"Okay," Aria asked for the fifth time in the last hour, "she walks in the door, we're just chilling out in the living room like always, you say...?"
Sonata smiled brightly, her tone just as cheerful. "Welcome home, Cheese-Head!"
Aria smiled too. "And," she said while gesturing to the mess around them; the furniture that had been cut or busted open in search of money bundles and the resulting debris all over the trashed house, "when she asks what happened in here?"
"We were robbed," Sonata exclaimed with a hurt, scared expression, "when we were out looking for work last week, somebody broke in and ransacked the place!"
"And when she asks how much we've got left, I'll tell her we made about thirty bucks with the lemonade stand out there, she'll see how this whole town was against us from the start and it's not our fault we ended up like this, and whisk us away to her golden, cheesy palace."
Sonata victoriously pumped a fist. "And then it's smooth sailing for all of us!"
Aria chuckled. "Right." Catching sight of a big, fluffy mass moving on a distant sidewalk through the living room window, she quickly gestured to the couch. "And here she comes, let's do this!"
Wondering why Adagio wasn't riding home in a limo or anything, Sonata obeyed, taking her place and flipping the TV to a random channel.
%%%
The sight of her old house gave Adagio another rush of that bittersweet feeling she'd gotten just thinking about walking back here, the odd blend of warm familiarity and bracing awareness that it would be the last time.
The lemonade stand, however, was new. The Rainbooms hadn't mentioned that in their gossip about what Aria and Sonata had been up to.
Thinking back to that whole discussion, especially what followed when Sunset came running after her, she quietly groaned. She'd really wanted to present a strong front to those girls, to look powerful and in control, and thus out of their reach, but any shred of it she'd had left by then crumbled away when they directly asked a question she'd have only looked foolish for lying about. It didn't help that she she outright cowered behind Felt when given half a reason, either.
Still, if their word meant a damn thing to them, they wouldn't come after her again before she left Canterlot for good. That should give her enough time to, at long last, have a night on the town with her two oldest companions, to call a high-end cab (or even a limo service if they could get one in this part of town), go to the nicest places in Canterlot, and have their fill of whatever they wanted, the sort of thing they hadn't done even when they had the gems. Then, they'd pack their bags, set off for the airport, and ride first-class to their new (if relatively modest, by the standards she'd seen of other celebrities' massive, extravagant houses) home. It wasn't a tower or a penthouse, but it was relatively close to Hollywood and overlooked a lovely beach from atop a high cliff, so she was sure the others would love it too.
When she seized the doorknob, Adagio stopped, taking a deep breath. "Felt. I'd like to introduce you to my friends, but would you mind waiting out here for a while? I'd like to talk with them in private first."
"As you wish, Madam."
Nodding gratefully, Adagio opened the door and walked inside, quietly shutting it behind her.
"Welcome home, Cheese-Head!"
She smiled, walking in to find them in the same seats as always. Then she noticed that it looked like a bomb had gone off in the house, raising an eyebrow as she scanned the mess of scattered, trampled objects and even some damaged furniture. "Girls...?"
Glancing around, the two shot her apologetic smiles, Sonata making the effort to be especially cute and innocent as she muted the TV. "Um... we were kinda robbed? Like, somebody broke into the house while we were looking for jobs last week and..."
"We didn't have tons of cash left over anyway," Aria continued for her, "but all the non-credit-card money is gone."
Adagio slowly nodded. "I, see... did they take anything else? Electronics, valuables? I see the TV and laptop are still here."
Aria felt the hole in her story like a puncture wound, but it wasn't a big hole. "No, uh... I think they just wanted the money."
Finishing her survey of the damage, Adagio looked back at them, her face passive. "They really tore the place apart, so... I suppose if they'd just been after anything valuable, they wouldn't have needed to look for something that could fit in their pockets." Looking back at them, she frowned. "Do you know if they got the gem fragments?"
"You kept those?" Aria asked quickly, and only because she knew that them knowing about the broken pieces would be proof that they peeled up that floorboard under Adagio's bed.
Adagio answered with a slightly bashful smile. "Well, I was still holding mine when we fled, and... sentimental value, I guess." She glanced toward her room. "Maybe they're still there?"
Aria kept any reaction from her face, not daring to look at Sonata and risk swinging Adagio's attention toward their weakest link. The truth was that she'd pawned the pieces for $20 before that night they spoke on the phone, but if Adagio didn't bring them along, they couldn't have meant that much to her.
