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Here Comes the Sun

by Eyeswirl the Weirded

Chapter 2: Chapter 2: What I Got I'll Give to You

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Walking into the foyer, (Rarity later insisted the first room in the house was a foyer, but it was all elegantly decorated with immaculate, white surfaces, plush, purple carpets, and some fancy paintings, so nobody really asked questions) the girls set their winter clothes on the rack. Sunset discovered that the Dazzlings had apparently decided on wearing their dance outfits, the ones they were wearing when they first made a scene in the cafeteria, to the party.

Well, I didn't really change my look after getting friendship-blasted either...

In hindsight, that Adagio had been wearing her usual spiky boots maybe should have been a hint.

Sonata looked around, curious. "Hey, where is everybody?"

Aria crossed her arms, giving Sunset a look as though she was expecting some kind of ambush, Adagio giving her a less outwardly hostile, more curious version of the same stare.

Sunset checked her watch. "7:58. We're actually a little early." She gave the trio a hopeful smile. "The others should be in the living room, come on."

They followed, if only for lack of a real reason not to. The group saw the rest of the Rainbooms gathered in what was quite a spacious room. There were comfortable-looking chairs and couches arranged in a manner to invite socializing, a well-stocked snack table, and a wide, blank platform that might have been some manner of stage at the far end of the room. The group was gathered in a circle of soft chairs, Fluttershy nursing a bottle of soda as the others waved primarily to Sunset.

"Howdy!"
"Hi again!"
"Hey!"
"Good to see you all."

Pinkie frowned. "Aww, Rarity! You threw off the group alliteration!"

Rarity didn't bat an eye at the comment, she had a job to do as hostess for this event. "Welcome," she said as she stood up, "as you can likely see, the party isn't quite in full-swing yet, but more will be arriving shor-"

Ding-Dong!

"Ah, speak of the devil!" She giggled a little, stepping past the four Equestrians, "please, make yourselves comfortable and let me know if you need anything."

There was a short, awkward silence as Sunset stood next to the Dazzlings, the two small groups trading stares until Applejack spoke up. "May as well take a load off, Ah don't think much'll be goin' on 'til a bit later."

Sunset nodded, moving to take a seat nearby. She was pleasantly surprised to find the Dazzlings doing the same thing. Progress! They were seated near Sunset, but distinctly across from her four friends.

There was another awkward silence, this time broken by Pinkie attempting to start conversation. "So, how've you guys been since the batt-"

"Fine," Aria answered tersely, the Dazzlings collectively giving her a cold stare, getting a few back.

Fluttershy was sure both sides wanted to say much harsher things to each other, but it looked like Sunset's plea that they at least try to get along with the Dazzlings was holding up so far. Rainbow seemed to be doing that by just not saying anything, which was at least a start. She remembered what the others had said on the matter about an hour ago.

"Ah reckon none of us need remindin' what those three pulled a while back, but Sunset asked real nice that we don't go burnin' bridges any further. An' seein' as how we weren't exactly considerate with her at first? It'd probably mean a heck of a lot to her if we did better with them."

"Yea, yea," Rainbow said with a nod, "we play nice even if they don't, for Sunset's sake."

Rarity nodded, setting a flower vase perfectly in the center of a table, then turning it slightly for stylistic asymmetry, matching the tablecloth. "Indeed. Who knows," she said with a hopeful grin, "they may even let us give them makeovers!" She made a grasping motion in the air in front of her. "What I'd do to get my hands on their hair, especially those orange curls..."

"Yay, new friends! Or almost-friends. Frenemies? I hope they become our best frenemies, because I really like that word!"

"That's nice, Pinkie." Rarity kept fretting with the angle of the flower vase.

Still, she wondered what it was keeping the girls sitting across from them toned down to just standoffish, as opposed to hostile.

Are they here for Sunset? If anyone can get through to them, I'm sure it'd be her.

Sunset was reminded heavily of her own encounter with the group, back in the park. Still, three minutes of being in the same room and nobody was shouting.

So far so good!

She smiled as convincingly as possible, gesturing to the Dazzlings. "So, they were just telling me about their first day here. Where did you guys get to sleep?" She chuckled, blushing a little as she tried her own advice about sharing stories. "I spent my first night sleeping in the school building."

Go along with whatever they ask, Adagio told herself. It would probably save time if she edited out their old vernacular; the Rainbooms, who actually looked vaguely interested, weren't all as smart as Sunset Shimmer and thus might have trouble making the translations. "Our first night here passed at an inn..."

---

Following the madness at the slightly-less-broken fountain, the trio of misplaced sirens were awarded three towels with which to dry off. (their efforts on the fountain had left them quite soaked) After, the groundskeeper offered them a small stack of green, rectangular papers as he rambled about "damn lazy contractors" and "what's the world coming to when hippie chicks do a better job" and how he "may as well see they're compensated a little."

None of them knew what that meant, but Adagio was sure that the papers were given out of gratitude. Provided the man who handed it to them wasn't deeply disturbed, that probably meant it had some kind of value, so they held onto it. Around the time night was beginning to fall, the three of them felt the fatigue of the day sink in, and looked for somewhere to rest for the night.

