“Huh… nice cosplay. The headdress is wrong, but other than that…”
The words nipped at Somnambula’s attention like a hungry Timberwolf, causing the pink pegasus to nearly jump out of her dress when it came. She had been staring at a brochure when the other pony had interrupted her attempts to translate the basic map of Ponyville and its long, long list of displays and shows into a shape she could more easily digest.
“I-I’m sorry?” she asked, eyes snapping up to where the voice had come from.
Oh, that was a most dangerous thing to do. To look upon such a vision as the unicorn who stood at her side, wide green eyes of sea-hue watching Somnambula back.
“Oh, uh, rats…” the golden unicorn with a similarly gold-and-red striped mane recriminated herself with a whisper most definitely meant for her own ears alone. “… ponies don’t have that word here…”
They stood together near the center of the bustling town of Ponyville, halfway between the gazebo-like Main Hall and a statue depicting three fillies standing before a shield of some sort. Surrounding them stood a veritable field of tables and booths stretching all across the town greenery, each one fit to burst with models, graphs, and wondrous devices Somnambula had never even dreamed existed.
And yet, despite coming here to enjoy Ponyville’s first true Science Fair, and perhaps educate herself on one-thousand years of knowledge and culture she’d missed out on, Somnambula only had eyes for one thing now.
She looks so… cute! Just standing there, with her furrowed brow and staring at me like I am some sort of…
Somnambula shook off her immediate shock at seeing the mare – and what a pretty mare she was! – and asked again, “My apologies, but I am unsure as to what you mean, Miss…?”
The unicorn smiled, and held out one hoof to bump. “Sunset Shimmer,” she said. “Sorry, but your outfit looks amazing. I hope I wasn’t being rude.”
“How could you be rude?” Somnambula asked, glancing down at her ‘outfit’, as this mare and the Element of Generosity herself had referred to her garments once before. She did not personally see why so many complimented her for wearing a sheer white blouse and flaxen headwrap in such temperate climes, but she also did not disapprove being complimented by such a pretty…
Head out of the clouds, Somnambula, she chided herself. You were always the most hopeless of the Pillars when it came to love. Calm thyself.
She finished her thoughts out loud. “I welcome the compliment, Sunset Shimmer. Though, I confess I still do not know what you mean when you speak of this ‘cosplay’.”
Sunset facehoofed.
“Right, sorry,” she said with a chagrined smile. “Um… where I’m from, sometimes peo… uh, ponies, will dress up as their favorite characters, and not just at Nightmare Night.
“Like there,” she said, pointing off into the crowd at a rather familiar purple alicorn wearing a white beard and a tall, peaked hat trimmed in bells, “the Princess always tries to find a reason to cosplay as Starswirl the Bearded.”
Somnambula nodded, and smiled. “Ah, yes! We see now. Princess Twilight did not call it cosplay, as such, but the principle seems the same.”
“Yeah, she…” Sunset’s eyes widened. “Wait, you know Princess Twilight?”
“Of course,” Somnambula said, and tilted her head to one side. “Is that unusual? She made it seem like she was friends with everypony.”
Sunset narrowed her gaze at Somnambula. She seemed to be taking the pegasus’ measurement, the way Sunset shifted from the tips of her ears, to Somnambula’s wings, down to her flanks and tail.
Then, Sunset looked back up.
“What’s your name, again?” she asked, slowly.
“Somnambula,” said Somnambula, allowing herself a little smirk at the poor, embarrassed pony’s expense.
Sunset pressed her eyes shut, and rubbed at her temple with one hoof. Then, she sighed, “Good job, Sunset. Just walk up and tell somepony they’re historically inaccurate…”
She looked back at Somnambula, who continued smiling throughout, and her ears tilted back across her mane.
“I am so, so sorry,” said Sunset, eyes downcast. “I remember Twilight saying that the Pillars were back, but I didn’t think…”
Somnambula, sensing the honest distress in Sunset’s voice, took a step forward and tried to comfort her with a wing across her withers.
“Do not be too hard on yourself,” Somnambula chuckled. “As I understand it, my comrades and I were naught but fiction and fantasy for most ponies. It must be quite odd, to think of me as feather and flesh, no?
