Search for the Truth

Aria's hand clamped down over her mouth just as she was preparing to get up, forcing her down into the hollow. Her second did the same to Scootaloo, while a glare and hissed order drove Silver Spoon, Sonata, and Zephyr to the ground.

She could hear footsteps, now, footsteps that almost covered up the weak cries for help that were quickly drawing closer.

Then they stopped, the silence quickly being followed by a gasp of shock, a heavy thud, and a sob of pain. Whoever was calling out had fallen, she guessed, a guess supported by the scrabbling on the forest floor.

"Help," the newcomer began sobbing towards the hollow. "Help. Help."

Sonata's eyes widened. "Ari," she whispered. "I recognize that voice."

"I do, too," Aria grunted. Releasing her and Scootaloo, she hissed, "Don't even think of trying anything funny," before stomping out of the hollow.

Quickly, she followed her out, treading carefully in the Siren's footsteps as she marched over to the crier. Aria snaked around the hollow, she followed her, and now she could see the-

She bit back a gag. The thing crawling on the forest floor was a person only in the most generous sense of the word. Arms like twigs were bound with rope thicker than they were, while their legs looked like they'd snap in a strong wind. A grey flannel robe hung off their skeletal frame, while a black, mesh hood hung over their head, tied on with more cords. Underneath it, she wouldn't be surprised to see sunken eyes and cheeks, if not just a skull.

While she was containing her revulsion, Aria made her way over, murmuring soft sounds to them as she began taking her dagger to their bonds. By the time Diamond arrived, she'd made it through almost all of them, finishing the last cords tying the hood to their head as she knelt beside her. Once the ropes were cut, Aria tore the hood off.

The sight underneath was almost enough to make Diamond retch. Grey, scruffy hair spilled over their weeping eyes, while a ragged beard crept up to the edges of their sunken cheeks. Tears and snot trailed down their nose, standing out sharply against their pale Groverian-flecked skin. A skull would've been less ugly, she sadly thought as Aria slung the man's arm over her shoulder and began carrying him over to the hollow.

"Who is this?" Scootaloo asked, eyes wide with horror, as Aria gently laid him on the ground.

"One of Starlight's torture dolls," she grunted in reply. "like Adagio."

"'One of?'" Zephyr grimaced. "How many does she have?"

"We don't know," Aria shook her head as she began looking the victim over for injuries. "At least half a dozen when we saw her last. Circenican, Groverian, Homestrian; anywhere with a tradition of magic, she's probably either got or killed a captive from."

"Bilmek istiyor," their rescue whimpered.

"Oh no," Scootaloo winced. "Sir, do you speak Common?"

"I do not know Common," he cried. "I do not know Common. Aranizda benim dilimi konusan var mi?"

"Um," Scootaloo bit her lip. "Sadece biraz?"

"Beni anlayabiliyor musun?" he pleaded, forcing himself upright with a grimace. "Söylediğim kelimeleri anlıyor musun?"

"Gibi?" Scootaloo replied nervously. "Birascik?"

"Gitmen gerek," he frantically waved. "Kara Yildiz'in ne yaptıği konusunda dünyayı uyarmalısın. Bilmek istediği için bizi aldı. Onlara söylemelisin, o bilmek istiyor!"

"Calm down," Aria told him, grabbing his flailing arm. "You're going to hurt yourself even more if you keep this up."

"Kara Yıldız, onları uyarmadığın sürece hepimize zarar verecek!" he cried, trying futilely to shake her grip.

"Hurting yourself doesn't do any good," Diamond spoke up, trying to convey her point in tone if not in words. "Calm down, let us help you, and then we can try and talk."

He faltered at her words, before sighing and listening to them, slumping over as if in defeat. As soon as he did, his stomach rumbled, and he blushed at the others' stares.

"Yemek istiyorsun?" Scootaloo asked, softly smiling.

Clearly embarrassed, he nodded, then shivered.

Aria picked her examination back up while Scootaloo scrounged some food and water, passing them both to the eager rescue. He moaned softly in satisfaction as he ate and drank, quickly wolfing the given rations down. "Teşekkürler," he murmured to Scootaloo after he finished.

"Rica ede..." Scootaloo began to reply, before faltering. "Um, ede, ede, ede... rist?"

He began to chuckle, saying, "Ederim, ederim," before squeaking as Aria lifted up his robe to look at his back.

