The Natural Beauty of Infidelity
A wide smile and gleaming, starry eyes on Rarity’s face all hinted at excitement and adoration in her heart as she spoke. Once upon a time, those signals would have been superfluous. Her feelings would have manifested as a festival of vivid colors and enticing scents, and her heart would have been bare even if Adagio had a veil over her face and wax sealing her ears.
But then, once upon a time, Adagio had a ruby hanging from her neck. The insights it revealed to her made even the most exaggerated of smiles subtle by comparison, but now those miniscule hints were all she had to work with. When she sat in that candle-lit restaurant, it was practice rather than instinct that made sense of it all and told her how Rarity adored her.
“ ‘…but the best gift of them all is the most beautiful girl in the world, and it’s my delight to say to you all that we’ve been dating for the last, best, three months of my life.’ How does that sound to you?”
“It’s your birthday we’re talking about, isn’t it?” Adagio sipped from her glass of water, gesturing to Rarity. “I wouldn’t mind a little more flattery, but you should say whatever you want to say.”
“I know, I know.” Rarity waved a delicate hand, still beaming. “I just can’t stop thinking about it, though. Honestly, you’ve no idea how hard it was to not spill the beans early.” She covered her mouth with her fingers when she giggled. “I think it’ll be worth it, though. Oh, that day is going to be a dream come true! Granted, a year or two ago I would never have guessed it’d be a queen sweeping me off my feet instead of a prince, but—”
“But you wouldn’t change a thing, would you?” Adagio smirked coyly. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t either.” The secrecy, she could do without, but how could she turn it down when Rarity spoke of it like that?
Hints of rosy color seeped into Rarity’s pale cheeks. “No, indeed I wouldn’t. It’s… still so hard to believe, sometimes. That we’re here, together, after…”
And to think that it had all started by mending a dress. Such a silly gesture, in the grand scheme of things, but Adagio had worshipped the thing. She’d told herself, for weeks on end, that the night she wore it was going to be nothing but magnificent, but then… Well, not every dream got to come true.
That was what made the ones that did so special.
“Ah, Adagio?”
Rarity’s voice broke Adagio’s concentration. She blinked, and when she looked to the side there was a woman there. Light orange skin, with mulberry curls spilling down her back. She had a smile on her face, but it was so broad, so cheerful. That meant she was… a smile could mean anything, really. Rarity’s were all second nature to her by then, but other people had so much variety to them. Eyes were the next landmark to check, but in the dim light, when they were so small… oh, why couldn’t more people wear makeup like Rarity’s? Adagio frowned. It was so hard to pick the right words, not when she wasn’t sure what—
“W—well?” Rarity gave Adagio a little nudge. “What would you like to eat, darling?”
Of course. How obvious. Adagio cleared her throat, skimmed the menu in front of her, and picked something at random. As soon as she spoke, years of experience kicked in, and she was the most charming, collected woman in the restaurant. She honestly wasn’t sure what it was she’d ordered, but Rarity and the waitress—Adagio could have kicked herself for taking so long to figure it out—both nodded their approval.
“I’ll be right back with your orders!” Another smile. Cheerful? Just placating? It was obscured in an instant by a turn of a head before she could say for certain.
“Thank you, Saffron darling.” Rarity smiled, but hers was like an open book to Adagio, genuine and warm.
“Right,” Adagio said, once the waitress had left with their menus. Moments after that dreadful little stumble, and her voice was right back to its usual buttery smoothness. “Where were we?”
Rarity shot a look that might have been a glare if it were just a bit more forceful. “Everything alright?”
“Yes, of course.” Adagio made a gesture. “You’re just awfully distracting. More so than usual, even.”
“Well, I’d better be, with such stiff competition sitting right across from me. I really have to work if I want to turn any heads when I’m out with you.” Rarity’s voice and demeanor turned light and carefree for a moment, but then she cast another stern look.
Adagio muttered under her breath. It was hardly her own fault that people all had such different faces. “I’m fine. That was the first time this week.” A few months ago she could barely talk to anyone else.
Rarity was still looking at her. That meant she had to keep talking.
But really, the last thing Rarity’s perfect birthday needed was a girlfriend to fret over. No, there wasn’t any room for drama. Not then. “I’m fine,” Adagio repeated. “Really, I am.”
Rarity sighed solemnly, looking down and away. “I know, I know. You are fine. Most of the time. It just… breaks my heart whenever you look at someone else like they’re speaking another language.”
“I’m getting better.”
“Yes, you are. Nobody’s saying you’re not. But would you please consider telling someone else? I just know you’d get so much better if you had another person to practice with. Are you sure you can’t talk to your sisters?”
Adagio scoffed. “The fastest way to make any potentially embarrassing information common knowledge is to ask Sonata to keep it in good confidence, and I can’t imagine Aria giving me advice when she could laugh at me instead.” It felt cruel, speaking of them in that way, but it had been their choice to cling to the past. Moving out had hurt, but every day she got to see Rarity convinced her it was the right decision to move on.
Rarity opened her mouth, doubtless with words on the tip of her tongue ready to creep into the air. Before she could speak, a ringing phone beside Adagio cut her off.
Hissing under her breath, Adagio rummaged through her purse, already giving herself a silent lashing for forgetting to silence the stupid thing. When she saw Sunset’s name on the screen, she groaned. She’d meant to ask her to stop calling one day—not to say being around her wasn’t good fun, but it was hard enough to talk to her sometimes even without her voice being distorted and her face nowhere to be found.
Rarity craned her neck. “How about her? She’s clearly not too busy to talk.”
Adagio pouted at Rarity. “I am.”
“And you’ll be seeing plenty of me tomorrow to make up for it, won’t you?”
“Me and so many others. Dinner with your friends first, then all those other students packed into one room… no, I’m not wasting a second tonight. I’m fine,” Adagio said, turning the phone’s screen black and lifeless and hiding it from view. “Besides, you know how she can worry about her friends, and I don’t want anyone concerned about me the night before a day that’s all about you.”
Rarity closed her eyes, sighing heavily. “Darling, that’s… that’s so sweet of you I can almost overlook how stubborn you’re being.” She looked at Adagio, reaching out to touch her shoulder. “Just… tell someone. Please? For me?”
Adagio rolled her eyes but held up her hands. “Alright. But not tonight, and not tomorrow.”
“The day after tomorrow, then?”
“Yes. The day after tomorrow.”
The smile that crossed Rarity’s face as she pulled back was broad and gleaming and reminded Adagio of exactly why she was worth all the trouble. “That’s all I wanted to hear from you,” she said.
“I’m glad you’re satisfied.” Adagio lifted her glass to her lips again, swallowing another mouthful of water, then set it aside, looked into Rarity’s eyes, and smiled. “Now, let’s just stop talking about all that for now, shall we? We’re here to enjoy ourselves, after all.”
The nights had tended to seem far too short to Adagio in the recent weeks. Hours blurred by when she thought only minutes had passed. By the time she pulled her up outside Rarity’s house, she could hardly believe it was already over.
“Here we are,” she said. She stepped out, circled around to open the passenger door, and ushered Rarity into the night air.
“Already?” Rarity pouted as she stepped out, but the expression was so blatant that Adagio knew it to be feigned. “Tomorrow night can’t come soon enough, then. I did remember to give you that dress I made for you, didn’t I?”
Adagio nodded. “Best one you’ve made for me yet.”
Rarity chuckled, playing with her hair. “Can’t have the party of my dreams without my girlfriend looking the part, can I?” She giggled again.
Adagio might have rolled her eyes if Rarity hadn’t seemed so happy. “You’ll see me in it tomorrow, then.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” Rarity started to turn towards her house, only to pause. “Ah, there… there was actually one more thing.” She breathed, clasping her hands together. Color came creeping back into her cheeks. “So, I was talking to my parents the other day, and they finally decided that this is the very last night of my curfew.”
Adagio felt her pulse quicken. She remembered a conversation from a few weeks ago—she’d been over, late one night, helping Rarity study; Rarity had been half-asleep at the time, and it just… slipped out.
In the present day, Adagio saw several things on Rarity’s face. Anxiety, for one, but also excitement, and the pair hinted at scandalous thrills running through the girl’s head.
The cold dread Adagio felt creeping up on her—Rarity could look so pitiful when she was disappointed, and often did such a poor job of hiding it, even to one as blind to that kind of thing as Adagio—never once made it to her face. She was calm on the outside, the very image of sensual elegance. “Is that so? You sound awfully excited.”
“I am! Don’t you realize?” Rarity slid closer, throwing her arms around Adagio’s neck. “After all this time, we can finally spend the whole night together!” She stopped herself, frowning. “Oh, that’s… not a problem for you, is it? I’d assumed it wouldn’t be—well, not much of anything, really, not for someone as… experienced, let’s say as you, but—”
“N—no, I’m… looking forward to it.” Adagio slipped her arms around Rarity’s waist, drawing her close, leaning down to whisper in her ear. “Just between the two of us, I’d be fine skipping the party and cutting right to the chase.”
Rarity’s eyes widened, and a shiver rattled through her whole body; those kinds of reactions, deep and full of desire, were always a treat to see unfold. She looked into Adagio’s eyes, helplessly enamored. “I always expect the best from you, and you’ve never once let me down, you know that?”
In the back of Adagio’s head, a resounding “not yet” rang out. On the front of her head, the sly smile that played on her lips came instinctually. “Only for a lack of trying, you realize. But you should go and get some rest. Can’t have a perfect birthday without a good night’s sleep.” Conventional wisdom said she had to stop there, but what was the harm in just one more coaxing? “I’d offer to keep you company, but let’s wait until we have a house to ourselves, shall we?”
And, sure enough, the look that came over Rarity’s face was delicious, almost shamefully so. “Yes, of—of course.” Rarity reluctantly slipped away, a vacant, starry-eyed gaze occupying her face. She cleared her throat, blurted out a little jumbled stammer, and hurried over to the doorstep, pausing with her hand on the doorknob to look at Adagio one more time.
Adagio blew her a kiss and winked. “Good night.”
With that, she turned slowly on her heel, slowly sauntered back around to the car door, and slipped inside, glancing out the window just in time to see the entrance to Rarity’s house pulled shut.
Then, finally left to herself, Adagio’s arms, that had been steady as sculpted marble around Rarity’s waist, turned to quivering jelly. She could hear her pulse hastening, feel her breaths turning haggard.
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.
A handful of words could have set it all straight, if she’d said them a few weeks ago. So why hadn’t she? Was poking a tiny hole in the image Rarity was so clearly infatuated with so severe a wound that it was worth so much grief to keep it covered? Was milking someone for a little more adoration worth digging the hole she was in deeper and deeper?
And now it was all too late, wasn’t it? Rarity’s expectations had been high to begin with, but weeks of speculation and wonder had evidently thrust them clear above the clouds, and Adagio had just about twenty-four hours to become a timeless master at an art she’d never touched in her entire life, or else Rarity’s dream would end with a crushing disappointment.
Stupid. So, so, so, stupid.
But what was there to be done about it? Problems gleamed like the brightest mirrors, doubly so with the benefit of hindsight, but solutions had no such luster.
She pressed her fingers to her temple, breathing deeply, trying to clear her head. What was done was done. If she could just stop getting so worked up over it—
Well, the way things were going, she’d probably spontaneously immolate. That seemed just as likely as her ever finding any tranquility that night.
Thudding against the back of her seat, she groaned, letting her head loll and her body go limp.
Her eyes idly dragged over to her purse, and she groaned again when she remembered that—because the night simply wasn’t ever going to get any better, was it?—she had a phone call to return.
She hated those things. All that garbling, all that baffling detachment… she couldn’t imagine how humans had put up with those things for as long as they had.
