The door to the cafe rang open as an out of breath woman peered in. While the inside wasn’t packed, with it being early on a weekday evening, there were still a fair number of people. She considered double checking her phone to identify the woman she talked to on Horsedates, but she realized there was no need.
Her date was wearing a red jacket with blue buckles, a pink skirt, and large pink boots. What really made her stand out, however, was her blue striped hair in a bouncy ponytail. She had several snacks on her table and was taking a bite out of what looked like a churro. In fact, they all appeared to be churros. Looking up with a cheek full of food, she noticed the new arrival and waved.
After swallowing, she said, “Hey, you’re Sunny, right?”
Taking a breath, the woman waved back, swiping her purple braided ponytail back over her shoulder. She stepped to the table and sat at a free chair. “Yup, I’m Sunny Starscout! It’s good to meet you in person, Sonata. Sorry I’m late, by the way.”
Sunny mentally punched herself for giving her full name. She was just full of nerves, with this being her first date in a long time; and she was never good at them in any case. Meanwhile, the woman sitting across from her, Sonata Dusk, was cool as a cucumber, looking at her with a smile. Though perhaps the churros indicated she was nervous too.
Sonata waved a free hand. “No problem. I actually got a bit turned around myself before I got here.”
“Yeah, I know the map directions here can be a bit wonky. In my case, it was just work going longer than I expected.” Sunny raised an eyebrow. “By the way, they serve churros here?”
Sonata hummed. “I don’t think they do.”
“Then where did you get the churros?”
“Oh these! When I got lost earlier, I came across a churro stand, so of course I had to get a bunch.”
The cinnamon sugar smell wafted from Sonata’s next churro bite, making Sunny’s mouth water. She scratched her cheek. “So, sorry to ask, but, uh…”
After a blink, Sonata reached into her pile and held out a fully sized churro.
“Oh my gosh, thank you!” Sunny said with a gracious smile. “Running here made me a bit hungry.” She took a bite. Not only was the coating good, there was some kind of cream inside. Though the sugary goodness made her realize she needed some water too.
Sitting back down with a cup, Sunny realized that Sonata was staring at her with wide eyes. “So how was it?”
“It was really good! I’ll really have to visit that stand sometime.”
“I know, right!” Sonata squeezed her eyes shut. “The texture, the mix of cinnamon and sugar, the dulce de leche filling. You can tell a real expert made these.” She leaned forward with a serious expression. “Have you tried churros with fruit filling?”
Sunny shook her head.
“Well let me tell you about some other places, then!”
Sonata proceeded to give a lecture on churros and their variations. At first, Sunny was hesitant to interject, but she quickly found that her date was appreciative of her food opinions, and they went into other related topics.
All day, Sunny was worried that this date would go badly—especially since she didn’t have time to change out of the white tanktop and jean shorts she wore to work—but they were able to find common ground and talk at length about something! There couldn’t be a better sign! That said, there was a heaviness in her guts that just wouldn’t go away. She just had to not screw this up…
After some time, the subject turned to where they should go for dinner. Sunny had planned out several possible locations, but Sonata passionately suggested a taco food truck she saw on the way here. There was no denying that Sunny appreciated the low impact this would have on her wallet, so she didn’t push back.
Finishing the last churro, Sonata continued, “And the picture they had for carne asada tacos looked really good!”
Checking her phone, Sunny said, “The reviews say their sweet potato tacos are great, so it looks like a good choice.”
Sonata stretched her arms and sighed. “Tacos really are the best after a rough day.”
Ah, so that was why she had so many churros. Sunny put her hands on the rim of the table and said, “Oh no, did something happen today?”
“Nothing much. My band’s been working on our tour in a few weeks, and Adagio always gets really snippy after talking to the venue people.”
“Oh right, your profile did say you were a singer. What’s your band?”
“The Dazzlings.”
“The Dazzlings?!” Sunny said with lights in her eyes. “I listen to you guys all the time. I never checked what you guys looked like, though, which I really regret now.” She pulled out her phone. “Do you mind if I look up some band photos?”
Sonata waved her hand. “Go ahead!”
It only took a moment for Sunny to find what she wanted. “There you are! This is a nice dress,” she said, turning the phone around.
“That was from the Starswirl Festival! Can you guess what that symbol on my dress is?”
