Everypony, from the pegasi in the clouds to the hippocampi of the deeps, had a special talent, and the sirens were no exception.

These three were marked by fate to be singers. Now, it must be remarked that a hippocampus claimed by song was like a unicorn whose truest passion was magic, or a pegasus with a pair of wings stamped on her hindquarters, or an earth pony with… whatever it was that earth ponies did.

That is to say, such hippocampi were nothing special…

–except for the fact that the Dazzlings were damn good at singing. So peerless were they with their gifts, in fact, that these three ponies alone were chosen by the temple to be plucked from whatever past lives they had to receive a blessing nopony else in history had received: sirenity.

The ensuing result – that they immediately went rogue with their newfound power – could have been predicted if anypony involved in the process considered the personalities of their chosen candidates:

A young noblemare, second in line, who passed her many idle hours pitting her suitors against each other just for the honor of hearing her melodic voice as she turned the victor down;

The strange little filly from the hidden compound, whose every flight of fancy was taken as prophecy by the cultists that raised her, whose every impulsive desire was attended to with the gravitas of a Lunar mandate, whose every childish tantrum was validated as grounds for the immediate removal of whatever or whoever she didn’t like;

And – who could forget – the conquering princess of the orphanage, who got her spot at the top of the toy-pile as much by pitting foals against each other as she did by kicking them down herself…

Aria Blaze.

Her special talent was to sing the dirges and laments of the sea. Aria could play those darkest instruments of the heart – rage, grief, disgust, despair – as any virtuosa would a violin. Compared to Adagio’s insincere balladry and Sonata’s hymns to the inane, Aria and her elegies were practically born to be what it turned out a siren really was: a glorious, terrible sorceress whose control over the heart and mind was a ravenous fire, devouring the wrath and woe she stirred up in her wake only to spread more.

And for Aria? There was neither anypony nor any ape whom she couldn’t find a way to royally piss off.

Adagio Dazzle was both of those creatures, in a sense, and she was absolutely furious.

At some point, the water pistol flew from Aria’s grip. When it happened, or where it landed, Adagio paid no mind to. All she could focus on was smashing her purse down like a large rock on Aria’s stupid, jeering face. The middle sister, pinned supine on the carpet, tried to shove the eldest off of her, but Adagio would not budge from her straddling-spot.

This struggle continued, progressing and retreating back and forth, for some time, before a third party wrapped her chubby arms around the both of them with a running tackle, scooping them up into an inescapable hug.

“Oh my gosh! You guys are fighting again!”, rang Sonata’s bubbly voice, in the flesh. “This is the best anniversary present ever! –And it’s not even the big day!”

“Sonata Dusk!”, huffed Adagio, squirming like a fish in a net and inelegantly flailing her purse in Sonata’s general direction. “Let go of me at once!”

Aria echoed a similar sentiment, though she was muffled by the unfortunate placement of Adagio’s chest. Speaking of, the punches Adagio was presently taking to the ribs were almost certainly going to leave bruises in the morning. Luna be praised that Aria had left the stud-knuckled gloves at home that day.

Try as they might, words and violence did little to pry the youngest sister from her elders, as they so seldom did. They just had to wait until she’d hugged herself out.

In the meantime, Adagio had a question – no, a stern inquiry – for Sonata. “Did I not specifically state that you were to text me back once you'd found out whether all of the Rainbooms were under the crying spell?”

“Uh, yeah? And I did.”

“No, you didn't.”

“I totally did!” Just as suddenly as she snatched them up, Sonata let her sisters go – and go they did, directly back to the ground. Worse, Aria was far too lean to pad Adagio’s fall, and failed to protect her head at all from the hard carpet below. “Look!”

When Adagio cleared the stars and her hair from her eyes, she beheld Sonata’s phone, shoved right into her face, showing several messages – each a report on the four unaccounted members of Shimmer’s gang – claiming to have been delivered but not read. Sonata even pinged Adagio with a few |Yello?|s and |Answer your dang phone already|s at the end.

Quickly, Adagio fetched her own phone from her purse. Mercifully, it hadn’t been damaged by the bag’s use as a bludgeon. However, to her great confusion and dismay… Sonata was completely correct. Adagio’s notifications were stuffed with unread texts, each received at various timestamps within the last two hours.

“…So you did,” she was forced to concede. “How could I have missed these? Was I really so focused on my investigation?”

From below, still pinned and smothered, Aria growled, “…too busy… on your fucking date…”

There was something wrong, though. The heat was gone from her words, and her arms lay passive and limp at her sides.

