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// Sonata's Plan (Rewritten) 
// Story: SAPR 
// by Scipio Smith 
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Sonata’s Plan


“How dare she?” Tempest snarled as she stalked up and down, her feet hammering the wooden floor beneath her as she pounded this way, then turned to head the other way. 
Her hands were clenched into fists as she imagined bringing them down upon Bon Bon’s face. 
“How dare she?” Tempest repeated.
“Quiet!” hissed Lightning Dust. “If you keep shouting like this, then Cinder will hear it, door or no, and if not her, then Emerald. I’m sure that she listens at doorways.”
“That’s not very ladylike,” Sonata said. “Or is it?”
While Tempest paced up and down in the sitting room of the old manor house, and Lightning Dust stood by the doorway, Sonata was sprawled out on one of the decaying sofas, seeming to not care that it was falling apart, that the cushions were wearing away, and that the wood probably had woodworm. Upon a table, in equally poor condition, she had an array of snacks laid out: crisps in open, half-eaten packets, candy — there were wrappers on the floor — and a big bowl of red fruit punch, that had at some point overflowed out of the bowl to stain the table underneath a dark red, like blood. 
There was dust on the back of Sonata’s jacket. She didn’t seem to notice. 
Tempest ignored her pronouncement, which might be true but which wouldn’t stop Emerald from sneaking around if she thought she had to. There was a reason Tempest had tried to send her to her death: she was too firmly in Cinder’s faction, and that made her a danger to the rest of them. She might discover things, hear or see things that Cinder was too proud, too high and mighty, to notice. 
“And what if she does overhear?” Tempest asked, rounding to face Lightning. “What if she does discover that Amber is awake and runs to tell Cinder about it, what then?”
“Then Cinder will want to know why you didn’t tell her about it,” Lightning said.
“And I will say that I was going to, or that I meant to make her a gift of Amber’s life,” Tempest said. “And she will believe it. Or she won’t. But what is she going to do either way? Is she going to complain about me to Salem, after all the scorn that she has poured on me for doing the same? No. No, she will spit, and hiss, and make some remarks which are intended to cut me, and then she will focus on Amber.”
“Then why don’t you tell her?” asked Sonata.
Tempest swung around to stare at her. 
“I’m only asking,” Sonata said plaintively. “Would anyone like some fruit punch?”
“Thanks, I’ll pass,” Tempest muttered. 
And yet … maybe Sonata had a point? Maybe she should tell Cinder what she had seen. After all, it would be difficult for her to get close to Amber, with or — as it seemed — without the cooperation of Bon Bon, and if she did get close to Amber, then she would be exposed immediately, which would make her worse off than Cinder, a fugitive but without any magic to show for it. But if she told Cinder, then … then what? What was Cinder going to do about it, how was she going to get to Beacon?
What would she do, except perhaps call up Sunset Shimmer to ask her what was going on and thus expose that Salem still had eyes at Beacon? Ozpin would whisk Amber away into hiding. It was a minor miracle that he had not done so already; perhaps he needed time to make the arrangements, but even so, to keep his treasure exposed, to let her go into Vale? Reckless, utterly reckless. 
But anyway, telling Cinder was not something that would help her at all.
“Cinder,” Tempest said, “is just not reliable at the moment. We’re going to have to take care of this ourselves.”
“If we can,” Lightning said.
“Yes,” Tempest said. “If we can.”
“Can’t your Doctor Watts get Bon Bon’s message out of the CCT so that she can’t spill on you?” asking Lightning.
Tempest shook her head. “You can’t hack into the CCT servers remotely, you need a hard connection in order to get in; that’s why Cinder had to physically break into the tower.”
“Right, of course.”
“And even if we could delete the message, then so what?” Tempest asked. “She could just rat me out with her own voice.”
“Kill her too,” Lightning said.
“And get close to Amber how?” Tempest demanded. “Bon Bon would be my best chance if only she would … how dare she defy me, defy Doctor Watts, defy everything that we’re working towards? How dare she put her conscience, her desires, her friends above our orders?”
“You know, you’re sounding a lot like Cinder right now,” Sonata observed.
“I am nothing like Cinder!” Tempest snapped. “I am … I am … I’ve got good reasons to be upset.”
“Okay, okay,” Sonata said, holding up her hands pacifically. She sat up. “But, you know, I’m sure that I’m just being completely stupid here, but … why do you need to kill this Amber girl at all?”
