There had not been many moments, throughout Adagio’s life, where she had found it worth her time to question her intents. Her gem had always been there, to set her straight when she was veering or to encourage her when she was moving the right way.
Now, if her gem could still speak to her, she thought that it would have protested. She had been in the right before, and she knew her gem would have agreed—would have asserted that her sisters ought to have obeyed her, that unity was their best course of action by far. The natural, correct resolution would be her accepting an apology, not offering forgiveness.
And yet she found herself, walking along a sidewalk, off to do exactly the latter.
Sunset would’ve approved, wouldn’t she? If she were there right now, she’d be all cheery grins and wide-eyed hopefulness.
Well. Adagio scowled as she walked, staring down the sidewalk towards her destination. Let’s hope she can be right once in a while.
The house that the numbers on the street told her she’d been looking for was a compact one, squat despite its two-story frame. A balcony stood above her as she approached, while small, cheerful statues of otters beamed at her from the porch.
It felt… vaguely familiar. She’d lived in many houses over the years—most had stopped standing out long ago, especially when she’d first made a habit of keeping at least two in each city they stayed in. Just in case.
Adagio lifted a hesitant hand and rapped three times on the door. A moment of silence passed and then muffled, shuffling footsteps reached her ears.
The opening door revealed a Sonata whose eyes went almost dinner-plate-wide. “A—Adagio?” she gasped.
“Hello, Sonata,” Adagio said. Sonata drew back briefly; the way she flinched nearly made Adagio falter, but she kept her voice purposefully steady and calm, restraining herself from all the criticism and questions she might have had and presenting a soft smile in their place. She was offering forgiveness. “May I come in?”
It took a long second for Sonata to smile, but when she did, her face turned bright and gleaming. Adagio only saw it like that for a moment before supple arms looped around her shoulders and dragged her into an embrace she hadn’t realized she’d been craving.
Questions came with it, but she held Sonata close to her chest and gave no time to ponder. The joy that came to her then was simple and earnest. It smothered worries and relieved doubts rather than elevating her to ecstatic heights, but she wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Sonata was the one to end it, though. She slipped back quickly, letting out a startled squeak and whipping her head around. “Oh no, I’ve got—” She winced, absent-mindedly waving Adagio inside as she darted off.
Adagio watched her go, then shrugged, chuckled, stepped inside, and pulled the door shut behind her.
If there was one thing she could appreciate about Sonata, it was how tidy she managed to keep things. A mystery for the ages, that little quirk of order in a scatterbrained head. The floorboards were glossy, the woodwork smooth and shiny; dust was a rare commodity. The house itself was small, but as Adagio walked slowly inside, neatness, subdued warmth and a pleasing, sweet scent of caramel from a flickering candle greeted her. A second welcome, almost, extended by the house itself.
Other scents trickled out to meet her—spices she recognized but couldn’t put names to—as did sounds—first a clattering of metal and then a faint sizzling.
That trail of sensations led her forwards, where she rounded a corner and saw Sonata fretting over a ramshackle contraption of a kitchen.
“No, no, no…” Sonata’s brow knit and her nose scrunched up. She looked to Adagio, apologizing with just her eyes. “I’m sorry, I only made enough for two, and I don’t know if there’s time to—”
Adagio’s heart skipped a beat, but in a good way. “No, you don’t need to—” She stumbled through her own joy-clouded thoughts. “It’s fine.” Her voice wavered slightly, but she didn’t care.
“I’m sorry,” Sonata repeated. “I… didn’t know you were coming, and…” She turned away, rubbing at her eyes with her hands, then sighed.
“… Of course you didn’t.” Adagio batted aside a pang of disappointment she knew to be unfounded and a spike of indignancy she knew it wasn’t the time for. “But it’s fine.”
