We Three: With You In Spirit

by Eyeswirl the Weirded


Chapter 11: Regrets

Vote count as of 3/24/2018:
Walk away- 0
Eavesdrop- 6
Comfort Sunset- 9

I'm feeling pretty safe where I am now, and I know they're talking about something juicy, but...

I mean, I've been having a lot of luck with diplomacy lately, and even if part of it is Adagio's influence, I've gotten pretty good at getting my way just by talking to people. I used magic on the spa girls, but the first one was practically eating out of my hand anyway. So, if I wanted to win some easy points with the Rainbooms, cheering up their leader (I mean, unless that's Twilight now...?) seems like a good way to do it. Taking a second to mentally psyche myself up for some Empathy action, I head over to where I heard Sunset and Rainbow.

The two are seated in weird, wooden chairs that look like they were knitted together or something. It's the kind of furniture you'd see in an old lady's house, complete with spotless, frilly embroidery and cushions stuck to them, both set around a tiny table that might have just been there for decoration.

Naturally, they stop what they're doing and look at me in surprise, so I jump on the opening.

"Hey. Was looting some pie-" as hoped, this gets a tiny smile out of each of them, "-and couldn't help overhearing a little. Can I get a minute?"

Sunset looks a little emotionally overwhelmed right now, which is great for helping me look like I feel sorry for her, but Rainbow's nervous eyes going back and forth between her and I a few times tells me she might not be cool with this idea. Luckily, she leaves the choice to Sunset, who gives her a pleading smile.

"We'll be with you in a bit, okay? If you get bored, you could always have Faeskiq join Dullhalla and Pitb'ul in conversation."

Faeskiq is Rainbow's half-elf monk, Dullhalla is Fluttershy's druid, and Pitb'ul is Bulk's halfling fighter. If it matters.

Snorting with amusement, Rainbow rolls her eyes. "Not likely. Seeya in a bit."

She gets up and heads back to the others, leaving me with Sunset, who glances at the empty chair like she isn't sure if I'm going to sit down or hit her with it. I choose the former, getting rewarded with a loud, wooden creak that makes me worry a little about my weight.

Stupid old-lady-house chairs.

Sunset visibly isn't sure where to start, so I clear my throat. "So, let me guess: You had an argument with Adagio, walked away on bad terms, heard that something had gone wrong with us that same day, rushed over, found what was left of us, and ever since, you've been thinking 'it must have been something I said'?"

Her only reply is a faint, hoarse squeak as she looks back at me in horror and regret, which, again, leaves the door open for me.

"Would it help if I said 'don't worry about it'?"

Her head jerks to one side like something heavy fell over in her brain. "'D-don't worry about it'?! Your sisters are DEAD because of what I said to-..."

She trails off, tears in her eyes as it becomes clear to me how much it hurt her to say that out loud before she buries her face in both hands. It's cool, she isn't storming off or anything, so I know I'm still in this, just need to change my approach. I glance at the others for advice, and while I wasn't expecting much more than a worried frown from Sonata anyway, Adagio just looks puzzled as she idly strokes her chin. I hear Sunset suck in a breath, trying to steady herself enough to say something else, so I opt to just hear her take on the whole thing.

"You r-remember, right? What I said to you guys when I was asking you to come back? How we'd underst-stand, how we'd give you your space, how-" She chokes up a little too hard to speak for a second, but I'm a little impressed with how quick she pulls herself together, even managing to look me in the eye again. "I said it was okay, that I got how much your magic meant to you, and then I told her to just give it up!"

She takes a second to rub her eyes, her voice a little calmer when she goes on. "I knew she was only going along with us because she was afraid of what we'd do if the three of you didn't, but I hoped that if I ignored it, it wouldn't matter, that you'd all make friends and move on. That was sorta how it was for me way back when, at least a little bit, and Twilight-... Well, I mean, she still kind of wants to dabble with magic, and you got to see how that turned out last time, so I just thought, maybe it'd be best if you guys just-"

"Dropped our magic completely while you got to keep yours?"

Sunset's mouth twitches a little, but she still looks a lot more sad than angry. "Our exclusively good magic that can't be used to hurt people?"

