Too Many Everything

Chapters

Five Girls, Four Days, Thirteen Hundred Miles
Car Talk 1
Food Talk 1
Food Talk 2
Post-Food Talk
Car Talk 2 (Truth or Dare 1)
Car Talk 3 (Truth or Dare)
Hotel Talk 1
Sleep Talk 1
Hotel Talk 2
Breakfast Talk 1
Car Talk 4
Other Car Talk 1
Other Car Talk 2

Five Girls, Four Days, Thirteen Hundred Miles

Author's Note

I don't know what I'm doing, let's just see what happens.

Really I just wanted to put my five favorite characters in a box and go from there.

Five Girls, Four Days, Thirteen Hundred Miles

The early days of summer are usually filled with optimism, hope, and idealistic planning for the weeks to come. Sunlight crests over the mountains and hills and sets on crystalline waters, in a slow and expanding ac that provides brilliant light by which many people usually do some much needed yard work, have a barbeque, or simply find something to do with friends. The nights are a little cooler, and often optimal for camping, sleepovers, and late-night adventures both of the mischievous and amorous variety.

The season is a favorite among teenagers, providing a much-needed and widely anticipated break from the monotony of government-mandated studying, standardized tests, and forced social interaction with hundreds of people a day. It was the perfect season for camping trips, concerts, international vacations, and in this case, road tripping across the country.

At least, until you got to Adagio freakin’ Dazzle. “I can’t believe you’re dumping me in the rejects van, Sunset. This is low even for you.” She flipped her voluminous and almost unnaturally curly hair over her shoulder and glared daggers at her… associate. Crossing her arms over her rather generous chest, she struck a pose that radiated impatience and disapproval. She had forgone her typical mauve attire for clothes she most likely considered ‘conservative’; blue denim daisy dukes and a white crop top that, on anyone else, might have looked slutty. On Adagio Dazzle, however, a girl who prided herself on her sex appeal, the appropriate term might be ‘starter pack’. She had even foregone her favored high heels for simple white sneakers for the sake of a matching outfit, and had topped off the almost stereotypical summer flair with a sun visor.

Sunset Shimmer didn’t even look over her shoulder, rendering Adagio’s posturing useless, which she knew drove the ex-siren crazy. Busying herself with rearranging the luggage and storage containers in the back of the vehicle, she called over her shoulder. “It’s not the ‘rejects van’, Adagio. You were the one who specifically requested not riding with your sisters in what you so affectionately referred to as ‘that rusty death trap’ Applejack is driving.” There was a loud ‘thunk’ as the last pieces fell into place in the rear of the vehicle, and there was finally enough space for the rest of the girl’s things. She straightened out, stretching languidly with one arm high above her head. Even though she wasn’t as… well-endowed as the Dazzling, Adagio noticed the gesture did interesting things to the other girl’s figure, and licked her lips approvingly. Her eyes wandered over Sunset’s own choice of attire: a simple sky blue sundress that flowed to her knees in a not-quite sheer material that still suggested at curves in all the right places, a pair of simple yet overlarge sunglasses, and lace-up ballet flats in a flattering ocean blue. She’d even tied up her hair in a ponytail that hung in a friendly drape over her shoulder.

"Oh, you can’t tell me you’d want to drive a thousand miles in that beat-down gas-guzzler and stop every half hour to fill up the tank again?” Dazzle protested.

Sunset mulled this over. “That’s fair. But it’s not like there weren’t any other options. I mean, almost twenty girls on a two-week adventure to a private beach in Florida? Like hell we’d all fit in one car. Why didn’t you ride with like, Twilight Sparkle, if you’re so opposed to the idea?”

“Probably because her car only holds four comfortably, and between her cleavage and her hair there wouldn’t be room to breathe, let alone see the road,” came a snarky, pitchy feminine voice from the far side of the parking lot. The two turned to see a trio of girls approaching, the speaker none other than Trixie Lulamoon. The self-styled magician had opted for simple blue jeans and a powder-blue shirt, accented by her typical hat and cape. Adagio was slightly annoyed to see such conservative attire, although she knew from experience Trixie didn’t really have much to work with, which was a sore spot for the girl. She cast sparing glances at the other two, Maude Pie and Sugarcoat.

Dazzle let the insult slide off her back like water. “Don’t think for a second you’re wearing that hat in the car. It goes in the back with the rest of the… stuff.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow at her. “You had to physically stop yourself from calling it trash, didn’t you?”

Adagio sighed. “Or something like it, yes. God, this… being nice thing is exhausting. God knows how Sonata does it.

Maude spoke up. “Probably because she’s a genuinely nice person with a slight sadistic streak and has too much positive energy not to be like that.”

Adagio turned on the girl to make some scathing comment about the implied insult, and stopped when she saw the expression, or lack thereof, on the older Pie sister’s face. Unsure whether she meant it as an insult or an observation, she opted to let it go, instead giving the girl a quick five-point inspection. A steel-blue tank top over deep blue denim shorts, though not as ‘short’ as Adagio was wearing, and the most sensible black shoes Adagio had ever seen. Even her hair was a dull straight-cut. Adagio considered the effort required to get the girl to actually embrace her femininity, and decided she’d have rather ridden in AJ’s truck. “I still don’t know where she gets it,” Adagio said finally. “It’s not like Aria or I were any good at being positive role-models.”

There were a few loud thuds as someone loaded more luggage into the back of the van. The girls turned their attention to the last girl in the group, Sugarcoat, who had taken it upon herself to load the other girl’s luggage in the back of the van. Even while she worked, Adagio could tell the girl was, in some ways, a kindred spirit. She too, wore a bit less clothing than was maybe necessary. Not exactly as over-sexualized as the Dazzling, but the short white skirt (which would have certainly never made it past the front door of the school), the low-cut white blouse, and denim vest certainly had their own appeal. Even if the girl wasn’t as curvy as the ex-siren or Sunset, or even Maude, she was obviously the type to work what she had. Sugarcoat looked up after a moment to see Adagio and the other girls staring at her. “If we’re going to leave, we want to do so quickly. Traffic will be garbage and I’m not a hundred percent excited about the idea of being trapped in a dingy car with a handful of effective strangers for the next half-week.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “Dingy? I just rented this thing! Heated seats, screens in the back of the seats, built-in Wi-Fi, and a whole bunch of other bells and whistles.”

Adagio whistled appreciatively. She’d never actually looked inside the van, having met the girl her and waited until long after the other cars had taken off for these stragglers. “How did you afford that? I mean, I know I could do so easily, but you?”

Sunset smirked devilishly. “The same way I can afford to live by myself in a single-story house in a nice neighborhood with no HOA: a rather generous helping of gold coin from another dimension. Ever since I made nice with Equestria, all I have to do is ask for a small tuppence every couple of weeks, and I’m basically rich.”

Sugarcoat raised an eyebrow impressively as she grabbed Trixie’s hat off her head and threw it into the back of the van, slamming the whole shebang shut. “And how much is a ‘small tuppence’?”

Sunset pulled the driver’s door open, and thought for a second. “Let’s see, 100 bits every two weeks, two ounces a bit, so factoring in the price of gold per ounce… two hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars? Every two weeks?”

“WHAT. THE FUCK. SUNSET.” Trixie declared. “How are you not retired right now?!”

Adagio stepped in to answer. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to move that much gold legally? Or even illegally? I doubt that’s how much cash she actually milks out of it all at once.”

Sunset fiddled around with the driver’s seat for a moment, making sure it fit her properly. “No joke. I’ve got a guy from back when I first started, basically a fence in the city, and he can only move like, two pounds every two weeks. So I only get like, eighty grand a month.”

Adagio felt an eyebrow twitch. “That is such bullshit. There’s no way you can pull that much in-” she was cut off as Sunset turned the key and let the van roar to life. “That’s… that’s a Hemi. You got a rental van with a Hemi in it.”

Sunset smiled prettily from the driver’s seat. “Yes, Adagio, yes I-”

“SHOTGUN!” the Dazzling yelled, running around the front of the van to throw the passenger door open.

“Dammit!” Trixie whined. “Trixie wanted to play with the radio.”

“Trixie has to admit, Sunset,” Trixie said from the back seat. “She’s impressed with your choice of vehicle. We seem to be making good time.”

Sugarcoat roller her eyes. “We’ve been driving for ten minutes. Ten miles down, 1360 to go. And please tell me you actually brought movies to PLAY in this thing?” she asked dryly, poking the screen in front of her with an annoyed finger. She glanced to the left, seeing Maude well and deep into a rather large textbook.

Trixie also eyed the monitor in the set in front of her curiously. “Agreed. How do you even… work this thing?” Seeing the sideways glance from Sugarcoat, she added, “Trixie is very bad with technology. Her family still uses one of those big box-y TV’s.”

Adagio coughed as the canned lemonade she was drinking caught in her throat. “A CRT?! Are you serious? How did you even find one?!”

There was some weakness in Trixie’s voice as she said, “We’ve had it for… awhile.”

Sunset smacked Adagio upside the head. Adagio yelped, and rubbed the sore spot. “We’re being nice, remember?” Shimmer growled.

“Oh… right. Sorry, Trixie,” Adagio added humbly.

After a few moments, Sugarcoat filled the awkward silence. “Ok, so what’s your story, anyway? Sunset I know, because Twilight and I still talk. But You were before Twilight’s time, and I don’t know anyone else at CHS. SO what’s up with you?”

Adagio measured the risk of being judged harshly by a girl who, so far, seemed to speak the truth like she breathed, comfortably or not, against the concept of talking about herself. She settled on her favorite pastime. “I’m also from Equestria, like our dear Sunset here. Unlike her, however, I was not a magical talking pony. I was a siren: a force of nature who manipulated entire colonies with song and dance into doing what we wanted and turning on each other like cutthroat hooligans. We fed on negative emotions and felled kingdom after kingdom to get them. Even after we were thrown into the human realm over a thousand years ago by a rather cross, if admittedly crafty, wizard, we still held a vestige of our powers. We infiltrated countries and kingdoms, toying with rulers and romantics and the hearts of men like pick-up-sticks. Until you lot invented the internet, and social media, and made it almost impossible to do anything noteworthy without being outed to the entire world. Then we had to settle for what amounted to fast food, starting petty spats in bars and diners for measly meals.

“Then the Fall Formal happened, and we felt, and saw Equestrian magic for the first time in centuries. After that, it basically broke down to an after-school special; we worked our way into the school, turned everyone on each other, and basically enslaved the entire school in a gambit to store enough power to make our way back into our home dimension. Unfortunately, we got Friendship Lasered out of the damn sky by a giant-ass ethereal Alicorn thing and lost all our powers. Now we’re basically teenagers. Forever,” she finished with a strange taste in her mouth. The idea of eternal youth wasn’t foreign to her, but the idea of never reaching maturity in a world without her powers still kept her up some nights. For a few minutes. Sometimes.

Sugarcoat tilted her head to see around the back of the seat. “And you’re in this car because…”

“Because Aria and Sonata are riding with Pinkie and Limestone in the Pie family car and Adagio was very adamant that she not spend eight hours a day in a car with her sisters,” Sunset explained.

Trixie nodded furiously. “Trixie agrees. The Dazzlings are… best left to small doses.”

“I’m just here because there wasn’t room in the family car with everyone else, and while I do love Pinkie, leaving her in a car with Sonata is undesirable at best,” Maude volunteered.

The rest of the girls, with the exception of Sugarcoat, thought about that for a moment, and shivered intensely. “Oh, my god,” Adagio breathed. “Aria’s going to kill them both.”

“I doubt it,” Maude said flatly. “Limestone can handle herself pretty well, and is rather over-protective. She was very annoyed when I said I wanted to ride in the last car.”

“Wait,” Sunset interjected. “You asked for this car specifically? Why?”

“Because I’m friends with Trixie.”

Adagio and Sunset traded rather confused glances. “Oh… kay,” Adagio said finally. “So how about you, Sugarshack? What’s your story?”

“It’s Sugarcoat,” the Shadowbolt said sternly. “And as much as I love the idea of going to the beach with all of my friends for a four-day weekend, I would honestly rather explode twice than ride in a car with Indigo Zap at the wheel. I’d ride with Twilight, but I was late to the party, and her car filled up pretty quickly. I almost feel bad for… what did you say their names were? Rarity and Fluttershy? I think they picked up a ride with Zap.”

“Wait, so it Twilight is driving three of your friends-” Adagio started.

“Two. She gave her dog a seat of his own.”

“...figures. Right, so Twilight is driving two of your friends. Indigo is driving Rarity and Fluttershy and one other girl?”

“Nope,” Sunset volunteered. “Just the two. The rest of the space is Rarity’s luggage. And no, I’m not joking.”

“Yeesh,” Trixie muttered.

Adagio blinked. “Ok, so Limestone is driving Pinkie and my two sisters. And I know Applejack is driving that rust bucket with Rainbow Dash riding shotgun. So where is the last of your crew?” Adagio demanded.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash snapped back and forth at each other as AJ smacked a blue hand away from the radio controls. “How many times I gotta tell you, RD? Driver chooses music, shotgun shuts her cake-hole!”

