Amphorae

Chapters

Prologue
First impressions
Home sweet home
The princess and the runaway
Epistolary interlude
Talaria
Pithos
Iokheira
The runaway and the bookworm
Epilogue

Prologue

Rose Brass frowned and sat back in her rickety old swivel chair. “So why is a cheap suit from the District coming to see a local social worker on the other side of the country?”

The “cheap suit” in question cleared his throat with a mix of annoyance and nerves—annoyance over the trace of disdain in his host’s tone and wording, nerves over her appearance and apparent mood. He shifted on the tired metal-and-plastic stacking chair facing the equally battered desk and lifted his briefcase. Looking down at it as he set it on his lap and opened it was preferable to continuing to stare at her. She, in turn, rocked back and forth slightly, good eye narrowed and mouth compressed to conceal a small smirk. She knew exactly the effect she was having; indeed, she cultivated it.

If it had been just the prosthetic right arm, she might have been certified fit for duty, but when the docs concluded her left eye couldn’t be saved, that was that. The army captain found herself down-checked and retired to the permanent disability list. Without any other direction, she moved back home, to the city where she’d grown up. The next few months were a bad dream, but eventually she’d washed up at the doors of an organization dedicated to assisting veterans just like her. They’d helped her rebuild her shattered self into something she could like and respect again, and along the way found her a new career.

Now she paid it forward. She got the hard cases, in both senses of the word. Unregenerate gang members. Druggies who got revived by paramedics, often the same ones, over and over. Mental cases, though one wasn’t supposed to call them that. Those who, one way or another, ended up even more completely crushed than she had been and couldn’t scrape themselves back up again. She didn’t always succeed. Too many of her young clients were struck from her rolls in myriad ways—missing, in cuffs, feet first, and every other fashion one could imagine. But enough of them came through to keep her returning to her tiny closet-like office day after day.

Right now there was an unusual lull in her case load. She wondered, not at all idly, if the man in front of her, or his superiors, had arranged that.

Her guest finally stopped rummaging in his pleather-covered briefcase and hefted a monumentally thick expanding wallet in one hand. “This is why,” he growled. After shutting the briefcase and lowering it to the floor again, he dropped the file, still held closed by its elastic cord, onto her desk.

She sat up straight and looked, but made no move to reach for it. “All right, that just changes my question. Why is a cheap suit from the District bringing a new case to a local social worker on the other side of the country?” She turned her gaze on him again. “At least, I assume it’s a new case.”

“It is. And I guarantee it isn’t like any case you’ve had before.” Now it was his turn to hide a smirk. He probably thought he was doing a better job of it than he actually was.

Rose reached up left-handed to rub her scarred cheek under the ostentatious black eye-patch. “That would take a lot of doing,” she replied with no particular emphasis. “And again, why me?”

The more businesslike tone drew him into replying in kind. “You have a security clearance.”

“I had a security clearance.”

“You’ve been re-investigated and re-cleared.”

Rose did her best not to look startled. After a moment she replied dryly, “That was fast work, especially considering what I went through after being drop-kicked from the army.”

The man shrugged. “Bad as it was, you never let it get to the point you couldn’t qualify. Money was tight, but you always paid your bills. You were depressed, but you never tried to drown it in drink—or anything else. I could go on.” But why bother? was the unspoken addendum.

“Huh.” There was an awkwardly long silence after that. “Okay. Next question: Why do I need a security clearance to handle a youth case? Foreign national?”

“You could say that.”

“I could say no, too.”

“Look, it’s all in the file.”

“Yeah, and there’s a lot of it—assuming the information is both good and useful, which I doubt. Can’t any of you people give straight answers?”

He sighed. “Fine. It’s a big file because there’s a lot of context you need to know before you can start, and there are three clients, not just one. The info is good, I can guarantee that much, but how useful it is I can’t say. That’s for you to decide.”

“Context? What context? I can study up on any cultural background I need, unless the clients are from another planet.”

He picked up his briefcase and stood to leave, clearly having exhausted his patience. “Exactly.”

By the end of the day, Rose’s world had been turned upside-down. She stared at the file, once again neatly closed, on her worn blotter. She was forced to concede, however grudgingly, her visitor had good reason for his evasiveness—and that he was right about the case being unlike any she’d seen before.

The information had to be good; there was too much evidence and sound analysis for it to be completely spurious. Even her ingrained military distrust of all the ways intelligence can go wrong was overcome by the sheer volume and quality of the briefing material. Details might be blurry or downright wrong, but she was convinced the most important elements were correct.

So there was, of all things, a magical portal to a world of talking ponies—and other creatures—hidden in a plinth standing on the grounds of a high school out in the suburbs. Hijinks ensued, and now magic from that other world had leaked into this one. That was more than a little frightening, but despite herself she was favorably impressed by the efforts of the reformed runaway who’d started it all to make good and to turn her life around.

She was less impressed by the famous ancient wizard who’d built the portal—and who’d dumped some of his problems on her world. His logic, apparently, was to exile the three . . . sirens somewhere that lacked magic, thereby depriving them of their power. That had worked out real well, now hadn’t it?

With a sigh, she leaned back and stared at the water-stained ceiling tiles. Reluctantly she extended him the benefit of the doubt. Military officers lived and all too often died by the adages “if it can go wrong, it will” and “no plan survives contact with the enemy”. The file didn’t say much about how he’d managed to punt them from one world to the other. He might not have had time to come up with a better plan. He might not have known enough to come up with a better plan. He might have been forced to do it on the fly, with no time for any planning at all, good, bad, or indifferent. It might have seemed like a good idea at the time.

And to be fair, it worked, for a while. The trio had scraped by with trace amounts of magic, keeping themselves below the notice of the authorities and getting what they needed to live, but not much more. Only when a big gob of magic leaked into the world, thanks to that runaway, did things change. She supposed even a mighty wizard might not be able to predict such a bizarre chain of events—especially since it had been centuries in the other world, but only a few years here.

In a maniacal bid for power the three had challenged the group of students who had absorbed so much of the magic that had come through. Naturally, the latter had resisted, aided by a princess from the other world and the runaway. Not only had they won, they utterly destroyed their opponents’ ability to use magic at all, apparently permanently.

Rose shivered once and raised her prosthetic hand to her eyepatch. The sirens’ crimes had been punished, eye for an eye. Now, as far as anyone knew, they were three ordinary teenage girls, lost and alone on the street. Her job would be to help them glue themselves back together into something resembling whole people.

Author's Note

“But Star Swirl must have sent them there ages ago,” said Applejack. “How come they're just surfacin’ now?”

“Without those pendants and the magic you brought here from Equestria,” said Twilight Sparkle, “they’re just three harmless teenage girls.” [Emphasis added.]

Occam’s Razor—specifically, the likeliest paths to be taken by scriptwriters working on behalf of a toy company—suggests these statements should be taken at face value. In turn, that suggests the sirens are indeed exactly as young as they appear, contemporaries of the other major characters—and the target audience. To assume otherwise is to impute depths to the story that seem far-fetched for a lightweight featurette created to sell toys to teenage girls.
At any rate, this story starts from that premise, though it does explore possible events and consequences unlikely to appear in the original franchise. Based on the events of “Shadow Play”, I’m forced to assume the Pillars’ spell threw the sirens forward in time, much as EchoWing suggests in the comments, as well as across dimensions. Judging from Applejack’s question (and Twilight’s response), even the characters are baffled by the apparent paradox, and that seems the simplest and most plausible resolution.

First impressions

They looked awful.

New clients always looked awful the first time Rose saw them, and it was always a different sort of awful. Yes, there were broad categories of awful, and she generally could classify individual examples of awfulness into the usual buckets, but the three girls sitting on the scratched and sagging stacking chairs in front of her desk were awful not just in the ordinary ways but in an undefinable new fashion as well. She’d expected that, more or less, but the strength and . . . alienness of it still took her by surprise.

They’d trudged through her office door, herded by her favorite cop. Detective Blue had watched with his patented Scowl of Authority, copied from old busts of emperors and consuls in the art-history books, as they more or less wilted onto the chairs. He and Rose had exchanged the usual clipped chitchat, now down to a standard script and decision tree. Homeless, limited belongings locked in the closet downstairs for safekeeping, yatta yatta. She and Blue didn’t smile—that wouldn’t fit the script—but years of shared experiences had made them friends of a sort. He closed with the usual assurance he would be downstairs, then withdrew to loiter menacingly in case he was needed. Sometimes he was.

The stage dressing was set, as it always was before an initial meeting, though with some differences. The file wallet sat on her blotter, flap open and facing her, bulked up with a stack of scratch paper in place of the actual contents the cheap suit had brought, which were locked in a filing cabinet elsewhere for safekeeping. Three modest sheafs sat in a row where she could peruse them, each with a small head shot stapled to the top. They were decent photos, just the sort one would see in a high-school yearbook, but the contrast between the grinning faces they depicted and the reality before her now was just short of heartbreaking. Fortunately, that was a barrier she long since had become inured to, and she slipped into her accustomed role smoothly.

“My name is Rose Brass. Captain Rose Brass. But you can call me Ms. Brass.” Her tone was firm and brisk, neither too harsh nor too soft. “And you are Adagio Dazzle, Aria Blaze, and Sonata Dusk.” She made a show of looking down at the documents and photos before her, then looking up to match images to faces.

All three faces looked unpleasantly stunned, but she wasn’t foolish enough to think her knowledge of their names was the cause. No, most of her new clients had just the same reaction, and she had learned how to play it up, just as she had with the visitor who’d brought her the case. Even clad in a powder-blue business suit and white blouse, a tall, sinewy middle-aged woman with a brass complexion and buzz-cut platinum hair stands out. A current-generation prosthetic arm and a black eye-patch—half-covering a network of scars as big as a hand with fingers spread—garnished that distinctive appearance with a faint air of raffish menace. Might as well make use of it.

“I’ve been assigned as your case worker. That means it’s my job to work with you, but I can’t do my job if you won’t meet me halfway. Do you understand?” She sat back a little and watched as they exchanged looks.

Adagio, by all accounts the ringleader, looked exhausted. Her bouffant hair was dirty and bedraggled, with only half the loft her photo displayed. The bags under her eyes looked bruised and puffy. Her arms hung loosely, hands resting open on her lap.

Aria was a ball of rage, but it was a tired anger. Her hair still was bound up in twin tails, though the fancy star-shaped binders were gone, replaced with simple elastic bands. Her fists bounced slightly on her rigid thighs and her eyes were narrow and glittering.

Sonata looked bewildered. Her roostertail was gone, letting her long hair fall loosely. She hugged herself and trembled compulsively. Without warning tears would begin to track down her cheeks, only to stop just as suddenly after a few moments.

They weren’t wearing the fancy costumes in which they’d performed that fateful evening. Nor did they have on the flashy street clothes in which they’d arrived at Canterlot High. Instead they wore torn and ratty hoodies, jeans, and sneakers, the uniform of the homeless teen. Whether they even possessed that other clothing any more was a question for another time.

When no immediate answer was forthcoming Rose leaned forward again. “Meeting me halfway starts now.” Her tone was even, almost conversational, but her good eye hardened just a bit.