Adagio scrambled to get up, even though she knew what she’d see: her sister, Aria Blaze, red-eyed and staring the kind of daggers that only find themselves in the hands of those powerless to sink them into anything. Seconds later, she smashed the back of her own head against the floor and began to weep through clenched-shut eyes.

It was immediately obvious to Adagio what, how, and when it happened. The sorceress had fallen under her own curse. There must have been some of that enchanted water still clinging to Adagio’s coat when Sonata pressed the two of them together, and that’s when it touched her bare face.

“I just want to go back…”, was all she groaned. If she said anything else, she probably would have started openly crying, and Aria would sooner chug gasoline than let someone see her doing that.

Of course she wanted to go back. She was always the best at being a siren. Adagio told herself that Aria needed a thinker like her new big sister to steer all that brute talent in a productive direction (and Sonata would just sort of be there, also) – but really, Aria had her own cunning, her own ambition. She probably could have done fine on her own if she’d really, truly gotten sick of her family and cut them out for good.

She didn’t, but she could have.

But, being the best siren… she probably took it the worst when the siren sisters lost their sirenity.

She used to be such a firebrand. As leader, Adagio really couldn’t ask for a better lieutenant, though this was another thing she would never, ever say aloud. Adagio’s wiles could score her any number of sycophants, but what she really needed was the kind of critic Aria was, determined in her own spiteful way to find fault with every plan Adagio made. More often than not, Aria was just an idiot who clearly didn’t understand Adagio’s grand designs, but every now and then, hers was the voice of common reason that revealed some hidden grave error in Adagio’s lofty calculations.

Nowadays, though, Adagio wasn’t making plans, and Aria wasn’t picking them apart. All Aria did anymore was sit in her room, glued to her computer. The only times she left her cave were to eat (or rather, to throw something together to eat in her room) and to be dragged out by her sisters because they needed to record a new song.

And for this whole fiasco, Adagio supposed.

Aria hid her weeping eyes behind her hands. Her whole body shook and trembled to keep the sobs inside.

…It took a few seconds’ fiddling with the snaps and the zipper (and an extra dose of caution to do so with her gloves still on, lest another siren succumb to the water’s curse), but soon enough, Adagio’s jacket lay inside-down over her sister’s face. Nobody should notice her tears, now.

Adagio turned to Sonata. “We need to find a way to undo this curse. There should be an enchanted water-pistol nearby; that’s the weapon that caused this.”

Sonata was about to respond, when someone else entirely responded instead.

“On it,” drawled the wannabe-cowgirl from Shimmer’s gang, establishing her inexplicable presence in the store.

Adagio turned around to discover that all of the Rainbooms were here. Every one of the seven maskless vigilantes that constituted her nemesis’s league of magic suppression stood huddled by the entrance in varying levels of duress.

Shimmer herself, of course, leaned against Dash for support, who herself didn’t look much better than she did at the Shoe Boxer. The prismette kept her head down, and pointedly turned away from the ceiling camera.

Sonata’s friend – Pinkie Pie – was there, as well, putting on a smile for everyone, even through her sniffling. For the life of her, Adagio could swear Pie was a fellow member of the curly-hair club, but she must have taken a hair iron to it all since their last encounter, because now it all fell about her face like a mourning veil.

As to the alicorn Princess whom Shimmer had called in for backup, those five years ago, Twilight Sparkle was… utterly without the confident bearing or dorky suspenders Adagio remembered her having. Her hair was conservatively bunned and she clutched a pair of nerd-ass glasses in her hand so as not to get the lenses wet.

Come to think of it, Adagio recalled that, in this realm, the True Princesses of Equestria were counterfeited into doppelgängers in such vulgar roles as school administrators; perhaps the same could be true of upstarts like Sparkle? Granted, this one looked a bit young to be a principal.

The band’s costumer, Rarity – a mononym, unfortunately, so Adagio couldn’t spitefully refer to her only by her last name – also avoided letting her face be seen, despite how captivatingly wretched she would have looked on the silver screen, herself. Mascara ran down her cheeks, as though she’d just ended a bad relationship with a squid.

Frankly, it was a better look than any of the stage-costumes she made for the Battle of the Bands, back in the day. Every one of those derivative things was ‘inspired’ by some overplayed act on the radio or other. To borrow a word from Aria’s lexicon, the girl was such a normie. She probably listened to The Skarabs every day.