Sunny looked at the half-circle with what looked like yellow waves around its circumference. “Oh, that’s a fun coincidence.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “So you’ve been drawn to suns for a while, huh?”
Sonata paused, looking down at the table, then back at Sunny. After a second, she said, “Yyyyyyyeeeessss… yes. It’s a sun.”
Sunny continued scrolling through her phone with a smile. She thought Sonata had a lot of hair already, but that was nothing compared to the lead singer, Adagio. The other Dazzling, Aria, wasn’t a slouch there either. She was also surprised by how different they felt compared to Sonata, though she supposed they did reflect the Dazzlings’ songs better. “So what’s it like working with these other girls? They seem kind of intense.”
Sonata laughed. “You don’t know the half of it. Adagio steamrolls over everyone and Aria is hard to talk to without her thinking you want a fight, but they used to be way worse. I don’t think they realize they’ve changed though.” Sonata rolled her eyes and waved a hand. “They treat me like I’m the idiot of the family, but I’m the only one who realized we aren’t evil anymore. Adagio and Aria keep saying we’re evil, but we don’t actually do anything bad nowadays. Plus Adagio still hasn’t bothered to figure out how to use a cell phone and needs me or Aria to do everything for her, so how can she call me stupid? She gets away with it because she acts like she’s above it all. When it comes to music though, we just sort of work together naturally. Comes with being a siren, I guess. It was rough for a while after our magic gems broke, though.”
Sunny blinked with tight lips. Where to even start?
Sonata hummed as though realizing she needed to elaborate, then said, “Oh, we’re all sisters, by the way.” She didn’t add anything else.
After a moment, Sunny looked back at her phone. “I guess I see the resemblance. Though let’s back up a second.” She put her hands together and took in a breath. “You were evil?”
Sonata nodded. “Yup, totally evil! Not anymore, though. Years ago, back in high school, we used to hypnotize people and drain negative energy from them.” She smiled widely. “Oh, we also used to take people out on dates just like this one, except we’d make them take us to fancy restaurants where we’d get sloppy steaks, and leave them with the bill! Ooh, actually, do you want to go to a fancy restaurant?”
“Let's stick to the taco plan.” There were several things Sunny wanted elaborated. After a moment to think, she opted for, “So, what’s a sloppy steak exactly?”
Sonata’s eyes lit up. “It’s a steak with water dumped on it! It’s really really good!”
Sunny tilted her head. “Is it, though?”
Sonata nodded wildly. “Yup! It’s just like eating fish in the ocean! We did this so much that the staff would say, ‘No sloppy steaks!’ but they can’t stop you from ordering a steak and a glass of water! And sometimes the person we dated the previous time would come in and get into a fight with the new guy, and we’d really feast! Negative energy for weeks!” She leaned back and sighed. “Ah, I miss those days. That was evil, though, and I never want to be like that again.”
Sunny laughed lightly while her eyes darted around and sweat beaded on her forehead. “Wow, that’s a lot to dump on a first date.” And she wasn’t even done with her questions.
Breaking out of her nostalgic trance, Sonata shot forward, putting her hands on the table with wide eyes. “Ah! I shouldn’t have said that! Sunny, I need to make absolutely clear that I don’t do that anymore. Sloppy steaks, siren magic, Battle of the Bands: all of that’s in the past.”
Sunny thought about this. There were nothing but red flags in what her date was saying, but it was too outlandish to take seriously, especially from that sincere frown and those large raspberry eyes that Sunny realized were quite close to her now. After a moment, she sighed. “Look, you’re telling me a lot of things without much context, so let’s step back for a moment. You used to do bad things but you’re trying to change. Right?”
Sonata sat back down. “Yes, exactly!”
“I’m all for people getting second chances, so it’d be wrong if I didn’t do the same for you. Besides,” she looked around and then leaned in. “I’m actually a bit of a criminal myself.”
Sonata blinked. “You are?”
Sunny twirled her ponytail with her finger. “Well, I’ve never been charged, but the police have detained me a lot during the Canterlogic protests.”
“Canterlogic? That’s a big computer company, right?”
Sunny nodded. “Yeah, but they don’t treat their workers well and they sell their technology to a lot of bad actors. I work with several protest groups to be a big thorn in their side.”
“That’s pretty neat,” Sonata said with a smile. “It’s nice that someone’s fighting the good fight against bad movies.”