I know I'm supposed to be comforting her, but I think I see now why Adagio ended up hating this girl. "You think you didn't hurt us at all? That all three of us collapsed to the floor because we didn't feel a thing and just felt like lounging for a second? To say nothing of what your exclusively good magic took from us."

"And left her in a crater," Adagio casually adds.

I use that with the memory of what Sunset herself said while we were negotiating the snake-arm situation. "Didn't you even tell your friends that getting blasted actually hurts?"

"Well, yea, but, we couldn't just go around zapping people with rainbows even if we wanted to. I think. Of course, that got me thinking that maybe your magic wasn't exclusively for mind-control, that maybe the only use for it wasn't evil, and if-... Was it, by the way?"

Crossing my arms, I take a slow breath through my nose as I think about exactly how to phrase it.

"The original purpose of the gems was, like, I don't wanna bore you with our life stories, but we were supposed to be the ruling family over our civilization, and our singing, with the gems, was supposed to-... Our people, way before our time, used to rule the seas through singing, the most powerful kelpies, which always ended up being royalty, keeping every remotely intelligent lifeform together and sometimes even controlling the weather with songs that would echo for hundreds of miles, directing the flow of whole ecosystems with a cheerful work tune, calming the seas with a lullaby, and even calling together the wrath of the ocean with a war ballad when necessary.

The Sea-Wide Smiting thing didn't happen more than like four times across ten thousand years, but whatever.

It wasn't irresistible and wasn't total control over millions of unwilling minds, but it was great for directing things, getting everyone on the same page in a way even this world's internet barely can. Thing is, that whole system got messed up after some conflicts with surface-dwelling races (not just ponies, don't make that face), leading to the whole royal, ruling line thing dying out across the entire ocean, getting replaced with a more bureaucratic system, at least in our local area. Centuries later, someone rediscovers the magic that made that stuff work, using it to make the first royals in hundreds of years: The three of us.

Long story short, we were raised to take up that mantle again, if only for our native seas, but despite what they'd tell the general public, the ones already in charge didn't really like the idea of giving up pretty much all their power no matter how much the lay-kelpie loved the idea of returning to their former glory with a unified ocean, there was a big mess of a civil war when we escaped the council's attempt to murder us and told everyone what had happened, the power source we were supposed to draw from to govern the seas got used as a weapon and blown up, and we agreed that we'd have to find a new source if we were ever gonna fulfill our purpose in life. Since there was no such thing as a perfect, all-fixing rainbow bullshit generator as far as anyone in the sea had ever heard of, we turned to the strongest source of power we could find: Chaos Magic."

Staring at Sunset and her slack-jawed silence makes me a little uneasy after a minute, so I shrug and look away. "We've kinda down-sized to just having it back since then, because, y'know..." It's a solid minute and a half before Sunset's staring makes me uncomfortable enough to nudge her with my foot. "Your turn. Do words."

Eventually, she shakes off that mix of bewilderment and horror. Or, at least the second one. "If... if you were looking for power for your civilization, why did you want to be adored while you were at it?"

"The royals of old were lavished with daily, well-earned praise for their services (hence being royalty), to their people and the sea in general, arguably the entire world. That was what we were promised every day of our rigorous training, which happened to be every single day, day-in, day-out, pretty much from as soon as we were able to make noises that would one day be our singing. It wasn't like we never had time for fun, but we were told our whole lives about what we were expected to do, what awaited us when we were finally old and strong enough, only for all of it to be ripped out from under us as we were left to die."

Sunset is quiet again, but this time she looks more an uneasy and contemplative kind of sad. "So, you spent years looking forward to something, feeling it was only what you deserved after all you'd done to reach it, and suddenly heard you could never have it? Yea, I think I sorta see why you might have ended up doing what you did there."

I'm genuinely surprised to hear she gets that. "We actually had some misgivings about what we ended up trying to do to regain that power, but Adagio used to say: If the world can just take everything from us, why is it only wrong when we try to take it back? Me and Sonata kind of agreed, so, since it was mostly surface-dwellers' fault that we lost our legacy in the first place, we settled on raising Hell up there until we had what we needed, taking adoration coffee breaks every now and then as we went."

