Ambergris

by Pascoite

Rating: teen
Tags: Sunset Shimmer, Drama, Equestria Girls, Aria Blaze, Adagio Dazzle
Length: 12495

Sunset Shimmer weathered the storm. She returned from the darkest depths, and now she has good friends. People like her. If I haven't sunk too far myself… maybe she'll help me. Then I can help Sonata and Aria. Please, Sunset.

Sunset Shimmer weathered the storm. She returned from the darkest depths, and now she has good friends. People like her.

If I haven't sunk too far myself… maybe she'll help me. Then I can help Sonata and Aria.

Please, Sunset.

Thanks to Present Perfect for his help.

Featured on Equestria Daily!

A pair of sequels, of sorts, are posted here and here.

Published 2016-10-13 20:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2016-10-13 20:10:01 UTC

Ambergris

The battered sign calls this a park, but there’s little here beyond rusting fences, weeds growing up through cracks in the concrete, and a scattering of naked basketball hoops. People only come here after dark for one reason. Well, two, now that I’ve shown up. I’m the only piece of debris who prefers the spot under the streetlamp.

With a great belch of its air brakes, the bus lurches to a stop. They have the nicer electric ones over by Canterlot High, in the good part of town. So quiet, you wouldn’t even hear one before it hit you.

The doors open, disgorging me in the wrong place at the wrong time, but there’s never a right place, not for me. My apartment’s the other way, but a couple times a week, I come here after work, spend an hour, then catch the last bus home once I’ve finished.

There, on the bench. Sunset Shimmer’s already here, waiting for me, the same way she has for months now. It’s hot tonight, sticky hot, but she still has on her jacket, as if nothing in the world can penetrate that aegis, make her uncomfortable. All I want to do is get a cool shower, wash this grime off me, and try to do a little homework before I grab some sleep, but she can still tolerate that for…

Why does she even bother? She has better things to do, better people to see.

Without fanfare, I plop down beside her and undo the top button of my shirt to let a little more air in. Sunset doesn’t speak yet, but she will.

Two girls on a park bench alone in one of the worst neighborhoods in the city? Of course it was only a matter of time before some of the thugs decided to approach us, but neither one of us is exactly human. Turns out we’re both quite a bit stronger than most. They leave us alone now.

“Adagio,” she finally says.

I nod, but I can’t talk to her, can’t say all the pent-up things wadded in my head, like trying to shove too much garbage down the chute. Why’s it so hard? After this long, she knows—she can read how I keep fiddling with my hands the way a wino might rifle through the stack of lottery tickets in an alley trash can. Not a winner in the bunch, but he can’t stop wishing, because maybe someday…

Sunset forces out a sharp sigh, her own air brake, also telling me I might as well get off here because I won’t be going anywhere more useful. “Another night without talking, huh?” she says, the only words floating around in the summer haze. Always the garrulous one, and me all taciturn. She has the right to be frustrated. Why does she even bother with me?

“Sorry,” I mumble. One of the air conditioning units on a nearby row house clicks on, and the metallic buzz drowns out anything she might have said back. When it finally quits, it’s replaced by a steamy breeze rattling the police tape across the front door of another of those houses, where they had a drive-by or a raid or something earlier in the week. The same graffiti over all of them, in black and silver, but up the street, at least it changes to purple and teal.

The first time I called Sunset, she wondered how I even got her number, and it was all I could do to keep her from hanging up. “Please,” I’d said, over and over. She gave in and showed up here, about halfway between our homes, a good neutral spot, our little Geneva, or so I gather from history class.

But she came, and I didn’t talk that time, either, then I thanked her when my hour was up. She took a long look at me and told me to call if I needed to. That’s the kind of girl she is.

She sets her motorcycle helmet on the ground and stretches her legs out. “How’s school going?”

Sometimes she tries to get me talking like this. Honestly, I owe her that much. “Pretty good. I got an A on my last math test, and I’m liking history. English is fine, chemistry, fine. I have to hold back a bit in P.E., but you’d know about that.” A little smile, usually an uninvited guest, invades my lips, but it can stay.

“Why don’t you come back to Canterlot High?” About once a month, I get that one, but I don’t know if I’ve ever answered her before.

So I shrug. “Griffonstone High is fine. I’ve always felt like if you were smart, it didn’t matter that much where you went to school. Maybe fewer opportunities, but I’ll still get the grades. It’ll turn out fine.” I still didn’t answer her. Were it anyone else, she would have asked me if I felt safe there, but we’ve already proven we can handle ourselves.

She runs her fingers through her hair and fidgets like someone who no longer wonders if she’s going to throw up, but when and where. All those other questions she’d ask if she could, but she holds them in. That’s also the kind of girl she is.

In time, maybe. Of course, time has an entirely different meaning to someone who’s hundreds of years old. And going to school with children. I shake my head, and she raises an eyebrow at the motion. This is the first time I’ve had to adapt to a world instead of getting it to adapt to me, but the math and history and everything are different here, and now it all matters.

Back to silence, but it works for me, sitting here with the one person who gives a shit about me, even though she has no reason to. Yeah, a cold call, only to spend an hour doing nothing. I would have laughed in her ear, but months later, she keeps coming.

Even around here, enough trees grow to attract cicadas, and they chant and thrum ceaselessly. Once in a while, it all lines up into one giant pulse, and I find myself swaying with it, but soon enough, everything breaks down into chaos again. Then it pauses, and a lonely whippoorwill calls into the night.

My bus will be here in a minute.

“Thanks,” I say as I stand up. But before she can reach for her helmet, I take her hand and give it a squeeze. I… I’ve never touched her before. I haven’t touched anyone in a while—it felt wrong somehow—but everything jolts into stark solidity. She… she’s not just an image that my eyes insist on, but someone there, someone real. I let her hand go. “Thanks,” I say again, exchanging a smile with her, and then a pair of headlights stabs the darkness down the street.

“Call me,” she says, waving behind her without looking.

I’d so easily fallen into a routine. Last time went the same as pretty much all of them, and I had no reason to think anything had changed, but I did something wrong, and I don’t even know what, and… shit, now I’m going to cry.

I wanted to try this time. Sunset deserves it for putting up with me, and I spent all day at work psyching myself up. I thought I could do this, as long as I stayed positive, and… Ugh. That sounds like something a pony would say, and these damn tears are wrecking my mascara.

It rained earlier today, and little wraiths of steam curl up from the pavement, each one whispering in my ear about how I’d blown it with Sunset. The one person who’d listen to me, but I’d said nothing for months, and she finally gave up on me. Half an hour late already, no call, no text. She isn’t coming.

Damn it. Damn it!

I pound a fist on the bench, and it hurts, and I can’t stop crying, can’t stop, can’t stop.

Stupid, stupid, in the dark where I have no business, not even my own neighborhood, and I drove her away, never gave her back even the smallest piece of what I asked from her.

I fuck everything up!

I… I could stay here, on this bench. All night, all tomorrow. Miss school, miss work. Who the fuck would care?

Then the whine-to-rumble of a motorcycle downshifting. A squeal of brakes, and—

My heart skips, floats, crash lands, thuds in my chest so hard I cough. She’s here! Sunset pops the kickstand down and walks over, but I can only watch her feet, grinding the little pieces of dirt on the ground into even littler pieces. But she’s here—she’s here!—and my hands tremble. “Sorry. Rainbooms practice ran late, and my phone battery died.”

