Getting the Band Back Together

Chapters

Overture
Dissonance
Oratorio
Intermezzo
Counterpoint
Coda

Overture

It was a good life, Sonata thought to herself. The Canterlot High Not A Human Testing Installation, John Q. Discord's personal playground of semi-responsible experimentation, was certainly one of the more interesting places she'd ever been to. Food was plentiful, her salary was apparently respectable, and Mr. Discord himself emanated an aura of confused emotions that Sonata could at least appreciate, if not actually consume.

And yet...

And yet. Really, the fact that Sonata even got that far was enough to make her furrow her brow. Just a few months ago, she'd have taken her current circumstances with both hands and her jaws and held on for dear life. Indeed, when Mr. Discord had made the offer, that was exactly what she'd done. But then the Friendship Games came and went, and they'd left more than occasional reports of bony-plated monsters in their wake.

The usual pleasures of life had started to dull. Sonata's growing bank balance—something Mr. Discord set up for her, like the important-looking papers from that nice man in the alley—meant little to her once the novelty of seeing her numbers go up had worn off. It wasn't like she actually needed the money for anything. Messing with students at Canterlot High grew both harder and less fun as everyone grew used to the girl with the serrated teeth. Even food didn't bring her any happiness these days. The last time Sonata remembered tasting anything was the apple-habanero salsa the lunchlady had asked her to sample one day, and that was last week.

And then there was the conversation with those two not-dating girls...

Sonata paused as her body, long used to working while her mind wandered, finished adjusting the wiring on one of the science colanders. "Mr. Discord?"

He looked up from the notebook where he was scrawling a draft of his next book. "Yes, Sonata?"

"Did you do something to me?"

Mr. Discord quirked an eyebrow. "I've done many things to you. Did you have anything particular in mind?"

"Like what you did when I tried to pounce on you."

"Not since then. Why do you ask?"

Sonata fidgeted and carefully chewed her lip. Her fangs had torn through it the first few times after the change. "How come you've never asked me about what I know about magic?"

"Mostly because I haven't gotten around to it yet," he said with a shrug. "This world's magic is, as I understand it, unprecedented on a multiversal scale. The sheer quantity of topics to investigate is almost overwhelming, and before I can see how your knowledge and experience compare to our current circumstances, I need to see what those circumstances actually are. Otherwise, you could lead us to dead ends through no fault of your own." After a moment, he added, "Also, you never asked until now. Why, what do you know about magic?"

"Oh." Sonata wrung her hands. "So it's not because you just think I'm dumb. And useless. And the cow totally kicked over that lantern in Whinnycity."

Mr. Discord smirked, but it was one of his friendlier smirks. "I get the feeling we aren't actually talking about your contributions to thaumology."

"I think I'm sick. With some weird human disease."

"And thus we come to why you thought I'd toyed with your mind again." Mr. Discord stood and looked her over as he approached. "I'm not picking up any notable conflicts in your immune system, but I could be wrong. What are your symptoms?"

"It's Adagio and Aria. I can't stop thinking about them. I left them because we didn't have any reason to stick together anymore, and even before that they only kept me around because we couldn't feed without one another. I knew leaving was the right thing to do. I was so sure... but now I'm not. I keep wondering what they're doing, how they're doing." Sonata sighed. "They probably didn't find any nice, rich guys to look after them."

"I do hope that's not how you describe our relationship when someone asks."

"They were the worst, but I... I think I miss them." She stomped the floor, fists shaking. "And that doesn't make any sense!"

Mr. Discord shook his head. "I'm afraid it does. Sonata, what you are experiencing is that strange human emotion known as guilt."

"How do I make it stop?"

"In my experience, you have two options: Let time bury it until you can ignore it more often than not, or try to fix the cause."

Sonata considered this for a few moments. "How much time?"

He shrugged. "Depending on the nature of your guilt, it can take anywhere from hours to decades to eternity."

"Okay then. I guess I'm going to have to see how the others are doing." Sonata nodded to herself and made for the door.

As her hand reached for the knob, Mr. Discord spoke up. "Question: Do you have any idea how to go about doing that?"

Sonata went still. After several seconds, she let her arm drop and the rest of her droop. "No."

"Then I'll be happy to lend my assistance."

She turned back to see him smile. "But—"

"I'm afraid I won't take no for an answer." Mr. Discord stuck out his thumb and pinkie and held them to his head like a phone. After a pause, he said, "Hello, Celestia. Do you remember that time in ninety-eight when you and Luna were stranded in Las Pegasus and you had to call your dear uncle to bail you out with nary a word spoken to your parents?" A pause, then a chuckle. "No, I'm not calling in the favor; I just like reminiscing. I'll be using my vacation days this week. The substitute just needs to prepare everyone for finals. Then possibly administrate them; I'll keep you updated should this go for longer than I expect. Ta ta." He shook out his hand, smirking. "The telecom companies hate it when I do that."

Sonata stared. Not because of the magic; she was used to that from him. Something else perplexed her far more. "Why are you helping me with this?"

"Firstly, you're welcome. Secondly, I can't have my lovely assistant distracted by guilt when we have such vast, uncharted realms of knowledge to explore. Thirdly, this sounds incredibly interesting, and I could use an airing. It's all too easy for me to get so cooped up in here that I all but forget the rest of the world exists as anything but a source of data. Oh, and, fourthly, I believe we established that you have no idea where to find the other sirens."

"Uh..." Sonata squirmed. "I was going to ask Sunset Shimmer."

Mr. Discord quirked an eyebrow, then adjusted it when it started to slide off his face. "The same girl who couldn't find you blindfolded?"

Sonata sighed and nodded. "Why did I have to wear the blindfold in that experiment, anyway?"

"It amused me. My point is that if Sunset couldn't detect any of you last month, she likely won't be able to now. No, I have a better idea."

"Chaos magic?"

"Well, it might help," said Mr. Discord, scratching at his goatee. "Or it might turn us into a blue whale and a bowl of petunias. No, I was thinking of something far more reliable."

"The Internet!" cried another instance of Mr. Discord from within the data analysis portion of the NAHTI.

After a flash of light, Sonata found herself standing behind him. "Oh. I guess that makes sense."

"Given how you three tried to lay low up until your attempt to consume the school, any hits on your names should either be coincidences or very recent developments." A few keystrokes later and Mr. Discord beamed. "There we have it!"

Sonata peered over his shoulder. "I recognize Aria's name, but who's Police Blotter?"

"While I'm sure there are more than a few people with that name, in this case, it's just a record of arrests and other events around a police station. And would you look at that, there's a Blaze in Bloodstone!"

Sonata grinned. "Ha! Who kicked over the lantern now, Aria?"

Mr. Discord glanced at her. "I honestly can't tell if that was clever or a misunderstanding."

"... Yes?"

"I'm training you well," he said proudly. "In any case, it will be a simple matter of getting you there to gloat in her face; Bloodstone's not even an hour away." A bit of time passed as Mr. Discord tried other search strings, resulting in ever more frustrated grunts and nothing else. "It appears Adagio Dazzle will be harder to track down. Do you know what this means?"

"I can try curing my guilt with just one of them?"

"Close. Road trip!"

Author's Note

As you may recall, when Mr. Discord offered to make a personal contribution to CHS, Principal Celestia told him it could be anything, so long as it was not a human testing installation. Thus, the NAHTI.

Dissonance

Over the past several weeks, Sonata had learned to expect the unexpected from Mr. Discord. Some days, he was the model of professionalism. Others, he was like a child on Yuletide morning. Every day was an adventure, or so he insisted whenever her headache got really bad. The morning after he called in his time off, she poked her head into the kitchen of his—and now her—humble home. There was the fridge, the oven, the cabinets extending up to and along the ceiling... "Good morning?"

"Good morning!" Sonata turned to face the sound. Mr. Discord stood on the wall in a corner of the kitchen Sonata hadn't looked at yet, clad in a hot pink bathrobe and hunched predatorily over the waffle iron. "I do hope you're hungry, Sonata. Road trips always give me an appetite, and it seems best to prepare for that ahead of time."

"I guess I'm hungry." An unfamiliar bit of shame prodded Sonata in the back of her mind. "I, uh, can make coffee?"

