//------------------------------// // 2. Where we go from Here // Story: Back to the Good Life // by Sammy-Jack //------------------------------// *Ding Dong* A pair of loud chimes woke Aria Blaze from her sleep. It was just the door bell, but it sounded like the loudest gong in the city just rang on the other side of their front door. She sat up quickly, causing her head to swim and making her dizzy. Falling back onto the couch, she yelled out to whoever ruined her morning. “Coming!” After a few moments of rubbing her eyes to get the haze away, Aria dragged herself unceremoniously to the door. The light coming in through the window indicated morning had come, and late morning at that. She just felt so tired after last night, Aria was surprised she wasn’t just ignoring the doorbell to keep sleeping. She opened the door, eyes barely open. “Can I help you?” She grumbled to the stranger. “Well, hello there, Aria Blaze! It looks like you had quite the night.” Standing at the door was an older man of dark skin and brown hair, wrinkled heavily on his face, and he was dressed in a nice brown suit. He gave Aria a look from head to toe. It was Filthy Rich, the landlord of the studio complex they lived in. He also owned a lot of other buildings, but Aria never really cared. “Yeah, you could say that, Mr. Rich. Did you need something? Or is this just a friendly visit?” “Oh, yes. I guess I should get straight to the point.” He straightened himself, pulling on his tie. “Well, you see. It’s about your rent situation. Now, I have been real nice to you girls for a long time, but I think we need to reestablish the living conditions.” Aria let out a sigh, putting a hand to her face. A long time ago, the three of them had charmed Filthy into letting them stay here for free. So, having lost their powers, of course he would wake up and come barging in on them. “So, you would like us to start paying rent like everyone else?” He nodded. “Yes ma’am. And that is at a rate of $1200 a month.” He held up a hand after Aria dropped her jaw. “Now, I know this is a sudden change for you ladies, so I am going to let you three go through this month no charge.” “Couldn’t we work out a better deal? I mean, twelve hundred is a little high for us at the moment.” “I’m sorry, dear, but that’s as low as I can go before I lose money on this space. That’s already lower than I charge the other residents, seeing as you ladies have been a lovely addition for so long. I’m sure if you cut back on the partying a little, you could make that rent no problem.” He made a gesture to Aria’s stained outfit, which she ended up sleeping in last night. She closed the door slightly to cover herself. “Fine. I’ll let Adagio and Sonata know.” “Sorry to bug you so sudden, but I hope you ladies understand.” Filthy Rich nodded, and smiled at her again. “Have a nice day, Aria.” He turned away as Aria closed the door. After the door shut, Aria turned to put her back against it, and slid down to the floor. “Aagh! Why does everything have to suck at the same time!?” Their living condition hadn’t been on their minds in years, and just like that, it came to bite them in the butt. Aria didn’t like consequences, and she also didn’t like being told what to do by someone lower than her. “Well, you really showed him, Aria.” She looked up to see Adagio, leaning against the wall opposite her, dressed in an oversize white t-shirt. “Oh shove it Adagio. We can’t influence his mind anymore, so there wasn’t anything I could do.” “You could have tried using your natural feminine charm. He’s still a male.” Adagio picked at one of her nails, her tone very matter-of-factly. Aria huffed in response. “Looks like you’re back to your smarter-than-everyone self.” She rolled her eyes. “And I’m so happy to see you back to hating everything. Looks like you weren’t too traumatized after all.” “I don’t hate everything, Adagio, just you.” “Oh, why do I still bother with you? We have no reason to be together anymore, but that doesn’t mean you should give me incentive to leave.” “Where are you going, Adagio?” Sonata asked, suddenly right beside her. She was dressed in pink pony pajamas, and had her hair down, looking like she had a great night’s sleep. Adagio pushed away from the wall, walking towards their kitchen. “Oh, you know. Thought I’d go and hang out with some friends.” Sonata put a finger to her chin, confused. “But I thought we were your only friends. You always say how much you hate humans.” “She doesn’t even think of you as a friend, Sonata.” Aria chimed in from the floor. “She does too!” Sonata pouted in denial. “Why else does she go with me whenever I go to the pet store?” “Because if I didn’t, you would get yourself kicked out for endangering the animals.” Adagio answered as she looked inside the refrigerator. Sonata whined, remembering the last time she got “removed from the premises” for jumping into the puppy pen. The trio were silent for a bit, and a tension built in the air. Aria stood up to head toward her room, pulling off her gloves. Sonata leaned against the wall, running her hands through her hair, trying to think of something to say that would stop the silence. Adagio was getting lost in thought as she stared at their nearly empty fridge. Finally, Sonata Dusk took a deep breath. “Girls, I’m sorry.” Aria froze just outside her room, surprised Sonata apologized so