Hello, Little Lovelies! Almost an Actress, here. I know that I should be working on Of Actresses and Sorrow or Bully War (Par Two). I know, I know. I apologize, but I couldn't get this plot bunny out of my head. By the way, plot bunnies are my new companions. This one is named Thea. She's black with white spots. *Nods and stokes Thea* So, this poem is by e.e. cummings, a poet who never capitalized ANYTHING. The characters in this Fic are Maggie, Milly, Molly, and May. Maggie is a singer. It's her life, you know? She has dark hair and pale skin. Milly is a healer. She has peachy-colored hair and bright, curious brown eyes. She wears glasses. Molly is the jerk of the group. She's challenging and bullheaded, with raven hair and dark eyes. She is Maggie's cousin. May is a loner. She has a short blonde pixie cut with giant green eyes, and she is quiet.

Well, thank you for listening and reviewing!

My Sincerest Regards,

-Almost Novi

XXX

maggie and milly and molly and may

went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang

so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles, and

milly befriended a stranded star

whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing

which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone

as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)

it's always ourselves that we find in the sea

- e. e. cummings

Maggie, Milly, Molly, and May sat in a circle, chatting amongst themselves. Maggie stayed quiet most of the time, a sweet smile on her face. Sometimes she interjected in a soft voice, but most of the time she hummed quietly to herself, keeping busy by writing down the lyrics to a song she was thinking about performing at the coffee shop's open mic night. She was a sweet, quiet dark-haired girl whose passion in life was singing. It consumed her sometimes, but everyone was so enthralled by her voice they didn't mind.

Milly was animatedly gesticulating, flapping her hands around with a giant grin permanently latched upon her face. She turned to Maggie a few times for encouragement, but didn't get much of a reply. She spent most of the time arguing good-naturedly with Molly, but she didn't mind. Milly was a cheery, outgoing girl with a passion for healing. She was a problem solver, and very interested in the anatomy of animals and humans. She was a girl with strangely peach-hued hair, freckles splashed across her nose, and twinkling light brown eyes. She constantly pushed her glasses up her nose, and kept glancing down at her treasured, battered copy of Grey's Anatomy.

Molly was the group's resident hothead. She was a raven-haired girl with a small, pinched face that was half-concealed by her hair. Her dark eyes were usually brewing with anger and passionate rages. She had burning views on every subject from politics to theism, and wasn't afraid to share them. She was doing most of the talking – read "shouting" - for the group, arguing with Milly happily. When she could argue and debate she was in her element. That was why she was the captain of the debate team at her school. Her most treasured possession, and the one she always carried with her, and a medal that declared her "BRIDGEVILLE JUNIOR DEBATE CHAMPION."

The last girl in the group, May, had yet to speak. While Maggie was quiet and sweet, the way May was quiet was slightly unnerving. She would stay silent for days at a time, observing things with her giant green eyes, watching and pondering things. She was very thoughtful and quite eloquent in her writing. Teachers forgot about her until she turned in remarkably written essays, and then they would proudly show off the silent, awkwardly smiling girl to whoever chose to walk by. While the rest of the girls in her group put at least a few words in, May just listened to them talk, letting their excited words fill her ears.

"I'm so excited for tomorrow!" Milly squealed, jumping up from their little circle. She was clad in pajamas colored the minty green of doctor's scrubs, and her friends secretly speculated that was the reason she'd purchased them. She tugged the leg of the pants down and slipped her feet back into her slippers. "We're going to have so much fun!" She did an excited little kick in the air, causing one of her fuzzy – and also scrub-green – slippers to fly into the air and hit her fish tank. "Whoops!" she giggled, running over and retrieving it, then shoving it back on her foot with unnecessary force. She pushed her glasses up her nose.

Maggie giggled softly at the whole display. She was clad in a pure white nightgown that reached down below her knees. She looked like a girl from the early 20th century with her old fashioned sleepwear. In fact, it had been from a production of The Sound of Music she'd been in, and the nightgown had been given to her. She ran a hand along the sleeve, remembering the play and smiling to herself. "It'll be fun," she voiced quietly.

"So you can talk," Molly remarked sarcastically. "Now if only we could get May to say something." She turned to her nearly silent friend. "May… how is that? I do enough talkin' for both of us, and right now I don't even remember what your voice sounds like." She chuckled. "How do you stay so silent?" She tugged down the short shorts that she'd been sleeping in for the past week, accompanied by a tight-fitting sleep shirt.

May contemplated the question. Why do I stay so silent? she thought to herself. I guess I just like to observe things. Get into people's heads. She wanted to voice this to Molly, but instead just shrugged. She didn't smile, but her eyes twinkled for the briefest moment. She was wearing a large, holey gray shirt that belonged to her father and a pair of oversized pajama pants. Maybe not as attractive as Molly's tight-fitting shorts and shirt, as innocent as Maggie's old fashioned nightgown, or as reflective of what she loved as Milly's scrub-green pajamas, but they were comfortable and practical for a sleepover. She yawned and wriggled into her sleeping bag, motioning for the other girls to do the same.

Eventually, they were all in their respected bags and blanket mounds, in Molly's case, sleeping and dreaming.

XXX

The next day, after a long drive laced with giggles and arguments, the four friends stood in front of the crashing, steely-gray ocean water. They couldn't have picked a worse day to go to the seaside, and Molly loudly voiced the fact over the driving wind. "WHY DID WE GO TODAY?!" she shouted, grimacing as the driving rain pounded into her bright pink tube top and jeans. She rubbed her hands briskly up and down her arms, seeking warmth.