…If the Skarabs hadn’t broken up of their own accord, Adagio would have happily stepped in and done it for them.

Otherwise, there was that talentless hanger-on who was only in the Rainbooms because she was their friend, and perhaps some collective delusion that playing the tambourine constituted pulling her own weight. Fortunately, Fluttershy was a compound mononym. –Shy, true to her name, hid herself behind the largest of the group: Miss Pie, who was presumably also true to her name. Though, periodically, she broke from her cowering to shoot a death-glare at the store clerk peeking over the counter, for some inexplicable reason.

And, lastly, there was Applejack, marching over to the source of all their grief. Her face was clean – no tears, no irritation – but there was an undeniable morosity to the downturn of her gaze and the heaviness of her step.

Heavier still was the tread when she slammed her jack-like boot down on that accursed children’s toy hard enough to send plastic shrapnel flying, every which way, clear across the room.

“My bad,” she stated, realizing what a mess she'd made.

And yet, for all her bad, all at once, the mood of the room lifted. Tears dried up and the shakes-and-gasps all stilled. Pie’s hair ballooned back into its old curly curtain. It was all as though the tethering weeds at the bottom of a deep, dark lake finally slipped its grip off their collective ankles and let them buoy up to the surface.

All except Aria, who still lay shivering under Adagio’s jacket.

But there were more pressing concerns. “Where did all of you come from? Did you just crawl out of the walls like woodlice?”

“Oh, actually,” interjected Sonata, “that was me! I figured you weren't ignoring my texts on purpose this time, so I thought maybe whoever or whatever got Pinkie and” – she pointed her thumb at Shimmer, behind her – “Sushicorn here, got you too.”

“So you decided to assemble all the other Rainbooms to come to our rescue.”

–Jack coughed. “To Sunset’s rescue, at least.” When Rarity lightly elbowed her in the ribs, she added, “But it is a good thing you’re alright, too, Miss Dazzle.”

“Really, even if Sunset didn’t factor into the equation, Sonata did seem quite distressed,” Rarity acknowledged. “It was impossible to say no to the poor dear.”

“And lemme tell you,” Sonata continued, “I had to drive all around town to collect ‘em all, and they were crying the entire time, and we had to get Burger Princess so Pinkie had something to cry into, and that meant getting everyone something. It was such a pain!” She looked at her middle sister on the floor with a snort. “Guess I didn’t need to, though!”

“Quite so…” Adagio fixed a stern gaze on the only other sister still standing. “Sonata, you do understand that, had I been successful in securing the source of this magic for ourselves, you would have brought these brutes straight to me?”

She frowned. “Well, yeah, but I thought we weren’t doing that anymore? ‘Cause we’d get our butts kicked again.”

“Very good. At least one of you listened to me.”

She pumped her fists in the air and grinned like such a precious little doofus. “Woohoo! Do I win a prize?”

“That remains to be determined.” Adagio turned to the Rainbooms, stepping between them and the girl on the floor. “So, you’ve helped put a stop to my sister’s little spree. What are your intentions with her, now? Or, for that matter, with us?”

Half of the Rainbooms opened their mouths, but they all cast their eyes toward Sunset Shimmer and the deep breath she took.

Shimmer stood tall. –Shy and –Jack were both taller, but the former was too afraid of her own body to act the part, and the latter postured herself too humbly to accept it. Both of them lacked the poise and intensity that made Shimmer feel almost like an alicorn among ponies.

There was a fire in her eyes, yes, as she met Adagio’s, but it wasn’t some dim, snuffed-out ember in the ashes like it was before the Battle of the Bands, nor was it the out-of-control blaze she’d heard Shimmer used to be before that. Instead it was the blue ring of flares around a gas-stove burner, steady and focused and ready to be put to productive use.

“We’re not the police, Adagio, and we’re not going to hand you to them, either. We’re going to do what we always do – what we were too slow, too untrusting, and too busy catching our breath to do the first time – and ask you three to be our friends.“

Several members of her group looked uncertain about her claim, but they did not challenge it. She really was their leader.

But the cashier was not among her herd. “Hey, hey, hey, now, I don’t know what this is all about, but that girl” – he pointed at Aria – “shot me with a water gun that had… something in it! That’s assault! I could’ve been drugged, or–”

“Zephyr Hyacinth Breeze,” interrupted –Shy, with a sternness Adagio never could have expected from her, “do you really have to do this right now?”

