Author's Notes:

This is getting long. And meandering.
I should really go back and fix some of the earlier parts. They're peppered with typos and some sloppy bits I could punch up. If I cared enough.
Which I don't, really.
What even is this

Standing outside my front door was a gaggle of glaring girls.

All alliteration aside, actually it was quite unpleasant. I never liked anyone being upset with me, especially when I hadn’t the foggiest idea what it was I might have done to annoy them in the first place. And they all looked very annoyed.

Except Sunset, who was off to the side. She looked a bit apologetic.

These were girls I was passingly familiar with, at best. Sunset’s friends. I had seen her out and about them from time to time (and waved at her from a distance on those occasions) and she had spoken about them once or twice. All good things. Rainbooms or something. Whatever. Shorter than me.

This was the extent of knowledge of them. I did not know their names and as far as I was aware they didn’t even know I existed in the first place. So why they would be standing there looking at me like I’d personally shat on each of their pillows I had no clue.

“Are you guys here to sell me something or…?” I asked, in an effort to break the horrible silence we were all swaddled in.

“We’re here about her,” said one girl. With rainbow-coloured hair who had taken up position foremost amongst her squad. Nice hair, actually, but now was not the time to be noticing these sorts of things. She looked serious, not to mention a little cranky.

I hate the vague-name game. I know who they’re talking about and they know I know who they’re talking about but why can’t we just use names?

“Ah yes. Her. ‘Her’. I getcha,” I said, winking.

This is what happens when you don’t use names! Stupid bastards like me waste your time!

The girls didn’t seem to enjoy my attitude.

“We saw you with her. At that bar,” the fashionable one said. Was her hair purple? I genuinely had no idea. Very well turned out either way. So well turned out I almost missed what she’d said, which blindsided me.

I blinked.

“The bar I work at? In the day?” I asked.

“Yes. That bar,” she folded her arms when she spoke this time.

I wasn’t sure where they were going with this. They were all looking at me as though this was a slam-dunk but I really had no idea what point they were trying to convey. Presumably this was some sort of slanderous accusation that I had to defend myself from. Perhaps we were approaching this from two different angles.

“I took her to work, yeah. Was I going to leave her at home? On her own? I got one person I can call to watch the house for me and I’d done that already. I doubted Sunset would have wanted to do it again. Was that a bad assumption?” I asked, gesturing at Sunset who flinched at being put on the spot so suddenly and having all the girls turn to her.

“...no,” she said, quietly.

“There you go.”

“Why didn’t you just get rid of her though? She’s dangerous!” The one with the rainbow hair said.

There was something about her voice I really couldn’t put my finger on. Something distinctive. Kind of like a scratchiness but not quite. It was driving me mad. I kind of hoped she’d keep talking so I could try and pin it down but also kind of hoped she didn’t as every word from her mouth was to my disadvantage.

“I haven’t seen anything from Adagio that makes me think she’s dangerous. And she’s got nowhere to go and no-one to go anywhere with anyway. No idea where her, uh, sisters are or anything like that. House gone. I mean, agreeably it turns out they used their - ah - you know, mind control powers to get the house in the first place so fair play. But still. Doesn’t change her circumstances now.”

Mind control powers indeed. I’d wiggled my fingers as I’d said it to try and underline how unlikely I found them. So-far I had still seen nothing concrete to prove anything. Everyone else seemed to be buying into it so why not roll with the crowd? Certainly, no-one called me out on it.

“She’s just manipulating you into helping her - it’s what they do,” said the girl with the hat. Nice hat. Funky accent.

Did they normally divide up the talking like this? Did they practise? I would have elected a spokesperson, myself. But then I’m always on my own so maybe it’s just not a state of mind I’m used to.

“I think I can survive a little bit of light manipulation. What else was I meant to do? She was in the rain. She was hungry, I check to see if she’s alright - I’m meant to just wave her on her way after that? And she’s all alone, you know?” I said, laying down some reasons.

Again, this was something I’d brought on myself. And had Adagio not been a very sad, forlorn looking and pretty girl would I have opened the door to help at all? Had she been a very sad, forlorn looking middle-aged man? I liked to think yes, but the possibility of no still gnawed at me. Oh, I’m a bad person.

“There’s a reason for her being all alone!” The rainbow-haired one said. Emphatically.

