Everything had turned to darkness. She couldn't remember what had happened. Where was she? Was she... dead? She tried to move but found that she could not, her limbs not responding as if they weren't there at all, yet she could feel a stinging pain that reminded her that, no, she was certainly alive.
A weak moan escaped her mouth, aching with pain as her body involuntarily twitched in pain. She was waking up, slowly. What little strength she had was returning to her. She tried to open her eyes but her eyes were too heavy. Gods, she felt all her exhaustion return to her now and... and the pain, too. Aurgh.
She tried to lift herself up, one claw at a time, but fell flat on the ground with a thud, hitting a surprisingly soft ground below. Finally she managed to rally what strength she had to at least get a glimpse of the world around her, and her eyes slowly opened. They revealed a soft, red carpet underneath her talons. It... seemed familiar, for some reason. She tried to turn her head but, no way, her head ached and she groaned in pain at just the attempt alone. Resting her head instead, the Hippogriff tried to focus her sight and looked ahead, but saw only blurred visions. A distinct, blurred construct or... creature of blue, another purple and then a final golden, no, yellow one? It... was hard to tell.
"...ell then...cess..."
She closed and opened her eyes to try and see clearer, but it just was not to be. Argh, and that pain in the back of her head was only worsening, she felt, nevermind the muffled voice speaking to her through what sounded like a mile long tunnel and with at least 10 echoes all at once.
"..et her up..." the voice boomed and echoed again.
She jolted as a set of hooves grabbed her buzzing head and quickly pulled it upwards, causing her world to spin for a second time from just that movement alone. She looked visibly dazed, her eyes wandering as she closed and opened them repeatedly in an attempt to regain her senses.
"...r princess..." the voice echoed for a third time. She kept her eyes shut for a bit, huffing as she tried her best to focus somehow and get herself back to working order, all whilst feeling somepony grasping her mane, which wasn't particularly comforting either.
"Isn't that right, princess?"
Skystar's eyes shot open, adrenaline beginning to pump through her fishy veins as she identified that voice. Adagio.
"Ah. I think you might finally have woken up?" Adagio said with a wide, vile grin.
Skystar shook her head, or tried to, but only managed to do it briefly before the pony behind her intensified their grasp on her mane and consequently her head, keeping it in place, eyes front. There, she took in what was once part of her home - the throne room, the center piece of the Royal Palace in Seaquestria. Except this was not the place she'd once known. Odd-coloured banners hung from the ceiling, the two outermost ones depicting some flag she had never seen before, whereas the 3 in the center hung from above the three thrones arranged for each siren. One teal banner, one purple one, and finally a yellow one, each with the signature markings of the siren in question.
"Sleeping on the job? I expected better," Aria said, grinning as much as Adagio did.
"Wakey, wakey, princess," Sonata called out with a mean smirk, "you'll miss the show!"
The trio seated before Skystar began to laugh and cackle which, for better or worse, shook Skystar awake, at least.
"Awww... poor thing, you," the lead siren faked, "all alone, are you? Where did all your friends go?"
"Where is that resistance of yours, princess?" Aria added on.
"Oh sorry! Guess we forgot they're all locked up. Sorry there!"
For a second time the three broke out into laughter, thoroughly enjoying their victory over what remained of the once proud and active princess.
"Where..." Skystar weakly coughed up.
"What was that?" Aria responded.
"Gotta speak up!" Sonata added.
"Where... are they..." the princess managed to get out quietly.
"Ah, your friends, was it?" Adagio retorted. "Why, they're safely in the dungeons, of course. Well, besides for two special guests, anyway."
Skystar didn't like the sudden, big grin on Adagio's face as she said that.
"I suppose there's no harm in a brief reunion, right girls?" The yellow siren looked both left and right, but only saw confident smirks, and continued by clapping her fins together to summon two additional guards into the room, which pushed before them each a prisoner. Skystar couldn't physically turn around to look, her head still locked in place by what she presumed to be a guard as well, but she heard as the other two prisoners were essentially hurled onto the floor violently. She heard painfully familiar voices both to her left and right as the prisoners groaned and moaned as she had. The cuffs that bound their hooves rattled as they were made to sit upright just the same way as Skystar.
"Posada..." the princess gave out, closing her eyes again. "Crack..."
