Great.

Just... great. Two seconds in and I insulted him. Octi had told her relationships with others was like trading. Give as much as you receive and she had been given a chance.

Okay. Gotta swallow my attitude and make this right.

“Uh, Shining? Thank you for, you know, giving me a chance. It means alot to me. You as well, princess. With all the damage Chrysalis caused for you, I think I can understand your reaction. I finally cooled off after ranting at Spike for a bit. Oh, also - Shining, that comment of mine before? My bad. Completely uncalled for.” She cleared her throat. “Wow, this is awkward, I suck at this. Talking to others is not my forte.”

“Indeed.” Spike piped up, spurring a fit of laughter from them all. “Anyway I’m gonna get a calzone, Melody wants nachos...” A devious grin graced his lips and he tap his fingertips together. “Best decide quickly before Melody eats somepony.”

“Hey!?!” She exclaimed. “I wouldn’t do that, I’d eat the snarky dragon first.”

“Hmm, I wonder if I’m spicy?”Spike replied. “You know, what with the fire and all.”

Melody groaned at the horrible joke. Facepalming, she replied. “More like stale.”

The undecided diners at the table retrieved their menus and began to study them. Melody yawned, resting her head in her arms and onto the table. She yawned again before turning her head to the side to catch a drink from her straw.

“Tired?” Spike asked innocently before taking a swig of his soda.

She looked up, mischief gleamed in her eyes. “Well, a certain purple dragon kept me up all night after buying me dinner. But I do admit you are kinda like a teddy bear, warm and cuddly except you have strong arms.”

Spike coughed and sputtered, choking on his drink. He turned as red as he could through purple scales - a rather pretty maroon color. Shining and Cadence stared at him with brows raise in unspoken question.

“It’s... not... what... you... think.” He choked out.

“It’s not?” Melody smiled like an angel, driving more nails into Spike’s coffin. “Funny, since the conductor was sure you were my coltfriend.” Spike’s cheeks turned maroon.

Amused, Shining intently watched the two bicker like foals. He silently chuckled as Spike attempted to squirm his way out of the hot seat Melody had figuratively placed him in. She was clever, he could easily give her that. Creating a new identity and hiding in plain sight. A genius, she was.

“Sir?” His focus broken, his mind cleared away his thoughts about Melody. Slightly embarrassed, he gave the waitress his attention.

“My apologies, miss.”

“May I take your order?” Shining fumbled with the menu he was holding. He had been so busy watching Spike and Melody taunt each other he had completely neglected choosing a meal. Quickly sliding down the list he picked a entre he liked.

“Potato soup and salad with honey mustard dressing, please.”

“Anything to drink?” She asked, writing down the last order in her notebook.

“Pega-Cola.”

“Thank you.” She collected the menus. “I’ll have your orders shortly.” She left with a smile. Melody sat up, stretching her arms behind her head. She twisted, her core enjoying the feeling of her joints pop. Her face contorted slightly with each stretch. “Ahhh, this feels good...” She sighed before yawning and rubbing her eyes.

Shining wondered about her eyes. What was wrong with her eyes and why did they bother him so much? It dawned on him. The pupil was different, that was it. “Melody may I ask question?”

Melody shrugged. “Ask away.”

“Your eyes have changed. Any reason why?”

Melody arched her back to reach into her pocket. Pulling out a small plastic case, she set it down on the table. “Forgot to put my contacts back in.” A pink glow enveloped the case, first opening it then suspended 2 contact lenses and a small white bottle in the air. She held her eyelids open while the bottle deposited several drops in her eye. Following that was the lenses firmly securing themselves to her eyes. She blinked several times and shining was shocked. “You have the same color aura as me.”

“Huh?” She said not really paying attention to him as she placed the bottle back in the case and case in her pocket.

“You magical aura.” He levitated her glass. “It’s the same color as mine.”

“Oh... Yeah, I guess it is.” She chuckled. “I can’t believe I forgot my contacts. Wonder how many ponies I freaked out with my eyes.” Spike’s cocky little grin did not go unnoticed. She could not place why, but his face was magnetic.

Wow, is his smile amazing... Oh, for the love of all that is holy, stop it, brain!

Spike jumped. “Ouch!” He pulled his leg up onto the seat nursing his wounded shin. ”And what was that for?”

“The smug look.” Melody threw him a evil smile.

“That hurt, you know.”

“Doubt it. If I didn’t wear steel toe boots I’d have bruised toes. .” Melody shrugged.

Spike began to pose, first flexing his arms then his core. Well-toned muscles rippled under his scales. “What can I say - I’m well built.”

