The too-warm air was filled with the familiar stink of rubber and the sweat of teenagers, as well as the deafening sound of rubber balls and soles hitting the smooth, faux-wood planks of the gym floor.

Sunset had been permanently excused from most aspects of P.E. on account of her accident and the state it had left her in, at least until a doctor could clear her for a regimen of physical therapy, but she still had the class on her roster, and she could still participate in most of the warm up and warm down exercises with a little help.

Principal Celestia had offered to let her transfer into another class but, given the lateness of the year, she knew it wasn’t a very feasible option in terms of catching up with material. That and Celestia knew full well that Sunset would turn down the option anyway, not because she wanted an easy class, but because gym happened to be the one class she shared with Gilda.

“Get’em, babe!” Sunset shouted, punching the air as Gilda sprinted past her, dribbling a basketball.

Everyone in gym was wearing loose tee-shirts and shorts, a necessity because the gym heated up alarmingly quickly regardless of the season. The final months leading up to and throughout Summer were borderline unbearable inside the building itself, necessitating much of their curriculum happening out of doors.

Currently, the class was in the midst of its basketball segment, having done volleyball previously, and football before that.

Now, all things being equal, Sunset was hardly one to deny that a final aspect of gym she had enjoyed was the cute girls, but that had been old Sunset. New Sunset only had eyes for one cute girl, and that was the six foot and change, dark-skinned piledriver that was hammering her way through the other team’s defensive line; ducking, weaving, and dodging with surprising alacrity given her size.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash were both on the opposing team, although they were a lot less in sync than Sunset remembered, often getting in each other’s way or leaving the other open. Usually, the two girls were in line with each other, competitive but always good natured. A complete flip from the antagonistic rivalry Rainbow shared with Lightning Dust. Now, though, it was like the tables had completely turned on their head.

Rainbow and Lightning moved like they shared a mind; wherever one was, the other was in the perfect position to guard them. Of course, Sunset wasn’t terribly surprised at their teamwork… the two girls had been on the same soccer team, for years, but now it seemed like the last few kinks had been worked out and suddenly all those years of matching each other’s movements were bearing fruit.

Very little of that helped with stopping Gilda though, who was an engine of forward momentum and had a height advantage on the rest of the students, not counting Bulk Biceps whom everyone knew was too soft-hearted to put his all into any kind of competitive sport. Especially any form of contact sport.

He was fantastic with watercolors, though.

In the end, all it took was Applejack and Rainbow Dash tripping over each other once to give the opposing team the opening they needed. As Applejack stumbled and Rainbow hit the ground, Gilda blitzed past the rest of the line and a second later the crashing thud of the basketball slamming through the hoop and onto the ground echoed through the gym followed by a sharp whistle from Coach Iron Will marking the score.

“Woohoo!” Sunset cheered, raising her fists in the air as Gilda got high fives from the rest of the team.

Sunset had seen the change in Gilda ever since they’d come back from Las Pegasus, and in truth even before that. It was like every passing day smoothed away some of the rough edges her childhood had left her with.

Gilda had become more thoughtful, friendlier, and more open in the past months. A drastic change that Sunset mostly attributed to the fact that, in truth, nothing had changed. All of that kindness and strength had always been there in Gilda, diligently buried under over half a decade of emotional and mental manipulation and conditioning courtesy of one Storm King. Sunset even remembered Rainbow Dash remarking on it a few times; how Gilda had once been gentle and caring, always looking out for smaller kids… right up until her parents died and she was taken in by a monster dead-set on ruining her.

‘Well, he failed’ Sunset thought firmly as she smiled at Gilda who was working her way out of the small crowd of her team towards Sunset. ‘Gilda… she’s still herself.’

“Hey Sunshine, see that last dunk?” Gilda crowed, grinning widely. “No one gets the best’a me!”

“I definitely saw it, babe,” Sunset replied with a laugh. “You’re a real star athlete.”

Gilda smirked, giving an exaggerated flex of her arms as she did. It was supposed to be funny, but Sunset couldn't helping licking her lips a little at the display.

‘It’s not my fault Gilda looks really good in a tee-shirt and shorts, covered in sweat after a workout,’ Sunset thought to herself with a small smile. ‘Damn, I’m a lucky girl.’

“Earth t’Sunflower,” Gilda waved her hand in front of Sunset’s face.

Blinking away her thoughts, Sunset chuckled. “Sorry, I was picturing you naked.”

Gilda blushed furiously, and Octavia, who had been coming up behind her, red-faced and panting, snorted with laughter.

“Good lord, dear, you could be a little more subtle, couldn’t you?” Octavia said as she walked over and sat cross-legged next to Sunset’s chair. “You’re going to give everyone the wrong idea.”

“Or the right idea,” Sunset replied with a smirk.

“Y’know no one’s gonna try anything with me, yeah?” Gilda said with a laugh as she sat in front of Sunset. “Ain’t no one that fuckin’ stupid.”

“There’s at least one person,” Sunset replied in an arid voice.

An awkward silence fell between the girls that was thankfully broken as Applejack dragged herself up next to Gilda, panting and out of breath.

“Ain’t no one… your size… got any right… t’move that fast,” Applejack gasped.

“You should see her run on her old turf in Las Pegasus,” Sunset said, her smirk returning. “Light enough on her feet that you'd swear she was flying.”

“Hey, ain’t like I ain’t played before,” Gilda snarked, jerking a thumb back at the hoop. “Half the kids in Las Pegasus could try out for majors if they weren’t so fuckin’ poor, savvy? Used t’play every other day when I didn’t have runs t’make.”

“That explains us gettin’ our rear ends handed t’us,” Applejack grumbled good-naturedly.

Applejack had been the easiest to start getting along with again. She’d been the first to realise her mistake, the first to try and make amends, and even went against what Sunset knew the rest of the girls would want in order to try and protect Sunset’s privacy when she had been at her most vulnerable. It still hurt that the former bearer of the Element of Honesty hadn’t been able to tell that she had been telling the truth, but the Elements had levied their own punishment for that.

There was no reason to beat on them any more.

Besides, even Gilda grudgingly respected the farmgirl for her straightforward attitude as well as everything she had done following Sunset’s accident. The other girls? Well, Gilda had a harder time with them. Fluttershy and Rarity were constantly on eggshells around Gilda which irritated the normally laid back young woman, while Pinkie was painfully the opposite.

“Ah, ladies, are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Octavia piped up from beside Sunset.

Each of them looked to her and she subtly nodded towards the other end of the gym where most of the opposing team was. Rainbow Dash was sitting off to the side, favoring her left leg that looked bruised from her hard landing on the gym floor. Lightning was walking up holding a cold pack she had, probably, gotten from Coach Will, who kept a cooler full of the things off to the side for just such occasions.

Sunset braced herself to see Rainbow blow up at Lightning but…

“What the hell?” Sunset raised an eyebrow as Lightning knelt down and gingerly pulled Rainbow’s hand away from her bruised leg.

All of them could see Lightning talking, it was a low quiet voice that didn’t carry even with the acoustics of the gym, but the body language was clear. Rainbow put up a token resistance, but nothing serious, and no one who had ever seen her actually snap at someone bought it for a minute. A second later, Lightning had moved closer and settled the cold pack over Rainbow’s leg.

If her handling of Rainbow hadn’t clued Sunset in, then the lovestruck smile that Lightning Dust wore on her face would have.

“Holy crap,” Sunset mumbled. “I think Lightning finally caught Rainbow.”

“Pardon?” Applejack said, raising an eyebrow. “Ya’ll wanna clarify that a bit?”

Sunset nodded. “Yeah, Lightning’s been crushing on Rainbow Dash for literal years, like… her entire high school career basically.”

“Ah’ve known Rainbow most’a mah life, su-... Sunset,” Applejack replied. “She’n Lightning hate each other.”

“Trust me on this one,” Sunset said grimly. “I may not have used what I knew about Lightning as blackmail but… that doesn’t mean I didn’t throw it in her face to get her to back up.”

“Beg pardon?” Octavia said, looking shocked.

Sunset smiled wanly. “Don’t tell me you forgot what a huge bitch I used to be,” she said with a chuckle. “You really think someone like Lightning Dust just took that lying down?”

“Oh,” Octavia said softly. “No, I… I suppose that wouldn’t make sense.”

“Sophomore year, I caught her outside in the halls one day,” Sunset started, and her voice had a bitter note of regret to it. “She’d been talking a big game about how I couldn’t push her around, so I decided to teach her that I could.”

