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Scaramouche Fandango Crew
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 Posted: Tue Apr 09, 2013 3:36 pm
 Warp Nine’s model starships were his pride and joy- and his favorite hobby. He spent most of his allowance on new kits and enamel paints to put them together, and he always asked for them when the holidays came up.
So when he found one of them broken, he was extremely upset. This one wasn’t even hanging up; it had been sitting on his table, propped up to dry. It had broken into a number of pieces and the paint job was all smudged. He’d have to wipe it down with mineral spirits and start over again! It’d take hours, and he’d done such a good job the first time!
Angrily, he cleaned up the mess and stomped off to figure out who could have broken it.
He asked his mom, but she hadn’t been in to clean the room, and was just as surprised as he was. That meant that it was probably one of his siblings or half-siblings. Who could it have been? He tried Po-TAY-toes, but she’d been in the kitchen all day, and the pot of concannon on the stovetop was enough to prove it.
One of the little ones was in the upstairs hallway- Sunny Delight. He liked all of the itty bitties in a vague, general older-brother way, but he hadn’t really gotten to bond with them. He’d tried once, with Tater, but he’d ended up peeling potatoes and that hadn’t been a lot of fun. But he knew that little kids were generally clumsy and that they often got into places they shouldn’t. And his brand new starship was broken.
“Sunny Delight,” he said sternly, “Were you in my room earlier?” He glared down at her (even though he wasn’t all that much taller), but wasn’t yelling.
After all, he didn’t know if she’d done it yet- and if she was innocent, well, he had a whole host of other possible suspects.
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Posted: Tue Apr 09, 2013 8:10 pm
Sunny Delight was playing with a slinky. Or trying to play with a slinky, at any rate. Going down the stairs with it was fun, but it refused to go up the stairs the same way, and she'd quickly gotten bored of lugging the thing to the top again. So instead, she tried to have it walk in a straight line. It only worked if she gave it a lot of help, which wasn't quite as entertaining as she'd expected.
It didn't help that she had other things on her mind. She was being uncharacteristically quiet when one of her big brothers came up to her, and when he spoke, she dropped the slinky and jumped, little wings beating madly in the air to slow down her decent as she looked around for the speaker.
"Oh, it's just you, Niner." For a split second, Sunny froze. Then she smiled, a bit too widely. "Niner Niner never finer! 'Course I've been in your room earlier, silly, you showed it to me aaaaaages ago! With all its cool toys and spaceships and, uh, stuff." She froze again, looking a bit like a tape that got stuck for a moment before continuing. "What, did you forget? I'd always love to take another look, but I'm, uh, busy right now."
Looking anything but the picture of innocence, she picked her slinky up and tried to wind it around one of her hooves without tangling it up, a tricky task even when she was focused on it. But while her eyes were on the slinky- and had never once met Niner's- her mind was definitely elsewhere.
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Scaramouche Fandango Crew
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Posted: Tue Apr 09, 2013 9:26 pm
Niner rolled his eyes- of course she'd been in there before. They all had! He'd told them they could come in whenever he was in there if they knocked on the door first and they could play with his action figures or read his comic books and magazines, just so long as they didn't touch his models! "I know that! What I mean is-" he heaved a sigh and tried to calm himself down a little bit. Snapping wouldn't do any good. "What I mean is: Were you in there earlier today? Be honest," he added, craning his neck down to look his half-sister square in the face.
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Posted: Tue Apr 09, 2013 9:40 pm
When Niner rephrased his question, Sunny's hooves swerved in different directions, causing the slinky to twist and tie her together. "Silly spiraly slinky thingy," she muttered, and then her eyes lit up. Maybe there was a way out of this after all. A way that didn't involve anyone getting in trouble! Though it did involve something taking the heat.
"Slinky might've gone in for a minute," she said slowly, fidgeting with the tangle of wire. "So I had to go in and tell it, 'no, you can't go in when Niner's not there!' 'Cause that's what you said, right? So I told Slinky and then we left. So I did go in, but only for a minute, honest!"
That much was true. But it was not, judging by the way that Sunny still couldn't look Niner in the eye, the whole story.
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Scaramouche Fandango Crew
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Posted: Tue Apr 09, 2013 10:21 pm
Aha! So she had been in there! Niner wanted to yell and accuse her of breaking up his stuff- but what good would that do? Part of being a big brother was being the mature one, and besides- he hated yelling at anybody. So he gently touched her under the chin, bringing her eyes up to meet his. "I see. Well, that was naughty of Slinky, wasn't it? And while you were in there getting Slinky, did you bump into anything? Maybe, say, a model starship that was sitting on my desk with a new coat of paint and glue?" He spoke softly, keeping the edge out of his voice. He already knew it was her, but she was being honest with him, and he realized how important that was.
