Silver Rose set her lunch tray down at an empty table, eyeing the strawberry yogurt especially. She really wanted to get into it, but the main dish always comes first. Today, she had a plate of mixed vegetables and a chicken leg, along with a packet of orange juice.

Seriously beginning to doubt Principal Cinch’s claims that the food here was top-notch, Silver stabbed a green stalk and lifted it to her nose. It smelled alright, so she put it in her mouth. Tasted okay too.

Four stalks and a couple of leaves later, Canvas Splash set her food down beside Silver and sat down.

“Heya, Silver,” the artist said as she pried the straw from her orange juice box. “I heard what happened with Sunny. Is she okay? I mean, it’s not like I like her, but just curious.”

“I think she’ll be fine,” Silver said, examining the chicken leg and plotting out the proper way to eat it without picking it up. “We had a bit of a heart to heart in the nurse’s office and everything else is history.”

“Does that mean no more bullying and no more panicky Sunny?” Canvas put a hand to her chin. “Sounds like things are working out for you.”

Oh yes they are. Silver thought smugly, but said, “Maybe. I think there’s still a ways to go before things finally settle down, but now hopefully Sunny and the rest of her crew can get their heads in the game for the Friendship Games. Crystal Prep is expected to win, are we not?”

“Yes we are!” Canvas held her fork high. “Let’s go, Shadowbolts!”

While continuing to eat her lunch, Silver spotted Sunny Flare and the other Shadowbolts arriving at another table with their food, getting started on their lunch. Sunny looked over and paused for a while, but then nodded her head and smiled.

After waving back, Silver sliced a sliver of meat off her chicken leg and sniffed it. “Does this smell alright to you?” she asked Canvas.

“Hmm, it does smell a little burnt.” Canvas inspected the piece of meat. “You haven’t eaten any, have you? This bit of the chicken at least?”

“No, but if I get food poisoning from this my mother will probably go and throw Cinch off the roof. Or sue. Maybe both.”

“Sounds rough.” Canvas looked at her own chicken. “Mine looks okay. You wanna swap?”

Silver considered the offer. “No, I’ll just skip the chicken this time around. Less to get in the way of the yogurt…” She licked her lips and picked up the carton. “Mmm…”

“Mmm…” Silver Rose scooped the last of the ice cream from the bowl and ate it.

“Is the dessert to your liking, sweetie?” Ivory Wings asked across the table.

“Very much so, Aunt Ivory.” Silver Rose nodded happily. “Thanks for getting it!”

“Anything for you, sweetie,” Ivory laughed and scooped up her own ice cream. “Today, we celebrate your victory over the kid who’s been bullying you. And it only took you a few weeks to change it all. Well done!”

Silver felt proud, receiving the praise from her aunt. It made her feel like she was competent and that she could do anything she put her mind to.

“Good job, Silver, but don’t forget what you did in the locker room.” Her mother steepled her fingers. “Remember, I’ve worked hard staying hidden all these years. I didn’t do all that just so my daughter can reveal us to the humans once again.”

And then there were the things her mother said to her.

Silver sighed and nodded her head. “Yes, mother. I’ll try harder from here.”

“But…” Ebony folded her arms. “That being said, at least you’ve dealt with your bully problem.”

“And the fear problem,” Ivory added happily. “Nice to see that everything’s settled in for you to have a great school experience now.”

“Yup!” Silver Rose put down her ice cream bowl and spoon. “Well, I have homework to clear so…”

“You may go, daughter.” Ebony waved a hand.

“Thank you mother.”

With a skip to her step, Silver Rose made her way to the study, pulling up a chair at her table before getting to work. Her chemistry and history homework went by in a breeze, while her english homework took up a majority of her time. When she got to her calculus homework, everything seemed to slow down. Silver still didn’t understand why it was so hard or even why she had picked the class, but wondering about those questions would get her nowhere closer to finishing it.

“What a bother…” She blew at a few strands of her pink hair. “Why do we even need to know any of these things?”

She just wanted to be done with her work so she could text Home Run or play on the Neighstation.

“Wait a minute, that’s it!” A lightbulb went off in her head. Getting her phone out, she found Home Run’s chat and started a message with, “HAAAALP.”

Then she listed down the math equation, hoping he could explain to her how to get it done. Sitting back and waiting, Silver flipped through her calculus textbook, looking for something, anything that could give her a clue to the formula.

“I don’t want another tutor. I don’t, so I need to figure this out somehow…”

“Something the matter?” Aria’s voice drawled from behind her.

