> Shine Like Infinity
>  by Phil Srobeighn
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Fluttershy
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fluttershy carefully removed the clear headband/microphone holder, green butterfly platform shoes, matching giant green butterfly brooch (it was practically a piece of armor!), setting them aside on her bed.  Checking again to ensure her room was closed and blinds shut so no one but Angel would see, she slid off the huge, layered black skirt and two-toned tights, switching out for a simple pair of pajama shorts, and pulled the pink top over her head.  She made sure all of Rarity’s items were folded neatly, and stowed away in a secure location, before finally falling back in her bed, bouncing slightly as she landed.

“We did it,” she whispered softly as she stared at her ceiling, followed it with a quiet “Yay!”

It had been a long day.  After being trapped under the stage by Trixie and the Illusions, rushing out with the help of the school’s notorious red-eyed DJ (does she even have a real name, Fluttershy wondered), standing out on the hill for all the students and family of Canterlot High School to see, and interrupting and countering the Dazzling’s song-spell, the Rainbooms had decided rest, not a Pinkie-powered Victory Sleepover Party was needed.  The seven girls split up for the evening, Applejack taking Twilight to her family’s large farmhouse for the night, and promised Pinkie a Victory Farewell Brunch Party after a good night’s rest.  Rarity let her costumes go for an evening, having them all promise to take good care of them (“I’m looking at you, Rainbow Dash.”)

In the end, they were victorious, even without a lyrically arcane counterspell song.    Instead, the songs they used were Fluttershy’s.

“My songs,” she said to herself again and again.  “We sang my songs.”  She sat up and looked at her reflection in her vanity mirror.  “My songs beat the monsters!”  She flopped back down and kicked her legs energetically.  Fluttershy felt better than she had in a long time.

“Oh, this makes me want to write more!  If Rainbow Dash and the others want to sing songs I’ve written, I’m sure I can do it!  Angel, fetch me my pencil!”

Angel twitched his nose.  Fluttershy giggled and got her own pencil and notepad, wondering again what it would be like if Angel was able to understand and interact with her.

“Well, I know what sort of lyrics I want.  I want it to be an ode of sorts, a song about my friends and how happy I am to have them around.”

She rolled onto her stomach, propping herself up on her forearms.  She twirled her long, pink hair around the pencil slowly as she considered what she wanted to say.

“Friends, you are in my life,” she started.  A fine start.  She worked from there, singing the phrase over and over, wanting to get a feel for the rhythm she’d want.  Whole note… quarter notes… whole note?  Whole note, half note- no.  After several attempts, she settled on the beat and a good melody.  She tuned her tambourine slightly to get a good tone for those notes, and tapped it gently so as not to disturb the other residents of her house, family and pet alike, and hummed a continuation.  The more she sang, the more she felt the next line would be better if it were longer.  She worked her way into a close enough idea of the sound of the next line before she started thinking of more lyrics, writing out a basic reminder of the tune and beat in her notebook.

Angel hopped up to Fluttershy’s bed and looked quizzically at the girl, so she scooped him up and placed him on top of the comforter.  “What should I write, Angel Bunny?” Fluttershy asked.

“What do you want to say to your friends most?” asked the white rabbit back without moving his mouth and in a voice that was suspiciously like Fluttershy puckering her lips and lowering her tone.

Fluttershy was already pondering that, of course.  What would make her friends the most happy if she said it?  She thought about Rainbow Dash, brave and bold, constantly loyal to the band and her friends, even if she could be a braggart.  Applejack was as sturdy as her family’s trees, dependable to the core.  Rarity was willing to give of herself to help her friends.  Pinkie Pie was always there to make anyone smile when they needed a good laugh.  Loyal and ever-present… that’s what Fluttershy wanted to be for these girls.  She rolled words around with the cadence she had produced.

“You can count on me… to be there… through the strife?”  She slumped.  “I don’t want to sound so negative, though… I guess it doesn’t have to be a perfect rhyme.”  She chewed her eraser for a few seconds.  “‘By your side’ works.”  Fluttershy sang the combination of lines through, keeping beat on the tambourine, and smiled in satisfaction.  Feeling sleepy, she took out her cell phone and hit a voice memo app, singing the lines to help remind her how to translate her notebook – Fluttershy could read music with some effort, but she was hardly pitch-perfect enough to write the music out and pick it up the next day.

Snug in a large, teal comforter, Fluttershy dreamt.  It was not unusual for Fluttershy to dream, but her dreams were often nightmares.  It did not take much for a dream to be a nightmare for Fluttershy: the common dream of going to school naked was terrifying; even a dream of going to school and being looked at would trigger her natural shyness and send her into a panic.  Tonight, though, was different.  Fluttershy stood on a stage, spotlight shining down on her, with a huge crowd of people watching her sing and play her tambourine.  There was no panic, though.  No fear.  Fluttershy sang words she had never heard before and could not possibly remember more than a second, her mind washed over by the dream.

Though the singing was automatic and incomprehensible, the conscious part of Fluttershy’s mind was able to look around.  Behind her, over those magical pony wings brought on by the Rainbooms’ music, she could see her friends, including Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer.  Other than Twilight, they were each making the motions of playing their instruments, and though the music was not heard, Fluttershy had a sense that it was playing; their mouths all moved along together, and though the words were noting that could be compared, Fluttershy knew that they were singing along with her.

Fluttershy basked in the smiles of her friends, each obviously encouraging her time in the spotlight.  She floated, radiant in the brightness of the stage, but there was no fretfulness at the eyes of the audience.  It was beautiful, a moment to stand alongside her friends without draining her emotional energy from the attention.  The joy and pride swelled up in her, and the rush was too great for Fluttershy’s mind to maintain.  She reached a high, and the illusion faded into a blissful buzz as she opened her eyes.

It was dark out, but the bird chirping could confirm Fluttershy’s perception of a slight lightness to the world around her.  Just before dawn.  She could sleep more in a moment, she wanted to use this emotional surge to put more words to paper.  Turning on a light, Fluttershy picked up her notebook and tried to find the words to describe the energy flowing in her.

“We sing together…” she started.  “We sing our songs, which – no, not quite – songs to lift us up so we can shine.  Shine…” she considered that word for some time.  That was the best part of it all, the shining in the light.  “The light that ignites in the dark, makes me glow…” she shook her head, “No, we all sing our songs, so it makes us all glow… and shine.  Rainbooms, shining like rainbows.”

The yellow-skinned girl was inspired now.  “They don’t work together, though… how do I fit it in?”  She wrote down the new lyrics, but left space for extra lines to connect the words with what she had previously written.  She looked at the last part, “and shine like rainbows.”  She wanted to expand that, repeat it.  She wrote it an extra time, this time as “we shine like rainbows.”  She added it a few more times.  This was her theme, her chorus for the song.  She looked at the first line she had with the lyric, and added a similar line: “You pick me up when I get down so I can shine.”

“I like that too,” she said aloud, “I should write a verse about my friends picking me up… about their coming into my life… which I guess would come before they are in my life, so first verse.”  It was clear to her now: New Verse, “Shine Like Rainbows,” Verse Already Written, Chorus with parts from her dream, “Shine Like Rainbows,” Bridge, Chorus, “Shine Like Rainbows.”

Alright, start with a simple beginning.  “Hmph.  No reason not to just start it ‘Once Upon a Time…’” she giggled.  “Once upon a time, so came into my life… no, life is the rhyming word, and this would be in the middle of a line.”  That sparked her, so she wrote to the side, “Shine – Align – Life – Alive – Side – Sign?”

“Let’s see… ‘align.’  ‘You made the stars align.’  ‘You came into my universe and made my stars align-’ no, too many syllables… ‘world.’”  Down went the words in the order.  Fluttershy looked at her list of rhymes.  “Let’s see… stars make signs in the constellations… ‘I can see the signs!’”  It was good.  With a central theme and a good set of rhymes, the song practically wrote itself.

“Let’s see… I need something before ‘we sing our songs…’.”  She looked again to her rhymes.  “‘Alive’ off of ‘life.’  We sing, so our songs come alive.  The music comes alive.”  That was the one, she felt, so she wrote it down.

“Huh, I need a rhyme with ‘glow’ for the lead-up in the chorus.  Something that fits the crescen…do.”  Fluttershy fell back in her bed, kicking her feet in the air.  Sometimes the words just came with such ease!  “And the sound that we hear in our hearts makes a crescendo.”  She lingered on the last word, half singing it.  Definitely hold that note.  She tried it again, this time singing the whole line, followed by the next.  Again, paper was marked, and the phone was opened to record the meaning behind the markings.  Quietly beating the rhythm on the tambourine, she sang the new first verse, then tried a few variations of the phrase “Shine like rainbows.”  She then added the second verse, the chorus lead-up, and a few more passes at the central phrase.

With the recording done, she added just a few things to the notebook: a comment near the bottom of “Bridge” with room to fill one in, and at the top, as a title, “Shine Like Rainbows.”  Content, she glanced quickly out of her window.  The sun would soon be up, so it was best to get back to finishing her night’s sleep before the morning birds would make such a task impossible.

