Breaking protocol of where she sat at the lunch table was something Twilight had had to psych herself up for all morning, but the expected stares and gasps from all around her never came, even after she’d been sitting with her food on Applejack’s left for five whole minutes. That was the all-clear window passed, then, as she counted past the 300th second. So, if no explanation for her anarchic place rearranging were required, she could skip that bit of the preparation and move straight to the purpose of it.

“Pinkie?” she said to her new seat-neighbour, leaning in and keeping her voice low (and nearly getting lost in a mountain of bright pink hair in the process), “Can I talk to you about something?”

“Sure!” Pinkie said, grinning wide around her plastic straw between gulps of her milkshake.

Twilight pulled back sharply, having been expecting a reply at the same volume as her question and somehow, stupidly, forgetting who she was talking to. She probably looked a little frazzled from the force of it, and would have thought she could feel her hair springing loose from its bun if that hadn’t been an obvious subconscious fabrication of her brain.

“Oooh!” Pinkie leaned in, clutching her hands in front of her, “Are you putting together a competitive whispering team?” Then she sidled closer, talking directly into Twilight’s ear, holding a hand up to shield her mouth and keeping her eyes on the rest of those at the table. “I’ll level with you,” she said through closed teeth, like a ventriloquist, “it’s not really my forte.”

She gave a nervous-sounding laugh, but held up her hands. “I’d maybe see if you can get Fluttershy on board? It sounds like her calling.” Pinkie looked side to side quickly, and, apparently convinced Fluttershy was looking the other way, continued, “You know, her calling when she calls really quietly.”

Competitive whispering? Trying and failing to blink her frown away, Twilight followed her thoughts out loud. “How would that even work...?” You’d have to have a decibel meter and reward the lowest score, but you’d also have to check the message had been correctly understood. At which point it becomes more about hearing skills than whispering ones, surely? “Never mind, no, that’s not the point.” She took a calming breath, the kind that was meant to be long and slow but she had a schedule so that was just unrealistic. “I need to talk to you. About your sister.” She made sure to look Pinkie right in the eyes when she said it, to stress how important it was and how they shouldn’t get pulled off-topic again. “Does she have a girlfriend?”

Pinkie froze, and Twilight knew she’d said something wrong. Sometimes you didn’t quite notice how much Pinkie was constantly moving in one way or another until suddenly she wasn’t.

“Ooh, um,” Pinkie’s eyes darted side to side, and she even blushed, “I’m sure Marble would be flattered, but, uh,” she gave an obviously-nervous laugh, “I don’t think you’re really her type?”

Not her type…? Twilight looked this way and that at non-specific points on the table in front of her, trying to understand what Pinkie could possibly mean.

After a couple of seconds of awkward smiling, Pinkie added information she obviously thought made things clearer, “I’m pretty sure she likes boys. Really massive boys.”

Twilight blinked. She’d missed a cue somewhere, obviously. Pinkie had said something to make it make sense, Twilight just couldn’t see what it was yet. But that didn’t matter, it could be figured out later. For now, it was time to prioritise and find the direct route through, because Pinkie had named Marble, which rendered the whole conundrum irrelevant. Even if it was still irritatingly impenetrable.

“Sorry, no, I don’t mean Marble. I saw your other sister in town yesterday, with a fuschia-coloured girl. She had purple hair with turquoise streaks, held up in two bunches.” Twilight knew they were correctly called bunches rather than pigtails, because she’d looked it up when she’d got home.

As Twilight had come to expect anytime the topic of dating came up, Rarity was leaning towards them eagerly, while Applejack gave them only a bit of attention and focused mostly on finishing her lunch. Fluttershy was politely in-between, Rainbow yawned, and Pinkie was–

Deathly still. Again. But this time her eyes were downcast, and her mouth was downturned to match. “Her name’s Aria,” she said quietly, several octaves lower than her usual speaking pitch.

After a moment of no further details being offered, Twilight looked away from Pinkie to see if her friends were similarly mystified. She turned just in time to see Rainbow frantically swallowing her yawn, wide-eyed and alert.

“Aria?” Rainbow asked. “As in…?”