Adagio took the opportunity to add, “…Knowing that, if video evidence was brought to court, you would be seen having your pants wetted by Aria’s toy and immediately bursting into debilitating tears.”

Breeze put his fingers on his chin. “You know what, maybe it was just water after all. I think I’ll just be…” – he went back below the counter – “…down here.”

“Good boy,” stated Adagio.

–Shy seemed to nod in agreement.

The lead siren crossed her arms and turned to face Shimmer once more. “So. That’s it, then? You just want our friendship? What, precisely, does that entail? Mandatory check-ins? Court-ordered sleepovers?”

Shimmer shook her head. “It’s just an offer. You don’t have to take it if you don’t want to.” With a sigh, she said, “I really hope you do, though. Just leaving you like we did after the Battle… It’s been weighing on me for years, and the usual way we do this hasn’t been an option, because until now, you’ve all just kept out of trouble – which, hey! That’s a good thing, and we really appreciate it! But it also means that, all this time, I just couldn’t figure out how to make it right.”

“Assuming replacing our bloodstone hearts is out of the question, what’s been stopping you from making this offer of friendship at any point within the past five years? Why only now?”

Shimmer frowned. “Because you would’ve said no,” she stated, completely avoiding the rhetorical trap Adagio set for her.

“I would have, yes.” Adagio half-turned away. “Sonata’s her own mare, and her forgiveness is hers to dole out,” she admitted, “but as to myself… The wound you dealt me may have begun to scar over, but it’s still tender underneath.” She spared a glance to the girl on the floor. “And Aria may well never heal at all. Just because I don’t want war doesn’t mean our peace has to be friendly.”

“It doesn’t have to be unfriendly, either. Maybe–” She stopped herself, and paced a bit, before picking back up. “Maybe you’re right, but maybe the reason you’re not healing is because you’re not treating the wound at all. I know we took a lot from you that we can’t give back – not without letting other people get hurt – but there are other ways we can help.”

“Like what, Shimmer?” Adagio jerked her head back to stare the woman down.

The siren counted ‘one’ on her fingers. “We can get any material possession we want.” At a certain point, their money started making its own money, and they’ve been flush ever since.

A second finger. “We can sing again, almost like we used to.” Voice retraining got them back into singing form – as it were, letting dark magic do the all singing for them left them a bit rusty, but it was nothing irreparable – and vocal processing got them sounding as deliciously evil as the gems used to make them sound, whenever they needed it for one of their darker pieces.

A third finger. “We even have a friend of our own.” Calling their neighbor, Lemon Zest, a friend was exaggerating, but Shimmer didn’t need to know that. “Sonata has even more than just the one.

“So I ask you, Shimmer: what can you possibly offer us?”

“More friends, for starters – but also… do you really not want to go back to Equestria?”

The retort to that first offer died in Adagio’s mouth.

Unflatteringly, it was Sonata who answered that one. “Wait, for realsies? You’d just… let us go back?”

“It’ll have to be supervised, either by me or Princess Twilight herself, but… yeah. It’s something we’ve discussed.”

“Well, shoot, Sushicorn, you’ve got yourself a deal!” She forcibly grabbed Shimmer’s hand and gave it a vigorous shaking, much to the sushi-unicorn’s surprise. “I was probably gonna make up with you jerks eventually, but too late! No take-backsies!” She pumped her fists and did a little shimmying dance. “I’m gonna go swimming in all my favorite rivers, and sing to all my favorite fishies, and eat all my favorite flowers, and–!~”

With her hands over Sonata’s mouth, Adagio wrested control of negotiations from her simple-minded little sister. “You’re forgetting, child, one important thing.”

“Hmph?”

“There is nothing for us there. I’m reliably informed Shoepultlantis isn’t even on the map anymore. Nothing but ruins at the bottom of Lake Michigatlantis, now.” She let Sonata go, satisfied that the pout on her lips would keep her shut up. “The fact of the matter is, all we have anymore is on this side of reality.”

“It doesn’t have to be for good,” claimed Shimmer. “When Mom – I mean, Princess Celestia,” she corrected, and rudely ignored Adagio’s raised brow, “told me that I could pack up and move back to Equestria if I wanted to, I said no for the same reason you did. All my stuff is here. All my friends are here. I make the trip as often as I can, but Pedestria is my home.”

Adagio was silent, for a spell. She didn’t want to admit Shimmer was right, but she did want to see Equestria again, one more time: to feel its currents on her scales – or fur, if she happened to revert back to a hippocampus – and lie among the grasses at the bottom of the lake. She supposed it was on her bucket-list, now that she was expected to kick that very bucket at some point.

