Talaria
A rambling suburban house is light-years better than prison cells or cardboard boxes in an alley, but being cooped up for weeks on end is hard on anyone, no matter how pleasant the surroundings. It was time for a break—specifically, an outing to the biggest shopping mall in the area to take advantage of back-to-school sales. While not exactly in the same league as a theme park, it might be busy and colorful enough to catch the attention of bored young women struggling with studies and incipient cabin fever. As a bonus, the shopping would provide necessities the pauper teens still lacked and, contingent on good behavior, maybe a few small treats.
It would come as a disappointment, though not a complete surprise, there would be no treats this day.
The trip started as well as anyone could expect. The sirens and Rose once again rode in the stalwart old panel van with the laconic driver, while Logos and Harmonia followed in their somewhat newer mid-tier sedan. The mall was not completely new to the younger trio, but it wasn’t a place they’d visited often. Lacking motor transportation of their own had restricted their movements to the less than fully effective mass transit, limiting their exposure to the sprawl of neighborhoods and connecting arteries.
Sonata rubbernecked unabashedly. Aria slouched down and stared straight ahead, arms crossed. Adagio split the difference, leaning back and looking a bit weary—an emerging habit that troubled the three adults—but glancing out occasionally at passing sights or in response to a nudge and exclamation from Sonata. When she bothered to respond at all, it was with noncommittal monosyllables. Aria’s glower deepened with each exchange, but the journey wasn’t overlong, and the bustle of parking, disembarking, and walking to the mall itself served to break her gathering irritation.
During the walk across the lot, each of the older three quietly took charge of one siren in particular. Harmonia shepherded Sonata. Logos watched over Adagio. Rose chaperoned Aria, but not before hanging back a moment to pop a small form-fitting earbud, connected to a coiled wire, into place. She tapped on it twice, and a series of return taps sounded over the tiny speaker. She caught the older couple’s eyes and nodded.
The hubbub of the mall’s concourses and the vibrant, even gaudy, storefronts succeeded in diverting all three of the sirens to a greater or lesser extent. Sonata rushed from display to display, peering curiously at merchandise, staffers, even other shoppers. She still wasn’t the happy-go-lucky sort Sunset and Princess Twilight had described, but at least the haunted anxiety ingrained by her misfortunes was notably in abeyance. It probably was unkind but true she didn’t have the intellect and imagination to brood overmuch, unlike her companions. Aria affected an air of disinterest, ambling where Sonata dashed, but her covert sidelong or hooded gaze betrayed at least mild interest. Once in a while she actually cracked a grin; usually it was more of a malicious smirk, but a couple of times it showed flashes of genuine enjoyment. Adagio focused enough to declare definite preferences for one option or another, and even to venture cajoling her elders into more than they offered or promised. After the first few attempts bounced off firm rejections, she heaved a martyred sigh and desisted.
The tour proved enlightening on both sides. The sirens gradually realized the staggering potential lying like a dragon’s hoard—not a metaphorical concept in their case—all around them. Their guides carefully observed which stores, and what merchandise, seemed to attract the three, individually or as a group. Once they’d completed the circuit and returned more or less to their origin, Rose cleared her throat. “Today we’re here mostly to get what you need rather than what you want.” As her younger listeners gathered themselves for an outcry of dismay, at least partly genuine, she went on, “I know that may be disappointing, but we have a pretty long list to get through, and it’s not like this is the only chance you’ll have to come here.” All three stopped in their tracks with expressions of enlightenment, and after they had a chance to process this novel concept, they moved along less grudgingly to their first real stop: the big red-and-white discount store serving as one of the mall’s anchors.
The first order of business, gathering necessities, produced a few awkward moments, touching as they did on sensitive and personal matters for adolescent women. Sonata’s ingenuously straightforward attitude was no obstacle, though she had to be encouraged to keep her voice down when discussing some of those awkwardnesses. Aria steamed and Adagio looked affronted, but their guides managed to drag everyone through the whole affair with a determinedly matter-of-fact air.
Not at all by accident, the next item on the agenda was a turn through clothing and outerwear. The three teens rampaged through the shelves and racks; their elders kept their own counsel even though some—many—of the choices made them wince. But identity is important, especially to teens in the process of developing—or redeveloping—it, and clothing is a vital means of expressing that identity. The illusion of greater freedom, moreover, distracted the younger trio from their earlier dudgeon. Some of it returned when limits were placed on the numbers of items, but Rose pointed out, “How many outfits do you want to launder? Or even carry out to the van?”
