Through A Darkened Mirror

by Dorath

9.0 … In Which Everyone Relaxes …

"So, this Princess Cadance is the physical embodiment of love?" Sunset shook her head and smirked at her friend, "I'm not sure if I should be jealous of Shining or pity the poor man."

"Hey, Caddy is a wonderful mare!" Twilight protested as the seven women lay sprawled about their living room, recovering from Pinkie Pie's "We've Made It Two Years" party, "And they have a great marriage ... even if they have had a few ups and downs."

Sunset shot a grin at the indigo-haired girl, before her face dropped into a pensive frown, "Wait, you have corporeal manifestations of stellar objects and even emotions wandering around your home ... and you want to go back? What's wrong with you girls?"

"Well that was rather rude," declared Rarity archly, "And why shouldn't we want to return home, Sunset darling?"

"Because if you have chaos and love literally walking around, then you should have incarnations of other concepts and emotions too, what do you do about fear, or hate, or fragging death?"

"Hey now, don't talk about the Pale Mare like that!" scolded Pinkie, "She's doing a difficult, thankless job, and silly ponies being all scaredy-pants of her just makes her feel bad!"

"As for Hate, Fear or any other embodiments of the darker emotions or concepts, I have never heard of any," Twilight observed, "Although, from a purely philosophical point, they admittedly should exist somewhere."

"So what if they do?" Rainbow shrugged, her voice slurring a bit from all the cider she had drunk, "We got th' Princesses and Harmony to smack 'em one and either send 'em to Tartarus or make 'em behave," Fluttershy gave a startled squeak as the athlete wrapped her in a one-armed hug, "Just like 'Shy did with Discord, right fillies?"

Sunset blinked at the other girls, "Um, yeah, 'harmony' will win the day, go harmony," she sighed, "Still so damn naive," and took another drink.

"No more Miss Grumpy-Sunny!" declared the partygirl, "And no more gloomy-doomy thoughts, either! We're having fun!" she glared at the razorgirl, "Riiight?"

"Yes, right, having fun," Sunset quickly agreed, "How can such a complete ditz still manage to be so creepy?" the older girl muttered to herself. 'Still, they've done pretty well for themselves,' she mused. Her friends had come through over a year in the Biz in excellent shape, other than the scars on Pinkie's leg, and the limp she would have for the rest of her life, the only physical marks of their exploits among the six was the knife scar running along the side of Rainbow's face and the marks in Rarity's shoulder from when a shotgun (fortunately loaded with shot instead of slugs) had torn through her barrier and armor. Mentally ... the fact that they could still be as innocent as they seemed, despite everything the Biz and life in general threw at them, showed how psychologically tough they were ... or was an indication of a shared insanity, she wasn't entirely sure which ....

The fact that they hadn’t gotten themselves upgraded was another oddity. Yeah, esper powers didn’t mix with cyberware, so Rarity and Twilight choosing to stay all natural made some sense, even when their esper abilities didn’t, but the others also refused to get any implants, despite Sunset knowing that Rainbow and Pinkie were interested in reflex and ocular mods. It was just more of the Equestrian weirdness that she had gotten used to.

"Ya know," Applejack's drawl interrupted the razorgirl's musings, "If'n Sunny is goin' ta be a wet blanket, then we ought ta make her decided what we're goin' ta do next."

"Wait, what?"

"Hey, ya're tha one that had ta go getting' all philosophical about 'incarnations' and what not when we're tryin' ta distract ourselves from bein' away from our kin, now get with tha distractin'."

Sunset glared into the farmgirl's smirk for a moment, before she relented and offered the first idea that popped into her mind, "Fine, I think the Underground Solution is having an open mic night, how about we try that?"

---

But this is also true: that when she's here,
What follows next; a wave of plague and curse.
A person mad, another gone, and we're
To wonder why Zecora leaves us worse.

Sunset turned back towards her friends as Pinkie sang and capered on the stage, "So this 'Zecora' is someone you all know, I take it?"

"Well, in Pinkie's defenses," Twilight confessed as she and the other girls exchanged slightly embarrassed looks, "We were operating under severe misapprehensions about Zecora when she came up with this song."

"So, no concerns about hexes or her trying to cook people anymore then?"

"Oh no," Fluttershy replied with a small shake of her head, "We're all rather good friends now."

"Zecora helps out with tha town's Nightmare Night carnival for tha foals, an' she's been teachin' ma li'll sis about potions an' alchemy an' such," Applejack added.

"We should probably call it a night soon," the razorgirl observed reluctantly, she had been surprised to learn that all six of them could sing, in fact Fluttershy and Rarity's duet had drawn some of the biggest applause of the night, 'This was a pretty good idea, we should go out singing again, sometime.'

"We can't go yet!" declared Pinkie as she suddenly dropped into Rainbow's lap, "I talked with Mr. Hamilton, the manager, and he said we could do a group song or two!" the party girl turned her giant, pleading, blue eyes on the others, "Can we? Can we? Please, with cherries and whipped cream and marshmallows on top?"

The six women caved quickly, only Fluttershy could match Pinkie when it came to puppy dog eyes, "So, what are we going to sing?" asked Sunset as they headed for the stage.

In reply, Rainbow began to hum a tune, with the other Equestrians quickly joining in, "Just go with the flow and let the music guide you," the athlete instructed her.

Sunset blinked, but when she opened her mouth to protest Rainbow's decidedly unhelpful advice, Fluttershy put a hand on her shoulder, "Just trust us," she smiled at the razorgirl, "Go friendship and harmony, right?"

Shrugging in defeat, the older girl followed along, but it seemed that her friends were right, she somehow knew the tune, knew the words, even though Sunset was certain she had never heard the song before in her life.

You're never gonna bring me down,
You're never gonna break this part of me.
My friends are here to bring me 'round,
Not singing just for popularity.