Rhapsody of Light

Harmony watched Taxti as she instructed her nieces in the use of magic. They were gathered on the shore of the lake, staring into the reflective surface. The moon was a sliver in the sky, providing very little illumination. With her second sight, Harmony no longer needed light to see the world around her. The layers of energy overlaying the physical world created a soft ambiance as they blended with her normal sight. The result was a light reminiscent of an overcast day, making the dark night easily visible. 

The smell of exotic flowers and fruits was thick in the air inside the circle. Unlike most lakes she had visited, this one didn't have the smell of fish pervading the area. It smelled like it had just rained. 

Harmony could occasionally see shimmery light reflecting off mermaids in the distance. She wondered just how deep this lake was. She remembered her mother claiming the moat between the two rings was bottomless. 

"Technically, you can use any surface for this," Taxti instructed her nieces. "Even sand or air, but for the best results, you'll want to find a reflective surface. The first thing you need to do is think of the person, place, or thing you want to view. Once you have it firmly locked in your inner eye, you need to project it onto the surface of the water. By project, I'm referring to using your will again. You are instructing the image to appear in the same way you instruct your arm to move. You have to get used to thinking of everything as an extension of your body that can be commanded just like your limbs. Go ahead and try it." 

Aurora and Serenity eagerly stared into the water, their faces full of concentration. After a few seconds, two separate streams of video appeared on the surface of the lake, overlapping each other slightly. 

"That's Susan," Serenity informed them with a satisfied grin. There was an image of a girl Serenity's age asleep on a bed in a room full of stuffed animals. "Apparently, she really likes stuffed animals." 

Aurora's scrying feed was showing what appeared to be the inside of a passenger train cabin. Harmony's breath caught when she saw Rhapsody wrapped around a weeping Mystery. She felt a sense of amusement as she observed the intimate pose, remembering how much the small fairy ignored personal boundaries. 

"I wonder why Mystery is so sad," Aurora murmured, concern thick in her voice. 

"It's probably years of grief being released," Taxti observed with a wistful smile. "Rhapsody is good at pulling repressed emotional toxins out of people." 

"I'm not sure we should be spying on Rhapsody and Mystery like this," Harmony said nervously. 

"There's no spying on Rhapsody," Taxti told her wryly. "If you can see her, it's because she's letting you see her." 

Harmony swallowed as she watched Rhapsody hold Mystery tenderly, the other woman slowly burning through her grief. She had expected a stingy part of her mind to object to seeing her fairy in such an intimate pose with the beautiful woman, but all she felt was sympathy for Mystery. 

When Rhapsody asked if she could share Harmony's traumatic childhood memories with Mystery, Harmony frowned, looking worriedly at her nieces. She didn't want them to hear about the kind of horrors she had endured. Her fears were laid to rest when Rhapsody used some kind of mental link to show the other woman instead of talking about it. 

Aurora and Serenity looked at Harmony worriedly as Mystery began weeping again, a horrified expression on her face. She hoped they never found out what had happened. They knew their grandfather had never been a part of their life, but Harmony never wanted them to find out just how monstrous the sadistic bastard had actually been. 

Harmony blinked when Rhapsody told her about Harmony's profession as an author. She smiled with amusement at Mystery's expression of disbelief. She felt a flutter in her abdomen at the look of sudden eagerness on Mystery's face. 

The image suddenly vanished, eliciting a startled yelp from Aurora. 

"It just collapsed," Aurora informed Taxti in confusion. "It felt like a thread getting cut." 

"That's because Rhapsody kicked us out," Taxti explained with an amused look at Harmony. "She must have been preparing to talk about something she didn't want us to hear." 

"She knew we were watching the whole time?" Serenity asked in shock, her eyes wide. 

"What do you think?" Taxti asked archly, shifting her weight with her hands on her hips. "You've known Rhapsody long enough to know that nobody could spy on her without her knowledge." 

"Yeah, I suppose so," Serenity agreed with a rueful smile. 

Aurora nodded with a grin. "I knew she knew we were there." 

"Now that you know how to scry, it's time to learn how to detect when someone is scrying on you," Taxti said meaningfully. "As well as how to prevent it." 

"Seems like you have another fan," Harmony's mother noted quietly, a smirk on her face. 

