As if I Were Human
“Did you miss me?” Adagio asked as she flopped down onto the bed, grinning playfully and pressing her lips to Sunset’s cheek in a soft kiss that silently screamed “Yes, of course you did, and we both know it” louder than words ever could.
“Hey, you,” Sunset said, the corners of her mouth lifting unbidden into a welcomed smile. The book she’d been reading since coming home from school all but flew out of her hands, which were given the much more important task of encircling Adagio’s slender shoulders. “How was work?”
Adagio shrugged, idly splaying out her long, glossy purple fingernails; she’d spent hours on hers long before she started getting paid to do the same for other people. “Boring,” she said—Sunset knew she meant “It’s fine, but I’ll tell you about it later.”
Sunset pulled Adagio a little closer—the enticing scent of fuzzy peaches drifted up from the golden curls that sprawled out over the bed. “It’s better now.”
A long, dreamy sigh poured out of Adagio’s mouth. “Much. How was yours?”
“Oh, y’know… I’m counting the days till summer comes, but that’s not exactly new.”
Adagio murmured a sweet but nonsensical sound. “That’ll be good, right?”
“Yeah.” Sunset lowered her head. “That’ll be good.”
She turned to the side, pulled Adagio close, and kissed her gently on the lips. She didn’t think she could ever get tired of doing that.
“You make an… awfully compelling argument,” Adagio murmured once their mouths separated—hers shaped into a smirk shortly. “Just like always.” But then her lips quirked, and slyness vanished for a moment until her eyes looked elsewhere. “C’mon,” she said. “Let’s do something.”
Sunset arched an eyebrow. “I dunno,” she said. Her fingers could feel the warmth of Adagio’s soft skin through the button-down shirt she had to wear for work. “This is awfully nice.”
“I know. But there’re two things I’ve been itching to get my hands on today, and”—she glanced sideways, at the guitar case propped up against the wall—“I want to get to one before I’m sidetracked by the other.”
Sunset frowned. “Oh. You… want to—”
Adagio shrugged. “Why not? It’s not much more than a decoration right now.” She wriggled away, slipping out of Sunset’s embrace to stand up and run her fingers over the guitar case. “You used to play it, right? How would you feel about teaching me?”
Sunset swallowed a nagging anxiety. “Sure, I think that’d be fun,” she said—very truthfully.
There was a “But” there, though, and it was so daunting Sunset could hardly look past it to find any excitement.
“It’s been there for months now.” She scooted to the edge of the bed and sat on the side. “Why the sudden interest?”
Adagio looked back at Sunset, and shrugged again; her smile was stunning, just like everything she did. “No idea.” She giggled. “Well… okay, that’s not quite true.”
It was a faint but staunch hope that made Sunset smile. “I hope you’re not going to keep me waiting.”
“You’ll laugh. It’s silly.”
“Maybe, but let’s stay on topic here.”
Adagio rolled her eyes, but her mouth never strayed from mirthfulness. “I had a dream last night,” she said. “And when I woke up, I just felt like making music. First time for everything, right?”
Sunset arched an eyebrow and hoped that the lump in her throat was born of paranoia. “Good dream, then?”
“I think so. I should’ve written it down; I don’t remember much of it now.” Adagio waved her hand, then picked up the guitar case and looked expectantly towards Sunset. “But that’s beside the point. What’re we waiting for?”
Sunset stood up, perhaps faster than she meant to, and touched Adagio’s arm. “Hey, um… why don’t we come back to this tomorrow?” She was met with a vicious pout, but she didn’t let it rule her. “I’ll think about where you can start, pick out songs you’ll like… it’ll be much more fun when I’m refreshed and ready for it.”
Adagio looked at her for a moment—she didn’t say, “But tomorrow isn’t tonight,” but she didn’t need to.
Eventually, she just smirked. “Worried I’ll be better than you?”
Sunset laughed. “Yeah, you got me. I know you will be, so I’m bracing myself for it. But, uh… I’ve never taught anyone before, so it’ll be better for you if I can get some of the fumbling out of the way while you’re at work.”
It took a little while for Adagio to let go of the guitar, but as soon as she did, she pressed herself to Sunset’s side. “Tomorrow night, then,” she said.
“Yeah. Tomorrow night.”
Sunset sat on one chair, her guitar laid out balanced in her lap, a wadded-up checklist in her hand—she’d committed the contents to memory already. Another chair stood in front of her, empty but ready.
Eventually, the sound of a twisting lock outside made her focus her attention on the door. Adagio stepped inside a moment later, midway through a yawn but perking up the second her eyes drifted to Sunset’s.
“Hey.” Sunset gestured to the other chair. “Ready?”
There was a gleam in Adagio’s eye as she plopped her purse down, hurried over and sat in the chair. “Absolutely.”
“Right. First thing’s first. Lemme see your hands? Ah, okay.” Sunset reached into her pocket, took out a pair of nail clippers, and offered them to Adagio. “You’ll need them pretty short on your left hand—your right’s probably fine.”
There was a moment of hesitation. Adagio looked down at her hands, at the perfectly-sculpted points at the ends.
“You’re sure?” she said, after a few moments.
“Sorry. You could try, I guess, but it’s kinda impossible and you’d end up scratching them and stuff anyway.” Sunset watched Adagio, half-expecting her to turn away and drop the whole idea.
Instead, Adagio only stuck out her lower lip a little bit as she went to work trimming her once-immaculate fingernails. When she was done, she splayed out her fingers, curled her lip, but trained her eyes on the guitar and then held her hand out to Sunset. “Better now?”