A few more hours of sleep rejuvenating her, Fluttershy woke up and stretched.  Looking at the clock on her wall, she could see that she still had just enough time before Pinkie’s brunch.  Humming her new song absentmindedly, she stood and stretched her arms wide, flexing her shoulders.  The pony transformation that accompanied the Magic of Friendship was always amazing, but shifting suddenly from a normal human girl’s body to having wings was difficult.  Still rolling her arms, she rummaged through her dresser to find a comfortable bra.

Piece by piece, Fluttershy got dressed for a Pinkie party.  Having spent some time out of it for the concert, she was glad to put back on her normal skirt and tank top.  Looking herself over to ensure that she was decently dressed, she walked over to her window to part the curtains.  She paused for a moment as she looked at them.

“I didn’t turn on the light,” she wondered to herself.  “I was able to dress by the sunlight coming through the curtain.”  It was a pleasant feeling, standing in the muted sunlight, knowing that the sun still shone through the light fabric.  As she opened the curtains, she considered the feeling, and nodding to herself, went for her notebook and wrote a note to herself.

“‘The sun shines through,’” she said.  “Okay, but what?  I’m not turning this into a song about my curtains.”  She giggled at the thought.  “The sun shines through stormclouds.  Through wind and rain, the sun shines through it all.  ‘Through it all’ is good, but what rhymes with ‘all’ that I can use for rain?  Rain…fall.”  She nodded with confidence and made a note.  “So, I’ve got to bring it back to my friends.  We are strong.  We stand, as the rain falls!”  She was right on it!  One last phrase, she could feel it.  “And we hold our heads up when the sun shines through it all!  Rarity would like that, she’s always telling me to keep my chin up.”

She looked over her notes again.  There, piece by piece, with little jots notating the proper order and relative tune, was a complete song.  Fluttershy felt a surge of adrenaline.  Another song, and this time, she would not have to labor in vain to have her friends recognize it!  She cheered softly at her success, but she was far from done.  Tearing her notes out of her notebook, she set down the entire song, in the correct order, while listening to her previous audio notes.  Then, once the song was written, she made one master recording of her singing the entire song.  It was far from a finished product, but the band could work out the rest.  Speaking of the band, she needed to hurry if she was going to take care of her pets’ needs and still make it to the brunch on time.  Fluttershy quickly shut down her phone and went about her daily feedings and cleanings before grabbing her notebook and tambourine and heading out.

Between the Apple Family’s hospitality – extended to all Applejack’s friends and including access to the farm’s well-stocked pantry – and Pinkie Pie’s seemingly unlimited supply of sweets – the product of a night of celebration planning baking, a night of frustrated pre-competition baking, and a night of corrective baking to a brunch venue – the seven girls and their very hungry dog had enough to eat even after inviting Granny and Mac and sending a consolation picnic basket to the Crusaders’ clubhouse.  Reclining in the old barn that had been made available for practices, well-fed and generally in good spirits after Sunset Shimmer’s teasing of Twilight over the origin of this world’s bacon, the seven friends seemed determine to spend as much time rebuilding their bond before the princess had to return to the world of ponies.

“So what happens with The Rainbooms now?” asked Twilight.

Pinkie Pie chimed in, “Well, now that the Dazzling’s spell is gone, I’m sure lots of students will want their chance to play on the big stage at the amphitheater, so there will probably be another shot at the Musical Showcase.”

Rainbow Dash cracked her knuckles.  “Fine by me.  Now that we don’t have any limits on how good we can appear, we can rock the school and be-” she smirked.

“Here we go,” Applejack said, rolling her eyes but smiling.

“-Amazing as we wish to be,” Rainbow Dash finished with cheesy grin.

Six girls groaned.  Small items were thrown.  Spike facepawed and muttered, “That was terrible, Dash.”

Twilight turned to Rainbow and asked, “Are you going to use ‘Awesome as I Wanna Be’ at the showcase?”

Rainbow Dash shook her head.  “Nah, no need to bring up memories of old failures.  What we need is a new song!”

“Here, here!” Rarity exclaimed amongst various hums of approval and head nods.

Sunset Shimmer looked to yellow-skinned girl on the other side of their loose circle.  “What about you, Fluttershy?  Your songs saved the day, do you have anything new we can use?”

Fluttershy beamed.  “Actually, last night I was so inspired by our victory that I wrote a new song for us!”

Rainbow Dash snorted.  “Man, Pinkie baked croissants, Fluttershy wrote a song, you know what I did?  Slept.”

Pinkie Pie flicked Rainbow’s ear.  “Well, you just ate, like half a dozen of those croissants, so maybe Fluttershy’s song will be great too!” Pinkie pointed out.  “Oh!  Sing it for us, Fluttershy!  That way we can know!”

Fluttershy blushed.  “I’m not that good at singing, you know.  I have a recording on my phone, though.”  She pulled out the phone and looked for the audio file.  “Gosh darn it,” she said after a fruitless search, wincing as if such language would shock and offend her friends.  “I’m sorry girls, I guess I didn’t save the file.”

“Please, Fluttershy,” Rarity asked, “You can sing here for us.  We don’t mind if it’s not perfect.”  The others agreed.

Fluttershy smiled at her friends’ gesture of acceptance.  She stood for the best vocal control she could muster, and started in.  “Once upon a time…”  She sang of star signs aligning, mainly looking at Twilight Sparkle, who had a general star motif and was sitting directly beside her.  She sang the repeated title, giving a smile to Rainbow Dash for the content of her name.  She sang of being beside her friends, smiling by Pinkie Pie, who was closest by her side.  She sang of the music, living and swelling, focusing her attention to Sunset Shimmer, who gave life to her songs in the battle against the Dazzlings.  She sang of standing strong, grinning at Applejack, easily the strongest of their group.  She sang of the sun shining on their lifted faces, watching with a grin as Rarity gave a pleased smile.  As Fluttershy came to the close, her friends, smiling but shocked, remained speechless for a long while.

Finally, Rainbow spoke up.  “Wow, Fluttershy, that was really good.”

“And your voice was so wonderful!” Rarity added.  “So well sang, and a cappella no less!”

Sunset Shimmer, grinning widely, said, “You should sing it for the Showcase!”

Fluttershy blushed.  “You can count on me to be by your side, girls… but I think I’ll leave center stage to the rest of you.”
> Twilight Sparkle
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Applejack gave Twilight Sparkle a firm pat on her back, then adjusted her hat, and smirked a little.  “Sure wish you could stay longer.”

Twilight sighed wistfully at her friends.  “Me too,” she admitted.  “But I have responsibilities in Equestria that I have to get back to.  Its citizens need me.”  Ugh, don’t be a downer, she thought.  Suddenly, a spark of hope filled her, “But now I can go through the portal whenever I need to!  This isn't goodbye.  It's just goodbye 'til next time.”  All around, smiles filled the faces of her friends.  Slowly, she could feel one fill her face too.  Twilight turned to Spike and said “Ready?”

“Ready!” the little dragon trapped in a puppy’s body shot back.  Slowly but deliberately, they stepped through what appeared to be solid stone.

The experience of traveling through a magic portal while having your body changed was still disorienting to Twilight.  Though the change in body was quicker than most of her body-type spells, the traveling was far different from teleportation.  Teleportation was definitely a feeling of shrinking against a round wall and then being restored like a balloon inflating, the squeezing said by many unicorn scholars to be instinctively pleasant in its similarities to passing through the birth canal: labeled the “Madigan Effect,” the pressure caused a quick but deep relaxation during the process and a refreshed vigor and readiness for the new location immediately after.  The portal wound up being swirly, like a ride in a rolling barrel; Twilight had done several barrel rolls in flight shortly after returning the first time – some were even planned – but she still was not as used to the experience as she’d like to be.

She was already in her return to four legs as she exited the portal, stepping aside quickly so Spike could have room the reorient himself too.  Not wanting to cause any potential trouble if the Rainbooms were seen, she reached out through her horn to telekinetically disengage the magic journal from the portal house as quickly as possible.

Loyal as ever, Rainbow Dash was near the portal, standing guard.  “Welcome back, Twi!” she said, wholeheartedly greeting the alicorn but obviously being loud enough to be heard in the throne room off the portal room.

“Spike and Twilight are back?” called up Rarity’s voice below.

“Yep!” called back Rainbow Dash.

Rarity was soon at the door, gathering Spike into her forelegs and adding Twilight to what became a quick three-body group hug.  “We must gather the others so that we can hear about your journey!” the white unicorn declared.

“No offense, Rarity,” said Twilight, “but we’ve had a busy time.  How about we gather the girls up tomorrow and debrief?”  It was quickly settled.  After a quick letter to Princess Celestia, a pony dinner to readjust her digestive system, Twilight laid down for a good night’s rest.

The next day, Princess Twilight met her friends in their new throne room.  “Pinkie!” Applejack groused, “why don’t you ever go and sit on your own chair?”

“I just like yours!” Pinkie explained, but hopped away towards her own.

“If yours is any more comfortable than this hunk of stone,” Rainbow said, stretching her wings as she brought herself to a hover from her sitting position, “it’s worth it.  But seeing how they’re all stone, I’m going to go get a cloud.  Fluttershy?  Twi?  Want a cloud?”

Two “No, thank you”’s followed, and in a moment Rainbow was adjusting a cloud as Spike brought the last of the snacks.  Twilight related the events of the Battle of the Bands to her friends, answering questions as they arose.

