> Pinkie Pie Swear
>  by Annuska
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> 1. Cookies
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The ringing of the store bell wasn’t a novel sound.

It was almost mundane, despite the automatic response it elicited from the shop’s novice baker to turn around from whatever task she was present at and smile widely with a cheerful "Hello!". Though her overseeing mentors-slash-managers preferred a slightly more formal "Welcome to Sugarcube Corner," the apprentice-slash-employee found her own greeting to be much more friendly and personal.

She’d never been much of one for strict formalities, anyway.

Maybe the bell was a bit of a formality, too, hence the almost mundaneness. Once, she had proposed having a technically-minded friend set up a speaker system that played an assortment of short, upbeat song clips whenever the door opened, or rigging up her own confetti-throwing mechanism to go off as soon as the door swung past the threshold, but the shop’s owners gently suggested she save those ideas for one of her creative parties, instead.

So the ringing wasn’t anything new; it wasn’t particularly interesting, even though she loved getting customers, and it wasn’t particularly out of the ordinary. Even swinging around to the front of the counter to find three unfamiliar faces entering the shop wasn’t all that noteworthy, even though she loved meeting new people.

But it would stick with her, anyway.

True to routine – which was partially actual routine and partially the routine of changing up the routine – Pinkie Pie spun around, stuck the pencil she had been using to inventory behind her ear, flipped her clipboard up in the air, grabbed the shop’s tablet, caught her clipboard, hung it on the wall, and slid a finger across the tablet’s screen as she beamed widely at the new customers—only one of which approached the counter. The other two hung back, seating themselves on the sofa nearest the door.

Also nothing too strange, and yet—

“Hey-a!” Pinkie waved at the solitary girl. “What can I get’cha?”

It took the girl a moment to respond, pulling light blue hair back from either side of her face, eyes searching the menu board carefully before finally settling back on Pinkie. She let go of her hair and leaned forward, grasping onto the counter with her hands turned down, and as she did so, a glint of light brought to Pinkie’s attention the pretty necklace the girl was wearing; a simple black ribbon to which a dazzling red gem was affixed as a pendant.

“Three milk teas.”

Pinkie nodded dutifully, tapping away at the tablet’s touch screen. “Is that all?”

“Yes,” the girl said as if she really meant no, and then added, as if she had been asked to explain, “we have to get going, like, now.”

“Y’know what’s peeerfeect for being in a hurry? Our cookie bags! They’re a new recipe I whipped up, toootalllyy different from any other bakery’s cookie you’ve ever had, guaranteed! They’re super soft, melt-in-your-mouth delicious, and already pre-packaged for on-the-go snacking!”

The girl hesitated, reaching a hand behind her to tussle her long, high ponytail before glancing back at the two girls she had come with, both of whom shook their heads at her.

Pinkie noticed.

The girl turned back and shook her own head.

“Well, here, I’ll get you all rung up and – ohmigosh, I just remembered, we’re having a special! Three drinks gets you a small bag of cookies free. No charge!”

It was a little white lie, but she felt bad for the girl.

“Really?” The girl pulled her hand out of her ponytail and brightened considerably, shuffling some things around in her bag before producing a couple bills. “Thanks!”

The experience was nothing out of the ordinary; she’d often given free treats to customers who looked like they could use a little cheering up, never worrying about what it took from her own pay. It was a perfectly normal, routine, mundane transaction, but it left Pinkie feeling lighter the rest of the day – significant for being so naturally buoyant on her own.


·✫✫✫·


And maybe she would have forgotten about it within a week or two, if not for the girl returning exactly seven days later at exactly the same time.

“Oh, hey!” Pinkie exclaimed upon spinning around to see her blue-haired friend again, sans the girl’s two friends. Instead of flipping her (presently absent) clipboard, Pinkie juggled a few tea mugs between her hands, tossing one after another up into the air before catching them and setting them out one after another. “Good to see you again!”

The girl giggled slightly at Pinkie’s lively antics.

“Those cookies were really good,” she said, rapping her fingers across the counter lightly as she perused the display case of cakes. Though she wore a different (and equally stylish!, Pinkie noted) outfit than the week before, the red gem still hung around her neck. “I like, couldn’t stop thinking about them!”

“And they’re great with the milk tea, right?”

“Yeah!” She paused a moment, leaned closer to the case, and then stood back up straight. “Can I try the strawberry shortcake today?”

“Great choice! Tea again, too?”

“Yeah!”

“Got’cha!” Pinkie nodded and winked – and decided she would throw in another cookie just because.


·✫✫✫·


Within a few weeks, Pinkie could perfectly time the exact moment on a Friday afternoon that the shop bell would ring to announce the blue-haired girl’s entrance, and with true Pavlovian reflexes, Pinkie would drop whatever it was she was doing in that exact moment to greet her.

Pinkie was never able to catch the girl’s name, though; the girl never paid with anything but exact change, always insisted on standing by the pickup counter to wait for her order, and their chats were often so fast-paced and ended so quickly that Pinkie would forget the strict formalities of asking about things such as— well— names.

Even so, their short conversations told Pinkie more than she knew about most other semi-regular customers. Pinkie learned that the other two girls who had accompanied the blue-haired girl that first day were long-time friends of hers (and not much for sweets – unlike her), but the three of them were often quarrelsome with one another; she really loved singing, but declined to perform in front of Pinkie for fear of distracting her, as she had been told she had an enchanting voice; she and her two friends were between places at the moment, and had recently arrived in the city, but had plans in the works that they were hopeful about.

Of course, Pinkie told the girl about her own friends, and how their own friendships hadn’t always been the best until very recently; they had put together a band, themselves, though she was drummer and only on back up as far as vocals went; she’d been living in Canterlot since middle school, but before then, had been somewhere much more rural and remote.

And no matter what the girl ordered on any given Friday, Pinkie would always slip a spare cookie into her bag, and the girl would always reach into the bag and pull it out before punching her straw into her drink or unwrapping her confectionery of the day.

The gesture was simple, but enough to make Pinkie smile long after her shift was over.


·✫✫✫·


“Y’know, we should hang out sometime.”

The girl lifted her cerise eyes upward mid-cookie-bite, and Pinkie had to hold a hand over her mouth to try and keep herself from giggling at how cute it was.

It didn’t work; she giggled anyway.

Swallowing down hard, the girl wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. “Like . . . not here?”

“’Course not, silly! We always talk here. I’m not sure it counts as hanging out.” Pinkie looked up at the ceiling, tapping a finger against the side of her cheek before bolting upright. “Wait! I have the best idea!”

“Hmm?”

“It’s a surprise! You like surprises, don’t you? Well, I mean, who doesn’t like surprises? Pfft. But you’ll have to wait to see what it is. And meet me here tomorrow night, six PM sharp!”

After some brief hesitation, the girl agreed, hair bouncing around her face as she nodded.

“Great! Ohmigosh, I’m so excited! Oh, and, dress warm! And don’t worry about money! And—oh! Heh. What’s your name?”

“Huh? You mean I never told you?” The girl looked at Pinkie a moment. “Sonata.”

“Nice to formally meet you, Sonata! I’m Pinkie Pie!”

“I know.” Sonata lifted her free hand and tapped the name tag affixed just below Pinkie’s right shoulder. “You always have this on.”

“Ohh.” Pinkie giggled. “Right.”
> 2. Nervicitement
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Sonata arrived at Sugarcube Corner the following night at 5:54 PM – not quite six PM sharp, but close enough.

Pinkie Pie wasn’t behind the counter when Sonata entered the store, and so she seated herself in the sofa nearest to the door while sitting as far from said door as possible, practically hugging the right-hand armrest. It wasn’t cold in the café; on the contrary, it was fairly warm, but Sonata pulled either side of her cardigan around herself tighter nonetheless, slinging one leg over the other and tapping her foot on the ground as she waited.

She wasn’t feeling impatient, per se, but rather, some strange mixture of nervous and excited – nervicited, maybe? Sonata wasn’t sure that nercivited was an actual word, but it seemed a fitting conjunction for her emotions anyway.

Excited because she was hanging out with someone new! Someone she could talk to without being able to nearly count on receiving a groan or argument in response! Someone she had qualities in common with!— Okay, she had qualities in common with her friends, too, but sharing the same qualities in common with someone for so long did get a little boring.

But then she was also nervous because of that very thing. It had been so long since she met anyone new to do things with, she couldn’t help but worry about how she would be perceived – and how she would act. What if she slipped up and started humming a few bars of a song or sang a verse or two? It wouldn’t be a tragedy by any stretch, but it seemed to defeat the entire purpose of trying to be friendly with someone. And – most worrying of all – what would her already-established friends think of her doing this?

Nothing good, probably.

Her intensive foot-tapping was interrupted by the sound of heavy, descending steps—no, they were more like stomps—following one another in quick succession. She lifted her eyes to the staircase behind the counter, catching sight of a pair of pink boots and blue nylon-covered legs taking the stairs two steps at a time before finally landing with a thud upon the solid ground. The half-door separating the back of the store from the front swung open as the owner of the pink boots and blue-nylon covered legs pushed through, and it then swung behind her as she abandoned her grasp and stepped out of its trajectory.

Sonata smiled and rose from her seat.

The shop’s clock read exactly 6:00 as Pinkie Pie stood in front of Sonata, reaching up to her seemingly weightless hair to pull a bow barrette into place just to the side of her face before adjusting one on the opposite side. Her knee-length violet dress, with a layer of flowy translucent chiffon and a blue bow tied just above her waist, partially covered by a light pink coat of the same length, made Sonata – wearing mahogany tights under canvas sneakers, a grey high-waisted skirt over a plain rose shirt, and a grey letterman-style cardigan – feel underdressed for the occasion.

“Are you ready to go?” Pinkie half-asked-half-exclaimed with a wide grin, clutching tightly onto the strap of an oversized tote bag sporting a bright, quirky pattern.

Sonata continued to smile as she nodded. “Where are we going?”

“It’s a suuurpriiiiise,” Pinkie sang, linking arms with Sonata as she walked her out the door.


·♪♪♪·


Is this it? What about that? Are we almost there? How much further? What is it?

A thousand questions raced through Sonata’s mind as she looked from side to side, into each store front, around every corner, at every street sign, trying to figure out the mystery that Pinkie was so reluctant to allow her to solve. Pinkie’s bag revealed nothing to her, resting on the arm that wasn’t linked with Sonata’s, and thus giving her no clue as to what could have been inside by feel. Pinkie, despite her constant smile, possessed a flawless poker face; anything that Sonata would have thought to be even a slight betrayal of her intentions was like a red herring, leading Sonata’s train of thought off track completely.

Of course, Sonata wasn’t the best at inferring intended meaning to begin with.

It got her into trouble sometimes.

After a few blocks, she decided to give up on her desperation to know, and found it more enjoyable to simply stay in the moment of the walk, moving closer to Pinkie for warmth as the wind picked up along the way. She contemplated taking her hair out of its ponytail to better cover her neck, but decided that the cushy sleeve of Pinkie’s coat and her inviting shoulder were much more comfortable.

Even the stares of strangers they passed along the sidewalk – some smiling, some much less friendly looking – brought a grin to her face and made her feel like she just fit.

For all her curiosity, she would have been fine with this being the surprise.

“Okay, wait here a minute!”

Pinkie pulled away from Sonata and instructed her to not turn around, leaving her to stare off at a particularly uninteresting cluster of trees in the darkness – and just like that, gears began shifting in Sonata’s head again as she tried to piece everything together and tried not to turn around and look. At one point they had begun walking uphill, leaving behind the street lights and store fronts to follow along a more natural path. The path levelled off where they stopped, but she didn’t see anything too attention-grabbing in her permitted line of vision.

Sonata drew her breath in to hum something— and stopped herself before any sound came out, in case Pinkie was still close enough to hear— and on cue, Pinkie reappeared, holding onto both of Sonata’s arms from behind.

“Okay, I’m gonna walk you over, but you gotta close your eyes! Got it?”

“Got it,” Sonata echoed, giggling as she shut her eyes tightly. She felt herself being turned around, walked a few feet, and then sat down. Rather than the expected coldness of damp grass, Sonata rested on something soft and dry, lowering her hands down to feel fabric like that of a blanket.

“When I take my hands away,” Pinkie whispered into her ear, as if relaying a crucial secret, “look straight ahead.”

Sonata nodded.

The warm hands fell away from her arms and she lifted her lids, eyes widening as they took in the sight before them: thousands of sparkling illuminations scattered over the horizon and sky, city lights and stars dancing against the deep blue hue of distance. The hill they had walked towered high enough above and sat far enough away to allow an overarching view of Canterlot below in all its night time glory, set deep enough in the darkness that none of the shine of the stars was sacrificed for the sake of the city’s beauty.

Sonata leaned back to take in a wider view of the sky as she lifted her head, and her chest constricted; it was so clear and bright and it reminded her of home.

“Sooo, what d’you think?”

“It’s really pretty,” Sonata said, sitting up and looking out over the horizon again.

“That was the thing I wanted to show you the most,” Pinkie giggled, “but I brought food, too! ‘Cause, duh, what’s a picnic without food?”

Sonata turned her head to see the spread Pinkie had set out; an array of sandwiches, vegetable sticks and hummus, fruit salad, cupcakes for dessert, and a thermos of hot chocolate. She hadn’t realised how hungry she was until that moment.

“Let’s eat!” She exclaimed, turning herself to sit parallel to Pinkie.

“You know,” Pinkie mumbled through bites of a cupcake, “I was kind of, uh—” she stopped to swallow, then continued “—nervicited about this – you know, like nervous and excited at the same time! – but now that we’re here, I just feel super happy!”

Sonata lifted her hand and the bitten sandwich half it held over her mouth as she giggled.

“Me too.”

“Ohmigosh, I’m soooo relieved to hear that, ‘cause I was like, ‘What if Sonata doesn’t like it? What if she thinks it’s super boring?’ But you don’t!” A pause, and then, “Right?”

“This is, like, the most fun I’ve had in forever,” Sonata said, scooting closer to Pinkie.

Maybe she missed home and thought this world was the worst, but this wasn’t all that bad.

Sonata stopped scooting as she brushed up against Pinkie’s shoulder, leaning closer and lying her head down.

Not all that bad at all.
> 3. Caramel-Fudge Swirl
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“There!”

Sonata smiled at herself in the mirror, the edges of her bow falling away from her fingers as she finished pulling it taut, and she turned her head slightly to see the bow in full effect ‒ or, to see it as well as she could with the bow resting at the back of her head.

Hmm.

Something seemed like it was missing. And not quite . . . her.

She picked up a studded barrette, pulled the ribbon loose, and clipped the barrette in the bow’s place, smiling again.

Better.

She patted the top of her head as if to set the style, tracing her fingers along the pulled-back locks to where the barrette held them behind her head, and then down her back. Putting her hair into a half-up-half-down style was a nice, refreshing change from her typical ponytail, and much more suitable for the snowy weather outside.

And because of the snowy weather, she was sure to pull her heavy raspberry coat out of the closet—okay, it was Adagio’s heavy raspberry coat, but it matched her outfit too perfectly to pass up.

Even if it was a little on the fancy side for her tastes.

It was a Saturday afternoon, and Sonata could barely contain her excitement for her evening plans. She’d been meeting up with Pinkie outside of Sugarcube Corner on Saturdays for the past three weeks since their hilltop starlit picnic, but tonight was especially exciting because she had made the plans for once.

Safe in the solitude of her (and Adagio and Aria’s) room, Sonata sang out the chorus to a song from the radio she’d recently taken particular fancy to, dancing from mirror to bed to closet as she closed the lid on her mascara, pulled Adagio’s coat on, slung her bag over her shoulder, and took hold of the closet door.

“Well, someone’s chipper today.”

The door shut with a louder slam than Sonata intended (which had been not at all) and her singing came to an abrupt stop as she spun around.

“Is that my coat?” Adagio raised an eyebrow as she stood at the threshold of the room’s door, hand rested on her hip.

“Well, duh, it’s your coat,” Sonata said with a shrug, tying the belt around her waist tightly. “So what? You’re not using it right now.”

“I’ve told you to ask before just taking my stuff. I can’t believe this is a recurring problem.” Adagio let out a heavy breath as she looked Sonata up and down, stepping closer and lifting a hand to pick up a few strands of her hair before letting them cascade away from her fingers slowly.

“That’s a nice style on you.”

“Really?! Tha—”

“You must have some really important plans.” Adagio paused, gave a small, condescending laugh, and added: “Again.”

Sonata looked down. She felt Adagio’s fingers tracing around the back of her head, plucking her hair like a harp, and she reached behind her to pull it back into place as Adagio came to a stop at the other side of her.

“What, I can’t go and do stuff by myself?” Sonata huffed.

“Of course you can, Sona. The three of us are perfectly capable of doing things by ourselves. It’s just that it’s a bit . . . hmm . . . unusual that you have such impeccable timing every single week. Come to think of it –” Adagio lifted a finger to her lips, glancing upward “– it was around when we stopped in on that café that this started happening, wasn’t it?”

“I dunno what you’re talking about,” Sonata said.

“I think you do.”

“Nope. I think you’re crazy.”

“Oh? Is Aria crazy, too?”

“Huh?”

“Let’s see what she thinks, shall we? Aaaariiiaaa!”

Sonata narrowed her eyes and glared at the wall. She wanted to tell Adagio exactly how stupid she thought all of this was, but she knew better and didn’t dare to. Not that it would have mattered – Aria appeared at the door where Adagio had previously stood within a matter of seconds and wasted no time in making herself heard.

“What is it? I was—” Aria stopped short as she caught sight of Sonata, lifting an eyebrow. “Are you going out again?”

“Told you.” Adagio let out a self-satisfied laugh as she flipped her hair behind her shoulder, only for it to fall in front again.

Sonata rolled her eyes.

“I get tired of being stuck here with you two all the time,” she said. Well, she wasn’t lying. Pulling her bag strap further up her shoulder, Sonata began to march past her roommates, but they aligned themselves in front of the door with perfect synchronisation, barring her path.