Milly, who was a bit more sensibly dressed in a pair of jeans and a white sweater with a big red cross in the center, wrapped her arms around Molly from behind. "There ya go, Molly!" she giggled. "Body heat!"

Molly hated physical contact, but was so cold she begrudgingly leaned into her friend's embrace. Maggie shivered silently in her white dress. It was a simple number with black fringe so that the bottom looked like the keys of a piano. Her feet were slipped into a pair of soaked white ballet slippers, now filled with sand. She gratefully accepted May's silent offer for her sweatshirt.

May was wearing a long-sleeved gray V-neck and a hair of black skinny jeans. She was shivering now that she'd given away her beloved black sweatshirt, but was glad to make Maggie smile. May, though she knew she shouldn't choose, loved Maggie the most out of all of her friends. The dark-haired girl understood May more than spunky Milly or argumentative Molly, it seemed.

Suddenly, a large gray wave flung itself upon the four friends, drenching them to the bone. May actually shrieked with shock, her giant green eyes widening even more than usual. Her teeth began to chatter uncontrollably, and she could practically feel her lips turning blue. Molly did nothing but give an angered shout at the heavens.

"OH, GREAT!" she fumed. "Not only am I friggin' freezing, but I'm WET TOO!" She flailed her arms about in senseless anger.

Milly's light brown eyes widened. "Look out!" she cried, shoving Molly out of the way right before a second wave collided with her already soaked body. "The waves are going crazy! C'mon!" she shrieked. "We gotta get outta here!"

May grabbed the stunned Maggie's hand and pulled her in the direction of a large cave that they had seen before. Molly and the drenched Milly were hot on their heels. The four friends nearly tripped over their shoes in their haste to get to the cave. Unfortunately, May, who was in the lead, tripped and fell. Maggie was still holding her hand and fell after her. It seemed that they had fallen into a large hole in the floor of the damp cave, vaguely reminiscent of Alice's rabbit hole.

"We're gotta save them!" Milly screamed, and jumped in after them.

"Milly!" Molly cried accusingly… and jumped in after her.

XXX

The four ponies were splayed in odd positions on the stormy beach. The first one to raise her head was cream-colored with a long, somewhat humanlike, dark brown mane complemented by dark eyes. The rain soaked her white pelt, drenching her. She got up and stretched, opening her mouth in a wide yawn. Where am I? was her first coherent thought. She looked to her flank for reassurance and saw a beautiful white scroll with song lyrics written on them and a microphone next to it. She lifted her left front leg and inspected it, peering at her hoof for many long moments, as if confused. She shook her head slowly and looked at the three ponies next to her. One began to stir.

She had a dark cyan pelt with a peachy-hued mane and tail. She had freckles of the same color peppering her muzzle and cheeks, and a pair of white glasses resting on her nose. They began to slide down her curved muzzle, and she raised a hoof to push them up. "Huh," was the first word out of her mouth. She had a large – even slightly garish – red cross on her flank, pronouncing her a healer of some sort. She turned to the cream-colored Earth pony in front of her. "Huh," she repeated. "Know where we are?"

The Earth pony shook her head. "I'm afraid I don't… I'm sorry," she said softly. She stuck out a hoof and smiled. "I'm Serene Melody," she introduced herself. It was funny; the name seemed to have come from nowhere.

The dark cyan pony smiled, taking the Earth pony's hoof in her own and shaking it firmly. "I'm Healing Cross," she said, bobbing her head. That sounded right. The horn atop her head crackled with dark green magic, almost the color of a nurse's uniform.

Finally, the other two ponies beside them stirred. The first was a pure white Pegasus with a raven colored mane that covered half of her angry, pinched face. Her wings flared out and her cutie mark – a series of note cards and exclamation points – almost seemed to glow red. Her black eyes were filled with rage. "WHERE AM I?!" she snapped loudly. "Who are you ponies?! Did you knock me out and drag me here?! Why is it raining so hard?! Why-"

The last pony, a pale pink Pegasus with giant green eyes flapped into the air and revealed her cutie mark: a smooth round stone, as small as a world and as large as alone. The stone was white. "STOP!" she thundered at the other Pegasus. "We need to get ourselves together, see?" She fluttered back down and stuck out a hoof to the irate pony next to her. "I'm Solitary Skies," he introduced herself.

The other Pegasus gave a begrudging nod and shook the pale pink hoof that was offered to her. "I'm Salty Debate," she muttered, almost embarrassed by her name.

Solitary Skies smiled and nodded, turning to the other two ponies beside her. "Who're you?" she asked, her green eyes imploring.

The unicorn smiled and pushed up her glasses, saying, "Healing Cross!"

The seemly shy Earth pony mumbled, "Serene Melody. I'm a singer."

Healing Cross nodded. "I suspected as much. What do you sing, Serene Melody? Opera? Show tunes? Oldies? Pop songs?"

Serene Melody looked overwhelmed and shrugged, murmuring, "A bit of everything, I guess."

Healing Cross nodded again. "I'm a healer; a doctor, maybe?" She shrugged. "I dunno."

"I debate," Salty Debate allowed.

"I'm… solitary," Solitary Skies guessed.

"Well, now that we're all acquainted… let's get out of this rain!" Healing Cross giggled.