I gave up on her. Half an hour, and I immediately assumed the worst. I don’t deserve her, don’t get to look at her, right in front of me. If I can wipe these tears away before she sees, before I become that ballast pulling her deeper into the water just so I won’t drown…

She takes my chin and lifts it. It’s okay. It’s alright. I touched her when I took her hand last time. I did it first, opened the door, so fair game. But her face falls at what she sees.

“You okay?” People say that to me sometimes. My boss, the bus driver, a teacher. They say it because they’re supposed to. But Sunset wants to know. That’s the kind of girl she is.

I latch onto her waist and hug her to me, cling to her to keep from falling into the chasm below, and I still can’t stop crying.

She staggers back, almost falls, then the arm holding her helmet just dangles there limply, her other hand stroking my hair. “Shh. It’s alright,” she says, so gently. If I didn’t know better, I could believe her.

Yeah, way to load that responsibility on her. Like my happiness depends on her somehow. And if I end up getting randomly beaten and left for dead out here, it’s her fault. It doesn’t work that way, and I’d know. Nobody should ever have charge of another’s life like that. It’s too much weight.

I fuck everything up.

“Sorry about Tuesday,” I say while staring at a dandelion. A little bit of color, in the middle of all the gray concrete, gray asphalt, and gray cinder-block buildings, finding some way to survive. The crumbling sidewalk barely gives it enough space, but it strains toward the sky anyway, oblivious. The world can do what it likes, and it’ll keep growing there. “That wasn’t fair to you.”

Not just that one spot of yellow, either: purple and teal again, a few more markings than before, another block down. I can’t make them out, but one looks like a face, half-finished. Whoever painted it must have gotten scared off.

“Don’t apologize,” Sunset responds, patting my shoulder. I… I like that she touches me now. I thought I needed that distance, but it makes things more real. She’s warm, she lives, she breathes. And she’s here. “You were having a rough time, and I’m glad I could help.”

I never did tell her what got me so upset, but I bet she knows. How does she do it? If she’d tried to talk me through it, explained why her lateness didn’t reflect on me in any way, it would have only made the problem worse. Her, telling me how things are, defining my life for me. I can’t do that to her. But she gave the perfect answer.

“Still, it was shitty of me.” That earns me a glance out of the corner of her eye. She doesn’t like it when I use foul language. I gather she used to be quite the connoisseur of it herself, but it’s one of the many things she left behind. “Sorry.”

Another round of silence, and I’d actually rather talk, but at least it’s better than that debacle from last time. What do I even say to someone who’s trying to save me from myself? “It’s not your job to manage my life.”

Her eyes immediately widen. “Ohhhh.”

I don’t know what’s clicked in her head, but she waves it off with a hand. “Speaking of which—” she jabs a finger toward my name tag “—how’s your job going?”

For a second, I glance down at it. A job is a job, I guess. But… oh, yeah! “Actually, it’s not bad. Bullseye is a pretty good place to work, and I’ve only been there a few months, but my manager already wants to promote me to the head of the housewares department.”

In all the times we’ve gotten together, I haven’t seen her smile, not for real. But the one she has on now is so big it stretches across my face as well. “That’s great!” She turns toward me, with all the eagerness of a child at storytime, and puts her hands on her knees, and I can’t help feeling like I might float off the bench. I know an act when I see one, and this isn’t it. The helmet she loves rolls down the seat and against the back of the bench with a little thump, and she doesn’t even notice. “What’ll that change for you?”

I rub a hand on the back of my neck, and I barely hear my own voice. “Another four bucks an hour, for one thing.” It reminds me of the old days, the really old days, in the ocean. The sounds are just right there, all around, suffusing everything, like they begin and end inside my head. And those cicadas start up again, their chirping washing back and forth with the tide, my spot under the streetlamp a sunlit lagoon. “It’s not so bad. It’s a little surprising how quickly a smart person can advance, and you can actually make a good living at it, if you want. My manager even talked about sending me to corporate training after I graduate, where they develop people they want to be higher-ups someday. It could turn into a steady career, depending on if I want to go to college and learn something different.”

Sunset cocks her head. “Why wouldn’t you go to college?”

“Because…” My smile fades. I’d never really thought about it. Just an “if,” not a real idea I’d envisioned. The kind of thing I’m supposed to say, I guess, but I hadn’t felt the need to invest it with purpose. Like the horizon, beyond the waves, where I can always see it, but I never get there. “I don’t know.”

Sunset bites her lip and looks into her lap. “Didn’t you notice? This is the second time lately you’ve described yourself as smart.” My back stiffens, and my face gets hot, but she holds a hand up when I open my mouth. “Don’t worry—I didn’t take that as bragging. Matter of fact, I think you are smart, and I’m glad to see you doing something positive with it. Don’t sell yourself short. You could easily get a business degree, and nothing would stop you from advancing as far as you wanted, or… whatever else might interest you. My point is: even you still think you have good qualities.”

My jaw clamps shut, a vise tightening down on all the denials clamoring to get out, but I won’t dismiss her out of hand. She deserves better.

“You’re smart, you’re creative, you’re determined, you have a good work ethic. It’s not surprising your supervisor wants to draw those qualities out where they’ll do the most good.”

I… My skin buzzes, and my stomach lurches. It feels like… I can’t get enough air, and I cough, wheeze.

Sunset reaches an arm around my shoulders. “Hey. You okay?” My chest heaves. “Hey…”

Quickly, I nod and swallow down the bile in my throat. Each nice thing she says about me hammers on my ears, something I must have stolen or cheated out of her, but I add another, for her. I think it’ll make her happy. “He’s not supposed to tell me. About the promotion. Not yet. But he wanted to.”

She squints hard at me. “He’s not, you know, making demands of you or anything, is he?”

“No! No, no!” I cough again and laugh. “No, he’s married. To a guy. No chance of that.”

“Then what’s bugging you about…?” She bites her lip again. “It takes some getting used to. I know.”

I wrinkle my brow. “Huh? I don’t care if he’s gay.”

She puts a hand over half her face and waggles the other. “No, I mean… learning that people can like you. That they can care about you.”

“Oh…”

Leaning forward, she looks like a mother trying to coax her child to the first day of kindergarten. “It took me a while. But the other girls helped a lot. At first, they were the only ones, but honestly, that was enough. Then when the rest saw I could actually change, it spread. Slowly, but it did.”

I can’t look her in the eye. If I try to say something nice about anyone, I expect them to laugh and ask what I want from them. It dies on the edge of my lips, a shipwrecked sailor slogging through the breakers to the only patch of dry land for hundreds of miles, only to have the undertow yank him back out for good. “I thought… I thought maybe I came to you at first because only you’d understand what it was like to be from Equestria. But I’d heard the gossip about you, thrown it in your face. Still, I thought you might understand… me.”

Her hand rests on my shoulder again, that wonderful, delicate touch, and out of the corner of my eye, I see her nod. “Why don’t you come back to Canterlot High, then?”

I wondered when she’d get to that. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a steady current heading that way. But not the anchor chain it used to be. “I’m not as strong as you. I couldn’t take all those people watching, every day.” My eyes flick up to hers briefly, but they can’t stay, not with what I have to say next. “I admire you. I really do, for enduring that. I can’t, though. Better to move on where I can start fresh. I’ve got a good job, a nice enough apartment, and a new life.”