Dash leaned back in her seat in an exaggerated whine. “But you always choose country! I mean, a couple minutes is fine, but we’re gonna be out here for days! DAYS! I can’t take seventy-two hours of runaway dogs and cheating spouses!”

Sour Sweet buried her head in her hands. Don’t kill your carmates, don’t kill your carmates, don’t kill your carmates, she chanted to herself.

Sugarcoat smiled to herself. “Oh. Just someone who I thought would… enjoy the ride.”

Sunset caught a glimpse of the smile in her rear view mirror as she merged onto the highway. “You did something evil, didn’t you?”

The resident Shadowbolt shrugged. “It was a group effort.”

“Did you guys know that obsidian starts as a glass first, and then condenses into a rock through devitrification?” Maude asked.

“...no, Maude, I did not know that,” Adagio said simply.

Car Talk 1

Sunset Shimmer liked to think of herself as a decent driver. In fact, she passed her test with flying colors. The second time around. With some help. Ok, she was an average teenage driver. Who was piloting a landblimp full of other teenagers. Yet somehow, she still preferred her chances over any of the other cars, except maybe Twilight’s. God have mercy on Limestone Pie.

Her own passengers seemed to be content enough keeping to themselves for the time being. Maud and Trixie were currently pouring quietly over a textbook about rocks, although Sunset had a suspicion that Maud was significantly more engaged than the magician was. Although she had to hand it to Trixie, if the girl was getting bored, she was doing a good job of pretending to be interested, for her friend. Sugarcoat had apparently figured out the monitors in the back of the seats, and had plugged in a set of earbuds to watch… something. Sunset couldn’ really afford to check, and didn’t want to yell over whatever volume she might have had it at.

Then there was Adagio Dazzle. The first few minutes on the highway weren’t terrible, as Adagio had occupied herself with ‘ooh’ing and ‘aah’ing over all the useful functions of the rental they were in. Then the reality of the length of the trip seemed to set in, as she started to become… restless. “So Sunset. I understand, although haven’t quite gotten over, your not exactly ill-gotten gains. What I haven’t figured out, however, is how you managed to get a rental company to let you drive off with such a high-end vehicle to a barely-licensed teenager. Let alone one full of other barely- or unlicensed teenagers.”

Sunset gave Adagio a sideways smirk. “Dagi,” she started using Sonata’s pet name for her, which caused the corner’s of her mouth to twitch, “You know how you spent years making people dance like puppets with nothing more than a song?”

Adagio looked out the window and sighed wistfully. “Yeah...”

“You can do exactly that with enough money. Seriously. I think you greatly underestimate the power of human greed. Lust, you have down pat,” she added, with a not-unfriendly glance at her… attire.

“Why thank you,” Dazzle chirped.

Sunset turned her eyes back to the road before her passenger became a dangerous distraction. “Here’s the thing: in Equestria, greed is obviously a thing. But for the most part, ponies have pretty much everything they need. Need a house? They build one. Need food? Literally just eat flowers off the ground. I’m not so blind as to say there’s no poverty, or corruption, or money-grubbing in my home world. But the humans dial it up to eleven every god-damn day. You wave a fifty dollar bill in a crowd and everyone goes absolutely nuts. So having a few kind words with a manager than include ‘hundred’ and ‘dollars’? I could have driven out of there with a damn Mustang.”

The ex-siren was starting to appreciate her fellow reformed villain’s propensity to bend the rules. “Is that why all of the other Rainbooms are in other vehicles?”

The driver barked a laugh. “HA. No. As much as I like them, the only girl in that group I can pull an 8-hour drive day with is Twilight, and she’s also driving. Speaking of which, what about those girls she’s riding with? What were their names?”

“Lemon Zest and Sunny Flare,” Sugarcoat piped up, startling them both. Sunset thanked the lack of drivers on the road as she kissed the median for a second, then corrected.

“Please GOD don’t do that again,” Shimmer begged, glancing in the rearview. “I’m still getting used to having more than two people in the car.”

“You know if you get pulled over you’re in a world of trouble. It’s illegal to have any passengers in your car that aren’t licensed drivers over 21 if you’re a teen driver,” Sugarcoat explained, somewhat disapprovingly.

Sunset glanced over her shoulder to make sure there was no oncoming traffic as she pulled into the carpool lane and sped up slightly. “That only applies if you’re under 18. Legal adults can shove pretty much anyone they want in the car.”

There was a dangerous purr from the passenger seat. “You’re an… adult?” Adagio asked slowly.

“Down girl,” Sunset chided. “Not while I’m driving.”

Trixie’s attention seemed to have drifted into the conversation. “Do… you two need a room? Like right now?”

Before Adagio could give the obvious answer, Sunset cut in, “No, Trixie, we’re good. I’m good,” she corrected, at a pout from Dazzle. “Although there’s probably going to be a bit more of that over the next few days,” she added with a dangerous smile.

Trixie whined a little. “Really? Like Trixie doesn’t have enough to feel bad about, you have to rub your sex life in her face?!”

“Don’t even, Dagi,” Sunset said quickly, hearing the wheels turning in her head from here. “If it makes you feel better, Trixie, I could move Sugarcoat up here and let you sit in the back with your best friend and Adagio.”

All Trixie needed was the predatory grin Adagio was casting her to see visions of an oncoming train. “Um, Trixie is fine. Please, do continue… whatever you’re doing.” She immediately returned her attention to the book Maud was reading. The Pie sister seemed not to notice her absence from their own discussion, or if she did, she was great at not letting it show.

As much as Adagio loved to flirt, and even more loved the things that came after, she did, in fact, value her now mortal life, and decided to turn her attention from the driver to the passenger behind her. “So, Sugarcoat. I believe I remember seeing you in that cute little dance video our friends made. I have to say I’m impressed with your ballet skills. You’re quite talented for your age.”

Sugar raised an eyebrow. “My age?”

Adagio shrugged. “Hundreds of years old, dear. Age is relative to me.”

“Hmm,” the Shadowbolt said quietly. She seemed to consider this, and decided against that line of inquiry. “Well, thank you, I suppose. Although, learning more about you, it surprises me a little that you weren’t involved. You look like the kind of person that would love to show off in front of the camera and win money for it.”

Adagio laughed quietly. “Well, yes, that does sound very much like me. Although at the time, my sisters and I were still on the fence about trusting the Rainbooms. Which, by the way, I’ve been meaning to tell you, is an atrocious name,” she directed at Sunset.

Who sighed wearily. “Yes, yes it is. But I came to the game late, and had no say in the matter. Believe me, I’ve had that conversation. But I mean, are you really in a place to talk? The Dazzlings? Seriously?”

Dazzle huffed. “Well, what would you have called us? We couldn’t exactly go around declaring ourselves The Sirens, could we? I mean, even without that giant red flag it was pretty easy for you to suss out what we were.”

“How about literally anything else? I mean, if you were so intent on using your last name, why not just go the full pop diva and call yourselves ‘Dazzle’?” Shimmer offered.

“Or the Eternals?” Trixie suggested. When Adagio turned to look at her, she added, “You know, cause you were immortal? And your whole thing was about being worshiped and remembered forever?”

The ex-siren seemed slightly impressed at that. “That… wouldn’t have been too bad. Although I think that’s more of a soft-rock band name than anything.”

Trixie made a face. “Ewww, soft rock. Trixie rescinds her suggestion.”

“There’s nothing wrong with soft rock!” Sunset protested.

“It’s slow death for your ears,” Sugarcoat interjected.

“See! The… other girl agrees with me!” Trixie yelled.

“My name is Sugarcoat.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“We literally talked for half an hour before we got in the car.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I said my name a few times. So did they.”

“Trixie said she was sorry!”

“My name is on my luggage. Which you carried for two blocks.”

“TRIXIE APOLOGIZES!”

“Actually,” Maud spoke up, “I’m partial to the name Aquamarine. Not only is it commonly a sea-blue color, but thanks to it’s consistent resemblance to the sky and sea, it is commonly associated with eternal life. Plus there are a bunch of pop-rock and punk-rock bands that use precious stones or types of rock as their band name. Although the brooches you wore would kind of clash with that sentiment. The rubies you wore did have a thematic element to them that I could appreciate, as rubies are commonly associated with passion and good fortune, so if that’s what you were aiming for, good job. Although I think there’s already a band called the Rubies, or Ruby, or something. Not sure. I don’t listen to a lot of music.”

Adagio felt her mouth dry up as she made a conscious attempt to close it. It was the most she’d ever heard the girl say in the entire, however brief, time she’d known her. “Yes, well… they weren’t exactly rubies, but I appreciate the thought,” she said uncertainly. If Maud caught her uneasy tone, she ignored it. “Speaking of which, where the hell did you put them?” Adagio demanded, turning to Sunset.

Shimmer shrugged. “They’re in a box in a dresser drawer. They were kind of a scattered mess when we collected them, so I was never able to puzzle them back together. Even if I had, I didn’t really have a way to reassemble them without tacky glue.”

“There are invisible bonding adhesives, although the cracks are still apparent. I’d advise taking them to a jeweler. Shattered stones are extremely difficult to reconstitute, even artificially, given their propensity to collect fine dirt and micro fissures. I’d suggest taking the smaller pieces and turning them into settings around a larger stone,” Maud volunteered.

Again, Adagio found herself aghast at the normally stoic girl speaking up. She was able to keep her mouth closed this time, however, and gave the idea some thought. “As much as that idea makes sense, I can’t imagine letting our gemstones be second fiddle to anything else we wore. Those gems were literally out entire lifeblood for centuries. I wouldn’t be satisfied leaving them as accents to some other, foreign stone. Although at some point I would like them back,” she added with a soft jab in Sunset’s direction.

“Well,” the driver considered, “If you’re a good girl over the next couple of weeks, that shouldn’t be a problem. I mean, Twilight -by which I mean either of them- couldn’t find anything magical left in them. And even if there was, I doubt it’d be enough to turn you back into power-hungry megalomaniacs again.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Dazzle said dismissively. “Again?”

“...good point. Oh, hey, speaking of Dazzlings, there’s Limestone’s car!” Sunset pointed out, as they passed an almost nondescript grey sedan filled with relatively colorful characters.

Some of which seemed to be screaming at them. Adagio rolled her eyes and rolled down the window. “What the hell do you want, Sonata?!” she bellowed back.

Sonata yelled something, but nobody could hear it, as the girl hadn’t rolled down her own window. After a few seconds, it descended on its own (presumably because Limestone had lowered it from her seat), and Sonata leaned out the window. “HI DAGI!”

“Yes, hi, you moron! Get back in the car, you’re gonna get decapitated! And this time, it’ll take!” Adagio barked.

“Wait, what?” Trixie asked quickly.

Sonata leaned back in her chair, only slightly leaning out of the window. “Aria says hi!” she yelled.

“Yes, hi! What. Do you. WANT?!”

“TO SAY HI, DUH!” Sonata bellowed, and rolled the window back up.

Adagio blinked a few times, quietly rolled her own window up, and stared straight ahead. “Go faster. Please.”

Sunset rolled her eyes. “Oh, they’re not that bad.”

“...she’s got her mouth on the window, and is rolling her tongue around.”

“Ew.”

“I think she’s trying to spell ‘hi’.”

“...with her tongue?”

“With her tongue.”

“Hold on,” Sunset said quickly, and pushed the pedal. Soon, they were pulling away from Limestone’s car, and Sunset saw in her rearview a very distressed Aria trying to hold Sonata in the back of the car, and Limestone seemingly trying to crush the steering wheel with her bare hands. She couldn't tell for sure, but she seemed to be doing just that, little by little.

“I suddenly have absolutely no questions as to why you decided to ride with us,” Sugarcoat said simply.

There was a lull in the conversation as Sunset tried to eliminate the mental image of Sonata’s tongue drawings, and Adagio tried to unsee the actual image. Sugarcoat settled back in to her video, and Trixie and Maud chatted quietly about the book.

“Adagio, please take your hand off my thigh.”

Food Talk 1

“There is no way in hell we are stopping at MacDaniel’s,” Adagio insisted, staring daggers into the rearview mirror at a certain magician.

“But… Trixie doesn’t have a lot of money. And MacDaniel’s is cheap,” she argued, somewhat sheepishly.

Sunset rolled her eyes. “Trixie, I know you’re kind of new to being friends with us, but Adagio and I are almost disturbingly wealthy. I literally paid for this whole trip out of pocket. I have no problem getting the check at anywhere that isn’t ‘Greasy Horse Meat’ Inc.”

“Why are you paying for this trip, anyway?” Sugarcoat asked suspiciously. “I mean, you don’t even know me or my friends very well.”

“I’m still convinced it was just to see us all in our swimwear,” Adagio teased.

“Adagio,” Sunset said pointedly, as she turned onto an off ramp, “If I wanted to see you in your swimwear I could literally just come over to your house and ask. You are the second most shameless person I know.”