“Huh…” thought Applejack aloud at the end.  “I wonder why we never made a giant magic pony when we used the Elements or the Rainbow Power from the box?”

“Was it the music?” asked Rarity.  “I know Sweetie Belle has been working with you on song-spells during ‘Twilight Time,’ could that have changed the magic?”

“It wasn’t a song-spell, though,” Fluttershy reminded them.  “Twilight didn’t ever finish hers.  It was a song that the other me wrote that they were singing.”

“Good questions, girls,” said Twilight.  “I’ve been thinking about investigating this.  I’m going to take some time to try to write a song – not a spell-song, but just a normal song about the magic of friendship – if I do it right, maybe it will become a song-spell when combined with the magic of our friendship.  It would be nice to be able to summon that alicorn spirit here in Equestria, or perhaps give the girls back in the other world the power to use friendship magic without me in case I ever can’t get away through the portal.”

“Well, that settles it,” said Applejack, getting back to the floor.  “We’ll let you be while you research.”

“And if you need us,” added Pinkie, “we’ll be around to help you unleash as much Rainbow Power as you need to test it!”

Twilight shook her head.  “Magic power I have.  What I really need is help with writing a song.  It’s a bit different than a spell.  Fluttershy, Rarity, you write for the Ponytones, any advice?”

Fluttershy considered this.  “Your song comes from your heart.  You just give it life.  Don’t overthink.”

Rarity nodded.  “Show, don’t tell.  If you want to write a song about friendship, write it about your friends.”

“And always start with an awesome title!” added Rainbow Dash as she kicked her cloud-cushion and left by the skylight the castle had clearly grown just for her aerial entrances and exits.

Twilight giggled as her friends left.  “Spike, hand me a notebook, then keep yourself occupied while I start this.”

“No problem!” her assistant said, notebook and quill already in his claws.

“Let’s see,” Twilight said, “awesome title, huh?  Rainbow Dash wouldn’t find anything more awesome than rainbows… except maybe dashing.  The magic does express itself as a rainbow, so Rainbows it is.”  She wrote this down.  “Now, what do my friends do with the Rainbow Power?  They shine.  So there we have that: Shine Like Rainbows.”  She added this too.

Twilight considered her notebook for a moment.  “Well, rainbows don’t actually shine,” she reprimanded herself.  “The sun is shining through the rain.”  She leapt up.  “That’s a great metaphor for friendship!”  She spoke the words out as she wrote quickly: “Together we stand as the rain begins to fall, and hold our heads up high as the sun shines through it all… needs another syllable in the second part, though, so I suppose “holding’ can replace ‘hold.’”  She did a quick ink-removal spell and rewrote the last sentence.

She found herself hesitating on the period at the end.  Admittedly, expressing things in rhyme was somewhat easy for her, at least when she did not have to juggle that and having no magic to write with.  The last time she wrote down a quick rhyme like this, though, writing a period at the end of it had caused an explosion and her friends worried that she was dead for an afternoon.  “Guess that didn’t turn out too badly,” Twilight mused, stretching her wings.

Twilight considered what she had so far.  “Alright, “Shine Like Rainbows” is the title, so I’ll keep that as a repeated phrase.  In that case, I’ll need a few things that rhyme with ‘Rainbows.’”  She considered the subject.  “Fluttershy’s song worked as a counterspell, and was largely about singing.  Strange.”

“What’s strange?” asked Spike, who was carrying a stack of dishes to the kitchen.

“Human Fluttershy wrote a song about having music within her, and mentions music being in her heart several times.  Our Fluttershy wrote a similar song that she sings with the Ponytones, about the music being all around and how a pony can find the music in them like she did.”

“They seem to be largely the same,” commented Spike.  “I guess it’s just not like they’re all that different.  Less like two different Fluttershys and more like one Fluttershy put into two different situations, two species that grow and socialize differently.”

“That’s very astute, Spike.”

“What can I say?  When you deal with Spider-mare being cloned as many times as she has, and with Eternal Crises popping up all the time, you learn multiverse theory pretty quickly from comics.”

Twilight rolled her eyes a little, but smiled wide, in the end proud of her little drake-brother for being so smart.  “Singing about our music will make a good theme, so I’ll write it down,” she commented as the baby dragon went about his chore, “but for now, back to the task: rhyming words with ‘rainbow’ that are about music.  Let’s see… ‘pianissimo?’”

“I beg your pardon!?” asked Spike, sticking his head out of the door he had just passed through.

“‘Pianissimo,’” Twilight repeated, oblivious.  “It means ‘very soft.’”

Spike snickered.  “Soft, eh?  Don’t want to go with that.”

“You’re right, Spike, but ‘forte’ doesn’t rhyme.  Oh!  But ‘crescendo’ does.  That’s when it rises!”

Spike fell to the floor at that one, clattering a few dishes.

Twilight caught on.  “Didn’t I tell you to keep yourself occupied?”  The drake hurried out, giggling still.  “Now then,” Twilight continued, “‘crescendo’ is a literal term for the rising of the sound, so, ‘The sound that we hear in our hearts makes a crescendo, and shines like rainbows.’  No, I have bring it back to visual senses.  Visuals that rhyme with ‘bows…’  ‘Shows?’  No, it needs to be an intransitive verb… Hmmm… blows, flows, glows – ‘glows!’”  She turned back to writing.  “‘And the light glows…’ ‘the light that ignites glows –’ nice internal rhyme, still a bit more… ‘the light that ignites in the dark glows.’”  Comparing that to her previous line, it still lacked a few syllables.  Finally, she came to a conclusion.  “Okay, so ‘the light that ignites in our hearts, it makes us all glow.’  Close enough even with the plural verb – you’d think whoever came up with these rules would have made it easier to rhyme a plural with another plural.”  Twilight shook her head, trying to forget Starswirl’s time travel spell.  She doubted she could case enough one-week jumps in the time allowed anyway.

“Alright, I’ve got some good writing done here,” she said, examining her work, “but it looks like a lot of solid statements.  Good material for a chorus.  I need something for the verses, though.  I should do what Rarity suggested, tell the story of my friends.”  She smiled warmly.  “Now, how does the story start?”

Spike was making his way across the room once again, so he chimed in with, “‘Once upon a time?’”

Twilight shook her head slightly.  “Come on, Spike, that’s so cliché.”

Spike crossed his arms.  “Yeah, and ‘Awesome as I Wanna Be’ was the epitome of verse.  Come on, Twilight, the Rainbooms are a pop band.  They max out at a 5, 6 tops on the Mohs scale of rock hardness.”

“Mineral hardness.”

“I know, and I meant what I said.  You’re not looking to win the Ponitzer Prize here.  You’re trying to make a song that’s catchy, that makes the listener feel good.  Sometimes a cliché is what you need.”

By this point, Twilight was nodding slowly.  “You’re right, Spike.  I think I actually will start with ‘Once Upon a Time.’  Now, what happened after that?  In both worlds, my friends came into my life and unlocked the power of the magic of friendship.  How can I express that in a metaphor?  What symbolizes the magic of friendship, other than…”  Twilight looked down at her own flank and exclaimed, “My cutie mark!  Stars, aligned!  ‘Once upon a time, you came into my life and made my stars align!’”  She wrote this down.

“Now, what happened after that?  I saw that the ponies here represented the Spirit of the Elements of Harmony.  I saw that without friendship, Sunset Shimmer would be unable to wield the Element of Magic.  I saw that Discord could not separate us, I saw that I needed Spike to defeat Sombra… each time, my friends pointed me in the direction I needed to go to complete a puzzle!”  Twilight’s voice rose as she saw an answer coming.  “They were signs!  ‘I can see the signs!’  Wait-” Twilight slumped back down, writing, “I’ll need a bit more to start.  ‘Now’ will do.”  She tacked it on to the front of the line.  “Alright, in both meeting my friends here and in the other world, when the spark of friendship ignited and we cast the Rainbow Power, we floated.  So my friends picked me up so I could ‘shine like rainbows.’”  She ran the last line through her head a few times.  “Needs a bit more.  ‘You picked me up…’ why?  Why do you pick someone up?  They’ve fallen down.  I certainly had fallen, Nightmare Moon had destroyed the old Elements of Harmony, Sunset Shimmer had stolen my crown.  So in both times, my friends picked me up when I was down so I could shine.”  She cleared her throat and gave the title a shot as a song.  “Shine like rainbows!” she belted.

“No.” said Spike, having arrived so quickly a cloud of smoke was in his wake, his clawed hand now covering her mouth.  “Just, no.  You sang great with the girls, but you need someone else’s voice to help you sing.  Seriously, what you just did was almost as bad as your first attempt at a counterspell.”

“That bad, huh?” Twilight asked sheepishly.  “Okay, no more trying to sing.  The girls back in Canterlot High will just have to write the music.”  As Spike went back about his business, Twilight gathered up her notes again and started to read over them again.  “So this is one good verse,” she said, “But I need another.  So let’s see, I’ve met my friends, I’ve defeated the bad guy, what do I want to say now?”  Twilight wandered over to her picture of her and her five pony friends.  “Let’s try just talking it out.  Wouldn’t hurt.  ‘Friends… you are…’” sometimes Princess Twilight still had trouble expressing herself to other ponies, and it appeared that now would be the same.  “‘Friends,’” she started again, “‘you are in my life.’  True enough.  ‘And you can… count on me… to be there…’ ugh, gotta rhyme… ‘there… by your side?”  Corny as it sounded, as she thought back on the adventures she had been through with both sets of friends now, it was a big deal.  She had friends from another world now contacting her, because they could depend on her loyalty.  She turned to the picture and addressed it with a manner of pride.  “Friends, you are in my life, and you can count on me to be there by your side.”  She smiled warmly.  “It won’t win me the Ponitzer, but it makes me feel good.  Comfortable.  Like a warm blanket.”

