A few days had passed since the Battle Of The Bands at Canterlot High and it was a reversal of fortune in that moment. Sunset Shimmer who was once not liked by most students was beginning to be more welcomed around the school, as well as the staff who work there. The Dazzlings on the other hand were dealt a severe blow, they had the whole school at their feet, until the Rainbooms put an end to their tyranny and smashed their crystals, taking away their only source of magic power.
For two days now, Adagio, Aria and Sonata have been walking around the streets, trying to find some source of warmth and food. But everywhere they went, they were turned away, no one wanted anything to do with them. It was getting late at night once more and the three sirens were walking past a food store, the shop was still open for a few more minutes so the lighting on the display window showed all the cakes and other food that were on sale.
The girls turned their attention to the window and began to lay their hands on the glass, they were so close and yet so far away.
"Girls." Sonata spoke first. "I'm hungry."
"We're all hungry Sonata!" Aria exclaimed. "Shut up!"
"Both of you shut-up!" Adagio scolded. "You're not helping!"
Sonata began to think of their situation a little better. "I guess it could be worse, one of us could start hallucinating that the others are food."
Aria looked at her in disbelief. "Okay, you can not be that dumb! You know that kind of stuff only happens in car...." her words began to drift off as she started to hallucinate and looked at Adagio's head which was a giant cream puff.
Adagio looked at her, worried. "Why are you staring at me like that?"
Suddenly, Aria pulled out a knife and fork from her sweater. "Hold still for a second."
"Okay, I see where this is going." Aria began to grin and drool at her and as the fork touched her hair, Adagio screamed. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAA...."
Adagio began to run away fast with shameful abandon.
Aria then chased after her. "GET BACK HERE, GIANT TALKING FOOD!"
Sonata was confused, but she then ran after them. "Wait...I'm still hungry!"
After nearly an hour of Aria's failed attempt to eat Adagio's hair which was now out of place in some way, the girls were more tired and hungrier than ever. As much as it would finish off whatever pride they were clinging onto, they needed help and there was only one person they thought of who might be able to tolerate them for the night.
"Look, isn't that Sunset's home?" Adagio asked as she pointed to a light in the house that just switched off.
"Wait, how do you know Sunset lives there?" Aria asked with suspicion.
Adagio looked back sheepishly. "You don't wanna know."
Sonata however was already running towards Sunset's house, they looked forward and ran after her.
"No, wait!" Adagio called as Aria grabbed Sonata just outside Sunset's house.
"Hey! Let go of me, Aira!" Sonata protested. "I'm not spending another night out here."
"Oh so what you want is more important than destroying whatever reputation we have, stupid?" Aria replied.
"You're stupid!"
"Girls, please..." Adagio intervened, somewhat in a pleading manner. "Can we just get this over with now?"
"So wait, I have to knock on her door?" Sonata asked. "But why me?"
"Because you're the one that Sunset would be more willing to listen to than us." Adagio sighed.
Sonata smiled and knocked on the door.
Aria facepalmed and sighed.
The downstairs light came on and the door opened, there was Sunset in her nightwear with her cutiemark design in the centre, she then saw who was knocking on her door and her expression changed, she didn't seem pleased to see the three girls outside her home.
"Uh hi S-S-Sunset." Sonata greeted nervously.
"Dazzlings?" Sunset asked, surprised. "It's 1am in the morning, what are you three doing here? And why do you look all...uh, not showered in a while?"
The three of them had to admit, they hadn't been able to keep themselves clean for two days.
Adagio tried to think of an excuse. "Oh, uh, on second thought, it's nothing, we were just standing here to, um-"
Sonata then suddenly cut her off, got on her knees and started crying and begging at Sunset. "We're cold and starving and we tried taking a bath in the lake at the park, but Officer Armour was all "I won't warn you girls again, quit getting naked in public", let us in ple-hee-hee-heeeze!!"