Sonata slowly looked back at her, wide eyes blatantly tragic. She gave a small shake of her head, and then fixed her attention on the stove. “I really am sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t want to waste… I should’ve…”
“I told you not to worry,” Adagio said, even as she snuffed out temptations to agree, then stepped forward and laid a gentle hand on Sonata’s shoulder. “I’ve missed you, you know.”
Skepticism and worry bloomed on Sonata’s face, but a fond, budding smile diminished them. “I know you did.” She turned her head to the stove again. “Oh, but I need to—” She waved Adagio off.
“Of course.” Adagio backed away, still smiling. “Is Aria…?”
“She’s still out.” Sonata laughed, sounding forcing at first but quickly turning into a more genuine giggle. “Blowing off some steam after a long day at work, if you can imagine that.”
Laughter proved contagious. “You mean she’s got a…” Adagio covered her mouth, tittering softly but backing away. “It sounds like we’ve got some catching up to do, then.”
Sonata laughed some more, then made a small gasp. “Oh, you should spend the night! We’d definitely be able to get through it all then.”
Breathy sounds of joy escaped Adagio’s lips. “I’d like that. But I should probably stop bothering you and let you work, right?”
One last look at Sonata’s smile, and then Adagio took her leave, slipping away from the kitchen and coming to an aimless rest in the living room. Shortly, more sounds made themselves known. First a quiet but upbeat pop song bouncing through the air—catchy, she might have called it in a particularly generous mood—and then a voice. What a strange voice it was. It… sang. Compared to what Adagio knew it had once been capable of, it sounded grotesque, mangled and fundamentally diminished. But if she didn’t compare it…
Well, it was still far from masterful. Agile, but not quite graceful, skilled but in far from an effortless way . But it was peppy. Sprightly. Unfettered, whimsical. Small—little more than a hum—but cognizant of its nature and content with it.
Happy. It was a happy sound.
It shouldn’t have made Adagio jealous. No, it shouldn’t have stirred even a sliver of envy. That voice, it wasn’t worth the effort it must’ve taken, not when there were grander things in store for her. The day would come when her gem hung whole from her neck once more, and on that day she wouldn’t care for a voice like Sonata’s. She was a siren, after all. Beauty so ordinary was beneath her stature. Sonata was polishing a rock when she could’ve—should’ve—been hunting for diamonds.
One day, Adagio told herself as she cradled her locket in her palm, and she knew it to be true. An absolute truth, as certain as the setting of the sun each evening.
And yet she was glad when a twisting doorknob stole her attention before a frail facsimile of music could make her weep.
Aria looked at her from the doorway with a stony, silent face. Adagio felt her pulse quicken—all the words she’d thought would’ve been on the tip of her tongue abruptly vanished.
Eventually, after what seemed like far too long for comfort, Aria’s lips twitched into the faintest of smiles. “Hey. Took you long enough.”
Adagio’s heart stopped pounding and started fluttering. “Yeah.” She breathed deeply as she stepped forward.
Before she could speak more, though, Aria pressed a finger to her lips. “We’ll talk later,” Aria said, gesturing down at herself. “I gotta go get cleaned up. You staying for dinner?” She turned slowly on her heel, slipping away and slinking up the stairs.
Adagio swallowed. “Sonata seems to think so, and I’d hate to disappoint her.”
A soft but dry laugh came down the stairs. “I’d better hurry, then.”
Shortly afterward, Aria vanished around a corner at the top of the stairs, and it felt like a boulder had tumbled off of Adagio’s shoulders. She collapsed on the first couch she could find, letting out a long breath.
When she looked down at her locket, letting it rest in her palm and flipping it open to peek inside, ruby shards winked back at her.
“You were right,” she whispered, giggling to herself. Hours of what now seemed like wasted time drifted through her memory, but she wanted to laugh at them instead of scowl and scream. All that nonsense with Sunset and that other woman... she couldn’t believe how worked-up she’d gotten over nothing, those last few days.
Everything was going to work out. Had worked out, even, in a roundabout sort of way. Maybe she did owe Sunset a little gratitude. Maybe. A little.