"So, other than the card, do you have anything left?"
Aria returned a little smile of her own. "Didja see our little lemonade stand out front? Made thirty-two bucks!"
"I see," Adagio answered with a chuckle that ended in a wry grin. "And where did you get the supplies for that?"
Aria's smile only grew. "Not important!"
"Right," Adagio said through a giggle, "good answer."
There was a long moment in which no one said anything, Adagio just looking at their faces as they visibly scrutinized hers, both wearing unchanging smiles. Of all things, somehow it was that that felt like confirmation.
"So, what were you two doing at the local studio?"
They shared a look, one Adagio told herself they couldn't have rehearsed as Aria answered with confusion. "Studio?"
"The one you went to while pretending to be my mothers. Dressed in full business attire, if I remember right."
And like that, something fell over and died in Aria's head. The jig was up, Adagio probably knew what they'd been doing, but damned if she was gonna go down without a fight. "What? Who told you that?"
"Herman, the man who works the front desk, and whom I called to ask on the way here. I was doubtful that it could be you two, but the physical descriptions really didn't leave anyone else." At this point, her own smile was strained, but she wanted to hear an answer. "Girls? What's going on? What have you been doing since I left?"
"W-we've been working," Sonata answered with a big, pleading smile, that, to Adagio, sang only of guilt, "really hard! At all kinds of stuff!"
Adagio forced herself to humor her. "Like dancing on tables in public? Or pestering local attorneys?" The looks of shock were expected, but she reminded herself that she didn't necessarily have their side of this yet. "So... again... what's going on here?"
Aria was halfway through putting a positive spin on what they'd been up to when Sonata, just as she'd most feared, tried to save her own skin, standing up and pointing an accusing finger her way.
"It was all her idea! I tried to tell her it'd never work and you'd be mad but she never listens to any-"
Getting to her feet, all Aria could do was fire back. "You went along with me every step of the way you fat sack of sh-"
"-and she made me be a camwhore with her for creepy randos on the internet and-"
"-wasted all our money at that casino and we had to hitchhike back here-"
"-got me tazed by some fat mall-cop while she sat back and laughed about it-"
"-trudging through sewers on a goose-chase that almost got us both killed-"
"-even sold your gem for like five bucks-"
This time, it was Adagio who reacted without thinking, the anger and hurt plain in her voice. "You sold my gem?! Then lied to me about it?!"
Silence reigned for a long, tense minute. As they traded glares, the myriad of harsh, prickly feelings that had swarmed around the room settled into a quiet sting as something tore between the three of them.
Looking at Adagio in her fancy mascot-cheerleader outfit, knowing how good she had it in the lap of luxury while she struggled to keep herself and Sonata afloat, Aria's rage bubbled up first.
"So what if I did?! You can afford any rock you fucking want now with all that Hollywood money, but we've been scraping by on whatever you deign to throw us!" Guilting Adagio had worked once, but she'd have to lay it on thick. Luckily, despite the break in their unity just a moment ago, Sonata either recognized this routine well enough to back her up, or was driven by her sheer, child-like selfishness.
"Yea," she said while turning her accusing finger and scornful look at Adagio this time, "why should we get table scraps when you're eating turkeys and cake every night?!"
"If not for us," Aria continued while taking a step closer as Adagio stared back at them in a daze, "you never would've made it this far! Is that the thanks we get for saving your life?!"
"And then you got us stuck here without any magic! You owe us big!"
A vile feeling churning in her stomach and coating the back of her throat, Adagio's voice nearly cracked as she shrieked back. "Owe you?! I, owe you?!" In all the time she had spent sucking up negative energy, never had she come so close to feeling over-engorged with it as she did now, but even the distant possibility of her major organs shutting down wouldn't have stopped her from unleashing it. "You two have depended on me ever since we started working together, even up to this moment, and I am the one who owes you?!"
Seeing her oldest "friends" staring at her in stunned silence, she shook her head, tears falling free as they slid down her face. "I knew you were st-still angry at me, when we talked over the phone? I tried to ignore how hostile b-both of you were until Aria's call the other night, but that wasn't my fault, and I ref-fuse to just take the blame for that too!" Trying in vain to rub her eyes clean with a forearm, she sniffled. "Yes, the two of you saved me from that altar, stopped the offering and risked your own lives to thwart my abductors, and I couldn't have turned their power against them without your help. I was grateful to you both, that's why I shared, split the power with you in thanks before we set off, the entire world practically ours for the taking."