Harmony thought of the excited look on Mystery's face when Rhapsody had revealed her identity. She gave her mother a level look and tried to think of a retort. Her brain failed her, and she stood with her mouth open, nothing to say. Her mother's smile widened at her inability to articulate a response. Harmony settled for a huffy silence, turning back to face Taxti. 

"You'll need to practice doing this regularly until it becomes part of your normal way of thinking," Taxti was saying to her nieces. Her dark hair glowed in Harmony's second sight. She wondered what special abilities Taxti's hair had that would make it glow on the EM spectrum. "You need to visualize a shield surrounding your mind. The more complex and creative, the more resistant it will be to someone breaking through. However, with added complexity comes more time required to train your mind to constantly include the extra thread of thought. I would suggest starting with something very basic, then increasing the complexity as you grow over the years." 

Taxti paused and looked over at Harmony and her mother. "This doesn't require any magic expenditure, so you can practice this as well. It would be a good idea to add this to your daily routine when you meditate." 

"When we meditate?" Harmony repeated with a puzzled expression, tilting her head curiously. 

"Oh, Rhapsody hasn't started you meditating yet?" Taxti asked in surprise. She suddenly chuckled as she eyed Harmony wryly. "I suppose she's been busy with other… lessons." 

Harmony tried to will her face not to blush, but her body ignored her commands. Her mother and Taxti began laughing as her face flushed to a deep red. Her nieces joined the adults in their laughter, making her flush even more. Weren't they too young to know what they were talking about? Harmony tried to think back to when she was eleven, but those years were a bit of a blur. She had spent most of her time in her own head playing imagination games. 

Taxti had Harmony and her mother practice making mental shields while her nieces attempted to scry for them. So long as Harmony was holding the thought of the bubble shield around her consciousness in place, her nieces' scrying failed to view her on the surface of the water. The moment she became distracted at all, their scrying would immediately show Harmony's or her mother's image. 

"How in the world do you ever train your mind to always have a mental shield active?" Harmony asked in dismay as her shield failed to stop her ecstatic nieces from spying on her again. 

"That's what the meditation is for," Taxti explained patiently. "You'll learn how to create partitions in your mind, as well as how to think with more than one thread of consciousness. If you hadn't gone through the initiation for the transformation, you would have to spend decades to learn how to split your thoughts into multiple threads. Luckily for you, it's probably only going to take a few sessions before your mind unlocks the ability." 

Harmony cringed internally at the thought of meditation. She had tried meditating a few times and hated it. The idea of emptying her head of thoughts was the opposite of what she wanted to do as an author. It was so damn boring. She hoped they had a different method for meditating than what she had tried from watching YouTube videos. 

"Okay, let's move on to light weaving," Taxti suggested with an approving smile at the two girls. "You two are extremely quick learners. I'm impressed with how well you are progressing." 

Harmony's nieces preened under the positive reinforcement, their faces beaming as they stared at each other excitedly. Harmony smiled gratefully at Taxti, knowing the faun was actively building their self-esteem on purpose. She reflected again on how lucky she had been to befriend Rhapsody and her companions. 

Harmony froze as she felt a familiar buzzing in her bones. She had begun to associate it with the use of a certain kind of magic, like teleportation. She looked around warily for whoever had triggered her magical sixth sense. 

"What's the matter?" Taxti broke off what she had been saying when she noticed Harmony turning in place as she searched the surrounding area. 

"I felt someone using magic nearby," Harmony explained distractedly. She couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, but the electrical resonance in her bones was still active. 

"What do you mean, you felt someone use magic?" Taxti asked with a frown. "How do you feel someone use magic?" 

"It feels like my bones are buzzing when someone uses certain types of magic around me, like teleportation," Harmony answered quietly, not wanting to alert whoever was nearby to her sixth sense. "I can still feel this one though, so it's not a teleport ability. It's just something less powerful, but still buzzing." 

Taxti looked at her peculiarly for a moment before briefly closing her eyes and taking a deep breath that raised her expansive bosom dramatically. Harmony felt another low-level buzzing in her bones at whatever Taxti was doing. A moment later, Taxti opened her eyes and smiled excitedly. 

"Hello, Emily," Taxti called out brightly. "It's so good to see you again. Where have you been?" 

A moment later, an angel appeared on the ground in front of Harmony, her eyes full of curiosity. She had dark hair and the face of an… angel. Her eyes were swirling purple galaxies. Harmony felt an aura of power flood out from the angel, a presence that was both benevolent and protective. She had a pair of wings that looked like they were made from clouds. Harmony could feel how soft they were just from looking at them. 