But she could handle that another day.
Adagio sat at the dining table, sideways in her chair with her legs crossed and her fingers drumming restlessly on the table’s surface. She could see Sonata flitting about in the kitchen out the corner of her eye—the singing had stopped and the music had been turned off as soon as Sonata realized she was there.
Aria came back down, wearing a tight black tank top only slightly more modest than what she’d had on before, still fussing with her hair as she dropped into the chair opposite Adagio.
They looked at each other for a moment. Adagio stopped drumming her fingers, swiveling to face Aria and clasping her hands together on the table.
Before Adagio could figure out what she wanted to say, Aria flashed a smirk. If Adagio were in a more critical mood, she might have called it far too casual. “So,” Aria said, “how’ve you been?”
“Surviving, mostly. Talking to myself a little more than usual.” Adagio allowed a small chuckle. The events of the last few days seemed so suddenly distant, and far less bearable for it. It became a wonder that she’d made it through it all without losing her mind and shrieking to the sky.
In comparison to those foul memories, Aria’s wryly lifted eyebrow was a welcome sight. “I thought that was your idea of a perfect conversation,” she drawled.
On a different day, Adagio might have glared. That day, a laugh slipped out of her and a smirk played on her lips. “Well, I’ve been feeling generous lately. Thought I’d shake things up a bit and indulge a few peasants for a little while.”
“Wow. I didn’t think you knew generosity well enough to recognize it in yourself.”
“I didn’t either,” Adagio said as vapidly as she could manage, running a hand through her hair. “Some people just bring the worst things out of me.”
Aria snorted amusedly. Shaking her head slowly, her eyes drifted away from Adagio’s. “Yeah, well...” Her voice was lower, with just a hint of sincerity peeking out through the rasp, and that made Adagio focus her attention more keenly. “... you look like you’re doing better, bad influences or not.”
Adagio swallowed. Hopefulness welled up in her heart, but the weight of all those unspoken discussions seemed a little more salient. “I do, do I?”
“Well…” But then, just like that, flippancy bounced back into Aria’s voice and disdain into her downward-turned eyes. “You do still dress like a hooker, but I don’t think anyone could change that now.”
Adagio wasn’t sure whether she was disappointed or relieved. She folded her arms and shot Aria a not-entirely-serious glare. “I’m not sure someone who habitually wears pigtails is qualified to criticize me like that.”
Aria tugged on her hair. “Badass pigtails, you mean.”
“Oh. Right.” Adagio pointedly rolled her eyes. “How silly of me to forget.”
Aria’s mouth opened, and Adagio made out the first syllable of another barb, but then a clattering of plates and cutlery so impossible to ignore that it must have been intentional rang out. Sonata hurried over bearing steaming food and a smile, and the banter died out.
The rest of the meal had passed pleasantly enough. The conversation had been nice, if vapid and ultimately pointless. It seemed all three of them had been mostly content to appreciate the comparative novelty of having a full table again.
Afterwards, while Sonata went straight to work clearing the table, Aria had gone upstairs and out to the balcony, where she leaned on the railing and looked out at a suburban neighborhood underneath a twilight sky.
“So,” Adagio began as she walked up next to Aria. “Sonata tells me you’re gainfully employed.”
Aria pointed. “There’s a dance studio a couple blocks that-a-way.”
“I didn’t realize you two needed the money.”
“We don’t.” Aria’s lips split into a leering smile. “But some guy wants to toss some at me so I can show off and criticize people, which puts three of my favorite things all in the same place. How am I supposed to say no to that?”
Adagio snickered. “Well, when you put it that way…”
“Plus, there’re a couple of guys and at least one girl who I’m fairly certain are trying especially hard ‘cause they think I’m hot and wanna impress me.” Aria’s grin became laced with smugness. “I can think of worse jobs out there.”