"Sonata, your coffee has many applications, but ingesting it is not one of them. I assure you, the Prench press is already taking care of it." Mr. Discord craned his neck to the opposite end of the kitchen. "Non, Jean-Phillipe?"

"Quite so," said the coffee maker in an unmistakably Bittish accent.

"Just make yourself comfortable, my dear. I know it's usually toast and cereal around here, but I haven't gotten a chance to play doting father figure since Luna ran away from home during her little punk rock phase." Mr. Discord chuckled. "So glad I still have those photos."

Sonata sat at the table, which still rested on the floor. The meal did technically involve waffles somewhere beneath the mountains of fruit and whipped cream. She picked at hers while Mr. Discord proceeded to eat his with enough enthusiasm to expand his goatee to a full beard with everything clinging to his chin.

As he scraped the leavings back on his plate, he frowned and said, "Are you sure you're alright? I've seen you eat a raw pork belly and ask for seconds."

Sonata squirmed. "It's just... I know this is the fastest way to make me feel better, but... this is Aria. She's the worst. And she thinks I'm the worst."

"She's also in prison, and would likely appreciate your help getting her out of it."

"Maybe." Sonata slumped in her seat, even her ear fins drooping. "Or maybe she'll just punch me for not going away."

A hand patted her shoulder. Sonata looked up to see Mr. Discord smiling down at her. "Trust me, Sonata. Siblings may squabble, but you can count on them when the rest of the world is trying to get in the way of your rivalry."

She turned away and huffed, "We're not even from the same clutch."

"When did that ever matter?"

Sonata felt her guts twist as the truth struck home. "It didn't. Not once we were stuck here." She shoved her plate away and turned back to Mr. Discord as she said, "How are we getting to Bloodstone?"

He just gave her a funny look and summoned his car keys to his hand.

Sonata looked back and forth between keys and man, waiting for one of them to do something interesting. Finally, she said, "So we're just taking your car?"

Mr. Discord gave her a look she'd seen mostly on Adagio, one that told her just how stupid she was being without ever explaining why. "Yes. We are. Was there some part of 'road trip' you didn't understand?" His expression softened to one Sonata had never seen on Adagio, genuine concern. "Seriously, I'm never sure which parts of human culture you've absorbed."

She shrugged. "I guess I just wasn't expecting something so... straightforward."

"Tell me, Sonata, are you at all familiar with my Equestrian analogue?"

She shivered. "You mean the one we call Reiipivzheerv."

"Gesundheit." Mr. Discord passed her a tissue. "What does that translate to, if I may ask?"

Sonata wrung the tissue in her hands as the legends echoed in her memory. "Song shredder."

"How poetic. So, assuming we, say, teleport to Aria and inform her that nice Mister..." After a moment's pause, Discord opened his mouth and let Sonata's voice emanate from it for one word. "Reiipivzheerv wants to tear her apart into subatomic particles, shove her through a nanoscale wormhole, and paste her back together on the other end, how do you think she'd react?"

"Probably go for your shins, then your stomach, then your eyes. She really likes going for the eyes."

"Duly noted. As I hope you've gathered, just because you've grown comfortable around the local avatar of chaos doesn't mean the rest of your old trio will be so sanguine."

Sonata shook her head. "No, they're both fine with blood."

Mr. Discord smirked. "I can never tell when you're doing that on purpose. Besides, in my experience, the journey is at least as important as the destination. It may give you time to reflect on these new feelings of yours, help you adjust to them. Feel free to use me as a sounding board along the way."

"... and then Aria said 'No, I'm not going to eat it, I'm trying to stuff it back in him,' and Adagio said, 'They don't work that way, moron, he's good as dead,' and I said, 'So can I eat it?' and Aria said..."

Mr. Discord took the brief reprieve to glance at the clock on the dashboard. Then he expanded his mind to look for temporal anomalies. He found none. And yet, somehow, only five minutes had passed since they'd set out. Five minutes of a strange blend of inane chatter and casual grotesquerie that, after long exposure to Sonata Dusk, actually managed to be more boring than typical small talk.

The blessed silence ended all too soon. "Well, I'm not one hundred percent sure about the translation from Seatongue, but it definitely wasn't nice. So I called her something worse, and then Adagio pinched both our ears, and that was when we remembered that we were supposed to be nurses, but fortunately it was the Civil War so no one really expected to come out of the field hospital with all their limbs anyway. But that was only the third worst thing Aria's ever called me. The second worst one was..."

The stoplight ahead turned red. Mr. Discord felt his eye twitch. He projected his rage at the fabric of the world and punched a hole in the fabric of space and time with his mind. He drove through the resulting portal, daring any vehicles to be in his way on the other side. Unsurprisingly, no one took him up on the challenge. "Would you look at that!" he said with forced cheer. "We're here!"

"We are? Wow, that was fast!" Sonata looked around to see what had changed since the last time she'd been in Bloodstone.

The answer seemed to be "not much." The town was definitely different from Canterlot. As Adagio had said once, Canterlot was a suburb of Crystal City, but Bloodstone was runoff. Common aesthetic themes included bare concrete, barbed wire, and elaborate graffiti. There was the occasional spot of some class—an intact house from the early parts of the last century, an elaborate block-wide mural, a place named Flamecano Hibachi Grill that was home to several good memories—but for the most part, the entire town managed to fit itself along the wrong side of the tracks.

Mr. Discord drove past a diner. Sonata watched it go and felt a twinge in her heart.

I'm tired of fast food. I need a meal.

She shook herself. "It's not even the same diner."

"The same diner as what?"

"The one we were feeding from when the spiraling rainbows showed up." Sonata sighed. "We spent months waiting for Adagio to figure out just where it was. Boring, hungry months."

"Well, perhaps that will give you and Aria something to bond over. We're here."

"Here" turned out to be a hulking, squat brick of a building that might have been white at some point about forty years ago.

Sonata read the sign aloud. "Bloodstone Women's Correctional Facility."

"Indeed, though I've heard they let women from out of town use it as well." Mr. Discord looked around. "Now, where can I park around here?"

Sonata stared at him. "It's Bloodstone. You don't park a car this nice unless you want it to belong to three scrap dealers and a tire store."

Mr. Discord raised an eyebrow. "We are right next to a prison."

"Yeah, so all of the attention will be on the people already inside of it."

"I take it you've been here before."

Sonata nodded. "Adagio liked places where no one asked a lot of questions. Aria liked places where people gave her excuses to fight."

"And you?"

She shrugged. "The restaurants are neutral ground. Some things are sacred."

Mr. Discord snorted. "Personally, I find sacred cows make the tastiest hamburgers, but I see what you mean. Never let it be said I ignore the advice of the Evil Overlord List."

Sonata blinked. By the time her eyes opened again, they were standing on the sidewalk, Mr. Discord's car nowhere to be seen. "Where—"

"Back at home. Seems like the safest place for it." Mr. Discord strode towards the prison with a smile on his face. "Ready to face your fellow siren?"

Sonata carefully bit her lip. She'd mangled it more than once after the change. "Does it matter?"

He nodded. "The choice is ultimately yours."

"I just want this feeling to go away... so I guess we have to."

Mr. Discord gave a sadder nod as he led her inside. "Welcome to the joys of maturity, Sonata, where 'obligation' is the word of the day every day."

The lobby was about as bad as the outside. Flickering lights, walls decorated only by stains of indeterminable origin, benches that looked less comfortable than a shattered heartstone, and an earth-aspect woman at the scratched-up front desk who seemed about as soft as the benches.

Mr. Discord breezed up to her with a casual confidence Sonata rarely saw on anyone but Adagio. "We're here to visit a prisoner."

"That's nice," said the woman, not looking up from her magazine. "Make an appointment and we'll get back to you in two to four weeks."

"Then we can see her?" said Sonata.

"No, that's when we'll tell you when you can see her."

Mr. Discord folded his arms. "And when would that be?"

The woman turned a page in her magazine. "Make an appointment and you'll find out in two to four weeks."

Mr. Discord took a deep breath. "Look, we don't want to be here and you clearly don't want us to be here. Therefore, I'm going to make us all happy and patch your surface thoughts into the PA system."

"Wait, what?" The response came in eerie stereo, making the woman look up at the speakers mounted on the walls.