Applejack grimaced. “Kinda like how ya did with the Princess back when she first came ‘ere, huh?”

“Yeah,” Sunset said softly. “So I caught her out…”

Sunset Shimmer slammed her palm against the wall above Lightning’s right shoulder and loomed over her, glaring down with all the force that she had learned to project surviving the brutal political battlefield of the Canterlot Courts, and Sunset could see the icy sliver of fear that lurked behind the brash girl’s bright and defiant eyes.

“What’re ya gonna do, Shimmer?” Lightning taunted, “take a swing at me?”

The bravado was almost cute and Sunset smirked. The bite of Lightning’s sad attempt at bluster was spoiled somewhat by the way she only almost managed to hide the tremors in her limbs.

‘Cute, very cute,’ Sunset mused, ‘too bad I have to make an example of her.’

“I don’t need to take a swing at you, jockstrap,” Sunset said with a dry, acerbic chuckle. “You’re not a threat, you’re an annoyance.”

Lightning’s face twisted into a snarl. “Hey! You think I can’t stand up to you? Just because the rest of the school is spineless doesn’t mean-”

“I didn’t say that,” Sunset said in a sickly sweet tone, stepping forward and forcing Lightning back another step so she bumped into the wall as Sunset’s hand came up to rest on her cheek. “You can stand up to me all you want, dumbass… but think of this as a courtesy call: don’t bother, because it won’t matter.”

Sunset stepped back, leaving Lightning to sag slightly. In her mind Sunset was counting down; she hadn’t struck at Lightning’s mind or ego hard enough to deter her, not yet… but she needed a setup before she could take her shot. Fortunately, she could practically hear Lightning setting herself up, and the faint but harsh intake of breath behind Sunset confirmed it.

‘A~nd pull,’ Sunset thought as Lightning spoke.

“You’re underestimating me, Shimmer,” Lightning hissed. “I’ll be your worst goddamn enemy.”

Sunset sighed, a little overdramatically as she turned and gave Lightning a simpering smile. “Oh Lightning… look at me!” Sunset gestured to herself. “I have the best grades in the school, high marks in all of my athletics courses, and I practically have to beat the recruiters for CHS’s sports teams off with a stick at the beginning of every year… you’re not my enemy, you’re too far behind me for that,” Sunset could see the jab had struck home at the look of pain on Lightning’s face.

‘Now for the kill shot.’

“Just like you are with Rainbow Dash,” Sunset finished.

“W-Wha-” Lightning stammered, a red blush of something between fury and embarrassment creeping over her cheeks.

“You’ll never catch up to me, Dust,” Sunset said with a chuckle, crossing her arms and smirking. “Just like you’ll never catch up to Dash.”

Lightning Dust worked her jaw soundlessly, badly wrong-footed by the sudden jab and punch at a weak point even she hadn’t realised was there. Sunset continued to smirk as she advanced on Lightning again, who backed up only to find herself right back where she started: bumping into the wall behind her.

Sunset brought her hand up to cradle Lightning’s chin as she smiled viciously.

“I’m flattered by the attention, really,” Sunset said with a dark laugh. “And I’m sure Rainbow Dash is too, but why don’t you set your sights a little lower… hm? Maybe someone on your level,” Sunset said, pointing down at the floor before finally leaning in until she was right next to Lightning’s ear, “take it from me: Rainbow will never fall for you, Dusty, because neither of us settle for second place.”

‘Boom, headshot,’ Sunset thought with a faint burn of satisfaction in her chest as she turned her back on the shell-shocked girl and sauntered out of the hallway. ‘I doubt she’ll be a problem again.’

Octavia and Applejack both stared wide-eyed at Sunset who was nervously fiddling with the fabric of her shorts.

“Y-Yeah, I was a real bitch, huh?” Sunset said after a few moments of awkward silence.

“Ain’t worse’n me, Sunshine,” Gilda said with a dry laugh, “remember?”

Sunset looked up at Gilda who was still smiling down at her with the same look on her face she always wore when she was looking at the red-haired girl. A steady mixture of love, admiration, and doting adoration that Sunset found never failed to warm her heart.

Gilda looked at Sunset like she was the most beautiful girl in the world.

“Heh, yeah,” Sunset agreed after a minute. “Bad bitches, the both of us, huh?”

“Just fuckin’ right,” Gilda said, smirking as she reached out and let her fingers tangle through Sunset’s hair, making that loose petting motion that always sent a shiver down Sunset’s spine. “We ain’t like that anymore though, savvy?”

Sunset nodded. “Savvy.”

“Y’know, Ah almost fergot how bad ya used t’be,” Applejack said with a dry laugh. “Funny… weren’t even all that long ago, ah guess.”

“People change, Applejack,” Octavia said, recovering her poise and grace. “We all change… believe me, I’ve done my utmost to leave behind a number of distasteful aspects of my own personality…”

“Weird t’think’a Rainbow bein’ all doe-eyed over anyone, though,” Applejack said with a laugh. “And of all folks…”

“Yeah… so Rainbutt and Lightbulb are a thing now, huh?” Gilda said quietly, drawing the attention of the others as Gilda looked over at the two girls.

Lightning was, at that point, fussing over Rainbow Dash with limited success. She was trying to get the brash girl to stay still while she tied down the pack but clearly Rainbow had other opinions on the matter. Rainbow looked like she was about to snap at Lightning when the amber-haired girl fixed Rainbow with a look straight in the eyes and said a single word.

The two girls were still for a moment before Rainbow went slack and nodded grudgingly.

“Huh,” Gilda grunted. “Wonder how she did that?”

“She said: ‘please’,” Octavia answered in a quiet voice. Seeing the looks from the others, Octavia shrugged. “When your girlfriend is mute, you learn to read lips.”

“I ain’t ever heard’a Rainbow listenin’ t’the magic word,” Applejack said dryly. “Lightnin’s gotta have’er wrapped ‘round her finger for that to’ve worked.”

“Yeah,” Gilda replied. “Well, shit… good for her.”

That drew another set of surprised looks from everyone else, including Sunset. Gilda glanced down at them and shrugged, but didn’t offer any further explanation, instead going to grab a towel from the rack by the wall and wipe the sweat from her arms, face, and hair.

Two sharp claps from the center of the gym got everyone looking towards the towering figure of Iron Will, with his fitted white shirt and crew cut, he looked a lot more intimidating than he actually was.

“Alright ladies, good hustle,” Iron Will shouted at his usual high volume. “Grimfeather, good shot on that last basket, you should give college basketball a try when you graduate!”

“Uh, sure thing coach,” Gilda replied with a chuckle.

“Class is over in five, so warm down, shower, and get dressed!” Iron Will shouted, his voice echoing around the entire room.

Most of the class had become inured to his maximum-volume speech style over the years. Either that or they’d gone partially deaf to compensate, Sunset wasn’t quite sure of which as she turned to wheel herself out with Gilda and Octavia flanking her, Applejack having gone back to rejoin the rest of the girls, specifically Rarity.

They reached the lockers quickly and, with a little help from Gilda, Sunset changed back into her normal outfit. None of the others questioned it by this point, and in fact a few of the girls had even been whispering about Gilda; about how much she had changed, how different she was from what they had thought, about her dedication. It was something that pleased Sunset to no end, that Gilda was finally being recognised as more than just a thug.

“Hey Gil,” Sunset said softly as they left the locker.

“Hm?” Gilda looked down at Sunset with a questioning glance. “Sup, Sunshine?”

“Wanna skip class?” Sunset asked, a smirk widening on her face. “We can go around the back and smoke.”

Gilda blinked, surprise evident on her face for a moment before she started chuckling, a low and pleasantly warm sound that always cheered Sunset to hear.

“Sunset Shimmer, skippin’ class,” Gilda said with a laugh. “Ain’t even got Anon-A-Miss t’cover for ya, I really did ruin you, huh?”

“Oh yes,” Sunset replied dramatically as she threw a hand over her forehead. “Utterly ruined, am I! An irredeemable delinquent!”

Gilda snorted and laughed at the display as she glanced around the halls, noting that it was mostly empty, before getting behind Sunset’s chair and steering her not towards class but towards the back exit of the gym.

It was still cold outside, but not as bitterly so as it had been in the past months. Warmer days were starting to creep up on Canterlot, and while the snow persisted here and there, as it always did in the cold city, much of it was giving way to green grass and a few of the trees had started to show the first signs of the encroaching Spring season.