I’d really have to get these girl’s names at some point. Good thing they all looked so incredibly distinctive. Almost like it had been a decision someone had made.

“She’s using you!” Squeaked one girl who immediately hid behind a curtain of hair. If she hadn’t hidden so abruptly I might not even have noticed she’d spoken at all. As it was I just sort of looked at her in bewilderment for a moment before replying.

“I guess I haven’t slept in my bed for a day or two now. And she did eat my dinner that one time. And she’s picking more of my food to eat right now.”

“This is serious!” Rainbow-haired girl said. She seemed the most outspoken.

I felt outnumbered and a little worn down. I looked to Sunset, hoping for perhaps a glimmer of support. Sunset was not looking at me. Rather, she was looking just to the side of me. Glaring would be closer. She didn’t look happy.

I glanced around to see that Adagio was hiding in my shadow and inching closer to me by the moment. I had no idea what this meant or why she was doing it so I shook my head to clear it of the nonsense and faced the girls again.

“Look-” I started to say, only to be distracted by the feeling of arms working their way around my waist. In alarm I glanced down to see that Adagio was wrapping herself around me.

“What on earth are you doing?”

“Nothing,” she said, lying to my face.

I’d had to raise my arms up a little to properly see what was going on with her and she’d taken this opening to further entwine herself about my midsection and was now clinging to me like a limpet. Through all this I noticed that she was also staring down Sunset, for reasons that I’m sure made perfect sense to her.

Staring her down to the exclusion of all the other girls present, in fact.

“Well, uh, could you stop doing nothing and...let go of me? Please? It’s distracting.”

She pouted but let go, again using me as a buffer between herself and the girls outside the door. The girls outside the door, it should be mentioned, who were looking daggers past me and at Adagio. I was serving as a very literal barrier and Adagio seemed to be revelling in this.

“Fine. I picked something for dinner,” she said.

“Ah, good. I’ll get on that in, uh, a minute. Once whatever this is has wrapped up. Gimme a minute, yeah?”

She gave me a smile, gave the girls a look that could well have been triumph but was there and gone so quickly I couldn’t really tell, and then she flounced off towards the lounge. I was very confused by all of this and I had had a long day by this point, so I took a second to catch my bearings and then turned back again to the girls.

Sunset was now staring at me. She didn’t look happy.

“What was that?” She asked.

“What was what?” I asked right back, bewildered. She looked unhappier.

“How come she hugged you!” She didn’t so much ask as yell, plainly outraged. It was so sudden and so loud I was taken aback. And I wasn’t the only one - her friends all flinched too, stepping back away from her.

“Uh. I didn’t know she was going to do that. I’d rather she hadn’t, in all honesty. Uh. Sorry?” I said, feeling myself wither beneath her attention. The girls seemed to be parting to give Sunset a better, wider field free of obstacles to lay into me across.

“But why did she do it?” Sunset pressed. Even though she hadn’t moved the force of her questioning made it feel as though she was bearing down on me. I did my best to stand my ground, mostly as I didn’t understand what was happening. This seemed like a sudden and confusing shift in priorities as far as this conversation went. Weren’t they in the middle of telling me how dangerous my position was? I was so tired.

“I really don’t know what to tell you, Sunset. Maybe she’s touchy-feely. Some people are like that? I don’t know. She just-”

“Has she done it before?” Sunset asked, cutting me off and leaving me gaping like a fish.

“Uh, done what?”

“That! Hugged you! Or anything like it.”

“What? This is - what has this got to do with-”

“Just yes or no!”

I looked at those gathered before me, searching for even a hint of moral support. I’d even have settled for one of them looking as confused as I felt. Instead all I got were expressions of disapproval, apprehension and other associated bad things. They all clearly had some grasp of the situation, while I floundered. And as is often the way my confusion started curdling into irritation. Didn’t want it to, but it did.

“Yes. Couple times Cried on me and stuff like that. Even fell asleep on me once. Guess she was pretty tired. Why?”

Sunset did not say anything to this, but her face spoke more than enough. Even for someone as dense as me. I had said something very wrong. She’d looked angry before and now she just looked hurt. The anger all vanished in an instant and was replaced with raw, obvious pain.

Whoops.

“What did I do?” I asked. Stupidly.

