Welcome to the Show

Chapters

Chapter One: All That Matters
Chapter Two: The Root and the Third
Chapter Four: Chilling
Chapter Five: A New Direction
Chapter Six: Mindless, Vicious, and Blind
Chapter Seven: Tension
Chapter Three: The Stone Cracks

Chapter One: All That Matters

Aria Blaze stopped her playing long enough to scribble down another bar’s worth of notes onto the rapidly-crowding staff. Despite literal centuries of practice, her notation was sloppy and probably illegible to anyone save herself, but it didn’t matter, as she was the only one who ever read it. The only exception was the rare occasion on which she submitted her work to one publication or another, occasions which had only decreased with frequency as time had passed. She used to think it pointless to compose if no one ever saw the fruits of her labor, but at some point she had come to the conclusion that life itself was pointless, and therefore artistic endeavors should be undertaken for their own sake rather than for recognition.

Had there been an end in sight, maybe she would’ve felt differently – she could understand the desire mortals had to be known, to leave behind a legacy that would endure past their own ends – but it seemed that still might not be something she and her two compatriots had to take into account, at least by any natural means. When the pendants had shattered, one of her first thoughts had been horror at the possibility of being thrust back into mortality, but as the days, weeks, and months had worn on, her fears had been quelled; she still wasn’t aging, and neither were the others. Six months might’ve seemed like too short a time in which to come to that conclusion, but after staring at the same reflection every day for a thousand years, she knew she would’ve detected even the most minute of changes. She was just about to strike another chord before being halted by what she had long ago decided had to be the most annoying noise the multiverse had ever summoned the cruelty to produce.

“Guess what day it is?” Sonata queried cheerfully, entering the living room from the adjacent kitchen.

“Tuesday,” Aria told her, rolling her eyes and lowering the cover over the keys of her piano so that she had something to lean on in an effort to look as bored and exasperated as possible, “Taco Tuesday.”

“Wow, Ari, how do you always get it right?” the blue-haired girl asked, a hint of wonder in her voice.

“Oh, I dunno, Sonata,” Aria said with what she hoped was enough dripping sarcasm to penetrate the other party’s neutron star of a skull, “it’s almost like there’s a pattern here…as if Tuesdays happen with some sort of predictable frequency…”

“That’s neat,” Sonata beamed, “also I made tacos!” However irritating the youngest siren was, she was made tolerable by being a more-than-decent cook, as well as the frequency with which she prepared food. Aria could not recall a day within recent memory that she’d had to make dinner for herself – or more accurately put, a day that she’d had to order something, as her own forays into the kitchen universally ended in disappointment, shame and/or structure fires. Though she would never, ever admit it, she quite looked forward to seeing what her air-headed companion would come up with on any given night, except on Tuesdays. On Tuesdays, she didn’t have to wonder, because it was always tacos. Ever since their short and turbulent stint at Canterlot High, and Sonata’s discovery of what she apparently considered the absolutely brilliant idea of consuming one particular food on the same night each week, this had been the way of things.

Penning one last note, Aria decided this was as good a place as any to leave off for the evening and went to stand, only to find she didn’t need to.

“I remembered no tomatoes this time,” Sonata declared with pride, holding out a plate with three indeed tomatoless tacos on it.

“Are we just going to eat in the living room like poor people?” Aria demanded, her well-practiced withering gaze failing to affect its oblivious target in the slightest.

“Why not?” Sonata shrugged, “that way you can still work on your music and Addy can…” her bubbly mood deflated slightly and her voice trailed off for a moment, “…stay on the couch.”

An observer of the two girls’ interactions might not even have noticed that there was, in fact, a third person in the room, whom Aria now turned to regard. Sprawled out on the blue denim couch that occupied the wall opposite the piano, clad in a loosely-fitting hoodie and sweatpants, lay Adagio Dazzle, former leader of the siren power trio.

When the pendants broke, Aria had lost something that she scarcely remembered life without: her immaculate voice, and the power that came with it. The change had been unsettling at the very least, and if she was honest enough to admit her own weakness, somewhere more along the lines of traumatic. But at least she had other things to hold onto – other parts of herself she’d been cultivating for most of her life.

“Adagio?” Sonata prompted timidly. The possibly-unconscious form on the couch stirred slightly, accompanied by the clanking of empty bottles. “Addy, wake up! I made tacos…I know you like tacos.”

The response wasn’t something coherent enough to be classified as a series of words, but Aria was pretty sure she understood the general sentiment behind it.

“Come on, Addy,” Sonata continued her entreaty, voice carrying an edge of pleading, “you should eat something today.” She set a plate down on the coffee table in front of her inebriated friend, who still had not turned to face them. However, the smell of food must have tempted Adagio out of her stupor, as after a moment she rolled over and sat up, grimacing as she blearily rubbed her eyes. When she finally opened them and cast her glance upon the two girls who regarded her with polar-opposite degrees of concern, the two magenta orbs were bloodshot and unfocused, wreathed by dark circles that at this stage were beginning to resemble bruises more than the marks of simple exhaustion. Her gaze drifted down to the plate of food before her – prompting Sonata’s expression to brighten with hope – only to shift over to the partially-drained bottle of vodka that stood to the right of it. With a snarling frown that called in no uncertain terms for the both of them to get bent, she snatched up the vessel, rolled back over, and resumed her self-imposed exile in the land of semi-consciousness. If her visage had left any ambiguity in the equation – and it hadn’t – a single raised digit on her free hand made plain what Aria, Sonata, and any tacos in the vicinity could go do to themselves.

The amplifier hissed and popped momentarily before falling into a low hum as Aria plugged her cable in and turned the volume down to a comfortable level. Though her room was in a far corner of the house that she’d chosen specifically for its conduciveness to music practice, she had no desire to awaken a finally-sleeping Sonata, and even less desire to incite the gibbering wrath of a drunken Adagio. In fact, she was quite glad to be rid of the both of them for the rest of the evening, as each was draining in her own way.

In no mood to tax her mind any further, she decided her newest composition could rest until morning, and instead opted to play an old favorite piece. While the grand piano would always be her instrument of choice, she nevertheless enjoyed the way her fingers could glide so effortlessly over a keyboard, even if the sound it produced was much less organic and dynamic. The slow, meandering ballad filled the room for a few moments before Aria did something that she had been attempting of late, but would never let the others hear: she began to sing.

The sound that emanated from her throat filled her with confusion and a vague nostalgia, for though it felt alien to her, it was something she had known once upon a time, back when she was young and the world still seemed vast and full of joy. With the amulet around her neck, she’d needed to do little more than part her lips and will her words into existence to dazzle the world with her silver voice. That feeling of power resonating within her chest – however manufactured it might have been – would be something she would forever miss. What she could produce now was not necessarily terrible, but so very diminished and jarringly different. It was low and raspy like her speaking voice, and it took an almost painful effort to keep it melodic and to rein it in when it threatened to drift off-key. It was not beautiful, but in some small way it helped to fill another piece of the void.

I am Aria.
Whatever I become, I will never stop making music.
That is all that matters.

It had become something of a mantra for her over the past half a year, something she repeated in her mind while she played. She supposed it was humorous – in a cosmic sense, at least – that it had been the loss of her greatest musical asset which had caused her to redouble her efforts at practice and composition, but it wasn’t funny in the sense that she could laugh about it…not that Aria had ever been one for jokes. The long and short of it was that she could not and would not stop, for fear of what she might see or hear when the sound died down around her.

The nameless song she had written so long ago ended, but she did not cease her playing, instead letting her fingers drift by their own will. She didn’t realize her mistake until it was too late, and her ears were met by a familiar melody that haunted nearly every moment of her recent memory.

Welcome to the show…
We’re here to let you know…

She wanted to stop playing it, but couldn’t. It was the song they had never finished, and it was not simply that they’d never finished performing it; they’d never finished it at all. When she and her fellow sirens had still worn their pendants, writing songs had been unnecessary from a practical standpoint – all that needed happen was for Adagio to begin singing, and their voices would join together in magically-guided perfection. The music simply wrote itself as they sang it. What tormented Aria more than anything – more than that bright light, more than the screeching static in her ears as the three stones shattered, and more than the emptiness left in their wake – was that she would never know how that song ended; she could apply every last ounce of musical wisdom she had to attempting to write the ending, but nothing she could write would ever match what was wrote, and she would never hear its coda. She could feel the anger and impotence building even as the last words left her lips.

We will break on through…
Now it’s time to finish you…

And that was where it ended. She lingered on the last chord for a long moment, desperately hoping that the next would be revealed to her, but it never manifested. No matter what she tried, nothing she could come up with sounded right, and no lyrics she could conjure made any sense.

The feedback generated by her amp was not what frightened Aria when she slammed her fists down on the keys in frustration, but rather it was the unexpected dull thump against the far wall of her room that accompanied it. Shrugging off the start, she stood, striding over to the door and flinging it open, figuring she’d find Adagio ready to chew her out for making too much noise. What she found sent her mood shifting from confrontational to simply annoyed. Sonata was sitting on the floor, propped up next to the entrance and rubbing the back of her head, evidently having been startled enough to smack it against the wall.

“I don’t recall asking for an audience,” Aria spat indignantly, her ire rising as she wondered just how much of her practice had been heard. Every last ounce of her anger drained instantly when the blue-haired girl actually looked up at her.

Sonata’s cheeks were stained black by running makeup, carried by rivers of tears. Across one side of her face was an enormous red mark that bore a suspicious resemblance to a palm, and the fact that the inky rivulets ran over it uninterrupted suggested a certain progression of events. But the part that took the picture from pitiable to downright disconcerting was the look in her eyes – they shimmered wide with a kind of devastated betrayal that no quantity of offensive hand gestures or rejected meals could ever affect.

“I’m sorry,” Sonata whimpered, turning away and lifting her hands as if to shield herself from further harm, “I didn’t want to interrupt.” It took Aria almost a full minute to realize that this reaction probably had something to do with the fact that her own face was utterly warped with rage as the details of exactly what she planned to do to Adagio etched themselves in fire across her psyche. She’d neither the sensitivity nor the tact to comfort her distraught friend, and so resolved to do the thing she knew she was very much capable of doing.

“Ari, no!” Sonata cried, grabbing at her leg as she strode past.

“Sonata…”

“Please,” the youngest siren beseeched, “it’s not her fault.”

“Oh, I beg to fucking differ.”

“No!” Sonata shouted with surprising force, “no more fighting! I can’t STAND it when you two fight!”

“What did she do to you?” Aria demanded, “what happened?”

“I got up to…Aria, please, it doesn’t matter.”

“If it doesn’t matter, then why are you here?”

“I just wanted someone to talk to,” Sonata lamented, this conversation clearly not playing out at all as she’d imagined it, “but I can go. I’m sorry.” She made to stand, only to be yanked to her feet by one arm.

“No,” Aria stated with finality, dragging the sniffling girl into her room, “get in here, and just don’t touch anything, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Ari,” Sonata wondered breathlessly, “is all of this yours?”

“Who else would’ve written it?” Aria countered, her fingers drifting lazily over her synthesizer, producing a disjointed, meandering line of notes.

“I know,” Sonata placated, examining the scores of sheet music pinned to the walls, “but, I mean, this is a lot.”

“I’ve had a lot of free time, in case you haven’t noticed.”

Sonata ignored this last response, busy examining the thousands upon thousands of notes before her. Aria heard a sharp intake of breath, and when she looked up, found a glassy stare meeting her own.

“Is this…” the blue girl trailed off, not quite knowing how to phrase her question, “is this what I think it is?” she asked finally, choosing to keep the nature of her curiosity ambiguous.

“I didn’t know you could read music,” Aria said thoughtfully, knowing at a glance what the piece in question was, “and yes, it is.”

“I hear this song in my dreams,” Sonata breathed, “but I don’t know how it ends. I can’t stop wishing to know how it ends.”

“Me either.”

There was a long silence which even someone as dense as Sonata had no idea how to break. Finally she did so with a change of topic.

“Ari?”

“Would saying the last syllable of my name kill you?”

“Aria?”

“What?”

“Does this help?”

“Does what help?” Aria asked, becoming increasingly irritated.

“This,” Sonata pointed, indicating the fingers that danced across the keyboard with boredom.

“Yes,” the older former siren replied, “yes it does.”

“I’m…jealous of you,” Sonata admitted with disarming sincerity, “I have so many more songs in me, and I wish there was some way to get them out.”

Aria was rendered speechless. Despite being around her presumably ditzy compatriot for over a millennium, she’d always taken Sonata at face value. It wasn’t that she thought she was dumb, it was just that she’d never considered the possibility that someone as bubbly and open as Sonata actually had feelings that she wasn’t privy to. In retrospect it was an incredibly dense way of thinking.

“It’s never too late to learn, Sonata.”

“I know,” the other girl said sadly, “I just…I tried playing your piano once, and it wasn’t for me.”

Aria eyed her companion, assessing her personality through this new filter and wondering – however loath she was to admit it – how to help. At length she stood and fetched something from the far corner of her room.

“What about this?” she asked, handing the disused guitar to Sonata, “it might be more your speed. I tried to pick it up a while ago, but it wasn’t my thing.” Sonata drew her fingers over the strings, producing an uncomfortably dissonant sound. “We’re gonna need to tune this,” Aria told her, striking a natural A on her keyboard. Displaying a surprising amount of intuition, Sonata turned one of the tuning pegs until the second-lowest string matched it in pitch. Aria moved up to a D and very shortly heard the oscillations smooth out as a second guitar string mirrored the note. With wordless understanding they ascended before she finally dropped down to a low E. When it was finished, Sonata drew a fingernail over all six strings.

“It sounds lovely,” she commented.

“That it does,” Aria agreed, trying to stifle the hint of a smile that tugged at the corners of her lips. She struck a simple major chord on her keyboard, following it up with a second, then a third, and after a fourth she repeated the progression.

“Now try to follow me.”

Hours later, Sonata snored loudly but peacefully, propped up against the bed. Her fingers were blistered, but she knew no pain in the tranquility of sleep. A small smile spoke of pleasant dreams. Aria wiped the smile off of her own face. She still maintained that she did not care much for Sonata, but there were certain evils in this world that could not be allowed to stand. She rose from the chair at which she usually sat to play her synth and retrieved a blanket from the foot of her bed, draping it over the sleeping form of her slumbering sister siren. She felt a few strange impulses of an almost maternal nature, but she resisted them, having much more pressing priorities.

Looking at the disheveled mop of orange hair, Aria wondered if she would be a horrible person for not saying something first.

Then she realized that she was already a horrible person.

She did not let the sharp cry of pain and confusion linger in the air, instead grabbing at the collar of the shirt that lurked beneath the liquor-stained hoodie. A bleary set of magenta eyes met her own.

“Give me one good reason,” she snarled.

“There isn’t one,” Adagio replied, a delirious grin spreading across her face. With defiant nonchalance, she reached for the nearly-empty bottle of vodka on the coffee table and tried to take a drink, only to have it smacked out of her hand.

“You are,” Aria drew in a deep breath, “disgusting.”

A sharp bark of mirthless laughter left Adagio’s throat.

“What are you going to do to me, Aria?” she taunted, voice laced with acidic bitterness, “are you going to hurt me?”

“I could.”

Another positively unhinged cackle split the air as Adagio laughed once more.

“There is nothing left,” she giggled dementedly, “nothing left that you can take away from me. By all means, do your worst,” the eldest siren scoffed, “but you can’t make me hurt more.”

“I can,” Aria threatened, “and if you ever touch her again, I will…but not this time. You have one more chance.”

“You’re so virtuous, Aria,” Adagio sneered, “protecting the weak; sparing the guilty. If only I was as good as you, maybe we wouldn’t be where we are.”

“I’m not good,” the younger siren spat with a murderous glare, “I’m just not the worst.”

“Well, maybe one day I can scrape my way up to your level…”

“It’s not far to climb,” Aria snarled, tossing the inebriated girl back down on the couch, “try harder.” Without another word she turned and stamped back to her room, fuming as Adagio’s laughter filled her ears all the way.

Aria Blaze sat in a familiar clearing, hoof lazily strumming the strings of her mandolin. If ever there was an instrument that an earth pony wasn’t meant to play, this was it. However, there were few instruments that actually were designed with her kin in mind, and if she was going to fight an uphill battle, she might as well fight the hardest one. The piano was, of course, her instrument of choice, but as much as she loved playing, it did not lend itself to portability, and she needed something she could bring outside on a lovely day like this one, as well as something she could play in the street to make a bit or two. She’d only been picking at the thing for a few weeks, but music was her gift, and already she had a few tunes squarely under her belt. She chose one to practice again and struck the first chord, but promptly silenced her strings when she swore she heard an echo of the sound in the distance. She listened intently for any other indication that she wasn’t alone, but when she heard nothing further, she struck another chord.

This time, she knew she heard it.

A voice, clear and true as a silver bell, sung the root note until it diminished into nothing. Curiosity more than piqued, Aria struck another chord and found it similarly matched. Cautiously, she began a slow scale, mesmerized as the beautiful voice mirrored her playing. When she was done, the song continued its ascent another full octave, reaching a pitch that no mortal being should naturally be able to produce, yet not faltering for a moment in clarity or intensity. Wanting to meet this pony that she was becoming more jealous of by the moment, Aria stood, set down her instrument, and called out.

“Hello?”

The low rasp of her own voice sounded grating and obnoxious when contrasted against what she’d just heard. The reply came in the form of a single note, long and sustained, and she followed its sound to the trees. As she cantered further and further and further, she realized just how far the mare’s – for it was undeniably a female – voice carried. After several hundred yards, the trees parted, and she stepped into a verdant meadow, gasping with wonder.

In the center of the clearing, perched – for lack of a better word – upon a rock, was a strange yet beautiful creature. A long, serpentine body of glimmering golden scales wrapped around the stone. The front half of it looked something like a pony, though its muzzle was longer and its hooves larger and cloven. In place of its mane was a crest that ran from the top of its head down its back. But the most enchanting and unearthly thing about it was its voice, impossibly high and clear. It trailed off after a moment, and the creature fixed its golden, reptilian eyes upon her.

“Your voice is lovely,” Aria breathed, suddenly feeling as though she was intruding.

“So kind of you to say, my child,” the creature replied, displaying a mouth of sharp teeth, but managing to look friendly rather than menacing.

“I’d give anything for a voice like yours,” the pony admitted, no longer attempting to hide her envy. The creature’s toothy grin grew even wider.

“Why give,” it asked, “when you deserve to receive?”

Aria awoke suddenly and in a very sour mood. This was no different than most days, but this time she actually had several good reasons for it, and they all had to do with one particular person. Still, she wasn’t one to dwell on dreams before coffee, and so dragged herself painfully out of bed, pulling on her usual pair of jeans and not bothering to button them. She sometimes wondered exactly what course in life had led her to wear such absurdly tight pants on a daily basis, but once again this was not something to contemplate before coffee.

On her way to the kitchen, she found the couch predictably occupied by what she was sure was the world’s most unruly mess of hair, and the comparatively small person to which it was attached. Adagio’s orange mop had always been something to behold when she’d taken care of it, but now that she was letting herself go it threatened to engulf the entire living room and any unsuspecting passersby. Aria considered yelling at her some more or possibly even hitting her again, but decided that could wait until after coffee.

“Ari!” Sonata cried happily over the hiss of a sizzling griddle, “you’re up!” Aria stiffened as she received an affectionate hug. In days past she might’ve ended it by force, but as it was she was content to grimace and let out a displeased groan. “Don’t be so grumpy,” her bubbly counterpart insisted, “I’m making bacon!”

“Did you wash your hands after you took it out of the package?” Aria asked squeamishly, shrugging off her assailant, “I’m not really a fan of trichinosis.”

“Of course!” the blue-haired girl beamed, “a good cook is a clean cook! Now, sit down, it’ll be ready in just a minute.”

Aria sat, not one to argue with Sonata when food was involved.

“Where’s my guitar?” she demanded when the jovial humming that filled the room finally took too much of a toll on her uncaffeinated psyche.

“Oh…” Sonata said, her bouncy mood losing some of its momentum as she paused in siphoning off the bacon grease, “I took it to practice this morning, but I’ll bring it back after we eat.”

“I didn’t say I wanted it back,” Aria grumbled, blowing a strand of hair out of her eyes, “I just asked where it was. You can keep it.”

“Really?” the youngest siren queried breathlessly, turning around to face her.

“On two conditions.”

“Anything.”

“You practice every day…”

The command was met by a vigorous nod.

“And don’t hug me again.”

The second command was met by a less-vigorous, more solemn nod.

“Thanks, Ari.”

“Don’t mention it. Seriously, don’t.”

Sonata gave one last gesture of assent, busying herself with pouring the bacon grease into a pan and then ladling pancake batter on top of it. Neither girl said anything else until the meal was prepared and set down on the table.

“I’ll be right back,” said Sonata, “I’m just gonna see if Addy wants some of this.”

“Why bother?” Aria frowned, biting a strip of bacon and chewing rudely as she talked, “you know she doesn’t.”

“Because,” Sonata countered with conviction, “maybe she will this time.”

“There’s nothing you can do for her.”

Sonata’s face twisted into a sad expression of confliction, but her resolve held.

“I want to help her, Aria,” she stated plainly, voice barely above a whisper, “she needs our help.”

“What can we do?” Aria demanded more angrily than she figured was warranted.

“We can keep trying!” Sonata shouted, her anger rising to match as she banged her fists on the table, upsetting a glass of orange juice.

“She won’t even try to help herself. Tell me what brilliant plan you have that’s going to bring her back to normal.”

“I just don’t understand you, Aria,” the younger girl fumed, “how can you have so little empathy?” She rose from her seat, palms planted firmly on the table as she leaned over it to be face-to-face with the target of her wrath. “How can you care so little when you’re going through the exact same thing as she is?”

“Because I’m dealing with it, and she isn’t.”

“Exactly!” Sonata all but shrieked, “that’s why we have to help her!”

“Then do it. Beat your head against a wall, but I won’t have any tears for you, and I definitely won’t have any for her.”

For a moment, Sonata looked like she was going to cry, but then she visibly steeled herself.

“I feel sorry for you, Aria,” she said shakily, grabbing a plate of food and exiting the kitchen. She paused at the doorway, turning back. It looked as though the right words were on the tip of her tongue, but after a moment’s hesitation, she continued on her way.

“You’re the worst, Sonata,” Aria whispered to herself, “I hate you so much.”

Aria ran her fingers across the keyboard, playing a simple series of arpeggios. Normally in the evening she’d be at her piano, but she had no desire to see either of her housemates, and so had sequestered herself in her room, having to be content with the instruments therein. She wanted to play something more complex, but was bothered to distraction by how idiotic her sister sirens were. Realizing that her heart was pounding in her chest, she took a moment to center herself.

I am Aria.
Whatever I become, I will never stop making music.
That is all that matters.

She was Aria. That was all she could say that she was, having been so many things over the course of her exhaustingly protracted life. She was the pony who became a siren who then became a human, yet through all of it she had maintained a sense of self that no number of years in any realm of the multiverse could take away. She’d been transformed, banished, and cut down by divine magic, but she would never let the passage of time or the changing of her mortal shell break the part of her that knew who she was. She was Aria Blaze, she had always played music, she always would play music, and that was all that mattered.

A knock at the door interrupted her introspection.

“Go away, please,” she intoned harshly, hoping that even through a wall the disturber could hear just how unappealing she found the prospect of company.

There was a second knock.

“Go away!”

“No,” came a voice from the other side of the door, “open up.”

At least it wasn’t the drunkard.

Rising from her seat in defeat, Aria made the short journey across her room and flung open the door, an expertly-crafted look of utter disgust already on her face.

“Wha–”

The demanding shout did not make it past the first syllable before she felt two skinny arms wrap around her.

“I’m sorry, Ari,” Sonata cried, clinging to her like a giant blue leech, “I’m sorry I got angry with you!”

“Are you even capable of expressing emotions without touching me?” Aria cringed.

“Sorry,” Sonata sniffed, releasing her grip, “I just wanted you to know I meant it.”

“You can still mean it from an acceptable distance!”

“I’m sorry,” the blue-skinned girl said, sniffling again, “I’ll go now.”

Aria heaved an immense sigh.

“You don’t have to go,” she drawled in annoyance, “just please don’t hug me again.”

“Okay,” Sonata nodded. There was a long silence in which she rocked back and forth awkwardly on her feet, clearly not having planned to talk about anything else.

“Go get your guitar,” Aria said finally, “I’ll show you some things.”

“For realzies?”

“Go get it! And don’t ever say that again!”

“Ow!” Sonata winced, letting her strings ring to a halt.

“What’s the problem?”

“I think I need a break,” she admitted, “my fingers really hurt.”

“Let me see,” Aria commanded, standing and striding quickly over to her companion. “Damn it Sonata,” she huffed, looking at the shredded, blistered fingertips that greeted her eyes, “you’re going to get an infection. How were you even playing like this?”

“I practiced a lot this morning. It hurt, but I didn’t want to give up.”

“Sonata, there’s a difference between and giving up and admitting your limitations,” Aria reproached, “you can’t master an instrument in one day; give it a rest.”

“Okay,” Sonata conceded, “I just didn’t want to let you down.”

The elder siren said nothing in reply, instead sitting back down in front of her synthesizer and busying herself with the next part to her most recent piece. It was a strange piece, the tempo being fast and jazzy but the notes following a dark, minor progression. It gave voice to the confusion she’d felt of late. She had started from the beginning, and when she reached the end of what was already written, the next few notes revealed themselves. She paused to scrawl them down on paper.

“That was lovely,” Sonata breathed, having listened with rapt attention.

“Thanks.”

“Ari?”

“Out with it,” Aria snapped, knowing that otherwise the following words would be something along the lines of “can I ask you a question?”

“What are we, now?”

“W-What?” she stammered, caught off guard by such an earnest and yet nebulous question.

“I mean,” Sonata searched for the right words, “we were sirens, right?”

“Right…”

“But when we sang that song, the sirens left our bodies and attacked those girls.”

“So?”

“So…I saw it happen, but I was still me,” Sonata reasoned cautiously, “and when they beat us, the siren that came out of me shattered, just like my amulet.”

“So what? What are you trying to say?”

“I’m just wondering…back when I first met you and Adagio, I was me. Then I put on my amulet and became a siren. But now the siren is gone…so what’s left?”