Sunset took a deep breath of the chilly air as Gilda pushed her chair over the lip of the doorway and outside. Her wheels crunched across the still frigid dirt and slush of the small pathway that rounded the perimeter of the gymnasium. It had been months since she and Gilda had taken this short route that had once been a daily walk for them.

Months since her accident, months since her friends abandoned her, months since Anon-A-Miss.

And yet so much had changed.

Not the junk-pile behind the gym, though. That thing was still as vile and persistent as parking lot snow, though Sunset noted pleasantly that the cold air and light dusting of rime that covered it muted its usual pungent odor as Gilda parked her nearby.

Gilda held out a pair of matches as Sunset pulled a cigarette free from her pocket and tucked it between her lips. A snap of sulfur later and an ember was burning merrily at the other end of the tube. Sunset took a deep breath, letting a slow smile drift across her face as she relaxed and looked up at the sky. The smoke lingered in her mouth for a moment before it was blown out in a light gray plume as Sunset looked to the side and watched Gilda doing the same; her cigarette tucked between her ring and middle finger as it always was.

Something about the way she held it always seemed very… cool, to Sunset. Enough so that Sunset held hers the same way. Holding her cigarette between her index and middle finger like most people did always felt a little snooty to her, she wasn’t sure why.

“You’ve been smoking a lot more lately,” Sunset said finally, as she took another drag, breathing out as Gilda glanced down at her with a raised eyebrow. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed how many packs you’ve gone through… including a few of mine.”

Gilda winced. “Sorry ‘bout that, Sunflower, ran out last time… I’ll grab ya a pack’r two next time I hit the store, savvy?”

Sunset just shook her head and chuckled. “I don’t care about the smokes, Gil, I mean… c’mon, how many have I bummed off of you since even before we started dating?”

“Uh… didn’t really keep count,” Gilda replied with a chuckle. “Why’s it matter?”

“Because you smoke when you’re stressed out,” Sunset said softly, “and when you’re thinking deeply about something… and when you’re worried… and because it’s… it’s not good for you. The stress or the smoke, I mean.”

Gilda was silent for several moments as she blew out a soft plume of smoke.

“Guess I do, huh?” Gilda said finally. “But I figure I got a lot t’be worried about lately, Sunshine.”

“I know,” Sunset said quietly. “Or… I guess, I don’t know like you do… but I know you know and I trust you. I know you’re just worried for me.”

“Worried ‘bout a lot of things, Sunflower,” Gilda replied tersely. “My pops ain’t just bad news, he’s the fuckin’ worst news.”

“Yeah,” Sunset agreed, pulling her cigarette free and knocking some of the ashes onto the snowy ground. “And I don’t blame you at all for stressing over it, savvy?”

Gilda just nodded silently, taking another drag and exhaling as she stared up at the snowy, gray sky.

Despite what some people thought, and what Gilda herself professed, Sunset knew that Gilda thought deeply about quite a few matters. Mostly practical ones, true, but that didn’t make them any less noteworthy.

“He’s a real monster, y’know?” Gilda said after a moment

Sunset looked up at Gilda as she stared off into the distance. There was something unnameable in her eyes, something that made Sunset shiver in a manner that had nothing to do with how cold it was outside. Gilda dropped the cigarette and stamped it out before kicking the dreg into the junk pile and pulling another one free of her pack to fix it between her lips.

She didn’t light it though.

“Y’know… ol’ pops, he had a rule, right?” Gilda said after several moments of quiet. “Hell, that old bastard had a lotta rules, a few good ones, I guess, but he had some real fucked up ones, too, savvy?”

It was phrased like a question, but Sunset got the distinct feeling that Gilda wasn’t really expecting an answer. She nodded along anyway, if nothing else to show she was listening and following along.

“He had this one rule, one you stopped me from obeyin’ once,” Gilda said as she shifted around, drawing out two matches and striking them, lifting them to light the cigarette that was dangling from her lips. “He said t’me: ‘Gilda, whoever hits you, you hit’em ten times that hard’, right? And so I asked’im why, right? And y’know what he said?”

Sunset shook her head, and a part of her didn’t want to know.

“Ol’ pops said t’me, ‘you talk to enough folks and you’ll figure out that some folks learn slow, and some folks learn fast’, and that seemed right t’me, yeah?” Gilda said, pulling the cigarette free and glaring hatefully at the ember as her hand hand tightened into a fist around the smouldering tube. “But he wasn’t done, and he told me: ‘but all folks learn fast if ya hit’em hard enough’, and the funny thing is… that seemed right t’me too.”

“Score…” Sunset said, feeling a stony weight settle in her gut. “That afternoon at the skate park, when he made fun of you and you were going to…”

“Hurt’im,” Gilda said grimly. “I was gonna hurt’im real bad… he’d get better, it’d take time, yeah? But he’d get better… I wasn’t that much like my pops.”

“And it would have been wrong!” Sunset said, her voice rising in pitch as she turned to face Gilda.

Gilda stared into the distance wearing a look on her face that Sunset didn’t like one bit.

“You sure ‘bout that, Sunflower?”

Sunset blinked in surprise at the question. “W-What?”

“I think about that day a lot, y’know?” Gilda continued, glancing down to look at Sunset. “If I’da kept t’my rule, right? If I’d taught that little shit a lesson like I ought’ve, then he sure as fuck wouldn’t’ve been in any shape t’tell the Dogs ‘bout where you lived, savvy?”

“Gilda-”

“You’da never been in that accident, you’da never been hurt,” Gilda kept talking, strain showing on her face as she grit her teeth. “You’da never had t’fight f’your life on a fuckin’ operating table, you’da never had to worry about givin’ up your life on the other side’a that portal!”

Tears were slipping down Gilda's cheeks as she ranted, slamming her fist into the cold masonry wall behind her, making Sunset leap slightly in her chair.

“All I had t’do was be the good little soldier my pops taught me t’be, and I could’a kept you safe, Sunshine!” Gilda snapped, turning to stare down at Sunset who felt her heart almost stop at the look of torment that was twisting Gilda’s face. “I never told ya back then… ‘cause… ‘cause how could I tell ya about my pops? About me? About all the folks I hurt doin’ the shit he told me to do?”

“What do you mean?” Sunset said in a voice that was little more than a whisper.

“I told ya, Sunflower,” Gilda replied. “When my pops told me t’do somethin’, it got done; everything from pickin’ pockets, to taggin’, to breakin’ arms’n legs…” some of the pain and rage went out of Gilda at that, but it was replaced with a hollow smile and a weariness that was almost worse to Sunset’s eyes. “Heh… always was big f’my age, y’know? Bigger’n the other gangs’ runners… faster too, and I knew the city better. I’d really fuck up their newbies, savvy? All t’send a message from th’King.”

“Gilda please,” Sunset sobbed, her cigarette hung forgotten from her lips. “It wasn’t your fault!” she cried, “the crap your foster father made you do? That wasn’t your fault! My legs sure as hell weren’t your fault!”

“Except they fuckin’ were!” Gilda roared, and Sunset paled at the sound, except this time Gilda didn’t see it. Her temper was well and truly lost. “Don’t you fuckin’ get it, Sunshine!? I could’ve stopped it! I could’ve saved you! I could’a fuckin’ done it!”

Sunset was shaking, scrabbling for a grip on her wheels as she reflexively tried to back away.

“Do you know how it feels?!” Gilda snarled, advancing on Sunset, stomping through the detritus and stained snow. “Do you know how it feels t’know that fuckin’ monster was actually right?!”

Gilda’s voice echoed and left a brutal silence in its place, punctured only by the intermittent sounds of Sunset’s sobs. She had long since stopped trying to get away and was now pulling away, her face hidden behind her hair as Sunset clamped her hands over her ears, pulling the headphones she’d gotten for Christmas over her ears to try and blot out the sound of yelling. Gilda blinked as the red haze that had covered her vision faded and the deafening, pounding thunder in her ears died away. Her breath came in short gasps as she stared down at the hyperventilating mess that Sunset had become, and suddenly it was Gilda who was shaking as she lifted her hands to her mouth.

“Oh… fuck,” Gilda mumbled. “S-Sunshine, I’m… I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”

Sunset didn’t reply, still shaking and muttering unintelligibly under her breath. Gilda felt a creeping numbness in her body, as if it had betrayed her, but she knew that was a lie. Nothing had betrayed her, nothing had made her lose control, and nothing had made her yell at the love of her life. Gilda had just done the same thing she always did when she lost control; she got mad and she lashed out, and with the stress of Storm’s freedom weighing on her mind it had hit her with double the force.