“Much. Alright.” Sunset quirked her lips, glancing about. “This is gonna be a bit awkward since I just have the one, but let’s see what we can do. Now, this thing—” she ran her fingers over the orange surface of her guitar, lingering on the V-shaped body “—is a Flying V.” Just saying the name made the corners of her mouth lift—those words had an intrinsic cockiness to them. “Basically the coolest thing in the world. Here, go ahead and hold it?”
Adagio reached out, gently accepted the sleek instrument, and raked her eyes all over the shiny finish. “Nice.”
“Very. But the shape’s a bit weird if you’re sitting down with it. You’re gonna want to get it between your legs, right? With the V, like—yeah, just like that. Right. Now—” She held up a plectrum pinched between her thumb and index finger “—this is gonna make it feel a bit weirder to pluck the strings, but you’ll get clearer sounds than if you use your fingers right away. Give it a shot. Just pluck a string or two.”
Accepting the pick, Adagio, held it in her right hand and, hesitantly, looking down intently, plucked a string with it—a crisp E note rang out. “You’re right,” she said, frowning. “It’s weird.”
“It’ll take some getting used to, but you’ll get the hang of it. Right, what you just did was playing a string ‘open’; you didn’t hold it down at all with the left hand.” Sunset leaned forwards and gestured to the neck of the guitar. “These little metal things are called frets. If you hold the string down, you’ll make it shorter and change the pitch. So, try that same note, but hold the string down against a fret—just whichever one you feel like.”
“Alright.” Adagio’s index finger pressed—right between the second and third frets—and she plucked the string again. This time, it was a G note that thrummed into the air.
Sunset tilted her head. “Oh, nice. I wasn’t expecting you to get that right.”
Adagio exaggerated a gasp, clasping her hand to her chest. “Sunset, you wound me!”
“No, no, it’s—” Chuckling, Sunset leaned forward to touch the neck of the guitar. “See, you’re not supposed to hold your finger on the fret—that’ll make your skin muffle the string vibrations. But that’s what everyone wants to do.”
“And that’s not what—”
“No, you had your finger between them, which is exactly where it’s supposed to be.”
“I’m a natural, in other words?”
“Well, it’s the guitar equivalent of drawing a stick figure, so don’t get too smug yet. Right, see those other strings? Try doing what you just did, but with a different string.”
With a nod, Adagio held the next string over down with her middle finger, plucked it, and popped a C note out.
Before Sunset’s eyes fluttered open, a staccato of faint, disjointed notes whispered in her ear. She lifted her head, squinting and rubbing the sleep from her eyes before dragging herself up from the bed.
Adagio was downstairs, sitting on a chair still in her nightwear, Sunset’s guitar cradled in her lap. The fingers of her left hand would shift up and down the neck, while the plectrum in her right picked strings seemingly at random—and yet there was both dexterity and purpose to it all. Not just noise made for noise’s sake, perhaps, but a quest to find the ‘right’ noise, then?
The way Adagio would stop every so often to jot a few things down on a paper on the table by her side seemed to support that notion.
“You’re up early,” Sunset said.
A startled shake of Adagio’s head was the first reply. “Good morning,” she chimed—her voice was impeccably clear, even at that early hour, and her smile small yet vibrantly beautiful. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“Eh.” Sunset shrugged as she walked closer. “It’s not a bad thing to wake up to. How’s it coming?”
“Slowly,” Adagio said. She eyed the paper again, picking it up and staring at it; her lips shaped into a satisfied smile. “But surely.”
Even that faint hint of joy on Adagio’s face was effortlessly infectious. “Anything you’d like to show off for me?”
“Not yet.” Adagio folded the paper neatly, then hoisted the guitar off her leg and set it down against the wall. “It’s not done.”
“Oh? Branching out to songwriting already? I could help you with it, if you’d like me to.”
Adagio laughed. The sound was accompanied by a small, bashful smile. “I don’t think so, actually. It’s—it’s odd, it’s like the words are all already there. I’m just… digging them out, as it were.”
Sunset deliberately kept her smile from warping into a frown. It did not come easily. “Oh. That’s interesting.”
She didn’t want to ask anything further, so she waited until she’d convinced herself she had to.
“Does this have anything to do with that dream you had?”
“I think so, actually.” A twinkle came to Adagio’s eyes as she looked down at the paper held against her chest. “I—had another one last night. And when I woke up, I just had these—not really lyrics, I guess. They’re not quite that detailed.”
Sunset’s heart sank. She tried to nurture hope in herself, but it was like trying to burn wet wood. “Can I see what you’ve got so far? It’ll”—her chest tightened; she didn’t like the words about to escape her mouth—“be a better song in the end with two pairs of eyes on it, right?”
“I…” Adagio looked down at the paper again. The absence of the twinkle in her eye wrenched at Sunset’s heart. “Alright.” After a moment’s pause, Adagio held out the paper. “But don’t try to write any of it without me, please?”
“I won’t.” Sunset took hold of the paper.
Adagio didn’t let go—she pouted. “Promise?”
“I promise, yeah. I’ll look at it while I’m at school, and we can talk about it together tonight.”
A second ticked by, and then Adagio let go of the paper.
Sunset laid the paper out on the table, flattening it with her palms and poring over the loose, messy script penned all over it. She saw blocks of stillborn lyrics blotted out or struck through, some smudged and smeared…
It was amazing Adagio had been able to make sense of any of it. ‘Digging them out’ indeed. Most of it was as nonsensical to Sunset as she’d hoped it would all be.
Some of it was fairly coherent, though.
