//------------------------------//
// Song of Shattering 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

The school was fairly dark inside, floodlighting covering the hallways but all the classrooms unlit beyond. Someone must have canceled school, and with the crowd outside the door, it wasn't a surprise why.

"Sure is quiet in here," Slipstream whispered.

Chauncey stumped his way to an elevator, ignoring the ascending staircases, and the rest of the group followed suit. By the time its doors opened three floors up, the clouds outside had morphed to rain, and the first few trickles began to stain the top-story windows looking out on the courtyard below. Off to the side, Sirena stood watching the still-dispersing crowd, a conspicuously empty space to her side.

"Bad time, Gramps," Sirena murmured, not looking up from the window. "Could you come later...?"

Chauncey stood his ground far away from them, the building quiet enough that he didn't even need to raise his voice to have a normal conversation. "I just wanted to see to it that you're all right."

"Well, you haven't," Sirena sniffed, gritting her teeth. "And we're not. So go away."

Chauncey breathed.

Sirena's voice was barely a whisper. "We tried to come back, and they didn't accept it. It's really over, isn't it?"

The elevator hissed, taking Chauncey away. It was as if he had entered by a spell, and Valey blinked, only realizing by the noise that he wasn't there anymore. It was just her, her friends, and the lone Firefly Sister, her sides and flanks covered by the black studded jacket she wore.

"Uhhh..." Valey swallowed, feeling put on the spot. "Hey, for what it's worth we were there, and thought it was cool. Two nights ago."

Sirena stopped and looked at them. "Everyone who was did, and everyone was there. But now look at them." She swept a disgusted hoof at the window. "Our music was about coming back together, and now they've forgotten all of it in just a day! It's like they weren't even listening to the same song."

"But we haven't forgotten!" Slipstream insisted. "What happened!?"

Sirena threw a newspaper, and Shinespark caught it in her aura before it could hit Slipstream's face. Unfurling it, she looked over the headline and frowned. "Firefly Sisters announce an end to concerts to spite contest loyalists, true fans outraged... what?"

"You don't need to read it out loud," Sirena growled.

"By columnist Junior Waffle," Valey added, reading over her shoulder. "Dunno who this chump is, but I think we've found the next dude whose day I ruin. That's not what you guys said after the concert at all."

"What's going on with these concerts you keep mentioning?" Nyala asked, standing cluelessly nearby. "A concert is for performing music, but you're talking about loyalists and true fans. What's everyone so mad about?"

"I don't know." Sirena's voice cracked, despite being almost inaudibly low. "Our music has always inspired intense emotions. It's magical, not like normal music. But gradually... I don't know when it started... it began driving out listeners apart instead of bringing them together. Maybe our singing is doing damage to society. I don't know if I can keep doing it anymore."

Slipstream frowned in protest. "But isn't singing your special talent? Most ponies never even earn a brand! How could it be so bad that-"

Sirena's horn lit, interrupting her, and a magenta glow touched the tip of her black jacket. Slowly, it lifted the bottom flap covering her flank... and the whole room went still.

Her cutie mark, once two musical notes intertwined in a dance on a background that seemed to shimmer, was covered in a spider web of cracks, like paint flaking away to reveal ordinary fur beneath. They spread from the edges toward the center, like it was weathering assault from beyond and barely holding together, and if it shattered, it looked like it could make a noise when the pieces hit the floor.

"Melia's is like that too," Sirena murmured in defeat. "It started when this crowd showed up an hour ago and has been getting worse every time we look. That's how. It doesn't matter anymore. Our days of singing are done."

"Bananas," Valey hissed. "That looks just like Ironflanks' after she broke hers!"

Sirena started. "You've seen this happen before!?" she asked with incredulity.

Slipstream looked surprised too. "Indeed we have," Gerardo announced, deciding it was time to step in. "A good friend of ours had her own reduced to a similar state following a run-in with some powerful, unknown magic. It took some time, but she was able to heal it in full, so there's quite a possibility-"

"You can?" Sirena was instantly in front of him, tugging on his uniform and bowed in a desperate position. "This isn't irreversible?" she begged, eyes showing plenty of water now that they faced the light. "Help us, please! I don't care if we never sing for the public again!"

Gerardo winced. "As I recall, all it merely took was her staying off it for a while..."

"Nah, we're getting her to Ironflanks immediately and getting her advice," Valey declared. "Sparky, if you know anything useful about how cutie marks work like this, now would be a great time to speak up."

Shinespark just frowned. "What about Melia? Where's she?"

Sirena wiped her eyes. "I don't know. When it started happening, we sat together for a while, but she didn't want me to look at her when she lost it, so she took a cloak and left. I don't know where she is..."