Sniffling again, she failed to take a perfectly steadying breath. "Do you remember? How the two of you once suggested that I decide what we should do? How after I weighed in on our next move a few times, you trusted my judgement? Aria, you even used to say that I was cleverer than either of you, said it was fun letting me chart our course before you grew to resent me. Then we suffered what amounted to our first defeat when the wizard threw up his portal."
A faint ghost of a smile on her lips, she barked out a humorless laugh. "And you know what? Sure, I get that it's hard to give me any credit for our all but beating him into the dirt for our first several matches when he ultimately won out, to blame me for the fact that we couldn't get home after that," the smile receded back into a miserable, tearful grimace, "but you two have blamed me for everything ever since! I could take that, I could take that if not for my refusal to kill him, we wouldn't be here, same with the Rainbooms, but as I've worked tirelessly ever since trying to get us back, or at least secure the best lives we could hope for in this situation, while you two have gone out of your way to tear me down? I don't owe either of you a goddamn thing!!"
The crying hadn't stopped, but with her anger flaring up again, her red, watery eyes held them with pure contempt. "And let's just forget the fact that you two willingly followed me throughout until I offered for you both to come with me on the fucking tour that you're angry at me for enjoying now, the one you refused to come along for! It's only my fault what happens to you, no matter your own parts in it all or what comes out of nowhere to ruin our efforts; all benefits for you when it goes well, all consequences on me when it doesn't!" She tried to take another breath, only getting another ragged sob before she hissed through tightly-clenched teeth. "You know what? If that's all I've ever been to you, if I'm just your free pass to life in general? You're on your own."
With nothing that mattered to her left in that house, Adagio turned and stormed through the front door without so much as a parting glance over her shoulder.
When her employer's shoes hit the concrete outside, Felt immediately turned to follow. Nothing had been asked of her, but with the visible tension in Adagio's considerably agitated body language, she would have been compelled to extend an offer even if she hadn't heard every word of the exchange in the house. "Madam," she tried softly, "is there anything you need at this moment?"
No verbal answer came, and the slight movement of a few fingers on one hand did little to communicate an effective order. If that was a nervous twitch, it may have been a sign of some nutrient deficiency. Vitamin B12? An incoming stroke seemed unlikely, but perhaps an ambulance was what the situation called for. It was while she waited for further warning signs that Adagio stopped walking to deliver a verbal answer after all.
"Cab... Airport."
Nodding affirmatively, Felt drew her phone from an apron pocket and began the process of summoning local transport.
%%%
Back in the living room, neither Aria nor Sonata said a word, the room returned to silence apart from the distant ambiance of town flowing in from the front door, still hanging ajar from Adagio's dramatic exit. Aria was half-considering a joke about their former leader having been raised in a barn when she looked at Sonata, but their eye-contact was short-lived. Not that it mattered; the second or two before Sonata ran to her room and shut the door restated to Aria just how badly the situation had deteriorated. The confused, saddened, hurt look on her face had said it all, probably without Sonata even meaning it to, and for once, Aria couldn't argue back.
"You're the worst."
After shutting the front door, she dragged herself back to the couch, sinking into it as everything came around at once; everything she had done since they were banished, how she'd held onto her disappointment over not getting to be a magical, untouchable super-being until it festered into a near-permanent bad mood. And, yea, she blamed Adagio, because it wasn't like she could blame Sonata, could she? And, more importantly, they could have won if she wasn't so squeamish, so it only made sense that it was Adagio's job to make it better! That's why she harped on her for results all the time!
...So why did she feel like a complete tool?
Maybe it was because of the way she leaned hard on Adagio to make life easier for herself (and would have happily done the same to Sonata, had she been able to reliably hold a job), but she wouldn't have needed to do that if Adagio hadn't lost them even more power after the Battle!
Of course, that probably didn't apply for when Adagio struck dripping, greasy gold with her mascot routine, since she got rich, famous, and kind of invited them along to join her, but...
Well, maybe if she hadn't paraded her success and her restored voice in front of them all the time, not to mention keeping it a secret (Aria never bought 'it just came to me') how she got it back in the first place! Would it have killed her to help them out a little?! It was her fault that they lost those talents in the first place!