"Could you tell him not to worry, shorty?" Aria told Scootaloo while her patient feebly tried to force his garb back down. "I'm just looking for injuries, and I've gotten pretty good at blocking out the sight of bare male skin over the years. He doesn't have to worry about me judging him or seeing anything I'm not supposed to."

"Oh?" Diamond smirked as Scootaloo, grumbling "I'm not short," conveyed her message to Aria's patient. "Sounds like someone's had a bit of experience with l'amor."

The look Aria gave her was flat and flattening. "The only experience with romance I've had was back when I was twelve," she replied. "I didn't know how to deal with it, so I ended up giving him a black eye. The people who trained me not to be affected by skin were driven by greed, not love. They wanted Tyre and access to Adagio, not me. Some of them even tried to get it through Sonata, though we managed to scare most of them off."

"He said it was true love, Ari!" Sonata protested. "He sang me songs in the starlight and said that he'd go deeper than Ryleh for me!"

"He told me the same things," Aria snapped. "When I rejected him, he tried them on you instead. Wouldn't surprise me if he'd tried them on Adagio before me, too."

"Did she ever accept?" Zephyr asked. "I'd guess that she would've been under a lot of pressure to, as the main heiress."

"Pfft," Aria snorted. "Nobody could compete with her three greatest loves; fighting, the Empire, and telling others what to do. She pretty much married her work, and she was so good at it that nobody dared tell her otherwise. No, the joys of having to carry on the family line," she scowled. "were passed on to me. Some of the lower classes even made jokes about it; 'Adagio's the fighter, Sonata's the spellweaver, and Aria's the spare,' was a popular one."

"Don't worry about what they said," Sonata smiled at her. "Remember, Dagi said that the lower classes were for commanding, not listening to."

The hair on Diamond's spine prickled as Aria let her patient's robe fall back down and turned to glare at Sonata. Suddenly, she was in fifth grade again, the storm between Mother and Daddy waiting to burst, only Aria wouldn't hold back like Daddy had.

"Then why should I listen to you?" Aria asked, her voice cold enough to chill the soul. "Your mother was lower class, and that means you're lower class. Yeah, Adagio adopted you, but why should that change my mind? Dressing a pet up doesn't make it a person, neither does adopting it. If you really think that the lower classes are for commanding, not listening to, then listen to my commands and shut. Up."

Sonata's eyes watered. "But," she whimpered. "but Dagi said we were sisters, said-"

"Adagio," Aria cut her off. "lied. What she lied about is up to you. Which would you rather be true, Sonata, you being my sister or those weaker than you not being people?"

"I want a sister," Sonata whimpered.

Aria nodded, and Diamond noticed her face soften, almost imperceptibly, like Daddy's had when she'd admitted that bullying the CMC was wrong.

"Sonata's mother was a slave, wasn't she?" Zephyr quietly asked.

Aria's fist clenched. "In Charybdis, we called them minions."

"Dagi treated mom really nicely, though," Sonata chimed in, wiping away the last of her tears. "She never whipped her or-or locked her up or anything. She treated all the minions nicely. 'The strong don't need to mock the weak's weakness to feel strong.' If Shimmer had found us before Starlight did, she probably would've offered-"

Once again, Aria's hand came over her sister's mouth, once again too late.

"Star-light?" the Groverian rescue murmured, drawing their attention away. "Star-light Glim-mer?"

"Yes, Starlight Glimmer," Aria nodded, releasing her sister and walking back over to him. "The woman who kidnapped you."

"Starlight Glimmer," he continued. "Kara Yildiz."

"Kara Yildiz," Aria muttered. Turning to Scootaloo, she asked, "Shorty, is that Griffish for Starlight?"

"I'm not short," Scootaloo protested. "And no, it's not. I don't think so, at least."

"Of all the times for us to not have a signal," Silver sighed, putting away her useless phone.

The rescue grunted as he leaned forward, tracing a finger in the forest floor. He drew three things; an equals sign, a stick figure, and then a large tree. Pointing at the equals sign, he said, "Starlight Glimmer." His finger moved to point at the tree. "Kara Yildiz." Then to the stick figure. "Starlight Glimmer, Kara Yildiz."

"Ooh," Sonata trilled. "I love guessing games! Hm... Is Kara Yildiz what Starlight called the tree-thing?"

He shook his head, then drew two arrows, one pointing from the stick figure to the tree, the other from the figure to the equals sign.

Sonata put a finger to her lip. "There are two Starlights, one going by Kara Yildiz?"

Again, the head shook.

"Did Starlight call herself Kara Yildiz to you?" Diamond asked.