Sonata stared mutely. Aria bared her teeth. Adagio finally sighed and rubbed her forehead, then spoke in a near-whisper. “I guess it’s better than what we’ve gone through since . . .”

“Since the Battle of the Bands,” Rose finished. Her prosthetic forefinger tapped the middle stack of forms. “Yes, it is. At this point you have nowhere to go but up. If you cooperate.” She paused and looked each of them in the eye. “I mean that in the sense of collaborating, like a group of authors or composers working on something too big for any one of them to finish.” They winced, and she checked off an item on a mental list. Some people clung to things they’d lost; others didn’t want the reminders. It looked like these three fell in the latter camp.

“I’m not your mother. I’m not here to tell you to clean your room or sit up straight. I’m here to answer questions and open doors and fight for you when you need it.” Rose took a breath. “I won’t lie. It’s a big system and it doesn’t always work as well as it should. I’m not superhuman, and neither are you—any more.” Most of that speech was straight off one of her standard scripts . . . except the last couple of words. They had pretty much the effect she wanted.

Both Adagio and Aria suddenly stared at her, eyes round and frightened. Sonata blinked owlishly. A moment later Aria recovered her bravado and shot to her feet. “How—”

“How do I know you’re not from around here?” Rose’s artificial hand moved to rest on the bogus file. “There was a lot of interesting reading in this. For instance, I know you hold no citizenship anywhere in this world—and you hold no citizenship anywhere in the world you came from, since you were punted out of it before modern ideas of nationality and citizenship could develop there. In short, you are stateless persons.”

“Can we go home?” The voice was thin and fragile.

Rose started, then looked over at Sonata. “No, honey,” she replied in a much softer voice. “I’m sorry, but you can’t.”

“Why not?” Aria looked forlornly defiant. “It’s not like we can do anything any more.”

“The same letter informing me you have no citizenship there also informed me you are outlaws and exiles. That sentence has not been remitted. You’re still banished.” Rose did not tell them it had been centuries in the other world, nor that the banishment might be lifted depending on how things went in the future. The one would be too disheartening, and the other she was “earnestly requested” not to mention. Since she agreed with the reasoning behind the request, she was more than willing to go along with it. Besides, now that they’d lost their magic, she wasn’t sure returning them to a world where it was endemic would be doing them a favor.

Aria sat back down, deflated. Adagio lowered her head and stared at her hands. Sonata’s vacant stare didn’t change.

“I also got another letter asking for any charges against you in this world to be dropped, because you’ve been punished enough already. That took some doing, but the good news is, you’re off the hook.” Rose forbore to mention exactly which princess had written that letter. She doubted her audience would be properly appreciative.

“Now. The first step is to get you three off the street and into someplace safe where you can sleep at night and get three square meals a day. The trouble is, you have no family or friends who could be tapped to serve as guardians. Since your whole background is classified ‘secret’, for obvious reasons, you can’t be placed in a shelter or halfway house with other residents. So about the only choice we have is to put you in a foster home. Even that’s going to be tricky and way outside the zone.” Rose gave them a level look. “It isn’t ideal, but there is no ideal solution. If there were, we wouldn’t be sitting here.”

Author's Note

Eventually I figured out Amphorae doesn’t have to chronicle every bit of the sirens’ progress; it only has to cover highlights of the early stages. That leaves plenty of room for other stories—both additional events during this period or further developments afterward. I’m not sure I will write many or even any of those stories. If my scenario sparks ideas, though, I’m open to the possibility of continuations or additions by other writers.

Home sweet home

The decade-old white panel van was unmarked and from the outside unremarkable. The interior was another matter. Configured for passengers, with a small cargo space at the rear, it bore several unusual features—most prominently a police-cruiser-style barrier just behind the front seats, albeit in a heavy-duty quarter-inch wire mesh instead of a thick sheet of transparent polycarbonate. The taciturn driver handled the vehicle expertly, allowing Rose to devote her full attention to the three girls sitting in the seats behind. They in turn looked around at the stereotypical suburban neighborhood of neat middle-class detached houses built, unmistakably, some forty years past, give or take a few. Ranch houses predominated.

In the middle of the block the van pulled to the curb and stopped. Rose called out, “All right, here we are,” then emerged onto the sidewalk and stood back a little way from the curbside rear door. The driver punched the control to unlock that door and, upon hearing the clunk of the lock disengaging, Rose beckoned the girls to exit. For a moment it looked as if they wouldn’t, but Sonata finally clambered over the others, nearly falling out onto the concrete as the door swung open. The brief comedic scramble that followed forced Rose to bite her lip in a fierce effort not to grin or, worse, laugh. After a minute or so, though, all three stood in front of her with varied expressions. Hope warred with fear on Sonata’s face. Resignation dominated Adagio’s. Aria resembled an actress sent by central casting to play the part of the rebellious teen, right down to the pout and folded arms.

Rose put her hands on her hips. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. The first order of business is to meet your caretakers and get a tour of the place. After that, if everything goes well, we’ll come back out so you can pick up your stuff. Understood?”

“What if it doesn’t?” Aria half-snarled.

“You don’t want to go there,” Rose replied. “Really. That’s not a threat, it’s just a fact. Your life would be a lot harder, my life would be a lot harder, everyone’s lives would be a lot harder. Please don’t.” There was a note of sincerity in her voice that clearly got through to Sonata and Adagio, the latter of whom elbowed Aria and glared at her. It didn’t have the voltage it might have before their defeat, but it was enough for Aria to subside with a muttered imprecation.

“Okay then. Let’s go.” She half-turned to extend her prosthetic arm toward the nearest house and stood aside to let her charges pass, careful to remain at arm’s length, an ingrained reflex born not only of her military training but years of experience with clients as delicate and dangerous as unexploded bombs.

The living room was pleasant but nondescript, much as the house itself was. Rose loomed behind the ex-sirens as they stood side by side facing the older couple who regarded them benignly. “Adagio Dazzle, Aria Blaze, Sonata Dusk, meet Logos Rhetor and Harmonia. They’ll be your caretakers while you’re living here.”

The pair’s physical contrast was striking. Logos, long and lean, towered over everyone else. He studied his new charges over small spectacles with a slight twinkle. Harmonia was the shortest in the room by a small margin, solid and a bit plump. She examined the girls through large squarish tortoise-shell glasses. Both were dressed for the occasion with a native formality, he in a white shirt and dark slacks; she in a dress with a subdued floral pattern.

“Good day, girls,” Harmonia greeted them graciously. “And welcome.”

“Ms. Brass has been good enough to explain everything she could,” Logos added. “Quite fascinating, and we hope to learn more from you—another day, of course.”

“Oh my yes.” Harmonia nodded. “For now, though, the most imporant thing is to get you three settled in. If you’ll just follow us, we’d be very pleased to show you around your new home.”

Rose brought up the rear, her very presence chivvying along the trio, as Logos and Harmonia led the way. They were thorough, guiding the cavalcade from room to room and pointing out features and peculiarities that weren’t always obvious. Along the way, the veteran parents set forth firm, no-nonsense house rules that in short order had both Aria and Adagio just short of glowering. Sonata tended toward the blankness of concentration, but perked up noticeably when the path wended its way through the lavish kitchen.

Once finished with the public and semi-public areas of the lower floor, the tour moved to the private spaces of the upper level. The door to the master bedroom suite was closed, but the other three bedrooms, the communal full bath serving them, and a smattering of storage spaces fitted in to balance the floor plan, were shown to all and sundry. At last the whole group stood in the vestibule, overlooking the high-ceilinged living room, to address the next question.

“Now then, my dears, each of you will live in one of these three bedrooms.” Harmonia folded her hands. “You’ll need to decide amongst yourselves who gets which.”

The resulting discussion devolved rapidly from imperious demands to near-argument, mostly between Adagio and Aria. Sonata bit her lip and said little. After a couple of minutes Rose let out a piercing whistle, cutting short the heated debate.

“I figured this would happen,” she observed with a withering lack of surprise. “So here. You can draw straws.” She proffered three cut-down soda straws, protruding from the loose fist of her left hand. “Longest straw chooses first, middle straw chooses from the remaining two, and short straw gets the last one. Sonata, you go first.”

The other two backpedaled immediately and, refereed by Logos and Harmonia, resumed diplomatic talks at a lower volume. Whenever negotiations hovered on the brink of collapse, Rose held out the straws. At last a treaty was worked out that left all three looking only mildly disgruntled, ratified with shiny new nameplates affixed by Logos to the bedroom doors.

Rose monitored the girls while they trooped out to retrieve their belongings and cart them back to their new digs. The fancier clothing they once possessed indeed was gone, she discovered. From grudging oblique mutters she gathered the garments had been sold off for eating money after the first ego-bruising experiences with unsympathetic clerks and managers the three no longer could mesmerize into giving them what they needed.

Under cover of their unnecessarily noisy unpacking, she conferred quietly with the older couple. “Thank you,” she said with simple sincerity. “I know none of this is going to be easy.”

“That’s quite all right, dear.” Harmonia patted Rose’s prosthetic arm, relying on its state-of-the-art receptors to convey the tactile contact. “We know that too, and we understand how hard it would have been for you to find a suitable couple otherwise.”

Logos smiled dryly. “Yes indeed. How many foster parents can there be who are conveniently semi-retired empty-nesters with security clearances, accustomed to relocating, and used to potentially dangerous conditions? Not to mention qualified to home-school.”

Rose shook her head and echoed the smile. “I did think of you two immediately when I started looking into the problem. The Agency told me you’d hit your twenty-year limit, but they couldn’t say whether you’d moved on to other jobs. It was quite a trick tracking you down.”

“We’re glad you did. Logos and I needed a new challenge. After so many years working overseas to help build schools and other institutions, a quiet retirement just seemed so, well, quiet.”

Rose laughed softly. “I’m amazed you were able to bring up a family of your own through all that.”

“It wasn’t easy,” Logos admitted as he swept a hand through his short gray hair. “If it weren’t for our rotations back to the District, I don’t think we could have done it. At least we won’t have that to deal with—this is a fine place you found for us all.”

“Normally it’s a safe house used by law enforcement for witnesses and such.” Rose looked past them to make sure the younger set still was distracted with their own activities and lowered her voice a little more. “Just to make sure you know, the house across the street and a house at each end of the block are set up as watch posts. They’ll be occupied in the next few days to keep an eye on things.”

The other two nodded exactly as if they hadn’t read the briefing papers thoroughly. Their careers in the country’s international development agency had sent them to several poverty-stricken or war-torn regions, she as a project coordinator and he as a project engineer and educator. They were used to bureaucratic procedures, documentation, and hazardous postings. By comparison the current situation probably would be less hair-raising than the combat zone where Rose had met them.

They exchanged a few more pertinent comments before switching back to generalized pleasantries as their charges came stringing back into earshot, having left belongings haphazardly stowed in drawers and closets. When all three stood, shifting restlessly, in their habitual side-by-side arrangement, Rose asked heartily, “All set?”

Nods of varying reluctance answered, and she turned back to Logos and Harmonia and asked as innocently as she could manage, “So, what next?”

Logos clapped his hands and rubbed them together with gusto. “Lunch, I think! Girls, what would you like?”

Sonata spoke up in a small voice. “Tacos?”

