Sunset knew Celestia no longer needed to watch over her, but it did help her relax to have the alicorn stay there. She flipped the poor piece of fruit between so many forms and then had to stop. The former banana was in about ten pieces, something had gone wrong.

"What happened?" Princess Celestia looked down at the spell-target.

Knowing, Sunset started a much simpler spell, cleaning up the mess. "I overbalanced, I felt the heat of my magic increasing, burning me. I tried to force my dark magic stronger and it overcompensated."

"Shadow magic has limits. At most it can conceal and destroy, tricking the eyes and heart. There was nothing to trick with the fruit, and more you gave it no pattern to follow. It chose destruction, it always does." Celestia summoned another piece of fruit, careful to not let her magic brighten the room. "Let's start again."

A lovely feeling swelled in Sunset, it was just like old times. "Yes, Princess." Her smile may have extra teeth in it, but Sunset felt her life was, at least partially, on track.

"You want a foal?" Muffins lounged on a balcony with her wife. "I saw that look, don't try to deny it."

"Of course I will deny it… am I that transparent?" Rainbow Dash had her wings spread, the sun warming them. "No, don't answer that. I… do, and I don't. I love Scoots to bits-"

"As a little sister." Muffins cut in, earning an eye-roll from Rainbow.

"Of course, but I really wanted… want, to have a foal, just us." Dash gestured with a hoof in a circular motion. "And I totally know you could… do the thing, become a stallion. But I don't… I like you, as you. You are awesome and fun and sexy and your wings…" Rainbow leaned over, tucking one of her own in so she could rub her cheek along one of her wife's appendages.

Muffins grinned and took the moment to kiss the tomboyish pegasus on the cheek. "You don't want to actually carry a foal." Rainbow looked like she had been struck, but she sighed. "I could find us a nice stallion, you wouldn't need to know." Muffins kissed Rainbow again.

"No, not that. You are mine." Dash got up and stepped over to her alicorn wife, laying upon the stretched-out mare's back.

"Even if it was a nice stallion?" Muffins grinned and rocked herself a touch, getting settled with her smaller partner in place.

"Even Gel, I know that is who you are thinking." Rainbow leaned in and nipped Muffins' neck with her blunt teeth. "I like the big guy, but not quite that much. I have something he couldn't compare to, something even a prince, a king, couldn't compare to." Dash lay her head down on her wife's shoulder, one eye looking up to see a windigo cavorting in the sky. "I have you, Muffins."

Even though the castle felt subdued and a little sombre after Granny Smith passed, Muffins couldn't help but feel her mood brighten at the promise.

Applejack frowned a moment. Twilight had helped her make a list and, to her shock, it was working fine. "So what's next? We got the venue, we got food." She couldn't help but give a wry smile at that. "And Ah got the drinks sorted."

The list was consulted and Twilight grinned. "Music. I am sure we can get Vinyl for-"

"No!" Applejack clopped a hoof so sharply as to almost break the stone. "Anypony else? We could get Sweetie Belle to sing."

"Applejack." Twilight frowned at her wife. "She didn't do anything wrong. It was Granny's time." She actually liked Vinyl, particularly for helping make the castle seem more… friendly. "She is just the mare that helped her, at the end."

"Ah know… but I can't… would she have lived longer without that seed dohicky?" Applejack scuffed her hoof over the mark she had left on the stone. "What if it made her… made her… if it made it faster?"

"You talked with Tree Hugger. She might seem a little… well, spaced out." Twilight leaned in and nuzzled Applejack, coaxing the other mare into a halfhearted kiss back. "But I would trust her to know nature."

"Yer right, Ah know yer right. But I just… I feel like I need ta blame somepony. I don't want to blame Granny." Saying the name of her departed family member caused more emotions to flare in Applejack. "Can you ask her?"

"Of course I can, but you have to promise to let this go, it wasn't Vinyl's fault." Twilight put a wing around Applejack. "Will you?"

"Ah couldn't say no to you, Twi." Applejack relaxed into the embrace. She sure hadn't been a 'wing lover' before, but now she couldn't get enough of having these particular ones around her. Soft, warm, they drew her down and tight against the love of her life. An odd flash, a thought and nothing more, made the orange pony blink. "Gel…"

"What was that?" Twilight rolled up the list.

"Consarn it," the curse was uttered with a smile, "Ah do love that stallion…" Applejack wasn't sure when she had been snared by him, at first things had seemed like 'tolerating', then there had been some fondness when she realized how obliging and… nice, he was. Now, when she thought of love, she couldn't help but imagine a picture of Twilight and Gel.

"You married him, I hope you do!" Twilight was a touch shocked, she knew AJ was more focused on her, in their relationship, but not to this extent.

"That's the thing Twi, Ah wasn't at first, but he has a way of just… of being so nice, and loving, and caring…" Applejack sighed, feeling two things at once. She felt hunger, like a filly for her first love. But she also felt the delight that comes after having secured that love. "Ah don't know why Ah didn't notice before."

"Too busy. Equestria has gone mad, every other day there is something cropping up that needs attention, ponies being turned into monsters, or monsters turning out to be ponies. Then there are the things climbing into ponies, and ponies getting sucked into things." Twilight was making a list that wasn't calming her, quite the opposite.

"Twilight!" Applejack turned and faced the mare. "Calm down, the world goes on and we will have to deal with it!" It was like a cannon going off right in the earth pony's face. "Horse apples." She slumped. "Let's go and see Vinyl."