And Sunset was paying for it.

Kneeling in the filthy snow, Gilda scooted closer to Sunset, unable to keep herself from hiccuping a sob out.

“S-Sunflower? H-Hey, I’m sorry,” Gilda said in the lowest, most gentle whisper possible. “I didn’t… I… I’m sorry…”

Slowly, painfully slowly, Sunset lowered her hands, pulling the headphones down a little as she stared at Gilda with wide eyes. Gilda felt like her heart was being carved out at the look of fear in them. It was everything she’d sworn she’d never wanted… that look of fear, that terror that Gilda had always had of her foster father. Storm’s temper was at least as bad as her own and he always took it out on everything but the kids.

Dishes, furniture, windows… whatever was nearby would feel the weight of his anger.

With uneasy, shuffling movements, Gilda shrugged her bomber jacket off and brought it around to wrap around Sunset who started slightly at the touch, only to settle down after a moment as the warm, heavy weight of the leather jacket settled onto her shoulders.

Once the jacket was fixed onto her, Gilda raised a hand up to cradle Sunset’s cheek, wiping her thumb under her eye to brush away the frosty tears that had accumulated there, hardened by the frigid winter air, and after a moment, Sunset turned slightly to brush her lips against Gilda’s palm.

“I’m sorry…” Gilda whispered again. She would say it as many times as she needed to, she would do whatever she needed to if it meant making it right.

“I know,” Sunset said in a cracked voice. “But… please… I… I know you know how I am about… about yelling, and shouting, and… and when people get angry like that… all I can think is that they’re about to start hurting me.”

Gilda nodded, she did know.

Ever since Anon-A-Miss it had been an issue. Sunset would get ambushed out of nowhere with people yelling at her, sometimes hitting her as well, and Gilda had seen her more than once with a bloody nose or a black eye back then, something that had never failed to make her blood boil. It was why Gilda had worked so hard to convince Sunset to skip classes as much as she herself did and, honestly, it was probably also the reason her argument worked.

Sagging, kneeling in the grime and snow, Gilda wrapped her arms around herself and nodded, tears trickling down her cheeks to drop and stain her jeans.

“I know,” Gilda said in a voice twisted by tears. “M’sorry, Sunshine… I didn’t… ah fuck, it doesn’t fuckin’ matter…”

The slight crunch of the snow underneath Sunset’s wheels heralded her moving a little closer to Gilda as she reached out and pulled the kneeling girl inward. Gilda let her, settling her head on Sunset’s lap as Sunset idly stroked Gilda’s hair.

“I forgive you,” Sunset said in a quiet voice after a few moments. “I… I’m pretty sure I’ll always forgive you, Gil.”

“That ain’t necessarily a good thing,” Gilda said in a muffled voice from where she was pressing her face against the blankets covering Sunset’s legs.

“No… I know,” Sunset replied. “But… I trust you, too… to know what it means to know that I’ll pretty much always forgive you… so I guess what I really mean is that I trust you to never take advantage of that, savvy?”

“What if I do?”

Sunset just shook her head. She honestly wasn’t sure… she didn’t think Gilda would ever take advantage of her trust like that. She couldn’t even imagine it. Gilda was so… good.

“Would you ever betray my trust on purpose?” Sunset asked quietly.

Gilda tensed before looking up from where she was kneeling, wiping away at the tears in her eyes angrily. “Not in a million fuckin’ years, Sunflower,” she hissed. “I swear t’God I’d never-”

“That’s why,” Sunset cut in. “That’s why I trust you… remember? I told you we’d hurt each other sometimes…”

“I never wanna hurt you, Sunshine,” Gilda sobbed. “It fuckin’ kills me when I- when I… just… screw up like this.”

Sunset could only shrug. “I screw up too,” she said, “we all do… but I want to be with you forever, Gil, so… I’m willing to live through a few screw ups if you are.”

Gilda blinked away the tears in her eyes and nodded as she stood, dusting off the grime and grit from her knees before leaning in.

Sunset had been expecting a kiss, but what she got was Gilda scooping her bodily up and out of her seat. Sunset let out a yelp of surprise as Gilda pulled her close and turned to sit down in Sunset’s chair with Sunset planted firmly crosswise in her lap, the blankets covering them both and Gilda’s jacket pulled warmly around Sunset’s shoulders.

Once she was over her surprise, Sunset sighed happily and settled into Gilda’s embrace, letting her head rest in the crook of Gilda’s shoulder, and for a moment she let the world melt away. There was nothing but Gilda’s incredibly warm embrace, the soft, leather-and-oil scent that saturated her jacket, and the crisp winter air.

“I’m scared, Sunshine,” Gilda whispered in a voice so quiet that Sunset almost thought she’d imagined it. “It’s… fuckin’ crazy how scared I am, f’real…”

“Why?” Sunset asked, looking up to stare at Gilda’s face.

The gray light of the dim, cloudy afternoon held a pleasing contrast to the profile of Gilda’s features as she stared outwards towards nothing. No, not nothing… towards Storm.

“Because ya don’t get it,” Gilda replied. “My pops… he’ll never swing at me… but he’ll take a sledgehammer to every single goddamn thing I care about if he wants to teach me a lesson.” Sunset felt Gilda tense as she spoke. “He’ll go after my friends… my home… my family… savvy? Because he always said: ‘proper fighters’ll keep their heads when you swing at’em, but nothing makes’em madder’n swinging at what they keep close’, and I’ve seen’im do it.”

“Gil, that’s…” Sunset felt her stomach twist at the casual way Storm must have approached hurting people.

‘Horrible?’ Sunset thought darkly, she knew it was, of course. Objectively she knew it was horrible, but… ‘Not long ago I wonder if I would have agreed with him, though.’

Sunset shivered violently at that thought, her stomach twisting at the notion that she was anything like the man who had taken a beautiful person like Gilda and broken her until she was exactly the way he wanted her.

Except… isn’t that exactly what she had done to the school? Taken every inconvenient friendship, every social group that didn’t conform to her needs, and violently tore it apart and stitched it into something more suitable? Even if she hadn’t gone as far, physically, as Storm King had during his tenure as leader of Gilda’s gang family hadn’t Sunset followed a strikingly similar set of rules?

“H-Hey, Gil?” Sunset said in a subdued voice. “I’m… I’m not like him right?”

Gilda looked down in confusion for a moment, and her eyes widened at the look of stark terror on Sunset’s face. “The fuck’re you talkin’ about, Sunshine?”

“Storm,” Sunset replied. “Am… am I like him? The way I was… I think I used to be just like him, writ small maybe, but… I’ve changed right?”

Sunset looked up at Gilda shaking. “I’m not like that anymore, right?”

Gilda felt her gut clench at the desperation in Sunset’s voice. “No, fuck no you ain’t like him,” Gilda insisted, setting her hands on Sunset’s cheeks and pulling her close until their foreheads were touching and she was staring into Sunset’s beautiful teal eyes. “Even if you were, even you used t’be like’im? Fuck that, you got better a’right? Just like I did, right? I ain’t who I was back then, and you ain’t either, savvy?”

Sunset nodded furiously, shaking in Gilda’s arms as she wrapped herself around the bigger girl and did her absolute best to push those thoughts, those comparisons, out of her mind.

“I’m uh, I’m gonna need you to tell me that a few times, okay?” Sunset said in a tiny voice. “Because… I don’t really believe it yet, I’m sorry.”

“S’okay, Sunflower,” Gilda replied. “I’ll tell ya as many times as ya need an’ then some, a’right?”

“Thank you,” Sunset sobbed quietly.

The rest of the day passed quickly, but none of the girls’ other friends failed to notice how subdued both Sunset and Gilda were after getting out of classes. Moreover, they stuck beside one another like with something akin to panic, as if they were afraid the other would disappear if they left each other's’ sight.

Octavia frowned, not certain how to bring up the matter without stepping on toes, and Vinyl was in a similar state.

“Some friend I am,” Octavia mumbled as she trotted down the front steps of the school towards the buses with Vinyl in tow. “I’m hardly any help at all, am I?”

Vinyl shrugged as Octavia glanced back at her. ‘It’s not like I’ve got any bright ideas,’ she signed back to the prim cellist.

Sighing, Octavia adjusted the strap on her cello where it had begun to dig into her shoulder and kept walking.

“With the best will in the world,” Octavia began, “there are days I truly wish I had Adagio’s complete lack of care for what others might think.”