That same little spark shoots through her eyes as before—she’d figured something out, but she’d never said it. She slides off the bench and crouches low in front of me, pushing my bangs out of the way. “You know, one other good thing about you is that you’re a natural leader. Maybe that’s why your manager thought—”

Shit, I hadn’t… I rip myself from the bench, twist around, look for—

Concrete everywhere, I don’t want to make a mess, the gutter! I lurch toward the curb and retch, but I didn’t make it there. It splashes across the sidewalk, on my shoes, and—in charge of people?—I stagger another few steps until I fall to my hands and knees and puke again, this time in the street.

She’s holding my hair. And rubbing a hand up and down my back. “Jeez! Are you okay?”

I cough and spit, stars dancing in my eyes and my lungs burning with each frenzied breath. “Yeah. Sorry,” I rasp, rolling around to sit on the ground. I spit again. “Almost time for the bus.”

“For goodness’ sake, Adagio, I’ll drive you home!” she says, her eyes as fiery as her hair. “Just… hang out until you feel like you can move, alright?”

I lift a tremulous arm, beads of sweat running down my face. It’s freezing out here. “Couldn’t hold on to you. Besides, you didn’t bring another helmet.”

“Use mine. And you won’t fall off.”

The cops around here would love to ticket her for riding without it. Plus she’d feel like a hypocrite, as much as she makes sure all her friends wear one. I shake my head. “I’ll be fine.”

She helps me back to the bench, and she doesn’t press the point, so our last few minutes pass quietly, her with a thin scowl and me pretending not to see it. Like a minnow trapped in a tidal pool, waiting for the ocean to edge closer again, hopefully before the sun bakes its little domain away. At least I can breathe now. Seconds, ticking away too slowly. She wants to ask and I want to say, but neither one of us can turn those sails to the wind and get moving. So I flounder in the doldrums, disappointing her again, until someone rescues me from my rescuer.

Finally, the bus rumbles up, a great big dinosaur burping up diesel soot. Good thing the air conditioning is broken—I’m cold enough already. Sunset lends me an arm for support as I go up the stairs, and the driver barely gives my stained shoes a glance. What’s another boozehound to him? I’ve never given him reason to consider me one, though, if he even remembers me.

I slump into my seat, my forehead pressed to the glass, and from the sidewalk, Sunset gives me a wave and a muted smile.

Then I’m gone. I close my eyes, imagine the engine as roaring surf. One time, I went to the ocean here, but it’s not the same. Not in that wistful sense, where I yearn for my days as a siren. I don’t actually care too much about that. It’s just… different.

So the water washes over me, mottled blotches of sunlight playing across the sand and rock and bits of shell on the bottom. Bubbles tickling my caudal fin.

I jerk up in my seat. Not the time for dreaming yet.

We’ve still only driven a couple of blocks down the street, but as we trundle by, there goes another of those groups of punks, walking past a collection of abandoned storefronts, all-night tattoo parlors, and liquor shops. I don’t recognize them—their territory must not go all the way to the park where Sunset and I meet.

But a flash of color grabs my eye, purple and teal again, and I crane my neck to see them, catch another glimpse before it’s too late, and—

Aria?

I’d planned to tell Sunset that one day. Then I turned into a fucking wreck because she was late, but I’d worked up to it, and I can do this. I’m ready again.

The bus spits me up, another piece of whale shit drifting to shore so I can stay here until the tide ebbs. I’ll pay her back today, for all she’s done for me. It isn’t much, but it’s the only thing she really wants from me, even though she’ll never ask, at least not anytime soon. Not if she wants to keep her boots clean.

I don’t think I got any on her, but… maybe on her hand, where she held my hair back for me. I don’t know. But I can talk about it now. I think. Or don’t think. Just keep it out of my mind, and I can do it. Say it on automatic, get it out before I can reconsider, and let my mind stay blank—

Yeah, like I’m doing now. I fuck everything up.

We hit some road construction delays, which made me about ten minutes late, so Sunset’s already here. She doesn’t go mental about it, because she’s not screwed up in the head.

I take a deep breath, but it comes out sounding more like a sniffle, what with my eyes tearing up and my nose starting to run. Sunset doesn’t want me thinking that way, so I have to try, for her.

Alright. I walk over, every step a thousand miles, always closer, with the swirling moths casting little shadows across her hair and only a few dull stars out. The crescent moon perches on a thin cloud and laughs at me.

I can do this, I can, I have to. Shit.

Slowly I sit down, angled toward her, with my knees together and my fists balled up on them. I stare down at the backs of my hands. “I have a lot of things to say tonight. Just let me get through them, okay?”

She leans back, crosses her legs, and extends an arm down the top of the bench. “Okay.”

How does she do that? She looks like nothing else in the world could possibly hold her attention right now, and yet I don’t feel watched, as if every word had better come out perfect.

I suck in a breath and jab a thumb over my shoulder, toward the past. “Th-the other day, I was walking to work, from the bus stop, and there was this street preacher on the corner, yelling at everyone.”

When I glance up again, she nods. “I’ve seen him around town before.”

“I had to cross two corners, so it took a while for both traffic lights to cycle. Something about a guy named Jonah, who—who got eaten by a whale and puked up later because he wouldn’t do what he was supposed to, wouldn’t take responsibility, and… a-and…” I squeeze my fists even tighter.

“He looked right at me, Sunset! Right at me!” I can see him now, his eyes… boring into me! I choke on a sob, and my shoulders spasm. “Out of that whole crowd, and he said, ‘Stop running away! You have to stop running away!’ It’s like he knew!”

If I could only go somewhere dark and alone and huddle up in the corner, but no, no, Sunset needs to hear. I’ve gone this far. I can do it. There she waits, a little crease on her forehead, but listening, just like she promised.

“I didn’t even hear the whole story, didn’t know what it was about, but it doesn’t matter. He shot a… precise little… laser right into the blackest part of my heart, exposing it to everyone, and we might as well have been the only two there in the middle of rush hour at the biggest shopping center in the south part of town, and he was right, and I think you knew it all along, and I had to go, I had to get out, I—”

It all comes out in a wail, and I shake and shake and can’t stop. She probably can’t even make out what I said, but now she’s up against me, an arm around my back, and oh fuck it feels so good to have someone actually touch me. Like I imagine it must feel for them to have Princess Celestia curl a wing around them, buoy them up in a spring cloud with the smell of clean air.

Sunset leans in and meets my gaze with her icy blue eyes—icy in color only. “Take your time,” she says quietly.

So I fold my hands over my mouth, brace my elbows on my thighs and wait until I can talk again. For minutes on end, I’m a sculpture sitting on a pile of words, books lost to time that nobody cares about anymore, in a forgotten language.

“I was the leader,” I finally say. “I was the one responsible for the rest.”

I can’t keep the tremor out of my voice, but I’m doing it. I’m doing it. She gives my shoulder a squeeze.

“Look what I got them. Nothing. Spent, broken.” All day at work, I practiced what I wanted to say. This isn’t going anything like I planned. But it’ll work, in a jumble or whatever. I owe it to her.

“Not once did I think about what was good for them. Just causing problems for everyone so we could live off it.”

