mean... Do you remember back before we were banished? We flew through the clouds the first time we tried to find out what lay beyond them." It made sense at the time. If the sky was above the sea, what was above the sky? The air got painfully cold before they could find out and they never tried again. There was nothing to adore them up there anyway.
"Maybe, but..." Glancing upwards, Aria stared at the cloud she'd bumped into. "Maybe it was just that one? One sec."
Adagio watched as she lifted off again, ascending much faster than the first time to reach a cloud a little further away. She started to fly away from the roof, where Adagio couldn't possibly catch her in time if she fell.
You idiot! Don't wander off!
She'd be a lot angrier if she wasn't starting to feel so bewildered. Aria wasn't just touching the cloud, she was pushing it. Pushing clouds through the air. Hovering next to one for a few seconds, she flew over it, and stopped flapping her wings. Adagio felt her heart leap into her throat, but Aria just stopped harmlessly on top of the thing, looking around like a cat that just climbed to the highest point in the room. She waved down at Adagio, getting a hesitant, perplexed wave back.
It looked like Aria's mouth was moving, but Adagio didn't hear anything. Aria stamped on the cloud a few times before jumping up and down, a bolt of lightning firing out of the bottom and singeing a rooftop below. Silently wondering if they'd be charged with property damage, Adagio looked up again to see Aria flying towards her at reckless speed, unable to give more than a startled shriek before impact.
"Di-hid you see that?!" Aria was beaming, wings fully extended as she stood on top of Adagio, who looked up at her irritably.
"See what?" she asked, her tone all but shouting 'get off me, you idiot!'
Aria was beside herself with excitement. "Lightning! I can stand on the clouds, command them to shoot stuff! I am a weather goddess!!"
With her back to the ground, Adagio caught sight of something in the sky she hadn't noticed while watching Aria. "I'm not sure it's anything special," she said neutrally.
The Bringer of Lightning was incredulous. "N-not anything-?! Oh, you're totally jealous!"
Shoving her off, Adagio got to her hooves. "It's not that, it's-"
Aria smirked, stretching her wings proudly. "Y'know, maybe I should be the one leading, I've never seen you shoot lightning at, well, I guess there was that one time with the static electricity, but still-"
Adagio grabbed Aria's head in both forehooves, pointing it in the direction she'd seen two other pegasi pushing a cloud around. It was possible that was their occupation, by the matching shirts and hats they were wearing.
Aria deflated, her wings drooping lowest of all. "Aww..."
While her first instinct would have been to remind her minion of her place as forcefully and bitterly as possible, Adagio felt a strange pang of sympathy at her dejected expression when faced with the absence of any real power. She knew how it felt, after all. "There, there," she said, surprising both Aria and herself as she gently put a hoof on the former's shoulder. "It was still very impressive. It took Sonata a few tries to cast a spell at all, and you did... whatever you did up there without even knowing it was possible."
Aria smiled a little. "Th-thanks." As they made eye-contact, the two of them immediately broke it, taking a step backward. "So, uh, maybe I could just use the clouds for practice? I mean, there was hardly anypony up there, so..."
"Actually," Adagio said, grateful for the change of topic, "I'm not certain that's still necessary."
"Huh?"
"You didn't notice? You flew just fine while messing about with the clouds. If you can do that much, that should be all we need."
"Oh." She hadn't even really realized she was doing it. A little more practice might have been nice, but she figured the need for a private spot was pretty much void now. "So, what's next?"
"It should be a while still until Sonata goes to that museum with Blueblood. What say we explore a little longer, just for the sake of it?"
As they started down the stairs, Aria chuckled. "Might not hurt to build a mental map of the place, or we might be seeing the same hat shops a lot."
"And what exactly are you implying?" Adagio demanded with a raised brow, but her tone lacked the usual sense of menace.
"Nothing," Aria answered with a hint of a smile, "nothing!"
"Hmph. Did you see anything interesting while you were up there?"
"Was a little more blown away by the power to touch clouds."
"I suppose there's no shame in that. May as well wander for a while, we can even truthfully tell anypony who asks that we were familiarizing ourselves with the area a little more." She'd lie about something. It might not be anything important, but she wanted to lie about something soon.
As they walked with no particular goal, Aria reflected on their little exchange just a moment ago. That might have been the closest Adagio'd ever been to joking with her, like what she'd seen the Rainbooms do with each other. Weirder still were the small smiles on their faces, staying there for the better part of the afternoon.
---
Having spent most of the day thinking about how things went with Aria Blaze, Blueblood opted to try a few things differently this time. Perhaps his first mistake had been sending Kibitz, for that official 'royal welcome' feeling. It didn't seem to take, and he knew he couldn't fault the old butler, because he'd been doing that kind of thing since before Blueblood was born. Of course, it was entirely possible that Miss Blaze was just a cold, hateful, irritating, unpleasable harridan of a pony, but he couldn't assume the same of... Which one was I going with tonight? Sonata somethingorother. None of them talked an awful lot, but when they did, they only used each other's first names outside of introductions.
Given what he'd seen of her so far, Sonata seemed a lot more... pleasant? She certainly smiled more, but he got the impression she was a few guests short of a banquet. Approaching the Pisces room, he didn't need to listen carefully to hear what sounded like half an orchestra as conducted by Discord, but as that freakish serpent spent more and more time in Ponyville since the Tirek incident, the one he helped cause, forgiven immediately of course, that probably wasn't the case. He dared knock on the door. "Hello? Is everything alright in there?"