Hating something else would at least give her a different outlet, though. That could only be a good thing, couldn’t it? She leaned over, fumbled with her phone, and eventually held it to her ear.
“Hi, Sunset. This is Adagio. You called me earlier?”
“H—hi.” Sunset’s voice came through the speaker, mangled and muddled and obfuscating in all the worst ways.“Yeah, that. I… it’s, y’know, not that important, I guess. Sorry, you’re not busy, are you?”
“I was.” Adagio rubbed at her forehead again. She was never sure how to properly pitch her voice over the phone, so it always sounded cold and lifeless to her ears. “Did you need something?”
“ ‘Need’ might be a little strong. Besides, you’ll be at Rarity’s party tomorrow anyway, right?”
Adagio frowned, pinching at her nose. “So there was something you wanted to say, then?” She didn’t like having to clarify like that, but it was better to be certain when she didn’t have a face right in front of her.
“Yeah, kinda. It, um… like I said, it’s not a big deal, but it’s a little… complicated, I guess.”
Just her luck, she picked the one night someone had a whole lot to say to her. But at the same time, when she noticed her thoughts drifting back to the Rarity situation… “Could I come over, then? I’d like to talk face-to-face, if that’s alright with you.”
“Sure, yeah! I’m not going anywhere tonight, so just stop by whenever.”
“I’m on my way, then. See you soon.” She all but tossed her phone back onto the car’s floor, making one last mutter to herself. At least she’d calmed down a little bit.
If she chose to be optimistic, though, maybe some time with Sunset was exactly what she needed that night. It probably wasn’t going to be that big a deal anyway. No, just a quick jaunt over to take her mind off of things so she could relax. Didn’t that sound wonderful?
The drive wasn’t a long one, but neither was it as relaxing as she might have hoped. She still found her thoughts drifting back to Rarity periodically, whether she willed them to or not. By the time she arrived at her destination and came to a halt, she still hadn’t reached the calm she wanted.
That worried her. The way she’d stumbled a little with the waitress… no. No, she wouldn’t do that again. “It’s Sunset,” she whispered, leaning back, closing her eyes, rubbing at her brow. “Just Sunset. You’re fine. Relax.”
She stepped out of her car, shoving the door closed, leaning against it and breathing. Giving her head a shake, silently scolding herself for making such a fuss about it all, she made her way up towards the house. She could forget about Rarity for a little while. The notion left an uncomfortable feel when she tried to indulge it, but she told herself that it was just for a few hours. When the sun rose again, she could let Rarity back into her thoughts.
But for now? Now she just needed some distance.
When she reached Sunset’s doorstep and still felt warmth in her face, she came to a pause, breathing one last time to calm herself. She couldn’t have Sunset worrying about her, after all.
And so, when she knocked on the door, she fancied herself the very image of serenity.
Then the door opened, and there was Sunset. Bright eyes, gleaming smile, relaxed posture… but then she frowned. It was such a small thing, that frown, but then those eyes darted about, flitting over Adagio for a moment. “H—hi,” Sunset said, pausing to clear her throat. “You, um… look nice. Nicer than usual, I mean. What’s the occasion?”
Adagio paused, glancing down at herself. She didn’t really look that different, did she? Sure, she might’ve been a tad more careful with her makeup that morning, but… what did that have to do with anything?
And what was that look on Sunset’s face? There was something about it, some strange, formless little something that she could feel but not see, and…
No. No, that wasn’t the time. She shook her head as discreetly as she could, and focused on Sunset’s face again. She could do it. She was fine.
Smile meant happiness—probably. Frown meant… confusion? Nervousness? No, couldn’t be either of those things. Why would it be?
She could feel her pulse quickening. When she looked a third time, it was like a shroud had fallen over Sunset’s face—vague features popped out at her, but only murky details.
“Adagio? Is everything alright?” Sunset shifted slightly where she stood, and the sudden movement and sound made Adagio gasp softly, and that made Sunset frown again. “Are you okay?”
“Y—yes, I just—” Adagio’s tongue fumbled aimlessly for a minute. She took a long, deep breath. She was fine. She could do it, just… “Sorry, would you mind if I…” She looked past Sunset into the house. “… went to powder my nose for a moment?”
Sunset hesitated only for a moment, biting her lip, before stepping aside and waving Adagio in. “Sure, yeah. Take your time. I’ll, um… I’ll be here when you’re done.”
“Thanks.” Adagio hurried past Sunset, darting into the bathroom as quickly as she felt was appropriate, pulling the door shut behind her. Once she was alone, she pressed her fingers to her temples and resisted the urge to pull her hair out.
The… Rarity thing, it must have had her on edge, more flustered than she’d first thought.
Rarity wasn’t there. She was as far from Rarity and all that as she could be. There wasn’t anyone else in the world, as far as she was concerned. Just her. Just Sunset. Nobody else mattered.
But Sunset had noticed her little stumble. She’d want an explanation or something, wouldn’t she? Maybe she wouldn’t say that out loud, not if a different topic were to be pursued, but she’d be thinking it.
Adagio sighed. She felt like a mess, like the whole night had conspired to tear her down as much as it could. But, when she looked into the mirror again, it was oddly reassuring to see how perfectly put-together she still was. If one only looked at her from the outside, in that one static moment, one would never think there was a single problem vexing her.
She could do it. Just make it through the night without slipping up again. She’d have to say something to Sunset, but… well, she could figure that out as she went. Nobody said she had to open up about everything.
Breathing deeply, she turned and twisted the doorknob. She could do it. She was fine.
When she stepped back into the living room, Sunset was there, waiting for her.
“Okay, ready to tell me what’s going on?” Sunset’s smile was small, and her posture relaxed. That meant she was… happy? No, not quite that; she wouldn’t be happy to see one of her friends struggling. Welcoming, though. Inviting.
The ease with which those insights came helped rein in Adagio's nerves. “I guess.” She nodded slowly, moving to join Sunset on the couch. Once there, she bit her lip and let out a long sigh. She couldn’t tell the whole truth, not just yet, but… Sunset would worry about her more if she said nothing.
Symptoms, then. Symptoms, but not causes—those could wait. She let out a small, dry chuckle, peering down at her hands and fidgeting with her fingers. “It’s going to sound so silly, isn’t it?” she murmured, more to herself than Sunset.
“Maybe. Maybe not. And if it were really silly, it wouldn’t be bothering you, would it?”
“I guess not.” Adagio breathed. She’d be fine. She knew she would. “I’m… in love.”
There was a pause, ever so slight. “Oh! Wow, that’s—” Sunset laughed, chuckling softly, but when Adagio looked at her there was something just a tiny bit off about her smile. Maybe it wasn’t as bright as she’d expected, but then maybe surprise had dampened what might have been a joyous reaction.
And it passed quickly. “That’s great, isn’t it?” Sunset shifted her posture slightly, leaning against the back of the couch and facing Adagio more directly. “Anyone I know?”
“Yes, actually.” Adagio nodded, giggling softly, picturing Rarity’s face. The image made her smile, and combined with Sunset’s air of lazy calm, she felt her worries melting away. “She’s been nothing but kind to me, the entire time I’ve known her.”
Those worries came creeping back quickly. Rarity wanted to make the announcement herself, didn’t she?
No names, then. She could manage that.
“It’s a her?”
“Y—yes.” Adagio frowned. “What are you—”
“Oh, just, you know…” Sunset laughed again, and her cheeks looked a tad redder than before. “Trying to have some sympathy for all the poor guys you’re going to disappoint when they find out.”
Adagio chuckled, shrugging and tossing her hair. “Ah, well, spend a few hundred years breaking hearts… it’s a difficult habit to change.”
“I bet.” Sunset leaned in a little. There was faint twinkle in her eyes, something… in between curiosity and hope, Adagio decided. “So, you have to tell me who it is now, right?”
Adagio gave a coy smirk in return. “And ruin the surprise?”
“Fine, be that way.” Sunset backed away, holding up her hands, but her smile remained a playful one. “Okay, so you’ve got some secret crush. What’s the problem?”
“It’s…” Adagio glanced away. It surprised her how natural she felt it would be to slither her way out with a lie. Old habits indeed, but she liked to think she’d moved on from all those. “It’s a little complicated. Isn’t it always?”
“It wouldn’t be worth doing if it were easy, would it? Have you talked to her?”
“Yes. Yes, I have. Tonight, actually.”
Sunset frowned at first, but then her face brightened. She shifted a little bit closer. “Okay. And…?”
“Well, she puts me on such a high pedestal.” Adagio paused, remembering vividly the starstruck looks and dreamy sighs and nervous, girlish giggles that seemed to flow without end from Rarity when they were together. “In her eyes, I’m charming and glamorous and gorgeous and all these things—”
“Can you name a person who’s met you and thinks you aren’t?”
Adagio chuckled. “Fair point. But, the thing is, this person…” She sighed, leaning against the back of the couch, looking up at the ceiling. “Oh my goodness, it sounds so stupid the more I think about it.”
“Hey, it’s okay.” Sunset slid closer, touching Adagio gently on the shoulder. “I mean, if it’s really bugging you then it shouldn’t really matter whether it’s stupid or not, right?”
“You make it sound so straightforward.” Adagio looked not quite at Sunset, quirking her lips and shifting uncomfortably where she sat. “No, she… doesn’t know I’m a virgin.”
“What? Really? All this time, you’ve never… not once?” Sunset paused and cleared her throat. “Ah. Hmm. I can see why that’d be a problem.”
“You’d never guess it looking at me, I know,” Adagio drawled, then sighed again. “But this person, I’ve heard her talking about me. About what it would be like to… I’m sure you know where this is going.”
Splashes of color bloomed on Sunset’s cheeks. “Ah. Yeah, that’d, um…” She looked away, towards the ground, rubbing anxiously at the back of her neck. “I can see how that would bother you. But, you know, I—” She blinked, squeezing her mouth shut, then looking back to Adagio’s eyes. “This person, whoever she is, if she’s worth being with, she’ll understand, right?”
“She would. I know she would. It’s just that she’s done so much for me…” Mended dresses, nights that might otherwise have been only desolate, beautiful faces that had once been masses of brambles and hidden thorns… all those things and more drifted through Adagio’s mind. “I badly wish I could give her the perfect night I know she wants, and I can’t. I—I wouldn’t know how, I’d be awkward and haphazard and… ordinary.” And how was that right, that an exceptional girl who’d done remarkable things got an ordinary reward at the end of her night?
Sunset started to move, and opened her mouth, but then she frowned, and went still and silent; her sudden melancholy was a riddle Adagio couldn’t see through right away, and just when she thought she might have unraveled it, it was yanked away and earnest, straightforward kindness took its place.
But what had that been, that came before the soft, kind-hearted smile Sunset now wore? Sadness? That was what it looked like, but what place did sorrow have in Sunset just then?
Or was it just concern? That didn’t quite seem right to Adagio, but she couldn’t fathom anything else.
“You’re not ordinary. I hope she can recognize that. But I guess I can kinda see where you’re coming from,” Sunset said, at last. Her cheeks still red, she dipped her eyes away from Adagio’s. “Well, um… I mean, if you’d like, I could give you a few pointers, but—”
Adagio frowned. “You’ve…” She blinked twice, trying to process it. Sunset, of all people? In all the times they’d seen each other, she couldn’t once remember a time she’d seemed interested in another girl. That way, at least.
Sunset let out a nervous chuckle. “Uh… few times, yeah. Nobody from the school, just… y’know, people.” She waved her hand. “But, really, there’s no substitute for experience, you know?” She paused again, and her eyes dipped down, wandered… lingered, somewhere below Adagio’s face. Then they went wide, snapped back up to meet Adagio’s, and Sunset cleared her throat. “You’ll… be better at it the more you practice and all that, right?”
