Under Aria’s guidance, Dawn quickly bandaged both of her arms, wrists, hands, as well as her throat. New tears had started to creep out of the confused girl’s eyes as she covered the wounds she had inflicted, and though she looked like it, Aria could not or did not want to make a harsh remark on them. Indeed, even after the work was done, she said nothing.

So, they just sat in silence, a few tiles away from the slowly drying blood puddle. The only sound made between them were the laboured breaths both made for different reasons. Aria had her eyes closed, carefully measuring every intake of air and every little movement from her body. Her skin had become increasingly ashen and only now it seemed to return to its original tone. Her limbs, especially her arms, were weak from the bloodloss and she had trouble thinking after the oxygen-deprivation and the stress of fighting for her life.

Dawn on the other hand was struggling not with her body but with the crushing guilt of her actions. She had almost killed her friend, murdered brutally in an act of manic bloodlust. Other than that, she also had to sort through all the memories that had been stirred up in her own mind. The fragments of abstract visions that she had seen when the gem had touched her hand, her supressed memories of her former live and how all this came together with who she was now.

She was feeling so lost.

“Aria? I… I am so, so sorry. I just… It…” Her voice struggled to maintain itself. How was she supposed to explain all this, she could not think of it.

“Aria? Are you still alright?” She asked again.

The other girl just breathed. Then, her eyes opened. Still, they were a piercing crimson, much like the gem that now sat openly around her neck. “Eh, I’m alive. Have to admit, your strength is not bad. But how about you start explaining why you suddenly decided to try and fucking kill me, just so out of the blue?”

She winced at that, truth to be told she was unsure herself. Her mind was still clearing up the influx of memories and sensations. It took a couple of minutes before she was able to formulate an answer.

“I panicked.”

Aria raised a single eyebrow. “Panicked?”

“Not like that. I… When I heard you… I was confused, my mind was just… completely… I don’t know how to explain it. But I knew, instinctively, that you were different or dangerous. Somehow.”

“Uh-huh.” The fuchsia girl nodded weakly. “And why was that.”

She swallowed to clear her mouth, there was no reason in hiding it. “I remembered things, Aria.”

“Shit.” Dawn could not determine Aria’s expression, was she relieved or unhappy with this? “And how much do you remember?” She asked.

“A lot. Maybe everything, I don’t know yet. Who I was, what I was. And I remembered what you are, Aria. I… I am so sorry, for so many things.”

There was a pause, wherein their breathing was once again the only source of sound. A few fresh tears were slowly trickling down Dawn’s face, she did not bother to wipe them away.

“Alright,” It was Aria who broke the silence between them. “Let’s just take it easy. Tell me what you remember.”

As the red girl gave her confused, and depressed, look, Aria made a hand motion with her hand. “Just humour me with this.” She sounded extremely tired.

Dawn breathed in. Then out again.

“My name is… was Sunset Shimmer. I am not from this world; I came here from the lands of Equestria. I had been the personal student of the sole ruler of Equestria, Princess Celestia Solaris, until I left her. On this side, I was at a Highschool. I… had a few friends there. Then, there was an incident. And something inside of me changed. I remember that I broke down, was brought to a hospital, but I didn’t make it there.”

Aria had slowly nodded along with her eyes closed, leaning back against the sofa. Opening them again she said: “I know only about half of what you just said, so I’m going to trust you on this. Most of the rest I already figured out. Now, don’t stop, who am I?”

“Your name is Aria Blaze, as far as I know. You were part of a band, The Dazzlings, alongside your two sisters. You are also from Equestria. You are a Siren, an ancient creature that lives of off the strife it causes.” Dawn recounted from her returning memories.

“Correct. Although we nurish ourselves mainly on some form of energy, all the strife just helps to bring it out for us, as a side effect of sorts.” The ancient creature explained, even though she felt miserable, a predatory grin showed her pride of being recognized by her true nature.

“Now, what, do you think, is this?” She said and held up her gem.

This time Dawn had to think more before speaking. Memories containing knowledge came forth in her mind, but also what she had herself experienced just now.

“It is a Siren’s gem. It is important for you, acts like a focus for your power. Maybe an absorber and storage for all the energy?”

“We call it our heart. And, so as to not lecture you, it does what you just said and more. But that stuff is not important right now.”