We heard you… Shout? Scream? Cry?
We want you
We heard you want?
Sunset swallowed, stifling a shiver. Echoes of a now-crippled singing voice whispered in her ear like ghostly serpents. Another patch of legibility beckoned to her.
Fight
Aria
War
Strife
Battle
Battle!
There was an eerie air of joy to that last word—the first time, it was scratchy, all the letters connected like Adagio had simply closed her eyes, felt her way through the word and only lifted the pen once she was done. The second iteration, though, was crisp and neat, and the exclamation point an excited, celebratory mark.
Sunset swallowed again.
“Are you sure these are the right lyrics? Some of them… I dunno, some of them just sound a bit off to me.”
Adagio pursed her lips. “I know what you mean,” she said. “But they… well, a lot of them, yes, I don’t think they sound right at all. But some of them…” She leaned forward, staring down at the paper. She had the most luminous passion on her face just then, and it would have been entrancing if only it was something different attracting her so fiercely. “They’re right. Do you see that? This one—‘battle’—I knew as soon as I’d written it, it had to be—”
“Okay, yeah. I kinda know the feeling. But…” Sunset leaned over, draped an arm around Adagio’s shoulders, and made herself smile fondly. “It just doesn’t feel you, does it? ‘Battle’ is kind of the last word I’d think of if I thought of you.”
Adagio lifted her eyes from the paper, turned to Sunset, and smirked. “And since you’re the world’s leading expert on thinking about me, I suppose I should defer to your judgment?”
Sunset chuckled, and barely had time to hear Adagio’s own laughter before the two of them were sharing a chair.
“I have had an awful lot of practice at thinking about you, you realize.”
“Only because it’s so much fun.” Adagio looped her arms around Sunset’s neck, sinking into the chair and almost tipping it backwards.
“It is!” Most of the time, Sunset couldn’t think of a thing she’d rather do. That particular moment, she almost wished she could be doing anything else.
Almost.
“So,” she said, brushing her fingers along Adagio’s cheek. “It… must’ve been quite a dream you had, if it got you thinking about that kind of thing.”
“Yes.” Adagio smiled coyly. “It was.”
Sunset’s mouth lifted into a smile. “Maybe you should tell me what it was about, then? You’re making it sound like I’m missing out on something.”
Adagio rolled her eyes at first, then kissed Sunset lightly on the cheek. “If you insist.” She resituated slightly, sliding into Sunset’s lap, leaning back against her—she cast an expectant look over her shoulder that persisted until Sunset pulled her a bit closer.
“I don’t remember much of it,” Adagio said after she’d gotten herself settled. “But… waves. Waves, sand and music.” She closed her eyes, and her breath hitched—Sunset peeked and saw pure serenity painted on Adagio’s face. “The most beautiful music I’d ever heard. The waves lapped at my ankles and crested and broke in the distance…”
There were those echoes again, slithering about in the corners of Sunset’s mind.
“… and then this… this creature rose up, out of the water. It was so beautiful, Sunset. Scales like gleaming gold, the biggest ruby I’ve ever—”
Icy dread summoned tension and demanded action.
Adagio turned and shot Sunset a not-quite-serious glare. “I didn’t realize it was that harrowing.”
Sunset blinked. What was—
“I have—” A nervous chuckle leapt out of her mouth; she realized her suddenly-tightened grip on Adagio’s shoulders for the first time, and quickly loosened it. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She was met with a theatrical eye roll and a pointed huff. “Honestly, Sunset. Here I am, spilling my guts about being serenaded by a sea creature, and you—”
“Sorry,” Sunset blurted. She clamped her lips shut, breathed deeply. “Sorry,” she said. “You can keep going, if you’d like.”
“Well…” Adagio kept up her indignancy for another second or two, and then it all collapsed into lilting giggles as she turned around and leaned into Sunset’s chest. “It’s just a dream, right?”
“Y—yeah.” Sunset hoped the dread stayed in her chest and never made it to her face. “Yeah, just a dream.” She looked over to the paper on the table, then caressed Adagio’s face gently. “Hey, so… I think that’s enough songwriting for tonight. Maybe we can try writing a better one tomorrow?”
Adagio glanced at the paper, just briefly—the wistfulness that flashed across her face was a terrifying thing, and that it didn’t quite relent, even worse. “Yeah,” Adagio said, sinking down and resting her head on Sunset’s shoulder. Had her eyes not drifted back to the paper, she’d have been the image of contentment. “I’d… like that.”
Sunset half-expected to find Adagio with the guitar out again when she got back—the sight of her instead seated at the table with a laptop in front of her and pen and paper beside it was… not the most comforting of sights, but neither was it the worst.
“Hey,” she said as she pulled off her backpack, set it down and made her way over. “How was your day?”
Adagio didn’t look at her right away; when she did, it was a quick glance with only a slight smile, but then she closed the laptop and faced Sunset head-on. “Quite odd, actually.”
It was an arduous endeavor to stay calm when she said that. But Sunset did. Everything would be fine. She’d kept the things that might make Adagio remember away from her. Nothing would—
“Sunset, does… does the word ‘Equestria’ mean anything to you?”
No.
No, that had not just happened.
Surely, it couldn’t have—Sunset was staring, she realized with a splutter. “I beg your pardon?”
Adagio glanced at her paper again. The notes Sunset saw on it were far too neat to be more lyrics, but that didn’t help much. “ ‘Equestria.’ What does it mean?”
“I—I don’t…” Sunset choked back a lie; she was better than that now. But what could she say? “It’s a—it’s a place.” Brilliant choice.
