A lovely piece by arashidrgn arashidrgn

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Twilight sighed through her nose as she checked her messages. Spam, spam, bad joke from Pinkie, spam, workout update from Rainbow Dash… spam again. Thank goodness for lo-fi music playlists to keep this chore manageable. She was just about read to close her laptop and go to bed when she saw a message she had overlooked.

It was from Rarity that had been semi-buried under all the other junk. Rarity had been something of a no-show in public since yesterday… which only piqued Twi’s curiosity even more.

‘Let’s see where she’s been.’ She mumbled to herself as she opened the message. The header is what caught her eye the first time, simply reading. “You Have To Hear This.”

Being of refined taste, (or a snob as Applejack liked to put it) it took some doing to impress Rarity, especially so much she’d share it online so insistently. It came with two attached files, a photo and an Mp3 file simply titled ‘Dazzle’.

After a quick check to make sure her anti-virus was updated and ready to go, she read through it, gnawing softly on the cap of a pen.

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Twilight!

It’s been such a long time~ How are you? I just met this amazing guy, he approached me at the shop and we swapped digits.

Little old me getting all the attention right? Well he sent me this awesome song. Told me it was for pretty little things like me and we talked about music. His friend is a composer, she used to be part of a band I think. We went to get new clothes and he took pictures of me in this adorable outfit. I put the pic in the email thing for you to see it.

XD Look at me ramble!! Anyway you should listen to this song it’s so good. I listened to it and it blew my mind, I know you’ll like it.

We’re dating now, I should be able to hang out this weekend if he doesn’t have anything he wants to do. Tell Dashie she needs to meet a guy, or girl if she’s into that sorta thing.

_Byyyye!

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“What the hell…” Twilight mouthed silently.

That… did not sound like Rarity. At first, she thought it was a prank. But no, all the contact info was hers, it even still had the link to her social media. Officially on the case, she scanned both files. When they came up clean, she breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that at least her hard drive wouldn’t be melted.

Twi opened up the photo first, and upon seeing it, her jaw dropped. It was Rarity, alright… but something about her expression was off. She wore this big smile, her lips painted with dark purple lipstick and her eyes… her deep blue eyes were totally spaced out. They had this glazed-over, thousand-yard stare about them like she was just zoned out and staring into space. She wore a deep blue strapless summer dress with a pair of indigo stockings and black stiletto heels. It looked like the kind of thing she’d wear…except for the collar.

Around her pale neck was a black leather collar with a white diamond shaped clasp in front. That detail haunted Twilight. Who persuaded her to put that on? The picture was outside, clearly in someone’s back yard but there were no other landmarks or anything to get the place down.

Twilight closed the image, and almost dreaded playing the mp3. But she chided herself, what was she afraid of? Sure, her friend was acting weird but there had to have been a rational explanation. What could a music file of all things do to her? Besides, if anything happened, she could take her earbuds out or close the media player. One transfer to her mp3 player later, her mouse cursor floated over the play button.

“Nothing ventured…” She said to herself.

…It was a pop song. She got worked up over a pop song with some digital audio effects thrown in. It wasn’t a bad song. It was chill and catchy, but not worth the dramatics Rarity went to in her message. It was a long one, though. 30 minutes for one song?! As if she was gonna listen to all of it! …Well, she could give it until 15 minutes in to get more interesting. Meanwhile, she could browse the web.

5 minutes of listening and Twilight was getting sleepy. Not tired, but that pleasant drowsiness one got when cuddled up inside on a cold evening. Curiously… she could make out voices underneath the somewhat-banal lyrics of the song.

Good girl… Simple… most of them didn’t mean much of anything… until she heard the voice, the same voice as the woman singing the main lyrics, say “Silly Twilight…”

That was when it got too far. Twilight grabbed at her earbuds to yank them out, but upon her fingers touching the cord, an intense white-hot migraine rocked her skull. She fell backwards onto her bed, the room spinning around her like a centrifuge. After the initial shock of dizziness subsided enough for her to sit up in a kneeling position, she tried again to… and then she immediately lost her train of thought. Focusing on anything for more than a second was impossible. It was like her brain had crashed. The voices in the file were louder and more distinct, the music itself slurring into a slow, sludgy onslaught of noise.

“No…” Twilight moaned, clumsily groping at the earbuds. “I can’t think.”

“No need to think.” The voice echoed back, bouncing around in her head. “When you’re just a silly girl”

“But.. gotta…think…stop it” She grabbed around the room, trying to stand… every attempt ending in her dropping back on the bed.

“Silly silly girl, giggle and empty yourself.”

Twi was giggling, unable to stop herself. “No…I need to…silly?” It was hard to pin down what were her thoughts and what was the song’s corrupting spell. She knelt on her bed, wiggling impotently in place, head lolling back and forth, her hair swishing side to side as she felt her mind swirl down…down…into an abyss of color and meaningless noise.

“This isn’t your decision.”

“No…”

“None of this is your decision.”

“I am talking and you are listening.”

“Head up, head down, smile and say yes master”

“Yes Master.” Twilight couldn’t stop herself, it was happening on its own, she was dreaming and the dream was consuming her.

“Cook and clean and smile and nod and obey obey obey obey”

“Why…”

“Empty head means a happy life. You are waking up now.”

Twilight looked down at the device… too out of it to read the numbers but the time had passed. the song was almost over…

“waking up now.”

“she just…couldn’t…stop it…”

“Wake up.”

Twilight’s mind snapped back to hear her silent room. Something had changed. In the back of her mind, she felt like something, a lot of somethings were gone. Memories burned out of existence, leaving behind an anesthetized bliss. She was smiling, giggling. Silly girl. She felt tingly all over, aroused but with nothing to satisfy her.

She stood up, frowning when she saw herself in her mirror. Her clothes were wrong. Not ill-fitting, but wrong. She had to wear the right clothes.

Twilight stripped down, shambling naked over to her closet like the automaton she had become. Most of her outfits were too professional, too academic… until she saw a black dress with a magenta ribbon around the waist, with a pair of charcoal-colored stockings hanging with it in the closet. This outfit was correct.

She lifted the dress up over her head and let it fall over her, wriggling into the garment and patting and tucking until it fit perfectly…correctly. She dropped herself back onto her bed, sticking her bare legs up in the air, sliding the stockings on. The cool nylon only added to the pink-hot arousal that had conquered most of what remained of her consciousness. Then, she slid the other on. Twilight stood and admired herself in the mirror. She looked better, her new outfit felt more appropriately feminine. As the world around her came back into sharper focus, she regarded the objects that belonged to her old self with disinterested contempt. Such academic, intellectual pursuits weren’t for her. She was much too silly for such things.

Her laptop pinged. A new message. With conditioned enthusiasm, she rushed over to check it.

“Good girl.” It read.

“Please go outside, I’m waiting to take you somewhere special. A place where you can learn what’s really important. Before you go, make sure that song goes to your friends.”

Twilight nodded thoughtfully. She picked their names from her contacts list, then sat down to type. They would love this song.