"I had planned to just spectate," the angel who Taxti had called Emily said dryly. "Apparently, I'm going to have to find a new method for stealth that takes synesthesia into account." 

"Is that how she's detecting magic?" Taxti asked in sudden understanding. "That was certainly unexpected." 

Harmony couldn't stop gaping at the angel in front of her. An angel! She was beautiful in a way that could only be described as transcendent. Rhapsody was the only person she had ever seen who shared the same type of fantastical beauty. She hoped like hell that this didn't mean all of the nonsense from religious dogma was valid. 

"Girls, this is Emily," Taxti introduced the angel with a broad smile. "She already knows who all of you are." 

"Please tell me this doesn't validate any of that nonsense from religions," Harmony begged in a pleading voice. 

Emily and Taxti laughed, their eyes full of mirth. 

"Luckily, that is not the case in this universe," Emily answered when she finished laughing. "We're just regular people, like you. We just come from another realm." 

"Well… look what the cat dragged in," Rhapsody's voice said playfully as she appeared next to Harmony. She floated up and embraced Emily warmly. "It's so wonderful to see you, Emily. What kept you?" 

Emily nodded at Harmony. "We lost track of her about twenty minutes ago and got worried. Someone overclocked time, so we started freaking out. Luckily, it looks like only twenty years have gone by. What's been going on while we were in slow-time?" 

Rhapsody's face lost its exuberance as she stared back at Emily, her eyes suddenly filled with sadness. "Let's go apart to talk about this." 

Emily's face grew concerned as she observed Rhapsody. She nodded, and the two of them flew away. 

"Okay, did anyone else just see an angel appear?" Harmony asked the others in a bemused tone. "I'm pretty sure that Yuccas Fitter is still affecting me." 

"We hadn't intended to introduce you to people from other realms for a few decades," Taxti said with a rueful shake of her head. "Your ability to detect magic sort of fast-tracked that revelation. I don't suppose I could just persuade you to forget that you saw an angel?" 

Harmony gave an incredulous laugh as she stared back at Taxti. "How am I supposed to forget a being like that? Her presence was insane." 

"It's a good thing she was holding back, I suppose," Taxti noted wryly. "We wouldn't want you drooling all over the ground for the next hour while you recover." 

Harmony froze as the benevolent presence she had felt earlier suddenly blanketed the area in a towering rage so intense that her knees buckled and she fell to the ground. The rage was so intense she half-expected the world to combust around them. The aura fluctuated wildly between rage and soul-crushing sorrow for several seconds before it suddenly vanished. 

"What was that?" Aurora asked anxiously. She and Serenity had both fallen to the ground as well. They were hesitantly getting back to their feet, their eyes fearful. 

"I'm guessing Rhapsody just told them what's been going on here for the last twenty years," Taxti answered with a sad look at Harmony. 

Emily was suddenly standing in front of Harmony, her face covered in golden tears. She wrapped Harmony in a tight embrace. "I'm so sorry, Harmony. I failed you." 

Harmony gasped as she felt waves of overpowering love saturate her entire body. She closed her eyes and soaked the wonderful feeling up. Emily continued weeping as she held Harmony in a love-inducing embrace. Harmony felt confusion flood her mind as she tried to make sense of the last ten minutes. Was this woman some kind of guardian angel assigned to protect Harmony? Had Rhapsody told her about her childhood, and that was what had triggered the emotional storm? 

Harmony tentatively wrapped her arms around Emily, which turned out to require different arm placement when the person had wings. 

"It's totally fine, Emily," Harmony assured her gently. "You haven't failed anyone. Just look at me. I've never been happier in my life. If having a different past meant losing this, I wouldn't change a thing." 

Nothing Harmony said consoled Emily. She was completely devastated, her grief sharp and jagged. Harmony looked over Emily's shoulder at Rhapsody with a helpless expression. Rhapsody's expression was almost identical to Emily's. When the fairy saw her looking, she quickly changed her expression to one of commiserating sympathy. Harmony stared at the small woman anxiously. Had she been hiding this kind of soul-crushing grief from Harmony and putting on a happy face the whole time? Why did they feel so responsible for Harmony's childhood trauma? 

Harmony struggled to feel anything but happiness as the angel's embrace charged her system full of love. 

"What happened to Aunt Harmony?" Serenity asked Taxti quietly, her young face determined. 