For a moment it looked like Sunset might actually tell me what it was I’d done. But she didn’t. She obviously couldn’t. She gave me a look that was like being stabbed in the gut and then walked away, leaving me standing and gawping like an idiot.

The pink-haired girl went after Sunset, as did another pink-haired girl (the hair was poofier) who had been incongruously silent this whole time and also the well-turned out purple one. They caught up with her quickly but did not stop walking, huddling close around her and putting their arms around her. I watched, swallowed. My throat was very dry all of a sudden.

“What?” I asked the remaining two, hat-girl and rainbow-girl. Both of whom were looking daggers at me. The hat-girl shook her head and also walked off, doing what sounded a lot like swearing under her breath.

“What was that? What happened? Are you guys just going now?” I asked. Rainbow-girl just shook her head.

“You’re an idiot,” she said. Then she also left.

“What? What?”

But I was on my own now. Sunset was gone, and before too long all of them had disappeared. The street was empty, the street was quiet. Just me, standing with my arms spread apart like an idiot, my face like a slapped arse.

It took me a while, but once it finally sunk in that they’d just gone and probably wouldn’t be back I pulled myself together and shut the front door. Then I felt bad. I felt so bad I had to take a moment to properly experience the depth of it.

I’d hardly been a font of happiness before they’d showed up. I’d been tired and I’d been looking forward to a low-key evening of nothing in particular. Feed Adagio, maybe lightly touch on the prospect of where she planned on going since she couldn’t just move in with me, maybe get drunk and fall asleep on my sofa. I didn’t have anywhere to go tomorrow, I had options.

What I had not been prepared for - and not wanted - was a weird doorstep grilling on who I allow into my home. Especially not from people who’ve never taken the time to talk to me in the first place. And then I say something wrong and upset the only person who’s anything close to what I might possibly consider a friend.

And I still don’t fully grasp how that happened. Her being my friend and me upsetting her. Both of them were horribly confusing.

The look on Sunset’s face though. That had hurt to see. And I’d done that. Somehow.

I pulled my arm back and was all set to vent some of my frustrations on the wall but held myself in check. The last time I’d done that it hadn’t worked out in anyone’s favour. My hand had come off badly, and the wall had acquired a nice hole that had only recently been patched up. Turns out they made walls a bit more flimsily here than I was used to - who knew?

So no. No punching walls for me. Not today.

Instead I took a nice, calming deep breath and uncurled my fingers. No use getting angry anyway. Wouldn’t solve anything. Would just make more problems and leave me none-the-wiser. Always best to be calm. So I tried to be calm.

Sunset would probably be off somewhere calming down as well. At least I hoped so. She had friends to help her, too. I’d leave her be for a bit, given that I was the apparent cause of her distress - for whatever reason. I’d see if she contacted me first and if not I’d give her a little while and then see if she replied to me. Hopefully patch things up. Maybe understand what had happened, even a tiny bit.

This sounded like a plan in my head. Plans were good. Plans were something you could hold onto. Like a bit of wreckage to keep you from drowning. Or something.

I was probably overthinking it.

“Are you okay?”

This made me flinch it was so sudden. Turning, I found Adagio leaning against a wall and looking at me with what appeared to be concern. At some point since hugging me for no obvious reason and wandering off she’d apparently changed into pyjamas. Good for her.

“Hunky-dory,” I said, giving her a thumbs up and rubbing my face with my free hand. From between my fingers I could tell at a glance she didn’t believe me. I wouldn’t have believed me, either.

“Did they say something to you?” She asked, stepping closer.

“Oh, couple things. Nothing really specific though. Just general things.”

True, actually. They hadn’t really told me anything I hadn’t already known. Just sort of angrily hinted that Adagio was no good, was up to no good and things like that. This was nothing new to me at this point as this was the message I’d been getting - either from people straight-up telling me or just whispering whenever I moved past - for a day or two.

I probably could have handled something more direct. If they got loud and told me to get rid of her at once, maybe. Something like that. That I could at least work with. But no, just stuff I’d heard already about how dangerous and malicious and scheming she was. Stuff about being used. So nothing new. And nothing useful. Leaving me exactly where I’d started.

Only with Sunset mad at me now. Obviously.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Adagio asked, getting closer still.