“I’m glad to hear they’re treating you right.” Adagio reached out, brushing her fingers against Aria’s shoulder.
Aria looked over at her, smirking, eyes wandering lower. “You should give it a try sometime. Easy way to get some admirers.” She chortled quietly. “They don’t do any of the really sexy stuff over there, but I’m sure you could find a place that does.”
Adagio peeked down at her locket, briefly. She shouldn’t have to get a job to be adored, or so they would’ve told her. The idea did have a certain allure, though—had to be better than the stagnant silence of her home, on some level, right?
“Tempting,” she said at last, stepping a little closer to Aria. But I won’t have to be alone for much longer, will I? “I’m not sure how much of the public I want seeing something like that, though.” She giggled quietly, tossing her hair and giving her hips a shake. “Diamonds wouldn’t be any more glamorous than pebbles if everyone on the street had one.”
Aria rolled her eyes, snorting derisively and scratching at her nose. “Can’t argue with that, I guess. You’re lucky you’re hot enough most people let you get away with being so haughty.” She glanced over at Adagio, but then yanked her eyes away, staring down at her fidgeting fingers instead. Her voice took on a very faintly reverent tone. “It’s better than trying to sing, at least.”
Adagio slipped into a somber silence. Screeching that called itself music and brought out feelings that should’ve been far outside its reach haunted her.
She brushed them all off so that she could face Aria with a smile. “Talking of which… Sonata’s still going at it, I hear.”
“Yeah.” Aria shook her head slowly. “I can’t remember the last time she put so many hours into something so silly.”
Adagio felt her smile brighten. Aria understands.
“Even roped a few other girls into it,” Aria said, “if you can imagine that.”
“Oh?” Adagio exaggerated her surprise, talking like it was a juicy secret instead of something she should’ve guessed. “She neglected to mention that part.”
“Bumped into them at a mall or a park or something.” Aria waved her hand. “Probably literally—You know how Sonata is. Now they’re all taking lessons together or something.” Aria glowered into the distance, spitting out a grim, dry laugh. “I don’t know all the details, but. honestly, take your eyes off Sonata for a week and she’d have herself a little cult.”
“She never did have to try very hard, did she?” Cheeriness did not come easily to Adagio just then, but she made it happen as she exaggerated her interest. “What are they like?”
“Couldn’t tell you much. They all seem like they’re half as cute and smart as they think they are. So I guess they make Sonata look good, but… well, I wouldn’t bother with them, let’s say.”
“So we’re not missing out, is what you’re saying.” Adagio found that thought oddly comforting. Her gem would agree with her, assure her that she could never be replaced. She knew it would. “Sonata’s enjoying herself, though?”
“I’d give ‘em a couple months before she gets bored of them. If that. But for now, yeah, I guess. It gets her out of my hair for a little while now and then, so I’m not complaining.”
“Well…” Adagio moved a little closer, slipping an arm around Aria’s waist. “I’m glad you’ve both found something to pass the time.”
Aria shot her a look—if the closeness bothered her, it showed only as a flicker that could’ve been unease. Adagio stood next to her, letting herself relax for what felt like the first time in years.
“You haven’t said much about what you’re up to these days,” Aria said at last.
Adagio picked apart Aria’s statement to decide how to reply; she settled on a smirk and a swat. “Is that concern I hear? You were worried about me, weren’t you?”
Aria rolled her eyes. “Don’t dodge the question.”
“Alright, alright. Yes, I…” Adagio fussed over the right words. What was there to say, really? Vanishingly little, surely, compared to what Aria could say. But there was something, wasn’t there? “... I did find someone to keep me company. Or she found me, rather. But she turned out to be one of those boring, polite, wholesome sorts.”
Aria’s eyebrow arched. “Was she hot, at least?”
“She seems awfully plain right now.”
“She must be very flattering if you gave her a chance at all, then.”
“I wish. Honestly, the least she could do is be wracked with guilt and stricken with lust, but no such luck.”