“It’s just kind of funny that after – what, a thousand years? – you finally decide to do something about it.”

“I’ve done stuff before, Aria!”

“Not like clockwork, Sonata.”

“You must care an awful lot if you’re keeping an eye on me like that.”

“It’s a little hard to miss when you’re gone every weekend.”

“But you didn’t say you don’t—”

“Girls.”

Adagio lifted her hands and made a cutting motion toward both Aria and Sonata, and they instantly ceased arguing. Smiling, Adagio stepped away from the door and toward Sonata once more, running her fingers through her hair again before lifting them to rest on Sonata’s cheek.

“Sonata, you know we just want to make sure everything goes right. And for that, we need you, too.” Adagio’s hand lowered to rest on Sonata’s shoulder. “I won’t ask what you’re doing, or who you’re going to see, but remember: you’re one of us.”

“And we’re not dumb, either,” Aria added, then continued, under her breath, “unlike you.”

Sonata stamped her foot heavily.

“You guys worry too much about nothing,” she said, pulling away from Adagio and making sure to bump Aria aside as she pushed past her and out the door.


·♪♪♪·


Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.

That was all Sonata could think as she stomped down the street, deliberately going out of her way to crunch the thin layer of snow lying at the edge of the sidewalk. Stupid Adagio. Stupid Aria. Stupid friends. What kind of friends were they, anyway, never letting her do what she wanted? Stupid stupid stupid.

As soon as she walked out into the apartment complex’s hall, she had considered going back, just so she could turn around and throw Adagio’s stupid fancy coat back at her square in the face, but she thought better of it, knowing it would only make her look like she couldn’t think to do that before leaving – and she needed the coat to keep warm. And look nice with her outfit.

Stupid.

Stupid Aria with her condescending remarks that she always had to throw into everything, even when it had nothing to do with her. Stupid Adagio dragging Aria into it to begin with. Stupid Adagio pulling her seductress siren act on her.

Stupid her for feeling guilty that she couldn’t just tell them.

It wasn’t her fault she couldn’t tell them; their “conversation” was exactly why, and it wasn’t her own choosing for them to act like that. She wouldn’t admit it to anyone, especially not either of them, but it hurt that they’d think she would just up and abandon them for anyone else, let alone someone she’d known only a few months.

But now that thought made her feel bad for considering Pinkie to be a lesser friend.

Did she?

Well – no, it wasn’t that she did. But she had known Aria and Adagio for so long – literal centuries – and she couldn’t imagine a life without them. She didn’t want to. The more she got to know Pinkie, though, the harder it was getting to imagine the inevitable end to their relationship.

Sonata stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.

Maybe this was a mistake.





Tap-tap-tap-tap.

Pinkie Pie drummed her fingers against the side of the bench, humming as she bobbed her head from side-to-side to the beat of the song stuck in her head. There was still time before she had to perform said song with her band – at least two and a half more months – but she had been practising her part to perfection nonetheless, and now the rhythm wouldn’t leave her alone.

It had kept her busy and distracted well enough for the past few minutes while waiting for Sonata in their designated meeting place, but now the minutes had slipped past comfortably, understandably late to uncomfortably, worryingly late.

Pinkie’s fingers slowed to a stop and she glanced around before standing up.

Taking her phone out of her pocket to check the time only disquieted her further when she actually saw how long past their appointed meet up time it had become. It seemed unusual for someone who had visited her with such unwavering punctuality for an entire nine weeks to suddenly be so unpunctual. Pinkie unlocked her screen and opened her contacts – and then stopped as she realised she didn’t have Sonata’s number.

Or email address.

Or anything.

She couldn’t ask any of her friends – they didn’t even know Sonata. Deflating, Pinkie slumped back down onto the bench, unsure of whether to feel worried or disappointed. Or maybe both?

Worrippointed?

Somehow, it didn’t roll off the tongue like nervicited.

She didn’t know what to do. Should she stay and wait? Go home and hope Sonata would come by next week to clear things up? If she left now, she’d feel bad about going – but if she waited too long, she’d just feel more and more antsy and restless. No, what she needed to do was to put a timer on herself: wait a set amount of time and then go without . . . as much guilt.

Pinkie sat up straight. Ten more minutes it was.

She pulled her coat around herself tighter. Nine more.

Started tapping her fingers again. Eight more.

Answered a text from someone. Six.

Started to really worry. Five.

Maybe something did happen to her. It really didn’t seem like her to just not show. Three.

Pinkie pushed a hand through her hair and looked down the street.

One more minute.

She knew there was no way she was going to be able to stop thinking about it until Friday now. And Friday suddenly seemed like an eternity to wait.

Pinkie stood up again, digging her hands into her pockets. Her self-imposed ten minutes were up and there was still no sign of Sonata. She thought about texting Rarity, asking if she could stop by, since her place was on the way – but she decided she felt too out of sorts to enjoy anyone else’s company. Too unlike herself. This sad, worried Pinkie Pie was not usually her – but tonight, it was.

“Pinkie Pie!”

Pinkie spun around to see Sonata some distance away, half-walking-half-running to try and catch up to her from down the street without slipping on the icy sidewalk. A wave of relief washed over Pinkie and she felt a new life in her step, new bounce in her curls. She smiled widely, hurrying down to meet Sonata half-way, pulling her into an enveloping hug the minute she reached her.

“Ohmigosh, I was soooo worried, Sonata! I thought you weren’t gonna show but then I was like, ‘Well, that’s kind of weird for her,’ so then I was like, ‘what if something happened?!’ and that wasn’t any better because I didn’t have any way to reach you and I got super sad for a minute and—” Pinkie stopped to inhale deeply.

“Sorry.” Sonata pulled away before Pinkie could continue, lifting a hand to tousle her own hair as she looked away. “I got held up by my roommates and then I had to . . . stop . . . somewhere. I, uh, totally get it if you don’t wanna go out anymore. Tonight. Or, like. Ever.”

“Of course I still wanna go out, silly!” Pinkie laughed as she shook her head, and then leaned forward to kiss Sonata’s cheek. “I’m just super glad you’re okay and here and nothing bad hap—oh. Uh. I just kissed you, didn’t I. Um . . .”

Sonata giggled as she leaned forward to return the kiss.

“I liked it.”

Pinkie glanced off to the side with a giggle of her own.

“I like your hair like that,” she said as she looked back.

“Thanks! I do, too!”

“So, uh . . . we’re still going tonight, right?”

“Uh, yeah!”


·✫✫✫·


Between the kisses, Sonata’s chosen date idea, and the fun she had being there with her, Pinkie all but forgot about the brief distress of thinking something terrible had happened – either to Sonata or their relationship.

In much the same fashion that Pinkie had surprised her during their first date, Sonata insisted on covering Pinkie’s eyes as she walked her toward their destination, only pulling away after stopping her in exactly the right spot to give her a full view of their destination’s dazzling sights: carnival lights, game booths, and food stalls, all done up in festive winter décor.

“It took me foreeveeer to find a winter fair that wasn’t too far to walk to,” Sonata said, watching the excitement in Pinkie’s eyes as she took in the sight.

“It’s – so – perfect!” Pinkie practically shrieked the words out as she held her hands to her chest, jumping up in place.

The first order of business, of course, was getting funnel cakes and hot chocolate to warm themselves up with before walking the craft booths – and subsequently finding their second order of business to be distraction by sugar cookie decorating. Cookies decorated and a mess properly left, they continued on to the game booths, where Pinkie espied an exceptionally desirable stuffed alligator at the ring toss.

“You . . . like that?” Sonata raised an eyebrow at the less-than-cuddly-looking toy. It had its quirky charm, she supposed, and she supposed she could see Pinkie liking such a thing.

“I collect alligators!” Pinkie exclaimed. “If I could, I’d have my own as a pet and love it and cuddle it and give it the cutest little name and wash it in my bathtub and feed it cake and—and—and—!”

Sonata fished inside of her bag for a single bill, exchanging it for a set of throwing rings. Rings in hand, Sonata positioned herself to throw the first one, which . . . sailed over the booth entirely. The second landed on a peg resting in the middle row. The third caught the edge of a peg on the top row – and then slipped off and landed on the ground. As a consolation prize, the booth master gave Sonata a fun-size candy bar, and the stuffed alligator remained high upon the upper tier prize shelf.

Sonata turned the hardly-fun-at-all-sized candy over in her hand with a frown, but Pinkie clapped for her just as excitedly as if she had hit the target all three times. With a sigh, Sonata gave the candy bar to Pinkie, but glanced away as she did so.

“Is something wrong?”

“No . . .” Sonata trailed off, then looked back at Pinkie and smiled, tilting her head. “But can you do me, like, a huge favour? I’d loooveee more hot chocolate, but I have to, y’know, uh . . .”

“Oki-doki-loki!” Pinkie nodded without waiting for Sonata to finish. She skipped off back toward the food area, then stopped mid-skip, realising she’d have to stabilise herself on the way back to keep their drinks from spilling. Or would she? Theoretically, if she misplaced liquid, and moved the cup in time to catch it . . . —

Pinkie paid for the two hot chocolates (with extra whipped cream, sprinkles, and cherries on top, of course!) and spun around, ready to head back and find Sonata—which didn’t take long at all, considering Sonata was standing right behind her.

“Surprise!” Sonata nearly—but not quite—sang the word out as she lifted both arms to show Pinkie the coveted alligator. She beamed brightly.

Pinkie’s eyes widened. “You won it?”

“Um . . . yeah!” Sonata giggled, but something about her tone seemed . . . off.

For a brief two seconds, Pinkie only stared at her – and then dismissed whatever weird thoughts she was having (because, really, when wasn’t she having weird thoughts?) and set the cups down on a nearby table to grab the alligator up into her hold, hugging it tightly before tucking it under one arm to pull Sonata into the hug as well.

Upon finishing their second round of hot chocolate, Pinkie pulled Sonata along to the Ferris wheel, pushing through the gate and sitting down close to her in the gondola with her stuffed toy on her opposite side. She didn’t say anything, only held onto Sonata’s arm and rested her head against her shoulder, warming as she felt Sonata’s head lying atop her own.

It was like her insides were a caramel-fudge swirl of warmth and goodness and happiness and she was perfectly content to let them stay that way for a while, sappy and gooey and sticky in the most delicious and satisfying way.

The gondola came to a slow stop just below the top of the wheel, and they sat silently, staring out over the view of the fair, until Sonata broke the silence.

“Pinkie?”

“Yeah?”

“I have to tell you something.”

“What is it?”

A short, unsure pause, and then: “Um. Nothing. It’s just that . . . this is . . . really nice.”

Pinkie smiled as she laced her fingers between Sonata’s.

“Yeah. It is.”
> 4. Quaver
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“Okay, first thing’s first.”

Pinkie Pie stood up and slid the door to the cold display case shut, resting her tongs down on a tray that sat on the counter behind her. She wound up the end of the cellophane bag containing three macarons and secured it with a silver twist-tie, setting that bag inside of a larger pink paper one, along with a single cookie in a paper sleeve.

“Cellphone number, puh-leaaasee!”

“Heh. Right.”

Pinkie smiled as she took Sonata’s payment along with the slip of paper, sorting the bills and coins into the register before sticking the paper into her apron pocket. “I’d just have you put it into my contacts now but, y’know, workiiing! I’ll call you when I get home!”

“Text.”

“Text?”

“Texting is, uh . . . easier for me.”

“Well, okay! I guess that would make it easier for you to save my number, too.”

“So what’s the second thing?”

“Huh?”

“You said, ‘First thing’s first.’”

“Oh! There isn’t a second thing. I just wanted to say first thing’s first because it sounded more official and business-like.” Pinkie giggled.

Sonata laughed, leaning over the counter to slip Pinkie a quick (and modest) kiss on the cheek before turning to leave. Pinkie smiled at her as she went, holding a hand to her face but finding it to only make her cheek feel warmer than it already was. She continued to stare off into space even after the door shut and the shop bell signified the exiting of a customer, wholly encumbered by thoughts of silly, entirely-too-syrupy things to greet Sonata with the next time she came in: I may work in a bakery, but you’re the sweetest thing here!

Pinkie laughed at herself. That was ridiculous even for her.

Which just made it all the more perfect.

The bell rung again, this time signifying the entrance of a customer – or, more precisely, four customers – but Pinkie was still in her cotton candy cloud dreamland. Why wait to use that one next week when she could text it to her tonight and surround it with emoticons shaped like pink hearts—no, blue!—blue hearts and swirly sparkles and she was sure there was a cupcake or some other confectionary emoticon somewhere—

“Helllooo? Earth to Pinkie Pie?”

Pinkie stood up straight and alert as she was broken out of her reverie, hair bouncing around her face and momentarily obscuring her view of the four girls in front of her before settling back into place like magic.

“Hey, guys!”

Rainbow Dash laughed, shaking her head dismissively at her friend behind the counter. Pinkie smiled, waving to her and the others.

“We decided to come by and see you today,” Rainbow explained as she stepped aside to give the other girls some room to see Pinkie.

“Our schedules were all serendipitously free—well, all except yours,” Rarity added.

“So we thought, why not rendezvous here where y’can enjoy a li’l get-together, too?” Applejack winked at her.

“Dashie suggested it.” Fluttershy smiled at Rainbow.

Pinkie beamed. It wasn’t anything unusual (now, anyway) for her friends to be so considerate, but their history made her appreciate it all the more – and it felt like the icing on the cake that was her weekly outings with Sonata. Or maybe it was the other way around, since she saw Sonata less, and at the end of the week, and now also got to kiss her, and so it was the slightly sweeter but not as present portion – of course, the cake was really sweet too, but in its own way—

“I’ll go tell the Cakes I’m taking my lunch break and be right out!” Pinkie turned to leave, but stopped and turned back as she heard the other girls laughing.

“Y’ain’t gonna take our orders first?” Applejack raised an eyebrow.

“Ohhhh, yeah. Hehe. What’ll it be?”


·✫✫✫·


Friends’ orders filled and both a strawberry milkshake and peanut butter and jelly sandwich made for herself, Pinkie flopped down between Rarity and Fluttershy on the couch while Rainbow and Applejack pulled chairs up to the coffee table.

Pinkie glanced from friend to friend as she all but inhaled her milkshake, listening to the individual conversations they engaged one another in while she finished her lunch. Rarity and Rainbow discussed the matter of a photo shoot for the band (“Is that really necessary, Rarity?” “Of course not, but it isn’t unnecessary, either!”) while Fluttershy and Applejack talked bass chords for one of her songs. Pinkie giggled as she scooped some whipped cream up with her straw, glad to know that she wasn’t the only one working diligently months ahead of time.

Then something hit her.

“Where’s Sunset Shimmer?”

The other girls stopped talking and looked at each other.

“I did try and invite her,” Rarity said slowly, glancing to the side as she turned a curl around her finger. “But she said that she had things at home to do.”

Pinkie frowned and pushed the straw back into her drink, swirling it around and watching the whipped cream make white rivers between pastel pink hills of strawberry milkshake. She lifted the cup to take another drink before pulling the straw out again to lick it off.

“I think we should throw her a party!”

“A party?” Fluttershy looked up at Pinkie.

“Yeah! A ‘We’ve Been Friends for Over Two Months Now But Never Celebrated Properly slash Thanks for Being Our Friend We Love You Sunset Shimmer!’ party!”

“Pinkie, that’s—” Applejack stopped midsentence, glancing over at Rainbow. “That’s actually a real good idea.”

“I know,” Pinkie smiled.

“Guess that must’ve been what you were daydreaming about earlier, huh?” Rainbow laughed. “You were prrreeetty out of it.”

“H-Heh. Was I?” Pinkie held the straw at the side of her cup as she lifted it up to drink from the edge, attempting to obscure her face. She was sure it was a deeper shade of pink than usual.

“We were standing there for some time, darling.”

Pinkie swallowed down hard and lowered the cup. She rested it onto the table and dug her hands into her pockets, pulling out the strip of paper with Sonata’s number on it and turning it over in her fingers. It was weird that she felt she couldn’t say much about Sonata to her friends when she usually told them everything, and wanted to go on and on and on and on and on about her. She’d always had a sixth sense for weird things, though, and that sense seemed to be telling her to keep quiet about it.

Why?

“I was thinking about . . . someone else,” she told them, despite everything telling her not to. “A . . . girl.”

“Someone else? A girl?” Rarity sat up. “Oh, do tell!”

“A . . . really cute girl,” Pinkie giggled, picking up her cup again to push the straw around coyly. “She was just here before you guys came in. Actually, she’s been coming in every Friday for like over two months now and the last five Saturdays we went out and even though we’re not doing anything fancy tomorrow night I’m still so excited! Usually we go somewhere, though—like we went to the fair last week! And one time, I took her ice skating which was really fun because can you believe she’s never been ice skating? I had to hold onto her the whole time, hehe! Ohmigosh, we should go to the rink again soon now that I’m thinking about—”

“Oh, man,” Rainbow interrupted. “You are crushing so hard.”

“I think it’s sweet,” Fluttershy smiled.

“Sweeter than some Sweet Apple Acres apple pie!”

“That sounded kinda redundant, AJ. You said ‘sweet’ and ‘apple’ twice. I know it’s your brand and all but—”

“Really, that’s what you two are concerning yourselves with?” Rarity frowned at Applejack and Rainbow.

“Wait, Pinkie,” Fluttershy said with a lifted hand. “Who is it?”

“Oh, uh, you don’t know her. She doesn’t go to our school.”

“But you must have known her much longer, yes?” Rarity inquired. “You know just about everyone here.”

Applejack laughed. “Yeah, whether they go to CHS or not.”

“And whether they live in Canterlot or not,” Rainbow added.

“I’m not sure her knowledge extends that far.” Fluttershy frowned.

“You must be joking.” Rarity shook her head. “I had relatives in from out of town and she somehow knew them!”

“And threw them a party?”