So that justified trying to take it all back. When she seized total legal control over everything Adagio was doing, she'd have gotten her to cough up the secret, then lived however she wanted with all that fast food blood(pressure) money. It was only what she deserved after losing so much.
She hadn't done anything wrong. She only resorted to trying to trick Adagio at the end because the whole world was apparently against them and they were running out of options. She had to look out for herself. She was only doing what she had to do.
These and other lies were the things Aria thought about as she curled into a ball on the couch and cried herself to sleep.
%%%
First Class. It was the only way Adagio had ever ridden a plane, this being the second time, but try as she might, she couldn't distract herself with thoughts of having been spoiled by it already. Even the restroom she used to finally change out of her Poofy outfit was more spacious than she'd have guessed.
This was fine. It was just what she always wanted, really; finally rid of those useless ingrates, the idiots that had made her life miserable for at least a few years now. She had gotten sick of their nonsense ages ago, and the only reason she never stole their gems to use for herself was that it probably wouldn't have worked anyway. They were leeches, shameless, soul-sucking leeches content to drain her dry and still demand more. That was all they were to her now, and she was better off without. Not happy, perhaps, but better off, because she damn sure wasn't happy with them, either.
Although, she thought before she could stop herself, the lump again building in her throat, I thought we were once...
She had been given multiple tips by older actors and people in show business when she was in Hollywood, but never did she need any of it until she was trying to compose herself before the taxi arrived. Letting Felt do the talking may have helped hide her red, puffy eyes a little, but she was sure they were getting more attention than she wanted right now on account of her familiar, fluffy curls. It probably didn't help that one of them was wearing an elegant maid outfit. She again went through one of the quiet breathing exercises to hold together now, which did not escape the notice of Felt, sitting next to her.
"Are you well, Madam?"
"Yes, just..."
While Adagio struggled to find the right words for her difficult emotional predicament, Felt leaned a little closer, her voice soft and nurturing. "Forgive me if I sound at all impertinent, but I am capable of offering support in more than fetching refreshments and drop-kicking molesters." As hoped, the reminder of that incident at the Chinese theater injected sufficient levity into the situation to draw a tiny smile from her employer. "While not extensively so, I am trained in caring for other human beings, so you may confide in me with anything you wish, if you are adequately comfortable."
Truth be told, Adagio wasn't totally comfortable, but nor was she certain she could hold it all in for the whole flight and however long it took to get from the airport to the house. The thought cropped up in her head that even if they were here with her and magically on good terms again, she probably couldn't have opened up to Aria or Sonata, either. This did nothing to help her keep it together, but with her heart already threatening to spill over, it wasn't likely that she could have shared these painful thoughts with perfectly dry eyes anyway. Felt already heard most of her exchange with the others, didn't she?
"...We were together for a long time, you know? I used to think it would be for life. They used to- I mean, I thought they used to count on me, as the one leading us from place to place, but... knowing that I did so much for the three of us, even working a job I hated for their benefit, and I was still never really that close to either of them?" Her voice cracked. "It hurts."
Felt nodded, delicately stretching an arm across Adagio's back (without disturbing her hair too much) to rest a comforting hand on her shoulder. "How long were you together?"
"I don't know exactly, but... almost ten years, I think. We met in-..."
She doesn't know I'm from Equestria. Or, she probably doesn't. Do I have anything to lose at this point by asking?
Even if Felt freaked out and ditched her the second they were off the plane, it wouldn't hurt nearly as much as what Aria and Sonata just did to her. That in mind, she turned to look Felt in the eye. "I never told you where I came from, did I?"
When Felt shook her head, Adagio explained to her as she had to Cheese Sandwich, again feeling that relief of lifted weight that apparently accompanied just telling people things without any hidden agenda or pretense. There were a few questions (one of which was again whether or not she could turn into a dragon, curiously, albeit not of the honking variety), a moment in which she had to look Felt dead in the eye with a perfectly straight face, clarification on what her connection to the Rainbooms was, and what the gems she kept mentioning were for, but Felt seemed to accept that she was working for a former magical menace.
"...And, Aria and Sonata. They were such creatures as well?"
