Bridges

by LateToTheParty

The Ones We Cross

In theory, Pinkie Pie had been ready.

Aria had opened the door, like she’d been expecting either a cop or a hitman, but by the surprise that quickly melted into a glare, she found what had actually been at her door to be much worse.

“What do you want?” She asked.

The sheer distaste caused her to almost back step.

In practice, Pinkie quickly realized that she had not been ready. However, it was way too late to back down and she had an important mission. Nothing short of death was going to get in her way.

With anxious trepidation, she gave her most winning smile. “Hiya. I just wondered if you could talk for a teensy bit.”

The purple girl rolled her eyes before slamming the door shut.

Right.

Nothing short of death and, apparently, a wooden door.

Pinkie’s face fell. “Please! It’ll only take a teensy bit.” She yelled, pressing herself to the cold surface of her obstacle. “A teensy-weinsy bit!” She pressed her ear to the door, disappointed by the lack of sound on the other side. Frusterated, she began pounding on it. “A einsy-teensy-weinsy bit! Pleaaaaaaseeeeee.”

She was rewarded by a defeated groan before her obstacle opened and she fell to the other side as Pinkie the Door Conquerer.

Aria didn’t have much respect for her new title, just glaring at her with enough intensity to grill a cow. She crossed her arms. “What do you want, Rainboom?

Pinkie smiled excitedly, picking herself up from the floor.

“My name’s actually Pinkie Pie…”

“I don’t care.”

“…and I wanted to talk to you about Sonata.”

Before she could register the darkening of her eyes, Aria had pushed her against the wall by her shirt.

“What about her?” She demanded.

Pinkie blinked. She would have been afraid had the sequence of events happened at a slower rate. Presently, she only knew that she was being asked a question. “I just had a question about her.”

Aria was doing her best to not punch this Pinkie Pie in the face, but her last dregs of nonexistent patience was wearing down to the bare bones. “So get to the point! What do you want?!”

“Ijustwantedtoaskyourpermission.” Pinkie began, her words running together. “IwantedtoknowifIcoulddateyoursister.”

Shear confusion loosened the grip on Pinkie’s shirt as she felt the pressure between herself and the wall lift.

“What?” Aria asked.

With a deep breath, Pinkie blurted out, “IwantedtoknowifIcoulddateyoursister.”

“Wha—no. Say that slower.”

“I wanted to know if I could date your sister.”

Aria raised an incredulous brow. “Why are you even asking?”

Pinkie Pie rolled her head from side to side like a pendulum. “Well, a looooong time ago Papa Pie said it was important for a man to get the blessings of the father, and that it was proper to show respect. Then I thought that I was a girl, so I wasn’t sure if the rules were the same. So, yesterday, I called Papa Pie to ask him if the rules were different, but I couldn’t just ask because he wouldn’t know what was going on, so I told Papa Pie that I met a really nice girl and that we had a science fair project, and that we had lots of fun, and that I think that she liked me to. So I told Papa Pie that…”

A steady fist was inching upward, ready to reel back, knuckles itching for impact. Aria forcibly hugged it to her chest with her left hand. “Do you have a short version?”

Pinkie halted her lengthy monologue. “I wanted to ask you because you’re her sister and it’s important to get blessings from family. You’re her only family, so I wanted to know, can I pretty please date Sonata?”

Aria was a bit floored, in the same way that the Mariana trench was a bit deep, or the same way she was getting a bit of a headache. Aria rubbed her eyes, taking a slow breath through her nose. “Look, that’s a nice thought, but I could care less about whether you date Sonata or not.”

Pinkie brightened. “So does that mean, yes?”

“No.” Aria deadpanned.

Pinkie deflated. “So, are you saying no?”

“No!” Aria insisted.

Pinkie tilted her head, confused. “So does that mean yes?”

“NO! It means I don’t care!” Aria barked. “Look, you should go. What happens to that barnacle brain doesn’t concern me. She obviously doesn’t care anyway.”

“That’s not true.” Pinkie’s eye brows knitted together as she frowned. “She totally does care. She was crying about you guys and everything.”

“That’s not my problem either.” Aria was getting really irritated now.

“But…it is…” Pinkie stated, simply. “You’re her sisters.”

“Well, that’s not how she acted last time.” Aria was looking down, past the floor, replaying the night Sonata left, the terrible feelings reeling her insides.

Pinkie just clasped her hands to rub her thumbs together, looking away with a sad smile. “I know. Sisters sometimes say dumb things, but she still cries sometimes. She still cares because she loves you two. She’s just not good at saying it. It’s not always easy to say.”

Aria looked at Pinkie. Her eyes were somewhere else. When she noticed that the other girl was staring at her, Pinkie smiled at her. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t want me here. I’ll go.”

With a bounce and a whiff of sugar, Pinkie was bounding away.

Aria just watched in the wake of turbulent thoughts. She didn’t even notice Adagio had placed a hand on her shoulder until she began speaking.

“I think she’d make a great girlfriend for Sonata.”

Aria nodded. “I didn’t tell her that.”

“I know. I guess we just have to visit her.”

Mutely, Aria nodded again. The hand on her shoulder slipped, and Adagio started heading to her room.

“Hey Adagio?” Aria began. “Have we ever told Sonata that we…loved her?”

Adagio didn’t even have to think. She just shook her head. “I don’t think so, but Aria.”

