“Now, tell me exactly what happened.” Adagio stood up and looked down at Sonata like a child standing next to a broken lamp. I didn’t like the way she treated her friend, and at some point I was going to have to say something.
But Sonata, to her credit, took it in stride. “Well, like I was telling Chip, first I went to the bank, then I got this place, but getting the furniture delivery was a problem, and—“
“No! I mean, tell me how you got your voice back!”
“Oh, right.” She recounted the story of our date at my house, thankfully leaving out the detail of the kiss. Adagio didn’t ask me any questions and in fact they both acted like I wasn’t even there. Fine. If they were going to treat me like that, see if I would help them.
When Sonata stopped, Adagio paced the room, drumming her fingers on her chin. “What do you think, Aria?”
Aria leaned back on the couch and fiddled with her hair. “Two possibilities. One: when the Rainbooms hit us with that alicorn beam, it didn’t completely destroy our powers, just damaged them enough to need major healing. Sonata was the only one of us to actually sing through our discordance until her voice repaired itself.”
“And the other possibility?”
“The beam did blast all our powers away, but left us with something else. You remember how they were able to use magic even though they were ordinary girls?”
Sonata raised a finger. “Technically two of them were transported unicorns. Or one was, and the other—“
“Yeah, don’t quibble. They had Equestrian magic infused into them. We could have the same thing.”
Adagio narrowed her eyes. “It’s got to be the first one. Sonata’s using siren magic, not whatever they had.”
“The magic of friendship.” Aria shook her head, making her pigtails bounce around. “That’s the problem. Sonata got her powers back on a singing date. We don’t know if it was the singing or the date.”
Again Adagio sized me up like a prize pig. Sonata stepped in between us. “You want to use my karaoke machine?”
“No. What I want is for you to tell this guy to feel the same way about us as he does about you.”
“Huh?! I…I don’t know that I want to do that.”
I decided it was time to stand up for myself. “Yeah, really. If you want me to like you, then start being nicer, and not just to me. Don’t treat Sonata like she’s stupid! Second, even if I did, I’m not going to feel the same way about you. What she and I have is something special.”
“You shut up!” Adagio said. I was about to get ornery with her, but she turned right off of me and accosted Sonata. “Do it! I want my magic back!”
“Sonata, I don’t want to be forced to feel things about them.”
She stood between the two of us. I was so angry at Adagio for putting her through this decision. Worst still was that I wasn’t sure her powers went that far. I was coming to acknowledge that she had some kind of influence on me, but I still credited it to charm more than magic. If she tried to make me and I could still dislike them, it would shatter her. But more than that, I wanted her to stand up for herself.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and to my dismay she was looking at me. “But you don’t know what it’s like to be a siren who can’t sing.” She closed her eyes and for a moment was deep in thought. Then she began: “Ah-ah-ah, ah-ah…
Please forgive me, for what I have to do
I hope this won’t change, what I mean to you.
I know you hate them, but please break through that barrier.
And give your friendship, give it all to Aria.
“What?!” Adagio was in even more of a rage. “Why her and not me?”
“I was going to get to you,” said Sonata. “But I couldn’t think of a good rhyme for ‘Adagio.’ Let’s see, Baggio, Caggio, Faggio, nope, hmm…”
But I was only half listening as I thought about what she said. However bad Adagio was, it was probable that she was the only bad influence on them. Sonata was a kind girl, and I bet that Aria could be too. I pictured it in my head, the three of us, or four once Aria found someone special of her own, being long-term friends, double dating, each of us being that couple that the other one always goes to.
She was still sitting on the couch, but her hand flew to her throat and she sang out clear and loud. She smiled, and it did my heart good to see that my new friend was happy.
Adagio, however, was not. “Sonata, you moron!”
“Don’t worry,” said Aria, with a cool edge to her voice. “I’ve got this. Ah-ah-ah, ah-ah…”
It was the same lead-in that Sonata used, but in a deeper register, and a more sultry voice.
Don’t move, don’t speak,
Get down on your knees.
Content yourself in doing
Whatever I please.
This time it was different. I wasn’t rationalizing the way I did when Sonata gave me one of her singing commands. I walked over to the couch half in a trance and fell to my knees in front of Aria. Part of me wanted to get up, but when I tried I couldn’t. This wasn’t something I could explain away. I was magically bound.
It scared the hell out of me.
From behind I heard Sonata running up. “Aria, what are you doing to my boyfriend?!”
“You’re really sweet on this guy, aren’t you? Well, this is more important. We’ve got to figure out how to extract the negative energy from him so that we can feed off it again. I feel like I’ve been starving for months.”
Adagio ran over and shoved Sonata out of the way. I wanted even more to get up and do something but…”Forget about that, get him to give me my voice back too.”
“In good time, in good time. Actually, I was thinking of using his clear disdain for you as a wedge point. Don’t worry, I’ll share, with both of you.”