Dawn nodded. “When you pressed it into my hands, something happened with me. I saw… moments, of your life, I think. Your banishement. The Battle of the Bands, again. What you attempted after, how-“

“Yeah look, I really don’t want to hear that right now.” Aria interrupted her. “So, it seems we are on more or less the same page.”

“What do we do now? Should we go to a hospital, or-“

“No.” Again, Dawn was interrupted. “Trust me, they are going to ask questions and I don’t feel like I could effectively handle that. As for, what we do now.” With great exertion, she heaved herself off the floor and onto the sofa.

“I just have to rest some. It’s gonna take a while to regain myself so far that I can function properly. You should do the same. After all, I siphoned the magic energy directly from you to survive this. Best to take a sleep. Calm down, reorder your mind and, as long as you don’t try and kill me again, we’ll be fine.”

There wasn’t much that Dawn could really say against that. Instead of also climbing onto the sofa though, she just laid down on the carpet next to it. Already, she could feel her body starting to shut down and drift into sleep.

“Things are going to be fine.” It wasn’t a very convincing thought. But for her it was a start.

It was the sound of ceramic hitting the ground and shattering into pieces that brought Dawn out of her sleep. Lying on the ground, it took her a moment before her sense of balance and orientation came back to her. When it did, she looked around to the couch she had slept next to. Aria was not there anymore.

As well as she could manage, Dawn stood up and walked the few steps to the kitchen entrance, where she was certain the noise had been coming from. And she was proven correct.

There were lots of shards lying on the ground, as it seemed they had once been a bowl and some sort of glass. Aria was also there, something that gave Dawn a shot of relief, as well as a heap of worry.

The fuchsia girl was shakingly holding herself on the counter as she stared at the mess she had made. Her bandages had a few dried blood stains that Dawn didn’t remember, and her face still lacked much of its original colourful strength. However, her irises still shone in that cold crimson.

“Aria? What are doing?” She asked.

“I uh-“ Aria replied sheepishly as she tried to hold her own weight on her weakened limbs. “I wanted to get myself a drink, maybe something to eat, got a bit peckish y’know? Turns out I gravely underestimated my own strength at this point and lost my grip, so yeaah…”

As if to underline the problem, one of Aria’s arms slipped on the counter, causing her almost lose her balance and hiss as the bandaged areas hit the hard countertop.

“Uhm… Little help here?” The fuchsia girl asked, somewhat embarassed.

Carefully, Dawn manouvered between the shards on the ground to her. Drapping one arm over her own shoulder she helped Aria back to the couches they had slept on and sat her down carefully. Sitting herself down on the ground again, both girls took a short breather before Dawn spoke up.

“Aria, can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“What happened with your eyes?” Dawn pushed a few strands of hair behind her ear. “I mean, because I distinctly remember that they were purple before and they were purple all the time in the last few weeks. But since… yesterday, they are crimson, and you don’t really seem to be bothered by it. Is that something that has happened before?”

“Oh, that.” Aria chuckled. “At this point that is rather normal for me. You saw in my head the shitshow that my sisters and me managed to fuck up right? The ritual, I mean.”

Dawn nodded carefully, slightly disturbed at the choice of words that the girl had used. Everything she had experienced then still felt strange and unreal to her, yet she could always recall exactly what she had seen.

“Yeah. To give some context, Dagi wanted to do an ancient ritual of sorts to fix the remains of our gems into new ones. We gathered everything that she needed, atleast as similar as we could manage in this world, and then we tried it. I don’t know what we fucked up, or who did it but… you saw what the result was. Thing is, we actually created one functional gem.”

Aria sighed, her fingers playing clumsily with the gleaming crystal around her own neck. Her crimson eyes started to lose focus as she stared into nothing, an actual sad look on creeping onto her face.“I am actually a bit afraid sometimes, that we succeeded as was planned and it was necessary for them to die. That all this was simply because we didn’t know the full extent of the ritual.”

She shook herself. “Anyway, I’m drifting off. The eyes were like this the moment I woke up. I can only change them with a little magic. Fortunately, I am not that bad at illusions.”

“And you did it because I was here?” Dawn asked.

