Turning from a laughing general and a purring cat, Limestone picked up her notebook and made her way outside. Back in her car, she pulled out her mobile and she tapped on Sonata's contact.

"Sonata Dusk's taco emporium. Oh, it's you again. How were those notes?"

"Good, though I have questions. Any chance I can come and talk?" Bracing her phone against her ear with one shoulder, Limestone pulled out her smaller notebook and a pen she kept handy.

"Yeah. I'm at work. If you want to chat I—My boss is here and he's nodding that he can cover for me."

"Alright. I'm coming over." Hanging up the moment she finished talking, Limestone slipped the phone back in her jacket pocket and her notebook with it.

The drive wasn't far, again, but it was all just city driving. One part of Limestone longed for a helicopter so she could ignore the traffic while the other longed for an armored personnel carrier so she could drive over the traffic. She pulled up out front of the location, not caring either way about the implications of the business.

Sonata opened the door at the top of the stairs and poked her head out. "It was you. Don't worry, Spicy said I can have some time to chat, and we can do that in my flat."

Limestone just followed Sonata into the flat opposite Canterlot Crops and, when she closed the door behind herself, let out a sigh. "Thanks for agreeing to see me again."

"We're seeing each other so much now my girlfriend might get jealous. Just kidding. Have you had breakfast?" It wasn't any kind of mothering instinct, but Sonata just disliked seeing people skipping meals—she had a sixth sense for it.

The question, a complete derailment of whatever topic Limestone had wanted to pursue, was perfectly in character for what she knew of Sonata. "Err, no. You're going to cook food for me again, aren't you?"

"Nope! I have leftovers." Letting out a laugh, Sonata opened her fridge and lifted out a plate with tin foil covering it. "This'll only take a minute. So what's up?"

"Well, I have a bunch of questions about your manuscript, but there's something else my boss wants me to ask you—and I'm pretty sure you're not going to like it." Limestone's nose twitched at the smell of the burrito that Sonata put in the microwave.

"Spit it out already."

Limestone wished she didn't have to ask. "She wants you to try to get in my head. Nothing more. Just try to make me—I don't know, hop on one leg a few times."

"You know you're the third person to ask me to get in their head in the last year? For a thousand years Adagio, Aria, and me got into people's heads when they didn't want us to, and now I've decided to be a good siren and not do all that, I keep getting—No, hear me out." Sonata had to hold up a finger toward Limestone to keep her from interrupting. "One guy wanted me to completely blow away his sense of self—there was no way I'd do that. Someone else just wanted sexy-times where she could do something she normally wouldn't—guess what, she managed it without me poking her free will aside. So what is it you want out of this?"

"Honestly?"

"Yes. Honesty is important." At that, the microwave beeped, and she reached in to pull the plate out. Holding it out to Limestone, Sonata couldn't help the little thrill that came with giving someone some food she made herself.

"Thanks. The truth is, I don't want you to. I don't want anyone to get this done to them." Picking up the burrito, Limestone took a bite and had to struggle not to groan at how good it was. She hadn't been a fan of spicy food before she'd joined the Army, but most of the ration packs had used chili to hide the fact you were eating months-old-food. "But I have to. I need to put myself forward and test something—even if it's something I don't like and don't want done—because I need to know how to fight it."

Sitting on the couch, Sonata reached up to her throat. She could remember everyone they tormented together as The Dazzlings. "You think you can actually fight this?"

Taking a chance to eat more of the burrito, Limestone thought over what she should say. She knew that revealing what Penny had said might bias the results. "I'd like to try. We have—we have tools we can use. If I can master a way to reduce the effect or even nullify it, we would have a better one."

"Then I want to set down some rules. First, I'm not going to try pushing too far. Second, you take off any wards or protections you might have that could blast me. Third, you pick what I'm going to do." Tapping at her chin with one finger, Sonata tried to think if she'd covered her bases.

Pulling out the wards she was wearing, mostly just folded pieces of paper Raven had given her, Limestone set them aside. "You're making this way easier, you know? I came into this expecting you to either be absolutely not or sure, let me mess with your brain-meats. Being reasonable and cautious is… I don't even know how to say it."

Sonata shrugged. "How's the burrito?"

For a moment Limestone forgot she'd even been eating. She looked down at the last few bites of burrito in her hand and snorted. "Better than almost everything I've eaten in the last ten years. Okay, you can make me do, say, or think just about anything, right?"

"Forget the just about."

"Yeah… Let's leave off making me think things for now. Just give me a twitchy ear?" Limestone barely noticed that Sonata was humming. The sound seemed calming and gave her time to finish the burrito. A moment came, however, that made her ears focus and her head feel funny.

"You're so cute, but your left ear twitches uncontrollably when you frown." The words barely fit the tune she'd been humming, but the moment she let them out Sonata put force behind them. She pressed the words toward Limestone and aimed them for the woman's head—only to miss.

Jumping to her feet, Limestone's hand was halfway to her gun before she managed to stop herself. "I felt that!"

"I don't get it. It just slipped off you." Sonata started humming again to build the tune she needed.