“About what?”

“You don’t look happy.”

“That’s just my face, it always looks like that,” I said. She visibly deflated, clearly having got herself ready for a different answer.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want. I just thought it might make you feel better.”

I’d heard this before. Talking about things was apparently a healthy thing to do, though I doubted I’d be much good at it. Certainly not something I had a whole lot of practise with. The only person around here I spoke to consistently was Sunset and we mostly just chatted shit to one another - it lacked depth. She and I shared interests, not vulnerabilities.

Which was fine by me.

Still though. Thinking about that did make me think about Sunset again, something I’d been doing a lot in the last few minutes. Made me think again about how she’d gone off looking like someone had just died. This was not a thought I enjoyed. Would it have been an idea to talk about that? What was I supposed to say? I wouldn’t know where to start.

Best to just keep quiet. Would only put my foot in it.

Some rogue part of my brain even considered for a moment perhaps mentioning to Adagio that taking her in had proven to be more trouble than it was worth but the mere idea turned my stomach.

As much grief as I’d caught for doing it - and the amount was rather more than I’d expected, given that I’d expected none for sheltering someone who’d been wandering the streets for days but whatever - I’d still do it again. Because, uh, well it was a nice thing to have done.

“We can talk later,” I said, by way of compromise. I had little intention of doing so, of course, but maybe I’d change my mind. Adagio perked up almost at once, if only a tiny bit. This was nice to see. There was a very particular way her mouth curved when she smiled and even seeing a hint of this was pleasant.

“Anyway, I got food to do so you just, uh, sit down and wait for that,” I said, turning to move back to the kitchen. I was stopped though by her hand coming onto my shoulder. Surprisingly firm grip, Adagio. I turned again.

“I can cook,” she said, letting go. I squinted at her.

“I don’t doubt you, I’m just saying you don’t have to. You’re a guest.”

My worldview did not allow for guests cooking for their hosts. It just didn’t sit right with me. Cats and dogs living together and all of that sort of thing. Just not right, at least not in my head. Guests were looked after that was just how it was meant to work.

Judging from her pout she clearly had other ideas about how the world could work.

“I want to, though. You can’t just keep doing it for me and not expect me to,” she said. She even folded her arms to help underline how seriously she was taking this.

This made her look more cute than imposing, but that’s probably more the way I viewed it than anything else. I rather imagined Adagio could be rather scary when angry. Not sure why I got that impression, but I just did. You get a vibe from people sometimes.

For now I supposed that I couldn’t see the harm in letting her do this. Not like I actually enjoyed preparing food anyway.

“Well then. Go ahead.”

I never said I wasn’t a pushover.

The pout vanished and she poked me in the sternum, finger staying in place and keeping me pinned to the spot. Probably more psychological than anything else. Still potent.

“Your turn to go sit down and wait,” she said, with every appearance of triumph. I shrugged.

“If you insist…” I said. I assumed she’d be able to figure out her way around the kitchen on her own.

Sure enough, not long after I’d sat I could hear the sounds of activity coming down the hallway and following this came smells. Quite nice ones, too. At first. This did not last.

She was wrong. She couldn’t cook.

Rather, she was able to cook - that I couldn’t dispute. She made things go from ingredients into something resembling food. She just wasn’t very good at it, and what she made resembling food did not resemble edible food.

On the plus side she was at least aware of this and so things didn’t get awkward with me having to pretend or anything like that. We actually had a nice laugh about it and I ended up heating up some pizzas I’d had collecting frost in the freezer. This worked much better.

“So you can cook?” I asked, grinning. I’d waited until she was midway through a slice before saying this and all she could do was glare in mock-offense as she hurried to swallow so she could reply.

“I can! It’s just been a while,” she said.

The television burbled to itself but neither of us was really paying it much attention. We shared the sofa, and the table held the pizza. It as rather cosy, all told, even if she did keep bumping into me with her elbows as she ate.

“Lived off ready meals or something?” I asked.

Adagio shook her head, moving in for another piece.

“We mostly just got take out. Or went to eat in town.”

That made me raise an eyebrow. Town was not cheap when it came to dining out. Not that I had anyone to do it with, but even as a freakish loner the prices made me baulk at times. I blame the economy.