Again Adagio frowned. Had Sunset just—no, that wouldn’t have made any kind of sense. Why would she have—she knew that she fancied someone else, didn’t she?
But that way she’d just looked at her… it had been appreciative. Admiring, like a connoisseur examining a piece of sensual artwork. That look, she knew.
“Sunset, did you… did you just ask to—”
Sunset froze suddenly. A stream of half-formed sounds stumbled out of her for a moment, and she pulled back abruptly. “Oh, I didn’t—” She held up her hands, biting her lip again, but then she paused, gave Adagio a long look—her eyes didn’t quite stay focused that time either, but rather seemed eager to meander. “I mean…” Sunset pursed her lips, sighing and shrugging. “Look, Adagio, you’re… really hot, and, you know, I wouldn’t say no. But—if you’ve got your eye on someone else, I would never want to get in your way.”
Adagio blinked. This time it was her eyes that moved as if of their own accord, gliding down from Sunset’s face and seeing what the other girl had to offer. But then her thoughts leapt to Rarity, and she stopped herself, because she couldn’t. Of course she couldn’t.
But what was the alternative? If she said no, then… just thinking about ending Rarity’s birthday with such an awkward letdown made her heart hammer away in her chest.
Did she need to, then? Maybe, on some level.
But she couldn’t. Not with someone else. She was committed to Rarity, and—and Sunset knew that, didn’t she? Or she knew that her interests lay with someone else, at least, and she’d just said that she’d never get in the way. So if she’d suggested it…
Then it had to have been something physical. Nothing more. A union of flesh with the hearts kept distant from one another. One night, no more, nothing bleeding into the day, all in exchange for… maybe not quite the night of Rarity’s most lurid dreams, but as close as what seemed within reach.
Sunset groaned, rubbing at her temples, bowing her head. “Oh my gosh, I can’t… okay, can you just forget everything I just said? I’m sorry, it’s just… some stupid thing…”
Adagio paused, chewing on her lip. “No, that…” She drew in a deep, long breath. Nerves ran rampant through her, hitching her breath and heating her cheeks. Through it all, though, she managed to find a calm. She was doing what she needed to do. Nothing more.
She reached out, touched Sunset’s cheek, and nudged it until their eyes met. “That actually sounds just about perfect to me.”
“But your…” Sunset paused, frowned, and tilted her head. Her mouth hung open for a moment, and then, slowly, bent into a grin as her eyes brightened. “Oh. Wow, I…” She chuckled. This time, it was a light, giddy sound that escaped her lips. “O—okay, sure. Yeah, I’m down.” She looked Adagio over again, less abashedly this time, then slowly moved forward. A long breath made her body shiver, but when she put both her hands on Adagio’s shoulders, she brought nothing but heat. From the fingertips pressing into Adagio’s skin through her dress, and the slow breaths caressing her face and the eyes that slowly started to smolder…
It was exhilarating. Every second of it. Whatever tension, whatever fears Adagio might have had, they were quick to leave her. Maybe, in some ways, it would be better to break away, but when it just felt so good to relax and go along with it…
Was that how she made Rarity feel, earlier that night? Was that the kind of thrill that came with being swept away by a more experienced lover?
“In that case…” Sunset glanced over her shoulder at the stairs, and had a coquettish grin on her face when she turned back to Adagio. “Why don’t I take you upstairs, get you out of that dress and show you a few things?”
Adagio could hear her heart racing, and faint traces of fear mixed with the excitement, but she eagerly embraced it all, leaning against Sunset, looking at her with half-lidded eyes. “Lead the way.”
Adagio awoke, caught up in a delightfully lazy haze. She was dimly aware of disheveled bedsheets haphazardly draped over her, barely reaching up past her waist. A soft golden glow of morning sun winked at her through a window. Naked skin touched against hers; legs intertwined with her own, an arm looped around her shoulders. When she laid her head down, she could faintly hear a heartbeat, and feel the slow rises and falls of another chest.
She laid there for a little while, silent and still. The rest of the world may as well have been frozen in time, she cared so little for it all.
Suddenly, she felt the body pressed against hers shifting and stretching. A slow breath of air caressed her face, and shining eyes of vibrant teal fluttered open in front of her.
“ ‘Morning, sexy,” Sunset sighed. Her lips shaped into a soft smile. “How was it?”
Invigorating. Satisfying. It felt like an itch that had been plaguing Adagio for as long as she could remember had finally been soothed. “Wonderful,” she murmured.
“I’m glad.” Sunset laughed. It was a light, relaxing chuckle. “You really hit your stride towards the end there, you know.”
Adagio smirked. The praise, small though it might’ve been, still made her pulse quicken in a good way. “Don’t sound so surprised. You were a good teacher.” Her thoughts turned back to Rarity, just then. The prospect of… spending a night with her, it didn’t seem nearly so daunting. She lifted her head a little, craning her neck until she saw a clock on a nightstand. “But… we have a party to be getting to, don’t we?”
Sunset followed her gaze, then smiled coyly. “Not for a few hours, we don’t.” Her eyes dipped down from Adagio’s, and one of her hands started to wander, snaking down towards Adagio’s hips, pressing them together a little more closely. “Plenty of time to squeeze a little more practice in.”
“You…” Adagio’s breath hitched. She felt that electrifying thrill coming back, the same ragged breaths and racing pulse that Sunset had gotten out of her the night before. “You make it sound so tempting,” she gasped.
“I do my best.” Sunset looked at Adagio with half-lidded eyes, then chuckled again. Her hand came to rest on the small of Adagio’s back, and she drew Adagio closer still by the shoulders. “But this is nice too, isn’t it?”
It was a strange blend of simultaneous relief and disappointment that Adagio felt just then. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.” She let herself relax again, resting her head on Sunset’s shoulder, biting her lip. She hated not knowing what to expect, or whether or not things were supposed to go the way the were. Centuries of experience, and still she was flying blind.
But if she had to describe how she felt just then, “dissatisfied” was the last one she’d think of.
And they did have plenty of time, didn’t they? Sunset, she must have… wanted to savor the experience, right? She knew that she likely wasn’t going to get another moment like that one, so it was natural that she’d want to draw it out, wasn’t it?
So what was the harm in indulging her?
“You know…” Sunset’s voice came softly, barely louder than a whisper. “I’m really glad that you came over last night.”
Adagio frowned. There was something about the way Sunset spoke, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. She shifted a little, so that she could see Sunset’s face more directly. “Is… is that so?”
“Yeah.” Sunset’s cheeks started to color, and she made a nervous little chuckle. “It feels so silly, now that I’m looking back at it, but…” Her smile turned to a tender one, and she brought one of her hands up to gently cup Adagio’s cheek. “I’ve wanted this for a little while now.”
Before Adagio had time to figure out what all that meant, Sunset shifted. She swiveled slightly so that she laid on top of Adagio instead of beside her. Her lips first brushed against Adagio’s, all soft and warm like a pillow of sunlight tickling her face, then they lowered and turned into a honied brand—sweet and delicious and enticing while the contact persisted, but when they lifted they left little but dread and unanswered questions.
“I love you, Adagio.”
Adagio blinked. Once.
Twice.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Is something wrong?”
Adagio finally finished scrambling back into her panties—stupid things always managed to get bunched up, no matter how smooth her legs were—and turned around. Sunset was still sitting on the bed, frowning. Her face was… oh, what was that face she was making? Confused, was that it? Maybe a little bit desperate? She looked smaller as well, far less composed than normal—but that was probably just because she was still naked. Yes, probably that.
“Ah, um…” Adagio tried to ignore the flustered heat in her face and the anxious nerves lurking in the back of her mind ready to pounce. She couldn’t remember a time in her life she’d felt more out of her depth. Turning back away, she glanced down and suddenly let out a relieved little sigh. Dipping down, she snatched up her bra from under the bed.
From the look on Sunset’s face, she probably wasn’t doing what she was supposed to, but what other option was there? Sunset had been an anchor of sanity amongst the whirlwind of hitherto unfelt sensations that was the night, but clearly that guidance didn’t spill over so much into the morning.
“N—no, no,” Adagio blurted, shaking her head, ready to slap herself. She darted over to her wrinkled dress, fussing with it and trying to remember how it was meant to be put on. “Look, I just—I need to go and… you know—” she made a vague gesture with one hand “—fluff my hair. It’ll look horrid if I don’t get an hour with it. But…” she racked her brain for any glimmer of insight. “… I’ll call you? Or you’ll call me?” No, that was stupid. “Call me a cab, I mean. Can you call a cab to pick me up on the street in ten minutes?”
There was a pause. “Didn’t you drive here?”
Oh. Had she?
Yes, yes she had. Stupid. What was she thinking?
“Right. You’re right, I did.” Adagio finally managed to jump back into her dress—she was fairly certain it looked blatantly disheveled, but whatever, she was technically modest if one ignored the undergarment dangling from her hand. “Um… no cab, then?” She nodded, more to herself, shaking her head to try and clear it.
When no response came right away, Adagio flitted over to where her shoes lay, squeezed into them, and clambered over to the door. “I’ll… see you at the party?” She looked back over her shoulder, felt a small dreadful pang when she could barely figure out what Sunset’s face meant, and hurriedly backed out the door. “Right. Goodbye!”
If her own thoughts were a scourge, her back would have been a canvas of red by the time she made it out to her car. Every word she’d just said came trickling back into her head, and at once she knew both that they were terrible choices and that she hadn’t a clue what else she could have done.
A part of her said she shouldn’t have been so surprised. Braving new ground was exactly what Sunset had offered to help her with, and every anchor had to be stowed eventually.
She breathed deeply as she placed her trembling hands on the wheel. Fine. It was all fine, that’s what she told herself. The next morning, she’d—well, Rarity wouldn’t surprise her, at the very least, not like Sunset just had. No, she’d made it past the part she’d needed to, learned what she needed to play her part in Rarity’s perfect birthday.
That was… that was worth a little embarrassment, wasn’t it?
Her thoughts crept back to Sunset’s face. Something about it haunted her, something she couldn’t put words to, and then a sinking uneasiness coiled and churned in her gut. She hated not knowing.
But what was there to be done about it? Sunset, she… she was just… Those four words she said would’ve had so much importance if Rarity said them, but Sunset? No, she wouldn’t have meant them that way, would she? Not if she knew that the one she’d said them to longed for another.
Adagio pressed her fingers to her temple, growling a curse under her breath. Everything was fine, she told herself. That look on Sunset’s face, whatever it was, it wasn’t a look of pain. It couldn’t have been.
Confusion. That must have been it. Sunset had expected a different response, and hadn’t gotten it. It was like she’d… held out her hand and not had it shaken. Or something.
“Just focus on the party,” she murmured to herself, strapping herself in, gripping the wheel, and breathing. She had a few hours to get ready for dinner, and Rarity didn’t want a nervous wreck, did she?
A warm shower, two hours straight of fussing with her hair and makeup—it had all been perfect the first time, of course, but some days that just didn’t seem good enough—and a clean dress had done wonders for her by the time she stepped one stiletto-clad foot in a door and scanned the tables until she saw Rarity. Nobody else had shown up yet, of course. They were early, both of them.
She could do it. Just a few more hours of being as perfect as she could be, that was all it would take. Rarity would get her party and a close approximation of her night, and at the end of it all she’d fall asleep in Adagio’s arms with that unique, wonderful satisfaction of having seen a dream come true.
Somewhere in the back of her head, all those faces Sunset had made and all those strange things she’d said lingered, nagging at her like little weights trying to drag her down into dreary depths.
The breathless, starstruck look that Rarity greeted her with cast them all aside. “Darling, you—” Rarity made a fawning little giggle, craning her neck, making a gesture.