“Second most? Who the hell is the first?” Trixie demanded.

“Pinkie Pie,” Sunset and Maud said together. Getting curious looks from the other passengers, Maud explained, “She doesn’t do it on purpose. She’s just one of those people who doesn’t really see the world the same way we do, clothes and all. It’s not a sexual thing, though.”

Sugarcoat thought about that for a second. “Ok, I guess I could see that. You still haven’t answered my question, though,” she added, readdressing Sunset.

“Because I could, mostly. I mean, first it just started off as us Rainbooms, and thank you by the way now I can’t stop thinking about how awful that band name is, but Twilight said she wanted to spend some time over the summer with you girls, so I said ‘sure, we can take them too.’ Then Sonata overheard and told her sisters, and-”

“And there is no way in the nine hells I am going to miss a dozen and a half attractive teenage girls partying on a beach together,” Dazzle said simply. “So I asked Sunset nicely if we could come along.”

“Nicely?” Sunset chided, raising an eyebrow and giving Adagio some side-eye. “You grabbed me by the shirt and pushed me against the wall. I believe your exact words were ‘I don’t care what I have to do to you, but please take me with you’.”

“Nicely for me,” Adagio corrected.

Sugarcoat looked back and forth between the two girls up front. “Ok, are you two actually dating, or what? Because from what I understand, you’re both reformed villains with sketchy histories at best, and I’m more and more convinced as you talk that you’re secretly planning to take over the world together.”

Adagio shrugged. “I wouldn’t call it dating. More like… what’s that human term? The one Rainbow Dash keeps using.”

“’Friends with benefits’?” Sunset suggested.

“That one. Dating is kind of… boring? I guess? I mean, being around for as long as my sisters and I have, the slow, tedious nature of courtship is just… bleh,” she made a face, as she had trouble finding a word that properly illustrated her distaste with the idea.

“Also sex is way more fun then just walking around making small talk and spending money," Sunset said pointedly. “Way more fun.”

“Agreed,” Adagio said, nodding sagely. “Ooh, how about here?” she said excitedly, pointing out a passing restaurant.

“No, Adagio, we are not going to Honkers,” Sunset deadpanned. “Reel it in a little, ok? You gotta remember, not everyone in the car is used to… you.”

Dazzle pouted cutely, mumbling something about how they would never get used to her without prolonged exposure. Sunset had to restrain herself from making an ‘exposure’ joke, and instead pointed at another, somewhat larger restaurant a little down the road. “How about there?”

Sugarcoat leaned forward in the car to get a good look at the name of the restaurant. “Popular Pete’s? Isn’t that a barbeque pit?”

Sunset pulled into the parking lot without a second thought. “Yes, yes it is,” she drooled.

Adagio leaned slightly away from their driver. “Um, Sunset, dear. I thought you were a vegetarian. Being a… pony and all?”

Trixie and Maud raised eyebrows. Well, Trixie did. Maud just looked up. “Oh please,” Sunset said dismissively, seeing their stares. Even Sugarcoat had raised an eyebrow. “I turned into a demon chick and this one summoned a giant spectral horsefish and hypnotized the whole school. Me being a pony in a past life is hardly the weirdest thing going on in this car.”

“She has a point,” Sugarcoat said, unbuckling her seatbelt.

“But what about the whole ‘not eating meat’ thing?” Trixie asked. She, too, had unbuckled, and was waiting for Maud to do the same.

Sunset and Adagio were already halfway out of the car. “Please. I haven’t been a herbivore since the first day I got here.”

Whatever anyone was going to say next was cut off as a simple gray sedan pulled into a spot a few spaces away, and the car basically exploded as its occupants spilled out. Sunset simply sighed with half a smile as Sonata, Pinkie Pie, Aria, and Limestone all rushed over to meet them. She gave a winded ‘Oof’ as Sonata and Pinkie gave her hugs, and hugged them back, while a loud ‘OW’ behind her told her that Aria had caught up with her sister.

“Hey Pinkie, hi, Sonata,” she said warmly, stepping away.

“FOUR. HOURS. In a car with PINKIE and SONATA,” Aria shrieked. Sunset looked over her shoulder to see Adagio bouncing on one foot and holding her other shin. “You OWE me.”

“That hurt you viscous skank!” Adagio spat.

Sunset was about to say something when firm hands grabbed her collar. The next second, Limestone Pie was less than an inch from her face, and she was a few inches off the ground. “I will do anything,” she growled, “To get those two out of my car. I’ll take Maud AND Trixie. I’ll take you right here if you’re into that kind of thing. Just GET THEM OUT OF MY CAR.”

Sunset was torn between panic at having a suspiciously strong girl grip her shirt like a lifeline, and the somewhat schadenfreudian pleasure she was getting from having someone else deal with the other two Siren sisters for a change. She was saved from answering by the other Pie sister, however. “Hello Limestone.”

Lime put Sunset down on solid ground, and turned to her sister. “Maud. Please tell me you want to ride with me this time. I can’t take any more of those two.”

Maud shrugged, nonplussed. “Actually I’m kind of enjoying the ride. Trixie is fun to talk to. And I kind of like Sugarcoat.”

“Well someone is going to have to change cars or I’m going to actually KILL people today!” Aria bellowed, somewhat close to Sunset’s ear.

She rubbed the side of her head as the ringing subsided. “Ok, ok. We’ll… figure something out. Let me text the other cars and try and get an idea of where they… are,” she trailed off, as both AJ’s truck and Twilight’s car pulled into the parking lot. Only a few seconds later, Indigo Zap peeled into the parking lot like it was a pit stop on a racetrack. The first two cars parked nice and properly, but Zap’s car seemed to treat parking spaces like challenges. To her credit, she lined up in the spot nicely, if at a higher speed than anyone was expecting. Soon after, two of the doors flung open and two very shaky girls climbed out, both taking a moment to hold their breakfasts in place.

“Well nevermind, looks like the gang’s all here. Twilight, hi!” she called, as Sparkle and her two Shadowbolt friends piled out of their car almost politely. They seemed to be getting along ok, at least. Twilight waved back with a smile, and leaned into the car to pat Spike on the head, and roll down the windows a little bit.

“Sorry Spike, but I can’t take you into a restaurant. And I don’t trust just tying you to a post out here. Don’t worry, it’s still cool enough here,” she said soothingly.

“But it smells so gooooooood!” came Spike’s voice from inside the vehicle. Sunset chuckled to herself, and returned her attention to Limestone and Maud, who seemed to be debating who should ride with who.

“Sorry, Limestone. I’m actually enjoying this. Maybe one of the other cars will trade with you,” Maud said, almost apologetically.

Limestone looked ready to cry. “There’s gotta be a better way to do this.”

Soon, the whole group of girls had huddled up, and were chatting in various degrees and volumes, either arguing about car assignments or what they were going to eat. It got so rowdy at one point that Adagio let loose one of her hidden skills, and sent a piercing whistle through the crowd. Even Sunset, on the far side of the huddle from her, flinched.

“Jesus, Dagi, some warning next time!” Aria barked.

“Well if everyone would be QUIET for ten seconds you would have heard me tell you I was going to DO that. Now,” she said pointedly. “I understand there is a… dissonance between the current car assignments and what everyone actually wants. SO, before we go in there and eat what I assume to be an ungodly amount of meat and starch,” she said with a pointed look at Sunset, who just smiled at the idea, and drooled slightly, “We are going to sit down and figure this out. Which isn’t going to happen IN THE MIDDLE OF A PARKING LOT.”

As it happened, the Honkers and Popular Pete’s were part of a strip mall with several tables of outdoor seating for the weary shopper. They’d all collected around a couple of picnic benches to have their little pow-wow. “Ok,” Twilight said loudly, gathering everyone’s attention. “So the way I see this, we should be basing the occupancy of each vehicle based on its driver.” There were a few nods at this, most noticeably from Limestone. “From what I understand, Indigo is an… exuberant driver, so she should drive someone used to high speeds.”

The ‘driver’ in question leaned back with a smug grin. “Oh come on, no volunteers? Surely someone can handle a ride in the Zapmobile.”

Rainbow Dash leaned forward. “Is that a challenge? I’m IN!”

Aria cracked her knuckles. “Please. I’ll gladly take you on.”

Adagio tapped her shoulder. “You know if you go with you’re taking Sonata.”

“Oh, come ON!”

“You know she gets separation anxiety!” Adagio insisted, even as Sonata bounced happily in her seat between the two.

Aria huffed. “Jeez. Leave the girl alone in the ‘new world’ for a single century and suddenly everything is my fault.”

“…that explains a LOT,” Sunset said quietly.

Twilight blinked a few times. “O...K. So Indigo’s car is taken care of. Which I guess means there is a vacancy in Limestone’s car?”

Rarity and Fluttershy raised their hands. “PLEASE,” Rarity begged. “I’ve seen Limestone drive. She’s a cautious, responsible adult,” she added with a glare at Zap, who pointedly ignored her. “I would feel much better riding with her.”

Fluttershy nodded vigorously. “Yes, please.”

Limestone gave the pair an appraising look. “Fine. At least you two look quiet. But I don’t have room for all… that,” she said with a growl, pointing at Indigo’s car, and the luggage within.

“Oh, silly,” Pinkie Pie chimed in. “I can ride with AJ and Sour! Then you’ll have plenty of room!”

“...yay,” Limestone grumbled.

“NOPE. Nuh-uh,” Sour Sweet protested. “I have had enough… ENERGY for one day. For a lifetime. These two don’t stop arguing!” she cried, pointing at Dash and Applejack. “It’s just a damn RADIO, you idjits!”

AJ shrugged. “Well, you’re welcome to change cars, y’know.”

“Yeah,” Sunny jumped in. “You could ride with us! We’re having a great time!” Lemon Zest just nodded vigorously, although whether to her own music or Sunny’s statement was a mystery.

“But...” Twilight started.

Sunny huffed. “I’m telling you, Twilight, he doesn’t need a whole seat to himself! There’s enough room in the back of the car for two people AND his carrier. And I’m kind of insulted that he got shotgun, anyway.”

Sunset snorted a laugh. “You made them sit in the back so your dog could have the whole seat to himself?”

“...maybe. Ok, fine! He can sit in the back if it means getting Sour Sweet to calm down. Now, that seems to cover everyone-”

“Wait a minute, hold on!” Aria barked. “How come nobody in Sunset’s car has to change?”

It was Sunset’s turn to look smug. “Because I’m paying for everything, including the car rental, and I piled my car exactly the way I want it.”

Adagio raised a devilish eyebrow at her. “And here I thought you were just being nice.”

Shimmer just grinned.

Food Talk 2

Having since decided on their new driving arrangements, the girls had split up into different groups for the surrounding restaurants. Sunset hadn’t waited even a second to see who was coming with, making a beeline for Popular Pete’s. She was waiting happily, bouncing on her heels as the rest of her group poured in, which consisted mostly of the other girls in her car, plus Limestone and Indigo.

“Why am I not surprised?” Adagio sighed, looking at the large example menu drawn up behind the Host station. “Nearly everything here is some kind of dead animal or breading. HOW you keep your figure is beyond me.”

Sunset cocked a hip with a sly smile. “Oh please. You’ve been to the gym with me.”

“Yes, and your definition of cardio is exhausting. And not in the fun way,” she added.

“Good lord,” Indigo drooled, staring at the menu. “No wonder that Flutterwhatever opted for that Greek place. It’s like reading a slaughterhouse autobiography.”

Trixie shuffled meekly in place. “Um… Trixie isn’t sure she should be asking you to spend more money on her. She… I already feel bad letting you cover all the other expenses.”

“I DON’T!” Limestone growled, tapping her foot. “Geez, get a grip, girl. Free food is free food! Now if only someone would actually lead us to a damn table.”

Maud looked quietly at the empty host station, then at the rather busy restaurant. There were a couple empty booths, but it was still a bit of a din. “I imagine they’ll be back soon.”

Sugarcoat rolled her eyes and tapped a nearby sign. It read PLEASE SEAT YOURSELF! “Seriously?” she grumbled, then strolled off to find an empty booth. The rest of the group followed sheepishly.

Having found a nice round table to seat them all, the girls had a server at their table in moments. “Nice to meet you! I’m Sparklebeach!” she exclaimed. “What can I get started for you?”

Limestone, halfway into a glass of water the waitress had brought with her, choked on her drink. “Sp-Sparklebitch?! Seriously?!” she howled.

Sparklebeach’s smile wavered slightly. “Noooo… it’s Sparkle-BEACH. Like, you know, sand, surf, fun?”

“And yet you’re in the middle of nowhere waiting tables at a chain restaurant miles away from any kind of surf or sea,” Sugarcoat noted.

Their waitress seemed to have a difficult time holding on to her composure. “Oh, it’s fine! Now, what can I get started for you?”

Before anyone else could get a word in edgewise, snarky or not, Sunset demanded, “WE NEED A TRASHMASTER.”