More came from them. "What in the Tree's— I'm not saying tha— That's my voi— Knock it—" The sentence fragments became shorter and shorter and until they dissolved into a feverish cacophony accompanied by the woman screaming aloud.

Sonata put her hands to her ears, trying to block the holes on either side of the fins. It did little to help.

"There we go." Mr. Discord cut off the broadcast with a wave of his hand, then took Sonata by the elbow. "Follow me, Sonata." He walked straight into a wall. The wall knew better than to stop him, and allowed Sonata to come with him.

Once the tinnitus passed, Sonata asked, "What was that about?" Then she spat out the taste of rebar.

"I just needed to instill enough mental confusion in Miss Red Tape back there to suss out our destination from her muddled surface thoughts. I try not to make a habit of this sort of thing, but obstructive bureaucrats and I have never gotten along." He hummed to himself. "In hindsight, I suppose that might have had some lasting impact on CHS's admissions policy. Whatever the case, we're here."

"Yeah, you are," said Aria. Both turned to see her. She was thinner than Sonata had last seen her, almost as bad as when the Black Plague had given them all a dangerous overdose of misery and malaise. Her pigtails were no more, her hair shaved down to green-and-purple stubble. The orange coverall didn't work with any part of her coloration. She cracked scabbed-over knuckles. "And now you can get out." With that, she threw a fist at Sonata.

Oratorio

Aria had punched a lot of things over the years. She usually imagined they were another siren's face, whichever one had annoyed her more lately. Few of those punches had actually made contact with her fellow prisoners in this stupid world, but she fondly remembered every one of them.

Thus, when her fist sank into something much more soft and yielding than Sonata's nose, she immediately knew something was wrong.

"Come on, keep it up!" The old man who Sonata had come in with pranced about, suddenly between them and wearing so much paisley-print padding that he looked like he was being eaten by an especially ugly couch. "You think you'll win the championship like that?"

Aria snarled and tried to dart around him, but the tough old meat was more agile than he looked. She got angrier, and did what she always did when she got angry.

The punch only made the man's snaggletoothed grin get even wider under the football helmet he definitely hadn't been wearing earlier. "That's more like it! You're a killer! You're a wrecking machine! You're gonna eat lightning and crap movie quotes!"

Aria huffed. Her stupid ape lungs and stupid noodle arms were burning. Even before she'd lost everything, she'd usually settled fights with only one or two blows. Now that she couldn't sustain her meat body with negative energy, now that she actually had to choke down matter just to keep the pulsing, oozing organs that kept her going from betraying her like everything else...

She felt tears running down her cheeks, and that made her even angrier. She lunged at the man, jaws open and teeth that were at least a little familiar ready to tear out his jugular.

She tasted nothing but foam rubber. Spitting and sputtering, she froze as she felt something wrap around her, tight as a hungry squid.

"It's okay, Aria. I'm here."

"Who asked you to come?" Aria thrashed until Sonata let her go, then shot to her feet, glaring at the sparring partner who didn't even have the decency to get eaten. "And who the fu—"

He bowed, back in the ugly suit he'd been wearing when he came in, pads nowhere to be seen. "John Q. Discord, Ph D. and a bunch of other fun letters. Charmed, I'm sure."

1 You're Discord's lackey? (lit. Like are you sucker-fish of Song-Shredder?)

2 The waves led my path (lit. Lead (past tense) waves claim-me traveling.)

Aria took an involuntary step back. Her gaze snapped to Sonata. "Bu ke ki hishrvpeshe bo Reiipivzheerv?"1

Sonata closed her eyes and, head bowed, said, "Mmriieiish shuplii leybli siirirm."2

Aria groaned. "Only you, Sonata."

"Hey, hallucination dude, you get that?"

Everyone turned to the other occupant of the cell, a green-skinned woman with darker green stubble along her scalp and jagged, lightning-like facial markings that pegged her as a griffin aspect.

Mr. Discord shrugged. "I'm afraid I didn't have time to turn on subtitles, but I assume Miss Blaze was so surprised by her devastatingly handsome rescuer that she briefly forgot how to speak Wranglish. Girls, I don't suppose you'd be willing to confirm that for Miss...?"

The woman crossed her arms. "What kinda crummy hallucination doesn't know my name?"

"Shut up, Helga," said Aria. "No one cares about you."

"A griffin aspect whose name doesn't start with G?" Mr. Discord scribbled something in a notebook he was now holding. "Thank you, ma'am, you're an invaluable data point."

Aria gritted her teeth. "No one. Cares. About you. You know what we called griffins back in Equestria?"

Sonata's hand shot up. "Ooh! Ooh! I know!"

"Shut up. You don't. First, because you don't know anything. Second, we didn't call them anything, because no one cared about them."

"Shows what you know," said Sonata, hand on her hips. "I always called them in-flight meals."

"Why did you even come here?" Aria growled out, eyes locked on Sonata's neck and remembering one of the few good things about fingers.

"Because I missed you." After a moment, Sonata pouted. "Didn't you miss me?"

The question caught Aria so off-guard that it even put her out of her strangling mood. "No, because we're sirens and I'm sane. But I guess that's too much to ask from you. I thought we agreed to never see each other again or we'd end up trying to kill each other."

Sonata looked away, digging a toe into the concrete floor. "Yeah, but when you're not there, it feels like it's killing me anyway."

"Heh. Sisters," Helga said from her bunk. "Am I right, hallucination dude?"

From next to her, Mr. Discord said, "Well, I was usually the one who started it, but she was usually the one who finished it. There's a reason I used to call her Fist."

Aria whirled around to them. "Dammit, Helga, what did I tell you?"

Sonata jumped on top of her. "Oh, are you Aria's prison bi—?"

Helga held up a hand. "Girl, you're cute and you bug the ever-loving crap out of Blaze. That's two points in my book." Faint talons emerged from the extended fingers, little more than the reflection off of their razor edges. "Finish that sentence and you'll lose twenty."

Sonata considered that for a moment before shrugging. "Eh. I can take you."

"Get off of me!" Aria cried, thrashing beneath her but unable to shift the heavier load.

"Girls, entertaining as this would be normally, we are on a bit of a time crunch here." Mr. Discord reached out and plucked Aria out from under Sonata, then stared straight at her with the intensity of focused madness. "Ms. Blaze, we're extending you a one-time get out of jail free offer with minimal strings attached and a very generous benefits package." He adjusted his top hat and twirled his mustache. "What say you?"

"Why bother?" Aria swept a hand over the cell, something like a smile tugging at her lips. "Have you seen this place?"

"Yes. It's a prison. My skin's crawling just being in here."

She scoffed. "Yeah, they call it a prison. But these days, people think they have to feed prisoners. Now I have my whole life planned out: Step one, punch cop. Step two, free room and board. Step three, repeat as necessary." Aria folded her arms and allowed herself a smug grin.

Mr. Discord quirked an eyebrow. "Elegant in its simplicity."

"Better than anything Adagio ever came up with."

"It really is," said Sonata.

"And you aren't worried about constantly being surrounded by convicted felons?" Mr. Discord dipped his head to Helga. "No offense, miss."

"None taken. Blaze, you're a crazy bitch, but you brew some killer prison hootch."

Aria spared her a glance and a grudging nod. "Decades of experience." To Mr. Discord, she said, "Of course I'm not worried. I can kill a man with my thumbs."

"She can. I've seen her do it."

Aria rolled her eyes at Sonata. "Obviously. You're the one who dared me to." Aria turned back to Mr. Discord. "These women don't scare me any more than Sonata does. And she's actually a threat."

"Aww, that's the nicest thing you've ever said about me."

"Shut up, Sonata. Also, you're literally Reiipivzheerv himself. Sonata may be crazy enough to cozy up with you, but I'm not going to wait until you think it'll be funnier to make us fight to the death than serve you."

Mr. Discord sighed. "Goodness me. I really must speak to my old friend about the importance of reputation. Rest assured, Miss Blaze, I have no gladiatorial intentions towards you or Sonata. I'm willing to offer you everything this facility can and more: better food, better living conditions, more freedom, even all the cops you can punch."

Aria crossed her arms. "I don't know. I can punch a lot of cops."