Sunny laughed. “Oh, no, I didn’t mean movie actors, I meant like nations using their technology to surveil their citizens. That includes this country too.”
“Woah! That’s pretty intense.”
“Haha, yeah. But we’ve already made some good progress. Canterlot University divested from them recently, which was a huge victory. Oh, do you know what divestment is?”
“Yup!” Sonata said with a level of confidence that made Sunny think she both didn’t know and didn’t know she didn’t know. “That’s really cool! Did the professors get upset at you and give you bad grades or anything?”
Sunny waved her hands. “Oh, I don’t go there. I wish I did! But yeah, some of the faculty definitely aren’t fans of me. Even if I could afford it and I played the legacy admittance card, I don’t think they’d let me in at this point.” She sank down. “Which is fine, really. I already have my dream job of running a smoothie stand, which I don’t need college for.”
Sonata stood up. “You have a smoothie stand?! For real?!”
Sunny leaned back a bit in surprise. “Oh, didn’t I say that before? Huh, I guess not.”
“Can I have a smoothie?”
Sunny twisted her mouth. “Well, my stand is locked up right now and there aren’t any ingredients left, so today’s tough. You could always come by tomorrow.”
Sonata groaned. “Come on, you can’t talk about smoothies then say we can’t have them.” She snapped her fingers. “Oh wait, how about your place?”
“My… smoothie stand?”
“No, your home! You gotta make smoothies there too, right?”
“Sure, I experiment with recipes at my apartment.”
“Then let’s go there right now!”
Sunny’s eyes widened. “Now?!” She looked at her phone's clock. “You really want to head to my place now?”
“Of course! I want to try your smoothies a-sap! Besides…” she sat back down and wore an unexpectedly serene smile. “You’ve been nervous this entire date, haven’t you? I know that for me, it helps a lot to just sit on the couch at home and eat some takeout. So we can do that instead of staying here.”
It’s true that that did sound appealing right now. Granted, this proposal involved doing that with a strange woman she spent less than an hour with who apparently used to hypnotize people. On the other hand, her big fear for the night was that her date would reject her, so her coming over so quickly was the exact opposite of that, right? So it was good! But she had dignity, didn’t she? She wasn’t that desperate!
Right? She wasn’t that desperate?
Sunny’s face turned red and her eyes spiraled. “Well, uh, I…” She gritted her teeth and clenched her fist. Sonata smiled back with a light head tilt and blinked softly. Sunny lifted her arm as though she was about to start singing a shanty. “Iiiiiiii…”
Sunny’s phone rumbled, and she felt immediate relief that she had another moment to respond. And who knows, maybe Sonata would get distracted and forget her suggestion.
Sonata’s eyes glazed over as Sunny looked at her messages, and suddenly she snapped her fingers. “Oh! Banana smoothies while we watch Godzilla vs. Kong! That’d be perfect.”
“Are you kidding me?” Sunny spat out, still looking at her phone.
Sonata leaned forward to look at the phone. “What’s up?”
“The university protest group was going to assemble at Canterlogic in a couple days, but a big news article dropped earlier today. I already told them to wait until the day we had planned, but a bunch of them jumped the gun and are protesting right now. And now the press is covering it!” She put her phone in her pocket with a huff and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Sorry, Sonata, but I need to go there right now.”
“What? But, but, Kong! And smoothies!”
“I know, I know, but if I’m not there managing things, things could be pretty bad for everyone.” She reached over and grasped Sonata’s hand. “I really did enjoy talking to you, but uh, no guarantee on when I’ll see you again. I might get detained.”
Sonata blinked, looking down at their hands, then smiled. “No guarantee on when? What about right now?” She pointed to herself with her thumb. “I’m going with you!”
Sunny stood back, her hand slipping out of Sonata’s. “What? You want to join the protest? Do you even know what we’re protesting?”
Sonata fluttered her lips. “What’s there to know? Big corporation bad, abusing its workers, supporting bad actors. It’s probably just what you said earlier, right?”
Sunny shrugged. “More or less.”
“So there’s no problem, then!”
Sunny held her arm. “You want to keep spending time with me that badly?”
“Of course! Why wouldn’t I?” Sonata said without hesitation.
Sunny could feel her eyes quivering, but she blinked it away and smiled. “Alright. We need to stop at my apartment to get everything, but then we’re heading for Canterlogic HQ!”