Author's Note

In general, I try hard to stay within established canon, or at least within statements made by show staff, as much as I possibly can. If I absolutely have to extrapolate, I try to put myself in the heads of the scriptwriters and their corporate overseers and see things from their point of view. In general that means taking things at face value unless I have reason to do otherwise. Only as a last resort do I try to cobble together a completely original explanation for something. My hope is to maximize compatibility with existing canon and minimize the possibility future developments will scotch my efforts.

The princess and the runaway

The two girls who entered Rose’s tiny office had very little in common with her newest clients, other than the same faint air of alienness. Their strides, though diffident in this unfamiliar location and environment, were firm and unafraid. Rose stood and extended her artificial arm across her desk. “Your . . . Highness? Ms. Shimmer. Thank you so much for coming.”

Sunset Shimmer looked at Rose’s arm, letting her gaze travel up it to the older woman’s face. She smiled hesitantly at the welcoming expression she found there. Princess Twilight Sparkle, on the other hand, reached out without a pause to shake Rose’s hand. “Thank you, Captain Brass. ‘Highness’ is technically correct, but please, call me Twilight.”

“In that case, both of you should call me Rose. I only use ‘Captain’ to overawe my clients. In a lot of cases I need every edge I can get.”

Both her guests grimaced and nodded in understanding. Rose gestured hospitably to the venerable stacking chairs in front of her desk. “I’m sorry about the accommodations, but as I told the sirens, it’s a big system. There isn’t a lot of budget for frills, I’m afraid.”

“Please don’t apologize,” Twilight implored her. “I’m sure you’re doing the best you can with what you have, and I can’t imagine the resources are unlimited for everything that needs to be done. One thing I learned from the library and class sessions I audited at Canterlot High is how huge your world is compared to ours. A population of more than seven billion, divided into two hundred countries?” She shook her head. “I have no clear idea what our world’s total sapient population is—we haven’t started keeping records like that yet, and I’m not sure we could—but just going by your own world’s population a century and a half ago, that’s more than four times the people. It’s a miracle you all do so well.”

“Huh. I hadn’t considered it that way, to be honest,” Rose admitted. “Thank you for your understanding—and your insight—ah, Twilight. Please be seated, both of you.”

All three of them sat, Twilight without any apparent consciousness of royal protocol. Rose sighed and began. “I was hoping the two of you could give me more background on the sirens and the world they came from. I understand from your point of view we’re talking about medieval if not ancient history, but it’s more than I probably have, even with all the briefing material I was given. I also would like any advice or suggestions you may have, since not only do you all come from the same world, but you all are roughly of an age.”

“Um . . . before we start, ma’am, I’d really like to know how they’re doing,” Sunset asked. “Please. Vice-Principal Luna said they’d been disenrolled from Canterlot High, but she couldn’t or wouldn’t tell us anything else.”

Rose smiled, surprised and pleased by the question. It transfigured her scarred face, and both Twilight and Sunset found themselves smiling back. “I got them placed in a foster home. It was a bit of a rocky start, and I’m sure things won’t go completely smoothly in the future, but at least they’re off the street. There’s still a lot to be done, but that’s the most important single step. As for disenrollment: They’ll be home-schooled by their caretakers. I’m not allowed to give you any more information, and even telling you that much is arguably borderline.”

Sunset breathed out, relieved, and sat back. “I . . . can kind of relate to them. The difference is I had Princess Twi and the other girls to help me back up, and the sirens . . . don’t. And I think they wouldn’t have let us, even if they’d stayed.”

“I think you’re right,” Rose said seriously, woman to woman. “I can’t tell them you asked after them, but I want you to know I’m glad you did. I read about your background, at least some of it, and speaking from experience, I can say you’re doing a good job of building a new life.”

Sunset blushed and bit her lip; her hands fidgeted in her lap. Possibly to rescue her, Twilight spoke up. “One last question. Are you satisfied with the arrangements for reporting on their progress?”

“They’re pretty unusual,” Rose answered dryly, “but yes, I’ll be sending duplicate copies of my reports to you in your official capacity, via Sunset here. That’s highly irregular, needless to say, but given the constraints involved, it probably is the best we can do.” She turned to Sunset. “If you pass them along still sealed, and as promptly as the two of you can manage, that should satisfy the letter of our agreement.”

Sunset acknowledged with a resolute nod.

“Now. I thought we should start with a general history of what’s known about their lives and the circumstances surrounding them, then follow that up with your best knowledge of the events leading up to their banishment. Anything either of you can tell me could prove valuable, no matter how trivial it may seem. I learned that the hard way in the army.”

Rose took notes as Twilight, with occasional interjections from her equally well-educated friend, filled in as much as they could. It still wasn’t as complete as any of them might wish, but it did close a lot of gaps. Twilight’s enthusiastic account of the confrontation between the sirens and a certain wizard, however, caused Rose to start rubbing her forehead with her left hand. When the princess finally noticed the pained expression on Rose’s face, she trailed off uncertainly. “Uh . . . what’s wrong, Rose?”

The ex-captain sighed and lowered her hand. “I wondered if I’d read this part of the briefing papers right. The solution this mighty wizard . . . Starswirl . . . came up with was to drop-kick the sirens into another world, where they’d be someone else’s problem?”

“Well . . . um . . . when you put it that way . . .” Twilight looked crestfallen, like a child just informed the tooth fairy didn’t exist. Sunset bit her lip and looked as if she too was experiencing an unpleasant epiphany, though not to the same degree.

Rose hated having burst the girls’ bubble; she knew hero worship when she saw it. She sighed. “I’m sorry, Twilight. It’s always tough finding out one’s heroes have feet of clay.”

Twilight swallowed and plainly did not like the taste of it. “I knew he didn’t understand friendship as well as he could have, but I never really thought about what he did from that point of view. Celestia . . .”

“Princess Celestia didn’t talk about him a lot,” Sunset observed with some surprise. It was obvious she was reviewing memories in a new light. “I don’t think she ever really lied or even slanted the truth when she did, but—”

“But she also didn’t go into a lot of detail, did she?” Rose nodded. “She probably was as close to him as anyone was, if I’ve got everything straight, and who wants to speak ill of old friends? Especially when they’re no longer around.”

“I . . . think I need to talk to her about this. And Luna, too.” Twilight’s expression hardened with determination.

Rose raised her artificial hand. “Don’t be too rough on them, Twilight,” she admonished gently. “They probably have a lot of reasons, some good, some not so good. It’s hard enough for an ordinary person like me; I can’t imagine what it must be like to carry centuries of secrets—or memories—in one’s head.”

Twilight blinked at her. “You’re not ordinary, Rose,” she said with the same tone of shocked certainty she might use to reject the notion of the sun rising in the west.

A bittersweet smile lit Rose’s face. “Thank you, Twilight.”

“No, I mean it,” Twilight insisted. “I did my own research. I know things got bad after you retired, but here you are now, doing a difficult and dangerous job, and doing it well. You don’t get a lot of money, and you don’t get a lot of thanks, but you’ve never given up.”

Rose looked into the distance. “I almost did, a few times.”

“But you didn’t,” Sunset cut in. “That’s the important thing.” Her stare was urgent and her eyes started to glisten a little. “I was so scared when Princess Twi pulled me out of that crater and, and asked the girls to take care of me. I don’t think it ever crossed their minds to say no. Even when I was on the ragged edge, and the whole school except for them still didn’t trust me, they were there. They gave me meaning. And all those other kids out there, the ones in trouble, they give you meaning, don’t they?”

“Yes. Yes they do.” Rose looked back at Sunset, mouth firming. She slid open a drawer and pulled out a couple of business cards. “Here. Twilight, you should have this anyway. Sunset, if you ever need anything—and you might—call me. If I can’t do it, I’ll find someone who can. That’s a promise.”

Twilight beamed, vindicated, and Sunset looked touched.

Sunset’s phone abruptly played a lively tune, and both girls jumped. Sunset pulled it out of her pocket and looked at the display. “Um, Twi? It’s time.”

“Oh, right, we still have to meet with Coo—someone else today before I go back through the portal,” Twilight explained apologetically. “I’m sorry, Rose. Did you get everything you needed?”

Rose pretended not to notice the verbal slip; it wasn’t her business, whatever it was. “It sounds like I’ve got as much as I can, at least for now. If I have to, I’ll talk with Sunset, and I suppose she can get in touch with you about any questions she can’t answer. There is one other thing I’m curious about, though.”

“What is it?” Twilight cocked her head.

“When you came in, you shook my fake hand right away. Most people are bothered by the idea, and some won’t do it at all. Even those who will usually take a moment to work up the nerve. It’s a little test I use to get an impression of people when I first meet them.”

Twilight coughed and blushed. “Oh, that. I, um, I didn’t even think about it.”

Sunset snickered. “Gosh, I wonder why not?” She started ticking off points on her fingers. “Let’s see: You’ve faced full-grown dragons, monsters from Tartarus, evil usurpers, world-ending threats—”

Twilight’s blush heated. Only the horrified embarrassment in the glare she turned on Sunset made the latter desist.

Rose rubbed her lips with her left hand to hide the surprised smile. “I see. Well, that answers that. I shouldn’t keep you two any longer.”

With that, everyone stood, and Rose escorted them out, a courtesy she rarely extended. This time, though, she was glad to. She still thought “princess of friendship” was a pretty silly title, but maybe there was something to it.

Author's Note

The real world’s total population in or around 1880 probably was about 1.5 to 1.6 billion, depending on whose estimate one accepts, and today’s population tops 7.4 billion. Assuming:
1. The total sapient population of Equestria’s world is in the range of 1.5–1.6 billion,
2. Every sapient inhabitant has a human counterpart (which we know isn’t completely true because of Spike, but works as a first approximation), and
3. The human world is similar to the real world;
Then:
On average there is roughly a 20% chance any given person in the human world has a counterpart on the other side of the portal. I’m proceeding on the idea the percentage is much higher in the portal’s vicinity and declines into a “long tail” as one gets farther from it.

Epistolary interlude

Dear Rose:

I know sending your reports to me must be inconvenient, so I want to thank you once again for going to the effort. Sunset’s been doing her best to get them to me as quickly as she can, still sealed of course, so don’t worry about that. Usually she gets them to me when I send her my weekly package of newspapers and magazines. After I read the reports, I send them on to Celestia in Canterlot. I don’t know for sure, but she probably shares them with Luna too. ~~(It still feels a little weird for me to be calling them by name, without any titles or styles, but they insist on it.)~~ After that, I think the reports get filed somewhere in the palace for future reference. They have better facilities for that kind of thing anyway, and any time I need them again I can ask.

I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise the sirens are struggling with their studies. I’m pretty sure they never got any formal schooling before they were banished to your world, and I doubt they attended any classes after that. Even when they were enrolled at CHS they never bothered to show up for anything except Battle of the Bands assemblies. They don’t strike me as the sort who value education, which is terrible! It’s no wonder Mr. Rhetor is having so much trouble, even without having to deal with their grumpy attitudes. I hope he’s able to make more headway in the future, and I think he’s absolutely right about Sonata. I talked with some of the faculty at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, but we just don’t have the science here yet to diagnose cognitive difficulties like that so clearly, or to address them as effectively, so she’s much better off there for now.

