The Diary of Starswirl the Bearded: lost in another world

Chapter 4:

"One bad day"

During my life there have been only two painful experiences.

I know it may not sound that terrible, since folks keep saying that their existence is full of dark moments. Yet I assure you that what I had to live through surpasses the limits of your imagination.

The first was when this old fool and his blasted pillars banished my sisters and me here. The second when the Rainbooms defeated us during the battle of bands at Canterlot High, causing our gems to shutter.

Now let's examine each of these step by step.

The day Starswirl and his little squad battled us was surely an experience I'd rather forget. I must admit that, despite being so tiny, ponies can really be strong and the pillars of Equestria were the strongest of them all back in the day.

What's funny about this all thing is that we did not face them unprepared, yet we did not succeed in defeating them anyway.

From the moment my sisters and I had emerged from the sea, keen on gathering as much energy of chaos from the inhabitants of Equestria as we could, we figured out that it would be a lot easier to conquer the land with a few equines on our side, so we began to build ourselves an army.

We had been informed by one of the servants we had sent out patrolling that a group of wanderers was dangerously nearing our headquarter; moreover our spy also revealed to us that those were not common folks. I planed our defensive tactic with great care, advised my sister to be ready for everything and ordered the pony army to fight till the very end. I also figured that building a fortification around the village, which my sisters and I had occupied, could not hurt, so I gathered up the local carpenters and asked them to take care of that.

By the time our enemy arrived, thanks to my plans and preparations, our headquarter had become a mighty fort with a high palisade, surrounding all the edges. Those fools would have had a hard time getting in.

Unfortunately I had slightly underestimated their capabilities; in fact it did not take them long to break through the fortification.

“Fair enough.” I said to myself back then. “If it's war that you want, then war you shall have.”

The combined powers of those six ponies was indeed impressive, but it was nothing my sisters and I could not handle: after all we were called sirens for a reason. Furthermore we had a whole army of ponies, ready to die for us: there was no way we could loose.

But we did anyway.

When those cursed pillars finally realised that they did not stand a chance against us, they decided to trick us instead.

Amongst them there were two pegasi. They immediately started flying around us; Aria and Sonata did not like that, so they went after them to crash them like the annoying cockroaches they were. What those two had not realised though was that our enemies were trying to separate us from one another in order to distract us from what was important.

Sadly it worked.

In the meantime the unicorn pillars conjured a powerful sorcery, while the rest of the squad dealt with what remained of our army.

As soon as the portal was ready, it was only a matter of seconds. A pegasi mare tricked Aria into chasing her, while the portal was materialising right before her. Aria was deaf to my desperate screams and chased her prey till the very last second, when the mare in question suddenly changed direction.

Aria quickly remained stuck and was captured by the portal, while I, in a hopeless attempt to rescue her, followed her into that black hole. Sonata went behind me soon afterwards.

Now that you know what happened on the day of our banishment, tell me: do you feel better? Do you still have a justification for this mule over here or was my little tale enough to shut your mouth? You believe you're on the righteous path, you're a force for good. But you're not. Do you have any idea what it feels like to loose everything?

And I am not talking about loosing your possessions or someone who was close to you. No, I am talking about everything.

Do you know what it feels like to find yourself lost in a strange, new world that looks at you as a stranger?

I am not gonna answer for you this time: I am not one to judge, but give me a call the next time you have to feed not only yourself but two more mouths which can count on you and you alone.

Now that I think of that, I have another story for you: would you like to hear that one, too? Yes? I am so glad. I don't want to spoil anything for you but I really hope it'll leave you speechless...

The night my sisters and I were defeated by the Rainbooms I felt the greatest of sorrows.

Not only had I not been able to live up to the girls' expectations, but I had also lead us to our humiliation and caused the pendants that we had brought from Equestria, our most powerful tools and only source of magic, to be destroyed.

Now weak and scared, we were running through the city streets. We were not headed anywhere specific: for the time being we just wished to go as far from Canterlot High as possible.

“Wait, girls, I...” Sonata suddenly gasped, probably tired of running.

