Rules of Hospitality

I was numb for the entire ambulance ride to Canterlot General. They let me ride along with Sonata, and the whole time I was gripping her hand and praying she would squeeze my hand back the way she always did.

My mother and Cadence were both in a state of shock. As far as I could tell Sonata had only extended whatever it was she’d done to the three of us, and not to my brother or my dad, but neither of my mom nor Cadence had been able to stop crying long enough to articulate what they’d felt.

In a way, I was lucky: I’d been subjected to powerful magic before, so I knew what it was like, and how intense it could be. My family, on the other hand, were very normal people and hadn’t ever experienced anything like what Sonata had done.

I just wish I knew what it was she had actually done.

I’d called emergency services in a panic, not sure what to do about Sonata who was suddenly unresponsive. She’d coughed up blood and was still suffering from a pretty bad nosebleed, and I was almost as terrified now as I had been when I’d been in the throes of Midnight’s tumultuous control. I couldn’t lose Sonata, not now, not right after I got the full emotional feedback of how she felt about me.

God, I could still feel it, like an echo of a memory. I knew it wasn’t my emotion but it was still so strong. I had no idea that Love was such a powerful emotion, I mean… yeah, I get it, there are all those Saturday morning cartoons talking about love and courage winning the day but this wasn’t the same.

It was literally powerful.

The ambulance rolled to a stop and I jerked out of my trance, looking around to see the EMT’s prepping to move Sonata to the emergency room.

“Excuse me, Miss?” One of them put a hand on my shoulder and I glanced over, he had a kind face, and he was looking at me with concern. “I need you to move so we can get the patient into the hospital.”

“O-Oh, uhm, yeah,” I nodded and scrambled out of their way. “I-is there anything I can do?”

“Well,” he looked pensive for a moment then looked back at me, “do you know if she has any family you could contact? Medical history? Anything the doctors might need to know?”

I did know that she had family, but she had begged me not to tell Adagio what she’d done before she’d passed out. I knew I should probably ignore that and call the Last Note anyway because I didn’t know any of the other things that the EMT had asked, but…

“Y-yeah, I’ll make a phone call,” I said quietly, backing up as they got Sonata out of the ambulance and the legs of the gurney lowered and locked with an audible snap.

The EMT gave me an encouraging nod before turning and helping his fellow wheel my girlfriend into the ER. I was terrified, my heart was hammering in my chest, and I wanted to just curl up and cry.

More than anything I wanted Sonata to be safe, though.

I stared down at my phone contacts and felt my breathing start to become a rapid staccato.

No matter what my personal feelings on the matter, I needed to make this call. I couldn’t call Adagio, or rather I wouldn’t unless I had no other choice, but there was one other sister I could contact.

The problem was two-fold: I couldn’t just call the Note or I’d run the risk of alerting Adagio, and I didn’t have Aria’s personal number.

But I knew someone who did and who had decent odds of being with her at that very moment.

Gritting my teeth, I tapped Sunset Shimmer’s contact number and lifted the phone to my ear, praying she hadn’t blocked me and that she wouldn’t just reject the call outright.

It rang four times, four agonisingly long rings before the call connected, and for a moment there was just dead air on the other side.

“H-Hello?”

//What do you want?// Sunset’s voice came through harsh and cold, and I felt my chest clench at the tight anger in her voice. //Talk, or I hang up.//

“I need to talk to Aria, Sunset,” I said quickly, my voice still raw with tears. “Please, I… I know you hate me, I know I don’t have any right to ask you for a favor, but I’m begging you, please let me talk to Aria!”

More silence, until-

//Twilight… what happened?// Sunset’s voice was suddenly worried, the anger in it was gone. Well, maybe not gone, but it had been submerged under real, genuine concern.

“It’s Sonata,” I sobbed, feeling the tears hit me hard again. “She’s in the hospital.”

I heard a sharp intake of breath, then the sound of pounding footsteps that I recognised as Sunset running, and the clatter of doors being swung open. I heard a few voices of alarm that faded into the distance, and then another door being slammed open.

//Babe! Phone Call! Catch!// Sunset snapped, but her voice was distant as if she were far from the mic of the cell phone.

I heard a muffled oath and curse followed by a sudden thump of soft impact, and a scrabbling sound as someone lifted the phone to their ear.

//What the fuck is going on?// Aria’s angry voice came through, and I sagged in relief.

“Aria, it’s Twilight, and I know you don’t have any reason to like me,” I started, trying to keep a hold on my panic as I spoke, “but I need you to get down to the ER at Canterlot General now! Sonata is in the hospital and I don’t know what’s wrong with her!”

//FUCK!// Aria snarled and I heard multiple crashes from the other line as she apparently started getting ready to go. //Don’t you dare leave her side, Sparkle, and I swear to the deeps if anything happens to my baby sister and I find out you had anything to do with it I will end you!//

“If it was really my fault,” I said quietly, “I’d let you.”

//Tch, damn it Sparkle, just… stick by her okay?// Aria said angrily. //I’ll be there in fifteen.//

“Thank you,” I sobbed, and then the line went dead.

I walked into the ER in a daze, glancing around looking for any sign of what I should be doing. I didn’t like feeling lost and directionless, I wanted to know that I was contributing, that was accomplishing something or that I was helping.

But there wasn’t anything I could do, not yet.

I walked up to the nurses station and cleared my throat softly to get their attention. A young woman, maybe a few years older than me with tired eyes looked up to meet my gaze.

“Yes?”

“U-uhm, I rode here with the ambulance carrying my girlfriend, Sonata Dusk,” I said quietly. “I just wanted to know what room she was in, and if I could see her soon?”