At least he and Ms. Harmonia seem to be doing the best they can. I’m sure it can’t be easy for them, since the sirens definitely are what Sunset says you folks call “a handful”. Just one of them would be trouble, and three of them must be more than three times the trouble. I’ll bet their own children never gave them so many problems, but you did say they spent a lot of time in some pretty rough places dealing with some pretty rough people, so I’m sure they can work with the situation if ~~anypony~~ anybody can.

Now that I think about it, I should give you some of that advice you asked for when we met in your office, since we didn’t have time then. I don’t think the sirens are likely to be physically violent, unless they’re driven to extremes—they always worked by manipulating those around them rather than by force. They may even be physical cowards, but I’m not as sure about that. They’re very self-centered, of course, which makes sense with their background, and they definitely are bullies, which fits the profiles you included in your first report. Speaking of which, I shared the article you attached, about how bullies actually think more of themselves, not less like common wisdom has it. It was a real eye-opener for me, and for the school faculty! I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some quiet changes in Equestria’s school systems.

They must love each other deep down, though, because they’ve always stuck together even when things were really bad for them, both before and after the Battle of the Bands. Part of it may be that “us against the world” thing you mentioned, but I think there’s more to it than that. It’s not clear from the record if they’re related, but they sure act like sisters. They squabble a lot, but they’ve never left each other, and I think that’s important. But I guess you probably already figured that out.

During my trip to Canterlot and the School for Gifted Unicorns, I spent some time in both the school and the palace libraries, trying to dig up anything I could on the sirens. There wasn’t a lot, I’m afraid. It was a long time ago, before cheap printing was available, so there aren’t a lot of records with more detail than brief mentions, like in surviving log books and similar things. Still, I went ahead and collated all the mentions we could find. (I got some help from a friend of mine in town and a couple of research librarians.) Those notes are attached. I don’t know how useful they’ll be, but you did say you wanted any information you could get, even if it seemed trivial.

Oh, I almost forgot. Sunset told me of an idea your world’s Twilight Sparkle had ~~that I should have thought of first~~. The big mystery we all wondered about is the time differential between the two worlds, with the portal opening up for three days every thirty moons for centuries, but the sirens showing up in your world only a little while ago. I’ll bet the people there who know about it, like you, have wondered too! Well, the idea Sci-Twi (that’s our nickname for her) came up with was, the sirens got stuck in limbo until Sunset used the portal to go from our world to yours. Somehow that let the sirens fall out of limbo into your world at the same time. You can ask Sunset about it for more details if you need them. When she first heard the idea she wasn’t happy, because it was one more thing for her to feel guilty about, but there was no way for her, or anyone else, to know it would happen!

The sirens must have been pretty young when they were banished, but that does kind of make sense ~~because they turned out to be such brats~~. That doesn’t answer the question of why they didn’t try to come back when the portal opened again, but my guess is they didn’t know it existed, so naturally they wouldn’t know they could get back at all.

Anyway, I should finish this up. If you need anything else from me, or from Equestria, please let me know. If I can do it or get it for you, I will. That’s a Pinkie Promise! (Don’t ask.) And I really, really do appreciate getting your reports, along with the interesting attachments. If nothing else, they’re teaching us some important things.

Your friend,
H.H. Princess Twilight Sparkle

Author's Note

Being a professional typesetter by trade, I normally hew to proper typographical practice in my writing. However, to simulate (as well as possible in type) a letter written by quill—or, more realistically, by fountain pen—I’ve used such things as strikeout and underlined text, which I otherwise avoid as the abominations they are. I do wish, though, non-breaking spaces (vital for proper ellipses) and broad indents (vital for proper citations and epistolary closings) were supported correctly or at all by Fimfiction.
By the way, I can’t recommend enough obtaining, and using assiduously, a copy of the Chicago Manual of Style. It is the go-to reference for proper construction and handling of text.

Talaria

A rambling suburban house is light-years better than prison cells or cardboard boxes in an alley, but being cooped up for weeks on end is hard on anyone, no matter how pleasant the surroundings. It was time for a break—specifically, an outing to the biggest shopping mall in the area to take advantage of back-to-school sales. While not exactly in the same league as a theme park, it might be busy and colorful enough to catch the attention of bored young women struggling with studies and incipient cabin fever. As a bonus, the shopping would provide necessities the pauper teens still lacked and, contingent on good behavior, maybe a few small treats.

It would come as a disappointment, though not a complete surprise, there would be no treats this day.

The trip started as well as anyone could expect. The sirens and Rose once again rode in the stalwart old panel van with the laconic driver, while Logos and Harmonia followed in their somewhat newer mid-tier sedan. The mall was not completely new to the younger trio, but it wasn’t a place they’d visited often. Lacking motor transportation of their own had restricted their movements to the less than fully effective mass transit, limiting their exposure to the sprawl of neighborhoods and connecting arteries.

Sonata rubbernecked unabashedly. Aria slouched down and stared straight ahead, arms crossed. Adagio split the difference, leaning back and looking a bit weary—an emerging habit that troubled the three adults—but glancing out occasionally at passing sights or in response to a nudge and exclamation from Sonata. When she bothered to respond at all, it was with noncommittal monosyllables. Aria’s glower deepened with each exchange, but the journey wasn’t overlong, and the bustle of parking, disembarking, and walking to the mall itself served to break her gathering irritation.

During the walk across the lot, each of the older three quietly took charge of one siren in particular. Harmonia shepherded Sonata. Logos watched over Adagio. Rose chaperoned Aria, but not before hanging back a moment to pop a small form-fitting earbud, connected to a coiled wire, into place. She tapped on it twice, and a series of return taps sounded over the tiny speaker. She caught the older couple’s eyes and nodded.

The hubbub of the mall’s concourses and the vibrant, even gaudy, storefronts succeeded in diverting all three of the sirens to a greater or lesser extent. Sonata rushed from display to display, peering curiously at merchandise, staffers, even other shoppers. She still wasn’t the happy-go-lucky sort Sunset and Princess Twilight had described, but at least the haunted anxiety ingrained by her misfortunes was notably in abeyance. It probably was unkind but true she didn’t have the intellect and imagination to brood overmuch, unlike her companions. Aria affected an air of disinterest, ambling where Sonata dashed, but her covert sidelong or hooded gaze betrayed at least mild interest. Once in a while she actually cracked a grin; usually it was more of a malicious smirk, but a couple of times it showed flashes of genuine enjoyment. Adagio focused enough to declare definite preferences for one option or another, and even to venture cajoling her elders into more than they offered or promised. After the first few attempts bounced off firm rejections, she heaved a martyred sigh and desisted.

The tour proved enlightening on both sides. The sirens gradually realized the staggering potential lying like a dragon’s hoard—not a metaphorical concept in their case—all around them. Their guides carefully observed which stores, and what merchandise, seemed to attract the three, individually or as a group. Once they’d completed the circuit and returned more or less to their origin, Rose cleared her throat. “Today we’re here mostly to get what you need rather than what you want.” As her younger listeners gathered themselves for an outcry of dismay, at least partly genuine, she went on, “I know that may be disappointing, but we have a pretty long list to get through, and it’s not like this is the only chance you’ll have to come here.” All three stopped in their tracks with expressions of enlightenment, and after they had a chance to process this novel concept, they moved along less grudgingly to their first real stop: the big red-and-white discount store serving as one of the mall’s anchors.

The first order of business, gathering necessities, produced a few awkward moments, touching as they did on sensitive and personal matters for adolescent women. Sonata’s ingenuously straightforward attitude was no obstacle, though she had to be encouraged to keep her voice down when discussing some of those awkwardnesses. Aria steamed and Adagio looked affronted, but their guides managed to drag everyone through the whole affair with a determinedly matter-of-fact air.

Not at all by accident, the next item on the agenda was a turn through clothing and outerwear. The three teens rampaged through the shelves and racks; their elders kept their own counsel even though some—many—of the choices made them wince. But identity is important, especially to teens in the process of developing—or redeveloping—it, and clothing is a vital means of expressing that identity. The illusion of greater freedom, moreover, distracted the younger trio from their earlier dudgeon. Some of it returned when limits were placed on the numbers of items, but Rose pointed out, “How many outfits do you want to launder? Or even carry out to the van?”

Wallets, bookbags, school supplies, pocket calculators, bare-bones prepaid feature phones—the list went on in that vein, but notably missing from it was digital technology beyond the most austere. Aside from precluding on-line mischief, the omission reflected the girls’ limited skill with technology centuries beyond their previous experience. Observing and accepting the existence of that technology was one thing; actually using it effectively was quite another. Sunset Shimmer had achieved far more facility in the same amount of time, but she was better educated, more motivated, and grew up in an industrializing society rather than a pastoral pre-industrial setting. All in all it seemed best to introduce the young trio gradually to the miracles of computers and the Internet.

By the time they were ready to check out, each of the three girls was pushing a full cart, though in fairness garments and bookbags made up much of the bulk. The long lines made them restive, but it was hard to blame them for that. In the end, the whole party was laden with all the bags they could carry, and in a rare moment of unanimity, the decision was made to deposit the booty in the van before continuing.

“We all saw what you brought—and didn’t bring—with you, girls,” Harmonia proclaimed in a no-nonsense tone. The whole group stood in a staid-looking store specializing in women’s underwear . . . among other garments, though the latter weren’t on the list. “There are certain things every young lady needs. This is the most important stop on today’s trip.” Logos and Rose glanced sidelong at each other with suppressed smiles at Harmonia’s imperious tone, but didn’t contest her assessment of priorities. The sirens, on the other hand, fidgeted uncomfortably.

“Trust me,” the matriarch added. “If you don’t start a habit of wearing bras now, in twenty years . . . well. Let’s just say the results will be disastrous. Proper fit is essential for real comfort, which is why we’re here and not in a department store.”

The middle-aged fitter tapped to work with the three girls clearly was an expert at her job and at dealing with obstreperous teenagers; no doubt she was a mother herself. Her brusque courtesy took in stride Sonata’s confusion, Adagio’s passive resistance, and Aria’s more active opposition. An expert eye and quelling basilisk glare, along with tape measure and other tools of the trade, made short work of the process. By the time the last of the three emerged from the fitting room, each held a slip not unlike an eye-prescription form, on which was neatly jotted all the necessary facts and figures. When the fitter reappeared as well, she handed Harmonia an additional sheet, listing recommendations for how many and what kinds were best suited to different budgets and situations.

Whether one might quibble with its importance, there was no denying it easily was the most expensive stop of the day, especially considering Harmonia insisted also on proper underwear. This time, at least, only the three girls were burdened with bags, but their demand for another trip to the van was eminently reasonable, and so the gaggle set off to unload once again.

Rose was just placing Aria’s bags in the van’s increasingly crowded cargo space when cries of confusion or alarm arose around her. She jerked upright and whirled to see Aria racing up the lane toward the mall’s entrance. As she launched into a sprint after the siren, she swore venomously and hissed, “Getting soft, Rose.”

Ironbound training came to the fore. Her glance flicked to the row of glass doors toward which Aria dashed. There, just walking past a well-dressed young woman into the arcade, was a pair of girls: Cyan, long mop of straight hair running through the whole spectrum, track-star build and outfit; butter-yellow, wavy pink hair, skinny as a rail in tank top and skirt. Rose didn’t spare any breath for more oaths, but her face tightened and she pounded on.