randomly. Adagio’s train of thought derailed, and she slowly turned to look at Sonata, who looked to be afraid of something. “Sorry for being so dumb?” Aria replied. “No, not that. Just, last night.” Adagio felt her hand clench into a fist, but told herself to keep calm until she finished what she had to say. After all, it was Sonata who she was listening to. Acting like she was guilty of something was unlike her, so this would probably lead into some stupid comment about food. Taking a quick breath, she smiled. “What about last night? What could you have done?” “Well, it’s about what you said to Aria. How one of us got overconfident ...” Her voice trailed off. “You aren’t serious, are you Sonata? Adagio was just taking her anger out last night, you shouldn’t take it to heart.” Sonata shook her head, sliding down to the floor. “No, Adagio was right. It’s my fault. Her plan was perfect, and she seemed so confident about it. After seeing her so convinced, I didn’t think we could lose either.” Adagio wasn’t sure what to think for a moment. Thinking back to her rage and distress last night, what she just heard sounded just as good as a confession, good enough reason for her to take her vengeance on the trembling Sonata Dusk before her, though the logical side of her knew that it wasn’t that simple. She didn’t exactly know what caused their downfall, but she didn’t really believe one of those two actually did it. Still, this opened Adagio’s eyes a little, seeing how badly that affected her little sister. “Ha, Sister.” Adagio laughed to herself. “I haven’t used that word to describe her in quite a while.” After this spectacle, she decided she couldn’t just yell at her again, that energy would be needed later, no doubt. Adagio walked over to Sonata, kneeling and putting a hand on her head, getting a look of surprise from her.. “She’s right, Sonata. I didn’t mean it. But I’m glad that you told me that.” Sonata tried to smile, but ended up crying. “You’re so nice, Adagio!” She shoved her head into Adagio’s chest, giving her a hug. Adagio waited a second before hugging back, rolling her eyes and laughing quietly. Sonata was always odd and unpredictable, so she never really questioned what she did anymore. Aria, however, felt very uncomfortable by this scene, and slid into her room quietly. Seeing Adagio like that came way out of left field. Not only did she not see it coming, but it felt just plain creepy. Sure, they just went through a traumatic time last night, but Aria had never seen Adagio be that calm with Sonata before. What was more likely to happen was Sonata to end up covered in whatever liquid happened to be in the fridge for saying she ruined Adagio’s life Closing her door, Aria decided to change into some more comfortable clothes, as her current wear was beginning to stick to her uncomfortably. Thirty minutes had passed, the girls had all gotten dressed for the day, wearing some of their regular clothes seeing as they didn’t plan on doing anything special today. Adagio had cooked some pancakes, much to the pleasure of Sonata, and leading Aria to complain that it wasn’t eggs. After the short banter with Sonata, she explained the new situation with Filthy Rich, and that their spells would have ended on a lot of people they have encountered throughout the years. Aria was lightly picking at her food, managing to go a while without instigating some argument, before Sonata started drowning her pancakes in syrup. “You want some pancake with that syrup?” “But I already have 3.” “She means don’t use too much syrup.” “But I like my syrup this way. Can you hand me the sugar?” “You want MORE sweet stuff on them? Save something for the rest of us.” “There’s still half a bag.” “And it’ll be half a bag less when you’re done.” “You two will be going hungry if you don’t quit the bickering.” Adagio interrupted. She held her fork pointed at Aria. “You hand her the sugar.” Then to Sonata. “You, only a little.” The two complied, Aria rolling her eyes, and Sonata giving a joyful glee. “Idiots.” Adagio muttered under her breath. Finishing her plate, she slid it to the side of her and folded her hands together, placing elbows on the table. “We need a plan.” The other two stopped with their food, looking at Adagio with full interest now. “Before, we were simply trapped in the human world. Now, we are trapped in the human world with no more Siren magic, thus making us no different than regular human girls.” “Yeah, how are we going to get by without our spells and singing?” Aria asked, curious for the answer herself. “Thinking over what we have learned about humans over the years, we all know that money is their necessity. A bane, if you would. Money is needed for everything we need: living, food, clothing, and at a steadily increasing rate as time goes on. We have managed to sneak past their flawed system with the help of our magic, but now that will not be an option.” Adagio turned towards Aria. “Can you check what our balance is, currently?” Aria paused for a moment, then pulled out her phone. She typed and flipped through her applications until she loaded their bank account. “We still have fifty thousand.” Placing a hand to her chin, Adagio pondered that for a moment. “That’s a good cushion. I had always forgotten to pay attention to our funds, seeing as we earned most of our living through manipulating people. But it won’t