“Dusk… Dusk…” the nurse muttered as she looked down at her computer. “Ah, she was just admitted a few minutes ago… the doctor is probably getting to her now or will be in a few minutes, it’s not too busy at the moment.”

“So… w-when can I-?” I trailed off, still feeling a little numb.

“Ten minutes maybe,” the nurse said with a shrug. “Unless she needs emergency treatment or surgery, but the EMT notes say she was just unresponsive.”

“I’m scared,” I sobbed, “she just… collapsed, and I… I don’t know what I’ll do if…”

I saw a flicker of pain cross the nurse’s face, and after a moment she got up and moved around the desk to put her arms around me. She was a tall, spare woman with the look of someone who spent a lot of time on her feet. She lacked much in the way of soft lines, but I could feel the care she had for me and for the patients she dealt with.

“I’m sure everything will be fine, hon,” she said quietly. “Take a seat, okay? Maybe I can get you some coffee?”

“S-Sure,” I nodded, “coffee sounds good.”

“Well, wait til you taste it,” she said with a wan smile. “Our break room isn’t exactly a Neightalian cafe.”

I let out a weak laugh and nodded, thanking her as she helped me over to one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs in the lobby before bustling off. I was waiting maybe another six or seven minutes before she came back with a paper cup full of dark, steaming coffee and handed it off to me with a faint smile.

It tasted awful, but I drank it down anyway. It was freezing outside, and I was feeling worn thin. The coffee was about halfway gone when the doors to the ER slid open again with that faintly pneumatic hiss and I saw Aria enter looking frazzled and panicked. Sunset was on her heels with a look of worry on her face, and they both spotted me about the same time.

“You!” Aria snapped, crossing the distance with a scowl on her face. “What did you do to my baby sister?”

“Nothing!” I sobbed, “I swear I didn’t… I don’t even know what she did!”

“Tell me what happened,” Aria hissed, her beautiful face twisted into that strangely alluring glower of hers. “Don’t leave anything out, I need to know!”

So I told her.

I told Aria everything that had happened from when we’d shown up to my parents’ house to the fight in the dining room, up to whatever it was that Sonata had done in front of the house just before she’d collapsed. The whole time Sunset just watched me, listening to my story with a carefully schooled look of impassivity on her face.

“Horseshit,” Aria said after a moment of silence once I’d finished my explanation.

“Babe,” Sunset said gruffly.

“S-sorry, bullshit,” Aria corrected herself.

“Still kinda racist to minotaurs, but whatever,” Sunset shook her head and sighed.

“It’s the truth!” I said stiffly, feeling a small surge of anger. “I swear that’s everything that happened!”

“Your stupid pastel friends took our magic away years ago,” Aria said grimly. “And I’ve mostly gotten past that, okay? But you just described my baby sister using magic! Which we don’t have anymore, so it’s bullshit.”

“Your sister said what she did wasn’t magic, though,” I insisted. “She always said it was just because she understood what Sirens were better than you and Adagio!”

“Wait, wait,” Sunset stepped between us and looked pointedly at me. “You said she fell unconscious right after she did her thing, right?” I nodded at that. “So when did she explain that?”

I bit my lip and between the two of them for a few seconds before sighing, and nodding.

“Sonata can… do something to her drinks she makes,” I said quietly. “She kisses them and they glow a little, and then when I drink them I can… I can feel something.” I shivered a little at the memory of the Twilight Rose, it had been so intense I could still feel a touch of the giddiness it inspired. “It’s like, she puts a tiny touch of whatever she is into the drink.”

Aria’s eyes widened for a moment, then she scowled again and cursed witheringly. “Sonata you empty-headed idiot!”

“What?! What is it?!” I felt panic surge in my chest as Aria’s face paled.

Even Sunset looked alarmed at the expression she was wearing.

“It’s… ugh, I don’t know, I’ve only ever seen something like that happen once,” Aria spoke in a low voice and I felt my skin crawl at the haunted look on her face. “It was back in the seventeen hundreds… Adagio had lost her shit, and she was taking it out in every village in a ten-mile radius.”

Sunset reached out and laid a hand on Aria’s arm carefully. “What happened?”

“I’m not gonna go into it, okay?” Aria said quietly. “It’s not my story to tell, and Adagio wants to leave it buried, especially now that she’s with that posh cellist,” Aria sighed and shook her head, “but the gist of it is that a Siren can… throw back emotions they’ve taken in.”

“Hold up,” Sunset said worriedly. “Way back when we first got together you said you couldn’t eat anything but me’ and when you tried you almost threw up…”

“Yeah… sorta like that,” Aria confirmed with an uncomfortable look on her face. “It’s… not exactly the same, but it’s not healthy for anyone involved”

Sunset’s eyebrows shot up as she glanced over at me.

“Has… has Sonata been hurting Twilight?” she asked in a low voice.

“Why would you care?”

For a moment I couldn’t believe those words had actually come out of my mouth, but they were spoken before I could even think about it. I looked up at Sunset who was staring at me like I’d shanked her, and swallowed hard before fixing her with a hard look, then turning my gaze back to Aria.

“O~kay…” Aria said awkwardly. “So… that happened, and I’m pretty sure we’re gonna unpack whatever that was after my sister is out of the hospital?”

“Nothing to unpack,” I replied evenly. “And no, Sonata isn’t hurting me.”

“How would you know?” Sunset asked quietly, she still looked a little on edge from my verbal lash-out. “Seriously, how?”

“How did you know Aria wasn’t just taking you for a ride?” I asked bitterly, and Sunset flinched. “You don’t get to slap me over that and then try to call me out on the same thing, even if I did cross a line.”