"Yes, at least after they saved me. We met in a grand lagoon on a tropical island, far out at sea, the popular grounds for an annual festival enjoyed by land and sea creature alike." Even if the years had tinted it with bitterness and loss, the memory still brought a little smile to her lips. "There was art, food, philosophy, magic, and of course, song. I was mostly there for that last one, having been given the chance to perform a solo-act for all the nice festival-goers. Aria and Sonata were two of the only other hippocampi there, we got to know each other a bit, and then I was kidnapped."
The smile faded as quickly as it came. "I never found out what it was I did wrong, who I must have angered to wind up where I did; chained to a stone and used as a living offering to something we didn't even have a name for."
"The altar you mentioned?"
"Yes. In short, I was taken in the night, carried around to the other side of the island, and held as a living sacrifice for some evil entity I'd never heard of by lunatics that seemed to think it would make them gods."
Felt watched as Adagio's face shifted from disgust towards her captors to what may have been a quiet, but very warm pride as she leaned back against the headrest.
"Aria and Sonata noticed I was missing, came after me using the trail my abductors left in the sand, and managed to get me free while avoiding deadly spells. They could have just told someone else and let them deal with it, or ignored it altogether, fled the island, and let it be someone else's problem, but instead, they rushed in to save me." She chuckled, a faintly wry grin on her lips. "Of course, they could have probably stood to recruit help from the festival peace-keepers, then come after me, but the two of them were always more brave than smart. When I was freed, I was able to channel the dark energies that were meant to consume my body and soul and turn them against our enemies, scattering them like a school of startled fish."
"And the gems were borne of this same magic?"
Adagio turned to look at Felt with an impressed smile. "Yes! How'd you guess?"
"It seemed a logical connection, based on the given information."
Still smiling, Adagio nodded. "So, once things had settled down, I was surprised to find the gems were still working, channeled all of the energy into three of them, and gave two to my saviors in thanks." And then her voice shifted back to tearful. "We'd been together ever since."
In the effort to keep her employer smiling, Felt tried her best to find the line of discussion supported primarily by happy memories. "And in mutual thanks, they made you their leader?" Adagio sniffled once, but did not sob. Relative success.
"Sort of. As I said, neither of them were especially bright, so the role naturally fell to me. Of course," she muttered as her mouth twisted with a bitter grimace. "had I known how high their expectations were, what they really wanted out of me, I'm sure I'd have never bothered."
"Where exactly would you say things changed for the three of you? From happy days to not?"
"When we met the wizard, I suppose. Or, at least a few days after. Initially, there was nothing he could do to stop us; no spell he could cast was powerful enough to undo ours or pierce our scales, so for the first several rounds, we barely needed to bat him away. Eventually, I suppose he figured that if nothing he could do could stop us, none of his magic could match ours, then he'd just let us be someone else's problem. If I had known he could just rip through time and space to send targets to other dimensions, I'm not sure what exactly I'd have done, but... I didn't know, so we wound up here."
Felt raised an index finger matter-of-factly. "Extend one extremity toward his vital areas with considerable force?" To her surprise, Adagio looked back at her in shock and horror.
"I don't kill people!!"
Genuinely curious, Felt raised an eyebrow. "Was this person not making several attempts on your life? It seems unlikely that when met with repeated failures, more extreme measures would not cross his mind, up to and including termination." This won a shiver out of Adagio.
"M-maybe, but... I can't kill people, alright? I'll admit that it's not for the 'sanctity of life' or anything like that, just..." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "The night I was almost sacrificed, I was a sobbing, screaming mess until they broke me free, and even when I seized control of the magic, I was mostly acting out of panic. I had nightmares about it for weeks, and even now, the thought of being helpless as someone ends my existence is still so terrifying that-"
A gentle squeeze of her shoulder reminded her that she was being held, so she focused on that and the warm feeling it brought rather than where her mind had been going. She quietly cleared her throat. "So... That's why I couldn't just stomp him and be done with it. It's not for any of the 'good' reasons, I just can't stomach the thought of it."
"Is it possible that this wizard, in gratitude for sparing his life, may be willing to allow you a return trip home?" She was hopeful when Adagio snorted with amusement, but it quickly became clear that this was more of a sad smile.
"I'm afraid it doesn't really work that way, Felt. I learned about a portal to my homeworld long after losing the rest of my power, but even if we were allowed back, we'd be powerless there now, and being without magic in that world is like being without any money in this one. That's... part of why we stuck with the dark magic in the first place, you know? It was like being a millionaire."
