The cold air around Aria bit at her skin as she sat down at the freezing and uninviting bus stop. She had just gotten off her shift at work, and she wanted nothing more than to be in her warm bed at home.
Sonata had probably started on dinner, and Adagio was probably already in the bathroom, running her evening bath, a bottle of wine in her hand.
While she was standing outside in the cold waiting for the bus. It was unfair, sure, but someone had to make the money in the weird and messed up family. Sonata was too stupid to hold a job and Adagio was too full of herself to admit that they weren’t as powerful as they were before and things weren’t going to be handed to them anymore.
Aria didn’t mind though, she kind of liked being by herself anyway. Working was nice. It gave her something to do and it took her mind off of the future. It was a pretty uncertain thing thanks to the revokement of their magic at the hand of those girls.
Aria sighed and rubbed her hands together. She wasn’t sure if it was the cold or her nerves that made a shiver run down her back. She hoped it was the former. The bus couldn’t come fast enough.
Just then, she felt the bench she had been sitting on groan from the addition of extra weight. Normally, she wouldn’t even acknowledge the other person sitting with her at the stop, but something told her to look up.
Her face immediately turned into a snarl. “Sunset Shimmer. Just my luck.”
Sunset turned to the other girl, a shocked, and most reasonably frightened expression on her face. She hadn’t seen any of the Dazzlings since the night of the Battle of the Bands, and had been dreading the day where she would encounter one of them on her own. “You’re—”
“Aria Blaze. You don’t know me exactly, but you know what you did to me and my sisters,” Aria cut her off sharply, seething.
Sunset’s eyes widened, and visibly scooted away from the older woman. “I didn’t—We didn’t—”
“Save it,” Aria said, cutting her off again with a raised hand. “I don’t need your idiotic rambling this late at night,” she pulled out a box of cigarettes from her jacket pocket and a lighter from the other. “If I’m going to talk to you, I’m gonna need all the nicotine I can get,”
Sunset frowned. “You shouldn’t smoke those. You might be mortal now, you really shouldn’t be—”
“And who’s fault is that?” Aria snapped, the small fire coming from the lighter dancing in the strong winter wind. She continued to make eye contact with Sunset as she lit it, puffing out smoke in the other girl’s face.
Sunset’s nose wrinkled as she turned the other way. “Point taken,” she grumbled, coughing a little. “Just, when you need to, can you not blow it in my face?”
Aria exhaled through her nose and snorted. “No promises.” she responded, taking another drag. “So, to what do i owe the pleasure of seeing your face?”
“I was just...on the way home from a friendship thing. My bike’s in the shop so I decided to take the bus home.” Sunset responded, not looking at her still.
“Bike, huh?” The former siren ruminated. “What kind?”
“Eighty-nine Harley,” Sunset responded, smiling faintly. “Built her from the ground up myself.” She slightly turned to Aria, but still couldn’t look her in the eye.
“No shit?” Aria seemed genuinely surprised. She whistled. “Damn. If I didn’t hate you, I’d actually be impressed.”
Sunset shrugged. “I’ll take it as a compliment.”
Aria took another drag from her cigarette and flicked the ashes towards the ground, making small droplets of snow melt. “What was your little friendship thing? Not that I care, but since we’re both stuck here waiting for a bus, we might as well make the best of it.”
“Um, well,” Sunset started, “We saw a movie and stuff. You know, friendship stuff.”
Aria raised a brow. “That’s it? A movie and some stuff? You weren’t out terrorizing some other thousand year old Equestrian beings?”
Sunset pouted. “To be fair, you and your sisters were going to take over the whole world. It’s not like we had a choice in stopping you. And if we had known it was going to take away your singing...we would have tried to find another way.”
“Bold faced lie and you know it,” Aria replied, pointing the lit end of her cigarette at Sunset. “You just said yourself that we were so close to taking over the world. You were shaking in your little bad girl boots and you know it. You may have sympathy now, but in that moment, the only thing that mattered was stopping us. And you would do it again if you could.” She eyed Sunset, who opened her mouth, and then closed it. “Got you.” she added smugly.
Sunset growled. “Okay fine. You’re right. We wouldn’t have let you go or found another way. But...you guys didn’t deserve to have everything taken away from you. We just wanted to protect the world. You can’t be mad at us for that,” she ran a hand through her hair and sighed.
Aria nodded, sitting back. “No, I guess I can’t.”
There was a moment of pure silence between them, cars passing by being the only sound that could be heard.
“You know, being in this world for a thousand years, you learn some things. About yourself and others.” When Aria didn’t get a response from Sunset, she continued. “You learn to never trust anyone, to never show your weaknesses, and to always look out for no one but yourself.” she turned to Sunset looking her straight in the eye and blowing smoke in her face once again. “I really don’t like you, Sunset Shimmer, but here’s one good piece of advice.”
Sunset coughed and frowned. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“Nothing lasts forever. Not even those little friendships of yours. You’re all going to graduate, get jobs, have kids, and die. And your children will too. And so on and so forth. Maybe some of you will stay in touch, but most likely over time you all will grow so far apart that it would seem like you guys weren’t even friends in the first place.”
“You’re wrong!” Sunset snarled, denying her.
“Am I?!” Aria barked back. “You might want to think twice about questioning the intelligence of someone who has centuries on you!” she took a long drag of her cigarette. “I’m not saying this to be a dick. Everything may still be all happy pony land for you like how it was in Equestria because of your friends, but one day you’re going to wake up in a shitty apartment, with a shitty job, and realize you’re all alone.”
“Friendship can last forever,” Sunset told her defiantly. “You just have to find the right friends.”
“Maybe in Equestria,” Aria agreed, stamping out her cigarette with her foot. “But here, it’s nothing but a fantasy,” she ran a hand through her hair. “Try hiding in a bunker as bombs are raining from the sky. Try wondering how anyone out there could have a heart enough to kill millions of people because they were different. Friendship didn’t help fix those. Guns and violence did.”
Sunset stayed quiet.
“I’m not knocking the whole friendship thing, alright? Enjoy it while it lasts,” Aria said, getting up as her bus rumbled down the street. “I’ve got some people close to me too. I can just see through all the sparkly bullshit better than you can. Don’t let friendship blind you to the real world.”
Sunset watched as Aria boarded the bus, not taking one glance back at her. She stared as the bus drove out of sight, and leaned her head against the glass behind her as snow began to fall.
Did she have some things to think about.
Author's Note
Something ive been working on since November. Kind of dark, but Ive always seen Aria as the cynical one. Anyway dont forget to support me on patreon and or donate to my paypal! My goal is 250 so if anyone can help please do!