Wallets, bookbags, school supplies, pocket calculators, bare-bones prepaid feature phones—the list went on in that vein, but notably missing from it was digital technology beyond the most austere. Aside from precluding on-line mischief, the omission reflected the girls’ limited skill with technology centuries beyond their previous experience. Observing and accepting the existence of that technology was one thing; actually using it effectively was quite another. Sunset Shimmer had achieved far more facility in the same amount of time, but she was better educated, more motivated, and grew up in an industrializing society rather than a pastoral pre-industrial setting. All in all it seemed best to introduce the young trio gradually to the miracles of computers and the Internet.
By the time they were ready to check out, each of the three girls was pushing a full cart, though in fairness garments and bookbags made up much of the bulk. The long lines made them restive, but it was hard to blame them for that. In the end, the whole party was laden with all the bags they could carry, and in a rare moment of unanimity, the decision was made to deposit the booty in the van before continuing.
“We all saw what you brought—and didn’t bring—with you, girls,” Harmonia proclaimed in a no-nonsense tone. The whole group stood in a staid-looking store specializing in women’s underwear . . . among other garments, though the latter weren’t on the list. “There are certain things every young lady needs. This is the most important stop on today’s trip.” Logos and Rose glanced sidelong at each other with suppressed smiles at Harmonia’s imperious tone, but didn’t contest her assessment of priorities. The sirens, on the other hand, fidgeted uncomfortably.
“Trust me,” the matriarch added. “If you don’t start a habit of wearing bras now, in twenty years . . . well. Let’s just say the results will be disastrous. Proper fit is essential for real comfort, which is why we’re here and not in a department store.”
The middle-aged fitter tapped to work with the three girls clearly was an expert at her job and at dealing with obstreperous teenagers; no doubt she was a mother herself. Her brusque courtesy took in stride Sonata’s confusion, Adagio’s passive resistance, and Aria’s more active opposition. An expert eye and quelling basilisk glare, along with tape measure and other tools of the trade, made short work of the process. By the time the last of the three emerged from the fitting room, each held a slip not unlike an eye-prescription form, on which was neatly jotted all the necessary facts and figures. When the fitter reappeared as well, she handed Harmonia an additional sheet, listing recommendations for how many and what kinds were best suited to different budgets and situations.
Whether one might quibble with its importance, there was no denying it easily was the most expensive stop of the day, especially considering Harmonia insisted also on proper underwear. This time, at least, only the three girls were burdened with bags, but their demand for another trip to the van was eminently reasonable, and so the gaggle set off to unload once again.
Rose was just placing Aria’s bags in the van’s increasingly crowded cargo space when cries of confusion or alarm arose around her. She jerked upright and whirled to see Aria racing up the lane toward the mall’s entrance. As she launched into a sprint after the siren, she swore venomously and hissed, “Getting soft, Rose.”
Ironbound training came to the fore. Her glance flicked to the row of glass doors toward which Aria dashed. There, just walking past a well-dressed young woman into the arcade, was a pair of girls: Cyan, long mop of straight hair running through the whole spectrum, track-star build and outfit; butter-yellow, wavy pink hair, skinny as a rail in tank top and skirt. Rose didn’t spare any breath for more oaths, but her face tightened and she pounded on.
The woman near the door hadn’t given more than a cursory glance to the pair who walked past her through the entrance, but Aria riveted her attention. She braced herself and wove forward to intercept the onrushing siren, who just then shot past a bulky van parked on a handicapped slot, hard by the access lanes fronting the small plaza before the mall entrance. The woman’s eyes bulged; she opened her mouth and threw up a hand, but before she could shout, a crossover appeared from behind the van.
Aria plowed full tilt into the crossover’s front fender and catapulted over it, then tumbled down the slight slope of the hood. A moment later she lay stunned, breathless, and spread-eagled on the pavement. Wheels chirped as the crossover slammed to a halt, front bumper curtseying inches from the prostrate form.
Rose, not even breathing hard, loomed over her quarry almost instantly. She bent, fastened both hands vise-like on Aria’s upper arms, and hauled the slighter woman upright by main force. Without relinquishing her grip, she spun Aria around and clamped the girl in a come-along hold to frog-march her to the plaza. She ignored the crossover’s driver shouting through his opened window, shaken and angry, before he got the car moving again.