Aria had to think for a moment how she sould explain this to her friend. “Yeah. At first it was just because of happenstance. I mean, I always change it when I go to Steel Rain’s or when I meet with Lime and Marble. Actually, I have it changed everytime I go outside, just in case I meet someone I know. Just to be careful, you know? Doesn’t really take a lot of effort anyway.”

Dawn looked at her face in understanding. Though she knew there was more to it than just consistency, Aria couldn’t or simply didn’t hold up her unreadable façade so it was a bit easier to pick up this sort of thing. However, the girl was still partially stuck in the mindset of letting Aria explain things when she wanted.

“But that is not the entire reason, is it?” Though only partially.

“Nah, there was something else.” Aria said, seemingly not caring about the unusual prodding of her roommate. “In the beginning I just had this feeling. That there was something different about you.”

“Which was why you decided to hide one of the things that I might recognize to be wrong with you. And you quickly figured out that you were correct in your assessment, didn’t you?” Dawn said plainly.

“Not really. I just had a haunch. But with time I did the little effort to read the news, lined up the dates and thought for a bit. And then I had, in hindsight atleast, a rather good picture of what had happened. Though there was not really much in the case of evidence, it all just seemed too timely and convinient to be totally unrelated.” Aria replied.

“Do you think anyone else has caught onto that?” Dawn asked, suddenly she was afraid. She was not ready to talk with her former friends.

“Honestly, I don’t think so. I mean, your appearance has changed well enough so that people won’t recognize you by just looking. Sure, the hair and maybe the eyes are similar, but that sort of thing only really jumps out when you actively think about it, believe me on that. And you met some of your old idiot-band, if they did not recognize you, nobody will.” Aria replied casually, waving her hand in a dismissive gesture. Then she stopped and became serious. “Though… Pinkie-“

“Pinkie knows?” Cold dread wormed its way up Dawn’s spine. She shouldn’t have a reason to fear the cheerful girl, yet she could not help it.

“Yeah, look.” Aria said, clasping her hands together. “I got a bit more acquainted with her, thanks to her sisters helping me and all that. I don’t know if you remember noticing it before, but she is far more observant and smarter then probably everybody gives her credit. I would not put it past her in any way to have known everything from the start. Or that she figured out things along the way like I did.”

“But she doesn’t have your senses. And she knows less about the details of my… reincarnation, I guess.” Dawn mumbled about. She was picturing the energetic girl barging into the house, the rest of the band behind her, cheerfully proclaiming a ‘Happy-New-Life-that-you-kept-hidden-from-us’ party.

“Just saying. Never underestimate this girl.” Aria said ominously. Then she added: ”I think she also has your journal; we may have to do something about that.”

“I don’t know. Honestly, I think it might be more trouble.” Dawn mumbled as she pulled her knees to her chest.

Aria shrugged. “Depending on how we try and take it from her. And while we’re already on that topic, I think it’d be better to take a straightfoward approach rather than try and be sublte about it. She might just give it to us if we ask nicely. Maybe I can bribe her with something?”

“It is not that.” Dawn shook her head. “I used the journal to communicate with Princess T-Twilight. I don’t know how much she is writing with Pinkie, but the risk of her noticing a change is too high. She could cross the portal and…”

Aria arched an eyebrow at that. Interesting that the book was a device of communication; in her theory it had varried between little more then a treasure trove of spells, arcane calculations and concepts, or it was a simple diary.

“And what matter is it if she comes?” She asked, flopping onto her belly so that her face was closer to the other magical creature.

“Wha- You… We are talking about PRINCESS Twilight Sparkle here. The element of MAGIC!” Dawn sputtered out, completely thrown off by the casual phrase.

The other girl simply frowned. “What is she gonna do? You are her former friend and ally, ressurected after death both by means inexplainable.”

She stopped for a moment. “Oh yeah, remind me to pester you into explaining everything in detail so that I know what the fuck actually happened here. Anyway, I doubt lil miss sparkly perfect will have many if any reasons to oppose you. I’d bet money she would be rather happy to see you return, somewhat atleast.”

“What about you?”

“Me?” The fuchsia skinned siren smirked and chuckled as she spoke. “Well, she just gotta suck it up that one of her enemies helped one of her friends. Ah, just imagine the look on her face when she realizes that she would have to be sorry to me! And maybe even thank me.”