Sonata stood up. “Smoothie too?!”
“We’d be in and out, so there’d be no time to make one.”
“OK, but what if you just gave me some smoothie ingredients?”
Sunny squinted. “Like… fruit? We’ll probably miss dinner, so it does make sense to grab some fruit.”
Sonata pumped her arm. “Yes!”
Sonata truly was a strange girl, Sunny thought. It was hard to make sense of how she felt about her, so in a way, this interruption was fortuitous. If Sonata stuck with her through this, then perhaps their relationship would work out after all.
Sonata thought back to the advice her sisters gave her.
“You’re going on a date?” asked Adagio, taking her phone from Sonata after she loaded a video for her. “I can’t believe you’re bothering with all that when you can just use your siren song and be done with it.”
Sonata told her that would be evil and they were beyond that now.
At this, Aria chimed in with, “Alright, if you don’t want to use magic, then do what I’d do! Pin them against the wall and take their money.”
Sonata said that would be even more evil, to which both sisters shrugged.
Now, standing in a large group of protestors with police in riot gear shouting through megaphones in front of them, Sonata wondered if she was better off following their advice.
However, when she saw Sunny flitting through the crowd, reassuring some, rallying others, she found it easy to forget about the danger. With so many people around them and the chanting, she could even imagine they were in a club right now.
Sunny tapped her on the shoulder. “How are you doing?”
“Doing great!” Sonata said, and she really did believe it. She swung the sign her date had given her earlier, reading, ‘Canterlogic = Facism.’ “There are even some people I know here.”
Sunny put her hands together, with a bullhorn of her own between them. “That’s great! How do you know them?”
“I brainwashed them into fighting their friends!” She quickly added, “That was when I was evil and I don’t do that anymore!”
Sunny’s face fell. “Yeah, you’ve been saying that.”
Sonata hummed in frustration, and the growing shouts of the cops weren’t helping. She and Sunny were getting along when talking about food and such, but every time she talked about how she wasn’t evil anymore, that just created tension between them. What was going on? Did Sunny want her to be evil?
Sunny glanced over her shoulder and frowned. “Well that’s trouble.”
Sonata looked too and saw a well-dressed lady waving her arms and yelling at one cop in particular. “Who is that?”
“The CEO of Canterlogic. She’s going to make the cops attack us.”
Sonata leaned back. “Gah! What do we do?”
“Normally, I wouldn’t be opposed to fighting back, but we have to play the long game here, especially with the protest we had planned still coming in a few days. That means making sure people don’t get hurt; but also, we can’t run away if we want tonight to leave an impact. If we get everyone to sing, then the cops could hesitate, especially with the press covering this, and we’ll reevaluate once tensions are lower.”
Sonata lit up. “Singing? I could do that!”
“Oh right, of course! Do you have anything in mind? It should help calm everyone down.”
“‘Find the Magic’ would be good. Do you have a microphone?”
Sunny looked at her hand. “I have a bullhorn.”
Sonata shrugged. “Well, let’s give it a shot.” Taking the bullhorn, she took a breath and yelled through it. “WHERE DO WE GO?!”
“You don’t have to yell!” Sunny said, as she and others around them covered their ears.
“Sorry, bullhorns make me yell and I can’t help it,” Sonata replied.
The protestors weren’t the only ones startled. Sonata’s outburst agitated the cops and several started pushing toward the protestors. The siren could be clueless about what was going on around her, to her own admission, but even she knew being in a crowd in front of aggressive cops was very bad and she started sweating.
She really wished her sisters were here. Well, Aria would get them into more trouble by punching the cops, but Adagio would be cool and make a suggestion like…
Sonata realized she had another way to amplify her voice. The gems that she and her sisters once used to make people fight were destroyed by the Rainbooms, but they fixed themselves during a performance of this very song years ago. In theory, she and her sisters should have been able to return to their old ways, but she had the strong feeling that the gems came back precisely because they wouldn’t. But… was this the time to finally use it again?
“Sonata, we need to back away,” Sunny said, grabbing her date’s arm.
“No, it’s fine,” Sonata replied, dropping the megaphone and grabbing her gem with her free hand. Calming everyone instead of angering them. That was what a no-longer-evil siren used her voice for.