From the apprehensive look on her face, Sunset already knows the answer, but forces herself to ask out loud anyway. "But, once you ended up in this world, how were you still planning to...?"

I give her a flat stare, but the ensuing quiet tells me I might as well say it too. "Our home was in pretty bad shape when we left, and even back then, we knew that another council might have taken hold of things by the time we got back, if we came back at all. We lost what little hope we had of fixing our civilization when we got chucked over the fence by some pony wizard, and when we were sure that we couldn't get home, mourned the loss once and for all, moved on, and settled on just gathering as much power as we could for ourselves from then on."

Frowning, she opens her mouth, but dismissively waving a hand, I add the rest before she gets sappy at me. "Don't worry too much about our old home, we knew it was a long-shot anyway and life is a little more comfortable when you don't feel responsible for the fate of a civilization."

Sunset nods, her expression somber. "Thank you for telling me. When I talked to Adagio, I didn't ask her why she wanted the magic so badly, why it mattered to her that much even if she wasn't gonna use it like that anymore, just..." Looking at the floor, she shrugs. "Didn't think about it. What she wanted to do was apparently bad, so I tried to talk her out of it, like I thought a friend should. But, if she was only going along with what I wanted out of fear, then... I guess we were never really friends to begin with, huh?"

I glance at Adagio for some clue about her feelings on the matter, but I can't read the stare she's got trained on Sunset. I think there's a little bit of disdain and contempt in there, but it's nowhere near the pitch-black hate of just yesterday. Even so, I know they were getting along, and I'm trying to make Sunset feel better here, so...

"I don't think she hated you before, but..." I need to convince her that their argument didn't spur Adagio to run home and accidentally off herself and Sonata, and Sunset's surprised look coupled with a frown does not help me think. I almost make the fatal mistake of saying it all happened over what sounds like a misunderstanding, but think of something else at the last second. "It wasn't your fault. Even long before the snake-lady incident, she worked night and day trying to fix those gems, with Sonata and I supporting her while she did. No matter what you did, as long as we had the chance, we were going to try again sooner or later."

"Sounds like us," giggles Sonata.

Adagio nods. "Inevitably, yes."

Sunset doesn't look like she's buying it. "Really? You don't think she felt -and I don't mean to sound like I'm saying I know her better or anything, just- you don't think she felt rushed or threatened into a now-or-never situation? That, since she read our every interaction with an undertone of 'or else' that I pretended didn't exist, she might have thought 'or else' was coming fast after our falling out? That she didn't go straight home to give it one last, desperate shot because she thought I was saying 'forget about your magic or I'll get my gang and kill you'?"

"That was the general impression I got," Adagio adds with unhelpful honesty.

I'm scrambling for any kind of counterpoint, but everything I can think of either makes no sense or sounds like 'you killed my sisters,' but Sunset shakes her head after a minute.

"If nothing else, I should have let her know that I never wanted to hurt any of you, shouldn't have let her leave until it was crystal-clear that I wasn't threatening her, because knowing Adagio, from both the Battle and the snake-lady incident, I should have known how she would respond to that kind of pressure. No matter what else was said, I should have told her that I'd still respect your choices as long as nobody got hurt, and I'm so, so sorry for how everything turned out."

Following another contemplative silence, I shrug. "Maybe we could have explained sooner why we wanted our magic back."

"Maybe I could have asked, or taken a hint from the 'birthright' and 'legacy' comments I'd heard more than once before then that this wasn't just about power or greed." She sighed. "I wondered why exactly you guys were willing to give up the snake-lady magic when you had so many people totally under control, because I figured, 'if the legacy you guys talked about was pretty much just that, what difference did it make?' And, don't get me wrong, I'm glad you guys made the choice you did, but, we knew this other woman who cared way too much about 'her legacy enduring' and I thought this was just like..." She shook her head again. "Again, I'm sorry for... what happened to them, and everything I had to do with it."