“That’s about as obvious a statement I ever did hear. Plainer than a—”

“Maaaan, not another farm metaphor, AJ . . .”

“Um, actually, Rainbow, I . . . think it’s a simile.”

They continued to banter on, but now Pinkie’s thoughts were dragging her away from the conversation – and not to her cotton candy cloud dreamland. It was more of a confused, jawbreaker storm system where getting through to any logical conclusion felt like it took more time and effort than she could put in. And she didn’t have an umbrella. Or goulashes. Or a raincoat. Or a hammer for the jawbreakers.

Sonata told her that she and her roommates had been recent arrivals to the city, but she still didn’t know Sonata’s roommates, or their names, or . . . anything about them other than the very few details Sonata had previously shared with her. Sure, Canterlot was a big city, but she’d even (briefly) met that girl who looked like Twilight Sparkle’s twin (or doppelgänger – or was Twilight the doppelgänger, being from another world? – or did that even count if she wasn’t a human in her world? – or—) and she didn’t go to Canterlot High, either.

That wasn’t the issue, though, was it?

But any issue Pinkie could think of – the weird lateness last week? the way Sonata acted after asking her to get more hot chocolate? having to tell her ‘something’ and then saying it was ‘nothing’? only wanting a text, not a call? – didn’t seem important in its own accord, either.

But something still seemed off.

Her sixth sense was tugging at her and she didn’t like it. She didn’t like the feeling and wanted to go back to cotton candy clouds and melted caramel-chocolate swirl.

“Pinkie Pie!”

Pinkie blinked a few times as she looked at Applejack. “Yeah?”

“You were in Pinkie Land again.”

“Thinking about your darling girl, no doubt.” Rarity giggled.

Not in a way that made her feel like a good person.

Pinkie gave her friends smiles and hugs before excusing herself to resume her shift, telling herself she’d feel much better once she could get home and text Sonata, feel some reality to their relationship again and not be burdened by all of these silly, weird thoughts that weren’t like her normal weird thoughts.

And, of course, she was right –

– but some remnant of uncertainty would continue to linger at the back of her mind, anyway.





Sonata lifted her head and squinted her eyes at the iron numbers affixed to the house standing before her, then looked down at her phone screen and its foggy glow in the cold air.

2334.

This was it.

Drawing in a slow breath, Sonata shoved her phone back into her coat pocket and approached the front door. She rang the bell, then decided she was a bit too close to the door and took a step back, proceeding to distract herself by observing the holiday décor that lit up the front lawn. It looked like a party not waiting to happen, but in the process of happening, with copious amounts of multi-coloured everything from lights and baubles to ribbons and garlands.

It was truly, eccentrically Pinkie Pie, but the lights thrown over some large boulders sitting in the yard seemed a little excessive even for— well— Pinkie Pie.

With a faint creak, the door opened, and Sonata looked back to see a young woman with pin-straight, shoulder-length, grey-lavender hair staring unblinking at her.

Sonata glanced around. Did she have the wrong house?

“Is Pinkie there—here?” Sonata stammered. “Here. Is Pinkie here, is what I meant. To ask. Um.”

“Yes.” The young woman blinked once, slowly. Her voice was jarringly flat and reminiscent of Aria on an especially bad day.

“I’m, uh . . . supposed to meet her?”

“You must be one of her friends. Pinkie has a loooot of friends.”

She lengthened the word, but it still came out flatly.

Sonata hesitated, then started, “Yeah, I’m Sona—”

The young woman stepped past her without waiting for her to finish, and Sonata watched as she walked into the snow-laden yard wearing nothing more than house slippers, long pyjama bottoms, and a thin sweater, stopping in front of a boulder to adjust the position of the lights strung over it.

Sonata glanced away and reached up to play with her ponytail uneasily, then leaned to the side slightly to look inside of the house – and with flawless timing, Pinkie bounced out in front of her, waving wildly.

“Hiya!”

Sonata jumped, grabbing tightly onto her own hair.

“You made it!”

Pinkie grabbed Sonata up into an enthusiastic embrace, and it melted away the discomfort that had previously swathed Sonata. She giggled as Pinkie pulled away.

“And you met Maud, too!”

“Maud?”

“My older sister!” Pinkie turned and waved eagerly at Maud, who returned the sentiment by way of slow smile before reverting to her former blank look. “Isn’t she great?! You gotta come over for dinner sometime! I mean, dinner when it’s all us and not just you and me. She has sooo many great poems and fashions and cool facts to share! She can get kinda wild, but it’s great!”

Sonata glanced over at Maud, then back at Pinkie with nothing more than a smile and zipped lips.

Pinkie escorted her inside and up the stairs to her room, which Sonata found to be . . . much tamer than she had imagined: subdued colours rather than explosively bright ones, slight personal touches in the décor rather than overt ones. It was cosy and homely, though, and Sonata liked it – and as she glanced around, she caught sight of a stuffed alligator resting among Pinkie’s pillows.

Sonata lifted her hands to her face. “Is that—”

“Gummy!” Pinkie plopped down on the bed with a bounce, pulling the stuffed alligator up into her arms lovingly. “I didn’t wanna just put him up on a shelf with the rest of my alligator stuff, he’s too cute!”

Sonata pulled her coat off and sat down on the bed, watching as Pinkie continued to cuddle the toy. She smiled and set the coat down behind her, leaning her head against Pinkie’s shoulder, content to sit without saying a word. She felt Pinkie’s fingers brushing aside her fringe gently, and so she pulled the tie away from her ponytail, shaking it free.

Having her hair down and relaxed made Sonata feel relaxed, too – enough so that she lay down on Pinkie’s lap, and in return, Pinkie ran one hand through Sonata’s hair while the other took Sonata’s hand and rested atop her chest. It felt like floating weightless upon water, letting the current carry her about, lull her into serenity. With a slow breath, Sonata closed her eyes.

Then giggled.

“Wanna hear something funny?”

“’Course I do!”

“I kinda thought you, like, lived at the café.”

Pinkie laughed, and the mirthful quaking only made Sonata laugh, too.

“It’s not my fault! You, like, came jumping down the stairs all dressed up!”

“There’s a break room in the loft, silly! I was covering someone else’s shift and didn’t have time to go home and change and come back before you got there.”

“Ohh.” Sonata giggled again, at nothing in particular – just being with Pinkie. Laughing with her. Feeling different around her. In a good way. She turned onto her back, smiling up at her friend—girlfriend?

Girlfriend.

Pinkie smiled back down at her, free hand tracing the locks of hair framing Sonata’s face. The touch tickled Sonata and she laughed again, calming for a fleeting moment as Pinkie’s fingers fell away from her face – only to tense up as she realised they were now resting against her necklace.

“You’re always wearing this,” Pinkie said, lightly tracing the bevels of the red gem. “I’ve never seen you without it.”

“It’s, uh—” Sonata swallowed down hard, face flushing. “It’s my favourite! Heh. It’s . . . really special to me.”

“It’s super pretty. It matches your eyes!”

Sonata breathed out. Calm down, she told herself, being weird about it will just make her suspicious.

“Thanks,” she managed in a steadier tone. Pinkie continued to turn the gem over in her fingers, playing with the way the light reflected off of it, and little by little, Sonata relaxed, realising that despite her kneejerk reaction, she had no reason to worry for the safety of her pendant in Pinkie’s care. Pinkie wouldn’t yank it off and play keep-away – or throw it out the window – or shatter it into a million pieces.

She trusted her.

“I feel kinda silly now,” Pinkie said as she rested the gem back down against Sonata’s neck.

Sonata lifted her eyes toward Pinkie. “Why?”

“Because—uh, wait, hold on!”

Following Pinkie’s gentle nudge, Sonata sat up and pulled her hair behind her shoulder, crossing her legs as she watched Pinkie walk to the closet and back, returning with a small package in her hands. The package was wrapped up in shiny blue snowflake-patterned paper and tied with a curly white bow, and when Pinkie sat on the bed, she handed it to Sonata.

“I got this for you, but . . . well, I probably should’ve found something else!”

Lifting the end of a thin, curled ribbon, Sonata stared at the present with some confusion before tearing the paper off from one edge to another, sliding the velvet box underneath out of its former casing. She lifted the lid of the box slowly, eyes widening as she took sight of the piece of jewellery lying inside: a silver eighth-note pendant on a silver chain necklace.

“I mean, I knew you wore your necklace all the time so I don’t know why I thought I’d get you another one! ‘Cause, I mean, of course it would be really special to you if you’re always wearing it and then you told me just now that it is and I dunno I saw this and thought, ‘hey, doesn’t Sonata wear a lot of clothes with that note’ and—”

“It—It’s pretty,” Sonata said, gingerly lifting the necklace out of the box. She pulled it around her neck, reaching under her hair to close the clasp before straightening the pendant out. Pinkie sprang up and grabbed a hand-held mirror off a shelf, then handed it to Sonata. Sonata lifted it and smiled a bit at her reflection.

It did look good on her.

She lifted her eyes over the mirror to look at Pinkie (sitting on the bed again, smiling widely), glanced at her reflection again (a neutral expression on her own face now), and then set the mirror aside.

“But I don’t think it matches mine.”

Pinkie’s wide smile disappeared. “Oh.”

Sonata reached behind her neck again, feeling around for a fastener—and pulled the black ribbon off. She sat on her knees, leaned forward, and reached behind Pinkie’s neck, locking the clasp in place under her hair, then pulled away just far enough to see how it looked (smiling again).

“So you can hold onto it for a little bit.”

Pinkie looked down at herself and giggled.

“I thiiiiink it looks better on you,” she said.

“I think it looks fine,” Sonata said as she giggled, too. A strange sort of exhilaration came over her – whether from feeling strongly enough about Pinkie to trust her with something so valuable and irreplaceable or from everything else about her feelings, the overwhelming need to be close and share everything – it shortened her breath and made her feel alive. She leaned forward again to give Pinkie a kiss on the cheek, and pulled back – and then leaned forward once more to kiss her lips.

This time she didn’t pull away.

Neither did Pinkie – instead, she lifted her arms to pull Sonata closer, one hand on her back and another in her hair. Sonata grasped onto Pinkie’s sides, warmth rising from her chest through her neck to her face and driving a light-headedness at her forehead, and finally, she pulled back for the sake of cooling herself, head spinning and thoughts buzzing and lights dancing in a dazzling array.

But then something started blaring, too. Screaming at her, turning the dizziness against her as Pinkie leaned back slightly and a glint of light hit the red gem around her neck, bouncing off threateningly instead of beautifully, reminding her of what she really was and what she and Pinkie weren’t and could never be.

And everything came crashing down at once.

Sonata shakily reached under her hair, fumbling with the clasp on the silver necklace before letting it fall to the bed as she retrieved hers from around Pinkie’s neck, pulling it back on with such panic that she wasn’t sure she had even secured the ribbon the right way.

“S-Sonata . . .?”

Sonata kicked her legs off the side of the bed, standing unsteadily as she grabbed her coat and pulled it around herself tightly.

“I can’t do this,” she breathed.

“Do . . . do what? Was that too much? I’m sorry, I—”

“No!” Sonata couldn’t turn to face Pinkie. It hurt too much. Her chest heaved and tears bit at the edges of her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall. “It—It’s not that. I just—I can’t do this. I can’t! I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

She wouldn’t let the tears fall she wouldn’t she wouldn’t—she did.

She let them fall as she stomped down the stairs and hurried through the house and slammed the door shut behind her. She let them fall as she nearly slipped on some ice in the middle of the sidewalk. She let them fall as she kicked the snow aside and brought her foot down on the ice heavily, angrily.

And then she lifted her hands to wipe her face, now hot from tears instead of lovestruck joy, but they wouldn’t stop. It was horrible and wrong to just run out like that, but she couldn’t stay.

She should’ve just stood Pinkie up. She should’ve stopped coming by the café. She should’ve said no from the start.

Far enough from Pinkie’s house, Sonata slowed to a trudging walk as her sobs settled into something less menacing and more subdued. She didn’t want to walk into her apartment still crying, having to answer Adagio and Aria’s questions about why she was crying or where she’d been or how the two were related. She didn’t want to hear how stupid she was.

It wasn’t like she didn’t know.

It wasn’t like she didn’t know showing interest in any human only put her into a precarious place. It wasn’t like she didn’t know that even if it did work, her lifespan as a siren was almost guaranteed to exceed any human’s. That even if being a siren wasn’t the issue, the goals she and Aria and Adagio had were. That it was stupid for her to have hilltop picnics, to use her powers for something as trivial as winning a stuffed alligator, to let someone else wear her necklace.

Sonata grasped onto the gem, then pulled her hand back quickly before she could act on the intruding thoughts telling her to rip it off and throw it away.

That was stupid, too.

No. It’d be okay. She’d get over Pinkie and forget about her eventually. She’d forget the way Pinkie made her entire body feel lighter than the ocean ever could, the way Pinkie’s words were more melodic to her ears than any song she could ever sing, the way she felt like she could live off nothing more than a simple kiss for weeks on end. She’d forget and she’d be okay and she’d get what she really wanted and there’d be nothing to miss.

But for now, she felt like she’d torn her own heart in two.
> 5. Tissue Paper
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“This is the place, girls.”

Adagio Dazzle exhaled slowly, eyes wandering the school courtyard before turning to the sky, where five and a half months earlier, an impossible array of rainbow beams and lights had materialised and shot out of the heavens. The slight quaver to her normally composed tone betrayed her exhilaration.

“We’re so close. I can feel it.”

Even Aria Blaze – a hard-to-impress critic of, well, everything – couldn’t help letting a smile slip through her typically aloof expression. She said nothing, but as she followed Adagio’s gaze, her smile turned up to a smirk.

To the left of and approximately three steps behind Adagio, Sonata Dusk stood with one arm folded behind her back, holding onto the other lying flat at her side. She too looked around, observing some of the . . . interesting décor the school showcased: a golden horseshoe-shaped sculpture standing near the sidewalk, an imposingly large horse statue in the centre of the yard, horsehead busts at the corners of the school building, stained glass windows – one of a horse (surprise!) and one with a strangely familiar star shape –

– she thought it was all a little uncanny.

Finally, she glanced up at the sky: clear, blue, and not a trace of a cloud or rainbow – magical or otherwise – to be seen. Five and a half months ago seemed like an eternity now – but maybe it wouldn’t have if she’d never done anything stupid for two of those months.

Sonata had resolved not to think about that anymore, though. She was optimistic, bright, refreshed, excited. She was eager to have her true magic again, to regain the thing she’d lost so long ago, to feel that intense power chorusing through her like blood through her veins, revitalising her like chilling ocean air. She let go of her arm and lifted her hand to her mouth, giggling at the thought.

She was excited, even if some remnant of something still tugged at her inside.

That morning had been one of both excitement and nervousness (of nervicitement—wait, Sonata, stop) as Adagio relayed the barebones plan for the day:
  1. Arrive at Canterlot High School and go through the motions of being new students (ID cards, class schedules, so on and so forth).
  2. Meet with a designated student volunteer to be shown around the school. (Imperative; they needed to know the school inside and out, said Adagio, but still: yawn.)
  3. Drag entire student body into enchantment at their most crowded and vulnerable time: lunch. (Cutting it close there with their scheduled tour.)
  4. Gain back their true Equestrian power. (The fun part.)

Again, barebones; Adagio liked leaving some room for flexibility, a 1-2% margin of error to her otherwise certain figures. Aria may have had some choice words for her at any given moment, but Sonata trusted their eponymous leader’s ability to deal with any difficulty that arose and she trusted her ability to iron out any crease in a plan.

Even if she still held a little resentment for being told by said eponymous leader that they didn’t need her, Sonata Dusk, folding creases in herself by way of getting involved with humans – and so it was really for the best that it was over – and everything would work out, she’d see.

Not exactly the comfort Sonata wanted after a breakup.

But other than those comments, she had found her roommates’ reactions to her sulky attitude during that period to be strangely understanding and in sharp contrast to their initial reactions to her weekly outings. Maybe sometimes she forgot that they could be nice to her, and that she did appreciate them.

Not that she would tell them any of that.

“Sonata! Are you coming or not?”

Sonata looked toward Aria to see her and Adagio some feet away, both giving her the same raised-eyebrow look.

“’Course I am,” Sonata responded indignantly, sprinting after them.





The din of the Canterlot High cafeteria wasn’t a novel sound.

It was almost mundane, despite the fact that it was one of the few times during the school day that her and her friends’ schedules aligned and they could all socialise, but it wasn’t anything new; it wasn’t particularly interesting, even though she loved socialising with her friends, and it wasn’t particularly out of the ordinary.

But it would stick with her, anyway.

True to routine – which was partially actual routine and partially the routine of changing up the routine – Pinkie Pie picked up a lunch tray, flipped it into the air, grabbed an orange, caught the tray, set the orange down, and started through the line, deciding she was in the mood for something not predictably sweet and not on the advertised menu. Line passed through, salad on tray, juice box grabbed, Pinkie took her seat at the table she and her friends always shared.

Also nothing too strange, and yet –

Wait a second. Hadn’t her thoughts veered this way before?

She veered them back in the opposite direction, lest she go down a less-than-happy path into a swamp of ensnaring molasses and nostalgic melancholy.

After all, it was the day before the Canterlot High Musical Showcase, and Pinkie had more than enough reason to be excited instead of sad! Following months of dedicated practise and refining her drumming skills and making posters out of paint and sprinkles and glitter and icing, her band would finally perform for the whole school (along with a number of other talented students, of course) and raise money for a good cause while they were at it!

A bit of nostalgic melancholy tugged at her, anyway.

She had wanted a special someone to watch her perform, and she’d been certain and positive and sure – about 99.9% sure, to be exact – that it was going to happen, even if she, at the time, hadn’t gotten the chance to ask that special someone just yet. Pinkie had a sense about these things and she couldn’t understand why it fell into that 00.1% percentage when she had wanted so badly for it not to, sense or no sense – just like she had so badly wanted everything else about the short-lived relationship to not go wrong.

