• Published 3rd Mar 2015
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Sucker for a Cute Face - Eyeswirl the Weirded



Adagio finds Fluttershy alone one morning, and many to follow.

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Chapter 6: Congealed Misnomer Lumps

School was interesting that day.

Not because of anything in the lessons, but because Fluttershy really didn't feel all that tense about what Adagio had said to her. Part of that may have had something to do with the other thing Adagio had said to her, one statement counteracting the other. The two thoughts swirled around in her head like the anxiety and pride that accompanied each swirling in her heart! Specifically, the notion that it was possible she knew where Fluttershy lived and could drop by at any time, unannounced, with no possible explanation to give her mother if she was home at the time... and that she thought Fluttershy was brave.

And, thinking about it, she kind of was! That was what she had felt just before Adagio scared the daylights out of her, after all. But still, she knew Adagio, scary, suggestive, personal-space-violating Adagio, was coming for her and sat out in the open anyway, just waiting to get pounced on startled. She could hardly conceive of doing something like that less than a year ago, but there she had been! Of course, her soaring confidence was brought down to normal levels when she remembered that she had still been shaking with fright, screamed when Adagio touched her leg, and spent most of the encounter stumbling over her words.

That in mind, she still felt alright through the rest of the day.

"You're either braver than you give yourself credit for, or an idiot, and I've seen your grades."

"You're either braver than you give yourself credit for"

"You're brave"

She wore the memory of those words like a shroud, a thick blanket to take refuge in.

The scariest girl in school said I was brave! There's nothing you can do to me!

Thinking such things at some of the people she'd ordinarily have turned and quickly walked away from in the hallways was exhilarating! At least, it was when they didn't look directly at her, leading her to instead think-say a rapid stream of apologies if her thoughts were bothering them and that she'd just go away now.

Before going to bed that night, Fluttershy looked in the mirror, stood up straight, and whispered to herself: "I can be brave. I can be brave. I can be brave."

That, a glass of warm milk, Angel Bunny sleeping protectively on her stomach, and the knowledge that Adagio was not in the room at that very moment were all she needed to get to sleep that night. Along with a quiet prayer that it would remain that way. At least until she was ready for it. Not that she ever would be, of course! But, just, in the unlikely event of that happenstance, she would want to be-no, it was like-

She lost another hour of what could have been sleep herding the bunnies in her brain until they settled on just not wanting Adagio in the room right now.

---

The next morning, Fluttershy again waited at the bench, trying not to think about the chances that Adagio forgot their 'deal' yesterday, or decided she just didn't care. Either way, thinking about someone sneaking up on her was a heavy load on her nerves, so she instead focused on the little bag she had waiting on her lap, wondering how Adagio would respond to jelly beans.

She had specifically started looking for candy types that would be harder to do anything like... well, like what Adagio had been doing with them up to now. She would try to avoid anything with wrappers in the future. Lollipops were out, for obvious reasons, along with anything that Adagio might take out of Fluttershy's mouth, put it in her own again, and-

Something touched her shoulder, earning yet another startled yelp. Whipping her head in the direction of the tap, she was met with a slightly bewildered Adagio leaning over the back of the bench.

An orange eyebrow was raised. "Can't pin this one on me, Sweetie, I called out to you twice."

Her whole face feeling warm, Fluttershy wasn't sure if it was because she'd been caught zoning out, or because Adagio remembered after all. And cared! "Haha, s-sorry about that," she held up the bag where Adagio could see, "would you like some jelly beans?"

Examining the bag, Adagio tilted her head a little. "Well... " As with the candy corn, she seemed almost suspicious of them. Did she just not like bagged food? Whether that was the case or not, she reached in to grab a few, lightly bouncing the sugary seeds in her hand. "I thought jelly was a lot softer than this."

Fluttershy nodded a little. "These might have been once, but I've always kind of figured they congeal and harden a little while after they're made." She looked at the bag curiously. "However that's done."

Shrugging, Adagio raised the oddly-shaped candy pellets to her mouth, making note of Fluttershy suddenly turning away. She grinned. "Something wrong, Sweetie?"

She didn't dare look back at Adagio for whatever she was about to do. "N-no ma'am, please don't mind me, just, w-watching some birds."

"Mm-hmm. Well, that's good, I was afraid you might have been thinking something dirty."

She squeaked. "I wasn't-!"

"Oh, I know," came a reply that sounded like 'I know you're lying,' "a good girl like you wouldn't spend a second of her day thinking about a bad girl like me. About the things I might do." Her voice was getting a little closer with each breathy syllable. "Things a bad girl like me might do." The mischievous grin was painfully audible, making Fluttershy shake. "You wouldn't think about things like that, would you?"

Lowering her head to hide in her hair even while facing away, Fluttershy was having trouble concentrating. "N-n-n-no, I-I'd-" She could feel warm breath on her ear, sending a wave of shivers up her spine.

"Because if you are thinking impure thoughts, you can tell me everything..."

By the way Adagio giggled to herself, Fluttershy guessed she didn't need to be able to see her face to know it was red enough that circulation was becoming a concern, however distant. Quietly babbling to herself, she felt like this one was her own fault somehow.

Leaving her target to think (and think hard) about whatever may have been on her mind at that moment, Adagio backed off a little, resuming her usual position and popping the jelly beans into her mouth. Finding them to be smooth and relatively hard, she tentatively bit down, finding them to be much more flavorful as she chewed them apart.

Not hearing anything out of the ordinary, Fluttershy risked catching sight of whatever Adagio might have been doing for a chance to see the analytical face, and there it was!

