Fuzzy [SPOILERS FOR DAZZLING SUNSET]
Author's Note
Potential SPOILERS ahead for my on-going and as of yet incomplete story: A Dazzling Sunset
While I consider this a sort of alternate ending for Aria from what I have planned for her in Dazzling Sunset, you might want to skip it if you don't want anything spoiling that story.
Fuzzy [SPOILERS FOR DAZZLING SUNSET]
Fluttershy’s shoulders tensed when the car in her drive pulled to a halt in the small parking clearing. Inside she could see Sunset and the Dazzlings, the mean girl with the big poofy hair up front and the other two in the rear. Even from her porch, she could see how Aria, the one in pigtails, held herself. Head down, shoulders slumped in defeat. She wasn’t sure of all the details, but when Princess Twilight had returned to their world and asked her to look after the siren, she didn’t refuse. Not loudly, at least.
The Princess seemed to think she could help Aria. Lead the siren to the redemption Sunset was helping Adagio and Sonata with. Her pony counterpart was apparently something of a miracle worker in that regard. Now, sink or swim, she was going to have to meet that same measure. Fluttershy held her breath while Sunset and Adagio both climbed out of the blue utility vehicle together. They came around and opened the door for Aria before helping her out.
The girl looked broken. Lost. She looked like a lot of the stray and homeless animals that found their way to her at the shelter. Maybe she just needs a nice warm bed and some good food? Redeeming an evil sea monster shouldn’t be any different than rehabilitating a mistreated pet, right?
Fluttershy gasped, her eyes going wide when the girls got closer and she could see Aria’s wrist were bound with some rope. This was supposed a drop off of a damaged girl in need of care, not...not a prisoner drop off! In spite of her normally reserved nature, the pink haired girl spoke up, stepping forward off her porch. “Untie her! Aria is not under arrest! She’s been bad, but this is a place of care and healing, and I will not stand for that sort of treatment!”
“You don’t know how bad Aria has been…” Adagio started, looking away in admonishment. “It’s for your safety.”
“Fluttershy,” Sunset grabbed the rope, pulling the knot there taut, “are you sure you can handle this? Sirens, even without magic, are a handful.”
“Princess Twilight believes I can.” Fluttershy shrank a little, her bluster fading fast. “If she has faith in me, isn’t it the least I-I can do...to have faith in m-me too?” The girl lowered her head, matching Aria’s own, her hair covering most of her face. “Please...untie her.”
The other siren didn’t look pleased, but she didn’t move to stop Sunset from yanking the knot loose and letting the tie fall to the ground. Aria, silent through the whole proceeding rubbed her wrists with her hands for a moment before looking Fluttershy in the eyes. “So this is where they’re hiding me away? With you?”
Fluttershy nodded, her voice once again scared away.
“Heh. I’ll be out of here in a few hours at best.” Aria leaned forward, snapping her teeth at Fluttershy and then laughing when the girl nearly fell on her backside.
“Want us to hang around?”
Fluttershy shuddered, her eyes locked on Aria’s wicked grin. “N-no...I can do this...I hope.”
Sunset shared a look with Adagio for a moment before turning back to Fluttershy. “Well, if you need us...just call, ok?” And like that, the two girls were alone.
Insects buzzing in the afternoon sun and birds chirping in the abundant trees were the only sounds after Sunset had backed out of the yard and turned back up the long rutted drive to the main road. Fluttershy kept her head down, and stayed still, trying not to provoke Aria into anything. Let her get used to me. Used to the house. Even the hurt ones need to feel comfortable before they can really be helped.
“Yeah...I don’t think I’ll even give you an hour.” Aria took a deep breath, standing with her back unbowed and frowning at her surroundings once they were truly alone. Fluttershy’s home was well outside town, in what could charitably be referred to as the ‘boonies.’ It was too quiet, too serene for Aria’s taste. Smells nice though. Is someone baking something?
Fluttershy watched the dark colored girl look around and brushed her hair out of her eyes. “That’s okay...you can leave if you really want to. I...I don’t think I could stop you if I even wanted to.” She flinched, a little squeak escaping her lips when Aria turned to glare at her. “B-b-but I have some fresh cookies, if you’re hungry! Or sweet tea if you’re thirsty...and a spare room if-if you’re tired…”
She took a step back, under the shadow of the huge tree that grew alongside the porch and the front of her home. “I-I want to help you...if I can. But I’m not going to pressure you.”