“Sonata…”

“I’m confused,” Sonata said sadly. “I never looked at this,” she indicated her human body, “and thought that this was me. I always thought that the real me was waiting inside, and that when we got back to Equestria, she would come out. But then the thing that I thought was me came out when we sang, and I saw her broken into a million pieces. I’ve just been wondering…what am I?”

The question was posed with such disarming innocence that Aria felt a twinge at the corners of her eyes.

“You’re Sonata,” she asserted.

“But what is that?” Sonata questioned.

“You’re Sonata,” Aria insisted, her fingers leaving the keyboard to rub in what she hoped was a casual way at the edge of her eye, “and you’re always happy, even if you aren’t. You love to cook. Your favorite food is tacos. You just started learning to play the guitar. You’re not a what; you’re a who, and I know who you are, even if you don’t.”

“Am I a good who?” Sonata asked hopefully. Aria felt her heart tremble under the weight of such an existential responsibility. She was silent for a while.

“No,” she said finally, her features turning up in a wry smirk, “you’re the worst.”

She received a grateful smile in return.

“I love you too, Ari.”

Chapter Two: The Root and the Third

“I made good money playing in town this weekend, so I thought I’d bring some food this time,” Aria said amicably, removing a loaf of bread and a paper-wrapped piece of her favorite brie from her saddlebag, “want some?”

“Oh, I appreciate the offer,” Adagio said, perched once again on her rock, “but I haven’t much taste for pony food.”

“Oh,” Aria replied, realizing a consideration like that should’ve been obvious, “well, what do you eat?”

“Look at my teeth,” Adagio chuckled, “and you can probably guess.”

“I suppose I could’ve figured that out on my own,” Aria conceded, the fact that her strange friend hadn’t automatically assumed she’d be squeamish about carnivores simply because she was a pony not lost on her, nor unappreciated. She’d never understood why the other intelligent creatures she’d met that didn’t share her dietary preferences – griffons, for example – all thought she would be. Just another reason why she was rapidly taking a liking to the siren, for that’s what she now knew the creature to be. This was their fifth meeting, as the first time they’d encountered one another, Adagio had offered to give her singing lessons. However adept Aria might be when it came to making music with an instrument, when it came to doing it with her own voice, she knew her abilities were severely lacking. If she wanted to make a name for herself as an artist – and that was very much her desire – she knew she needed to hone every skill at her disposal. But more so than the lessons, she just enjoyed talking to this very unusual person, and she suspected Adagio might feel the same way, as their time together had been more conversation than song.

“Tell me,” Adagio began casually as Aria sat down, fiddling with her instrument as she chewed, “what possesses an earth pony to learn the piano and the mandolin?”

“What do you mean?”

“I just mean that your form is…not exactly conducive to playing such things.”

“Yeah, so?” Aria demanded defensively.

“I meant no offense, my dear,” the siren said apologetically, “I think your ambitions are quite admirable, I simply wondered why, should one such as yourself choose to play music, she would do so in ways that would be so difficult for her.”

“Because,” Aria explained, feeling her mood return to relative calm, “I won’t let what I am dictate who I am. I promised myself I would be a great musician, and I will.”

“To see if you can?”

“No. Because I know I can.”

Adagio seemed immensely satisfied by this answer. “I think I can help you a little bit more than just teaching you how to sing,” she said.

“How do you figure?” Aria questioned. In truth, she hadn’t learned all that much thus far. Adagio’s talent seemed almost entirely natural, rather than owed to any particular kind of technique. In truth, she had come here for the company more than anything.

“With this,” the siren said, producing an object seemingly out of nowhere. It was a necklace, the centerpiece of which was a large red ruby that bore a striking resemblance to the jewel-like formation of scales at the base of Adagio’s neck. A gem of that size had to be worth quite a few bits, but Aria figured that wasn’t what her peculiar friend meant by “help”.

“What does it do?”

“More than you can imagine. It’ll make your voice like mine, for one.”

Aria’s heart was in her throat at the thought, but she wasn’t so very naïve as to believe she could get something for nothing.

“What’s the catch?” she demanded.

“There isn’t one.”’

“Ari?”

“Eh?” Aria responded lazily. The sun was setting and she sat on the back porch of the trio’s residence, a neglected cigarette barely smoldering between her fingertips, an iced coffee that may or may not have contained a generous helping of whiskey in her other hand.

“Remember that song you were working on the other day?” Sonata asked rhetorically, sitting down on the nearby bench with her guitar. It had only been a few days since she picked it up, but she’d scarcely put it down in that time save for when she was cooking or eating, and sometimes not even then.

“What about it?”

“Listen,” Sonata said simply, and began to play. What followed was a surprisingly precise rendition of the same dark, jazzy piece Aria had been playing a few nights prior. However, the greatest surprise was that it didn’t end where her composition had left off. It wasn’t something she would’ve written, but she couldn’t deny it was a valid interpretation of a possible conclusion to the song.

“Sonata,” she breathed when the last note had rung to a halt, “that was…pretty damn good.”

“Thanks!” the other girl said cheerfully.

“How much have you been practicing? It’s only been three days; you shouldn’t be able to do that.”

“Playing the guitar is the most wonderful thing, Ari,” Sonata sighed happily, “I mean, it’s a lot different than singing, but it just feels so good to be making music again. I missed it so much. I mean, it’s not as easy; the songs don’t just kind of make themselves anymore, but I kinda like it that way better, because it’s so much more special when you actually come up with something good.”

Hearing a fledgling musician speak with such passion and fervor about her craft, Aria felt something stir within her that she hadn’t felt for a very, very long time. She knew the only responsible thing to do was to encourage that passion, and – however contrary to her nature it was – nurture it.

“I like how you ended it,” she said cautiously. “It’s not what I originally had in mind, but now it’s got me thinking…you wanna help me finish the song? There’s a few things I would change in the way you did it, but we could do it together.”

“Oh, Ari! That would be awe–”

“No hugging!”

“Heh, sorry. That would be awesome.”

“Alright,” the elder siren said, “we’ll work on it tomorrow, then.”

“Why not tonight?” Sonata asked, obviously disappointed.

“I’ve had too much…coffee.”

A number of somewhat blurry hours later, Aria sat slumped in the large, cushy easy chair that faced her television, hand barely clutching what was somewhere around the tenth drink since she should’ve stopped. She knew if she did it would only bring the headache on early. Bright, obnoxious images flashed in front of her unfocused eyes, accompanied by muffled sound that was just one notch above being muted. She hated television; it was possibly the biggest waste of time any sapient race in the entire multiverse had ever invented, but she had to admit it was a good distraction when one was in a state of drunken listlessness and being productive simply wasn’t an option. She also hated being drunk, but she had to admit it was a good way to distract oneself from how irritating television was. She wondered how Adagio could possibly handle feeling like this constantly for the past six months.

Adagio. Aria’s vision actually drifted into slightly better focus from sheer rage just thinking about her. The thought of the regal, golden siren with the silver voice that she’d met in that sunny meadow all those centuries ago being reduced to a despondent, abusive wreck made her angry to the point of nausea…though that might’ve had something to do with the room currently beginning to spin. It was so utterly pathetic. She was almost glad she was too drunk to stand, as the idea of beating Adagio out of her stupor was becoming more and more appealing with each passing minute.

Aria’s thoughts were forcibly pounded out of her skull by what she was sure was a crane slamming repeatedly into the side of the house, but belatedly realized was just someone knocking at her door.

“Whaaat?” she moaned, rubbing her temples and hoping it was locked.

“Ari?” a hopeful voice inquired.

“Sonata, I’m…” …busy…falling asleep…touching myself…overcome with ennui…in the midst of an existential crisis…“I’m having alone time. Please find something else to do.”

“Okay,” came the dejected response. Seconds and then minutes ticked by, but Aria never heard the sound of retreating footsteps.

“Are you just standing out there?”

“Yeah…”

“Fine, come in,” Aria huffed, the effort of being annoyed making her feel a little bit sick, “just don’t touch anything, and don’t touch me.”

The door creaked open, a pair of wide, curious eyes peering through the crack. In darkness, with only the flickering light of the TV illuminating their magenta irises, they could almost be mistaken for belonging to someone else, and Aria shuddered with contempt.

“Why’s it so dark in here?” Sonata wondered. It looked like she was contemplating reaching for the light switch, but then wisely decided against it. Instead she tiptoed across the room, being careful not to step on anything – as the place was a bit of a mess, and only Aria knew how to navigate it by heart – and sat down on the carpeted floor, leaning against the enormous chair that her sister siren had melted into. “Watcha doin’?”

“Being a deplorable waste of space,” Aria deadpanned.

“Doesn’t sound like you’re enjoying it…”

“I’m not,” the purple girl assured, “I could be working on music right now.”

“So why even drink in the first place?”

“Because,” she snarled, knowing that this was going to turn into a game of twenty questions, “sometimes there’s stuff I don’t want to think about, Sonata.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Well,” Sonata relented, “let me know if you change your mind.”

“In that hypothetical world,” Aria mumbled, finishing her drink and letting the tumbler roll out of her hand and onto the floor, “I will. Now be quiet, I’m sleepy.” She offered up the remote, adding “just don’t turn the volume up, and if you fall asleep, don’t snore.”

“Night, Ari.”

“You can’t be serious, Adagio,” Aria said incredulously, “how could you even consider somepony like her?” The two sirens had – at the elder’s insistence – been watching the young mare for several weeks now, and she couldn’t fathom why. Everything she’d seen had told her that this pony was a moron, and not worth a moment’s thought.

“Why do you say that, Aria?” the golden siren asked innocently.

“Don’t be intentionally dense,” Aria snapped, wobbling a bit in the air as she gesticulated furiously. She still wasn’t quite used to her new form, nor to the act of levitation. “All she does is cook, pick flowers, and mingle with the other idiots.”

“And she likes to sing,” Adagio added.

“She’s nothing special at it. Besides, what does it matter? There are millions of creatures in Equestria and beyond that like to sing, and I’ll bet you any of them would serve us better than her.”

“Aria,” the older siren began sternly, “what is the difference between you and I?”

“I’m not in the mood for rhetoric, just get on with it.”

“The answer is very little,” Adagio frowned. “You see things in ways that I don’t, and you possess certain strengths that I do not, but when you get right down to it, our thoughts align more often than not.”

“And?” Aria demanded, “you say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“We need balance, Aria,” the golden siren insisted, “we need someone who will not always agree with us – someone with an entirely different perspective than ours. There is a reason that there are three amulets, and there is a reason that their full potential can only be unlocked when wielded by three separate entities. The old gods who bequeathed us this magic knew what could happen were it beholden to the will of a single individual.”

“But…her? What do you see in her?”

“She has certain qualities that I believe will be valuable, if not now, then in the future.”

“So, what?” Aria glared, “we pick her because she may or may not be useful at some point? That’s asinine.”

“Why do you think I chose you?” Adagio countered, “anyone can sing with these pendants on; I could’ve snatched up the first two willing beings I laid eyes on. I gave you this opportunity because of who you are, as I intend to do for her. I ask that you trust me.”

“That’s a tall order,” the newly-minted siren said, “considering what happened the last time I trusted you.” She indicated the strange new form that she’d slowly been acclimating to over the past few months.

“Did I lie to you?”

“No, but you never said anything about fins and losing a pair of legs.”

“I said there was no catch,” Adagio corrected, “and there isn’t. If you truly wish to leave, all you need do is return the gem to me, and you will have your old life back.”

“If I get the sense that this plan is going sideways, I will,” Aria assured her.

“Very well.”

Returning to consciousness was not a pleasant affair for Aria, not by a longshot. Her first waking breath made plain just how parched her throat was, and when she attempted to swallow, her esophagus felt as though it was made of sandpaper. The feeling of vaguely sticky coarseness made her want to retch, and it took a moment to get her stomach in check. It was immediately apparent that she was not alone – seeing as a voice was what had roused her – and this fact did nothing to help the situation.

“Go away, Sonata,” she croaked, feeling another wave of nausea as soon as she spoke, shutting her unopened eyes even tighter. Surprisingly, there was no verbal response; instead she felt something cold touch her palm, and her fingers instinctively wrapped around it. Realizing what it was, her other hand fumbled for the cap, only to find that the bottle was already open. She spilled more than a little on herself, but couldn’t have cared less. She took a deep, grateful draught of the sweet, slightly-salty liquid. It eased the fire in her gullet and the turmoil in her stomach, and she didn’t stop until the vessel was drained. Feeling markedly better but still quite ill, she tossed the plastic bottle aside and belched rudely, immediately regretting it as she felt her aching skull rattle with the force. Clutching her throbbing head, she slowly forced an eye open, finding the lid had the same dry, abrasive texture as her throat had moments ago.

“C’mon, sleepy,” Sonata encouraged at an uncomfortable volume, “wake up!”

Aria’s one-eyed gaze found the world a depthless, unfocused blur, and she was disoriented to the point of being unable to summon the strength to even get angry. Of course, the inability to muster her default emotional response to any given situation enraged her, and she pounded her fist against the arm of her chair, shaking her head violently in an ill-advised attempt to shrug off the hangover.

“Sonata,” she rasped hoarsely, “whatever you woke me up for, it better fucking astonish me.”

“I brought you breakfast in b– uh…chair,” Sonata said cheerfully, hardly missing a beat. The smile on her face was audible, and it made Aria want to commit indiscriminate genocide.

“I’ll hurl if I even look at food,” the purple grouch snarled, “but if you piss off now I might let you live.”

“It’s eggs benedict and hash browns,” Sonata told her in a sing-song voice, “but, you know, if you don’t want them, I guess that’s more for me.”

Struggling to keep her eyes open and pointing in a single direction, Aria turned slowly to see that her sister siren was indeed holding a tray of her two favorite foods, as well as what looked like French toast and fruit salad.

“Fine,” she grumbled, yanking the tray away as forcefully as she could without spilling anything, “you’re lucky I’m nice.” The smell of eggs, fried ham, and what was obviously scratch-made hollandaise caused her gut to forget the abuse it had taken the previous night and realize how empty it was. Without a word, she dug in, paying even less heed to manners than normal.

“So,” Sonata prompted, her mood still chipper as ever, “can we work on music today?”

Aria managed a guttural assent between bites.

“Oh! Yay! I’ll go get my guitar!”

“Waig frr meaffimmish…” Aria gulped down her current mouthful when she realized her words were unintelligible, “wait for me to finish eating first, you spazz.”

“Can’t I go tune it while you eat?” Sonata shrugged, as if to say “this is obvious even to me.”

“No.”

“Okay,” she smiled, sitting down on the floor and crossing her legs, “so, what’s on your mind?”

“Nothing you need to know about.”

“So…” Sonata trailed off, furrowing her brow, “you just want me to sit here and watch you eat?”

Aria said nothing, continuing to shovel food into her face at a breakneck pace.

“There’s a piece of ham in your cleavage,” Sonata pointed out solemnly.

“Go tune your fucking guitar!”

“Stop,” Aria commanded, ceasing her playing and holding up a hand, “that right there…that was good. Play it again.”

As requested, Sonata retraced her steps and repeated the last phrase she’d executed, playing it over and over until her partner finished scrawling down a series of notes and gave her a curt nod. Aria had never written music with anyone else before – despite centuries upon centuries of experience, composition had always been a solitary act for her – and so it had taken them several hours to figure out some sort of rhythm for the process. Trying to get someone the likes of Sonata to sit down with a blank staff and write out notes was impossible, and so eventually they’d simply taken to improvising indefinitely until they played something that sounded right. Despite her irritation at having to deviate from her normal methods, Aria had to admit that there was a certain…something between them. An understanding, one might’ve called it. While it was true they’d never properly played music with one another, they had been making a certain sort of music together for a very, very long time. There was no more magic left to guide them, but an indefinable something still remained that caused their improvisations to align more often than they didn’t.

“I’m doing okay, right?” Sonata asked with plain vulnerability.

“Yeah, why?”

“You just look kinda mad.”

“I’m not mad,” Aria said, rolling her eyes, “well, I mean I am mad, but not at you. Actually, no, you know what? I am mad at you. Why’d you let me drink so much?”

“I told you to stop like five times,” Sonata protested.

“Well, why didn’t I listen?” Aria demanded, squinting at a sudden twinge of pain in her forehead. “You obviously weren’t persuasive enough.”

“I tried all my sad faces, Ari!” Sonata insisted, “even this one.” As a demonstration, she stuck her lower lip out in a pout, letting it quiver ever-so-slightly as her brow knitted with concern and her wide, suddenly-glossy eyes seemed to shimmer in the afternoon light.

“Whoa, whoa,” Aria exclaimed, turning away and holding up her hands as a shield, “be careful where you point that, you’re gonna give me emotions.” Maybe Adagio wasn’t so crazy after all; she must’ve picked Sonata as the third siren with the intent to weaponize her and hold the world hostage with the threat of a diabetes epidemic. “Anyway,” she continued, “I need a break, my brain hurts.”

“Want me to make lunch?” Sonata asked, reverting to her usual cheerful self.

“Nah,” Aria dismissed, patting her stomach, “I don’t think I need to eat again for the rest of the year. What’d you make that sauce with, anyway? Lead?”

“I used whipping cream.”

“Oh god,” the elder siren cringed, feeling her chest to make sure her heart was still beating, “I didn’t need to know that.”

Sonata didn’t seem to hear, as she had busied herself noodling around on her guitar. Despite being uncommonly dedicated, she was still more or less a novice, and so took every available opportunity to explore the instrument. Aria ignored the twanging and stretched, realizing how painfully tense she was. Her neck popped as she tilted her head, wishing there was some way she could procure a back massage while still avoiding things that made her uncomfortable, such as “touching” and “people”. The desire conjured memories she had no wish to recall, and she almost welcomed the mental jolt when a familiar bassline crept through the periphery of her hearing.

The siren amulets had possessed many more powers than simply granting perfect voices. Despite her proficiency as a musician, Aria’s skills had never been needed when it came to the musical accompaniments to the girls’ performances. Music had simply manifested as it was needed, as loud or as soft as it was required to be, and on more than one occasion she’d wondered if the gems had greater potential than what Adagio had decided to use them for. The droning, minor progression that emanated from Sonata’s guitar brought her back to that night – the stage, awash in green smoke and an unnatural red glow…the eager, helpless crowd…the feeling of power and impending triumph as she and her two companions had strode through the dusk, ready to claim their places as this world’s new overlords.

Feel the wave of sound…
As it crashes down…

“Sonata, stop,” she found herself saying, “I don’t want to hear that right now.”

The blue girl – ever the sensitive one – halted immediately, but looked up with hope in her eyes.

“But Ari, I had an idea,” she explained cautiously, “I mean, I want to know how the song ends…”

“Sonata…”

“…and you want to know how the song ends…”

“Sonata, no.”

“…so I was thinking: we could write the rest of it. I’m sure we can figure it out.”

“No, Sonata.”

“Why not?”

“Because I said no.”

“But…we could at least tr–”

“I have been trying!” Aria all but shrieked, standing abruptly and upending her keyboard. She marched over to the far wall of her room, thrusting a damning finger at the sheet music Sonata had been gazing at just the other night. “I’ve been trying for six months, Sonata! I’ve written a hundred different endings to that song. They all make sense in my head…they all look good on paper…but they don’t sound right, because you can’t write what's already written,” she punctuated this last declaration by slamming her fist against the wall, dislodging several sheets of paper. “That song was created by Equestrian artefacts channeling the most potent magic this world has ever known; there is an ending to it etched somewhere in the halls of the old gods, but you and I will never know it.” She closed in on Sonata, vision tainted red by pent-up frustration. “There is nobody on this planet or any other more qualified to finish it than me,” she jabbed a thumb into her chest for emphasis. “I have been composing for generations. I helped wield the very magic that created it. If it’s anyone’s song to finish, it’s mine, so don’t you dare insult me by acting like you can bring something new to the table. The only way we could do it is with our magic, and thanks to her,” she waved a hand in the general direction of the living room, and a certain person who occupied its only couch, “we will never, ever have that chance.”

“You…you blame Adagio for this, don’t you?” Sonata whispered, comprehension finally dawning on her.

“Yes,” Aria muttered coldly as her wrath returned to a smolder, “I do. Her hubris, her fall, her fault.”

“No wonder,” the younger siren mumbled, more to herself than anyone else.

“No wonder what?”

“No wonder she’s hurting so much,” Sonata said, her words still quiet, but low and laced with acidity. “I didn’t see it, but now I do – the way you look at her and the way you treat her. You’re putting this all on her shoulders,” she quavered as her voice rose, entire body shaking and fists balled up with the kind of righteous indignation only the empathic can know, “and it’s killing her. What have you said to her, Aria? What have you said to her that I haven’t heard?”

“Nothing,” Aria stated truthfully, “I’ve said nothing to her, because I have nothing to say.”

Sonata deflated, shoulders slumping and eyes glistening with sorrow.

“You’re cruel,” she said simply, as though it were a statement of fact, “you’re cruel, and I don’t understand why. After all we’ve done, Ari…after everything we’ve been through, how can you have nothing to give her?”

“I’ve given her more than I owed her, Sonata. We both have. Why can’t you see that?”

“Why can’t you see that that’s not what this is about?” Sonata asked. When there was no answer, she shook her head and turned, leaving and closing the door quietly behind her.

It was only when Aria looked down that she realized Sonata had left her guitar behind.

“Get up,” Aria ordered, receiving no response.

“Get up,” she commanded again, seizing her target by the shoulder and shaking her rather violently. Something stirred amongst the unruly mop of carrot-colored hair, and after a moment the moonlight found a bloodshot pair of magenta eyes. Adagio yawned apathetically.

“If this is going to become a regular occurrence,” she grinned lazily, voice as sultry and nonchalant as ever, “I might consider migrating to somewhere more private.”

“You have a room, you know. I don’t know why you can’t feel sorry for yourself up there.”

“Oh, I would, Aria,” Adagio intoned innocently, “but I don’t like to drink alone. Besides, what’s an example if it’s not laid out for all to see?”

“You need to stop this,” Aria hissed through gritted teeth, yanking her sister siren into a semi-upright position, “you need to stop this now.”

“I don’t need to do anything. If I needed to do something, surely I’d be the first to know, yes? You must mean something else.”

“Fine,” Aria conceded, “but you should stop this. You should stop doing this to yourself.”

“Should I?” Adagio wondered in mock-contemplation, tapping a finger to her chin, “what should one do? What shouldn’t one do? Such nebulous, philosophical notions…”

“Fuck you,” Aria said, releasing her and exiting through the door that led to the back porch. She slammed it as hard as she could, not caring if she woke Sonata or any of the neighbors. It was very cold outside, and she welcomed it, because there was no shame in hating the cold.

Chapter Four: Chilling

In the northernmost region of a vast expanse of chilly countryside whose likeness had never been drawn upon a map, there stood a great mountain, massive and un-scalable. A traveler approaching from the south only had two options. If he were to bear west, he would find a dense forest of evergreens. It was a place that was beautiful to the eye, but its tranquil appearance was deceptive, for within it, the wolves ruled. All other creatures that lived therein could only cower in the dark, wondering not if, but when they would become a meal and take their preordained places as rent, decomposing carcasses.

However, if the traveler were to walk east for an afternoon, he would notice the trees thinning until they opened up into a series of gently-rolling hills. Nestled among these hills, not a stone’s throw from the base of the mountain, there was a small village. Living so far to the north meant a trying life for its people; they grew what they could in the warm months, and when the winter came, they hunkered down, rationed their food, and waited out the cold. But they had been there for generations, they knew their land, and no outsider had ever tried to take it from them. Thieves desire reward without effort, and living in such a place was anything but easy. So the people of the small village were secluded, and they were happy.

Or at least they had been.

“Witches!” the man spat, struggling against his bindings. He rocked back and forth in the chair, but the ropes held him to it.

“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it, yes,” Adagio said thoughtfully, tapping her chin.

“Do what you will to me, succubus,” the man snarled, “but there are others who suspect you; your time is short regardless.”

On a moonlit night in the frigid dead of winter, they’d staggered through the trees – three seemingly young girls, naked and starving, wearing jewels around their necks fit for kings. Without hesitation, he’d rushed them home, and the small village had welcomed them with open arms. But now he understood his folly, for they were not girls, but devils. The year that had passed since had seen the town torn apart by hatred and strife. Men and women alike had been too absorbed in their petty interpersonal squabbles to attend to what really mattered, and they had fallen on a cold and lean winter. Rumors of deception and betrayal were still whispered in any open ear, and a mysterious fog had settled over the village that grew thicker wherever the strangers walked. He had found them out, but his legs had not carried him fast enough to escape their wickedness.

“You’re not helping your cause,” Adagio said icily. She turned, and with a tilt of her head, motioned for Aria and Sonata to follow her to the other side of the room.

“What do we do with him?” Aria prompted in a whisper, gratefully drinking in the warmth of the hearth that hissed and crackled beside her.

“We can just keep him here,” Sonata suggested in a similarly hushed tone, “as long as we make sure he doesn’t escape, he can’t tell the others.”

“How long do you think it’s going to take before they realize their only competent hunter has just vanished?” Aria asked, rolling her eyes, “and how long before they come looking here?”

“Aria is right,” Adagio murmured, partly to herself and partly to the others. Her eyes darted back and forth as she searched her mind for a solution. “If they find that we’re holding him captive, we’ll be no better off.”

“We could sing to him,” Sonata offered, “we could change his mind or make him forget.”

“We’re too weak,” Adagio replied, shaking her head, “it would be a waste of effort and what little magic we have left.” The magic in this strange land was not as it was in Equestria, the sirens had discovered. It was feeble and sparse. What little power they had gained over the past twelve months had been channeled back into creating more conflict, as it was no easy task to turn the residents of such a close-knit community against one another. They were nowhere near being able to cast their spell, not even on a single person. “We have only one option,” the eldest siren said after a long pause, her voice quavering almost imperceptibly. She reached to the mantle above the roaring fireplace to retrieve a disused skinning knife that lay collecting dust. Aria had enough self-control not to flinch when the reality of the plan dawned on her, but Sonata gasped.

“Adagio,” the blue girl whimpered, “no…”

“We are far from home,” Adagio said with a resolute expression and a far-off look in her eyes, “and I will not spend the rest of my life in this frigid hell. We cannot afford to lose the ground we’ve gained.”

“No,” Sonata insisted, arms hugged tight against her chest, “we can’t. We’re not monsters. We’re not…murderers.”

“Be quiet, Sonata,” Aria hissed.

“However trite it may sound,” Adagio breathed, staring at some distant point in space, “desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“No,” Sonata said again with greater force, her face hardening, “I won’t let you.”