The woman near the door hadn’t given more than a cursory glance to the pair who walked past her through the entrance, but Aria riveted her attention. She braced herself and wove forward to intercept the onrushing siren, who just then shot past a bulky van parked on a handicapped slot, hard by the access lanes fronting the small plaza before the mall entrance. The woman’s eyes bulged; she opened her mouth and threw up a hand, but before she could shout, a crossover appeared from behind the van.

Aria plowed full tilt into the crossover’s front fender and catapulted over it, then tumbled down the slight slope of the hood. A moment later she lay stunned, breathless, and spread-eagled on the pavement. Wheels chirped as the crossover slammed to a halt, front bumper curtseying inches from the prostrate form.

Rose, not even breathing hard, loomed over her quarry almost instantly. She bent, fastened both hands vise-like on Aria’s upper arms, and hauled the slighter woman upright by main force. Without relinquishing her grip, she spun Aria around and clamped the girl in a come-along hold to frog-march her to the plaza. She ignored the crossover’s driver shouting through his opened window, shaken and angry, before he got the car moving again.

The other woman arrived as she stepped onto the plaza. “Ms. Brass—”

“Not your fault. Update everyone on the net, and go tell the others to wait . . . please.” Rose softened her command voice with the afterthought pleasantry. The woman nodded and headed toward the quartet still standing by the van’s open back doors, at the same time raising a fingertip to the earbud she wore, twin to the one in Rose’s ear.

Rose marched her charge to one of the raised planter beds that funneled pedestrians toward the doors, turned the girl around, and plunked her, sitting, on the retaining wall. “What were you gonna do if you caught up with them, huh?” Her tone was low and intense, but only a little irritated.

Aria blinked and her mouth worked.

Rose shook her head. “Didn’t think that far ahead, did you?” She sighed. “Look, Aria, I get it. You’re angry. You’re mad at them—” She waved an arm at the nearby doors. “—you’re mad at yourself, you’re mad at Adagio and Sonata, you’re mad at the whole world and everyone in it for crushing you like a bug.”

Aria flinched but rallied, face flushing and eyes flashing. “They took our magic! All of it! You don’t know what that’s like!”

Rose’s face and stance softened. “No, I don’t. I’ve never had magic.” She touched her prosthetic fingertips to her eyepatch. “But I do know what it’s like to lose something you’ve had all your life, and to watch all your hopes and dreams burn to ash because of it.” She looked Aria in the eye. “They still let me call myself ‘Captain’, but it’s not real any more, and it never will be again. The army was going to be my life, Aria, my career, but after that explosion two of my men were dead and I was maimed. If it was just the arm, I could’ve gone back on active duty, but that and the eye both? No. The army had to cut me loose.”

She snorted a bitter laugh. “At least the board of inquiry returned a finding I wasn’t at fault, but that wasn’t a lot of consolation. There I was, in soft clothes again with a suitcase in my hand and nowhere to go, so I came back here. I had nightmares for months, and I wasn’t any good to anyone. I just drifted until a veterans’-aid organization found me. They helped me patch myself back together—and they found me a new career. Now I help others try to rebuild their lives. Like you three.” She took a breath.

“It’s time you learned a few things, Aria. Somebody out there thought it was worth the effort to assign me to help you. I thought it was worth the effort to ask a favor of Logos and Harmonia, and we aren’t even close friends, just acquaintances. They thought it was worth the effort to move across the country, just because I told them three girls needed their help. Somebody else thought it was worth the effort to assign that woman at the door, and more than a dozen others from all over the country, to watch over you. By the way, she hasn’t seen her fiancé, or her family, or her friends since you moved into that house. It goes with the badge she’s wearing on a chain around her neck under her blouse, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.”

In a quieter voice she concluded, “An awful lot of people and an awful lot of resources are being poured into helping you, Aria, in spite of all the things you three have done. Maybe it isn’t exactly the magic of friendship, but it’s a gift. Don’t waste it.”

Aria’s flight was sufficient reason in itself to cut the outing short, but now that two of the individuals on the restricted list were present in the same area, Rose had no choice but to call a halt. As near as anyone could figure, it was a massive sale at a sporting-goods store, along with relative proximity to a certain animal shelter, that had precipitated the unusual visit from the other pair of teens. Rose bore with good grace the acid observations from the special agent in charge regarding insufficient briefing and promised to send along full descriptions.

Once more in the van, the sirens’ subdued mood was shocked and thoughtful. Rose said nothing more after apologizing to the three of them for canceling the rest of the trip. The driver knew a good time to keep his mouth shut when he saw it. The journey back to the house passed in silence.

Author's Note

Aria’s basic psychological struggle is with anger. Her personal crisis peaks when she allows that rage to run away with her in a rather literal sense; it ebbs only after the profound shock of a brush with mortality followed by revelations challenging her view of the world around her. She still has a long way to go, but at least she finally understands that.
I realized when re-watching Rainbow Rocks the sirens never are shown owning, or even interacting with, advanced technology other than the school-provided microphones. In truth, the story doesn’t call for them doing so, but I don’t think that’s completely by happenstance. At any rate, I’ve chosen to assume so.
The talaria, incidentally, are the winged sandals of Greco-Roman myth, generally associated with Hermes, messenger of the gods. Another possibility would have been to name the chapter for Lyssa, the Greek goddess of rage.

Pithos

A wordless exclamation of frustrated anger burst out of Aria as she sat back heavily in the dining-room chair. She refrained from snapping in half the pencil clutched by both white-knuckled hands, albeit barely.

A fascinated Rose watched the younger woman struggle with her chronic rage. Privately she was pleased the girl was able to exert even this much control. Since the eventful trip to the mall, the siren clearly had been making a sincere, if clumsy, effort to rein in her temper.

“I just don’t get it,” Aria growled. The pencil clattered to the table as she gestured with both hands at the math problems on the papers before her.

“You and millions of other students around the world,” Rose assured her dryly.

Aria’s mouth puckered as she fought to keep the perfectly timed quip from blunting the edge of her righteous irritation. Finally she sighed. “Okay, fine. You’re here, so I guess you’re gonna try to help, right?”

Rose chewed on her lip, also restraining a smile. “You’re welcome. Where are you stuck?”

Upstairs from the dining room, Adagio and Sonata hunched over their own copies of similar homework, assigned by Mister Rhetor before he and his wife departed out of town for a family wedding. Aria had been the only one willing to venture downstairs where their de facto babysitter lurked; Sonata had looked fearful and Adagio apathetic at the prospect. Instead they occupied Adagio’s room, she at the small writing desk and her companion on the bed with a lap tray. The covers, earlier neat and tidy thanks to Rose’s military-inspired insistence on the importance of making one’s bed, had suffered somewhat from Sonata’s restlessness.

Sonata too sat back from the indecipherable mathematical heiroglyphs. Her tone was more of a whine as she aired her own bafflement. “Adagio, I don’t understand any of this stuff.”

Without straightening from her slump, Adagio sighed and shot back a waspish retort. “What makes you think I know any more about it than you do?” It was a well-worn routine, but Sonata never seemed to tire of it.

“You always do better than I do,” Sonata pointed out practically. “Maybe if I look at your answers and you tell me how you got them it would help.”

Adagio did sit up then, and even turned around on her chair, resting an arm across the back. Her mouth opened for a cutting response, but froze as inspiration struck. “Maybe if we could look at all the answers it would help even more.”

“But we don’t have all the answers to look at.” Sonata looked confused. As usual.

“We don’t, but they have to, right?” Adagio waved toward the temporarily unoccupied master bedroom suite.

“I guess so.”

“So we just need to get those answers.” Adagio sounded a little more like her scheming self.

“How?”

“They have to have answer sheets in a cabinet or something, don’t they? And that cabinet has to be in their bedroom, doesn’t it?”

“I guess so. But the door’s locked. They told us so.”

“Yeah, it is. I checked. Bu-ut . . . maybe the window isn’t.” Adagio tapped her chin with a fingertip. “Look. We can climb out the window here, walk along the roof of the back patio, and get to their bedroom window. Then we climb in through that, find the answer sheets, and come back. After we copy down the answers, we put the original sheets back. Nobody’s the wiser.”

“I dunno. . . .” Sonata looked as dubious as her comment suggested.

“Fine! Fine! I’ll do it, then. You can stay here and keep an eye out in case she looks like she’s gonna come upstairs to check on us. If that happens, you can call through the window.”

“O-okay.” A look of apprehension stole across Sonata’s face, as it so often did these days.

Adagio’s absence seemed to last an eternity. By the time she reappeared through the window, Sonata was all but hyperventilating. The murmurs floating up from downstairs never fully ceased, but there had been several heart-stopping pauses.

With a slight smirk of success, Adagio plunked a stack of file folders on the bed. “The answers must be in there somewhere. We just need to find them. You take half and I’ll take half. That way we can find them twice as fast.”

Sonata stared wide-eyed at the pile. “Adagio! . . .” she protested.

“Get started,” the other ordered peremptorily as she turned back to reinstall the window screen just in case. “The quicker you do, the quicker we find the answers.”

They didn’t find the answers they were looking for. The answers they did find they didn’t want.

A shriek from upstairs snapped both Rose and Aria bolt upright. The former was on her feet and out through the archway in a heartbeat, leaving the latter to follow after a shocked moment. A bedlam of screams, thuds, and crashes echoed through the house as Rose vaulted up the stairway in front of Aria. By the time Rose reached the doorway to Adagio’s bedroom, Aria peering past her, Adagio’s back was flat against the wall and her eyes and mouth gaped.

Sonata flailed and shouted in no particular direction from her wide-legged stance in the middle of the not overly large room. Her complexion was mottled with exertion and emotion as she heaved random objects, ready to hand, to thump or smash against walls or furniture. Jumbled, disconnected phrases, barely comprehensible, revolved around betrayal, secrets, and loss. Papers and files lay everywhere.

Rose strode straight in, heedless of possible projectiles, and grabbed Sonata by the upraised wrists. “Sonata!” she snapped with the full force of her command voice. “Look at me. What’s wrong?”

After a wild-eyed moment, Sonata finally blinked and focused on Rose’s face. Her mouth trembled and, in a tone of utter heartbreak, she whispered, “You lied to us. You all lied to us.”

When the flying debris ceased, Aria had slid around Rose to Adagio; both of them turned to stare. Rose sighed and loosened her grip. In a quiet voice she said, “Sit down and take a deep breath, Sonata. When you’re ready, you can explain.” Only when Sonata closed her eyes did Rose let go.

Sonata fell back to sit on the edge of the bed, bouncing a little as she bent over and hugged herself. She rocked back and forth, breaths deep and ragged.

Rose took a moment to survey the wreckage, then looked aside at Adagio with a silent promise to revisit the mysterious presence of the scattered papers and files. Adagio, in turn, looked down, one arm crooked across her body, hand cradling her other elbow, that arm held down at her side. Aria looked from one face to another with baffled alarm.

Sonata recaptured everyone’s attention with a hoarse-voiced accusation. “You knew. And you didn’t tell us. Hundreds of years, and you didn’t tell us!”

“What are you talking about?” Aria asked. “We’ve only been here, what, a coupla years? Something like that, anyway.”