Spike, who was still in earshot but not in a line of sight, made a gagging motion with his claw at that metaphor.

“Okay, almost finished.  I need one more good couplet, something that carries me from life with my friends to the music theme, preferably something that deals with lifting up, and ending with ‘so I can shine.’”  Twilight rubbed her chin.  “Actually, it should be about all of us, so ‘so we can shine.’  Something lifts us up so we can shine.  The music?”  She shook her head.  “No, it would be better in a verb phrase to go alongside ‘lifts us up.’”  Twilight took inventory.  “We don’t all play or write, but at times each of the Rainbooms sang, and I know we sing a lot here in Equestria, so all together we sing our songs to lift us up so we can shine.”  She took note.

It was coming along great, just a transitional line and she’d be set.  Despite this, Twilight found herself struggling for a line.  After several attempts, she called down Spike.  “Spike,” she asked the drake when he had arrived, “does the new library have a copy of ‘Song Spells and Magical Melodies?’”

Spike’s draconic memory of the contents of a hoard rarely failed.  “I think so,” he confirmed.  Together, they walked into the new library.  Spike began to scan the shelves for the referenced reference in anticipation of a request to fetch it, but while searching, continued, “But I thought you weren’t going to focus on spell-writing.”

“I wasn’t, Twilight confirmed, also scanning, “but I’ve hit a bit of a writer’s block, so I was hoping this would help.”

“So why not a song writing reference?” Spike asked.

“I was thinking of that, but one of my main goals in this is to allow my friends in Equestria to summon that alicorn spirit through music.  I thought I’d start with musical invocations and see if that encouraged my writing along.”

“I don’t know, Twilight,” Spike said as he wheeled over a ladder, believing to have found the right location.  “Remember what Fluttershy said?  Your song should come from your heart.”  He scurried up to a shelf near the top.  “If you want it, though, I’ve got the book here!”

Twilight was staring blankly ahead.  “Fluttershy said more than that,” the princess murmured.  “She said I give the music life.  That’s what I’m trying to do, make the music come alive!  I’ve got it!”  She ran out of the library to pick up her notes.  “Thanks, Spike!” she called back as an afterthought.

“Don’t mention it,” Spike grumbled, wedging the thick book back into its place.

Twilight pranced in place a little as her horn set to work.  First, she finished her notes; then, she transcribed the lyrics as a completed song, judging how much to repeat the chorus and what parts to repeat.  Finally, she drafted a brief explanation to Sunset Shimmer so that she could send it via the magic journal.  When the drafting was done, she took the journal and began writing the note and song.

After a few patient minutes, she got a message back:

“Dear Princess Twilight,

Thanks so much for writing us a song!  The girls are all happy to have something new to sing, but don’t worry, I’ll do my best to also document any magical properties of the song.  (Think a thaumometer would be to conspicuous?)  Either way, great lyrics, though I’m sure we could use some music-”

Twilight looked puzzled.  It seemed like such an abrupt stop.  After a few moments, a line slashed through the last phrase, followed with the quick writing of:

“Nevermind, Rainbow and the girls say we’ll take care of it.  Thanks again!

Your Friend,

Sunset Shimmer.”
> Applejack
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Applejack took one last, longing hug, making sure it was not too long-lasting to reveal its nature as longing.  She pulled away, adjusted her hat, and let out a breath and gave it one last try.  “Sure wish you could stay longer.”

The girl she was sad to let go, ever graceful, backed up.  “Me too,” Twilight Sparkle admitted.  “But I have responsibilities in Equestria that I have to get back to.  Its citizens need me.”  Applejack sighed, certain that the emotion would be concealed in the group disappointment.  The object of her disappointment caught on to her friends’ reactions and said cheerily, “But now I can go through the portal whenever I need to!  This isn't goodbye.  It's just goodbye 'til next time.”   Each of the Rainbooms took a bit of comfort in that.  Twilight turned to her dog-dragon and said “Ready?”

Applejack didn’t want to watch the result of the little assistant’s affirmative.  Once again, Twilight Sparkle stepped into the portal and away from her life.  The six Rainbooms stood silently, watching the portal as it eventually gave a flicker of motion and a quick shine.  Rainbow Dash, ever the self-appointed leader, stepped up and poked the stone gingerly, then firmly.  The slab did not give.

“Well,” the rainbow-haired girl said, “That’s that.  I guess it’s back to normal for us.”

“It’s a pity the Princess couldn’t join us for the make-up concert,” whined Rarity.  “I had such a wonderful outfit planned that would have looked simply marvelous on her.”

Applejack chuckled.  Rarity seemed more concerned with the fashion statements of the band, though the girl did play the piano well and easily adapted to keyboard and keytar.  Normally she would give Rarity some guff for this, but for one she was trying to be more supportive of her bandmates’ varying drives in joining a band.

The fact that she also was trying not to blush as various images of just what the fashionista could do with Twilight also held her tongue.  Applejack’s mind wandered to the Fall Formal, both to what Rarity wound up doing with Twilight’s very attractive shoulderless dress with inviting ruffles that seemed to open the skirt and to their fashion-forward friend’s insistence that Applejack’s own skirt be short.  With that sort of eye for feminine allure, avant-garde style, and willingness to let show as much as society would accept for a high school aged girl, she could do wonders with Twilight’s body indeed.

She shook her head and forced herself to stop.  Such thoughts were fruitless.  Twilight was from a different world.  Heck, she was actually a pony!  Applejack was familiar with equines from farm living, and despite Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash’s giggling and pointing at certain aspects of her family’s stallions, there was nothing that could even remotely attract her to a horse.  Twilight, on the other hand, was definitely able to bypass any qualms about inter-species relationships, but there too was a problem: among the humans, she was clearly into Flash Sentry.  So it was a bust all around.

Her friends, who had been in conversation for a while now, turned to her.  Fluttershy spoke up (at least for her) and asked, “What do you think, Applejack?”

Stop thinking about her bust!

Rainbow Dash waved her hand in front of Applejack’s eyes.  “Hello!  Earth to Applejack!”

“Sorry girls,” Applejack said, shaking her head, “What was the question?”

“We want make sure that we have a new song!” said Pinkie Pie, bubbly as ever.  “A song about Twi~light!” she sang.

Sunset Shimmer nodded.  “We’re each going to write something, then we’ll see what we have and try to use the best bits.”

Rarity gave a pointed look to Rainbow Dash.  “That way,” she said, “someone isn’t taking up the spotlight on songs that are only hers.”

“Hey, that’s why I came up with the idea!”

Applejack nodded.  “Alright, then.  I’ll do my best and get you all a good song for Twi.”

With the group in agreement, they planned their next meet-up, said their goodbyes-‘til-next-time to each other, and headed home.

That night, Applejack lay in bed, pencil in her mouth, notebook in her hand, thinking of the best way to put into words how she felt about Twilight Sparkle.  It was easy enough to get ideas, but words – especially ones that rhymed and had a cadence to them – were hard to come up with.  She looked around the room, searching for inspiration.  Her eyes finally fell on a horse toy lying on its side on a shelf of her favorite childhood playthings.  She rose and picked it up, finding the knight in armor still attached.  She remembered the knight, how she wanted a real knight to come and sweep her off her feet like a princess.  Now, her knight was a princess... and the steed, for that matter.  It was like Twilight was the complete fairy tale, rolled into one.

That started her pencil.  How do all those stories start, she thought.  It’s always “Once upon a time.”  Good enough.  Now, what did she love most about the knight as a child?  Looking it over, she saw the banner held high by the knight’s lance.  The knight’s colors, the symbol of all he was.  Everyone had their own motif around Canterlot High School: Applejack had apples, Fluttershy favored butterflies, Dash had Rainbows.  Twilight was granted the same by her portal (Rarity had nearly fainted at the idea that she had stepped into a portal naked), a star surrounded by five stars, which Twilight called her “cutie mark.”  The stars, she said, represented her friends back in Equestria, the ones like Applejack and her friends.  She had gathered these five souls together twice now, like

“Stars align!” Applejack exclaimed.  “Once upon a time, you made my stars align… shoot, with a cadence like that Dash’s going to try to rap.  Slow it down…”  It only took Applejack a moment to come up with something to add to the lyrics: as she normally found, the best solution was the honest one.

“Once upon a time, you came into my world and made the stars align.”  It was a great addition; from the start, all of CHS would be able to tell that the song was about their friend from “out of town.”  Applejack thought of Flash Sentry, how he might enjoy the song.  She wasn’t sure if he could tell that they shared similar feelings for Twilight Sparkle, but questions about her always seemed to be directed at Applejack.  “I wonder if he can see the signs?” Applejack wondered aloud as she read over the first verse again.  Come to think of it... signs - align - time… worked pretty well in Applejack’s mind.  She added to her sheet, “Now I can see the signs.”