Dawn gave up on trying to understand her friend’s complete and utter lack of worry over an Equestrian Princess. In a way, this attitude was atleast calming her immediate panic. She just had to have a little bit of confidence in them both and things would be alright. Somewhat.

Glancing at the clock, the two girls realized that it was now early in the morning. Aria for one was also reminded why she had stood up in the first place, as her stomach started to protest a lack of food.

However, her own efforts to leave the couch were swiftly thwarted by her red roommate. “Aria, please. Just stay here, alright? I will get something.”

She could have argued. But she didn’t, mainly because the other person was already walking away.

It took Dawn about half an hour of cleaning up and preparing before she stepped out of the kitchen again, in her hands a tray with a fast and simple breakfast. Mostly just bread and butter, alongside water.

“Come on, what’s with the face? Thinking of taking advantage and hogging the breakfast for yourself?” Aria joked with half-closed eyes and a sarcastic smirk on her face, still lying on her stomach.

“No.”

“Suit yourself then.” She shrugged and carefully began the process of sitting up without straining her arms. Too much atleast.

Slowly they began to eat. Dawn weighed down by her own mind and Aria by her injuires.

“I was just thinking how strange this all is.” Dawn said after a while, stabbing the dull tip of her knife into the bread. “Only about three weeks ago, you made breakfast for us for the first time. And everything was so different then. I had no idea who I was…”

Aria nodded. “Yeah. You were really curious, almost all the time. It was kinda innocent in a way. Pity that that is gone now.”

“Yes. Back then I had also not tried to kill anyone. Actively atleast.” Her eyes were transfixed on the metal in her hands. Carefully setting it and her plate aside, she hugged her knees and leaned back against the couch.

“Hey.” Aria also stopped her slow eating process to place a hand on the shoulder of her friend. “It is alright. I am not holding anything against you.”

Their eyes met again. There were already the first signs of tears forming in Dawn’s eyes.

“Why? Why are you so relaxed about that? For fuck’s sake, Aria, I tried to kill you, I wanted to kill you. I almost did. Nevermind about the fact that I am practically responsible for the death of your sisters. How can you be so fucking calm about this?”

“Alright, first I gotta admit that it is weird hearing you swear. Second. Yes, you got pretty close to killing me, but you were not the first one. Not by a longshot. Thirdly…” Even though her arms were still hurting, and her muscles , Aria managed to pull the teary girl up and next to her on the coach. “I kinda understand why you tried it, enough that I know you wouldn’t do it normally. In your position, I would have done the same. I know that you were not yourself and- Hey!”

One hand cupped the red face, preventing it from turning away and forcing the two pairs of eyes to meet again, only inches apart. The other hand was on Dawn’s shoulder, where it was soon in turn held by a red-skinned one.

“Believe me here Dawn. I know enough about magic to take a guess on what went on inside you, enough to get why everything happened yesterday the way it did. And I already had time to come to terms with the fate of my sisters.”

Her hand squeezed the others. Guiding her friend’s head forwards, their foreheads were touching. “But most importantly, I don’t want to cut you off because of this. We’re in this together alright?”

“Ok.” Dawn just replied.

So, they held each other. Eventually their heads seperated only for their eyes to meet.

Dawn smiled and then, she couldn’t supress but giggle slightly. Everything was just absurd. Things had changed so fast, it felt almost like a bad story, but she was pretty sure that it was actually real. Her life.

Not minding the sad, maybe even slightly cynical undertone she felt in her friends giggling, Aria joined in with her own, genuine chuckle. The two former enemies laid back right next to each other and looked at the ceiling above them, enjoying the moment where they were just laughing over the madness of their lifes.

“Heh. I wonder what my sisters would think of me now, if they could hear me talking.” The purple siren said out loud into the air, sounding incredibly amused by the thought.

“You think they would understand?” Dawn wondered.

“Maybe.” Aria said. Then she thought for a moment. “Actually no. Sonata would, maybe. Adagio though? Nah, ‘Dagi would yell about how stupid I am, then she’d start a hissing fit. Sometimes she’d quite literally hiss like a snake. Then she would go upstairs for about half an hour and throw a temper tantrum. And then she would probably find the nearest party and try and destroy as many relationships as possible. Maybe even get someone into her bed.”