"So you look after things with Light-Butt gone?" Twisty twirled a hoof. "What about the sun, do you handle that?"

"No you… will you stop that?" Luna's body trembled, each egg she took made it harder to focus. "She still does her duty, it can be done anywhere. It isn't so bad with her just in Ponyville, but if she, say, went to the griffon kingdom, morning would be a little earlier." Luna was conflicted, telling Twisty to stop with the eggs meant she might actually stop. "One… one m-"

"One more, of course." Twisty prepared herself. It was a complicated procedure to make her body lay the eggs, but she soon had another ovoid pushing down her ovipositor. "You alicorns are so wonderful for this. Normal ponies can only take three or four…" Bliss threatened to overwhelm the changeling queen as another of her eggs passed into the Princess of the Night.

Luna moaned loudly, her body trapped under her buggy lover. "Twisty…" She felt full, more than full. "Twisty what time is it?"

"Nearly six… oh, you need to bring up the moon?" Twisty started to pull back, easing her thick appendage from the mare's body. In times gone by, laying eggs in ponies would be done with or without their leave. Twisty had found it was far better to ask nicely… or let them beg.

As the bulging length drew from her, Luna gave a deep sigh. The eggs inside shifted a little and she tried to rise, only to find Twisty still in place. "Twisty… get off." The gentle nips along her neck had Luna squirming in delight. "Now… I need to rush."

"Does it cause any real problems if the moon is a little late?" Twisty dismounted, stepping forward as she did so she painted Luna's back with a glowing line of green slime. "Fetching, I think."

"Of course it would be bad!" Luna jumped to her hooves, using magic to help support herself. She was already running through the door when Twisty was trying to point out the mark.

"I am sure she will find it eventually…" The queen grinned and trotted out, smiling to the two guards at the door. She really wanted to see the reactions.

The sound had both Twilight and Applejack folding their ears back. "I think she is home!" Twilight yelled at the top of her voice.

"About three-thirty!" Applejack yelled back, equally loud but just as unintelligible.

"What?" Twilight was about to try some kind of spell but instead knocked on the door. By the third time she tried AJ pushed up and started knocking as well. "I don't think she can hear us!"

"No, no Ah doubt that, she probably can't hear us!" Applejack frowned and tried knocking again. It was just then that Twilight reached a wing over her back and there was the belly-lurching sensation of magical teleportation. Inside, the music was somehow louder. Behind her deck, Vinyl had a hoof on a turntable, another on some dials. Her glasses were off, dropped on the second turntable.

AJ moved, she couldn't stand what she was seeing. Rushing around the huge speakers, she came up behind the unicorn and wrapped her forelegs around Vinyl. The DJ spun in place, not even looking as she folded into Applejack's embrace.

Scanning the mix of amplification gear, speakers, and other assorted things. It wasn't her amazing magic that guided her to the mute button, but simply reading the controls.

"I couldn't do anything! She… she just wouldn't let me go in, I…" Vinyl was crying uncontrollably into the earth pony's embrace. "I just wanted to help and she… I couldn't help…"

The anger Applejack had been carrying for the mare was gone, the emotion, the raw and powerful feelings the unicorn was laying bare cut through it like a hot knife through butter. "It's okay…" It was lame, it was simple, but right then it was all AJ could think to say.

"I didn't really know her that well…" Vinyl couldn't see straight, her sight was clouded so badly by tears. "But in the last two weeks… she was great…" She trailed off, sobbing into the orange mare's hug.

"She was great, wasn't she?" Applejack had new tears in her eyes, but they didn't pour out like they had before. "Ah remember when she found a little filly who had climbed a tree with no plan o' getting down." AJ looked to Twilight and gestured to her nose. A box of tissues appeared nearby and were quickly employed to try to dry the unicorn's cheeks. "But Vinyl, you know what Granny would hate?"

"W-W-What?" Vinyl's normal cool and untouched demeanor was shattered by her grief.

"Granny hated anypony feelin' sorry fer 'emselves." Applejack worked to clean up Vinyl as best she could, only to get the unicorn cleaning up her own tears. "Ah need a party, she would want a party. Granny wouldn't want everypony mopin' about. We need to remember her, the things she did and loved. You said… Apple Bloom said, everypony has a song, that is them?" Vinyl nodded, giving a little sob. "Can you play her song?"

"I… I can try. It is hard to hold another pony's song, my own keeps trying to wrap into it." Vinyl gestured at her deck. "It's just really hard… too complex…"

"You need help?" Twilight got both their attention, she smiled at her friend and her wife. "If there is one thing living here has taught me, it's that friendship is able to overcome anything."

Applejack beamed at the love of her life, her heart practically leaped in her chest, pounding out her love for her. She glanced to Vinyl. "What ya think? Can we make her song, together?"

Tears still stained Vinyl's cheeks, but she nodded and sniffed. "This would be easier if you both had seeds in you, but we can make do." Her horn lit up and dials began to adjust themselves, then the mute button cycled. The music wasn't blowing them away, but it was loud again. Two microphones were lifted in purple magic and, looking to Vinyl, both Twilight and Applejack began to sing.

Author's Note

... lies friendship.

Poor Vinyl, she was just trying to help Granny and then this happened. Life isn't fair, but in Equestria, friendship can make it seem so.

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