“No pressure?” Aria scowled. “That’s what they’re for, huh? One call away and in come the enforcers.”
“No.”
“What?” The siren tilted her head, eyebrow raised.
“I won’t call them. Sometimes...it’s best to just roam on your own…” Fluttershy pressed her back against her screen door, the old wood and metal mesh creaking under her slight weight. “Just because you’re a stray doesn’t mean you don’t have a place that could be like...home. A place where there is someone that’ll look out for you. I-I care for a lot of lost animals...and plenty of them like to roam free. I trust them to do okay on their own. It’s what works best, right?”
“Excuse me, but are you comparing me to a stray dog?” Aria’s voice was dangerously soft and low.
“No! N-not at all!” Fluttershy put up her hands defensively. “I just mean...that you’re your own person! I can’t control you...I’m not strong like Sunset or Adagio, Aria. But I can help you if you let me.”
“Who says I want help?”
“No one.” Fluttershy looked down, her legs feeling weaker by the moment. “I’m just here if you need something.” She lowered her hands, holding herself instead to keep from shaking. “Everyone needs a little kindness in their lives. That’s...that’s what I think, at least.”
The siren narrowed her eyes at the cowering girl, pursing her lips in thought. Idiot. It’s amazing no one has taken advantage of her yet. She frowned again, another whiff of the baked sweets catching hers and her stomach’s attention. She hadn’t eaten for hours, and this girl was offering them, no strings attached. Aria tapped her foot for a moment before stepping forward and grabbing the door handle, which put her face to face with the pink haired weakling.
“I could eat.”
Fluttershy eep’ed, her eyes wide as her view was suddenly filled with Aria. The screen door kept her from going anywhere and with the other girl so close, it suddenly became apparent how much taller Aria was. Those artfully shredded jacket sleeves practically bulging with Aria’s toned arm. It was like being loomed over by a fitness model that smelled like sea salt and fresh foam.
Fluttershy clenched her jaw tightly closed to keep her teeth from chattering and hissed through them. “Letmeshowyoutothekitchen!”
She lead Aria into her old farmhouse, through the living room with its collection of small animal homes, boxes and improvised dens. House cats slept in the sunbeams. Colorful birds chirped from their perches in barred enclosures. Fluttershy couldn’t bring herself to think of them as cages. It felt inhumane. She lead them down a short hall past a small office area where shelves bowed under the weight of medical and veterinary journals and well-worn furniture sagged under the weight of years. Finally, they reached a tiny kitchen done in tile that might have been blue at some point in the last hundred years where the scent of chocolate and sugar was drifting up from a dented metal tray.
“Are those chocolate chip?” Aria inhaled deeply, stopping just short of the small table the cookies were sitting on.
“Yes!” Fluttershy smiled broadly, her fear of the siren vanishing for a moment. “I baked them myself from my gran-gran’s recipe. I’m not as good at baking as Pinkie Pie, but she says my cookies are pretty good.” Her smile dimmed slightly, unsure of herself when Aria didn’t immediately grab one. “I...sometimes wonder if she’d just humoring me though…”
“Are they gluten free?” Aria sneered, her stomach growling quietly, and picked up one of the oversized cookies. “Any GMOs? Is this free trade certified chocolate?”
“I...uh...I,” Fluttershy’s smile fell completely, her eyes bouncing from the pan of cookies to the one in Aria’s hand, “I-I-I don’t know? I’m not sure, I can check!”
“Pfft.” The pigtailed girl laughed darkly and took a big bite out of the cookie. “As if I care. I’m just teasing you. You’re too easy a target. Gotta have more backbone if you don’t want people like me walking all over you. Grow a pair!”
Fluttershy blinked, taken aback at Aria’s outburst. She shrank a little, ducking her head down some. “But...I don’t want to grow-”
“Turn of phrase, ya pansy.” Aria threw the last of her cookie into her mouth and grabbed two more, continuing to talk as she chewed. “These are pretty good, actually. You got a TV? I got nothing better to do at the moment.”
“I have a TV.” Fluttershy kept her voice low, trying to pull her head into a nonexistent turtle shell. “I don’t get cable though.” Aria snapped up at that, looking back at Fluttershy as if she’d literally grown a pair as suggested. “I just read a lot. Or use a streaming service on my computer...I know a lot of cute baby animal videos we could watch...if you want to, that is.”