Carefully putting an alluring smile on her face, Adagio twisted and turned, letting Rarity see the dress from different angles. “You look surprised,” she said.
“I didn’t think it would look that much better in person. I expected it’d be… striking, stunning, not… breathtaking.”
Off to a good start. Adagio felt her heart flutter as she sat beside Rarity. “It’s a special day, isn’t it? I didn’t want to look my best, obviously, but I think this is as close as I could get without stealing the spotlight.”
Rarity nodded vacantly, dreamy eyes wandering. “For once, I don’t think I’d mind if you had.” She reached out idly, running her fingers over the fabric, tugging at the neckline, seeing how it all fit.
Adagio cocked an eyebrow, making sideways glances towards the door. “Careful, now. If your friends see you touching me like that, you might ruin the surprise.”
There was a noticeable hesitation before Rarity drew back, pouting and sighing. “You’re right, you’re right.” She looked Adagio over again, and sighed wearily. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to restrain myself that long.”
Catching a glimpse of a distinctively well-worn hat outside the window, Adagio abruptly straightened, nudging Rarity away. “You’d better get a move on it,” she said.
“Howdy, Rarity,” Applejack said, grinning and waving cheerfully as she made her way over, cocking an eyebrow as she met Adagio’s eyes, then eying Rarity. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
Rarity looked to Adagio a bit too quickly. “What? No, no, it’s fine. We just… both thought we’d come a little early, that’s all.”
“Uh-huh.” Applejack fingered a chair, but didn’t pull it out just yet, instead peaking back at the door over her shoulder. “I’m just saying, if you’d like me to leave you two alone for a spell—”
Rarity groaned, rubbing at her forehead. After a moment, she breathed deeply and looked up at Applejack. “Was it that obvious?”
Applejack shrugged. “You do spend a lot of time together.”
Adagio frowned, studying Applejack carefully. She was just about to ask what was going on when Rarity shook her head, sighed and looked at her. “I suppose we might as well just tell them all now, then?”
Tell them all… the realization didn’t come quickly, but it came just the same. Adagio gave a nonchalant shrug. “If you’d like.”
Rarity let out an exasperated sigh, then transitioned into a light giggle. “Oh well. It was a nice bit of fun while it lasted, wasn’t it?”
Applejack chuckled as she sat down. “How long?”
“Three months,” Rarity said. “Oh, I had this whole speech planned and everything…”
Adagio leaned over and touched her shoulder. “You’ll still surprise most of them.”
Rarity shot her a fond smile in reply. “That I will.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to be left alone? Nobody else’s—” Applejack craned her neck. “Oh, wait, there’s Twilight.”
Sure enough, Twilight hurried inside, as awkwardly cheerful as ever as she came over to join them all. Adagio resisted the urge to grimace. Two other faces to keep track of could get confusing enough, but three? And more?
But she had to do it. She could fade into the background a little if necessary, try to keep to herself. Rarity understood, of course. She always did.
The other girls arrived one by one in the next few minutes. Fluttershy, then Pinkie, then Rainbow Dash…
Then Sunset.
She looked… haphazard, in a word. It was far from catastrophic—a few strands of hair that clearly weren’t where she wanted them to be, hints of bags under her eyes—but Adagio noticed those first few discrepancies and more soon followed.
“H—hi, guys,” Sunset said. She smiled quickly, but the way she looked at everyone except Adagio was impossible to miss. “Sorry, I’m not late, am I? Just… you know, busy morning and all that.”
Adagio felt her pulse quicken. Sunset didn’t make it too obvious, but she seemed nervous, and that made Adagio wonder. Had she done something wrong? There was something about the way Sunset acted that she knew meant something important, but for the life of her she couldn’t put it into words.
She gulped, leaning forward a little to look at Sunset. “Is something wrong? You… don’t look well.”
Sunset looked at her, briefly. “Oh, it’s… it’s nothing, really.” She waved her hand, chuckling softly. “Just a little tired, that’s all.”
Adagio couldn’t help but think that there was so much more to it than that, but long before she could ever voice anything, Rarity cleared her throat and shifted all the attention to her.
“Well, in that case, since you’re all here, there was something I wanted to tell you all. I was thinking about saving it for the party proper, but…” Rarity pointedly looked to Applejack, gesturing to her with a hand. “Someone convinced me to take the leap early.” She breathed deeply, and Adagio’s heart raced. Everything would be perfect. It had to be. “Now, I know this might come as a surprise to some of you, but, these last three months have been nothing but wonderful, and…” She looked to the side, cast a fond smile towards Adagio, reached out and touched her hand. “I think I have my girlfriend to thank for that.”
Adagio averted her eyes just slightly, then frowned. Everything was supposed to be perfect. It had to be.
And, indeed, much of it was. She saw a few smiles that weren’t quite surprised but more than happy enough to make up for it, one or two wide-eyed faces… everything about it made her heart flutter for a single moment.
But why did Sunset look like she’d just struck by lightning?
She didn’t say anything, not right away. Her mouth hung open, and her eyes glued themselves to Adagio—not her face, though, just her general location—and her face turned pale.
And then, finally, she looked straight into Adagio’s eyes, and Adagio saw a wounded heart she could neither fathom nor deny.
“Why didn’t you tell me that last night?”
Silence. Dead, desolate silence fell over the table, like Sunset had opened a door and pulled them all into a graveyard. Adagio stared, trying to make sense of it all; Sunset’s question was a simple one, but her voice and face turned it into something jagged and mystifying.
“Last night?” Rarity’s brow knit and furrowed. “What do you… Adagio, what’s she talking about?”
Adagio could hardly manage to move. She just stared at Sunset, peering at a face that had grown so tangled and twisted so quickly, pleading for it to give her more answers. The right words were there, somewhere. They had to be. Even if she had done something wrong, there—there must have been something that she could—
A hand shook her shoulder. “Adagio?” Rarity, once she’d closed her gaping mouth, stared back at Sunset, barely failing to conceal a faint tremble of her hand as she waved it. “Girls, give us the room, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Worried looks and helpless, wordless shrugs were exchanged all over the table. Applejack was the first to respond, standing up, silently ushering the others to do the same.
“Alright,” Rarity said once the three of them were alone. Her voice was strained, wavering slightly, but the cracks in her composure were kept small and easy to miss. “Tell me what happened, both of you.”
Adagio looked between the two other girls. One glimpse at Rarity’s face conjured images of broken dreams, fantasies shattered so suddenly and so forcefully that there was little hope for them to be mended.
When she looked back at Sunset, she saw something similar. Fears and doubts came bubbling back to the surface, oozing up from the deepest reaches of her mind. She looked back and forth, heart racing, caught between a face marred by incomprehensible anger wrought by a sin she couldn’t name and a face so far removed from the starry smiles she wanted to see that it brought her pain to behold it.
What was she supposed to say? What was she supposed to do?
“Adagio?” A hand came to rest on her shoulder, its touch subtle but still calming. Rarity looked over at her—the face she wore was like a book written in a cipher; the form, she recognized, but specifics eluded her. There were hints of compassion, perhaps, but they were small and fragile-looking. “Start from the beginning,” she said, carefully and slowly. “We had dinner last night, remember? You dropped me off at home, and then you left. What happened next?”
“I—” Adagio’s breath hitched, and she fought to calm herself. Whatever it was she was supposed to be, hysterics probably weren’t a part of it. “I was… after we finished talking, I called Sunset back,” she murmured. Each word was a labor, but Rarity nodded as if encouraging her, and that made it all easier. “I was just so nervous, I didn’t want to be alone just then.”
Rarity frowned, and Adagio could say with certainty that it was predominantly confusion that came over her. “But… I don’t understand. What were you so nervous about?”
She paused. The words she wanted to say stubbornly refused to pour out—she still clung to pieces of that perfect night she’d wanted for Rarity, perhaps.
So Sunset said them for her. “She was afraid to tell…” Sunset squeezed her eyes shut, and a noise somewhere between a sigh and a growl crept out of her throat. “She was afraid to admit she was a virgin.”
“What?” Rarity frowned again, but then shook her head and sighed. “Oh, Adagio, if you’d only just told me that, then I would have…” All of a sudden, her face tightened, turned icy cold, and whipped to face Sunset. “I’m sorry, did you say ‘was’?”
Sunset shifted in place, eyes turning away from Rarity.
“You did, didn’t you?” Rarity drew in a sharp breath. “Adagio, did you and Sunset—”
“Rarity, I—” Adagio slid farther away from Rarity, hanging her head. “One night,” she whispered. “You’ve done so much for me, I just wanted to give you one night. One night where everything went exactly the way you wanted it to, and… and the more you talked about what you wanted, the more I thought I couldn’t give it to you.”
She looked up, feeling a few first tears welling up in her eyes, too terrified to quite meet Rarity’s face but at least facing in that direction. She had to try, didn’t she? If… if there was anything, anything at all left of the day Rarity had wanted, she had to try and find it. “I thought I was just doing what I needed to do.”
When she looked up at Rarity’s face, finally, she shrank back—it was anger, then, that she saw, and that it was a sad kind of anger hardly dulled its edge; she could feel it slicing into her heart, bleeding her dry of hope. She buried her face in her hands, sobbing softly.
“Slow down, Adagio.” Rarity’s voice reached her ears, quiet and more cold than warm, more sharp than soft. “You called Sunset. What happened next?”
Lifting her head, Adagio looked to Rarity and Sunset, and reminded herself that she had to try. “She—she said there was something she wanted to say to me. She didn’t say what it was, just that it wasn’t anything urgent. And I didn’t want to talk over the phone, so I drove over.”
Rarity looked over to Sunset, who gave a small nod—she’d withdrawn in her seat, folded her arms over her chest, a maddeningly indecipherable expression on her face.
That look made Adagio want to retreat further in her seat, but she remained where she sat. “But then when I got there, she had this odd look on her face, and I just… didn’t know what to do, I froze again.”
Sunset shot her a piercing frown. “What was so odd about it?”
“Probably nothing,” Rarity interjected, leveling a glare at Sunset, her voice taking on a sharp, icy tone. “Not to you, anyway. Her gem let her sense how other people felt. When it broke, she lost that, and suddenly had nothing to work with but faces she’d never learned to read.”
“What?” Sunset snapped her eyes to Adagio. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you’d worry,” Adagio murmured, casting another pleading look at Rarity. “I didn’t want someone worrying about me on a night that was supposed to be for her.”
She glanced back to Sunset; to her relief, she saw harsh anger fading slightly, turning into something more troubled than wrathful. It still wounded her to see it, but she counted it as an improvement. “But when I froze, I knew you noticed, so I had to say something.”
Sunset didn’t say anything. Silently, she dragged her gaze between Adagio and Rarity—the latter, Adagio noted, she seemed to regard more critically.
Rarity, after a moment, clenched her teeth and let out a faintly exasperated sigh. “And what did you tell her?”
“That I was in love with another girl.” Adagio frowned. The phrasing sounded natural in her head, but odd once it was in the air. Was that the wrong thing? “I didn’t… I didn’t say it was you, or… anyone, really, but…”
“Just keep going,” Rarity said.
Adagio nodded. “And then I told her that I was worried I’d let you down because I was…”
“A virgin, right. What happened next?”
“Then, Sunset, she gave me this look… I’m not really sure how to describe it. More of a stare, I think. And she said she could give me advice, but then she said that” —there was the feeling of wrongness again, of the words she chose sounding different as they left her mouth, subtly cruel instead of impartial— “what I really I needed was practice, and—”
“Sunset!”
“Yeah, that’s what I said, but I didn’t mean that we had to—”
“But that’s what you ended up doing, wasn’t it? Right after she told you she was in love with someone else?”