Almost dreamy, Aria closed her eyes. “Yeah, we were really terrible people.” It sounded more like she was reminiscing about the good old times, and not talking about her sister acting like a black widow.

“Anyway,” Aria said, turning her eyes onto her red friend. “since we are already thinking about the past and being sad about it and being comforting around each other; you’re ok to tell the story behind all this? Whatever you know atleast.”

She was right in that. It was best to get it all out now, when the morning was already stained by the dark thoughts of her guilt and tears. And once Dawn overcame the trepidation of laying bare the truth she had learned, it all flowed out. She filled Aria in on everything, ever since she crossed the portal.

The years at CHS spent putting a school under her thumb through intrigue and deception and blackmail. How she played friends against each other and crushed any resistance. If she were paying more attention, she might have glanced a bit of respect and a weirdly prideful smirk flashing over Aria’s face.

Dawn also recounted in greater detail the happenstance at the Fall Formal, climaxing in her transformation to a demon and the following purification. Her friend only interrupted to confirm that this was the catalyst that drew the Dazzlings to the school.

There were only few things that Dawn mentioned from the time up to and including the Battle of the Bands, since they both knew what had happened. After that, Dawn briefly explained what had transpired with Anon-A-Miss on the loose.

It was when she got to the day it had all happened that she started to waver. The images intensified before her inner eyes. She could almost see them all as if she was back in there, on that one bad day.

The corridors, filled with students casting their hate onto her. Fluttershy and Rarity, the only ones actually wanting to help her, trying to get her to relative safety.

How she had snapped at them and then snapped inside. How she had fallen to the ground and everything went red.

She told all this to Aria. And she told everything she knew now, how the events had been caused by the two influences in her body fighting over dominion. She continued, telling how she had gotten brought to the hospital.

And she recounted word for word what had happened on the bridge, the reaction that destroyed the vehicle and flung her into the water. That was how far she got before she choked up. New tears began to form again, her hands were shaking.

“I-It was my fault, all those people. Aria, I killed them!” She whispered, trying to wipe her tears away. Aria was faster than her though, swiping them clean swiftly even with her injured limbs.

“Its ok, Dawn-“

“But it isn’t! How can it be alright? I… everything I did… And now… your Sisters… people are dead because of me!” Dawn yelled at her.

“Dawn! You are… I know how it sounds but you need to calm down right now. Just stop thinking over this for a moment and listen to me, alright?” Aria responded with no less strength in her own voice, placing a hand on the others shoulder. With a dry grin she added “And maybe don’t stab me this time.”

A grin that swiftly disappeared as the red girl broke out into new tears, letting her eyes drop down to the floor in shame. “I… Aria-I I’m so sorry, I nearly k-killed you!”

“Shhh. You didn’t. I’m here, aren’t I? That was just a poor attempt at a joke. I’m sorry about that.” The crying girl in front of her opened her mouth to respond, yet she did not have the chance. Aria swept her in a hug, wrapping her weakened arms around the shaking form of her friend and holding her as tight as she could.“ Everything is fine. Just concentrate on my voice, okay?”

And then Aria began to sing again. It was similar to the way that she had sung at the restaurant, though this time she focused to calm the being in her arms.

It was not entirely an unfamiliar thing for the siren, to use her voice in genuine to help someone in emotional need. But it had happened rare enough for this to be foreign and slightly uncomfortable terrain for her. Nevertheless, she did it. And, weirdly, it felt good.

How long they sat like this on the ground, she could not tell. Time was irrelevant for the two girls embracing eachother, the only thing that mattered was the comfort and the soft voices singing a wordless melody.

At one point, Dawn’s tears had ceased, and her eyes dried up.

At one point, the tears had come from Aria.

And finally, the last note faided out and plunged the room into silence again.

“Aria?” The red girl mumbled into the shoulder of the one holding her.

“Hm? What is it did?” Came the similarly muffled reply.

“I just realized; we’re hugging.” The red one remarked sheepishly, though a heavliy contetent look mulled her face.

“Well great,” the fuchsia girl replied, her usual snark sorely lacking any strength behind itself. “want to throw a party for that?”