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Posted: Tue Apr 09, 2013 10:51 pm
Oh no, she couldn't look at him, not now! Sunny trembled a bit, and as he began talking, brought her hooves up in front of her to cover her face. If Niner wanted to talk to Slinky, he could look at Slinky, not at her. Except Slinky couldn't talk, so she would still have to do that. If only she could figure out just where her voice had disappeared to when she wasn't looking.
"Uh," she squeaked, raising her hooves a little higher. "Slinky m-might've bumped into something. Just a little bit. And I just wanted to make sure it was okay! But I might've leaned in a little too close to it. Maybe."
The scene played out in her mind again: the slinky rolling into Niner's room, Sunny following it. Slinky hitting the desk and making things wobble just a tiny bit. Sunny standing up to make sure nothing had fallen over, and trying to get a good look at the brand new spaceship there. Too good a look, too close. And then, when she'd accidentally-
No, she couldn't say that! Then Niner would be mad at her, and she wouldn't be able to play with him anymore. She didn't want that. Anything had to be better than that. But at the same time, she'd already made him sad by doing what she did. She didn't want that either. So the fact was that she was going to be unhappy no matter what. She was unhappy at having to hide things, and would be unhappy if she explained exactly what happened. Which one would be worse in the long run?
Sunny didn't know. It was too much for her to take right then, and her thought process ground to a halt as she tried to deal with the no-win situation she was presented with.
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Scaramouche Fandango Crew
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Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 9:44 am
Niner figured it was time to stop toying with his little sister; he knew how conflicted she was, and honestly- he wasn't that mad. In the big picture, it was just a model. But how was she to know that? After all, what little sibling wants to disappoint their big brother? So he turned his gaze to Slinky and gave the toy a long stare, finally grimacing and nodding his head slowly.
"Well then," he said, scooping up the coiled spring. "I guess for punishment, Slinky will have to help me rebuild it, then. And help repaint it! Unless, of course, it wasn't Slinky- in that case, somebody else will have to give me a helping hoof," he said, staring her down. He kept his face as straight as possible, but the twinkle in his eye gave him away. Turning, he began to head slowly back to his room.
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Posted: Tue Apr 23, 2013 3:39 pm
Sunny was panicked, Sunny was frantic, Sunny was-
Wait. That was it?
Slowly she lowered her slinky-tangled hooves from in front of her face. She had thought Niner would be soooooo mad at whoever broke his neato spaceship. Mad enough to not like them- or rather, to not like her- anymore. But having to help fix it wouldn't be so bad. It was only fair, really. And actually, it sounded like it might be fun. That was enough to tip the scales in favor of one of the options presented to her.
"Wait wait wait!" she called, finally managing to pull Slinky off of her and leaving it on the floor. She chased after Niner, but took a minute to collect herself before speaking. Even if this was the better of two choices, it still scared her. "Ummmm..." No, this was it, she had to come out and say it! "It wasn't Slinky's fault, not really. I'm the one who broke the spaceship. I'm reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally sorry! Really really truly! Cross my heart and everything!"
Sometimes sorry wasn't enough to fix things. But maybe, just maybe, this time it would be.
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Scaramouche Fandango Crew
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Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2013 12:13 pm
Niner smiled as a wave of something akin to relief flooded over him. "That's what I thought. I just wanted to hear it from you." He hadn't realized how much her honesty meant to him; he figured that this was just being a good big brother and trying to teach his siblings a thing or two, but now that he did hear it, he realized that it was about more than that. Hearing somebody be honest to you made you feel really good- it showed that they valued you enough to tell you the truth, even though the consequences might be negative.
"I'm not mad. Honest! Next time, just ask me if you want to see one of my models. Or- depending on how much you like what we're about to do- if you wanna make one with me. It's really a lot of fun! C'mon, let's go put it back together- together!"
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Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2013 7:59 pm
Once she realized that things weren't totally ruined, like she thought they had been, Sunny let out a breath. Considering that she'd thought herself in a lose-lose situation, this was pretty good. Maybe even a win! Even if she'd gotten Niner to stop thinking it was her, she didn't think it would end up better than this. He might have ended up accusing someone else, and that would have been awful. Or maybe he knew it was her all the time, and would never have trusted her again!
Coming clean had been hard to do. But she realized now that she had made the right choice, done the right thing. Even if it didn't always end up well, like this time, she would have to be more careful to tell the truth when it hurt to do so. It was like ripping off a bandaid- painful for a moment, and then much better. That beat slow and ouching.
"Yeah, let's go! Maybe we can even come up with a brand-new spaceship for your collection!" The possibilities, Sunny thought, were endless! Having Niner's trust and friendship, that was worth the moment where she'd pulled the metaphorical band-aid off. Now that everything was healed, it was time for some fun!
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