I think I've hit a dead end. She's thoroughly convinced that it's her fault they're gone (at least as far as anyone but me and Lemon knows), that she kind of backed Adagio into a corner and got her to trigger the ritual that took her and Sonata out. And, on that one, specific point? I think she might be right, at least in the sense that her words and the context of the situation directly contributed to that outcome. I could probably talk all day about how there were other factors (which there were), how it isn't all on Sunset (which it's not), but that's not gonna make her feel any less guilty about what she did do.

If I want Sunset to feel better, I can only see one option that doesn't involve blowing our little secret.

"Apology accepted, I guess." She looks at me in surprise, but I'm ready. "Like I keep saying, I'm not gonna dwell on it and angst at you every time we meet for the next fifteen years. We got over losing our purpose in life, our home, our world, our original bodies, the Battle, the snake-lady stuff, and everything in between. I get what loss feels like by now, I'm used to it, I know how to deal with it, and you don't have to feel like you've ruined my life any more than how it was when you found it. We're cool. Okay?"

I mean, I'm still a little mad about that blog she never told us she was using to keep tabs on us, but I'm not about to bring it up now.

"Uh... I, y-yea. Okay." She starts to smile and lift one hand, but stops both motions, gives me another unsure look, and stutters "We should, er, a-are you staying for the rest of the game? The mayor of Scalemarsh still has to offer that reward for ending the lizardman threat."

"Yea," I say while getting to my feet, "still gotta secure a quest for next time, too." She gives me a confused look as she stands up too. I shrug. "After our second session, we figured out that it's easier to come back to the game if the last session ended on some kind of cliffhanger, kept us thinking about what was gonna happen next instead of 'oh, guess all the quests are done, story's over,' y'know?"

Snorting with amusement, she smiles in earnest. "Yea, I think I can see that."

As we head back to the living room, I steal a quick glance at my undead sisters, only catching that Sonata looks content and Adagio is lost in thought again. I'm worrying that one of these days she's gonna forget to float after me and it's gonna be a huge episode trying to find her again, but knowing her, she'll just realize I walked off, wait for me back home, and scold Sonata and I for running all over the city like dumbasses rather than trying there first.

Anyway, when we turn the corner, the first thing we hear is Rainbow.

Apparently in the middle of some kind of heart-felt soliloquy.

No, seriously.

"-but weep, weep for the foul and forlorn of the world; the orcs and the drakes, the misshapen and the dark, from the sahuagin in the deep to the bugbears in the fields, for none were born such by choice! They and so many others make due with their difficult lot, made so much harder by prejudice."

Fluttershy, Twilight, and Bulk smile and clap for her, the latter sniffling and wiping a tear from his eye. Big, stupid sap.

Anyway, before I roll a natural twenty against Rainbow's dignity, I glance at Sunset, whom I'm earnestly shocked to see filming this on her phone. She looks back at me, guilt written all over her face.

"I-it's not blackmail or anything, really, I don't do that anymore, it's, I just want the others to believe me when I tell them about this!!"

I roll my eyes, then smirk at Rainbow. "So," I say loudly enough to get their attention, "when'd you go all flowery?"

She looks back at me in red-faced horror. "I-I, it wasn't me saying that, it was Faeskiq! They were t-talking, roleplaying, even Argill got in on it-" Twilight's wizard. "-and, like, they were goin' on and on about what the lizard dude was saying before he died, and Dullhalla pointed out that Faeskiq might've had some troubles as a half-breed, s-so like, uh, I, Faeskiq talked too, and, um..."

I don't think there's a sweeter feeling than the entire room giving someone the same look, at least when I'm on this side of it, but Rainbow must have gotten at least a 15% Cold Resistance bonus in her face as she shrieked.

"I plead the fifth!!"

Giggles were had.

---

I think everyone could tell that Sunset didn't actually have anything lined up for the next session, but she did a pretty good job of ad-libbing the NPC that burst into the local tavern, out of breath with his clothes torn and bloody, to beg for help in slaying the werewolf that's been hiding in plain sight in the next town over.

"So," I say while 'on the phone' during the walk home, "if you were running the campaign, what are the odds you'd have the bloody guy be infected and become another werewolf that the town we just came from now has to deal with?" Silence. I look over my shoulder. "Dagi?"