She was just thankful she had such good, dear friends to be there for her in her not-so-much-like-the-usual-happy-bouncy-Pinkie and more-mopey-and-confused-and-prone-to-crying-Pinkie time.

And one of those dear friends now sat in the empty seat across from her, pulling Pinkie away from her nostalgic melancholy thoughts and back into the present, and Pinkie smiled at her – but her friend seemed distraught, not even carrying a tray of food with her.

Sunset Shimmer had earlier informed her friends that she’d volunteered part of her lunch hour to show some new students around and give them a good first impression of her, maybe deter some of the rumours (which, unfortunately, were not rumours) from influencing their opinion of her first – but now, she told them, she couldn’t shake the impression the new girls had given her. There was something off about them – or maybe it was just them acting weird around her – maybe she was too late.

Pinkie frowned as she watched Sunset drop her head onto the table.

Even after Sunset recovered (from her head-on-table position, anyway, thereafter taking to gazing out the window, head rested in her hand forlornly) and the other girls had resumed their conversations, Pinkie kept playing Sunset’s words over and over in her head like a broken record:

Something off about them. Off. Off.

Tugging again. Gears shifting. Something ticking?

Pinkie turned to Rainbow Dash, in need of a distraction—

—and then the cafeteria doors swung open, distracting Pinkie from her distraction as she looked over and caught sight of two vaguely familiar faces and one very familiar face, with her blue hair done up in a signature high ponytail, all three vocalising harmoniously and spellbindingly – and the shifting gears gained momentum until they were whirring rapidly and at once, something clicked into place in Pinkie’s head and sprang out at her like a jack-in-the-box.

A jack-in-the-box that also screeched really loudly and clanged cymbals cacophonously when it popped out.

“Ohhhh,” she said aloud, perhaps more to herself than to Sunset and the rest of her friends, the sound of melodic singing now overtaken by hostile ruckus. “They’re that kind of off.”

And by they, she meant Sonata.


·✫✫✫·


Okay, summary:
  1. That was definitely Sonata.
  2. Those girls were probably definitely her roommates.
  3. Sonata had some weird magic.
  4. She wasn’t lying about having an enchanting voice.
  5. Enchanting voice probably was the weird magic.

Conclusion: Yikes.

The walk from the cafeteria to Principal Celestia’s office was an unusually slow one for Pinkie (as in, she almost kept pace with her friends, only bounding a foot or two in front of them) as she tried to shift through all the confetti and tissue paper and streamers of her thoughts to put them into place. Tissue paper should be in gift bags, streamers hanging from the ceiling, confetti flying in the air.

Better.

Item one: There was no way it wasn’t Sonata because – unless she, like Twilight Sparkle, had some doppelgänger running around – who else had such pretty long blue hair done up in a high ponytail most of the time and sweet cerise eyes and the most adorable smile and—

Item two: Of course, she’d never met Sonata’s roommates, but it seemed highly improbable that Sonata would be singing bewitching songs and doing mesmerising dances with anyone else. Also, they were the same girls Sonata had walked into Sugarcube Corner with the day they’d first met. Pinkie vaguely recalled something Sonata said about the three of them having plans in the works.

Welp.

Items three, four, and five: The other kids in the cafeteria were properly dazed – and angry at each other – and rapt with every word Sonata and her, uh, friends? sang to them. Pinkie’s friends were properly dazed because it was such a strange sight to see. Pinkie was properly dazed because her ex-girlfriend showed up out of nowhere and started singing enchanting songs to her schoolmates. Wrap around back to item number three.

Again: Yikes.

Did all this have to do with why she left so suddenly that night? And stopped answering her texts? And ignored her calls? And—

Pinkie stuffed some mental tissue paper back into a bag. Focus, Pinkie, focus.

Focus-Pocus!

Pinkie wanted to laugh at that one, but she just felt sad, if she was being honest with herself – and she tried to always be honest with herself. Even when it meant admitting that her ex-girlfriend that she still missed and cared for was maybe hiding things from her all along and probably taking part in some weird school-domination plot that made things fifty times more complicated and was also still avoiding her.

Did Sonata . . . see her, though?

Tissue paper. Gift bag.

Okay, so the girls would talk to Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna, see what they had to say about all this. They had, after all, been witness to the (admittedly hard to miss) Fall Formal debacle and seemed strangely aware of things like magic – something that, prior to last semester’s formal, Pinkie herself only thought came in brands of faerie tale (awesome! but not real) or Trixie Lulamoon at a talent show (real! but not awesome). Pinkie was sure they would have some insight into the matter, and could ease all their minds, know how to handle the situation – and then, maybe Pinkie could have some idea of how to talk to Sonata, iron things out with her –

– or at least get some closure.
> 6. Fruit Punch
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“We really have to go to this thing?”

Aria stared apathetically at the flyer in her hand, breathing out a long, bored sigh even as Adagio snatched the paper from her.

“It’s the perfect opportunity to gather more information on our – heh – ‘competition,’ if you can call it that; of course we really have to go.”

Sonata straightened up and peered over Adagio’s shoulder at the flyer. With its font printed in bright shades of blue, pink, and purple that somehow coordinated flawlessly with the festive, faded-out background of an electric guitar, varying music notes, and balloons, it was like a party on paper.


CANTERLOT HIGH SCHOOL
MUSICAL SHOWCASE PRE-PARTY

Join your fellow student musicians for an
evening of socialising, food, and fun!

WHEN: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 @ 4:30 PM
WHERE: CHS Gymnasium
WHO: All Musical Showcase student participants!

Refreshments courtesy of the
Party Planning Committee & Student Volunteers.


Aria groaned.

“Why are we even worrying about the ‘competition’ when we already know we’re better than all of them?”

“I think the party sounds like fun.”

“Because we still need to be vigilant. We haven’t identified the source of Equestrian magic here yet; it could be any of them.”

“So like, what kind of food do y’think they’re gonna hav—”

“If we haven’t found it yet, how can we even know for sure that we even will? That cafeteria was full and – wow – nothing!”

“You’re still going on about that? We all saw it, and it was right here!”

“Doesn’t mean it’s still here. You ever think about that, O fearless leader? I mean, we only had to wait five months to get into this stupid place. I’m sure it definitely sat and waited for us.”

“Actualllyyyy, helping with refreshments sounds like fun too—”

“Oh, for the love of—are you going to actually help or just argue everything I do, Aria?”

“Is not helping even an option when you’re in charge, Adagio? Oh, never mind, because that’s always.”

“We’re not talking about the party, are we—”

“Sonata!”

Both her bandmates glared at her and she froze.

With an exasperated groan, Adagio pressed her fingers against her forehead, holding the flyer out in front of her. Aria turned her gaze toward Sonata, who eased up and tried to offer a smile. Aria rolled her eyes and looked away.

What a grump.

Recovered from her vexations, Adagio folded the paper up into a neat, perfectly-pleated square, turning back to Aria and Sonata with renewed vigour in her smile. She held the paper between her fingers and waved it at them as she spoke.

“Even if we don’t find what we’re looking for tonight, there isn’t much chance for it to escape us once we’ve – heh – charmed everyone.” She looked at Aria pointedly. “Is there?”

“Whatever,” Aria mumbled.

“Our bases need to be covered. We are not letting this slip away from us.”

Sonata raised her hand slowly.

Adagio sighed.

“Yes, Sonata?”

“Doooon’t you thiiiink,” Sonata started slowly, twisting some hair around her finger, “if we do socialise with other students like this, there’s a better chance of being able to figure out who did all that rainbow magic stuff?”

Adagio and Aria exchanged looks. Sonata swallowed down hard, but continued.

“I mean, like, we didn’t even sit in the cafeteria to eat lunch like the other students. Maybe they’re gonna be suspicious if we’re too . . .” she trailed off and paused, running a finger along the ribbon of her necklace before finishing: “. . . if we act weird.”

“Didn’t help that Adagio nearly broke Sunset Shimmer’s wrist this morning,” Aria said, laughing. “Nice one. Bet she definitely didn’t think we were weird then.”

“She was going for my necklace.”

Sonata held onto the ribbon a little tighter.

“And anyway, you two didn’t help, either—especially you, Sonata. ‘How we get people to do what we want?’ What possessed you to say that?”

“I just got kind of exci—”

“Us two? Don’t know what I did.”

“We could have done without the arguing.” Adagio sighed again, glancing away. “But Sonata is right.”

Sonata let go of the ribbon and looked up. “I am?”

“Yes. We are ‘students’ now, after all.”

Sonata beamed brightly—until Adagio continued.

“But you need to watch yourself.” She punctuated these last two words with two heavy taps against Sonata’s chest, eyes narrowed. “We don’t need a repeat of that little thing that happened a few months ago. No friends. No dating. Got it?”

Sonata looked down. Then back up. She opened her mouth to say something—but closed it and looked away. And nodded.

Adagio smiled, gently smoothing down Sonata’s collar with her fingers before adjusting and centring her fellow Dazzling’s gem.

“Good.”





Pinkie had been making a lot of lists since that morning.

She knew first-hand the importance of list-making in the process of party-planning, or recipe-writing, or inventory-taking, but it was becoming apparent that it was also important to crazy-event-recording.

Not that, normally, these crazy events would have bothered her too much (because she was all about crazy! Crazy sweets, crazy parties, crazy hats, crazy hair—), but she was still trying to work through this whole Sonata being a siren thing.

Oh, right. Rewind.

The visit to Principal Celestia’s office had been a total bust. Not only did both Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna not have any advice for the girls, but they were also obviously not themselves. So, naturally, the girls turned to the one person they knew could help them, because she had before, even though she was in another world now and they didn’t know of any way for her to get back for a super long time – but there had to be some way to get around that because Sunset Shimmer had a magic book that could magically send a magic message to her and if the book could magically send a magic message then there must be some magical way for her to—

Super long story super short, Twilight Sparkle had (magically!) come back to help save the day.

And she had also told them she was pretty sure the new girls, who called themselves the Dazzlings, were sirens who wanted to enslave everyone with their magical voices.

Pinkie thought it sounded kind of harsh coming from Sonata (via Twilight).

So, the Crazy Event List:
  1. The Dazzlings had shown up during lunch. (See Summary List.)
  2. Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna were already completely enchanted.
  3. The Musical Showcase was now a Battle of the Bands.
  4. Sunset Shimmer had a magical book just sitting in her locker.
  5. Twilight Sparkle found a way back to their world with help from said book.
  6. Twilight told them that the Dazzlings were sirens, voices, enslavement, et cetera. (Solution: the Magic of Friendship, of course!)
  7. Pinkie completely forgot she was supposed to bring refreshments for the Musical Showcase/Battle of the Bands Pre-Party.

This last item occurred to her in the middle of a conversation with the other girls while sitting on a couch in Sugarcube Corner, chocolate milkshake in one hand and straw in the other. She sprung to her feet, cheek still cold from the bit of milkshake that Twilight had wiped off her face moments before, eyes wide.

“Ohmigosh, I just forgot! I mean, I just remembered that I forgot!” Pinkie made to hold her hands to her face, but the cup and straw obscured her path, pressing against her cheeks instead of her actual hands. “I’m on the Party Planning Committee! I’m the head of the Party Planning Committee! Me! I am!”

Twilight looked at Rarity and Sunset, but they only shrugged in response.

“And?” Sunset raised an eyebrow.

“And! And! Annnnnnd!” Pinkie dropped the straw into her cup, paused a moment to look into the cup, sipped up the last remnant of melted milkshake, then continued: “And, I’m supposed to help bring refreshments!”

There was a loud, collective sigh from the other six girls and Spike.

“Y’need a hand with that, sugarcube?” Applejack stood up.

“We’d be happy to help,” Fluttershy added.

Pinkie, at any other moment, would have spun back around, flung her arms open wide, and given a loud yes! – but instead, she turned slowly, smiled only a little, and shook her head.

“That’s fine. I’ll meet you girls there!”

“Sure,” Rainbow shrugged. “We can fill Twilight in some more while we wait, anyway.”

“Oh, yes!” Rarity leapt to her feet, pulling Twilight up by her hands after her. “It’s always a treat to hear more gossip, is it not?”

Twilight giggled and nodded, in no apparent rush to pull her own hands away from Rarity’s. Sunset slid off the arm of the couch and looked at the two of them before glancing away.

The six girls and single dog took their leave, waving to Pinkie before the door of the café closed behind them, their departure marked by the chime of the store bell’s decidedly un-novel sound. Alone with her thoughts (and the café’s other customers), Pinkie made sure the tissue paper was in the gift bags and the streamers were hanging off the ceiling, but she wasn’t quite ready to throw the confetti in the air yet.

She wasn’t scheduled for the day, but the Cakes were always gracious enough to allow her use of the kitchen off-hours—except, she didn’t think she had time to make anything now. Unless she whipped up a plate of fruit and cream sandwiches really fast – but there was something else she really, really, really wanted to bring instead.

“Hey, Missus Cake!” Pinkie slid the kitchen door shut behind her, pulled both a hair net (well, two) and an apron on, approached the sink, and waved at her matronly mentor before turning the faucet on to wash her hands.

“Afternoon, Pinkie.” Missus Cake, holding a mixing bowl in one arm and whisk in the other, paused from her task to smile at Pinkie. “What can I do for you, dearie?”

“Actuallyyyy,” Pinkie started, turning the faucet off with a paper towel before drying her hands, “I need a huuugeee favour.”


·✫✫✫·


Half an hour later, Pinkie kicked the outer door to the Canterlot High gymnasium open, running her delivery to the refreshment table.

Serving plate down, bakery box open, cookies piled onto plate. Phew.

It was fortuitous that Pinkie had a mentor-slash-manager willing to let her take the freshest batch of cookies from the oven in exchange for overtime work during the weekend and taking command of the mixing bowl while Missus Cake packed her order.

Pinkie thought—hoped—that her peace offering would be noticed, and Sonata wouldn’t be too mad about the whole Friendship Magic thing that they planned to use against the Dazzlings. After all, it had worked on Sunset Shimmer, and now she was a good friend and part of their group, even if her ‘We’ve Been Friends for Over Two Months Now But Never Celebrated Properly slash Thanks for Being Our Friend We Love You Sunset Shimmer!’ party had to be postponed and became a ‘We’ve Been Friends for Over Four Months et cetera et cetera!’ party.

But that was mostly Pinkie’s fault.

So, that was her plan: wait for the Dazzlings to show up, summon the Magic of Friendship to revoke all their evil magic, apologise to Sonata for the seemingly-out-of-nowhere-yet-completely-necessary dramatics, ask if they could start sorta-new, offer entire plate of cookies (or, whatever was left of them after the party), evoke memories of her visits to Sugarcube Corner, warm her heart, win back the girl.

Yes. Flawless.

Pinkie exhaled and looked over the refreshment table. Cookies, napkins, straws, cups—and anxiety hit her full force despite her flawless plan and she inhaled quickly, snatching a cookie off of the plate. Nibbling frantically, Pinkie double-checked the table’s inventory: cookies, napkins, straws, cups. Straws, cups . . . straws . . . cups.

She forgot the punch.

Stuffing the last of the cookie into her mouth, she turned heel and ran toward the door leading to the hall, hoping she had time to whip up something quick. No, of course she had time, she was Pinkie Pie! But where was the rest of her Party Planning Committee and the student volunteers, anyway? She had very specifically named both on her flyers under the assumption that she’d get help from people other than herself, late to prep or not.

Hmph.

Pinkie threw the door to the cafeteria kitchen open wide.

“Granny Smith! I need—I need the punch bowls! And ladles! And the punch!”

“Oh, I don’t have them.” Granny Smith didn’t bother looking up from her sink full of pots. “Some girl came an’ took them already.”

Right, back to the gym.

“OkidokilokithanksGrannySmithseeyoulater!” Pinkie called as she turned and dashed out again.

Some feet from the refreshment table, Pinkie slowed to a stop, hands on knees and panting. Thinking too much about one thing while trying to do another sure was exhausting. Just thinking too much about one thing and nothing else was exhausting, in itself; she needed to get back to her typical merry-go-round of thoughts, soon.

Standing up straight, she took the last few steps to the table, laughing.

“Boy, am I glad you got the punch, ‘cause—”

Pinkie froze.

So did Sonata – staring right at her with wide eyes, bottle of juice still held mid-air, lid half-twisted on.

Pinkie opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

“Oh,” Sonata finally said, tightening the cap and setting the bottle down before fumbling with a second bottle she didn’t even look at. “You’re the Party Planning Committee.”

“Um. Head of,” Pinkie corrected awkwardly, watching Sonata pour apple juice into the bowl she had previously poured grape into.

Sonata glanced around, then looked back at Pinkie as she finished pouring. She secured and tapped her fingers on the lid, inhaled, looked like she wanted to say something – but all that came out was, “I should, uh, get going.”

“W-Wait, Sonata.” Confetti, air. This was her chance. “Um . . . can we talk, please?”

Sonata seemed to consider it a moment – then shook her head and hurried toward the to the hall door – then stopped a few feet away, as if remembering something, and turned back around. She grabbed a few cookies, looked up at Pinkie sadly, said I can’t, and rushed out the other door.

The confetti fell to the floor heavily as students began to file into the gym and Pinkie’s friends found her. She didn’t feel like picking the confetti up, and so she grabbed a few more cookies instead, munching quickly and blinking furiously and swallowing hard.





Sonata came to a sharp halt a ways from the gymnasium door, not ready to find and face Adagio or Aria just yet.

She breathed out slowly and shoved a cookie into her mouth, but it only made her feel worse despite the warm, soft, melt-in-your-mouth deliciousness. It’d been months since—

Sonata thought about spitting it out, but kept chewing instead in some sad nostalgia which grew into bitterness as she threw the other cookies across the yard and crossed her arms tightly, glaring at the ground.

She should have seen this coming, but she really didn’t.