“It did sound like one.” Adagio quirked her lips, and looked to the computer. “And yet I couldn’t find it on any map.”
“No. No, you—” Change topics. Anything else would be better. Sunset leaned against the wall, keeping her posture relaxed and affecting calmness, to the best of her capability. “Where’d you hear about it?”
“A frequent customer of mine.” What? Who in the world could have—? “We were chatting, I told her about my dream”—Why would you do that?—“and she told me that word and said I should ask you about it.”
“Someone told you to—” Sunset banished the calm from her face. “Adagio, I need you to tell me who told you that. It’s important.”
Adagio’s brow furrowed. The worry on her face, palpable as it was, was far from pleasant to watch. “I’d told her about you before, and you about her, but I didn’t think you’d met. Do you know a Shadow Spade?”
“I don’t think I—what does she look like?”
Adagio fished her phone out her pocket, stealing another worried glance at Sunset before pulling up a picture and holding the phone up. “Like this.”
The second Sunset saw the picture, her blood ran cold. Ivory skin, silky violet hair—Rarity. There she was, beaming alongside Adagio, both of them holding up what must have been freshly-manicured nails.
Sunset’s grip clenched. What’re you doing, Rarity? I thought I told you to—
“Sunset?” Adagio stood up, brow furrowing as she stepped closer. “What’s going on?”
No time to panic. Sunset looked to Adagio. She was so innocent in her confusion, and happy memories of gentle hugs and melodic laughter came prancing into Sunset’s head.
Deep breaths. She needed clarity, and caution. For both their sakes. Sunset went up to Adagio and held her gently by the shoulders. “Okay, Adagio, look—” She hoped her voice was gentle; it was guidance Adagio needed, not orders. “You need to stay away from… Shadow Spade. It sounds bad, but really, it’ll be better for both of us if you stop talking to her.”
“What? Sunset, I don’t understand.”
“I know. I know, you don’t and I’m sorry. But I do. If you don’t understand, then at least… please, just trust me. Can you do that for me?”
“I—” Adagio’s mouth hung open for one agonizing second; her eyes hinted at words that were swallowed instead of spoken, and then she gave a small nod. “I want to.”
“Good. I’m sorry. This must be awfully confusing for you. But, right now, the best thing you can do is forget that this happened.”
Something flickered through Adagio’s eyes. She seemed to mouth the word ‘forget,’ and that made Sunset bite back a curse.
“Who is she?” Adagio’s voice wavered, just slightly, as she locked eyes with Sunset. “Shadow Spade. You recognized her face, so you’ve met her, but not the name, so she’s hiding from you.”
Again there was that nagging thought that it would be easier to lie. “It’s… complicated. I told her to stay away from you.” They’d agreed on it, at the time—Rarity’s reluctance had been clear, and she was not the only one to show it, but they had all agreed to let the one with magical experience handle it.
It was rather like Rarity to covertly keep an eye on Adagio, though, and she’d presumably meant well—a matter for another time, then.
“Why?”
“I can’t say. I’m sorry.” As soon as those last two words left Sunset’s mouth, Adagio looked away. A sigh fell out of her lips. Sunset winced from the sting it carried, and reached up to Adagio’s face, cupping her cheek and nudging until they looked at each other again. “It’s not what you want to hear, I know. I understand.”
Adagio blinked. She drew in a breath, and her eyes turned soft and silently pleading. “I need something, Sunset. Just… something.” Adagio pulled Sunset’s hand off her face, then wrapped her fingers around it and squeezed it gently. “If you want me to trust you, show me that you can trust me as well.”
“Okay.” Sunset hesitated for a moment, then pulled Adagio in for a hug. Adagio reciprocated—not enthusiastically, perhaps, but without fuss. Good. “I’ll… tell you what I can.”
She broke away and took both Adagio’s hands in hers. “Let’s sit down and talk about this.”
There was little in the way of understanding to be found on Adagio’s face, but she nodded just the same.
“Alright,” Sunset said, clasping her hands together, resting them on the table and looking across at Adagio. “You don’t remember much before meeting me, do you?”
It had been a strange moment, that meeting—Sunset distinctly remembered the way surprise and fear had swirled seamlessly into measured concern. But she also remembered cozy nights that made it all worth it.
Adagio gave a small nod. “That’s right. Hardly anything.”
Sunset nodded, and felt the corners of her mouth lifting. If Adagio had connected the dreams with her missing memories, she concealed her understanding well, and what reason would she have to do that?
Things were going to be fine, then. “Shadow Spade…” Sunset bit her lip, then erred on the side of trust. “Rarity. Her real name’s Rarity. You’ve been talking to her often?”
“She’s a regular customer. And one of the most talkative.” Adagio glanced down, wringing her hands just barely below the table. “One of… one of my favorites,” she murmured before quickly lifting her eyes to Sunset’s. “What’s she done that’s—”
“She knew you.”
Three words transformed Adagio. Anxious mumbles and concerned, fretting eyes shifted into a gaping mouth and sharply static posture. “She… she—” Adagio shook her head, eventually tearing her eyes away and letting them fall to the floor. “All that time, and she never…” The face that came next was one that looked like it could either hurl out a scream or burst into tears. The question—“Why?”—was unspoken, but the pain it brought far from invisible.
And hardly unique to Adagio. A faint tightness came to Sunset’s chest. She leaned forward, desperate to reach out, to give Adagio the closeness, the trust, the warm embrace that had shaped her own life into something beautiful. “It’s hard. I know it is.”