That, and, fresh from her near-death experience, she firmly decided that she never wanted to be in that position again. If everything boiled down to the powerful doing as they wished with the helpless, she knew where she wanted to be. If any one reason to start feeding on negative energy, to start hurting people for personal gain, had taken precedence over any other, it was that one, at least for her, personally.
"So... once we had our own means to make our way in the world, impose our own rules, that was what we did. We mostly tormented creatures on land because none of us wanted to make a mess of our home seas and land-dwelling species usually had denser populations anyway, which was good for energy harvests and finding crowds to lavish us." She chuckled dryly before looking Felt in the eye. "Would you laugh if I said I was evil now?"
"Perhaps." She almost laughed at the utterly bewildered face she got for saying that. "Because now, you are employed as a singing, dancing-" she very gently ruffled Adagio's hair, which was met with minimal resistance, "cheezy-cheerful fast food mascot."
Wriggling free of her grip, Adagio pulled away and crossed her arms with a 'Hmph,' but the little smile that accompanied this action informed Felt that her employer would not spend the remainder of the trip in tears.
%%%
The next morning (or at least, whenever the sun was up), Aria was roused from her slumber by the sounds of Sonata. She had to groggily sit up and rub her eyes before she could identify the noise as the closest thing she had to a friend stuffing things (mostly snacks) into a bookbag. It was probably from that plan they scrapped a few weeks back, something about infiltrating Crystal Prep. She shook herself awake.
"Sonata? What're you doing?"
Sonata, wearing what appeared to be a red slingshot bikini under a tiny, white tube-top and matching miniskirt with thigh-high boots, looked over her shoulder with surprisingly fierce determination in her eyes. "I'm striking out! Adagio left and took all the money with her and you're a total deadbeat, so I'm gonna get my act together and fly solo!" Zipping up the bag, she turned to face her in full, even striking a dramatic pose and donning a confident smirk. "And I'm gonna be a hit, because from here out, it's the Super Cute Sonata show!"
Not caring what insane delusions Sonata was under to think she'd be a big star this time, Aria shook her head. "No, look, Adagio was right, we've gotta-" She was a little surprised and a lot irritated that Sonata stomped a foot to cut her off.
"No! I'm gonna make my debut and leave you and her behind, cuz', see this?!" She held up a partly-torn poster depicting a silhouette of someone holding a microphone under a spotlight. The brightly-colored text read Chance to Prance Competition. "It's a music contest, all you need is an original song and a hot dance routine! I'm gonna win it, get the cash prize, and then get picked up by some big-time record company!"
"...There's so much wrong with that plan that you should slap yourself upside the head."
"Whatever." Slinging the bag over her shoulder, she started toward the door. "Have fun on your own in Loser-ville!"
Brow furrowed, Aria shouted after her. "That stupid outfit's gonna snag on something!"
That something proved not to be the front door, which slammed without impediment. Aria didn't pursue, because she knew Sonata, and that idiot would be back here before the day was out, most likely hungry, tired, and with some stupid pitch for why Aria should take her back. Then, she hoped, they'd be able to talk a little about how they'd make up with Adagio. For now, she tried calling her, just hoping her and Sonata's numbers weren't blocked.
%%%
As hoped, the bed in Adagio's new house was every bit as soft and sprawl-able as the one in the Santa Monica hotel, as she found when she sprawled out upon it after she'd finished unpacking. The same was true of the beds in those other two rooms, the ones that were prepared before she could've known she wouldn't need them, but this was the one she knew she'd be sleeping on.
Maybe I can use those as guest rooms. As long as those 'guests' aren't just using me for a free bed for the night. Or maybe Felt would like one of them? I don't know if they're any nicer than the one she's in now, but if she asks, I have no reason to refuse. Hell, let her have both, she can store her weird collection of weapons in one for all I care.
Rolling over onto her back, she idly looked around her room again. The moving company really did an excellent job, none of the fancy furniture she ordered even looked scratched or banged up or anything. It was a nice place; two floors of finely-crafted wood, tiles, glass, and soft carpets, a pool around here somewhere, everything she'd need to remind herself that she would never need to worry about money again. It was missing that lived-in feeling and various objects accumulated through one's adventures, like pictures, carnival prizes, novelty items, and other momentos, but she'd gather those anew. By herself.