A squint to her eyes—she had most of it figured out, but not all of it. “Don’t you need that?” she says. “Isn’t that how you eat?”

“No,” I answer immediately. “Charge our magic, sure, but we eat regular food. Anyway. Humans are humans. There’s enough ambient negative emotion around to keep me strong. In a perfect world, I’d be weak. Fucking great, huh?”

As quick as I can blink, a scowl flashes across her face. “Sorry,” I mutter.

She waves it off, but I know. Something else I need to work on. For her.

At least I’ve stopped crying, but she scoots away again. That hand, on the wooden seat—if I could just take it again, feel its warmth. “Why did you leave, though?” Sunset asks with a frown. “I guess I never understood that.”

“They’d make me do it,” I answer, circling a hand in the air. “They’d keep hanging around, waiting for me to tell them what to do. Make a clean break—” I snap an imaginary mooring line between my hands “—move on, start my own life. Force them to be independent without me there.” That damned whimper starts up in my voice again. Why don’t these negative emotions make me any stronger?

“So I ran away. That guy was right. I ran away from my responsibility, but what choice did I have? Mess up the girls another time?” I shake my head, hard, and my shoulders, like a dog casting off muddy water. “They’re better off without me.”

“Nobody’s better off without you,” she says without even a hair’s breadth of pause between.

I don’t argue. She’d get mad, and I’ve come close to believing maybe she’d benefit from having me around someday, but not Sonata and Aria. The closest things I’d ever had to friends, and I’d hurt them far worse than anyone else. My only friends. Except Sunset.

“So when I told you about my promotion, and you talked about me being a leader, it hadn’t occurred to me I’d be put in charge of anyone, and—” I mime spewing vomit. “I couldn’t—I couldn’t take it. Ugh, I’m a fu—” There goes her scowl again. “A mess.”

I know she hates it, but I had to say that. After all these months of her building me back up from the scattered pieces of my amulet, it’s sandpaper on burnt flesh for her, but before the fire stokes in her icy eyes, I do take her hand.

“I know. I know, but I can’t help it sometimes. I did run away, and the whale puked me up on the beach, like it does every morning. And through it all, you’re there.” One last sniffle, but the tears have dried up, the tidal pools gone, leaving the minnows to die. Let them. “The one who gives a fuck—” she glares back, and I gather an apologetic grin “—sorry—and… a-and I love you for it.”

No surprise, but her face goes red, and she starts to pull her hand back from my grip. “Sunset, no, I—” I let out a sharp sigh, a shamal to warm me from the cold waters. “You’re my friend. Too many people are afraid to say that, but it’s true. No, not in that way.” I flick my other hand at her still-red cheeks. “But I love what you’ve done for me, and I love that you’re my friend. I am a mess, but it’s getting better, and I have you to thank for it.”

Now she’s the one wiping away a few tears. But I did it. I said my piece. It feels good. But then she speaks.

“Do you love Sonata and Aria?”

I look away, let her hand go, and clutch my arms across my stomach. “Yeah.” I didn’t tell her I thought I might’ve seen Aria a few nights ago. Was that really her?

“Yeah,” I repeat, sour, brackish words building in my gut. “I don’t think it was until after…” Shit, I didn’t expect her to go there. “After… you know. Too late for it to matter. I’d only bossed them around, to the point they didn’t want anything else from me. To the point they couldn’t possibly take anything else from me, I think. I had to go.”

She rolls her helmet into her lap and fidgets with it, flipping the tinted visor up and down a few times. I’d sure spent years filtering enough of what I saw, only to get blinded by the real light. “It’s not too late. It might take more convincing, but there’s always a possibility,” she says.

“There’s also the possibility that I’m a clump of whale puke getting what I deserve.”

“Just stop it,” she barks, her eyes flashing. “I care, I really do, and I wouldn’t have invested this kind of time in you if I thought it was a waste. You admit to being smart, you admit to loving them, so yeah, you’ve done some bad things, but we all have in our lives, okay? I’m not an idiot for supporting you, and you’re no lost cause!” The visor stays open.

“S-sorry. I want… I try to—” It was bad enough with the other two, but someone else I can’t let down? I owe them all so much. “Sorry.” I chew on my fingertips.

She has her jaw set, and it doesn’t let up, like a snapping turtle’s. They grab hold of something, and they don’t soon let go. I didn’t mean an insult, I didn’t mean to belittle everything she’s done for me, and she knows it, but it gets hard to take, it must. I’d mutter another apology, but after so many, they’re a drop of rain in the ocean, diluted until they don’t change a thing.

At the beginning of all this, she put up with my… pessimism, I guess. My apologies used to make her smile, back when they first meant I’d listen to her and try to believe.

Sunset looks over again and runs her thumbs along the helmet’s chin guard. “You must have thought there was something worth saving for you to ask me in the first place.”

Apologies won’t do anymore. She’s waiting for me to say it. I think she knew long ago why I hadn’t stayed at Canterlot High, but even that didn’t mean I’d carved out my heart and watched it sink beneath the waves. She’d kept it going for me, strengthened it until it would beat on its own. The best way I can repay her: show her I can use it.

“The girls,” I say, my voice wavering. I take in a shuddering breath. “How are they doing?”

Her eyes soften, and she starts to smile, but it fades. “Sonata moved in with Gridiron.”

“That asshole?” My face burns, and I grab two handfuls of hair, and… gah, I want to punch something! But just as quickly, my strength drains away. Of course Sonata would do that. “He was the first one to ask her out, I bet. I can see it now,” I say quietly. “He asked her, and she put on that face where she freezes up, and he got confused, and he halfway jokes, ‘You’re supposed to say yes,’ so she does, because that’s just the way the routine goes.”

Tears again. I rub the heel of my hand across my running nose and sniffle. “I sure trained her well. Someone authoritative gives her an order like that, she’d better obey. She’s so, so trusting, and it’s a beautiful kind of wonder and innocence, and I just abused it.”

At one of those words, Sunset winces, and I jerk my head up. “What?”

“Well…” Sunset clenches her teeth. “She showed up to school with a black eye once. We tried to tell her not to put up with that, but she shrugged it off. Not like she was trying to hide it or rationalize it—more like she didn’t care.”

My fingers dig into the armrest, and some wood cracks. I think I bent the metal. “It probably didn’t even hurt her, really. She’s stronger than most, like us. She could have kicked his ass.” Without looking, I pull a shard of wood out of my fingertip and suck at the blood. “If he ever does that again—”

“Even he’s not that stupid,” she says. “But you know him. He doesn’t treat her well.”

As if I ever did. How did I really think I could just go, and she’d instantly become independent? I might as well have put that bruise there myself, for all I should have seen it coming. Sonata lucked into him, and I lucked into Sunset. I’d gladly trade places, for her sake. “So you try to explain it, but she shrugs and zones out, and you never get anywhere,” I say. Sunset gives a grim nod. “Too trusting. But damn is it endearing. She just brightens up a room, so happy all the time.”

“Maybe I’m not the one you should be telling all this.” Sunset puts a hand on my shoulder again, and it radiates, like a towel fresh from the dryer on a cold day. I could wrap myself up in the feeling and go to sleep.

Yeah. Sonata should know how I feel, and of all people, I can make her understand.