“That must have stacked up pretty quick,” I said. Then I remembered. “Oh. Right. Mind control.”

That really did solve an awful lot of problems, if you had it. The practical applications were extensive. Adagio smiled, letting the pizza rest in her hands for a moment.

“You still don’t really believe that, do you?” She asked. I shrugged, again. Shrugging is good for all sorts of things.

“Whether I do or not doesn’t really matter, I think. It’s just a thing, it’s there. Everyone else does, so,” it really wasn’t something I felt especially concerned by. I still thought it was very weird that all the people in town seemed to be in on some kind of joke I’d apparently managed to miss but whatever - stranger things had happened.

One time back home I’d walked into an area the police had taped off without noticing until a very angry PC in a high-vis came barrelling towards me. That hadn’t been fun to explain.

I then noticed that Adagio had a serious look on her face. She’d even put her slice of pizza down.

“It matters to me,” she said.

“If I believe it?”

“Yeah.”

This was one of those important moments where what I said would have implications. Like earlier with Sunset. At least this time I was paying more attention, even if I still didn’t know what the best thing I could do was. I swallowed.

“You tell me,” I said.

That foxed her.

“What?”

“Tell me the whole thing. I’ve only heard the proper story from one person. Everyone else just treated you bad and assumed I’d know why. So you tell me what happened and what the deal is. So I can hear it from you. It is about you, after all.”

This was pretty obviously something she hadn’t expected me to say, which was an improvement. Of a sort. At the very least she didn’t look upset.

“I don’t know how that’ll help,” she said.

“I’ll look you in the eye as you tell me and feel the truth of it filling me up,” I said. She squinted.

“...right.”

This did not stop Adagio from doing what I’d asked though. She told me about it.

It was more-or-less the same story that Sunset had told me. The one about another dimension and magic and friendship and so-on. Gryphons got mentioned, along with ponies of all things, and at least one wizard who she didn’t seem to have a high opinion of. Of course, from Adagio the emphasis was rather more on how she and the others who’d come with her had been banished here.

About the point she got to the point in the story where that happened she started tearing up, but only a little. More a reflex. The obvious effects of a painful memory rather than something fresh and raw.

She told me about being trapped in foreign, ill-fitting bodies for years on end, cut-off from abilities so fundamental to their old lives that it’d been like losing a limb. Even with a fraction of their power having been retained it was nothing like it had been before and the absence of it had been a constant, gnawing gap that they’d struggled with. She said.

So what else could they have done when the opportunity arose to go back? Or, failing even that, regain something of what they’d lost? Could they be blamed? At this point the tears came more freely, all of it being far more recent. She kept going though, not slowing in what she told me. Until she finished.

All this I listened to quite politely. I wasn’t sure what else I could do. When she was finished she looked spent and her eyes fell on me for a response.

“Do you believe me?” She asked, sniffing, though not wiping her eyes. I swallowed.

The story was just as fantastical and ludicrous as it had been the first time I’d heard it. Evidence to support any of it was still very thin on the ground for me, too. I had yet to see glowing magic nonsense, spontaneously appearing tails and/or ears, rainbows where there shouldn’t be rainbows or even so much as a talking animal.

Still. My gut told me she wasn’t lying. This really brought my gut’s judgement into question, given what she’d said. Still. I’d rarely been misled by my gut in the past, and poor Adagio looked like she’d run a marathon from the effort having to say all that she’d said. I did not think she had been lying to me. For what that was worth.

She had looked me in the eye and I had felt the truth of it fill me up. Couldn’t do much about it. It might have sounded fantastical, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. That’s my gut, pretty girls and logic for you. You can do anything with those.

“I do,” I said.

Her relief was palpable and I got another hug. A rather big one. I sat there and accepted it because, really, I didn’t have much of a choice. Once it broke she settled back down as happy as anything and picked up her pizza again.
“It’s still rather odd to think that I am friends with someone who isn’t technically human. Guess there’s a first for everything,” I said. She smiled, but not in a way that was wholly comfortable. She hid this discomfort behind pizza and a shrug. That I’d called her a friend without actually thinking about it went unremarked upon.

“Not really the first for you, though,” she said. I paused.

“How you figure that?” I asked. You’d think I would have noticed something like that.

I had to wait for her to finish her mouthful before I got a reply:

“Sunset, too.”