Half the table turned to look at her. “Um...” Trixie started.

“What the hell is a Trashmaster?” Adagio asked, not really wanting an answer.

“It’s our biggest party platter!” Sparkle offered, clutching her notepad like a safety blanket. “It includes a full rack of ribs, one whole roast chicken, one pound of pulled pork or brisket, and free drinks for the table! Limit ten. With free refills! Also a whole crapton of moist towelettes. Trust me, you’re gonna need them. It also comes with a tray of freshly baked rolls, coleslaw, fries, corn bread, baked beans, and corn!”

The entirety of the table had taken it upon themselves to stare pointedly at Sunset, who was looking at Sparkle like a messenger from the gods coming to tell her she’d won the lottery and a free puppy. “YES.” she said simply.

“Is this the part where we should be afraid?” Trixie asked. “Because Trixie is afraid.”

Adagio leaned away from her driver, as Limestone just looked on in awe. “I know that face. I don’t think we’re getting out of this, actually.”

Sparkle nodded, picked up the menus, and pulled out a pen. “So what can I get you to drink?”

The girls all pulled their attention away from Sunset, who was currently staring off into space with a dopey grin, and gave their individual orders. There was a moment of quiet, until Indigo’s phone went off. “It’s… from Rainbow. Says ‘Did Sunset order the Trashmaster yet? They bring that thing out on a trash can lid, you know. Also, don’t sit directly next to her.’ Uh...” she said cautiously, scooting a little away from Sunset. There was now a full person’s worth of empty space on either side of her. Then Zap’s phone went off again. “Dash again. ‘You should probably get your food before she reaches the tray. Also, you should TOTALLY ask her why she eats meat, even though she’s a horse. It’s funny af.’ I swear to god, Dash.”

“That’s a good point,” Trixie noted. “We did ask her earlier, but Trixie expects there’s more to it. Not that she’s sure she wants to know.”

“Seconded,” Adagio agreed, taking a sip of her water.

Limestone, however, had other ideas. “So, horse-girl, what’s with the meat-eaty thing?”

Sunset slowly came back to earth, leveling her gaze on Limestone. “Lime, do you have any idea how much meat we eat in Equestria?”

The eldest Pie sister looked back and forth, somewhat unsure whether or not asking was a good idea. “Um… you don’t?”

“WE DON’T!” Sunset exclaimed. “And it’s a crime. A total fucking shame. We have cows! We have pigs! We. Have. CHICKEN. And we eat NONE OF IT!”

“But, don’t they like, talk… over there?” Indigo asked. When the other girls gave her a look, she explained, “That’s what Dash says, anyway. All the animals talk or whatever.”

Adagio shook her head. “Only the cows do. Pigs and chickens and the rest are just animals, like they are here. Mostly it’s anything with hooves. Trust me, you don’t want to get started down that rabbit hole,” she added with a stare from Indigo.

“But still, I thought you guys were all touchy-feely with the other animals?” Limestone chided. “Like, isn’t it weird to eat cows or whatever after talking to them for so long?”

Sunset’s eye twitched. “Lime, I have never, EVER, had a conversation with a cow. And even if I had, they would still be DELICIOUS!”

There was a brief silence after that statement, interrupted shortly by Sparklebeach returning to their table with the drinks. “Ok, girls! Here you go!” she said cheerfully, handing out tall glasses of various beverages. Once her tray was empty, she sauntered off, calling over her shoulder, “Be back with your food as soon as it’s ready!”

“Thanks!” Sunset called. Under her breath, she added, “Sparklebitch.”

The table dissolved into giggles, and soon normal conversation resumed.

Post-Food Talk

There had been casualties. Dead animals strewn across the table. Drinks spilled. Corn bread and roll crumbs littered the booth like bullet casings. And the barbeque sauce. Oh god, the barbeque sauce. If food could bleed, it would look like this.

Sparklebeach walked away from the table with hollowed eyes and an empty soul. Not in the three unfortunate years she had worked here had she ever seen such devastation and carnage in a single sitting. She went entire weeks without accumulating so much mental damage as to approach the trauma she now faced. She clutched the receipt in her hand desperately, her fist tightening on reflex, as she thought of the girl who signed it.

That… girl. That human being was a monster in child’s skin. One second, smiling a brilliant, dazzling smile that stirred something pure and warm in her chest, only to disappear in an instant once presented with food. Then, the animal had awoken. Tooth and claw, more bite than bark, it had descended on the party platter like a wartime tragedy, leaving no survivors, bearing no mercy, and annihilating a whole chicken with the kind of ferocity and possessiveness a mama lion would assault any who would threaten her cubs.

The sounds. They would follow her into her dreams as though possessed with an insatiable need for her suffering. So. Much. Chewing.

Back at the table, Limestone regarded Sunset carefully. “Girl, if you eat out like you eat out, no wonder Adagio likes you so much.”

Sunset ignored her, contentedly humming and nursing a root beer as her grateful stomach digested the last of its POWs. Adagio just raised an eyebrow. “Now you’re getting it.”

Trixie flinched, the napkin she was dabbing the barbeque sauce off her face with streaking a red-brown line across her cheek. “Trixie did not need to know that.”

“You might, actually,” Adagio purred. “It depends on the hotel arrangements. Now come on, girls. I believe we have a great deal of driving left to do.”

The Pie sisters nodded, carefully stacking their plates and cups near the edge of the table for the busboy to collect. Trixie gave Sunset a cautious sideways glance as she stood up and followed the procession out of the restaurant. Indigo was already at the door, tapping her foot impatiently. Shimmer herself soon followed, forgoing the straw and gulping down the last few draughts of her soda, quickly following into step. She tugged the ruined napkin out of her collar and dumped it in her bin, the rest of her somehow completely clean.

“So, Adagio,” Sunset asked, catching up to he group at the door. “You seem to know the area pretty well, how long do you think we should drive before we give up any hope on a decent hotel?”

“While I am both flattered and offended by the implications of that question, I’m really only familiar with the area around Canterlot. If we were closer to Florida, that wouldn’t be a problem. I spent a good deal of time there in the fifties. Honestly, though, the majority of the country is foreign dirt to me,” Dazzle said thoughtfully.

The group gathered around the tables, waiting for the rest of their friends. Fluttershy, Rarity, and the other two Sirens had already found a spot to sit while they waited. “Girls!” Rarity called as they all approached. “How was your lunch?”

Indigo breathed in solemnly. “It. Was. Awesome. Oh my GOD I’ve never had ribs like that before.”

Fluttershy squeaked timidly, shrinking into Rarity’s side. “Well, I would have to take your word for it, dear. I’ve never eaten at that particular… establishment-”

“-slaughterhouse-” Fluttershy interjected.

“-place to eat food,” Rarity said sternly. “So I couldn’t tell you. Although I must admit you seem to be rather well put together for having just had barbeque with our Sunset.”

“No kidding,” Limestone conceded, throwing herself into a single chair, while the rest seemed to be fine settling for benches. “I mean, I watch nature documentaries and junk with all kinds of animal-on-animal violence and that was… new. I mean WOW.”

“Eh,” Indigo said with a shrug. “I was too busy eating to notice. Damn, them’s some good corn bread.”

“Trixie has actually seen it before, she was prepared for this!” Trixie exclaimed proudly. Moreso than she should, really.

Maud just nodded solemnly. “It was interesting. Although I feel bad for our waitress. She seemed pretty distressed when we paid.”

Adagio, having joined her sisters, only to be immediately bearhugged by a happy Sonata, shrugged. “Really it’s only large amounts of meat she gets excited about. Her table manners are usually on point. Although I still have no idea how she manages to keep her clothes clean amidst all that juice.”

“That would actually be my doing,” Rarity admitted. “There was an Independence Day in recent memory where Sunset just so happened to be introduced to the concept of home grilling. Needless to say her outfit was completely destroyed! I mean, honestly, you’d think the protegee of a Princess would have better table manners. After I regained my composure-”

“You mean consciousness,” Sunset chided with a snarky grin.

“-composure. And if everyone could be so nice as to not interrupt me, that would be grand. As I was saying, once I’d recovered, I immediately ran Sunset through the ringer in terms of proper table manners, at least insomuch as to keep her clothes clean while devouring whole pigs. I still have yet to break her bad habit of turning into some kind of lycanthrope at the sight of grilled hamburger,” Rarity conceded with a forlorn sigh.

“Yeah, I can see that,” Indigo said with a shrug. “I don’t feel too bad for our waitress, though. Can’t imagine she hasn’t seen worse in a place like that.”

A few meters away, inside the restaurant-

“MAKE THE CHEWING STOP!”

“Sparkle, put down the rotisserie!”

“THE BARBEQUE SAUCE! GET IT OFF ME! GET IT OFF MEEEEE!”

WHAM. “Medic!”

“Who was your server, anyway?” Aria asked halfheartedly. “We got some hippy chick named Treehugger. I think Fluttershy got her phone number or something.”

“It was her Facebook, thank you very much. And she invited me to a Bona Dea festival next month, thank you,” Fluttershy huffed defensively.

“Um… Fluttershy?” Adagio asked cautiously. “Bona Dea is a Roman fertility goddess. Her festivals are basically giant sex pits.”

“...oh.”

“...soooo?” Aria asked.

“So what?”

“You goin, or...”

Fluttershy looked back and forth quickly. “...well, I already said I would.”

Adagio and Sunset grinned at her approvingly. “Trust me, Flutters,” Sunset said. “Everything is better after you get properly, thoroughly laid. And I don’t mean that after-prom guilt sex. Or a cheap one night stand. You GO to that party, you find someone you wanna shag, and you make a whole night out of it. Worth every penny.”

Adagio ‘voiced’ her approval with a foot running up Sunset’s thigh under the table. They shared a dirty glance, as Aria rolled her eyes and asked, “No seriously, what was her name?”

“Sparklebeach,” Maud answered simply.

“That’s awful!” said a voice behind them. The girls turned in time to see the rest of their gang approaching. Twilight looked indignant. “Who would name their child Sparklebitch?!”

The laughter carried throughout the plaza. In fact, the only ones who didn’t seem to hear it were a very distressed kitchen staff trying to negotiate one of their waitresses out of the supply cupboard.

Car Talk 2 (Truth or Dare 1)

Author's Note

I felt slightly risque this morning.

Car Talk 2 (Truth or Dare 1)

“No.”

“Oh come on!”

“No.”

“Pleaaaaassssee?”

“NO.”

“It’ll be fun!”

“Nuh-uh.”

“...when we get to the hotel I’ll do that thing with the silk gloves you like.”

“...”

“Truth.”

“Yay!” Adagio cheered, bouncing cutely in her seat. They’d long since left the plaza, their stomachs full, and had only passed by one or two cop cars pulling into the lot when they’d left. Adagio had been bugging Sunset for a game of Truth or Dare since they’d merged back on to the highway. “Ok, truth. Hmm… Oh! So when did you figure out you were a lesbian?”

The girls in the back seat, to their credit, had been doing a good job up until that point ignoring the bickering between the not-really-a-couple-but-please-stop-making-out-in-public duo in the front. With Adagio’s question, however, Trixie’s ears perked up at the thought of juicy gossip, Sugarcoat tilted her head slightly towards the front of the cab, and Maud sat up and paid attention. Whther to be polite or because she was actually interested, it was hard to tell. (Although she was, in fact, interested. Truth or Dare was her favorite game next to Rock Hunt, which she’d been playing on her phone till then).

Sunset shrugged. “Wasn’t hard. The majority of Equestria is either lesbian or bi. The gender ratio is super skewed. Like 5 girls to one boy.”

“Wait, how have you not gone extinct with numbers like that?” Sugarcoat asked.

If Sunset dared take her eyes off the road to give her the look she was holding back, she would have. “Uh, cause sex is awesome? Most stallions usually don’t have a problem with multiple girls trying to hop their rod. Polyamory is super common over their. Actually, it would be weirder if I was straight; mares who like guys exclusively are pretty uncommon, especially since the free world is led by two of the most attractive beings on the planet, and they’re both female. As for me, I guess a better way to answer that would be to say when it was I figured out I didn’t like boys at all. Although that’s not much of a story in and of itself. Found a stallion I thought was the acceptable definition of cute, threatened to tell Princess Celestia if he didn’t come make out with me, and only got 5 seconds into anything before I figured out that none of my switches were flipping. Honestly, I think I scared him so much that he really didn’t care that he wasn’t doing it for me; he just wanted to leave.”

Adagio crossed her arms and pouted. “Well that’s boring. Totally wasted a turn.”

Sunset rolled her shoulders. “Eh, try harder. Anyone else want to play?”

Sugarcoat shrugged, Maud nodded politely, and Trixie bounced like a rabbit on a pogo. “Ooh, ooh, Trixie LOVES Truth or Dare!”

Adagio eyed her like prey. “Oh, realllllyyyy?”

“Ah, ah, ah!” Sunset scolded. “MY turn. So… Sugarcoat. Truth or dare?”