Aria facepalmed harder at the dramatic scene. "Ugh, sure, kill any dignity we had left all at once, nice work Sonata."
Sonata sniffed. "I do my best."
Sunset looked back, feeling tired and confused. "...You two okay?"
"Y-you'll have to excuse them..." Adagio whimpered. "They're idiots."
"Not the first time..." Aria muttered.
"Can we spend the night with you, please?" Sonata asked, trying to be polite.
Sunset immediately began to feel suspicious. "And why would I wanna do that?"
"Because..." Sonata then pleaded again. "MERCY! MERCY!"
"It's 1 am in the morning, Sonata! Come back after breakfast and we can talk about mercy, or whatever."
But Sonata kept going. "HOSPITALITY! HOSPITALITY!"
Sunset then began to lecture them and with her being tired, it didn't help. "Me, my friends and the rest of the school showed you plenty of hospitality when you lot first arrived, and what do we get in return? You brainwashed the school with your magical voices, turn us against each other, and tried to feed on the conflict that resulted to regain your powers and take over this world, and probably Equestria too given the chance."
The three girls looked back in embarrassment and guilt, but Sunset continued. "You lot have already violated the terms of sacred hospitality, which you three still haven't apologise for. I'll consider mercy or hospitality after you at least do that first, thank you very much."
Sonata went back to begging. "I APOLOGIZE! THEY APOLOGIZE! RIGHT? WE DON'T WANNA BE ORDINARY!"
"Yes, we... we apologize! Really!" Aria added, half-heartedly. "We didn't mean to try and conquer the school, and then starting a world war after that to feed on conflict and achieve apotheo-OW!"
Adagio hissed at her silently. "Shut it, you idiot! Do you want to get in her house or what? Besides, we already figured out we can't do that! It would just give us a fatal overdose of power, remember...?"
"I thought we agreed having a slowly rising conflict would let us adapt to the power intake." Aria blurted out.
Sunset raised an eyebrow at them both. "Not really helping your case here..."
Adagio felt embarrassed. "Uhhh yeah..we know we kinda...tried to take over the world..and turned the whole school against you...and made your friends fight and all. But aside from that, it was all just a joke, hehe."
Sonata pleaded one more time. "PLEEEASE! I WANT CAKE! It's cold and there's wolves and raccoons out here that want to eat us and I'm probably delicious!"
Sunset blinked. "We don't have wolves."
"But there could be! Or maybe vampires, like the one in the books that-"
"Okay I'm just stopping you right there. It's now 1:10am in the morning and I don't have the energy for this." She then shakes off Sonata who had been using her nightwear as a tissue. "Come in, take off your shoes and try not to break anything."
Sonata then jumped up and wrapped her arms around Sunset tightly. "OH MY CELESTIA! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!"
Aria and Adagio smiled for the first time as Sonata walked on inside, they were about to go in as well, but Sunset stopped them. "Ahem! You two haven't apologized yet."
They both gulped, knowing their pride had been swallowed and there was no going back.
"I'm sorry, Sunset..." Aria said quietly.
"Yeah, we're really...sorry." Adagio added.
They both went into a huge shade of red and Sunset looked back, grinning before stepping aside to let them in.
In the kitchen, Sunset had brought out a pile of food on the table, the Dazzlings couldn't contain their excitement and began eating away, grabbing whatever they could that looked tasty. Sonata was the most reasonable, she took her time with her food whilst blushing and crying happy tears, but Aira and Adagio were not so subtle with their food, they were like animals.
Sunset could only watch them gulping the food down and thinking why this had to happen on this night. But more importantly, her food budget is going to be turning a 180 this week.
"So good! SO GOOD!" Adagio said, munching on a cookie.
"How much more of my food are you going to eat?" Sunset asked. "You've all been going straight at it for the last thirty minutes!"
"Why?" Aria asked back. "It's not like we haven't eaten anything good ever since you got us kicked out of your High School!"
"I thought you three just eat emotions or something. Don't you?"
