The weather was pleasant and mild. Behind Canterlot High School, many of the students and some of the teachers were eating lunch outdoors.
Off to one side, Octavia played her cello. Sonata walked up and sat down in front of her, listening.
After about ten minutes, when the étude had ended, Sonata spoke. "I miss the music."
"Mm," Octavia said.
"When I listen to you play...the chords, the harmonies. It reminds me of back when the Dazzlings used to kind of get along. And we could sing, of course."
"Miss that, do you?"
"Of course. Music was the best thing in the world."
"And the worst, considering what you did with it. Don't you remember that? Do you miss that too?" Octavia's composure broke as she glared at the siren. "You should feel ashamed of yourself."
Sonata stood up and ran.
When Sonata was gone, Octavia wondered, had she been too harsh?
Probably not, she decided.
***
The same day next week, Octavia was practicing in the same place, letting the music seep into her soul and through it. No world could be entirely bad, she thought, if it has Beethoven and Brahms.
Sonata walked up.
Octavia looked disdainfully at the siren. "Do you think you even deserve to listen to this?"
Sonata blushed. "Probably not. We did bad things with music, I know. And I'm sorry. I can never make up for what we did, over the years. But at least I'm sorry."
Octavia kept playing. She didn't want to stop her practice.
"Me and the other Dazzlings, we've lost all our music now. Music was the main good thing in my life. Sirens can't live by tacos alone."
Octavia played. "Sonata? Do you even know where that line comes from?"
Sonata shrugged. "It's something Adagio used to say. She said regular food isn't good enough, we needed to feed on energies sucked out of people against their will. She always called real food 'trash food.'
"But I always liked the tacos, and the burgers. I make pretty good chili too, or at least I like it. But the other Dazzlings always made me feel stupid about it.
"I think the only reason they ever let me cook was because for years, we had so little magic energy in this universe. We had to live on whatever we could, even if it meant sometimes eating some real food. They got used to it. They knew if they kept me from cooking, we could all starve. But they liked to talk like maybe it would be better if we DID starve, than eat real food. We ate my cooking and they just made me feel bad about it."
"Hmm," Sonata said.
"But now that our gems are destroyed? Now when I cook, sometimes they act like they're grateful. They say thank you. And I think they really mean it. I'm queen of the kitchen. They fight with each other now more than they pick on me. And I don't even like it."
Octavia's brow furrowed slightly as she played a difficult passage. After a minute, she spoke. "They say thank you, and you don't like it?"
"I guess I should like it. But they don't really like me, they just need me."
After another minute, Octavia remarked, "I can think of worse things, than to be needed."
Sonata said bitterly, "I can think of better things, than to be needed for the wrong reason."
"And what would be the right reason?"
Sonata said nothing. But eventually, she tried to hum a note to match what Octavia was playing. The siren wasn't really in tune.
Octavia quirked an eyebrow.
Sonata hummed another note. This time, she was closer.
Octavia looked thoughtful.
On Sonata's third try, she hummed the exact note that Octavia was playing.
From time to time as Octavia was playing, Sonata tried to hum the same pitch, and more often than not succeeded.
As Octavia neared the end of the song, Sonata's humming not only matched the desired pitches, but also got closer to being in time. For the last few notes of the song, Sonata was almost perfect.
When the song had ended, Octavia said, "Interesting. I wouldn't have thought you'd know that one. I thought you sirens only played your own compositions."
"Every day for the last week, I've been sitting where you couldn't see me, and listening to you play. It's like the exact opposite of sitting at home with the other sirens."
"Also," Octavia said, "I thought your music was gone."
"This is different!" Sonata said. "This isn't using gems to synchronize up evil magical powers. This is just...making music on your own, from inside yourself. The other sirens wouldn't even like this, I don't think. You aren't making people feel bad, or sucking the energy out of them, or filling them with anger or hatred. All you're doing is music."
Octavia chuckled. "Just music. I like to think that's what I'm doing. Mind you, there are times when I feel I'm doing less than perfectly on that front, and playing a bit of noise here and there."
"But it's just you, Octavia. It's just you, and your hands on a musical instrument that's just music, not magic. Not Equestrian style magic anyway. Or maybe you are doing magic, a little bit. But if you are, it's...something totally different from what I got used to with the sirens.
Sonata smiled, waving her fists in the air enthusiastically. "I like it SO MUCH!"
The lunch break was almost over. Octavia packed up her cello in its case, and lifted it to go.
Before she walked away, Octavia gently spoke. "You're welcome."