“Truth,” she answered casually, to no one’s surprise.

“Ok...” Sunset considered. “If you had to pick one girl out of this road trip to drag into a hotel room for four hours of the most exhausting sex you could manage, who and why?”

Shimmer expected her to at least mull the question around in her head for a second, but without a moment’s hesitation, she answered, “Twilight Sparkle. And I’d make her dress up as that demon chick from the Friendship Games while we do it.”

Adagio purred lightly. “Mmmm, that sounds deliciously transgressive.”

Sunset’s raised an eyebrow into the rear view mirror. “And why exactly?”

Sugarcoat sat up, rolled her shoulders, and gave every indication she was now completely engaged in the conversation. “Because of all the people I’ve ever met, no one, and I mean NO ONE, needs to get fucked harder than Twilight Goddamn Sparkle.”

There was a general murmur of consensus around the car, and an ‘Amen to that!’ from Adagio. Even Sunset had to agree. “Well, you’re not wrong. I mean, I love the girl like a sister, but if she doesn’t get some soon she might turn into a grumpy cat lady. And she’s STILL the only one of us with a boyfriend!”

“I have a boyfriend,” Maud said stoically.

Sunset almost swerved off the road. “WHAT?!”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “Yes. As much as it pains the Great and Fabulous Trixie to admit, Maud got a boyfriend before I did. And he’s… um...”

Adagio’s phone chose that exact moment to ring. “Yes? Oh hi. Yes. Really? Ok, hold on.” She fiddled with the Bluetooth controls for a second. “It’s Pinkie,” she explained.

Soon the car came to life with Pinkie’s voice. “His name is Mudbriar and he’s actually the most annoying human being I’ve ever met and he’s nowhere near good enough for my bestest sister friend ever ever but she likes him and he’s not bad to her so I have to pretend I like him while he’s around even though I’d rather sell all of my party supplies in a garage sale!”

The girls, sans Sunset, all turned slowly to look at Maud, who was grinning ever so slightly. In fact, the only reason they were sure she was grinning was the fact that she answered with, “I know.”

“Raaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh!” Pinkie exclaimed, then hung up.

Sunset smirked lightly. “Are you really just dating him to annoy your sister?”

“It’s Sugarcoat’s turn,” Maud answered.

“...hmmm,” said Sunset quietly. She’d have to keep an eye on that one.

Sugarcoat turned her attention to Maud. “Truth or dare.”

“Dare,” Maud said.

“Ok. I dare you to… no we’re headed to the beach anyways. How about… no, you just said you had a boyfriend. Oh, ok. I dare you to read out the last text your ‘boyfriend’ sent you,” Sugar said finally.

Maud pulled out her phone and tapped it a few times. “Well, his last text was about the flooring in his house, so… oh. He’s sent a new one.” There was a pause as she read it, then something amazing happened. Maud Pie… blushed.

To describe it in words would be an insult. The only justice the literary arts could do for such a sight would be to describe the reactions of those in the car around her. Trixie fanned her face furiously as her eyelids fluttered. Sugarcoat’s eyes widened so intensely that not only was she sowing a genuine emotion besides scorn, but the involuntary flexing of her face muscles forced her glasses off her face. Adagio crossed her legs tightly and bit the shoulder of her seat as she was fully turned around and staring at Maud with nothing less than barely restrained animal lust.

Sunset had long since pulled the car over and was panting intensely as she muttered extremely NON-sexual phrases to herself. “Football. Bad math. Stupid people. Football. Bad math. Stupid people...”

Maud swallowed a few times, and read the text out loud: “I hope you have a good time when you’re at the beach. I’d say you should look for rocks as pretty as you, but sadly we remain on this side of the divine curtain. Have fun, and be safe. I love you.”

The phone rang again, this time through the Bluetooth system. Sunset almost punched the screen to answer the call. Over the phone, Pinkie called out, “Aaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! I still hate him! But less so!”

Car Talk 3 (Truth or Dare)

Merging into traffic was a challenge, as Sunset had found herself lacking in composure for more than a few minutes. Adagio’s fidgeting and handsy nature weren’t helping, although she had to admit that hunder other circumstances she wouldn’t have minded at all. “Um...” she started, finally having fallen into pace with the surrounding vehicles. “I… I think it’s Maud’s turn.”

Maud put her phone away, smiling lightly. It was a nice smile, Sunset noticed, with just a tinge of heat on her cheeks.

She and Adagio most definitely weren’t sleeping well tonight.

Maud thought for a moment, then tuned to Adagio. “Ok, truth or dare?” she asked, her voice returning to her usual monotone.

Adagio took a second to straighten herself out and rise to the challenge. While she was naturally a creature of… affection, she could be remarkably composed and serious when she wanted to be. And Truth or Dare was serious business, as they had recently discovered. “Truth!” she exclaimed.

Maud seemed to already have her question lined up. “Why don’t you ever cut your hair? You have a lot.”

Adagio blinked. She obviously wasn’t expecting that question. Sunset had the distinct impression she’d braced herself for something more… raunchy. “Well, I like the way it looks, one. And two, it makes a great pillow in a pinch.”

“Amen, sister,” Sunset agreed, high-fiving her passenger.

“That’s fair,” Maud concluded. “Ok, your turn.”

Adagio was off-put. After a car-full of hormones and barely-unattempted molestation, the rather normal question seemed to have settle the mood an awful lot. Which was boring for Adagio. “Trixie!”

“Y-yes!” Trixie answered, startled.

“Truth or dare!”

“Uh… um… dare!”

Sunset flinched. Maud raised an eyebrow. Even Sugarcoat could sense it was a bad idea. There were, however, no take-backsies. Adagio wore a predatory grin. “Hmmm, ok. I dare you to… I dare you to kiss a girl in this car -NOT THE DRIVER I DON’T WANT TO DIE- without telling them, sexy as you can! Just grab a girl and plant one on her!”

Sugarcoat rolled her eyes. “Is literally everything sex with- MMPH.” she exclaimed as Trixie grabbed her face and shoved her tongue down the Shadowbolt’s throat.

There was some wrestling, some rustling, then general smoochy sounds as Sugarcoat seemed to enjoy the experience. Then, all at once, Trixie came up for air. “Paaah!” she exclaimed. “Trixie needed that!”

Sugarcoat looked a brilliant mix of confused, aroused, and murderous. Catching a glimpse of her expression in the rearview mirror, Sunset couldn’t help but be reminded of the first few days she’d spent hanging out with Adagio. Before Sugar could so much as voice the many, many concerns she no doubt had, Trixie said loudly, “Sunset!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“Truth or Dare!”

“Truth!”

“Who’s the sexiest person you’ve ever done it with?”

Maud gave Trixie a sideways glance. “Why is everything sex right now?”

“Because the sight of you blushing is the second most erotic thing I’ve ever seen and I go to yoga classes with a teenage supermodel,” Sugarcoat deadpanned.

“Hmm. I don’t know how to feel about that.”

“It’s a compliment you adorable mannequin.”

“You should work on your compliments.”

“I know.”

Sunset coughed loudly. As the attention in the car turned to her, she answered Trixie’s question. “As much as Adagio would hate to admit this, Octavia Philharmonica.”

Adagio grumbled. “Stupid sexy cellist. I mean, I work HARD to look this good! She just… wakes up in the morning with a body like a classical symphony, hair like perfectly calligraphy, and eyes you could drown in and still ask for a glass of water.”

“Not to mention she does that thing with her bow-”

“-oh god that girl is a total closet freak.”

Trixie flinched. “Trixie regrets her question and asks that you take your turn now.”

Sunset rolled her shoulders, sexual tension building up in her muscles again as she recalled a particularly pleasant after-party involving her, a cellist, a Siren, and a perfectly polished woodwind instrument. “Ok, we need to get off the sex talk before I mistake a traffic cone for a marital aid and kill us all driving into the wrong lane of traffic. NEW game!”

Adagio pouted. “Awww, but I love Truth or Dare!”

“I happen to know that there’s another conversation game you really happen to like.”

Adagio raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Sugarcoat,” Shimmer said.

“Yes?”

“Would You Rather-” at which point Adagio’s eyes filled with a sadistic glee, “-spend an entire day at school naked except for a pair of buttless chaps, or wear ten layers of sweaters on the furst day of summer, all day?”

“Oh, gee, arrested for public indecency or heat stroke. Wonderful. I’d have to go with the buttless chaps. I don’t own ten sweaters,” Sugarcoat reasoned.

Adagio looked into the back seat with renewed interest. “You have a pair of buttless chaps?”

“Doesn’t every girl?”

“Trixie does not!” There was a beat of silence. “...really? All of you?”

Adagio shrugged. “I don’t necessarily have them as I do have access to them. The nice thing about being triplets, even though we don’t really look anything alike, is that we’re all basically the same size.”

Sunset snorted. “Despite the fact that Sonata’s got a rack you could deploy in case of water landing.”

“I still don’t know where she got those,” Adagio groaned, shaking her head. “Alright, Sugarcoat, you’re turn.”

“Hmm. Ok, Adagio.”

“Yessssss?”

“Would you rather go a month without sex or have to watch the Teletubbies every time you do it for a month?”

Sunset’s eyes widened as she looked sideways at a mortified Adagio. “I think we have a winner.”

Author's Note

Might have broken Adagio here.

Hotel Talk 1

Finding a hotel was easy. Getting everyone to settle on the same hotel was a bit more of a challenge. As much as Sunset had found she enjoyed throwing money at things and watching it stick, she still had a sense of pragmatism, and spending several hundred dollars per hotel room made her physically ill. On the other hand, cheap hotels were where diseases went to party, and the last thing she wanted was to cut her vacation short because someone caught something unpronounceable before they’d even gotten to the beach.

So she’d settled on a hotel that only whispered opulence instead of screaming it in loud obnoxious tones. Her carmates didn’t seem to take any issue with it, as they all settled themselves into the couches and chairs in the lounge while she made a few phone calls. None of which seemed to be going the way she wanted. “NO, Twilight, we are not staying at a Motel 6. I don’t care how much cheaper it is, I dare you to walk through the front DOOR with a blacklight and not pass out. We’re at the Skylark, thank you, now please turn your car around and stop making this nice, adorable, and possibly single concierge stop waiting for me to give them money.” She hung up with a huff.

Getting Limestone to agree was easy, especially with Rarity in the car. Fluttershy would have agreed to camp out under the stars if you asked nicely enough, although that might just be because she’d developed a habit of waking up surrounded by fuzzy woodland creatures. The girl was a handsome prince away from being a Disney movie.

Now she had to call Indigo’s car, which she suspected would go about as well as talking Adagio into church. She dialed from her contacts list, and in a few seconds Rainbow Dash answered the phone. “Sup, Sunset?”

“Where are you guys right now? We’re all staying at the Skylark,” Shimmer explained.

Rainbow coughed loudly. “You serious?! That freakin skyscraper hotel? We just turned onto the road leading to the Motel Si-”

“NO. NO MOTEL SIX. God it’s like none of you watch crime dramas! And besides, the skyscraper hotel is The Sky Chariot. The Skylark is the ten-story like three blocks down.”

“Oh, only ten stories! Gee, that’s not so bad!” Rainbow scoffed.

“No one is saying you need to stay on the top floor,” Sunset groaned.

“Can’t we just find a cheap hotel and bunk down for the night? Even Indigo is saying she’d rather sleep in an RV than a ‘cash-sink’ tourist trap.”

Sunset pinched the bridge of her nose. “Well, this ‘tourist trap’ has an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet, free digital cable, and the added benefit of me being around to pay for your rooms.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line, in which Sunset could make out a barely concealed conversation between the three girls. I should have called Sonata, Sunset berated herself. Then Rainbow came back on the line. “We’ll be there in ten. Maybe twenty. These one-way-roads are stupid.”

“Yes, yes they are. Bye,” she said curtly.

Now she had to call Applejack. The most frugal and financially responsible teenager she’d ever met in her life. A girl who would rather stand in the middle of the mall wearing a god-awful mascot costume for three hours than pay a five dollar resale fee. Although the assortment of other ‘fees’ those two earthworms had tried to sneak by them might have had something to do with it, from what she’d heard.

Fortunately, she had a secret weapon, as she dialed her phone again. “Hey, Pinkie?”

“HEY SUNSET!”

“...ow. Yes hi. We’re staying at the Skylark. Tell Applejack. Bye!” she said quickly.

“OK BY SUNSET!” Pinkie shouted.

Adagio, who heard Pinkie from across the room, raised an eyebrow at her ‘friend’. “Really? Poor Applejack doesn’t stand a chance.”

“Would you rather give Applejack the opportunity to convince everyone hat Motel 6 is a GOOD idea?” Sugarcoat huffed, looking up from her book. She’d cozied herself into taking up as much room on the couch she’d claimed as possible.

“Oh gods no. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m really starting to enjoy the place, but your choice of tactics is… well, frankly, rather admirable,” Adagio said wistfully. “I’m starting to think we’d have been leagues more successful if we’d just convinced you to join us and use your powers for evil again then trying to turn you on your friends.”

