A Very Special Canterlot High Holiday.

Adagio Dazzle stood perfectly still as Rarity wrapped the light yellow fabric around her, a dress taking shape around her body. The Dazzlings had gathered in Rarity's tailor shop carousel boutique. Rarity had a bundle of pins in her teeth as she sewed Adagio's dress for the play turned pageant.

"What is with the design for your dress darling?" She said as she held the fabric in place as she tied a light blue belt around her waist, and her hair tied in a blue ribbon.

"Its from the film Anastasia, the song I'll be singing at the pageant, when Anastasia returns to The Winter Palace and the memories of the world that she was spirited away from comes back to her." She said as Rarity adjusted the belt around her waist, Aria and Sonata watching in awe at their leader was transformed into a "princess" or to be acurate a grand dutchess.

"Why do you have such a fascination with that movie Adagio?" Rarity asked as she dug through her collection of crowns and tiaras for one that matched the silver one meant to adorn the head of the Romanov royal family daughter. "Its funny almost, here you are playing a princess,"

"Grand Dutchess," Sonata said correcting her.

"Okay Grand Dutchess, still it's royalty is it not? To sing and perform as you did as a siren, only without any of the malice you had, ironic that you are fulfilling the desire of both yourself and Sunset Shimmer when she was a bad girl herself. To be a princess."

"Grand Dutchess." Sonata corrected again as she browsed through Rarity's shoe selection for her friend.

"Whatever." Rarity retorted in annoyance, "the point is...oh just forget it, why do you have such an attachment to a borderline obscure Don Bluth movie from the 90's?" Adagio gazed at her reflection in the mirror, before waltzing over to the shop window. It was frosted with ice, the street outside covered with snow as busy shoppers traversed up and down busy salted sidewalks and even the traffic lights blinking from red to green. The shop silent as the other girls looked at her awaiting her to speak.

"It happened many years ago, when Starswirl the bearded spirited us away to this place." She said placing her hand on the cold glass closing her eyes as painful experiences returned to her. That unicorn spell opening a vortex, his voice cold and cruel as he cast them into the pit, probably hoping that wherever they'd be sent, it'd be a place of unspeakable torments. He was half right.

November 21, 1997

The streets of Canterlot City where silent in the dark, no one but the movie goers waiting for the night screenings at the movie theater to start, it was year end animation night, a rerelease of Disney's Hercules, Warner bros Cats don't dance, and the opening night screening of Fox animation and Don Bluth's newest film, Anastasia. Children waited with their parents, arguing over which movie they'd go see and which on was best, a forerunner to arguing with each other in the comments section on the internet a decade or two later.

No one turned a blind eye to the alley way as a teenage girl in the apartment complex that made one side of the alley tossed a black heavy duty garbage bag from her window, the bag had been stuffed with clothes she was throwing away. It was a good thing she did too. Like something out of James Cameron's The Terminator, a bubble of blue energy and lighting as the trash cans tumbled over and papers flew around the alley. The anomaly lasted only a second, but it was a feat that would have shattered the world's perception of reality had it been witnessed.

Three young adult females lay helplessly in the icy winter snow, completely nude and totally helpless. "Ddd...Dagi, I'm sooo ccc cooold!" The naked light blue girl said curling into a ball on the filthy snow of the ground, her protective water proof seapony skin was gone! Her breasts and rear became more shapley and noticeable now that her body had taken a new form. Sonta, Aria and Adagio were all freezing cold in the snow as the sights becane clear, the only mercy being that they'd ended up in a place where none could see their nakedness.

"Ttt that bbb bastard Starswirl! I swear when I get back I'll cut his skull open and feed him his big brain piece by piece!" Aria shouted at the stars above, unaware that it was not the same sky the princesses controlled.

"Ssss save your....bbbb breath girls...or we'll freeze to death faster...we...have lll lost our....seapony sss skin...but wee havent lost everything." She threw up her new hands and hoped to Sombra (remember evil girls at the time) that she still possessed the power to cast even a ninor clairvoyance spell, guiding light would work, but power of the third eye would work wonders.

She saw the alley light up in blue as auras glowed all around her, Adagio focused on what she needed the most and hoped it would be close, even a closed clothing store would be nice, but her sight guided her to a trash bag near by, she wondered if her magic was rendered faulty by were the girls had ended up, but upon opening the bag up, she was relieved the bag contained some female clothing for her and the others to wear.

Girls! Over here! Hurry!" She shouted digging jeans, long skirts, and three worn in hoodies from the bag. Aria and Sonta ran to her, their feet freezing and threatening to bleed from the icy ground as they ran.

"What? is it? Hand me downs?" Aria said as Adagio tossed her what would become her signature jacket and shirt." "Damn it Adagio! This jacket doesn't have fucking sleeves!" She said rubbing her arms together.