“Sheesh, it’s like they sent me to live with a cavegirl. At least you have internet access.” Aria shook her head and turned, looking back down the hall toward the front of the house for a moment before turning back to Fluttershy. “What’s the hold up? Lead on.”
Things started hesitantly, but soon it became an awkward sort of routine. Fluttershy took care of her animals as she normally did, but cooked her meals for two. On the days when Aria was gone from the house, she saved a plate in the fridge, or gave the rest out to some of the less picky eaters in her living room. When the siren did show up, they enjoyed an uneasy silent agreement of dinner and binge watching shows from her tired old sofa. They would sit on opposite ends until Aria started to yawn loudly, and then Fluttershy would retire to bed, only to find the girl gone before she left for classes the next morning.
After about a week, Fluttershy found the gruff siren in the backyard, tape wrapped around her fists, shadow boxing against a tree in the dappled light of sunset. Afterwards, their nightly session on the sofa was delayed when a very sweaty Aria used the shower while her clothes were cleaned—much to the enjoyment of Fluttershy’s nose. When Aria rejoined her, Fluttershy had the computer on and was waiting in her customary spot on the couch. For the second time that day, Aria surprised her by sitting in the middle, an entire cushion closer than usual. When the yawning started a few hours later, Fluttershy could have sworn she even heard a grumbled ‘thank you’ as she shuffled off to her room and bed.
As the days passed, the initial awkwardness faded and they settled into reasonable comfort with each other. Fluttershy found Aria around more often, usually in the backyard, exercising. Aria never said why she was doing handstand push-ups or doing curls with makeshift barbells made from logs as thick as Fluttershy’s torso. But it certainly had a noticeable effect on Fluttershy whenever she happened to catch the siren on her way to the bathroom after a workout with her shirt slung over one shoulder, hard abs on display. Their dinners became talkative as Aria started to ask her host’s opinion on the shows and old movies they watched late into the night. Even their shared entertainment became more comfortable as the number of cushions between them shrunk to nothing as black and white zombies moaned across the screen.
It was gentler non-flesh starved moaning that woke her in the morning. Fluttershy licked her dry lips, completely at a lost as to why she was in her office room as early morning light streamed in through the window. She blinked slowly, the fog in her mind lifting with all the speed of a shuffling horde of the undead. She couldn’t remember going to bed, or if the heroes of the movie had survived the end of their world. She could, however, feel that she was still fully dressed, on the couch, with a warm arm around her shoulders, and a soft breath stirring her hair.
Fluttershy stopped breathing herself as the world around her snapped into focus and she realized her head as resting in Aria’s lap, those perfect enviable abs and toned thighs cushioning her. She turned her head microscopically until she could look up at Aria. The siren was fast asleep, slumped carelessly into the corner of one of the sofa’s armrests. Still holding her breath, Fluttershy sat up carefully so as not to disturb Aria’s slumber. She smoothed her mussed hair, shooting Aria nervous glances until she was sure that the siren wasn’t going to wake up. Aria didn’t twitch, or change how she was breathing.
Only then did Fluttershy allow herself to breathe again.
She studied Aria for a moment, her eyes gliding over the hard edges and sweeping curves that made the vision before her. The fitness model that had first come to her home weeks ago now seemingly replaced with a near amazonian goddess in pigtails. Fluttershy took a deep breath, counting to ten silently as she tried to slow her thudding heart and will away the heat rising to her cheeks.
I guess I’ll go get breakfast started...I wonder which one of us passed out first last night? Somehow, Fluttershy was pretty sure she would have noticed if Aria had fallen asleep and remembered laying down in the girl’s lap. So...she must have just let me rest. That’s kind of her...I think it’s time to see if she likes gran-gran’s french toast recipe.
Smiling at the thought, Fluttershy rose from the couch and stepped away toward the kitchen. Aria deserves extra maple syrup for letting me sleep like that. She stopped at the doorway and looked back for a moment at the purple hair that was cascading off the back of the sofa, swaying slightly with each soft moan Aria made as she continued to dream.
“Thank you, Aria. Maybe I can do this after all.”
Humans, Aria noted -- not for the first time-- were the worst.
Sure, she and her fellow sirens had hypnotized others, made them argue and fight. But it had never been about hurting anyone, unless someone had hurt them first. It was true that they did not care if one of them DID get hurt, but the goal had just been about the feeding.
Unlike the humans in the alleyway before her. The circle of teenagers kicking someone in their midst, the pained cries, the mocking laughs of the attackers.