Vinyl stopped as a thought occurred to her, and a moment later reached out and grabbed Octavia by the shoulder. Octavia turned to regard Vinyl with a raised eyebrow as the mute girl smiled and tapped a spot just below her collarbone. A slight, metal ringing sound could be heard where her fingernail impacted the covered necklace.

Octavia grinned widely. “I’m a fool,” she chuckled. “In fairness, though, I’m not used to having so many friends, am I?”

Pulling out her phone, she opened her contacts and sought out the name that, a month ago, she would never have imagined would have had a place in her ‘Favorite Contacts’ folder.

Adagio Dazzle, leader of the Sirens, defunct though they were as a singing group (mostly), had proven very quickly to be someone that Octavia found herself warming to. It wasn’t just her sense of style or highborn attitude, those were things she was used to seeing after moving in the same social circles as her parents.

No, it was Adagio’s wit; dry and caustic, with a tongue that was easily as barbed as Octavia’s own. It was the way she would talk about events hundreds of years in the past as if they were yesterday.

Octavia had lost an entire day at the Dazzling’s home in the Heights last weekend, which ironically lay not more than a twenty minute walk from her own house, just listening to Adagio talk about her time spent in the Speakeasy’s of Fillydelphia where she had sung for almost two years before moving on, and how the three of them had sung on the opening night of the Bolshoi in Stalliongrad.

It was the way that music was more than just an act or a sound, it was a way of life and reason for living. Vinyl saw music as a rollercoaster of progression; almost like a science and art combined, but for Octavia it was so much more alive, and she found that Adagio, of all people, shared that sentiment precisely.

//Hello, little cellist,// Adagio’s low, sultry voice never failed to make Octavia shiver a little. //How were classes?//

Octavia knew that Adagio didn’t mean anything serious by it, the Siren was naturally flirtatious and both she and Vinyl were well aware of it. There was something in her tone, in the lilt of her voice, in the natural huskiness and the slight way she carried the cadence of her sentence that made you feel special just because she was talking to you. It didn’t stop Octavia from blushing more often than not.

“Classes were just fine, Momdagio,” Octavia replied with a small laugh. “How was your day, dear?”

//Grueling,// Adagio groaned dramatically.

“You mean boring?” Octavia replied with a small laugh as she and Vinyl began to board the bus.

Adagio’s musical laughter rang across the line. //Same thing, my dear, I thrive on dynamism… I can’t abide boredom.//

“Something tells me we’ll be getting very little boredom in the next few weeks,” Octavia replied, her voice taking on a softer, more subdued tone.

All of the Element Bearers, as Sunset had called them, were informed immediately of the news that Storm King, a former ganglord and death-row inmate of San Tornado, had broken free several nights ago. More importantly to the lot of them was that Sunset and Gilda had personally witnessed his usage of true magic.

That, of course, had led to a much longer-winded explanation of why they had seen and spoken to someone like Storm. Octavia had heard snippets and pieces of Gilda’s past, but even she couldn’t have imagined that the tall, gruff girl had spent her formative years in a gang like the Kings.

Especially not after seeing how gentle she was with Sunset.

Gilda hadn’t gone into precise detail about what Storm was like, but it didn’t take a mind-reader to see the kind of damage he was capable of inflicting. Aside from the fact that he was on death row, which spoke volumes of how utterly dangerous he must be on its own, seeing first hand the effect he had on the normally fearless and belligerent girl that Octavia had gone to school with for years was a sobering first-hand experience in and of itself.

//Far from the worst I’ve seen, trust me,// Adagio assured Octavia in a calming voice. //Now I assume you were calling for a reason, not that I don’t appreciate hearing from you.//

“Is it awful of me?” Octavia asked quietly, curling up on the seat of the bus and lowering her voice so the rest of the students couldn’t hear, with only Vinyl close enough to make out what she was saying. “There’s something wrong with Sunset and Gilda, they’re… upset. And I’m lost on what to do about it, so…”

//Passing the buck, are we?// Adagio laughed from across town.

“Don’t say it like that,” Octavia grumbled. “I feel bad enough already that I can’t do anything myself. I really don’t know what to say.”

//I’ll find some time to talk to them,// Adagio promised, her mirth turning warmer as it usually did when it came to looking after the small group that had adopted her and her sisters and, in turn, been adopted by them. //I’ll see what I can see, I promise nothing, though… those two are stubborn.//

“Thank you,” Octavia said softly. “I truly appreciate it.”

Octavia could hear the smile in Adagio’s words as she replied.

//Of course, what are friends for?//

Adagio scowled as she hung up on Octavia, leaning back in her favorite chair and trying to relax as she considered the problem she’d just been handed.

If she were being honest with herself, Adagio couldn’t say she was surprised that Sunset and Gilda were on edge. Octavia seemed worried but the truth was that Adagio would have been surprised if those two hadn’t been worried or stressed. Over a millennium on this world had taught Adagio and her sisters in no uncertain terms how brutal the human race could be, especially the willfully wicked ones.

There were those who chose acts of evil because there were no other choices beyond death, and there were those who chose evil in spite of better choices laid before them. The latter among the human race almost always ended up being spectacularly dangerous examples of the breed, in Adagio’s experience.

It was why she had tasked her younger sister with pursuing whatever information she could find about the man called ‘Storm King’.

Adagio rose from where she had been reclined on her seat in the living room and made her way upstairs. The house was quiet, as it usually was when Aria wasn’t at home, and once upon a time Adagio had found that silence peaceful.

Now it was almost annoying.

A part of the elder siren actually wished she could hear the metronomic thumps of Aria beating on the hanging punching bag in the garage. The deep and steady beat of fist against fabric that was once a source of irritation was now a sound that brought her immeasurable comfort. It meant that Aria was home, that she was safe and sound, and that she was only a shout away if she needed something or if anyone else needed her.

More and more Adagio was finding that she rather liked the idea of having a noisy home, something that would have raised the hackles of her old self.

“Knock knock,” Adagio said playfully as she leaned on the threshold of the office she shared with Sonata. “Any luck?”

Sonata looked up from her computer and scowled, her ice-blue hair hanging unkempt around her face in a chaotic frame. Adagio reflected idly for a moment on how almost anything Sonata did could come off as endearing or cute, and how unfair it was that she seemed to be able to do so entirely by accident.

“Other than gigabytes of irrelevant police reports and forensic documents?” Sonata huffed. “Not really.”

“He was adopting children, though,” Adagio said, narrowing her eyes as she entered the room. “How could he have managed that without a paper trail?”

“He didn’t,” Sonata grumbled. “He just faked like, ninety-nine point nine percent of the information. Every single thing I try to turn up off of the foster documents leads to a dead end,” Adagio looked surprised as she could feel the anger coming off her normally placid sister in waves, “in some places all it would have taken was a phone call to figure out that this guy wasn’t on the level! And they were just giving him kids!”

Adagio's face fell. “This world is much crueler than the one we left, ‘Nata, you know that better than most.”

Sonata shuddered for a moment, tasting a faint tang of copper for a moment before nodding. “I know but… but they’re kids! And… people have gotten better, right, ‘Dagi? Humans? They’re getting better, right?”

“Slowly,” Adagio said softly. “But they’re short-lived, and very forgetful… and it’s always easier to forget than to learn.”

“It’s just…” Sonata trailed off for a moment, looking dismal, “...it’s like they didn’t even care where they were sending the kids, you know?”

Shrugging, Adagio settled into her own chair and sighed. “Maybe they didn’t,” she replied. “Maybe those children were just one more task in a long day of tasks… either way, if it’s a dead end it’s a dead end.”

“Children are never just a task,” Sonata mumbled angrily. “Fine, so the foster system is a bust in more ways than one,” she muttered the last few words under her breath, “so now what?”

“Now?” Adagio sighed. “Now we look at Gilda… or more specifically we look at her family…”

Sonata nodded and fished around for a file for several minutes before finally retrieving it and pulling the papers open. “Gilda Grimfeather, age eighteen, daughter of Grendel and Drusella Grimfeather, third generation immigrant, sister to Grizelda Grimfeather…”

“Grizelda,” Adagio repeated the name as she steepled her fingers and focused on a point in the distance, her mind wheeling through possibilities and ideas. “According to Gilda, her sister was supposedly killed by Storm in retribution for his subordinates’ betrayal, but she recently discovered that to be a lie.”

“Pre~tty smart,” Sonata sang, though her voice was almost metallic with bitterness. “No one looks for a dead girl, so she could keep doing whatever he wanted her to do.”

“Which was…?”

