192. Sitting Alone in the Darkness
“Sonata Dusk,” Fluttershy said sharply, Sonata whimpering in response as blood poured from the stump where her claw had once been, as the two dragons flew through the sunset skies away from the Big Thunder Mine, and from Queen Celestia. “Thank you.”
“Th—wh—huh?” Sonata asked, blinking several times for emphasis.
“Thank you,” Fluttershy repeated, breathing deep of the fresh outside air. She missed it desperately while inside the mine. “For saving me, I mean.”
“Yeah, well,” Sonata shrugged and muttered bashfully. “Dragons gotta stick together, right?”
“I still can’t forgive you,” Fluttershy said coldly, “for trying to take advantage of me. I can’t believe you would do something like that. I genuinely wanted to be friends.”
“Yeah, you say that!” Sonata shot back angrily. “But you wanted me to give up everything me and my friends have been working for! You wanna put my life in ponies’ hands! And that’s just—I can’t even—that sucks!”
“You can’t live your life in constant fear, Sonata,” Fluttershy sighed. “Trust me on this one, no good can come from that. Especially if your fear causes you to lash out at those who don’t deserve it.”
“Well then,” Sonata hissed, “I guess it’s a good thing I’m not lashing out at those who ‘don’t deserve it’, I’m lashing out at ponies. Still though-” Sonata puffed up her cheeks and looked away from Fluttershy “-sorry. About the whole hypnotism thing. That wasn’t cool.”
Fluttershy and Sonata took a break from flying to perch on some trees in a small meadow, Sonata hissing in pain as she tried to stop the bleeding from her arm with her remaining hand. The sky was starting to get dark; the bold orange light of the sun was giving way to the inky black sky of nightfall, and the horizon looked like a Nightmare Night poster.
“Do you mean that?” Fluttershy asked drolly. “Or are you just saying it to butter me up?”
Didn’t much matter to Fluttershy either way, she could at the very least fix what she had broken. She wasn’t a strong enough healer to regenerate a limb instantly, but she was able to seal the bleeding and grow a little sapling where Sonata’s wound had been, and that sapling would grow into a new claw, in time.
“Honestly,” Sonata let out a humorless chuckle, her claw gently falling away from her wound as she made sure it was okay, “I’m not even sure. I’m really not sure what to think without Adagio telling me what to do. She’s so smart! And I trust her a ton! But like, your confidence really rattled me, and I don’t like that.
“I just wanted things to be easy. I wanted everyone to agree with me, then everything would make sense in my brain.”
“Hmm, I can’t exactly say brainwashing people is the best way to go about things,” Fluttershy groaned. She kinda thought that went without saying, but Sonata seemed to be from an entirely different world than Fluttershy.
“It works for Adagio!” Sonata whined. “And it usually works for me too!”
“But it isn’t right,” Fluttershy said sternly.
“Who cares!?” Sonata yelled back. “As long as it works, and it makes people stop yelling at me!”
Fluttershy growled under her breath. She swore every time she thought she was making some headway with this girl, Sonata would say something that would remind Fluttershy how different their morals were. It was endlessly frustrating.
“I just want everyone to stop yelling at me,” Sonata sighed and curled up into a ball, but that caused her to fall off the tree limb she was perched on and fall to the grass on her back, where she let out a pained whimper, Fluttershy gently floating down to make sure she was okay. “I wish Adagio was here to tell me what to think.”
“If you don’t know what to think,” Fluttershy said, helping Sonata up off the ground and sheltering her with a wing across her back, “listen to your heart instead.”
That’s what Fluttershy was doing, anyway. If she stopped to think about how much time and energy she was investing into trying to help Sonata Dusk, she’d think she was going mad. But Fluttershy didn’t feel it was right to simply turn her back on Sonata; she wanted to show Sonata the kindness that every creature deserved, simply because Fluttershy wanted to be kind.
“My heart?” Sonata scoffed. “My heart is terrified! I’m scared and I don’t know what to do and I just want someone to tell me things are gonna be okay.”
“Things are gonna be okay,” Fluttershy said, almost just by instinct, bringing Sonata closer to her with her wing. “As long as you can let go of your hatred—”
“Let go of my hatred?!” Sonata spat in disgust, pushing Fluttershy away and jumping into the air, hovering over Fluttershy with a furious glare in her eyes. “That’s easy for you to say! Now that you’ve beaten me up!”
“Wha—”
“It’s not so easy for me!” Sonata screamed, tears sparkling in her eyes. “It’s not that easy to stop hating the people who’ve hurt me!”
“You’re right,” Fluttershy said, looking away from Sonata and taking a second to make sure she hadn't fallen under her spell again, but no she was still clean, so she looked back at Sonata. “You’re right, Sonata. I apologize. It isn’t that easy, and suggesting it like it was doesn’t do anyone any favors.
“But perhaps,” Fluttershy spoke firmly, but gently, “there’s a middle ground between forgiveness and genocide that you could inch toward?”
“You don’t know anything about me!” Sonata screamed, Fluttershy’s ears clamping against her head. What the hell just happened in Sonata’s mind to trigger this outburst? “You don’t know anything about Adagio! You don’t know anything about ANYTHING!”
And with that, Sonata Dusk flew away, disappearing into the horizon before Fluttershy could even muster a response.
“What just happened?” Fluttershy said aloud to herself, sitting alone in the darkness.
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Thought I was falling behind in reading some chapters but before I know it I'm all caught up again.
So yeah, everything is great, pulls me right in.
Fluttershy: :D ???
Yeah, she's still pissed.
Sounds personal.
I, don't like the sound of that.
Boy do I know that feel.
Then explain.
she's got a point
not a " worthy of killing them all" point, but a point nonetheless
awwww sapling limbs
wait hold up, does this mean actual tree arm??
yeah uh
adagio's not good to her
and it seems like nobody else is either
sirens can have a little genocide, as a first step
tragic backstory + having to deal with adagio, who likes exactly how self hating, scared, and ignorant sonata is, and prevents her from ever changing.
makes for a "fun" mess
(not that aria's any better to sonata, but adagio calls the shots)
10213306
of course this is all assuming aria and adagio act approximately like their canon counterparts despite differing circumstances, since we haven't seen either of them yet
but that's probably a fair assumption since sonata does