Harmony gave Taxti a warning look, but it wasn't necessary. Taxti smiled down at Serenity with a mixture of sadness and regret. 

"When she thinks you're ready, she'll tell you," Taxti replied firmly. "The details aren't important. She endured a personal hell, but she survived and even thrived. She's here with us now, and that's what's important." 

After several more minutes of a supercharged emotional embrace, Emily vanished. Harmony stood in shock, her arms still raised to where she had been holding Emily. 

"Where did she go?" Harmony asked in confusion, slowly lowering her arms as she looked around for a hint of where the angel had disappeared. 

"She went back to her own realm," Rhapsody answered with a reassuring smile. "She's probably going to see her husband. Sometimes plans have a way of failing so epically that there are no words to describe it." 

"What plans?" Harmony asked intently. "Rhapsody, what the hell is going on?" 

"I actually can't tell you, I'm afraid," Rhapsody sighed regretfully, her large eyes full of repressed emotions. "Just trust me when I say it will all make sense someday. The important thing now is to live your life to the fullest. We're here for you now, and we aren't going anywhere. Can you accept that, Harmony?" 

Harmony stared into Rhapsody's pleading eyes, her thoughts a turbulent mess. She could tell there was so much more going on that she should somehow know. She could almost feel the knowledge, waiting behind locked doors if she could only find the key. 

She took a deep breath as she watched Rhapsody teeter on the edge of her own emotional cliff. She would do anything for her beautiful fairy. 

"Okay, Rhapsody," Harmony finally responded, smiling with love in her eyes. "I'll do anything for you." 

Rhapsody closed her eyes as a large tear formed in one eye before running down her cheek. "Thank you, Harmony." 

Harmony's mother shared a curious look with Harmony. She could clearly sense the vast emptiness of all the words not spoken as well. 

"I do have a request to make of you," Rhapsody said hesitantly, shifting her weight nervously. "Would you mind spending a day with Mystery on the train the day after tomorrow?" 

Harmony frowned at the unexpected request. "Sure…" she agreed slowly. "Can you tell me why?" 

"She is having a rough time coming to terms with her life," Rhapsody answered with a pained smile. "She spent a large portion of her life in mental battles with herself, trying to convince herself not to give up. The reason she is so terrified of becoming a world tree is because of the thought of living forever when she already hates life so much most of the time. She's never had any real friends or parental figures, aside from her younger brother. I think she would have found a lot more happiness in life if she had friends to support her through the dark times. I was hoping you could be one of those friends so she could start to see that life can be beautiful—so beautiful that it's worth fighting through the dark times to live for the good times. She hasn't had any really good times to see that they are worth fighting for." 

Harmony smiled warmly as she gazed back at Rhapsody. "I would love to go spend some time with Mystery." 

Everything Rhapsody did seemed to be to help someone else. Harmony wasn't sure that her fairy wasn't secretly an angel disguised as a fairy. She had never met anyone as selfless as her sweet fairy. 

"In the meantime, I thought I would discuss some of those ideas you had the other day with the whole group," Rhapsody announced with an eager grin. "I think this is going to be a totally epic change to the way the world works." 

"What change?" Harmony's mother asked, leaning forward interestedly. 

"I asked Harmony to come up with some ideas for how to deal with the intelligence agencies demonizing us with the public," Rhapsody elaborated with a wry grin. "And I mean that literally. They are trying to convince everyone that we are actually demons seeking the destruction of this world. One of Harmony's ideas was to implement a heads-up display, or overlay, that showed information about a person. There would be a leveling system that allowed people to track their abilities as they improved their skills. It would also show other information, such as species, alignment to good or evil, and reputation. People would gain levels from any activity that had a positive alignment, while they would potentially lose levels for doing things with a negative alignment." 

"And you could actually make a system that could do all of that?" Harmony's mother asked disbelievingly. "How would that even be possible?" 

"Just think of it as magic," Rhapsody suggested lightly. "And yes, I can do that." 

Harmony's mother was staring at Rhapsody with the same awe that Harmony had earlier. Aurora and Serenity were staring at her with hope in their dark eyes, while Taxti looked completely unfazed. 

"We need to come up with some rules though," Rhapsody continued in a more serious tone. "Like, what kinds of things are considered to be positively aligned and what would be considered negatively aligned. How much grinding would it take to actually level up, and what kind of abilities should be offered for reaching those levels?" 