Adagio’s eyes went wide. The intensity in the glares that Sunset and Rarity leveled towards each other was painful to look at, and she wished that she could make it go away.
Only she didn’t know how. The whole scene playing out in front of her seemed like insanity. They were friends, weren’t they? They weren’t supposed to be fighting like that; they’d work it all out in the end, right? That’s what they always did.
What were the right words to defuse it, then? She could feel them coming to her, hovering on the tip of her tongue…
Sunset edged back in her seat, folding her arms in front of her. When she looked at Adagio, her face was wounded and weary, but then she turned a scowl towards Rarity and spoke in a hiss. “I thought she was talking about me.”
Adagio felt the blood draining from her face. Her mind replayed every odd look or gesture she’d seen Sunset making the night before, only this second viewing brought a gruesome clarity with it.
How in the world had she been that blind?
She had to say something. She had to. There was still a chance, wasn’t there? If she could find the right words, maybe there was hope for them to…
But if they were fighting because she’d done all the wrong things back then… a part of her said that there wasn’t much that could make it all worse, but she’d thought exactly the same thing last night before she ever went to Sunset.
“You thought what?!”
“I don’t know, I thought she was just nervous about saying it out loud!” Sunset drew in a long breath. “And I was wrong. I get that. But I told her I wouldn’t want to get in her way, and she wanted to sleep with me anyway. What was I supposed to think?”
Rarity’s jaw dropped open, all airs of being ladylike abandoned in a moment of astonishment. “It never occurred to you to clarify? This… vulnerable young girl comes to you for help and you… you exploit her like that?”
“ ‘Young’? ‘Vulnerable’? Are we talking about the same person here? She agreed, Rarity. I didn’t force her into anything.”
There. That was her chance. She could chime in, say that it really wasn’t all Sunset’s fault—that she’d known exactly what she was asking for. Rarity was angry, her tongue sharper than she meant it to be; if she kept going like that, then… She opened her mouth, but the words caught in her throat. She sat in her chair, silent on the outside, shrieking at herself on the inside. The moment was right there. She had to act on it, before—
“Oh, I don’t know, let’s see: newly crippled—thanks to us, I might add—lost in the world for the first time, estranged from the only two friends she’s had her whole life? Yes, doesn’t that sound so robust to you? And you thought to trade help for sex.”
Sunset’s eyes grew progressively wider with each pronouncement, until she looked seriously out of her depth. But, just when Adagio had a faint glimmer of hope that Sunset might back down, instead she attacked.
“I didn’t know! And don’t you dare try to pin this all on me! If you could have just pulled your head out of the clouds and had more realistic expectations, miss fairy-tale-princess, she wouldn’t have been so scared to tell you the truth.”
She could claim fault, take some of the anger off of Sunset. It would… it would hurt, though, wouldn’t it, throwing herself into the line of fire like that? Rarity’s friendship was worth the price, of course, but…
“And if you hadn’t been so self-absorbed, maybe you could’ve tried to look for it yourself.”
But the terrifying conflict unfolding in front of her... there was something so mesmerizing about it all. It coaxed deep, powerful dread out of her, and she wished for nothing else more than for it to vanish, but even as she sat there, helpless and silent, she couldn’t bear to look away.
“Right, yeah. You were picking the time to tell everyone about you two based on how big of a spectacle it would be, and I’m the self-absorbed one. No room for self-awareness in this love story of yours?”
“Sorry, which one of us could have sorted this entire thing out with just one question? But no, no, no, you just took her straight to bed and did the hard part later, is that right?”
A dozen questions circulated inside Adagio’s head. Why had she spoken the way that she had, why was she watching something so dear to her crumble and yet unable to lift a finger to try and support it?
“I don’t know. Which one of us made the whole thing possible by keeping secrets? A normal relationship just wasn’t dramatic enough without some spicy dishonesty?”
“You tricked someone into bed, Sunset, let’s not bring honesty into this. Would you have offered to help if the plea hadn’t come from someone you wanted to fuck? You treated this lovely girl as a piece of meat, and didn’t stop to consider that maybe she wasn’t there to do the same?”
Sunset grasped her hair at the roots with both hands, then released it to shake her hands in the air while responding. “Where in the world are you getting all this from? I told you, I thought she did feel the same way! If you’d let her tell me the whole story, I’d never have touched her.”
“Right, because anonymous confessions in the third person are so Adagio’s style! The girl who sang ‘we will be adored’ to a crowd of hundreds can’t say something to your face?”
Adagio remembered. She had stood on a stage, seen images plucked right from her dreams finally coming to reality before her… watched them all turned to ash, seared into nothingness… and now she could see the very bond that had humbled her going up in smoke. What better revenge could she have asked for?
Only she hadn’t asked at all. She was different now. Such a very different person than before. Everything she’d done last night and in the prior weeks, everything had been for the sake of Rarity’s dream. Seeing that effort giving rise to the scene in front of her—a twisted, awful thing she would never have asked for—was excruciating, terrifying. But still, she knew that at the very least, she could try to stop it.
And yet she hadn’t.
“Well, love makes you kind of stupid about stuff, doesn’t it?” Sunset sneered, jabbing her finger in Rarity’s direction. “Case in point. I thought she was shy about expressing feelings she’d never felt before.”
Rarity shot her a look so withering it was a wonder Sunset didn’t melt into the floor.
“Oh yes, because everybody loves Sunset Shimmer! Of course it’s you she was talking about! Why wouldn't it be? You, with the Hot Topic leather jacket and the redemption story, who’s trying so hard to be a good girl. Never mind that some of us never terrorized the school in the first place; it couldn’t possibly be someone like that Adagio would fall for, could it!?” Practically spitting the last few words, Rarity’s mouth tightened to a thin line, giving the impression the very air in the room tasted disgusting to her.
Sunset’s face took a sudden turn for the grim and dour. Anger still gleamed in her eyes, but it was less fiery and more icy cold. “That’s not fair, I haven’t been near anyone from school romantically since Flash—”
“No, you don’t get to speak. You’ve done quite enough damage with your tongue already. But you’ve had plenty of practice at that, haven’t you? How many relationships have you already ruined, Sunset?”
“I have tried. Every single day since the Fall Formal, harder than I’ve ever tried anything in my life.” She sounded like she was on the verge of choking up, but powering through it with rage, face flushed and hands shaking. “I would think that you, of all people, could appreciate that!”
“It doesn’t matter how hard you’ve been working at it. Not to me, not right now. The result is what matters.” Rarity shook. Adagio wasn’t sure whether she was about to weep or shriek. “What’s the result of all your work tonight? Did you see this—” without warning, Rarity’s tirade collapsed, just for one, tragic word “—happy... thing and think it was just another notch on your belt?”
Adagio heard the question and couldn’t help but feel it had been meant for her. Everything she thought she could do, anything that might bring Rarity’s day a little bit closer to perfection, she’d done it. The first time someone had trusted her with something beautiful, she’d gone and shattered it.
Spend a few hundred years breaking hearts…
She was over that. She’d broken that habit, finally. Every day she was with Rarity, she’d told herself that she’d changed.
“No,” she whispered, turning a pleading eye to the two girls in front of her, but they barely seemed to acknowledge her. Every second she watched them made it harder and harder for her to believe her own protests, until at last, all she could do was hang her head and murmur. “She didn’t.” It was quiet and listless, and Sunset deserved a better defense, but it was all she had.
A year ago, she would have been thrilled to look at the fractured bond in front of her.
It was the fear that she still was that made her push herself to her feet and hurry away as quickly as she could, bitter tears flowing freely from her eyes. She thought that she might have heard a shifting of chairs, of someone coming after her, but it was nothing but the sound of raised, vicious voices bouncing off of each other that chased her out of the building.
It felt like an eternity had crept glacially along by the time Adagio finally slumped down on her bed, falling against a wall, burying her face in her palms and drawing her knees to her chest.
It wasn’t sadness she felt, not really. Just pain. Angry faces and cruel words seared into her memory, each accompanied by a haunting tale of how she could have avoided them all, and each of those with an epilogue telling her that she could never have done it right.
And how could she have expected anything different?
She took out her phone. The thing felt heavy in her hand. She just held it there for a little while, sitting in silence, pretending that the resolve to put the accursed thing away would come to her if only she waited long enough.
She didn’t realize when she’d unlocked it, but there it was, open and eager. Enticing, one might say. So many things it would let others hear, some good and some bad.
If the past was truly inescapable, was it more wrong to keep trying to escape it, or to embrace it? Futility or defeat: two shades of grey, both murky.
It felt like giving up when she hovered her finger over a very old name. Once, she couldn’t have imagined a life where she didn’t know it. Once, she had wished she could blot it out from her life forever, and she wasn’t at all sure what would happen if she reached out for it.
But it couldn’t be worse than what running away had brought her.
She started sobbing again as she held the phone to her ear.
“Hello,” she gasped at last in between ragged breaths, tears dripping off her cheeks.
No voice greeted her, just a quiet growl, barely audible but ushering in images of lips curled back and teeth bared.
“You… you were right. This whole time, you were right.” She covered her face, weeping into her palm. “I can’t do it.”
Still silence. It was an eerie, grim lack of sound, and Adagio wished she had the strength to turn away from it.
“I want to come back, Aria.”
For a few moments, all she heard was the pounding of her own heart.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
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Well, it's really well done and interesting, but I had to look several times to confirm that this story said 'complete'. It just doesn't feel complete at all, this chapter was a fantastic hook, and explained a lot, but it feels half finished as opposed to an ending. Loved the characters, Adagio's confusion and the way she experienced the world and other people was especially unique. Rarity was good, not breaking into hysterics, probably in part from how confused and freaked out Adagio's look would have been throughout the 'talk'. A great start to something that is missing a end in my opinion.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2016/8/13/1224400__safe_screencap_rarity_28+pranks+later_cropped_discovery+family+logo_lidded+eyes_pony_solo.png
I really liked this line
Also, Sunset, girrrrl, we need to talk about this:
img00.deviantart.net/f7ab/i/2017/353/c/c/_vector__sunset_shimmer_cute_by_thebarsection-dbtkxxi.png
That top with your skin tone? No. You look like someone's standing behind you holding puppet arms up with sticks. Mr. Tickle chic really isn't in this year, darling.
shop.mrmen.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/MRTICKLECANVAS_f40b5cb3-63d9-4cf8-9679-3c66f8829a9f.jpg
Seriously. This is good Sunset:
pre00.deviantart.net/af33/th/pre/f/2017/327/a/b/sunset_shimmer_by_agavoides-dbulce7.jpg
That is not.
8761588 Out of interest, what was it you felt wasn't resolved, and needed to be?
8761815
Just because Rarity isn’t always subtle doesn’t mean she can’t be
I think it’s my second-favorite out of Rarity’s, or first favorite if we’re excluding single-word outbursts
Ah, if only Adagio’d taken it more to heart... 
Why the hell is this not canon?
Because it’s not cute. Right 
Adagio probably thinks it’s cute 
8761848 I agree, the single-word outburst is the highlight
Also this line of hers:
You can feel the temperature drop in the room!
That's just it. You're dealing with a franchise where the characters we're supposed to cheer for are dressed like this:
derpicdn.net/img/2014/10/28/752743/large.png
(I hardly know where to start here. The mismatched neon tights are the obvious sin against decency, but... Applejack's shoes? Pinkie's waist disappearing into her hair?)
And the ones we're supposed to rooting against never fail to look spectacular:
vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/f/f3/The_Dazzlings_laughing_EG2.png/revision/latest?cb=20141029124229
(That's how you rock an off-the-shoulder top, Sunset, not with a jacket collar which renders the whole thing pointless. You've failed so hard that you need to learn from Sonata Dusk).