Sunset shrugged. “Yeah, but then you’d never have discovered the joys of getting older.”

Adagio shuddered. “Please don’t use that word. Don’t get me wrong, I’m rather enjoying the idea that I could actually grow up to be sexier than I already am-”

“Saints preserve us,” Sunset said in a slightly husky voice, earning a rather lascivious grin from Dazzle.

“But this whole ‘menopause’ thing I’ve read about sounds absolutely nightmarish,” Adagio finished.

The girls were saved a rather unfortunate conversation about the failings of the human body as Trixie and Maud strolled into the room. “So is everyone coming? Trixie wants to actually lay down in a bed sometime tonight!”

“Yeah, they’re on their way,” Sunset answered. Just then, another voice greeted them. A rather strained ‘polite’ cough stirred Sunset into tilting her head back and looking upside-down at a rather perturbed hotel manager. “Yeah?” she asked.

The gentleman, gray in skin, suit, and hair, adjusted his matching tie. “As much as I hate to break up this rather… adorable ‘sleepover’, we have a strict non-loitering policy. SO if you all could kindly call your parents and have them collect you-”

“I’m going to stop you right there before you say something that makes my back teeth grind themselves into a fine powder,” Sunset insisted, rising from her seat and standing in front of the manager, who’s name she could now read on his tag as ‘Mr. Reacher’. “We are waiting for our friends so that I can pay for their rooms. If you’d like, I could take my business elsewhere,” she mused, tapping away on her phone as she fiddled with her banking app, “But I doubt you’re in the mood to allow a bank account this big take its business somewhere else,” she finished, holding up her phone for the manager to read.

Mr. Reacher paled, then flushed, and turned his personality on its head. “I-I of course! Miss...”

“Shimmer,” Sunset said pointedly.

“Ms. Shimmer! Exactly how many… friends of yours will be joining us tonight?”

“Oh, around thirteen more of us. All girls,” she restrained a grin as she caught the concierge behind the front desk consider the implications of that, and wondered if he could in fact blush any harder.

“Thi-thirteen? You mean you’re paying for rooms for eighteen girls?!” Mr. Reacher exclaimed in a rather high pitch. “Wh-what kind of arrangements would you be requiring?”

Sunset glanced over her shoulder at her friends, who all gave her a curious glance, and led Mr. Reacher away by the elbow. The two sat down in a small, out-of-the-way booth just outside the hotel restaurant. She pulled out a piece of paper and a pen out of her purse, and made a few careful notes. “For one, I’d like three rooms to fit four people each, one room for three, a room for two, and a single. Nothing presidential, because I’d really rather not pay that cleaning bill. Secondly, I understand you have an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. Now, I haven’t had a chance to peruse the menu, but I’d like to imagine it contains a generous amount of meat on it,” she said pointedly.

Reacher, to his credit, had settled for nodding politely and agreeing with everything that could make him money. “Of course! Anything else?”

“Yes. Now, this is very, very, very important. While some of my friends are of legal age to order and consume alcohol, most of us are not. So under no circumstances are you or any of your staff to let anyone in my party drink an ounce. Please,” she added in no uncertain tones.

Reacher smiled knowingly. “I take it not… all of your friends can hold their liquor?”

“Mr. Reacher,” Sunset started.

“Sky, Please.”

“...Mr. Sky, I am dear friends with more than half of them. Better than passing acquaintances with the rest. Distinctly intimate with more than one. And I say with absolutely no hesitation whatsoever that there isn’t a single young woman about to walk into this hotel that can hold any more liquor than you could fit on the head of a god-damned pin.”

Reacher sat up straight, adjusted his tie proper, and took the list of instructions as Sunset handed it to him. He noted with a raised eyebrow that there were a few more… discreet requests written on it. “Have no fear, Ms. Shimmer. We here at the Skylark pride ourselves on… accommodation.”

“Wonderful,” Sunset said happily, clapping her hands together. There was a brief pause, as she looked sideways and whispered, “So about number seven-”

“We keep them in regular stock. This is a college town, after all.”

“Fantastic.”

Sleep Talk 1

"So. Trixie,” Limestone started, staring down the wannabe magician. It was later that night, after they’d all settled into their rooms. Trixie had wanted to bunk with Maud, and had no objections to sharing space with her sister.

At first. “Um, yes?”

“What exactly are your intentions towards my sister? You know she has a boyfriend, right? You’re not gonna try anything funny, are ya?” Lime demanded.

Maud spoke up quietly. “Limestone.”

“What?!”

“She’s fine. She’s been really nice to me. I’d like you two to get along. Also it’s midnight and I’d like to get some sleep.”

“Fine,” the eldest Pie sister growled, stomping over to her bed. Which, coincidentally, was the middle one, which meant Trixie wouldn’t be able to avoid sleeping in a bed next to her. She opted for the window, as she had little problem throwing herself out of the window onto the rather nicely decorated landing below should Limestone start growling in her sleep.

Maud had settled in to her bed quietly, her rock Boulder tucked in on the pillow next to her. Trixie gave her a small smile as she tucked herself into her own bed. There was a peaceful moment as she looked out the window at the clear sky and the sliver of moon. Up until Limestone snored something that sounded suspiciously like “Watching you.”

Trixie got up, opened the window slightly, and went back to bed.

A few doors down, two siren sisters slept loudly, snoring up a storm. However, should one poke their heads in, and be able to see past the noise, they would find to young girls cuddled together under one blanket, the covers on a far bed tosses aside. Across the room were two other beds, one holding a certain scientist and her dog, both of which were wearing rather large and poofy earmuffs.

Zap stared wide-eyed at the ceiling. “God, if you’re there, please kill me.”

Rarity, too, slept soundly in her bed, her facemask in place, snuggled under an exorbitant number of blankets while the AC blasted the room.

On a separate floor, one of the fancier suites had a simple “Do Not Disturb” sign. Should one be brave enough to enter, the first thing they would notice would be the smell. A heady aroma of musk, pheremones and something distinctly feminine. Lavender undertones and a slightly armoatic yet undefined herbal scent lent to the presence of certain kinds of oil. The room itself was a mess of Hollywood proportions: tossed sheets, clothes strewn in a variety of unlikely places, and a rather unfortunate broken lamp in the corner. Even the curtains had seen better days. Or maybe they hadn’t. Don’t judge.

The occupants were well and fast asleep, passed out through sheer force of will and effort, tangled almost as much into each other as they were the rather mishandled blankets around them. One was snoring softly, cuddled up to a rather comfortable and well-maintained mess of curly hair, while the other simply cradled her partner affectionately, and drooled into the pillow.

Next door to said suite, a slightly less extravagant suite with a few more beds in it saw a group of girls who, under any other circumstances, would be properly asleep and awaiting a new day in their dreams. However, this was not the case. The majority all sat wide awake, in various stages of shock.

Applejack broke the silence first. “I had no idea Sunset could scream like that.”

There was a small squeak from under a small fort of covers on one of the beds.

Rainbow nodded. “That was… really, really awesome. I mean WOW that was awesome. Holy shit.”

Another squeak.

“Rainbow!” Applejack hissed.

Pinkie Pie looked at the wall between them and their friend’s hotel room in awe. “I have much to learn about throwing parties from those two.”

“Uh, Pinkie,” Rainbow said slowly. “That wasn’t a party. That was, well, come on. You know what that was.”

“Well, duuuuuuuh. Of course I know whoopie when I hear it. I have parents, you know.”

Squeak.

“Ok, ew. Did NOT need to hear that.”

“Would you two settle down an’ go to sleep?! We got a lotta drivin’ to do tomorrow!” Applejack kept her voice low, but stern.

“Are you kidding? There’s no way I could sleep after that.”

Squeak squeak squeaker squeak squeaken.

On a lower floor, in a simpler room, one last group of girls had yet to go to sleep. In fact, they hadn’t so much as touched the beds, instead opting to stay up in favor of playing video games.

“Dammit Zest will you stop it with the Blue Shells?!” Sunny growled.

“Oh, it’s not her fault,” Sour said gently. “Maybe if you weren’t in first place for the seventh game in a row.”

“Oh, please. I’m in like, third right now! Freakin Yoshi’s in first, thanks to Zest! Besides, why do you care who’s in first, little miss 8th place?” Sunny chided. “Dammit Yoshi with the bananas!”

There was a bit more ruckus, drowned out slightly by the sound of the game, until Sunny threw her controller down. “And I came in second! What the hell!”

Sugarcoat smiled slightly. “Yo-shi.”

Hotel Talk 2

The first morning of the group vacation was off to a slow start. Despite many of the girls wanting to get on the road early, it was 8 o’clock and none of them were awake yet. Well, almost none of them. Adagio Dazzle was wrapped in a fluffy, flattering bathrobe as she lay across the now slightly-less disastrous bed, drinking a surprisingly fine cup of coffee as she waited for her not-girlfriend to get back. Sunset, for some reason, had taken it upon herself to get up at 6 A.M., despite Adagio’s best efforts last night to leave her more than exausted.

Adagio had wanted to go back to sleep, but Sunset had made the rather excellent point of having an entire hour to herself in which to take a luxurious bath and wake up slowly and properly in style, something the Siren had a hard time turning down. Of course, once Shimmer had revealed exactly why she was getting up perfectly early and what she intended to do, Adagio was too busy basking in the near-evil tendencies of her ‘partner’ to really offer any argument against it.

To her credit, Sunset had gotten up at six because she, too, wanted a nice, luxurious bath to wash out all of the… evidence of last night, before they all had to hit the road. Giving Adagio some time alone while she went about her particularly ruthless business was a pleasant side effect. She was more than willing to let her friends have at least a little bit of rest, but she also knew that if they all slept in till noon and spent only half as much time on the road that they’d all regret it.

Also, she may have spent just a little too much time around Adagio.

After she’d gotten a nice long bath, freshened up, and gotten dressed (a familiar sleeveless red top that tied at a ring on her neck and a flowing yellow skirt that was respectably long and flirtatiously billowy), her next stop was the front desk. The gentleman behind the counter raised an eyebrow as she practically skipped up to the counter, invigorated by the night’s efforts and refreshed by the hotel’s accommodations, and gave her a polite smile as she leaned on the desk. “Hello!” she said cheerfully.

“Can I help you?” the desk manager asked politely. He gave all the impressions of not wanting to deal with someone’s bratty teenage kid this early in the morning.

“Yes, you can. I believe you have something for me? Under the name Sunset Shimmer?”

He tore his appraising gaze away and typed away at the computer for a few moments, before his other eyebrow raised at the account notes. “Yes, I believe we do. But… seriously?” he asked, giving her some side-eye.

“I promised the hotel manager that I wouldn’t use it until after 8 a.m. And it is now?”

The clerk looked at the clock and sighed. “Eight-oh-five. Very well,” he sighed, pulling a small box out from under the counter and handing it to her.

Sunset inspected the contents, smiled, and slid a twenty across the counter. “Much obliged.”

“You too, kid,” the clerk smiled, pocketing the tip.

The next stop was Limestone’s room. Firstly, because two of her three other car mates were in this room, and secondly, because she’d rather just get it over with. She knocked solidly on the door, and was surprised when a female voice on the other side called back, “What?!”

“Oh, hey Limestone, just seeing if you guys are up yet,” Sunset said through the door.

“Yeah, we’re fine. Been up for a couple hours. Now go make sure the others are awake!”

“Oh, I intend to.”

Twilight and the Sirens’ were also wide-awake, although Sunset expected this. Regardless of what side of the portal she was on, Twilight Sparkle was always an early riser, and she knew from experience that the two younger Sirens, despite their differences when they were awake, slept like rocks together and rose with the sun. Apparently, Indigo Zap was the only one who hadn’t wanted to get up.

“Next time we get hotel rooms, please god let me sleep next to someone several decibels quieter,” Zap whined, looking somewhat miserable with bags under her eyes.

Sunset nodded consolingly. “Ok. Sorry,” she added, and moved on to the next room.

The Shadowbolt’s room was quiet. Too quiet. At least, it had been, until Sunset showed up.

“Seriously, Sunset, not cool,” Sour growled.

Sunny nodded vigorously. “Agreed. Mucho uncool.”

Sugarcoat gave Flare a flat stare for her troubles. “Seriously? At least say the entire sentence in Spanish.”

“Oh, like that’s the biggest complaint right now,” Sour Sweet huffed.

Sugarcoat shrugged. “I saw it coming. Also, I was already awake.”

Lemon Zest just lifted a headphone as she brushed her teeth. “Whadda mith?”

The next room was rather lively as Sunset knocked on the door, Applejack barking orders as the girls all packed with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Sunset peeked her head in to wave good morning, and noticed the entire room come to a halt. “Uh… good morning?” she asked.

There was a lot of blushing, and not a lot of words. Eventually Rainbow Dash spoke up. “Uh, morning Sunset. What’s up?”

