//------------------------------// // Chapter XI [Draft] // Story: Adagio // by NaiadSagaIotaOar //------------------------------// “Ah. It’s you again,” Adagio said with an affected dispassionate air. “Did you miss me?”   “A little.” The mare shook a bit of snow off her shoulder and popped off her helmet. Her fiery mane tumbled down from her scalp. “Just between the two of us, I’d rather look at you than any of these other soldiers.”   “You’ve got good taste, then.” Every word Adagio spoke came easily, and she heard her own voice being effortlessly lilting and sultry. “But if you really wanted to sweep me off my hooves, you should’ve brought wine.”   “Well, after all this is over—” the mare stepped closer, chuckling lightly “—meet me in Canterlot and we’ll open a bottle together.”   “Why wait? Nobody’s watching.” Adagio pointedly eyed the looming tower of crystal that was Sombra’s palace. “You’ve already met me, and that’s more than most ponies manage, but then you went and spoke with me, and…” She giggled softly, turning to the mare with half-lidded eyes. “How were you planning on beating that, I wonder?”   Touches of rosy red came to the mare’s cheeks, and her eyes dipped lower and wandered. “Well…” She let out a chuckle that didn’t quite come naturally, narrowing her gaze and tightening her face. “I might have an idea, actually. I’m going to tear that thing off you.”   Adagio feigned a gasp. “Right here, in front of everyone?” She giggled softly. “I never figured you were one of those ponies.”   “I’m not.” The mare came closer, face grim and taut. She breathed deeply, as if to steel herself. “But I can make an exception for you.”   Tempting though it was to keep flirting, instincts gave Adagio pause. She saw the mare not quite meeting her eyes, but looking just slightly to the left, teeth slightly bared. And… were those teeth sharper than she remembered?   Wings flared and flapped, hindlegs compressed and sprang. A pegasus-shaped mass of lean muscle leapt at her. Forelegs struck her shoulders, a wing swept her hindleg out from under her. She hit the ground on her side, and both her front hooves went straight for her ruby, criss-crossing in front of it. A growl escaped her lips, bubbling anger flaring up in her, turned more towards herself than anything else. She should never have trusted a pony, never should’ve—   Teeth tugged at her ear. They touched the pearl, and in an instant, Adagio’s world was nothing but scorching heat. She couldn’t hear her own shriek, but she felt it, felt barely-tamed magic rushing out of her throat, maybe against her will or maybe with it. Celestia’s flames had been kinder to her.   It only lasted a moment. Somehow she found the nerve to make her limbs obey her. She panted, hooves shaking—a song coiled around her protectively, and she could feel her own pain making it writhe and crackle and distort. The mare was on the ground in front of her, sprawled out, shaking her head, trying to right herself.   She—she tried to—   Adagio lifted a hoof to her ear. It came back marred by blotches of sticky red, and her heart skipped a beat. She whipped her head over to the mare, saw her spit a chunk of stained, twisted metal out onto the snow. A pearl rolled onto the ground, coming to a rest on top of the snow.   Nothing else existed. The whole world went silent and still, for it didn’t matter. Adagio saw nothing but the pearl. Pain made it difficult to summon her song, so she struck at it with a hoof. All the strength she could manage, spurred by desperation, down, straight down at the pearl, but still it didn’t break. Clenching her teeth, shaking her head, she fought through the pain, tried to grab hold of the song in her head.   Shadow swallowed her. A maw of rushing, icy-cold darkness swooped down from the sky, and only then did she realize her mistake. Her song came to her aid, but it came too slowly; an aura of crackling, sickly green gripped the pearl, set it back into the metal. Her mind tried to think a dozen different things all at once. A lash of sound whipped out, one last, desperate strike at the pearl.   So close. So very, very close. She saw a crack all but split the pearl down the middle, and knew in an instant that she could do no more. A spike of metal pierced her skin, this time in her right ear, and she shrieked again, but now it was just a wail; magic gathered in her mouth, pleading for release, weeping for her, crying out—she couldn’t make even a spark of it answer her plea.   She looked up, saw Sombra towering over her, indomitable as a mountain, contemptuous glare trained on her, stabbing into her. She cursed herself, damned herself, hissed a stream of vicious curses, looked at Sombra and wished, above all else, that hatred alone could stop a stallion’s heart.   Burning light screamed in from the side, breaking against a suddenly standing wall of black crystal. Sombra jerked back, horn ignited, eerie smoke trailing from both eyes. He looked to one side, then the other, then back to Adagio. Twisting shadows unfurled from him, reaching out and connecting to Adagio.   