"Keep you pigtails on Aria, I found hoodies, and lower your voice less we be found." They were silent as they got dressed, now able to get a better stance on their bearings, they looked out into the streets to see the only business left open, the movie theater. As they took in the new found surroundings of this world, a lone wanderer, an older boy in a green jacket and baggy pants was making his way down the sidewalk to the alley.

"Aria..I want you to try using your vertigo disorientation spell on that male untill he passes out, thn we search him for all he's got."

"We're going to be robbing these strange creatures of their money and valuables already Dagi?"

"Hold it!" Rarity said interrupting the flashback. "You mean to tell me not five minutes in this world, and you girls resorted to robbery?"

"We were cold, naked, starving, broke and alone, and it was almost twenty years ago!" Aria retorted defensively. "What the fuck were we supposed to do?"

"Hey that's another thing, if you girls arrived as teenage girls in 1997, why are you not thirty something today?" Rarity asked in confusion.

"Hey at least we have the excuse of being immortal demi-Gods, what's you're excuse for still being in "senior year?" Ms. Fashionista?" Aria said with her toothy grin.

"Can I resume please? If you bimbos are gonna argue the rules of reality we'll be here all night!" Adagio said in anger.

In the past, Aria focused all her thoughts in her vertigo spell, though weakened by the lack of Equestrian magic at the time, her famillar haze of swirling cloudy green, over took the lad as he felt an excruciatingly painful migraine headache in his skull, followed by a loss of balance, his bladder control held on fine but his stomach acid refluxed and churned as his esophagus reversed itself forcing all the stomach acid back up the throat. He fell to his knees as he struggled to hold back.

Eventually he couldn't resist it anymore. Skull buzzing with pain, disoriented and confused, and his stonach grease starting to shoot from his nose, he let fly the projectile vomit Aria made him feel. Almost the entire contents of his stomach, acid and all emptied onto the snow. The guy passed out, from any number of the things the vertigo spell did to him.

"Excellent work Aria, now lets see what he's got for us." The Dazzlings moved him into the dark alley where they wouldn't be seen, Adagio searched all his pockets, they where baffled by the slips of plastic that said American expresses, and Visa, but it didn't take much for them to connect the coins similarity to equestrian bits and the slips of paper to be banknotes.

"Hmmm five hundred...dollars? Huh funny name for currency, and the portraits of the political figureheads on them..how ugly, this one's bald and they're all old men." Adagio said counting the ill gotten cash.

"This coin has a woman on it." Sonata said holding up a 1979 Susan B, Anthony coin. "Maybe she was Princess Liberty according to the engraving on it."

"Hurry we have to get out of here before he wakes up!" Aria said noticing that their mark begain to stir.

"Quick! We'll hide in that theater, get in line and act normal." Adagio said as they did just that...

The present.

"So you girls were lost confused thieves your first hour here, what does this have to do with singing Once upon a December at the pageant?" Rarity said as she went over Adagio's Anastasia dress one last time.

"I'm getting to that she said stamping her foot impatiently. "We used empathic esp to read minds as we waited in line that night, we learned this world's customs and mannerisms fairly quickly, and we even used our dishonestly obtained money to honestly pay for the tickets."

" We looked at the posters for the three movies that they were screening that night." Sonata continued for her friend. "But for reasons we still arr..unsure of...we were drawn into the one for that movie...Anastasia."

"And we've had a deep, and intrinsic connection to it...yes its just a movie...but cant we see something in a medium like a movie that personally connects to us inside?" Adagio said breaking into tears.

"Yes yes you can darling its okay to feel that way about something." She said reassuringly. Adagio continued,

"So anyway...I'm sure you can guess just ONE of the reasons that movie reached out and touched upon us, lost girl, alone and helpless. Her life destroyed by a bearded mystic that took away so much without a little bit of consideration for HER." She said again placing a hand on the icy glass...and crying softly as it came back to her, that cold lonley night in 1997.

"I do see why the plot of the movie would speak to you that way dearie..."

"And that song..." Adagio said turing to face the others as she began to hum. "The promise that it had, that the girl had some hope of being safe and warm, protected by...someone who loves her." Her humming grew as she began to sing.

"Hear this song, and remember...soon you'll be...home with me..." she said her siren call echoing its harmony in the store, none of the girls saw the shop door open, didnt see the creamy white and turquoise haired boy step across the threshold into the shop with them. He made his way to Adagio as she sang that somber melody from that long cold night in 1997. "John?" Adagio asked as he took her hand in his and cleared his throat.

"Once..upon a December." He sang with her finishing the verse as he kissed her cheek, making it burn pleasantly. Maybe it was her magic singing, maybe not. "Do you feel like the Romanov Princess now that you have me....well according to Don Bluth's movie anyway." He said breaking the mood slightly, she didnt mind.

"Actually...yes...I do." She said admiring herself in the mirror. As she did, Adagio swore that for a brief moment, her dress sparkled and glowed. Even though Rarity had never put any rhinestones or gems in it at all.