“Well, you guys, for one. Although I shouldn’t be surprised. AJ’s always been an early riser,” Sunset said with a smile.

AJ returned it, if only half-heartedly. “Yeah, uh, that’s me. Up an attem’.”

Sunset looked around at the obviously uncomfortable girls, and sighed. “Ok, what is it?”

Before anyone else could say anything, Pinkie jumped in. “Girl, you are LOOOOOUUUUUUUD!”

It was Sunset’s turn to blush. “Oh! Uh… yeah. Sorry about that. I thought the walls here were, um… thicker than that.”

Fluttershy had taken to packing quietly in the corner the entire time, only choosing to speak up now. “So… um… I have a question. And if you don’t… you know… want to answer, that’s ok, I mean...”

“It’s fine, Fluttershy, what’s up?” Sunset asked.

“Well,” Fluttershy said slowly, trying to hide behind her hair. “There was one… um… at one point you were especially… um… loud, and I was just wondering if maybe you could tell me what… what you two were doing?” she shrank back into herself as she finished her question.

“Oh, that,” Sunset said smugly, through a different kind of blush. “Well, Adagio does this thing with a bathrobe belt and a nightstand where-”

“Okthat’senoughwe’llseeyouinthelobby!” AJ said quickly and loudly, pushing Sunset out of the room.

The door clicked behind her, and Sunset made a mental note to take Flutters aside later and give her some tips for the ‘Festival’ Treehugger had invited her to.

Sunset had one room left. Rarity’s. The queen of beauty sleep. She of course knocked politely on the door, and waited for a response, only to get none. The drone of the AC machine could be heard in the hallway, and only grew louder as Sunset opened the door with her copy of the hotel room key (something the manager had supplied her with, as she was the one paying for all of the rooms). Rarity’s hotel suite was almost ice cold, and Rarity herself was buried under a bunch of blankets, wearing her almost trademark sleep mask.

Shimmer tiptoed into the room, and quietly shut the AC off. Rarity barely stirred. Sunset reached into the box the concierge had provided her, and pulled out her ‘special order item’, which she’d already used once.

“HEY RARITY WANNA HEAR MY NEW AIRHORN?!” BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

“WAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!”

Author's Note

This Sunset is totes fun to write.

Breakfast Talk 1

Breakfast had been a rather tame affair, as the girls all gathered in the hotel’s restaurant, taking up almost all of a very long table. Sunset was at one end, not because she felt any need to assert authority or put herself in a position of power, but because she absolutely needed the elbow room and no one wanted to sit directly next to her as she raided the buffet of any and every breakfast meat she could. She did, however, show a bit more restraint and dignity as she made her way through a somewhat less impressive meal than yesterday’s lunch.

The rest of the girls were chatting amicably about the day’s plans, comparing notes ant discussing passenger arrangements.

“Trixie is telling you, Limestone, Sunset’s car is almost nothing but sexual innuendo and jokes. Trixie even kissed a girl on a dare!” Trixie exclaimed, although not appearing too upset about the idea.

“You know,” Limestone growled, gripping her fork tightly. “Telling me this isn’t exactly cementing the idea of letting Maud ride with you girls...”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Please, like lesbian make-outs are the worst thing that’s gonna happen on this trip. Sunset and Adagio already-” she was cut off as Adagio kicked her under the table. “OW!”

“A lady never divulges her nighttime activities,” Dazzle scolded.

Aria coughed. “Please! You talk about the nasty stuff you two do all the time-OW!” Adagio just growled at her. “Seriously, at least take OFF the spiked shoes first!”

Adagio flipped her hair. “They’re called stiletto heels. I left the spiked boots at home. High leather boots are suboptimal for beach weather.”

“Well they hurt,” Aria whined.

“That’s kind of the point,” Adagio chided.

Rainbow Dash snorted into her chocolate milk.

“Can you believe how noisy they are?!” Pinkie said loudly.

Sonata nodded. “I know, it’s suuuuper ridonkulous. Like, there are other people nearby, you know!”

Zap just glared intensely at Sonata, tearing into her steak with vigor. “Yeah. How rude of some people to be so damn loud when people are trying to sleep.”

“Right?!” Sonata agreed. “This one! This one gets it!”

Indigo sighed and almost face-planted into her food, instead opting to silence her scorn with oversized bites.

The rest of the Shadowbolts all seemed to be enjoying their breakfast in peace, chatting amicably. “So like, what are we even planning on doing when we get to the beach?” Sunny mused. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, two weeks away from my folks in nice hotels and great bikini weather all sound well and good, but… what is there to do down there?”

Sugarcoat almost rolled her eyes. “You mean besides the boardwalk, the numerous restaurants, the theatre, several days worth of outdoor activities, sports, and concerts, and what is probably going to be an indulgent amount of underage debauchery? Not much. I can see why you’re worried.”

Sunny just stared at her eggs grumpily. “Would it kill you to, you know, say something nicely?”

“When you ask a not-stupid question, I guess not.”

Lemon lifted a headphone off her ear as she saw the two girls snipe back and forth. “Dudettes, come ON! We’re on a vacay! Stop marshin’ my mellow, girls!”

“You’re absolutely right, Zest, we are on a vacation!” Sour Sweet said cheerfully, followed up with a tone dipped in acid, “Which doesn’t mean you can just abandon all of your English lesson in favor of… whatever the hell you just said.”

Lemon just stuck her tongue out and went back to eating, covering her ears back up with loud rock music.

Applejack and Rarity had found, unsurprisingly, something else to bicker about.

“Not happenin’, Rares. No way no how am I wearin’ that skimpy piece a’ string around in front of a bunhca strangers!” AJ protested.

Rarity flipped her hair as if it was a valid argument, and countered, “Listen, Applejack, deary, you can’t go around hiding such a fantastic form behind such boring… ‘practical wear’,” she said with a shudder, as if the words were a curse. “You are in fantastic shape! A gorgeous, hard-earned tan that most girls would die for, and really rather unfair… endowments elsewhere,” Rarity purred, with an appraising glance.

“Hey! You leave mah ‘endowments’ out o’ this!”

“But they’re exactly the point, darling! You should be proud of yourself! I just want to help you… show off a little, that’s all!” Rarity insisted.

“Show off?” AJ scoffed. “More like puttin’ a piece a’ meat on display in the butcher’s window!”

The fashionista disregarded the sentiment with a huff. “Well, I certainly can’t force you, darling.”

“Darn tootin’.”

“But I can and absolutely will continue this conversation another time!”

“...horseapples.”

Twilight, Maud, and Fluttershy were the only ones eating in silence, it seemed. Not because they didn’t have anything to say, but because they seemed to be otherwise… preoccupied. Fluttershy was busy playing with Spike and feeding him his breakfast, while the other two girls were currently buried in some book or another. Surprisingly, after a few turned pages, the girls would switch books, and continue reading in silence. Spike, after a few too many bites, rolled over on his back and patted his stomach, giving the bookworms a passing glance. “Wonderful. There’s two of ‘em.”

Author's Note

Just kind of a bridging piece between waking up and driving. Might use some timeskips to get to the beach faster, as I don't want to run out of jokes before we even get through day three.

Car Talk 4

Adagio Dazzle was many things to many people. To her sisters, she was a sheepherder, disciplinarian, ringleader, and confidant. To the Rainbooms, she was a mild irritation, having stepped down from active antagonist. To the Shadowbolts, a curiosity, one that made far too many innuendos that nobody was sure she was joking about. To the Pie family, she was… another human being. Maud was growing to like her, and Limestone had had all of an hour’s worth of direct interaction with the ex-siren to date. Pinkie Pie, of course, was friends with everyone, whether they knew it or not.

When it came to Sunset Shimmer, however, she was… confused, if only a little. There was still an air of uncertainty there that she had never really cleared for herself. They’d talked about it, at length of course, more than once. The general consensus was that their current dynamic of friends with benefits didn’t need any further complications. They liked, well, loved their physical relationship, and they got along both intellectually and emotionally quite well. It wasn’t a question of jealousy, either: Sunset and Adagio had each had their own individual adventures, which had never bothered either of them. Some were even joint ventures.

Yet there was something nagging at the back of Adagio’s mind when she spent time with the fellow redhead. She was never one to adopt labels (outside of those that came with being royalty or otherwise in charge), but she could never quite convince herself that “friends” was as far as they got.

Not that this was a sentiment she had any intention of voicing, ever. “So Trixie, tell me,” Adagio started, after they’d been peacefully flowing with traffic down the interstate for a few minutes, having left the hotel (which was both a little bit richer and a lot bit in need of a good cleaning).

Trixie looked up from the back seat, staring into the rear-view mirror like a student caught talking in class. “Um… yes?”

“Oh don’t look so alarmed. I merely wanted to ask you if you had any special plans for our vacation? Anything in particular you wanted to do? Any...one?” Adagio added, as if out of habit.

“There it is,” Sugarcoat said. Although if one were looking they might have detected half a hint of a grin.

“Oh!” Trixie exclaimed. “Well, I had packed a trunk of magic tricks to perform on the beach! A whole new crowd to witness my Power and Greatness!”

“Oh yes,” Sunset chided. “A whole new city full of people to set on fire.”

“That was one time! And you deserved it!” Trixie shot back.

Adagio raised an eyebrow. “Was that the weekend you came over with half your hair burnt off?”

“No, that was when I tried to use science to explain Equestrian magic,” the driver groaned, with all the frustration hindsight could afford her. “The time Trixie lit me on fire was the weekend Aria tried to sneak into Twilight’s house cause she heard there was a pendant that could absorb magic.”

“Oh, yes, I remember that. I believe that was when we started… hanging out,” Adagio mused.

“Yes, mainly because you were still trying to find ways to sneak back into Equestria, steal magic, and kill me,” Sunset added, only partially reproachful.

The rest of the passengers were now paying full attention. Having somewhat grown used to the innuendo, flirting, and outright scandalous conversation after a day’s worth of exposure, the sudden turn towards lethal force was a distinct change of pace. “When the hell did Adagio try to kill you?” Sugarcoat asked, only because she spoke faster than the other two.

The siren looked to the ceiling as she mused, “There was the week immediately after the Battle of the Bands where I snuck into her house to smother her in her sleep, only to find out she wasn’t there, at which point I got carried away by cops because I hadn’t gotten used to not being able to mind control people yet and so wasn’t trying to be sneaky…”

“That was a fun one to come home to, by the way,” Sunset interjected. “Took me weeks to replace the living room furniture.”

“Oh it looks better now anyway. More space. After that I think was the time I followed you after school to mug you in a back alley, only to find out that you did, in fact, practice martial arts, and were, let’s say, enthusiastic about using them,” Adagio deadpanned, the memory of Urgent Care and a night of ‘I-told-you-sos’ from Aria flooding back.

Trixie nodded with a consoling look. “She does get rather gung-ho when she’s surprised.”

“Well maybe if someone would stop setting off smoke bombs in class when they forget their homework,” Sunset growled.

“The time I tried to get my sisters to join me in waiting outside your house only for you to walk home with all of the Rainbooms in tow. The time I tried to cut the brake lines in your car, only to find out you had a neighborhood watch and I was now on a LIST. The time I tried to pay a professional to have you killed, and got busted by an undercover cop-”

“-I’m sorry what that’s a new one,” Sunset interrupted. “I’d ask how you aren’t IN PRISON, but I’m sure I don’t want to know. And I think, at least, I’m hoping, that covers everything except the last time, when you came to my house roaring drunk, went on a long spiel about how it shouldn’t be this hard to kill a teenager, and passed out on my couch. The morning after being, I believe, the first real conversation either of us had.”

Trixie snorted. “And it took you until after the Friendship games to start going at it like wild rabbits?”

“Actually, yeah. We’d started hanging out before then, but hadn’t gotten to… ‘rabbit season’ until I went over to berate Aria for breaking into Twilight’s house,” Sunset explained.

“I’d sort of given up on going home by then, and Sonata had already gotten used to being fully human. It was easier not having to feed off people to stay alive, which Sonata, truth be told, had never been fond of. She liked people doing what she said, but the whole ‘eating emotions’ thing never quite sat right with her. Aria, however, had long since been addicted to the power. I had always been driven by the fame and fortune, which had taken some time to get over, but with Aria it had been like rehab. She took... a while to come around,” Adagio mused, almost sadly. It was good that her sisters were all on the same page again, even if they would never be what they were, but it still hurt to think about. “Still, watching you be that mad at someone who wasn’t me was… very exciting.”

“Yes we get it you two like sex,” Sugarcoat groaned. “Between that and the violence is there anything you two have in common that wasn’t pulled from a procedural cop show?”

“Well, there’s music,” Sunset said, after a moment of thought. “We have similar taste in movies and books… and…”

Adagio snorted. “Please. Like you need anything more than to enjoy each other’s company to be friends. Look at the Rainbooms; their shared interests are tangential at best. Sure, they have similarities if you take two of them at a time, but besides the ‘band’ I doubt you could find a single common thread across all seven of them. You don’t need to have anything in common to be friends with someone outside of enjoying each other’s company and a mutual understanding that you won’t kill each other.”