A puzzled look passed over Cadence's face. “Why wear a disguise, can’t you just change your form?.”

“Well I can, but I can’t.” Melody leaned on the table twirling a lock of hair as she continued the explanation. “Spell casting, shape shifting, and the normal day-to-day functions of my body all pull from the same pool of energy. Normal changelings are forced to feed off of emotions to replace this pool. Ponies, I believe, usually refer to it as mana. Well emotions are heavily tied to magic.”

“And that’s why Twilight explodes into flames when she is really angry or frustrated.” Spike interrupted, laughing at the mental image of the alicorn with flaming mane and tail.

“Yeah, Any I’m only a half-ling, so I produce some mana. Enough to where I don’t need to feed, which is nice, but usually not much more than that. Little bit of telekinesis on anything not too heavy I’m ok. Anything else and I pass out after a few seconds.”

Cadence satisfied with the answer asked another. “I see, you mentioned how emotions are tied to magic. Can you use other emotions other than love.”

“Love is the most potent source, but yeah, it works with all emotions at varying levels of effectiveness. But..” She paused at that, frowning uncertainly.

“But what?” Cadence asked, curious at her hesitation.

Melody unconsciously began to scratch the base of her horn. “Negative emotions tend to have bad after effects. I unfortunately know this is true for a fact.”

Shining took notice to her last sentence, fear ran rampant. “And how do you know that for a fact? Did you feed off somepony?” Shining said with disgust before realizing his error. “Uhh, that came out wrong.”

Melody sighed again putting his outburst aside. “I did, but I had good reason to.”

“Wait,” Shining said remembering something from earlier. “Does it have anything to do with those newspaper cutouts in your journal?”

She looked at Shining. Went to say something stopped. She took a moment to stare at him with a “I can’t believe you” expression before finally gathering enough wits to talk again.

“You. Read. My. Journal?” She ground out, emphasizing each word. Shining shuffled nervously and it dawned on her. “How many others?” She asked intensely remembering how she had basically poured her soul on to those pages. The small book a moment of comfort for in her lower moments. Shining stared at her hesitating. “Shining?”

Finally the stallion spoke two simple words. “A lot.”

Melody lean back in the seat and closed her eyes. She took several deep breaths before finally biting her lip. “Buck it, price to pay.”

“Refills anyone?”

Melody turn to the waitress and moved her empty cup towards her. “Yes, please.” The waitress took their glasses returning a moment later with them refilled.

“Here you are.” She said with a smile.

They thanked her and continued with their conversation.

“I fed off a young stallion to save his life. Vinyl managed to get me to go with her to a club she worked at one night. I do admit it was fun but after a while all the lighting really bothered my eyes.”

She tilted her head back looking up to the light fixture above them. A green flash reflected from her eyes.

“Like dragons and griffins we have a reflective layer in our eyes for night vision. The constant strobes were irritating. I told Vinyl my eyes were hurting and that I’d see her later. I'm pretty sure it was around one when I left. It was such a pretty night too, the moon was in full and the weather was perfect for a walk. It was a nice and quiet walk as well since very few others were out on the streets at the time. I stopped I heard what I thought was a cry for help coming from the alleyway to me left. At first I hesitated to investigate. The fear coming from the alleyway overwhelming.”

“Fear?” Cadence interrupted.

“I’ll explain that next.”

“Oh, my apologies.”

Leaning up against a dumpster I found a badly injured young stallion. I mean really bad, like blood everywhere.” She visibly shivered. “He just looked up to up to me pleading with his eyes. I didn’t …. just didn’t know what to do. He was hanging on by a thread. I had no time, no where near enough energy to help him, and no one else close enough to help either.” She stopped.

“Then I saw the fear in his eyes and I made a decision. I used his fear of dying to fuel a healing spell I knew. It wasn't much but it was enough to stop the bleeding. I picked him up with my telekinesis next and began to carry him to a hospital. Luckily I ran into a couple guards who flew us there. I was questioned and eventually let go.”

She paused for a moment before laughing a bit. “I should of told the guards not to tell him who I was. He turned out to be a young noble named Lightning Spellworth and afterwards he wouldn't quit pestering me to go out with him. I mean, he was quite persistent to. Flowers, gifts, chocolate, you name it. Kept calling me his guardian angel, too.

She leaned back, rubbing her eyes and chuckling.

“Hmm, I went through training with a Spellworth. I believe his first name was Blizzard.” Shining pondered. Spike was a bit confused. Her story was interesting but the mention of a stallion asking her out bothered him to no end. Sure, she was pretty special but he literally met her yesterday. His mind was in turmoil as he did his best to keep listening.