The other woman arrived as she stepped onto the plaza. “Ms. Brass—”
“Not your fault. Update everyone on the net, and go tell the others to wait . . . please.” Rose softened her command voice with the afterthought pleasantry. The woman nodded and headed toward the quartet still standing by the van’s open back doors, at the same time raising a fingertip to the earbud she wore, twin to the one in Rose’s ear.
Rose marched her charge to one of the raised planter beds that funneled pedestrians toward the doors, turned the girl around, and plunked her, sitting, on the retaining wall. “What were you gonna do if you caught up with them, huh?” Her tone was low and intense, but only a little irritated.
Aria blinked and her mouth worked.
Rose shook her head. “Didn’t think that far ahead, did you?” She sighed. “Look, Aria, I get it. You’re angry. You’re mad at them—” She waved an arm at the nearby doors. “—you’re mad at yourself, you’re mad at Adagio and Sonata, you’re mad at the whole world and everyone in it for crushing you like a bug.”
Aria flinched but rallied, face flushing and eyes flashing. “They took our magic! All of it! You don’t know that that’s like!”
Rose’s face and stance softened. “No, I don’t. I’ve never had magic.” She touched her prosthetic fingertips to her eyepatch. “But I do know what it’s like to lose something you’ve had all your life, and to watch all your hopes and dreams burn to ash because of it.” She looked Aria in the eye. “They still let me call myself ‘Captain’, but it’s not real any more, and it never will be again. The army was going to be my life, Aria, my career, but after that explosion two of my men were dead and I was maimed. If it was just the arm, I could’ve gone back on active duty, but that and the eye both? No. The army had to cut me loose.”
She snorted a bitter laugh. “At least the board of inquiry returned a finding I wasn’t at fault, but that wasn’t a lot of consolation. There I was, in soft clothes again with a suitcase in my hand and nowhere to go, so I came back here. I had nightmares for months, and I wasn’t any good to anyone. I just drifted until a veterans’-aid organization found me. They helped me patch myself back together—and they found me a new career. Now I help others try to rebuild their lives. Like you three.” She took a breath.
“It’s time you learned a few things, Aria. Somebody out there thought it was worth the effort to assign me to help you. I thought it was worth the effort to ask a favor of Logos and Harmonia, and we aren’t even close friends, just acquaintances. They thought it was worth the effort to move across the country, just because I told them three girls needed their help. Somebody else thought it was worth the effort to assign that woman at the door, and more than a dozen others from all over the country, to watch over you. By the way, she hasn’t seen her fiancé, or her family, or her friends since you moved into that house. It goes with the badge she’s wearing on a chain around her neck under her blouse, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.”
In a quieter voice she concluded, “An awful lot of people and an awful lot of resources are being poured into helping you, Aria, in spite of all the things you three have done. Maybe it isn’t exactly the magic of friendship, but it’s a gift. Don’t waste it.”
Aria’s flight was sufficient reason in itself to cut the outing short, but now that two of the individuals on the restricted list were present in the same area, Rose had no choice but to call a halt. As near as anyone could figure, it was a massive sale at a sporting-goods store, along with relative proximity to a certain animal shelter, that had precipitated the unusual visit from the other pair of teens. Rose bore with good grace the acid observations from the special agent in charge regarding insufficient briefing and promised to send along full descriptions.
Once more in the van, the sirens’ subdued mood was shocked and thoughtful. Rose said nothing more after apologizing to the three of them for canceling the rest of the trip. The driver knew a good time to keep his mouth shut when he saw it. The journey back to the house passed in silence.
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Something tells me you're either knowledgeable or fluent in Greek.
7901679
Alas, no. I do, however, have a deep love of history (especially military history) and of words (especially English words and their etymologies), with a willingness to “do my homework” whenever necessary to make sure I get everything right as much as possible. The translation widget accessible through MacOS’s Dashboard helps too.
Aria does seem to have only a few emotional settings. Rage, scorn, apathy, sadistic contentment... I've seen the sirens compared to cats, and it's not all that inaccurate to do so.
But yeah, keeping an eye on the Rainbooms would be advisable. Let's just hope no one else gets hit by a car any time soon.