He seized her, lips curling into a snarl, and she could smell spite and malice gathering on his tongue. But he never spoke. White flames carved through his wall, greedily reaching and clawing at his face, searing his cheek and ear. It arrived nearly too late, finding flesh only for an instant before there was naught but shadow, rising out of the ground, enveloping Adagio, dragging her down and down and down until she flew up and hit the top of a crystal wall hard.   She shook her head, found her hooves and tried to stand. The pearl by her ear flared and crackled. Pain wracked her, throwing her to the ground. Steel prodded her in the ribs, flipping her over onto her back. She looked up, paling when she saw Sombra still towering over her, pinning her down with a hoof pressed to her belly, seemingly unaffected by the gruesome burn Celestia’s flames had painted on his face. “You are fortunate I still have need of you.”   Adagio bared her teeth, managing a low hiss before another whipcrack of stinging pain made her clamp her muzzle shut.   Sombra glared down at her, then twisted his neck and surveyed the battlefield below. His soldiers were rigid without him to direct them, Adagio knew, but if there was a care in the world that crossed him, it never made it onto his face. When he looked back down at her, pointedly eying the pearl in her ear, and grimaced, she felt a tremor of spiteful delight.   “You are running out of time,” she spat, pushing through the pain he inflicted her with to cackle. The power inside of her rose up, straining to make it out through her tongue, to stop Sombra’s black, twisted heart.   “Then I will make more,” Sombra growled. He cast his gaze towards the beacon of fire shining down below, signaling another push. Already Adagio could feel his faceless legions faltering, and if he continued to flee, she hoped they would crumble.   But still Sombra did not care. “Let Celestia burn them all to a crisp, if she pleases.” Shadows crawled out of the ground, wrapping around Adagio’s hooves. “There are mightier weapons than armies.”   They plunged downwards, rushing towards the palace.     “You are not supposed to be here.”   That stern, icy voice nearly made Adagio’s heart stop still. Behind her, metal rang against crystal, four hooves stomping along with a stately cadence. She didn’t dare look, not at first, but then she could make out other, smaller hoofsteps mixed in with Sombra’s, and she whirled around.   She’d seen Sombra as a pony before, she thought, but so long ago that she could hardly manage to remember. In the shadows of the laboratory, his equine form just made him seem more alien; when first she saw him, she thought he stood no taller than her chest, but as he drew nearer he seemed to swell until their eyes were on level ground. Behind him, though, was another pony, diminutive next to Sombra, struggling to keep pace on her trembling hooves. She was a wretched sight, with her mane matted by sweat and, at least on her left side—her left ear was a gruesome ruin—blood, but a winking pearl set in her right ear left little doubts as to her identity. It wasn’t until both ponies drew closer that Adagio saw that a long, jagged crack ran along the pearl’s surface, and when Sombra’s face was no longer curtained by darkness she could see that one half of it was marred by a large blotch of singed fur and charred flesh.   In that moment, as Sombra drew closer by the second, Adagio wasn’t sure what to expect. There’d been less anger than she might have expected in Sombra’s declaration, and if he was at all bothered that he’d found her in the lab, he kept it well-hidden. Beside her, though, Sonata went pale and clung to her side.   “We’re leaving.” Sombra strode into the center of the room, not even breaking stride. His horn—which was itself an ugly sight, all curved and pointed, not at all like the stubby horns most unicorns bore—crackled with an aura of seething green magic, and the entire room lit up. Runes all around ignited, blazing with flames of either eerie green or malevolent violent or sometimes even ravenous black. Far in front of Sombra, a slab of crystal in the wall shimmered; its surface turned into something somewhere between a mirror and a window—Adagio could see her own face in it, but it was murky and intangible, and she saw a sight on the other side that could not have been in the same room.   “This is your last chance.” Sombra wheeled around to face Adagio, regarding her with an imperious stare. She felt small standing in front of him, and whatever response she might have had vanished from her head. After all that she’d seen, she couldn’t imagine a fate worse than serving him, not when the future that might await her was spelled out so plainly in the image of her double.   But what was she supposed to do? Sonata needed to sing, and Sombra would not give her that chance, not when he had his eye trained on them all so sharply. Even Aria was backing away from him, staring at him as if he were a lion ready to pounce on her.   