Adagio snapped her attention back to Sunset with a jerk of her head. Her mouth hung open for a moment. “But… Sunset, I’m…” She came to an inelegant, stumbling pause, seemingly grappling for the right words. “I don’t understand. If she knows… knows who I am, then why are you telling me I shouldn’t—?”
Sunset had been dreading giving the answer to that question. She breathed, deeply, and sifted through the tangle of words in her head for just the right ones.
She’d had to answer it once before, in a way. Not when Adagio asked it, though—and Rarity’s actions showed the answer she’d given back then hadn’t been as persuasive as she’d hoped it was.
“Adagio, you… you have to realize…” Sunset looked at the beautiful girl across the table from her and let her heart take over for a moment. “You’re a fantastic person. You’re a joy to be around, and you’re clever and charming and passionate and just all these wonderful things.” She saw a small smile slowly blooming on Adagio’s face, and she let that little ray of sunshine encourage her. “And you know I only want what’s best for you, right?”
A nod came quickly. Quickly enough that the frown that followed wasn’t too harrowing. “I—I do. But—”
“Then listen to me. I know this better than most: not every past is one worth bringing back.”
What Sunset said slid off her tongue easily. It was what she didn’t say, what she couldn’t bring herself to say out loud, that made her heart churn, because there wasn’t any way around admitting it anyway.
It only took a moment for Adagio to realize it. The look that she wore after that moment would have been at home in one of Sunset’s nightmares.
“Did…” There was still a sliver of hope in Adagio’s eyes, and it just made it worse. “Did you know me too?”
It took Sunset a moment to nod—her eyes glued themselves to the table. “It sounds bad, I know. But I can—”
“Sunset, just…” Desperation saturated Adagio’s voice. “Please, just tell me that this makes sense. Tell me why you did all this, and… and just make it make sense.”
Sunset looked up just in time to see pleading eyes meeting hers, accompanied by a slow, sad shaking of Adagio’s head.
“I will,” Sunset said. “I promise.” She slowly reached out, resting her forearm on the table with her palm turned upwards.
Adagio looked down at Sunset’s hand, eventually laid her own on top of it, and let her dainty fingers be wrapped by Sunset’s hands. She looked ready to cry.
Sunset swallowed. It was going to be a difficult talk. But that was why she had to do it. “Before you met me—met me again, I guess—you were in a really awful, dark, miserable place. And I know how that feels, because I’ve been in one too.” She paused, filled her head with dreams of pure, innocent Adagio laughing. “But you’re not in one now. We’ve both come out of those places, and that’s been the best part of each of our lives. So… I did what I did because every time I see you being happy, I know that I can’t let anything drag you back to where you used to be.”
Adagio blinked. Her expression was neutral, but more vacant than calm. “But…” Her lips moved slowly, absent-mindedly. “What past could be so awful that just knowing about it is too much?” she whispered.
“I… don’t have a problem with you knowing about it.” Sunset swallowed—she pictured cackles and manic grins from the past, and fought to beat those images aside. “But you were so very different back then. A whole other person, really. And it’s better for both of us—for everyone—that that person stays in the past. There isn’t a better second chance than the one you’ve been given.”
“What did I need a second chance for?” There was a crack in Adagio’s voice.
“You were…” Sunset made herself smile. “It doesn’t sound right to say any of it. It’s… so out of date. But you did some bad things. You were cruel, and vain, and… dangerous.”
“I was bad?”
“... Very bad. But you’re a better person now. So much better.”
“So you…” Adagio shook her head, slowly. Her eyes started to well up. “You—what—rewrote me?”
Sunset’s blood ran cold. She realized the tightening of her grip too late, and watched Adagio’s hand slip away. “L—look. Adagio, I can—”
“I—I don’t—” Adagio shook her head again. Then she stood up. Then she turned away.
“Wha—where are you—?” Sunset all but flew out of her chair and around the table. “Adagio, where are you going?”
“I don’t know. I—I can’t—” Adagio stole a look back at Sunset; a glistening tear dripped down her cheek.
“Okay, I—Adagio, please—” Sunset stepped forward, gently gripping Adagio’s shoulders. Her heart pounded in her chest, and heat bloomed in her face. “It hurts. I know, and I’m sorry. But I want what’s best for you, I really do.”
Adagio looked at her. Another tear fell from her eye.
“Just give me one more chance,” Sunset said. “We can make this work. I know we can. We’ve both been through so much already, I— I know that this doesn’t have to…”
That was about as much as she managed before her words turned to a mash of scattered syllables, half-formed pleads spilling out her mouth like she’d cut a sack of guilt.
Somehow, though, it all ended with her arms around Adagio’s shoulders and Adagio’s quietly weeping face pressed against her.
“Alright,” Sunset said, leaning forward in her chair and clasping her hands. “Are you ready to talk?”
Adagio sipped from her teacup, swallowing slowly. She wasn’t shaking as much anymore, and her face was dry, but her eyes were still red and puffy. She looked exhausted and miserable.
Poor thing. “We can wait, if you’d like.” Ideally, they’d wake up tomorrow and move on like it had never happened, but Sunset didn’t see that happening at all.
“No,” Adagio murmured. “No, I need to know now.”
“Alright. What I said before… sounded wrong. I should’ve realized that. I wanted you to be the best that you could be. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you, and I hope you realize that.”
“I—I do.” Adagio gave a shaky nod. But then one of her hands peeled off of her cup, slipped into her pocket, and plucked out a folded piece of paper that unfurled to reveal dreadful lyrics. “That song I heard, that creature I saw in my dream…” She drained her cup, set it aside, and turned her eyes—her quietly mournful eyes—towards Sunset’s. “They’re from my past, aren’t they?”