Aria blew out a breath and stepped between Sunset and me.

“Alright ladies, cool the fuck off,” Aria said sternly. “Which is probably the only time I’ve ever said those words, but seriously, we’ve got more important things to deal with right now, namely: Sonata, agreed?”

“Agreed,” I answered before Sunset could pursue the topic any further.

I don’t know why I was feeling so defensive, but just seeing Sunset put my hackles up now. I couldn’t relax or concentrate, I couldn’t focus like I normally could, and it was leaving my temper frayed and unsettled.

“Miss?” I looked up to see one of the EMT’s approaching. “Did you manage to…?”

“Y-yeah, this is her sister, Aria,” I said, gesturing at the middle Siren.

“The nurse should be out in a moment to talk to you,” he said, turning to Aria. “Any medical history or allergies you can think of would be helpful, I’ve gotta go, though, so… I hope things work out.”

“Me too,” I replied quietly.

True to the EMT’s prediction, a nurse swung by moments later and Aria began speaking to her quietly off to the side while Sunset and I sat awkwardly across from one another on opposite aisles of the ER waiting room.

It was quiet, and I’d always hated how hospitals smelled; a strange combination of contaminated and antiseptic. It was as if there was just a little too much of the scent of industrial cleaner in the air for anyone to be confident that the place was actually sterile. Every so often a nurse would bustle past with the look of someone who was in the midst of doing far too many things at once to notice our existence, and the occasional patient, but overall… it was quiet.

“Are we going to talk?” Sunset asked after a long stretch.

“Should we?” I replied softly. “I feel like you said everything you needed to say back at the Last Note.”

Pain and guilt lanced across Sunset’s face at the mention of that night, and I saw tears spring up in her eyes. Her gaze was suddenly nailed to the ground like a weight had fallen over her.

“W-what you said over the phone,” Sunset began in a small voice. “That I hate you?”

“I understand,” I said, pointedly not looking at her.

“W-wait, I do-”

“Miss Sparkle?” A doctor had approached unbeknownst to either of us, and the pair of us almost jumped out of our seats in surprise.

He was a small, balding man with narrow features and soft, brown eyes, a dark-gray complexion, and a pair of half-moon spectacles perched on his nose. He wore a white coat with a doctor’s badge pinned to it, and he looked tired.

“Yes?” I stammered, standing up quickly and feeling my heart start to race.

“Miss Dusk woke up a moment ago,” he said, and I felt my heart leap to my throat as relief swelled inside me. “She asked for you almost as soon as she was coherent.”

“Twilight.”

I turned just in time to see Sunset reaching out towards me, and I know… I know intellectually that she was just reaching for me. I know she was just trying to extend her hand.

I still flinched back when I saw her advancing on me, and felt a twinge of guilt as I watched the color drain from Sunset’s face as she slowly pulled her hand back.

“Miss Sparkle?” The doctor repeated my name, and I tore my gaze away from the pained expression on Sunset’s face.

“Y-yeah, I’m coming,” I replied quickly, moving to follow him.

I didn’t look back.

Following the doctor, I kept my eyes down as we passed several rooms, a couple of nurses’ stations, and a few orderlies moving patients between the halls.

“Is she alright?” I asked after a moment of silent walking, and the doctor glanced over his shoulder at me.

“Yes, at least as far as I can tell,” he said with a look of puzzlement. “I honestly couldn’t say what happened… as near as I can see she’s simply suffering from a case of severe exhaustion and perhaps malnourishment, are you family?”

“I’m her girlfriend,” I replied.

“Ah… well, not to put too fine a point on it,” He started a little warily, “but do you know if Miss Dusk suffers from any kind of eating disorder?”

That’s one way to describe it, I thought with a touch of bitter amusement.

“She doesn’t have an eating disorder,” was what I actually said. “Actually I think it’s something that runs in her family, her sister is outside right now.”

“Genetic, then?” The doctor remarked with a look of curiosity. “Interesting, I’ll speak with the sister then, Miss Sparkle, this is Miss Dusk’s room, here.”

He gestured to a small room with a single bed and a beeping monitor, and I thanked him quietly before slipping inside. I saw Sonata’s coat hanging from a rack by the door, and her shoes were set to the side of the wall.

“Hey,” came a raspy voice from the bed, and I sighed softly in relief at the sound of Sonata’s voice as I made my way to the bedside.

“You look awful, ‘Nata,” I said gingerly as I pulled up a chair and sat down beside her, reaching out to take one hand that was resting on her blanket.

She did look awful.

Sonata’s face was sallow and sunken, and her eyes had a strange, dazed look to them that gave off the impression of a mental inpatient who wasn’t all there. Her hair hung lank and faded around her head in a halo of drab aquamarine, that fell around her face and her rumpled clothes, and I reached out instinctively to brush a few strands from her eyes.

“I know…” Sonata said with a small laugh. “But I’ll be fine.”

“What did you do?” I asked, feeling a hard edge of tears threaten my words. “You scared the daylights out of me!”

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I needed you to understand each other though… I couldn’t just… just let you lose your family.”

“That doesn’t explain-”

“Before we were hit with the Elements,” Sonata cut me off, looking a little ashamed as she did, “we would take directly from the people we fed on, and it would hurt them… I never liked it… but now we just sort of soak up the ambient power.”

“How does that work?” I asked in a quiet voice.

“We create an empathic gateway,” Sonata replied with a shrug. “You’re a scientist, Twi’, so… think of it like a black hole but instead of capturing everything, it only captures specific wavelengths of energy, emotional energy,” she explained carefully. “It’s like a quantum vortex, a zero introduced into the emotional wave function of the world around us creating a kind of sinkhole… a one-way funnel that sieves power from the air and lets us feed on it.”