Words flowing readily now, Applejack turned back to the knight on the steed.  What was it about Twilight that fulfilled her desire to be swept away by a knight in armor?  These stories were often about damsels in distress.  Applejack worked hard on her farm, and it had made the girl tough.  Rarely did Applejack ever find herself to be a distressed damsel.  More often, she found herself being the knight that rescued her friends when they needed it.  Few problems ever found her needing rescue.

The magical part about Twilight, though, was that after Sunset Shimmer had arrived, Applejack and her friends were in a constant state of needing rescue for years, and it was more than just Sunset’s old ways leading up to an eventual attempt at brainwashing and world domination.  The Rainbooms were only truly themselves when they were together.  They thrived on the friendship they shared, and Twilight was able to bring them back to that after years of losing that.  Twilight had rode in and picked them all up onto her steed.  But it wasn’t a mire or battle that she had picked them up from.  She had picked them up from the sadness and melancholy of separation.

“We were down,” Applejack said aloud, trying to get a feel for the line forming in her head.  “You pick me up… when I get down… so I can ride off with you into the sunset.”  Ugh.  Too many words, not to mention the last thing the band needed at this point was a potentially confusing use of their new member’s name.  Applejack gnawed on her pencil more.  “You pick me up when I get down so… I can… what?”

Again, perhaps the best way to go was to be honest and literal.  Applejack considered what she was now actually doing.  Moping was not going to make a great song.  Yearn did not rhyme.  No, this was about the best time, the highlights.  The times when they were united by a literal magic of friendship, hovering in the air, transformed to be near equine, and-

“Shining,” Applejack exhaled.  “Shining like the Rainbooms were actually rainbows themselves.”  It was a good word to sum up the whole experience.  Applejack felt radiant around Twilight, and together the girls had all actually shined.  Dash would like the rainbows part, and Applejack was in a happy enough mood with the tone of the song so far that stroking the ego of the blue-skinned girl who brought the band together would be worth it to get the song into their rotation.

So far, so good, Applejack thought, yawning.  It was late, and sleep was calling to her.  It was a good stopping point.  She set down the notebook carefully in her backpack, and before making her way into bed, she picked up the knight toy and placed it on her nightstand, right where she could stare at it into the night.

“Good night, Sir-Princess-Twilight,” she said, and kissed both the knight and the horse before turning off her light.

Unfortunately the next day was a school day; and for Applejack, it went by at a seemingly sluggish pace.  All she could think of was the song in her heart, waiting to come out, but not finding the next words to make her emotions into something performable.  Math was little more than tapping her pencil against the blank space in her notebook as if it were a magic wand that could make the right words appear by contact.  Science was barely saved with watching Rainbow Dash paired with the gray-skinned girl who had played a saw at the Battle of the Bands trying to do experiments.  History was right out.  Lunch saw the farm-girl practically sweating over her notebook, barely touching her food as she tried to express herself.

Fluttershy was the first to sit near her.  “What’s wrong, Applejack?”

“Nothin’,” she responded tersely.

“It seems like something is-”

“No ‘Shy, that is the problem.  I’m trying to write a song for Twilight and I’ve got nothing.”

Rarity made her presence known behind them.  “Well, you have something there!”

Rainbow Dash bounded next to them, “Oh!  Let me see!”

Before Applejack could protest, a pair of blue hands snatched up her notebook.  The three girls leaned in and smiled.

“Oh my…” said Fluttershy, blushing.

“Wow, AJ, I didn’t…” Rainbow Dash started in a teasing tone.

“Girls!” snapped Rarity.  She gained her composure and handed the notebook back to Applejack.  “It is a very good first verse, darling, and I’m sure we can all appreciate your work and not dwell about your feelings.”

“So when are you moving to Equestria to live with your girlfriend?” said Pinkie Pie, who apparently had materialized out of thin air carrying two lunch trays laden with sweets.  Rarity found the palm of her hand to be a perfect cradle for her head, Fluttershy sank down to check under the table for anything but what was going on, and Rainbow Dash guffawed.

“Pinkie!” Applejack admonished.  “It’s not like that.  Sure, I like Twilight.  Maybe even lover her, for my own part.  It’s definitely a solid crush that I wish I could expand beyond just a few days at a time while trying to destroy a supervillain.  But right now, that doesn’t seem to be in the cards.  I’m mostly just happy that I have y’all, safe after all we’ve been through.”  She pulled Fluttershy into a hug to lift her up.  “Ya’ know, that’s really what I love about Twilight Sparkle the most.  She gave me back my friends.  I don’t think I would leave y’all even to be with her, not until I get my fill of you after the years I’ve lost.”

“Maybe you should write about that,” suggested Fluttershy.

“Yeah,” said Rainbow, “give us a shout-out too.”

Applejack considered the idea a moment.  “I can give it a shot,” she conceded, taking pencil to paper.  “Let’s see.  ‘Friends, you are in my life…’  ‘Again’ would be nice, life sounds enough like the others to fit the scheme.  ‘And I’m not going to leave you.’  ‘I’m not going to leave your… side.’”  Applejack nodded contently at the rhyme.  “Needs a bit more.  ‘And you can trust-’ no- ‘And you can count on me to be there by your side.’”

“Oooh!  Good one,” Pinkie cheered.

Sunset Shimmer made her way over to where the Rainbooms were sitting.  “Hey girls, sorry I’m late, what are you up to?  And… is that the lunch tray I asked you to get for me?”  The last part was more directed to Pinkie Pie, so she was the one to answer.

“We’re looking at what Applejack has for her Twilight song!  And yes!”

Sunset sat down, and after a few moments of scrunching her face as if she was concentrating on transmuting her lunch tray, she started with the cake.  “That’s really cool,” she said between bites, “I’ve already tried too, but all I’ve got are just bits that sounded like Fluttershy’s song that I sang with you all.”

“Oh?  Was it too catchy?  I’m sorry.”  Fluttershy squeaked.

“No, that’s good, both of you,” praised Applejack.  “If I’m going write about our friendship, and how Twilight brought us back together, I should write about that moment.”

Pinkie nearly jumped across the table.  “You mean when we all sang together and our song became a giant rainbow horse?”

“I’m sure that there’s a better way to put it than that,” said Rarity, rolling her eyes.

“Is that even what happened?” asked Rainbow Dash, skeptically.

“Yes,” Sunset confirmed.  “That was a magical creature formed from our song.  It was as if our music-”

“-Came to life,” Applejack finished.  She wrote another line in the notebook, “And that should bring us back to a ‘pick me up so I can shine’ line.”

“Except we actually flew on our magic,” Rainbow reminded.

“So what?  We weren’t picked up?  What’s it called when you’re flying?”

“Lift,” commented Fluttershy.

“So Twilight wasn’t picking us up.  We sang our song to lift us up… so we could shine.”

Rainbow Dash picked up on it, “Shine like rainbows…” she sang, testing a melody.

“Nah, not yet,” Applejack said.  “I like what Sunset was saying, I actually want to reference what Fluttershy’s song was saying.”  Lunch was wrapping up, so she said, “I want to hear that song again, if you don’t mind.”

“We were going to practice it tonight anyway,” said Rainbow Dash.  “We’ll get it in first thing, then try to help you jam out the rest of the song.”

Applejack nodded and packed up.  “Sheesh, I barely even ate any of my lunch.  At least I’m not alone-” she stopped startled as she looked over to Sunset.

“What?” she asked, following Applejack’s shocked eyes to her empty tray.  “Oh!  Well, ponies can survive on sweets alone, so… it was kind of natural.”

“Must be nice to be a magical pony…” began Rarity as they walked out of the lunchroom.

With a clear plan in place, Applejack’s afternoon went by much easier.  She was able to actually focus on her classes through the final hour, notebook secure in her backpack.  Anticipation gave energy in the place of the fog of her writer’s block (though, she admitted to herself, the words had come along in the space of a day, so there was little to complain about).  Finally the Rainbooms set up their practice.

“Alright,” Sunset Shimmer said, “without Twilight, this falls to me and Rainbow to start the singing.  Rarity, you’ll have to pick up a little in the keytar to make up for Vinyl’s effects.”

“Got it!” affirmed Rainbow Dash.

“One-two-three!” Pinkie Pie counted in, and started the rolling drumwork.

Applejack played her parts when it came to her, but she was focusing on the lyrics.  Remembering this, Sunset turned to her and made sure that she was able to hear everything distinctly.  They worked through the song, Magic of Friendship filling the air, until at the last chorus, Applejack felt a surge of power and had a moment of clarity.

“Got the music in our hearts, we’re here to blow this thing apart, and together we will never be afraid of the dark!”

Music in hearts, thought Applejack.  Afraid of the dark… no, shining in the dark… turning on in the dark… igniting…

“Hey, AJ,” said Rainbow as the band died down mid-chorus.  “We kind of need you here still for the crescendo.”

“Let her think, Rainbow,” Rarity pleaded.

“No, no, it’s good.  Crescendo!  Rainbow!  Something that rhymes with those that is like shine…”

“Glow?” Sunset tried.