Yeah, I think Adagio would be completely on side with how Sunset looks there. And it's still cute, just in a biker babe way. But, if there's one thing we've learned from the changeling transformation, it's that black is bad, and colourful is good.
8761588
I’m glad you liked most of it! And thanks for the bookshelf add! I’ve not read many of those other stories, but the ones I have have been good enough that I’m pleased and flattered to be put amongst them
I can kinda see where you’re coming from when it comes to the ending, to be honest
That’s the part I think I most wish I could spend a lot more time on, but, you know, deadlines and stuff. And I completely agree that this could have been a first chapter instead of a one-shot, as there’re definitely some directions in which the plot could keep going. But, seconding what forbloodysummer said, what do you feel still needed to be resolved at the end? I can definitely agree that not everyone gets a resolution, since Sunset, Rarity and Aria all kinda don’t, but it’s much less their story and much more Adagio’s, and the ending seems like a kind of resolution for Adagio to me.
But that’s just how I see things. I’d love to hear more detailed thoughts from you, if you have any you wouldn’t mind sharing
8761815
8761905
Hmm, this might be a little long, so forgive that. Answering both of you makes the most sense since it's the same question. Before I start, let me say this is my opinion, and this is not meant to badger or sound annoyed, or even change your mind if you feel this ending is how you want to go. In the end, you are the writer and you should do or feel whatever you like about your story.
With that in mind, I suppose I'll look at the main point in my head that revolves a bit around this quote.
For me, the greatest issue is there are too many ways for this to go to be a resolution.
Everyone involved in this is in a emotionally fragile state when it ends. Adagio is completely off kilter and feels she is horrible and it was better to stay away than harm others, Rarity is hurt and angry at Sunset taking advantage of Adagio 'and probably due to the love confession and amazingly poor timing', and Sunset is torn apart because she just had her own heart broken and is now trying to defend herself at the same time. Noone is thinking straight, so it is going to be time before any of this is talked out, and emotions are going to dominate action.
Because of this, we are more at the half way point of the story to me, we've seen the dilemma and the drama, next is often resolution or a choice to be made to make it a sad ending. If not resolution, then a definite end on what path occurs. Right now, with Aria's utter lack of communication on the phone, we don't even know if she is just going to say 'no', and let Adagio flounder on her own, as opposed to being let back into the group.
If it had ended with her meeting up with the other two Dazzlings and resolving to put what she had with Rarity and the others behind her, that would have been a resolution, but as it stands, she's in her room, on the phone, awaiting a reply an hour or two at best after the conflict between the three of them occurred. We are still waiting to see if she goes back to them or gets rejected, of it Rarity pounds on her door in the next few minutes, or even Sunset. Or even Applejack as a neutral party between the three of them. There is no defined way the story is going to go, or expectation that would let me say this is the path that will be taken by Adagio. For all we know, in the morning, she might reconsider and stop by Rarity's.
And yes, a cliffhanger ending can be just fine, but this is more of a cliffhanger to me right when we are meant to see how the blow back of this hits everyone, what they will do or respond to the situation now that the issue is out in the open and contact has injured all parties in differing ways. I would not have been surprised if Adagio had hid behind a couch while trying to understand what went wrong instead of running. Her emotional plight is quite unique which makes it very effective.
In this case, I really don't see Rarity leaving Adagio on her own, I was almost expecting it to end with Rarity banging on her door, so it is almost impossible to me to really believe Adagio is going to manage to get back to her old group without a few more encounters to say the least. Rarity and/or Sunset being the main two. So, in that regard, it feels unfinished to me.
I hope this helps and made sense.
Good luck on the contest!
8762005
This kind of open ending thing isn’t something I’ve really tried before, so getting this kind of thoughtful criticism is quite delightful, and the length is of no concern whatsoever 
Firstly, I would just like to say that I deeply wish I got more comments like this one, because I think you’ve just made me think about my own story more than any other commenter has, and that’s wonderful
Now, I’m not entirely sure I agree with everything you said. The way that I see this story (Which is by no means unbiased, since I’m both interpreting what I see differently, perhaps, and also seeing what I meant to write instead of what I actually wrote, so please don’t take this to be the absolute truth), I think it should end about where it does right now.
Here’s my reasoning: the thing that’s motivated just about everything that’s happened has been Adagio’s desire to be a different person. Instead of trying to act like a conninving, conflict-causing siren, she’s trying to act like Rarity’s perfect girlfriend. She’s trying to play the rules and do the things she thinks Rarity will like and all that, and that’s why she does most of the things she does.
The ending, right now, is the first moment where she’s not acting on that desire any more. If she were, she’d be trying to set things right, but instead of doing that she reaches out to Aria, thereby taking the first step on a path that she believed led to exactly the place that she didn’t want to go to. To a certain degree, I don’t think that the ending should go any farther, just because I don’t think the question of whether or not Adagio succeeds in getting back with Aria is nearly as important as the fact that she tries, nor as connected to the rest of the story.
That being said, I do think I agree that there’s an extra layer of ambiguity in there, which perhaps detracts from the ending. Namely, that Aria doesn’t respond at all, and that there’s nothing to base her possible responses on. The ending I had in mind is somewhat contingent on Aria being at least somewhat agreeable, but there’s nothing in the story that suggests she is, and that opens up the door for Adagio to be stuck in a limbo of sorts--if Sunset and Rarity don’t sort things out on their own and Aria says no, then she’s stuck not moving in either direction, whereas either group reaching out for her would pull her along in either a good or bad direction, which I think is more like what I wanted to leave a little ambiguous.
So, the way it is right now might be too vague: as it stands, the question the ending introduces isn’t so much “What happens next?” as it is “Does anything happen at all?” which I think isn’t quite what I would like.
The speed with which the deadline is approaching makes me hesitant about changing very much, unfortunately
I’m sorely tempted to at least try and address that excess ambiguity, though. There probably isn’t time to add very much to it, but maybe making Aria give some kind of response and having at least a possibility of Sunset/Rarity/Applejack coming back would help clear things up?
Definitely made sense, yes! And it’s notified me of a potential problem I would never have thought of on my own, which I think can only be a good thing
Thank you very much for taking the time to write all that out 
Thank you again! I haven’t looked at the other entries much, but I see some names I recognize and think I might be needing it
8762638
Heh, I have tried the cliffhanger ending many times, some successful, others involved me making a new chapter or two to correct how poor it went over.
Hmm..I may have missed that, in some context. While I did see that she was trying to be a good girlfriend to Rarity, I did not connect that to the rest of her last, I guess six months *since she has only been dating Rarity for three, I have to assume there was some time where they got to know eachother and all that*? I assumed that she was trying to be a good girlfriend, specially with Rarity's special day coming up, but not that she was trying that behavior with everyone else. The whole "How would Rarity's perfect girlfriend respond to this situation?" deal. If she has been doing that with her life for the last few months, then I can see her melting down as walking on eggshells like that would be...intense for so long.
That is a hard thing to fully convey in a single chapter like this without going over multiple time jumps, you do well on getting most of that point across, I just did not get the...time context I suppose on just how long Adagio has been acting this way, and that she acts this way with everyone, not just Rarity.
Ah, now here's the amusing part. As a writer, I agree with you. As a reader, I want more.
So I'd rather encourage more to be written than the easiest solution of just having Aria speak and give us a idea of how it could go.
Pretty much, I mean, it would be kind of amusing for it to end with Aria telling Adagio to go fuck herself or something, buut that's more comedically dark and probably not what you are looking for. Plus that gives the reader more of a feeling that Rarity and Adagio will patch things up as opposed to the nebulous unknown Aria saying something like 'About fucking time you woke up' over the phone would bring *I tend to view Aria as the one in the group likely to swear the most...apparently*.
Yep, if you really just wanted, altering it so Aria says something confirming she is good with Adagio coming back would be enough. Actually, it kind of gets more intense if Aria says that, and then Adagio hears someone running up the steps of her apartment, or if she hears a frantic knocking on her door. More so if Aria says they'll be there to pick her up in ten minutes...means a possible showdown between the two groups on Adagio's fate...but those are just some quick thoughts I had.
Per normal, hope that helped and I feel you wrote a good entry, regardless of who you are up against. I didn't win the last contest I tried, but I gave it a good try and don't regret it.
8764390
This, I completely get, because I think that aspect of her behavior is much more subdued when she’s with Sunset and she doesn’t really interact with anyone else throughout the story. I’d say it’s still the motivating factor behind the most important decisions she makes with regards to Sunset, though (She withholds information because she thinks Rarity would like to keep it a surprise and doesn’t want Sunset worrying about her, and agrees to sleep with Sunset because she thinks that’ll make for a better birthday experience for Rarity, and so on). So I like to think that it’s present in her interactions with most people, to varying extents, but it’s mostly Rarity’s high expectations for her special day that get Adagio freaking out and panicking a bit.
Ah, you’re definitely not the only one. I seem to be mentally incapable of writing any Aria that doesn’t swear like a sailor
Dunno what it is about her, I guess I just think she’s the one most likely to not give a damn how other people see her, whereas, say, Adagio might be more interested in at least keeping up a polite persona from time to time.
This, I can completely sympathize with, because I think that open endings are somewhat satisfyingly artistic, in some sense, but I tend to treat literature and fanfiction as light entertainment that I don’t need to think about to enjoy or appreciate, which I think is what makes me normally gravitate towards longer stories that can more properly reach firm conclusions. Alas, that 15,000 word limit got used up surprisingly quickly
I might revisit this idea after the contest’s over, just because I most definitely wouldn’t mind doing more with it, but for now I just don’t think there’s space or time to expand it very much.
So, unfortunately, I might have to settle for giving Aria a line indicating her agreeableness.
I love that idea, and if this were to be turned into a longer story I might very well end up doing that, but I think that might end up taking the ending in a different direction than I want right now. Maybe that’d make for a better story, but I’d much rather not be second-guessing myself too much the day before the deadline. Thanks for the suggestion, though!
Yeah, honestly, I’m not expecting to win. But I really love how most of this story came out, and I only started writing it after a day-long brainstorming session with a friend who also entered the contest, so I’m definitely glad I was able to participate
An excellent find for me indeed; I'd seen this story as a suggestion after reading a particular story about cosmetology, and I have no regrets.
So, I see that there are numerous mentions being made of the ending, and I must say that I both agree and disagree with them. By the look of things, the "I thought you'd never ask" line was what you put in to help make it feel more like an ending, yes? I can imagine what it must have looked like to others without it, and feel that this little snippet was all it took to both give a sense of conclusion that the readers wanted and still keep at least some of the ambiguity you aimed for. It leaves my imagination reeling with different answers for my own "What comes next?" in my head, which I would think was the end goal in the first place.
As for what I think would come next... I see independence on the horizon. After a brief stint with Aria and Sonata, Adagio realizes that she can't return to the toxicity that was the Dazzlings' dynamic. However, she can't see anything good coming of her returning to the Rainbooms either (or at least, not initially), and decides that she'll have to go through a sink-or-swim phase of life, learning how to stand on her own without a rock to lean on. Once she indisputably becomes her own woman, she gives both the Rainbooms and the Dazzlings another chance to reconnect and befriend her, but on her terms.
When it comes to the relationships depicted therein, I have to admit that I'm a little bit more on Sunset's side than Rarity's, but I have a noteworthy bias when it comes to Sunset adding to her ever-increasing harem. The actions on all three parties' ends are understandable and about as in-character as I can say an Equestria Girls story involving sex can be. Adagio's trying so hard already, so when Rarity and Sunset make the argument more about each other than Adagio and the siren sees that, apparently, abandoning her nature as a strife-inducing witch is virtually impossible, it all makes my chest painfully tight. She even tried to be the bigger woman and take at least part of the blame for it, but the kind of helplessness she must feel when she can't seem to so much as touch anyone without somehow becoming a source of animosity between others makes her decision to leave her two now-former lovers all the more justifiable. And even if Rarity and Sunset can get over their scorn for one another, they're still going to have to deal with the fact that them not really listening to Adagio has driven her to flee back to the only thing she's known before the Rainbooms came into the picture.