I… actually followed most of that. What really shocked me was that Sonata could speak in those terms. I’d known she was a lot smarter than she let on but it took the casual manner in which she referenced advanced quantum mechanics to really grasp that Sonata was probably as smart, or smarter, than I was.

Something about what she said stuck out in my mind, though.

“What you did wasn’t one way,” I replied, narrowing my eyes at her.

Sonata nodded guiltily.

“I’m the only one who can do it, I think,” she said in a small voice. “I’ve always been able to control my feeding a lot better than my sisters… I don’t even really need to feed from peoples auras like my sisters do, actually, I can eat normal food and draw out the residual emotions of the people who made it.” She fidgeted awkwardly as she explained. “W-Well, now I can, anyway… before when we had our heartstones we needed a lot more energy and… and… well, I don’t do that anymore.”

“How does that even work?” I asked in disbelief.

“Do you know what psychometry is?” Sonata asked, and I had to stop and wrack my brain for a moment before I remembered.

“That’s like… reading the past of an object, right?” I asked, furrowing my brow. “That’s just a charlatan’s trick.”

“For humans, maybe,” Sonata agreed. “But people really do leave behind imprints of emotional energy all over the place, just ask my sisters.”

“And Sirens can sustain themselves on that?” I raised an eyebrow at that. “Wouldn’t that be like a person trying to get enough water by licking the ground where it rained?”

Sonata giggled, then broke into a coughing fit, and I immediately leaned in to hold her hand with both of mine, feeling panic well up again as she hacked and coughed. Eventually, though, the fit subsided, and she chuckled quietly.

“I guess,” Sonata replied. “I never liked hurting people, though… so I never took as much as Adagio or Aria… it’s why I was always weaker.”

“You still haven’t explained-”

“I linked your mom and Cadence to you, through me,” Sonata said finally, “by creating a two-way tunnel through my… uhm… Siren’s don’t really have a word for it but I guess you’d call it my soul?” She coughed quietly, then said a little nervously, “e-except I don’t have a heartstone to hold all my power anymore, so when I opened up the gate I sort of emptied myself out in the process, and since I wasn't feeding I kinda... stayed empty.”

For a few seconds I just stared as I tried to process her explanation, and Sonata grew slightly more sheepish-looking by the second.

“W-wait… is that why I felt you, too?” I asked slowly, my mind coming to grips with what she was talking about. “When… when you linked us, right at the end… I felt you.”

“Yeah,” Sonata nodded weakly.

“So… that thing I felt?” I pressed, finally gaining an understanding of exactly what Pinkie meant when she said ‘nervouscited’. “About how… how you felt about me?”

Sonata blushed adorably.

“Y-Yeah, that was real,” she admitted, squeezing my hand with hers weakly. “I really, really like you, Twi’, like… more than I’ve liked anyone, not counting my sisters but that’s different, y’know?”

A part of me started analysing and overanalysing like it always did, and there was a lot of ‘too fast’ and ‘too soon’ countered by ‘well she didn’t declare her love’ and ‘it was just a feeling of something starting’.

I quashed all of that, pushing it back as I remembered Applejack’s words.

‘You gotta make that decision, you gotta decide if you’re gonna trust her.’

I made that decision when I’d asked Sonata to be my girlfriend, and I wasn’t going to let the fact that I’d felt the full weight of how much she cared about me scare me away.

Scooting my chair closer, I leaned in and wrapped my arms around Sonata, pulling her close.

“Take what you need, okay?” I said softly. “I trust you.”

Her eyes widened slightly as I pressed my lips to hers and we kissed, and I felt something move around me. It was like I was deep beneath the water surrounded by a gentle current, and something… immense. A living being orders of magnitude greater than me with a mind that spanned a stretch of time so vast I couldn’t even comprehend it.

“HEY!”

The connection faded slowly, not unlike waking up from a deep sleep.

“Get off her! You’re going to… kill… her?”

Aria’s voice went from outrage to confusion, to shock, and I opened my eyes to see Sonata leaning over me. At some point, I’d laid down on the bed beside her, and she was cradling me gently and she looked far better than she had a moment ago; the color had come back to her face, and there was a familiar vivacious glint in her eyes that hadn’t been there before.

“I’m okay,” I said quietly. “I’m… I’m just tired.”

And I was.

Whatever it was Sonata had done had taken something out of me, but it felt more like I’d just had an arduous day and needed to sleep than anything dangerous.

Aria and Sunset were both standing at the door looking tense and shocked as I turned my head to regard them.

“It’s alright,” I assured them with a faint smile. “She wouldn’t hurt me.”

Aria glanced between the two of us with a look of trepidation, her eyes wide and worried. It was a strange look for the more belligerent of the three Siren sisters, and it actually cheered me a little to see such a human expression on her face.

“How did you do that?” Aria asked, her eyes fixed hard on Sonata. “You were completely dry, I could feel it from all the way in the lobby, ‘Nata, you were like a hole in the air… you had nothing in your tank.”

Sonata moved gingerly until she was laying down beside me, and she curled around me protectively while still staring at her sister.

“I… I only took what I needed, okay?” Sonata answered quietly. “I didn’t hurt her.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it!” Aria snapped harshly. “You took from her the same way we used to! How?! How did you do that without a heartstone?”

For a moment Sonata look afraid, and out of instinct I reached out and took her hand, squeezing it tight, and I looked over at her.

“It’s okay,” I repeated, this time looking directly at Sonata. “Remember? I told you, I trust you.”

