A Very Special Canterlot High Holiday.

She looked at herself in the mirror, her yellow hand made Carousel Boutique dress with the lime green sash, and her tiara. It was a silver one with sparkling rhinestones and gemstones imbedded into it. With the exception of her wild untamed frizzy mane of orange hair and her golden tinted skin, she looked just like the one and only Don Bluth had drawn her to life on his sheets of sleek and soft cels and paper.

"Nervous?" A familiar slightly abrasive voice said behind her, in the doorway to the backstage dressing room (yes CHS had those) were her friends Aria, Sonata and John. Aria wore a short velvet purple dress with black fringes and lace, almost a replica of the very one she wore as an evil siren to the showcase the girls had turned into a musical beat down. Sonata had gone with her blue and white striped top and dark blue skirt, the old Dazzling stage outfits...why had they gone with those? Adagio wondered.

"Why the reminder of the past girls?" She asked pretending to adjust her tiara in the mirror as Aria held something in her hand for her. It was a black velvet necklace with a gold edged pendant on the end, and a gem. Once the gem in the center of the pendant would have allowed them to use harmonious harrowing howls, to bend the wills of others, feed on the strife and hate that followed the girl sirens around like a cloud of pessimistic poisonous smoke.

"Because it IS the past, now who or what we are now. It's not just the pendants that have changed since then you know." She said as The Dazzlings all looked into their reflections in the mirror, their gemstone pendants all now a deep emerald green as opposed to the hateful and anger inducing blood red they'd been as merciless sirens.

"Maybe I am just nervous, it's been so long since we sang our song for people, and this time...it's not to drive the masses apart but bring them together, in some ways...it almost doesn't feel like who we are..or what we're destined to do." John placed his hands around his girlfriend's waist and kissed the back of her neck softly.

"It's not what we are predestined to do Adagio, but what we strive to do of our own volition. Is it not?" He said holding his girlfriend tightly around the waist. and she felt how warm his touch was, it was very...reassuring. Memories of their scowling and displeased faces came flooding back to her, their hateful booing and hissing, and food and trash pelting her and the other girls.

"What if...they hate us? What if they hear only my singing as when it was fractured like the gems once were?"

"It's not the gems that make you girls singers now, it's what's in...here." He said placing a hand between the valley of her bosom. He felt a steady rhythmic beating as he did. A real girl's heart that is light and pure, the weight of a past atonement lifted from her. She smiled and nudged him as he kissed her on the head lovingly.

"Thank you." She said purring in his arms.

"You ready? The opening act is almost over."

The faculty and the parents had taken their seats in the auditorium and the house lights had dimmed. Mrs. Finish walked across the stage, a minty green holiday dress and earrings that looked like ornaments hanging from her ears, her red heels going tank tank tank on the stage floor. She tapped the mic and smiled at the mass crowd.

"Hello and welcome, fellow faculty members, welcomed parents and guardians, and siblings to the student body, and welcome to the Canterlot High Christmas Pageant. On behalf of the Canterlot High Family, I wish you a very Merry Christmas and whatever your reason for the season may be, and a very Happy New Year, our first act is a little opener, a routine by our lovely and talented Canterlot High Cheer-leading Squad. followed by...a musical number thank you and enjoy."

"I can hear Hey Mickey starting up." Sonata said as she peeked out into the stage area. The cheerleaders had all gathered on the stage and were warming the crowd up, pom-poms and all, pep and razzle. "We're the ones to bring the Dazzle!" Sonata said as she turned back to Adagio, her confidence restored she gave her tiara one final adjustment as The Dazzlings took to the spot on the revolving stage. Of the remaining set pieces that weren't decorated for Ms. Finish's play of Edward Scissorhands, the stage they had occupied was designed with a faux Persian rug, a high emphasis on orange in the rugs and walls, it was as close to the color palate of the scene from the actual movie as they could get, the lights of the stage would shine and make the colors pop against the singers as they made they way around the downsized version of the imperial ballroom of the Winter Palace.

The Cheerleaders flounced and flipped from the stage as their routine ended, the house lights went dark, only the spot light in the center stage giving light to the entire auditorium. As the rotating stage gave way to the recreation of that grand palace ballroom. Adagio stood on the fake staircase under the reproduction of the last of the Romanov's as it appeared in the Bluth film, her eyes briefly closed and hands across her chest, the other Dazzlings in similar poses, before they began to softly vocalize as the orchaestra began. Soft tinkering of tub-bells at first.

Adagio sang softly and with the same passionate flare as the original singer. She slowly descended the stairs with the other Dazzlings following suit. At first simply walking with a spring in her step as she recited the first stanza of being "Safe and warm, as horses pranced through the silver storm." She practically "made love" to the scenery, clinging to the banister at the bottom step before embracing her self tightly when the loud and thunderous instruments kicked in. There was no way to give the impression of shadows of a long gone past emerging from their frames, but The Dazzlings could more than improvise. Adagio's singing soon made the entire audience's auras visible. Though only magic users could actually "see" said auras clearly. the entire assemblage began to glow in a soft heavenly golden glimmer, as did The Dazzlings themselves. It was as though the embodiment of the night so precious to all beings no matter where they reside in the universe had been captured so perfectly in a two and a quarter minute recital. The rapture of the auras as they bathed all the viewers and performers was beyond words.

"Once upon a December..." Adagio sang as softly as a whisper but loud as thunder to them. The lights went dark like a snuffed candle and a soft whispy breath like ice puffed up from a chilled lung could almost be heard as the auditorium came down from the bliss The Former Sirens turned muses had gifted them this Christmas Eve.