The cacophony came to an end with what sounded like cymbals crashing together, followed by rapid hoofsteps before the door cracked open.
"Hi," said a magenta eye, "I, uh, j-just need a sec, are you in a big hurry?"
"Well, no, but-"
"Great, back in a minute!"
The door closed again, the noise from before returning with gusto, like the manic orchestra was sips away from overdosing on caffeine. Blueblood knocked again. "The ribbon-cutting ceremony isn't due to begin for another half an hour, but may I ask what you're up to in there?" As the only response was a few more minutes of noise, he momentarily put aside the faux pas of entering a lady's room without her express permission and opened the door himself. What he saw may as well have been a scene from another world entirely.
Sonata was standing on three hooves, her back-left twirling a colorful ring tied with strings to other things, the things tied to those strings flapping outward like wings. They were colorful and misshapen slats, like puzzle pieces, appearing to levitate where they were and constantly rattling as they impacted each other, held in place by the strings from the ring like balloons that weren't balloons at all.
That was the most comprehensible thing on her person at that moment.
There were turning tubes and perforated pipes, bloated bags and bending bars, machinery, or something, the likes of which he'd never seen on her back. The mess of metal, wood, and what might have been polyester moved and grooved as her head bobbed. By the look of the mechanism covering her mouth, it was possible she was producing some amount of the sounds by blowing into it, but he couldn't be sure. He couldn't even be sure how much of the arrangement was three-dimensional, given the constant motion, it was like looking at one of those impossible staircase pictures from the right angles.
She stopped, the ring and its things clattering to the floor as she looked back at him curiously. "So, how am I doing?"
His mouth twitched, not a single coherent thought in his head.
"You know, demonstration of musical theory via... um... hang on." She looked over at a book she'd propped up on a cushion on the floor, studying it for a good minute as Blueblood studied the contraption on her back. It made precisely as much sense motionless as it did when activated. "Aw, shoot," Sonata continued, "I need a third-tier acoustics spell for the boom-bombers and-"
"What."
"I said, I need a third-tier, WAIT, is it fourth? Or second? Is that where I'm messing up?"
He managed a sentence. "What are you doing with this?"
"Oh!" She turned to him, the corners of her eyes suggesting a smile. "I wanted to show that you could make every kind of music at once with the right background music and back-up singer spells, so I magic'd up some stuff to do that with! Then they started disappearing like a minute later, so I looked into making stuff last longer over in the section with the-" several rows of pipes on her back dissipated into nothing, "oh, darnit!" She sighed, throwing off the abomination of sound as more and more of it began to vanish.
"I had all kinds of instruments going there, too! Whipper-whappers, dingle-dongles, twin twisters and flip-flappers, all going and blowing like three-horn ker-snappers!"
"Those sound like words out of The Hat on the Ca-" he nearly choked when she turned to look at him, sputtering nonsense for several seconds when he saw that she had cat whiskers.
"Hey, are you okay?"
By some great feat of willpower, Blueblood managed to compose himself after about a minute of looking away, closing his eyes, and taking several deep breaths. "One," he uttered when he was able to speak again, "how did you come up with any of that?"
"The whipper-whappers, ding-"
"Yes. Those."
"I made 'em up!"
"Of course. Two, how did you come up with any of that?"
"Magic!"
"Which spells?"
"Huh?"
"Which spells were you casting to achieve that result?"
"Oh! Uhh..." She flipped through the book. "I think it was, might'a been... this one? And, maybe this too?" After another minute or two of searching, she shrugged. "Maybe I should've asked for a bookmark?"
She did this with no clue how? Is that even possible? It felt like a moot question. "Right then... Three, why do you have cat whiskers?"
She blinked. "I have cat whiskers?"
'Run,' said a voice in his head, 'run now and never look back, you can always take your chances with Adagio Dazzle later, right?' But he would not run away. "Yes," he answered in completely level tone, "yes you do."
Reaching up to brush a hoof against them, she looked genuinely surprised in addition to weirdly adorable. "That's funny, I don't-OH!" She beamed. "It worked! The Transmogrification spell worked!" There was a long pause. "Kinda!"
"Is there a counterspell?" While he didn't want to diminish whatever sense of accomplishment she'd gotten out of that, she couldn't very well-Dusk! Her last name was Dusk! She couldn't very well show up to a public event, even a minor one, with cat whiskers. Or any other kind, really.
"Is that number four?"
"What? I-yes, yes that's question four, I suppose."
She nodded. "One sec!" A moment later, Blueblood remembered that he knew a simple cancellation spell himself, and promptly cast it. Sonata smiled. "Oh, great! They went away on their own! Now we just need to find that counterspell and we'll be good to go!"
It was another exercise in willpower to just let her keep looking for it. Who knew, maybe she'd actually have use for it soon? Possibly the next few minutes?
She found it. "Great, now I just need a bookmark spell!" More flipping. More finding. "Aha! Now to... Oh, darnit!"
"Well," Blueblood intoned, feeling like being psychologically beaten senseless was the worst she could do to him, "I suppose you'll be putting that musical project on hold?"
Her head tilted. "Musical project?"
His eye twitched. "The. One. With. The-"
"Hold that thought, Mister Blueblood, I know we're only up to five questions, but I think the other fifteen'll have to wait, the ribbon-thingy should be starting soon!"
Big colts don't cry, he thought as she galloped out the door, big colts don't cry.