Damn it! Making her do things was the old me. I lean my head onto my shoulder, against Sunset’s hand there. “Where do I draw the line? She’ll do whatever I say, no matter how much I try to make it her decision, so I’d better be damn right, but how do I know I am right?”

“You try your best. You make sure it’s about her and not you. And you have friends who can help keep you grounded.” Her smile is almost as warm as her touch, two embers in the cold summer heat.

“You saved my life,” I say, “and I do love you. Seems like friends don’t ever say that, though.” She drums her fingers once on my shoulder, sending ripples through the tidal pool, not dried up after all. Good. It doesn’t make me weak, she’d say. I lift my head up so she can take her hand away if she wants, but she leaves it there. The dying light just lets the minnows flash and glint in the gentle warmth until the ocean returns and sets them free again.

She purses her lips, and then she gets a funny little smile. “You know, there’s a particular kind of whale in this world that… See, I did a report on them for biology class last semester. If they get an irritation in their digestive tract, they make a substance called ambergris. They might vomit it up, or it might come out the—” a feigned wince “—other end. Anyway, you can imagine it stinks something awful. But then it’s out in the light, and it changes. It takes on kind of a sweet odor, and it’s incredibly valuable. Long ago, it was used as a base for very expensive perfumes.

“So if you insist on saying you’re whale puke,” she says. I have a nice chuckle, and she smirks at me. I can see where this is going.

“Heh. Why don’t you just call me Amber, then?”

I meant it as a joke, but she’s gaping like I’ve just said the most brilliant thing ever. “That’s a great idea!” She quickly frowns, though, and taps a finger to her lips. “You don’t see the single names all that often. Well, I guess half the girls have them: Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy. Miss Cheerilee, too. Flitter. Thunderlane. Hm. More of them than I thought.”

I can’t help snickering. She’s really on about this! Still, I shrug. “That’s what most people at Griffonstone have. Sounds fine to me.”

But she shakes her head. “No, no, I’ve always liked the longer names. Besides, we need to fill out more of ‘ambergris.’ How about… Amber…” She squints up at the sky, and after a few seconds, her eyes light up. “Grace!”

“I don’t know.” Who can resist that smile, though?

“I won’t if you don’t want me to,” she says, “but it’d make a nice shorthand. Instead of going through all the ‘stop being so down on yourself’ rigmarole”—she circles a hand in the air—“I can just use that, and you’ll get the picture.”

“I guess, but…” I take a deep breath before plunging in. “I don’t feel like I show much grace about anything. Except for the grace you’ve shown me. Understanding I’m not a total loss is one thing, but grace? It just reminds me of what I’ll never have.”

The sparkle in her eye doesn’t diminish one bit. “It’s okay. Most people only use part of their name anyway. I normally call you ‘Adagio’ now, so… ‘Amber’ will do, if you don’t mind. The ‘Grace’ is hidden away, but still there. Same as you.”

If only I had half her faith in me, but I do like it. “Sure. Maybe I should get a little ambergris as a keepsake, like a pendant or something.”

“Nah,” she says, waving her free hand, “it’s waxy—wouldn’t make for good jewelry. Plus it’s illegal to buy or sell, which is something else you have in common.”

A real, full-bore laugh. I haven’t done that in centuries, and it reminds me of being a hatchling, when we’d swim into one of the smaller whirlpools and twirl all the way down, letting the churning water tickle us until we collapsed in laughter at the bottom, over and over again. But my grin withers, and I go silent. Sunset raises an eyebrow at me. I used to do that with Sonata and—

“And Aria?”

Sunset sighs and shakes her head. “Nobody’s seen her for months, not since a little after you moved away.”

Sunset always waits until I’ve gotten on the bus to leave, in case it broke down or something and I need a ride. She tried to convince me a while ago to let her take me home anyway and save me the bus fare, but she gets it. I pride myself on self-sufficiency, and it’s my choice to come here and meet with her. If anything, I should be making the bigger effort and going closer to where she lives, but I wouldn’t impose myself on her. Unless she hoped I’d want to come there and check on Sonata myself. But… I’m not there yet.

Or I could ask her to my place, even if it means making her drive farther. I ought to, just for the gesture, and if it starts to chip away at all the favors I owe her, I’d love to do something casual for once—watch a movie, talk about not-so-serious things.

Yeah. I’ll bring it up next time I see her. But tonight, I need to do this alone.

When the bus has only gone a few blocks and Sunset is out of sight, I ring the stop bell, and we grind to a halt with a sea serpent’s hiss of air brakes. “You sure?” the driver asks.

“I forgot something,” I mumble, tossing up on that concrete beach like… like ambergris.

“If it’s just a minute, I’ll wait,” he calls out the door.

I wave him on. Nice of him to offer, though, especially since the other few people on board wouldn’t like it. “Thanks, but this’ll take a while. I can walk.”

With a shrug, he shuts the doors and drives on. He knows my routine by now, my normal stop at the end of the day, which sits about twenty-five minutes’ walk from here, if I keep up a brisk pace.

If I go straight there.

Soon I recognize the spot where I saw Aria a few nights ago: the pockmarked sidewalk, the greasy yellow light bleeding out from behind barred windows, puddles around storm drains clogged up with pizza boxes and last year’s leaves.

Where would someone like Aria hang out? I don’t see any groups, and they’re not the kinds to cower in the dark alleys, with their steam vents making the stench of garbage stick to everything. I’d hear them talking in there, anyway.

Metal blinds rattle in the scant breeze, the open windows on the upper floors leaking music, televised escapism, and the occasional loud argument. A few even part as I walk past, and I ignore the wolf whistle from one. The old me would have added a waggle to my hips, needless temptation for the sake of it. Now, the stupid insincerity of it all… I shake my head.

Half the streetlights don’t even work, and the mishmash of red and blue and green from neon signs bathes the whole place in this eerie plastic glow. Back and forth I weave through the square grid of streets, a web created by an OCD spider. I’m one of the few not trapped here.

I round a corner, and—

Aria! I recognize it immediately, a little graffiti tag in her signature hair colors. A figure of her, all cartoonish, but definitely her. She’s actually a pretty good artist.

“Aria!” I shout as I whirl around for any hint of movement. But all I see is an old man in an apron and hairnet leaning out an iron door. He flicks a burning ember from his cigarette and goes back inside.

Down a wider alley, then another street over, a statue overlooks a traffic circle, empty at this hour. Several more shops here, but they’ve long since closed for the night, if not forever. Shame, too. I could use a bottle of water, but the convenience store doesn’t have any lights on. I don’t think so, anyway, but maybe it just has tinted windows, so I go over to have a look—

The plate glass shatters, and I squat down, covering my head with my hands and ducking behind a parking meter. What the—? Three figures leap out, one slouching over a bundle it holds against its stomach as it races down the street.

Before they can get too far, I peek around the post. L-long, trailing hair, a-and…

“Aria!”

She stops, peers over her shoulder at me, her eyes widening. Halting steps back this way—I nod, and I walk toward her, and she reaches out to touch me like I’m some kind of ghost.

Her hair’s a mess. Sunken eyes, and that tight shirt she always used to wear hangs loosely off her shoulders. Bony wrists, and… I don’t look at her arms. I don’t want to know.

“W-what are you doing?” I say.