She paced from one side of the room to the other, arms crossed, putting on the look that she was deep in thought, when really, she was just procrastinating on giving Shimmer an answer. After all, somepony else had yet to voice her thoughts.

“…Adagio,” the jacket on the floor finally muttered. Any longer, and Adagio would have had to prod her. “You’re waiting on me, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

“Certainly not,” Adagio lied. “Simply mulling it over.”

“You know what’s gonna–” A loud sniffle could be heard, and Adagio was beginning to regret laying the thing inside-down on Aria’s face. “–gonna happen if you don’t take her up.”

“Oh?”

“I’m gonna have to do this shit again.” She slammed her fist on the floor beside her. “Gonna have to kick their asses all over again – and you won’t help me, so I’ll be all on my own, again – just so I can go home.”

The Rainbooms were collectively tensing up, but they let the sirens keep talking.

“Will you, now?”

“…Adagio,” Aria said – no, begged, but she tried to mask it with a tough voice. “Don’t make me do this again. I–” Another sniffle. “I fuckin’ hate working on my own. Keeping secrets from you two, celebrating my wins alone… It’s the fucking worst. So for fuck’s sake, just make nice like you’re so good at. If I’m gonna die, I’m not gonna–” Here, her voice cracked. “I’m not gonna– I don’t wanna die on this side.”

Adagio solemnly nodded, not that Aria could see.

“Very well. It would seem I’ve been outvoted,” she mused, as though she ever put anything to a vote when she didn’t A: already know both how her sisters would vote; and B: that they’d vote in her favor.

She turned to the leader of the Rainbooms with a subtle, confident smile. “Shimmer– Sunset Shimmer,” she corrected, then, “–Sunset, I hope you know what you’re getting everyone into, letting us into your lives like this. Misfortune follows the three of us like a loyal shark. I’ve lost count of the relationships we’ve ruined. Really, you couldn’t ask for worse friends.”

“These girls couldn’t ask for a worse friend than me, back when they met me.” Six arms found their way to her back, patting or half-hugging or rubbing her shoulder. “And they’re still with me.” Sunset stuck out her hand for a shake. “Do you want to be, too, five more years down the line?”

“Well, if you’re so sure you can handle us… then I, Adagio Dazzle, in my capacity as leader of the Dazzlings, declare hostilities between our bands to be officially over.” Adagio took that hand and gave it a firm but unaggressive shake. “Though, it is such a shame to lose a rival as compelling as you.”

“Well, about–”

Sonata interrupted Sunset to holler, “Hey! You guys hungry?”

The Rainbooms murmured various replies, but Dash – Rainbow, rather – was the loudest to answer, “I just got off work. You have no idea.”

“Then come on! I know this Meskiddan restaurant in town where the tortillas are to frickin’ die for, and they just keep coming! It’s on me! Drinks, too, as long as you don’t puke in my van!”

“…Some of us are still underage,” commented Rarity.

“And I’m 500 or 2,000 years old, so you just let me order ‘em! C’mon!”

Ignoring any other objections, Sonata led the charge past the security line with all of the Rainbooms – with varying degrees of reluctance – in tow.

All of them, that is, except Sunset Shimmer herself. She stayed behind, even as the mall cops themselves determined that the situation was under control and that their work was done here, and as that Breeze fellow warily excused himself to the break room, leaving just the three of them alone in the store.

Sunset walked over to Aria, and Adagio followed in case she tried to pull any mind-reading funny-business.

“So… is there anything we can do for her?”

“Loudly discuss the idea of helping her and then don’t,” answered Adagio. “Best to leave her until she’s ready to get up on her own; she’d just get fussy if we actually tried to comfort her.”

Sunset chuckled. “Sounds kinda like Rainbow.”

The lump on the floor resented that comment, and expressed as much by weakly kicking in the direction of its speaker. Sunset stepped away, unharmed.

“I still wanna do something, though…”

“You can fuck off,” Aria impotently growled. “That’s what you can do. Both of you.”

“Well, well. I think we should listen to the poor dear, Sunset,” agreed Adagio. “Shall we follow your compatriots?”

“Sure, but… could we hang back a bit? I wanted to talk about something with you.”

Adagio was already walking, but slowed her step to walk beside Sunset. “Oh?”

