“Rainbow Dash…” Adagio tapped at her chin, “she’s the dull one, right?”

“I—” Sunset pursed her lips, “no. I mean, yes, but— that’s besides the point.”

“There was a point?” The siren quirked an amused brow at Sunset’s endless pacing and flicking through sheets of music.

“Well, I mean, not really. I just thought you should know that she kinda knows about… you know.”

“Us fucking?”

Sunset pursed her lips and glared over her shoulder as she pulled a sheet of paper from her music folder. “Do you have to be so to-the-point?”

Adagio hummed and tilted her head, plucking the paper from the other girl’s hands with an amused grin. “Yes. I legally can’t dance around issues.”

Sunset narrowed her eyes. “That seems inconvenient.”

Adagio shrugged, “I like to deal with things fast. I don’t have patience for children.”

The red-head blew out a breath of air and teetered on her heels. “So… should we get started?” Adagio nodded and raised the paper to scan over the notes. Sunset gave her a bit to take it in, but when Adagio’s mouth drew into a line she knew something was wrong. “Everything okay?”

“Yes. I’m fine.”

“Then why the nervous look?”

Adagio shot her a glare. “I’m not nervous. I’ve just tried to read music before and it didn’t help. Singing always came naturally to me and now it doesn’t. Trying to read notes on a page is just… an unnecessary technicality.”

“Ah…” Sunset scratched at her cheek, shifting her weight onto one leg, “I see.”

She looked about the apartment from where she stood, blowing air into one cheek and letting it out in small bursts. She hummed. Furrowing her brows and racking her brain, a smile soon lit up her features as she turned, pacing over to the large metal cabinet at the foot of her stairs to dig through it.

It only took a moment, but she pulled a keyboard into her arms and turned to set it down atop the back of the couch, Adagio adjusting herself on the arm to face the red-head as she beamed. “Will this work? Or have you tried harmonizing before?”

Adagio clicked her tongue. “I’ve tried before,” she pushed the hair from her face, “but if I’m being honest it was just disheartening. I didn’t want the girls to hear me either, and I just ended up frustrated.”

Sunset nodded and flipped the keyboard on, taking a moment before tapping a few keys to make sure the battery was still good. She looked to Adagio with a smile, “We can start with an easy pentatonic scale. Just try and match the note, okay?”

“I’m not a child, Sunset. You don’t need to be gentle with me.”

“I—” she frowned, “I’m not. I’m just being friendly. I don’t want you to feel pressured to get it right the first time.”

“So we’re friends now? Is that right?” Adagio piqued a brow and leaned against the back of the couch, folding one leg over the other. “That’s sweet.”

Sunset rolled her eyes with a frown. “I get you’re not into the whole friendship thing, but I just don’t want there to be any tension between us.” She paused, trying to sound as gentle as possible, “Honestly… what you said on Saturday really stuck with me.”

“Oh? What part? The part where I said you wanted your little princess friend to fuck you, or the part where I—”

“Adagio!” the red-head snapped. The other girl raised her brows and held up her hands, surrendering. Sunset shook her head, steadying her voice. “I meant the part where you said it was my fault that you couldn’t sing anymore. You’re right. It is my fault, and I want to make that up to you. Not just because you—” she blushed and averted her eyes a bit, “because we’re sleeping together. But because it’s the right thing to do.”

“Well aren’t you just so noble.” Adagio rolled her eyes, fighting off the urge to gag.

Sunset grumbled, “Do you want to do this or not?”

The siren sighed and waved a hand to signal for the younger girl to begin with the keyboard. She hesitated, swallowing nervously before opening her mouth to sing.

Off-key would’ve been a compliment. Adagio physically winced at the sound of her own voice, even more so as Sunset shifted onto the next note in the sequence, and so on. She fidgeted with her fingers and kept her eyes low as Sunset played about with the keyboard settings.

“Alright. I’ll be honest, that was really bad.”

Adagio scoffed, “You don’t hold back.”

Sunset smiled, “It’s not really my style.” With a shrug, she started playing out another scale in a lower octave. “Try this. You’re saying singing came naturally to you, so maybe you can’t sing anymore because you just don’t know how to.”

Adagio raised a brow. “Very attentive. Have you ever thought of becoming a detective?”

Sunset rolled her eyes at the other girl’s incessant sarcasm. “No– what I mean is–” she grasped for the words with open hands, “It was natural. Singing was as natural to you as magic is for Unicorns. Sure, we learn different spells, but fundamentally it’s all the same. It’s like breathing.” Adagio nodded slowly, narrowed eyes indicating that she was following along. “But now, without your magic, it’s like you have to learn to breathe. You have to break it down to the fundamentals.We can work on breathing techniques and finding your voice type first, then worry about singing in key. Sound good?”

Adagio let out a deep, huffed sigh and finally let her shoulders drop as she relaxed. “Alright. I suppose I can trust you. It’s not like I have much of a choice.”

Sunset shot her a wink. “You’re in good hands.”

“I’ve just never had a real relationship before,” Sunset shrugged as she plucked more noodles from her take-out box between pinched chopsticks, “I didn’t really see what was so important. I just… used people to get what I wanted. It was as simple as that.”

Adagio swallowed down her own food with a nod before prodding at her plate with a fork. “You don’t need to explain yourself to me, Sunset Shimmer. I know how electrifying it feels to take advantage of someone’s naïveté. You don’t need to play nice,” she gave her a grin and a quick wink, “I won’t tell anybody.”