“Yeah.” Sunset looked over to the corner, where her guitar was still leaning in its case against the wall. “When you were working on that song, I was worried that music would drudge up more of your past.”
“I see. But Sunset, that creature I saw…” Adagio blinked slowly, and then the corners of her mouth crept up until she wore a smile only slightly less sad than her eyes. She shook her head, set her cup down and held the paper with both hands. “She was beautiful. She was so beautiful. And so passionate, and so driven, and… and I felt some of that. I thought of that song and just knew that I’d pluck those strings until I’d worn my fingers to the bone if that was what it took to make it real.”
Adagio held up one of her hands, splaying out her slender fingers and spreading her glossy purple nails. “How could someone like that be satisfied painting nails every day?”
“You were… definitely ambitious. You set your sights on making the world adore you, and I don’t think you would have settled for anything less. I can see why you’d want some of that back. But—” Sunset scooted her chair closer, leaned forward and reached to gently grip the paper “—there is nothing wrong with the life you have right now. And I don’t want you to lose any of it.”
Gently but insistently, she pulled the paper out of Adagio’s hands. She folded it carefully but quickly, then set it aside.
Adagio hardly reacted. Her brow creased, ever so slightly, but she stayed silent.
Sunset shuffled a bit closer, laying her hands on Adagio’s. “I know it’s a lot to take in. But I don’t want any of this to stop you from being happy.” She swallowed, reaching up to cup Adagio’s cheek. “Tomorrow’s the weekend. You don’t have work, and I don’t have school. So let’s just… be together. None of all this has to come into it. That… that sounds good, right?” She sounded more desperate than she would’ve thought she was, but that felt honest of her.
Adagio was quiet for a moment. She reached up, hesitantly, and touched the hand on her face. Her fingers were light and flighty, their touch little more than an anxious breeze on Sunset’s skin.
The longing, the sense of wistfulness in Adagio’s eyes, was as palpable as her shock. She looked confused, hurt and desperate.
“Come here,” Sunset said. Let me take all that away.
Sunset awoke awash in a slurry of lazy delights: soft pillows cradling her head, a corona of sunlight dancing just barely out the corner of her eye, the absence of an alarm clock’s harsh call, and an ocean of beautifully disarrayed curly golden hair.
Greedily, but carefully, she pulled Adagio closer, and let the blissful mundanity of the morning melt the minutes away.
Everything was going to be fine.
After too little of that quiet, domestic stillness, Sunset heard a long sigh, and a gentle stir made strands of curly hair tickle her hands. She smiled.
“Are you awake?” she whispered.
Nothing happened at first, but then there was a yawn and a rustle of fabric as Adagio’s shifting and stretching jostled the covers. Then Adagio started to sit up, so Sunset did too, keeping her companion close with an arm draped over her shoulders.
“We should stay in today. Just relax for a while. Take the weekend off,” Sunset said, leaning against the headboard… frowning slightly. Adagio didn’t look at her right away, just stared forward and rubbed at her eyes, hiding her face behind her dangling locks.
She must have been imagining things, though. Adagio faced her after only a moment, and when she did her face was as lovely as ever and her small, sleepy smile a mote of radiance.
Sunset thought about saying more. Asking how Adagio felt, whether she’d thought any more about their talk last night… whether she’d dreamed again, that last night.
In the end, though, there were sweeter things to be done with her lips, and Adagio seemed to agree.
Things were normal again. None of that chilling dread of the last night. Just warmth, closeness… love…
It was a good morning. Just about perfect for them, especially after what had happened the night before.
The afternoon quickly took a turn for the lazy. They’d each had a turn in the shower, and then a little while later ended up on the couch. Sunset’s arm kept a curled-up Adagio close to her side while the television in front of them did its thing. Except for the ambient drone of minutes being worn away, they resided in a warm, comfortable silence.
Just what we needed, Sunset thought, idly petting Adagio’s hair and smiling fondly. Adagio looked up at her only briefly, not speaking a word as she sunk into Sunset’s side.
Somewhere down the line, the buzz of a vibrating phone jolted them from their reverie.
Adagio murmured a quiet apology before carefully slipping out from under Sunset’s arm and hurrying over to her phone, which was plugged in and resting on the dinner table. Sunset watched her pick it up, then let her attention drift for a moment as she sought the television remote, pressed the power button, then frowned when Adagio’s phone buzzed again.
She looked over to see Adagio standing still, back turned.
“S—sorry,” Adagio mumbled, stealing a quick glance over her shoulder before fussing with her phone. “Just a moment, I’ll be right over.”
“Sure.” Sunset got herself settled. “Who is it?” The question slipped out almost automatically.
Nothing happened for a moment. Adagio didn’t say anything, and she still stood in place, holding her phone. Eventually, it buzzed again.
Sunset tilted her head. “Who’re you talking to?” she asked, slightly louder this time.
Adagio spun to face her with a start. “O—oh,” she gasped, laughing nervously. “Oh, it was… just, um, someone from—” She trailed off into a long sigh, wrapping her arms around herself, shaking her head slowly, then putting her phone—which buzzed yet again—on the table and looking to Sunset.
“Someone from work?” Sunset sat a little straighter. “It’s not important, is it?”
“N—no. Well…” Adagio waved her hand. “I’ll tell you about it later.”
Sunset stopped her eyebrow from arching. Adagio didn’t always like talking about work at home. Everything was fine. Fine and normal. “Alright, then,” she said with a smile, starting to sink back into the couch. “Ready to—?”
