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// 11. Dissonance 
// Story: Pinkie Pie Swear 
// by Annuska 
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	— but of course, there was a tomorrow, and tomorrow came with crushing weight and shattering actuality.
 

And it was at first brightly iridescent, then dark red and deeply orange, and finally, blindingly spectral—

 it started with a lulling, rising steadily into cacophonic clashing, and ended in shrill sharpness—

 it was at first crisp, then warmed with burning heat, and ultimately, became suffocatingly dry—

 and all at once, it was sweet, savoury, sour, bitter— 
   and culminated in numbness.

 it rose like a crescendo, crashed like a wave— 
   but was empty like the hollow of a drum.
 

Tomorrow had the jubilance of things wished for, worked for, earned – 
 and the deprivation of things taken, stolen, shattered into a million pieces.
 

The bitter way it see-sawed between them; where one had the positive, the other inherited the negative, and vice versa; and so it rose and fell in direct proportion to the other, never reaching equilibrium, never levelling; and when finally it settled in favour of one, it rattled the other.
 

—and the other brushed a finger, eyes wide, at the shards of red beneath her – rose to her feet and tried to enchant even in its absence – and though she had a voice, unlike in her dream, it warbled and caught in her throat and held her under the water, tangled her up in the seaweed, scraped her against the reef – and if the conceding to a mutual understanding that things could never be was not enough to sink her heart, this was the final tear in the ship’s hull—
 

—and the friends of the one laughed and joked and made light of it all, but it was all she could do to force a smile, because they’d won! they’d won they’d won repeated like a broken record player – and she stayed behind long after they vacated, eyes fixed on the red fragments, she knelt and touched them gently, jarred by their presence, the pile that had once hung whole in an intimate moment around her own neck, the ultimate show of trust – and she felt that she’d engaged in betrayal a thousand times over—
 

And now Sonata sat, not in her usual position to the right of Adagio, but between her and Aria, Aria to her left and Adagio to her right, staring at a glint of shimmering rock caught in the concrete of the sidewalk. None of them ventured to speak on that park bench, far from the theatre, not yet ready to return home, still reeling from the sound of their own voices – and she sat the same some weeks later, alone on the sofa in their living room, eyes fixed to the carpet, ears still ringing with the sound of their music.

And she hated how the drum still beat into her heart, how it had even as it cascaded down on her –
 

And Pinkie thought. And she thought. And thought and thought and thought – she gave Gummy a long look and she held the silver eighth-note necklace between her fingers and she lay on her bed and she got her hair into a tangle – and Maud sat with her and didn’t say much, but brushed her curls with a slow tenderness that eased Pinkie’s guilt-racked heart, but never eased the guilt enough that the feeling left her entirely, even when she could laugh again.

And she hated how doing the right thing felt like the wrong thing, how this felt worse than being left alone on a snowy December night –
 

And time moved on, but slowly.
 

It moved on slowly as the once-Dazzlings made concessions in order to readjust to life as humans once more – now devoid of all trace of their former Equestrian selves and the powers they had once naturally possessed – readjusting and learning again and fumbling and struggling, dissatisfied, disappointed, dismal.

But they learned and they acclimated, but never conceded to assimilation, always to share a commonality in their origins, their homes, their companionship, always to stay by one another.
 

It moved on slowly as the still-Rainbooms found a renewed spark in their relationships with one another, a new array of music to play, promise in the form of goodbye until next time and letters exchanged magically. A fond look from one as she departed, a long wished-for sense of belonging settling into another, the mundaneness of routine newly-appreciated by the others – though one could never quite settle.

They sometimes stumbled, and weren’t without their fights, disagreements, struggles, but they learned and the days fell away and they always found each other again.
 

And time moved on, but slowly.