"You're seriously talking about turning life into a game?" Harmony's mother asked incredulously. 

"It makes sense, Mom," Harmony told her with a faint smile. "Look at how much time kids will spend clicking on something like a cookie on a screen over and over just to see their level go up. If they could get the same positive feedback in life, people would willingly do their chores, their homework, and help the old lady carry the groceries out to her car. People would actually get back out into the real world and interact with each other in person." 

Harmony's mother frowned as she thought it over. After a moment of silence, she suddenly laughed, her blue eyes sparkling with humor. 

"The idea just seems so wrong, but I can't fault your logic," her mother admitted, shaking her head ruefully. "You're basically going to prove all of those quotes and adages about life being a game correct." 

"The first thing we need to isolate is what is considered a good deed or a bad deed," Rhapsody said musingly. "After we've mapped those alignments, we can come up with things like classes and the skills that are assigned to those classes. Do the rest of you think people should be rewarded with innate skill knowledge after leveling up, or should the level system merely be a visual display that allows people to see their progress in life?" 

"Rewards!" Serenity exclaimed with a grin. "There should definitely be some kind of reward system. If I practice running until I get up to level five, I should get some kind of reward, like greater speed or stamina. If there are rewards, people won't get bored of it." 

"Yes!" Aurora agreed excitedly. "If I get good at cleaning my room, there should be some kind of reward that makes cleaning it easier when I level up." 

"Hmm…" Rhapsody stared at the two of them thoughtfully. "I suppose there could be some kind of dexterity system that made it easier to just start throwing your stuff in the general direction of where it goes and it would automatically end up in the right place." 

"What about intellect?" Harmony asked, her lips pursed. "Should we actually increase intellectual acuity based on breadth and depth of knowledge acquisition? How much more should the intellectual reward be? And should it be just a regular increase in intellect, or should there be a specific concept that they will immediately understand as a reward, without any need to learn it the slow way? Would that even be possible?" 

"Just assume anything is possible for now," Rhapsody suggested with a dimpled smile. "I'll interrupt if I hear something that I don't think is possible." 

"You're really playing up this Goddess vibe, aren't you?" Harmony asked with an appraising gaze at Rhapsody. 

"I'll be your goddess, anytime, anywhere," Rhapsody offered archly. 

Harmony flushed as sudden desire erupted from deep inside. Her mother groaned when she saw the look in Harmony's eyes. 

"Focus," Harmony's mother said dryly. "Let's try and get through a few more hours of planning before you go play peek-a-boo." 

"Peek-a-boo?" Harmony demanded indignantly. "That phrase is now on the banned list." 

Harmony looked at Rhapsody hopefully. "Can we add a ban feature that makes it so people forget what they were going to say if it's on the ban list?" 

"I'm afraid that's pushing a line we don't want to cross," Rhapsody declined with an amused smirk. "We offer to give people extra abilities if they do things positively aligned, or take those abilities away if they do things negatively aligned. We don't take away people's inherent abilities or access to speech. We don't want to be dictators, after all." 

"I guess not," Harmony sighed regretfully, glaring at her mother. "There should be exceptions though. Peek-a-boo indeed." 

Taxti started laughing as she observed Harmony's disgruntled expression. "Now I'm curious where you came up with peek-a-boo as a word for… you know what." 

Taxti had caught herself before finishing her thought, with a nervous glance at Serenity and Aurora. 

"Can we just get back to the task at hand?" Serenity asked pointedly. "So you are able to add intellectual rewards. What do you want to do for the other rewards? For instance, Aurora here has just saved a kitten from certain death, then rescued a cricket stuck in the sliding door track, and then saved a beetle from getting stepped on. Would that be the kind of thing people would be rewarded for? If so, what class would it fall under and how many levels would they need to climb to receive some kind of reward?" 

"That definitely sounds like the vegan class," Harmony's mother declared with a grin at Harmony. "And I would suggest an ability to speak with animals. There's probably a gamer term you could use that would be more recognizable." 

"You mean like a beast tamer?" Aurora asked excitedly. "Yeah, I want to be a beast tamer." 

They spent several hours discussing the classes, rules, and abilities the system would have. It was near morning when they decided to break off the discussion before Aurora and Serenity got burned out. 

"I need to get my toothbrush out of Aunt Harmony's bathroom," Serenity announced as they ended the discussion. 