What were the chances that Pinkie would have gone to school anywhere else when she lived in the same city? What were the chances she wouldn’t have been part of the showcase when she had a band? What were the chances of anyone else being on the Party Planning Committee when she herself had told Sonata parties were her favourite thing ever?

Sonata’s eyes widened.

She had a band.

Pinkie had a band and she was the drummer. She wasn’t just likely to be a victim of enchantment just by happenstance of being a Canterlot High student, she was almost guaranteed to be a victim of enchantment by happenstance of being in the showcase-turned-battle.

And Sonata would be right there lulling her with her own siren song.

She lifted her hands to her head and pushed them through her taut hair, thoughts seeming less like thoughts and more like a mess of seaweed tangling around her neurons, anchoring her down and keeping her from going to the surface for air to clear her head. She shouldn’t have a problem with this; she liked making people do what she wanted, she loved having that kind of power— but she was breaking into a cold sweat and her stomach was churning thinking that she may have already pulled Pinkie under.

Sonata started pacing, fingers tightening in her tresses.

There had to be some way around this.

Some solution.

Some . . . something!

“What are you doing?”

Sonata lifted her head to see Aria staring at her. She quickly pulled her hands away from her hair and spit out a hasty, “Nothing! What are you doing?!”

Aria raised an eyebrow. “Looking for you.”

“Well, congrats, you found me!”

“Your hair is a mess.”

Sonata lifted her hands and pushed the bumps in her hair toward her ponytail.

“Nuh-uh!”

Unfolding her arms, Aria sighed and approached Sonata, lifting her hands to pull the tie out of Sonata’s hair. She brushed her fingers through the long blue locks, smoothing them out and styling them back up into a high ponytail, then stepped back again and stared Sonata square in the eyes.

“What’s going on with you?”

“I . . .” Biting the inside of her lip, Sonata ran her hand along the freshly smoothed strands. “I’m nervous.”

“Since when do you get nervous? What’s there to be nervous about?”

“I don’t . . . want to be wrong.”

“Okay, well, you’re not the one who singled this place out, Adagio is. She’d be the one who’s wrong.”

Sonata pulled a hand through her ponytail and shrugged.

“You don’t have time for sulking around. We don’t have time for you sulking around. And anyway, you were the one who wanted to go to this dumb party, remember?”

“You were listening?”

“It’s hard not to listen when your voice is so incessant.”

“Hmph. That’s a big word, you learn it from Adagio?”

“Why? Don’t know what it means?”

Sonata made a face at Aria, who offered a patronising smile in return.

Sonata crossly mumbled that she did indeed know the meaning of the word and, before Aria could make another quip, insisted they both catch up with Adagio. Aria conceded – and not without a that’s what I came here for in the first place, dummy – but Sonata had no response, taking a particular interest in her own fingers and fumbling them about with one another as they entered the school.
> 7. Friendship is... Magic?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The party was boring.

Parties weren’t supposed to be boring – that was the opposite of, the very antonym of a party – and, in any other situation, Pinkie felt it was as good as her civic duty to spin such things into what they were supposed to be: fun and exciting! But in this situation, Pinkie was still standing at the snack table, stuffing cookies into her mouth, with no particular regard for the lack of partying at the party.

She saw Twilight wander off with a cup of juice out of the corner of her eye, but couldn’t bring herself to find out where she had gone—specifically, she couldn’t bring herself to turn away from the plate of cookies. She had managed to stabilise herself by now, but she wasn’t sure that was what she wanted, because she wasn’t in her typical state of being bouncy or bubbly or any other synonym of; just still and stabilised and—

Highly offended as Rainbow Dash picked a chocolate chip off one of her cookies mid-bite.

Pinkie turned to throw her friend a look – but her friend was too busy throwing looks (and the chocolate chip) at Twilight – and that was when something else caught Pinkie’s attention: the Dazzlings, standing by the door.

Oh, boy.

Pinkie wasn’t entirely aware  – or ready – when Fluttershy and Rarity left the vicinity of the table, followed by Rainbow and Applejack, and finally, Sunset. Pinkie turned to face the plate again, grabbing an extra supply of cookies for later, before finally joining her friends.

She was sure that she’d need it.


···


A quick glimpse around the gymnasium was enough to tell Sonata that the socially disjointed atmosphere of the cafeteria had carried over from lunch and still heavily blanketed the Canterlot High student body; kids in small groups of what she presumed to be their own bands, gaping space between each group, and even a bit of bickering taking place near the stage.

The glimpse was also enough to tell her exactly where not to look to both keep from drawing Pinkie’s attention to her presence and to keep from drawing Adagio and Aria’s attention to her discomfort.

The party had sounded like fun, but that was before she ran into Pinkie – now she felt the heavy atmosphere and wanted to leave more than even Aria did—or she imagined she did, but she wasn’t sure she could sink to Aria’s negative levels of enthusiasm for things like parties, even in her current state of unease.

Following behind Adagio, Sonata continued to scan the room and keep her eyes every and anywhere but the refreshment table, where she had caught sight of curly pink hair (thankfully turned away from her), causing her to nearly walk into Aria as they came to a stop in the middle of the room. Aria’s immediate glare barely even registered with her.

Adagio made a comment about underlying tension, prompting Sonata to think back on the exchange she had with Pinkie only some fifteen or twenty minutes ago, and her heart jumped in a decidedly unexcited way.

“It’s the fruit punch, isn’t it?” She blurted out. It was the denying of Pinkie’s request to talk. “I knew I used too much grape juice.” She had wanted so badly to, but there had been no time, it’d do no good, she couldn’t tell her—

Adagio didn’t even turn to look at Sonata as she very pointedly informed her that no, it was not the fruit punch. Aria decided to very pointedly add that the punch was awful, anyway. Sonata very pointedly smacked Aria in the face.

And before Sonata could retaliate to Aria’s retaliation of mussing up her fringe, Adagio stopped both of them.

She showed no further frustration with their bantering, now vivaciously assessing the disharmony clouding the room and predicting its progression into complete dissonance during the Battle of the Bands—when a voice interrupted to very pointedly inform her that there wouldn’t be a Battle at all.

The three Dazzlings turned toward the voice and Sonata’s eyes widened as she saw not only the voice’s owner, but a group of five other girls with her – including Pinkie Pie.

Their eyes didn’t meet (to Sonata’s only slight relief) and she was able to quickly look in the opposite direction at one of the other girls as the six of them linked arms, and the one standing in the middle  (who had rather uncouthly interrupted Adagio) shouted:


···


“Friendship iiiis Maaaagiiiiic!”

Pinkie closed her eyes tightly, lifting her un-linked arm high in the air, cookie still in her mouth.

She still fully intended to stick to her original plan of apologising to Sonata post-cascading rainbow ribbon magic, even if their earlier, unexpected meeting threw a small bump into that plan. She could totally wing it after the Dazzlings were properly de-vilified, since the whole cookies thing was out.

Or she hoped she could.

And as she stood there, waiting for the rumbling, the boom, the bright lights, she began to rehearse all the ways the apology could go: are you okay? how do you feel? might be a good way to start, then I’m sorry we had to totally blast you and your friends with magic but—

—but it was just eerily quiet? No rumbling? No boom? No bright lights?

Pinkie kept her eyes shut firmly and tightened her grasp on Rarity’s hand nonetheless; maybe the cascading rainbow ribbon magic was juuuuust taking its time, and maybe she wasn’t ready to face Sonata juuuuust yet.


···


The six girls stood in silence, posed as if the middlemost girl’s (very strange) proclamation should have been followed by some showstopping display of . . . something, and for a moment, even Adagio seemed dumbfounded by the presentation, looking toward Sonata and Aria as though either of them had an answer as to what had just happened.

Sonata made it a point to give an exaggerated shrug in response, wanting Adagio to be absolutely sure that she had no idea who any of these girls were or what they were doing.

And she really didn’t know what they were doing, even if she did know one of them. She assumed the other five were Pinkie’s bandmates, which just made the stand-off seem all the stranger. Something was . . . off about it.

Off about them.

Sonata stole a quick glance back toward Pinkie, unsure what to make of her rather enthusiastic mannerisms, arm shot high into the air and eyes shut tight even after the other girls had snapped out of their own poses. The only thing she could make anything of was the remnant cookie crumbs all over Pinkie’s face, but even then, all she made of it was that it was kind of cute.

Not the time, Sonata.

Breaking her gaze away from Pinkie, Sonata furrowed her brow as she surveyed the five other girls and their held hands and whispers to each other once they seemed to realise that whatever trick they had tried to perform failed to produce the desired result.

Pinkie’s friends were a bunch of weirdos.

And then something struck Sonata and struck her hard – hard enough to displace the seaweed tangling up her neurons and give her enough surface air to breathe and to think clearly again. She again surveyed the girls, but this time, with a smile on her face and her hands on her hips, that something offering her a glimmer of hope.


···


That didn’t work.

With the rumbling-boom-bright lights magic showing no indication of making an appearance, Pinkie finally yielded to opening her eyes and easing her grip on Rarity’s hand. She looked around the gymnasium, finding it to be host to a myriad of uncomfortable, perplexed, and even irate faces – including a grimacing Sunset Shimmer standing some feet away from the girls.

Pinkie swallowed down hard and turned toward the Dazzlings, catching Sonata’s glance, but only momentarily; Sonata quickly looked away, turning her attention to one of her (assumed) roommates, who now paced about the six of them.

“Talk about throwing down the gauntlet!”

The girl flourished her imposingly large, curly orange hair as she spoke, turning her gaze toward Twilight with a self-important smile. Pinkie narrowed her eyes.

“This group is obviously serious about winning,” the girl continued with a laugh, turning her face away from Twilight as she turned to continue pacing. “Heh, a little cocky, though, aren’t they? Claiming there won’t really be a battle.” She stopped, staring Twilight square in the eye as she set her hands on her hips. “Seems they think they already got this thing all locked up.”

Pinkie’s eyes darted across the room and she caught sight of Trixie poised dramatically, looking ready to offer her own input on the matter – when Twilight stepped forward and took the floor instead, a renewed vigour in her voice.

“We know what you’re doing, Dazzlings, and we won’t allow it!”


···


Sonata wasn’t sure what was more shocking: the blatant defiance from Pinkie’s friend, or Adagio letting her smile slip.

It was only a brief second, but the second was one of uncertainty, a second where Sonata’s anxieties returned to her anew in fear of their being exposed and everything falling through the cracks and her own newfound solution to her relationship problem being sabotaged right along with it—because if Adagio couldn’t keep her composure, how could she, how could Aria—but the brief second ended and Adagio found her smile again and stepped forward to face the rather bold girl.

“You know what we’re doing?” she repeated innocently, regarding the indigo-haired girl with a look of thinly-veiled condescension. “Trying to have fun and compete just like anyone else? I don’t know why you’d want to stop that! That’s all everyone here wants – isn’t it?”

A murmur arose from the students around them.

“So why make such a big fuss and ruin it for everyone?”

The murmur climbed to a hostile din, and with it came an ensuing aura of negative energy.

Sonata and Aria exchanged grins in this reassurance that the three of them were, in fact, still wholly in control, and Sonata could feel her anxiety melting away. There was no way their plans could fail, which meant there was no way her plan could fail.

From the opposing group, the girl whose hand Pinkie had held onto stepped forward, taking hold of their assumed ring leader's shoulder. She whispered her words, but not quietly enough that Sonata didn’t hear—

“Twilight, dearest, it may be time for us to leave.”

—and not quietly enough that Adagio didn’t hear.

“Twilight, is it?” Adagio stepped closer, lifting a hand to strum her fingers across Twilight’s hair. “What a pretty name to match such a pretty face.”

Twilight’s reaction was one of flustered vexation, to be sure, but not one of enchantment or spellbound awe, as they were so used to seeing. Sonata narrowed her eyes. Something was definitely off.

“I’m onto you,” Twilight finally said as she managed to bring her eyes up to meet Adagio’s.

“Oh? You’re oooon to uuuuus?” Adagio sang her words crisply – but Twilight continued to glare unwaveringly. Adagio relinquished her hold on Twilight’s hair, stared at her a moment, then lifted a hand dismissively. “I can’t say I have any idea what you mean.”

Adagio waved the lifted hand and returned to her position between Sonata and Aria.

“In fact! Instead of claiming to be better than the rest of us, why don’t you and your band go sit outside and have a peaceful Friendship is Magic protest while we take part in this school event like good, faithful students?”

And on cue, Sonata and Aria laughed—

“After all, there’s nothing more disruptive to a student body than a group of self-assured miscreants trying to keep everyone else from enjoying themselves because they think they’re the best.”

—and the students erupted into an uproar.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie will allow no one to stand between her and victory!”

“Whatever, Trixie! Our band is gonna win!”

“Yeah, right, Trash Sentry! The Crusaders are the best and your band is just trash!”

“Ohh, good burn, Scootaloo! Trash and trash, just like your dumb costumes! I’ve seen ‘em!”

“Leave her alone! What do you know about good costumes anyway, Snips?”

“More than you, for someone who’s got a fashionista for an older sister!”

Twilight stepped back, away from the Dazzlings and away from the enclosing chaos, bumping into her own friends as the uproar in the room escalated into cacophonous contention, and as soon as she’d been helped back upright, the six of them and Sunset Shimmer wasted no time in turning heel to leave.

Sonata lifted a hand to her mouth and giggled.


···


Once her six friends had filed out through the school’s front entrance after her, Pinkie let the door slip from her grasp to swing shut. She watched them all – save for Twilight – seat themselves on the front steps, and balanced herself on the hand rail beside them. Free from the suffocating atmosphere of the gym, she finally let her breath out— then remembered seeing Sonata laughing at them— and felt like holding her breath in tightly again.

Pinkie found one of the cookies she’d tucked away, slouching her shoulders as she stuffed it into her mouth.

So much for Plans A and B.
> 8. Un-Fun
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	A dozen croissants. Two blended caramel iced coffees. One sugar cookie, one almond cookie, a small milk. An English paper, math worksheet, documentary to watch for history; Maud’s lunch, a bath for Gummy (with laundry detergent), letters to her parents and younger sisters; an easy solution, Sonata’s hand, a different song.

The last orders of her most recent shift. Homework needing to be started; chores to be done at home; things she really wanted.

Pinkie breathed out heavily and stopped drumming. Even thinking about any and everything but the song the Rainbooms were currently “practising” wasn’t enough to keep her on track. The melody was already stumbling over itself and only weakened further with the absent drum beat, but Pinkie couldn’t bring herself to care as she balanced a single drum stick atop her index finger, entertained more by the strive to keep equilibrium between the stick and her finger than the strive to create equilibrium within her own band.

Applejack and Rarity, however, were not as amused by her antics as she.

Pinkie caught their coupled glares and sheepishly dropped the drum stick back down into her hand, poising herself to start again – and start again she did, unhappily and grumpily.

The previous night’s sleepover had been fun, great!—until Pinkie woke up the following morning (that is, this morning) from a dream in which, contrary to the previous day’s embarrassing display of not being able to summon the magic rainbow laser light show, the girls had succeeded in doing just that; and following the magic rainbow laser light show and its resulting stripping-of-evil-magic via magic-of-friendship-magic, Sonata – no longer able to create disharmony between anyone with her singing, no matter how beautiful it sounded – refused to forgive Pinkie and hated her forever and told her she’d never liked the cookies in the first place and had been lying about that all along and also that the necklace she had given her was tacky.

Pinkie knew at least part of that was nothing more than the hyperbolic nature of dreams, but the fear seated itself in the party space of Pinkie’s mind nonetheless and made a mess of the streamers for a good time.

A counter spell to the Dazzlings’ musical spell – their new plan – couldn’t be as harsh, though, right? Less dramatic than the magic rainbow laser cyclone born of the magic rainbow laser light show, and not magic stripping? If it was to counter what the Dazzlings’ magic did – incite contention and competition – then, theoretically, it should only negate it and not necessarily destroy it—

Pinkie was just reaching for some way to justify her very honestly not personal assault against Sonata (and her room/bandmates) at this point.

Responsibility versus emotion was a losing battle on both sides.

With a lacklustre finish, the song ended, and Pinkie slumped over her drum set. Twilight insisted they take it from the top once more, and it was all Pinkie could do to keep from groaning in response. Rarity, however, insisted on taking a short break for costume fitting— to which Applejack voiced her disapproval— to which Pinkie mumbled that Rarity only wanted to make things fun and isn’t that what being in a band is supposed to be?— to which Sunset reminded them they were on a fifteen-minute deadline to sign in for the first round of the Battle of the Bands and didn’t have time for disagreements or another run-through.

And just like that, Applejack’s shed descended into a chaotic flurry of breaking down instruments, packing said instruments into cases, and narrowly avoiding one another as six of the seven girls rushed to clean up the small space – only to be stopped at the threshold of the door as Twilight’s vocal panicking reminded each of them that if the song didn’t work the first time, the Dazzlings would know for sure what they were doing and sabotage them and it would be lights out, curtains, end of the show.

Applejack brushed it off – they’d buy some more time – and Rainbow agreed – they’d just join in the competition for real.

Pinkie looked away and swallowed back hard. The (work-in-progress) counter spell song wasn’t fun, the pressure of time ticking away wasn’t fun, and the thought of facing off against Sonata definitely wasn’t fun.

A change in wardrobe might’ve been at least a little fun.





The itinerary for the Battle of the Bands was as follows:

Wednesday (today) and Thursday (tomorrow) would cover the rounds leading up to the semi-finals, which were scheduled to take place on Friday; Saturday evening would see the final round and the ultimate winners of the battle.

Sonata knew, of course, the ultimate winners would be the Dazzlings.

She also knew she had two days to enact her scheme (which fit snuggly and conveniently into their overall scheme, as spearheaded by Adagio) and gain her own victory. She knew that the Rainbooms possessed the magic they had spent the past five and a half months preparing to take, the magic they had spent the last thousand years yearning to have once more – and she wanted it.

Just not from Pinkie Pie.

She wanted something very different from Pinkie Pie.