The sound of Adagio’s voice drew Sunset’s gaze upwards. “Actually, if—” Adagio bit her lip, wringing her hands. Her eyes flicked, and dipped lower than Sunset’s. “If we’re taking a break anyway, there was something I wanted to ask you.”
Sunset looked at Adagio for a moment. A breath, a smile, a pat on the couch. “Sure. What’s on your mind?”
Adagio stayed where she stood. A subtle twist of her head made her hair dangle and partially obscure her face. “A word,” she said.
“Oh?” Sunset shifted slightly, facing Adagio directly.
“Yeah. ‘Aria.’ ”
A shiver ran through Sunset’s spine, leaving a trail of tension.
“I wrote it down, the other day. I—I didn’t know why. I thought ‘strife’ one moment, ‘fight’ another, and ‘Aria’ in between.”
Sunset opened her mouth, knowing what she was going to say; the topic was a dangerous one, she knew. The best thing, for both of them, was for the conversation to end there.
But a shift in Adagio’s posture revealed more of her face, and it gave Sunset pause. She looked… a lot of things. Small, for one, withdrawn as she was. Anxious, for another. She looked confused and frightened and ready to cry, and the suddenness of it all brought Sunset’s train of thought to a screeching halt.
It was a horrible sight. Something inside Sunset wrenched, some feeling twisted and stung and pained her every second Adagio looked so distraught.
It must have been scary for her. All those strange things happening, all those dreams, all those moments she had to trust that things would be okay if she listened…
“Hey. Adagio, it’s okay.” Sunset stood up, slowly walking towards Adagio. “It’s…” She bit back a lie—calling it ‘nothing’ wouldn’t be honest. “It’s just a word, right?”
Adagio looked at her. Right at her, right at her face. “But why would I think it?” Her voice cracked. “It’s nothing like the others. Of all the words I could have thought of, why that one?”
“I’m not sure,” Sunset said—it was a struggle not to wince afterwards. The truth could only be stretched so much before it turned to deceit. Dammit, I must be more flustered than I thought.
She stepped closer and held Adagio by the shoulders. “But it’s fine. It’s just a word. It can’t—”
Adagio squeezed her eyes shut. She looked away, and a small, silently damning bead of water rolled down her cheek. “Sunset,” she whispered, in a low, fearful murmur, “I know who Aria is, and—”
Sunset’s world froze.
“—and I know that you do too.”
Eloquence became a distant, untouchable dream.
Adagio shrugged out of Sunset’s grip, then snatched up her phone with a shuddering hand and slipped past.
Sunset stood still, briefly petrified, then whirled on the spot and, miraculously, managed something more coherent than a rambling babble. “Adagio, I—I can—just give me a chance to—”
Adagio halted and peered at Sunset. Another tear pooled in her eye and started to fall; the expression on her face was a whorl of sadness and anger. “I just did. You didn’t take it.” Her voice wasn’t exactly harsh. It was neither cold nor venomous. Or it wouldn’t have been, but it was so far removed from the tender lilt Sunset loved that she barely recognized it.
“Alright. You’re angry, I get it.” Sunset trailed off into a spluttering mishmash of words, only laboriously collecting herself. “But you have to understand—”
“What, Sunset? What is there to understand here?” Adagio swallowed; one of her hands clenched tightly by her side, while the other one snaked upwards, groping naked skin where there had once been a ruby. “I dreamed again, last night. They were there, both of them. By my side, singing with me. They’ve been with me longer than you’ve been alive.” She glanced briefly at her phone, before turning her furious, miserable, accusatory eyes towards Sunset. “And yet you said nothing, when one of their names was staring you right in the face. Why was Rarity the one to tell me you knew who that was?”
Sunset hadn’t thought it could get any worse; the mention of Rarity’s name set her veins alight. Rarity’s face appeared in her mind, and it made her bite back a curse and quickly wrench the beginning of a scowl back towards calmness.
“Okay,” she said. “I can see why you’re upset. I understand.” She grit her teeth. “But I don’t want you doing anything reckless.”
Adagio looked towards the front door, then whipped her head back to Sunset and folded her arms. “Reckless,” she murmured under her breath, before shaking her head. “What’s so reckless about looking for my family?”
“You don’t know what you might find if you go looking.” Sunset stepped closer. Her instinctual response was a viscerally angry one—everything would’ve been fine if Rarity had done what they’d agreed had to be done and kept her distance from Adagio. “Maybe they’re like you, on track for a better life. Maybe they’re still exactly the same as they were.
“If they are, they’re the worst kind of people you could be around right now. You are in a fantastic place, and I don’t want to see someone take that away from you.”
She wasn’t sure what kind of reaction she’d been hoping for. Acceptance would have been ideal, of course. Elation would have been sublime, but quiet—timid, even—recognition, perfectly suitable.
What she got was a turned back.
“I know,” Adagio said. “You want what’s best for me. You’ve said that before. But how do you know what that is?”
“I’ve been where you were,” Sunset said. “Believe me, you want to be as far away from that as you can be.”
Silence hung in the air for a moment.
“But you haven’t.”
Sunset’s brow furrowed. Something hot and volatile writhed in her heart. “I was very much like you, once.”
“Maybe. But you were alone. I never was. We were awful people. But they were there. They were always there. That’s love, Sunset.”
Sunset wished all the feelings she felt were the fault of something tangible that she could punch. Sincerity was something she had to grapple and struggle for. “And you have that. Right now, if you stay right here, you will keep it.”
Another long silence.