After Rainbow trailed off, Twilight swung her head back to Pinkie, who nodded, almost to herself, not lifting her eyes from the empty plate in front of her. Again, Twilight was certain she’d missed something big that had been left unsaid, but it seemed serious. Serious enough that she could ask to be filled in, but everyone else seemed so affected that staying quiet and hoping it became clearer over time might be the safer option.

So she turned back to Rainbow, just in time to see her sharing a worried look with Fluttershy. Rainbow paused for a second with her mouth half-open, looking at Pinkie carefully, then said, “I know your sister’s tough, but does she have any idea what she’s getting herself into?”

Pinkie looked up at Rainbow with an expression Twilight couldn’t quite work out. There was a weak smile and faint traces of watering eyes, with a whole gamut of emotions at play in there. Resignation with wonder, fear with scepticism, commiseration with pride. “It’s been six months.”

That made Rainbow’s mouth drop open again, and she looked off to one side. Applejack, pulling on her braid as she spoke, filled the conversational gap. “Wait, Maud’s going out with a siren?”

On many occasions, such as just a minute earlier, Twilight had known Pinkie to laugh nervously. But she couldn’t think of a time she’d heard Pinkie chuckle humourlessly, as she did now.

All Pinkie said was, “Not that sister.”

Like she was in a trance, Applejack released her braid, set both hands on the table in front of her, and turned to look straight ahead. “Limestone Pie. And Aria Blaze.” She said nothing for a few seconds, finishing her bottle of juice in the process, then turned to the rest of them. “I’m out.” And with that, Applejack smoothly stood, picked up her tray, turned on her heel and strode away.

After watching Applejack go, Rainbow turned back to Pinkie. “How come you didn’t tell us before?”

Pinkie wasn’t exactly quick to respond, so Rarity interjected. “Taking a guess, darling: because she didn’t want to have this conversation with you.”

Although she still knew very little of whatever the connection was between her friends and the girl from Nightmare Loom, Twilight’s stomach was sinking at how she’d clearly dropped Pinkie into a very uncomfortable situation.

“Yeah,” Pinkie sighed, “I was pretty sure what you’d say. But, like I said, they’ve been together a while, and the world’s still here, so…”

A siren from another universe. One who’d twice tried to conquer, and still showed no signs of being nicer to people despite being defeated on both occasions. That was who Twilight had unknowingly antagonised in her quest to learn more. Oops.

It really didn’t help that Twilight’s own Equestrian counterpart had been the one to lead the most recent battle against the sirens, a double who Aria had inevitably mistaken her for, and blamed for the loss of her singing voice. No, that didn’t help at all. But it at least explained her unfriendliness.

“I still don’t understand, though,” Twilight said to her friends around the table, “Aria and Limestone looked exactly the same, like all the other goths I’ve seen. Why did they get so short when I called them that?”

Fluttershy and Sunset had by that point finished eating and had to leave to go do various things, leaving only Twilight, Pinkie, Rainbow and Rarity.

“Hmmm, yes,” Rarity mused, “there’s one like that I’ve never quite grasped, either. What’s the difference between a geek and a nerd?”

“W-what?!” Twilight spluttered. “They’re completely different! A geek is someone who’s socially inept and unfashionable, whereas a ner– oh, wait, I see what you’re doing here. Right. Yep.”

Rarity gave a quiet but still smug little ‘mm-hmm,’ and Pinkie even snickered. That was a good sign, at least, after how down she’d been when Twilight had first asked about Aria.

“It’s really that stark a difference, then?” Twilight asked, cleaning her glasses on the corner of her blouse, “To the people involved in it, I mean?” No wonder those two hadn’t responded well.

Pinkie excused herself, still more subdued than usual, quietly returning her tray on her way out of the cafeteria.

Rarity pursed her lips, eyes flicking between Twilight and Rainbow, then addressed them both. “How many different styles of dresses would you say there are?”

The dumbfounded look Rainbow offered probably wasn’t all that removed from the one that Twilight must have been wearing herself. “Uh…”

“Ok,” Rarity relented, “just shoulder straps then. How many different types of shoulder strap do you think womens’ garments can have?”

“Well,” Rainbow said after a second of frowning, “to hold it up, then it’s gotta go over the shoulders, right? A strap over each shoulder, from the front of the dress to the back.”

Twilight was rather impressed with Rainbow in that moment, puzzling it out by analysis. She herself took it a step further before nodding her agreement, first just quickly looking to the shoulders of each of those around the table.