Just then, a thunderous crash made the whole ground shake and shudder. One of the pillars in the room groaned and trembled, and that made Adagio look towards the wall. What’s going on out there? “Or it was.” Sombra never once took his eyes away from them. His horn crackled, and behind him, the Other Adagio gave a shriek and collapsed. Adagio tensed and moved, and saw Sonata do the same, but plumes of baleful fire leapt up from the ground in front of them and kept them apart.   “Where is the other girl?” Sombra’s horn crackled again. “Here with you, perhaps?” The shadows in the room came alive for a few seconds, scurrying about like serpentine rats, whispering indistinctly, hurrying back to Sombra after a moment. He paused, as if listening to them, and when he refocused, a hint of a glimmer came to his eye—in another pony, Adagio might have called it excitement, but in Sombra she couldn’t see it as anything but spite. “You didn’t bring her with you? No matter. We will take shelter without her, then.” Sombra wheeled and marched about the room. Shadows leapt and slithered, flitting about. They pulled grimoires off of shelves, snatched half-shaped masses of metal out of an inert furnace, dragged over bubbling concoctions. Sombra eyed everything, moving with something more akin to urgency than either haste or fervor, discarding much but setting a few things aside. Adagio didn’t think she wanted to know what else his vicious mind had given form to. “There are other worlds with shadows to hide in, but you four are trouble enough.” Sombra pointedly eyed Adagio, and she wondered for a terrifying second how much he knew. “When Celestia comes to tear down this palace, the girl will burn with the rest of them.”   A dozen different protests muddled into a strangled cry, and to Adagio’s amazement, it actually gave Sombra pause. He drew closer, and his lips made a crude approximation of a smile—between his burned face and already stony features, it was impossible to imagine him ever looking joyful. “Sirens care only for their own kind, I thought.” Sinking dread coiled up inside Adagio, and she wasn’t sure whether she had made a terrible mistake by reacting or if holding her tongue would have been crueler still.  With callous disdain, Sombra turned an uncaring back to her, and hurriedly moved to assemble the messy pile of devices he’d gathered, at least until the ground shook again and his face tightened. He snatched up one or two more things from a shelf, cast a frenetic gaze about, but only leered at another thing or two. “Fine, then. She will come too, if she’s so important.” Sombra made it sound as though saving Sunset’s life—from danger that might have been imagined, no less—was as cruel as leaving her to die. He didn’t even look nor did he move; beside him, shadows plunged into the ground. A moment later, they erupted again, carrying Sunset with them. Her face was pale, her eyes wide.   Adagio tried to move, but a lash of invisible force slapped her back, and she gasped for breath. She saw Sombra flick his horn again, and tongues of eerie flame leapt up from the ground around her.   “But first…” Sombra’s voice was sharp and cold. “…I can’t have you three going around doing something this foolish again. You had your chance to stand and walk, but do not think I will not make you crawl.”   His horn lit up again. Another cry rang out—Adagio hadn’t seen her double lifting her head, but there was no more motion to see afterwards. Then, from the far side of the room, a panel lifted off of the wall, and a box slid out. Sheathed in Sombra’s magic it floated over, eerily steady in the air. It opened once it drew closer, and Adagio saw one of the most horrific sights in Sombra’s empire replicated thrice before her.   “I did not want to do this, but you leave me little choice.” Sombra pointedly stared right at her. “You first. Unless one of your sistren—”   “No.” Adagio gasped, pushing Sonata back almost unconsciously even as she stepped forward. She felt the blood draining from her face, felt a crushing weight smothering what hope she’d cultivated. One look at that pearl that floated out of the box and shimmered as it approached her slowly, one glance at her double, and—   She heard a scream, but it wasn’t her own. Aria dove for the pearl, snatching it out of the air, shrieking in pain as soon as her fingers wrapped around it. She hit the ground a second later, but not before twisting and slamming that thing onto the first patch of exposed skin she could find on Sombra. His own magic did not make him scream or even cry out, but he grunted and whickered, and his knees buckled. The other pearls hanging in the air fell to the ground and scattered; Sombra’s magic flickered weakly about his horn, reflecting his own pain.   It wasn’t long that he stayed that way, but he kept his attention on Aria for a second or two, and that was enough, even when he ripped the pearl from his own leg. Sonata barely hesitated, clasping her fingers around the ruby hanging from her neck, hitting her notes flawlessly. A needle of sound leapt out from her mouth, flying across the room towards that sullen, despondent mare lying in the center.   