And if Pinkie was no longer part of the Rainbooms, Sonata reasoned, the magic from the other five would be enough to satiate them, and Pinkie’s former involvement in the band would become a non-issue—

—and the something that had hit her with such intensity the day before were words spoken by Pinkie herself: she and her friends’ relationships hadn’t been the best until very recently. It wasn’t just a small piece of personal knowledge fed to her during a brief conversation in Sugarcube Corner some four months prior, it was an opening, an opportunity.

After all, her friends were weird – and already, the Dazzlings had been privy to whispered gossip about the Rainbooms: the girls who until the previous semester had hated each other, one girl who had been last semester’s Fall Formal Princess and possessed a magic crown, and one girl who had once driven the school apart as Queen Bee and now struggled to fit in with her own friends. Whispered gossip spoken in hostility upon seeing the Rainbooms’ band insignia on the competition board that the Magical Princess had returned only to give the Rainbooms an edge over everyone else, that they would use the former Queen Bee’s cunning to take out those who weren’t bested by the Princess – and with each cold word, the Dazzlings revelled in being fed with both vital information and intense negativity.

And the more Sonata watched the Rainbooms, the more confident she was in her idealisations.

Their first performance was a complete disaster if only because of their fellow students’ attempts at sabotage. Subsequent performances narrowly pushed them through the rounds, narrowly beat out their competition, narrowly maintained cohesiveness between the girls, each presentation slightly more chaotic than the last, slightly less unified than the last.

It was like watching the undercurrent pull them in, and the Dazzlings’ subtle encouragement of the Rainbooms’ rivals was edging them toward the erratic ocean.

After all, like Adagio said: they just needed a little push in the wrong direction.


·♪♪♪·


Sonata did enjoy watching them play, though, despite the increasing instability in their acts.

She thought Pinkie was skilled with her drum set (and how adorable was her upheld enthusiasm, even when everything was falling apart around her? a confetti canon in the drum? genius! fun! totally Pinkie! Sonata’s heart was all a-flutter) and she felt each strike upon the drum, each cymbal crash, each thump of the bass reverberate within her chest, spark her desire anew.

It was really too bad they’d have to break up.

Better the band than she and Pinkie, though.





Pinkie knew Sonata was watching her.

Well, she knew all three of the Dazzlings were watching them – waiting for them to slip up badly (and she often wondered how much they knew, despite Twilight’s insistence that the Rainbooms not show their magic) – but she felt Sonata’s eyes on her especially all Wednesday and Thursday long.

She did, after all, have a sixth sense for these things.

Like a . . . Pinkie sense. Some kind of tingling in her arm, or itching at her head, or shivering in her spine, but she was still trying to figure out all the signs and what they meant.

So there was really no telling what her sense was saying to her about Sonata now, but it differed only marginally from the feelings she’d gotten about her months ago – which, admittedly, weren’t very clear, being muddled up with her own feelings for Sonata.

And they were still muddled with her own feelings for Sonata and now only muddled further by the emotions intruding on her carousel of thoughts, her party space, her no-longer-cotton-candy-cloud dreamland, by way of the incidents that kept pushing her band to the edge right as they managed to pull back from it.

Twilight scribbled in Fluttershy’s notebook furiously, barely attentive to anything happening around her until she was needed for a song; Fluttershy regarded Rainbow Dash with an unusual callousness with each passing performance in which one of her songs was pushed aside for one of Rainbow’s; Rainbow Dash maintained an aloof coolness and confidence that none of the other girls could hope to touch upon, simply because it was unrealistic; Applejack continuously lost her temper at Rarity; Rarity continuously accused Applejack of being an overgrown child; Sunset Shimmer grew increasingly distant and quiet, often hanging back from the group.

And Pinkie Pie wondered with each won round how.

How were they beating out more put together bands and their performances? How were they still keeping any semblance of harmony with one another? How could she have gotten so intimately mixed up with someone who was now, in effect, her enemy?

How, how, how?

The party space of her mind had become a proper mess of streamers and tissue paper that had been shredded apart and mixed in with the confetti, driving her own confusion and irritability, and while banging on the drums was a good release, a great way to get the frustration out, it only lasted so long.





Well into Thursday, Sonata began to panic.

The Rainbooms were still together and still doing well – well enough to have made it into the semi-finals against Trixie Lulamoon’s band, opposite the Dazzlings facing off against Flash Sentry’s band.

Despite all her efforts – her efforts and the efforts of her bandmates – the Rainbooms gave her no opportunity to intrude. In even their weakest moments, when Sonata could have pushed her way in and persuaded Pinkie to rethink her involvement in the band, the girls shied away from the company of their schoolmates, the Dazzlings included.

Maybe that had something to do with their little talk they’d had with Sunset Shimmer the day before. Which was totally unfair because she had approached them.

Sonata could feel her plan dissolving into sand and slipping through her fingers.

“They’re doing better than I thought they were gonna,” she remarked to Adagio, trying not to sound as anxious as she felt.

“Let them,” Adagio said with a grin. “All the better for the eventual crash and burn.”

Aria laughed.

Sonata didn’t.





“Good luck in the semis tomorrow, Lamebooms,” Trixie said in passing, flipping her hair as her two bandmates followed her toward the gymnasium door. “You’re gonna neeeeed iiiiit!”

Rainbow Dash laughed as if it were nothing more than an empty threat. Applejack shot a particularly nasty look in Trixie’s direction. Twilight frowned – and then jumped as a hand touched her shoulder.

“Good luck for real from us,” Adagio said sweetly, lifting her hand from Twilight’s shoulder to her hair as she wrapped her arm around the back of her neck like a snake poising for a chokehold. “I have to say, we’ve really enjoyed all the, heh, friendly competition.”

Sunset looked away.

Twilight’s discomfort was visible, but she could only stammer out a weak mumble that Pinkie didn’t quite hear as she looked in Sonata’s direction – and to her surprise, Sonata smiled at her – but it was a hesitant, half-smile, as if she were forcing it.

Pinkie didn’t know what it meant, but she smiled back, just as hesitantly.

“Excuse me, Miss – uh – Dazzling,” Rarity interrupted, stepping forward.

“Dazzle, actually,” Adagio corrected. “But you were close.”

“Right, yes, well.” Rarity gave an airy laugh, tinged with blunt animosity as she pulled Twilight out of Adagio’s grasp and back into the Rainbooms’ vicinity. “Thank you very much for your well-wishes, but we have a lot to do, so if you wouldn’t terribly mind excusing us—”

Aria scoffed audibly, and Sunset looked back at her with narrowed eyes.

“Oh, of course not! In fact, we have quite a bit to do, ourselves – don’t we, girls?”

Sonata and Aria nodded, and the two bands parted ways – but Sonata couldn’t help brushing her hand gently against Pinkie’s as she passed her.

And Pinkie couldn’t help holding on for a brief second that ended all too quickly.
> 9. Vibrato
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Sonata stared at herself in the mirror.

Inhaled slowly. Exhaled slowly.

Straightened her fringe. Centred her ponytail. Pulled her gloves tight. Adjusted her tie. Secured her gem.

Everything had to be perfect. Was her skirt billowed out right? Did the seams align? Were the shoulders of her top even? Had she used enough eyeliner?

Inhaled, exhaled, slowly.

Stalling.

Stalling stalling stalling.

She should have been on stage, awaiting her turn to perform with her bandmates. Instead, she had locked herself inside her dressing room, trying to avoid heart palpitations, psyching herself up to perform, knowing she had to face—

“Come on, Sona, we’re next. Are you ready yet?”

Okay, maybe she wasn’t locked inside her dressing room, even though she was approximately 99.9% sure she had bolted the door shut with her own hands, and pulled on the knob for good measure to be sure it was bolted tight.

Chasing her thoughts away, Sonata turned around and nodded quickly at Aria.

“I’m, like, so ready,” she lied, pushing a grin.

She was so not.

“No, you’re so not.” Adagio stepped past Aria, raising an eyebrow as she pointed a finger toward Sonata. “Where’s your necklace?”

Sonata knitted her eyebrows together and frowned.

“Stop teasing, Adagio!” Sonata lifted her hand to her neck. “It’s right h—” she stopped short, fingers finding only the knot of a tie at her sternum. Her stomach flipped.

Where was her necklace?

“I—I just had it!” Sonata exclaimed, whirling back around to face her vanity table. Makeup and jewellery fell to the floor in a panicked flurry as she shoved tubes and chains and compacts and rings off, drawers clattered loudly as she pulled them out of their tracks and emptied them of their contents before dropping them, and her chest heaved as she began to hyperventilate.

It couldn’t be gone. It couldn’t.

But it was.

For a moment, she stood staring at the ravaged table, palms pressed down against its wooden surface to support herself as her heart thumped heavily against her ribcage. She lifted her eyes to the mirror and saw Aria and Adagio, exchanging looks with one another, and she spun on her heels to face them, eyes wide and pleading.

Pleading for help— sympathy— forgiveness.

Aria scoffed.

“That’s just like you to go and ruin something,” she said.

“Mmm.” Adagio laughed airily, running a hand through her hair before tossing it behind her shoulder. “I suppose Aria and I will have to go on without you.”

“What?!” Sonata shook her head. “You—You guys can’t!”

Aria giggled. “Oh, can’t we, Adagio?”

“We can, Aria.”

“After all, if she’s careless enough to lose her gem—”

“—there’s no telling what kind of trouble she’ll get us into.”

“I don’t need it!” Sonata insisted. “Listen!”

She inhaled deeply and opened her mouth to sing.

Nothing came out.

No.

She tried again. No. She grabbed her throat.

Silence. No no no—

Aria and Adagio laughed.

“Completely worthless,” Aria said, walking closer to Sonata and flicking her in the forehead. “Some siren.”

“Oh, please, Aria.” Adagio rolled her eyes, sliding around Sonata’s side, tracing her hand up her neck, along her back, down her chest. “No voice, no wings, no magic. As if she’s even a siren anymore. She’s just . . . human.”

Sonata stared at the floor, heart pounding, face flushing, heat rising from her chest to her head this isn’t happening this isn’t happening this isn’t happening and the warmth drove a light-headedness at her forehead, her head spinning and thoughts buzzing and lights dancing in a frightening array—

Wait.

“I know where it is!” Sonata shouted, pushing away from Aria’s suffocating words and Adagio’s suffocating touch, bounding out the door and slamming it shut behind her. She ran past the amphitheatre and hillsides and buildings and cars, she ran across a crosswalk at a green light, she ran through a couple holding hands, she ran and she pushed her own hands out in front of her and threw the doors to Sugarcube Corner open wide and ran to the counter and rang the service bell fiercely.

“Give it back!” She demanded, ring-ring-ringing. “Give it back!”

A girl with curly pink hair and cyan eyes turned to face her, smiling obliviously.

“Give what back, silly?”

Sonata slammed her fists down on the counter.

“My necklace!”

“Ohhhhh, thaaaat.” Pinkie giggled, reaching a hand into her apron pocket before pulling the necklace out, reaching over the counter to affix it around Sonata’s neck. “You left it at my house.”

Sonata began to calm and her breathing slowed to a comfortable rhythm as the panic pulled away from her like a gently rippling low tide. She lifted her hand to grasp at the pendant, feel its realness, before looking down at the silver eighth-note held between her fingers.

. . . and she started to cry.
 

“Sonata, stop.”

Sonata opened her eyes and stopped.

Only when she realised she was being stared at did she ease herself out of her self-imposed paralysis, lifting her head to see Aria looking down at her with an uncomfortably disconcerted look.

As Sonata pushed herself up, her first instinct was to lift her hand to her neck, and as she did, she grasped the black ribbon before pulling her fingers down along the ribbon to feel the red gem resting at her sternum, and she held onto it long enough to reconnect with reality: the staleness of drying tears on her face, now being rubbed away with a half-closed fist, the darkness of the empty gymnasium, abandoned by all save herself and Aria, the bleacher they sat on together—closely.

Like, super closely.

Aria scooted just slightly to the side.

“You fell asleep on me.” Aria lifted her hand to rub her arm. “I’m gonna be sore the rest of the day now. Thanks a lot.”

“Why didn’t you just—” Sonata stopped herself short as full lucidity returned to her and she remembered what they were still doing at the school, in an empty gymnasium. “Wait, where’s Adagio? Weren’t we gonna run through the number one last time?”

“She went to fix her hair or something stupid like that since you decided to take a nap.” Aria shrugged, lowering her hand down from her arm. She held her silence a moment longer, turning her eyes away from Sonata as if wordlessly claiming plausible deniability that she had seen anything, but it didn’t last long and she looked at Sonata again. “What’s with the tears?”

Sonata pushed her knees together and held her hands atop them, staring at the backs of them like they held some sight of endless fascination, shrugging in response to Aria’s question. She couldn’t even begin to think of how to describe the dream, let alone explain it— there was something about you and Adagio not letting me perform with you guys and also my ex-girlfriend was there the ex-girlfriend I dumped in a really dumb way ‘cause I couldn’t find the nerve to tell her the truth and did I ever tell you I let her wear my necklace even though that’s like the most dangerous thing we could do—

Yeah, that wasn’t gonna happen.

A heavy breath interrupted Sonata’s thoughts and she turned to see Aria with arms folded atop her knees, turned away from her. Sonata clasped her hands together and looked off opposite Aria, wringing her fingers in the uncomfortable silence.

“Look, Sonata.” Aria’s voice startled her, but Sonata refused to face her even as she continued speaking. “Ever since we got here, you’ve been acting weird again— okay, just because you’re looking down doesn’t mean I can’t see that face you’re making. Don’t do that. It’s not like me and Adagio are oblivious to these things, especially since we’ve known you forever.”

Sonata lifted her hands to rest her head in them, staring down at the gym floor silently, and Aria sighed again.

“You kept faltering during practise and you’ve been distracted since Tuesday. We can’t have this. You have to be focused. We’ve come too far to let anything stop us, and we don’t get another chance after this.” There was a pause, almost a jilt in Aria’s voice, but after a moment, she continued strongly. “I don’t know what this is about, but you need to take care of it. This isn’t about any one of us, or even two of us, it’s about the three of us, including you.”

Something caught in Sonata’s throat and she swallowed it down hard.

“So . . . I don’t know. Take care of your stupid issues, whatever they are. Stop being the worst.”

Sonata’s eyes lifted and she stared at the wall opposite her, processing Aria’s words – and after a moment, she found a smile and giggled. “You’re the worst, Aria.”

“Whatever,” Aria replied, and Sonata could just imagine the eye roll. Her tone was mostly flat, but a small laugh slipped out despite her best efforts, and Sonata offered Aria a smile as she heard it – and this time, Aria returned it.

“Anyway, looks like our fearless leader has returned to us. You ready now?”

Sonata let her breath out slowly.

“Yeah. I think I’m ready now.” 


·♪♪♪·







·♪♪♪·


“I guess I should’ve been a little more prepared.”

Sonata rubbed her arms through the cloth of her thin sweater – the sleeves of which stopped just below her elbows – and down to the bareness of her skin, eyes wandering around from the crescent of trees surrounding the park to the grassy field where spring flowers bloomed and weeds crowded, and over the sunlit view of the city—everywhere but toward Pinkie, despite the close proximity in which they sat to one another on the weathered bench with its fading green paint.

The weather had been warming, and the day had started out warmly, but then gradually rescinded into chilliness despite the shining sun and cloudless sky. And with that chilliness, Sonata’s choice in clothing for the day – said thin sweater, black and printed with a jagged blue eighth-note overtop a pink heart, denim overalls left off one side with a slight but fashionable distress to the material, and duskily-hued floral-print sneakers – while nothing less than chicly casual and so her, left her vulnerable to an occasional shiver.

And it was after one of these shivers that she felt a coat, the warmth of body heat woven into its soft fibres, laid over her shoulders, and she finally turned to face the girl sitting next to her, helpless to keep from smiling at her as she pulled the sleeves of the coat onto her arms.

“Aren’t you cold without this?”

“I’m actually feeling kinda warm,” Pinkie admitted, rolling up the sleeves of her own sweater and fanning herself with a glance to the side as she fidgeted in her seat.

Sonata looked down at the sleeves of the coat – layered in colour blocks of pink, yellow, and blue – holding the cuffs in her palms. The cold wasn’t the only thing she hadn’t been prepared for; she hadn’t been prepared for this outing, for which she’d bought a small snack but no blanket to sit on, and she definitely hadn’t been prepared to actually talk, even if she’d imagined the conversation a thousand times and a thousand ways over since she’d stormed out of Pinkie’s house a crying mess.

She was ready, but not prepared.

Sonata felt her heart sinking into her stomach, but quickly caught it and herself.

“Um,” she started, pulling a finger along a lock of hair framing her face, “thanks for . . . coming up here with me, even after—y’know, all the . . .”

Pinkie stopped fanning herself and smiled at Sonata.

“Of course, silly! I’m super glad you texted me! I mean, I wanted to talk to you, anyway – I just thought you didn’t want to talk, and . . .” she trailed off, then said: “I can’t believe you remembered how to get here!”

Sonata giggled. “I know, right? That was like—how long ago did we come up here?”

“Four and a half months ago! It was November 16th,” Pinkie replied without missing a beat. She then sheepishly added, “I mark everything important in my planner.”

Something about Pinkie’s words made Sonata feel strange inside – a sort of empty flatness – and she couldn’t think of a response that didn’t sound too melancholic, so she let silence settle between them for some time before finally pushing herself away from the sinking feeling and back up toward the surface.

Treading water was laborious, but sinking meant defeat.

“I brought something for you! I mean, us, but I was thinking of you.” Sonata reached down beneath the bench and pulled her bag up onto her lap, producing a small thermal lunch bag from which she retrieved a plastic container – but upon pulling off the lid, Sonata frowned; her delicate whipped cream-filled strawberries now looked anything but put-together, many having been smeared with cream from their neighbouring berries and others having completely dismantled once-swirls of cream on top.

Sonata sighed.

“They did look nice before I left.”