Rose drew in a long breath. “No, she’s right. You haven’t been in this world very long, but you’ve been gone from the other world for more than a thousand years.”

“What?” Aria yelled. “Why?”

The ex-captain massaged her forehead with her left hand and answered the unspoken part of the question. “Because of this.” The other hand swept out to indicate the scene of violence and desolation. “We knew this, or something like it, is exactly how you’d react. We wanted to wait until you were more ready to hear about it before we told you. It would have been a shock no matter when we did, but at least then you might be stronger, better able to deal with it.”

Adagio and Aria bridled at the suggestion of weakness. Sonata merely looked up blankly. “You should’ve told us,” she insisted faintly.

“Maybe we should have,” Rose acknowledged without flinching. “You know now anyway.”

“Now what do we do?” Adagio asked, sounding a bit dazed. “Even if the princesses pardon us, like that letter said they might, and we can go back, it won’t even be the same world, not really.”

“For now, nothing different. Let the future take care of itself. It always has,” Rose pointed out. “One of the reasons we’re trying to give you a modern education is so you’ll be better off no matter which world you stay in. You can’t go back, but at least you can go forward.”

There was a moment of silence as the younger trio digested this. Sonata slowly listed to one side, eyes blinking drowsily. Rose took charge again. “Aria, can you please get Sonata to bed? It looks like she’s about to fall asleep. It’s no wonder, after a panic attack like that. And it might be a good idea to keep an eye on her, too.”

Aria briefly looked rebellious, then glanced down at Sonata and relented. “Yeah, I guess so.” Realization, rather than resentment, colored her words. “C’mon, Sonata, let’s go.” She helped the worn-out girl to stand and guided her out to put her to bed.

Rose shut the door behind them and turned back to Adagio. “Okay, what happened?”

Eyes shut and head tipped back, Rose sprawled untidily on the living-room couch. Adagio’s scheme was clever, and along with the ignoble urge to cheat, also genuinely seemed to be motivated by the desire to puzzle out how to get the right answers. The two of them had gathered up and reordered the files, which she had redeposited in their proper places. A quick, discreet call to the watch post across the street secured a promise to supply, on the morrow, security strips to place in window guide tracks. Adagio had retired without argument and, she hoped, already was fast asleep.

When she checked in on the other two, Aria sat in Sonata’s desk chair, tipped onto the back legs. Sonata twitched and stirred, but did seem to be dozing. Rose offered a gentle recommendation that Aria do the same, accompanied by a stern look. Aria took the hint and disappeared into her own room.

None of the three had pressed Rose not to tell Logos and Harmonia of the affair. She was sure Sonata hadn’t thought of it. As for the other two—well, either they were more shocked than she realized, or they understood the effort would be futile. Maybe both.

What a mess. And it wasn’t like she could blame anyone else for it. She still thought waiting was the better choice, but Sonata’s empty-eyed look of accusation floated in her mind’s eye. What she wouldn’t give for a good stiff drink. She grunted as she got to her feet. Time for her to get some shut-eye too. Maybe things would look brighter in the morning light.

Author's Note

Sonata’s basic psychological struggle is with anxiety—over separation, loss, or being helpless and adrift in an unfathomable, perilous universe. Her crisis arrives with the news the world she called home is irretrievably lost to her; every time she plays, it seems, she loses, and where will it end? Of the three, she needs the most guidance, and the challenge will be helping her understand she can rebuild something worthwhile out of the wreckage.
A pithos is a larger counterpart to an amphora—a ceramic shipping container for bulk goods, often big enough for a person to curl up inside it. Pandora’s box actually was a pithos in the original myth; its transformation into a box stems from a mistranslation, probably in the sixteenth century. The chapter alternatively could have been named for Phobos, the Greek god of fear.

Iokheira

“Yes, I’d like to speak to Doctor W—” Rose broke off and raised her good eyebrow, then with a hint of asperity continued, “This is a professional call and has nothing to do with any current cases. Tell him Captain Rose Brass wants to discuss some possible new cases for him.” After a beat she added in a no-nonsense voice, “I’ll wait.”

With that she punched the speaker button and replaced the handset. Cell phones were the model of convenience, but for discussing sensitive matters, they still took a back seat to land lines. As distorted hold music floated up from the tinny speaker—straining to fill even her shoebox-sized office—Rose idled through routine paperwork, shuffling actual sheets or tapping keys for virtual ones. When the tortured notes abruptly ceased, she snatched up the handset again, automatically canceling the speaker function. A smile of genuine pleasure crossed her face.

“Hello, Doc. How’re you doing?” She listened and swiveled her desk chair from side to side in small arcs. “I’m fine, but I’ve got three clients who aren’t.” A pause and a sigh followed. “Of course we do, but none of them have security clearances, and you do. . . . Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction when the Powers That Be dumped the cases on me, but for once they were dead right when they classified the whole case file.”

Reflexively she shook her head. “No, I remember your lecture about trying to work with people who aren’t willing to cooperate. Based on their reactions when I floated the notion, I don’t think they’re ready to consent to counseling just yet. I’m pretty sure they’re on the bubble, though, and there could be trouble brewing, so I thought I’d talk it over with you before that happened. I wanted to get some advice—and to brief you in so we can move on it right away if things go pear-shaped. I’ve already cleared it with higher authority.”

Despite herself, a short laugh escaped. “Carpe diem, and yeah, I’m sure. . . . Okay, hang on a second.” She cradled the receiver against a shoulder and rummaged for pen and pad. “Ready. Mm-hm—” She jotted down the appointment information, inspected the result, then read it back.

Upon confirmation she’d copied it correctly, she went on with uncharacteristic diffidence, “Ah . . . listen, there’s just one thing. My budget—” Another smile blossomed as worry gave way to relief. “Thanks a million, Doc. Maybe I can get some matching funds from the same Powers That Be. They stuck me with this, they can pony up some taxpayer money.” She grimaced at the inadvertent play on words, imagining Princess Twilight’s or Sunset’s reactions. At least they were more likely to be amused than offended.

“Adagio, dear, aren’t you going to finish your dinner?” Harmonia’s voice betrayed nothing but mild concern. None of her three charges could have guessed how much effort it took to keep it that way.

“I’m done,” Adagio snapped. “Don’t hassle me.” She shoved back her chair, jerked to her feet, and stormed out of the dining room on bare feet. The orange curls that should bounce around her head lay lank; T-shirt and jeans hung on her thin frame.

An awkward silence reigned. Sonata hunched down and concentrated with singular attention on her half-empty plate. Aria scowled after the vanished girl. Logos and Harmonia exchanged sidelong glances and restrained their knowing sighs.

All three sirens were caught in a downward spiral after the shattering revelation of being adrift in time, piled on the underlying trauma of everything they’d suffered since losing their magic. Sonata teetered continually on the edge of undirected panic. Aria’s efforts to control her temper all but ceased. Adagio’s symptoms were more complicated.

The situation hadn’t escalated to physical violence . . . yet. The presence of their caretakers undoubtedly factored into that restraint, but there also was no doubt it was a matter of when, not if, the restraint would end. Everyone was feeling the strain.

Logos, Harmonia, even Rose had more authority than babysitters, but not as much as parents, and under similar circumstances teens enjoyed—if that was the word—somewhat greater autonomy than children. Until certain thresholds were crossed, or permissions given, law and custom placed sharp constraints on the older trio’s actions, and not without reason. In the mean time they were fighting a holding action, as Rose put it when they returned from the wedding trip, though she’d promised then to take what measures she could.

For the moment, that holding action took the form of coaxing the remaining two into finishing their dinners.

“All right, you two. That’s enough.” Logos stood in the doorway to Adagio’s room, arms folded and eyebrow cocked. He regarded the two girls, facing off in aggressive stances, over his eyeglasses. “Is there something either of you want to talk about?”

“Not me,” muttered Aria as she hunched her shoulders and buried her fists in her pockets.

“None of your business,” Adagio blurted. She turned away and busied herself with the paraphernalia of schoolwork still covering her small desk.

Logos took a long moment for a slow inhalation and exhalation, not quite a sigh, then said gently, “We’re always ready to listen, you know.” When neither girl took up this opening, he shook his head. “It’s late, and both of you should be getting ready for bed.” He stepped back pointedly, clearing the path for Aria to leave. With manifest reluctance she did, not meeting his eye as she passed.

Adagio he left to her own devices after a searching look. She didn’t slam the door behind him—quite—but it shut emphatically enough to express her mood. The nightly ritual proceeded with absent, mechanical motions; she hardly glanced at her own actions. Instead her eyes were distant and her face was drawn.

Aria had burst into her room and badgered her—first about walking out on dinner, then, as they started to argue, dredging up the past. Both of them kept their voices down at first, not wanting to draw the attention of anyone else, but of course that didn’t last.

How dare she! Always poking and prodding, thinking she knew better! Being a leader was more than just wanting to be in charge. There was all the planning, the eye for opportunities and the ability to seize them, the will to carry through in spite of . . .

In spite of being banished to an alien world. In spite of being not just defeated but destroyed. In spite of being nothing but harmless teenage girls. In spite of homelessness and fear and humiliation.

Adagio sneered. So Aria wanted to know what was wrong with her? Oh, not much. Just getting ground into the mud over and over and over, and them along with her because she brought them to it. What did they have to show for all their efforts—her efforts? The world they came from was gone forever. The world they came to was turning out to be far more complicated and dangerous than they could have imagined.

She climbed into bed, shut off the bedside light, and lay back to stare blindly into the darkness. Maybe Aria would do a better job; she sure couldn’t do a worse one. Sonata followed along because she didn’t know how to do anything else, and look what it got her. Oh yes, Adagio Dazzle was a leader, all right, one for the history books.

Time seemed suspended as she relived every misstep, every wrong turn on the long journey that ended here, in this bland cookie-cutter middle-class house, so powerless they were forced to depend on the charity of an impersonal bureaucracy because the alternative was even worse. Her life was like one of those strange little streets she’d glimpsed elsewhere in the neighborhood that went half a block and stopped in a big bulb of pavement—cul de sac, that was what they called it.

She was so tired. Nothing she did worked; there were no right choices. Even grabbing the biggest hammer she could find and smashing everything she could reach, satisfying as it might be, wouldn’t end well. She just didn’t know what to do any more, and even if she did, none of it mattered anyway.

Well, there was one thing she could do. It probably was wrong too, but that just meant she’d be consistently wrong, at least. With an air of forlorn decision, she got out of bed again.

Aria levered herself up with a grunt and knuckled her weary eyes. It had taken forever to doze off, wired as she was from anger and adrenalin. Even then the sleep had been fitful, bouncing from stage to stage seemingly at random. Fading half-remembered fragments of dreams and nightmares whirled in her head, nonsensical and sinister visions distorted and commingled—Equestria as she remembered it, Equestria as it might be after centuries, a wholly different dimension of strange creatures and stranger machines, a city vaster than most others she’d seen yet regarded by its inhabitants as merely moderate in size. Trying to conquer a gigantic, well-organized world, fighting whole armies of hard, fearless people like Captain Brass—

She shook her head and drew up her knees under the sheet and blanket, then crossed her arms on them and brooded. Most of all it was the quarrel hours ago that haunted her.