“BINGO!” said Applejack, to Pinkie Pie’s amusement.  “The song… the sound (yes, can’t copy too much) that we hear in our hearts makes a crescendo, and the light that ignites in the dark, it makes us all glow!”

“And shine like rainbows!” Rainbow and Sunset sang, much to the former’s surprise that the latter had picked up on her tune.  “Shine like rainbows!” Now it was their turn to be shocked, as the other Rainbooms added their voice, with a nice rising harmony.

Smiling, Pinkie Pie drummed in a slow, steady beat, and Applejack strummed a little tune on her bass.  Rainbow picked up the tune and mimicked it with an electric guitar twist.

“Once upon a time, you came into my world and made the stars align…” sang Applejack, thinking of her princess-knight.

Rarity, seeing the love in her friend’s eyes, let her know by picking up the next line “Now I can see the signs!  You pick me up when I get down so I can shine…”

The Rainbooms sang together, trying some variations of the tune on their own instruments, “Shine like rainbows!  Shine like rainbows!”

Rainbow Dash had made her way to Applejack’s notebook, and picked up the song as a lead singer.  “Friends, you are in my life, and you can count on me to be there by your side…”

Not to be outdone, Sunset threw her own twist on the next line, “And when the music comes alive we sing our songs to lift us up so we can shine…”

So they came to the new addition to the chorus, singing it together.  They sang it several times through, with Applejack finally cutting off the music.  Friendship magic crackled around them.

“I guess that means it’s a good song,” said Rainbow.

“I like repeating the chorus at the end,” said Applejack, “but it needs something in between.”

Rarity nodded in agreement.  “Think you could write a bridge, dear?”

Before Applejack could answer, thunder rolled in the distance.  “Shoot, maybe after I get home before our back road gets too muddy.”  They nodded in understanding, and packed their instruments.  The six girls made their way to the parking lot and parted ways quickly.  Applejack found that Mac had come by to give her a lift.

“Hey Mac,” Applejack said, buckling up in the passenger’s seat.  “Have a good day?”

“Eeyup.”

They drove in silence for a while.

“You?” the elder sibling asked.

“Yeah, the girls and I had a good practice.”

Big Mac briefly turned his eyes to his sister, looked her up and down, and said, “Enope.”

Applejack blushed.  “Okay, it was a great practice.  I wrote a song, and the girls liked it.”

Big Mac shook his head.

Applejack was almost apple red.  “I wrote a song for… someone I love.”

Big Mac chuckled.

“Had me figured all along, big bro?”

“Eeyup.”

They rode along quietly from there, the first few drops of rain accentuating the dark clouds and thunder in the distance.  By the time they reached the Apple Family homestead, the rain was coming down steady.  Big Mac parked near the front.

“I’m gonna’ take the truck down to the garage and check to make sure the horses are in the barn,” said Big Mac.  “You’d better get inside or Granny’ll give me an earful.”

“’K,” said Applejack, and hopped out of the truck.  Mac drove off, but Applejack stayed out in the rain, letting the cool water run down the sides of her face.  She sighed.

“I’m never going to get the chance.  You’re a pony princess and I’m a farm girl.  Even if you look here for someone to love, you’ve got a crush, and on a guy, and he likes you back mighty strong.”

For a moment, the sun broke through and warmed Applejack.

“But I have made something beautiful for you.  And I’m mighty proud of that.  And I think you’ll be, too.”

From the situation, from the sunlight, from nowhere, from her heart, Applejack sang: “Together we stand as the rain begins to fall, and holdin’ our heads up high as the sun shines through it all.”

She smiled as the words rolled through her head again and again.  It was her bridge.  Somehow, without even trying, she had come to her bridge.  She repeated it to herself a few times to ensure she would be able to write them, and then chuckled as she walked in to keep her notebook dry.

“Heh, musical friendship magic.  It’s a nice bridge.  Thanks, Twi.”
> Sunset Shimmer
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset Shimmer was getting used to having friends.  After the second public appearance of the Magic of Friendship in a visible rainbow to cancel the effects of a villain attempting to brainwash the student body, Canterlot High School students were fully aware of the fact that the Rainbooms had saved their collective posterior, and were grateful.  There was no question now, not with Sunset being at the center of the latest occurrence, that the former target of said power was now one of its wielders; a fact which had the double benefit of earning students’ gratitude and solidifying Sunset’s standing in their hearts as a reformed.

Recognizing the importance of proper gratitude, Sunset had sent Twilight Sparkle a quick, simple thank you message through her journal.  It was not answered within the day, so Sunset figured that it had delivered the intended message, and was content to leave her new friend to her regal duties.

On the second day afterward, though, Sunset was surprised to find the book buzzing during lunch.  Excusing herself from the Rainbooms’ table, she opened the book to find a wholly unexpected response:

~Dear Sunset Shimmer,

I have received your note, and while I am honored by your thanks, I too believe in giving thanks where it is due.  You and I share the same past, and I know that you know my ability to spread friendship is not of my own doing.  Perhaps~

The studious Princess was in the process of writing the note, and was writing carefully, so by the time Sunset got to this word, it was the last full word on the page.  As the next words were being formed, Sunset felt like her stomach was suddenly made of stone and was sinking to crush her from the abdomen down.  

~it would be better~

Sunset bit her lip and begged silently in her thoughts, Please, Twilight, Please don’t ask it of me…

~to express your~

I owe it to you, but I’m not ready…

~thanks to~

I don’t think I’ll ever be…

~Princess Ce~

Sunset closed the book shut quickly.  She did not want to read anymore.  She knew what the rest of the note would say.  It did not take two days to respond to a note just for modesty and an offhand reminder of a shared tutelage.  The Princess of Friendship had seen a friendship problem, and had decided to fix it.  No doubt she had set up an audience, wanted to take Sunset to Canterlot, wanted to take her to…

…there.  The throneroom.  The throne.

Her throne.  Where She would be sitting.  She would smile, and She would cry, and She would forgive, because She was perfect and…

“Darling, are you okay?” Rarity interrupted Sunset’s thoughts.

“Yeah!” Sunset faked.  “Great!  Why?”

Applejack shook her head.  “Hon’, your magic book buzzed, you came over here, opened it, turned white as a sheet, slammed it shut, and now you’re tearing up.”

Sunset wiped her eyes.  “It’s nothing, really.  No problems.  Everything’s fine.”

Rainbow Dash leaned down.  “No offense, but I know you’re still new to whole ‘having friends’ thing, so I’ll let you in on a secret: we’re here for you.  Tell us what’s up.”

Sunset started shedding tears, and Fluttershy moved in front of her to wipe her eyes and hide her from the other students nearby.  Sunset opened her book slowly.  “I was getting a message from Twilight, and I think…”  She reached the page she had been at before.  The words she expected had filled it.  “Yes, it’s certain.  She wants me to come back to Equestria.”

“What!?!” screamed Pinkie Pie.  “She can’t have you!”

“It’s just for a visit,” Sunset comforted.  “Twilight wants me to… to see Princess Celestia.”

“She’s the big boss over there, I take it?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“She’s the main ruler, but more importantly, she was my teacher.  It’s a bigger thing than a school teacher, though, she was a direct mentor… and…”  She buried her head a little into her jacket.  “My parents and I weren’t close, and raising a foal was clearly not their priority.  When the Princess took me in, I had nothing, and she gave me everything…”  She looked up, catching Fluttershy’s eyes first, and was strengthened a little by their kindness.  “How do I go back?  How do I go to see the pony that practically gave me my life, my talent, everything I am, after I turned my back on her, told her I should rule over her, and abandoned her to turn into what I was my first years here?”

The girls looked at her with love and compassion.

“You just have to go through portal, silly!”

The girls looked at Pinkie Pie with shock and curiosity.

Rarity started in slowly, “…I don’t think that’s what she means.”

Pinkie rolled her eyes.  “Well, duh, but it’s still the answer.  I mean, this Princessipal Celestia wants to see you, right?”

Sunset looked down at the journal.  “It seems so.”

“And she knows you want to be better, right?” Pinkie continued.

“I’m sure Twilight has said as much.”

“And she’s going to forgive you, because she’s a perfect pony princess and she’s got her co-ruler and trusted student right there speaking on your behalf, right?”

“That pretty much sums it up.”

“What’s the problem, then?”

“I… I guess I just don’t feel I deserve her forgiveness, so I can’t see why she’d forgive me.  That if I step over into that world, that I’ll have misread Twilight’s intentions, or Twilight’s will have misread Celestia’s intentions, and I’ll just be cast aside and have to spend forever knowing that I came reaching out to her again, but that I never was good enough.”

Fluttershy gave Sunset a sympathetic smile.  “That doesn’t sound like the Twilight we know, nor anything like a good princess, especially one who is like Principal Celestia is to us.”

Applejack nodded in agreement.  “And even if your worst fears are true, you have to face them eventually.  So go, now is the time they are calling you, and go trusting that they’re waiting for you with open arms… or whatever ponies have.”

Sunset looked around at the loving faces of her friends and smiled.  “No matter what happens,” she said, “I’m happy to have you all.”

Rainbow Dash nudged her with her pen.  She nodded, slowly but happily, and wrote a single word in response: “When?”