“Not necessarily.” Rarity grinned. “Strapless dresses? Off-the-shoulder dresses? One-shoulder dresses, like anytime a goddess shows up in a movie? Even in two-shouldered designs, are they spaghetti straps, like on a bra? Around three centimetres wide, like on a tank top? Full-coverage, like a T-shirt? And once they’re over the shoulder, do they continue separately, like a strap top, or join into one, like a racerback? Or forego that entirely, like a halterneck?”

The funny thing was that as soon as Rarity listed an option, Twilight recognised it. Even the name for it, in most cases. It was background knowledge she possessed, but wasn’t particularly aware of consciously. Like that statistic about the size of vocabulary a person understood, compared to the size of that they usually used. “I’m not sure I’m quite following your point?” she blushed, being certain to smile and try to make her disagreement look polite. “An expert sees more detail, but isn’t that to be expected, whether it’s you at a fashion show or Rainbow at a soccer game?”

“It’s to do with how we perceive things, darling. The size and complexity of fields we don’t know.” Rarity ran delicate fingers over the shoulder of her top. “I asked how many options you thought were possible. You said one. I listed nine.”

“Oh, I get it,” Rainbow nodded along, “you mean we thought that, like, fashion as a thing was just this small area, but actually it’s a whole huge field and you only realise that once you learn a bit about it.”

“Exactly. While you’d think soccer to be a vast topic, as that’s the one you have most knowledge of.”

“Right, yeah,” Rainbow said. “Spitfire says our brains have just one scale, and we resize our experiences to fit it.” She paused for a second, frowning. “I never got what she meant before – thanks!”

Rarity gave a gracious nod, the kind that made Twilight feel like an undignified oaf by comparison, and Rainbow stretched out in her chair, leaning back and crossing her arms behind her head.

“So, in conclusion,” Twilight said, pausing to collect her thoughts and exhaling heavily enough to blow her fringe off her glasses, “Goth, punk, rivethead and probably loads of other things I’ve never heard of are all completely different?”

“To the people within those scenes, absolutely,” Rarity said.

Twilight wasn’t melodramatic enough to bury her head in her hands on the table, but she did slump in her chair and support her chin on one arm. “Then there’s even more I need her to teach me, and it’s even more annoying that she refuses!”

“But, Darling,” Rarity said, softly biting her lip before continuing, “you’re insulting her with your ignorance. You’re expecting her to do all the work, when, frankly, there’s nothing in that for her.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow concurred, “I can’t see Aria being the sort to take on rookie apprentices.”

Rarity reached across the table to touch Twilight’s arm. “You need to do at least the basic legwork yourself, before speaking to her about it.”

If it were a more conventional, scientific research topic, then, of course! Twilight would have already made her way through numerous books on the subject as well as a wide canvas of online articles. But, if books had one weakness – and it hurt to admit, but they did – it was the subject of youth culture. Between the timespan required to write, edit and publish a book, and the older, intellectual demographics of the average author, editor and publisher, and, no, books weren’t the best place to look for accurate, up-to-date information in that field.

“Please, Rarity, isn’t there anything you can tell me about it?” Twilight was struck by a sly thought, and felt the corners of her mouth pull upwards. “I’m sure you have more background knowledge than me about that kind of thing… as a designer?”

The flat look she got in return said the ruse had not worked, and Twilight again reminded herself that her social skills were limited enough to sometimes make honest interactions challenging, let alone deceptive ones. Manipulating convincingly was not really in her skill set.

But maybe… in this instance, it wouldn’t have to be? Rarity’s lips were pressed together, and, as she started to speak, she lifted her chin and closed her eyes. “As a designer, my reference pools are broad and varied, so yes, I do have some understanding of those subcultures, at least from a visual perspective.”

Rainbow, whose eyebrows had climbed almost to her hairline at Rarity’s reply, quickly stood up and grabbed her tray. “I’ll leave you two to it,” she called to them over her shoulder, already en route to the door.

That left Twilight alone with Rarity, who fixed her with a glare. “Why don’t you grab a pen and paper, Twilight?” she asked, much too sweetly. “I expect you to take plenty of notes.”

Author's Notes:

There's a reference in this chapter - just a tiny thing, nothing to do with music - and I really can't tell you how happy it makes me to be able to canonically include it.