So that I can kill Cinder too and take her magic. “Because she is the Fall Maiden,” Tempest explained, “and only a Fall Maiden can open the vault to recover the Relic of Choice—”
“Which is what you’re here for, right?” Sonata asked.
Tempest nodded. “That’s correct, yes.”
“Sooooo,” Sonata said, drawing out the word, “Amber can open the vault to get this relic you want so badly, but you want to kill her so that Cinder can get the magic and she can open up the vault and get the relic?”
“Yes, so that we can give it to our mistress.”
“Right, right,” Sonata agreed. 
She began to giggle, her body shaking a little back and forth; she covered her mouth with one hand as the light, tinkling sound got away from her to fill up the whole room. 
“What’s so funny?” Tempest demanded.
“Oh, nothing, nothing at all,” Sonata said quickly, the laughter dying. “Like I said, I’m just being stupid, I’m sure. But … what if you didn’t kill her?”
“What do you mean?” asked Lightning.
“I mean … what if you didn’t kill her?” Sonata repeated. “I mean … Amber can open the vault, right? Amber can give you the relic?”
“'Can'? Yes,” Tempest said. “Amber can, any Fall Maiden can, or could, but why would she? She’s Ozpin’s Fall Maiden; why would she betray him, and everyone else, and give the Relic of Choice up to Salem?”
“To live?” Sonata asked. “I mean, if she doesn’t, then you’re gonna try and kill her, right? And Cinder will, and everyone else will, because Salem isn’t gonna stop until she gets that relic, yeah? And that means she needs to get that magic, right? But if Salem had the relic, then she doesn’t need the magic no more, and so … well, I don’t know, but there wouldn’t be any need to hunt Amber down, would there? She might not want a spot on the team, but she could go where wants to go, and there wouldn’t be anything to worry about.” 
Sonata rose to her feet, humming softly to herself. The gem around her neck glistened as she advanced on Tempest. “I’m sure that’s what she wants. I’m sure that’s all she wants.”
Tempest frowned. There was a certain underlying logic to it. In fact, from a certain angle, it was actually quite brilliant, in a way that seemed more and more compelling the more Tempest thought about it. Even with the powers of the Fall Maiden, they were suffering from the disadvantage of not knowing whereabout the Relic of Choice was; it was something that Lionheart couldn’t tell them; it was apparently an incredibly well-kept secret, known only to the Fall Maiden and to Ozpin.
They had intended to get the information out of Ozpin, if at all possible, but that was likely to be difficult, and if they couldn’t manage it, then they would be stuck searching the Beacon grounds and hoping that they weren’t evicted by a counterattack before they found the Relic. But Amber knew where the Relic was, she was one of the two people who did, so if she was to agree to hand it over, well … she could. Who was to stop her? 
There might not even be any need for a grimm attack after all. It was possible that Amber could give up the Relic without a shot fired or a sword drawn, without anyone ever realising what she’d done. 
Not likely, unless Ozpin was completely blind, but still…
Of course, this all hinged on Amber being willing to cooperate. She might not. She might be a stalwart hero — Ozpin had chosen her as a Maiden after all — she might be the sort of person who would rather die than betray his trust, in which case, even approaching her was likely to get Tempest exposed. 
I could get Bon Bon to do it, if she was willing.
Not that it will matter too much who approaches her if Amber’s reaction is to refuse.
Again, there, Sonata had a point. She put it so simply, so compellingly, that Tempest wondered why she hadn’t seen it herself. The Relic of Choice would buy not only Amber’s life, but her freedom, too. Who wouldn’t take such an offer? 
A hero wouldn’t. Was Amber a hero, as well as a Maiden? Was there any way to find out, without asking her about this?
Cinder was able to ambush her in the first place because she was running away, just like Spring. That doesn’t suggest someone who is willing to risk everything for some higher cause. 
“Besides,” Sonata added, smiling up at Tempest as she put one hand upon her shoulder, “what have you got to lose?”
Another good point. It wasn’t as though they could get to Amber in any case, not with hostile intent. Tempest might be disdainful of Ozpin’s decision to let her wander around, but she was never defenceless. The chances of defeating her guard and breaking Amber’s own aura and killing her before she got help or escaped … very unlikely, to say the least. 