“Sonata, I swear…” Aria snarled, but she was cut off by the voice of their leader.

“What else can we do?” Adagio demanded, her eyes wild and brow furrowed.

“We leave.”

“Do you want to die in the cold?” the elder siren fumed. “If the frost doesn’t take us, the wolves will. I will not die that way, not in this place!’ Her fingers tightened around the knife’s handle.

“If you do this,” Sonata began, quite obviously trying to keep her voice from trembling, “then I won’t sing with you.”

“Sonata,” Aria growled, “so help m–”

“Silence!” Adagio hissed, waving a hand sharply.

The room was quiet for several minutes.

Her distant gaze seemed to drift back to the immediate area before she spoke again. “Pack whatever you think you can carry,” she whispered, “we’re leaving tonight.”

“Then we’re as good as dead,” the middle siren spat. A million different scenarios played out in her head, and all of them ended in fire, ice, or blood. She turned to her younger counterpart. “Because of you, Sonata.”

“I’m sorry,” the blue girl sniffed, “but I can’t let y–”

“There’s no time for this,” Adagio interrupted with authority, “we have to move. Go!”

Aria rarely second-guessed herself. When she chose a course of action, she did so with deliberation – most of the time – and once she’d made a choice, she saw it through to the end. The fact that she was here in this place at this moment in time was the result of her personal code of conduct failing about as spectacularly as it had the potential to. She’d made a snap decision, and upon realizing how questionable her choice was, had stubbornly resolved to carry it to its conclusion.

Still, she maintained that the course her life had taken could be laid at Adagio’s feet as much as her own. The kind of doubt she was feeling right now was entirely new to her, for at the moment, she was not questioning a decision she’d made, but rather who she was supposed to be. In a single moment of vulnerability, the wall she’d built around herself over the course of ten centuries had come crashing down. She’d salvaged from it what she could, but Aria felt like she’d lost a part of herself.

The question she was asking herself now was whether or not that was an acceptable price to pay.

The sun had nearly completed its breach of the horizon, and she sat in her chair, the autumn chill made comfortable by the warm cup of black coffee she held close to her chest. As it turned out, there had been coffee, she’d just been so sure that there wasn’t, she hadn’t bothered to look for it. An entirely pointless but nonetheless maddening thought had wormed its way into her mind: if she’d known that yesterday morning, would the events of the previous evening have played out differently? An even more unsettling question was whether or not she would’ve wanted them to. The idea made her wish she hadn’t finished off the kahlua, because she sorely wanted a drink, but felt that putting anything else in one’s coffee was tasteless, both literally and figuratively.

Still, regardless of any facets of her personality that had been called into question, she knew there was one place she could find solace. Taking another thoughtful sip from her cup, she stood, intending to head inside and sit down in front of her piano, but found her thoughts of which piece might fit her current mood interrupted by the sound of the door sliding open.

“Oh,” Sonata said with a start, “hi, Ari. I’ve never seen you up this early.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Aria replied curtly, thinking for a moment before she slowly sat back down.

The blue girl shuffled sleepily over to her brooding counterpart and set her mug – which Aria noted with disdain was full of tea – down on the small table between them.

“You okay?” Sonata asked with palpable concern, “you look angry again.”

“Yeah,” Aria sighed, “just tired.”

“Well, what’s on your mind?”

“Hey,” she snapped, slamming down her coffee and glaring, “just because I lost my composure once does not mean that I suddenly like to talk about feelings, got it?”

Sonata jerked back just a hair, a slightly wounded look on her face.

“Wait,” Aria’s voice cracked, “I’m sorry.” Feebly, her hand reached across the table, but the effort seemed to die about halfway. Sonata, seeing it for what it was, put her hand on top of Aria’s and squeezed it affectionately.

“It’s okay,” she said gently.

“I’m just…” Aria trailed off, rubbing her temple and shutting her eyes tightly, “I can’t…I’m just sorry, alright?” she finished lamely and with more aggression than was warranted.

“It’s okay,” Sonata repeated, “really. I’m not gonna say I like it when you yell at me, but it’s a lot easier when I know you don’t mean it.”

Aria attempted a grateful smile, but was pretty sure it came off as more of a grimace. She couldn’t think of anything to say, and so remained quiet.

“Want some breakfast?” Sonata asked, breaking the silence with her trademark cheer.

“You don’t always have to make food for me. I could go get us something.”

“Nah,” the younger siren dismissed, “I like cooking. I was gonna make something for myself anyway. What do you want?”

“Well,” Aria said casually, “those eggs benedict you made the other day were really good…I mean, all of it was good.”

“Okay,” Sonata nodded, “I’ll make that stuff again. Hey, have you ever heard of eggs Florentine? It’s, like, the same thing, but with spinach instead of ham.”

“Heresy,” Aria breathed, eyes going wide with horror.

“Just asking,” Sonata said innocently, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Once it appeared her friend had calmed down, she stood to head inside. “I’ll be back in just a bit,” she assured as she slipped through the door.

Aria was alone again on the back porch, watching the day break. Her coffee was gone, but that small source of warmth had been replaced by the sun, which washed over her from head to toe.

“Hey Ari, what’s your phone number? I can’t believe I’ve never asked you.”

Aria was not one for idle chit-chat, and even less so when she was eating, but the question caused her to pause, chew carefully, and swallow before replying.

“Sonata,” she said slowly, cocking an eyebrow, “we live in the same house.”

“Right…”

“Ergo, we have the same phone number, yes?”

“Wait,” Sonata said, shaking her head in disbelief, “you don’t have a phone?”

Aria suddenly knew that there was a rabbit hole, and she was peering over its edge. She could’ve sworn she heard sci-fi-style theremin music in the distance, but she shrugged it off.

“Sonata, the phone is right there,” she insisted, pointing to the telephone that was clearly visible through the sliding glass door that led from the back porch into the living room.

“I mean, like, a cell phone,” the blue girl clarified. She reached into her pocket and produced a flat plastic rectangle that Aria had seen a million times.

“Oh,” the elder siren said, comprehension finally dawning, “of course not, I hate those things. And how come I never see anyone talking on them?” Aria demanded, dropping her fork to gesticulate angrily, “they’re always just poking them! Everywhere I go, all I see is people poking and poking. It’s maddening.”

“They’re texting…”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Ari,” Sonata began cautiously, a hint of worry creeping into her voice, “when was the last time you…uh…did something…as in something that wasn’t music.”

“What do you mean? I watch TV sometimes.”

“You only do that when you’re really drunk,” Sonata reminded, “and you usually just get mad at it. When was the last time you read a magazine or played a video game or something.”

Aria tapped her chin, eyes drifting upwards in thought.

“I bought a magazine once,” she remembered, “about twenty years ago.”

“What one?”

“I don’t know, I just remember the name was something that really pissed me off.”

“‘People’?” Sonata guessed.

“Yeah, that’s the one,” Aria confirmed, snapping her fingers.

“And…how did that go?” the younger siren asked, her tone pessimistic.

“I’m pretty sure I burned it,” Aria said, stuffing a forkful of hash browns into her mouth.

“What about video games?” Sonata queried, “there’s gotta be one you like, right?”

“I tried that once, too…” Aria replied darkly, her gaze distant, “never again. It was this dot eating other dots in a maze – which I couldn’t find the end to, not once - and these horrible things with-dead looking eyes were chasing after me. Then they would change color and run away from me, and I never understood why. It was like a goddamned fever dream, but without the sublime existential terror.”

“Have…have you ever used the internet?”

“I’ve heard of it,” Aria admitted. “They have that at the library, right?”

“Ari,” Sonata wondered with complete innocence, “do you hate fun?”

“What are you talking about? I love fun! Music is fun. We played music together the other day. That was fun!”

“Then why did you look so angry while we were doing it?” the blue-haired girl asked.

“If I had a nickel for every time I’ve gotten that question…” Aria sighed.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Look, Ari, music is great, but you should try to do other things,” Sonata said simply.

“Why?” Aria questioned defiantly. “And if you say ‘variety is the spice of life,’ I’m going to raze an orphanage.”

“Because,” Sonata countered without missing a beat, “if you only ever do one thing, how do you know you’re actually enjoying it if you have nothing to compare it to?”

Aria’s mouth opened and closed several times, her finger gesturing repeatedly at some point in space above Sonata’s head.

“Fuck,” she said finally.

“Yay!” Sonata grinned, clapping her hands together, “I’m gonna show you all the fun things I like to do!”

“Yes!”

Aria was beside herself, and for the first time in recent memory, it wasn’t with rage. Well, there was definitely a lot of rage, but it paled in comparison to the glee she felt at having bested another opponent.

“Eat me you bottom-feeding plebeian! How does it feel to fail? Your ancestors weep for their lineage! And furthermore, fuck you!”

Sonata had been adamant that she try something new today. Aria had complained and resisted. The past few days had been a bit unusual, and she sorely wanted to return to music in order to center herself, but her bubbly friend had insisted that devoting all of one’s time to a single hobby wasn’t healthy. She disagreed, and had tried to steer the conversation into an esoteric debate on the philosophy of artistry, but Sonata wouldn’t have it.

Aria hated video games – in fact, she considered them worse than television – but to their credit they’d become a lot more interesting since she’d last played one, which had been roughly a quarter century ago. This particular one had a simple premise: you just hit the other person until they died. She’d commented beforehand that they could just as easily go out into the street and do this in real life, and most likely with much less resistance, but Sonata had explained that that wasn’t the point.

The game itself was entertaining enough, but it had taken her all of fifteen minutes to realize that it wasn’t much more than hand-eye coordination, timing, and memorization – three things which she excelled at. No, the real fun part was the headset she’d been given, and “conversing” with the other players.

“What is wrong with you, lady?” a young man’s voice on the other end asked in disgust.

“What’s wrong with you?” Aria shrieked, “you skill-less, spineless waste of flesh! If I ever meet you on the street, I will bend you over and drill you until you vomit up your own digestive system! I–”

She was cut off when the screen suddenly went blank.

“Okie dokie,” Sonata said, switching off the console, “I think that’s enough of that.”

“Sonata!” Aria shouted, “turn it back on, I was having fun!”

“Why don’t we do something more low-key instead?” Sonata suggested, “we could go for a walk or something.”

Aria was about to refuse simply because that was her default response to any suggestion, but then she thought about her diet over the past week and the fact that her pants seemed just a hair tighter than they normally were.

“Yeah, okay,” she conceded, “I guess I could use some exercise.”

She had to blink a few times to get her bearings when they left Sonata’s room, as going from a place where everything was pink, purple and blue back into the more subdued shades of the house proper was disorienting. It was probably just because she’d been listening to sound effects for the past two hours, but the house seemed oddly quiet.

The sky was clear, but summer was well over, and there was a chill outside which heralded the approach of winter. Aria had a beat-up brown bomber jacket with a wool lining for just this sort of occasion.

The air was cool and crisp when they stepped outside; it smelled like leaves and the faintest trace of rain. The sirens’ residence was out of the way on the very edge of town where the wealthier citizens congregated. They had been there for nearly a century, having charmed its previous owner out of the deed when they arrived in this place.

The two girls began to stroll toward downtown in silence, appreciating the colorful scenery. Aria saw that her more forward-thinking neighbors had already begun preparations for the coming holiday. Lights and playfully spooky decorations abounded, and there were pumpkins on many of the doorsteps. This was quite possibly her favorite time of year, partly because the weather was perfect and the scenery beautiful, but also partly because she felt much less out-of-place when the strange and the eerie were the word of the day.

Sonata had the fuzzy hood of her jacket up, but Aria held her head high and did not try to hide. The recent happenings at Canterlot High were shrouded in so much magic and confusion that the general populous really didn’t know who they were or what they had done, but they were still greeted by strange looks and an atmosphere of unease wherever they went. They were those girls who had done something, however most people weren’t sure what. Regardless, Aria felt no shame for her actions, and her defiant confidence combined with the general sense of trepidation towards her and Sonata caused more than a few passersby to simply move to the other side of the street. She paid them no mind, instead choosing to admire the red and gold leaves that hung from branches all around her.

Eventually, the pavement beneath her feet took on a more even, well-maintained consistency that told her they were moving into the heart of the city – if one could call it that. It was mid-afternoon, and the streets were alive with people walking briskly to and from shops and restaurants. She saw more than a few faces she knew; despite having no relationship with these people, she’d been in this town for a very long time, and she’d watched many of them grow up. There was that tall athletic-looking fellow with the curly, blue hair whom she’d chased off her property more than once when he was a kid. He was leaving the comic book shop, accompanied by another boy she knew – the short scrawny one who always wore a bowtie. They were chattering animatedly and gesturing at a particular comic that the latter was carrying. That was certainly an unlikely friendship.

Aria had walked a few more yards before she realized Sonata was no longer with her. She turned around, making her way back through the swarm of other pedestrians to find the youngest siren gazing through the window of a small music shop. She knew this place well; she’d come here on many occasions to buy books of sheet music, amplifiers, and on one occasion they had specially ordered her a set of piano strings.

Sonata was staring at the window display, which held several very attractive instruments, but one in particular had obviously caught her eye – a cherry-red, hollow-bodied electric guitar with lightning-shaped inlays. Aria was not exactly well-versed when it came to guitars, but she recognized it as a tool of classic rock, possessing none of the electronic nonsense that a good portion of modern instruments featured.

“I’m pretty sure they’d notice if you shoplifted from the front window,” she commented with a wry smile.

“It’s so cool,” Sonata said breathily, voice barely audible amidst the surrounding bustle.

“What’s wrong with your guitar?” Aria wondered with some disapproval.

“Oh, nothing!” Sonata said apologetically, but her gaze turned back to the object of her fixation, “but that one…I just mean, it’s just hard to really rock out on an acoustic guitar, you know?”

“You’ve been playing for less than a week,” Aria chided, “you should be thinking about your technique, not ‘rocking out.’”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Sonata conceded dismally.

“Come on,” the elder siren prompted, trying to force some levity into her voice, “if we’re out here, we might as well get lunch. You can eat something that you didn’t make yourself for once.”

“Okay,” Sonata smiled. “Can we go somewhere with fries? I can’t make those at home…well, except the frozen ones you bake in the oven, but those are kinda gross.”

Aria knew just the place. She led the way for a few blocks, and upon rounding a corner saw the façade of a small, hip-looking café come into view. It was one of those places where the drinks came in inconveniently-shaped glasses and all the menu items were in various foreign languages – which made her want to run for president just so she could declare war on their nations of origin – but it was close by and she knew the fries were good. Most of the patrons were clustered indoors, but the tables that lined the outside had heat lamps placed by them, and so she opted to take a seat at one of those.

The waitress asked all the usual questions regarding what they’d like to “start out” with, but a few curt utterances from Aria convinced her to cut to the chase.

“Can I see your ID?” she asked when the elder siren ordered an Irish coffee. Aria gave her a withering look before reaching into her pocket and retrieving the wallet that was chained to her belt. The waitress glanced intently between the card and its owner before finally handing it back. Of all the irksome things about her banishment to this world, one of the most irritating was the fact that she would forever look like an eighteen-year-old girl. It hadn’t been much of a problem until recently, when society had suddenly become preoccupied with legal identity. She was more than able to pass for drinking age, but could only hold onto an ID for an absolute maximum of half a decade; she never looked any older, so with each passing year, her printed birthdate became more and more implausible.

“So,” Aria said tentatively, realizing she’d been staring into the distance for a good five minutes, “are you ever going to come get your guitar from my room?”

A small weight seemed to lift from Sonata’s shoulders.

“I was so mad at myself for forgetting it,” she huffed, “but I didn’t come back for it because…you know…”

“Because I was being a huge bitch?” Aria offered.

“Yeah, that.”

“Well, when we get back home you can grab it. We should try and finish that song tonight.”

“Yeah…”

“What’s with the lack of enthusiasm?” Aria prompted.

“Well,” Sonata murmured as quietly as the ambient noise around them would allow, “I just haven’t seen Addy since yesterday, and it’s hard to think about music right now. I’m worried about her.”

“You seemed pretty interested in that guitar back there,” the pianist pointed out, stirring the coffee that had just been set down in front of her and wondering who in the deepest hells of Tartarus had authorized putting cream in it.

Sonata didn’t say anything. Aria kept stirring with increasing vigor and interest, despite the fact that her drink was going to get cold. When she finally picked it up and took a sip, it was indeed tepid, but that at least meant she could chug the entire thing in preparation for the next part of this conversation.

“Sonata,” she groaned, setting down her empty cup, “what do you want me to do?”

“I think you know,” the younger siren said quietly.

Aria was relieved that the waitress chose that moment to deliver their food.

“Chicken caesar and a side of fries,” the green-haired woman said cheerfully, setting two plates in front of Sonata, “and a double-bacon-cheeseburger with fried red onions, extra pickles, no ketchup, and exactly one leaf of lettuce on a toasted bun with no sesame seeds,” she finished, offering up Aria’s plate. “Oh, and no tomato, of course,” she added upon seeing her customer’s questioning glance.

“Well done,” Aria said, examining her food.

“Well done? I thought you said medium-rare,” the waitress panicked.

“No, I meant well done,” Aria clarified, “as in you might actually get a tip.”

“Oh,” the waitress laughed nervously, “okay then! Do you want anything else to drink?”

“I’ll have another one of these,” Aria drawled with boredom, raising her empty coffee mug, “but bigger.”

“Alright! And you ma’am?” the woman turned to Sonata, who just shook her head and smiled apologetically. “Back in a moment,” she said, beaming with questionable sincerity and hurrying off with the empty cup.

“You’re not this picky when I cook for you,” Sonata commented.

“Idunncurr,” Aria attempted a reply before chewing quickly, swallowing, and then beginning again. “I don’t care,” she shrugged, “I just like to see what I can make them do. Except for the tomatoes. I hate tomatoes.”

“I know,” Sonata chuckled. After a moment her expression became more severe. “Look,” she said, trying to keep the sadness out of her voice, “I know I can’t make you forgive her – that’s something you’ve got to want to do – but please, just tell her you’re sorry.”

“For what?” Aria demanded, “all I said was that if she wants me to pay for her house, she needs to get a job. Are you seriously telling me that’s unreasonable?”

“It’s our house, Ari.”

“Sonata,” the elder siren moaned, “I can’t. I can’t just…give her something for nothing, not after what she did. She can live on my dime, but it’s going to come at the expense of her pride, and that’s the best I can offer.”

“I just….” Sonata sighed, “I don’t see how you could hold on to this much hate for so long. I wouldn’t be able to do it…it would make me a bitter, angry person…” her voice trailed off as she realized what she was saying. “Aria, please,” she continued after a moment, a new sense of urgency in her voice, “you have to try to forgive her.”

“Why?”

“Please,” Sonata begged, “if you can’t do it for her, do it for yourself.”

“Why would I do something I have no interest in doing ‘for myself’?” Aria wondered skeptically.

“Fine, then can you do it for me?”

A million expletive-laced responses barreled through Aria’s mind like steam engines as she felt a familiar fire rise in her chest. She wanted to flip the table over, hurl her plate through the café’s window, fist-fight the cops when they arrived, and pay with exact change, but she was above such pedestrian displays of emotion…usually. Instead she took a long draught of her recently-served coffee and grimaced, rubbing her temples. She could not bring her mind to a place where she didn’t want to cause Adagio some grief – she simply wasn’t that charitable – but now she had to weigh that desire against the prospect of disappointing the one person in this world she actually cared about.

“You know,” she growled, setting her cup down and resisting the urge to raise it again and smash it to pieces on the edge of the table, “you’re playing that card awfully soon for someone who just became my friend yesterday.”

Sonata gave her an indulgent smile that was accented with just the barest hint of “really?”

“I think it’s been longer than that,” she said simply.

“Fine!” Aria huffed, “fine! But I’m going to need like…five more drinks.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Sonata asked delicately.

“Of course,” Aria spat venomously, rolling her eyes, “two angry drunk people trying to bury a thousand years’ worth of animosity in a forced conversation…how could that possibly go sideways?”

“Well, it’s never going to work out if you’ve already given up on it before you’ve even tried,” the blue girl retorted.

“There is a difference, Sonata,” Aria said, voice quavering slightly with restrained ire, “between giving up and acknowledging your limitations.”

“And which one are you doing right now?” Sonata asked.

It was a challenge if Aria had ever heard one, and heaven knew she couldn’t back down from one of those.

Steeling herself, she knocked.

“What?” Adagio’s voice sounded harshly from the other side of the door.

“It’s me, open up.”

“No.”

“I’m too hammered to do anything productive and Sonata’s fed me enough for the rest of the month. I can stand here all night, Adagio.”

After several minutes of silence, there was some shuffling, and the door cracked open just wide enough for one magenta eye – framed by a curly orange mop – to peer through. The eyebrow arched.

“What do you want with me, then?” the eldest siren asked. “It seems like your life is just peachy.”

“I just want to talk.”

“As fate would have it, that happens to be the exact opposite of what I want; request declined.”

The door slammed, and Aria briefly considered simply kicking it down – she basically owned this place now, after all.

“I’m not leaving,” she half-shouted through the still-standing door. “Also, if getting drunk and binge-eating is your definition of ‘just peachy’, then your worldview is even more fucked than I thought.”

“Look around you Aria,” Adagio called back, “that’s all these people do. It’s nice you’re finally embracing the culture, because we certainly aren’t going anywhere.”

“If we’re going to do the whole sarcastic banter thing, can you at least open the door?”

“It’s unlocked.”

Wondering why that hadn’t occurred to her, Aria turned the handle and pushed the door open. She hadn’t seen Adagio’s room for at least a decade, but was surprised to find it exactly as she remembered it. The place reflected none of its occupant’s recent troubles – everything was still impeccably neat and sparse. Despite it being the master bedroom of the house, there was hardly anything in it. A bed stood against the left wall, and a table on the right, which was home to a few personal possessions, most of which looked like they might not have been touched since the last time Aria had seen them. The hardwood floor was bare, unadorned by so much as a rug. Against the far wall, at a desk that Aria recognized as one of the few things salvaged from their previous residence, sat the eldest siren, her back turned. There was a faint whirring sound in the otherwise-silent room, and when it was finally accompanied by a few keystrokes, Aria realized that somewhere on the other side of all that hair was a computer.

“What are you doing?” she blurted out with earnest curiosity, wondering what use Adagio, of all beings, would have for humanity’s latest fad. “Are you playing that game with the mines? Because that thing is rigged, I swear to the gods.”

Adagio swiveled her chair around, leaning on one arm, her expression reflecting the kind of disgusted fascination one might feel when picking at a scab.

“Do you take some kind of backwards pleasure in being the world’s greatest troglodyte?” She asked.

“Fifty years from now, nobody’s even going to remember those things existed,” Aria declared, folding her arms, “and yeah, maybe…” she added quietly.

“Right,” Adagio said, rolling her eyes, “just like telephones, cars, and CDs, yes?”

“I was right about CDs,” Aria countered.

“A broken clock, Aria…” the eldest siren quipped, turning around and returning to her work. “Now,” she began after a few moments full of soft key-taps, “what do you want. I have trouble believing you came here for small talk.”

Aria suddenly remembered that there had been a point to this conversation besides exchanging passive-aggressive witticisms and backhanded insults. She opened her mouth a few times to try and say something, but when she finally did get words out, they weren’t productive ones.

“Do you have anything to drink?”

Adagio didn’t move, but she raised an arm, pointing lazily in the direction of the nightstand by her bed, upon which sat a few haphazardly-stacked books, and a multitude of bottles in various stages of emptiness. Aria flopped down on the bed, not bothering to remove her boots, and she could see her sister siren twitch slightly, which caused a derisive smile to spread across her face. She rolled across the impractically large mattress and grabbed one of the bottles, settling in a very unladylike position on what was obviously the side of the bed that Adagio preferred. She took a swig, letting out a small cough at the end and cringing.

“Wow, Adagio,” she chuckled, eyes watering, “why don’t you just drink battery acid? It’d be cheaper.”

“You’re wearing out your welcome, Aria,” Adagio said as she stared at her screen, her voice taut, “please get to the point.”

“Look,” Aria said, taking another drink and coughing again, “I’m s…I’m not going to make you get a job, okay? Just forget about that. I can carry us for a while until you figure out the next plan or con or whatever.”

“Oh,” Adagio scoffed, wheeling around to face her, “how touching. I feel so loved. We must add charity and compassion to your list of virtues. Now,” she growled, eyes narrowing, “I don’t know what Sonata had to do to put you up to this, and I’m sure I don’t want to, but your generosity is neither wanted nor needed.”

“So what? You’re back to selling the house?”

“No,” Adagio snapped, waving her hand sharply. “I wouldn’t do that to her,” she continued, a subtle head-tilt indicating the only member of the trio not currently in this room, “but I will not live under your thumb, either.”

“Since when do you care about Sonata?” Aria shouted, sitting up.

“Since that night, Aria,” the eldest siren said darkly.

Despite centuries of tumultuous existence on this plane, Aria knew the exact moment her counterpart was referring to. Memories of the crackling hearth and the fire’s light dancing on the edge of a knife flitted through her psyche. They had entertained an unspeakable notion, and if Sonata hadn’t stopped them, would’ve carried it out. The memories of what followed overwhelmed Aria, and she felt a resurgence of the anger she’d been suppressing for the last twenty-four hours, all of which she channeled into one spiteful utterance.

“I guess Sonata’s lost her touch, now that I think about it…or did she even ask you to stop when you slapped her around?”

She ducked instinctively, and not a moment too soon. With terrifying force, the entire swivel-chair passed through the space her head had occupied just moments ago, crashing into the nightstand and toppling it as all the bottles shattered. She rolled off the bed and scrabbled for the door, feeling a boot connect with her ribs before she could stand. The force sent her tumbling into the hallway just as the heavy door slammed shut behind her, the walls rattling in accompaniment to the incoherent scream that came from the other side. There were a few more thumps and clatterings before the noise subsided.

Rather than trying to stand, Aria dragged herself over to the nearby stairwell, propping herself up against the banister. She’d failed miserably, that much was certain, but exhaustion and cheap liquor dulled her disappointment. She just wanted to sleep, and though here was not the best place, she closed her eyes anyway.

As her consciousness began to flicker out, the answer to a question she’d been asking for most of her life suddenly made itself plain.

Why Sonata? she had always wondered, but no longer. There was a new question now.

Why me?