And then there's Adagio herself. While I did say that everyone was "in-character," the way Adagio behaves is so entirely unlike how she is in Equestria Girls... and yet it feels like exactly how she would act anyway, were she to try to make amends with the Rainbooms. She's had not just immense power, but also entire layers of perception ripped away from her, and with those empathic and telepathic senses available to her no longer, everything is going to be borderline terrifying for a long time, if not for the rest of her life. That her new
girlfriends are willing to help does soften the blow and perhaps hasten a recovery, but for her to lose those powers still is to a siren what going blind or deaf is to a human. It's really quite an effective way to draw sympathy from the reader.There is one other thing I have to agree upon with those who also bothered to leave comments, and that's a desire to see a continuation of this concept, if not this story. Were it not for my own piece that I'm working on, I might have declared that I would do so myself, but alas. 'Twas not meant to be. All in all, an excellent read, and I'm ever-thankful for the site's suggestion protocol having pointed it out to me.
8947898
So. Regarding the ending. Yes, once Phaoray brought it up that the ending was too ambiguous, there were only two lines that were added, and I think they’re the most critical of that whole last scene. The original ending did not have Aria responding, which I think was the change I was most reluctant to make simply because I liked keeping her be totally silent. The problem, though, is that, like you were saying, I wanted to be hinting at what Adagio might possibly do next, and having Aria’s reply be omitted felt like it added an extra layer of obscurity that made things lean too far towards “Nothing at all.”
Anyway. The rest of your thoughts have been an absolute joy to read, because there’re a couple of places where you basically parroted what my own analysis of the story would be, and that’s just fantastic to see, if only really for my own benefit
So, thank you very very much for reading and enjoying and taking the time to write all this up for me, because it was a fantastic thing to wake up to 
I would reply to it in more detail, but there’re so many places where I would just be saying, “Yes, I completely agree,” that I’m not sure it’s worth the trouble.
Ah, well. I would argue with you, but, eh... Sunset adding everyone to her harem kinda would make all the problems that cropped up in this story go away
So I can’t fault you for having good taste, is what I’m saying 
I do like that you said that, though, because I think that Sunset and Rarity here both did some things right when it came to Adagio and some things very, very wrong. I’m not entirely certain if I’m inclined to favor one or the other more, though. Perhaps slightly Rarity, I think--she seemed like the one of the three who’s closest to being a “victim” here--but now I’m thinking about what we’ve seen of Sunset and Adagio here and thinking that might not be the “correct” conclusion.
Now. Regarding the possibility of a continuation. Adagio, by the end of this story, having been exposed to both Sunset and Rarity, has too much of an idea of what good relationships can do for her to be truly satisfied going back to Aria and Sonata. They could perhaps offer her a kind of kinship and understanding that the Rainbooms simply couldn’t give her, but I feel like Adagio would see Aria in particular as very dark, antagonistical figure. But, as you said, she also would not at all feel like she could go back to the Rainbooms without stirring up a whole lot of trouble. So, what I imagine would probably happen in a hypothetical continuation is pretty much what you predicted, where Adagio stays with Aria and Sonata for a bit until they wear her down too far, then break away a second time and begin her long, laborious ascent into independence.
Which sounds absolutely lovely, by the way
Unfortunately... well, I’m just not sure I could do that idea justice right now. It’s unfortunate to say, but I think that’s honestly how I feel about right now. If, when you are done with your own story, you would like to come back and write a continuation to this one, I would love to see that, and I’d love to talk about it with you.
Thanks again for commenting! I have to say I do wish this story would get a little bit more attention, but when I get comments like this on it I simply don’t think I have anything to complain about
You can has review!
What a great fic! I love the characterizations for all involved, and how they eventually collided. It reads like a train crash in slow motion, and the conclusion completely blindsided me, in a way that was really effective. I was expecting this to be resolved in a more "typical shipfic" manner, so the fact that you went into this particular direction was really effective in my opinion.
8963527
It's a little odd to say, because I'm actually quite fond of both the pairings in this story, but while I did consider a happier, more "typical shipfic" ending (Most likely, it would've been something like Sunset arrives during Rarity's big announcement, sees how happy she and Adagio are together, and resolves to not ruin it by speaking up) I just don't think the end result would've been half as interesting to me as this one turned out to be
Thanks for reading, glad you enjoyed it
This ending could also be a time for the other Main Six to shine. Applejack was already suggested as a level head to mediate between Rarity and Sunset, while Adagio needs a Flutterhug, badly. Rainbow and Pinkie could run interference with Aria and Sonata if needed. Sci-Twi can coordinate communication between teams.
Or maybe just explosions?
8984446
Explosions are probably the most likely result of the Humane 7 hanging out after the end of this story
I have reviewed your story! You can find it here. My only hope is that you find it at least somewhat helpful, and as always, I thank you for the time and effort put into your creation. This was a quite well-made story.
Looking back on one of the other comments, I seemed to have somewhat similar issue with its climax. However, I still enjoyed this story. It was well worth the read.
8995530
Thanks for the review, I'll make sure to take a look at it!
I will admit, the ending was the one part where I wished I'd had more time before the contest's deadline, so it doesn't surprise me that's it towards the end where people tended to start to have issues with it.
And, of course, I'm very glad you enjoyed it
8995609
Yeah, I figured it may be something like that. I was honored to review this piece.
Beautiful, sexy and devastating, absolutely brilliant ending.
9001702
I think I’d be fairly hard-pressed to come up with a better list of qualities that Adagio stories should strive to be than that one
I wish I could take all the credit for the ending, because I love it, but I don’t think it would’ve been half as good without the input that forbloodysummer and Phaoray had, so I probably shouldn’t
Thanks for reading! I’m quite glad you enjoyed it
This was an excellent story, and definitely earned the Tragedy tag. All the pieces are there for things to work out fine if somebody just acts a little bit differently, and at so many different points in the story. But they wouldn't--sometimes perhaps even couldn't--could they? And it just hurts, both the anxiety running straight through and each new jab as it comes.
There does seem to be a bit of an unstated additional element to Adagio, in that besides never having learned to read people she's never thought in any depth about their emotions, relationships, or how they fit together. But that's something you come to realize over the course of the story, and something perhaps she wasn't fully aware of herself, where she was focusing more intently on the primary, immediate sensing than her weakness in collating that with deeper, longer term, and more complex aspects of people.
9047960
This is the kind of comment I love the most
I think you’re right; there’re multiple places where at least one person could have stopped it all from going so wrong, and it often wouldn’t take much to do so. Part of the difficulty in writing this one was working out why everyone had those capabilities but didn’t exercise them, so it makes me happy to hear that it all fit together for you
That’s a good point you make! I’m actually not sure I ever thought of that consciously as I was writing this story, so it’s something of a happy accident, but I think it fits really well! Her magic seems to rely on negativity being present in the moment she wants to feed on it, so I think it’s plausible that she wouldn’t have ever needed to think much about the long-term ramifications of the morsels she fed on. But, when she’s got a flawless real-time analysis of how people feel, yeah, she probably is pretty terrible at thinking about the more deeply-rooted, enduring feelings people may have.
Thanks for reading and especially for commenting!
I'm not sure I can add much here, but I will be keeping an eye out if any continuation happens, I'd love to see where this could go.
9048953
Thanks for your interest!
I hate to disappoint, but I wouldn’t count on seeing a continuation of this anytime soon, if ever. I’ve been vaguely tempted now and then, and there are parts of this story that definitely have an appeal that I might not mind revisiting and expanding on, but it’s far from a priority for me right now.
Now this was something else. Masterfully crafted, simply delightful to read.
What seems peculiar to me is Adagio's inability to say anything in the last confrontation. There can be multiple reasons for that, and I think my favorite is: after recalling the wish of the old Adagio, to see the friendships broken, she finds herself on the other side - dealing with the consequences of the devastated social bonds - and she realizes at that exact time, perhaps subconsciously, the deeper ramifications of what such an event means for those two persons in the future. The magnitude of the situation, and the running thoughts along the lines of "is this what happened to each of my prey after I was done and forgot all about them" is what keeps her from intervening.
Also I loved how at first, Sunset's clues seemed as obfuscated and fleetingly unimportant to the reader as they were to Adagio, but then when I returned and paid attention to them, in the light of the new reveal too, they all made a lot of sense - this literary experience was basically repeating what Adagio went through, and that made the story even more enjoyable.
Or maybe I'm just a special kind of reader, since I never try, at the moment of reading, to predict how the story will go, or look for deeper clues unless prompted.
9056566
It’s always fun to see readers picking my story apart and analyzing it like this.
Thank you, both for reading and for leaving this lovely comment!
Anyway, that’s a good thought! That, I think, lines up very very neatly with something that happens earlier in the story, so while I actually don’t remember if that was more or less what I wanted to convey, I’m happy to see you suggesting it
I like what you said about Sunset’s clues--I think my intent there was to communicate early on that something was up, but not allude to it too specifically, just so the revelation later is at least something of a surprise. At the same time, though, yeah, Adagio’s understanding of things here is often muddled and not quite clear, so the fact that that showed in the writing is a wonderful bit of feedback
This was a good story – really unique for Fimfiction, too. It's rare to get something that's actually, y'know, sexy and not stupid, silly, or straight-up pornographic. And it's an EqG story, too, which usually miss the mark for me.
I tend to be wary of stories that involve the protagonist having some form of mental 'condition' – I guess this technically isn't a condition in this story but I'm gonna call it that for expediency – but it was subtle and used to good effect here. In fact I'd almost say it was maybe too subtle, in that while the effects of it on how the events the story panned out was interesting, I wasn't really sold on the 'condition' itself.
I'm not sure how you could have emphasised that more, however, without also ruining a really careful balance and returning to the issues that usually tend to come with protagonists with 'conditions'.
Anyway, yeah, sorry about the ramble-y comment. It was a strong piece from an author I've never heard of and it was absolutely worthy of being RCL'd. Shame that more people haven't read this, to be honest.
9066746
Thank you for the kind words!
Could I ask you to clarify in what way you weren’t sold on the ‘condition,’ though? Sorry, it’s just that I could see it being lacking in a few different ways, and for my own benefit I’d like to know what part of it wasn’t sold so well.
I think you’re right to be wary of those stories, personally. I’m sure there’re plenty of good ones out there, but it seems like it’d be an awfully tricky balance to get, having the condition feel tangible and impactful while also not having it be the character’s defining trait.
And here, I think you’re right. It could perhaps have been emphasized more, but at the same time I’m not sure how I would’ve gone about doing that. The way that I saw things, it would’ve just been cruel if Adagio’s ‘condition’ was the thing that made it all go wrong, since that’s not entirely within her control, so I wanted to lean much more towards it being too subtle than it being too prominent--ideally, it would’ve perhaps impaired her, but not to the point where she would’ve been incapable of sorting things out because of it. Here, I’d like to think there was a good balance between her not entirely seeing things clearly but also her final decision being made due to her own faults.
Thanks for reading! I don’t mind the ramble-y-ness at all--it’s fascinating to see the kinds of things people find to talk about with this story
9067294
Nah, man, thank you for writing this. I honestly don't comment on stuff much these days because it's rare that stories get my brain all fired up and thinking about them after I stop reading. It's refreshing to read something like this on the ol' fimfic-o-sphere.