There would still be the matter of getting a private word with her where all this could be broached without her protectors, Ozpin’s servants, hearing all about it, but that posed a less formidable challenge, especially if Bon Bon helped, since it seemed that she was trusted around Amber, at least a bit. 
“What about Cinder?” asked Lightning.
Sonata cocked her head to one side. “I mean … what about Cinder?”
What about Cinder? What about Cinder indeed? It wasn’t as though she’d been a lot of use recently. She had jeopardised herself, her magic, put the whole mission at risk through her desire to fight Pyrrha Nikos, and then she had wandered off again, and the fact that she’d gotten away with it only made things worse as far as Tempest was concerned. 
She was not reliable. Her obsession with Sunset and Pyrrha … she was too wild, too untamed; she was not committed. 
Salem deserved someone better, and for the Mistral and Atlas operations, she would have it: someone committed, someone loyal to her, someone who would act with obedience and diligence in all things, someone who wouldn’t be dragged down with unwise attachments. Someone worthy to be the Spring Maiden, or the Winter. 
Let Cinder be cast aside. It wasn’t as though she’d have any right to complain about it, after her combination of disloyalty and incompetence. 
“This…” she murmured. “Sonata, this is brilliant.”
“Really? Oh, come on!” Sonata cried, waving the praise away. “I mean it’s kind of obvious when you think about it, right?”
“Obvious to you, maybe, not to us,” Lightning replied.
“Well, I mean, if you really want to give me the credit in front of Salem, I guess I can’t say no,” Sonata replied, shrugging her shoulders. “I don’t know, it might even be nice.”
“Yes,” Tempest murmured. “Yes, that’s what we’ll do.” 
Salem would need to be told about this, a change to the plan this drastic, the sidelining of Cinder and Amber’s … Amber’s grace, for want of a better word, would need to be approved by Salem herself; only she could call off the beowolves and give Amber the safety that Sonata seemed to think she would choose. Yes, Salem would need to be told about this, and when she was told … why shouldn’t Sonata get the credit she deserved? Why shouldn’t she get to stand before Salem and say ‘yes, this was me, I thought of this’?
Anything else would be just … it wouldn’t be right, would it?
“We will take this to Salem, right away,” Tempest declared. “She needs to know about this as quickly as possible.”
“Yes!” Sonata hissed, punching the air with both hands even as she kept her voice down. “You guys are so awesome. So when are we going to do it, are we going to do it now?”
They did, indeed, go now; the three of them crept through the mouldering and decaying corridors of Portchester Manor, avoiding the areas where Cinder held court but keeping an eye out for Emerald wherever she might be sneaking about. There was no sign of her; she might be acting all lah-de-dah with Cinder in the library again. But they kept a lookout, nevertheless. 
When Salem was not using it to communicate with her servants in Vale, the Seer rested in the ballroom. It sat upon the floor, looking less like a grimm and more like a crystal ball, albeit a very dark and dirty one, or perhaps one of those toys that you shook to get your fortune told.
Except that Salem wouldn’t tell them to ask again later. 
The Seer sat upon the dirty floor, the floor that was not wood as it was in so many other parts of the house but tiles, cracked and filthy. All the Seer’s tentacles had been drawn up into itself and were invisible. The fangs around the bottom were still visible, but they looked less like teeth and more like a decorative base or stand for a curio or a paperweight. 
The Seer was completely black, a deep and inky black that their eyes could not penetrate. 
It was almost completely silent, but as they approached, Tempest thought that she could hear a soft snuffling sound coming out of it, like snoring. 
Lightning shut the ballroom doors behind them as softly as she could. 
“Heeeeey, Salem!” Sonata cried, raising her arms up into the air. 
“Shhhh,” Tempest hissed.
“What, you wanna whisper to the boss lady?” Sonata asked. “She’ll think we’re up to something. Aria’s always up to something when she whispers. Unfortunately for her, Adagio has very good ears.” She sniggered. “And besides, we needed to wake up that thing, right? What would have been the point of us standing here whispering while it just kept on lazing away?”
She had a good point, at least; her shout did appear to have woken the Seer up. Gradually, slowly at first, it rose into the air, and as it elevated, it began to glow, the deep blackness within illuminated by a golden light which didn’t exactly reveal anything, but certainly suggested that there was something there to be revealed. The Seer rose up, its tentacles descending downwards as it rose. It rose until it was as high as Tempest was tall, and then it rose a little higher still, high enough that its tentacles didn’t touch the ground as they fell down towards it, their sharp bony points separated by empty space from the faded tiles. 