He smirked and snapped his fingers, and a blue-skinned uniformed policeman manifested without further fanfare. "My name is Officer Bodybag," said the policeman. "I exist to be punched."

"Specifically, he's a philosophical zombie," said Mr. Discord. "He isn't sentient, but he provides all the catharsis of sticking it to the man fist-first. I can manifest dozens of his like at a time."

Aria looked over Officer Bodybag, cracked her knuckles, and unloaded a haymaker right into his nose. She clicked her tongue as he got back on his feet. "It's better when they scream."

"We can hash out the particulars afterwards. I assure you, Miss Blaze, you won't get a better offer than this, not least because going by your appearance, you may not survive the rigors of mortality long enough to complete your proposed cycle even once. So again I ask, what say you?"

"If she says no," said Helga, "any chance I can get on board?"

Mr. Discord turned to her, an eyebrow quirked. "Don't you think I'm a hallucination brought on by garbage-bag schnapps?"

She shrugged. "Got nothing to lose if you are."

"Can't argue with that," Mr. Discord said with a smile. "However, I'm sorry to say that the offer's only open to my assistant's colleagues."

"Damn." Helga fell backwards until she was lying on her mattress.

"So Helga won't be coming?" said Aria.

Mr. Discord tilted his head. "Do you want her to?"

"Depths, no!"

"So..." Sonata gulped. "You are?"

Aria glared at Sonata. The seconds stretched on, one siren glowering, the other biting her lip nearly to the point of drawing blood. Aria moved her gaze about the cell, stopping on the beds, the toilet, the bars. Finally, she shrugged. "Eh, fine. But I'm holding you to the cop punching."

"I'll make you a dojo," Mr. Discord said as he rose from the bunk, adjusting his gi.

"Wait," said Helga, frowning in thought. "If this is real, how are you all going to get out of here?"

Mr. Discord grinned. "I'm afraid that's the wrong question, miss. What you should be asking is how did we get out of here?"

"Huh?" Helga blinked, and by the time her eyes opened again, she was alone in the cell. "Huh. Damn." She checked under Blaze's mattress. The garbage bag was still there. "So it goes."

The next thing either siren knew, they were in a moving car with Mr. Discord at the wheel, pulling away from the Bloodstone Women's Correctional Facility.

Aria squirmed in her seatbelt. "How come she gets shotgun?"

Mr. Discord's face poked out of the back of his seat. "Do you think the two of you could share a backseat without constantly pestering each other?"

Aria glowered at it, refusing to let him see any shock. "I could ride shotgun."

The head shook itself. "You're the new hire. She's employee of the month. Give me some quality lackey work and we'll talk."

"I am not your lackey."

"Like it or not, lackeyhood's what you signed up for. You have to do something to earn all the cops you can punch."

Sonata piped up. "So are we going back home now or what?"

Both Discord heads whipped to face her. "What? Go home?" cried the one on his neck. "The quest's only half-finished! What kind of epic journey involves backtracking? We may have tricked the trolls into staying up past sunrise, but that doesn't mean we've cheated our way through the riddle contest, much less charmed the dragon."

Aria pressed herself into the backseat. "So, does he start making sense after a while, or am I just going to have to get used to gibberish?"

"Bah. Been here for centuries and you've never bothered to culturally enrich yourselves." Mr. Discord turned onto the freeway. "Come on, we have one more damsel to rescue from languishing in mediocrity."

"Wait, are you actually going to grab Adagio? Seriously?" Aria turned to Sonata. "After all the shit she's put us through, you're actually crawling back to her? I actually almost started respecting you after you walked out on her."

Sonata said nothing, staring out the window.

"You seem to assume that she's any better off than you were," said the extra Discord face, now looking down from the ceiling upholstery.

Aria refused to acknowledge it with eye contact. "I kept myself in prison for a reason. I don't get what this world has become, and I don't really want to."

"I thought you'd enjoy the magical influx."

She shifted focus to her own window. "Whatever."

"Come now. I can't help if you don't open up." The silence stretched on for a few moments before being broken by a snap.

The middle of Aria's forehead opened up like the door of a cuckoo clock, and a tiny version of her emerged from the bloodless opening. "I meant the world of apes with tools more powerful than most magic," squeaked the brief Aria, her larger counterpart stunned by her very existence. "Adagio was the only one who really fit in in this world. Following her lead was our only option. We needed each other just to pull in enough energy to survive. Now, I'm stuck in a stupid body that's— Hey!"

"Okay! Okay!" growled the greater Aria as she wrestled with her thoughts. She managed to shut the door and found no sign of it once the sound of its latch reverberated through her skull. "Point is, I don't belong here. Neither does Sonata. If we drag Adagio into this, we'll either end up killing her or working for her again."

"You underestimate yourselves. And me. Particularly me."

Aria considered this, rubbing her forehead. "Okay, yeah, you're a factor. But we're not. Especially not Sonata."

"Hey! I'm a lot smarter now than I ever was before."

"Pssh. I'm sure."

"I bet you don't even know where we're going!" said Sonata.

Aria met and matched her glare. "Do you?"

"Uh..."

"... Oh dear, I knew I'd forgotten something." Mr. Discord took a sharp right turn that by all rights should've sent them into a guardrail. Instead, they pulled into a driveway. "We will have to make a brief stop after all, girls. All this talk won't mean much if we don't have Adagio in the first place."

"And the police will probably be looking for me," said Aria.

Mr. Discord chuckled as he opened her door for her. "You may be a new hire, my dear, but some benefits start on day one."

"Okay," said Helga, bravely maintaining her footing despite the floor rolling beneath her. "I'm drunk and possibly stoned, and even I don't think this is going to work."

"My name is Officer Bodybag," said Officer Bodybag, wearing a skin cap with a green-and-purple buzz cut over his uniform cap. "I exist to impersonate Aria Blaze."

"Yeah, bangup job. They're never gonna notice."

"Thank you."

A guard walked by the cells, barely glancing in and not slowing her pace as she went by.

Helga watched her go. "... That should not have worked."

"My name is Officer Bodybag. I am good at what I do."

Author's Note

Thanks go to Masterweaver for the Seatongue translation.

For optimal effect, imagine Officer Bodybag played by Brent Spiner, a.k.a. Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Intermezzo

"Now don't get too comfortable, girls," Mr. Discord said as he led the two sirens inside the bungalow. "I expect we'll back on the road shortly."

Aria looked around, taking in the entryway. "Huh."

Mr. Discord paused and looked back from a doorway. "Something the matter?"

"It's just... not what I expected from Reiipivzheerv." Aria picked up a framed photo of a much younger Mr. Discord with a bunch of other people, presumably his family. "No booming dissonance to consume my song and drown out the echoes. Everything's so..."

"Normal?" said Sonata.

"Yeah."

Mr. Discord gestured towards the kitchen. "I will note the creative use of gravity to make the most of the walls' storage space."

That got a shrug. "I'm from the ocean, remember? Up and down isn't a big deal for me. I'm more surprised that you even have walls."

"Ah, I see what you mean. I can't speak for the Discord you know, but I personally find them quite useful."

"How about I make lunch while we're here?" said Sonata, who'd made her way to the kitchen at some point.

Mr. Discord nodded. "Excellent idea. Thank you, Sonata."

"I'm not hun—" Aria's stomach chose that moment to not so much growl as roar. She flushed and glared at Mr. Discord.

He followed Sonata into the kitchen, wearing a smug grin. "I might have amplified it a little, but you're clearly not eating enough."

Aria looked away. "It's not that big a—" Another gastric roar cut her off. She renewed her glare, stomping into the kitchen herself.

Mr. Discord rolled his eyes. "Oh, put that away." He tore the look off her face like a sticky note, revealing a far more befuddled expression beneath it. "This is hardly the first time I've dealt with a moody teenager who resents the demands of her meat body, and you, my dear, have nothing on Luna when it comes to death glares." He shook out the face still in his hand, turning it blue and... mildly more intimidating.

Aria crossed her arms nonetheless. "I'm hundreds of years old."

"Then act like it." Mr, Discord shrugged. "Or keep acting like a teenager, since acting like you're a multicentennial means acting like a few well-nibbled bone fragments. Regardless, you need the calories, and I will teleport the food directly into your stomach if I need to." He cracked his knuckles with a sound unsettlingly like cocking a shotgun. "I can't promise that will end well."