So, I've been looking back over the story and looking again at examples of how you've been portraying Adagio's 'condition':
As much as I appreciate what passages like this are being used for, the effect is diluted just by the sheer amount of narration you have to use
to describe something quite subtle in a really precise way, and it doesn't really help me actually envision what the body language looks like.
Usually, my suggestion for this sort of unique perspective is to represent what we're seeing with something else – so, for example, dream sequences often replace subtlety with specific, meaningful pieces of abstract imagery – and I was wondering if it might not be more succinct and effective to just... not describe anyone's faces at all?
It's definitely a much more extreme 'condition' than what you're depicting here – but it's also subtle in that the reader would just be reading dialogue without the described body language, so one would just read the dialogue and form their own conclusions along with Adagio's train of thought in trying to intuit what her friends are implying. I was mostly thinking of how I've seen some socially-disconnected characters portrayed in fiction before, and often the reactions from other people for these characters is just noticeably absent more than anything, even when emotions are at their peak.
I think the way you could represent characters' faces could be something straight-up metaphorical when Adagio is really out of it – porcelain masks or blank smears or something else that's kind of unnerving – or, if you wanted to get really into the 'condition' side of it, describing them in terms of 'lines and shapes' would actually be very accurate to how people sometimes view other things when they're undergoing a dissociative episode.
...Okay, now this was very ramble-y and probably not all that helpful, but I was enjoying having a bit of a brainstorm. Looking back at your story a second time helped me see your methodology a little more – it's genuinely a hard thing to represent when the point of the 'condition' is that things are deliberately unclear in a medium that thrives on being as clear as possible as to the surface-level meanings of actions.
This is a super cool thing to think about and I might try something similar in a future story. Thanks, again, for writing this.
9067441
It was exactly this same topic, basically, that got me really interested in writing this story, so I’m very happy to have gotten someone else thinking about it
Ah, okay, I can totally see that being an issue. Thanks for putting it that way!
... I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I never thought of that
That would have been really interesting, I think! My initial reaction, though, is that it wouldn’t have been the best way of implementing it in this particular story. Great idea, it just feels to me like it pushes Adagio’s handicap more into the realm of ignorance when I wanted it to be confusion; the idea is that she’d know some kind of emotion was being expressed, just not be certain what exactly it was. But the metaphorical approach, of abstracting things a bit more, I think I could perhaps have done more with, and might have fit this story better--I think there’re one or two places where I tried that out a bit, but not many.
But taking it further like that would be ridiculously interesting, both to write and read, in a different kind of story, I think. Like, wow, okay, that’s getting me excited just thinking about it.
I think so too, and I really hope you do that, because I’d love to see it happen!
A fascinating presentation of the siren sensorium and what happens when they go emotion-blind. The rest cascaded in a way that the fault of everyone involved and no one. They had the best of intentions all around, but poor communication and blinding love unraveled everything. Note how the only one who blames Adagio is herself.
That said, the ending... it's a poignant one for Adagio, but leaves Rarity and Sunset in the lurch. I imagine their friends are going to do their best to mend that bond and track down Adagio, not necessarily in that order. Hogtying may or may not occur. (
"You made this mess as much as the other two. Yer gonna help clean it up, even if I gotta drag ya all the way back.")
Great stuff all around. I just think there needs to be more of it.
9068632
Thanks for reading! I’m glad you liked it
I am a bit torn when it comes to this story, because there’re definitely places it could go if I felt like continuing it, some of which seem quite appealing. And, you’re right, the ending doesn’t exactly treat all the characters very nicely. So I think there’s a case to be made for it needing more, and it would be dishonest to say I’m not tempted.
At the same time, though, I feel like this is a story about Adagio much more than it’s a story about Sunset or Rarity, and I struggle to think of many things that would happen to Adagio afterwards that could be as significant as what she’s already been through by the end, which makes me a bit leery about continuing it.
9068632 Have to say, I felt the ‘what happens next’ with this story was rather clear-cut. Maybe it’s just the ending I wanted to see, but I figured the parting blows of Rarity and Sunset’s argument damaged their friendship beyond repair, especially when Rarity had already worked hard to forgive Sunset once after the Fall Formal. Whether that splits the Rainbooms down the middle, with two each accompanying Rarity or Sunset, or leaves one of the two completely cast out on their own, doesn’t matter all that much - their harmony magic is useless unless they’re united as a unit, which isn’t likely to happen anytime soon. So in swoop the sirens again, at Aria’s pushing to move before the Rainbooms can recover their footing, and this time there’s nothing which can stop them. Adagio perhaps isn’t quite sure at first, but world conquest comes so easily at that point that by the time she’s really contemplating whether she properly wants to go along with it or not, she’s already being crowned empress, and gains nothing from backing out by that time.
I like stories that leave the ending open, so people can choose whatever suits them, but this was firmly how I saw this one playing out
9070117
There's the small matter of the sirens still not having their powers. Kind of hard for three nonmagical teenagers to conquer the world.
As for the Rainbooms, I like to think this isn't wholly irreparable. It'll be rough, yes, but still possible. Still, as you said, that's the beauty of open endings.
9070148 True! Aria must have been working on something during their time apart, though
But I agree, that’s a definite stumbling block!
I won’t deny that I could write a gushing comment or review like the rest of these kind people. Nothing more needs to be said about how great this story is. I simply and respectfully request more of this
9079715
Thanks for reading and especially for commenting
Unfortunately, I don’t see myself writing more of this anytime soon. That’s not entirely because I don’t want to, but the truth of it is that there’re several other writing projects I’d like to finish first, so continuing or expanding on this just isn’t a priority right now. If you want to see more Adagio, I will certainly be doing more with her in future stories, but if you want to see more of this Adagio, I’m afraid I’ll likely have to disappoint you.
Hi Naiad. Thank you for writing this story. You had asked for more comments on why I put this on my “Undecidable” shelf.
The story is well written. The presentation of Adagio’s unusual viewpoint is well done and interesting. It’s a unique and interesting idea. There’s a little bit of character stretching and idiot balling (Adagio is so busy puzzling out Sunset’s face that she can’t give Rarity ANY answer to “what is she talking about”?) but it’s clearly in service to the story and not a deal breaker.
The only real problem is that it’s not the kind of story I like, which is not the story’s fault. Not only are we watching a train wreck (not necessarily a deal killer - see “The Railway Ponies”) but it is a train wreck in which it EVERYONE DIES, or worse, turns BACK to the dark side! Oh great, you made a horrific ending appallingly plausible! I need at least some hope or something positive in my stories!
So, yeah, it’s good but, well, I don’t care for it.
However, this story does deserve to be found by the readers who can appreciate it!
9081757
Hi, thanks for reading and commenting!
Some amount of character stretching was perhaps hard to avoid here--Adagio’s very different here compared to how she ever was in canon, for one. I would like to think I generally avoided idiot balling, at least for the most consequential decisions, but I can see how I might have veered into that in places.
And, uh, yeah, sorry, if you were looking for something fairly positive, this story wasn’t the one for you
I’m happy you gave it a chance, though!
Well written, but I'm not sure I can upvote, because I didn't personally love it.
The whole "Adagio needing to learn how to read emotions from body language at her age" is a really clever idea, something I never considered about the sirens, but here, it feels more like something that exists solely to promote conflict, rather than an interesting character trait.
Also, I came out of this furious at both Sunset and Adagio. Sunset, as Rarity pointed out, took advantage of Adagio, and logically, she probably should've realized that Adagio wasn't referring to her. I can forgive Adagio not reading Sunset's emotions, but a) There's no real reason for her to avoid telling Sunset it was Rarity, it's not like she doesn't understand emotions themselves, and b) Adagio cheating on Rarity, even if it was "for" her, is still cheating. Which is a terrible thing to do.
I'm sorry, I just didn't enjoy it.
9084332
Fair enough, thanks for giving it a chance!
And thanks for offering some criticism! Haven’t gotten too much of that for this one, which is a bit of a shame, so thanks for stepping up and offering it. You made some good points here.
I can see that, yeah. It was an issue of space, partially. In a oneshot like this, there wasn’t much room to dwell on that aspect of her life outside of how it related to the immediate conflict. But that’s a very valid criticism and I can see why that would stop you from enjoying that part of the story.
I don’t think she was entirely wrong for at least thinking it, personally, but logically, yeah, there was no reason for her to leave it at an assumption instead of clarifying (A simple, “You’re talking about me, right?” would’ve cleared everything up right away), and it’s a bit of a leap that isn’t entirely justified. My intent there was that neither of them were making decisions logically in that moment, and my hope was that their motivations were established to be strong enough that they would plausibly make being logical difficult.
This, I think was addressed in the story? Adagio is fixated--probably more than she should be--on Rarity’s birthday being perfect. That is, arguably, the one motivation driving everything that Adagio does. Rarity, being theatric and dramatic, wants to surprise all her friends by announcing she’s dating Adagio. I think you’re right, it was not the most sensible thing for Adagio to withhold, she didn’t have the most rational of reasons, and the consequences of her withholding it were bad, but I’d like to think that there is a reason for that particular misstep.
Totally fair
The intent behind the story was not for it to not be a terrible decision, because it absolutely was and I hope the narrative reflected that, but for Adagio to not have realized how terrible it was at the time--the prompt for the contest was not to excuse cheating, but to make it understandable and sympathetic, and I can see how I might have failed to accomplish that.
Thanks again for reading, and especially for commenting
Definitely a well done train wreck.
I really like the idea of them not understanding body language now they've lost their empathy, much more than the standard of their being mute.
I would definitely like to see a follow up where they at least recover enough to be friends again, even if they have a hard time trusting each other for awhile and can't try a relationship again. Or even better if they can understand it was an awful mistake and move past it. But Aria won't make that easy, of course.
9168024
Thanks for reading, glad you enjoyed it!
I must say, the idea of them going mute just never sat well with me. It feels like it’d be such a massive deal for them, losing their voices like that, that it just wouldn’t be a happy ending, and I’ve not seen many stories treat it with the gravitas I think it deserves.
Sorry, who’s the “they” you’re referring to? I can see Adagio eventually making up with Rarity and/or Sunset. As FanOfMostEverything said, nobody’s blaming Adagio for it but herself. Rarity and Sunset, though... I have a very hard time seeing them ever being friends again.
Anyway, sorry to disappoint, but I don’t see myself doing a follow-up to this anytime soon, if ever. Not to say there aren’t places it could go from here, but it’s far from a priority for me right now.
9168064
Yeah, the they was a bit ambiguous there wasn't it. I meant Rarity, Adagio, and Sunset sorting things out so they don't wind up hating each other. Too bad if Rarity won't be able to forgive Sunset, but so it goes.
Anyway, like I said, definitely enjoyed it.
9168076
Ah, right, okay. Yeah, I dunno, I could maybe see them sorting something out, but I don’t know if I can see Sunset and Rarity ever being on good terms. Especially not if Aria tries to mess things up (And she’s rather naughty, so you know she will).
9168082
Yeah, yeah she definitely would. Though once the figure it out that might also motivate them to be civil just for spite :p
Only one other thought, this was definitely one of the stories that was harder to read not because it was bad but because kept hitting really well written uncomfortable moments or you knew characters were about to do something really stupid.
Bruh...
sequel?!
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I wouldn't count on seeing one, not unless it's someone else writing it--to be blunt, while I think there are places a sequel could go, the point where this story ends is about where it stops being enormously interesting for me, and there're other things I'm more keen to write.
9558275
Fair enough. Hell I'd be down to work on a story that expands on this cause frankly? Adagio x Rarity is NOT very common from what I see especially when it's this well written and i can only think of a few off the top of my head and those aren't many and are much MUCH shorter than this.
Frankly I feel Adagio and Rarity are a better match for one another than Adaigo and Sunset cause they have a lot in common and would be bloody adorable together.
Great story. Keep it up 👍