My eyebrows lowered this time as my eyes narrowed. I still had no idea what she was driving at.

“Sunset what?” I asked.

Adagio looked at me as though I dense. This was a look I was used to. I could hardly blame her.

“Sunset is also from Equestria,” she said.

“...huh.”

Either I’d missed the part where Sunset had mentioned that to me or she hadn’t mentioned it at all. I tried to slot this new information into how my world worked but it wouldn’t quite fit. I stared at the pizza as though this might help me, but it did not.

“That wouldn’t make her, uh, a tiny, brightly-coloured talking pony that just happens to be in the shape of a person now, would it?” I asked.

“It would, yes.”

“...huh.”

Well now I was just confused.

Things were a bit subdued after that. Adagio seemed to be lost in her own thoughts and I was lost in mine, too. For the first time since all this started I was properly thinking about magic and bollocks like that, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

I’d been perfectly happy just ignoring it and shrugging it off before but now it seemed a legitimate concern, and the more I heard about it and the more people around me acted as though it was real the more I had to confront the possibility that I was going to have an opinion about it sooner or later.

What with, you know, the two people who I now spent most of my time with apparently not being people at all but actually being strange and wonderful creatures from some magical world beyond. That wasn’t the sort of thing you could just ignore and let slide. However much I might have liked to.

Adagio insisted on doing the washing up despite my vocal protests. I didn’t know if she was any better at it then she was at cooking but she was certainly loud about it and came out of the kitchen looking surprisingly frazzled. I felt it best to maybe give it a while before going and checking myself. I’d had quite enough for one day.

We sat and we watched something after that, still not really talking. Neither of us seemed to want to be there at that moment, and both of us wanted to be on our own. But she wouldn’t do anything about it and I wouldn’t either. So we sat, occasionally commenting on something on screen but otherwise sitting at opposite ends of the sofa feeling awkward.

Eventually she said she was going to bed.

“Sorry,” I said and she cocked her head.

“Why?”

“Just for...dull evening. I remember you wanted to do something fun and we just did, uh, well, nothing. Sorry.”

She hugged me. Again.

“It’s not your fault,” she said, with a smile that went some way to convincing me she meant it.

While she went off and got showered and settled down I pulled out my phone and scrolled to Sunset’s number. Nudging the door to the room closed Is at and stared at the number, licking my lips and wondering if I should even bother.

Eventually I figured what did I have to lose. I was surprised she even picked up the phone.

“What?” She asked. Bluntly.

“Look, Sunset, I’m really sorry,” I said, as an opener.

“Do you even know what you’re sorry for?” She asked back.

A devastating response. I genuinely still had no idea. I grimaced and was glad she couldn’t see it through the phone, though I bet she knew I was doing it anyway.

“...no,” I said, not wishing to dig myself deeper.

To my immense relief I heard her give a muffled hiccough of a half-laugh that at least meant I hadn’t just made things worse.

“Then don’t say you’re sorry, because you’re not. It’s not your fault though. I just…”

She trailed off. I let her gather whatever it was she wanted to say. No sense butting in.

“I really want you to get her out,” she said, sounding a lot like she was sniffling.

“I’m working on it, believe me.”

This clearly touched a nerve.

“Just throw her out! It’s your house!” She said, much louder. I sort of pictured her suddenly leaping to her feet as she said it, possibly waving a hand around for emphasis. Certainly, she’d look angry. She sounded angry.

Again though, my place is not a house. But I got what she meant.

“I can’t really just throw her out, I mean, I can, I just - uh - that’d be - ah - fuck -”

I was not good at this. Conversations like this tore me to ribbons. On the one hand I had Sunset, a proven friend and ally who was obviously upset and who’s only clue about how to fix it was getting rid of this person who I hadn’t known for very long but who was already proving very nice to me for reasons I couldn’t fathom.

The thought of ditching Adagio - summarily, without warning - didn’t make me especially happy. Doubly so because she was still being so cagey on the subject of whether she had anywhere to go or not. Would have left me feeling very bad just shoving her out and wishing her the best of luck. Couldn’t just send her packing now. I’d just spent the day getting her stuff!

Life is full of tough choices.

“Get. Rid. Of. Her,” Sunset said through what were obviously gritted teeth. I rubbed my temples with my free hand.