"Argh... princess..." Crack Lightning returned quietly, recovering from the impact on the floor.
"They got you, too?" Posada voiced, somewhat louder and clearer than his counterpart on the left.
"If you will excuse us, I think we have a schedule to upkeep," the yellow siren interrupted, sitting somewhat casually in her pompous, golden throne.
"Gah... what did you do to the others!" Posada barked back.
"We already told your little royal here. They're waiting for you... in prison, that is," Aria replied.
"You'll be meeting them soon with a gift!" Sonata cheered.
"What are you talking about? We're not going anywhere unless you tell us if everypony is alright!" Crack demanded, and was quickly met with a flattening choir of laughter from his captors.
"Bahaha! Oh yes, I am sure you are quite the defiant one! Or, you are now, but in a minute or two I'm not so sure."
Crack gritted his teeth at Adagio's remark. "Never! I'll never be your puppet!"
"How did you... find us, even?" Skystar asked, silencing the other two captives with her question.
"It all depends on the methods and means, dear princess," Aria remarked with a grin, very much proud of what she personally believed to be primarily her personal victory over the resistance. "A helping hoof here, a little espionage there, and a general sowing of mistrust and deception wherever you do go. It wasn't all too hard once I had found a way to crack your shell."
"Once we found a way," Adagio corrected.
"Sorry, Adagio, but to my knowledge you told me the resistance wasn't an issue originally?"
The two elder sirens glared at one another and grumbled.
"Hmph." Seldom showing herself defeated willingly, the lead singer allowed her contender this small victory just this once, and turned her attention back towards the spoils of war lined up for her. "If I must be specific, Crack Lightning here is an excellent orator and pilot, and certainly is remarked to be very brave." Crack himself cringed a little at the praise from the siren. "Unfortunately you're a rather... hmm, I suppose Violet Facade's records were a little vulgar, so let me just say you were regarded as a rather oblivious, simple-minded individual. Easily distracted, easily fooled."
Skystar and Crack didn't even realise it, but Posada tried her best to get a glimpse of Crack at that time, but wasn't able. Still, she rolled her eyes, thinking back to when she had quite literally warned everypony about this guy and called him out for being an idiot.
"Not to mention your red friend there - literally, I suppose," Aria added and spoke, hinting to Posada who perked up as she was mentioned. "Scatterbrain and seemingly traumatized after capture by the Storm King. Though not as oblivious as Crack, she's so easily convinced of the 'good' in somepony else, believing in second chances."
Aria seemed to chuckle at the mention of Posada wanting to give ponies a second chance in life, as if it were a negative trait. The communist partisan bit her tongue and hissed.
"I mean, really, how could we not win this, you guys!" Sonata exclaimed. She chuckled to herself briefly and added "you almost made it to easy for us, in the end."
"Why you..." Crack grumbled, and felt a consequent pull at his mane from behind, as if to discipline him and get him back in line. "Argh!"
"I know this is a bad time, Skystar, but..." Posada spoke up, "I tried to warn you about Raft Wood. I told you that pony was a spy of theirs."
Surprisingly, the sirens laughed at that notion. Adagio held up a fin and signalled for the other two to simmer down, and the laughter died out with her command.
"Funnily enough, your friend Raft Wood isn't under our spell. Not yet, anyway."
"W-What? No way!" Posada hastily replied.
"I told you! I told you he was on our side! It's all your damn fault!" Crack hissed back.
"You had no damn proof! And who in tartarus was meant to know!?" Posada argued back vocally. The sirens leaned back and enjoyed the argument for the moment. They really didn't even have to cast a spell on these fools to feed on their negativity.
"Anypony with emotions, or at least a rational sense of compassion would have done as we did!"
"You were a blind fool and still are, Crack!"
"Oh, bite me you-"
"Please."
The two paused at Skystar's quiet vocalisation.
"Please. Stop." She sighed audibly. "Can't you see that this is exactly what they want? This is what they drove us to do. To become. We played right into their hooves by turning on one another. Does it even matter if Raft Wood was enthralled or not when we were giving the sirens more hate to feed off of than Raft could ever give them?"
"I..." Crack mumbled, wanting to let his head hang low in shame, but he squinted as he was reminded that his head was still kept in place forcibly. "Argh. I'm... so sorry, princess. And Posada."