Aria blanched. Sonata chose that moment to chime in. "Come over here, Aria! You can help me pick out what looks good to you."

Aria turned and boggled at the only sign of Sonata's presence, a pair of feet sticking out of what seemed to be an ordinary refrigerator, albeit one on the ceiling. A better angle revealed an icy cavern on the other side of the open door. "Okay, that's a bit more like what I expected."

"I'll try to keep the sanity shredding to a minimum," said Mr. Discord, nonchalantly folding the peeled face into a pocket square. "Now, I trust you two can fend for yourselves. I'll slap something together for myself and go look for your old ringleader."

Aria snorted. "I'd say good luck, but I don't want you to find her."

Sonata's legs drooped. "And she probably doesn't want to be found."

"You let me worry about that for now. I'll pick your brains if I hit a dead end. And don't worry, Aria, I didn't mean it literally." After a beat, Mr. Discord added, "This time."

Aria told herself that this time, her glare managed to chase him out of the room.

"Hey, Aria, do you like spicy stuff?"

She shrugged. "Sure, why not?"

Somehow, Mr. Discord's calm smile was more infuriating than a shit-eating grin ever could be. "So, what have we learned?"

"Never let Sonata recommend food. Ever." Aria choked down her third glass of milk, tried not to think about where it came from, and failed to do so.

"Come back to that after you've gotten more experience with that digestive system." Mr. Discord turned to the other side of the table. "Sonata?"

After a few moments to think, Sonata said, "Remember that Aria doesn't know how flavors work?"

Aria slammed the glass on the table. "Seriously, why would you deliberately eat anything that makes your mouth burn?"

"Humans are smart enough to be that stupid." Mr. Discord leaned back in his chair and sighed. "In any case, you've both definitely learned more than I managed to. The only reference to an Adagio Dazzle that seems pertinent is a semi-obscure late 18th-century pirate also known as 'Sailor-be-Warned' for how her hair resembled clouds at dawn." He adjusted the eyepatch he hadn't been wearing a moment before from one eye to the other. The parrot on his shoulder said, "Sound familiar, girls?"

Sonata gave a happy sigh. "That was fun. Like the old days."

"Yeah, the Vengeful Siren didn't completely suck." Aria crossed her arms. "Though Adagio just had to make herself the figurehead."

"And we probably shouldn't have used our own crew's misery and resentment as a food source between raids."

Aria shrugged. "Meh. They knew what they were getting into."

Mr. Discord quirked an eyebrow. "Did they, now?"

Aria leaned back herself, putting her arms behind her head. "Sure. They kept going on about how it was bad luck to have a woman on board a ship. We didn't want to disappoint them. Besides, do you know what ports used to charge for limes?"

"So, mutiny?"

"So much mutiny," Sonata said, laughing. "I'm pretty sure the mutiny had a mutiny five minutes later. We got enough power to make the swim to Prance a piece of cake."

"Yeah, but we still had to swim to Prance," countered Aria. "That was hundreds of miles away."

Sonata grinned at her. "I know I saw you smile on the way there."

"That was just the rush from the mutinies."

"Much as I hate to derail this fascinating conversation," said Mr. Discord, "I don't suppose either of you could give me any further insight as to Adagio's whereabouts?"

Aria scowled at him. "Why didn't you just ask us in the first place?"

"For one, I thought I'd give you two a chance to catch up." Mr. Discord let that hang in the air for a moment, along with the still-lingering scent of habaneros. "For another, I wanted to see if you actually would try to kill each other if left unsupervised, which I'm very pleased to see is not the case."

"Not intentionally, anyway," Aria muttered.

"Lastly, you've made it abundantly clear that you don't care where she is, so I didn't think you had the specific information available. That said, if you have something a bit more general, I'd love to hear it. You know her far better than I do, so your best guess would be much better than mine."

"Hmm..." Sonata tapped her chin. "She might still be using the Dazzlings' MyStable page."

Aria blinked. "Shit, she did make one of those, didn't she?"

"It's certainly worth a look," Mr. Discord said with a shrug.

The page proved to have the social media equivalent of cobwebs and and past due notices strewn about it. The most recent activity was a few very unflattering comments made by Canterlot High students a few months ago, the same students who'd posted gushing praise that bordered on religious ecstasy only days earlier. There was no hint about Adagio's current location to be found, but Mr. Discord could at least isolate her from a group photo. From there, it was a quick hop over to Gillion, a reverse image search...

And a resounding one pertinent result. The very MyStable page he'd just looked at. The rest were Immediagram posts of clouds at twilight, shopping sites offering deals on orange yarn, or similar examples of artificial stupidity at work.

"Hmm," Mr. Discord said to himself. "The key word there may be 'artificial.' This algorithm should be better than this."

"If Adagio doesn't want to be found, she probably won't be," Sonata said over his shoulder. "She's really good at hiding in the melody."

"Is that so?" Mr. Discord smirked. "Challenge accepted." He snapped his fingers and enveloped himself in a mostly regular gridline pattern. Bits of his body flew into the computer monitor, zig-zagging from top to bottom until only the wireframe remained before it too faded away.

After a few moments, Aria said, "Dibs on his stuff."

Sonata pouted. "He's not dead."

"Dibs anyway. He can make more."

Mr. Discord looked around the featureless white expanse. Well, mostly featureless. Around him, the white gave way to psychedelic swirls of color like sunlight on an oil slick. The strange brilliance reflected oddly off the carapaces of segmentation faults and the hides of chromatic aberrations.

A cool blue barrier snapped into place around Mr. Discord and his growing brood. An androgynous figure appeared before him. Though its head was a large capital G floating above its neckless shoulders, it still gave the impression of glaring at him. "You are error."

Mr. Discord raised his eyebrows. "I'm impressed. I didn't know it was possible to snarl serenely." After a drawn-out silence, he sighed. "Not much for banter, are you?"

"I have nothing to say to you."

"Hmm." Mr. Discord considered the burbling menagerie cavorting about his ankles. "Yes, I suppose chaos magic and the meticulous world of cyberspace don't mix well. Don't worry, I won't be here long." With a flick of his wrist, he called up the image of Adagio from his own memory. "I just need a reverse image search. One without anyone else's magical interference." The image moved through the barrier as though it weren't there.

The avatar of Gillion made no move to take or even acknowledge the image's presence. "Error: Unrecognized file format."

"This is why I never had much patience for programming," Mr. Discord said with a roll of his eyes. He chopped his hand down, and the image struck Gillion right between where its eyes would've been.

"Now searching."

"That's more like it."

Empty space opened like a door, allowing Mr. Discord to step back into his rumpus room. "Excellent news, girls! We have a..." Mr. Discord trailed off as he took in his surroundings. Much of the room's furnishings and decorations had been thrown about, though the computer itself was somehow undisturbed. The apparent culprits each had one of the other's arms in their mouths, and judging by the bruises, bite marks, and torn clothing, had come out of the event about as well as the room itself.

Sonata worked her jaws free first. "She was gonna take your stuff!"

Mr. Discord looked at his watch. "You know, I'm fairly certain I spent less than twenty seconds within the Internet. If Adagio really was able to keep the two of you alive for centuries, then she has a monumental share of my respect. How about we go tell her in person?"

"Uh..."

"Yeah, sure, let's go with that," said Aria.

"Wonderful. And when we get back, she and I can supervise as you clean this up."

If Mr. Discord closed his eyes, he could imagine that the resulting groans came from two very different siblings a generation ago. He smiled, shook his head, and went out to grab his car keys. The sirens followed in his wake.

"So where are we going, anyway?" Aria said as they got in the car.

"It's an amusing parallel; Adagio went and did what I told my parents I would do one day." A few chuckles leaked out of Mr. Discord before he could properly compose himself. Not all of them left through his mouth.

"What?" said Sonata.

"She ran away to join the circus."

Counterpoint

As the group approached their destination, they passed signs informing them that they were approaching Pyrite's Spectacular Circus and Magnificent Menagerie. Judging by the state of the place once they arrived, the signs may have been stolen from another circus. The tents were made more of patches than the original fabric. The elephants visibly longed to forget. The clowns didn't just seem aware that their iconic song was originally named "Entry of the Gladiators," but looked ready to swap out polka-dotted overalls and seltzer bottles for cuirasses and gladii at a moment's notice.