“Look,” I said. “She’s in bed right now. PRobably asleep. She sleeps a lot. Eats a lot, too. Can’t just wake her up and turf her out right now. It’s getting dark. But first thing - first thing, right, Sunset? - I will tell her she needs to go. Alright? I haven’t got anything else on tomorrow so I can devote all my energy to it.”

She was quiet. All I could hear was her breathing. Angry breathing.

“...then we can...get ice cream or something?”

A shot in the dark. Who doesn’t like ice cream though?

She giggled. Again, hr and Adagio being the only people I’ve ever heard in my life ever doing it. Not that this was a bad thing. The sound alone had me smiling.

“Ice cream would work,” she said.

“Fantastic. Brilliant. Tomorrow is shaping up to be pretty great. Ice cream with a fabulous friend and I’ll get to sleep in my own bed again. My idea of a good time.”

“Mine too,” Sunset said, hurriedly adding: “Not the sleeping in your bed bit. Just the ice cream bit.”

“Everyone in their own bed,” I said, nodding sagely.

Something was nagging at me. Tugging at the corner of my brain. I wasn’t sure what it was but it was still there. I stopped nodding when it came to me. The whole ‘not a human but looking like a human’ thing. The part about Adagio and Sunset both being something not-of-this-earth.

“Can I ask you a question?” I asked before I’d thought it through.

“Sure?”

My throat was very dry all of a sudden.

“Are you a, uh, I’m not sure how I can put this...” I mumbled

“Am I a what?”

Now that I wanted to ask it all I could think about was what a dumb question it was and how much I wished I’d never started down this road. But it was too late now, and I very much doubted I’d be able to back out. Sunset could be persistent when it came to things like this. Best to bite the bullet. Best to just get it out of the way.

“Areyouactuallyamagicalponyintheassumedshapeofahumanbeing?” I blurted. The words were so ridiculous my mouth felt as though it had tried to reject them.

She was so quiet on the other end I thought - reasonably - that my garbled question had completely failed to make sense and expected any moment for her to ask me to repeat myself. She did not. She just hung up.

“Hello?” I asked the tone, to no avail.

My heart sank even lower, settling into the pit of my stomach. My stomach, in turn, had already moved down to somewhere around my knees from the feel of it. My phone stayed pressed to the side of my head from lack of any motivation to move. I blanked.

Well this was great.

Off somewhere behind me I could have sworn I heard a door closing, but I could have imagined it. I didn’t really care. Everything was a bit numb.

Slowly, delicately, I put the phone down. I then lay on the sofa and stared at the ceiling for a long, long time not really thinking about anything before finally rolling to the side and shutting my eyes, mostly to just make the world away.

I must have drifted off though, because when I next opened my eyes I could hear birds. I stared at the back of the sofa since it was in front of me and seriously questioned how a week can go so sour so quickly.

Rolling around and sitting up I spent a pleasant minute or two cradling my head in my hands before rising to standing with a grunt and shambling off towards the bedroom to see if Adagio was awake. I had no idea what time it even was. ‘The sun is up’ was enough for me right at that moment.

I stopped the moment I stepped out of the lounge. Something was amiss. Blinking furiously I leant against a wall trying to figure out exactly what. Then I noticed how light it was in the hallway, and how breezy. That wasn’t normal. I looked at the floor. Light coming from behind me. Odd. Turning, squinting, I saw the front door, and saw that it was wide open.

“Huh,” I said. “That’s not good.”

Moving up I had a look at it. Nothing about the door was broken or forced. It was just open.

Sticking my head into the street I could see nothing and no-one of any interest. The street was empty, in fact. Frowning I shut the door and tapped my foot on the floor. This was all very odd, at least for me.

I headed for the bedroom as a sneaking suspicion of an idea started forming in my brain. By the time I got there the idea had solidified into ‘Adagio has run off’ and what I found did much to confirm this.

She hadn’t taken everything with her - that would have been a bit difficult given how much we’d brought back - but there was enough strewn about that it looked as though she’d picked what to take and then taken it. One of the three bags I’d brought back was gone. The place was a mess. The kind of mess someone makes when they know they’re not coming back to it.

So she’d gone then.

And she’d left the front door open at that, too.

Dick move, Adagio. Dick move.