They had fled into the night, and not a moment too soon. They’d barely reached the edge of the town when shouts and the barking of dogs had begun emanating from its center. And so they ran across the frozen countryside, heading for the only place no one would dare follow – the forest.

Aria was so very cold, and she knew the others were too, but she didn’t dare light a fire. The last distant pinpricks of searching torches had disappeared hours ago, when the moon had risen and the howling had begun, but she couldn’t be too cautious. It would only be safe if they moved further into the trees, but then they risked an even less-appealing end.

The chill was growing by the minute, and though they had seized the warmest things they could in such haste, furs and fabrics would not see them through the wee hours of the morning. They were truly damned, for any attempt to stave off one death would simply invite another. They walked close, and she could hear Sonata’s shuddering breath and Adagio’s shivering. She pulled her coat tighter, but the cold was penetrating. Here and there, a few rays of moonlight stole through the trees, sometimes momentarily illuminating the faces of her companions. She hoped it was the pale light that made them look so blue, but there was no dismissing the fear in those eyes that were wreathed by frosted lashes.

Maybe an hour had passed, or maybe two, but she heard a soft, wet crunch as something impacted the snow beside her.

“Sonata,” Adagio hissed, her breath a cloud of vapor, “get up!”

“I c-cant,” Sonata whispered as the other two tried to pull her upright, “I can’t feel my foot.”

Aria suddenly realized just how cold the other siren’s flesh felt beneath her fingers. She hooked her arms under Sonata’s, dragging her to the base of the largest tree in the vicinity and hastily clearing away as much of the snow as she could with her boot. The light of the ascending moon caught the white powder as she kicked, and she could hear the wolves calling to it in the distance.

“Find something to burn,” she whispered to Adagio, “anything that’s dry. Don’t go out of sight.”

Even in the half-light, the protest in the eldest siren’s expression was plain, but it seemed she was too cold to voice it, and so began searching the surrounding area for firewood. Aria found a few pieces around the base of the tree sufficient to sustain a flame and piled them up, retrieving the tinder box from her pack, along with some kindling. She was no expert with it, no more than she was with the alien appendages she had to operate to use it, but if ever there was a time to push her limits, it was now. The sound of flint against steel was painfully loud in the eerily quiet forest. Several times, she thought she saw the glint of an eye in the periphery of her vision.

A spark gave way to a smolder in the small heap of straw, and she blew on it as carefully as her trembling breath would allow. It glowed momentarily and then died, and she fumbled the flint with increasing freneticism, trying to get another spark to catch. Adagio returned with some passable scraps of wood, but there was nothing to feed them to. She dropped them clumsily, half-sitting, half-falling next to Sonata and hugging her close, presumably for warmth. Aria felt something bite into her chilled flesh, and looked down to see that she’d cut her finger. It barely bled before the escaping droplets of blood began to freeze. The small modicum of dexterity she’d developed with this oddly-proportioned body was dissipating by the second as her extremities became numb and unwieldy.

Then the tinder caught again, and Aria cupped her hands around it, feeding it air. The fizzling strands of straw were the embers of life, and she knew if they went out again, so would her last chance. After the tensest few moments in her recent memory, a small flame sprang to life, and she huddled closer, both drinking in its warmth and protecting it. As soon as her digits had returned from the brink of frostbite and the fire was strong enough to stand on its own, she roused Adagio, who had wrapped herself around Sonata, trying to keep some warmth in the girl. She couldn’t seem to move on her own, and so Aria used the small surge of strength that the heat had given her to haul them both as close to the flame as was safe. A few minutes passed, and the eldest siren began to shiver back to life and breathe more easily.

“Warm her up,” Aria whispered, “and keep this going.” She gestured to the small pile of scrap wood they had collected. “I’ll go find more.”

Away from the burgeoning warmth, she was quickly reminded just how icy the air was. Moving quickly, she searched near the trunks of the trees for any twigs or branches that hadn’t been soaked and frozen. The numbness had begun to creep back in, but she had collected enough to keep the blaze going for a few hours. She was about to turn back toward the fire when a glint in at the edge of her vision caused her to snap to attention.

She saw the eyes, no longer just a conjuring of her paranoid mind or a trick of the shadows, but as real as day, staring from beyond the edge of the light’s furthest reaches. They were bright, emotionless, and hungry, and she could hear it breathing heavily. It must have smelled the blood, she realized, feeling the dull thrumming of pain in her finger. If she made it back to the fire, she might use the flame to scare it off…unless it was hungry enough. She knew there were more of them, too; they might already be there, lurking just out of sight.

Even as a siren, with her imposing size, sharp teeth, and formidable magic, she’d never considered wolves creatures to be trifled with – they were best avoided and left to their own business. Now, as this small, gangly, fleshy creature that was quite rapidly freezing to death, what could she do?

This was absurd, Aria decided. Just eleven years ago she’d been a citizen of Equestria, born and raised, living a peaceful – if somewhat boring – life. By day, she played her mandolin in the streets for the few bits she needed to eke out a living. By night, she composed on her piano, waiting for the day when she would break out and earn the respect and admiration she longed for. And yet now she was crouched in the frigid dark, watching her fate slip from grim to sealed as she stared down the muzzle of a hungry killer, the sounds and images of sunny fields and beautiful music flitting across her psyche. It was absurd, but not in a way she could find funny right now.

Never letting her gaze falter despite the mounting shivers that wracked her frame, she reached into her coat and withdrew the long, rusty skinning knife that Adagio had nearly applied to much more nefarious purposes that night. Aria felt herself trembling more and more violently, and she knew it wasn’t just the cold. With a raspy breath, the killer took one step forward.

She didn’t know what she could do, but she knew there was one thing she would never do.

Chapter Five: A New Direction

With a gasp, Aria opened her eyes. They darted about wildly, but her breathing slowed as she recognized where she was.

Having lived as long as she had, there were many, many memories that had faded over the years, and even ones that had disappeared entirely – hundreds of thousands of meals she didn’t remember eating, steps she didn’t remember taking, and clothes she would never recall she’d worn. But there were some things that she would never, ever forget, even if she lived to the end of the earth itself – the feeling of teeth sinking into her flesh, the terrible strength that whipped her about like a ragdoll, and the way a knife felt when plunged into living tissue again and again. Most of all, she would never forget how the cold air burned her lungs while she ran.

She looked down at her arm. Time heals all wounds, and a thousand years was a long time for healing. The scars had long faded into nothing, but the flesh couldn’t forget any more than the mind could; sometimes, when it was very cold, it ached in remembrance. Shivering, she pulled the blanket around herself as tightly as she could. It was a bit of an odd thing to do, she realized, as she certainly hadn’t fallen asleep with a blanket over her.

Sonata, she thought, allowing herself a small, fond smile.

Despite the hangover, waking up had been easy enough. Standing up, Aria found, was another matter entirely. She’d spent the entire night crumpled against the banister, and the moment she tried to do anything more demanding than turn her head, her back protested violently. The bruising around her ribs did not help the situation in any way. She briefly contemplated just going back to sleep and dealing with this later, but then considered what might happen if Adagio woke up and found her still lying here. Slowly and with much groaning, grunting, and the popping and cracking of joints, she worked herself into an upright position, using the wall for support. Then she noticed something sufficiently interesting to make her admit to herself that she was just being lazy and melodramatic. Cracking her neck and shrugging off the stiffness in her back, she took a second look and confirmed that the door to Adagio’s room was, in fact, slightly ajar. Cautiously, she shuffled over and peered through the crack. The eldest siren was nowhere to be seen, nor was the bathroom across the hall occupied.

Even back in better times, the idea of Adagio being up this early was unheard of. Since the Canterlot High debacle, she was rarely vertical before noon, if she was going to be at all, which often wasn’t the case. Ever so cautiously, Aria pushed the door open, fully expecting to find a poofy mass of orange hair passed out in a corner or behind the bed…but she didn’t. When she realized that Adagio really wasn’t there, she felt a twinge of what she knew to be the very dangerous sensation of curiosity picking at the back of her mind. There was indeed a laptop on the desk that stood against the far wall, but it was shut off and closed. However, that wasn’t what interested her. Next to it were two items – one was a heavily-bound book, its cover adorned in gold leafing and a language that she didn’t recognize. The other was a photograph, whose subject she was very familiar with; the image of those red and gold locks – wreathed by triumphant light – was another thing that would forever be etched into her psyche. As much as she wanted to poke around a little more, she had no idea how to operate a computer and decided not to press her luck.

When Aria made her way down the stairs the ground floor was deserted as well. The new day had just begun to dawn, and it appeared that even Sonata was still asleep. Blearily, she staggered into the kitchen, her brain crying out for coffee, only to find a pot of it already sitting on the counter. There were dishes in the sink as well, the aftermath of what looked to be fairly Spartan breakfast preparations.

Adagio had actually gotten up and gone somewhere, and it wasn’t the liquor store.

Aria poured herself a cup of coffee and took a small sip, rolling it across her palette, both to determine if it had been brewed properly and to screen for any detectable poisons. The flavor was decent, and if it was laced with any lethal substances, they were tasteless and odorless. All in all, it was a surprisingly competent affair, something she’d nearly forgotten Adagio was capable of in recent months. Satisfied, she retrieved her jacket and stepped out onto the back porch.

Today was the second day in at least as many years she’d watched the sunrise. Yesterday, she’d been a bit too preoccupied to pay it much mind. Now, while there were certainly a few things bothering her – the most notable being how disappointed Sonata would be in her failure to have so much as a civil conversation with their “sister” – she couldn’t help but lose herself in the striking halo of red and gold that now crested horizon. It reminded her of something that made her feel a twinge of anxiety, but it was too early, and her mind was far too foggy to think of what. Whatever it was, it lit a fire in her chest, and she knew exactly what she was going to do today. Her fingers had not touched a keyboard in far too long, and they ached with the same restless imperative as her heart:

I’ve got the music in me.

“Stop,” Aria said sharply, holding up a hand. The guitar strings rang to a halt as she penned a last set of notes.

The morning hadn’t worn on long before she’d crossed paths with Sonata, and after a simple breakfast, they’d finally resumed the composition that the past few days’ tumult had caused them to abandon. And now it was done...or nearly so. Flipping back to the first page, Aria began to scan it line by line with practiced ease, the notes ringing in her head as fast as she could manage them without sacrificing precision and clarity. She made a few corrections and then went over it again, and then again. When at last she was able to run through the song without having to change anything, she knew it was finished. Satisfied, she picked up another music book and began scribbling down a second copy of the piece, taking enough care to ensure that Sonata would find it legible.

“Alright,” she said when she was done, handing the book to her sister siren, “let’s run through this.”

“Um, Ari…” Sonata interjected awkwardly.

“What?”

“I have no idea how to read this.”

Aria paused. One of her eyes began to twitch.

“What are you talking about?” she demanded, “I know you can read music! How else did you recognize that song on my wall?”

“Well, yeah, I can a little,” Sonata shrugged, “but it was mostly because you had the words written under the notes.”

“I need a drink,” Aria said in a high-pitched voice, standing abruptly. She lowered the cover over her keys and made a beeline for the kitchen.

“Ari, c’mon…It’s not even noon, don’t…why are you so upset?”

“Upset?” Aria shrilled, “I’m not upset, I’m confused. What was the point of us writing a song together if you can’t even read what we’ve written?”

“I do want to learn,” Sonata said, shifting in her seat, “but for now, can’t you just tell me which parts we play when? I know how they all go, I’m just not sure how you put them together…”

“I did tell you,” Aria moaned, smacking her forehead, “I wrote it all down right there.” She jabbed her finger toward the freshly-scrawled sheet music. “That’s how music works, Sonata.”

“But what about all those songs that you, me, and Adagio sang?” Sonata countered, hand tightening around the neck of her guitar, “there weren’t any notes or papers, we just did it.”

“Don’t be intentionally dense!” Aria snapped, “that was magic, Sonata. That was something much greater and more powerful than any of us can be on our own.”

“But isn’t this kind of the same thing?” the blue girl wondered. “I mean, we don’t need notes on a page to play together…we already know that.”

“Well then why the hell did I go to all the trouble of writing them?” Aria shouted. She had a few more choice words to say, but instead turned on her heel and marched into the kitchen, attempting to end the conversation before she said something she’d regret.

If there was one thing that was difficult to keep in the sirens’ household, it was liquor. Adagio seemed to have some kind of homing device built into her skull that told her precisely where any beverage containing any amount of alcohol was hiding. Aria had tried keeping her stash in her own room for a time, but that had resulted in too many days where she’d never made it out of bed. Eventually, she’d resorted to taping a bottle of whiskey to the underside of the kitchen sink, which she was relieved to discover had remained unmolested.

“Ari, wait,” Sonata said, having followed her from the living room.

“Sonata,” Aria hissed through gritted teeth, hands planted firmly on the counter, “I am trying very, very hard to not completely lose it right now, so you need to give me a minute.” Already she could feel the whiskey dulling the edges of her ire. After the previous evening’s abuse, her stomach did not exactly welcome it, but this was the only surefire way she knew of calming her nerves. A little nausea was an acceptable price to pay for not chewing out her only friend. Her body jerked involuntarily when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“How about,” Sonata began gently, “instead of getting mad or getting drunk, you talk to me.”

“And what’s supposed to happen then?” the elder siren snapped, “are you going to understand me? Am I going to ‘let it all go’ and have a good cry? Do we spend the rest of the day in our pajamas eating ice cream and making trite conjectures about the meaning of life, or watching romantic comedies?”

“Ari,” the blue girl said, brow creased with confusion, “how would any of that be bad?”

“Because that’s not how life works,” Aria replied sharply. “That kind of stuff happens in books and movies.”

“You mean…being happy?”

“Yes.”

“Look,” Sonata said, attempting a different angle, “just tell me what I said that made you mad so I don’t do it again. That’s not too much to ask, is it?”

Aria eyed her skeptically, remaining still for a few moments. After a minute, she took another drink and sat down at the small table where they usually dined.

“I guess you just hit a nerve,” she sighed, burying her face in her hands.

“What do you mean?”

“Sonata, I’ve been writing music for so long, I can’t remember doing anything else. I can’t remember liking anything else, and I don’t think I ever did. But you’re right – at the end of the day, it’s all just notes on a page, and who needs that? What purpose does it serve?”

“I thought you said you’ve had stuff in movies and TV though, right?” Sonata offered.

“Yeah,” Aria laughed bitterly, “and it’s good money…we’re both lucky for that, but nobody knows who I am. I don’t get to see people’s reactions to it. I don’t even know if they liked it. All I am to them is a credit or a footnote. I hate this – I hate it so much – but I want to know. I want to know that they liked it, because that’s what makes it worth something.” She felt like she was about to burst with frustration, but she couldn’t stop talking; just the act of speaking seemed to be quieting the restlessness that had been squirming in her chest for far too long. “I’ve always wanted to be known; it’s what brought me into this horrible mess in the first place. I keep telling myself that art should be for art’s sake, but it’s a lie. I’ve watched more generations than I can count pass by, and their lives are so short, but with each one, there are great musicians, ones who shine. They break out and write their own names in the history books, but I never do. It’s a foolish, shallow, trivial thing to want, but I still want it.”

“Wanting to be liked isn’t shallow, Ari,” Sonata said earnestly, taking a seat across from her friend, “it’s what I want, too. Maybe I don’t want it for the same reasons you do, but I still know what you mean.”

We will be adored
Tell us that you want us

Aria exhaled slowly, mopping at the corners of her eyes with a napkin. Despite dredging up all the pesky emotions that had been chewing on the back of her mind for many years now, she didn’t feel as awful as she thought she would. In fact, she felt better. They hadn’t gone away, but it almost felt as though the burden weighed less heavily on her because someone else was helping her carry it now. From an objective standpoint, that notion seemed very wrong to her.

“Look, I’m sorry,” she said tiredly, “none of this is your problem, and you shouldn’t have to feel bad about it. I’m just complaining about my dumb angst.”

“No,” Sonata smiled, shaking her head, “it’s not complaining, it’s sharing.”

“Oh god,” Aria cringed, rolling her eyes, “please stop. You’re gonna make me hurl.”

“Just seeing how far I could take it,” Sonata snickered.

“Yeah? Well that’s far enough.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Sonata said, breaking the silence.

Well, it wasn’t quite silence. The two girls sat on the couch that Adagio normally occupied, and the living room was filled with smacking and crunching as Aria vigorously jammed potato chips into her face. Sonata had convinced her to put the bottle away – at least until evening rolled around – and in her current state of unrest, she’d needed something else comforting to ingest.

“Mmm?” she prompted, stuffing another I-don’t-give-a-fuck-sized handful into her mouth.

“We should perform,” Sonata said simply.

Aria had begun to notice that her friend had a habit of saying the most ridiculous things when she was right in the middle of a large mouthful of something, and so was necessarily becoming increasingly adept at chewing and swallowing very quickly.

“What?” she coughed, slightly out of breath.

“You heard me,” Sonata yawned, leaning back over the arm of the couch and stretching, “we should perform music…you know, for people.”

“Why in the blackest hells of Tartarus would I want to do that?” Aria demanded.

“Didn’t you used to?”

“What are you on about?”

“You know,” the blue girl said, cracking her neck, “when you were young, back in Equestria.”

“How…how do you know about that?” Aria countered incredulously.

“I guess you don’t remember that, huh?” Sonata said thoughtfully. “Back when we first moved into this house, there was this one night where you and Adagio had way too much wine. You guys went upstairs, and then you came back down by yourself looking really angry, but you ended up talking to me for like, a while.”

Aria stared at some point roughly a thousand yards behind Sonata’s head. She was completely still, but her mind was a warzone as she desperately fought to expunge the memories that had suddenly been dragged into it.

“What is your point?” she growled finally, shaking off her thoughts.

“My point is that you’ve got all this music, so you should play it for people,” the younger siren concluded.

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because…Sonata…no!”

“Ari,” Sonata half-whispered, placing a hand on her friend’s shoulder, “why not?”

“Because!” Aria agonized, pulling at her own hair and squirming with anxiety, “I just don’t want to.”

“Can’t you try it once?” Sonata wondered. “You spend so much time alone, Ari. You say you want people to like your music, but how will that ever happen if you don’t share it with them? Why do you even care what they think if you can’t stand to be around them?”

“Don’t you dare!” the elder siren fumed with sudden ire, jabbing a finger into her companion’s chest, “don’t you dare twist my words around on me! I will not do it, and that is the end of this discussion!”

“Okay, okay,” Sonata relented, holding up her hands as a gesture of surrender, “I’m sorry. Forget I said anything.” Her tone wasn’t hurt, it was decidedly disappointed.

This only sent Aria’s anger from a simmer to a full on, frothing boil.

“Oh, I intend to,” she said icily, grabbing her chips, making a short detour to the kitchen for her liquor, and heading straight to her room.

“Get fucked, Sonata!” she shouted down the hall before slamming her door.

“You were a pony?” Sonata mused incredulously, stunned by the revelation.

“Indeed,” Aria confirmed, taking another large draught of wine in a desperate bid to forget recent events. She wanted to drink until she forgot Adagio existed at all.

“What kind?” the blue girl asked, her curiosity palpable enough to chew on. “I’m betting you were a unicorn.”

“No,” Aria frowned, shaking her head, “earth pony.”

“Really?” Sonata said with honest surprise, “I never met an earth pony who played music.”

“Yeah,” Aria laughed mirthlessly, “there’s a reason for that.”

“Wasn’t it really hard?” the younger siren asked. It was a dumb question, but it was asked candidly and with rapt attention.

“Yes,” Aria growled, taking another drink. She hated the world even more than usual, as she felt discomfort on every level of her being. Tonight had been a small celebration of sorts. The sirens’ stay at their previous residence had recently become untenable for a variety of reasons, prompting them to flee the city and seek out a new place to live. Just under a month on the road had seen them to this little town, and it had only taken a few days to charm the house’s previous owner out of all his earthly possessions and send him on his way. The prospect of a hearth to sit by and soft beds to sleep in had seemed worthy of a toast, and when Adagio had discovered a rather impressive wine collection in the pantry, all pretenses had been cast into the aether and the girls – with the exception of Sonata – had resolved to get roaring drunk. Unfortunately, their inhibitions had been obliterated a bit too thoroughly.

And so Aria felt uncomfortable in almost every way. She was embarrassed, and hoped that the flush in her cheeks could be passed off as the doing of wine. She was far, far too intoxicated – the world was beginning to dip and spin, and she knew from a great deal of experience that tomorrow would be a very unpleasant affair. She was disoriented – this place that was supposedly now her home was alien, and without her wits about her, she could make no attempt to center herself and adjust. Most of all, she was just irritated. She’d made the drunken mistake of talking to Sonata, and now she was inundated by a barrage of questions.

“What was your family like?” Sonata wondered, interrupting her sister siren’s thoughts.

“Be quiet,” Aria snapped. Undesirable memories were attempting to force themselves into her psyche, so she doused them with more wine.

“Ari,” Sonata whined, an almost desperate edge in her voice, “why can’t you tell me? We’ve been friends for such a long time, but…I hardly know anything about you. What’s the harm in it?”

“We are not friends,” Aria snarled, “and don’t ever call me that.”

Sonata didn’t speak, her shoulders slumping visibly. There was a long silence between them, punctuated only by the ticking of a clock that came from somewhere in the vicinity behind the chair where Aria sat. It grated on her consciousness, and she resolved that when she was sober, she’d find it and break it.

“I didn’t have much of a family,” she blurted, simply to drown out the infernal ticking. “My parents died when I was a filly, and my sister had to find work, so she couldn’t stick around.”

“I’m so sorry,” Sonata said with such sincerity that it was all Aria could do not to squirm.

“My auntie and uncle took me in,” she continued; “they were good people, but they had their own kids to raise, so I couldn’t expect much from them. It was fine, though…it’s not like I ever went hungry. What about you?” The question escaped her lips before she realized what she was doing, and she cursed internally.

“I didn’t have it nearly as bad as you did,” Sonata admitted, “but my family wasn’t very happy either.”

“Why’s that?” Aria asked, once again unconsciously and to her great frustration.

“My parents were unicorns,” the blue girl explained, “and, well…I wasn’t. I was an earth pony like you.”

“That’s unusual,” Aria commented.

“Yeah,” Sonata agreed with a forlorn smile. “They didn’t treat me badly or anything like that, they were really, really nice, and they loved me…but I always knew they were disappointed. My mother, she was an enchanter. She would cast spells on gems and other things to create talismans and charms, and that’s what her father had done, and his father before him, going back for generations. I was her only daughter, so I couldn’t continue the family business because I was born the wrong type of pony.”

“That wasn’t your fault,” Aria snapped, her restless mood suddenly feeling as though it could blossom into full-on rage.

“It was nobody…er, nopony’s fault,” Sonata reasoned with a small shrug, “it was just sad that it had to be that way. Still, I learned to sing, and I was pretty good at it. I wanted to show them that I could still do something worthwhile…that’s why…well, you know the rest.”

“Yeah,” Aria croaked bitterly. She’d really thought that there was no way she could hate Adagio more than she had a few moments ago, but as another wave of realization dawned on her hazy mind, she realized she’d been wrong. Adagio was – in every sense – a predator. She hadn’t just picked them because they might be useful, she picked them because they were easy – two neglected, disheartened souls who’d been almost effortlessly lured by promises of love and attention. Aria suddenly felt a strange sense of kinship with Sonata – they’d both fallen into the exact same trap, and had paid the exact same price.

“I miss them,” the youngest siren said regretfully, “I never really said goodbye.”

“Neither did I,” Aria sighed, a profound sense of loss suddenly threatening to overwhelm her. She’d said it herself: her aunt and uncle couldn’t give her everything she’d wanted – they had mouths to feed, and she was lucky they’d been able to take her in at all – but they were good people – or ponies, rather – and she’d left them without so much as a note. She forcibly shut the thought in the stone box in the back of her mind where she kept all emotions except anger and contempt. The stone rattled, but didn’t crack, and when she took another drink, it quieted.

“I guess we both traded our weird families for a new one,” Sonata chuckled.

A bark of laughter, harsh and shrill, involuntarily escaped Aria’s throat.

“This is not a family, Sonata,” she hissed, gesturing around herself, “this is an arrangement if I’m feeling charitable, and if I’m not, I usually go with something more along the lines of hell. The only reason I’m not a thousand miles away from her is this.” She clutched the blood-red gem that hung around her neck for emphasis.

“You know what they say,” Sonata smiled, undaunted; “you can’t choose your family.”

“But Adagio did choose us,” Aria countered, “very deliberately. We were foolish enough to accept her offer. We’re not a family; we’re a bad idea carried to its worst logical conclusion.”

“But,” Sonata began serenely, holding up a finger, “that all changed when we got banished to this place, don’t you think? We’re the only Equestrians here, so we have to stick together, right? We aren’t blood, but we’re more related to each other than we are to any of these people,” she waved her hand to indicate the general populace of their current dimension of residence, “so, to me, it’s almost like we’re sisters.”

“Yeah?” Aria scoffed – she did not want to think of herself as related to Adagio for a plethora of reasons that started a few hours prior, and stretched a thousand years into the past – “then this really is hell.”

Without another word, she rose from her seat, staggering with as much dignity as she could manage toward the room she’d claimed as her own, leaving Sonata alone once more.

There are relatively few souls privy to the special kind of sick, hellish confusion one feels when waking up drunk – not with a hangover, but still very much drunk. The small bout of amnesia one experiences when roused from slumber is multiplied to the point that remembering who, where, and even when one is can become a vain effort.

She was Aria; she knew that much…but which Aria? There had been many. She had to do something; she knew that too…but what was it, and why was it so terrifyingly urgent? She didn’t have much time to consider it, as her stomach began to heave and her mouth watered. She rolled off the frameless mattress and fought to stand, stumbling out the door of her room. Her shoulder crashed painfully against the wall as she battled her uncooperative body over the short distance to the bathroom at the end of the hall. Reaching her destination just in time, she retched, exorcising what little poison hadn’t already made its way into her bloodstream. A short, ragged breath was all she had time for before she heaved again, expelling the last of her stomach contents and sending her into a violent coughing fit.

The cool tile floor was welcoming when she slumped down upon it. The cold soothed her throbbing skull and the burning in her cheeks. She clutched her stomach, which now felt very empty – not in the sense that she was hungry, it was just a cavernous space in her gut. Besides a little injury to her pride, she had no qualms about spending the rest of the day here, and closed her eyes.