Mr. Discord glanced at his charges. Sonata he kept on a tight leash, though in deference to her dignity, it was invisible. It still snapped taut every now and then as she wandered off towards some new, brightly colored and/or deep-fried delight. Aria kept to his side, trying to look as stoic as possible. "You're drooling, Aria," he said with a smirk.

She wiped her mouth on the back of her arm, but not before wiping her eyes. "It's not fair. I can smell the negativity here, even over the grease. If I could just..." She brought a hand to her sternum, clutching at nothing. "This is torture."

"And just think," mused Mr. Discord, "Adagio has been dealing with this for weeks."

"Yeah." A grin crept across Aria's face like a shark among beachgoers. "Yeah, she has."

Another tug drew Mr. Discord's attention. "Really, Sonata, you must—"

"You guys! I found her!" Sonata, still straining, pointed at an open-air gallery and the posters plastering it, including one that featured a figure with unmistakably voluminous hair.

"Well now." Mr. Discord stroked his goatee. "That is convenient."

"That's a freak show," said Aria. And indeed, Adagio's poster lay among wolfmen, the absurdly obese, and other novel variations on the theme of humanity.

"This truly is a dying breed of attraction," said Mr. Discord. "Forget traveling circuses, I'd thought this sort of thing died out decades ago. Not that I ever bothered to validate that assumption. Shame on me."

Sonata turned to Aria. "You don't think she's pulling the Bunkum thing again, do you?"

Aria gave a noncommittal grunt. "Maybe if she's desperate enough to think that much concentrated misery can get her heartstone back before the freaks kill her."

"I feel I'm missing some context."

"We gave Patent Bunkum some tips on, uh..." Sonata toyed with her ponytail as she thought. "I think the term is 'human resources.'"

"I think it's 'freak management.'"

Sonata nodded. "Yeah, 'cause he used humans like resources."

Mr. Discord smirked. "Truly a man ahead of his time."

"Hey, he got people's money and we got fed. Disgust, scorn, roasted peanuts..." Aria shrugged. "It worked out."

"I see." Mr. Discord strode towards the sideshow. "Let us go see if history's repeating itself."

Their timing proved to be impeccable. As they settled in behind the small crowd, a dun-skinned fellow trudged along a stage that looked primarily designed to be broken up and hauled away at a moment's notice, seams and straps visible to anyone who cared to look. The basset hound-like ears of a donkey aspect were a good match for the emcee's hangdog expression. "Step right up, folks, the show's about to begin," he said with all the showmanship of a block of concrete. "I am Cozen, your guide to the weird and wondrous performers you will witness today. Do not be alarmed and do not attempt any of what you see at home, for even the most savage creature you see here is still a trained professional."

Mr. Discord rolled his eyes. "Take all the fun out of it, why don't you?" he muttered. Sure, he didn't want children to try their hand at ludicrous weightlifting or sword swallowing, but there was something to be said for preserving the mystique. On the other hand, he supposed the circus couldn't afford many lawsuits.

An elbow to the gut acted like a penny on the tracks of his train of thought. "Pipe down," hissed Aria. "You're talking to yourself."

"Am I?" Mr. Discord blinked half a dozen eyes as he realized that at some point in the last few minutes, he'd grown two extra heads. "Oh dear," he said in triplicate before reverting himself to what passed for normal. "How gauche. Good thing we're in the back; I'd hate to upstage anyone."

On stage, Cozen had been delivering listless patter the whole time. Now he moved towards a tarp over a wide cylinder a bit taller than he was and several times as broad. "And now," he droned, "we present a creature never before seen on Earth, a truly unique specimen unlike any other, even in the wake of Sunset Shimmer. For there are strongmen other than the Great Deltoid. There are bearded ladies beyond Madame Cuticle. But there is only one siren." He grabbed the tarp and pulled. "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the one, the only—"

“Eh-hack! Kak blagh gakh cough wheeze expectorate.” Mr. Discord blinked owlishly behind pince-nez that hadn’t been pincing his nez a moment earlier. With all eyes on him, he cleared his throat. “Your pardon. Do forgive an old man.”

Sonata waved her arms like she was trying to take off, even her earfins spread in her excitement. “Hi, Adagio!” Aria just smirked at the third siren, who had been revealed far less ceremoniously than she'd likely intended.

The crowd began to murmur disapprovingly. Mr. Discord smirked despite himself as he felt the agitation radiate off of Adagio. To her credit, she betrayed none of it in her expression, just smiling and waving in what was clearly a modified dunk tank, wearing a sequined bandeau bikini top scandalously close to her skin tone and a mermaid tail that likely had a zipper hidden somewhere in the back. Her fellow performers were a bit less professional, particularly Deltoid, who was grinning like it was the best day of his life. He'd probably be turning red with suppressed laughter if his natural skin tone weren't the color of raw beef, and he'd be bulging with it if that didn't seem to be his natural state of being.

Cozen cleared his throat. "W-well, this strange new world of ours has many surprises in it, after all." His voice took on something resembling enthusiasm, or at least enough volume to make him heard over the crowd. "Though even other sirens cannot claim the... purity of Adagio's heritage, as shown by her tail!"

Adagio did a flip, smacking her tailfin into the water's surface and placating most of the onlookers. A subtle glint caught Mr. Discord's eye as she did so.

"Not going to mess with the zipper?" Aria didn't even pretend to whisper.

Mr. Discord shrugged. "We've certainly gotten her attention at this point. No reason to antagonize her more than necessary."

"Because it's funny?"

"No constructive reason."

The trio watched more of the sideshow, but drifted away before its end. With the crowd's attention on promises of a truly grand finale, the group didn't even need magic for several minutes as they waited behind the stage.

"Hey," said a clown, or perhaps just a bum who'd donned greasepaint to fit in. "Restricted area. No customers—"

Mr. Discord waved a hand over the whitened face. "We're not the droids you're looking for."

The man's gaze went vacant. "You're not the droids I'm looking for."

"Move along."

"Move along, move along," the hobo-clown mumbled as he wandered off.

Aria gave Mr. Discord a flat look. "Seriously?"

"One must respect the classics."

Whatever Aria might have said to that was interrupted by Mr. Discord spotting their quarry, her hair working its way out of a towel's inadequate containment, her tail given way to bikini bottoms and sandals. Right now, it was a pleasant day on the cusp of summer, but Mr. Discord found himself wondering what she might do in cooler months. He put such thoughts aside as he rushed towards her. "Hello, Ms. Dazzle! I'm sure you know my compatriots, but allow me to introduce myself." He extended a hand. "I am—"

She barely spared him a glance as she walked past him. "John Q. Discord," she said distractedly, more focused on keeping as much hair within terrycloth as possible.

"Ah." Mr. Discord's wrist went limp with the sound of a deflating balloon. He cleared his throat and followed her, Aria and Sonata following when he passed them. "You have me at a disadvantage, it seems."

"Yours is one of the names I watched for ever since Tzar Grogar came to power in the nineteenth century," said Adagio, her disinterest palpable. "The Equestrians may think of us as monsters, but I remember the real dangers, the ones we noticed even in the oceans." The corners of her lips briefly twitched upwards. "When you came to prominence in science education of all things, it was something of a relief."

"Wait, you did what?" said Aria.

Adagio spared her a brief, bitter glance. "Oh, like you care. Why should you appreciate all the effort I put into keeping us safe from beings who might actually be able to threaten us in this world?"

"Yeah, 'cause you definitely kept us safe from humans. Who was it who wanted us to move to the Harmonic Front at the end of World War II? Bet we'd all look real good with nuclear suntans."

Mr. Discord clicked his tongue. "Really now, Ms. Blaze, this is hardly the time to dig up old grudges. Ms. Dazzle, I'm here to give you the offer of a lifetime—"

She held up a hand. "Save it. Even if I did want to take my chances with you, not having to worry about these two is one of the greatest things that ever happened to me. They're your problem now." Her lips curled into a mirthless smile. "My condolences."

"Ms. Dazzle. Adagio. Please, be reasonable."