"Hayir," he murmured, shaking his head. "Kara Yildiz kendi adini verdi Starlight Glimmer."

"Hayir means 'no,'" Scootaloo frowned. "I don't know about the rest, though."

"Kara Yildiz için bir maske değil Starlight Glimmer," the rescue said, stressing each syllable. "Starlight Glimmer için bir maske Kara Yildiz."

"This is getting us nowhere," Silver sighed. "Let's wait to tackle this until we manage to get a signal so we're not just relying on-"

The rescue shivered again, stronger this time and muttering darkly under his breath. "In-sul-in?" he hissed. "In-sul-in?"

"Insulin?" Sonata furrowed her brow. "Why do you need that? Are you an alchemist?"

"Hayir," he shook his head, then, haltingly, fumblingly, said, "Di-a-bet-ic, di-a-bet-ic, med-i-cine."

"You're diabetic?" Diamond gasped. After he nodded, she turned to the others and ordered, "We need to get him to a hospital."

"This is Nocturne territory," Zephyr sadly shook his head. "They lack the population density to attract hospitals, the nearest one would be days away on foot."

Biting her lip, she turned to Sonata. "Can you use your magic to help him? Please, if he doesn't get insulin soon he could die."

Sonata flared her nostrils. "You want me to do a field alchemical operation," she growled. "and then use the results to perform biomancy? Any other miracles you feel like asking for? Alchemy isn't as easy as the books make it look, and performing it in the field is even harder. I don't see lab equipment anywhere, the fire's nowhere near hot enough, and I don't have my coat on me. It'd be easier for me to-"

"Okay, that's a negative," Diamond cut her off, wringing her hands. "Anyone have any other ideas?"

"How long does he have?" Aria asked.

"Not long," she shook her head. "A couple days at the most, and that's assuming today's his first day without insulin."

Aria's hand twitched. "How painful would it be?"

Diamond raised a brow. "Would what be?"

"Diabetes killing him," Aria replied curtly. "How painful?"

"We don't exactly know," Silver said. "Probably not pleasant, though."

Aria nodded, then turned to look at the rescue thoughtfully. After a few moments' silence, she said, "Sonata, take the shy one's brother, the glasses girl, and her friend away for a few minutes. Me and shorty need to have a little heart-to-heart with... with our friend here."

"Why can't we stay?" Diamond asked. "We can be quiet if you need us too."

"What we're going to be talking about is private," Aria sharply replied. "The only reason I'm keeping shorty around is because I'll need an interpreter."

"My name's Scootaloo," the girl in question grumbled.

"Come on, Miss Tiara," Zephyr pleaded. "Let them have their privacy."

Sighing, she nodded and followed Sonata out of the hollow, her footsteps overshadowed by the screaming of a crow in the branches of the tree above.

They didn't go far, Sonata stopping about thirty paces away from the hollow. As soon as she did, Diamond whirled on Zephyr and ordered, "While we're waiting, explain what you said before Starlight's victim arrived."

Zephyr shrugged. "There's little to explain, Miss Tiara. Like I told Aria, I'm living proof that the stories lied. They said I could make something of myself if I listened to them, if I tried to be like the heroes I read about, if I just believed and took a leap of faith. I believed I could fly, leapt, and fell. I listened to the stories and learned that they were lies. Listening to them wouldn't teach me how to be the hero; I was doomed to be a walking failure until the day I die. I know what you all think of me; weak, annoying, useless. You call me liar, boaster, failure. You believe that I'm no good." He shrugged again. "You're right."

"Then why are you here?" Silver asked. "Do you not like Di? Do you want her to fail?"

"There's no good in me," Zephyr replied, smiling softly at the stunned Diamond. "except for whatever good others put in. Miss Tiara tells me what to do, and how to do it, so I don't need to fear failure; a puppet doesn't need to worry about failing the puppet-master after all."

"How do you know you're just a failure?" Diamond shouted, or was it pleaded? "How do you know you just haven't gotten unlucky a couple times?"

Zephyr raised a brow at her. "In my life, I have managed to poison a cockroach, break my arm iceskating, become a consistent C- student at best, and frustrate one of the most gentle people I know. I can barely even decide on a hairstyle. Reading and doing what others tell me are the only two things I've been able to do with anything approaching a success rate. The odds of all that being due to luck are more than a million to one."

"Aww, don't worry!" Sonata reassured him, squeezing his cheeks. "If you stay with us, I can tell you what to do forever and ever!"