And then, lit up by the golden light within the darkness, the face of Salem appeared, looking down upon them. 
“Mistress,” Tempest murmured, as she and Lightning Dust knelt before her. Sonata remained standing. 
“Sonata,” she said, her voice disinterested, touched with a little disappointment, “I wasn’t expecting that you would have anything to say to me.”
“I get that a lot,” Sonata said, clasping her hands together behind her back. 
Salem glanced at Tempest. “Tempest. Where is Cinder? Or is it of Cinder that you wish to speak.”
“I’m going to tell you how you won’t need Cinder by the time we’re done,” Sonata said. “Does that count?”
Salem sighed. “I have no time to waste on distractions; you had best make this brief.”
“Amber is awake,” Tempest said.
Salem’s expression did not alter. “You know this?”
“I have seen her,” Tempest said. “With my own eyes.”
The news still made no dent upon Salem’s expression. “How?” she demanded.
“I don’t know, Mistress,” Tempest admitted, “but it is definitely her. She is at Beacon as we speak, protected by Ozpin’s agents amongst the students.”
“And she’s going to give us the Relic of Choice!” Sonata cried. “Oh, sorry, were we supposed to be saving that for later?”
Salem’s eyebrows rose a barely perceptible amount. There was still a lack of expression in that pale, corpselike face. “You have a plan, I assume?”
“Sonata has a plan, Mistress,” Tempest said.
“Sonata?” Salem repeated. “You have a plan?”
“I get that a lot, too,” Sonata replied. “How are my sisters?”
“Well enough,” Salem answered. “As well as they have been.”
“Can I see them?”
“If you want them to continue being well,” Salem said, “you will explain your plan.”
“Okay, okay, I was only asking,” Sonata said. “As for my plan, well, it’s pretty simple really. Amber is going to give you the relic, because in return, you aren’t going to try and kill her anymore. I mean, nobody wants to die, right, so who wouldn’t give up a relic in exchange for their survival? And you don’t need her magic once you’ve got the relic, so why would you come after her?”
“Why indeed?” Salem murmured. “But what makes you think that one of Ozpin’s Maidens will so easily betray him?”
“This Ozpin guy didn’t stop Cinder from messing her up, did he?” Sonata asked. “So, if it was me, I’d ask myself who could protect me better: the guy who didn’t protect me the first time, or the one who could keep me safe just by not trying to kill me anymore? But that’s just me; what do I know, right?”
“More than you let on, it seems,” Salem replied. “And what of Cinder? She will not take this well.”
“Nor is she likely to obey your commands, on past experience,” Tempest replied. “It … seems to me, Mistress, that just as Amber has a choice between the man who failed to protect her and the one who can shield her through inaction, you have a choice between Amber, who has every reason to cooperate and none at all to betray you, and Cinder, whose incompetence and disobedience have made this task so much harder than it needed to be.”
Salem was silent for a moment. She said, “I am a good mistress. I was old when this Remnant of a world was young, and I recall the great princes and warlords of the fallen past, the rings they gave and the tales that were told of them. I am a good mistress, and I reward my faithful servants. Carry out your plan, approach Amber, and tell her that if she delivers the Crown of Choice to me, then she will be safe from me and mine forevermore. No grimm will touch her, and no servant of mine will assail her, and anyone she chooses, anyone at all, even Ozpin himself, will likewise be safe from my malice, provided only that they do not attack my servants about their business or seek in any way to hinder my designs in any fashion. If this is done, if the Relic is mine, then you, Tempest, and you too, Lightning Dust, you shall have places of honour at my table, and when all is done and the world is made anew, you will be queens in the new world that I will fashion for your pleasure. 
“And as for you, Sonata Dusk, you who have devised this plan and have done so much to carry our ambitions in Vale forward, to you, I will release your sisters and give you all the Kingdom of Vale to be your plaything.”
Sonata’s eyes widened. “A … a whole kingdom? For realsies?”
Salem smirked. “For a relic, I would give as much without hesitation. Tell Cinder nothing of this; the threat of her presence will be useful in stoking Amber’s fear; when the Relic has been recovered, then will be the moment to dispose of her, but until then, tell her nothing of this. Keep it secret and go to Amber and see if her fear is stronger than her sense of duty. 
“Bring me a Crown, and I swear to you that I will make all your dreams come true.”