“We don't have time to rest.” I shouted angrily. “We need to get away from here or who knows what will happen to us!”

“Do you really believe that they might be chasing us, Adagio?” Aria questioned. As I looked into her purple eyes, I saw something unexpected. For the very first time in her whole life Aria was sincerely scared.

Noticing her sudden change had me spooked. Aria had always been so proud of her magical abilities and intelligence. She was competitive in everything she did and not once in her life had she allowed Sonata or me to tease her, any time she made a mistake.

Our younger sister and her were a constant bittering, moreover she seized every chance she had to try proving that she was better than me. No matter how big or small, any achievement was enough to make her feel good for demonstrating that she should be the leader of our group instead of me.

Now she was trembling like an autumn leaf under the cold, wet rain and her pupils were so wide that they looked like two ponds of dark water.

That sight made me shiver. Even I began to feel weaker and weaker.

“I don't know.” I responded, sighing. “But we'd better not take any chances, so let's keep going.”

“But, I...Cannot...” As soon as Aria and I turned around to resume our running, we suddenly heard something heavy, falling on the ground. Little did we know that, when Sonata had first said that she could not keep up the pace any more, she really meant it. Now she was laying on the ground, motionless as a corpse.

“Sonata!” I called out, while kneeling before her. “Sonata, wake up!” Not a single answer came from her.

“How is she?” Aria asked me, getting closer to us. “What's happened to her?”

“Nothing grave I suppose.” I replied, after making sure that our sister was breathing regularly and her heartbeat was alright. “She's just fainted. The run must have worn her out.”

After hearing me, Aria let out a long, calming breath. She must have been worried about Sonata as much as me, if not even more, considering how much time they spent arguing with each other.

“What do we do now, Adagio?”

“I still think it would be best for us if we found shelter somewhere far away from here. But with Sonata in this state we can't simply keep walking as much as we would need to find a safe place to spend the night.”

“Do you have anywhere specific in mind?”

“Truth be told, yes.” I replied, nodding. “Do you remember the new aquarium they opened out of town?”

“Yeah” Aria quickly replied. “The one Sonata wanted to visit so eagerly, is that right?” I nodded in response. “I heard they had it close though. People kept saying that the patrons had it built too close to a polluted area, so the authorities were forced to shut it down, before they moved any fish in. Poor Sonata was so disappointed at first.”

“Exactly” I exclaimed, intervening. “That place is shut down, which means that nobody will be there to bother us.”

After hearing me out, Aria looked at me in the eyes: I could not say whether she agreed or not with my idea.

“It sure sounds great”. She finally answered. “But you're right. That place is too far away from here to reach it on foot with Sonata in these conditions. We'd better come up with an alternative solution quickly if we don't want the three of us to catch a bad cold under this torrent of rain.”

“Then help me lift her from the ground.”

The two of us together managed to proceed, carrying Sonata on our shoulders. It was surprising to find out how much a girl so thin could weight, when you're literally running for you life.

I do not remember how much we had to walk like that. It may as well have been just thirty minutes, yet to both Aria and me it felt like an eternity. Despite our desperate searching, we did not find any suitable place to use as shelter, so we decided to stop and rest at a bus stop which was provided with a little roof and a bench on which we laid poor Sonata on.

During the time we spent there we seldom talked: probably because we just did not feel like to.

The time passed slowly there, yet the rain eventually stopped and, after Sonata finally woke up, she was still miraculously healthy, so we immediately hurried up to the aquarium.

“This place is weird” Sonata commented, shortly after arriving to our newest hideout. “And it stinks.”

As much as I wanted to say a thing our two to my younger sister, I did not feel like arguing at all that night, moreover I thought to myself that there was no reason to: after all that place did stink of petroleum.

“Former sea creatures in an aquarium.” Aria added, suddenly intervening “What could ever be more cliche than that?”

I must admit that my sister Aria had always been incredible. Even if I never told her, I took delight in witnessing every time she accomplished her objects, with time I began to accept the fact that someday she could very well become more experienced than me. That night though, she left me completely astonished: after everything that had happened, she could still find the strength in her to make jokes?!