Sonata swallowed hard, then nodded.

“T-There’s something I never told you,” Sonata said quietly to Aria. “Adagio may have built the stones but I designed the thaumic matrices, so I’m the only one who knows how they actually worked and… I just designed them to let you two do what I could already do… feed by force.”

“W-Wait, that’s how all Sirens feed, though,” Sunset broke in, stepping past Aria. “There’ve been a few documented encounters… they sing and drain.”

“Right,” Sonata confirmed, nodding slowly. “Sirens sing and they drain, but that’s not what we did, remember? Remember the Cafeteria? Remember the Battle of the Band tryouts?”

Sunset’s eyes widened. “You didn’t drain them… you made them fight.”

“The stones let my sisters open a two-way empathic gate,” Sonata explained, her voice thick with guilt. “It let them pour their hate and anger into everyone else, stir it up, then drain it back… it made a feedback loop that let them take and take until their prey were just husks.“

“Feeding by force…” Sunset whispered, horrified. “Written’s Quill… you didn’t mean forcibly taking energy, you meant it let you force you prey to make food for you.”

“It let my sisters do it,” Sonata correctly gently. “I’ve always been able to.”

“Even now?” Aria asked in a neutral tone. “You… you can feed like we used to even now?”

Sonata nodded, shamefaced with tears in her eyes.

“You can control people like we used to?” Aria pressed.

I watched a small trickle of blood leak out from the corner of Sonata’s mouth and she bit into the side of her cheek as she nodded again.

“B-But I don’t want to!” Sonata sobbed. “I never wanted to! It hurts, Ari’! It hurts when I do it! It burns and I don’t like it!”

“Is that true?” Sunset asked in a dark tone of voice. “How do I know you aren’t controlling Twilight?”

“Stop!”

All three women jumped slightly as I forced myself to sit up and glare at Sunset. My head was swimming and I was exhausted, but I slung my legs over the side of the bed and stood up shakily as I stood up to her.

“She’s not controlling me!” I snapped. “She’s not hurting me! She’s not taking anything away from me that I’m not completely okay with giving her!”

“But-?”

“And you don’t even care!” I snarled, stepping forward as my temper reared its head. “You said it yourself, that you don’t care how good of friends we were! WERE! Past! Tense! Sunset! I’m not stupid, I know you said it like that on purpose! We’re…” I had to bite my lip to keep from sobbing as I spoke. “We’re not even friends anymore!”

“Twi’... I didn’t mean… I was angry…” Sunset stammered, her eyes wide and teary. “I swear I didn’t mean it.”

“Please stop fighting,” Sonata had clambered out of bed to stand between the two of us and across from her sister. “L-Look, I’ll do it again, okay?” Sonata smiled at me weakly and took my hand. “I’ll link the two of you so you can understand each other! You’ll be able to feel how each of you feels about one another and-”

“NO!” I hissed, staring at Sonata with terrified, furious eyes. “I… I don’t want to feel whatever Sunset feels for me.”

“W-why?” Sonata asked quietly. “Why don’t you want her to understand? Why don’t you want to-”

“Because I hit her…” Sunset said softly, and Sonata’s words died on her tongue, and even Aria looked shocked. “That night at the Lounge… when she got into a fight with Aria at the front door, I went into the back to wait for her and when she came out I hit her.”

“I… I called you and told you what happened so I could apologise for hurting your friend,” Aria said, looking a little betrayed. “I felt bad that I’d lost my fuckin’ temper, Red… I didn’t mean for you to go the fucking warpath.”

“Get out.”

The words were deep and furious. It was the sound of bedrock cracking beneath the weight of the ocean or the rumble of a distant thunderhead, and we all looked up to see Sonata staring with wide, expressionless eyes at Sunset.

“Get… out.”

“We should go, Shimmer,” Aria said quietly.

“But-”

“We’re Siren’s, Red, and you hit her mate,” Aria continued, “if we don’t leave then Sonata’s going to try and kill you.”

The absolutely matter-of-fact way that Aria said that made both Sunset and I shiver as Aria tugged Sunset’s jacket, pulling her out of the doorway and back into the hospital hall.

“I’ll talk to her, ‘Nata,” Aria said quietly as she met her sister's stony gaze before leaving. “Thanks for holding back.”

“It’s okay, ‘Nata,” I said after they’d cleared out, stepping between her and the doorway she was still staring at with those empty eyes. “I deserved what I got there… I-”

“Please don’t say that,” Sonata said stiffly before looking down at me. “No one deserves to have someone who loves them, someone that they love, hurt them… not ever.”

“Sunset loves Aria,” I replied in a tight voice, “she… she doesn’t-”

“She does,” Sonata said quietly. “You can’t lie to a Siren, at least not about how you feel… she does love you.”

There are times that I wished I could believe that Sonata would lie to me to try and make me feel better. If I ever thought she was the type of person to do that, then hearing that Sunset loved me probably wouldn’t have hurt so much. Tears fell slowly down my cheeks as I stared at Sonata who just returned my gaze sadly.

“But she hit me,” I whispered.

“Humans aren’t perfect,” Sonata replied, lowering her gaze. “But what she did was her fault, not yours.”

It felt like there was a cold vise gripping the inside of my ribcage. Everything in my chest felt tight and heavy, and suddenly my breathing started to falter. My vision tightened and narrowed, and everything had a strange, gray film over it.

“Twilight?” Sonata said my name and I thought I heard worry in her voice, but it was hard to tell because it sounded like it was far away. “T-Twilight? Are you okay?”