“Just math homework…” Silver groaned. Then her phone buzzed and she sat up excitedly. “Ooh, what do we have?”

Home Run had gotten back to her question, giving her the answer, but not just that, he even explained how to solve it and the words he used were so simple that she understood it perfectly.

Thank you, Home Run!!! She typed back, then added a heart at the end. “Yes! I can do this now!”

Picking up her pen, Silver Rose got back to work, scrawling the formulas down on her paper.

“Isn’t Home Run great?” she asked the siren. “Interesting how a sporty boy like him can help me with my math homework. Which reminds me… I gotta organize another date with him!”

“If you say so,” Aria said, sitting down on one of the couches and pulling out her own phone.

“You don’t have any homework yourself, Aria?” Silver continued to work on her calculus.

“I might,” Aria said, not looking up from her phone. “I’ll just copy Sonata’s or something later.”

“Oh. You don’t do it yourself?”

“Why bother?” Aria said disgustedly like homework was going to eat her. “I don’t really even care if the answers are right.”

“Umm… okay…” Silver Rose rubbed her head and went back to work.

In no time, because of Home Run’s explanation, Silver finished her homework, closing her textbook with so much relief that her hands began shaking.

“I’m done, Aria! I finally finished all my work…” She leaned back and gave her face a wipe.

“Great. So what are you going to do now?” Aria closed her eyes and leaned back in the sofa.

Silver Rose touched her chin, then picked up her phone and smiled at the screen. “I think I’ll text Home Run. I want to see what he’s up to.”

“Whatever. You do what you want.”

Tapping her fingers on the screen, Silver began composing a message.

Hey Home Run, thanks for the help earlier i was having a difficult time at it. I owe u one now. How about i c u at sugarcube corner on friday?

Then she put a winky face at the end, followed by a smiley face.

Silver Rose grinned at the thought of having a second date. “Oh, Home Run. You’re going to be mine… all mine.”

Looking back, Silver noticed the boy was in the process of typing something, so she waited, watching the screen.

Soon, it popped up, saying, Hiya Moonglade. Yeah sure id like that. I’ll see you aftr school? I have baseball first.

Yup! See you after ur practice then! Silver added three hearts behind for emphasis. Then she started a new message. So whatcha up to now?

Nothing much, Home Run replied back. Just sitting at my desk right now. U?

Same same but different. Hlping my sis with her homework.

Oh she having trouble too? Well i hope it goes well. How r the sirens doing? They finish their homework?

Idk. listn. So ill c u again on friday?

Yeah, definitely. Home Run put a really happy grinning face after his sentence.

Gr8. cya then. She ended with a face with hearts for eyes.

Silver then put her phone away and leaned back in her chair, tilting her head back, right into the belly of Ebony Wings. The actress looked down at her daughter with an unimpressed look on her face.

“Oh, hello, mother.” Silver scrambled back forward and turned around in her seat, smiling up at the older changeling. “I didn’t see you.”

“Well, you should have smelled me coming,” Ebony sniffed. “I suppose you were texting your prey?”

“Yes, mother. I have another date this Friday.” She tried to keep her excitement down as to not annoy her mother.

“Mmm. I see. I would give you advice, but your aunt seems to have that covered. Not that I remember much of the early days anyway. Just hope that none of your Diamond Prep friends have any plans for you after school. I’d hate for you to have to make a decision,” she finished in a slightly mocking tone.

“Oh, I didn’t think about that.” So far, Silver’s friends from school had never asked her to hang out with them, but she did have to take that as a possibility. She had to think up of a good reason to get to her date. “I could just say I have to be home after school.”

“As good an excuse as any,” Ebony Wings said with a sigh. “I think it’s high time we had another session with the pheromones. Practice makes perfect, after all. Your aunt will be supervising, to make sure I don’t, ahem, try anything.”

“Oh. Yes, mother.” Silver realized it had been a while since her last training. But she didn’t have good memories of it, remembering her mother had hit her multiple times to get her angry.

Ebony turned her back and walked off. “Then shall we go? I’d hate to waste more time.”

Aria sniggered from her position on the couch.

“What?” Silver asked.

Aria held up her phone to show her a clip from the Topview movie. “It’s high noon.”

Silver Rose stood in the courtyard once more, dressed in what she guessed was now her standard attire for pheromone testing, which didn’t consist of much. It was her usual white shirt, purple plaid skirt and a pair of slippers.

Ivory Wings stood at the side, in the shadows with her eyes narrowed. A lollipop was stuck between her teeth and she sucked on it as she watched.