It did not seem long at all, though it was a day and a half before a proper weekend evening found the portal clear enough for Twilight and Sunset to agree that it was time.  There was a small vibration in the seemingly solid stone, which Sunset recognized as her cue.  “I’m not ready, I never will be,” she said to herself, “but it is time.  Here I go.”

Strecthed, swrilled and put back together yet again, Sunset went quickly though a brief mental checklist: stand on all fours, yes you are furry, yes you are naked, yes you can feel magic through your horn again, yes your senses are oriented more towards smell and hearing.  She was composed by the time she was hugged.

“Welcome back!” Twilight Sparkle greeted cheerfully.

“Hi, Twilight.  Thanks for having me.”

“Are you okay?”

“Fine!” Sunset jumped.  “Why?”

“You seem to be looking around for… oh, no, Princess Celestia isn’t here.  We have an audience set up for tomorrow morning.”

Sunset eased up so quickly and so much that Twilight giggled.  “Nervous?” she half-teased.

“This is serious, Sparkle!” Sunset chided, though obviously relaxed.  “I’ve not been back here on good terms since the day I left.”

“Well, you’re on good terms now,” Twilight confirmed.  “Just take it easy.  You have the night to compose yourself and be ready for the morning.”  The alicorn turned away, but noticed her guest was ignoring her unspoken request to follow.  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

Sunset looked at her hooves.  “She’s going to forgive me, right?”

Twilight embraced her friend.  “I wouldn’t have brought you here if she wasn’t.”  The two shared a smile.  “Now come on, is there a pony food you’ve missed?”

“Yeah, nachos.  They’re just not the same with the chips humans use.”

“Glad I didn’t bother trying any.  Well, Spike makes the best nachos in Equestria, and is always excited to make them.”

“Except when you have me make enough for a school and our guests all leave!” shouted a young drakes’ voice from around a corner.  “Oh, and hi Sunset!”

“Hi Spike!” she called back earnestly.  “Wow, I can’t wait to see this.  I only briefly caught a glance of Spike when I was around last time, I’ve wondered just what he’s like when he’s a dragon.”

The rest of the night was spent in friendly conversation and mountains of nachos.  Twilight offered to introduce Sunset to her friends, but Sunset politely declined, citing that such a meeting would take even more mental preparation.  They retired to separate rooms, Sunset taking ink and paper to try to write out some thoughts before the meeting the next day.

The next day, unadorned and nervous, Sunset waited outside the gilded doors of Canterlot Castle’s throne room, alone but for the ever-present guards.  After a brief sky carriage trip (Sunset had forgotten how awesome sky carriages were) and short wait, Twilight had gone in for a few moments to greet and prepare the Princess properly.  It seemed like forever, and Sunset was terrified about what discussion was occurring behind those doors.  Finally, there was a brief glow in the left door’s guard’s horn, and he said, “The princess will see you now.”

The door was opened, and simultaneously, four ponies caught their breaths: two dark alicorns on either side of the center in anticipation of what would happen between the other two, and those, the white alicorn and the golden unicorn, at the sight of each other after so long.

Though the room was empty other than the four, Twilight Sparkle took her duties formally.  As the door closed, she announced “Princess Celestia, may I present to you my friend, Sunset Shimmer.”

Sunset, also formal, kneeled.  Princes Celestia watched her former student shake slightly from nerves.  “Sunset Shimmer,” she stated, herself steeling her own nerves in the formality, “I can see you are nervous.  Let me thus make this quick.” she took a deep breath, then proclaimed: “Well done, my good and faithful student.  My fellow princess, Twilight Sparkle, has informed me you have aided her in defeating a foe of both our worlds through your friendship.  Because of your faithfulness, you have shown yourself to have come to understand the Magic of Friendship.  All accounts and actions otherwise shall be forgotten, cast out as far as my sun travels in its circuit.  You are welcome fully into my court, as in your days in my school.”

They were the words Sunset had expected, yet she was still overwhelmed.  Knowing full well what the last sentence meant, she ascended the throne and embraced her teacher, weeping.  Princess Celestia wrapped her wings around her little pony and also shed tears of joy at her return.

“I’m so sorry,” Sunset finally managed.

“Forgotten as far as the sun travels,” Celestia confirmed, “and that is very long indeed.”  Their embrace lasted, then finally, when the tears were done, and joy was full again, Princess Celestia cleared her throat and said, “Now, I believe Twilight told me you had prepared some remarks?”

“Yes,” Sunset confirmed, and took a few steps back off the dais.  Her mind focused on the notes that she had written the previous evening.  “Once upon a time,” she started with a smile (how many stories had she been read in this very room, most of which started just like that), “we started something wonderful.  Princess, when you met me first I was a lost and confused filly,” Sunset admitted.  “No offense to you, majesty,” she bowed slightly to Luna, “but at that time your great sister made the night.”  She turned and addressed Celestia again.  “To a lost and confused soul like me, you were the awe-inspiring ruler who came into my world and made the stars align.”  Her lips quivered.  “And I’m sorry I couldn’t hold on to that awe in our darkest hour.”

Not wanting to make Celestia feel a need to repeat her forgiveness, Sunset quickly continued.  “Now, I can see the signs of what my studies under you were about.  You had picked me up from the refuse, when I was down the lowest I had ever been, and offered to teach me magic.  I accepted, feeling it was an offer to let me shine.  Now, I realize that you had meant for me to shine, not in my own glory, but in friendship.

“I have reviewed your lessons in my mind over and over since Twilight’s first trip to the human world.  Using what you have taught me, I now have friends in my life.  I had used people to my ends, but now, I have real friends, friends who can count on me to be by their side.

“I joined a rock band.”  Sunset smirked, and Princess Celestia giggled.  “I did!  We’re the Rainbooms.  I don’t know how that term made it over into that side’s Rainbow Dash’s head, but there it is.”  The three princess were now chuckling openly at the twist.  “So here I am, a former top-tier magical unicorn with a practical goddess as a tutor, and I’m playing guitar in a high school band.

“It’s perfect, really.  It’s something you would love.  Our music comes to life.  We sing our songs, and we are touched by our friendship, and the magic of the Elements of Harmony is within us.  We are lifted up, given pony ears and tails, a few girls get pegasus wings, and we rock.  The song in our hearts reaches a crescendo, we are empowered by friendship, and just as you could see all those years ago, we shine.

“We were faced with the Sirens, and even then, when it was darkest, as if it was a rainstorm, the light of friendship ignited in our hearts, and we stood together, glowing.  With the power of our friendship, we defeated the Sirens, and took away their power.  Now, I can return with my head held high, not because of the power of my magic, but because the magic of my friendship.  As the dark rain began to fall, the clouds were dispelled.  The Sun shined through it all.”

Twilight smiled softly.  Luna nodded a regal approval.  Celestia wiped a few tears from her eyes.  “I am very proud.  When Starswirl the Bearded banished the Sirens, he thought their power could not be removed while keeping them alive.  The Magic of Friendship has sustained them, though.  It is because of this that I am asking that you return to that world.  You are no longer a student of magic, but I believe you could do a great work as a student of friendship.  Your assignment will be to try to show the Sirens the light of friendship, just as you have come to see it.”

Sunset stepped back.  “A friendship mission?  I… Princess, I am honored, but I have only started to learn…”

“I am sure,” Celestia said with a knowing smile, “that you can find an excellent tutor.”  Sunset and Twilight blushed together.

The rest of the day went smoothly.  Sunset met Luna, and shared stories much to the embarrassment of her sister.  They took lunch together in the gardens, and Sunset got to breathe deeply of the magic in the air surrounding Mount Canterlot.  It ended too soon, Sunset needing to return outside the eyes of the student body.  There were no more tears, only sweet embraces and promises to return and stay in touch.

As Twilight made her final preparations to reopen the portal that evening, she noticed Sunset gathering the notes she had made.  “Funny,” the purple princess commented, “if I’d have made notes like that, I probably would have taken them with me.”

Sunset held up the parchment.  “It’s not quite notes on what to say in court.”

Twilight scanned it.  “It’s a song!” she exclaimed in recognition.  “‘Shine Like Rainbows.’”  She hummed a few bars, and sang “Shine like rainbows” a few times to get the music.  “Sunset, this is lovely!”

Sunset rubbed her foreleg shyly.  “Sometimes I have an easier time expressing myself in poetry.  I thought if I wrote how I felt that way, it would be easier to speak my heart in front of the Princess.”  She brought the notes back closer to herself.  “I realized that I’m in a band now, so I thought I’d put some music down to it.”

“You did well,” Twilight gushed.  “Gee, I wish I could get a song.”

“Actually…” Sunset smiled, and produced another paper.  “I kind of wanted to thank you for saving me from what I had become.  For seeing my potential when I couldn’t see how friendship made you special.  For having the strength to overcome the division I had sewn in the hearts of everyone back in CHS.  So I wrote this one for you.”

Twilight smiled as she took the paper.  “Thank you, Sunset.  I hope I can hear you and the girls play it soon.  What’s it called?”

Sunset Shimmer stepped forward and embraced the Princess of Friendship.  “It’s called ‘A Friend For Life.’”
> Sonata Dusk
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 A familiar scene in Canterlot High School played out once more on a Wednesday afternoon: the Rainbooms practicing their songs in one of the music rooms during a free period whilst a former villainous attempted-brainwasher listened in happily, bouncing her head to the beat.  Unlike the fateful day when Sunset Shimmer was interrupted from such an enjoyment by the introduction of the Dazzlings to the school, this time it was one of said Dazzlings, Sonata Dusk, enjoying the music provided by the new Rainbooms, now featuring Sunset Shimmer.