7901828
None of the sirens are presented as, or indeed seem to be, very deep personalities. That said, they certainly aren’t without potential, if only they were willing to explore it. Pointing them in the right direction will take serious shake-ups like this one; Aria’s had hers, and the next two chapters will continue in that vein. There’ll be no further automotive misadventures . . . but there are other hazards in life.
By now Mister Cookie Pusher is keeping an eye on the Rainbooms—you might have noticed Princess Twi’s verbal slip a couple of chapters back—but the restricted list isn’t about them per se. It’s about the people the sirens should be kept away from or shouldn’t be allowed to contact. Rose failed to disseminate the full list to all the special agents assigned to the watch-post houses in the neighborhood, for which she catches flak in this chapter. She’s willing to swallow that because she knows she’s the one who dropped the ball.
Yeah, 'think ahead' isn't something that Aria does; she'd be shocked and in denial if someone told her how alike that made her to Rainbow Dash.
As for the rest...? I'm getting a strange feeling here. It's almost as if, without their magic, the Sirens' personalities and behaviour is increasingly mapping to their human disguises. Their hormones and metabolism is forcing them to be human teenage girls, even though they have centuries' worth of memories, including being aliens in a whole different universe. However, now they are teenagers and there is no power to protect them from behaving like teenagers.
The first time one of them catches the eye of a boy and are flattered by the approach, I think that it will be an immense shock to them how they can't remember how to do the sense of superiority and disdain that they once had.
7902709
As described elsewhere—in comments, in journal postings, in the narrative itself—I’m convinced the sirens are indeed the teenage girls Princess Twi describes them as. Anything else would impute a depth and complexity to the writing I find unlikely for a light featurette produced by a toy company and aimed at, well, teenage girls. There’s no “mapping” going on at all; the sirens are in fact teenagers, experiencing exactly the crises teens go through, in addition to their own unique difficulties.
I doubt they lost their magic. That's not how elements work. They didn't destroy magic of Luna or Discord and Discord was much more dangerous than sirens. It destroyed only those gems, but the magic they were born with is still there inside their bodies. It's part of every cell. We know about only one being capable to steal magic. Tirek. But when the magic was freed it returned to their owners. Magic can't be destroyed.
7909185
You’re making an awful lot of assumptions, few if any supported by evidence. Moreover, you seem to be going out of your way to disagree with anything and everything. At this point I’ve got to wonder why you are here at all, if you find the story so off-putting. I’d prefer it if you went your way or at least stopped the gratuitous and constant argumentative behavior.
Brassieres certainly do provide comfort, but studies show they actually promote sagging. The body has less need to spend resources on strong collagen fibers if their job is being done by cloth and elastic.
8230480
I hadn’t heard that before. I’ll have to look into it.
They weren't wearing bras already...? I mean don't get me wrong, I'm the chairwoman of the IBTC and I can get away with baggy clothes if I want, but it's still noticable. I'd think after a few years as humans they'd know that not wearing a bra gets you stared at, especially by teenagers. Then again, maybe they played that up for siren stuff idk.
As always, Rose is a delight to read. She's really damn good at her job--because it's not just a job to her. When I worked in mental health, something I heard from so many clients was "Therapists are paid to care, so they're just pretending." I think it's the opposite, though. We do that job because we're not pretending. That's the vibe I'm getting from Rose here.
Sonata seems to be the easiest of the three to deal with. Aria is, as you said, defined by her struggles with anger, and we just saw that addressed. That leaves Adagio, who's been drifting in the background with unsettling resignation. At this point, I'm wondering if the suicide/self-harm tag is there for her...
10292381
I waffled on the bra thing for a while because of exactly the points you raise, but in the end I decided it better served the story to go with it. It makes for an amusing bit of interaction, and it emphasizes their poverty and how actively they refused to engage with the society into which they’d been thrust. I also figure they still aren’t completely comfortable in human skins, though it does seem from “Battle” they’ve figured out sex appeal at least to some extent, and certainly I’m willing to grant that as a factor as well.
Rose absolutely has found a new passion, and she alludes to that a few times in later stories. In fact, even when she returns to active duty, she brings that passion and her new skills back with her, with interesting results.
Yes, when I assigned the three adults to the three sirens, I carefully considered each girl’s relative difficulty. That’s why Harmonia ended up with Sonata and Rose took on Aria herself.