Adagio was acting really weird. It might be a relief she wasn’t as bossy as she used to be, but she didn’t seem to have anything left in her, like she was a rag doll that somehow was able to move and talk. Well, except when she threw a fit that made even Aria look patient and long-tempered, but those didn’t last, and when they were over, Adagio went back to being a zombie.

Aria wouldn’t admit it to another living soul, but all of that made her scared and angry. She didn’t know what to do or to say that might fix things; the argument sure proved that. But she had to do something about it, middle of the night or not. If nothing else, maybe it would help her sleep afterward.

She blew out a breath and got up, then exited her bedroom, moving carefully and quietly in the dimness; with dark-adjusted eyes, the residual light of a modern dwelling in a suburban neighborhood was enough to navigate. Adagio’s door, she realized, was already open. She frowned and glanced at the vestibule overlooking the lower floor. No reflected glow betrayed a late-night raid on the kitchen for a snack. She looked the other way, at the nearby bathroom. The door was closed, but no light showed under it.

The frown deepened. One of the older couple’s firm rules was to leave the bathroom door open after leaving, to signal the room was unoccupied and available for use. Maybe scatter-brained Sonata forgot. She heaved a put-upon sigh and went to repair the oversight, and maybe to make use of it herself before doing so.

When the door opened, not quite as silently as she’d managed leaving her room, a soft noise followed. She could swear it was a moan, but that didn’t make sense. She flipped the switch and blinked in the sudden light.

Adagio, still clad in her pajamas, sat on the toilet seat, leaning against the tank, head back. Her hands half-curled limply on her lap. Daubs and smears of red were visible on the floor, the side of the tub, the vanity top—but her forearms, hands, and thighs glistened with it. Aria stood frozen for a moment, unable to breathe.

Then, without any memory of moving, she was pounding both fists on the master-bedroom door and shouting at the top of her lungs.

The living room was crowded with bystanders and tension, both directed at the slightly rumpled paramedic who faced them with the equanimity of a professional secure in his expertise and position. “She’s stabilized now and ready for transport as soon as I can get out of here,” he hinted broadly.

On the couch, Sonata hugged her knees and rested her forehead on them. Aria sat beside her looking pale and blank. The paramedic had given them a quick once-over as well, found to no one’s surprise they were suffering from shock, and recommended they see a physician or a nurse-practitioner.

Everyone else stood in a loose semicircle facing the uniformed paramedic. Logos and Harmonia, clad in bathrobes and with their arms around each other, were distraught but functional. The special agent in charge and her deputy, dressed hastily enough to opt for open carry, wore their game faces, impassive and thin-lipped. Plainclothed Detective Blue, disheveled at the end of a long shift, looked more or less the same, if a little more forbidding.

Rose was grim and haggard. For the first time since she’d taken the sirens’ case, the rest of the room’s occupants saw her in something other than her trademark pastel business suits. A faded leather bomber jacket hung open over an azure sports bra and her well-worn shoulder rig; baggy BDU pants and tactical boots, side zippers still open, completed the after-hours ensemble.

The paramedic looked around at the expressions and sighed, then ran the fingers of a hand through his short hair. In low tones he described how close-run the frantic rescue efforts had been, how they would have come to naught had the wounds been made even a little differently. The adult onlookers winced. The younger pair, screened by the standing bodies from the quiet words and accompanying gestures, remained lost in their thoughts.

In a more conversational voice, he continued, “She’ll need some surgery and time to recover, but she’ll be fine—if she gets the other help she needs. I’m guessin’ the rules should let you do that, Ms. Brass, now that she crossed the line.” The paramedic nodded to a fellow professional, if in a different field, who nodded back, albeit with less assurance.

“Now I really do gotta go.” He suited action to words and vanished out the door. In seconds a heavy-duty diesel snorted to life and red strobes through the curtained windows lent a surreal dance-party air to the room.

As both rumble and lights faded down the street, those who remained looked at each other and groped for their composure. After a few moments, chatter and milling began. The agents left to assemble and send a team to the hospital. Logos and Harmonia went to put on street wear before departing for the same destination. Rose glanced at Blue, who rolled his eyes but nodded, and both of them approached the two girls on the couch.

She crouched to look up at them and said gently, “Get dressed, you two. We’re going to the hospital.” It took them most of a minute to start tracking again, but eventually they nodded wordlessly and clambered to their feet. She stood and shepherded them upstairs, where she waited until they reappeared.

More or less by accident, a convoy formed up minutes later. Blue led off in his unmarked car, chauffeuring Rose, Aria, and Sonata. Logos and Harmonia followed. A carful of female agents brought up the rear. In none of the three was there any conversation.

Author's Note

There are many people like Rose, Logos, and Harmonia—in the United States and across the world—who make it their life’s work to help those in need. If you need a lifeline, please talk to them!

Adagio’s basic psychological struggle is with depression—her aspirations, her power, her arrogance all have been shattered, and with that her confidence as well. Her despair is more complex than Aria’s burning rage and Sonata’s bewildered fear: an admixture of sadness, defeat, weariness, crushing emotional pain, and—much though she might deny it—guilt, less for her misdeeds than for leading her companions into disaster. Finding her way out of her personal labyrinth will be difficult and often painful, however necessary.
The Greek goddess Artemis was a complex figure: superlative huntress, nature goddess, and other things besides, each aspect identified with its own epithet. As Artemis Iokheira, the latter meaning “showered by arrows”, her golden shafts brought sudden death to girls and young women.
I’d like to thank (in alphabetical order) BenRG, FanOfMostEverything, and Rose Quill for acting as sounding boards on this chapter. Their advice was invaluable—even the advice I didn’t take!

The runaway and the bookworm

Rose Brass marched down the center of the corridor—literally; her stride and cadence were parade-ground perfect, and the clicks of her heels on the worn tiles were audible even over the ambient rumble of hospital activity. The two young women behind her were hard-pressed to keep up without trotting, the more so because one was huddled into herself, urged on by the other’s supportive arm around her shoulders. Rose once more wore a suit, this time in a pale topaz; the other two were dressed for the schoolday from which they had been unceremoniously yanked. All three sported badges prominently labeled VISITOR.

“But why am I here?” Twilight Sparkle whispered, only now able to do so without being overheard. “I wasn’t around for that whole Battle of the Bands thing.”

“You and I have something in common with them,” Sunset Shimmer murmured. “That’s why.”

Twilight blanched and stopped dead. “No.”

Sunset rounded to face her. “Please, Twi, we have to do this.” She half-turned and called, “Rose? Twi—”

Rose glanced over her shoulder, then pivoted in a smart about-face and returned. When she reached the younger pair, she halted and looked both of them over. In a much gentler voice than her manner suggested, she said, “I know this is a tough situation for you, Twilight, and I am truly sorry to put you into it. But I don’t mean to be dramatic when I say a life, maybe three lives, could hang in the balance. I have to do anything I can, within reason, to save those lives. As it is I’m skirting the rules to bring you two here, but there is absolutely nobody else in this world who can speak to their experiences. Princess Twilight isn’t available, and even if she were, I don’t think she’d be as helpful right now as you could be. Please, Twilight.”

Twilight’s eyes darted back and forth and she dry-washed her hands. “I—I really, really don’t want to.”

“We’ll be there with you,” Sunset promised. She raised Twilight’s hands in both of hers and squeezed gently, stilling the nervous fidgets. “You won’t be in any danger. All you have to do is tell your story. I know that won’t be easy, but Rose and I really do think it could help.”

There was a long pause, during which Twilight stared at her tight-laced fingers. Then, finally, she looked up again and squared her shoulders. “Okay. I’ll do my best.” Sunset hugged her close; she reciprocated and let out a tiny sniffle.

Rose nodded with sober respect, then turned back and led off again.

The single-bed room featured two windows—one next to the door allowing observation from the corridor, the other, on the opposite wall, looking out over the hospital’s massive parking lot. Institutional-grade horizontal blinds angled to block most of the light leaking through both. A pair of plain but sturdy chairs sat against the outside wall. A simple bedside table stood ready to hand beside the room’s central funishing, a patient bed with the head end currently raised somewhat.

In the half-lit gloom were four figures. One lay listless on the bed, covered to the waist by sheet and blanket, forearms resting on top of them; shockingly white dressings bulked like giant sweatbands around the wrists and pastel green patient gown offered token modesty to the body it covered. Two more forms curled awkwardly in the chairs, snoring gently. The last stood beside the open door, back to the observation window, but straightened and turned when Rose stepped in.

Sunset and Twilight hovered just outside as their guide whispered with the agent watching over the room’s other occupants. After a short discussion, the latter exited and took up a new guard position outside the door. The two girls scooted in behind Rose and exchanged a nervous glance as she reached past them to shut the door. “Hey,” she then called softly. “Wakey-wakey, you three.”

Snorts and starts greeted her. Adagio’s eyes opened and she stared emptily, able to see the tall woman without changing her reclined position on the bed. Aria and Sonata sat up blearily, blinking and looking around before turning their attention to Rose as well.

“I brought you a couple of visitors.” Rose stepped farther into the room, to the foot of the bed, between the chairs and the door. Thus deprived of shelter, Sunset stood taller and Twilight shrank a little, sidling toward her friend.

The sirens’ reaction was as electric as their exhaustion permitted. All three made noises of protest, though Aria’s resentful growl of, “What are they doing here?” rose above the others.

“They’re here because I asked them to come,” Rose replied calmly. “They need to see this, and you need to hear what they have to say.”

“What can they say to us?” Sonata’s voice trembled. “They broke our crystals. They made our magic go away.”

Sunset stepped forward. “I can apologize. What you were trying to do was wrong, and we had to stop you, but when you ran off . . . we didn’t do anything about it. We didn’t even think about what might happen to you after that. We just congratulated each other for winning and went on with our lives. We never—I never thought what we did could end up here, or someplace worse.”

Aria sneered. “You just don’t want to feel guilty for what you did to us.”

“No, you’re right. I don’t. But there’s more to it than that.” Sunset drew a breath. “When I said you weren’t going to get away with it, you told me you heard all about me—but you never heard my side of the story.” She sketched it out quietly, laying bare her transgressions and efforts to right them briefly but starkly, then went on, “Before you three showed up at the school, most people still didn’t trust me. My only friends were the Rainbooms. It was hard, but they made it bearable. They gave me the strength to keep trying. Now I have a lot of friends and acquaintances, and it’s amazing.”

“You’re welcome,” Adagio husked bitterly. “Working together to kick us in the face with magic and rainbows sure helped make you popular, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, it did,” Sunset admitted. “And that felt good at the time. Now . . . now that I know how much you suffered afterward, not so much. I feel guilty for not trying to help when I could’ve—and should’ve—known better.” Three identically skeptical expressions moved her to add, “Look—I don’t know if we could ever be friends, but I don’t want us to be enemies any more. Truce?”

Adagio closed her eyes. “Fine. Whatever.”

Sunset opened her mouth again, but Rose’s hand on her shoulder stopped her. She looked up and, at the older woman’s head-shake, sighed and stepped back.