Sonata

Aria’s eyes snapped open, their nebulous focus sharpening. The last time she’d lost her temper like that, Sonata had nearly left. It was true they’d come to a bit more of an understanding over the past few days, but what if it wasn’t enough? For all Aria knew, she might already be gone.

When Aria stood – with much difficulty – her eyes rolled into the back of her head, desperately trying to escape the light and the nauseating dizziness. As she staggered down the hall, she realized that the dull light of an overcast sky was still streaming through the windows; it couldn’t’ve been later than three or four in the afternoon, which made her realize just how squarely in the middle of that stage of drunkenness that one normally slept off she was.

Squinting, she panned her gaze around the living room, and what she could see of the kitchen, but even in the blinding daylight she could tell there was nobody there; the entire ground floor was silent and deserted. This left only two possibilities: either Sonata was upstairs in her room, or she’d gone out, possibly permanently. If the latter was true, there was nothing Aria could do. By the time she sobered up enough to pursue, her friend would be long gone, and – barring a note or fortuitous clue – she would have no idea where. In her current state, she could only operate on the assumption that Sonata was upstairs, in which case her most logical course of action would be to go back to sleep until such a time as she was fit to traverse said stairs.

The only problem was, she couldn’t seem to do that…or at least she didn’t want to. When Aria attempted to shift her mental gears and focus on returning to her room, she felt an ache. She felt bad, and in a way that was far and away much more unsettling than the obvious physical anguish that she was currently experiencing. She recognized it, because she’d felt it the previous morning on the porch. She’d snapped at Sonata and felt this feeling. Now it was a thousand times more intense.

Aria looked toward the staircase, wincing and leaning against the wall as the act of turning her head brought on a fresh wave of illness and made the world jerk and spin. This was not going to be pleasant. The rational part of her mind reasoned that the only way she was going to make it up there unbruised would be to crawl, but the much larger, louder part of her mind that housed her pride asserted that that was simply not an option.

Steeling herself, she shuffled toward the stairs, nearly falling forward but catching the railing at the last moment and remaining upright. Her head swam with vertigo as she took the first step, the fact that her stomach had already been emptied being the only assurance that she wouldn’t vomit. With as much caution as she could manage through the murky visual blur and slight euphoria, she attempted to establish a rhythm, putting one foot in front of the other and slowly ascending. It worked five times – nearly enough to bring her to the landing – before she stumbled. Her left hand clamped on the railing while the other attempted to break her fall, but she still slammed heavily into the unforgiving hardwood edges. Her feet completely abandoned her, turning skyward, and her forehead and chest took the brunt of the impact. She slid back down a few steps before she twisted her body and caught herself, settling into a seated position on the stairs and clutching at her hurts.

Aria had experienced many worse pains, but their memories didn’t dull the ones she was currently feeling. Her head felt rattled and her breast ached, and as pathetic as it was, she felt like crying; her mind was muddled and her thoughts chaotic, her body was achy and uncooperative, but worst of all she felt that sensation of bad, and it made all the other hurts so much worse. She folded in on herself, resting her head on her knees and wrapping her arms around them. She knew she should get up and try again – she had to know if Sonata had left her or not, and if she made it up the stairs she would at least know, regardless of whether she liked the answer or not.

But she was tired, and she wanted to go to sleep. She wanted to escape. Over the past few days, she’d felt more new emotions than she had in as many centuries, and in her weakened state, it was suddenly overwhelming. She just wanted it all to go away, and she slumped against the wall, eyes closing. This, she decided, was a beautifully and suitably anticlimactic reason for Aria Blaze to finally give up – not a phenomenally powerful unicorn wizard, not a freezing new world, and not a hungry killer, but a one-story staircase and too much whiskey. It was perfect, and she managed a small smile in spite of the tears that were now rolling down her cheeks.

“Ari?” a concerned voice called from above her. She looked up to see Sonata peering down over the banister.

Aria said nothing, keeping her gaze cast down so that the other girl would not see her eyes.

“Did you fall down the stairs?” Sonata asked anxiously, leaning so far over the railing that her long ponytail dangled just a few feet above Aria’s head.

“Yeah,” Aria croaked without any sarcasm. She felt profoundly stupid as she sniffled and tried to dry her eyes with the collar of her shirt.

“Are you okay?” Sonata fretted, rushing down to comfort her.

“No,” she choked, not daring to shake her pounding head even slightly.

“Are you hurt?” the blue girl asked, sitting down next to her.

Aria nodded gently, knowing that if she spoke any more she would slur like an idiot, cry, or more likely both. She felt Sonata’s arms wrap around her and give her a gentle squeeze.

“What were you even trying to get up there for?” Sonata asked with an edge of sternness to her voice which made it plain she could smell the reek of booze that permeated her friend.

Aria attempted to explain herself, but the words kept dying on her lips.

I was afraid you were going to leave.

Her addled mind was able to put the sentence together, but every time she tried to actually say it, she stammered and slurred. That one normally authoritative corner of her psyche tried to get angry about it, but she was numb, and the effort was met by complete and utter apathy from both her body and mind.

“I’m sorry,” she said finally, voice cracking with the effort.

“It’s okay,” Sonata replied, squeezing her shoulders again, “let’s just get you back to bed.”

“I can’t move,” Aria groaned, fighting with her own tongue to form each syllable. She felt two arms hook under her own and slowly raise her to her feet. The world swam and she felt a wave of nausea wash over her. One arm found the wall and she steadied herself; the other wrapped over her sister siren’s shoulders.

“Just lean on me,” Sonata said simply. “I won’t let you fall.”

Sunset Shimmer lived alone. During her tenure at Canterlot High, she’d done her best to conceal this fact; it was a bit suspicious for an ostensibly teenaged girl, and she had no interest in anyone but her closest friends suspecting what she actually was. Then again, turning into a flaming succubus and attempting to mentally enslave the entire student body may have compromised her secret somewhat.

Creating an identity for herself in this world had been no easy task, and it was only through some very well-thought-out trickery in the form correspondence and document forging that she’d been able to acquire a social security number. Compared to all that, her current living situation had been an easy thing to arrange.

On her first trip through the Mirror, she’d stuffed her saddlebags with as many bits and gems as she could fit, hoping they’d have some value in this world – she’d reasoned that at the very least the raw materials might net her some capital. What she hadn’t anticipated was just how right she’d been.

Gold and jewels were ubiquitous in Equestria to the point that they formed the basis of the kingdom’s currency. This world was an entirely different story. Suffice it to say she’d had no difficulty in purchasing her home outright, with enough left over that she wouldn’t have to worry about money for a very long time, if ever. So Sunset lived alone in a lovely but rather empty house that sat on the very outskirts of town.

But she was never lonely.

“Watcha makin’? Is it cake?” Pinkie asked, jumping up and down excitedly. The entire image shook and then tumbled, giving Sunset a view of a floor of low-pile carpet that was a decidedly ugly shade of green.

“Pinkie, cut it out!” a raspy voice – distant and tinny – shouted. Sunset paused in her work and watched with amusement and a slight sense of vertigo as the view on her screen whipped wildly about and righted itself, pointing directly into a set of very tired-looking magenta eyes, framed by disheveled rainbow locks.

“Hey, Dash,” she chuckled, turning the stove down and stirring the contents of the pan that sat atop it, “good to see you. It’s been a while.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Rainbow Dash apologized with a grimace, “things have been crazy around here, as in literally, completely f– Pinkie stop jumping! If we get another noise complaint, they’re gonna toss us out on the street!”

“I can’t help it!” Pinkie shouted gleefully in the background, “I’m caffeinated!”

“She took all the quarters we had for laundry this month and emptied the vending machine,” Dash moaned, eyes bulging as she stared into the camera. “You gotta help me, Sunset,” she breathed desperately, “I can’t take another seven months of this. This place is like a tin can, we’re packed in like sardines, and instead of olive oil it’s full of crazy!”

“I’d rather be packed in a tin can with you guys than cooking breakfast by myself on a Friday night,” Sunset smiled, reaching for a pair of tongs and lifting a few pieces of freshly-crisped bacon from the skillet that sizzled on the backburner.

“B-Breakfast?” Dash stammered forlornly.

“Yeah,” Sunset said, scratching her chin, “I got up really late today, so I thought, hey – how about breakfast for dinner.”

“What are you h-having?”

“Just bacon, eggs, and maybe some waffles if I’m not too lazy.”

When she looked back at the screen, Dash actually looked like she was going to cry.

“Can I just drop out and come live with you?” Rainbow begged, “I can’t even remember the last time I ate something that didn’t come from a can.”

“What about the donuts?” Pinkie prompted, popping into the top of the frame without warning and disappearing just as quickly.

“Oh, right,” Dash rolled her eyes, “there’s donuts. We’re not even allowed to have a toaster because it’s a ‘fire hazard,’ but somehow Pinkie got a deep fryer in here.”

“Dash, I don’t think your parents would see breakfast as a legitimate reason for giving up your scholarship. Just stick it out for a few more weeks,” Sunset encouraged. “When you guys come home for break, you can all stay the night, and I’ll make you whatever you want.”

“I’m holding you to that,” Dash said severely, her brow furrowing as she jabbed a finger toward the camera. “Anyway,” she continued, her mood lifted considerably, “have you heard from Rarity lately? I’ve been texting her, but every time I try to actually talk to her, we end up playing telephone tag.”

“I caught her for like, five minutes on Wednesday,” Sunset said, shaking her head, “she’s crazy busy, but she said she’d have some free time this weekend, and I know Fluttershy’s gonna be free as well. I was thinking we could all get on a call.”

“Sounds good,” Rainbow nodded, “I’ll try to get all this stupid homework done ASAP. I’ve got soccer tryouts tomorrow, but on Sunday we can all hang out. I’ve got a wicked new idea for a song, and I need my rhythm guitarist and pianist to give me some advice on it.”

“What about your bassist?”

“What kind of amateur do you think I am?” Dash demanded, “me and AJ already have that all worked out.”

“Just checking,” Sunset grinned.

“So,” Rainbow began after a short pause, “heard anything from the Princess?”

“Oh man,” Sunset snickered, “you won’t believe wh–”

She was interrupted by a rapid, forceful rapping coming from the front of the house.

“One sec,” she said, turning off the stove, “someone’s at the door.”

When Sunset drifted back into view, there was an unexpected and troubling hardness in her features.

“Dash, I have to go,” she said curtly, “I’ll call you back.”

She didn’t give Rainbow a chance to protest, shutting off the webcam and closing her laptop. Her eyes scanned the room until she found it – the black leather jacket that was draped over the back of a chair. Donning it with no small amount of ceremony, Sunset returned to the front door, peering through the peephole one more time to confirm what she’d seen. Taking a deep breath, she opened it.

“Hi,” Adagio said with a melodious voice and a saccharine smile, her head tilted with exaggerated geniality and her hands clasped by her chest, “how are you?”

Sunset simply raised an eyebrow.

“Oh come now,” Adagio intoned with plastic dejection, placing one hand on her waist and waving the other with lazy panache, “don’t you remember me, Sunset Shimmer?”

“You know I do,” Sunset retorted icily.

“Could’ve fooled me,” the siren pouted, “you don’t look happy to see me.”

“I’m not.”

“Well, you don’t even look surprised…”

“I’m not. The only thing that surprises me is that you didn’t show up sooner.”

“Well,” Adagio grinned, clapping her hands together, “I’ll admit I’ve been a bit…indisposed for the past few months, but now that I have, why don’t we catch up a bit?” With flamboyant authority, she strode into the house, giving its owner a pat on the shoulder that contained the barest hint of a shove. “Oh my,” she said sweetly, “whatever you’re making just smells delicious; it’s like you knew I was coming to see you!”

“Why are you here?” Sunset growled, feeling no small amount of irritation at this flippant violation of her personal sanctum.

“Whatever do you mean, my child?” Adagio queried innocently, “I only wanted to see how the lovely young lady who ruined my life was doing for herself. Is that unreasonable?”

“I’m not about to believe it took you half a year to decide you wanted to barge into my home and take passive-aggressive jabs at me,” Sunset said, crossing her arms, “so just tell me what the deal is.”

“I’m so sorry it took me this long to pay you a visit,” the siren apologized, “but as I said, I’ve been a bit down of late…that is until I had a thought the other night.”

“You see,” Adagio began, stepping behind the kitchen counter and nonchalantly snapping up the bottle of red wine that sat at its edge, “I got to thinking about you, and I wondered: why would that smart, ambitious girl Sunset Shimmer try and kick off her plot for revenge in this silly little town? I mean, I’ve been around this world more than once, and if I were trying to raise an army to march on Equestria…well, I can’t exactly say I’d choose this place as my starting point.” She rummaged through the cupboards while she spoke, eventually finding a suitable glass and filling it nearly to the brim. “Then I thought about something else,” the orange-haired girl continued, twirling one of her ample locks as she took a sip, “specifically your friend, Twilight Sparkle. I’ve been around here for quite a while, Sunset, and I’ve never seen hide nor hair of her. I’ve never even heard of her. I mean, how could such a spirited, charismatic and – dare I say – powerful person just materialize out of thin air like that?”

“Get to the point,” Sunset commanded.

“It’s here, isn’t it?” Adagio snarled, dropping her wineglass and all pretenses, the question punctuated by the sound of lead crystal shattering on tile, “the gateway back home.” Her gloved hands gripped the edges of the counter and her eyes narrowed. “All this time it’s been right under my nose, and you know where it is, don’t you?”

“Even if I did, why would I tell you anything about it?” Celestia’s former student wondered casually, examining her fingernails.

“I don’t know,” the siren admitted, stalking around the countertop to face her adversary unobstructed, “I really don’t know. But I do know some things,” she continued thoughtfully, “things about your friends; specifically, I know that most of them are just a few days’ trip from here. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, Sunset Shimmer, then one of them w–”

Adagio Dazzle, the world’s oldest being, was suddenly silenced. All the air was stolen from her lungs as she was lifted by the collar of her shirt and slammed into the nearby wall. A pair of pale, bluish-green eyes stared defiantly into her own.

“You’d better remember who you’re talking to,” Sunset hissed, holding the siren a good few inches off the ground. “I’ve changed, but I have not forgotten. If you threaten my friends, you’ll see just how fast I can go back to being exactly like you.”

“Now, now,” Adagio tutted, regaining her composure and shoving the other girl off of her, “violence is not our way, is it?”

“Speak for yourself,” Sunset countered. “Ever wonder why that front entrance at CHS looks so new?”

“I actually heard about that little stunt,” Adagio grinned, tucking a few upset curls behind her ear, “quite the intimidation tactic…I wish I’d been there to see them cower.”

“Listen,” Sunset began, her tone softening, “you need to stop this, now. I know what you’re going to try to do, and it’s not going to work out for you. It never works out for anyone.”

“You really must stop projecting your own inadequacies onto others,” Adagio admonished lazily; “your failure does not guarantee mine.”

“True,” Sunset conceded with a nod, “but yours does. You already took on Twilight Sparkle with ancient magic on your own turf, and you got rainbow-nuked just as hard as I did. What do you think’s gonna happen if you try to bring the fight to her with nothing but your own two hooves?”

“It all makes sense now,” the siren sneered, a derisive smirk twisting her elegant features. “You didn’t have a ‘change of heart’, did you Sunset Shimmer? You just realized you couldn’t win and you took the easy way out. ‘If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,’ as the old adage goes.”

“No, I never had a change of heart,” Sunset admitted, her confrontational posture folding ever-so-slightly, “because I never believed what I was doing was right in the first place.” She looked back up, peering into the other girl’s eyes with a searching gaze. “I don’t think you do either.”

“Oh, look at that,” Adagio tittered, patting her on the shoulder, “it’s so cute how you think you know something about me. Well, you don’t,” she spat suddenly, prodding Sunset in the chest with a finger, which was smacked away quickly. “Look,” the siren laughed, “all this petty bickering is getting us nowhere, so let me tell you exactly why I came here.” She sat down on the nearby couch, crossing her legs primly. Sunset cautiously took the chair across from her. “You know where the gateway is,” Adagio stated as though it were an obvious and absolute fact, “and – more importantly – you know how to open it…or at least you have the ability to contact someone who does.”

“You’re assuming a lot, don’t you think?” Sunset countered.

“No, I don’t,” the siren replied. “Now, one way or another, I am going to find out where it is, and I am going to find out how it works; these are givens. So, I have a proposition for you: tell me what you know, help me get back home, and in return, I will help you get your revenge on Twilight Sparkle.”

“W-What?” Sunset laughed. Adagio frowned and crossed her arms. “That’s your offer?” she continued with genuine amusement, “well, I’m gonna go with no. I don’t want revenge on Twilight Sparkle; she’s one of my best friends.”

“Drop the act,” Adagio shouted, slamming her hands onto the coffee table that stood between them. “Why do you pretend when I – more than any other creature on this wretched planet – know exactly how you feel? She took everything from you, and then you turned around and helped her do it to me! What is your angle here? What is your plan?”

“I don’t have one,” Sunset shrugged.

“Lies!” the siren shrieked, pointing a damning finger. “You were robbed of everything you loved, just like I was. You were humiliated, just like I was. I know how it feels, and that feeling does not just evaporate; it builds, and it grows, and it tortures you, but it makes you strong. It makes you do things you never thought you could do. It becomes you. You cannot just walk away from it.”

“I used to think that, too,” Sunset Shimmer said, her brow creasing as she stared into the other girl’s eyes, “but I found something better, and I let it go. Please, just stop this. I promise, when you stop living for your own bitterness, the whole world suddenly opens up, and it’s so much better than revenge or power could ever be. Just give it a chance, and I can help you. I can show you.”

“They truly did break you, then,” Adagio breathed, a hint of both awe and fear in her voice. “Is this really how it ends for the great Sunset Shimmer? Beaten into submission, a willing and grateful slave to those who struck her down? I truly pity you.”

“The feeling’s mutual,” Sunset retorted with a sigh. “Now,” she continued, her face hardening as she stood, “I think it’s time for you to get the hell out of my house.”

“How ya doin’?” Sonata asked gently.

Aria groaned and rolled over, burying her face in the mattress.

“I feel like I’ve been hit by a train,” she mumbled, head throbbing with every syllable, “sans the privilege of being dead.” A few hours of unconsciousness had restored her to coherence, but it came at the price of a miserable hangover, with the added bonus of being able to fully feel the bruising on her chest and ribs, as well as the lump that had formed on her forehead.

“Well, I brought you an ice pack and some tea,” Sonata said cheerily.

“What?” Aria barked, whipping her head up to glare at her friend. A moment later she regretted it, feeling dizzy and nauseous.

“Just kidding,” the blue girl snickered, “it’s coffee.”

Aria flopped back down on the mattress, something which she also quickly regretted doing.

“I’ll just take some cyanide and a shotgun blast to the face, if you don’t mind,” she moaned.

“What were you even doing earlier?” Sonata queried, sitting down on the bed, “you, alcohol, and stairs don’t mix; we’ve learned that at pretty much every hotel we’ve ever stayed in.”

“What am I supposed to do, take the elevator?” Aria demanded. “I don’t trust those things. And anyway, just forget about it, I was being stupid.”

“Why were you crying?” the younger siren wondered.

“Because I fell over and it fucking hurt!” Aria snapped.

“Ari, c’mon,” Sonata said in a sing-song voice, “don’t bottle it up.” She prodded her friend in the shoulder a few times.

“So, what, I don’t get to have private emotions now?” the elder siren growled.

“Nope,” Sonata beamed, shaking her head.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Aria lamented, thumping her fist on the mattress.

“What?” the blue girl asked, “caring about you?”

“Yes,” Aria grimaced, “please stop.”

“I already know you don’t mean that,” Sonata countered with a knowing smile.

“Look,” Aria sighed, “I was afraid I hurt your feelings again and you’d bailed on me.”

“Maybe a little,” Sonata admitted, “but I’m not gonna ditch you over something dumb like that.”

“I thought about something,” Aria said, taking a sip of her coffee and steering the conversation away from impending sentimentality, “what you said…you know, about performing.”

“Yeah?” Sonata grinned, clasping her hands anxiously.

Aria paused for a moment and took another sip, her exhausted mind attempting to consider the ramifications of her next words. That didn’t work particularly well, so she decided to let the chips fall where they may, and spoke:

“I’m in.”

Chapter Six: Mindless, Vicious, and Blind

“So…” Sonata said, sitting down cross-legged in front of Aria, who was slumped in her room’s only chair, nursing a cup of coffee that may or may not have had one or more “medicinal supplements” added to it while her friend wasn’t looking.

“Old gods, please no,” Aria moaned, taking a very large gulp.

“What’s the big deal?” Sonata shrugged, “I said one word.”

“I know that look,” Aria glared, “and it means one of two things: either we’re going to ‘have a talk,’ or you’re going to say something that royally pisses me off. Either way, can we please just not?”

“I was just wondering if you and Addy kissed and made up,” the younger siren offered innocently.

“Oh wow, okay,” Aria grimaced, “let’s go ahead and do both at once, then.”

“C’mon,” Sonata encouraged, prodding her friend’s knee, “I know you talked to her; tell me how it went.”

“Ugh,” Aria sighed, trying to think of ways to stall, “it went just as well as y– damn, your skirt is really ineffective when you sit like that.”

Sonata hopped to her feet, pushing the aforementioned garment down frantically.

“Why are you always looking up my skirt?” Sonata hissed.

“Why are you always giving me the opportunity?” Aria demanded in return.

“Why are you being all weird about it?”

“Why are you wearing a thong in October?”

“You’re changing the subject,” Sonata countered suspiciously, hands planted firmly on her hips. “What happened?”

“What do you think happened, Sonata?” Aria deadpanned.

“Hmm…” the blue girl hummed thoughtfully, tapping her chin.

It was with a heavy heart that Aria stood before the door, her head bowed low. Her stomach squirmed with anticipation as she slowly knocked thrice, hearing a slight bustle from beyond that culminated in the door opening.

“Hello, Aria,” Adagio said, her expression unreadable, “have you been well?”

“I’m afraid not,” Aria admitted. “Can we talk?”

“Why, of course,” Adagio said with slight surprise, swinging the door open fully and welcoming her guest, “please come in.”

“Where should I sit?” Aria asked nervously, hoping her anxious expression was hidden by the pale light of the candlelit room.

“Anywhere you like,” Adagio replied, taking her own chair.

“Thank you,” Aria said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “I didn’t want to be rude.”

“Tell me, what is on your mind?” Adagio asked, staring intently into her oldest friend’s eyes.

“Oh, Adagio,” Aria cried, clutching at the ache in her chest, “I have made a terrible mistake!”

“So have I!” Adagio sobbed, burying her face in her hands.

“All of these years, I’ve treated you so terribly,” Aria continued, tears welling up in her eyes, “and it’s tearing me up inside!”

“I was going to say the exact same thing,” Adagio said with astonishment. “If only I’d known how you felt, we could have been happy all this time.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this anymore,” Aria said, wiping a joyful tear from her cheek, “because I’ve realized that you are my best friend. I mean, besides Sonata. Sonata’s so awesome.”

“Isn’t she?” Adagio agreed. “She’s so kind and pretty, and she takes such amazing care of her hair.”

“You’re like a sister to me, Adagio,” Aria said gently, “and I promise from this moment on, I will never be a jerk to you – or Sonata – ever again. Also I’m going to quit drinking, smoking, and eating so much red meat. And I’m going to wash my dishes after I use them instead of leaving them in the sink, because who has to clean those up, hmm? Certainly not me.”

“Oh, Aria, I promise all of those things too!” Adagio replied. “I also promise to stop using Sonata’s antiperspirant, because, I mean, seriously, how inconsiderate is that?”

“I’m so glad we can be one big, happy family now,” Aria said, the weight of ages lifting from her heart as she realized she would never be sad or grouchy or drunk or yell at anyone who was just trying to help her ever again.

“But,” Adagio interjected timidly, “are we just family, or have you ever felt we might be something…more?”

“W-What do you mean,” Aria stammered, her heart fluttering in her chest.

“I can’t deny it any longer, Aria,” Adagio said, rising from her seat. She walked over and knelt in front of her friend, grasping her hand and squeezing it tightly. “I can’t lie to myself anymore; I love you.”

Aria gasped, covering her mouth as fresh tears of happiness streamed down her cheeks.

“I love you too,” she whispered.

Gently, Adagio began undoing Aria’s belt buckle, but a trembling hand stopped hers.

“Wait,” Aria said, her cheeks flushed red, “please be gentle…I’m…I’ve never done this before.”

Adagio gazed into her eyes tenderly, knowing from many years of experience how to treat a delicate flower like Aria. Gently, she reached up and stroked her lover’s cheek, pulling her into a passionate kiss, letting her know without a doubt that this was love, for realzies.

“I will always be gentle with you, Aria,” she said when their lips parted.

“Oh my god, why?” Aria shouted.

Sonata’s head snapped up as she stopped her narration.

“Because,” she said darkly, her gaze cast a thousand yards into the distance, “nobody tells you that femslash is an addiction until it’s way, way too late.”

Aria’s posture was rigid, her face contorted with such an intense combination of rage and revulsion that she was afraid it might actually split down the middle. She took the opportunity to finish her “coffee.”

“Anyways,” Sonata continued, “I’m just messing around. How’d it go?”

“She threw a chair at me,” Aria growled.

“In a good way or a bad way?” the younger siren wondered.

“Sonata, in what situation could throwing a chair at someone ever be a good thing?”

“A two-person lion-taming act, or a group juggling session…but that’s all I can think of off the top of my head,” Sonata shrugged.

“Ah, yes,” Aria scowled, “so Adagio and I met up at the circus…”

“You messed up really bad, didn’t you?” Sonata interrupted, crossing her arms.

“She’s impossible, Sonata!” Aria shouted defensively.

“Yes,” Sonata sighed, rolling her eyes, “she is one of the impossible people in this house. Did you even say you were sorry?”

“No.”

“Did you say you forgive her?”

“No.”

“Well, what did you even do?”

“I…” Aria trailed off, trying to figure out the most generous way to phrase this. “I drank her booze, messed up her bed, and I got in her face for being an abusive twat.”

“And you’re surprised she threw something at you?” Sonata huffed.

“What do you want from me?” the elder siren demanded.

“I want you to stop making things worse,” Sonata said sternly. “Did anything good happen at all?”

“Not really,” Aria confessed, rubbing her temples and sorely wishing for another drink. “After that she kicked me out of her room, very literally I might add.”

“Wait, did she hurt you?” the blue girl asked, her expression softening.

“She tried,” Aria smirked, but as her hand unconsciously drifted to her bruised ribs, a slight wince betrayed her. It did not go unnoticed.