Sonata slumped. “I have no freaking idea.”

“Really?” Adagio raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Nothing?”

“Okay, so… remember when Gilda was telling us about her?” Sonata said with a nervous laugh. “She said that her sister was crazy, crazy smart?”

“I recall,” Adagio replied carefully.

Sonata let out a slow breath. “That… was an understatement.”

“How so?”

“Because trying to find information on this girl is like trying to find a specific piece of hay in a haystack that’s hidden in another, bigger haystack!” Sonata griped.

“That’s not the hardest thing you’ve done, though,” Adagio said hopefully, “what’s stopping you now?”

“What’s stopping me?!” Sonata asked, her voice becoming a little unhinged. “What’s stopping me is that whenever I actually manage to find the piece of hay it’s always BOOBY-TRAPPED!”

For a moment, Sonata seemed to collapse into her chair, all of the wind going out of her as she frowned and stared dejectedly at the three monitor setup of her rig. After a moment of silent staring Sonata let out an inchoate groan of frustration as she clapped her hands over her face.

“I’ve had to reformat my computer seven times in the last four days,” Sonata said with a hint of annoyance and wounded pride. “Every time I find something even tangentially related I also find a custom-written version of the Storm Worm virus, ironically… and each one is different so my firewall upgrades do nothing! NOTHING!”

“I… only followed about half of that,” Adagio admitted with a dry chuckle.

“Nevermind, just…” Sonata slumped against her desk, looking hopeless. “I haven’t found anything, other than confirmation that Gilda’s little sister is better at covering her tracks online than I am at uncovering them.”

Standing from her desk, Adagio stepped around the setup to set a hand on her younger sister’s shoulder.

“Don’t give up, ‘Nata,” Adagio said softly. “We were there when personal computers were invented, I know you can best this stripling, alright?”

Sonata groaned, her face still planted firmly on the desk. After a moment she gave a small nod and raised one hand in a half-hearted thumbs-up.

“Good,” Adagio said with a grin as she stepped back, hooking her fingers together and stretching, relishing the pops and her shoulders. “In the meantime, I think I’m going to go downtown and speak with Aria, maybe we’ve been looking at this the wrong way.”

“Huh?” Sonata looked up at Adagio with bright eyes. “What do you mean?”

“We may have been alive to see the creation of the computer,” Adagio said with a cheshire grin, “but we dealt in rumors and hearsay long before the internet was even a flicker of an idea in the collective unconscious of mankind.” Turning to head out, Adagio tossed a look over her shoulder at Sonata. “Sometimes, the old ways work best, dear sister.”

Striding quickly down the stairs, Adagio reached the lower landing and made her way out to the garage, grabbing her shoes and plush, purple parka as she did. Sidling into the driver’s seat of her car, she wrinkled her nose at the smell of sweat that pervaded the decently sized garage and left herself a mental note to get Aria to let some air in after she finished working out next time. Sliding the key in and turning it, Adagio grinned at the guttural growl made by her vehicle of choice: a cherry red, Alfalfa Romeo Spider. Not the most reliable vehicle on the road by any stretch, but the sound… the feel… even the simple curve of the bodywork gave her the shivers.

Reliability could occasionally, or frequently, take a backseat to aesthetics.

Adagio grinned as she got out of the driveway and began making her way through the twisting, sloped roads that crisscrossed through the neighborhood of the Heights like thin, anemic veins. It was a large area, though there were few houses. In Adagio’s experience it was the humans with the littlest need for it that took up the most space. Huge yards and enormous spans of acreage that could have potentially alleviated the suffering of hundreds, or more, if managed into housing, was instead kept for its viewing pleasure.

Which was all well and good up until some enterprising Prenchman invented the guillotine. Whatever her critics might say, Adagio staunchly held that that whole ‘revolution’ business had nothing to do with her and her sisters.

Sometimes humans just got mad; who knew mass starvation would be so unpopular?

Once out of the stiflingly narrow streets and avenues of the Heights and onto the freeway heading into the city proper Adagio really let the compact engine open up. The low, throaty growl of the one-point-seven litre engine hummed delightedly, and it reminded Adagio briefly of her old home, of the domesticated sharkwolves her people had kept as a combination of guards and companions.

Those fearsome beasts with their thick, sleek fur, not unlike this world’s otters, that covered thick hides of interlocking scales. The combination of dense fur and angled scale made the creatures damnably hard to kill with conventional weapons. Pikes and harpoons would more often than not turn badly on impact, spoiled by the angle of the scale or catching in its salt-soaked mat of fur.

And oh how they growled, their deep, basso thrum that vibrated the dark oceanic depths of Coltlantis. Like most sounds in the deeps you would feel it as much as hear it, tactile as much as it was audible, which was probably why the engines thrum reminded Adagio of it so much; especially when they were let out for a hunt.

A song played over the radio as Adagio passed by the towering office buildings and commercial department stores of Canterlot’s lively downtown district; a nostalgic, earthy tune that reminded Adagio of older days in Brayton, during the war especially, and the gangs of men who would sing in their low, groaning voices as they hauled and hammered, heaved and mined, all to fuel the great engine of conflict while simultaneously protecting their home.

It was something you noticed, being immortal, and Adagio had realised long ago: history had a tendency to repeat itself in the oddest ways. Not always in dramatic flourishes, but sometimes in the smaller, subtler things like the cadence of a tune or the precise shade or cut of a dress.

Adagio’s musings were cut short as she pulled off the freeway and into the gridlock, stop-and-go traffic of downtown in the afternoon. It took far too long, in Adagio’s opinion, but she eventually made her way to the parking garage nearest Aria’s gym where she spent most of her day.

Jackhammer’s was the name of the place, a simple and brutish name that suggested that one would find precisely what one expected inside. It was a squat, two-story building with a sizeable basement level; the first floor was a public gym, given over entirely to banks of treadmills, stationary cycles, free weights, benches, barbells, and multiple contraptions with complex arrangements of cables and pulleys.

Adagio walked past all of it as she entered the gym, waving at the twenty-something girl at the front desk as she headed towards the staircase leading to the second floor. The clerk, a college student from Hollow Shades named Night Willow waved back. Adagio, like the rest of her sisters, had a VIP pass that gave her access to any level of the gym at any time, renewed annually, courtesy of Aria, although she knew for a fact Sonata had never once used hers.

Briefly, Adagio added another mental note to consider offering Sonata’s pass to Sunset; the redhead would probably get far more use out of it than Sonata.

Going up the stairs to the second floor, Adagio couldn’t help the slight smile that tugged at the edges of her mouth as she heard the familiar thunder of fists striking a thickly padded punching bag.

The upper level of Jackhammer’s was for specialised training; it consisted mainly of blue, padded mats sectioned off from one another by thick cords of knotted rope. The areas that weren’t given over to practice rings were occupied by varieties of punching bags and other combat-training paraphernalia. The number of people training currently was low, and Adagio quickly spotted her quarry with a flash of purple hair near the east corner.

Aria moved like a whirlwind of calculated violence; every motion was liquid as she flowed from punch to elbow strike, only to twist and pivot with blinding speed, moving like a wheel to strike with the back of her other elbow and follow up with a final blow from the back of her hand. The continuous motion sent the punching bag swinging hard, and Aria ducked and wove around it as it barreled past her to and fro. She lashed out with her fists as it passed, one-two punches hammered into the lower middle of the bag that would’ve been devastating gut-blows to a human being.

Ever since Sunset and the Rainbooms had purged them of their dark magic, all three of them had been feeling better, and not just emotionally. They felt healthier, more energetic, more awake even. Adagio silently likened it to being suddenly lifted from the depths of addiction, and that wasn’t far from the truth, she knew.

Dark magic was as powerful as it was dangerous, and it eroded the body as much as the mind if used in excess. Their old forms had been built to handle it, obviously; Sirens had been utilizing their special brand of dark magic for millennia, but human body’s just weren’t built for it. Adagio suspected it was only the eternal youth spell in their gems that had kept them even moderately stable.

“Sister dear,” Adagio called from across the gym with a sarcastic lilt to her voice.

Aria stumbled in surprise, taking a light blow from the backswing of the punching bag across the dome and sending her to the ground with the weight of it.

“Shit!” Aria swore as she massaged the back of her head, and Adagio laughed as she approached, her mellifluous voice drawing the eyes of the few patrons in the room. “Can you fuckity-not do that while I’m in the middle of my routine, ‘Dagi?”