Recognizing a second attempt, Limestone sat back down and deliberately put her hands on her knees to stop her reactions from taking over. She closed her eyes to focus on what she could hear and feel, and just as the humming reached its peak, she heard two voices overlaid.

"Twitch your left ear," one voice said, but Limestone heard another, "Twitch your right ear."

Neither of them affected her, but it was the second voice that reminded her of the woman earlier in the day. "You wanted me to twitch my right ear?"

Sonata laughed and shrugged her shoulders. "Okay, I was wrong. It looks like you can become immune to siren magic. You even picked up my mental voice as being different from my physical one. My sisters were never good at doing that."

"Wait. You're better at this stuff than they are?"

"Yes and no. They had more power and could do more with less music, but I'm the only one who can hide commands. If you want, now that we know you have protection, I could try ramping things up. That's still not going to tell you if my sisters could batter you down, but it will give a better baseline."

Limestone felt more trust in Sonata now. The consistency and utter sanity of her suggestions reassured the voice in Limestone's head that this was on the up-and-up. The only weapon that paranoid voice had left was to suggest that Sonata had completely and utterly brain-fucked her on the first try, and that everything since was just there to reassure Limestone. "These wards are just alarm bells. Can I try having one on me when you try?"

"They're not like whatever you used on Aria, right?"

Anger hit Limestone like a hammer, but it wasn't anger at Sonata. "No. I refuse to wear those kinds of things—weapons—in your house or even in public."

"Careful. With consideration like that you might just find some of the monsters will be allies." Sonata wore the biggest grin she could manage. "Now, grab one of your wards and let's try this."

After the next test, in which Limestone found that her ward didn't trigger, they started to build a baseline. From there Sonata ramped up her power until she was practically screaming commands into Limestone's head—only for the power to bend, wobble, and flow around Limestone.

"I give up. It's like trying to thread a needle with an anchor rope." Slumping back on her chair, Sonata threw her arms up in the air. "It's impossible!"

"You managed to trigger one of the wards that time. Well, it's not flashy magic like my sister, and I'm not going to take over the world with it, but you know what? I'm pretty cool with this." Turning the scorched ward over in her fingers, Limestone held it out to Sonata to look at.

Looking at the paper, Sonata could remember times gone where their little trio had been stymied by a witch. Together as a group, they would always overwhelm the magic user. Now, with her change of heart, those felt like terrible days.

"Hey, what's up?" Limestone asked.

"Remembering the bad old days. If there's anything else I can do, just tell me, okay?"

"No." Limestone had pinned Sonata in the friend category now, and there was not much that would change that. "You think I haven't done some harsh shit? I won't tell you to do anything, thought I might ask."

Thanks to pouring her power out, Sonata was feeling a little drained and also distracted. She looked over at Limestone with a new respect. "Well, anything you want to ask? I'll warn you right now, I'm a little pooped after trying to get you to twitch your damn ears."

"You know what, how about I get us some beers and we just chill later on? I kinda don't have anyone I can have a drink with here, and if I go to a bar I just draw attention from the wrong sorts." Limestone stood up from the couch and stretched.

"Yeah. That'd be good, actually. I'll go make sure Spicy doesn't need me to work, first, then I could make us something for dinner." Conscious of how much bigger and more physical Limestone was, Sonata tried to make her own rise from the couch a little more graceful.

"You're really tight with your boss, huh?" Limestone asked.

Sonata nodded. "He didn't know exactly what I was when he hired me, but he knew I was desperate for somewhere to work and live. He's a little too nice for his own good, I think, and I want to make sure I'm not taking advantage of that."

"I'll head back to the office and write up a report on this, then I'll give you a call later, okay?" It was almost startling to Limestone how much heavier her boots sounded than Sonata's shoes. A stark reminder that she was still a little too Army to fully fit in.

"We'll probably have my girlfriend over. I doubt she'll want to drink, but I'll cover for her if she does." Sonata held the door open for Limestone. "Thank you for being there when we needed you."

"Hey, you've got my number. If there's something you need official help with, or just something you need a friend to help with, gimme a call." Limestone gave the door opposite a quick glance before turning to the stairs.

Author's Note

General Inkwell looked at the questions and shook her head. "Hey, kid, you've got this one. If they can't remember my rank—after I correct them on it—I ain't playin' ball." As she walked off, she tore up a question and threw it into the air like so much confetti.

Walking out and taking the question card from Inkwell, Wallflower squeezed her lips into a tight line. "What breakfast? I—" Her eyes seemed to flare a little brighter for maybe a moment before they dimmed. When shaking her head didn't help, Wallflower bit her lower lip and started to shake. "I—I can't remember."

So I do this "Ask X" thing. X can be any pony within the story. You can ask them anything and they will definitely, hopefully reply. Keep the questions appropriate to the age-rating of the stories, and they will answer the best question in the author notes of the next chapter. The more votes a comment has the more likely I will get it to the right pony to answer. Try to keep it to one question per post! They will pick one question per chapter.

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Awesome ponies who are already helping to keep me in keyboards and rum:
A.P.O.N.I.
CadelDdraigDarkkon
Canary in the Coal Mine
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KFS Crimson
Sirion123
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