“Lemme see,” Sonata commanded firmly, hovering over her friend.

“No.”

“Ari…”

“No! Fuck off!” Aria snapped. All the hugging and shoulder-patting was uncomfortable enough; this was something she simply would not stand for. She wrapped her arms around her body, curling her legs up and staring defiantly at her would-be attendant.

“Just let me see…” Sonata insisted, grabbing at her sister siren’s shirt.

Aria felt herself bristle uncontrollably, her vision swimming with anger.

“You back off!” she bellowed, slapping the other girl’s hands away. She stood, bearing down on Sonata and backing her into the wall. “You listen to me,” she snarled, jabbing a finger into the other girl’s chest, “because I won’t say this again: get out of my head and get out of my space. Just because we’re ‘friends,’” she spat, making large air-quotes, “does not mean you’re entitled to my thoughts or that you get to manhandle me whenever you feel like it. You need to back the fuck up.”

Sonata had practically collapsed into a ball, crumpled into the corner. Her expression was stricken with shock.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Her wounded eyes shimmered with wetness, and Aria felt that increasingly familiar feeling of bad twisting in her chest, but her ire had been awoken once more, and the guilt only fed it.

“You just keep pushing me!” she seethed, pacing back and forth while gesticulating wildly. “Every second of every goddamned day, you just keep pushing me; you keep breaking me down and making me do things I don’t want to do, and sometimes I’m not even sure who I am anymore! Every time I give in it’s just on to the next thing. You’re trying to make me into someone I’m not. You’re trying to make me into you.”

“I’m sorry,” Sonata whimpered again.

“You’re trying to suck me into this little touchy-feely world of yours,” Aria groaned, tugging anxiously at her own hair, “where everything gets fixed through hugging and talking and crying, and that’s not me, don’t you get that? I’m trying really hard to just learn how to talk to you without flipping out every ten seconds – and failing, if you haven’t noticed – so can you just let me figure that out first before you try and give me a complete personality overhaul?”

“I’m really sorry, Ari,” Sonata repeated forlornly, hugging herself, “I won’t touch you again, I promise.”

“It’s not that,” Aria sighed, massaging her brow, “it’s…” she trailed off, sinking down against the wall opposite her distressed friend.

Aria was so very tired, and it threatened to overwhelm her. Her bruises throbbed and her head ached. She’d had far too much to drink over the past few days, and it made her feel as though her insides had been taken out, rearranged, and then haphazardly stuffed back into her body. She’d felt so many things she wasn’t used to feeling – she was still feeling them, and they formed a squirming, writhing knot in her chest that felt as though it was either going to crush her heart or burst through her sternum. Her thoughts were muddled and chaotic; they had been racing nonstop recently, but now threatened to grind to a halt entirely. Her body, mind, and soul were taxed to their breaking point, and yet through all of it, the part that felt the worst was the knowledge that she’d once again lashed out at the one soul on this wretched mortal plane who truly didn’t deserve it.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” she rasped, rubbing her eyes. It wasn’t much to offer, but it was practically the only thing she knew for certain at the moment.

“Me too,” Sonata whispered, tapping her fingers together nervously. “I guess…I guess I was so happy to see you come out of your shell even a little bit that I got carried away.”

“Just…” Aria began, searching for the right words, “just take ‘no’ for an answer once in a while, okay? I feel like you’re suffocating me sometimes.”

The blue girl nodded solemnly, and a silence fell between them. It was deathly quiet; this was the one room of the house that the ambient hum of electronics or the tick of a clock did not reach.

“Sonata?” Aria prompted after a moment of thought.

“Yeah?”

“Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe me and Adagio are just bad people?” the elder siren wondered, “and that no matter how much you try to get us to treat each other decently – to treat you decently – it’s always going to end badly? All this ‘making up’ bullshit seems to be predicated on the idea that there’s actually something here worth salvaging. Haven’t you ever considered that your core assumption might be wrong?”

“Um…not really?” Sonata shrugged in reply.

“Fair enough,” Aria frowned, sighing heavily.

“Where have you been?” Aria demanded, arms crossed and a scowl upon her face.

“Oh, isn’t this sweet?” Adagio tittered in between humming a cheery tune as she quite literally waltzed through the front door, “my surly surrogate spouse waited up for me!” With a flourish, she removed her coat and hung it on the rack by the door, revealing a gaudy, purple and pink getup that was typical of the eldest siren. “Tell me, did you put our dear Sonata to bed? I hope you read her a story; you know how she likes that.”

“Are you even capable of dressing yourself like someone who doesn’t have a personality disorder?” Aria grimaced.

“Are you capable of dressing yourself at all?” Adagio wondered in return, noting her counterpart’s lack of pants.

“Enough,” the younger siren said with a firm wave of her hand; “tell me where you were.”

“Were you worried about me?” Adagio simpered, attempting to pinch the other girl’s cheek, only to have her hand swatted away violently.

“I’m worried about what you might be up to,” Aria clarified, eyes narrowing and teeth clenching as she followed the eldest siren into the living room.

Adagio made to sit down on her usual couch, but paused for a moment. Eventually she opted to take one of the chairs instead. There was a faint, glassy clink as she set her purse down on the floor next to her.

“Oh, Aria,” she laughed, lazily running her fingers through her hair, “why in the world would you assume I’m up to something devious?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Aria asked, taking the chair opposite her.

“Point taken,” Adagio conceded with a thoughtful frown. “Also it’s a fairly valid assumption, seeing as I am working on a little something, but we’ll get to that in a bit. You may have noticed, Aria dear, that I haven’t quite been my usual self these past few months.”

“No, really?”

“Yes, yes, wallowing in self-pity and all that, but that’s not what I want to talk about; I want to talk about you. How have you been?”

“Fine and dandy…can’t complain…ten out of ten, best life ever,” Aria replied, lips curling into a slight snarl. She stood up and turned in the direction of her room, but stopped upon hearing something slide across the coffee table.

“I brought you a present,” Adagio said sweetly. The younger siren eyed the bottle and the one offering it suspiciously.

“Thanks,” she said finally, snatching up the whiskey and once again turning to leave.

“Aria,” Adagio entreated, the dejection in her voice nearly convincing, “would it hurt you so terribly to sit and have a chat with me, your oldest friend?”

“It might,” Aria said, pausing but not facing her sister siren. “The last time we ‘talked’, I’m pretty sure you cracked my rib.”

“Forgive me,” the eldest said in a tone that kept Aria rooted in place, “I wasn’t myself.”

“Is that what you’re going to say to Sonata?” the younger siren demanded icily. She could practically hear the blood rushing to Adagio’s face as it boiled in her veins. When she finally turned around, she was greeted by a surprisingly calm expression.

“I am ashamed of that,” Adagio said slowly, her usual flamboyance evaporating, leaving behind only quiet determination, “but if everything goes as planned, I’ll be able to atone for it sooner rather than later. That’s why I need to talk to you.”

Her curiosity now piqued in earnest, Aria sat back down and twisted the cap off of her drink.

“What’s your angle?” she asked, tone no longer suspicious but full of apprehension. A generous swig calmed her rapidly awakening nerves.

“I’m getting us out of here,” Adagio said simply. Their eyes locked for a moment, and Aria could see there were no lies in these words, only resolve.

“And we’re going…?”

“Home, Aria,” the eldest siren breathed, “we’re going home.”

“How?” Aria wondered. She tried to sound apathetic, but it was all she could do to keep her breath from catching in her throat.

“It was no coincidence…” Adagio continued “it was no coincidence that we ended up in this place, or that we stayed here for so long – I just can’t believe it took being practically beaten over the head with it to finally see.”

“I’m your only audience and I’m not a fan of monologues,” Aria interjected, managing some genuine annoyance, “just cut to the chase.”

“Sunset Shimmer didn’t bring magic to this place; it was here before her, and she was simply the inevitable result of its presence, as was Twilight Sparkle.”

The cylinder that had slowly been turning in Aria’s foggy mind finally completed its revolution and all the pins suddenly fell into place.

“Are you fucking with me?” she nearly shouted, “in this little backwoods town? Why?”

“I’ll admit my research has been…rushed,” Adagio explained, leaning back in her chair and allowing some of her normal panache to return. “I don’t know when it was put here, why, or by whom, but for all I know it could have been at a time when the landscape was a bit different. Then again, if I were looking to hide something, I can’t think of a more unassuming location than this place. Either way, what does it matter? What does interest me is that this area has a history of odd phenomena that goes back at least two centuries – well before we arrived.”

“That night at the café…” Aria whispered, eyes staring into the distance.

“Yes…” Adagio encouraged, eyes suddenly alight.

“Not the big flash…I was too messed up to even notice that…it was a couple hours later after we got home and I sobered up a little. I felt something else, like someone punched me in the gut. I thought I just needed to puke, but I didn’t…”

“I felt it too; so did Sonata,” Adagio confirmed, fingers unconsciously tracing her neck, “just as I felt it the day before. That was the first time she came and left; what we saw six months ago was the second.”

“How the hell did I miss all this?” Aria wondered, rubbing her eyes as she marveled at her own denseness.

“You were too busy playing a tortured artist,” the eldest siren replied with conceit. “Your lifestyle takes a toll on your mind, Aria.”

“You’re one to talk,” Aria drawled, taking another swig. “Where’s your bottle?”

“I quit drinking,” Adagio replied simply.

“What does that even mean,” the younger siren frowned, “you can’t just ‘quit drinking’.”

“Yes, you can,” her sister sighed; “you should try it sometime.”

“So, what?” Aria continued suspiciously, “you’re just going to get me drunk instead now?”

“I needed a way to have real conversation with you. This was the quickest solution I could think of.”

“Fuck you,” Aria snarled, slouching back and folding her arms. She didn’t like the feeling of being manipulated – however inconsequentially – and had half a mind to lob the bottle at her compatriot’s head. Deep down, however, she knew that wasn’t going to happen, and so resigned herself to tightening her fingers around its neck and pretending it was Adagio’s.

“Aria,” Adagio said, finally breaking the silence. It took the name’s owner a moment to realize that her response was being awaited.

“What?”

“I know exactly how you feel about me…”

“Well, aren’t you an ace detective.”

“…but even so, I’ve always been able to count on you when I need you.”

“Oh god,” Aria moaned drunkenly, “Sonata was right...”

“Focus!” Adagio snapped.

“What?” Aria shouted back. “What do you need me for? Because from here it looks like you’ve got everything figured out.”

“If experience has taught me anything,” the eldest siren said darkly, “it’s that my plans are neither as brilliant nor as easy as I think they are.”

“It only took you a millennium to admit it…”

“I’m doing my best to keep my ego out of this, Aria – it’s too important. Our lovely Miss Shimmer and her friends have the means to operate the gateway, I’m sure of it. It may be as easy as getting to one of them, but if it’s not,” Adagio leaned over the coffee table, peering into her companion’s eyes, “I need to know if I can depend on you.”

There was a silence in which neither girl moved, their eyes remaining locked. Aria felt her mind attempting to race – attempting to examine the situation – but she was too far gone.

“Yeah,” she said finally, doing the only thing she knew how to do, “alright.”

“Good.”

“What about Sonata? You haven’t told her any of this.”

“Is that a fact?” Adagio wondered.

“She would’ve told me.”

“You two really are close these days, aren’t you?”

“It’s not like that,” Aria glowered, taking an even-larger-than-usual gulp of whiskey.

“Aria, please…”

“Just because you’re an insatiable whore doesn’t make me one,” Aria snarled.

“No,” Adagio conceded, “but enough liquor does.”

“You wanna go right now?” Aria demanded, slamming her bottle down and straightening her posture.

“Outside or upstairs?” the eldest siren leered; “you look ready for either.”

This was it: that point. Despite being such a volatile person, Aria was not one to resort to violence unless it was needed; there was a certain level of agitation she had to reach, but there was nobody more adept at bringing her there so swiftly than Adagio. She didn’t have a name for it, but she knew it well – the point when her vision blurred and her mind abandoned all reason. Once, a long time ago in the freezing dead of night, Aria had fought for her life with steeled nerves and cold determination. This feeling was the opposite of that – mindless, vicious, and blind. She was barely conscious of her own fingers as they grabbed Adagio’s collar, or the faint ache in her once-scarred arm as she cocked it back for the first strike, ready to begin the cycle anew. She knew it would only feel good for a few minutes, and that nothing would be accomplished, but what else did she have?

What about music? she asked herself, as if searching for a reason not to do it. Music is just another part of me, she answered in turn, it brings me no company.

Aria winced at the thought. She was terrified to admit – even to herself – that she was lonely, that no amount of artistic passion would ever make her whole, and that Adagio was the closest thing she’d had to a friend for the past thousand years.

But not anymore, she realized. It’s not just me playing now…

“What’s the matter, Aria?” Adagio chuckled, “have you forgotten how this dance goes?”

The question interrupted Aria’s thoughts, and it took her a moment to realize just how long she’d stood rigid, fist at the ready.

The whole world realigned itself, and Aria felt once more those steeled nerves and cold determination. Adagio was not the enemy. Adagio was not worth fighting. Her true adversary was the feeling that had hold of her right now – like a hungry wolf, it was mindless, vicious, and blind – and she had to fight it tooth and nail, or she would ever be the thing that stalked her own dreams.

I am Aria
Whatever I become, it will be something better than I was
That is all that matters

The jaws of anger released, and as it fled into the night, wounded and whimpering, Aria felt her own grip loosen and her body relax, dropping Adagio awkwardly onto the coffee table. Now, as then, her foe might return with more of its kind, but this was a fight she could win.

“Lost your nerve?” the eldest siren mocked, an undefinable edge to her voice, “that’s not like you, Aria.”

Aria looked down, eyes blinking into focus on the derisive smirk worn by her sister siren.

“I don’t have to do this with you anymore,” she said slowly, each word a shock to her own ears.

“What are you talking about?” Adagio scoffed, standing and fixing her hair. “You had no qualms about it a few days ago…or do you prefer to assault me in my sleep now?”

“I do want to go home,” Aria said upon a slow exhale, “so I’ll help you if you need me to. Otherwise, just stay away from me.” With slow deliberation, she picked up the bottle of whiskey and then turned to leave.

“Oh, look at you,” Adagio hissed. “Are you suddenly too good for me, Aria? Can’t stoop to my level? Do you think you’re better than me? If sleeping with Sonata makes someone this docile, then we never needed amulets, we can just use her!”

“I’m not trying to be better than you,” Aria replied. “Thanks for the drink,” she added, and left for her room, the protests that followed lost to her ears.

The light of the muted television danced across Aria’s eyes as she reclined in her easy chair. Her vision was blurred beyond the point of reclamation, and her eyelids were growing ever-heavier. Soft snores serenaded her into rapidly-deepening catatonia as Sonata slumbered peacefully on the mattress in the corner, fingers still curled around the neck of her guitar.

Aria felt a warmth in her chest that she couldn’t quite explain, and it had nothing to do with the warmth in her gut where the remainder of Adagio’s whiskey was currently making its way into her bloodstream. Technically, she was alone; there was nobody to converse with – though had there been it was doubtful if she would be able to articulate any thoughts – but she didn’t feel alone. There was someone not a few feet away who really cared about her, and Aria – self-centered as she was – had only realized just what that meant when it had affected her own perception of the world.

Sleep was now a fast-approaching inevitability, and lacking the coherence to stand, Aria slid out of her chair and crawled over to the bed, pushing the guitar out of the way. She contemplated simply climbing in next to her friend, but even in the depths of intoxication she still abhorred the idea of Adagio somehow barging in here and feeling vindicated, so she opted to rest on the floor next to the mattress. The carpet was soft and not so bad, after all. Sonata’s hand dangled over the edge next to her, and in a moment of sentimentality that she was sure would never occur if she were sober, Aria clasped it in her own.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you again,” she whispered, words slurred but sincere. She neither expected nor received a response beyond a slightly heavier snore. “I don’t want to make a promise I can’t keep,” she continued, “so I can’t say I won’t do it again, but I promise I’ll try…because I know how to fight it now. I don’t know if I can win every time, but I’m gonna try as hard as I fucking can, okay?” The last word was punctuated by the sting of tears forcing themselves out of her bloodshot eyes, instantly followed by mortification at such a sappy display. “Thank the gods you’re asleep,” she sighed. Aria’s heart jumped as she felt fingers tightening against her own.

“You woke me up, like, five minutes ago,” came Sonata’s drowsy murmur, “and I love you too, Ari.”

“God fucking damnit,” Aria groaned. “I’m really wasted right now, so none of that counts,” she explained after a moment’s consideration.

“Mmhmm,” Sonata agreed, “I’m probably just dreaming anyway.”

“Okay, good,” Aria confirmed; “this never happened and I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Are you gonna sleep on the floor?” the youngest siren queried with a yawn.

“One of us has to.”

“You can get in here with me…it won’t be weird unless you make it.”

“I am one hundred percent certain my hands would go straight up your shirt right now.”

“That’s pretty messed up,” Sonata mumbled sleepily. “Goodnight Ari, I still love you anyways,” she finished, giving her friend’s hand a final squeeze.

“Goodnight, Sonata.”

Chapter Seven: Tension

With detached fascination, Aria examined her arm, the disconnect between her situation and her emotions almost absolute. Had she suffered an injury like this to her real body – not that siren abomination, and certainly not this hairless pink lump – she’d be stricken and utterly panicked, but this wasn’t really her, was it? Her suspicion that none of this was real was only reinforced by the fact that it barely even hurt; a distant thrumming was all that told her it was even “her” arm she was looking at.

The flesh was minced and ornamented with gore, the snow all around decorated with her blood, as well as that of her attacker. She couldn’t rightly remember exactly what had happened – it was all an adrenaline-fueled haze. All she knew was that – for a moment – it had hurt very, very badly, and she went for the eyes. The fluids had spattered her good arm, and they were so hot they filled the air with vapor. Through the terror and disgust she’d been grateful for their warmth. There was something almost intimate about the struggle. She’d never had a lover, nor had she ever been grievously injured before, and as her thoughts succumbed further and further to icy idleness, she wondered just how dissimilar violence and sex really were.

No, there was a difference. At least with the one, she knew what to do. She could fight back. With the other…

The idea of willingly surrendering her body had always filled Aria with a throbbing, looming fear. The thought of another using her flesh as their own – touching, exploring, penetrating – left an ache deep in her belly. Like the knotting of a starving stomach imparting upon its owner one last impetus to find food, it was a painful, visceral twisting laced with hollow longing whose depths crossed the bridge between body and soul. It repulsed her in a way that she’d never fully understood.

Yet though she’d never experienced romance, she had been loved, and as she lay freezing and bleeding in a forgotten corner of this alien world, it finally dawned on her just how foolish and selfish she’d been. Her auntie and uncle…her cousins…her big sister…they’d all done their best for her, despite her antisocial tendencies, and she’d left them without a word. It was as though she’d vanished into thin air, her possessions being the only clue she’d ever existed at all. She wondered if they’d found her saddlebags and mandolin still lying in that clearing where Adagio had finally tempted her into this damnation. She wondered what had become of her piano. Had they sold it? Or had they kept it? Was it possible that they were still hoping she might come back? Homesickness overwhelmed her, and she felt the rare sting of tears escaping her eyes, already beginning to freeze on her cheeks. At the very least, they would never have to know it ended like this.

As she looked once again at her arm – up past the ruined flesh and at her fingers, which were rapidly turning blue – a single thought entered her head:

I could play so beautifully with these.

She attempted to flex them, and though they were stiff and cold and it hurt terribly, they moved; miraculously her arm wasn’t shattered.

It’s not broken…

I won’t let what I am dictate who I am, she’d told Adagio that fateful day. I promised myself I would be a great musician, and I will.

To see if you can? the siren had wondered.

No. Because I know I can

The simple truth quickened her pulse: no matter where she was or what she was, she was still Aria. It was all that mattered.

And Aria had to move now.

“Well, that was bullshit,” Aria mumbled, taking a slug of whiskey. She’d been overindulging these past few months, but if ever there was an occasion that warranted a little abandon, it was this one. Her words received no response, but she hardly noticed – the ringing in her ears constantly threatened to overwhelm her own thoughts, and her chest throbbed painfully as though someone had punched her. Though the liquor had eased her nerves and she was doing her best to act unrattled, her heart pounded as she sat hunched over, head in her hands, peeking through her fingers at the scene before her.

The house looked just as tidy as usual – she certainly never bothered to clean anything, but between her two companions, the place had always been kept up nicely. Everything felt a bit darker – ostensibly because the fixtures that lined the walls near the ceiling had been left off, the only light coming from the lamp on the end-table next to Adagio.

The eldest siren sat rigidly on one end of the couch, posture fully upright, hands still clutched above her breast in just the same place where Aria ached in tandem. Her eyes were wide, her pupils pinpricks. She hadn’t said a word other than some indistinct mutterings as they’d walked home.

Yes, they’d walked. After fleeing the amphitheatre, they had – in what Aria considered to be the most bizarre anticlimax of their nefarious career – simply walked home. Nobody but those who’d attended the concert really knew what happened. Anyone in the city outside would’ve just assumed it all to be an elaborate light show. And so the three sirens had simply trudged back to their residence, completely unhindered.

Peering to her right, she regarded the occupant of the other chair. Aria could count on one hand the number of times in the last fifty years she’d seen Sonata without her ponytail. Yet the youngest siren was slumped in her seat, arms limp and head hung, her long, straight hair cascading down to completely obscure her face. Every so often, a sniffle escaped from behind the blue curtain.

Aria felt a headache coming on, and sleep’s call was slowly become more and more audible above the tinny ringing in her ears. But there was no way she was moving. No matter how uncomfortable this was, she needed to be here now. She hated to admit it, but she didn’t want to be alone, and they were the only company she could have. When she thought about that fact, she realized something: the house only felt different because they were.

Normally, at this time of night, Sonata would probably be making dinner, the hiss and steam of griddles and pans accompanied by some annoying, uptempo electronic nonsense playing in the background. Adagio would still be sitting in the same place, but clicking and clacking away at her laptop, a stack of books next to her that could be anything from history texts to ledgers and bank records depending on the day.

Aria herself would invariably be at her piano, waiting with ever-decreasing patience for food and shouting at Sonata to hurry up in between penning phrases. The thought only reminded her just how hungry she was now.

They’d lived in this house for over a century. It was the longest they’d ever stayed in one place, and the routine the three girls shared had – over time – cemented itself so deeply in their minds that this massive departure was nearly as shocking as the event which had precipitated it. She herself loathed leaving the house, Sonata was a homebody, and despite her colorful personality and need for attention, Adagio didn’t leave all that much either. In Aria’s mind, all they really did was laze about until Adagio deemed it necessary to go and screw someone out of money to keep their living situation comfortable. They relied completely on their powers, but the magic in this world simply wasn’t strong enough to facilitate any conquest other than swindling rich people out of their finances, so that’s all they did. Even if they didn’t always get along, there was an undeniably pleasant normalcy in it.

At the same time, the gems around their necks had always carried the potential for something more, and that promise had kept them going for a millennium. Whether they were struggling to feed themselves or slipping into comfortable monotony, their magic had always warded off despair with the assurance of greatness at some point in the future. What was the rush? Their youth was eternal. They would figure something out.

Then, that night at the café, everything had changed. If she was honest with herself, Aria had been impressed at how quickly Adagio had reverted from a keyboard-wielding couch potato to a single-minded force of nature on par with the one who’d sent Equestria into tumult and challenged Starswirl the Bearded all those centuries ago. It was clear she’d been mentally prepared for this – waiting for it – and for a moment, it seemed the promise of the gems would finally be fulfilled.

But now that promise was broken, along with the amulets, and they suddenly faced a terrifying prospect: this was all they had.

“Aria?”

She wasn’t quite sure who’d said it, because that certainly wasn’t a voice she recognized, but when she finally freed her gaze from its cell of digits, Adagio’s saucer-like eyes bored into hers.

“Aria, please,” the trembling, orange-haired girl said again, words thin and breathy as she slowly extended her arm, “give me that.”

When the younger siren realized what her sister was reaching for, she took a final drink and handed the bottle over, not in any mood to protest. Adagio grasped it in both hands and pulled on it as though the answer to her prayers lay at the bottom, and another quiet sniffle punctuated the glugging.

“What do we do?” Sonata wondered softly, finally giving voice to the question that had been hanging over the shell-shocked party for the last hour. “How do we get them back?”

“We can’t,” Adagio whispered, ignoring the errant trickle of liquor that ran down her chin. Though her voice was hushed, her tone was unmistakably final, and Aria only realized she’d been entertaining several wild hopes when her heart sunk as low as Sonata’s head.

“Well,” the youngest siren continued cautiously but with burgeoning confidence, reaching up and brushing her hair behind an ear, “it’ll be okay, right? We can just be, like, normal people, can’t we?”

The two older girls’ eyes met, and Aria felt a smile teasing the corners of her mouth at the distant gaze and unadulterated horror that crawled across her sister siren’s face. Before she even knew it, she was laughing, and Adagio joined her as they rode the edge between hilarity and hysteria while Sonata looked on in utter confusion.

“Good one, Sonata,” she chuckled raggedly, wiping away a tear as Adagio ended her fit of cackling with another long drink, “problem fucking solved. Hey, Adagio?”

“Aheh, hmm?”

“Let’s all go shopping tomorrow. We can find some cute outfits, then we’ll go get ice cream,” she gesticulated whimsically, an uncharacteristically goofy smile on her face, “and we can t-talk about…” she paused for a moment, trying to hold it together for the finisher.

“We can talk about guys. You know, like normal chicks.”

Raucous laughter once again filled the room, infused with an almost genuine mirth. Sonata’s brow furrowed and her mouth turned down.

“Hey, at least I’m trying to think of something, okay?” she snapped, her lip quivering for just a moment. The other two fell silent.

“Sonata, dear,” Adagio said after taking a final gulp and then handing the bottle back to Aria, “there’s nothing we can do.” The alcohol had restored much of the coolness to her voice, and it caught the youngest siren’s attention – something familiar in an ocean of anxiety. “This,” she indicated the three of them, “is over. We have no magic and no way out; our lives are – for all intents and purposes – over.”

“Yeah, sure,” Aria growled, reacquainting herself with her beloved whiskey, “like they weren’t over the moment you decided to mess with Starswirl.”

“You shut your mouth.” Adagio spat back.

“Make me.”