Adagio then paused eating for a moment. "Was, until you and your friends broke our gems! Besides, we don't just drive them to conflict and eat their emotions, where do you think we get our protein? When we were still in Equestria, we just have the pony villages we come across give us all their food to feast on after we drank all their emotions and mind-controlled their emotionless husks with our songs."
"And when the normal food wasn't enough, they offer themselves!" Sonata added. "Back in the old days, I would gorge myself on them by the hundreds like tacos and-" Adagio elbowed her to stop saying anymore. "Oww! What? What did I say?"
"And believe me, we eat a LOT." Aria said. "Do you have any idea how big we Sirens can get at full power? I doubt even the school's sports hall would be big enough for any one of our Siren bodies to fit in, if Sonata doesn't accidentally flatten it first."
Sunset just couldn't believe what she had just heard. "I'm not sure if I should feel exasperated or disturbed right now..."
"What's so disturbing? Sirens are carnie-vores, duh!" Sonata said. "That's why we have those fangs in our true forms. And really, what else are you gonna do when you're THAT big?"
Sunset was about to protest, but then thought better of it. "You may have a point...just don't mention eating people again, alright?"
Sonata looked at them with puppy dog eyes. "Can we still talk about how neat it was to be really, really big?"
"That's what she said." Adagio muttered.
After what seemed a long while of eating, the girls were full up and they were feeling better, but now they were focused on getting clean.
"Mind if we use your bathroom?" Sonata asked with her hand in the air.
Sunset sighed, but she was in no mood to protest any further. "Sure, but one at a time and please don't make a mess."
The girls nodded and Sonata went in first, Aria and Adagio would have to wait their turn. During this time, Sunset was cleaning up the mess made in the kitchen before heading to the living room. She pulled out her journal book that she wrote in a few days ago and began to write a new event that happened, wondering if her friends can help.
Sometime later, the Dazzlings had all used the shower and they were feeling a lot better now but were beginning to feel even more tired. Sunset brought them to her bedroom and brought out three identical nightwear that were the same as the one she was wearing.
Aria and Sonata changed into the nightwear with Sonata being the happiest to wear clean, fresh clothes, Adagio was a little hesitant though.
"Is this really all you have?" Adagio asked.
"It's two in the morning. Take it or leave it." Sunset grumbled.
"Alright alright, fine! Jeez..."
Adagio then did the same, they were all in matching nightwear now.
"I want my sleep girls, so can we get to bed now?"
Aria yawned, they had to admit that it was getting very late.
"Yeah, but we have a question." Adagio said. "Are you okay with us snoring?"
"Wait, you three snore?" Sunset asked as the pupils on her eyes began to shrink.
"I do not snore!" Sonata protested. "I once stayed awake all night long to see if I snored, and I didn't!"
At that point, Sunset wished that this was all merely a nightmare. Except it was all too real.
"I'll sleep on the couch instead, you three share my bed."
"Awww, but who will I able to cuddle up to at night?" Sonata moaned.
"Do I look like I care anymore? Just go to sleep, please. We'll talk about it in the morning, night girls..."
The Dazzlings looked at each other, they shrugged and got into Sunset's bed before making themselves comfortable and slept away. Sunset gave a half-hearted smile, grabbed a spare duvet and brought it downstairs with her to the living room, at least she wouldn't be able to hear any of the snoring that was going on upstairs.
As she got on her couch and placed the spare duvet over her, she had a recap of what happened and yet despite all that followed, she did feel good inside. Sure the Dazzlings tried to cause so much destruction, but they're just normal girls now and doing a bit of hospitality made her feel warm. They reminded of her when she was at her weak point before she was given a chance of reforming for the better. Perhaps in time, the Dazzlings would be reformed as well.
"Maybe they do deserve a second chance..."
Author's Note
Special thanks and credit goes to those who I've chosen to remain as anonymous whose ideas as well as a private conversation on Skype, which inspired me to write this story.