“Now Silver...” Ebony paced around her daughter, eyeing her like a hawk. “Now that you have a prey, a target, I think we should hold these emotion training sessions more often.”

“It’s to help with keeping your body in check when you go to meet Home Run,” Ivory added from her corner, removing the lollipop. “Let’s say you do reach the point where you’ll have to employ your mother’s tricks to seduce him. There’ll likely be a lot of lust in the air then and we can’t have you weakening and exposing our kind to the humans.”

“But that doesn’t mean we’ll only be working with lust.” Ebony lifted a finger. “Your other emotions need work too, so here they all are.” She panned a hand to the various vials she had set on the table. “Are you ready, Silver?”

“Y-Yes, mother…” Silver took a deep breath and readied herself.

Like the last few sessions, Ebony Wings uncorked the pride bottle first, watching with a smirk as Silver began coughing after inhaling the vile smell. The young changeling fought it much better this time, almost used to it by now.

When she felt it was a good effort, Ebony swapped out the pride for deceit, taking a skip on boredom, seeing as Silver had pretty much mastered that one.

The bad smell began filling up in Silver Rose’s nose and mouth, but she held strong, remembering to keep her thoughts on happy moments, like playing the Neightstation with Aunt Ivory, or better, her date with Home Run.

When she started thinking about the boy, she soon forgot all about the awful taste of deceit, remembering the sweet kiss on the cheek she had given him. She wasn’t the one that got kissed, but it still felt nice. It felt natural. It felt genuine to her. She hoped to get one from him someday too.

Oh, Home Run…

“You’re radiating an awful lot of happiness right now, Silver.” Ebony stoppered the bottle. “Good work, but remember, that won’t work for everything.”

“Not thinking about the boy again, are you?” Ivory asked from her dark corner, her eyes glinting in the shadows. When Silver looked away embarrassedly, she sighed. “Need I remind you, you are not Moonglade right now. You are Silver Rose.”

“Yes, Aunt Ivory…” Silver quickly emptied her mind and looked down. Her aunt was right again, of course.

“Well, now on to anger and hatred.” Ebony opened the anger bottle. “I thought you were good at this one, but then you tore the cubicle door off in the girls’ locker room. Try harder, Silver.”

“Yes, mother.”

Silver groaned to herself. Her life was filled with just answering yes to everything.

The anger wasn’t very difficult for her anymore, but it didn’t mean it wasn’t spicy. Silver didn’t really like spicy stuff on her food, but like her mother and aunt said, it would be good to get used to it.

After anger, came the more intense hatred, the spicy smell filling her nose and making her eyes water. Silver began breathing in and out, trying to cool her mouth, but it was really spicy.

“Fight it, daughter,” Ebony told her. “Show me you can handle hate.”

“I’m doing the best I can, mother!” Silver snapped, then covered her mouth with her hands.

“I’ll excuse that for now, seeing as I am exposing you to hate.” Ebony frowned, but did nothing more. “But you can’t keep getting angry when exposed to this emotion.”

Silver closed her eyes, concentrating on ignoring the flavor. The spiciness was only worse if she thought about it. If she could distract herself enough, she wouldn’t have to worry about the burning sensation in her mouth.

Somehow, against her own instructions, she began thinking about Home Run again. He had been so nice to her and only on her first date with him, he already made her feel like she had someone that cared about her outside her family. And it had only been the first date.

“Ah, you seem to be fighting the hate with happy thoughts again,” Ebony smirked and capped the bottle. “I guess that’s it for hate for now.”

“Silver, dear.” Ivory stepped out of the shadows. “Not Home Run again?”

Oops. She blushed and rubbed an arm. “I’m sorry, Aunt Ivory.”

“This cannot keep happening, you know?” She rubbed her forehead. “I don’t want to lecture you, sweetie, but if you keep this up, you’re going to have some problems. Silver Rose is not Moonglade. Moonglade is not Silver Rose.”

“I know, Aunt Ivory. I just… I’ll try.”

“Hmm…” Ebony stroked her chin as she picked up the lust vial. “I think this might work out. Silver, for now, pretend you’re Moonglade.”

“Ebony, I was just telling her-”

“Wait.” She raised a hand. “This training is for hunting her prey after all. It would benefit her better if she were to pretend to be Moonglade for now.”

“At least let her go change personas,” Ivory reasoned. “You don’t want her personas to merge anymore than where she is right now.”

“Dear, how long will it take to swap to Moonglade?” Ebony turned to her daughter.

“Um, half an hour?”

“Then get to it.”