She's still floating along with us (however the locomotive mechanics of that work), but it looks like she's on auto-pilot. I kinda wonder if they both started doing that; if haunting me is so boring most of the time that after the first couple days, they just started unconsciously following me while thinking about stuff. If I like, ride a subway train or something, do they just float along in the air next to me, or would they have to really strain themselves to keep up with the train? Maybe I should test how fast I can be moving before I risk leaving them behind, somehow.

Anyway, I stop walking as Sonata floats a little closer to Adagio. "Hellooo, Dagi? You there?" She doesn't get a response, so she smiles like she's about to swipe the entire cookie jar, snakes a hand between Adagio's hair and the small of her back, and heads south. This gets an immediate reaction, namely a priceless, wide-eyed look of fear and disgust on Adagio's face as she yelps in surprise, a shiver visibly running up her spine before she quicky spins her entire body in the opposite direction from Sonata, bringing one hand around to deliver a harsh, percussive bitch-slap that sends Sonata whirling in the air like a cartoon character.

"Ow," Sonata says with a little smile when she gets her momentum under control, giggling as she rubs her cheek. I honestly can't tell if her face is getting red because of the blow, or if she-... Nevermind. "That hurt, Dagi!"

"Then keep your hands off my ass," she hisses back, shooting Sonata a glare that might just kill her a second time, "my answer is still no!"

I clear my throat before this gets weirder. "So, uh..."

Realizing that I was trying to get her attention, Adagio's murderous look vanishes instantly. The sheer contrast between that and the hint of quiet worry as she starts to blush almost makes me start giggling too. "Y-yes? You needed something?"

My first guess is that she's thinking hard about what she should really be thinking of Sunset. I'll ask about it later, but for now, I get back to walking home as I repeat my question.

"Hm... No, I'd probably have the bloodied crier be the original werewolf, having just come from a feast in which he got overwhelmed and had to flee, or just felt it was time to find new hunting grounds, running to the next town while playing victim with intent of making it look like the wolf (him) was still at large back there. Then he'd be letting the adventurers either kill an innocent in a witch-hunt or possibly find someone he infected and kill them, either one clearing his name as far as anyone else knows, thus throwing potential hunters off his trail so he could hunt again. He'd have to move on to another town than the one he cried wolf in, of course, or risk suspicion on the sheer chance that he was infected."

I snicker. "Never change, Dagi."

She raises an eyebrow, smiling as she floats along next to me. "And since when do you call me 'Dagi'?"

"Noticed Rainbow doing it and..." I shrug. "How'd that start, anyway?"

"I suspect that she read my willingness to go along with her group's every whim as a sign that we were all friends now, I never corrected her, and in the absence of hostility, she took to mimicking Sonata's moniker for me."

Sonata gasps, stars in her eyes and a bright, beaming smile on her face. "I'm influential!"

Still smiling, I roll my eyes, but before I can twist that into some kind of playful burn, my phone rings right next to my ear.

Startled. I was only a little startled.

Ignoring the sounds of Sonata and Adagio giggling at my expense, I answer the phone to hear a familiar voice.

"Hey, Ria! Me again!"

Despite the little scare she gave me, I smile. "Hey, Lemon. How're things at the tea place?"

"Great! I mean, other than this one weirdo that keeps insisting we let him see 'Hebi-Sama' again, but other than that, we got some popular new menu items! All authentic Japanese face-stuffables, too!"

I almost offer to help deal with the weirdo, but remembering how things went with Sunset puts a tiny dent in my confidence. What if he's a total nutjob that reason and sense just don't work on? "You hire a yakuza-lookin' dude to deal with people like that guy, or...?"

"That'd, uh, kind've bring down the chill atmosphere the place has goin' for it, I think. I mean, not that I think it's a bad idea, there are some seriously messed up people in the world, but like-"

"I get it, I get it," I say with a chuckle, "just saying, if you wanted some help, I'd-" She doesn't know about my magic. I told her about the ghosts, but haven't mentioned my gem in any of our talks on the phone since then. "-um, I dunno, uh..."