Sunset looked sideways at Adagio approvingly. “That was almost a good friendship lesson.”

“How DARE you.”

Other Car Talk 1

“So Limestone, dear, what exactly is it you do for a living?” Rarity asked hesitantly. As much as she was enjoying the quiet of Lime’s car, and the time she got to spend with Fluttershy, she found the driver a little… intense. Careful on the road, yes, but her presence was somewhat intimidating.

Limestone spared her a sideways glance before returning her attention to the road. “I’m in college, actually,” she answered carefully. Even in polite conversation her voice had a gravelly edge that led to the intense impression she gave others. “Living with my parents while I get my archaeology degree. I’m really only on this trip as a way to unwind before I get to spend three months as an intern at a dig in Alaska. I’d be going earlier if there wasn’t a territorial dispute between the college and a local Inuit tribe. Nothing major, but god forbid you put a shovel in the ground without the government’s say-so.”

“Really?” Fluttershy perked up. “What college do you go to?”

“Griffinstone, although I’m slated to to my post-grad at Eaton,” Limestone explained.

Both Rainbooms stared at her quietly, obviously impressed. “Well, my word. I wasn’t expecting you to be such an… academically inclined young woman,” Rarity replied. Then immediately regretted.

Fortunately, Limestone wasn’t offended. “Ha! Yeah. Neither was I, to be honest. I kind of fell into the archaeology thing when my parents dug up some ‘native remains’ on the farm trying to lay new pipes. I musta spent hours poring over local records and talking to historians and stuff trying to figure out where it came from. Turns out they weren’t actually remains, just the bones of a long-dead animal who’d eaten somethin’ weird. My parents saw how much fun I was having digging around, and encouraged me to try for college. That was my last year of high school, and up until that point I was only keeping my grades up to keep my folks happy, but it was enough to get into GSC, color me surprised.”

There was a small silence as Limestone changed lanes and glared daggers at a particularly aggressive driver behind her, only to sigh as Indigo’s car barreled past. “So what about you ladies? I know a little bit about both of ya’, cause Pinkie just doesn’t. Stop. Talking. But I’d like to hear it from the horse’s mouth, to be honest. What are you two up to back in the real world?”

Fluttershy gave a small smile. “I volunteer at an animal shelter, and Rarity is a budding fashion designer.”

“Eh, I never had much interest in fashion” Pie mused. “Spent too much time getting my clothes dirty. I never really liked the idea of puttin’ something on I couldn’t dig a hole in.”

Rarity twitched slightly. Dear God it’s like Applejack all over again. “Well, surely you’ve been to a formal event at some point? Dressed up for the occasion?”

Again, Limestone laughed. “Please! I showed up to my high school graduation in overalls you could barely see under an inch of dirt cause I forgot what day it was and had to get pulled out of the well I was digging halfway through the ceremony. If we hadn’t been having a party afterwards I doubt Pinkie would have even bothered coming to get me. I’m not about to spend a couple hundred dollars on an outfit I might only wear a couple times when I can buy a good pair of work boots that’ll last me to the heat death of the universe. My parents like to joke that I’d only ever get married if Carhart started making wedding dresses.”

There was a few moments of silence before Limestone added, “Uh… Rarity?”

“I think she passed out,” Fluttershy noted.

Twilight swerved out of panic as Indigo blazed past her. “Holy cow! Is she trying to hit someone?!”

“If only she’d do us the favor,” Sour grumbled. “I mean, oh no, slow down, there’s innocent people in the car…”

Lemon Zest snickered into her hand as Sunny gave Sour a reproachful look. “You do know it’s Twilight’s friends in that car, right?”

“Friend,” Twilight corrected. “The other two are Aria and Sonata, and despite Sunset’s… ringing endorsement of Adagio, I’ve never been able to get along with any of the Dazzlings. Also, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I agree with Sour Sweet. Whatever trouble Indigo gets into is entirely on her.”

“And you’re not worried about Rainbow Dash getting pureed against a concrete wall?”

“I would be, if she couldn’t fly at mach 6,” Twilight groaned. “I’ve seen her pull people out of moving cars before. And there’s no way Indigo’s actually going fast enough to cause an accident. Having been her passenger before, I can honestly say she’s skilled enough to stay out of trouble, aside from the many, many speeding tickets she should have.”

“I can’t believe that girl wants to be a cop when she graduates,” Sunny grumbled. “It’s gonna be hilarious when she finds out they spend 95% of their time NOT in high-speed chases.”

“This coming from the girl who wanted to be a spy for like four months after a single Jason Bourne movie,” Lemon chided.

“W-well Hollywood should do a better job of portraying real-world careers realistically!” Flare said defensively.

“You do realize they call it ‘fiction’ for a reason, right?” said spike from the back of the car.

“Said the talking dog,” responded the entire rest of the car.

“Come on somebody, why dontchu run~? Ol’ Red’s itchin’ to have a little fun~! Get my lantern, get my gun~. Red’ll have you tree’d ‘fore the mornin’s done~!” sang Pinkie and AJ at the top of their lungs. They barely noticed as Indigo’s car roared past them, and the car only went quiet as the CD ended.

“That was awesome! What else you got?!” Pinkie yelled, digging through Applejack’s music collection.

‘Finally, somebody who understands good music,’ AJ thought to herself.

-----------------------------

Sunset groaned loudly as she watched Indigo’s car pull away ahead of them. “Would someone mind calling… anyone in that car and reminding them we don’t even know where the next hotel we’re staying at is? And also that I’m not paying their speeding tickets?!”

Adagio sighed. “I’m on it.”

From behind them, Sugarcoat could feel her blood pressure rising. “No. Nu-uh. Not again.”

Maud just looked at her quietly.

“...ok, fine. Is it bigger than a breadbasket?”

“No.”

“Is it smaller than a breadbasket?”

“No.”

Sugar felt a vein in her temple pulse. “Is it a bloody breadbasket?!”

“Good job.”

“Oh for God's sake!”

Trixie barely stifled a laugh as she quietly tucked a dollar into Maud’s pocket.

Meanwhile, should one be driving fast enough to keep up with Indigo Zap, they would hear the following emanating from her rolled-down windows:

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Other Car Talk 2

“So how long do you think before Sugarcoat gets in someone else’s pants?” Sunny Flare asked pointedly, not really directing the question at anyone in particular.

Twilight swerved slightly. “Ex-scuse me?!” she bleated.

Sou Sweet rolled her eyes. “Oh please. The Queen of Practicality? The instant she gets hot under the collar she’ll probably target lock the best candidate in the car and give them a doctoral thesis on why they should bang.”

“So who do you think the best target in the car is?” Lemon Zest asked, lowering her headphones.

“Of course this is where you cue in on the conversation,” Sour said dryly.

Sunny tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Besides Sugarcoat herself? Probably that Sunset girl. Although, that might just be because I’ve seen her weridly gorgeous pheonix-angel form from the Friendship games. I wonder if she has a dress like that that doesn’t require magic.”

“Twilight, you know these girls better than us, what do you think?” Lemon asked, leaning from the back of the car to between the seats.

“Hah!” Spike laughed from his spot on Sour’s lap in the backseat. “Twilight’s about as comfortable talking about sex as I am about the vet. I still have nightmares about scissors.”

Sour choked on a laugh. “Oh come on. Even Lady Science has to have some idea of who she’s into, right?”

Twilight white-knuckled the steering wheel and stared intently at the road. “Can we talk about this when I’m not trying to navigate a four-lane highway?”

“What, when you can just walk out of the room and ignore the conversation entirely? Nuh-uh. Besides, we’re stuck in dead-ass traffic,” Sweet pointed out. The multi-lane highway was, indeed, almost at a standstill, and would remain that way for the foreseeable future. “Out with it, you gotta have an idea of what those girls are like. Who do you think Sugarcoat would gun for? Or you, even?”

“M-me?! I mean… I don’t… I guess Sugar might go for Adagio, really. Maud has a boyfriend and Trixie isn’t that comfortable talking about… that kind of stuff. Honestly I was surprised to hear she’d kissed anyone. Even on a dare. But then again, I don’t know her super well. Not like Sunset,” she said with a slight sigh.

“Oh? Are we pining for someone?” Zest asked, waggling her eyebrows.

Twilight blushed furiously. “Of course not! I mean, She’s super nice, and really pretty, but she’s much more… mature than I am. Both figuratively and, if you believe everything she says about that alternate dimension, literally. Also, I’m convinced she and Adagio are more than ‘friends with benefits’, even if they don’t want to admit it to anyone, even each other. Adagio always viewed… sex… as a hobby, I guess? She’s much more forward than anyone else I know, so that combined with Sugarcoat’s tendency to forego beating around the bush in favor of an industrial weed-wacker would probably lead to a hook-up of convenience than anything else. Although Dazzle would probably drag Sunset into it somehow.”

Sunny gave Twilight a sympathetic smile. “Kind of exhausting dealing with those two, isn’t it?”

Twilight sighed. “You have no idea.”

Indigo Zap was, to say the least, infuriated. She loved highway driving. She loved open roads and engines and going faster than the human body would allow. Her bucket list included the pin you get for surviving ten G’s. At least, she thought there was a pin. There should be.

So sitting in gridlock for an hour was, and would always be, a living nightmare for her. “Move move move move move muuuhhhh-wooooooooooooove!” She yelled at the car in front of her. She refused to honk her horn except in an emergency, seeing it as a sign of weakness. Or pettiness. Neither of which she enjoyed.

Rainbow Dash was much in the same boat. “Oh come ON! I could JOG to the beach faster than this!”

Aria was also losing patience, but for entirely different reasons. “Oh yes, please, show those pathetic drivers who’s the boss,” she grumbled under her breath. She gave her triplet sister a sideways glance, a tinge of jealousy rolling over her as she saw Sonata happily tapping away at a tablet at some random match-3 game. Opting for a different kind of noise, she pulled out her phone and plugged in her earbuds to listen to some ungodly loud music.

Which wasn’t quite enough to drown out some rather creative use of expletives on Indigo’s part, which did make Aria smile as she filed the rather unkind sentiment about someone else’s parents away for later use.

Limestone Pie was, for all intents and purposes, one of the most patient members of the Pie family. Her experience with her exuberant sister Pinkie, the shy and quiet Marble, and the stoic Maud had taught her a variety and depth of patience and will.

She still hated traffic.

“Come now,” Rarity seemed to say to the ocean of cars in front of her. “You’d think infrastructure like this was designed to AVOID such cumbersome situations.”

“I kind of like it,” Fluttershy said wistfully, gazing pat the cars to a field of cows grazing peacefully in the distance.

“Well, yes, we at least had the fortune of being stuck somewhere rather serene. And I do appreciate beauty of rolling fields as much as the next person, especially from a distance,” Rarity agreed.

Limestone slowly rolled the car forward as they finally made some progress. “So… um… do you have any plans for while we’re at the beach?” she said hesitantly. She wasn’t great at starting conversations with, while not strangers, passing acquaintances at best.

Rarity hummed thoughtfully. “Well, as much as some of the other girls would love to work on their tan, I’m afraid I’m far too fair-skinned for that. I burn like a campfire. No, I think I’ll be spending most of my time on the boardwalk. I can’t wait to see what kind of stores they have!”

“I’m very excited to walk the beach myself,” Fluttershy said happily. “I like find crabs and seashells. What about you, Limestone?”

“I would love to sit on a long towel and work on my tan for an afternoon, if we ever get there!”

AJ had had some misgivings about being in a car with Pinkie Pie for hours at a time, but as it turns out, they had something in common Applejack hadn’t planned on.

Country music.

“Come on somebody, why dontchu run?

Ol’ Red’s itchin’ to have a little fun~

Get my lantern get my gun

Red’ll have you treed fore the mornin’ comes!”

The two sang cheerfully over the radio as the traffic around them crawled onwards.

Sunset’s ear’s twitched as AJ’s radio poured out of her rolled-down windows, and her friend’s voices along with it. “If even one of you suggests country music at any point on this car ride I will not hesitate-” she started, only interrupted by letting her foot off the break as the traffic inched forward.

Adagio rolled her eyes. “Honestly, given how long we’ve been in this car, I’m surprised nobody’s broken out into song yet. Which I’ve been meaning to ask about. I get that my sisters and I sing on occasion, it’s literally how we were built. But why do you all break out into musical numbers at random intervals?”

Sunset sighed. “I have no idea. I’d blame it on the band, but I was doing it before that was even a thought. I mean, it’s pretty common in Equestria, for one reason or another, but I’ll be damned if I have any idea why it happens here. Part of me wants to blame magic for it like I do a great deal of other annoyances in my life.”

“Would one of those annoyances be a mile-an-hour four-lane slog through downtown Wheresville?” Trixie groaned.

A car horn went off somewhere in the distance, followed by another. Soon the entire highway was off on one.

“Yes, Trixie, yes it is.”

Author's Note

Been thinking about this story lately.