Everything started to blur right about then. Sombra’s magic crackled and writhed, and a black crystal spike sprang into existence and stabbed through Aria’s thigh. Then shards of a shattered pearl sprayed out onto the ground, and a piercing, ear-splitting wail made the whole room shake. Anguished keening hurled Adagio to the floor, and she looked ahead to see a mass of churning water and limbs—struggling to find the right flesh to wear, wracked by pain, her double was a human one instant, then a pony the next and then a siren and sometimes all three at once; a dainty hoof stood next to a planted hand as a fluke-tipped tail thrashed, a rounded, furry muzzle gaped, full of fangs with a forked tongue lashing out. And through it all, that scream never ended. It was trying to be a song, trying to be beautiful, trying to be focused, but there was too much pain.   For the first time, Adagio saw Sombra retreat. A thrashing hoof scored the ground where he’d stood, and tendrils of barely-realized music batted the pearls away as he tried to ready them. Changing his tactics, his horn crackled, and crystal answered his call. He tore a wall away, shaped it into a sphere, wrapped it around the flailing sometimes-siren in front of him, and then cast it out. That globular prison hurtled out into open air, and Adagio saw it plummeting downwards, muting the shrieks and roars trying to break out of it.   Then Sombra faced Adagio and Sonata, and his face was a gruesome mask of anger. His eyes blazed with wrathful fire, and his body seemed to become one with the shadows, spreading and expanding until it filled the whole room. He was all around her then, all around her sisters, everywhere they could look or feel. Eyes stared at them from an inky, impenetrable darkness, freezing them, suffocating them, crushing them. Adagio shrieked, overwhelmed and powerless, and she saw long spears of crystal creeping close, jagged tips reaching, some splitting into two and snaking around her throat, others trained on her chest and seeking her heart—   Outside, clarity finally came to agony. A bundle of half-formed sounds joined together, uniting into a heavenly symphony that obliterated a crystal sphere and split the sky. Dust rained down on the city below, shards so small Adagio could barely see any of them, and a golden leviathan called a siren tasted freedom for the first time since losing it.   All around Adagio, the darkness retreated. Not banished by the siren’s song, but fleeing from it. Creeping tendrils of music smote the spears and turned them to dust, and a rushing flurry of shadows screamed towards the slab of crystal like a furious black gale. What would have happened had it reached it, Adagio would never know—a vengeful siren tore into the room like the walls were paper, crying out for Sombra’s blood. Chunks of crystal tumbled from the ceiling, some smashed to dust mid-air while others smashed into the ground.    Pulse racing, Adagio dropped down and took hold of Aria, dragging her away. Beside her, she saw Sunset and Sonata clamoring and rushing to her side, and when they all looked up, they saw a gleaming portal drawing shut, a scaly, fluked tail and a mass of shadows vanishing as they watched. Mere moments later, yellow light shone through the hole in the wall, and Adagio felt the air warming subtly, like she was basking in midday sunlight.     The last time Adagio had known the sweet taste of freedom, it had been fleeting, and swiftly became tainted by bitterness. Her shackle had resisted her drive to destroy it, and in doing so, had endured long enough to plague her once more. It became one of the two things she despised the most, out of all the sights she’d laid eyes on in her century-spanning life, and now it was dust.   And the other thing? He was right in front of her, and that was the very worst place he could have been. Pain, malice and grief… her song had been bloated on those corrupted delights. Ponies cried out for Sombra’s fall, and their anger had made her grow stronger. If her sisters had stood beside her, she doubted that the highest peaks of her life would have reached the zenith Sombra’s war had elevated her to.   Her song carved through his crystal like it was nothing but mist. He was wise to flee from her. She trailed behind him, through his portal, through a twisting tunnel of coursing currents. She could feel touches of Star Swirl’s old magic in the gateway, hints of artistry she could grudgingly respect mixed in with the filth she loathed.   Where the portal placed her, she didn’t know. A distant corner of the world, continents removed from Equestria, perhaps. Or another time—what better refuge could there be?   Her hooves touched down on dark rock, and the scent of ash was thick and fiery all around her. The air was hot, and searing heat lapped at her side; molten rock flowed through a deep trench in the ground beside her, crawling down from a mountain of rock and magma.   But she didn’t care about that. The portal closed behind her, and she didn’t care about that either. No.   Sombra was in front of her.   That was all that mattered.   