Disgusting. At least it gave her the opportunity for some quick stress relief.
She shook her arms out, closing in on the pack of bullies. Caught up in their little world of violence, they never saw her coming.
Aria grabbed the first one by the neck with one hand. In his surprise, he did not even react beyond a gasp when the strength of a nearly 24 metre long sea snake bundled up in the body of a young woman casually chucked him against a wall.
“Hey, scum.”
That got the other’s attention. With a yell, the next guy threw a hasty punch in her direction. Aria took his punch on the chest, not even flinching or really feeling it. She watched his eyes widen, grabbed his arm and…
The snapping sound made her grin.
She turned her attention to the last guy.
To his credit, he had judged the situation correctly. Unfortunately, he had grossly underestimated Aria’s reaction speed.
She surged forward, grabbing him by the collar of his hoodie. She dragged him back, swung him around and delivered a kick to his chest that sent him crashing into his friend. Unfortunately, his friend was still holding his badly mangled arm.
“Pathetic creatures.”
She ignored the pained screams and looked around.
The first guy was not moving. From the condition his face was in, he would stay put for a good while. Aria had not really bothered to keep her strength in check. Maybe he would wake up soon. Maybe he wouldn’t.
The second one was busy with his arm.
The third had collapsed, apparently gasping for air. A couple broken ribs, maybe. Oh well.
That left one person. Aria stepped towards the girl the lowlifes had been beating on...
“Oh, fuck.”
She knew that pink hair, that . It was HER.
One of the Rainbooms. One of that thrice-cursed rabble of students who had put an end to the siren’s rather comfortable life in the human world. Who had robbed them of their power and voices.
She lay there, softly whimpering, slender body curled protectively around a small carton. The carton was, as Aria noted with surprise, untouched by the beatings.
The same could not be said about the girl. Her clothes were filthy, as was her hair. Bruises and cuts blemished her fair skin. One of her shoes was missing.
High-pitched meowing was coming from the carton.
It shouldn’t have bothered her.
She wanted to leave. Just turn around and leave the girl alone. Whatever would happen to her, she deserved it, right?
But a tiny voice in her head had another opinion.
And she could always threaten the girl into keeping quiet, right?
She spun around, and waltzed up to the two conscious bullies. She grabbed the still whimpering second, grabbed him by the neck and swiftly patted him down with her free hand.
It didn’t take her long to find his wallet.
She took the items she was looking for, and threw the rest on the ground. Then she pulled the struggling, choking human to eye level.
“Listen up, you worm. This,” she produced his student ID and held it close enough for him to recognize, “tells me exactly who you are. If I ever hear that you hurt anyone, ever again, I will find you, and I will end you. Tell the others. Is that clear?”
The guy tried to wriggle out of her grasp, so Aria merely slapped him.
“Is. That. Clear.”
He made some vaguely fearful and agreeing noises this time- Aria simply dropped him.
As she turned around, the girl had managed to sit up. She was still crying, but was more busy calming - what an absurd thing to do in her situation - the kittens contained in the box she had protected.
“I’m sorry, little babies”, she managed to choke out. “I’m sorry you had to see that. I won’t abandon you.”
Aria could just watch, mesmerized, as the badly beaten girl tried to smile, tried to assure the mewling kittens that everything was alright.
That things would be better from now on. That life wasn’t over.
Aria felt jealous, in that moment.
She shook her head. There was no time for this.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said briskly. It took effort for her to even make eye contact. But she was not scared of this girl.
“Y-you… A-aria Blaze?”
Why did this girl remember her name?
She watched the girl struggle to her feet, tears still falling. She did not take her hands of the box even for a second.
It took her a while to rise, but she managed. When she took her first, uncertain step, she immediately flinched in pain. She stumbled forward, and before Aria knew what was going on, she had caught the girl in her arms.
Fuck.
The girl just had to look up. Surprise and gratitude shining in her eyes that were still moist with tears.
Double Fuck.
“Thank… thank you…”
“Whatever.”
“My foot… I can’t…”
F….
~#~
Aria ended up carrying the girl and the box of kittens. Halfway through the city, to a hospital, and then back to her home. She hated herself for it. She hated how the girl held onto her, the way she had protected the kittens. She hated how she enjoyed the attention, the gratitude.
She watched the girl introduce the kittens to their new home. And she accepted the girl’s, no, Fluttershy’s invitation to stay for dinner.
And when she left, and Fluttershy asked if she would visit again soon…
Damn it.