"<Hey, Adagio?>"

"<Yes, Sonata?>"

"<I know long, flat rocks breaching the surface were kinda our bed of choice most nights in the sea, gazing up at the night sky as dreams took us, but->"

Aria let out a frustrated groan. "<Get to the point! These bodies take to stone like jellyfish to a shark's mouth!>"

"<Yea, that.>"

Adagio sighed, sitting up from the rock to address the soreness of her spine. "<I can't help agreeing. Let's try something else.>"

"<I saw a squirrel climb up a tree,>" suggested Sonata, "<maybe land-striders sleep in those?>"

"<As amusing as it might be,>" Adagio said with a shake of her head, "<I'd rather not risk anyone rolling about in their sleep, falling out and getting something broken. We don't know how to treat these bodies if they get injured.>"

Aria smirked. "<Well, we know they can survive many short falls, thanks to our brilliant leader.>"

Adagio again glared at her, trying to suppress a blush. "<Maybe I'll experiment further, starting with your head!>" Her angry gaze faded as she realized something. She glanced to the grass, as smooth and even here as any other part of the park, and remembered the feeling of the times she'd landed on it. It was mostly soft. Unlike rocks. "<I have an idea.>"

About half an hour later, the trio were lying comfortably on the grass, just a little cold in the summer air. Sonata had the idea that hair must have been for warmth, so she and Aria (however hesitantly) rested their heads in Adagio's puffy surplus. It was as just they started to drift off that someone happened by.

"Hey, what're you guys doin'?"

Aria groaned loudly, sitting up to address the nondescript newcomer. "<Trying to sleep, what's it to you?!>"

"...What?"

Adagio joined her. "<Sleep. That thing people do when exhaustion sets in. Or do they walk at all hours here?>"

The other-worlder this-worlder scratched his head. "Man, I don't know what you guys are puffin', but I bet it ain't legal. Are you tryin' to sleep on the grass? As far as hippies go, you gals are hard-core."

Starting to wonder if 'hippie' was some kind of slur for something, Adagio hmphed. "<And where would you have us sleep? We already tried the rocks.>"

He hesitantly thumbed over his shoulder. "There's a swanky hotel just around the block. If you don't live around here, maybe you could get a room there...?"

---

Directions given to the hotel, the trio soon found themselves talking to the woman at the front desk.

"Money," repeated the clerk, slowly, "that stuff you probably traded those for those outfits?" She smiled sheepishly. "Which, uh, look nice, by the way?"

Trade, thought Adagio, her face lighting up. "<Yes, I have a sample of tradeable paper to exchange!>"

The clerk sighed with relief. If not for her time minoring in theater, she might not have been able to understand these three at all. She briefly counted over the bills. "Uh, I'm sorry girls," she said with a frown, "you're about ten dollars short."

As Aria and Adagio traded glances, Sonata hatched a plan to keep them from doing anything that might make that police man show up again. Maybe she could just-

Wait, WHAT?!

---

Rainbow Dash wasn't the only one surprised by that last part, but she was the most vocal. "Someone called the cops on you guys? On day one?"

Adagio rolled her eyes, annoyed at the interruption. Still, maybe she shouldn't have skipped over this part after all. "No one called him as far as I know, but he was apparently in the area when I discovered human covering could be removed. It happened a little earlier in the day." While they were waiting for the broken fountain to flood the world, before Aria returned, but she didn't feel like reiterating that tale.

The curious stares only grew more-so, followed by those of a few more party guests that had showed up.

She shrugged, calmly explaining with only a bored expression on her face. "Clothing. We thought it was the equivalent of scales and-"

Applejack raised a hand. "Scales? Y'all used to be mermaids or somethin'?"

"Hippocampi." She'd have remarked on the interruptions again, but at this rate, that would only make things take longer. "We thought clothing was this world's answer to scales and that it's removal would cause a lot of bleeding, but this wasn't the case. It did get the attention of the officer, however, who told me removing too much was a taboo for some reason." The former mer-horse tugged at her light, pink vest. "I'm still not entirely clear on that, actually."

By the way Sonata and Aria blushed and quietly facepalmed, respectively, Sunset guessed they had more or less figured it out. A male voice from not far away cheekily spoke up. "Do you think you could show us?"

There were some chuckles, some eye-rolls, some glares (primarily from the girls in the room), and a friendly smack upside the head directed at the speaker before Adagio replied. "Sure."

Sunset was pretty sure her heart stopped for a split second as Adagio started undressing, Aria and Sonata trading nervous glances as if to say 'should we stop her?' As no one else seemed to be doing much more than giggling or watching gobsmacked, Sunset started to panic, moving to politely suggest nobody undress right now.

What she ended up doing was tackling Adagio out of her seat just as she'd gotten the vest off.

Sunset tried to ignore the stares of the entire room as she whispered through a forced smile. "What are you doing?!"

Quietly wondering if tackling people was Sunset Shimmer's solution to every problem when there were a lot of witnesses, Adagio gave the girl on top of her a dull glare as she whispered back. "That sounded like an invitation, what's the problem?"

"Normal people don't take their clothes off in public!"

"Oh? How well do you remember the Battle of the Bands? Just before you-"

Sunset's face was nearly fluorescent. The whole room staring and whispering didn't help. "T-that was different! I was just-"

Adagio rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Can I get up, or are you going to make this worth my while?"

Sunset leapt off faster than she'd tackled the poofy-haired girl, who may have been cushioned in the fall by her curls. Brushing off the dust in an unconscious effort to remove the focus of the room from herself, she gritted her teeth at the first person she saw. "Not one word, Trixie..."

The amateur magician scowled. "Trixie wasn't going to say anything!"

Glancing around as Adagio put the vest back on and took her seat, in a leisurely pose as though nothing had happened, Sunset figured she'd have to remove herself from the situation to get everyone to stop staring at her. Hoping the Dazzlings would be okay on their own for a little while, she gave the room a smile. "I'll be getting some punch, be right back!" She walked off at a less-than-casual pace, her friends trading worried glances before Fluttershy got up to follow her.

Aria cleared her throat, Applejack, Rainbow, and Pinkie returning their attention to the trio as Adagio nodded gratefully to her. "As I was saying..."

Next Chapter: Chapter 3: Yellow Submarine Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 32 Minutes
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