Rhapsody reached out a hand to stop her, but she had already teleported away. 

"Well, this might be awkward," Rhapsody commented with a mischievous smile tugging at her lips. 

"What?" Harmony asked curiously, her own lips twitching in anticipation. 

Before Rhapsody could answer, Serenity was back, her eyes wide with shock. 

"Aunt Harmony, there's a woman in your bed!" Serenity announced in a shocked voice. 

"There is?" Harmony asked, her brows drawing down in confusion. "Did you recognize them?" 

"No, they were covered in blankets and had a pillow over their head," Serenity answered quickly. "Do you think it's some kind of drifter that just found an empty house and decided to sleep there?" 

Harmony turned to raise an eyebrow at Rhapsody. "Something tells me there is another reason." 

Serenity turned to look at Rhapsody expectantly. 

"Well…" Rhapsody began slowly. "Do you remember how tall Mystery is?" 

"That's Mystery?" Serenity gasped in surprise. "I thought she was on a train?" 

"She is… sort of," Rhapsody replied, biting her lip as she tried not to smile. "So, have you ever seen the size of the beds in those cabins in trains? Well, I kind of felt bad for Mystery, so I put a portal at the end of the bed in the train so her feet had somewhere to rest. I sort of made the portal big enough so that she could just climb through it and use the whole bed if she wanted, since train beds are reputedly uncomfortable." 

Harmony felt a slow blush pushing its way up her neck. She wasn't even in her room, but the thought of another beautiful woman in her bed seemed to trigger her libido. 

Rhapsody was watching her with a small smile on her expressive lips, causing the blush to flood up into her hairline. 

"It's not my fault!" Harmony exclaimed defensively as she stared back at Rhapsody worriedly. "It's just this overactive imagination. It's your fault for putting the portal into my bed." 

Serenity was looking at her in bewilderment. "What are you talking about, Aunt Harmony?" 

"Do I look like I'm getting jealous?" Rhapsody asked dryly. "I'm not the thought police, you know." 

Harmony watched Rhapsody cautiously. She didn't seem to be getting jealous that Harmony's first thoughts had immediately pictured an intimate scene with her unexpected guest, but she was also really skilled at controlling her facial expressions. The last thing Harmony wanted to do was hurt Rhapsody in any way. She didn't even know where the stray thought had come from. 

"Did you get your toothbrushes?" Rhapsody asked Serenity, her lips still curving into a small smile. 

"No, I panicked as soon as I saw a stranger in Aunt Harmony's bed," Serenity replied, folding her arms defensively. 

"It's totally fine," Rhapsody assured her with a slight widening of her smile. "You've been drinking Yuccas Fitter anyway, so you don't need to brush your teeth. It rewinds your biological clock, remember?" 

"I thought that only happened if you were older," Serenity said with a confused crease to her brows. 

"It won't make you get any younger, true, but it will reset any kind of contaminants or bacteria, like the kind in your mouth, to one week ago," Rhapsody explained patiently. 

"Hey, you two," Taxti called out to Serenity and Aurora as she began walking up the beach. "Are you ready to learn how to fly?" 

Aurora and Serenity exchanged a wide-eyed look, then let out squeals of excitement and raced after Taxti. 

"I don't want to miss this," Harmony's mother declared with a wry grin, eyeing Harmony and Rhapsody appraisingly. "I'm going to go watch, somewhere out of earshot." 

Harmony snorted a laugh as her mother jogged after the other three. 

"So…" Harmony began awkwardly. "Why is everyone leaving us alone like there is something private to talk about?" 

Rhapsody floated up into the air and drifted to Harmony until their chests were touching. "Because there is something private to talk about." 

Harmony gasped as her synesthesia sent double shockwaves of sensitive stimulation through her system as Rhapsody pushed herself tighter against her. 

"What's your opinion on a three-way relationship?" Rhapsody whispered into her ear, sending shivers down Harmony's spine. 

"Three-way relationship?" Harmony repeated, uncomprehending. "With who?" 

Harmony felt an instant flash of jealousy as she tried to imagine who else Rhapsody was talking about. One of the angels? 

"Mystery," Rhapsody answered in the same seductive whisper. 

The feeling of jealousy vanished. Harmony blinked in surprise. Why don't I feel any jealousy if it's Mystery? 

"Do you remember how I said the three of us have been together for more years than you could imagine?" Rhapsody asked softly. "We weren't just friends."