"To think we're really sitting here and doing this crap in our last moments..." Posada contemplated out loud.
"Ah... crap..." Crack sighed. "Posada, look, I... sorry."
"Yeah... me too."
"Oh, lovely, lovely," Adagio chimed in, sounding off a slow golf clap. "However, as cute as that is, I believe the cutesy friendship talk is over."
"So what? You're gonna turn us into your thralls now?" Crack asked.
"Why not do that right away?" Posada wondered also.
"Oh we will," the siren quickly confirmed. "Well, two of you, anyway."
"You caused us a lot of trouble. We wanted to do something special for the occasion." The purple siren grinned, and rested her head against a fin of hers as she continued watching.
"Sonata? Would you do us the honours?"
"Right away!" the teal siren beamed. She lifted herself from her glimmering seat and revealed, hidden from sight from where the three prisoners were sat, a regal, red pillow, upon which a black necklace laid. Alarmingly, it carried a red gem not at all dissimilar to the one seen on the sirens.
"Is that..."
"No way..."
Crack and Posada were equally bewildered, frightened and angry as the youngest of the three sirens swam up only to stop in front of them.
"Yes way!" Sonata answered as she tilted the pillow slightly for them all to take in the item. "We figured enthralling all of you would be kind of... boring. So! Adagio had this awesome idea, which is to make you," Skystar froze when the siren pointed straight at her, "become one of the first beacons!"
"Beacons...?" Posada wondered.
"The gem enthralls its wearer under our spell as if we had sung to them directly. Additionally, if that wearer sings, they will likewise enthrall all who hear them, just like we do," Aria explained.
"We decided on 'beacons of music' for their wearers, as they will be spreading our wonderful song far and wide to ensure all hear it. Do you like it? I hope you do."
"You didn't give us much of a choice in naming, did you, Adagio..." Aria quietly complained.
"This isn't right!" Posada shouted. "You can't do this!"
"Oh, can't we?" Adagio retaliated.
"Who's gonna stop us? You?" Sonata added on, and the three of them laughed once again. Posada tried to lunge at the cursed siren standing only a few meters from her, but was still tightly held. No chance.
Skystar looked Sonata in the eyes, looking almost like a pleading dog. "Is all this really necessary...?"
"Sure it is. Adagio came up with it! Plus, I get to use my new invention here, isn't that awesome?" Sonata responded with a more light-hearted response than Skystar had expected.
"I don't know what we ever did to harm or wrong you but... I'm sorry. We don't mean you any spite or harm, we... we could be friends, if we really tried."
"Quit your begging, princess." The teal siren swam aside to clear a line of sight between Skystar and Adagio across the room, once again. "Do you have any idea what we have gone through? What we had to endure to stand here now?"
"Yeah? Well what about us? We had to go through tartarus and back once you three popped up!" Crack argued.
"Silence! I will not be compared to some mortal welps, and you're causing me to grow tired of your continued stupidity. Your comedic value has worn off."
Crack growled, but he, and Posada knew that this was hardly something they could escape from now. Skystar remained eerily quiet during all of this, her eyes locked onto the gem that was proclaimed to be her fate. She didn't have much to say back to these creatures now. She had tried, one last time, to reason and argue the pony way, but that was all pointless.
"Adagio is right. We should get this show on the road," Aria spoke, and waved through the water with one of her fins.
Skystar felt herself be pulled back even more just a tad, and she clenched her eyes shut expecting the worst. What came next was... not what she had expected.
Ear plugs. She tried to raise her hooves to remove them but could hardly move them; chained together with thick, heavy cuffs of metal. Her heart began to beat faster as the world around her was silenced. She had used and issued ear plugs aplenty in the resistance to help and protect agents if need be, but... this was perhaps the one time she didn't want to wear them.
She watched Adagio and Aria rise from ther seats, both with a big grin on their faces, until they arrived side-by-side to Sonata, only about two meters from where she and the other two were seated. Her pupils shot as far right as they could, catching just a glimpse of Posada as he kept trying to lean forward whilst shouting vigorously.
She looked forward again, and took in as the lips of the sirens all moved in unison. Adagio again took center stage, as with most of the trio's performances in history, while the other two sang in support of their de-facto leader. Skystar shook her head, finding the eerie silence of this tribunal almost more horrifying than if she were actually exposed to the siren song. She no longer wanted to take her eyes off the monsters before her, knowing that the friends flanking her would not be the ponies she had known seconds prior.