Then it was Twilight’s turn. At the urging of the other two she came forward with manifest reluctance. Sonata shrank back, plainly terrified. Aria bristled. Adagio eyed the bespectacled girl with alarm. Twilight steeled herself. “Uh, h-hi. I know I look a lot like her, but I’m not the princess. I was going to Crystal Prep Academy across town when, um, everything happened. I’ve never been to the pony world. I’ve seen it, though.”

Confusion replaced alarm, and she hurried on. “Ms. Brass and Sunset wanted me to tell you what happened when I came to Canterlot High for the Friendship Games.” She looked down at her clasped hands. “It was pretty awful, and I don’t want to talk about it, but they said I needed to.”

Haltingly at first, she related her personal journey at somewhat greater length, occasionally comparing or contrasting with Sunset’s tale. The going was heavier for her than for her friend—the events were fresher and she still was struggling with their consequences—but eventually she too wound to a conclusion, voice firmer and head raised. “Spike and Sunset and the other, ah, Rainbooms pretty much saved me from myself. When I transferred to Canterlot High right after, they were just waiting to be my friends, and the rest of CHS has been wonderful. Everyone understands Midnight Sparkle was my frustration and anger and curiosity all lashing out at once, and nobody holds it against me, even though sometimes I almost wish they would. I feel so guilty about it, and I still have nightmares and doubts once in a while, but it’s getting better little by little because now I have friends, lots of friends, who are willing to forgive me and help me.”

Before her audience could muster more snide responses, Twilight drew a deep breath and gave all three a level look. “I never had any real friends before. Ever. I didn’t think it was important, but now I wonder how much of that was sour grapes. Even my old classmates at Crystal Prep treat me—all of us—a lot better than they used to. They need more practice at friendship, but they're making progress, so I guess it’s true every cloud has a silver lining.” She essayed a faint reminiscent smile before turning serious once more.

“I think I understand now why Ms. Brass brought me here. One, I wasn’t there for the Battle of the Bands, so we can talk without that getting in the way, at least for me. Two, what I went through with Midnight Sparkle gives me at least a little idea how horrible things must have been for you, even if it wasn’t exactly the same kind of experience. Three . . .” Her voice softened. “. . . you might actually listen to me when I say you already have friends.”

“Friends? What friends?” Adagio stared, honest bewilderment cutting through her sullen cynicism.

“Them.” Twilight pointed at Sonata, then Aria. “Ms. Brass and Sunset said they’ve never left you, ever, no matter how bad things got or how much you all argued. They were asleep in those chairs when we came in, so I bet they’ve been here all night. They’re still here right now. What do you think?”

Adagio’s face turned slowly toward the other sirens. They in turn looked at each other, then at her. Aria folded her arms and shifted from foot to foot. Sonata clasped her hands under her chin; after a breathless moment she abruptly burst into tears. In the shocked pause that gripped everyone else, she flung herself halfway onto the bed. “I was so s-scared!” she stuttered before babbling on half-incoherently, fear and anxiety pouring out of her along with the waterworks. Aria looked down, eyes screwed shut, her inner battle evident, but finally she too gave in and sat on the foot of the bed, shoulders slumping. Her tears were no less eloquent for all they slid down her face silently.

Adagio’s mouth hung open and her eyes were enormous. She reached up one trembling hand, fingertips brushing Sonata’s cheek. The other hand rose uncertainly toward Aria, who scooted forward to take it in both of hers equally hesitantly. Adagio’s face crumpled as she too began to weep.

After a minute or two Rose went around to the other side of the bed and cleared her throat gently. The three of them turned to face her blankly, but she focused on Adagio. “You feel alone and isolated, even in a crowd, even with Aria and Sonata. You’re sad, and angry, and tired all the time, and you don’t know why or what to do about any of it. Nothing seems to matter, not even brushing your teeth or your hair, so why bother? Things you used to enjoy just don’t do much for you any more. The whole world is gray, even in bright sunlight. You hurt inside, all the time, enough that it’s hard to swallow or even breathe sometimes. You’d do anything to make it stop hurting, anything at all, even if the only thing that will make it stop is to make everything stop. Does any of that sound familiar?” Her voice held a world of sympathy and understanding.

Adagio’s jaw trembled and she nodded jerkily.

Rose leaned back against the observation window and looked at the ceiling briefly. “I know exactly what you’re feeling, Adagio, because that’s how I felt after I was maimed, got two of my men killed, and lost the only career I knew. All three of you need help, just like I did, and maybe now you’re ready to get it.”

“You mean a, what is it, shrink, like you talked about before?” Sonata sounded apprehensive.

“Yes. I know one of the best.” In response to their dubious looks Rose continued, “Any good shrink—and they don’t like being called that, by the way—will tell you he’s not there to ‘cure’ you, whatever that means. He’s there to act as a guide. His job is to help you find your way out of the box canyons you’re stuck in. My words, not his, but that’s what he did for me.”

“What about drugs?” Aria asked with narrowed eyes.

“If he can avoid them, he will. If he can’t, he’ll talk to you about it.”

The trio looked at each other, wavering and unsure. Twilight leaned forward. “Please say yes. I didn’t mention it before, but the school counselor at CHS is helping me now.”

Sunset bit her lip and edged up beside the other two visitors. “Me too. Well, not as much now, but after the Fall Formal, when I didn’t know what to do or how to do it.”

“Why?” Adagio’s simple question came out in a rusty voice.

“Everyone deserves a second chance,” said Twilight.

“It’s the right thing to do,” said Sunset.

“It’s my job,” said Rose. “When I lost the army, I thought I’d never find anything to replace it. But now, for all the low pay and the dangerous cases, I wouldn’t be anywhere else. Pulling kids like you out of trouble is like running into burning houses to find the people inside—the fires are slower, but they’re just as deadly to anyone trapped in them. Yeah, it’s a kick when one of my clients makes it because I helped, I’ll admit it, but it needs to be done, and I’m the one to do it.”

Adagio stared into the distance. “What happens then?”

“The rest of your lives.” Rose pressed her lips together, tamping out a smile, at the disbelieving expressions. “Yes, you can have lives. You just need to work at building new ones. Maybe they won’t be as grand as what you had in mind before the Battle of the Bands, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be worthwhile. Look at me, for instance. I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but that just means it’ll be that much more rewarding when you look back on it.”

Silence reigned as the sirens grappled with momentous questions they’d considered barely, if at all, and their visitors waited. Twilight held her breath until she no longer could. Sunset took the opportunity to round the bed and open the outer blinds part way, filling the room with late-morning light. Rose attended with solemn courtesy. At last, one by one starting with Sonata, the three sirens nodded slowly with shy downcast eyes. The journey might be a thousand miles, but they’d taken their first step.

Author's Note

When I created Rose, I concentrated on what made her a tough customer ready, willing, and able to tackle the worst on the casebooks. It wasn’t until I got well into the story I realized just how much her past experience mirrored her newest cases—the loss of her arm, eye, and career, and the resulting helplessness, guilt, and depression. Her strengths might have gotten her assigned to the case, but her vulnerabilities were what provided the vital connection and understanding the sirens so desperately needed, little though they realized it.

Epilogue

The glorious early-spring morning burnished a sweeping panorama of the city sprawled across the valley, from the ambitiously high-rise downtown immediately below to the distant orchards and fields of Sweet Apple Acres, blue and hazy where they nestled amidst the woods flung like a rich carpet across the foothills and the edges of the basin’s floor. The faithful old panel van labored along the switchbacks winding up the side of the tall ridge that towered over the skyscrapers, close now to its destination at the crest.

Four female voices rose from the open windows in a merry, if not especially tuneful, round. Rose sounded no better, but really no worse, than the three teenage girls in the back seat. She never had much musical talent or inclination, but today was special. Like everything else about the slowly healing sirens, their singing voices—once dependent on their magic for their superb, beguiling sound—were being rebuilt from scratch. They had a long way to go, but they’d learned a new determination, and any time they faltered in their journey, those around them were ready to help them back to their metaphorical or literal feet. The phlegmatic driver concentrated on his task, and if his brow was furrowed, who was to say whether it was due to the difficulty of the narrow, winding road or of listening to the caterwauling around him?

At last the van made one last turn and emerged onto the expanse of a parking lot beside the buildings clustered on the ridgetop. An observatory dome dominated the complex, but other, smaller domes echoed its lines. The driver had his choice of slots. On a weekday in the off season there usually weren’t many tourists around. He pulled onto a nearby stall and set about shutting down his vehicle with a definite air of relief.

“Here we are, girls!” Rose called as she bounced out of her seat through the open door.

Adagio, Aria, and Sonata all piled out and looked around. They’d never made it up here before, and when the view caught their eyes, they stood and stared. “Wow,” Sonata breathed before taking off for the waist-high concrete safety wall; in her eagerness to take in the view she nearly toppled over it. Noises of mingled amusement and alarm arose from the other three as they followed more sedately.

They stood for several minutes in silence, gazing out over the land. Finally Aria spoke up. “So . . . why are we here?” When Rose looked over at her, she continued a bit defensively, “I mean, this is great and all, but we coulda come up here with Mr. Rhetor and Ms. Harmonia. It’s just you today, Ms. Brass.” She gestured inarticulately.

Rose smiled. “We’re here to meet a few people.” With that she turned around, beckoning the three of them to do the same.

Walking across the lot toward them were three young women. Sunset Shimmer was flanked by a pair who looked like identical twins trying to dress and style differently so people could tell them apart. Even now, the sirens gasped and tensed, sidling closer together—and to Rose, who blinked in mild startlement. “It’s okay, girls,” she reassured them. “Good news, I promise.”

The other trio stopped a few feet away. “Adagio. Aria. Sonata,” Sunset greeted them. “You’re looking . . . good. Really.”

The sirens’ mouths flapped briefly, but finally Adagio managed, “Th-thanks, uh, Sunset. Why are you here?” After a moment, realizing how that sounded, she waved her hands hastily. Thin scars on the undersides of her wrists were clean and already starting to fade, as much as they ever would.

Sunset, Princess Twilight, and Sci-Twi all grinned understandingly. It was a reasonable enough question, even if not exactly politic. “The princess has something for you.” With that, Sunset edged back half a step.

Her Highness pulled a rolled, sealed scroll from a pocket in her jacket and stepped forward, arm outstreched to offer it. “This is for all three of you.”

Adagio reached out and took it, then, with trembling fingers, broke the seal and unrolled it. The other two crowded around to read over her shoulders. As they did, three pairs of eyes widened, and three jaws dropped, comically.

“You’ve been pardoned,” Twilight explained unnecessarily, plainly unable to keep mum any longer. “So now you have a choice, when you’re ready to make it. On which side of the portal will you want to live?”

Author's Note

At the last minute I realized an epilogue would help the story’s balance and symmetry. Questions raised early on are reprised. The sirens still have a lot of rough edges, but have made some progress. The ending is a “Lady or the Tiger” style of cliff-hanger, albeit a more positive one than the original. The setting takes advantage of the city map released recently, in advance of the episode-length videos scheduled for summer 2017; the location of the observatory reminds me strongly of Lick Observatory, visible from all of Silicon Valley, where I live, or Griffith Observatory above Los Angeles.
After writing the epilogue I realized it coincidentally takes place almost exactly one year after the Battle of the Bands. According to the audio commentary, Rainbow Rocks is set six months after the Fall Formal, which places it . . . in the early spring!