She launched into her song again, but this time a red glow emanated from her gem. With her eyes closed, she sank into her lyrics, shutting away the outside world. Even so, she could sense that people around her had stopped moving and shouting. Even the cops had stopped advancing.
Sonata’s song continued to its end, whereupon she opened her eyes. Protestors and cops both stood in a daze, swaying slightly in tune with the song. That is, except for one person: Sunny Starscout, who looked at her with shining eyes. “Sonata, that was amazing!”
Sonata fluttered her lips. “Oh, it was nothing. It was all the gem’s magic.”
“It is magic, isn’t it? I can’t believe it!” Sunny pumped her arms. “I always knew magic was real, but to encounter it in real life like this is amazing!”
Sonata tilted her head. “Really? It’s pretty common.”
Ignoring this, Sunny continued. “So then all that stuff about hypnotizing people was true too, then!”
Sonata laughed while raising an eyebrow. “Well duh! With hair like this, did you think I wasn’t using evil magic to hypnotize people?”
Again ignoring this, Sunny said, “How did you learn magic? Is it something anyone can learn, or do you have to be special?”
Sonata shrugged and made a noncommittal grunt.
Sunny spun around. “There’s so much I want to know! Ugh, but still have this whole protest to deal with. We’re definitely going on a second date, right?”
Sonata’s eyes widened. “Oh sure, I mean, of course!”
“I’ll make sure to have a ton of questions! By the way, it looks like people are starting to break out of your spell.”
Sonata herself was in a daze now, however. She got a second date, despite Sunny’s earlier moments of discomfort! With that, it took a moment for her to register what her date said. “Really?” Sonata said, looking over her shoulder. “I’m pretty sure our evil songs used to last longer—”
A bent-over protester suddenly lurched up in front of Sonata, making her yelp and jump back.
“Gah!” said Sunny as Sonata crashed into her.
Tangled together, they stumbled for a few feet until they collided with a building’s outer wall. It wasn’t a hard crash, but it still took a second for Sonata’s brain to catch up with what happened. Sunny had her back against the wall, and Sonata had slammed her hand into the wall right next to her face. They were close, making Sunny’s face turn bright red.
She had pinned Sunny against a wall… just like Aria’s advice! And earlier, she had used her siren song, like Adagio said! The pieces were starting to fall into place. Sunny didn’t like when Sonata talked about how she used to be evil, but liked it when she hypnotized everyone—even if it was to calm them down, that seemed kind of evil to Sonata. That meant that Sunny actually wanted her to be a bit evil! Maybe not full evil, but slightly evil. Halfway evil.
She looked into Sunny’s eyes, which looked back into hers, and… she just stood there.
Aria’s advice was to take her money, but that would be fully evil. What was the half-evil version of that? What was she supposed to be doing?
A loudspeaker buzzed and a male cop said, “This is a public place, please cease your inappropriate behavior.”
Lucidity quickly returned to Sunny as she leaned out of Sonata’s pin and flipped him off. “Fuck off, Sprout! Suck my dick!” she shouted.
This broke all the remaining protestors out of their stupor as they reacted loudly to this, cheering and ooo-ing.
“Hey! You don’t know me!” The cop pointed accusingly as his voice broke. “You don’t know me!” He turned to a fellow officer and said, “I don’t know her.”
Finally, it came to Sonata. If being evil was the right move, then…
The siren leaned into Sunny’s ear, making her freeze up. She gently whispered, “Are you up for some sloppy steaks?”
After a pause, Sunny softly responded, “Are you talking about actual steaks, or…?”
“Actual sloppy steaks.”
Sunny narrowed her eyes and shook her head. “Sorry, I’m vegetarian.”
Sonata frowned.
Sunny and Sonata set up a next date, but Sonata ghosted her and they never saw each other again.
Sunny was angry about this for a while, but she ended up following up on Sonata’s earlier claim that she knew some of the protesters and found another avenue to learn about magic, plus slightly-less-weird dates.
Sonata briefly fell back into her evil ways, but was stymied by how all restaurants serving steak in the city still had her and her sisters banned. She ultimately returned to the side of good, where she remains to this day. She sometimes wonders if she messed up, but largely doesn’t think about it.
Author's Note
Supporting queer romance also means allowing for ones that just don't work out.
Much of Sonata's behavior and dialogue is inspired by this I Think You Should Leave sketch.