“And miss an opportunity?” Adagio asked with a light chuckle as she extended a hand to her sister. “Not on your life, sister.”

“Right, silly me,” Aria grumbled as she gripped Adagio’s hand and pulled herself up. “So what’s the deal? There a reason you’re all the way out here?”

Adagio shrugged. “I can’t just visit my beloved sister while she’s working?”

Aria grimaced at the perfect pout of Adagio’s lips. It was a look that could start wars. She would know, she’d seen it happen.

“You could,” Aria replied with a wry, cocked smile, “but we’ve literally been together for centuries and I can tell there’s something bugging you, ‘Dagi.”

One downside to having sisters, especially ones you’d been joined at the hip to for longer than the lifespan of whole civilizations, was that you couldn’t hide a single goddamn thing from them, Adagio mused.

“Fine, fair enough,” Adagio replied. “Sonata hasn’t had any luck tracking down Gilda’s mystery sister and I was hoping you might be able to go poking around your haunts and see if you can’t dig something up the old fashioned way.”

“Friends in low places?” Aria asked with a smirk. “I always did have more of those than you.”

“Not all of us can slum with the gutter rats, sister dearest,” Adagio sneered, but the venom that might have been evident in her face and tone a year ago was absent, replaced with playful mischief. “Besides, we’re working from almost nothing so I’ll take what I can get.”

“Fine, O’ Spymistress,” Aria replied, bowing dramatically. “I’ll kick some rat-holes and see what scurries out.”

“That’s all I ask, Ari’,” Adagio said in a much softer voice, before stepping in to embrace her sister.

Aria cringed and chuckled nervously. “Aw, c’mon ‘Dagi, I’m all sweaty.”

“You’re my sister, I don’t care,” Adagio said quietly as she pulled Aria close.

Sighing, Aria relaxed and returned the hug. “What’s gotten into you, ‘Dagi?”

Adagio shook her head. “I’m not sure, I’m just… scared, I think… worried.”

“The great Adagio Dazzle? Worried?” Aria asked with a laugh. “That’d be a first.”

Adagio didn’t respond, instead burying her face against Aria’s shoulder and tightening her grip. Aria blinked in surprise but accepted it and stood still as Adagio held onto her as if she would slip away at a moment’s notice.

“There’s something coming, Ari’,” Adagio whispered in a voice so low that Aria nearly missed it. “I can taste it, like a tropical monsoon, or a great thunderhead… it feels like I’m on a boat at sea and all the skies are growing dark…”

“We’ve weathered worse,” Aria replied easily.

Adagio shook her head. “That’s just it, I’m not sure we have… this time feels different and I can’t properly account for why that is. It feels almost… familiar.” Shuddering, Adagio squeezed Aria tightly for a moment before letting go and stepping back. “I can’t lose either of you, Ari’,” she said in a voice that betrayed more weakness than Aria could remember hearing in ages. “If I lost you… or ‘Nata? I don’t know if I’d live through something like that.”

Aria gave her sister a smile that was softer than usual, a tilt of her lips that crinkled around her eyes.

“We’ll be fine, ‘Dagi,” Aria replied. “You’re an Element of Harmony, now,” she prodded the gleaming gem at her sister’s throat. “If we ever get in trouble you’ll just fire the Friendship Cannon at it, right?”

“I’m not sure that’s how it works,” Adagio said with an uneasy laugh. “I’m not even sure it will work with a Siren in the midst of it all.”

“You’ll be fine, ‘Dagi,” Aria insisted. “And besides, it’s not like ‘Nata and I are helpless.”

“No… I know,” Adagio replied, wrapping her arms around herself. “But I can’t help it… I worry about you two… you’re all I’ve got.”

Aria grinned. “Not anymore, sis, we’re not alone anymore, remember?”

Adagio blinked, surprise catching her breath in her throat. Unconsciously, her eyes darted down to the pocket of her coat where her phone was. Memories of afternoons spent with Octavia and Vinyl, singing alongside Sunset and Penny, and her frank, honest talks with Gilda.

“Right…” Adagio said after a moment. “I suppose that will take some getting used to, but still… promise me you’ll be careful?”

“I’ll be careful,” Aria promised, her smirk never leaving her face. “I’ll see what I can dig up later, alright?”

Nodding, Adagio leaned in to peck her sister on the cheek, which Aria returned, before turning away to head back towards the exit. She had only made it halfway, though, before Aria called out for her.

“Oh, hey, wait!”

Adagio turned to see Aria running up to her, gripping a few slips of paper in her hand.

“Here,” Aria handed them off to Adagio who took them and held them up for inspection. “I promised Sunset and the others tickets to my next bout, it’s in a week so pass’em off for me, will ya?”

“I see,” Adagio said with a smirk, “I’ll do that, then, I was meaning to talk to them anyway, I’ll see you at home, Ari’.”

Aria just nodded, waving her off before returning to her place at the punching bag.

As Adagio went down the stairs the familiar beat of fists on fabric resumed. She truly hoped Aria would be careful like she promised. This man, this Storm King, was a practiced and capable criminal, one who had maintained a brutally efficient organisation for years, and Adagio had no illusions that he wasn’t likely sinking his claws into Canterlot’s underbelly already.

Adagio could only hope that when Aria kicked the rat-holes, all that emerged was rats.

Sunset lay awake in bed, staring blankly into the corner of the apartment as Gilda breathed peacefully behind her. Gilda’s arms were wrapped comfortably around her, holding her tightly as she always did in the night. Sunset let her fingers trail over Gilda’s knuckles and fingers where her hands rested easy over her shoulders and waist. Every inch of Gilda was pressed up against Sunset, keeping her warmer than the blankets that covered them, and it was only here that Sunset felt truly relaxed.

Gilda had her face buried half into Sunset’s red and gold locks, and her breath occasionally tickled the smaller girl’s scalp as she slept. Reaching a hand up, Sunset slid her fingers through her hair to touch the small pin hidden amongst the colorful strands. It was a basic hairpin, one worked with a simple, decorative agate. One that no one would look twice at as more than a piece of cheap ornamentation.

Which was good, since that meant no one would see the rune that Sunset had carefully etched onto it.

A Slumbernot rune; nice and straightforward magic and one of the few examples of the runic arts that any student at any Equestrian University would be passingly familiar with.

Need to stay awake to cram for finals? Stayed up too late at that party? Slumbernot was a student's best friend and worst enemy depending on how much they used it.

Regardless of side-effect, if they could afford it most students and even most professors would have one on hand just in case. They only lasted a day or so before needing a recharge, which usually took hours of dedicated time from a unicorn or a few days to passively restore itself from the ambient field.

Or, if they were clever, they could make it continuous by working in a thaumic funnel that actively collected particles in the atmosphere, essentially recharging the Slumbernot rune as it depleted itself, creating a self-sustaining energy loop.

That neat trick had been what allowed Sunset to use one on herself continuously for almost three days.

She hadn’t told anyone, and only ever confessed to Twilight that she had slept very little. She couldn’t sleep though, because when she did… she dreamt.

Closing her eyes, Sunset tried to banish the mental images of lightning and the sound of thunder. She couldn’t do it… she couldn’t keep dreaming of Gilda like that… being chased, being caught… being…

Sunset tightened her grip around Gilda’s hands and nestled herself deeper into her girlfriend’s embrace, pulling the covers over them a little more before settling back into her facsimile of rest.

That was, of course, the issue with Slumbernot… it kept you awake, kept you alert… but it didn’t let you rest.

She knew the dangers of prolonged use; Slumbernot was perfectly benign in moderation but after enough time it would start having… side effects.

Sunset resolved to start in on cobbling together some runes to deal with those tomorrow.

Turning slightly, Sunset rotated in place until she was facing Gilda, her eyes tracing over the soft, delicate lines of the sleeping girl’s face.

Gilda was so beautiful.

Her sharp, aquiline nose along with her high cheekbones and defined jawline that were offset by the soft edges of her eyes and the fullness of her lips. Giving in to her instinct, Sunset leaned in slightly to brush her lips over Gilda’s and smiled. Gilda, still in the throes of sleep, smiled back, and Sunset imagined it was because she could feel Sunset even in her dreams.

“I love you,” Sunset whispered in a tiny voice. “I’ll always love you.”

Gilda mumbled wordlessly in response, and curled up slightly to accommodate for Sunset’s new position as GIlda’s hands trailed down, coming to rest on the small of her girlfriend’s back.

One hand anyway.

The other hand came to rest slightly lower.