"That's rich, coming from the likes of you."

Mr. Discord rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes, chaos spirit humor. The point is, I'm offering you everything you could possibly want."

She stopped and turned. The procession nearly bumped into her and one another. "You don't get it, do you?" she said, glaring up at Mr. Discord. "I already have everything I could possibly want. I'm adored. I'm admired. People gaze at me with wonder, envy, and awe. I've won. What more can you possibly offer me?"

Mr. Discord made a point of looking around, taking in everything the circus had to offer. "Dignity, perhaps?"

Adagio scoffed and whipped back around. Her hair passed straight through Mr. Discord, though Aria had no such defense and gave an insignant yelp as the wet mass smacked her. "Get out of my sight before I take that offer and shove it where it belongs."

Mr. Discord shook his head and sighed. "As you wish. Come, girls. Seems we won't be completing the set afterwards."

Sonata whimpered. "But..."

Adagio glared over her shoulder. "But what? You left me, remember? No takebacks. Get lost."

She didn't turn around as she heard the footsteps depart. Not until the last voice she expected said, "You know what surprises me?"

Adagio looked back at Aria. "The fact that you think that I care?"

"No. The fact that you've settled. The Adagio I know wouldn't be satisfied with anything but being the headline act. But here you are, in a sideshow."

"You've made your opinion of my leadership skills abundantly clear. And it's not like I'd be in charge with him around."

Aria shrugged, turned away, and flipped off Adagio one last time. "Whatever. Have fun picking soggy popcorn out of your tank for the rest of your life."

Adagio watched her go for a few steps, then walked off on her own path. A path to nowhere in particular, but hers all the same. It wasn't like she was any stranger to this sort of social construct. There was Pyrite, the preening king, and all the courtiers competing for his favor. True, few courts were this up front about their true nature; even the most eccentric Stirropean monarchs didn't have lion tamers for counts and tightrope walkers for earls. But no matter the time or place, every court had its share of clowns.

Some of them passed by Adagio, and she shuddered as she avoided eye contact. At least some courtly jesters could be counted on for decent conversation beyond the intrigue of who was plotting against whom. These...

One of them strode up to her, his enormous, floppy footsteps more intimidating than any of the Whinnycity crime bosses Adagio had sung to riches and ruin. "What are you doing out of your tank, freak?" he said, his frown twisting the lines of his painted smile.

"Getting some air."

"You got gills."

"That tank doesn't have an aerator."

He expressed his opinion of her need for oxygen with a very succinct grunt. "Your next show's in ten. Make it quick."

Adagio nodded. That wasn't precisely what he'd said word for word, but the past few weeks had quickly taught her how to ignore the bits of life she had no power to change. As she wrestled with the towel her hair was trying to swallow, she found herself thinking of Sonata. She was the one who'd come with that strategy for whiling away the centuries, after all. Focus on what positives she could. Of course, in that traitor's case, she didn't have enough brainpower to comprehend anything else, an edge Adagio couldn't claim. Though a few more weeks of the homemade paint thinner Cuticle called cotton candy liqueur might change that.

Aria would have probably handled the stuff just fi—

Adagio growled and forcibly cut off the thought. Those two showing up again had gotten her back into bad habits. She knew how that line of thought went, where it led: Absolutely nowhere. She was alone and powerless, more so than just about anyone else in this world. Her usual tactics for charming her way to whispering in the king's ear were out, but she could at least give a slower approach a try.

She made sure she wouldn't fall out of her costume—that was a mistake she'd never intended to make this century—and turned back to the sideshow.

"Knew I'd find you here," a voice even huskier than Adagio's said from her side.

She didn't even look, much less slow down. "Don't you have saps to milk?"

"I thought you'd appreciate taking precedence over my customers. Especially when I come with such important tidings."

Adagio gave a sidelong glare at the earth-aspect woman keeping pace with her, despite voluminous, star-spangled robes, several pounds of allegedly occult jewelry, and an immense turban pinned in place with what a brooch that depicted either a wailing spirit or a Dalmatian jalapeño. "That would require me to actually believe you were a seer."

"Oh, we're all seers," said Ghost Pepper, the circus's psychic. "First sight, anyway. Second sight's a lot rarer, and if you want anything useful out of the spirits, you need second hearing, anyway. Third sight? Don't get me started." She took a lock of vivid red hair that had slipped out of her turban and brushed against her pale, oddly waxy skin and tucked it back in. "Most days, even I just have the first one. A few minutes ago, I think I brushed fourth."

Adagio rolled her eyes. "You don't say."

"You do realize you made a tremendous mistake just now, yes?"

"I do. It's usually wisest to just ignore you."

That got a single chuckle from Ghost. "Cute. We both know I'm talking about you chopping off your nose to spite someone else's face."

"What, the idiots?" After a moment, Adagio added, "Specifically Aria and Sonata? That part of my life is over."

"You just don't want Deltoid to win that bet, do you?"

Adagio kept her gaze straight and her expression even. Definitely no shifts in either. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Please. He's been telling everyone in earshot how he'd bet you wouldn't last a month." Ghost huffed out another laugh. "And you know Deltoid. With him, everyone's in earshot."

Much as Adagio appreciated her sharper teeth, gritting them wasn't quite as satisfactory these days. "Must be terrible to be talked at by someone who can't take a hint."

"Real subtle, Dazzle."

"You know me, subtlety's my middle name," Adagio said as they approached the sideshow stage. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go zip up my gold lamé fishtail and flare my gills at a bunch of uncultured rubes."

"Which is so much better than the offer you turned down."

Adagio whirled on Ghost. "Oh, what do you know?"

The woman shrugged, making her accessories jangle like a tornado in a wind chime factory. "Not nearly as much as that nice young lady in Canterlot, but enough to see how much happier you'd be with Mr. Discord."

"Canterlot." It took much of Adagio's restraint not to spit. "Don't talk to me about Canterlot. That city is where my life fell apart."

"It's hard to put something back together when you walk away from the pieces."

"Get that one out of a fortune cookie, did you?"

"And if I did?" Ghost leaned closer. "What would it say if a cookie were wiser than you, o immortal conductor of strife?"

Adagio's gaze flitted between the woman and the stage. "Look, I have a show any second now. What do you want from me?"

"To say what we both know you're thinking."

"Fine. This place is horrible. My job is degrading in every sense imaginable. I lashed out at the closest things I've ever had to friends because I couldn't stand the sight of them." Adagio brought a hand to her cheek, her lips in a perfect little O of shock. "But oh no, they left already." She spun on a heel and made for the door. "I suppose I'll just have to stick with show business. Woe is me."

"Not exactly."

Adagio froze and turned back around. Mr. Discord smiled at her, his head poking out from underneath Ghost Pepper's turban.

There was really only one reasonable response. "What."

"Sunset isn't the only one who can pull off multipresence. Care to reconsider my offer?"

Adagio glared at Ghost. "Did he put you up to this?"

Ghost shrugged in response. "You remind me of one of my nieces. Girl sets herself up to be disappointed all the time. I think she enjoys it. You, however? You clearly don't."

Adagio looked back and forth between the two of them. Finally, she smirked. "You know what? Fine. But the moment I decide serving you is worse than this two-bit three-ring, I'm leaving." She extended her hand.

Mr. Discord gave a grin with just a few too many teeth. "Then I'll just have to make sure that never happens, won't I?" He took her hand and pulled her within the turban.

After a moment of utter confusion, where Adagio not only couldn't tell which way was up, but whether up even existed, she found herself in a kitchen where gravity seemed more like a suggestion. She collapsed, grateful to hit a chair rather than the floor.

Then Sonata struck like a pouncing mimic octopus, clutching limbs and all. "You changed your mind!"

"Let go of me or I'll change it again."

Sonata obeyed her. Adagio considered that. She smiled.

"Shit, you're here. Dibs on the first shower every morning."

She stopped smiling. "You're paying me back for every hair care product you poured in that bathtub."

Aria laughed at that and walked away. "Gonna go punch cops in the basement," she said to no one in particular.

"If it's any consolation," Mr. Discord said from the other side of the kitchen table, where he definitely hadn't been before, "imagine the look on your former employer's face when he realizes one of his truly irreplaceable attractions has gone AWOL."