***
After that, every day when Octavia practiced, Sonata would come and listen. For the last song of the practice, Octavia would let Sonata hum along.
After a couple of weeks, Octavia tried something new.
"Listen to this one, Sonata." Octavia played a single line of melody. It was rather simple. It went on for two or three minutes, with some repetitions.
Sonata said, "That was okay. I didn't like it as much as the fancier songs you play."
Octavia chuckled. "That was a single, simple melodic line. But I'd like you to learn it." Octavia played the entire melody again.
On the third playthrough, Sonata tried to hum along. She made a few mistakes, but she got most of it right.
By the seventh playthrough, Sonata was almost perfect, matching Octavia note for note.
"That was fun!" Sonata said.
Octavia smiled. "I'm glad to hear it."
Sonata laughed. "That's FUNNY. Because you're glad to hear me say it was fun. But I know you're glad to hear me sing a song without evil magic, too!"
"The intangible rewards of teaching are often underappreciated," Octavia agreed.
***
A few weeks later, Sonata was singing a melody in harmony with Octavia's cello playing. The other two Dazzlings walked over and watched.
At the end of the song, Adagio said scornfully, "It's all fake, you know."
Sonata glanced at Octavia, and said nothing.
"Did you hear her?" Aria demanded. "It's NOT REAL. You'll NEVER suck energy out of people with what you two are doing. You'll never make an entire audience become your mind-controlled slaves. It's just a cheap parody of what we used to do."
Sonata said, "It's what I've got."
"But it's no good! It's useless! It's worthless!"
Sonata remembered something she'd once seen in a park. She waved to someone she knew from one of her classes, and borrowed a hat. She turned the hat upside-down, and set it down in front of her and Octavia.
Sonata sang the first word of another piece that she and Octavia had recently practiced. Octavia recognized it, and joined in with her cello.
As the two sang and played, a girl cut in front of the sirens to drop some change into the hat, and went back to the table where her friends were eating. After about half a minute, another student tipped the musical pair.
Three songs later, the hat held a good assortment of coins, and a couple small bills.
Sonata laughed. "Useless? I could buy tortillas and beans and rice and vegetables with this!"
Aria said, "You're just acting like a beggar! It's embarrassing!"
Sonata argued, "Music like this helps to make people happy. And I'm not embarrassed to make people happy, just because it's different from what we used to do."
Adagio huffed. She snapped her fingers, turned on her heel, and walked away. After a moment, Aria followed her.
Octavia asked, "Do you need that money?"
Sonata blushed. "We might. The Dazzlings used to just manipulate people into giving us what we wanted. But now everything is changed. We can't do that anymore."
"Someone should warn you, music...real music, not magical mind control...sometimes it's not an easy way to make a living. Sometimes it's the hardest thing in the world."
Sonata replied, "But you know what? If I could do it, I think it would be worth it. And if I end up making a living some other way? At least I can do this for fun. And I can do it myself, without a magic gem.
"Ever since I was a little spratling, I only learned how to make music with a special gem, and with other sirens using their gems too. I never knew I could make music without magic. But now I know I can! Making music without a gem...it makes me feel strong. It's like I'm just as powerful as before, but in a different way.
"I know it doesn't make any sense, because I can't do the same things I could do when I was using the gem. But it just feels better."
Octavia smiled. "I think it makes all the sense in the world."
"Yeah," Sonata said. "It does. It's the truth, so it has to make sense somehow."
Sonata suddenly hugged the cellist, hard. After a minute, Sonata blushed again. "Did I mess up your clothes? I know you always dress really fancy and nice. I'm sorry if I messed that up." Sonata released Octavia as suddenly as she'd hugged her, and let her arms hang awkwardly at her sides.
"You know what?" Octavia asked. "Even if you had messed up my clothes? This would be worth it." She hugged the siren back.
Author's Note
I must like making up baby names. So I guess a baby siren is a spratling, until any writer or fan decides otherwise?
Please feel free to upvote, favorite, and follow me. Why not leave a comment telling me about something you liked, or didn't like, or some of both?
I probably won't follow you back just because you followed me, because I'm not really into automatically doing things. So maybe you shouldn't follow me, if that's why you follow people? But I will try to write stories that I hope are worth reading, with some of the time that I'm not using to follow everyone.
When Octavia asks, "Do you even know where that line comes from?" she already knows (as some of you already know) the original saying is closer to "Man cannot live by bread alone." Unsurprisingly, Adagio twists the meaning.