“It’s… It was m-my fault,” I stammered, trying to catch my breath as I did. I couldn’t though… and my chest felt so tight. “S-Sunset didn’t d-do anything wrong! I did! I… I d-”

The room suddenly seemed to spin on its axis as blackness closed in around me.

I came back to consciousness to the sound of song, and my whole body ached like I’d just run a mile without stretching. It took me a moment to realise I was back on the hospital bed, and Sonata was laying next to me, her head propped up on her arm as she sang in some strange, flowing language that reminded me of something vaguely Middle-Eastern, but with an odd, almost hissing quality to it.

“Feeling a little better?” Sonata asked softly as her song tapered off and she curled up a little closer to me. “I was really worried for a minute.”

I turned and rested my head against her chest silently, and she wrapped her arms around me.

“Twi’?”

“It has to be my fault,” I whispered in a small voice. “It has to be.”

“Why?” Sonata asked gently, not probing, just asking.

“Because Sunset is a better person than me,” I replied, shivering. “If she could lose control like that… then how could I possibly-” I choked up and swallowed thickly. “How can I have any hope at all?”

Sonata made a soft sound in the back of her throat, like a sob almost, and pulled me closer, and I felt her lips brush my forehead as she clung onto me and held me tight.

I leaned into it, and for a little while it felt like she was the only thing holding me together. For so long I had seen Sunset as something between a friend and an idol, someone I was always reaching towards… someone who had faced the same things I had and come out of it shining like a beacon, with all the verve and confidence I wished I’d had all my life.

And then she hit me.

Twice.

“You should talk to her,” Sonata said finally. “Even if it's scary… you should.”

“Why?”

“Do you want to lose her forever?” Sonata asked, she wasn’t pushing the issue but I felt the pressure nonetheless. It was a question I had steadfastly avoided asking myself anytime I thought about Sunset lately. “Do you want her back?”

The minutes stretched out until finally, I worked up the courage to admit what I already knew.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Does that make me horrible?”

“She hurt you,” Sonata replied softly. “You don’t have to forgive her.”

“But she forgave me for so much!” I said almost frantically. “She forgave everything I did during the Friendship Games! She’s stuck by me for everything!”

“Friendship isn’t a bar tab, Twi’,” Sonata said after a moment of thought. “It’s not something you have to extend credit to, and it’s not something you pay off… you have to decide if you want to let her back in.”

“I’m scared,” I confessed in a tiny voice.

Sonata hugged me a little tighter. “It’s okay, I’m scared a lot too.”

We laid there for another several minutes before I finally worked up the courage to wipe my eyes and look up at her. Sonata was just staring down at me with that smile, beatific smile of hers, and a little bit of her calm seeped into me as I leaned up to kiss her.

This time, I didn’t hold back.

All my life felt like it consisted of different flavors of holding back. I was always holding back how smart I was, so I wouldn’t chase away people who didn’t like that. I held back on things I wanted, so I wouldn’t seem needy. I held back on things that made me uncomfortable, so I wouldn’t alienate people who thought I was a prude or judgmental.

I didn’t want to hold back on how much I cared about Sonata anymore.

Gently, I parted my lips and Sonata responded in kind, tentatively deepening the kiss as I let my hands caress her cheek and neck, down to her shoulders, reveling in how soft she was.

She touched me too, gently… always gently. It was like she was afraid she would go too far and I would pull away. Maybe that was why I trusted her not to go too far, and for the first time in my life let myself relax under someone else's hands.

I trusted Sonata.

Several minutes later, we parted, and my breath was coming in slow, heavy gulps as I stared up into Sonata’s eyes. I didn’t need any quantum vortexes to tell me how she felt about me now, I could see it in the way she was looking at me.

She looked at me like she loved me.

I never knew what that could feel like until now.

“Hey, ‘Nata?” I began quietly and smiled as she nuzzled her nose against mine in reply.

“Yeah?”

“Uhm, I know it’s sort of early,” I started, “a-and maybe I’m just kind of fed up with doing things the slow way my whole life… but… c-can we start saying it?”

Sonata raised an eyebrow in question. Something I’d seen both of her sisters do, and I was starting to suspect it was a family habit.

“Y’know… saying… uhm…” I felt my chest tighten again, but this time it was in anticipation. I pushed myself past my nervousness, knowing Sonata would never judge me, and just took the dive. “I… I love you.”

Sonata’s face lit up.

I don’t know if I’ve said it before, but Sonata’s smile is literally my favorite thing in the world now. It’s so pure and guileless that I can’t help but feel proud and happy right along with her every time she smiles for real. There’s always that description of smiles that light up a room, but it’s more than that.

When Sonata’s smiles it lights up my heart. Everything just feels better when she’s smiling. Everything feels lighter and more fun and just…

Better.

“I love you, Twilight,” Sonata said in the shyest, smallest, happiest voice I’d ever heard from her.

I leaned in and kissed her, a gentle peck on the lips.

“I love you too, ‘Nata.”

Sonata was discharged from the hospital after a few more hours, a couple of check-ins, and some routine tests to make sure she was fit. The doctor had been shocked when he came back to the room to discover Sonata in almost perfect condition. I was still exhausted from giving a little of myself to Sonata, but not nearly as much as I had been afraid of.

I still didn’t have the strength to face my family after everything that had happened, no matter what Sonata said about them understanding me better now. There was a pain in that house that was still just a little too near for me to feel good going back.

Instead, I went home with Sonata and spent my very first night in someone else’s arms.

I still wasn’t comfortable sleeping naked, especially not with someone, so I’d borrowed one of Sonata’s nighties and crawled into bed with my girlfriend.

