"Hey Sonata, can I join you?"

The blue-skinned girl looked up up at Sunset, narrowing her eyes menacingly. An effect that was only slightly spoiled by the pizza in her mouth and on her face and shirt.

"Why?"

Sunset grimaced slightly.

"Well, I'm actually keeping tabs on you. After what happened at the Battle of the Bands, Adagio and Aria pretty much vanished, but you've kept coming to class. Even if at lunch you go sit outside and eat by yourself. What are you doing?"

Sonata sighed heavily, then she threw the greasy paper the pizza was wrapped in at a wastebasket, missed, and looked forlornly at it.

"I...I don't know."

Sunset crossed her arms and straightened her back a bit.

"What do you mean you don't know? Didn't you have any plan for what to do if you didn't manage to steal Equestrian magic?"

"No," said Sonata, "Adagio was in charge of plans. I'm too stupid for that. All I can think of doing is brainwashing people, stealing some magic, and invading the world! But that didn't work, and I don't have my gem anymore, and if I try it again I'll get hurt!" she whined.

Sunset rolled her eyes and sat down next to the other girl.

"Believe it or not, I understand where you're coming from."

"How? What you did was completely different! You tried to brainwash the students here, then cross to Equestria so you could invade the oh right, it's actually a lot like what we tried to do."

Be patient, you were like her too, even if she's dimmer than a light bulb someone tried to set on fire thought Sunset.

"Look, think about it this way: what is it you wanted to do after you'd gotten all that power? Then maybe you can figure out a way to do it without hurting other people."

Sonata's expression was that of a fish who'd just been asked to solve a quadratic equation in class. While naked.

"But why would I not want to hurt other people?"

Sunset's self control was one of her virtues. As part of her studies, she'd honed it over the years: she could stay focused for hours, withstand the greatest privations without making a peep. She'd even managed to go through a whole session of day court without screaming at the petitioners. Thus, she managed to reply with civility.

"Because otherwise those other people will get angry. And if they get angry, they'll stop you, like we did."

"Oh. But, it's like, a Siren thing? I don't know if I can really explain it. Jeez, 'Dagie would explain it sooo much better, but, like...we're supposed to always be the best? Sirens are supposed to rule over everything, and so we always have to become stronger. Adagio used to go on and on about it."

"I don't really understand how that ended up in us eating sailors. They always gave me gas, too. Phooey."

Sunset's face turned a rather fetching shade of green, and she scooted away.

"Okay .Okay. Also, Dusk? TMI. And, look, do you really feel the need to keep chasing an abstract ideal to its bitter end? Aren't you happier here, where you don't have to fight all the time, and where you can just enjoy life? You don't have to keep trying and trying to achieve something impossible, you can just live your life!"

Sonata thought about it for a second.

"Hey, you're right! The food is much better here, and I can go eat hamburgers, and hot-dogs, and chili, and quesadillas, and burritos! I don't need to be sad just because I'm not doing something stupid other people tell me I have to do!"

Sunset smiled at the ditz, who kept rambling about the food she was going to eat.

"What, no tacos?"

Sonata looked back at her and stuck out her tongue at her.

"Oh, please, they're sooo last week! Everyone knows Tortilla Thursdays are where it's at!"

---

"Also, what's an ideal?"