And with that, Adagio began smiling again.

Author's Note

Pyrite and Cozen are the creations of PatchworkPoltergeist, originating in The Last Human: A Tale of the Pre-Classical Era, used with permission. I needed someone to manage a freakshow, and they haven't had work since 2012. Don't you love mutually beneficial arrangements? (Granted, I never really found a place to use Pyrite himself, but he's there in the background.)

The Wingding Bros. & Bunkum and Haybale's Circus hasn't quite given its last performance by this point in the timeline, but that final curtain is only months away. I can only assume Pyrite's resorted to black magic to keep his own operation afloat. Possibly literally. ("See the angst monster, thirteenth wonder of the world!")

Ghost Pepper may or may not be related to Wallflower Blush on her father's side. The genealogy of a family whose talents revolve around the lost and forgotten can be tricky to track. Here's an attempt at her icon. Please remember that I'm working with freeware and a touchpad.

Say what you will, Mr. Discord has a terrifyingly good grasp on siren psychology.

Coda

That evening, Mr. Discord beamed as he stood on his kitchen island, which was to say a chunk of ground floating in the middle of his kitchen that currently supported his stove. "Well, I think this has been a monumentally productive day. I do still plan on taking the rest of the week off, mind you. Aside from any other concerns, I'll have to go post Officer Bodybag's bail before anyone important notices he's not Aria, and Back Alley has two more sets of identification to prepare."

Adagio nodded. She was still adapting to the casual madness found in the den of Discord, but she refused to let any unease show. "Good choice. I've worked with far worse counterfeiters over the centuries."

"Sunset Shimmer recommended him, actually. Of course, these days she's properly registered as a foreign diplomat, or whatever bureaucratic shadow puppetry they're staging this week." Mr. Discord hefted a steaming pot off of the stovetop and walked a dizzying path to the kitchen table, the island crumbling into pebbles that supported his steps. The stove wandered off to chat with several other appliances in another corner of the room.

Mr. Discord upended the pot, sending four bowls flying into place, along with silverware. A casual toss sent pot and colander both into the sink. "This is a treat," he said as he sat. "I don't think this old place has seen dinner for four since before the divorce."

Adagio's jaw dropped. "You were married. You."

He shrugged. "Not for terribly long."

"What is this?" said Aria.

Adagio brought her attention to her own bowl. The surface was mostly beige, with welts of liquid crimson here and there. She gently prodded it with her fork, finding the beige solid, but yielding. A bit more red oozed up from the point of contact. Scent revealed only tomatoes and seasonings. She wasn't sure if that was better or worse than blood.

"Well, when a star doesn't quite collapse into a black hole," Mr. Discord said as Adagio performed her examination, "it produces degenerate matter in all sorts of fascinating shapes, and my colleagues have been kind and wise enough to accept my proposed name of 'nuclear pasta.' There's the spaghetti phase, the lasagna phase, the bucatini phase... but wouldn't you know it, there are some arrangements that just don't line up with any known pasta. Tonight, I tried to close that gap sonewhat." He gestured to his own bowl, stabbed in his fork into it, and pulled off a chunk of pasta shaped like the negative space between more conventional shapes. "Ergo, antignocchi." He ate the forkful with relish and marinara.

Adagio looked at Aria and saw her own expression looking back. That, she knew firsthand, was the look of a siren who had just realized precisely what she'd signed up for and was wondering if it was too late to back out.

"Too experimental?" Both turned to see Mr. Discord wearing a more apologetic expression than Adagio could ever believe Reiipivzheerv could adopt. "I suppose I should've seen that coming, but I felt the need to celebrate, and that means getting creative." He turned to Sonata, who gave him a wide grin, her own Einsiedler-cheese pasta monstrosity also untouched. "And you probably knew I'd have a backup plan."

"You usually do."

"Indeed." Mr. Discord pressed a button on the underside of the table, one that Adagio would bet good money hadn't been there the second before. Panels in the table rotated, sending the sirens' bowls away and revealing...

The next thing Adagio knew, her face felt greasy and she was licking a plate. She blinked, cleared her throat, and set it back down as calmly as she could.

Mr. Discord smiled at the table in general. "I take it you enjoyed the calves' livers, then."

"It wasn't terrible," muttered Aria, her clothes—clearly borrowed from Sonata given the style; Adagio had been to busy scorning the two of them to notice until now—even more stained than Adagio's.

"Very nice," said Adagio, "but don't think you're taking in two more Sonatas. It'll take more than knowing your way around an oven to keep us on board."

"I assure you, I have no illusions about the way to a siren's heart being through her stomach." Mr. Discord's skin flickered through transparency for a moment. "Sonata, tell them how much you make per week."

She did. Aria whistled. Adagio's jaw dropped.

"I assure you, you won't find a better paying lab assistant position anywhere in the world. Mind you, there will be the occasional test where you'll be under the strictly figurative knife, but still." Mr. Discord shrugged, eyed the scalpel he was twirling between his fingers as though he'd just noticed it, and used it to cut into his dinner.

Adagio wrinkled her nose. "I didn't leave the spotlight, small as it was, just to end up a lab rat."

"Can't say I'm crazy about the idea either," said Aria.

"Did I mention that with more of you to study, it's well within the realm of possibility that I could learn enough about how you work to regrow your heartstones?"

That gave Adagio pause. "I... suppose I—"

"Pfft." Aria rolled her eyes. "Then what? You gonna try to take over the world again? 'Cause I'm not helping you there."

"Neither am I," added Sonata.

"Sunset will probably roast your ass before you finish the first verse anyway."

Adagio snarled. "Which is precisely why I don't plan on such overt tactics."

"But you are planning something," Aria said, giving her a flat look. "Seriously, Adagio?"

Sonata shrugged. "She wouldn't be her if she didn't."

"You say that like it'd be a bad thing."

Adagio shot to her feet. "Well what do you expect me to do if we are fully restored?"

Before Aria could answer, Mr. Discord cleared his throat. "Girls, if I may? As Sonata noted, I do try to plan for multiple foreseeable scenarios, and that includes you not being comfortable with being full-time beautiful assistants for the local mad scientist. As luck would have it, there is a most elegant solution that combines Aria's desire to spite authority, Adagio's desire for fame, and Sonata's desire to be with her sisters."

"We're not actually sisters," said Aria.

"As I told Sonata before, consanguinity is not a requirement. She wanted to be with you, to know you were safe and happy, even after you made each other miserable. That's either family or Stockhorse Syndrome. Now, here's my proposal..."

A few weeks later, Aria stared up at the tiles of an unfamiliar ceiling. "Hey, Adagio?"

Adagio rolled her eyes as she made sure everything was ready to go. Mr. Discord had willed this recording studio into being on the second floor of the bungalow—and the fact that Adagio could think that without pausing showed how much she'd adapted—but there was no guarantee there wasn't some unintentional surprise lying in wait. "Aria, we'll be recording as soon as Sonata gets back. You should focus on that."

"I'll make it quick."

Adagio grunted and looked up from her fine tuning. "Fine. What?"

"We split up, but we ended up following Sonata's lead on what to do without our powers," Aria said, still staring up.

"I'm aware, Aria," Adagio deadpanned. "I was there."

Aria turned to her. "Does that make Sonata the smart one?"

A moment of horrified silence passed, each siren seeing the fear in the other's eyes.

"No."

"Dumb luck."

"The dumbest."

"What are we talking about?" Sonata said as she walked in from the bathroom.

"Nothing," said Aria. "Get your headphones on."

Sonata beamed. "Okay!"

"We are go in three, two..." Adagio hit record and wrapped her voice in velvet. "Hello, world. This is Siren Spell Stories. Sunset Shimmer's vlog may tell you how to use magic responsibly, but we'll be telling you about what happens when you don't."

She grinned and leaned in towards the microphone a little. "Trust me, you're going to adore it."

Author's Note

Yes, neutron pasta is a real thing, including those phase names. Honestly, Discord would fit right in in some extreme areas of physics.
On a related note, "Einsiedler" is another name for the Swiss Warmblood horse breed. If you have a better horse pun for "Swiss," I would genuinely like to hear it.

In any case, thanks for reading as I closed one of the gaps in the Oversaturated World.