“What’s her name?”
Adagio felt her chest constrict. This part, she dreaded, but… well, if Aria did still hold a grudge, it could truthfully be said that it wouldn’t be a problem for long. “Sunset.”
Aria’s brow knit. “As in…?”
“Shimmer, yes.”
The pause was a tense one. Aria’s face remained nigh-unreadable, her stoniness betrayed only faintly, vaguely, by a narrowing of her eyes.
Eventually, after too long for Adagio’s comfort, Aria brushed off her tension and forced a laugh out. “You always did have rotten taste in women.”
“I’m standing here, aren’t I?”
“Thanks for agreeing. Is there a story behind this one?”
“I was drunk, and she was willing to sit down and let me talk about myself for a little while.” Adagio’s eyes dipped down to Aria’s hands—they were clenched tightly around the railing, so she adjusted her approach. “But she’s a distraction, that’s all.” The dismissiveness of that word left the faintest bitterness in her mouth, but one look at how Aria had faintly relaxed upon hearing it affirmed its validity. “Just something pretty to whittle away at the hours with.”
The look Aria shot her wasn’t quite tense, but it was wary. Adagio tried to discern what it was that still nagged at Aria—there was something; she knew there was—but a turned head halted her efforts.
“Mostly, though… she just made me remember what I was missing.” Adagio slid a little closer, wrapping her arm around Aria’s waist. “It’s good to see you again, Aria.” Aria squirmed slightly, so Adagio pouted at her. That got her to roll her eyes again, but then she held up a single finger, as if to say, “Just once,” and after that she loosely draped her arm over Adagio’s shoulders.
A moment of calm, warm silence passed.
“As far as pleasant surprises go…” Aria cleared her throat. “Yeah. This is nice.”
Adagio opened her mouth, then closed it. Then she blinked.
Surprise?
Sonata only had enough for two…
She swallowed a lump in her throat, then looked into Aria’s eyes. “Can I ask you something?”
Aria gave her a glance. “You just did.”
Adagio shot Aria a withering look. “Did you know about that letter Sonata sent me?”
Aria’s face stayed stony, but it turned to face outwards—not “towards the street” so much as “away from Adagio,” though. “I dropped it off for her,” Aria whispered.
A faint, ugly ache prodded at Adagio’s heart. “And you knew that it had this address written on it?”
“Sonata insisted.” Aria pulled away, leaving Adagio in nippy night air, then leaned forward on the railing, supporting herself on one hand while the other ran through her hair. “I… thought about covering it up.”
“But you didn’t.” A small, sad smile tried to stay on Adagio’s face, but couldn’t last for long. She looked away, wrapping her arms around herself, glancing down at her locket. “And yet you were both surprised to see me.”
Silence said over a span of a few seconds all that Aria’s voice did not.
“Aria?” Adagio squeezed her eyes shut. At her side, her fingernails dug into her palm. “I missed you,” she said. She slowly worked up the nerve to look back at Aria. “You knew that, right?”
Aria spared her a quick glance, then sighed. Her eventual nod couldn’t have come soon enough. “I wasn’t sure how long you’d take,” she murmured.
“To do what?”
That finally got Aria to lift her head. When she did, her vivid eyes seemed to bore right into Adagio’s, scrutinizing as they stared.
Eventually, they dipped downwards. Aria reached out slowly, gently holding Adagio’s locket between two fingers. Her brow knit—she knew right away what was in it. She must have, because that moment when she looked at it was the first time that night her stony mask cracked.
“What do you want?” she asked, voice wavering slightly.
Hesitantly, Adagio reached up and laid her hand over Aria’s. She looked back at the house, remembering the blotchy sounds of mortal music she’d heard earlier that evening. “The same thing as you,” she whispered. She met Aria’s eyes, then, and witnessed them softening before her. “How long do you think any of this is going to satisfy you?”