She laughs, shifts her weight onto one leg like she doesn’t have a care in the world, quickly glances up and down the street. In her arms, that dark bundle—part of it materializes in her hand, and she holds it out to me. A bag of chips and a bottle of cheap vodka. Her other hand clutches a wad of cash. “H-hey, girl! How’d you know where to find me?” She can’t hold her head steady. “Have some, my treat.”

“You can’t steal this stuff!”

Right away, her face darkens. “Oh, grow up.”

“Me!?” I shout, smacking a hand against my chest. “You’re the one playing some… adventure game, grabbing your loot, fending for yourself, and damned if there are any consequences! You can’t live like this!”

She grits her teeth and lurches at me, a sluggish crocodile in cold water. “Yeah, I fend for myself, ’cause you fucking left! How else would I live? You gonna tell me? Got any more orders for me?”

I take her by the shoulders, but I don’t hold onto her, and at least she doesn’t jerk back. “Aria, please, I… Don’t be like this. I’m sorry.” What the hell am I even doing? Starting a shouting match right away, putting her on the defensive. I fuck everything up. “Please.”

Aria twists away and takes a few steps.

“I love you. I love you, and I love Sonata, and you’re my dearest friends. Please, I want—” I can’t do it. I can’t invite her to live with me, or it’ll all happen again. I clench my fist, dig my fingernails in. Damn it, I don’t even trust her right now. If I let her in my apartment, how much stuff would disappear the next morning?

She comes right back, gets in my face. “Don’t pull that shit on me! What do you care? You just want something, but unless it’s a bag of chips, you’re out of fucking luck!” she screams as she hurls the package at my feet, flings the bottle against a brick wall. “You left! You fucking left, and I came after you when I couldn’t take it, but I couldn’t find you, so this—” she spreads her arms out, a scarecrow far from her element “—is how I made do.”

I can’t look at her. I just cover my face with a hand and cry into it, for all the good it does. “Please. I only want to help,” I say, reaching for another of the parking meters to keep myself on my feet.

For several long minutes, she stares back, and I shake and shake, wipe the back of a hand across my nose. In her eyes, the waves calm, and she blinks a few times. She’s still so close. I can hear her breathing. So I sniffle hard, pull her into a hug, and squeeze the tears out of my eyes. “Jeez, I miss you.”

She lets me, and her breath trembles, or maybe it’s just me shaking again. I press my face into her shoulder—just the smell of her, buried under dirt and sweat and alcohol, but it’s still there, and it ignites those old memories of what she used to be. If she minds my tears running down her neck, she doesn’t say anything, and she starts to wrap her free arm around my back…

Gently, she pushes me away, but her eyes glisten in the kaleidoscope of bar signs and streetlights, and they flick back and forth, never finding purchase on me. “You really want to help?” she says quietly. I nod. “Y-you got any money on you?”

I don’t answer. She turns and walks off, her voice cracking. “Just… forget it.”

Tough love. That’s exactly what Sunset had to do for me at times. I wonder if she felt this sea nettle sting from it, too. I clutch my shoulder, walk the opposite direction, pull out my phone, and fumble to tap in the number. It rings twice, then: “911, what’s the nature of the emergency?”

“I’d like to report a burglary,” I choke out. Can he even understand me?

Aria turns around. “You what!?”

“Where is the burglary, ma’am?”

I sink to my knees, and the tears won’t stop. I can’t do this, all trembling, and I can’t even talk.

“You called the fucking cops!?”

“Ma’am? Ma’am?”

I hang up, and my arms go limp by my sides. Shit, I can’t even get this right.

“Just go,” I whimper. “I love you, I do, I really do, I love you, but the cops’ll come anyway, they have to, it’s how it works. They can track where the call came from.”

She hesitates, looks down the street for cars, shakes her head. Wipes away tears.

“Aria, I love you, but you have to go, before they get here.”

So she does. She disappears into the ocean of night.

No time to think—I can’t stay either, or I’ll have to answer questions, and I sure don’t look too innocent here. I could probably kiss my nice job good-bye. I run off, all the way home, without stopping until I’m through my door, turn the lock, the deadbolt, set the latch, and I curl up in a ball in the middle of the floor and cry in the darkness.

Everything Sunset did for me, I have to earn it. I have to earn it by doing the same for someone else. Grace works that way. I think.

At Bullseye, I have four people who report to me now. I started in my new position yesterday, and it’s actually going fine. They’re good kids, and I help them, and I tell them they do a good job. Sunset and my boss believed in me, and… it’s happening. I can’t help smiling.

So of course one of the first things I do is beg off work an hour early on pretense of a headache. At least I mean well, though.

The bus driver looks at me funny when I get off a stop later than normal. I’d overlooked it before, but another one of Aria’s graffiti tags graces a wall within sight of the park. I can hang out here until Sunset arrives.

I slip into the entryway of a storefront with a badly faded “for lease” sign in the window and pull out my phone to pop up whatever mindless distraction looks appealing. Mahjongg or—ooh, Sunset took her turn in our word game. We’ve filled out most of the board, though, so not many places to move, and I still have this stupid “V” to find a spot for. It always bugs me to play a word I can’t define, so I start tapping it in random spaces and seeing if the game will accept it, but no luck.

Hm. I peek up to the top corner. About forty percent left on my battery—

Shit! I nearly drop my phone at the dark figure standing in front of me, and I hold a hand over my thudding heart.

“Aria!” I break into a huge grin, stuff my phone in my pocket, and hug her, and she shrugs her shoulders as if to make her arms respond, but all she can manage is a single hand on my waist. It’ll do. “You had me so worried!”

She smiles a little, but she’ll only look at the ground. “Why are you here?” she asks.

I take a breath and wrap my mind around my thoughts, a bundle of seaweed to harvest, raw, but ready to be tempered with magic, the kind Sunset taught me. “I’m sorry. I owe you an apology.”

Her gaze snaps up, and she blinks at me. “You… you what?”

“I screwed up everything, and I thought I’d only make things worse, but abandoning you wasn’t the answer. I thought you’d learn independence, but all you learned was I didn’t fu—” I let out a sharp sigh “—I didn’t care. Even if I made a crappy leader, at least we’d have still muddled our way through it together, but I didn’t trust myself. You deserve more.”

In her eyes, pools of moonlight shimmer, schools of silvery fish darting around. But her shoulders slump, and she turns sideways, out of my hold, to lean against the door jamb. “You think you can just come here and say these things and instantly make everything better?” she says softly.

“No. I’m here so I can do something.”

Behind her back, she crosses her arms. “It’s not that easy. Look, you—you were the only direction in my life! You told me what to do, when to do it, a-and it’s just gone, leaving me in midair. I had nothing!” She’s… she’s sweating. A lot.

“I know. I was wrong, but I want to try to make it right.”

“How?” She smacks both fists against the brick wall and squeezes her eyes shut. “You gonna give me a place to live? New clothes? A big fancy welcome-home feast?”

It sounds like such an empty gesture now. “I thought about it. I was going to give you a key, say to crash at my place whenever you needed. But look at you! Would any of my stuff still be there in the morning?” It has to hurt, but… damn, I owe her the truth.

“I’m trying. I really am,” she says, rubbing her forehead.

“Hangover?”