last forever. We should find a more reliable strategy.” Over the years, the Sirens had slowly acquired money from various sources, and ended up piling them in a bank account, since they rarely had need for it. Adagio said it was for a time when their magic failed them, and her planning ahead had indeed come in handy once again. “Fwo mut sho-” Sonata swallowed her mouthful of pancake. “So, what should we do?” Adagio sighed. “Well, it would be a long shot, but I suggest we work on finding a way to reclaim our magic. It's been a part of us for so long, there is no way it was completely destroyed. If we can find any clues, that would be the first step. Until then, we need to find some sort of short-term employment." Sonata let out a squee of joy. “Oh! I’ve always wanted a job! But you always said it would be “Hard on my brain,” or whatever you always said to things like that.” Aria smacked a hand to her forehead. “But a job is like, the worst. Why can’t we just pull one of those scams where we need money for school?” “That’s not out of the question, we do look the part. But the requirements are currently having some form of education, and the only school close enough wouldn’t be too fond of us going back anytime soon.” “I kinda liked it there. The kids were real nice, you know, when they weren’t totally under our spell and fighting with each other.” Sonata snorted and ran her hand through her hair. “So, we can make our next plan getting a job, or Aria’s suggestion of getting a support payment every month. Do you have any ideas, Sonata?” She could already tell that any ideas to come from Sonata wouldn’t work, but anything helps at this point. She put her hands together, a big smile on her face. “Well, I think we could try to find someone else we can charm into letting us live with them for free.” “You mean, with our Siren powers?” Aria noted. “Oh, yeah, right.” Sonata fell silent, with a look of disappointment. “Though finding someone to live off of through other means is not a bad idea in itself, it’s very unlikely, so the answer is no. Aria, how is the Internet after last night?” She puffed in surprise. “Believe it or not, but our little “scene” last night is all over the web. But because the audience was under our influence, no one managed to get any video of it, so that works in our favor.” “And with no evidence, our names will fade away with time. Again...” The three were silent for a while. “Sonata, I have something I need you to do for us today.” Adagio suddenly said, pulling out a wallet from her back pocket. Her eyes widened as Adagio revealed a $100 bill of money. She rarely got to handle that much money at one time, so she took it gently as if it were made of soft tissue. “Collect our outfits from last night and get them dry-cleaned at the usual store. We had to spend a fortune ordering those, and I do NOT want them rotting away.” “I’m on it, boss!” She stood up quickly, gave a salute, and proceeded to speed down the hallway. In just a few moments, Sonata was carrying a bundle of clothes and had donned her hooded sweatshirt and a pink skirt. The two just watched from the kitchen table as she zoomed out the door. Aria turned back to Adagio, “Why do you care about the clothes? It’s not like we are gonna be performing again anytime ever.” “You never know what could happen, Aria.” She smiled a bit, happy with herself. “Besides, it was meant as something for her to do, rather than something that needed to be done.” - - - - A short while later, at Steam Press’s Dry Cleaners - - - - Sonata Dusk felt so very bored. She gave them her clothes forever ago, and they still weren’t done. She wondered if they forgot about her clothes, or maybe she was supposed to talk to them to get them back. Steam Press said it would be a while, and maybe her “while” is longer than most people. Every time the clock ticked in the main room, it felt like it would take longer to tick again. She started to wonder why Adagio made her do something that was so boring, and by herself. Sonata groaned involuntarily out of boredom, rocking back and forth in her chair. “Sonata, dear. We go through this every time” A voice called out from the back room. A woman walked out, pale blue skin and white hair. “The fastest we can do these are an hour at a time, so the three dresses are going to be three hours.” “Whaa? You never told me that!” She put her hands on her head. “How long have I been here?” “Ten minutes.” Groaning louder this time, she slumped forward in her chair, arms hanging down near her feet. Waiting was unbelievably boring, but Adagio entrusted her to doing this task, so she was going to complete it. “Sonata, you always wait here. I’ve told you before that you can pick them up anytime as long as you-” *Ding-ding* The door to the shop opened, causing a little bell to ring. “Oh, hello Rarity! Good to see you again.” Sonata didn’t pay attention to the new person walking in, too absorbed in how absolutely bored she was. “Good morning, Miss Press! I have quite an order today, we just had a big performance last night and- wa ha HA!” The sudden shouting caused her to look up in surprise. In the doorway stood a white girl with a fancy hairstyle, dragging a rack of outfits with her. Sonata felt something familiar about her, but couldn’t put her finger on it. “What are YOU doing here?” “Uh oh.” Sonata remembered just who this girl was.