It's weird trying to offer help without specifying how, but she giggles before I think of something. "It's okay, I know what you mean. A friend of mine's kinda the same way, but I told her that roughing up customers would mostly just tick off Granddad." I can hear the smile with perfect clarity; soft and sincere. "Thanks anyway, though."

I smile too. "Yea. Talk to you later, Lemon."

"Byezie!"

Beep!

I almost pocket the phone out of habit when I remember my sisters, both of whom are now floating closer to me with surprised looks on their faces, Sonata in particular.

"Lemon called you?"

This is when I realize that Lemon isn't the only one I've neglected to tell something, guilt stabbing into my guts as I look back at them. "Uh, y-yea, I didn't, like, mean to keep it secret, just... She usually calls when I'm getting to sleep, y'know?"

They nod and I fill them in on the stuff we've talked about since she started calling, right up to the weirdo that's been asking about Adagio. When I ask who it is, she shakes her head.

"Everyone was calm and civil as far as I remember, and I can't guarantee I'd recognize every customer even if shown a picture of them."

She has no idea who Lemon meant, but even so, I kind of want to be able to help. Again, it's the What's The Point Of Power If You Never Use It thing, and right now, I could easily do something for our oldest friend if she needed it. Maybe it's just that I want the excuse to brainwash someone again, maybe Lemon wouldn't even want that kind of help after witnessing it before, but to find out, I'd have to ask about it, and to ask about it, I'd have to tell her what I can do. I wait until we're home again and the door is shut before saying anything out loud. Or, quietly, because whether she's listening in or not anymore, I know Moondancer is just through the wall.

"Do you think I could tell Lemon about the gem?"

Predictably, Adagio looks at me in surprise and alarm, but it's actually Sonata that raises the objection.

"Hell no! She already got busted for helping us once, what're the Rainbooms gonna do if they hear she knew about us doing magic stuff again?"

I shrug. "Haven't we been building up Rainboom points for a while now? As far as they know, I haven't done anything wrong and even kinda did something nice for Sunset." Or at least got her to stop crying.

"That may not count for much," muses Adagio, "if they find a reason to come after you anyway. Perhaps, after today's little talk, Sunset might be a little more understanding about you having your magic back, and perhaps she'd assume everything was a cover-up, a sympathetic facade to hide your 'actual' plans, thus 'validating' her group to do as they pleased with you. Maybe all it would take was the sense of betrayal if they heard you'd been using any measure of magic without their knowledge, but you have been careful so far."

I tilt my head in confusion. "Havin' a hard time telling which way you're leaning here, Dagi."

Visibly conflicted, she looks away. "As I said, the Rainbooms may bear a grudge if they ever find out about the gem, but the same applies to Lemon, doesn't it? What happens if she, who has faithfully kept our secret so far, learns we didn't trust her enough to tell her about this, too?" Seeing the shock in our faces, her own grows solemn. It's the same sort of expression she wore when we settled on Chaos Magic as our best hope of ever getting the kind of power we needed.

"That is, assuming she has kept our secret. I propose that we test her, because friend or not, the girl is only human and may have slipped up. You have Saturdays off and one midday shift tomorrow, right? After work, you could visit her (call ahead first, of course), do some probing, discreetly investigate those closest to her for hints that they know something, or even just look Lemon in the eye and ask her if she's said anything to a single soul. If she has, you can deal with whoever she told without guilt, and if she hasn't, it's an easy lead-in to telling her about your magic if that's what you want to do."

That... feels kinda cold, but, I guess, fair? I mean, if she's blabbed to anyone after I asked her not to, it's not like I'm a monster for not sharing more secrets. And, if she hasn't, I could probably tell her the rest and be able to help her out with it somehow.

Or I could just come out with it, trust that she's kept her word just fine and offer my toll-free magical services any time she needs them.

Of course, playing it safest, I could keep this under my hat and let that be that. I mean, Lemon's rich anyway, and can probably buy her way through most problems, and she'd understand if I didn't tell her everything, right?

Right now, I'm the only person alive who knows that my gem is working again. Do I want to keep it that way?