She nods. And who knows what else she might be coming down from. “I woke up this morning, and…” She swallows hard and presses a palm to her temple. “Not since I first started living here, I really saw it. Staying in a shithole condemned building, hoping some guy at the pizza joint can’t finish and leaves his last slice behind.” Her eyes flash as she glances up at me, and tears roll down her cheeks. “I don’t like it, but what can I do to change it? At least I… I laid off the stuff today. I thought you’d want that. Something told me I’d see you again soon.”

She did that? For me? “Thanks,” I say with a smile. “I’m proud of you.” I should have told her that so many times in her life. She does grin back—a little, fragile one, but it’s there.

“Aria, please. This can work. Let me help. But you have to meet me halfway.” Damn it, I just want to hug her and lie to her and tell her everything’s perfect, calm seas, but I know how it looks to her. It’s bad enough now, but if I start breaking promises, too…

She sniffles, rubs her nose, wipes her fingers on the wall. “And what does that mean?”

I take a step toward her, and she flinches at first. Then I hug her again. She’s so faithful, so—

Out loud. I need to say this out loud.

“Aria, you’re brilliant. Nobody could pick something apart like you, find the flaws, and you’re more faithful than you give yourself credit for. Like Sonata! Don’t think I didn’t notice. She gets hung up, I know, freezes, but when you pick at her, it keeps the gears turning, gets her thinking. It helped, it really did, and you saw something in her that made it worth the trouble, her sweetness, her naivete. You wanted her to gain some independence by figuring out things on her own, just like…” I sigh and shake my head. “Just like I wanted to do for you.”

She doesn’t argue. Her eyes have gone wide again, and she winces like she expects me to rip into her about it. “No! Don’t be scared, Aria! You had your heart in the right place. If I had any sense, I would have learned from you. A-and your art! Those pictures you made on the walls around here—” I sweep a hand at the surrounding neighborhood “—they’re good!”

All she can do is chew on her lip. So I lean in and speak next to her ear. “Please. Go to rehab. I’ll look out for you. That’s all you have to do.”

Her body jerks like a fish on a dock. “That’s all, huh?” Then her arm twitches. “You don’t just get out of a gang. I can’t disappear and expect them to leave me alone!”

“They threatened you? Look, Aria, it’s a bluff. They pull that kind of stuff on TV, not for real.”

“N-no, I’m in trouble, maybe, maybe if I pay them off—you got any money with you?” Her sweating gets worse, and she grits her teeth.

“C’mon! Don’t let them fool you! Just go to rehab, and… and I can get you a job, give you a place to sleep, like old times. We’ll be together.” Damn it, why won’t she listen? She backs away, starts walking up the street, into the dark, and jams a hand in her pocket. “Your art is amazing, Aria! Please, we’ll set you up at art school. This can work!” I run up to her from behind.

“I said it’s not that easy!” she barks, and she won’t turn to face me, so I grab her arm. Quick as lightning, that hand whips out again, and she whirls around and punches me in the stomach as hard as she can.

Back, I stagger—can’t breathe! I fight to stand, to gasp in air. “What the fuck, Aria!?” I wheeze out. But when I reach down to rub it, my stomach’s warm and wet, and… I-I look at the growing stain on my shirt.

A… a knife?

My jaw drops, and I fall on my ass, try to stay propped sitting up, but my arms won’t stop trembling, and… Aria.

She has both hands over her mouth, her eyes all jolted wide, and she whimpers, her knees wobbling and her face ashen. “Oh shit oh shit oh shit!”

The… the dull ache, but it tingles, too, and I laugh. I laugh, and something rattles in my throat, and someone’s crying, but why would they? I’m happy.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, oh shit, what do I do? Adagio, tell me what to do!”

Just let me lie here. I’m happy. I laugh again or cough or both.

“Adagio? Adagio!?” She lets out a fierce, keening scream. Then she yanks out her knife, digs into my pocket, takes my wallet, and runs.

I laugh.

A harbor, behind the breakwater, or somewhere else protected from the incessant waves that even a peaceful day will generate. I could float here forever, alone. People don’t come out by the rocks after dark. Too dangerous, but if I wait long enough, Sonata and Aria will join me.

I look up at the sky, and nothing matters. Little stars dance around above me, in my eyes, along my arms and fins. But it’s summer, and it shouldn’t be so cold here.

Whispers, in the distance. Sonata, Aria, I call, but I don’t hear my voice. Maybe I didn’t say it. The stars turn blue and red and loud, and they flash on and off, and someone touches my shoulder. It feels nice. Long ago, I thought I didn’t like it, but I was wrong then. Adagio, my ears tell me, hang on.

I keep laughing or coughing water, but why? I’m just floating here; none of it gets in my mouth.

More touching, lots of it, on my neck and my arm, and pressing on my stomach.

Hang on, I think again, or someone thinks for me. Adag—Amber, I’m here, stay with me.

Amber. Amber Grace.

I try to lift my head, but I don’t know how. Sunset, I think to myself. Yes, a thought drifts in, I’m here, Amber.

Good.

Ugh, time for school already? My alarm beeped at me, but it’s not still going, so I must have punched the snooze bar or something. That only means it’ll start up again soon enough, so I lean over in the darkness and pat around on the bedside table for it, but it’s not in its usual spot. I roll a little to reach further and—

Shit, my stomach hurts! I grope around harder for a light, and something tumbles over, then a rough sound of swishing cloth and a hand on my shoulder. “Shh. Don’t move. Just rest.”

“Wh-who—?”

“Just me, Amber. Go back to sleep.”

“Sunset?”

“Yes. Go back to sleep.”

I flop into my pillow again, and my chest burns when I breathe, but I am tired, and she wants me to. I’d do whatever she asked, especially because all she asks is for me to be Amber. “Okay.”

Two footsteps, the groan of springs, and the room falls silent again.

I open my eyes to sunlight, but before I can freak out about oversleeping, I catch sight of all the white furniture, and… Sunset, dozing in a recliner, only a short distance away. She has her jacket spread across her like a blanket, and her chest rises and falls gently.

For a moment, I look around—lots of stuff hanging on the walls, a small table, an IV pole. Not much else. But the table has a pitcher of water, and I am really thirsty, so I pour myself a cup. The ice rattles around a bit, and Sunset stirs.

“Hey,” I say.

She yawns, then smiles at me as she cranks the seat upright. “Good to see you awake, but take it easy. I can do that for you.”

“I know. You’ve done plenty, though.” The cool water runs down my throat as I drink, and it quenches the fire in my chest a little. It’s gotten better since last night.

When I look again, she has her lips pursed. “Alright, out with it,” I say.

She points at my stomach, like a witness on the stand. “Adagio, you wouldn’t tell the police who did that.”

“Oh?”

“You’re not going to, I take it.”

“No.”

“Aria?”

With a nod, I put my cup down.

She watches the monitor beside me for a few seconds, its numbers bobbing up and down with the sea, undulating as the waves trek from nowhere to nowhere. “I had a feeling. How’d you even find her?”

“It’s my fault.”

The same scowl she used to wear with me flares up. “We’ve gone over this! Amber Grace—”

“It’s my fault. Yeah, I get it, I’m ambergris, but that doesn’t mean I never mess up. This was my fault, and I need to fix it, the same way you fixed me: with patience and understanding.”

She takes a second, then rubs a hand over her mouth and nods, leaning forward.

