Pinkie was happily running through a candy field. It had gummy grass, lollipop flowers and ice cream trees. In the distance were huge cup cake mountains. She ran toward them in sheer delight, only stopping to take a drink from a chocolate milk stream. It was pure heaven. A bird landed on her shoulder, gleefully chirping.

"Why hello little birdie! And how are you today?" Pinkie asked cheerfully.

The bird looked up at her and started screaming a blood curdling scream.

Pinkie snapped awake as she realized the screaming was real and coming from the room where Sonata was sleeping. Pinkie got up and rushed to the room as fast as she could, opened the door, and turned on the light. Sonata was sitting upright, eyes closed, screaming her head off.

Pinkie rushed over, wrapped her arms around her, and tried to wake her up. Slowly Sonata came out of whatever nightmare she was having. She looked around confused before realizing where she was at and who was holding her. She looked at Pinkie and smiled sheepishly.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I should have told you I have nightmares."

"Wow Sonie, that wasn't a nightmare but a night terror! What was going on?"

"Oh the usual, I was trying to kill myself. Sometimes I try to eat myself, sometimes drown myself, ew, one time I dreamt I sat myself on fire. That was during the witch trails. Not a good time to be an immortal demon from another dimension."

"No, probably not. But you're not really a demon."

"I became one. But, no, I'm actually a blue pony. Oh, and Pinkie, you can stop hugging me now."

"Eh, I'll be the judge of that. But you were a pony? Like Twilight and Sunset? Well I guess you would have been. Silly me."

Sonata laughed. "I like you Pinkie. You remind me of me."

"You too. Which is what I don't understand; you don't seem like the other two. How'd you get messed up with them?"

Sonata's face grew sad and she look down at the bed. "They were the only ones who'd play with me. When I was filly, everyone thought I was dumb. Dumb daisy they'd call me. Oh and Daisy is my real name. Sonata was the name I chose after I became a Siren."

"Nice to meet you Daisy!" Pinkie said joyfully. "My real name is Diane. Oh, we can be the double D's!"

Sonata laughed again. "Well you could Pinkie."

Pinkie looked confused until she got what Sonata was referring to and then she started laughing as well.

Sonata then grew sad again. "Adagio and Aria, they were already friends. They were mean and bossy, but they let me play with them. They weren't the best company, but they were company and I was lonely.

"When we found the gem stones and saw the power the gave us; they immediately wanted to control others. I didn't. I said we should throw them away so no one could use them. Then Adagio reminded me of how badly they treated me. She said they deserved to be punished."

"Yeah, well, I don't know if I agree with that, but you kept going," Pinkie said. "You harmed people who never harmed you."

"Adagio said that all ponies were alike. Later all people. That everyone would hurt me and call me dumb and I'd be alone and that they deserved it. Especially once we got here. Your species is so violent and mean. Eventually I learned to enjoy it. I learned to love watching people fight and argue and making them do whatever I wanted."

"Really?" Pinkie said surprised. "But you don't seem like that. We hit it off right away."

"Maybe not. That's probably why I have nightmares. It's not like I never met anyone I didn't like here. I met several. Oh, I especially loved the little ones. I remember one, Star Shine.

"When we came out here, back in the late eight-teen hundreds; I can't remember the exact year, time blurs after a while, we were part of a group. You had to be. Thirty-two in total. We passed ourselves off as orphans looking to move out here with our Uncle. Not implausible at the time. We road with a family out here. Hard Shine, Winter Shine, and their daughter, Star Shine. She was adorable. Six years old, very bright for her age, just as loving as you could want. The others, Adagio and Aria just kept to themselves, which is actually impressive in a covered wagon, but I bonded with the little girl. She thought I was funny. We played, laughed, and joked together.

"Her father was moving out west to escape the crime and poverty of the city. New York or Philly, I can't remember which. He thought he had planned for everything. They all did. But the journey took longer than anyone realized. We were already low on provisions when the winter hit. No one expected to be out there when winter came. They all expected to be in one of the new settlements.

"It was harsh, bitter cold. Snow fell deep and often. Pretty soon they were all starving. Even we began to starve when the natural negative energy was no longer enough to sustain us. But still, we were in much better shape than the others. That's why I gave Star Shine most of my rations. It helped, but the human body can only stand so much. Between the cold and hunger," Sonata wiped a tear from her eye," I was there, with her mother and father. I held her hand, she called me her big sister and gave me a doll; her doll. I told her no, that she would get better and need it. But like I said, she was very bright for her age.

"When we got here, there was only ten of us left. Ten out of thirty-two. As we were leaving, I gave the doll back to the Shines. I told them it belonged to them and I couldn't take it. They accepted and took it. That was the last I ever saw of them."

A small stream of tears ran silently down both Pinkie and Sonata's face. Sonata's heart broke at the memory, Pinkie's at Sonat's heart break.

"I'm so sorry," Pinkie said, barely able to speak. "But that should have told you you didn't belong with them, the others."

"I didn't. Even if I did, where would I have gone? What would I have done? I didn't, I don't want to die Pinkie. Even if I stuck out on my own; I still would have needed to cause people to fight in order to live. So with, or without them, I would have been doing the same thing."

It was then Pinkie realized Sonata's dilemma. Had she not caused others to argue and fight, she would have died. Sure she could have relinquished the gem stone and become mortal, but that still meant she would have died, just much later, maybe. In the end, she was only doing what she had to to survive. Pinkie ate. She had to or she'd starve. But eating meant taking the lives of innocent animals and plants (plants were alive too). So how could she judge Sonata or the others for only "feeding".

"I understand now. I also forgive you and hope you can forgive yourself someday," Pinkie said and gave Sonata a peck on the cheek.

Sonata smiled at Pinkie. In all her years she had never met another person who "got her as much as she did. "Thank you Pinkie, that means a lot to me."

Pinkie smiled and then said, "Ok scootch over," in her happy voice.

"Huh!?" Sonata asked in shock.

"Well, whenever I had a bad dream, Maud would come in to my bedroom and sleep next to me. I know that always made me feel better; so I'm doing the same for you."

"But Maud's your sister," Sonata replied, still in shock.

"And you're my sister from another mister!" Pinkie responded happily. She then got up, turned the light off and crawled into bed with Sonata.

Sonata slowly laid down, not knowing how she felt about having Pinkie beside her. She had slept next to her fellow sirens for centuries, but even though she really liked Pinkie, she was still a stranger to her. Soon, though, the sound of Pinkie's breathing made her feel comfortable and relaxed. Eventually she feel back asleep and was nightmare free for the rest of the night.

Author's Notes:

This is a reworked scene from "Mountains". It even has some original dialog in it. Although, in the original, Sonata told Vice Principle Luna the story about Star Shine after seeing her doll in a museum. I felt the story and the nightmare were pivotal to Sonata's and Pinkie's development as characters and their relationship. I love Sonata and Pinkie so much but find writing them to be very difficult. Hopefully I did them justice. And next week, you guessed it, Aria and Applejack.