“Yeah, so…” She rubbed the back of her neck in what seemed to be deliberate, telegraphed awkwardness. “Slap me if I’m as off-base as everyone else, but I have been picking up on something that feels like romantic tension from you.”

Adagio raised her hand for violence, but shot a look from her eyes that read, |Keep talking.|

Sunset did not flinch. “And I just wanted to say, if you wanna go on an actual date sometime, I’m down for it.”

She made no effort to protect her cheek as Adagio… lowered her hand. “It seems my legendary allure has claimed another heart.” She pretended to inspect her nails (and then seriously inspected them when she found one of them chipped from her sisterly quarrel). “So you want a do-over; is that it? One where I don’t antagonize you the entire time? What a pity, then, that I’m not interested.” Not in some lovey-dovey courtship with the mare who should have been her nemesis.

“Well, it’s good thing that’s not what I want, either.”

Adagio arced a brow. “Are you trying to reject me after I’ve already rejected you? You should know that that isn’t how this works.”

“That’s not what I’m doing at all, Dazzle. Didn’t you want a rival?” Her voice took on a scorching edge that set all of Adagio’s nerves a-cooking. “I just think it’s been really unfair that you got to rip into me all day without any pushback, all because I was too much of a sadsack to jab you right back. Well, next time, I’m gonna give it back as good as I’m getting it and wipe that smug grin off your beautiful face, you conceited old hag.”

Gone was the steady stove-flame in her eyes. Gone was the low crackle of a fire kept under control. Now, within those warm, black pupils raged a riotous bonfire, as though a stray spark tumbled into some long-dormant kindling deep within her soul.

Despite the sneer on Sunset’s face, she gave a wink. Though it pulled Adagio away from the energy of the moment a bit, it did make it clear that this fire, too, was under control.

“Well, now, Shimmer,” Adagio purred. “Perhaps I might entertain the idea, after all. I should warn you now, however: you may have thought I was letting you have it earlier, but really, I've been holding back, out of the kindness of my heart – what with your condition and all.”

“Is that it?”, Sunset – Shimmer – scoffed. “All you’ve got to say is ‘uh, uh, uh, well I was going easy on you’? That’s nothing.”

Adagio hummed. “I suppose I should also mention, lest it ruin our alliance, that I've never been a particularly loyal lover, and I don’t intend to change. That’s not a dealbreaker, is it?”

The heat cooled down for a moment. “…I’m literally dating more than half of my best friends at any given time, Adagio. That’s not a problem at all.”

There was, admittedly, a hypocritical pang of jealousy, so even though Adagio supposed she wasn’t in a position to be the star around which her collection of playthings orbited anymore, she had to say something. “Half a dozen lovers at your disposal already, and you’re so sure there’s room for me?”

“What I want from you isn’t something they can give me. I love them all to bits, and they love me back, but… I’ve needed a healthy way to let my meaner urges out.”

“I assure you, I’m anything but ‘healthy’. Nevertheless…” She reached into her purse. “Here's my business card, Shimmer. Don't call me until you've come up with some better material. You sound like such a tryhard.”

And then Adagio strutted ahead, the heels on her boots clicking on the tile floor, carrying the last word with her. Part of her wanted very much to stay behind and continue their repartée – it had been ever so long since she’d engaged in such delectable nastiness – but denial was just as important a tool in her arsenal as the common insult. It wouldn’t do to get all that energy out in one go.

What she didn’t expect was for Shimmer to run up, cram her hands into Adagio’s purse, fish something out, stick it in Adagio’s curls, and abscond like some petty thief before Adagio could even piece together what it was she did.

Feeling around with her hand, her fingers pricked on the dull quills of Shimmer’s pufferfish barrette. Taking out her travel-mirror, she decided, after several seconds’ staring, to leave it there.

…And then she looked a little lower on her face, and damn it all, she hoped the blush on her cheeks was gone by the time she made it to the restaurant.

Author's Note

This isn't a redemption story. The sirens aren't ready to apologize yet, even if they have their regrets.
But they don't need to be redeemed to be deserving of kindness, friendship, and the weird kind of love that Sunset wants out of Adagio. Ponies can have little a toxic lesbian situationship, as a treat.

Anyways, now that I've written how the Dazzling sirens formally declared truce with the Rainbooms, I can write about their return to Equestria. According to my timeline, if it's 2019 in Pedestria, it's 2019 in Equestria. Foalbruary 2019 puts us somewhere in the back half of Season 9, so who knows how I fit siren shenanigans into that slump.