Now I’m here, and it’s the morning, and Sonata is still asleep. She’s angelic when she’s sleeping… as if she weren’t angelic all the time, actually, even if sometimes the definition occasionally changed to ‘angel of wrath’.

I reached out and brushed my hand along her cheek gently, and smiled as she wrinkled her nose cutely at the physical contact. Everything about Sonata was soft, from her skin to her personality to the way she held me in her arms. I think that’s one of the things that really kept me close to her… I never, ever felt like I was in danger with Sonata Dusk.

Her eyelids flickered, and she opened her eyes slowly, a small yawn squeaking its way out of her.

“Hey,” she said as she nestled closer to me. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, ‘Nata,” I said back, feeling a swell of happiness surge through my chest.

I’ve never had a significant other to say that to before, and I found I really liked the feeling of it.

“Any plans for today?” Sonata asked, leaning in to nuzzle her nose against mine, and a little upswell of warmth filled my chest.

“W-Well, I usually spend Christmas with my family…” I started, and I saw Sonata’s smile turn down slightly, and I forced out the words I wanted to say before she could really work up a frown. “I’ll… I’ll talk to them, okay? I promise, but… not yet, not today.”

“Why?” Sonata asked, relaxing a little. “I can’t force you to talk to them, I know, and I… I wouldn’t try, but… why?”

“Because it’s still too hard,” I replied with a quiet sigh. “It hurts too much, and because… that’s not how I want to spend Christmas. I’ll send them a text, I’ll let them know I’ll talk to them, but I want to spend Christmas with you.” I edged a little closer until I was comfortably molded against Sonata. “Y-Y’know, if that’s okay with you, I mean.”

“Totally okay,” Sonata said with a small laugh. “We give all our employees the day off, but my sisters and I don’t celebrate Christmas. Aria doesn’t get it and Adagio is kinda over the whole ‘human religion’ thing after the fourth time they tried to set her on fire, besides, her faith is a lot more private.”

“So… what do you want to do?” I asked, feeling happier than I had a long while as I rested against Sonata’s bare shoulder.

“I dunno!” she replied excitedly. “I’ve never celebrated Christmas before!”

“Never?” I asked in surprise.

“Well, I mean… hmm…” Sonata looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’ve done Saturnalia and Yule… and there were some weird traditions about making a random kid a Bishop up in the Braytish Isles that got pretty funny sometimes… but I don’t think we’ve ever celebrated anything like modern Christmas.”

“Then I know exactly what to do!” I replied, feeling a rare moment of certainty.

I got out of bed, delighting in the fact that the room wasn’t ice-cold despite the room being partially underground and it being the heart of winter. I went into the bathroom and started up the shower, waiting for it to get to the just-above-lukewarm temperature I liked.

“Uhm, Twi’?” Sonata’s voice came from outside the door, and I looked up.

“What’s up, ‘Nata?”

“Can uhm… c-can I join you?” she asked nervously, and I felt a small pang of panic.

Unreasonable panic, I know, but it was there. A faint, annoying discomfort that I disliked the feeling of more than I disliked the idea of Sonata joining me.

I took a moment, closed my eyes, and thought.

I trusted Sonata probably more than I trust a lot of people, which was weird for me. Even now, I realise how strange the depth of my trust in her was considering the fact that I hadn’t known her for very long. I really did trust her almost implicitly though… it was like she had just stepped right past every neurosis and mental wall I’d ever built up, right in my little mental ‘inner circle’ and then made herself at home.

A very small, almost romantic part of me wondered if this is what all those stories about soul-mates were talking about.

I wanted to say no. I wanted to say yes.

I didn’t want to put anything between Sonata and I… I didn’t want her to ever feel like I didn’t trust her, and the very last thing I wanted was to push her away. I had spent so much of my life keeping everything and everyone at arm's length and I was absolutely unwilling to have that be the case with Sonata.

“Y-yeah, sure,” I said quietly. “But. uhm… if I get the uh…”

“The heebs?” Sonata said with a small smile as she pushed open the door, and I nodded nervously. “I’ll step out, it’s okay… thanks for giving it a chance.”

Sonata was clearly comfortable with her body in a way that I wasn’t, just walking around naked like she did. I was a lot more comfortable with Sonata’s body than I was with my own, too, though… maybe because Sonata didn’t have any of that seductive vibe to her.

For the youngest Siren sister, being naked just meant she didn’t have clothes on and nothing more.

It also meant I could appreciate just how pretty she was.

Her smooth, flawless arctic-blue complexion making up soft and gentle curves; not the bombastic bombshell of Adagio or the svelte athletic lines of Aria, but every day, normal curves, with a little bit of muffin top that was actually kind of cute.

Taking a deep breath to steady my nerves, I slipped out of the comfortable nightie I’d slept in and let it fall to the bathroom floor, bringing my arms up reflexively to cover myself as I did.

“I… I wish I was as pretty as you,” I said with a small, apologetic smile. “You and your sisters are just so-”

“Twi’...” Sonata stepped a little closer and put a hand on my cheek, and I leaned into her warm palm. “I don’t care what my sisters look like… I think you’re the prettiest person like, ever… okay?”

I sniffled and pushed myself a few more inches past my comfort zone and stepped into Sonata’s arms, letting her wrap me up in her embrace.

“Is it weird that, if it were anyone else telling me that, I wouldn’t believe them?” I asked with a weak laugh.

“I dunno, is it?” Sonata asked shyly before leaning in to kiss me.

“Mmm… maybe?” I nuzzled against her for a moment before pulling away a little. “So uhm… why’d you want to join me? Just had to see me n-naked?”