She hurled himself at him. A piercing roar became a stillborn melody, lashing at Sombra like a whip, shattering the ground he once stood on. Sharpened, massive hooves cleaved the air, intent on rending flesh but only finding living shadow.   Wretched, cowardly, hideous, hollow king that he was, Sombra was still no weakling. She could feel pain wafting off of him—bitterness was the scent of most pain, but his was sweeter than sugar, more delightful than roses—pain from Celestia’s flames, pain from his own magic when his torture device had turned against him. His pain weakened him, slowed him, made Adagio grow stronger…   But it was far from easy. Striking him with hooves was like trying to catch a breeze; he was flesh one moment, tearing at her scaly flank with a jagged lance of crystal, then she turned and he was a pitch-black torrent.   A hammer of crystal descended on her. Her melody rushed out and tore it to pieces, but hellish flames came behind it. Nearly as hot as Celestia’s, they seared and blackened her scales, clouded her vision. She thrashed for an instant; crystal manacles leapt from the ground, encasing her fetlocks, seizing her, holding her where she stood.   Then Sombra was in front of her, wicked red eyes wreathed in fire, smoky shadows engulfing his form. She hissed at him, but he swatted the sound away and it exploded a boulder in the distance. He crafted a claw of crystal, and it plunged forward.   She didn’t think anything could hurt as much as what he did to her. First it was just aches of the flesh, crystal spikes gouging naked skin where her scales had peeled away from her chest.   As a human, it had been its own kind of agony to be separated from her ruby, to be stolen from its comforting embrace. Sombra had done that to her, snatched her from a world of music and warmth and into icy black shadows.   But when that claw sank into her chest, gripped her gem and tried to wrench it out of her, it felt like her mind itself was on fire.   She hadn’t thought there was any room left in her for fear, but Sombra found space. She remembered ruby dust sprinkling on the floor, remembered slender bodies falling to the ground, oblivious to her tears…   Never again.   In her mouth, there was a weapon forming. Forged out of anguish and heartbreaking loss, tempered by undying hatred, sharpened by fury. Thousands wanted Sombra dead. She sang a song, and into that song she poured it all in. Even as she felt her ruby straining and cracking, she gathered her magic.   When she let it loose, crystal around her fractured and shattered, flames extinguished, and shadows dissipated, shredded apart and sent screaming in all directions. Her bonds were broken, and Sombra’s defenses stripped. His magic pushed back on her, and for a moment she thought it might still win, but then her hoof slashed his chest and the strongest song she’d ever sung funneled straight into his mind. His knees buckled, the aura around his horn flickered and vanished, and his eyes went glassy and vacant.   He had lost. From behind a large, jagged hunk of fallen crystal, Adagio peeked out, trying her hardest to stay hidden—the feel of the magic radiating into the room left little doubt as to who was approaching, and the first glimpse of a pristine white hoof left none at all.  Where Sombra was possessed wholly of either insidious writhing or imperious posturing, Celestia was all flowing grace and supple vigor. Her limbs were long and slender but as far removed from ungainly as a dove’s wings were from a fish’s tail. Her face had an ageless quality to it. Not quite youthful, it was far too mature for that, but neither was it old. She landed effortlessly, floating down on pure white wings, stepping into the laboratory with her head held high and her eyes wandering vigilantly. If she saw Adagio and her companions where they lay, huddled out of sight, she did not look towards them.   Adagio gulped. Celestia had been young when last their paths crossed, and capable even then. A thousand years had only sharpened her edges, if the potency of her magic was anything to go by—even at a distance, she could feel the air warming, though it was not an uncomfortable sensation. If bad blood still lingered, whether with herself or her double, she could only hope that Celestia would not act rashly.   “I’m not going to hurt you, Adagio.” Celestia stood in the center of the room, not facing them, but with too much assuredness for her to be unaware of them. Her voice was calm and smooth, but it had a sternness to it that Adagio did not recall. “Come. Let us speak for a while.”   Keeping a hand on the wall to steady herself, Adagio rose to her feet. She cleared her throat; a small sound was more than enough to be heard, and Celestia faced her at once.   At first, Celestia’s composure was impeccable. Her demeanor was perfectly regal, dispassionate but not entirely aloof. After she’d looked at Adagio for a moment, it started to crack, ever so slight traces of surprise slipping out. A faint stream of magic danced around her long, blunt horn, and her enigmatic violet eyes blinked as she asked, “Who are you?”   