Hollow eyed, I stared at the marble surface of the rock pillar that rose from the ground. It was a gray-ish white and shiny like seafoam.
I haven't seen seafoam in ages, so how am I supposed to even recall what it looks like? It's not like I'm a siren any more. I wobble on the two stupid, weak hindlegs I've been given, and fall forward onto knobby knees barely covered by some sort of sack-like gown the color of...
...I look down at the color, just once before returning my vacant stare, no longer to care about even the horror that burned in me for a moment.
It's the color of the ocean, and it doesn't matter any more because I'm not sure if there's even an ocean here. The dust hurts my legs, which are bare of fur, or even boots. My head still hurts from where I hit the ground...
I close my eyes and place one of these strange webbed-digit weird forehoof things across my mouth and cough a bit. Adagio is screaming at Sonata in the background. I ignore them both but Sonata's crying is just so loud and I feel so weak... these seashell ears against my head feel weaker and I can't move them...
My sack-dress - I've settled on calling it a dress - came with a scarf in a hue of brighter silver than the rock in front of us.
We came through that rock... the scorpan's magic - he opened a door and then we fell out of the rock... I hit my head...
My skinny body, so unlike my pony disguise sways with fatigue and my throat felt as dry as the earth pony inns never were, because there was ale to numb the mind and water to wet beds and aid the growth of the mildew that would freeze outside. Without any coat to properly cover me, the bruises from battle stand out like spots on my exposed skin, cold even without the snow.
I miss the world I hated so much.
Strange digits - five of them - weak and as cold as the rest of me brush the smooth surface. Closed. Sealed.
There's no way back.
The dense forest around us feels so unreal after so many years of snow. I'm able to ignore it all. I could stare straight ahead forever, straight mane falling limply over my ears to block out all sound. These forms don't even have tails, how are they supposed to do anything?
"Well girls," purrs a voice.
Adagio's voice.
I blank at that voice, limbs still clumsy and heavy and when I bother to see again, to care at all, Adagio is sprawled on the ground clutching her smashed-muzzle face with blood - the same blood across the bunched up paw-thing in place of my hooves. I try to keep my legs steady since I still barely know how to support myself in this form. I don't even know how the paw-thing bunched up like that to hit her - it certainly wasn't any instinct I had.
I gulped and my legs felt - and looked - like the roots of trees as I watched Adagio wipe the trickles of blood from her face so only a few smudges remain on her golden skin. My head hits the ground for a second time and Adagio tackles me, the fleshy-claw-digits of her paws wrapping around my neck.
"Who died and made you leader, Aria?!" Adagio screamed. "Who?! Who?!"
'Since when were you our leader?!' I wanted to scream but all I could manage was a pained choke for air.
Adagio's eyes don't look like she's even occupying her own mind - just angry, no vicious - it'sgettingsohardtobreathe - HAPPY! That's it, she looks...
I give her a shove when I manage to, rolling over and crushing her quickly with my slightly larger frame in order to get her to-
I cough when her grip falters and I jump away, scrambling to stand. Neither of us have mastered these forms. Her purple sack-garb, tied with a rope now has more dirt on the fabric and a few tears. It's a far cry from the gowns, however shabby, we wore on our way here.
-let go, I think with another gasp, reaching up to touch my bruised neck.
"You aren't the leader, Aria."
I gulp. It hurts. Why does she sound so sure, so happy? We're lost! We have no food, nowhere to go and I'm pretty sure that we can't change back now...
I reach a paw up under my scarf and feel something smooth: black ribbon that flows over my neck easily. I hadn't noticed it under the cloth. I follow it until I find a cold, hard stone. I didn't need to look at it to know it was red.
A stone.
My heart is a stone now.
It always looked like one, of course... but now each of us-
My eyes, tired and hollow look at all of us. We're heartless now, each and every one of us. I reach from the necklace to the center of my chest, just below where my throat begins on this form, searching for a bit of a pulse. Anything.
I wait. One second. Two.
Nothing.
Heartless. That's what we all are now: dead.
I take one heaving breath that might as well be my last, I choke out words now even if it feels like more weight is on me, momentary desperation melting to a coat of panic across all my senses.
"The game," I manage - it's all I need to say, really. My eyes find Sonata. Her eyes are empty, wide and staring at nothing in the distance. She shakes, a red mark is across her cheek. She pokes it and whimpers when her claw makes contact with the paw's mark on her face, thin claw's marks still visible.
She blinks at my voice, eyes still freaky - she's not there. How long has it been since I've talked to her like this?
"The game?"
"Sonata if you go with her, you'll lose."
She doesn't move.
I try again. "It's against the rules."
She looks at me like I'm the stupid one. "What game?"
Adagio looks at Sonata, she's smiling again as if she knows I'm missing something. Forgetting something obvious, even. I know everything about Sonata - there's not much to know in the first place.
She'll do what I tell her to.
"The game," I repeat.
She stares on. Repeats the same thing.
That's how I know she's forgotten, that she lost. I watch her hum out a few notes of nonsense before I see her in all her air-headed vacancy return to her eyes.
And I watch her walk over to Adagio like it's nothing and I want to scream that if she weren't so gods-damned slow then maybe I'd still be... home? No, that word is as hollow as I feel.
Somewhere.
Anywhere.
Safe, bleak words, both of them. Tragically correct.
Even though Sonata's a bit runty for her age, she's the only one of us that's an adult, and she walks over to Adagio like she's still a filly.
I don't want her to.
I don't know how long it's been, but I want her back.
I want Nata back.
"What next, Adagio?"
She looks at her like she's the leader and Adagio knows it. Of course - that must be what she's been smiling about.
I bunch the furless paws at my side as Adagio reaches out and grabs us both by the ankle of our forepaws. Her grip on mine is far tighter, even though I won't run.
Can't run.
She - Adagio - shifts closer to me for a moment.
"I can't believe you never realized how valuable, how powerful she is."
I don't listen. I barely know what she means. I just grit my flat-ish teeth as she drags us both along, Sonata continuing to hum her nonsense songs, unreachable.
'That's right, Sonata,' I want to shout, 'follow her lead!'