“No, actually,” Sonata replied, looking a little sheepish as she did. “It’s a Siren thing, actually… I’m sure you uh… you heard what Aria called you back in the hospital?”

I blushed scarlet. I did remember, and I hadn’t brought it up because I wasn’t sure if it was actually true, or if it was just Aria projecting her and Sunset’s weirdly intense relationship onto her sister.

“She… she called me your mate,” I said quietly.

“Yeah, it’s… Siren’s have a weird courting thing, b-but we can do it the human way if you want instead, I just…” Sonata too a deep breath and fidgeted for a few moments before blowing out a breath. “Kissing means a lot to Sirens, sharing our air means a lot because we live underwater, y’know? It’s sharing what keeps us alive,” Sonata sighed, hung her head and said, “and I should’ve told you that before I kissed you, I’m sorry…”

I felt something I wasn’t expecting in that moment… in the split second between Sonata’s admission and my reaction I expected to feel something like betrayal, or at least uncertainty that I’d accidentally stumbled into something that meaningful to another culture without realising, and… and yeah, maybe Sonata should have told me but…

“I’m not,” I said with a small smile. “Sorry, I mean… I’m not sorry.”

“Really?” Sonata’s voice was tiny and unsure, and I smiled and nodded.

“Really,” I assured her.

“Okay, uhm, that’s good, because I… I kinda wanted to do another thing,” Sonata said, shifting foot to foot as she blushed. “I wanted to w-wash you…”

I blinked and cocked my head in surprise.

“Why?”

“It’s a Siren thing,” Sonata said with a shrug. “It’s okay if not, though.”

I glanced over at the shower, it had been at the right temperature for a little while now, and after a few seconds of thought, I nodded to myself and smiled at Sonata.

“Okay,” I said, a little shakily. “Let’s… let’s do it.”

Sonata’s eyes widened a little in surprise and before I could let myself give in to my anxiety and back out of it I pulled away from Sonata and stepped into the shower, humming in delight as the warm water slid across my body. I ran my fingers through my hair as the water splashed over me, and a moment later the shower curtain parted and I felt Sonata slide in behind me.

Her hands were warm and gentle as they crossed over my back and shoulders, and I sighed happily as Sonata traced her fingers along my sides, and I backed up a little until I could feel her pressed against me.

“I… I love you,” I said quietly as I leaned my head against her shoulder.

Sonata giggled happily. “I love you, too, Twi’.”

The warm water and pleasant touches lulled me into a half-sleep doze, and I watched as Sonata carefully picked up a body sponge along with a pale bar of soap and began working up a lather. The faint scent of honey filled the air and I gave a small hum of approval as I waited, and a moment later I felt the slow, insistent strokes of the sponge along my right arm, then up to my shoulders, down my sides, and my back, and my neck.

It wasn’t very often that I felt pretty, but in that moment, with Sonata devotedly washing me, her hands touching me with nothing but the chaste intention of making me clean, I really, really did.

For the first time in a very long time, I actually felt pretty.

I felt worthy.

Of what? I’m not sure… love maybe? Worthy of affection? Worthy of attention? Of approval?

At the very least, Sonata made me feel like I was enough.

Tears slid down my cheeks as Sonata finished, her hands cross over the parts of my skin where there were still stray suds, and the moment they were gone and she had stood up straight I turned on my heel, buried my face against her shoulder, and let out a wracking, pained sob.

I felt Sonata go tense, and I immediately began shaking my head, trying to communicate that she hadn’t done anything wrong.

“T-Twilight? D-did I go too-?”

“No!” I sobbed, finally working a word through my tears. “Y-you didn’t do anything wrong! I promise, I just… am I enough, ‘Nata? Am… am I enough?”

I heard her hiccup softly, and when she spoke again her words came out cracked and teary.

“Yes!” Sonata cried as she dropped the sponge to the bathtub floor and wrapped her arms fully around me. “You’re enough, Twi’... you’ll always be enough for me!”

“Thank you,” I sobbed quietly. “Thank you…”

I repeated the words over and over again as Sonata gently stroked my hair, and I felt my panic and fear subsiding to leave behind a sort of warm, satisfaction as Sonata worked up a lather of shampoo in my hair, her hands massaging my scalp with practiced fingers that made me question whether or not she really did know acupuncture, and then guided me out of the tub to dry me off.

There was something of a ritual to how she moved, and while I’d never had much time for anything religious, there was a kind of comfort to how she was acting.

I sighed again, warm and satisfied, as Sonata helped me into a bathrobe before putting one on herself.

“So… what’d you wanna do?” Sonata asked with a smile as we walked into her room.

I glanced around at the walls and spotted the large TV hung from one of them, and pointed at it.

“Sparkle family tradition,” I said with a hesitant smile. “I want you to watch a movie with me… my favorite Christmas movie.”

“Ooh! What’s it called?” Sonata asked cheerfully as she hopped into bed and started fishing around her end table for the TV remote before pulling it up and turning it on.

“Here,” I held out a hand for it and brought up the options and cycled through the streaming services, which she had all of, until I found one that had it. “There? Ever seen it?”

“The Island of Misfit Toys?” Sonata said, raising an eyebrow. “Mm… nope, never heard of it!”

Sonata curled up under the covers, and I joined her after setting the movie to play, doffing my bathrobe and curling up against Sonata halfway into hers. The pleasant warmth of another human being, and moreover one who loved me, pervaded my senses as I laid against her.

I always felt a kinship with them, with the toys of the island, and with the little elf who didn’t want to make toys, but wanted to be a dentist instead. When I was little, I felt like it might be where I belonged.

Twilight Sparkle, the misfit toy.