As the cloth-bound hand brushed him, though, she hissed in pain, quickly drawing it away and rubbing the wrist. "Stupid wound," she grumbled. "You should've healed up already."

"You're hurt?" Diamond winced. "Maybe you should have one of us check it over when we get back to camp, it could be-"

A bloodcurdling shriek came from the hollow as a murder of crows took flight.

"That was Scootaloo," Silver whispered, eyes wide. "Do you think-do you think that maybe Aria just wanted to isolate her, not talk to the guy at all?"

"If she did, we would've heard him scream, instead," Diamond frowned. "Even if that didn't happen, though, we need to go back."

Ignoring Sonata's cry to stop, she raced back to the camp, freezing as she saw a snarling Aria holding a struggling Scootaloo with one arm while the other hand held a bloody knife.

Adrenaline flooded her. "Let her go!" she ordered, charging into the hollow.

"I will," Aria barked in reply. "as soon as she agrees not to try to bite me anymore!"

"You killed him!" Scootaloo shrieked. "I saw you, you killed him!"

Diamond froze again, then, hesitantly, held back and driven onward in equal measure by horror, she turned to look at their rescue.

And saw a large, growing red stain on his robes, right above his heart.

"And if I wanted to kill you, I already would've!" Aria bellowed. "It was a mercy-kill, shorty! You heard your friends, he would've died before he could get any help! I was just trying to make it as painless for him as possible!"

The others had arrived back at the hollow by now, Silver and Zephyr looking on in horror, Sonata in simple shock.

"Now, are you gonna try something stupid and die," Aria asked. "or are you gonna listen to me?"

"Why should I trust you?" Scootaloo retorted, trying to weave out of Aria's grip.

Aria's dagger moved in front of Scootaloo. "Does it seem like you have a choice?" she hissed.

"Scootaloo," Diamond shakily ordered. "would Rainbow Dash attack someone because of what she thought she saw, or would she make sure that she knew both sides of the story?"

Glowering, Scootaloo nevertheless nodded, and Aria released her. Zephyr quickly came over and wrapped his arms around her, arms that she escaped much easier than Aria's as she turned around to glare at the Siren and spat, "Talk."

"He," Aria said, a drop of blood spinning off her dagger as it pointed at the corpse. "was gonna die long before we could take him to a hospital. There was no way for us to save him. From the sounds of it, diabetes would've killed him slowly and painfully. A stab to the heart would do it quick and with a lot less pain. There was no winning here; he was going to die. The only question was how. And he chose how, shorty; I offered it to him, and he accepted."

"No," Scootaloo shook her head. "No, he-he didn't, he couldn't understand you."

The dagger plunged into the ground, the hand it was freed from pointing down at it while the other hand and a questioning brow were aimed at Scootaloo. Then, to make her point clear, Aria picked the dagger back up and pantomimed dragging it across her throat, before tapping it against her other hand while clearly and carefully enunciating, "Di-a-be-tes." Then, she stretched out her hands to her audience, one offering the spoken word, the other her blade.

"I made myself understood," she said.

"Did you hear his last words?" Sonata asked.

The dagger pointed at Scootaloo. "I had her translate some and write down the rest."

"How do you know he was going to die?" Silver whispered, clearly shaken. "Miraculous recoveries or survivals happen, why not this time?"

Aria's face darkened. "I believe in miracles as much as I believe in 'supposed.'"

"Was he able to hear you this time?" Sonata tilted her head.

Aria nodded.

Wait a minute. This time?

"You've done this before?" Diamond found herself asking before she realized it.

The fire seemed to dim. "Quite a few times," Aria growled.

Diamond swallowed; she knew she was walking into the lion's den, but her reporter's instinct told her that the truth lay within. "How recent," she asked. "was the last one you did before this?"

The dagger glinted in the dull flames. "A few days."

A few days.

Unable to hear... something.

"It's not enough that Ari had to do it from far away, you also had to stop her from-"

"It was Adagio, wasn't it?" she whispered.

A sharp hum, a chink, a small spray of soil.

And a stone disc buried in the ground at Diamond's feet.

"You killed her?" Silver gaped.

"It was a mercy," Aria replied coldly. "one greater than any Starlight ever gave her. Didn't you hear what she looked like? Adagio would rather die than live like that. As for the ones who made her like that..."

A drop of blood fell from her dagger and stained the ground.

"You're a monster," Scootaloo whispered.

Aria's smile turned almost shark-like in the low light. "You won't find any argument from me."