Aria looked at the locket again, and her eyes screamed ‘not very long at all.’ There was a desperate, undying craving burning in those eyes, and it comforted Adagio to see it in someone else.
“You and Sonata can have so much more,” Adagio whispered. She squeezed Aria’s hand gently. “Come back, and let’s all go and get it together.”
Aria’s mouth opened straight away, but then it shut slowly. “Tell me you have a plan, Adagio,” Aria said.
Adagio swallowed, gulping down her unease. The indomitable hope that her shards always gifted to her faltered, but only slightly. She knew they could do it, and one day they would. There was no other truth.
She found those words very difficult to say out loud, but she said them.
A long while afterwards, Aria slipped her hand out of Adagio’s, stepped back and turned away again. “You know… the moment I first saw you, I just knew that meeting you was the most important thing that ever happened to me. I never did know why, but I knew it.”
“I know,” Adagio said.
“But those things?” Aria gestured to Adagio’s locket. “They never spoke to me. Not as clearly as you say they did to you, anyway. Nudges and whispers and… and all that, but nothing more.”
Adagio felt her heart sinking, but took every effort not to let it show. Aria, she… she knew better, didn’t she? She would come around. Of course she would.
“So you made all these promises and I never knew where they come from. But you made so many of them come true.”
“And I’ll keep doing it,” Adagio said. “Until we’re right back where we belong.”
Aria fell into a grim, dour silence. “I think you know exactly how much I want to believe that. But… if what you’re saying is true, and we’re… meant to be somewhere better than this, then why has there always been someone waiting to beat us down when we go for it?”
“I—” Adagio faltered, taking a desperate step towards Aria. “I don’t know,” she said, loathing the crack in her voice. “But I know we can do it.”
“You know, I…” Aria’s shoulders slumped, she breathed out a heavy sigh, and she turned away. “Star Swirl beat us. Those girls beat us. I don’t care how much higher we can go, I’m not putting myself through that again.”
Those words hurt like a hammer to Adagio’s gut. Her breaths turned ragged, her thoughts scattered and swirled and a dozen sentences tried to push their way out of her throat all at once. “Aria? What are you trying to—”
Aria took a step away from Adagio. “I don’t know that we can do it, and I’m not even sure if you do either. If you want to take that chance, go for it. But…” She looked back, over her shoulder. “Unless there’s something more you’re not telling me…”
Fumbling for the right words, Adagio lifted a hand to her locket, glancing down at it and silently pleading. Her shards wouldn’t have lied to her. They couldn’t have, they’d never have done it. They knew what was best for her. They always had. But when she tore her eyes away from her locket, looked up and saw the weary, forlorn look marring Aria’s face, her shards seemed less than infallible.
“I was afraid you’d do that,” Aria murmured. She turned away fully, showing her back to Adagio. “And I think you should go.”
Adagio froze where she stood. She must have been hearing things. That had to be it. Her shards would never have given her false hopes, Aria would never have turned her away like that. Why wasn’t anything going the way she wanted it to?
In the end, she turned and ran. A voice called her name behind her, but it wasn’t the one she wanted to hear, and it was little more than a forceful breeze by the time it reached her. Nighttime air nipped at her skin, heels clacked against concrete, and tears rolled down her cheeks.
Sonata peeked in through the still-open door to Aria’s room. She crept inside, eyes glued to the solitary figure on the balcony outside, still leaning against the rail.
Met with no greeting, she made her approach, pausing at the glass door to the balcony to listen attentively. She didn’t hear much apart from the wind, but then it was often difficult to tell when dealing with Aria.
It reminded her why she had to be there.
Thinking of being back home, all together again, made her heart ache. She remembered when not even an hour before she’d seen Adagio smile again and brighten the whole world with her joy.
And it was easy, so very easy, to imagine that she’d still get to see that every day if it weren’t for Aria.
But then she drew closer. Aria still didn’t make a sound, but a tiny drop of moisture glistened as it fell from her eye.
