Aria found herself waking up to that terrible sound again. That mournful howl of one young woman trying to voice the choir of Tartarus' deepest, darkest pits by herself, punctuated at odd intervals by muffled thumps. It was much louder now than normal, meaning there were fewer of their stolen manor's walls between her and its source this time. After checking herself for sore spots indicating bruises and finding none, Aria decided that Adagio must have settled for tormenting her eardrums exclusively today and went to go check on what remained of their once peerless leader.
A handful of doors and a couple hallways passed before her as she navigated toward the moaning. Along the way, the notion that she might be ambushed with a hug or some other inane thing by Sonata came and went unrewarded. In fact, so prepared was Aria for said ambush that she didn't know what to do when she got to her destination unmolested, and found herself staring down at the girl who once used pain and fear to hold power over her. As expected, Adagio was a quivering wreck, holding the sides of her head and rocking from side to side while on her back in the fetal position.
"Adagio, will you knock it off? Some of us want to sleep away a couple years of our misery!" Aria said, daring to raise her voice a little, feeling somewhat emboldened by the elder ex-siren's position and unresponsiveness. At least until said unresponsiveness continued despite the provocation.
It had been a whole month since the last time Adagio had hit her, and it didn't seem like she was going to do it again any time soon. Still, there was a limit to how far Aria was willing to push her luck, so she backed out of the bathroom and slowly closed the door, leaving her former band leader alone with her memories.
* * *
-About 1000 years prior-
Adagio Dazzle lay upon the knoll's soft, slightly springy grass, basking in the Mediterranean sun. Overhead, fluffy white clouds drifted lazily through a beautiful cyan sky. But the birds are not chirping, and rightly so. No living creature would dare intrude on the voices echoing from the auditorium near Adagio's place of rest. On that stage, among the first of its kind, auditions were being held for the right to perform for the Caesars. Only those whose voices threatened to charm the angels out of heaven had a hope of competing.
Adagio's friends told her that she could have such a voice, if she practiced more days than not. But it seemed like such a hassle, and she rather enjoyed her carefree approach to life. She was beautiful and she knew it, and she was already getting good at convincing people (usually boys, but often girls too) to just give her things. She'd decided that that was her marketable skill and she was planning to skate through life on it. Pursuing the taxing and mostly unrewarding career in music should be left to those talented in it, such as-
As if on cue, Aria Blaze started her solo piece on the not-quite-distant stage. Now there was a girl who lived up to her name. Always seeming to be stifled by ensemble acts, Aria really shone when she took the scene alone. Well, maybe not entirely alone. Although she didn't mesh well with other voices, instruments certainly didn't hurt her performance. Especially when said instruments were played by her brilliant and equally aptly-named partner in crime Sonata Dusk. The pair's numbers were always dark and alluring, and in this case seemed to draw the sun out of the sky, although Adagio knew it was just a coincidence of their performance showing up at the same time as the afternoon's end.
Gentle, kind-hearted Aria. Brilliant, thoughtful Sonata.
The curly-haired girl couldn't help but smile as she thought of her friends, the best any girl could hope to have. She also couldn't help the tears welling up in her eyes as she thought of how many times she's brushed them off or let them down. To the ignorant, Aria's and Sonata's melodies always carried a quality of searching and summoning, as if trying to draw something mysterious to them. However, Adagio knew better, that it was she who was being called out to, because her friends wanted her to be with them.
Now that she couldn't avoid admitting the truth behind their song, Adagio forced herself to stand up from the hillside. Next, she stretched until the lethargy that seemed a constant for her finally released its grip for a little while. Then finally, she ran away from the stage where her friends were expressing with all their hearts how much they wanted her there with them.
Things got a little foggy in the interim between her departure from the stage and her arrival at the store where her life would change forever, but she would never forget the store itself. It was poorly lit (like everything was at the time), but carried the scent of a rather nice sandalwood incense. The shopkeeper's welcome and awkward attempt at recommending items were drowned out by a memorizing music from somewhere in the back. Adagio wove her way through shelves and piles of artfully arranged antiques in pursuit of the music's source. What she eventually found was an ornate box, which she had mistaken for a music box until she found she couldn't open it.
She was fiddling with the box's lock when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Despite the gentleness of the touch, she still jumped and gave a little shriek and threw the box straight up so hard that it hit the ceiling. Caught off-guard by her reaction, the shopkeeper tried to recover and catch the box. He failed miserably, mostly because he was trying to avoid touching Adagio inappropriately, and she was standing between him and the box's path. Slipping right past his fingers without contact, it slammed into the ground. On impact, it divoted out a little bit of the hard-packed dirt the shop had for a floor and smudged a corner, but was otherwise unharmed.
"That box and its contents are not for sale," the tired-looking man said, picking up the box and returning it to its place.
"Why not?"
"Near as I can guess, they're cursed. I'm keeping them out of the hands of anyone who, unlike me, might have the potential to be influential enough to bring their havoc to bear. You're in the storage section of my shop. Nothing back here is for sale."
"Shouldn't you have some way of securing things?"
"They're in a locked box, and there's a sign." the man replied, pointing to a sign hanging from a small rafter. It read "SALES" on the side facing them, and could be assumed to read "STORAGE on the opposing side.
"Maybe we can negotiate? I know some-"
"They are NOT for-" The shopkeeper's effort to turn to glare at her was interrupted by the box striking him in the side of the head.
There was some blood and he dropped immediately, but that didn't stop her from hitting him in the face a couple more times with the box when he groaned and tried to sit up. And then a few more times with her fists before she realized what she was doing. If he didn't get help soon, he was probably going to die, she realized. For some reason, that notion only heightened the rush she was already riding. Whatever was in that box had awoken a darkness she didn't know resided in her.
Adagio just wished she didn't like it so much.