“Anyway,” She continued. “A couple days later I was hit with a high fever and inflammation in my skin near my horn. Lasted for around a week.” She scratch her head from the memory. “It was really horrible. Fever made me achy and tired and the itching would not stop. The clipping was kept as a memento. A reminder that even I, you know, can do some good.”

Melody looked over to Spike his odd behavior catching her attention. “You alright, Spike?”

He looked at her, shaking off whatever was bothering him. “Umm... Yeah. Just thinking, you know.” About you, he wanted to say but he let her continue.

A large grin covered her face. “And our food is about to arrive.” She said, pointing to the waitress from earlier. She carried several trays and was followed by another waiter carrying one large tray and a stand. Meals were quickly passed out to the eager recipients.

Melody took a moment to look in awe at the glorious mountain of nachos before her. Stacked around a foot high was a hurricane of flavors spread over an impressive display of corn chips. Cheese, hay bacon, olives, peppers, tomatoes, and sour cream were just a few of the delicious entities laying on the plate. More time could have been taken to identify more but the starving mare was not one to wait.
Voraciously, she attacked the poor entree with glee. Cadence watched in abject horror as the young mare devoured the unhealthy meal. With the initial shock gone, she began to eat her salad.

Shining chuckled as he sipped on his soup. Cadence was a health nut and those nachos must be her nightmares come to life.

They ate in relative silence. Even though she had the proverbial lion’s share, Melody still finished her meal first. Pushing her plate to the side, she rested her weary head up the table with a yawn. She quickly fell asleep. Spike, Shining, and Cadence noticed but decided to leave her alone.

As the waitress approached with the check shining and spike eyed each other like duelists. Arms raised, they stared each other down as the paper hit the table.

“Ready, set, GO.” Cadence laughed at their antics. They fought every time over who payed the bill.

Both threw their hands forwards grasping for victory. Spike posed in triumph while Shining slumped in shame.

“I’ll get it next time!”

“You wish.”

The waitress merely shook her head and took the bits.

“Have a good evening.” She said before walking away.

Spike picked up the sleeping mare and cradled her in his arms. Walking towards the door, he didn’t notice the notebook slip from her pocket.

Cadence, however, did. She scooped up the little book which had opened up in the fall. She looked at the bookmarked page it had opened up on.

“Wow.”

“What is it?” Shining asked on the way to the carriage.

“I’ll show you when we get in the carriage.”

Once safely seated, Cadance handed Shining the book Melody dropped. The outside was that of a plain notebook. The word “Lyrics” was on the outside.

“Look at the bookmarked page.” She motioned he the blue tab sticking out. Shining opened and began to read the marked up page out loud.

“At least she gave me my lyric book back. I prefer to write in my journal but I don't know if I'm getting that back anytime soon. Octi did say that turning intense feelings into a song can help but I've never tried it. Guess I have time.

Scars

I'm so tired of being here
Cut down by all my darker years
Why can’t I just be me
I wish that you would just leave
'Cause your presence still lingers here
And it won't leave me alone

These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase

[Chorus:]
When I cried you’d laugh at my all tears
When I'd scream you'd add to all my fears
You tortured me through all of these years
But you can’t have
Have me

You used to control me with your restraining ties
Now I'm bound by the scars you left behind
Your actions – they haunt every one of my dreams
Your heartlessness – it chased away all the sanity in me

These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase

[Chorus]

I've tried so hard to tell myself that I’m free
But though you're still with me
I've been alone all along

[Chorus]

...me, me, me.

Octi was right, Turning my feelings into a song does help. It's not to different than writing in my journal. Still mad at Spike though."

“Wow...” Was all Shining could say.

“This only helped confirm my suspicions.” She paused. “Her emotional pain is immense, even without trying my magic picks up on her agony.” She looked down, her hands shaking. “I can’t imagine what she went through to cause it either, pain like hers doesn’t happen overnight.”She paused to look Shining in the eyes. "It's amazing she can even smile." Shining hugged his wife to comfort her.

Spike finally spoke. "I saw that pain in her eyes this morning. Something physically is wrong with her, I don't know what it is. She refused to tell me. What she did tell me is that she lives to enjoy the life she has now."

The rest of the ride back to the castle was quiet. Spike carried Melody to her room and placed her in her bed before retiring to his own room for the night. Shining took some time to write letters to Celestia and Twilight before retiring with Cadence for the night as well.

Author's Note

Cupcake