“Oh, if you make me get up right now, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life…”

“You said it yourself – my life’s already over. Go ahead, you can’t fuck things up any worse than you already have.”

There was a blur of orange movement, and Aria swung the bottle blindly. It connected, but couldn’t stop a full body tackle. Adagio’s hands found her neck, and they both tumbled as the chair tipped backwards. Already on edge, Aria felt a rush of adrenaline dumped into her veins like gasoline. She let the momentum carry her, and the two girls toppled head over heels. Aria was on top now, and she kicked her back leg out, stopping them both and pinning her sister siren to the floor. Two quick shots to the jaw was all it took before the grip around her neck loosened, and she smacked the hands away.

“Stop it!”

Just as she cocked her arm back for what would undoubtedly be the most satisfying knockout of her life, a hard shove to her side sent her flying off balance. Her forehead went straight through a leg of the upended chair as she fell, breaking it clean off and dimming the lights of her consciousness momentarily.

“What’s wrong with you guys?” Sonata shrieked, blinking back tears, “how can you be fighting right now?”

Aria sat up, blinking hard as the movement sent chills of vertigo down her spine. She rubbed at her forehead and winced, realizing it was split open nearly right at the eyebrow. Adagio still looked dazed, eyes unfocused and one lid drooping slightly. Aria contemplated one more jab, but her thoughts were interrupted again.

“You guys say I’m the dumb one?” Sonata shouted incredulously. “We just lost our magic, and you’re beating each other up like little kids!”

“She started it,” Aria shrugged.

“No, Ari, you started it! I was there!”

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

“Nuh-uh!”

“Bite me!”

“No you!”

“Just shut up! Shut up both of you!”

“N–”

“BE QUIET!” Adagio had finally returned to lucidity and quite literally screeched the exchange to a halt.

“You be quiet,” Aria grumbled back automatically. Their eyes only locked for a second before the situation devolved into hysterical laughter once again. When they finally calmed themselves down, Sonata had already left.

“Aria, dear,” Adagio prompted, wiping at her eyes but failing to notice the small trickle of blood coming from her nose, “do you have anything else to drink?”

Aria sighed. She already knew just how this night was going to end. She already knew where she would be when she woke up tomorrow. Every single time, she promised herself it would never happen again. But on all those mornings after when she was swearing that oath anew, she always seemed to forget the reason why it kept happening: sometimes, this was better than being alone.

“Yeah,” she said, smiling slightly as she forced her conscience back into its cage and locked it, “what do you want?”

For the second time in recent memory, Aria awoke with a start, well before dawn. Last time she’d fought to fall back asleep; this time, she had no desire to – that had been quite enough for one night. Unsurprisingly, the bed next to which she slept was already vacant, and not just vacant, but stripped. The pillow case was gone and the mattress bare except for a piece of paper resting on it. Aria grabbed it, but was overtaken by a coughing fit before she could look at it. Moaning groggily and staggering to her feet, she headed for the bathroom, coughing again before hocking the remnants of yesterday’s cigarettes into the sink. She winced as she licked her dry lips and turned on the faucet to wash away the sticky glob of grayish mucus that she so affectionately referred to as “lung butter.” A small smile touched one corner of her mouth as she finally looked down at the piece of paper and the neatly-scrawled cursive on it.

Ari –

Your sheets are gross. Like, ew. I’m washing them. Please don’t freak out.

– Sonata <3

She crumpled up the note but then paused mid-turn toward the trash can. Carefully, she unwadded the paper and folded it neatly, reaching for her pocket. A wave of horror washed over Aria as she realized what she was doing. She tore the folded note in half, threw it in the trash, and then spat in the sink again for good measure.

What a great start to a day, she thought with a grimace.

Whatever, time for coffee.

Aria had long simply taken it for granted that Sonata was dumb, and it was partly true. She was, at the very least, frequently oblivious. Yet recent events – both in the form of more frequent interaction with the girl and a more honest attitude toward her own deficiencies – had made Aria reconsider her perspective. Yes, Sonata was definitely not the sharpest tool in the shed when it came to things like problem-solving and understanding sarcasm, but what did that actually matter now? Whatever she may’ve lacked in IQ, she more than made up for by being kind, forgiving, and relentlessly positive. Of the three of them, she was undeniably the happiest and most well-adjusted, and – if Aria were to be completely up-front with herself – really the only thing holding her back from living a fulfilling life was her emotionally codependent relationship with her sister sirens. The more Aria thought about it, the more she began to understand what the real solution to this entire situation might be.

“Ari!” Sonata yelped, nearly dropping her plate. She made a dexterous recovery, setting it down on the table. “How long have you been standing there?” she wondered, head cocked to the side as she removed her headphones.

“Just got here,” Aria replied, the fact that she was slouched against the wall with both her arms and legs crossed suggesting otherwise.

“Oh, okay. Did you see my note?”

“What note?”

“Oh, never mind. I made coffee.”

These words were enough to get Aria fully upright and heading toward the counter

“There’s eggs and toast, too,” Sonata added as she took her seat, but her words went unacknowledged. With as much haste as she could muster before caffeination, Aria poured herself a cup and then sat down in front of her friend.

“So…you definitely slept w–”

“I need to ask you something,” she interrupted, the severity of her tone leaving the room in silence. “It’s an easy question,” she added in what she hoped was a more conversational manner.

“Yeah? What’s up?” Sonata prompted with audible caution, taking a bite of her toast, which Aria noted was slathered with an ungodly amount of jam…on both sides.

“Well,” the elder siren continued, “I was thinking…we’ve all lived together for a long time, you know?”

“Yeah…”

“Adagio’s a soul-eating succubus masquerading as an ordinary whore, and up until recently, I thought you were literally retarded.”

“Sounds about right…”

“But I just realized you aren’t.”

“Like…right now?”

“You know,” Aria shrugged, taking a large gulp of her coffee, “recently.” When she looked up, her normally-bubbly counterpart’s knitted brow and half-frown made her realize that trying to articulate her entire train of thought was both pointless and possibly dangerous.

“Look,” she began again, “all I wanted to know is…” she scrunched up her face as she said the next words, “are you happy?”

“Yeah…” Sonata said a little too slowly, “totes.”

“Because,” Aria continued, staring at her drink, “I think there’s something I could do to make you a lot happier…”

“There is?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s kinda crazy, but I have a…proposition, if you want to hear it.” There was no answer, and when she looked up, Sonata’s eyes were narrowed in an oddly contemplative expression. “Are you having some kind of embolism right now?”

“Ari…what are trying to ask me?” the blue girl queried suspiciously, her usual levity completely absent.

“Why? What do you think I’m trying to ask you?” Aria shot back.

“It’s just…” Sonata paused, searching for the right words.

“It’s just what? What’s your problem?”

“I’ve just… never done this with another girl before, you know?” she admitted finally.

“Sonata,” Aria mumbled tiredly, rubbing her eyes so hard she started to see funny colors, “have you been inhaling paint?”

“Well, you’re like, asking if I wanna do it, right?”

“What in the blackest hells of Tartarus would make you think that?”

“Um…well…” Sonata winced, trying and failing to phrase her thought, “…how much do you remember about last night?”

“Oh gimme a–” Aria rolled her eyes and huffed in exasperation, “I get drunk and make one joke about grabbing your tits and now you think I’m some kind of sex maniac?”

“Nooo, I’m thinking about after that…” Sonata clarified.

“I went to sleep after that,” the elder girl insisted.

“Well, yeah,” the younger conceded, “but then…”

Aria felt the blood drain from her face.

“Sonata, what happened? What did I do?”

“Well, to be fair, you didn’t really do much…”

“Sonata, tell me. Now.”

“Look, I swear I didn’t listen on purpose…”

“Sonata!”

“You had some pretty uh…intense dreams, Ari, and you talked a lot.”

Aria froze in place as she began to recall exactly where her sleeping thoughts had taken her toward the end of the previous night. She groaned, face falling into her hands, so very conscious of the fact that she wasn’t wearing pants.

“Really, I swear I didn’t mean to listen,” Sonata explained again, holding up her hands for emphasis, “but you were really loud. Also you kept rolling around and hitting the side of the bed…”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?!” Aria raged, finally gathering herself enough to get angry.

“I tried,” Sonata swore. “I yelled in your ear for like twenty minutes, but you were…you were ‘in the zone.’”

“Then why didn’t you go back to your room?”

The youngest siren blinked a few times, very, very slowly.

“You are never allowed to sleep in my room again,” Aria growled, pointing a damning finger across the table, “ever.”

“Aww…never ever?” Sonata wondered with glassy eyes.

“How are you disappointed right now? If I were you, I’d ask for it in writing!”

“Ari…it’s not that big of a deal…”

“Yes it is!” Aria shouted defiantly, “this is a huge fucking deal!”

“But…why, though? It’s actually kinda funny if y–”

“My humiliation is not funny!” Aria roared, kicking her chair out and slamming her hands down on the table, which knocked over her coffee as well as the small vase in the center. “This is all your fault, with your ridiculously short skirts and your seasonally-inappropriate undergarments!”

The room fell silent except for the rush of blood in her ears, the drip of spilled liquids, and the sound of her own breathing. There was a tinge of wariness in Sonata’s eyes, but unlike the previous night when she had cowered at her sister’s wrath, she held her ground – posture straight, arms crossed, and a scowl of disappointment pulling her features taut.

“I’m being a crazy bitch, huh?” Aria proposed, still gripping the table edge.

Sonata nodded.

“This whole thing is really dumb, isn’t it?”

More nodding.

“It’s only a big deal because I made it…”

Vigorous nodding.

“And if I was a normal person, we could’ve just laughed at it and moved on, huh?”

“Probably,” Sonata confirmed.

“Look,” Aria sighed raggedly, dragging her fingernails down her face, “you already know I’m sorry, so just eat your stuff and I’ll clean this u–”

“Well”

“Well”

Both girls’ heads snapped toward the kitchen entrance. There stood Adagio Dazzle. She was obviously fresh out of bed, and hadn’t gone through the rigorous process of taming her great orange mop, instead opting to tie it back into something that could’ve been called a bun if it wasn’t so enormous and frizzy. As it was, it looked something like a beehive constructed of cheese doodles, and Aria was suddenly stricken by both intense loathing and extreme hunger. They more or less canceled each other out, and in the end she just wished she hadn’t spilled her coffee.

In place of her normal self-satisfied smirk, Adagio wore a full on grin that spread ear-to-ear beneath two eyes that practically glowed with derisive glee.

“I can’t believe what I just saw,” she continued once sure all eyes were on her. “Did my dear Aria just…say she was sorry?”

Aria had been drunk last night, that much was for certain. But she remembered all that mattered – the promise she’d made to herself, and – more importantly – the promise she’d made to Sonata. She’d figured the overinflated drama about her dreams had been the first test of her resolve, but now she realized it had just been a warmup, and she’d have to do a lot better this time.

“What could’ve possibly changed your attitude like this?” Adagio wondered, stalking around them in a lazy circle, hips swaying back and forth like a pendulum. The short and tight piece of barely-opaque silk she always attempted to pass off as a bathrobe was just barely doing its job, though that was obviously the intent.

“Morning, Addy,” Sonata said in an attempt at her normal buoyancy, but the tightness in her throat was audible.

“Oh, Sonata,” Adagio simpered, stopping and resting her hands on the blue girl’s shoulders, “I feel like we haven’t talked in ages. What have you been up to? Or do I already know the answer?” She bent down until her lips nearly brushed her sister siren’s ear. “I always knew I wasn’t underestimating you…unlike some people.”

“Anyway, Aria,” she continued sweetly, once more addressing the other huge bitch in the room, “I’m surprised Sonata here had to pull her whip out so quickly…I figured the afterglow would keep you docile for at least a few more hours.”

Aria said nothing, heading toward the sink and grabbing some paper towels. The scent that assailed her when she walked by the mass of orange curls lent the sensation of getting one’s face blasted off by a shotgun shell full of perfume samples and bath salts.

“You smell like a prostitute in a jacuzzi,” she commented as she began mopping up the coffee she’d spilled. Sonata shot her a look, and she resisted the urge to make a few more observations.

“Oh my goodness, look at this!” Adagio laughed, “are you cleaning up after yourself? Sonata, what have you done to her? Whatever it is, please do it to me too.”

“Adagio,” Aria said slowly, her voice quavering slightly through clenched teeth, “is there a point to today’s performance? Because if not, Sonata and I were having a conversation, and we’d like to continue it.”

“Oh, don’t mind me, I just came here for my drink,” Adagio explained, grabbing a bottle of mango-flavored fizzy water out of the fridge. Aria reflected that much like the one who was about to consume it, the drink came in a pretty orange container and promised to do amazing things for you, but in reality it was mostly artificial and had no nutritional value. The metaphor broke down at the end, but she didn’t really care.

“I’ll be out of your hair in a moment,” the eldest siren assured, touching her own, “then you can go back to gazing into each other’s eyes and blushing, or arguing over who loves who the most.”

“Laying it on pretty thick today, aren’t we?” Aria managed to keep her tone even, but her fingers trembled as they gripped the edge of the table. It did not go unnoticed. Sonata was silent, eyes darting back and forth between her two sisters as the exchange drew closer and closer to the inevitable.

“Oh, you want to talk about laying it on, let’s talk about you two,” the orange-haired girl chuckled, arching an eyebrow. “I haven’t heard a racket like that in a few decades at least.”

“Which of your delusions are you referring to again?” Aria asked tiredly, as though it were her duty. Her adrenaline spiked with realization a fraction of a second before her sister siren replied.

“Oh please, Aria,” Adagio drawled, rolling her eyes in a big lazy arc and flicking her wrist, “you can’t lie to me anymore. I heard you moaning all the way on the other side of the house, and this one” – she pointed to the third siren, who started slightly – “probably woke the neighbors she was so loud.” She cleared her throat. “Ari! Ari! Come on! Ariaaaaaaaaaaaa!” she called in a decent imitation of Sonata’s voice. “I don’t usually say this twice in one morning, but whatever you did to her, please do it to me too…”

In a moment of uncommon clarity, Aria realized that circumstance had simply twisted her arm, bent her over the nearest flat surface, and fucked her in the ass so hard that she could scarcely even blame Adagio for thinking what she thought. It was one of those situations where the reality was so much less plausible than the misinterpretation of it that any attempt to explain the truth would only condemn her further.

“You know what, Adagio?” she said, sinking into her chair and relaxing for the first time today, “you can think whatever the hell you want, I really don’t care.” She smiled as she said these last words, gazing skyward, as though it were an inside joke between herself and the cosmos. “You can make up anything you need, and I hope it serves you well when you’re alone tonight with all those romance novels and magazines you keep under your bed. Please, treat yourself to a good rubbing; nobody else wants to.”

Aria’s world went fuzzy and swam for a moment as the back of Adagio’s hand struck her face, snapping her head to the side. It stung like hell. Once she was sure no second strike was coming, she spat into her empty coffee cup and wiped her mouth.

“Feel better?” she wondered quietly as she looked up at her sister siren with one eye, the other shut tight above her throbbing cheek. The passive response only incensed Adagio further, and she raised her hand again, but then hesitated. Aria smirked at her with a hollow chuckle.

“Keep going,” she encouraged. “Maybe if you hit me enough, you won’t be alone anymore.”

Adagio’s hand fell, but just to her side; the only part of her that connected with her target was a wide-eyed glower.

Maybe Aria was just dazed from the backhanding. Maybe she was tired, or hung over. Maybe it was all three, but she could’ve sworn she saw that ever-pouty lower lip tremble slightly as the eldest siren turned and left without another word.

“I know,” she said to Sonata in the wake of a door slamming in the distance, “you don’t have to tell me. I know it’s worth nothing, but I tried.”

There was a long moment of nothing.

“Ari?”

“Yeah?” she replied, still staring at the door through which Adagio had left.

“I’m sorry,” Sonata said slowly.

Aria felt those familiar jaws digging into her yet again, but she pried them off just in time to avoid snapping. Instead, she turned very deliberately and faced her friend.

“I don’t really get why,” she rasped, clicking her teeth together, “you didn’t do anything, and it kinda pisses me off that you’re trying to make this about you now.”

“Ari, no,” Sonata sighed. “I mean I’m sorry for being so…dumb.”

“You’ll have to narrow it down for me.”

“I’m so stupid,” the youngest siren continued, shaking her head. “I thought if I tried hard enough, I could make you guys be nice to each other.”

“Sonata…I’m just having a bad morning, alright?”

“That’s not what I mean,” Sonata said, picking at the last of her food. “I can’t believe it took me this long to get it…”

“To get what? That she’s a huge cunt?”

“Ari!”

“Fight me.”

“You know that thing you always say?” Sonata continued after a moment.

“What? The f-word?”

“No,” she corrected, rolling her eyes, “that ‘there’s a difference between giving up and admitting your limitations.’”

“I’ve never said that once in my life,” Aria scoffed, getting up and rummaging through the cupboard above the stove. Her fingers finally closed around a familiar short neck, her thumb resting on that unmistakable embossed seal. She poured herself another cup of coffee, added a generous dose of coffee-flavored medicine, and sat back down. “What are you trying to say anyway?” she demanded after getting comfortable and having a few sips.

“That it’s none of my business,” the blue girl admitted. “There’s something really wrong with you guys, and I can’t fix it. Addy’s like my big sister, and you’re my best friend, but I’ll never know either of you like that.”

However much it made her skin crawl, no matter how sick it made her, and regardless of how close she’d grown to Sonata of late, Aria could not escape this one simple fact: there was no person or creature – in this world or any other – that knew her better than Adagio.

And it held just as true the other way around.

Aria was a good musician – at least from a technical standpoint, she’d never been satisfied with her songwriting – and it had made her a lot of money; that much she would always give herself. In fact, there may have been a time when she might’ve called this success, but it was hard to say. Aside from a few standout moments, her memories of her youth had the type of cognitive consistency that a normal person might experience when trying to recall a dream they’d had as a small child – she wasn’t sure how much was recollection and how much was just her mind filling in the gaps, and it was more or less impossible to put herself back in the mindset of a sheltered young mare in her twenties who had dreams and a family who loved her. Then again, what did it matter what she would’ve thought? What mattered was what she knew right now, and had for a long time – that other than the one thing she was competent at, her entire life was an absolute abortion of an existence. She was over a thousand years old, and had managed to make a grand total of two friends during her entire stay in the realm of the living, one of whom she’d come to hate in a manner that bordered on obsession, and the other whom she’d ignored and verbally abused for a millennium barring the last few days. Everyone else who’d ever cared about her had died thinking she’d just abandoned them, and that was because she had. Along with her sisters, she’d ruined countless people’s lives. Nobody could ever love her. Well, nobody except Sonata, and she was becoming more and more certain that even that was not genuine but rather some type of complex developed over countless years of dependency and rejection.

And so the day’s musings finally came full circle, and Aria returned to the same thought she’d entertained while standing in the kitchen doorway that morning. She’d spent the entire afternoon on the back porch, and though the air was beginning to nip as the sun set, she had no intention of moving – that question she’d never gotten to ask Sonata was once again gnawing on the back of her mind.

“What would you do if me and Adagio just disappeared?”

There was a second condition of this hypothetical circumstance which involved an enormous sum of cash and the deed to this house somehow falling into Sonata’s hands, but Aria didn’t want to get bogged down in the details. The point was that regardless of whether or not her own life was salvageable, she had the means to fix her friend’s.

But she’d think more about that later. Another very long draught of khalua staved off the chill a little bit longer, and she lit another cigarette, taking one drag and then letting it smolder as she watched the last bit of sunlight disappear. The porch faced east, so she could already see stars beginning to dot the sky above the rolling hills that surrounded the little town she’d become so accustomed to. The cold was becoming more than just nagging, but the idea of moving made her feel positively ill, so she just took another pull of the syrupy liqueur and closed her eyes. She had to figure this all out, and while she couldn’t do it now, the one thing she had on her side was time.

“Don’t smoke in my house,” Adagio said, breathing still heavy as she finished the tail end of another bottle of wine, a lot of which dribbled down her face and stained the pillow her head was resting on. When she was lying down like this, her hair – which was, at this point, about as disheveled as it could get – had nowhere to go but out, chasing Aria to the edge of the bed.

“Stop making me hate myself and maybe I won’t have to,” the younger siren suggested, killing her lighter. She was drunk, but not so much that she couldn’t maintain her uncivility.

“Oh, poor you,” Adagio huffed, rolling her eyes. “You better learn to appreciate the simpler things in life, Aria dear, because that’s all we’ve got now.”

“Actually, that reminds me,” the purple-haired girl said thoughtfully, “do you have a belt I could borrow?”

“You have a belt, it’s right there with your pants.”

“That one won’t hold my bodyweight,” Aria explained.

“Hilarious.”

“What can I say?” she shrugged, standing up and forcing herself into the aforementioned pants, “I’m the comic relief in this outfit.”

“Why don’t you leave, Aria?”

“What’s it look like I’m doing?”

“No,” Adagio clarified, sitting up and glaring, “why don’t you leave? I’d’ve thought tonight would feel like the end of a prison sentence for you. I can’t fathom why you aren’t packing your things right now.”

“Because Sonata can cook and she does my laundry.”

“Ah, of course.”

“Anyway,” Aria said as she finished re-tying her hair, “time for me to fuck off. It’s been soul-destroying, as usual.”

“Aria?”

“What?” she sighed, pausing right at the door.

“Aria?”

“What?”

“Aria?”

“Are you having a stroke?”

“Ari wake up!”

And then suddenly, everything was very bright and very painful. She wanted to rub her eyes, but couldn’t find her hands. It wasn’t just that she couldn’t feel them, it was that she had no idea where they even were or how to go about getting in touch with them. The same went for her legs. All Aria could feel was a stabbing like needles and dizziness. The longer she remained conscious – if that’s what she was, it wasn’t clear – the worse it hurt, but the more she began to become aware of her body. Something blissfully warm was touching each of her tingling cheeks.

“Ari?”

Her eyelids were heavy, but she could feel them and the rest of her face now, and despite no relent on part of the blinding light, she forced one open just to spite it. Her vision was greeted by a blue blur and two magenta eyes staring straight into her own.

“Sssonata…” she slurred, barely able to pronounce the three syllables, let alone all the expletives that she planned on following them with.

“Ari!”

In an instant, her limited vision was eclipsed, and the vague sensation of squeezing made her inhale sharply as she realized she couldn’t remember the last time she’d consciously taken a breath. Oxygen laced with the familiar scent of food and dryer sheets calmed her nerves and the dizziness began to abate. When the maroon veil of Sonata’s blouse finally lifted, the world looked a bit clearer, and she could see the relief in her friend’s expression. The more the resolution of both her vision and physical awareness increased, the more Aria began to realize just how awful she felt. She could finally sense discernable limbs beneath the constant needling, and every muscle she could feel was beginning to spasm. She couldn’t think about it for too long, as just then her stomach lurched. Instinctively she sat up, which was both incredibly painful and very disorienting.

“Ari, no! Lie down!”

“Here,” said another familiar voice.

Something touched her hand, and she knew what it was. Aria took the plastic wastebasket as quickly as she could in her weakened state and retched, finishing with a whimper as the sensation of pins and needles redoubled and the muscles in her stomach all locked into a cramped knot. She heaved again, tasting bile and coffee-flavored liqueur, and once more she silently vowed never to drink khalua again, even if she lived another thousand years. With a final, strangled gasp, her stomach was empty, and she was warm enough now that unconsciousness began to beckon her back to its soothing embrace.

She gratefully accepted the offer and passed out.

When Aria awoke once more, the first thing that greeted her was a splitting headache. The second was the sensation of being hot. Way too hot. She sat bolt upright – much to the dismay of her throbbing head – and in so doing easily found the source of her discomfort: she was covered from head to toe in blankets

“Ugh…” she groaned, throwing them off and realizing that there was more than one heating pad entangled in them as well. The final layer of fleece was soaked with sweat, and once free of it she breathed deeply and wiped at her brow. There was a large glass of water on the coffee table before her, and she grabbed it and drank loudly and gratefully.

“Ari?”

Blinking back the fog of morning amnesia, she realized she was far from alone. Across from her – in the only other seats in the room aside from the piano bench – were her sisters, one of whom was now awake.

“How’re you feeling?” Sonata asked brightly. She looked like she was about to get up, but Aria stopped her with a raised hand.

“I’m fine, I just feel like someone punched me in the chest a hundred times. What’d I do?”

“Ari,” the youngest siren said with worried eyes, “you fell asleep outside…in the middle of the night…with no clothes on. Your skin was like ice, and I wasn’t even there when Addy found you,” she nodded toward the third, still-sleeping member of the party.

“Oh,” Aria said thoughtfully, “my bad.”

“We were really worried about you!” Sonata chided, finally standing and planting her hands firmly on her hips. “You could get pneumonia or something. I didn’t get home until right before you woke up, but Addy said you were as blue as me.”

“I’m sorry, okay?” the elder siren snapped. “What the hell else do you want me to say? I won’t do it again? I didn’t even mean to do it once!”

Sonata didn’t say anything right away, she just made her way to the couch and sat down next to her friend.

“Aaand we’re touching,” Aria whined when two hands came to rest on her shoulders and she was pulled into a half-hug, “there just had to be touching.”

“Just be careful, stupid,” Sonata smiled, squeezing even tighter. Aria had a lot to say, both about this uninvited physical contact and about certain people calling certain other people “stupid,” but she hadn’t seen her friend looking this happy in a while, and for once in her life she just decided to keep her mouth shut.

“You have to be ready for our gig next week,” the blue girl finished.

“What?” Aria blinked.

“Where do you think I was last night, Ari?”

“Sonata, I don’t even know where I was last night. Now be a good little pain in the ass, and tell me you aren’t as delusional as I think you are.”

“I found a place where we can play music!” Sonata confirmed, clapping her hands together, smile ever wider.

“Great,” Aria drawled, rolling her eyes. “Look, I know I agreed to this bullshit, but you need way more practice, and if I’m going to put together some kind of performance, it’s gonna take more than a week. Maybe in a month or so we can th–”

“Too late!” the youngest siren interrupted cheerfully, “I already signed us up. We’re playing next Friday!”

“You really think that’s gonna happen, huh?” her sister said, a touch of awe in her voice.

“Yup.”

The two girls just stared at each other for a long minute, the purple one with a razor-like glare, the blue one with shimmering eyes and an increasingly-poutier lip.

“I hate you so much, Sonata,” Aria sighed in defeat.

“Yay!”