The last several months had been crazy for the former siren.  In late fall, she and her sisters had gone from the continued agony of their millennia of exile in a magically barren world to the hope of regaining their full power.  A group of five humans and two ponies-in-human-bodies wielding the harmony magic that she and her sisters had sought to tap into dashed their hopes.  The resulting argument was the last straw for Aria, who left to wander the world as ever before - the girls would wander from town to town to hide their immortality.  Without their pendants and the ability to feed, there was no guarantee that they would remain immortal, yet the stubborn siren followed their old plan just the same.  Sonata was worried for her sister; Aria hated eating food, always wanting to attempt to feed off hate magic, but that was no longer a possibility.  She wished she could be there to make sure Aria was keeping her physical body healthy, despite the constant chorus of "This ugly carcass is not my body!"

Adagio had remained, but flat-out refused to "continue to pretend to be anything less than a millennium old by attending a high school with a bunch of hormone-riddled bipedal freaks."  Sonata loved the school, though - free hot lunch, people to talk to, exciting events - what was not to like?  She was trying out for the cheerleading squad ("I may not be able to sing anymore, but I can still scream!"  Adagio was not happy with the demonstration that followed.); and she was trying to be friendly with the Rainbooms: after all, if Harmony magic was more powerful than the sirens' magic, then it deserved respect.  Adagio would harrumph, but agreed enough to not interfere, and allowed frequent visits to their house (back when they still had their magic, the sirens had convinced an old man that he hated to the point of giving it away).  Adagio even helped make snacks once.

The Rainbooms' song was coming to a close, pulling Sonata from her silent reverie.  "Watch out for us we're awesome as we wanna be!" and a final chord faded out.  The girls looked at each other with varying degrees of approval on their faces.

"I still do not like it, Rainbow Dash," said Rarity, face clearly confirming her to be strong on the side of disapproval.  "Even with changing it to reference the entire group, it is still far too boastful."

"Well I still like it!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed.  "It's still the best song we have for pure rock."

"It doesn't have to be all rock, all the time, Dash," Applejack admonished.

Pinkie Pie pounded out a fast beat on the drums.  "I agree with Dash!" she said.  "Even if we wanted to stray from rock, it's still got the best beat."

Fluttershy sighed.  "It's... too loud... still... for my tastes, at least," she said in a voice fading out the entire time.

Sunset Shimmer shrugged.  "I'm sorry, but I have to go with Dash here.  This was a headlining song before I joined.  You all have practiced it the most, so it's our best song."

The girls looked at each other tensely.  Applejack laid out what they were all thinking.  "Well, if it's a vote, that makes it three to three.  Where do we go from here?"

Pinkie Pie shot up from her stool.  "Hey, 'Nata, what do you think?"

Sonata Dusk gasped at her sudden inclusion.  "Me?  You want me to decide?"

The girls looked at each other and nodded.

"You seem to know a good crowd pleaser," said Rainbow Dash.

"You have excellent taste," added Rarity.

"Plus, you have a thousand years of experience with music, even if your voice sounds like a dying diamond dog without magic," Sunset finished.  She noticed Sonata wince at the mention of the damage to her voice, and quickly added, "No offense."

"None taken," Sonata smiled.  She was genuinely grateful to have a friend who literally knew where she was coming from, especially with the distance now separating her and her sisters, so she was happier for the understanding Sunset held for her than she was upset with the rude yet honest assessment of her skills.

"So," Pinkie Pie asked, "What's it gonna be?"

Sonata put a finger to her lips and looked at the upper corner of the room.  "I'd vote no.  I don't think you'll be able to get the same feel without the constant rhyme of 'me' with the titular 'be.'"

Rainbow Dash inhaled, puffed out her cheeks, then sighed.  "You're right, and I agree that it's a fair tiebreaker.  'Awesome as I Wanna Be' is out of the rotation."  She crossed out an entry on a nearby notepad.  "Well girls, that leaves us in a pickle.  Even with Fluttershy's songs, 'Life is a Runway' and 'My Past is not Today' are not enough to bring us up to a full show, and we have gigs lining up already after the Battle of the Bands."

"Even if you count the song Princess Twilight sent us though the journal?" Fluttershy asked.

Rainbow perked up.  "I hadn't counted that.  I need to copy it over."  She wrote into the book, announcing as she did, "'Friendship... Through... the Ages.'"  She did some quick math on her fingers.  "We're still about a song short.  Fluttershy and I have tapped our notebooks, and Rarity and Sunset have done well to add in their songs.  Pinkie?  AJ?  Anything from you?"

Pinkie shook her head.  "Drumming is its own world, Dash.  I'll try to work on one, but I'd probably not get farther than rough lyrics."

AJ added, "And knowing you, it'd probably wind up being too many chimichaungas and kumquats for anyone but you to find a way through, let alone write music for.  Not that I'm better off, I'm happy to support y'all with this here bass, but I've still got too much farmwork to do to sit down and write something else."

The six musicians looked at each other in defeat, until a voice outside their circle of glances said, "I have a song."

Twelve eyes turned to fix on Sonata Dusk.

"Is it new?" Rainbow Dash asked.  "I'd rather not sing something that was originally designed as part of an evil plot.  No offense."

"None taken, and yes," Sonata said.  "I used to do the writing for The Dazz... for my sisters."  Sonata wanted nothing more than to cling to them as a family and forget what they did as a band.  "When we found out that we couldn't sing anymore, I wanted to write a song to see if that had been affected too."  She reached into her backpack and produced a sheet of paper.  "I think I've still got the touch, but you can reject it."

The six Rainbooms stood huddled over the paper, each shifting until they could all read it.

Rarity was the first to speak.  "'Once upon a time you came into my world?'  Oh my, 'You?'  Is this...?"

Sonata nodded.  "It's a love song," she confirmed.  A hint of a blush spread on her cheeks.

"Second verse starts out 'Friends, you are in my life,'" Applejack noted, sharing glances with her bandmates.  "It's not quite the conventional love song, is it?"  Young entertainers suspected the admirer's charming ode's subject.

Sonata shook her head.  "I suppose not.  It's a love I feel very passionately for... it's just not the type that could legally result in a marriage."  She giggled a little, adding, "Not around here, anyway."

"Love is love," Rainbow Dash said with a snort.  "From what I can read here, you obviously will stick with these friends.  I like the line, too: 'You can count on me to be there by your side.'  That's true love."

Sonata smiled.  "And I will... even if I wind up giving love to others."  She glanced happily at the girls around her.

"It's really the first love, isn't it?" Fluttershy sighed.  It makes it work well here as a love song; couples will like to remember the first time they could 'see the signs.'"

Dreamily, Sonata nearly whispered, "I can remember that feeling so well, seeing the signs of true love, like it was yesterday."

"What about this part?" asked Sunset Shimmer.  "'And when the music comes alive, we sing our songs to lift us up so we can shine?'  Is that for the subject of the love song?"

"It's a metaphor," Sonata dropped her head.  "At least, anymore it's a metaphor.  It's not like I can sing anymore, but..."  She sucked in a breath and gave the girls a resolute look.  "The music between us is still there."

"Ooh!  I like the bridge!  Especially how you rhyme 'crescendo' with 'rainbow!'" Pinkie Pie squealed.  "Is this a subtle nod to your new group of friends?" she added with a nudge and a wink.

Sonata giggled and nudged back.  "I think it's not subtle at all.  It's practically overt!  Yes, I want us to be able to shine together like you guys do - literally and figuratively.  I just wish my desire to shine together could be returned."  Wordlessly, the Rainbooms gathered together to give their newest friend a group hug.  "Thanks," Sonata whispered.  "I'm glad I have you all, but..." she stood up, breaking the circle.  "I think I need to go and express these feelings to the object of my affection."

The girls nodded their approval, and Sonata left.

It was not too long later when Sonata returned, laden with plastic bags labeled "Burrito King."  The Rainbooms were trying to put together music to the new lyrics.

"Good news, 'Nota!" Rainbow Dash announced.  "We've decided to use your song in our rotation!"

Rarity nodded.  "We needed a good love song," she said with a sly smile.

Sonata jumped, rustling the plastic bags.  She squealed and shouted, "Oh!  I'm so glad I could help my friends!"  She held up the bag triumphantly.  "To the love of my life!" she said, gesturing with her free hand.

The Rainbooms stared a moment.  Applejack let loose what was on all their minds.  "Sugarcube... are you sayin' that the love of your life... the subject of the song you gave us... is tacos?"

"Yep!" the siren confirmed cheerily.  "I came to drop some off for you to thank you for your friendship!"  She placed one bag on a nearby table.  "Now I'm off to have some quality time with these bad girls!"  With that, she took a supreme taco laden with sour cream from one of the remaining bags and licked around its edges before taking one long lap of the tongue along the inside, collecting all the sour cream in one go.  She giggled, "It's tangy and delicious!" before walking off with her prize.

Five jaws hit the floor.  Pinkie simply grabbed her drumsticks and walked out the other door, announcing, "I'll be in my bunk."