I forced myself to smile to make her believe that I had found her jest sincerely funny; she smiled back at me. Yet I knew very well that hers, too, was a fake beam. Aria had in fact learned from experience that letting yourself being fooled can lead to catastrophic consequences.

We spent the night inside the aquarium building. We did not have mattresses or sleeping bags with us, so we settled to sleep on the floor. The pavement was cold as ice, furthermore sleeping on a hard surface gets more uncomfortable if you don't have a blanket to wrap yourself in and there's a storm outside; yet we managed to fall asleep somehow.

We spent a few days without coming out of that stinking place. It was not all that bad, after all there was plenty of water around to remind us of where we originally came from: I know it might sound a bit bizarre, but that aquarium actually starting feeling like home at certain point. The downside of living in an abandoned building is that, after some time, you can start hallucinating, seeing things that aren't real, thinks that spook you especially at night.

Yet the hallucinations were not the hardest thing we had to go through. No...It was the hunger.

I suppose we should have seen that coming: after all it was only natural that, after loosing our gems, certain needs would soon claim to be satisfied. We just did not expect it would happen this early.

“I am hungry!” Sonata said the evening her stomach rumbled for the first time.

“We have no food.” I explained to her.

“But I'm starving. I've been like this for days now.”

“We all have...” Aria murmured to herself, hoping I would not notice the noises, coming from her stomach.

Unluckily for her, my hearing was sensitive enough to recognise the rumbling of her tummy, as she was saying those things. I gulped, as I realised that for the first time ever I had not come up with one of my usual over-complicated plans to solve things.

It felt incredibly frustrating: my sisters and I were already thin as rails and, unless I came up with a solution soon, we would all be doomed to starvation.

In the end It did not take much for me to make up my mind on what to do.

“I am going out!” I exclaimed, raising up with the last spark of pride I had within myself.

“On what exact purpose?” Aria questioned, confused.

“I must find food, otherwise we won't last anything but a few more days.” Lowering my gaze, I immediately noticed that my sisters were staring at me in an unusually awkward way.

“Adagio...” Aria went on saying, while Sonata gulped, visibly worried. “It's not that we don't trust you.” Instantly I understood that I would not like what my younger sister was going to say. “It's just that yours doesn't sound like a solid plan, you see?”

As Aria was speaking those words, I felt my heart breaking into a million pieces. Not only had I lost my title as the leader of our group, but my sisters had also lost their faith in me completely.

“We do not have money to buy our food.” Sonata murmured, finally stepping into our conversation.

“That would leave us with only one option.” Aria went on saying, interrupting our younger sister.

“Finding a job really quickly?”

“I am afraid, it's not that simple. As we are currently starving, the only way we could get food quickly enough to survive would be...” Aria's phrase was suddenly interrupted by a noise, coming from her back: it had been me, slamming the door.

Listening to my sisters had been a torture. They had obviously lost all of their faith in me, if they believed that I could do nothing to save us from certain doom. I knew though that there was one way I could really impress them: doing what I was best at, meaning pulling them out their trouble.

Sadly they were right about one thing. I knew which way Aria meant we could get food and, although I normally considered it a reckless foolishness, I knew it had to be done: we were not in normal circumstances after all.

So I did it, I robbed a bakery, as the owner, a young, thin boy was about to close the shop.

I hit him on the back of his neck and, after he passed out on the ground, stole as much bred as I could.

I am not gonna tell you the whole, incredibly sentimental story of how I managed to get back to the aquarium out of town. It would be too predictable and not entertaining enough for you and not pleasant to remember for me.

Let me tell you something else though: despite my actions being wrong and me being an ignoble thief, as you may put it, we managed to survive thanks to the food I had stolen...

Now listen and listen well.

The next time you come around, being so full of yourself, convinced to be a good fellow. Try walking the footstep of a villain: they may reveal you more about the truth, seen from another point of view, than what all of your goody friends ever told you.