Tracing over the inside of the beans with her tongue, Adagio didn't notice the tiny smile directed her way. "Hm... They're kind of, strange in texture, on the inside. Flavorful, but rough, almost grainy. Nothing like jelly..." Chuckling, she smiled a little, Fluttershy's own growing ten-fold. "They're pretty good, I suppose, misnomer or not."

Still beaming happily, Fluttershy held up the bag again. "There are plenty more, if you'd like!"

Staring back at her for a moment, those big, bright, blue eyes seemed to pull Adagio in for just a fraction of a second. She wasn't sure what to make of this expression, but nodded a little and took another handful of internally grainy fruit-lumps as Fluttershy did the same, the two of them eating in silence for a few minutes.

"So," Fluttershy inquired when her mouth wasn't full, "how have things been, since you started coming to school?"

Adagio shrugged. "We do alright, the three of us. At least, most of the time." Fluttershy's curious little head-tilt suggested she wanted to hear more. "Do you remember the pep rally a few weeks ago?"

---

The sirens had been together for quite a while, and in that time, Sonata proved herself as the most willing to follow orders. Not always the most able, but generally more cooperative than Aria. This extended beyond Adagio's evil plans when they dried up, so when Principal Celestia asked everyone to show their support for the Wondercolts, Sonata was the first to grab two pom-poms and go ballistic.

She jumped up and down, flailing her arms and running all around the gym, her high-pitched shouts doing more to instill amusement than school pride in the student body. She cheered and screamed and danced as though she were possessed by a myriad of pop icons at once and all of them had taken near-lethal amounts of caffeine. Then came fear as she got her hands on the megaphone and turned the volume to maximum.

"WOOOOOOO-EE!! C'MON EVERYBODY, GET UP AND STOMP! STOMP HOLES IN THE FLOOR!! STOMP UNTIL YOUR ANKLES ARE BROKEN!! AND WITH THAT PAIN, SCREAM!! SCREAM FOR YOUR TEAM!! WE'LL MAKE IT EXPLODE UP IN THIS BITCH!! E! X! P! L! O-oh, hi Vice Principal Luna! You don't look very peppy..."

---

Fluttershy did remember, she'd spent the whole time hiding in the library, like she always did when the whole school got together to be loud and scary. This time, though, there was an extra little... disturbance, a feeling of foreboding that made her especially glad she hadn't gone.

"It's a shame," continued Adagio, "I really thought Sonata would open the door for us by befriending the cheer-leading squad after that, but since her little stunt at the last big game...?"

She had heard about that. Sonata had apparently coated the Wondercolts' mascot outfit in certain chemicals to slow any actual burning before putting it on and setting it on fire to dance around while screaming at the top of her lungs. To support the team, of course. It made some kind of sense in theory, but to everyone that saw her, (which is to say, everyone) it just looked like she was so full of school spirit that she set herself on fire. As the suit was only a little singed in a few places by the time they put her out, Fluttershy wondered if she at least got extra credit in Mr. Doodle's class. "They, uh... probably kicked her out after that?"

"To put it lightly." Adagio held a hand to her chin in contemplation. "Actually, that's not the only, err, misunderstanding to have taken place since the three of us started attending classes." She gave Fluttershy an earnestly unsure look. "I'm not complaining, but why do they keep letting us come here? Even if none of us are trying to cause trouble between Aria's occasional outbursts, Sonata's rare antics, and me being-" she haughtily brushed her hair aside, smiling confidently as she did, "-too much, I know we're breaking rules sometimes." Adagio herself wound up in the vice principal's office fairly often, but that wasn't the same as being expelled.

This one was actually kind of easy. "Well, I think Principle Celestia really believes in forgiveness and second chances, even for bad kids." Her eyes shot open and her heart-rate spiked as she realized what she just said. "I-I MEAN, not that you guys are bad, I-I'm sure you, it's, you just do bad things beca-no wait, you aren't, y-you even said-"

Adagio reached out and gently poked the top of her head again. "Stop. Breathe. Listen."

She did.

"We might only be here to kill time, but I'd like to think that we make an effort to play by your rules counts for something."

"I-it does! And we're all very glad you're-"

"Yes, I know," Adagio said with a chuckle, "I wasn't taking offense. I get that what we pulled before wasn't very nice, and have absolutely no plan, or means, to do it again. Alright?"

Nodding a little, Fluttershy was glad to have that settled so soon.

"Come to think of it," Adagio went on with a hint of a smile, "we still haven't even blown anything up yet, and if Sunset Shimmer earned everyone's trust after that, there must be hope for us too!"

"...'Yet'?"

Adagio crossed her arms, nodding. "Yet. If Sonata decides to show school spirit by rigging something to explode, Aria and I will try to stop her, but no promises."

There was a long pause before Fluttershy opted to try a different topic. "What is it Aria does that gets her in trouble? She's pretty well behaved in my English class."

Adagio chuckled, pushing off the bench. "Long story short? Language barriers. See you around, Sweetie."

This time, Fluttershy waited a whole ten seconds before rapidly looking around, and to her surprise, spotted Adagio actually walking away. She wasn't exactly happy that Adagio was leaving her for the day, but contented herself with doing a little analysis of her own. Even from the back, she could see that Adagio moved with confidence, back straight, head held high... hips swinging...

A part of her dared dream that someday, she might walk the same way.

Author's Note:

I'm going to try to publish each chapter within a period of two weeks, amid everything else I'm working on. That they're supposed to be short and sweet makes that a little easier.

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