Sonata hung her head, resisting a heavy urge to sigh.
She questioned, as she inched closer, whether she was really doing herself any favors by staying. When she thought back to earlier that evening, she imagined going back to Adagio, leaving Aria behind.
Aria looked at her when she got close enough. Less of a look and more of a glance, with dampened eyes quickly turned away. Aria never did like letting other people see. That was just how she was.
Sonata actually did sigh that time, quietly enough to escape notice. Since Aria wasn’t looking at her, she clamped her eyes shut, told herself to smile, and stepped closer. She pressed herself against Aria’s side, found the closest hand and gave it a platitude of a squeeze.
“It’s okay,” she lied. She kept her voice sweet, not quite cheerful.
A moment passed, and fingers turned and twisted to interlace with hers. Aria peered at her again. “She wants us to follow her again.”
And I want you two to talk without one of you crying.
“I can’t do that. I’m done following.”
So walk next to her. Why do you both have to be so stubborn?
And more importantly…
Why does that mean I can’t have what I want?
Those thoughts weren’t what Aria wanted to hear, so Sonata let them go unvoiced. Instead, she nestled up against Aria, kept holding her hand, and kept lying, all with a smile on her face. “It’s okay. I understand.”
She got a stare in response, and her heart skipped a beat. For a moment, she thought the blandness of it all had given away her falsehood. She had never been a very good liar, not to them at least.
But, in time, the stare faded and mellowed, and the quiet “Thanks,” that followed told her that she was helping.
Sonata wondered if Adagio needed help too. Probably not. She was stronger than Aria in some ways.
But none of them liked being alone. Sonata wanted to be there for Adagio, but Aria wouldn’t want to be left alone either, and Sonata couldn’t be in two places at once.
By the side of Adagio’s bed, a vinyl disk spun sedately as a speaker blew out a steady stream of soothing notes. She knew the song by heart already—it had been written for her, after all, and since there were no words to usher in her disdain, she could admire the expertise of its composer.
For a little while, the respite was welcome, the sound holding the silence at bay.
Then it became the sound that vexed her. A particularly captivating diminuendo whisked her away to a time far removed from the present. She remembered the sound’s maker, a man who had looked at her with feverish admiration in his starry eyes, and spent night after night slaving away trying to emulate what he saw in her.
Adoration of that kind, so starkly distinct from her present isolation, made the memory a mocking one.
“Damn it.” Adagio pawed at the record and CD player until the sound ended, and then sat on the edge of her bed with her face in her palms.
She wished she’d never gone to that school. Weakness was infinitely preferable to powerlessness, empty praise far superior to obscurity.
She wanted to stop thinking like that. Where was a bottle when she needed one? Wine hadn’t quite been strong enough the last time, but maybe something else would work? If she had enough, wasn’t she supposed to reach something of a stupor? There must be a—
No. Stop it. I’m better than that.
Anything else.
Anything? She looked up slightly, peering through a curtain of dangling tresses.
A more recent memory led her over to the phone on a shelf, and bid her punch in a string of numbers she had been gifted. The movement was mechanical, almost autonomous up until she finally held a delicate finger over one last button, the one that would let the phone do what it was meant to do.
It was only then that she asked herself what in the world she expected to get out of it. Sunset had written her no songs, given her no gifts save for fleeting relief. The poor little girl had no conception of the sort of pain her actions had brought.
And what would Sunset do, if she knew what had transpired that day? Adagio could only imagine how much pity she’d be showered in.
Why, then, would she ever want to reach out?
I don’t want to be alone.
Friendship wasn’t meant for sirens, she reminded herself. Not with mortals.
But I want it. What’s a siren to do, if not break a rule?
She pondered for a moment what her gem would think, if it knew what she was about to do. It only took a moment for her to decide she didn’t care.
Consequences be damned.
She pressed the button, held the phone up to her ear, and waited.