“And fear not,” she added with a little giggle, “I do know who you are, Sunset Shimmer. And despite your little ‘whoopsie’, as Pinkie may call it, I am told that Celestia holds you in highest regard. So, I shall be magnanimous, and allow all this to be beneath the bridge, yes?”
Somnambula gave her new friend a quick pat atop her head, which elicited a titter from poor Sunset. And though the tension of a public faux pas fell from Sunset’s shoulders, her blush remained. This was of interest to Somnambula, yet…
Stop thinking that way, she mentally commanded herself. Sunset is just embarrassed. She’s not looking at you in such a manner.
“Ah, but…” She did recall what Sunset had first said to her. “Historically inaccurate?”
Sunset visibly cringed, and almost appeared to shrink back into her mane like Fluttershy was sometimes seen to do.
“Oh, that,” she said, slowly. “Right.”
Somnambula held her tongue. Even if this unicorn would not return other forms of affection, a little teasing was still alright, in her eyes.
“The headdress,” she prompted.
Sunset blew out a snort, and lowered her head. “I, uh, always thought that your head-piece thing was an anachronism.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah,” Sunset chuckled, dryly, “sorry about that. But all the archaeological evidence I saw while studying under Celestia pointed to your headdress as being added by later artists and historians. Since it doesn’t show up before your time, and seemed everywhere in Hayro a few centuries later…”
Somnambula smiled. She listened intently to Sunset’s explanation for her mistake, and it took everything within her not to burst out laughing.
This Sunset is just… adorable! So much like what Celestia described about Twilight Sparkle, in fact.
“This is so,” she gave as an answer to Sunset’s academic ramblings. “I suspect my Prince Hisan did something very… well, silly after my disappearance. He was a very emotional stallion, and probably banned my headdress from court for a time. Then, once his time had passed, it may have returned with a passion.
“And why not?” she asked and, despite her pledging not to do so, ran a hoof through her white headdress and mane in a rather flirtatious manner. “Is my style not the ‘knees of the bee’?”
Sunset snorted with laughter, and froze again. Her eyes were wide, and worried as she locked gazes with Somnambula.
“Omigosh,” she whispered hurriedly, “I… sorry! I didn’t mean…”
Her words slowed down, and her eyes narrowed again. Sunset found herself staring at a pair of eyebrows.
A dancing pair, as it was.
“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Sunset said with a smirk.
Somnambula ceased her eyebrow-wriggling, and gave silent thanks to Pinkie Pie for the trick.
“I am not so old as so I cannot learn a few new tricks,” Somnambula laughed.
“Apparently not,” said Sunset in a lower tone, a knowing smile settling onto her muzzle. “Though… can I ask you something?”
“But of course, Sunset Shimmer,” Somnambula said with a nod of her head. “What is it?”
“Why are you still holding onto me?”
Somnambula paused.
Oh… uh oh.
She was, indeed, still holding her wing over Sunset’s back. During their talk, she’d not thought to retract it, and now to her deep and abiding embarrassment, she noticed that her comforting wing-hug had actually gotten tighter as she and Sunset spoke.
She… might suspect something now.
“My apologies! I-I did not mean to…” Somnambula stumbled a bit over her words, and tried to pull back her wing.
Only, it did not obey her. She glanced over at her traitorous appendage, looking to see what she had been caught on.
The end of her wing held itself to Sunset’s body, a light crimson glow telling her what it might have been.
Somnambula’s brows furrowed in confusion. She glanced up, back into Sunset’s eyes…
Oh, yes, she mentally sighed to herself as a wave of warmth spread from her chest to her cheeks. A most dangerous thing to do…
Sunset’s eyes were half-lidded, and her smirk had only deepened in its self-assurances.
So dangerous. One might just fall in…
“Do you have someone to see the rest of the fair with?” Sunset asked, her voice projecting just the slightest, faintest sound of hope in it.
Well, Somnambula was all about hope, wasn’t she?
Turning towards the next exciting booth, and carrying along a most fascinating mare, Somnambula hummed happily to herself.
“I was hoping you would ask me that…”