“It’s working, I can tell. I won’t give up on her just because of this—” I gingerly rest a hand over my stitches “—and I won’t let anyone else give up on her, either.”

Her face softens, arctic ice succumbing to a spring thaw, and she takes my hand in both of hers. I doubt she’ll ever know how much that means to me, how much it makes me feel like I have wings, but that’s okay.

Then the door opens, and a nurse comes in carrying a clipboard. “Hi there! I’m Tenderheart, your day nurse, and I just need to check your vitals and have a look at your wound, okay?”

She starts to pull my blanket off, and I tug the edge of my gown out from under me. I haven’t seen it myself yet, and I’m curious to know how it looks.

In a blink, Sunset’s already slinging her jacket over her shoulder and heading for the door. “I’m going to the cafeteria to grab a cup of coffee. Be right back.”

I glance up at her, then down again to where I was about to flip open my gown. Ah. Not like I’d care. “You don’t have to leave.”

“It’s okay, Amber. I need the caffeine.” So I smile and nod.

When the door clicks shut again, I roll up the gown, and aside from the large bruise, I honestly expected worse. Only a couple inches across, right under my ribs.

Tenderheart peers closely, scribbles something on her forms, and takes the stethoscope draped around her neck. “Let’s check that breathing first. They nicked your lung, and we need to make sure you don’t still have any fluid accumulating. And you lost a lot of blood. Amber, was it?” She frowns at her clipboard.

I laugh, and oh crap, it hurts, but yeah, Amber. “Nah, only she calls me that. It’s Adagio Dazzle.”

“Ah.” She snaps a nod at whatever she has in her paperwork. “Well, let’s see how you’re doing, and maybe the doctor can discharge you tomorrow.”

Amber. Grace, even. Yeah, it’s growing on me. And I know what I need to do.

I don’t normally meet with Sunset on a Saturday, but my manager told me under no circumstances should I show up at work until I really felt up to it. So I guess I have the day off.

I also don’t normally come here in the daytime, and… it actually doesn’t look too bad. Some kids playing, a group gathered around a community cookout, a couple of old men reading newspapers on their front stoops. The light changes things. Kind of like ambergris.

On one of the walls, a little painted Aria figure grins back. A “chibi” style, I think I’ve heard it called. She’s quite good. Down the street a bit further, another, on top of the old graffiti. Looks recent.

More and more. The closer I get, I keep seeing them, on a telephone pole, on a trash can. Until the doorway, where… it happened. There are at least a dozen of them painted on the sidewalk, gathered around the last traces of a stain on the concrete. These ones don’t smile.

From here, I can see the park, and I know Sunset won’t show up today, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll see her soon enough. This will probably be my last time coming here anyway, if everything goes as planned, so I don’t mind a little extra walk. I got off one stop later again, in case I might catch Aria, but nothing so far.

I’m not supposed to lift anything over ten pounds for the next four weeks, but the bag of fast-food sandwiches I have is only two, three at the most. So I get to my bench without passing any more Arias on the way, and I set the bag up on the seat before I let myself down slowly. Unghh, it still hurts, but now I can rest.

With my arms spread across the back of the bench, I close my eyes and listen. People shouting, laughing, ringing bicycle bells. It almost sounds like an old port city, with the dock workers making their whistle calls, the galleons creaking and groaning at their moorings, the whip of pennants flying from the masts, and cart wheels grumbling about their burdens. I can imagine the scent of salt air, though I’m getting more of a whiff of grilled onions from that cookout.

She’ll come. I believe in her.

An hour goes by, maybe two, and I consider getting out my phone to play a game, but… down at the end of the fence. Aria’s watching! My chest buzzes—she came, she really came!

Does she know I’ve spotted her? Does it matter?

I… let her play at stealth, I guess, and little by little, she walks up, her hand brushing along the rusted iron. Her face doesn’t look so hollow anymore, from what few glimpses I can grab out of the corner of my eye. When she finally stops in front of me, she hangs there like a rag doll and stares at her feet.

“I’m sorry, Adagio.”

“I know.”

“Shit, I was scared. I didn’t know if I’d—”

“It’s alright. I forgive you.” I say it as gently as I can. Too many people don’t leave it at face value. It’s less about actually forgiving someone and more about grinding it into them that they did something needing forgiveness. “It’s over. Done with.”

She extends a tremulous hand, and in it… my wallet. I reach past it and hold her wrist, a touch. She tries to help me up, but I grimace and shake my head, then tug her down to the bench. Still, she won’t look at me, but she does hand me the wallet, very conspicuously hanging open with all the money inside. It wouldn’t have changed anything.

So I take it, stuff it in my pocket like the insignificant thing it is, and drape my arm around her neck, pull her toward me, lean my head against hers, touch. She’s still filthy, still smells of alcohol, but her mind is here today. We sit like that for a while. I don’t care how long, but not nearly long enough, never could be. “I love you,” I say with a squeeze of her shoulder. “It doesn’t matter what you do. That will never change. Now you need to love yourself. Okay?”

“It’s not that easy,” she mumbles, her eyebrows drawing together, and a breath catches in her throat.

“I know. But you’re strong, and I’ll stay by you the whole way, making sure you know you deserve it.” Hidden grace, huh? Damn, why does Sunset always have to be right?

Aria snorts up a laugh, but she reaches for my hand and laces her fingers with mine, intergrown coral in the warm currents. Together.

I don’t mind not talking. It suits me just fine. We could have watched the world drift by for hours, but I’ve kept an eye on my phone. Time may not count for much in the middle of the ocean, but it does here.

With a grunt, I stand up. I have an appointment to keep. I’m taking the bus down to Sunset’s place. From now on, we’ll meet at one of our apartments. Today, we’re going to talk about how to pry Sonata away from that horrible boyfriend of hers. I also bought her a pair of amber earrings. I can’t wait to see her face when she opens them!

As I go, my fingers trail out of Aria’s grasp, one last touch. I have to walk a little hunched over, but not as much as I used to. She starts to point at the bag, but I smile and shake my head, then I go on without it.

Half a block back toward the other bus stop, I glance behind me, and she reaches into the bag, pulls out the sheet of paper on top. It has my phone number on it, and below that, one for rehab, plus a note next to it. “Call this one first,” it says, “and you’ll always have a home with me.”

Aria crumples the page in her fist and clutches it to her chest before gritting her teeth and looking up at the sky, tears rolling down her cheeks like a summer squall. Then she grabs one of the sandwiches and wolfs half of it down before I can take a breath, her teardrops raining on the parched pavement.

I owe her so much. And I’ll pay her back the right way, if she’ll let me.

She doesn’t throw the paper away. Instead, she slides it in her pocket, and just from her slumped posture, the way she sighs—all the things I can’t put my finger on but have learned to read over the centuries—she’s already made the right choice.

She’ll make me proud. I have no doubt of it.

So I continue on toward the bus stop and an afternoon with Sunset. I sure hope it made her feel this good to help me, to forge a real connection, a real friendship. Like… like a porpoise, speeding through the sun-flecked shallows, breaching amid a rainbow sea spray: twist, flip, splash.

Ow. Just thinking about it gets me worked up, and I love those girls, but my stomach’s not quite up to it yet. Still, I do hope Sunset feels this way.

Because it’s wonderful.

Author's Note

There's a sort of pair of sequels to this story posted here and here.