Do I want to decorate any amount of my house with Eezy-Cheezy memorabilia? I feel like I should at least get one of those Poofy cardboard cut-outs, if only to gauge my growth as this body gets older. Then again, will I just end up going straight to bad memories every time I see it? Maybe if I make more memories in the role, I'll think of those before-
She was startled by her phone ringing, and on the topic of bad memories, there was Aria's number. She glared at the screen, but even with the bile again churning through her innards, she couldn't muster the enthusiasm to shout something obscene at the caller, so she just let it ring. When the ringing stopped, she stared at the ceiling for a quiet minute, then got up, paced over to the vanity, sat down, and started arranging the make-up like it was in her other dressing rooms.
I'm definitely not 'done' as Poofy, Gouda still wants me promoting his products for a while yet, but I wonder if it's too soon to be 'washed up.' I have everything I could want now, plenty of fans who'd most likely lavish me even if I never sang again, food, shelter, and even transportation covered if I ever feel like going somewhere, so I might get away with living as a rich shut-in if I tried.
...
Stardom as Chrysalis does it probably isn't an option for me unless I do something about my hair, because no one is going to see me on the big screen, no matter what role I take, and not think of the singing cheese mascot. Would I still be allowed to perform in front of a crowd if I took to the management side of things, or would I be stuck making money for money's sake?
When the little boxes, bottles, and tubes were arranged to her satisfaction, she looked idly around her room again. She didn't need to come up with a plan any time soon, it wasn't like anyone else would be affected by her decision, or that she needed to consider the attitudes and abilities of anyone else in where she wanted to go.
Was this my fault? Accepting all the blame was my problem right after the Battle, but... Could I have just told them exactly how I got my voice back? No. They didn't deserve it, and still don't, still haven't earned it like I have, and is it so much to ask that just once, they come to me? I gave them enough, and they only ever took more and more and-...
There was a time in which the three of them got along better, in which even Aria could be outright affectionate towards her, but it was clear to her now that even that much had only been for as long as she could get them what they wanted, keep them powerful and living easy under her guidance, above the mediocre lives they'd been living before they met her.
There must have been something I could have done to bring us back to those times, some way I could reach out to them and fix things between us before they deteriorated so badly, but if that's true, the same goes for them, doesn't it? I don't remember either of them trying to make things better with me until they wanted something.
"...does it feel like a stretch to say it might be even better with our way?"
Was this what they meant? If I had been closer and friendlier with them, if we had what the Rainbooms did with each other, I'm sure this wouldn't have happened. Were they trying to warn me?
...No, definitely not, or they'd have just come out with it, most likely delivered with the most sanctimonious lecture possible, but I bet it's true anyway. Their argument was that I'd be unhappy if my fans didn't know the real me, nothing was said about personal acquaintances. Maybe they were just applying what they knew about that kind of relationship to all relationships everywhere?
Not that it mattered, because even if she'd directly asked the Rainbooms to dictate her entire personal life for her, it was far, far too late for the three of them by then. Even with that bitter thought in her head, there was one other nugget from the Rainbooms that echoed in her mind.
"And," Sunset had said after Adagio had heard everything they knew about what Aria and Sonata had been up to, "one last thing?"
She had really just wanted to leave, to finally get home and debunk everything they had just told her, but the earnest looks of concern, concern for her in their faces, had kept her rooted in place.
"Whatever you end up doing, however things go with your friends, don't give up hope of being happy without an act. Even if it isn't scores of people, someone will love you for who you are."
She said it because Adagio had said earlier that she had never been loved for who she was, that at best, it was her performances that people flocked around to cheer for. Thinking about Sunset's last sentiment now, she'd have laughed if it didn't make her so sick.
Why did the Poofy routine ever work on anyone at all? Because it was cute, soft, friendly, unthreatening, cheerful, even when at its heart, it was a lie to trick them into forking over their money or wheedling something out of them.
Never once had she made that face, used that voice, without an ulterior motive, only when she wanted something. And people ate it up. The general public rarely saw her outside her persona, but most of those she worked with and talked to normally didn't seem to see her as anything but the act.
Just like Aria and Sonata only saw me as their free ride. How long before everyone else shows their colors in the same way?
She sat there in silence for a while, as if hoping to drill the answer out of her reflection's eyes. Looking around her otherwise empty room one more time, Adagio flickered the lights on her vanity to see if they all worked (they did), stood up, and walked out to see if breakfast was ready.