Gerardo straightened up and saluted. "Then I shall do my utmost to search the surrounding area with all due speed!"

"I'll help!" Slipstream added with a tinge of panic.

"I'll stay here in case she comes back?" Nyala volunteered. "Seeing as I can't move very fast..."

Valey nodded sharply. "Cool. You guys do that; me and Sparky will get Hot Pink over here to Ironflanks and see what she remembers about that. To be honest, I've kinda forgotten what she was up to that night, so she better remember. Sky bridges, to avoid the crowds. Fly if we need to. Move out!"





"Her cutie mark did what?" Maple gasped, accosted in the middle of washing dishes by Valey and Shinespark standing in the kitchen doorway, Sirena tucked between them.

Sirena stepped forward and shakily lifted her jacket, revealing the cracked mark. "They said you had seen this before," she managed, voice torn between hope and despair. "Can you..."

Maple's eyes widened, and she quickly toweled off her hooves, rushing forward to touch the mark. "It does look like mine," she whispered in awe. "What happened? I misused mine on a powerful and dangerous magic..."

Sirena gritted her teeth. "I don't know, but it's spent the last hour getting worse! You still have one; what did you do!? Help me!"

Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you just stay off it and rest for several weeks? I don't recall you using it for anything until we arrived in the Empire."

"No." Maple shook her head, snapped into an emergency rush that let her act before worrying or even thinking. "I did eventually, but the first thing I did with it was hold Starlight when she almost disappeared. I didn't stay off it. I used it for hours on end, even though it almost made me pass out, for the most important thing I had ever used it for. And I don't know how cutie marks work, or if that actually helped or if this is even remotely the same thing that happened to me, but if I was you, I would start singing."

Sirena stepped back, looking fearful. "But singing was what started this! There's a whole crowd outside the school, even though our audience loved us the other day, and we can't bring them together. That's what our brands are supposed to do! I don't even have Melia here, and we need each other for them to work!"

Maple stopped her again. "Then don't sing for a crowd. We were all there for your concert, and I thought it was almost unreal. Just sing for yourself, or for us, or anyone, even."

"Uhh..." Valey frowned. "Hey Ironflanks, do you actually know this'll work? Because you just said this sounds totally different from what happened to you, and I doubt their marks got blown up by magic. Please tell me you're not just making stuff up..."

Maple drew herself up to her full height. "I don't know that it will work," she declared, more confident than she had been since leaving Riverfall now that she was put on the spot. "I'm going by feeling, because every time I've encountered harmony magic, emotionally is how I've felt it, and that's what cutie marks have to do with. And if I'm wrong, I tried my best, but I don't see anyone with better ideas and I think the best thing to do when you're in danger of losing something that helps you do what you love is to do it anyway, as long as you can. That way, at the very least, if you do lose it..." She heaved a shaky breath, composure starting to weaken. "At least you'll have gotten to do it one more time, and your last audience will have been a good one."

Shinespark and Valey nodded in support as Maple's knees wobbled, and Starlight rushed to her shoulder in case she needed it, having gotten fed up with Jamjars' room. "Okay," Sirena managed, also shaking but giving a game smile. "Right here, or...?"

"My room," Shinespark suggested. "It has the biggest bed, and somehow I get the feeling with the amount of emotion in this room, there are going to be more hugs needed later than we'll have legs left to stand on."

Valey snickered, but it was supportively, and Maple led Sirena back up toward the staircase. "I hope you're all right with accepting our help like this," she murmured as they walked. "I've had so many ponies drop into my life that needed something too badly for me to wait to become friends first that I don't really have a normal expectation of-"

"It's fine," Sirena cut her off, actually managing a small smile. "You haven't heard of us before this and don't treat us either like royalty or an enemy flag. It's pretty refreshing. Go figure you'd also be the ones to have encountered something like this..."

"I just hope we can help," Maple breathed, cresting the final stair.

"You already have helped," Sirena insisted as they walked through the library. "I mean it. Even if I did nothing now, not being alone in that school watching the crowd with no idea what's happening, waiting for the end..." She hung her head. "Helps me to see the appeal of being an adventurer."

They reached Shinespark's room, and the four mares plus Starlight stepped inside, the door closing behind them. "Are you sure about this?" Sirena asked. "Solos don't... have a special place in my heart, and I don't have one prepared..."

Maple shrugged. "You said yourself you're already feeling better. But you can improvise. It doesn't even need words. It's your song."

Sirena sighed, hesitated, tossed away her jacket, didn't even clear her throat... and straightened her neck, and the song began.