Try as she might to ignore it, Adagio was acutely aware of her own lack of power just then, and it made her breath catch in her throat. “It’s complicated,” she managed eventually, unconsciously dropping into a slight curtsy that Celestia almost certainly wouldn’t recognize.   “I’m sure it is.” Celestia’s tone made it sound like she had very little patience, if any at all, for trickery. “Who else is with you?”   Adagio hoped her falter wasn’t too obvious, but since it was Celestia she was facing, she might as well have shrieked. Without a word, she moved to usher Sonata and Sunset out; Aria managed to stand, leaning on Sonata’s shoulder, but she looked weak and pale.   If Celestia had been surprised to see Adagio, she was veritably shocked to see Sunset. It took a moment for realization to bloom, but when it did, her eyes widened, faintly but noticeably. She passed through at least two or three emotions in those short few seconds they looked at each other, and Adagio could see Sunset similarly paling and shifting anxiously.   Celestia was the one to speak first, and when she did, her voice was tight with anger. “If this is a trick, then—”   The portal opened.   Magic leapt from Celestia’s horn, wrapping Adagio and her companions in a hardened globe, shunting them off into the corner, where they remained imprisoned. Celestia herself faced to portal, wings slowly flaring, horn igniting—Adagio felt the air warming again, this time invoking a parched desert instead of a comforting hearth.   Nothing happened at first. Adagio pressed herself up against the globe she was in, peering out, taking comfort in the knowledge that Celestia could no doubt have done much worse to them, if she’d wanted to.   Eventually, though, one long, sinuous limb crept out of the portal, then another. Two massive sharp hooves bit into the ground, anchoring before hauling out a siren’s titanic frame. Celestia seemed small just then, at risk of being swallowed whole in a single snap, but she held her ground staunchly.   And then there were two creatures in the room making Adagio feel powerless. A siren coiled on one side, bearing many wounds but wholly unbowed, and Celestia on the other. There was no sign of Sombra.   Other Adagio lowered her head, cracked her maw open. A long, forked tongue slithered out, slowly unfurling, dropping something hard and curved to clatter on the ground. Adagio had to press right up against the confines of the globe to see, squirming to find space as Sonata and Sunset tried to look as well. A blend of feelings were still rushing into her, but adulation won out for a little while when she saw Sombra’s horn, tipped with a jagged stump on one end, laying desolately on the crystalline floor.   Other Adagio’s serpent-like eyes, cold and piercing, flitted between Adagio and Celestia. It was difficult to read such an alien visage, even if Adagio knew it to be her own. “Let them go,” Other Adagio said. Her voice was smooth and silky, echoing faintly despite its softness, possessed of a gentle cadence entirely belying the speaker’s maw of fangs.   After a long pause, Celestia nodded, and the globe vanished. Adagio and her companions spilled out onto the floor, hurriedly huddling together where they had stood—none of them dared to speak, not when beings of such power were filling the air with such palpable tension.   Celestia was next to speak. Her voice rang out, easily filling the room. “How much blood is on your hooves, Adagio?”   Other Adagio turned her unflinching gaze to the hole in the wall she’d left earlier, beyond which the pale sun glistened off the frozen wastes, bringing light but little warmth. She lifted one of her hooves, and Adagio could see that the tips were dark red and still dripped. “Enough.” Other Adagio pointedly eyed the severed horn laying on the ground. “How much more could I spill before you slay me, and how much did I spare by tearing that from his brow?”   It took a long while, but gradually Celestia “sheathed” her magic. The heat she radiated receded and moderated, until again she was merely like a hearth. “What do you want?”   “There are wounds to be mended. Mine, yours, others. Tell your army to withdraw, and give us all time to heal.”   The look on Celestia’s face was not a trusting one, but her head dipped down, towards the horn lying on the ground, and she slowly nodded. “There are ponies whose chains need to be broken.”   Other Adagio let out a low hiss, but everyone knew it was not directed at Celestia. “I will do what I can to break them, if you can assure me that I will not be met by cries for vengeance.”   “Of course.” Celestia nodded again. She had not said “for now,” but Adagio thought she meant it. Celestia gestured slightly towards Adagio. “Who are they?”   Other Adagio looked towards them. “My greatest crime,” she murmured. “The story is a long one.” Then her body dissolved into water, flowing languidly and compressing until she sculpted herself into a slender, shapely mare—who would have been gorgeous were her body not still marred by numerous wounds—just reaching Celestia’s chest but standing as straightly as if they were equals, and extending a dainty hoof.