Pinkie giggled, picking a berry out of the container.

“They look delicious! And anyway,” she said, holding the messy strawberry up, “it’s what’s inside that counts and what’s inside of these is one of my favourite things ever! Whipped cream!”

Sonata watched Pinkie as she ate without regard for the mess she made of her own face in the process, and Sonata felt the buoyancy return to her; the same feeling of belonging, the same childish giddiness, the same disregard for all right and wrong, everything that had first flooded her heart during those weeks of her simple fondness for Sugarcube Corner’s pink-haired attendant growing into something beyond simple fondness with each short chat and snuck cookie. It was overwhelming and frightening but amazing and exhilarating.

“Oh, yeah, I almost forgot!” Pinkie exclaimed after swallowing down the last bite of her strawberry and before reaching into her tote to fish out a thermal bag similar to Sonata’s, thereafter producing a container of deep-fried pastries cut into halves.

“What’s this?” Sonata asked, tentatively picking a piece out of the container as Pinkie lifted it to her and observing the red-and-white filling. Without waiting for an answer, she took a bite from the pastry, finding it to taste deliciously of cherry and cream cheese with a hint of something . . . fresh and zesty?

“They’re chimicherrychangas!” Pinkie set the container down between the two of them, exchanging it for the one Sonata had brought. “I’m still trying to think of a good, catchy name for the other flavours.” She squinted at the strawberry in her fingers. “Like ‘chimistrawberrychanga’ is just a mouthful. Wait, actually, that’s kinda fun to say! Chimistrawberrychanga!”

Sonata covered her mouth, still full with bites of chimicherrychanga, laughing with that buoyancy and lightness that she hadn’t laughed with in months, a lightness like floating upon the water and letting the current carry her without a care. As the laughter subsided and she finished the last of her confectionery, she looked from the flawlessly-folded pastries Pinkie had made to the lopsided, simplistic treats that she’d made, and she let out another sigh.

“I can’t even compare to your baking,” she said, dusting cinnamon sugar off her fingers. “I, like, didn’t even have any idea where to start on my own. I didn’t even bake.”

“Ohmigosh, though, I’d love to teach you sometime! It’s not too super hard.”

“Aria—uh, one of my roommates usually cooks and bakes and that kinda stuff,” Sonata explained, picking up a berry for herself before handing the container back to Pinkie. “But without all the mess.”

“I thought y’r roommatesh didn’t like shweetsh?” Pinkie inquired with a full mouth.

Sonata giggled, wiping some whipped cream off of Pinkie’s face.

“Not sweeeeet sweets,” Sonata began to explain – and that was all it took for their conversation to crescendo and the tension between them to break as Sonata at last told Pinkie about her room/bandmates – and in return, Pinkie told Sonata about her friends/bandmates – and they laughed over stories of people they didn’t know personally, but felt acquainted with through one another – and they let their tangents take them to topics both nostalgic and new.

At some point, Sonata admitted she never actually won the stuffed alligator for Pinkie, but rather, coerced the booth master to give it to her by way of singing – and Pinkie, though disapproving of this dishonest method, couldn’t help but be flattered Sonata would do such a thing for her; and Pinkie admitted that there had never really been a buy-three-drinks-get-a-bag-of-cookies-free special and that she had taken the cost out of her own cheque for the bag and all subsequent free cookies – and Sonata, wholly approving of the vaguely dishonest method, beamed brightly.

They finished off the containers of sweets and relaxed in posture as they conversed; turning to one another rather than facing the hilltop view, crossing and folding legs on the bench, leaning closer to one another, rearranging themselves as the conversation directed them, until finally Pinkie lay in Sonata’s lap and they both fell comfortably quiet, Sonata brushing her fingers through the curly locks of Pinkie’s hair.

“Still cold?” Pinkie asked.

Sonata shook her head, distracted momentarily by a pink curl looped around her finger. “I feel all warmed up.”

“Me too.” Pinkie closed her eyes and exhaled softly.

Sonata lost her grasp on the lock and watched as it bounced away from her finger. She lowered her hand down, reaching for Pinkie’s, and laced their fingers together from the top, feeling Pinkie’s clasp against her own.

“The sunset is really pretty right now,” Sonata said as she looked over the horizon. “You should see it. It looks all fiery.”

“Mmm,” Pinkie mumbled dismissively. “I can see the sun setting any day. I don’t get to lie here with you any day, though.”

Sonata could feel the blush tingeing her cheeks, subtle as it may have been. Content with Pinkie’s response, she leaned back against the bench, happy to ignore the discomfort of public seating in favour of the lull of Pinkie’s breathing; the rise and fall of her chest beneath their intertwined hands – the lingering elation of a fulfilling conversation – the warmth that had once been Pinkie’s still woven into the threads of her coat around Sonata’s shoulders.

She wanted that moment to last forever.

But it couldn’t— and she quickly became aware of how fast the sun was setting, giving way for panic to seep into her chest the lower the sun fell; panic in knowing that the next day would bring with it the semi-finals – and then the final round the following day – and again, Pinkie’s band was still together, and she was still susceptible.

Adagio said they were different, but Sonata was too desperate to think logically.

Too desperate to think logically as she began humming, a soft lullaby-like tune with little threat attached to it, a gentle compliment to the serenity of Pinkie lying on her lap with closed eyes – but the lull transposed, growing stronger, like the roll of a wave building at sea – the cadence of Sonata’s voice rising with force, dripping the very desperation that pulled and pushed the song like the tide – until it finally rose to its peak with the shrillness and vibrato only a siren could achieve, ringing loud and clear and sharp, far from the calm and controlled airs she harmonised with Adagio and Aria, and crashed down with such intensity that Pinkie rose in alarm, eyes wide, hands held mid-air in defensive fists.

“Leave your band,” Sonata commanded with some reverberation of song putting a lilt in her voice, albeit a shaky one.

Pinkie stared, momentarily motionless, before finally lowering her hands. “What?”

“Le—Leave your—your band,” Sonata repeated, the words now sounding less like a melodic command and more like a desperate plea.

“Did—” Pinkie stopped, stared at the bench, and looked up again. “Did you just try to . . . enchant me?”

Sonata broke her gaze and looked away, pulling a hand through her hair. She opened her mouth to speak several times, but every syllable that touched her lips seemed inadequate and became silence. Her reasoning wasn’t good enough, and she knew it, but she tried anyway:

“I just—I just wanted—” she wanted “—to be able to—for us—” for her “—I miss—” she missed “—Adagio and Aria would never—” she, her, herself, Sonata “—there isn’t another way to—”

She pulled the coat off, touching her cold hands to her face. She felt hot and dizzy. There seemed like no good ending to her fragmented explanation, and she couldn’t think of how to piece it together cohesively, and so she sat awaiting a response – but Pinkie said nothing, quiet and unmoving.

“Are you mad at me?” she finally asked, her voice quieter than she intended.

Again, silence. Sonata let her heart sink down into her stomach this time.

“I don’t know what to say,” Pinkie finally replied, looking dazed. “I mean—I don’t know, even after I found out about—about your voice—I really never thought . . .”

She trailed off. She sat silently. Sonata waited for her to stand up and leave – but she didn’t. She stayed. She picked at a piece of peeling paint without looking at it. She stared off into the distance as the sky darkened, she shifted in her seat – and finally, she spoke again.

“I like you a lot, Sonata,” she said with some difficulty, voice edging on a break. “I . . . I love you a lot. I feel happy doing things with you in a way that’s different from normal happy. It makes me dizzy, but a good dizzy, like when you spin too fast on the teacup ride at a carnival and everything’s blurring past you and you feel alive. It’s like . . . melted caramel and chocolate fudge swirl! It’s all warm and gooey and messy but a good messy! But . . . I don’t—I don’t know if we can—”

“We can! I promise we can! You just have to—”

“I’m not going to.” Pinkie looked at Sonata again. She didn’t look angry; she looked disheartened and Sonata only felt more abysmal, having only seen that look on Pinkie’s face during the more taxing portions of the Battle of the Bands – and when she had left her alone in her room without an explanation as to why. “I love you, but I love my friends, too, Sonata. And even if I think what you guys are doing is wrong, I wouldn’t ask you to leave your friends. And I’m not going to.”

Sonata reached for her necklace, turning the gem over in her fingers as she tried to think of something to say, but she had nothing to say. She had nothing to say, and only a quiet question left her lips: “What are you going to do?”

Pinkie’s eyes followed Sonata’s fingers and she stared silently at the gem until finding her own voice again.

“I’m . . . gonna go home and think about all this.”

She took her coat back, picked up her tote bag, stood – then stopped.

“I think you should, too.”

And she left.

And Sonata looked out at the stars and longed for home again.
> 10. Pinkie Pie Swear
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	To absolutely no one’s surprise (except maybe his own), the Dazzlings swept, mopped, and polished the floor with Flash Sentry’s band, earning their rightful place in the finals.

The Rainbooms didn’t have it so easy.

And Sonata cringed at the impalement of Pinkie’s drum, even if she laughed a little at the rest of the disaster.

Adagio thought it was only decent courtesy to give their dear rivals some help – and “help” they did, pushing the Rainbooms through to the finals (much to their fellow students’ disdain), before offering some rather insightful condolences to poor Trixie, robbed of her own rightful place in the finals.

Sonata followed along, of course – sang the enchantment to persuade the principal and vice principal to rig the outcome – spoke her own thoughts out loud, setting off some sparks in Trixie’s head that would surely lead to more sabotage – all while turning over the things that Aria and Pinkie had told her in her own head incessantly.

But she didn’t know how to take care of her own issues and she didn’t know how to balance her desires for two opposing things.

And she kept winding back around to the same conclusion she’d reached that cold December night:

She couldn’t.





The silence that settled over the girls as they filed out of the gymnasium was crushing.

Never mind the booing and jeering from their schoolmates before they had even left – this was heavier, more nauseating. It wasn’t friendship and harmony that had seen them through, it was dumb luck. It was the victory they had been seeking, but not the way they had wanted.

It felt more like a loss.

The girls slowly loosened their single-file formation, but kept their individual distances. Rainbow lead them off, but even being behind her, Pinkie couldn’t reach her arms out far enough to touch her if she tried. To her right, Applejack walked with crossed arms and Rarity avoided everyone else’s gaze. To her left and slightly behind, Fluttershy held onto a single arm, and Twilight stared wide-eyed at the ground, notebook in arms, Spike trailing along at her side. Even further behind, Sunset dragged herself along, not daring to lift her head.

Pinkie could practically hear her hair deflating.

Everything was just confusing and wrong.

Sonata’s words had echoed in Pinkie’s mind all day – leave your band – and for a frightening moment, she thought maybe she wouldn’t have to. Maybe they’d finally torn themselves apart – and even when that moment had passed, even with the verdict of moving onto the final round, Pinkie still wasn’t sure that they hadn’t. Of course this was wrong. This was getting by on an incomplete song, a wrecked set, a public show of dissonance between the seven of them. This was fighting a battle they hadn’t rightfully earned for the virtue of . . . something ironically moralistic.

Something ironically moralistic that pulled at Pinkie’s insides like they were saltwater taffy that’d been put in the fridge to cool; it was good to pull and stretch it out to be its best when cooled at room temperature, but with the chill, it just became brittle and broke apart. She was afraid that she was getting close to that brittleness. Even though she’d told Sonata she wouldn’t abandon her friends, Pinkie worried about what this competition was doing to them. She worried about what it was doing to her. She’d done and felt things in the past few days she wasn’t proud of. She’d snapped at them and she’d held resentment for the way things were handled in the band.

Maybe she’d already hit that brittleness.

Pinkie lifted her head as they approached the storage room the Rainbooms had been using for their practise sessions and fell back in the procession, watching the forlorn faces of her friends pass her by.

Maybe they all had.

“All right, let’s get our stuff and get out of here,” Rainbow said as she opened the door with a sigh. “Maybe by the time we clear out, everyone will be gone from the gym so we can get our instruments.”

“Yeah, an’ whose bright idea was it to leave without ‘em?” Applejack rolled her eyes.

“Try all of ours?” Rainbow turned around to face Applejack. “We were booed off stage, and we weren’t even playing anymore!”

“And now I gotta find a new set of tom-toms,” Pinkie lamented.

“You wouldn’t’a needed anythin’ if Rarity didn’t knock me over!”

Rarity gasped.

“You know perfectly well that I had no malicious intent! If you’ll recall, I was ‘knocked over’ too!”

“I’m sorry,” Twilight whispered.

“Darling, please, you would have never lost your balance in the first place if only Rainbow Dash had paid more attention.”

“And I never would have knocked Twilight over if Sunset Shimmer hadn’t—”

“Why don’t I go get your instruments?” Sunset interrupted, finally looking up at the other girls. “I’ll put everything in the car and come get you guys when I’m done.”

She turned and left without waiting for anyone’s agreement.

Pinkie watched her go while the rest of her friends entered the room, and for a moment, she stood still – an unusual feat for her – her insides like a tangle of thick caramel and pulled-apart taffy and sticky strands of cotton candy, and even though she loved those things by themselves, all together, it was an unpleasant mess she didn’t like the feeling of and didn’t know how to clean up.

That wasn’t entirely true: she did know, after a long, restless night of thinking and meditating and turning over all the torn-up streamers and confetti and tissue paper in her head, the first step would be to talk to Sonata again, but she didn’t know where to start and couldn’t bring herself to even text her.

So she might as well be back at not knowing how to clean it up.

“Um, Pinkie Pie? Are you coming?”

She started to turn her head toward Fluttershy’s voice, but something caught her eye and stopped her.

“Uhhhh.” Pinkie waved her hand slightly behind her, not sure if she was actually waving at Fluttershy or at the wall. “I’ll be right there.”

She sprinted down the hall, turning the corner and coming to an abrupt stop just behind it. Leaning against it, Pinkie curved her torso ever so slightly and peeked around the edge of the wall to see Sonata standing in the adjacent hall.

Or, more specifically, to see all three of the Dazzlings standing in the adjacent hall.

Sonata was too far to reach over and grab without alerting the other two sirens, but Pinkie knew if she didn’t talk to her now, she might never bring herself to, and so she had to come up with another plan – and fast. She felt around her sides, forgetting that her chosen outfit for the day didn’t come with pockets, and then reached up to her hair, finding a bobby pin tucked into a curl. Turning again, Pinkie closed a single eye, took aim, and flung the pin.

“Ow!”

Sonata reached a hand up to rub the back of her head as she glanced behind her. Pinkie forced a smile and waved frantically – and then pulled herself back behind the corner again as the other two Dazzlings turned, too.

She heard a flat voice first. “What was that?”

Pinkie didn’t recognise the voice, and there was only one member of the Dazzlings whose speaking voice she didn’t recognise: the always-grumpy-looking-with-arms-crossed-wearing-star-barrettes girl.

Then she heard Sonata. “Uhh, I just remembered! I have a . . . thing . . . that I left in . . . the classroom.”

Star-barrettes girl— no, wait, wasn’t her name Aria? Yeah, Aria— answered: “You said ow for that?”

“Uh, yeah! ‘Cause I just . . . hate losing stuff. Ow.”

Pinkie sighed.

“What classroom?” asked a third voice. “School’s been over for hours.”

Of course, she knew that voice: the same one that always did all the talking, belonging to the girl who was always front and centre, sporting a spiky headband that precariously held in place imposingly large, curly orange hair – Adagio.

Sonata, stammering: “You know, the – home ec.! Classroom! The home ec. classroom. Yeah! I’ll catch up with you two, okay!”

Adagio, warningly: “Sonata Dusk—”

Aria, dismissively: “Might as well let her go. She’s just gonna keep being weird anyway.”

A long pause, and Pinkie held her breath until she heard Adagio speak again.

“Don’t take too long. We have a lot to do before tomorrow.”

“Okay! See ya!”

Pinkie heard a heavy sigh and footsteps before she saw Sonata turn the corner and stop in front of her. She didn’t say anything, only motioned for the two of them to go somewhere else, and Pinkie gladly complied.


·✫✫✫·


The cafeteria had long been deserted for the day by students and staff alike, making a perfect hideaway for the two of them. Doors closed, chairs bypassed, and seats taken atop a table, Pinkie and Sonata sat together, silent but not entirely uncomfortable, though a mutual question lingered in the air between them.

Sonata was the one to finally ask it.

“So . . . you’re not mad at me?”

Pinkie shook her head slightly – then stopped – then shrugged.

“I’ve been thinking a lot since yesterday,” she said, looking down and tracing a seam in her skirt. “And at first, I kinda was a little angry, but . . . then I realised maaaybeee you using your siren voice magic wasn’t too different than me wanting to use Twilight’s magic to make you and your friends un-evil—uh, no offense—”

Sonata giggled.

“—so I mean . . . it wasn’t okay, but . . . I guess we’re both kind of in the wrong here, huh?”

“Yeeaaahh, I guess. But I am evil. You’re not.”

“Oh, come on,” Pinkie laughed. “You’re not thaaaat evil.”

Sonata feigned an insulted gasp, lifting a hand to her chest.

“I so am! Like, evil enough some old guy with this gross unattractive beard had to banish me here! Helllllooo? Super evil.”

“Weeellll, maybe you’re a little evil.”

“Nope, totally a lot evil.”

“Okay, fine.” Pinkie paused before adding, with a grin, “But mostly adorable.”

Sonata considered this, then nodded. “Sure. I’ll take adorable and evil.”

“Me too,” Pinkie replied, leaning over to pull Sonata into a kiss – a soft, lingering kiss, reluctant to pull away and lose the feeling again – and she held a hand to Sonata’s face, Sonata’s resting over hers, sharing in her reluctance to let go. Even after Pinkie sat back, her hand idled, and she smiled at Sonata – then lowered her hand slowly, brushing it along Sonata’s hair and down her arm, taking her hand.

Sonata looked down at their hands, then back up at Pinkie, laughing. “Heeeyy, aren’t you usually working around now?”