Aria turned to look at Adagio’s face. “I don’t think it’s too late to start.”

There was a beat of silence between them. “Hey Adagio,”

“Yes?”

“I…love you.”

Adagio laughed. “I love you too.”

Author's Note:

Do you have time to talk about our lord and saviour, Sonata Dusk?
- Pinkie Pie 2018

Comments

[OmniFox]

So it's a shipping fic?

[LateToTheParty]

9172442
Yep Yep

[Zuabug]

OH MY GOD I'M GONNA CRY ; ~ ; I didn't expect blue icing out of this ; ~~~ ;

[LateToTheParty]

9172501
Aw thank you. I'm glad you liked it.

[NaiadSagaIotaOar]

This got a bit longer than I’d meant it to

So, to be blunt, I came here at least partially because Maud was tagged, and how little she was in the actual story ended up being a bit disappointing. I’m not saying she was handled poorly or anything, but I’m not sure the story really needs her tag when she has such a small role.

The rest of the story, I liked! It was nice to see Aria being completely ambivalent on the outside towards the end, and that little moment between Adagio and Aria was really sweet

That being said, I think it fell a little short of what it could’ve been. I’ll start by saying that it could’ve used another editing pass. I didn’t see anything too pervasive, except for punctuation with dialogue (If you’re using a dialogue tag, like “she said,” or something, you need to end the dialogue with a comma, not a period, and the dialogue tag isn’t capitalized), just some odd word choices that I think could be cleaned up a bit. I’d be happy to point some out in a PM, if you’d like?

In more abstract terms, the decision to end with Adagio and Aria feels like a strange one--if you were to show me that moment in isolation, I’d think it was from an AdAria story, not a SonaPie one, so I think ending on that note distracted a bit from the intended shipping of the story (I mean, unless it was meant to be AdAria, which I would not complain about at all, but I’m guessing that’s not the case?)

It made the ending less “Pinkie and Sonata are dating and happy together,” and more “Adagio and Aria approve of Sonata dating Pinkie, and love each other.” Which might have worked elsewhere, but when you were already trying to squeeze SonaPie into a story along with drama between the sirens, I think it ended up being a little cluttered and not really showing either part as completely as it could have. Both sides of it felt a bit binary, like they jumped straight from friendship to romance or straight from drama to sororal love without much to smooth the transition.

So, while I liked what you were going for, enjoyed reading this, and am super happy to see more sirens stories,I think the story as a whole was just a bit too rushed and compressed.

[Gidano90]

A fanfiction with Pinkie and Sonata as protagonists? I like it! A Fanfiction With Pinkie and Sonata protagonists where is the Romance tag? I like it even more! A Fanfiction with Pinkie and Sonata protagonists where there is the Romance tag and that eventually turns out to be actually a PieNata? I venerate it !!! Excellent work with this story. I liked a lot read it, in fact immediately a thumbs up and among the favorites.

P.S: You're right, this site needs more PieNata.

[LateToTheParty]

9172718
Haha I’m glad you liked it, though I have to confess, the Pienata is more of a side attraction. I was trying to focus on the sisters’ relationship as a family.

That said, I think pinkie and sonata are such a cute and innocent pair. It’s like an instant shot of type 3 diabeties.

[Feather Book]

It was a lovely, short, sweet story. I enjoyed it.

And the world really does need more Pinkie-Sonata.

[Fervidor]

I think you have a good concept here, but I thought the execution of the narrative was a bit lacking. Particularly the pacing, which I felt was way too fast. There's a lot of potent emotions here that are not given enough build-up and subtlety.

Take for example the argument in chapter 2, which feels like it comes out of he blue and gets to the core of the problem too fast. Aria feels that Sonata is abandoning and replacing them, and that's a perfectly fine reason for her to be jealous, frustrated and upset. But it's not the kind of feeling most would admit to so quickly or, indeed, even be very consciously aware of. (This goes double for a character like Aria, who probably has trouble showing her vulnerable sides and expressing feelings like that.) That's the kind of thing you usually want to save for a very emotional climax followed by a resolution, since at that point the core of the conflict has been identified and can be addressed. I think it would have been better if the outburst came after a longer period of building hostility, during which you could have focused more on developing Sonata's relationship with Pinkie and exploring her feelings of being torn between her friend and her family. (Which was another aspect of the plot I felt needed far more attention.)

It's not an overly short story, but it does feel too short for the concept. You were basically working with an idea suited for a longer narrative.

I also thought you ended the story too soon. Specifically, the ending doesn't directly address Sonata at all, even though she's your protagonist. Aria, Adagio and even Pinkie were all part of the conflict but Sonata was the character who needed to complete her character arc. That is to say, Sonata needed to overcome the conflict, reconcile with her sisters and then pursue her relationship with Pinkie. Since that doesn't happen, her story never truly reaches a resolution.

You do seem fairly talented. Your technical skills are pretty good, you have a decent vocabulary and, like I said, the concept had a lot of potential. My advice would be to focus more the storytelling and stuff like narrative structure, pacing etc.

[LateToTheParty]

9175292
Thank you. I really appreciate the input. I’ll definitely do better. You were probably right that I didn’t pace this as well as I should have. There’s only getting better from here.

[CoyoteXray]

Moved a bit too fast, but I like where it went. And how many of us really tell those we love exactly that, and nearly often enough?

[PresentPerfect]

Feels incomplete, but what's here is nice?