“Sunset… if they’re out there and… and they’re not like me, then…” Adagio’s voice shook with a tragic crack “…what do you think is going through their heads every day they don’t see me?”
“I don’t know.”
“They don’t either, do they? I dreamed of their love, Sunset. When I woke up this morning, I couldn’t feel it anymore and it was like the world had turned grey.” Adagio turned a tearful face back to Sunset. “If they’re grieving for me, I have to find them.”
“Alright. But what if they don’t remember you at all?”
“ ‘What if they don’t—’ How do you think that’d be any better? If they’re very lucky, they might remember better than I did where they live. If not…” Adagio rubbed a few tears away from her gloomy face. “Two attractive young girls alone in a city they don’t know?” Her voice lowered to a cracked hiss. “There’s food and shelter in prison, if they’re lucky enough to end up there.”
“What? What’re you—?” Sunset pressed her fingers to her temple. How had things gone so wrong so quickly? “Okay. Okay, look. We—we can work this out—” the words crumbled in her head as soon as she heard the weakness in her voice when she spoke them “—just not right now. We’re both—we’re both upset and—”
“No.” Adagio shuddered, hesitating to meet Sunset’s eyes for a moment. “I don’t—I can’t—” She shook again.
“What? You can’t what?” Sunset stepped closer, tensing when Adagio flinched away from her.
“I can’t wait.” Adagio stepped away, suddenly eying the front door. “If I wait, I might calm down, and I don’t think I can face you without being angry.”
The words alone would’ve been a shock. The small, panicked look and the anxious darting of Adagio’s eyes amplified it and quickened Sunset’s pulse. “You’re afraid of me?” she thought out loud. Fervent protests echoed in her head: How could she do that?
Adagio just flinched again. If that could be called a betrayal at all, it was a quiet, understated one.
“You overrule me,” Adagio said, eventually. “I say what I want, and then we do what you want. How often have we done that, these last few days?”
“I’ve only wanted to help you.” The gap separating Sunset from Adagio narrowed. “Everything I’ve done since I found you was what I thought you needed.”
“ ‘What you thought’, yes.” Adagio retreated. “Have you ever not thought you knew best?”
“But I've been there before! I have the experience!” Sunset jabbed an index finger towards Adagio. “I do know better than you, because it's all new to you. So I have to make the final decisions, because it's me who has all the facts.”
Adagio’s eyes flung wide. She shook her head and stumbling, furious words poured out of her. “Because you never gave them to anyone else. Why was that your choice to make?” She stepped back again, shuddering, one trembling hand balling into a fist by her side. “I would never have consented to this. Not now, and—and not then.”
Sunset’s brow furrowed. She pushed out an angry sigh as her fingers mashed into her temple. “That is so not the right word. I never—”
“ ‘Consent’? It is exactly the right word! You keep me here, you block me from talking to my friends and my family, you mold me into just what you want me to be, and you lie to me so I'll keep sharing your bed!”
Sunset’s eyes went wide. That wasn’t right. It wasn’t, it couldn’t have been! She’d meant well, she’d done what she thought was best…
Why, then? Why did she feel so awful when Adagio spoke to her like that? Why did that accusation, so bent and deceptive, feel like a twisting knife in her heart?
She was right. She was good—she was a good person. A better person.
And yet the person she’d tried to help was walking away from her. Walking away, turning her back. The doorknob rotated, the door cracked open—
Sunset moved.
The hard, heavy wood of the door stung when her shoulder connected. The door slammed shut. Sunset stepped back, hurriedly, shaking her head. Streams of curses turned inwards ran rampant in her head as she whirled.
Adagio had recoiled. Hard, and fast. She’d stumbled backwards, and now lay sprawled on the floor, one hand lifted as if to shield herself, eyes wide and panicked.
Sunset stared. Her heart hammered away in her chest.
The first sound to come out of her mouth was a curt, strangled gasp. An apology, perhaps, choked to silence before it ever existed.
She stared some more. Adagio looked up at her, chest heaving; the anger had been stricken from her face, but her still-damp cheeks glistened softly.
When Sunset finally spoke, it was a beg. A plea, desperate but wretched to her ears. “Please don’t do this. I don’t want you to.”
Adagio stood slowly, cautiously and tensely. She stared at the doorknob. “I know,” she murmured. “But I do.”
A moment passed. Adagio finally moved forward, slipping past Sunset to the door, yanking it open hurriedly, and pulling it sharply shut when she stepped outside.
Sunset fell down on her bed after she’d finally dragged herself back to it. She slumped against the headboard, staring at the ceiling and letting her hands fall dejectedly in her lap.
The questions from before ran through her head in an endless loop, stubbornly denying her the formless enlightenment she craved.
The past was a tapestry of mystery to her, a twisted bramble of good, righteous paths that had somehow led to an agonizing destination.
Or so she thought, for a little while.
Adagio’s face haunted her. The panicked stare, the fear in those eyes…
She’d been wrong. That image was irrefutable. She’d done something bad.
That thought reflected darkly, turning anger and grief inwards. Why, though? Why was it such a bad thing?
No answers came. Not for a long time. Eventually, though, one did: she didn't know how, but it had led to a bad place. Maybe in time she could figure out the whys of it, but for now the results were impossible to argue with.
The intentions behind it all, the morals that had guided her, they didn’t soothe any of the pain, did they? They existed only in her head—her actions were what had done the damage.
It was that thought that brightened the recollection of the slamming front door with an odd sense of relief, that revelation that urged her to hope, to turn wishful thoughts on herself and the women she’d wronged.