“Now make me food or I’ll suicide-bomb a maternity ward.” The sun was now streaming through the sliding-glass doors, and at this point, stuffing her face sounded much easier than trying to go back to sleep.

“Watcha want?”

“Anything with enough cholesterol to kill me before next Friday.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Sonata said in sing-song voice as she practically victory-danced all the way to the kitchen.

“And do it quick, we need to start practicing today or this is going to be a fucking disaster.” The words were already lost as the whir of a fan began mere seconds after that blue ponytail disappeared through the door, soon accompanied by the scraping of pans being dropped onto the stove. While annoying, the noise did give Aria the opportunity to say something she’d been holding in for a while.

“Stop pretending to be asleep.”

Adagio was reclined in the other chair, legs crossed and head propped up by one hand in a casual state of ostensible unconsciousness. She didn’t move an inch, she just opened her eyes, which were already staring straight at Aria.

“I have no idea what you mean,” she said dryly, “I just woke up.”

“Why are you here?” the younger of the two sirens asked quickly and evenly.

“I fell asleep here.”

“Why?”

“Just tell me you didn’t do it on purpose, Aria.” Adagio’s voice was barely above a whisper, but it bit through all the noise.

“I would ask you what you’re talking about,” Aria reasoned, leaning back into the softness of the couch, “but I don’t care.”

“Fair enough,” the eldest siren said as she stood up and headed for the stairs. She paused just before the first step to spare her sister a sidelong glance. “Next time I find you lying in a chair and not breathing, I won’t be so selfish as to interrupt you.”

By the time she heard the door to the master bedroom shut at the top of the stairwell, Aria was beginning to wish she hadn’t asked Sonata to make food.

Chapter Three: The Stone Cracks

On a frigid mountaintop, the three sirens hovered, gazing at a wind-whipped fortress. A storm was approaching, and the first flakes of snow danced through the air, harbingers of the blizzard that was to come. Aria had a bad feeling about this, but there was no way she could back out now; she’d committed to a course of action, and that was that. She’d contemplated simply giving up her amulet, but turning back was not her way, nor was it feasible. How could she? If she returned to her old life, what could she say to her family that would justify a decade-long disappearance that had left no trace?

Aria had taken the pendant in a moment of weakness. She wanted so badly to be known and recognized for her efforts, and so had resolved to follow any path that might bring her closer to that goal, but over time she’d realized that Adagio’s plan had never been to achieve renown; the endgame had always been revenge. The past ten years had seen the sirens sweep over Equestria like a plague, causing misery and strife wherever they went, and reaping the rewards of their efforts in the form of what seemed like limitless power. They had charged their gems to the point of bursting, and this moment would be the culmination of their efforts…or at least Adagio’s efforts.

“Starswirl!” Adagio roared, her voice a multi-tonal ruckus that rattled the very stone above which they levitated. “Come out, Starswirl, we have unfinished business, you and I!”

The wind howled and the snow grew thicker, but no response came from the lonely fortress. At least, not immediately. After many long minutes, there was a grinding of metal and stone as an iron portcullis slowly lifted, and the great oaken door beyond it creaked open. The figure of a pony moved into the dim, grey light.

“Adagio,” an aged voice – multiplied a thousand times in volume by magic – croaked, “I regret that we must meet again.” The voice belonged to a withered stallion, clad in a cloak of blue, white, and yellow, with an enormous hat upon his head that matched it. Springing from his chin was a great white beard of impressive length that told the tale of a long and solitary life. “Have you come to exact your vengeance?” he asked, and Aria could hear the exhaustion in his voice.

“Yes,” Adagio sneered, “how could you think I wouldn’t?”

“I knew we’d meet again, Adagio,” Starswirl said sadly, his words echoing off the surrounding mountains, “but I dared to hope we might not.”

“Your hope was misplaced,” the golden siren spat. She turned to Aria, and then to Sonata. In wordless accord they summoned their voices, unleashing an impenetrable wave of sound that crashed down upon the mountain’s peak and the crumbling structure that stood upon it. Aria felt a powerful surge of heat as her amulet channeled endless breath into her lungs, breath that joined her companions’ song in a cacophonic harmony. Minutes seemed to tick by before Adagio led them in a decrescendo that reverberated into nothingness.

As the dust cleared, Aria at first thought there was nothing left. The fortress had been utterly decimated, the only trace of it being a few bricks of its foundation that poked through the mounting cover of snow. But as the cloud of ash dissipated, her eyes were met by a golden glow. The pony stood, head bowed as his horn sustained an orb of shielding light around his body. When it was clear that the first assault had ended, he dismissed the barrier, glancing back at the wreckage of the building he’d just emerged from.

“I was fond of that place,” he sighed. “Please, Adagio, let us not do this,” he then begged. “I do not want to fight you.”

“If you are so loath to face me,” the eldest siren hissed, “you should’ve thought about it a hundred years ago.” She inhaled, and Aria felt air rushing into her own lungs in unconscious tandem, before it was released in a second blast of sonic fury. The attack lasted longer than the first, generating a cloud of steam as the surrounding snow was vaporized. Yet, when it cleared, the pony remained, once again ensconced by his bubble of light.

“I am sorry, Adagio,” Starswirl lamented, “I am so terribly sorry. Please don’t make me fight this fight.”

“Do not taunt me with your false remorse!” Adagio shrieked, rattling Aria’s eardrums, “do not desecrate their ashes with your lies!”

A third blast left the sirens’ throats, and when it was done, the pony remained. Starswirl’s shield fell once more, and when he looked up again, his weathered face was contorted with agony.

“I am sorry!” he bellowed, his magically amplified voice rattling the foundations of the earth, “I was young, and I was rash. I maintain that my judgment was true, but the sentence I meted out was cruel, and for that I can never atone.”

“You’re a murderer!” Adagio screamed, her voice alone cracking the surrounding stone.

“Yes,” Starswirl admitted, “but your sisters were evil,” he punctuated the last word by stamping a hoof, shattering the rock beneath it and sending avalanches cascading down the mountains in the distance. “They were irredeemably wicked, Adagio,” he shouted, “You know this! I spared you because you know this. I wish I could go back. I wish I could change what happened, but I cannot! Please, for the love of the gods, stand down. Let us end this cycle of hurt and grieve together.”

“NO!” Adagio screamed, and Aria felt ice in her chest as the magic of her pendant was siphoned off and channeled through the eldest siren in an explosion of pure energy. Static crackled in her ears with the rending of stone. She cried out, and she could feel Sonata’s pain as intensely as her own.

When the dust once again cleared, Starswirl’s protection spell flickered, but it held. He was levitating a few yards above the ground, sparing his hooves from the rocks that were now glowing red with the heat of spellfire. The stallion coughed violently, and the golden orb that surrounded him diminished and then disappeared.

“What’s the matter, Starswirl?” Adagio taunted, “did I drag you out of your deathbed?”

“Actually,” the pony chuckled gruffly but with genuine mirth, “you did.” He drew in a shuddering breath, and was once again surrounded by crackling golden magic. “I have lived far longer than any mortal has the right to. I will depart this world soon, my friend,” he sighed, “but I cannot leave it at your mercy. Please, tell me there can be a truce between us. Tell me you will accept my apology. Tell me you will find it in your heart to forgive me for the sorrow I’ve caused you. Tell me you will not punish ponykind for the mistakes of one overzealous fool.”

“I will tell you none of those things,” Adagio replied, “because I am not a liar.”

“Well,” Starswirl mused with a sad yet determined smile, “then I suppose I have one last fight in me.”

In a burst of blue and gold, Aria was blinded. All around her, she heard the snaps and pops of small explosions, like fireworks. When her vision returned, the sky was on fire as meteors of pure magic streaked down towards her and her sister sirens. Instinctively, she sang out a long, vibrating trill, and two other voices joined it. The sound waves shattered most of the incoming projectiles, but one struck her in the shoulder. Though she felt a searing discomfort spread from the point of impact, she realized that they were not lethal in nature.

She shielded her eyes from a second, cataclysmic explosion of brightness, and when she blinked her vision back into coherence, Starswirl’s frail form was wreathed by a halo of golden light. Sensing Adagio’s imperative, she soared upwards, escaping the reach of the sorcerer’s burning glow. There was a deafening roar, and she felt her body whipped about as though caught in an ocean’s current. All control she had over her own magical faculties vanished, and she felt herself plummeting downwards. It was some kind of stunning spell, and try as she might, she could not regain her flight. Looking around, she could see Adagio and Sonata falling too. The ground rushed ever closer, and despite herself she screamed. It couldn’t end this way. She was young and couldn’t die now. Seconds before her downturned muzzle impacted the snow and the rock beneath, her descent slowed to a halt. A pale glow enveloped her body, and when she looked back, she could see their opponent’s horn blazing brightly. She hit the ground with a grunt when he dropped her and her two companions. They flailed about in the snow, unable to levitate, their forms not at all conducive to moving around unaided by magic. Starswirl lifted himself with his own magic, touching down in front of Adagio.

“Surrender,” he said simply, “and give me your amulet.”

“Never!” Adagio shrieked, gnashing her teeth and dragging herself forward with her two hooves, snapping at the wizard. With tired ease, he pushed her back.

“If you will not stand down,” he told her solemnly, “I will have to ensure that you and your compatriots cannot harm Equestria after I’m gone.”

“Go ahead,” Adagio growled, “turn me to dust as well.”

“I will not.”

“So what will it be then?” The siren demanded, “an eternity in Tartarus? That place cannot hold me, Starswirl; I will escape, even if it takes me a thousand years, and your descendants and all ponykind will suffer for your sins.”

“I do not doubt you,” the stallion said solemnly, “and I would not condemn you to that place. You are not wicked as the other beings that reside there. I would ask you one last time to surrender your magic, but I know the answer.”

“You’ve gone soft,” Adagio mocked, “what happened to fire and brimstone? What happened to you?”

“I learned something about magic,” Starswirl sighed, and Aria could almost swear she saw a wetness in his eyes, “something I wish I had the time to understand.” His horn began to glow once more, and Aria felt her whole world begin to vibrate. “But you have the time, Adagio, and I hope you come to understand it in the ways that I can’t.”

“No matter where you send me,” the siren hissed, “I will find you in the next life, Starswirl.”

“I hope you do,” the stallion said earnestly, “and hope when we meet again, you will forgive me.”

“I will not.”

Aria stared wide-eyed as the very fabric of space seemed to tear open behind the wizard, giving way to a swirling nebula that some innate part of her knew was not of this world, or this dimension.

“You have everything you will need,” Starswirl said, “goodbye, Adagio.”

Aria felt herself being moved by magic once more, staring into the abyss that grew ever closer.

With a defiant groan, Aria opened her eyes. She hated waking up, because not once in her long life had sleep ever left her feeling rested, only bleary and cranky. Her energy level tended to pick up in the afternoon and then snowball at night to the point that she usually didn’t force herself into bed until the wee hours of the morning. This cycle meant that getting up was always a miserable, groggy affair. She stood up and reached for her pants, but then stopped. No, you know what? Today was a no-pants day, Aria decided. One of her housemates was an unwashed drunk, and the other was a kitchen-dwelling imbecile who probably wouldn’t even notice. They did not deserve the effort it took to function in such painfully tight pants. Instead she threw on a loosely-fitting t-shirt and stepped into a colorful pair of bunny slippers – which she maintained were only worn ironically – and shuffled in the general direction of the only thing that mattered at this hour: coffee.

The house was oddly silent, and it took Aria a moment to figure out why; there were no sounds of sizzling griddles or clacking flatware emanating from the kitchen. It was so quiet she could’ve heard a pin drop, and she realized as she entered the living room that even Adagio’s gentle snoring was absent. The couch was indeed unoccupied, though a half-drained bottle of vodka on the nearby coffee table suggested that its usual resident was somewhere close by. It irked Aria that she felt just a little uneasy; this was two departures from routine in one morning, after a half-year period that had known exactly zero. She wondered if Sonata might be practicing her guitar, before realizing that she’d seen the guitar on the floor of her room moments ago.

The electric kettle rattled slightly on its base as the water began to boil, and Aria turned the knob on the coffee grinder, only to hear the obnoxious mechanical whirring that told her it was devoid of any coffee to grind. Sonata didn’t drink coffee and Adagio hadn’t left the house for at least a month, so she realized with dismay that there was absolutely no chance that there might be another bag of beans stashed somewhere in the pantry. This left two options – either tea or instant coffee, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be tea.

Aria grimaced as she stirred the chalky powder into a mug of hot water. She decided to let temperature sort that mess out, and rummaged around in a cupboard for that unholy bottle of sugary creamer she knew she’d left somewhere that would hopefully make this a bearable experience. It was nowhere to be found, but she did manage to locate a bottle of kahlua, which she regarded with some confliction. Eventually she reasoned that if there was no coffee and she wasn’t wearing pants, then the entire day was clearly fucked and there was no reason she shouldn’t get drunk before noon. A remote corner of her mind cautioned that if she did, there was no way she would make it to the store later to acquire more coffee, that tomorrow morning the downward spiral would continue, and in six months’ time she would be joining Adagio on the couch. However, the opposite distant corner of her mind pointed out that Adagio wasn’t currently on the couch, and so if fate continued to smile on her in this fashion, she might have it to herself. Aria proper then decided that both those corners could blow her and poured out the sludgy mixture of instant coffee, opting to drink straight from the bottle as she searched the freezer for some ice cream.

Hours later, a still-pantsless Aria lay sprawled out in a sun chair on the back porch, ashing a cigarette into an empty bucket of ice cream whilst nursing a bottle of what was now very warm liqueur and wondering just how today had gone so acutely sideways. The sun had reached its zenith and was bothering her eyes, but the idea of actually getting up and grabbing her shades was somewhat self-defeating, because if she could muster the energy to stand, then she wouldn’t want to come back out here at all. Still, the bottle was roughly one-third full and she had a few more smokes, and she figured that was enough to keep her from thinking about anything too depressing for another hour or two.

“Ari?”

Never mind, she groaned internally.

“Aria,” Sonata called, hurrying up to her with obvious anxiety, “I–why aren’t you wearing pants?” the blue girl asked, momentarily forgetting whatever was bothering her.

“Why aren’t you?” Aria queried in return, taking another pull of what she had simply accepted was impending projectile vomit.

“Because I’m…wearing a skirt?”

“Doesn’t do you much good from this angle,” Aria grinned dementedly, and Sonata backed up slightly, realizing just how low to the ground the sun chair was.

“Ari, you have to come,” the younger siren pleaded.

“Move back over here, and I might,” Aria sniggered, only slightly ashamed of herself.

“Adagio’s like, freaking out,” Sonata insisted.

“What did she do to you?” the elder siren demanded, swaying as she sat up suddenly enough to give herself vertigo.

“Nothing,” Sonata said truthfully, “but she’s really upset.”

“Well, what about?”

“She just checked our bank account.”

“And just like that,” Aria drawled, draining the last of the kahlua and lazily tossing the bottle over her shoulder where it shattered somewhere in the distance, “I’m suddenly interested.”

To her credit, Adagio had showered, and her hair had been groomed back to its former glory. She was even wearing makeup. It almost looked as though she’d actually made an effort to drag herself back up to the level of a functional person, but apparently that effort had gone horribly awry; the makeup was running, and it looked like her mind was in a similar state as she paced back and forth across the kitchen in a panic.

“I know I don’t exactly look like a qualified problem-solver,” Aria slurred, slumping down in one of the chairs that encircled the room’s small table, “but what’s going on here?”

Adagio stopped mid-stride and wheeled around to face her, eyes wide with genuine upset. She looked like she was about to shout, but then visibly deflated, letting her shoulders slump.

“We’re broke,” she rasped, licking her lips with anxiety, “we’re completely and utterly destitute.”

“Are we?” Aria wondered with amusement.

“I was counting on that school to be our next big break,” Adagio admitted, eyes darting back and forth as her hands unconsciously clutched at the area around her neck, “but I thought we had more time.”

“Wait,” Aria slurred, “you’re telling me you have nothing saved up?”

“I...I never saw the need for it,” Adagio stammered, her gaze still wild as she leaned rigidly on the counter, “it was always so easy to get more. I have valuables, but it’ll take time to liquidate those…unless we find a source of income soon, we won’t even be able to pay our utilities.”

“You could always…I dunno, get a job?” Aria smirked. The suggestion washed over Adagio in a wave of horror, and her eyes became even wider than they already were, still darting back and forth as though she was physically trying to look for a way out of this situation. It was obvious she couldn’t find one.

“Girls,” she said finally, standing up and taking on the commanding tone she adopted when outlining a plan, “I need you to look for work; just find something, anything – it will only be temporary, I’ll figure something out.”

“Okay, Addy!”

“No.”

“Aria, this is not the time to be obstinate; we need to work as a team here, or we will all be in a very bad way.”

“But,” Aria countered, lazily examining her fingernails, “I’m not the one who’s broke.”

“We are all broke, you imbecile!” Adagio shouted.

“Once again,” the purple girl said matter-of-factly, “no. I would ask you if you understood the concept of a contingency plan, Adagio, but I know you don’t.”

“Do not get rhetorical with me, Aria,” the eldest siren spat, “what are you hiding.”

“Remember all that music I write?” Aria asked sarcastically, tapping her chin, “you know, that stuff you always told me was a waste of time? Well, I’ve had it published, I’ve written on commission, I’ve had it licensed and hey, in the past fifty years I’ve even had stuff in a few TV shows and movies.”

“So you have something to hold us over?” Adagio wondered hopefully.

“No,” Aria corrected, “I have something to hold myself over for roughly…forever. Interest doesn’t seem like much, but over a few centuries…well, it all kinda snowballs,” she finished with a hiccup.

“Are you seriously going to hold out on me?” Adagio demanded incredulously.

“No, no, I didn’t say that,” Aria said nonchalantly, holding up a hand, “I have no problem keeping everything running just like it is…on one condition.”

“Which is?”

“Get a job,” she sneered.

“I’d rather sell the house!” Adagio fumed.

“What’s your asking price?”

“I will not sell it to you!”

“So,” Aria said, raising an eyebrow, “you’re going to upend all of our lives – unnecessarily, I might add – just for the sake of your pride? Some plan, Adagio.”

The eldest siren continued to glare daggers at her usurper, but slowly her eyes drifted over to Sonata. The youngest of the three girls stood anxiously in a corner, head down and arms tucked behind her back, as though trying to shrink away into nothingness while her sister sirens argued.

Adagio spluttered wordlessly, slamming her fists against the counter before she stormed out of the room. Clatter followed her as she stomped through the house and up the stairs, knocking over just about anything within reach, finally ending when the door to her room slammed shut. Aria felt a very self-satisfied smile creep across her features, only to have it quite literally slapped off of her face moments later.

“You’re horrible!” Sonata spat, eyes full of wrathful tears. Her anger rapidly drained when she saw the stunned look on Aria’s face, leaving only disappointment. It looked like she might have something else to say, but no words came, and after a while she turned and left, a quiet breeze in the wake of Adagio’s storm.

Alone once more, Aria reflected that her earlier assessment had been true: this day was very much lost.

Heavy but clear, the chords echoed through the halls of an otherwise silent house. With precision and force, she crashed her fingers against the keys again and again, building the crescendo of another one of her thousands of nameless pieces. She hated both of them, and all of that hate was in her hands, pooling in her fingertips, each note releasing a little bit of it. She wanted to sing it too, but this song had no words; it was an untitled song with no lyrics.

I am Aria

Her right hand climbed and her left descended along the keys, opening the sound up wider and wider and pushing the volume of her instrument to its very limit.

Whatever I become, I will never stop making music

She slammed her foot down on the damper pedal, and suddenly the notes resounded unhindered, filling the empty room with a vast expanse of noise. She wished she was on a stage, in front of a crowd, for in all the years of her turbulent, confusing existence, she’d never played like this.

And that is all…

Aria stopped abruptly as a loud thump caught the periphery of her hearing, followed by an obnoxious scraping. It was coming from the foyer, and she stood, stepping cautiously toward it, not sure what she would find there.

It was Sonata, and she was dragging a suitcase that probably weighed about twice as much as she did toward the door.

“What are you doing?” Aria queried loudly, folding her arms. The other girl looked up in momentary surprise, but then her expression hardened.

“Leaving.”

“For where?”

“Wherever,” Sonata mumbled, scraping the suitcase another few feet.

“Sonata,” Aria said, her brow furrowing, “are you serious?”

“Yes,” the younger siren replied icily, not making eye contact.

“Yeah, right,” Aria scoffed, “c’mon, what’s going on here?”

Sonata dropped her burden and looked up again, but despite her stiff movements, there was no anger in her eyes, only defeat.

“Because I’m done, Ari,” she said simply, “there’s nothing I can do for you.”

“You’re not smart enough to be cryptic, Sonata,” Aria snapped, “what the hell are you doing?”

“I can’t do this anymore, Ari,” Sonata lamented, arms hanging limply at her sides, “I can’t be around you two. It’s eating me up inside.” She sniffled and rubbed the corner of an eye. “Adagio’s lost her way, and I’ve tried so hard to help her find it again, but how can I when I don’t even know what I’m doing? She’s so sad all the time, but I can’t seem to help her, and it makes me hate myself. You’re right, Aria, I’m not smart enough; I don’t know the right words or the right things to do to fix her, and it’s making me feel sick inside.”

“Sonata, come on…”

“And then there’s you,” Sonata continued, tears beginning to flow freely down her cheeks, “I just don’t understand you. Sometimes you’re nice to me, but sometimes you aren’t, and every time I try to talk to you, I never know who or what you’re going to be. You’re so…you’re so angry…you’ve always been angry, and I can’t figure out why.”

“Look,” Aria began, taking a step forward, but Sonata took a step back, “I’m sorry I yelled at you last night…”

“No,” Sonata shook her head, throwing her arms around her own midsection as though she were trying to hug herself, “I don’t care about that. I could handle it, Ari, I could deal with all of this – I’ve been dealing with it for a thousand years – if you’d at least be nice to each other. It used to be bearable, but ever since we lost our magic, you’ve been treating each other like trash. She’s so resentful towards you, and you’re so spiteful, and I can’t make any of it stop, and I’m done with it. I’m done!” she shouted suddenly, stomping her foot, fists balling up in frustration.

“Sonata, you can’t leave.”

“Why not?” Sonata demanded, “I never belonged here in the first place. You guys always wanted power and fame, but all I wanted was to be happy, and I never got to. Do you know what she said to me, Ari? Do you know why I took the amulet?”

Aria paused. Adagio had insisted on speaking to Sonata alone all those years ago, and so she’d never been privy to exactly what had tempted the last siren into this life, nor had she ever given it much thought. She was about to ask what it was, but she didn’t have to.

“She said…” Sonata shivered, sniffling, “she said that if I wore it, that everyone would love me. She said I’d be adored…that we all would. I believed her, because let’s face it, I’m dumb, just like you always tell me.” Her trembling hands covered her eyes, and she whimpered. “But there’s no love here. All I see is hate, and I can’t live like this anymore.”

“Can’t you see why I hate her?!” Aria shouted, her emotional confusion finally coming to a boil, “she tricked us, Sonata! She promised us the things that we wanted, but they were twisted, hollow versions of themselves. Infamy instead of fame. Submission instead of love. And all of it – all of it – was just so she could use us in her little plot for revenge. And now what do we have? Nothing. We have nothing. How can you not hate her like I do?”

“Because it was my choice,” Sonata murmured. “I wanted something, but I didn’t want to earn it, and even after I realized that this was all wrong, I didn’t turn back. You didn’t either.”

“We were manipulated, Sonata. We were used. I can’t just forgive that.”

“I understand, Ari,” Sonata said earnestly, “and that’s why I can’t be around you anymore. You’re never going to forgive her, she’s never going to forgive herself, and I’m never going to change anything. You’re right, it’s…nothing. We have nothing to give each other, and I need to find something else, or I’m going to become as angry as you and Adagio.” There was a long silence, and when nothing broke it, she reached for the door.

“Wait!” Aria yelped, barely of her own volition. Sonata turned back around, and they stared at each other mutely.

“You shouldn’t go,” Aria quavered, desperately trying to quell the shaking that was threatening to overtake her.

“Why?” the other girl asked, clearly unable to fathom the reason.

“Because…” Aria searched for the words, but she couldn’t find them. She had never been good with people; her entire life had always been about her ambition and her art, and yet for some reason, in this moment, she felt like she was about to lose something that was more precious than either.

“Ari…?”

“Because I won’t have anyone to play music with,” she stammered finally, desperately holding onto her stoicism. It was a half-truth, but her façade had begun to crack, and she realized too late that she couldn’t stop it from breaking. She turned away, covering her face with a hand, her posture stiff and tense.

Sonata looked on with awe and confusion as she witnessed something – one of the few things – that she’d never seen in her many years: gently, and with much resistance, Aria began to cry. It was a harsh, unnatural sound, as if she’d never done it before, and it slowly dawned on the younger siren that this might very well be the case.

With trepidation, Sonata took a few steps forward, the alien sound of soft weeping growing ever louder. She cautiously put a hand on Aria’s shoulder, feeling the tremors that ran through her rigid form.

“Ari,” she whispered, “don’t cry.” She meant it, too. The idea of Aria crying threatened to fundamentally alter her perception of the world. She received only a ragged sob in reply. “Can I…do you want a hu–”

Sonata’s question was cut short as she felt a pair of arms wrap around her with such force that they crushed all the air out of her lungs. The vicelike hug was borderline painful, but at the same time it was the nicest thing she’d felt in a very, very long time.

“Please don’t go,” Aria begged, her voice even more rough and raspy than usual, “you’re my best friend.” She felt Sonata jolt in her arms, as if she’d just been slapped.

“Aria,” the blue-haired girl whispered with disbelief, “I…I thought you hated me…”

“So did I,” the elder siren laughed hoarsely, gripping her friend even tighter, “but I don’t. Please don’t go. I promise I’ll try harder.”

“I was only going because I didn’t think you wanted me here,” Sonata said, patting her distraught companion on the back. “If you want me to stay, I’ll stay, but you have to promise me something.” She felt the suffocating embrace loosen, and found herself staring into a pair of bloodshot purple eyes.

“What?” Aria asked suspiciously, a hint of defiance returning to her tone.

“You have to help Adagio,” Sonata said firmly. “I can’t make you forgive her, but if I’m your friend, then you’ll help me get her back on her feet.”

Aria sighed deeply, feeling a flare of anger in her chest, but for the first time in as long as she could remember, she realized it wasn’t worth it.

“Okay.”