Seconds felt like minutes that moment. For how long the sirens must have sung, she could not tell. To her it seemed as if everything was on repeat, like a dreadful spiral that she was locked into. Some sort of reprisal for all her screw ups in the past, for pretending to be somepony she was not. She was never a real leader like her mother was. She was not regal and royal. She was, for all intents and purposes, a rowdy, ordinary young lady that had grown up in luxury and away from others as a result of the Storm King's invasion and the royal family's seclusion in the royal palace under the waves. Entire years of childhood bled away then... on her own. And when that time was over, she emerged a new pony. Outgoing, friendly, always looking to make new discoveries and friends.
But that was not what her mother wanted. It wasn't what the country needed, she had told her. A country needed a strong, resolute and knowledgeable ruler. She had to be strong but fair, wield a sharp stick with one hoof and flowers in the other. That was the pony her mother had envisioned for Hippogriffia's next generation to be led by. But that was not who Skystar was. It never was, and now, it never would be.
The singing stopped, apparently, as the sirens looked to be once again chuckling to one another. The purple one rolled her eyes at one point, and jabbed a fin into the teal one's side, causing her to jolt sideways. After some visible grumbling and gritting of teeth, the mood was apparently defused once more, as the three looked to Skystar specifically. Only now did she finally see Posada and Crack again, but she could immediately tell their movements were slow and mechanical, as if remote-controlled in some sense.
The teal one, picked out to be unusually cheerful among the group, shot an evil grin at the princess when noticing that she was being watched. The siren held the pillow containing the necklace out, and Posada picked it up and lifted it with one hoof.
The sirens retreated to resume their places on their thrones to watch the final act of this play in full comfort, as both Crack Lightning and Posada stared at Skystar. She felt an unbelievable dread consume her. Their pupils had shrunk considerably, and they remained unflinching. Moments ago they had been chained and held against their will, and now they stood in front of her, theoretically with an open path to the sirens, and followed their every whim.
The two seaponies approached her then, probably after a signal from Adagio if she had come to expect anything from the sirens by now. She shivered, her mouth hanging open as the two shared the necklace, Posada holding one end and Crack the other. Its gem shone in the light of the throne room as it was pulled ever closer to Skystar's chest.
Skystar closed her eyes. She couldn't bear watching what was paramount to her death as an individual. She cringed, shook and began to sweat, but no amount of sobbing or adrenaline would save her now. She reminded herself one last time of Silverstream. Skystar had no idea what day it was now, and it didn't matter, but she hoped by all that was holy and good that her friend had gotten out alive and well. Perhaps she was even in Equestria, already. Maybe, just maybe, help would arrive from their friends overseas. Maybe. She twitched, realising that if the Elements arrived now, she would be made to fight them. She would probably fight Silverstream, too. Or enthrall her, if that purple siren was honest about all this.
She clenched her eyes shut as hard as she could and focused for what was probably the last time as she felt the leathery collar of the necklace being placed around her neck. She felt a strange, pulsating sensation from her chest. It felt like a second heartbeat almost. It beat faster and louder with every passing moment, seemingly looking to silence her heart and mind both.
She concentrated as her body began to disobey her commands. She lost the feeling in her hooves and rear, and whatever it was was quickly moving up her body from there. She wasn't sure anymore if she was crying, shouting or calm as ever, as she completely lost her sense of self, her heart completely inaudible over the hypnotizing beat of the aura from her chest.
She focused back one final time. She remembered the hug she had shared with Silverstream before she went off to Equestria, and she remembered the last time her mother had lectured her, only to hug her for half a minute after, unwilling to let go. Only now did Skystar realise that she hadn't failed her mother at all. She was always going to be her dearest daughter. She embraced that final moment, that last hug they shared, as a tidal wave rushed through her head and flushed away what was.
The trio of sirens chuckled, while the two former friends of the princess stood before her mindlessly, waiting for orders. The gem on the Hippogriff's neck pulsated, and finally glowed brightly in its natural colour as the sirens' own would. The eyes of the princess shot open and flashed an unnatural, magical aura of red before showing a picture similar to that of the other two seaponies before her.