“I took the day off,” Pinkie said with a small smile. “For the competition.”

“Oh. Y’know, I get the worst cravings for cookies at this time on Fridays.”

“Well, that’s not my fault! Wait. I guess it kinda is.” Pinkie giggled – then let her breath out – then looked down at Sonata’s hand, running her thumb along Sonata’s fingers gingerly, silently – and finally, spoke again. “I’ve . . . been thinking about everything else, too.”

“Me too,” Sonata said quietly.

“I think we’ve probably been thinking the same thing.”

“There aren’t a lot of other conclusions, huh?”

“Not really.” Pinkie lifted her eyes again, smiling again despite the sadness she felt. “And it’s for the best, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Sonata said, lowering her own eyes. “I really don’t want to change you—”

“—and I don’t wanna change you—”

“—and I don’t want to change your relationships with your friends if you really do love them that much—”

“—or yours—”

“So we’re kinda sunk, huh?” Sonata laughed dejectedly.

Pinkie exhaled and nodded, lifting her free hand to rub against her eyes as tears welled up in them. Sonata took the hand away, holding it mid-air, still smiling at her as she told her sometimes it’s better just to let it out – and so Pinkie did.

She let out the pent-up vexations, the strain of a barely held-together band, the distress of fighting with her own friends, the pain of letting go of someone she loved so dearly, the emptiness in knowing that they’d done all they could do and now mutually agreed they’d reached a dead end; she let it out and cried and Sonata pulled her close and cried, too, and just as she’d said, it was cathartic and healing, even if some of the pain lingered.

And after some time, Sonata lifted her head from Pinkie’s shoulder.

“Hey,” she whispered, running a hand down Pinkie’s back. “You gotta promise not to take it easy on us tomorrow just ‘cause I’m there, okay? I’ve seen you banging on that drum so I’ll definitely know if you’re not giving your all ‘cause sometimes I think you’re gonna like—” she giggled despite a stifled breath “—b-break it or something.”

Pinkie laughed wetly, sobs still tingeing her voice. “You’d better not either, silly. I’ve heard you sing, so I’ll know ‘cause you . . . have a nice voice and . . . and I wanna hear you singing up there and . . .”

“And—And you gotta promise that you won’t hate me for whatever happens.”

“Only if you promise you won’t hate me.”

“I promise! If—If you swear you won’t.”

“I swear! I solemnly swear. I . . .” Pinkie pulled away from Sonata, wiping her eyes. “I Pinkie Pie swear.” Unfisting her hand, Pinkie held it over her chest as she recited: “Cross my heart—” and motioned to the space at her side “—hope to fly—” and finally covered an eye with her hand “—stick a cupcake in my eye.”

Sonata slowly lifted her own palm over her eye and pushed a smile. “Me too.”

And then she paused and lowered her hand down.

“So . . . now what?”

Pinkie shrugged – then gave a small smile. “Just ‘cause tomorrow’s the big showdown doesn’t mean we can’t go on one last date. You know, lucky number seven! Unless yesterday counts. But that wasn’t so lucky. Maybe that was like six and a half. But we didn’t really finish number six, either . . .”

“But where are we gonna go where no one will see us?” Sonata frowned. “You know like everyone, don’t you? And, uh . . . now enough people know me, too, and it’s totally not gonna be good for either of our bands if we’re . . .” she trailed off and sighed.

“Yeaaaahh, I gueesss that’d be a problem,” Pinkie said slowly as she slid off the table, smile slowly turning into a grin. “Hey, can you sing for me again?”

“You want me to sing?” Sonata lifted an eyebrow.

“Yeah!” Pinkie grinned wider. “I’m immune to it anyway, right? So it’s harmless! I mean, as long as you aren’t, like, trying to make me do what you want. But, uh . . . sing something upbeat. No sad songs. Got it?”

Sonata was quiet, holding a hand to her mouth as she looked down at her lap – and then she recalled the song off the radio that she’d been so infatuated with some months ago, the song she’d sang giddily in her room while getting ready to take Pinkie to the winter carnival – and feeling the intoxication anew, she began to sing, her voice echoing crisply in the empty cafeteria—

—and Pinkie pulled her off the table and to her feet, causing a momentary jar in the melody before Sonata found her voice again as Pinkie held fast to her hands, dancing her around the vacant aisles as if they had no tomorrow to worry about, as if there was nothing but the two of them and Sonata’s voice and Pinkie’s dancing – and for that moment, that’s all there was; two girls in love, giddy with the dizziness of youth, enthralled with the magic of life—

—and the streamers swayed from the ceiling and the tissue paper was packed snugly into the gift bags and the confetti flew through the air and the tide pulled at just the right times and the waves crashed to shore with flawless rhythm and the current kept a steady syncopation and everything was perfect.
> 11. Dissonance
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	— but of course, there was a tomorrow, and tomorrow came with crushing weight and shattering actuality.
 

And it was at first brightly iridescent, then dark red and deeply orange, and finally, blindingly spectral—

 it started with a lulling, rising steadily into cacophonic clashing, and ended in shrill sharpness—

 it was at first crisp, then warmed with burning heat, and ultimately, became suffocatingly dry—

 and all at once, it was sweet, savoury, sour, bitter— 
   and culminated in numbness.

 it rose like a crescendo, crashed like a wave— 
   but was empty like the hollow of a drum.
 

Tomorrow had the jubilance of things wished for, worked for, earned – 
 and the deprivation of things taken, stolen, shattered into a million pieces.
 

The bitter way it see-sawed between them; where one had the positive, the other inherited the negative, and vice versa; and so it rose and fell in direct proportion to the other, never reaching equilibrium, never levelling; and when finally it settled in favour of one, it rattled the other.
 

—and the other brushed a finger, eyes wide, at the shards of red beneath her – rose to her feet and tried to enchant even in its absence – and though she had a voice, unlike in her dream, it warbled and caught in her throat and held her under the water, tangled her up in the seaweed, scraped her against the reef – and if the conceding to a mutual understanding that things could never be was not enough to sink her heart, this was the final tear in the ship’s hull—
 

—and the friends of the one laughed and joked and made light of it all, but it was all she could do to force a smile, because they’d won! they’d won they’d won repeated like a broken record player – and she stayed behind long after they vacated, eyes fixed on the red fragments, she knelt and touched them gently, jarred by their presence, the pile that had once hung whole in an intimate moment around her own neck, the ultimate show of trust – and she felt that she’d engaged in betrayal a thousand times over—
 

And now Sonata sat, not in her usual position to the right of Adagio, but between her and Aria, Aria to her left and Adagio to her right, staring at a glint of shimmering rock caught in the concrete of the sidewalk. None of them ventured to speak on that park bench, far from the theatre, not yet ready to return home, still reeling from the sound of their own voices – and she sat the same some weeks later, alone on the sofa in their living room, eyes fixed to the carpet, ears still ringing with the sound of their music.

And she hated how the drum still beat into her heart, how it had even as it cascaded down on her –
 

And Pinkie thought. And she thought. And thought and thought and thought – she gave Gummy a long look and she held the silver eighth-note necklace between her fingers and she lay on her bed and she got her hair into a tangle – and Maud sat with her and didn’t say much, but brushed her curls with a slow tenderness that eased Pinkie’s guilt-racked heart, but never eased the guilt enough that the feeling left her entirely, even when she could laugh again.

And she hated how doing the right thing felt like the wrong thing, how this felt worse than being left alone on a snowy December night –
 

And time moved on, but slowly.
 

It moved on slowly as the once-Dazzlings made concessions in order to readjust to life as humans once more – now devoid of all trace of their former Equestrian selves and the powers they had once naturally possessed – readjusting and learning again and fumbling and struggling, dissatisfied, disappointed, dismal.

But they learned and they acclimated, but never conceded to assimilation, always to share a commonality in their origins, their homes, their companionship, always to stay by one another.
 

It moved on slowly as the still-Rainbooms found a renewed spark in their relationships with one another, a new array of music to play, promise in the form of goodbye until next time and letters exchanged magically. A fond look from one as she departed, a long wished-for sense of belonging settling into another, the mundaneness of routine newly-appreciated by the others – though one could never quite settle.

They sometimes stumbled, and weren’t without their fights, disagreements, struggles, but they learned and the days fell away and they always found each other again.
 

And time moved on, but slowly.
> 12. Swim, Not Sink
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Time moved on, but slowly— 
 and Fridays seemed to move along the slowest.

They had been difficult before the battle, but harder after – before, there was some slight hope, some chance, that one day, Sonata would walk back through those doors, sound the shop bell’s un-novel sound, bound up to the counter in such a way that she nearly teetered over it, held onto the edge only by her palms – but now, it felt final, definite, the end.

Lights out, curtains, end of the show.

Metaphors tangled up in the reluctantly-cooled caramel and confetti and – whatever else.

Pinkie, true to her diligent nature, never abandoned her shifts on these days – even at the exact moment that, months earlier, she would have spun around to greet Sonata, giving the same enthusiasm she fancied her to once again walk through the doors with – but the enthusiasm for Fridays had diminished and though it was a slow hour anyway, Pinkie now spent it standing behind the counter with her head in her hand, her other arm slung over the cold display case.

It was more comfortable than being slung over a drum set, at least.

Sure, there was shop to keep – items to be inventoried, cups to be stacked, orders for the coming week to be queued – but she felt, in that hour, what she imagined a caffeine crash to be like. (Of course, she could never be sure, having very sensibly kept her distance from more than moderate amounts of caffeine.)

Even if she and Sonata had a few falling outs, even if Sonata was a siren, even if Sonata had absorbed her and her friends’ magic and used it against them by way of an astral projection while she floated with pretty translucent wings on stage with her eyes all reddened out – even if all that, despite all that, no matter all that, Pinkie still really, really, really, really, really missed Sonata.

Really.

And she still really, really (ad nauseam) felt guilty about the entire ordeal, despite knowing any action she and her friends had taken was, at its core, necessary.

It was, wasn’t it?

Even if it seemed cruel?

Pinkie pushed herself off the display case, wiping the glass off with cleaner and a cloth, turning to busy herself with wiping down the counter behind her. It had been two months; there was little use in dwelling on it now, even if that particular hour drove her nostalgia astray and pulled some tissue paper from the gift bags and—sticky metaphors—party metaphors—clean the counter, focus, Pinkie, focus, focus-pocus—

The shop bell sounded its decisively un-novel sound and she stiffened, feeling her curls spring up into themselves, as if the sound of it at the very hour that had once belonged to her and Sonata was a personal offensive, an attack on her last nerves, and she mumbled a half-hearted, formal "welcome," vaguely bitter that someone else would intrude upon this time—but it was a ridiculous way to feel and she knew it, and so she set the rag down, exhaled, put on a smile, and turned around to greet—

a girl with blue hair in a high ponytail.

Pinkie's smile faded and she stood unblinking until finally the girl met her eyes and smiled sheepishly with a single word:

“Hi.”

“He—Hey-a,” Pinkie stammered, stepping closer to the counter, her eyes falling momentarily. There was no black ribbon, no pretty red gem for the light to reflect off of, and the void around her neck was almost jarring. Eyes lifted again, Pinkie continued as steadily as possible (which was not at all), “What can I get’cha . . . ?”

Sonata held onto her arm behind her back, slouching to the side slightly as she perused the menu despite rattling her order off as if she’d had it in mind before even walking in. “Three milk teas and a large bag of cookies.” She paused, then added, “Please.”

Pinkie glanced past Sonata, but saw neither Adagio nor Aria in the café. Sonata caught her glance.

“It’s, uh, just me. I thought I’d surprise them. They’ve been sorta down lately and . . . who doesn’t like a surprise, right?”

“Right,” Pinkie repeated, a slow smile finding its way to her lips as she picked up the shop’s tablet, sliding her finger across the screen before tapping in Sonata’s order. “You know,” she started, glancing up a moment before focusing on her typing again, “we’re having a special. Buy three drinks and a bag of cookies and get a Saturday night date free. No charge.”

Sonata giggled.

“Do all your customers get that one?”

“Just the special ones.”

“In that case,” Sonata said, balancing on a single leg as she leaned over the counter and planted a (modest) kiss on Pinkie’s cheek before continuing, “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Pinkie smiled a bit wider. “Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Swear?”

“I Pinkie Pie swear. Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

“I can’t believe you remember that!”

“I can’t believe you’d think I’d just forget!”

And Sonata laughed – and so did Pinkie – and Pinkie kissed Sonata’s cheek in delayed return, and a customer behind Sonata gave a breath of audible impatience and they laughed again and they completed the order and it was a perfectly normal, routine, mundane transaction, but it left them both feeling lighter the rest of the day – significant for being so naturally buoyant on their own.
> Epilogue: What Friendship Could Be
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	An exhaled breath momentarily warmed her hands – cold despite being swathed in knitted gloves – as she rocked back and forth from her heels to her tip-toes and back again, humming softly, glancing one way down the street and then another up it. Hands not sufficiently warmed by her own breath, she folded her arms over her chest, hands tucked beneath either arm, and her rocking came to a stop as it became harder to balance with her arms held thus.

She wasn’t worried, or afraid of being stood up, but boy, was she cold – and boy, did she regret not taking the heavy raspberry coat again, even if it wasn’t technically hers – but then she thought, it would probably be too heavy for her plans today, so maybe it was serendipity that it had been absent to begin with—but it was nice and warm—

At least she’d had the foresight to wear her hair down today.

A few more minutes lapsed and she lowered her arms, allowing the handle of her bag to slip from the crook of her elbow down to her palm, and she turned on her heels and started down the sidewalk in the direction she expected to be met from, wondering if, perhaps, they could meet half way – or along the way – or at the café? It wasn’t a long trip, even affording her some entertainment as she crunched the sparse early winter snow beneath her boots – and it was in such a moment of distraction, eyes turned down toward the lightly dusted sidewalk, that she missed sight of her date, only alerted to her presence by the sound of her voice calling out shrilly:

“Sonaaataaaa Duuuusk!”

Sonata lifted her head and smiled, picking up her pace and stepping between patches of snow only to be caught up in Pinkie Pie’s embrace within seconds.

“Ohmigosh, I’m so sorry I’m late, Sona!” Pinkie exclaimed while still holding her arms tightly around Sonata, only pulling away after she’d given a sufficient enough hug and a greeting kiss. “This order was only supposed to take like an hour, right? So I started it thinking, all right, yeah, I’ve got time before I gotta meet Sonata – but then, I forgot this and I forgot that and before I know it I’m running behind by five minutes, then ten, then fifteen—!”

“I knew you’d show up,” Sonata said, giggling. “I just got a little cold.”

Pinkie slung her bag around her shoulder, pulled Sonata’s arm into her own, and nestled up to her, keeping close as they started down the street again. “Better?”

“Much!”

“Good!” Pinkie nodded with satisfaction. “Soooooo, how’d your lessons with Rarity go?”

“Fiiineee,” Sonata started slowly, lifting a hand to twirl a piece of hair around her finger as she continued, “until Adagio cut them short ‘cause she wanted to go shopping—and Rarity tried speeding through the rest so I told her to just go ahead and go, even though Adagio and Aria got their turns today.”

She let out a hmph and Pinkie frowned— and after a moment, gasped.

“Ohmigosh! That reminds me! The other day I had Sunset over ‘cause I had to have her try this new cupcake recipe, right? Raspberry-Orange-Cream Dream Swirl! Her favourite colours in confectionery form: raspberry and orange! So who better to pilot test it, riiiiight? Anyway, after I adjusted the recipe a third time and made a fourth batch, she told me she had to go ‘cause she had plans with Aria and I was like, ‘Oki-doki-loki, have fun!’” Pinkie paused a moment, then laughed. “Oh, wait. That wasn’t really a problem. Neeeeveeer mind!”

“Well, whatever! That just means more time for us!” Sonata said this with indignation, but smiled anyway; after the months of her once-bandmates doing nothing they didn’t have to be doing outside of their apartment, even following Sonata’s reconciliatory trip to Sugarcube Corner, and some months more of the two of them regarding Pinkie and her friends distrustfully (and justifiably so), Sonata was overjoyed to see them having new friends, and more so at seeing them have some spark of liveliness again.

And she was overjoyed to have her own spark again.

“So you’re not gonna be too cold to go ice skating, are you?”

And to have her girlfriend again, too.

“’Course not! I feel all toasty now.”

Pinkie giggled.

They walked on at a leisurely pace, and Sonata began to hum again in the silence that settled between them, no longer fearing an accidental enchantment, and no longer shaken by the sound of her own voice. She could feel Pinkie turn her head toward her, but she continued on, and Pinkie stayed quiet – until, true to her nature, she couldn’t keep her thoughts to herself any longer.

“Y’know,” she said, interjecting between a few softly hummed bars, “Rarity says you guys are doing great.”

“I dunno,” Sonata said as she stopped humming and shrugged. “We still have a long way to go.”

“But I bet you’ve all come a long way, too.” Pinkie smiled. “I know Adagio’s rule was no one can hear you guys ‘til you all get super better, but . . . I really miss hearing you sing.”

Sonata lifted her hand again, reaching for the silver eighth-note pendant at her neck, and she slid it along the length of the silver chain it hung from. With a slow inhale, she set it back down against her neck – and with the exhale, she began to vocalise, softly and hesitatingly, with a falter and a pause—

—and she closed her eyes and started again, gaining solidity and volume – and though it wasn’t the perfect, sharp, clear composition of a voice she had possessed months before, though she cut short some notes and occasionally couldn’t reach her desired octave and worried that her tone flattened – even though she was learning everything all over again with no magic, just hearing some harmony, some stability, some progress far removed from that disastrous last performance instilled in her a renewed confidence in herself—

—and she pulled away from Pinkie just slightly, untangling their arms but still holding her hand as she pulled her along and danced her down the sidewalk, laughing between verses, and Pinkie began to sing along with her, their voices far from perfect but feeling perfect and harmonious and dazzling as they mingled in the cold November air—

And Sonata began to feel like this could be home, too.