“Even asleep you’re a dog,” Sunset muttered with a wry smirk as she felt Gilda give her rear a squeeze. “Written’s Quill, you really do like my butt.”

Sunset resisted the impulse to trail her hands up and down Gilda’s body; the soft, warm, dark skin that was firm with lean, athletic muscle, the combination of which Sunset found endlessly attractive.

“I don’t deserve you,” Sunset said, keeping her tone low as a faint tinge of sadness found its way into her voice. “You’re like a star and I’m… I don’t know… an ember? Your whole life people have been trying to snuff out your light and you just keep burning, but me?” Sunset sighed as she relaxed into the pillows. “I had ponies throwing themselves at me like kindling and all I did was… use them up.”

Fighting a sudden sensation of tears, Sunset curled against Gilda, praying her warmth would chase away the sudden stone of guilt that had settled into her gut.

“I don’t want to use you up, too,” Sunset whispered, her voice imperceptibly low. “I don’t want to hurt you…”

“Babe?”

Sunset quickly blinked away her tears and glanced up to see Gilda staring sleepily down at her.

“S-Sorry,” Sunset said softly. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“Wha’s wrong, Sunshine?” Gilda mumbled sleepily, bringing a hand up to gently stroke Sunset’s face.

Sunset shook her head. “Just a bad dream, that’s all.”

“Bullshit,” Gilda grumbled, shifting around so she could stare down at Sunset properly with narrowed eyes. “Think I can’t tell ya been cryin’, Sunflower? C’mon.”

“I guess it was too much to hope for,” Sunset replied wryly. “But really, it’s nothing… just… stress and bad dreams, okay?”

“Lemme chase’em away, then,” Gilda said softly.

Before Sunset could respond, Gilda had pulled her up and pressed her lips to Sunset’s. It wasn’t a soft, gentle kiss either, it was consuming and full of passion, and Sunset moaned softly against the sudden onslaught of affection. She melted into Gilda’s touch, shivering as her fingers played up and down Sunset’s sides and tangled into her hair.

A stab of worry lanced through Sunset’s heart as Gilda’s fingers neared the pin in her hair. Carefully, she shifted her weight to intercept Gilda’s hand, linking their fingers together as Sunset hoped Gilda wouldn’t think it was too strange.

She didn’t, and Sunset relaxed as Gilda gripped Sunset’s hand. Sunset smiled against Gilda’s lips and pressed closer, wrapping her arms around Gilda, relishing the solid feeling of her body as the much taller and much stronger girl touched, brushed, and coddled Sunset with infinite care.

Sunset was strong, she knew this. She had always taken pride in her strength, and not just the strength of her body which wasn’t bad, all things considered, but in her strength of will. Her ability to adapt and overcome was a point of pride to the red-haired former unicorn.

But in Gilda’s arms she felt weak. She felt glass-fragile and delicate.

A year ago she would have resented it.

Now she loved it.

She had told Gilda the same thing multiple times, and it was a lesson that had taken her a long time to internalise.

‘You need to be weak with someone, sometimes.’

The feeling that she could be at her lowest, at her worst, and at her most fragile, and that no matter what she would still be safe in Gilda’s hands was a feeling that Sunset cherished like no other. So when Gilda promised to chase away the nightmares, to kiss away the bad dreams and the tears?

Sunset knew she would do exactly that.

Gilda's kisses trailed down Sunset’s jaw to her neck, and Sunset let out a hiss of delight, arching her back as Gilda gripped her by the waist.

“Hey,” Sunset whispered softly.

Gilda’s eyes drifted up to meet Sunset’s bright, teal orbs. Gilda felt her breath catch in her throat and she finally, after months being in love with Sunset, realised what it was about Sunset’s eyes that mesmerised her so badly.

They were the same color as the clear open sky.

“Yeah, Sunshine?” Gilda asked as Sunset played with Gilda’s soft, pale white hair.

“Make love to me,” Sunset said in a quiet voice, a faint blush coloring her cheeks.

Sharing her girlfriend’s flushed features, Gilda grinned.

“Don’t have to tell me twice, Sunflower,” Gilda said as she licked her lips.

Sweat trailed down Sunset’s back as she lay on top of Gilda who was snoozing away underneath her, her arms wrapped protectively around Sunset. The sheets were in wild disarray and the less said about the comforter, wherever it had eventually ended up, the better.

Just as well, Sunset was far too warm anyway, and there was a deep, deep temptation in her to just… take the rune off. She could feel it in her bones, the slight ache of tension and weariness that would become a leaden weight in a few days as she continued her sleepless nights.

But she was so comfortable.

Sunset reached out and tugged the sheets over the two of them. Warm as it was they would definitely feel the chill in the morning, shared body heat or no. Wiggling to get comfortable, Sunset nestled herself against Gilda, a yawn escaping despite the rune’s best efforts.

‘Maybe… maybe it’ll be okay this time,’ Sunset thought to herself. ‘Maybe…’

Nervously, Sunset reached up and slid her fingers into the sweat-matted tangle her hair had become and found the small, agate-adorned pin. She gripped it between two fingers, feeling the breath catch in her throat as she mentally willed herself to take it off.

‘But what if it’s not… what if we see-’ Sunset grimaced and sighed.

Sunset released her grip on the pin and settled in against Gilda’s chest. Another time, later… she would sleep later. Tonight, though… tonight she couldn’t bear to go through that. After being with Gilda she couldn’t bear to see her die again in her dreams.

Not again.

‘I wonder if that mare in Canterlot Asylum really went insane from the weight of the magic,’ Sunset mused darkly, ‘or if her visions just drove her insane the old fashioned way.’

More and more Sunset was beginning to suspect it was the latter. That it wasn’t that the human or pony mind couldn’t withstand the power of the talent, but that it simply wasn’t equipped to know what was going to happen in advance like that. To know something awful, something unspeakable, would happen and that there was nothing that you or anyone else could do about it was a weight that no one should ever have to deal with.

The knowledge that what she was seeing would really happen, that there would be a storm and during the storm… Gilda would be chased, hunted, caught, and… killed. Sunset wanted to vomit… she wanted to scream and cry and rage, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good.

‘What the hell is the point of being able to see the future,’ Sunset thought angrily, ‘if I can’t do a goddamn thing about it?’

That point rankled more than almost anything else; the fact that Sunset could see it, she could feel every event and every moment as it happened.

There was no more dream-like stupor after she woke like there had been before Storm escaped. Now Sunset’s dreams were vivid, they were alive, and they seared themselves into her mind whether she wanted them to or not.

Sunset could still taste the ozone in the air, she could feel the ice-cold droplets of rain and the hammering force of the wind that drove them against her skin. She could feel the torrent and weight of the storm trying to rip her from the skies just like she could taste the blood in her mouth when it finally succeeded. Sunset could feel the muddy grit under her fingers and she tried to lift herself up, and she could hear the voice that taunted her, and always, always, there was a constant whine of an electrical current in the background.

Even now, in bed, safe and sound in Gilda’s arms, Sunset could see the images so clearly every time she closed her eyes and that, Sunset reasoned, was bad enough. She didn’t need to go adding the weight of more and more of those dreams to her shoulders.

Sighing, Sunset pulled herself up so her head was right next to Gilda’s on the pillow, and she felt warm tears mixing with the salty sweat on her cheeks. Looking over at Gilda, Sunset reached out and set her hand on the dark-skinned girl’s cheek, her heart breaking all over again at the memory of her dreams.

“Memento mori,” Sunset whispered, gritting her teeth angrily. “Remember that you too shall die.”

The words felt like poison in her gut, like acid in her mouth. No… that was stupid and unfair and it was not going to happen. No one was going to die, except maybe Storm. Sunset decided that, worse came to worse, she could live with herself if that happened.

But not her and not Gilda, never Gilda.

‘Not Penny, or Adagio, or Aria, or Sonata, or Octavia, or Vinyl, or even the Celestia-damned Rainbooms!’ Sunset thought bitterly. Not on her watch, not if she had anything to say about it. No one was going to die.

“I will save you, Gilda,” Sunset swore in a soft voice. “No matter what.”

Author's Notes:

Granting the time of year, this may be the last post of 2018. I'll be very busy in the upcoming weeks with work and family as I'm sure most of you will be, but I'll be writing all the while. That being said I can't make any promises, so this weeks' post might be it for a while until this settle again.

Either way, I hope everyone is enjoying the story as we climb the last ramp. Things will rise and fall, darken and lighten, but I hope you'll all be there when we come out of the tunnel in the end.

Cheers,

I-A-M