“Nah, not really.” Dawn pressed her face deeper into the neck. She didn’t want this to stop. She really wished that time would just halt and not move forward until she could. All these things, how she was supposed to manage them she could not fathom.

“Hey, Aria?”

“Hm?”

“Thank you.” She whispered, closing her eyes and hugging her friend as close as she could. “For everything.”

Aria just chuckled. “Thank you too.”

They remained like this for several more minutes. The rest of the breakfast sat there, forgotten. It seemed both girls had silently agreed that neither of them really wanted to eat more at this point. However, even this wonderful new thing had come to an end for one reason or another.

“Come on. Let’s get you to bed, you need to catch up on some more sleep.” Dawn groaned and did her best to protest against the disruption of their current position but to no avail. Aria more or less pulled her to her feet, even though it was difficult for her as well, and not just because her arms were still weak.

“Yeah, I know. Now get a move on, I do not want to drag you all the way.”

Dawn complied, even so she could just lay down again. The stairs proved to be a hinderance at first, but combined effort saw them standing before the red girl’s assigned bedroom. One look inside however…

“…Yeeeah, no. Ew. We’ll take mine. Remind me to clean that up later. And the blood downstairs.”

They ended up cleaning it then and there, after Aria remembered that you should probably not give vomit any more time than necessary to work itself into soft fabric. Atleast not if you want to keep the padding on the floor as it had been. Fortunately, it didn’t take very long for the two of them.

So, few minutes later, Aria was ready to tug her friend into her own bed. However, as she made to leave, Dawn swiftly grabbed her hand and tugged her to the bed.

Aria wanted to resist, and she did at first. She wanted to say how she wanted to clean up her mess and then do body excercises after that. She wanted to claim that she felt strong enough now and that she should start soon on rebuilding her strength and getting a feel for her body again.

But right now? She was tired.

And the bed was very soft, she could attest to that.

And she would share it with someone. It had been too long since she did that.

Ah to Tartarus with all that. She thought. Climbing next to Dawn, the two of them fell asleep very fast. Soon, in their sleep, they instinctively snuggled up next to eachother.

She had pushed the thoughts about the consequences for what she was still doing away about thirty-six minutes ago. It had become pointless, reminding herself every few moments of all the things that she would have to endure.

Instead, Twilight had locked her mind on tracking the signal as best she could. She got closer with every step, narrowing down the possible location from the whole district, to a few streets to a block of houses. And the faster the signal blinked, indicating how close she was getting, the faster her own heart was beating.

However, another thing had popped into her mind. If this new source was on someone’s property, then she might have to enter without permission. Afterall, who would willingly let someone like her in?

She could get in all sorts of trouble, nevermind the fact that Twilight was afraid of what possible dangers she could stumble upon in houses she didn’t know anything about.

Then why was she still walking towards the signal?

This was something that Twilight could not logically explain. What she did was foolish, stupid, and more than risky.

But it was also her chance. If she succeeded here, she could not imagine the lengths this would give her in her work.

Maybe she could preemptively leave school. Apply for universities, walk away from the wretched hell that she cursed in the night. If she got caught, if something happened to her…

…well not a lot of people would miss her.

That particular thought was something of a for the young scientist. It was a terrible thing to think, she knew she should not indulge in even entertaining the notion. However, it was true, atleast from her point of view.

She had explained the situation that she faced at school to both Dean Cadance and her parents. And both had said that they would help, and yet nothing had changed. The other students always talked themselves out of trouble or leveraged the inlfuence of their own parents.

Twilight was sure that her parents still thought it resolved. It wasn’t. She was still haunted by everyone who cared to notice her. By this point she could maybe even dare to think that she had endured every different method of bullying atleast once. And in all that time, not once had someone even attempted to help her. Not once, not even in passing. She was pretty sure that at this point someone could stab her, and everybody would leave her where she lay. And if that wasn’t true, it might be after this day.

The student stopped. The origin of the energy was close, close enough that the big house in front of her had to be the center. The only thing seperating her now was a steel bar fence with a gate that wasn’t locked, a bit of flat grass and atleast one house wall.

She breathed deeply once and once again. Then she entered.

Author's Note

Welp, last chapter of this year. Thanks a lot for everyone who jumped on this crazy ride.
Have a happy New Year and good luck!