Sunset gave a chuckle and shoveled her food into her mouth, much to the dismay of Adagio, who watched as she slurped the noodles past her lips. “Charming.”

They’d finished up Adagio’s vocal training for the day some time ago and had decided to order Chinese for dinner. The siren had turned the other girl’s offer down at first, but the ache of hunger in her stomach persuaded her to comply. Sunset had asked if she wanted to watch a movie to pass the time, but the older girl had to once again reject her. She reminded the former unicorn that she had no interest in becoming anything more than what they were currently... whatever that may have been; and so they merely sat on Sunset’s couch, telling tales of their lives, and teasing each other all the same.

“I once… dated,” Adagio punctuated with air quotes, nausea evident on her face, “this one boy who thought himself to be the next big shot of the music industry. Couldn’t write a lyric to save his life, of course, and went on to live in his parent’s basement well into his thirties. Celestia knows what he’s up to now– if he’s even still alive.” She shrugged and ate some more of her noodles.

Sunset paused and sat her chopsticks in her take-out container before sliding down from the arm to sit on the cushion beside Adagio, facing her front-on. “So you’re like… actually thousands of years old?”

Adagio tutted and wagged her finger, “Now, now, Sunset. You should know it’s not polite to ask a lady her age.” She smiled and set her plate on the redhead's coffee table, turning towards her to indulge in her curiosity. “I’ll be honest, I’ve spent so much time in this world that I’d lost the patience to keep track. Aria, Sonata, and I must have roamed Equestria for well over a millennia before we began wreaking some real havok.” She inspected her nails, glanced up at the younger girl, and smirked as she seemed almost captivated by her. “But when we got here, I was in a teenage girl's body. I don’t know if maybe some of our magic from Equestria leaked over and kept us young, or stopped us aging like normal humans, but since you and your little friends destroyed our gems…” Adagio’s confidence faltered a bit before she let out a sigh, “Well, let’s just say I haven’t exactly enjoyed the back pain in the morning.”

The red-head looked down at her hands and wrung them awkwardly. “Sorry…”

“Don’t be. We all need to get older. To be honest, I’m… somewhat glad. It’s nice to feel mortal. It’s exciting,” she flashed her teeth in a grin.

Sunset didn’t want to admit it but Adagio was… charming. She was charismatic, and even without her magic, she was absolutely enchanting.

“Well,” the older girl spoke as she pushed herself up from the couch, “thank you for the food, but I should really be off.” Adagio collected her purse from beside the coffee table and slung the strap over her shoulder. Sunset watched her gather her things and pluck her jacket from the coat rack by the door before piping up.

“When can I see you again?”

Adagio fixed her with a look, eyeing her curiously for a moment before giving a smirk. “You’re really that wound up?”

“That’s not—” she blushed, “that isn’t what I meant. I mean, when do you want to do this again?”

“Oh.” The siren hesitated, looking down at her feet and toeing the rug with her boot. “Well, I’m free Friday afternoon, if that’s alright? And if things have been… stressful this week, well..” she gave a small, teasing grin as she tilted her head a bit, looking the other girl up and down. “You can decide what we do, after my lesson.”

Sunset blinked before giving a nod, “Yeah. Yeah, sure. Sounds good. Do you want me to pick you up, or—”

“That won’t be necessary,” the siren raised a hand. “Make no mistake, this little arrangement is of mutual convenience; nothing more. We needn’t get personal. The less you know about me, the better. For the both of us.”

A part of her wanted to laugh at the statement. What had they just spent the last hour doing if not exactly that? Regardless, she restrained herself and gave a nod. “Yeah, right… sorry.”

Adagio smiled and cracked the door open, “See you this weekend.” Shooting Sunset one last wink and blowing a kiss before stepping out the door, she left the apartment.

Sunset let out a shaky breath.

It wasn’t until she was left alone in her own silence that Sunset realized just how empty the sizeable apartment felt without someone else there, something she had never once noticed before the conclusive night of the fall formal. She turned to the coffee table, regarded Adagio’s plate, still half-filled with noodles, and moved to collect it.

The kitchen was a dingy, narrow thing. Yellow bulbs buzzed overhead as she scraped what was left of Adagio’s dinner into the trash and soaked the brown-smeared plate in the sink. She then returned to her own food, bullying chow mein into a soy sauce-drenched corner of the takeout box.

Since meeting Princess Twilight Sparkle, reluctant but succumbing to her teachings about friendship, Sunset had found every waking minute of her time consumed, since then, by laughter and antics. She smiled idly, reminiscing of a younger time, when it seemed the whole world would fall apart if she didn’t win some pageant crown.
She was grateful for what she had now. What the princess had done for her. What precious, little time she had to herself.

It should have been enough.

She set her takeout down on the coffee table once more, abandoning it for sleep instead. Sunset climbed the stairs, trailing fingers over the fairy lights Rarity and the girls had helped wind around the handrail. The fashionista had insisted on livening up the place, only encouraged by Pinkie Pie, who declared that the group had to leave their mark on her home, so that she would never forget that she wasn’t alone anymore. That she had friends now. That she was loved.

Sunset flopped onto her bed heavily, covering her eyes with her forearms as she lay flat on her back.

Finals were coming up; she had to study.

Author's Note

Sorry for the delay between chapters! Job hunting has been a nightmare.
Happy to say that I am back though and ready to carry on with this story- plenty of chapters still to come!