Rushing back into the house, Silver headed for her room, quickly getting into the shower and washing her dyes off. At least she didn’t have much clothes to remove and she didn’t need to pick out a different outfit.

This was still going to be a bother, seeing as she would have to change back to Silver Rose for school tomorrow, but on the bright side, she’d be able to think about Home Run freely.

When she was back to being Chrysidea, she picked up Moonglade’s dyes from her shower rack and began applying them in her skin and hair. When she was done, the young changeling stepped back outside and switched her contacts before drying her hair and body as quickly as she could. There was no way her hair was going to be fully dry anytime soon, so she pushed it all out of her face to the best of her ability before exiting her bathroom. Grabbing her glasses from her bedside table, Moonglade was now ready for the final test of the day.

Lust.

So far, lust was the one emotion she really had trouble controlling, but hopefully in time, she could be like her aunt and mother, who seemed unaffected by all the smells.

When she got back to the courtyard, her mother and Aunt Ivory were now seated at one of the tables, drinking from a pitcher of pink lemonade.

When her mother saw her, she placed her glass down and got up. “Ah, took you long enough. I got thirsty.”

“Welcome back, sweetie,” Ivory said, lifting her glass. “Now normally I’d offer you some lemonade, but this stuff will just make you sick, so I’d better not.”

“Enough of all that.” Ebony waved, picking up the final vial again. “Are you ready, Moonglade?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be, mother. I hope.”

“Now, I figured I’d make this test a little different from the rest,” Ebony went on, shaking the contents of her vial. “Seeing as this is to help you put up with lust when you do get to that point in your, uh, ‘relationship’, I shall pretend to be your boyfriend again. Ivory, does he count as a boyfriend yet?”

“Well, they’re going on a second date soon, so maybe.” The white haired changeling shrugged.

“Whatever.” Ebony shook her head. “So I will pretend to be your boyfriend, Moonglade. Your job is to seduce me. If I think you’re doing it well, I will open the bottle to release some lust, just like how a human would react if you seduce them. The better you do, the more I open the bottle, the harder it becomes. Are you ready for this?”

Moonglade’s cheeks turned red. It had been really awkward the last time her mother pretended to be Home Run. She hoped it wasn’t going to be very cringey. “I’ll do my best, mother.”

“Then let us begin.” Ebony Wings cleared her throat, changing her voice to a more male-sounding one. “Why hello, Moonglade, nice to see you. Go for it.”

“Um… hey, Home Run.” Moonglade smiled and rubbed her head. “Thanks for… going out with me.”

“Weak.” Ebony changed back to her own voice. “Come on, make it sound like you want him.”

“You are a princess,” Ivory said from her corner. “Act like one.”

Ugh, it’s embarrassing to do these things in front of mother… It’s embarrassing to do them to mother.

Reluctantly, Moonglade approached her mother, stopping just before her, her cheeks blazing a bright red. Looking up at her, she batted her eyelashes and began twirling her curly blonde hair in one hand. “H-Hey, Home Run, it’s so nice to see you here… You know… Y-You mean so much to me. You’re always s-so nice to me and stuff. Do you f-feel the same w-way about me?”

In her corner, Ivory Wings lowered her head and put it in her palms, shaking her head at the same time. “No, no, no…” she groaned.

“What?” Moonglade was sure she had done it right this time. Apparently, that wasn’t the case. “What did I do wrong?”

“Look,” Ivory said to Ebony. “This approach obviously isn’t working. She’s not going to learn unless we teach her.”

“So what do you propose we do?” Ebony demanded.

A sly smile grew across Ivory Wings’ face as she edged up to her sister, whispering something into her ear. Moonglade tried to listen, but she couldn’t hear any of it.

Ebony Wings seemed less than enthused. “You want to do what?”

“Umm…” Moonglade pushed two fingers against each other. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing yet,” Ebony grunted. “I need to have a talk with your aunt. In private. Off you go.”

“But what about the lust?” Moonglade looked at the bottle. “I haven’t had my practice with it today.”

Moonglade didn’t deny she wanted a taste of it. Whether it made her feel weird or not, it still tasted really good.

“You’re done for today.” Ebony looked to the mansion. “Go and do your homework or do sword practice or something. We’ll meet back here at the same time tomorrow. I think.”

I already did my homework. Moonglade grumbled internally. Her mother had made her change personas for nothing and she didn’t even get a taste of lust.

As she walked away, Moonglade couldn’t help but feel a little unsettled. Whatever her mother and aunt had planned for her tomorrow, the anticipation didn’t make her feel good.