“Stop it!” I saw Sonata’s arm come down in front of me. “Don’t hurt him. Don’t make him feel that and drain him.”
“We’ve done this to thousands of people, they come out all right!” Aria sang again, low and slow. I barely paid attention to the words.
What I did focus on, though, was how messed up this whole situation was. And it was all Adagio’s fault. If she hadn’t reacted to her friend’s good fortune by trying to figure out how to make it work for herself, everything might have worked out. Instead she had to go and be selfish, wanting Sonata to help her. It was typical of her. There was nothing but malice in her heart. I wanted to break her, to tear out that poofy hair, to slap that smile off her face and make her apologize to Sonata.
It was only out of the corner of my eye that I noticed a green mist crawling across the floor. I was curious where it came from but I was thinking more of whether I could shove it down Adagio’s throat. If I could only move.
“It’s working!” she said in her grating voice. I looked over as Aria seemed to be leaning down to breathe in the mist, and I hoped it was safe for her. Aria at least was nice.
“No, it isn’t,” she said. “I can’t gather it in. Without the pendant there’s no way I can take it into my body. It’s useless.”
“That can’t be!” Now they were both on the floor in the middle of the mist. They were trying to shovel it with their hands, push it, fan it anywhere, but it wasn’t responding. It was just a mist.
Aria leaned back and said, “Forget it.” She sung another snatch of song and the mist faded. Adagio only got more annoyed, and I took some pity on her.
She reached her knees and walked on them over to Aria where she put her hands on her shoulders. “We’ve got to find a way. Make him do it again.”
“There’s no point.”
“Yes there is! If we can’t get that energy, you know what that means?! It means that this is all we are, and all we’re going to be. We’re going to get sick, Aria, we’re going to get old. And then we’re going to die! D-I-E, die! We’re not supposed to die!”
And from behind me I heard a soft voice trying to assert itself. “I-I don’t think I mind it that much,” said Sonata.
“What did you say?” Adagio spat out.
“Yeah, we’re gonna die and that sucks, but not for a long time. Like, decades if we’re careful.”
“What’re a couple of decades when we’ve lived for over a thousand years?”
Sonata came into my view finally, and she was growing more confident with each word. I realized that she was standing up to Adagio for the first time ever. “No, we haven’t. We’ve never lived. We just fed off energy and kept going. Yeah, we could eat and drink, but we didn’t have to. But now, I don’t just like to eat, I have to. And it means that much more. All the tacos I’ve eaten since I got blasted, somehow they’ve tasted sweeter. And you talk about a thousand years? How much of it can you really remember? Do you feel old? Do you feel anything?
“Since our fall, I’ve found new appetites too. I’ve never loved before. I’m not sure that I do now; love is something really complicated. But I might feel it for Chip, and that’s more than I’ve ever done before.” If I could have smiled, I would have. “Now, I’m not saying that I like all the suffering, which was why I was glad we could get out of the shelter and get some money. I want to live well. But if I do, then I won’t mind the dying at the end of it.”
Aria looked at Sonata with what I thought could be newfound respect. Adagio just rolled her eyes and exhaled. “That’s only because you’re an idiot,” she said. “Aria, get this thing to give me my powers back. Even if I can’t feed off it, I’m going to go spread hate and strife around the world. I’ll burn out any love I can find. If I have to go, I’m taking this world with me.”
“What?! No!”
Aria bit her lip as she looked between the two of them. Sonata had a plea in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” Aria said. “She deserves her powers the same as we all do.”
She stood up and sang, with more of a melody than the usual simple introduction. But now it was Sonata who bit her lip, more in determination than in fear. Balling her fists and spreading her legs, she opened her mouth and sang in counter.
“What are you doing, Sonata?!” Adagio screamed, and I half-wished that Sonata’s apartment wasn’t that soundproof so that someone would come in and help. On the other hand, I doubt they’d believe anything of what was going on.
Sonata ignored her, and now I had two sirens singing at me. My vision blurred, and now in addition to being unable to move or speak, I couldn’t see. Soon after that, I realized I couldn’t think.
Adagio...give...power...friend...stop...break...help...
Both of them were trying to overwhelm the other, and every time I had the beginning of a thought it was crushed between the two voices that were all I could hear. My head throbbed and felt like it was going to burst open and pour out my brains. I couldn’t speak, but a scream is not speaking, and that logic let a thin whine of agony escape my lips.
Whether she heard it or whether I managed to put enough of a plea into my eyes, Sonata ceased singing and my vision returned. “Stop it!” she cried out. “You’re hurting him!”
Aria laughed and also let her melody fade. “You were hurting him by fighting back. Just let me do this. We’ve never tried to sing two different commands. It could break him.”
“Then don’t. Let things go on as they were.”
“Can’t do it.” And she sang again. Sonata grabbed my wrist and looked me in the eye. I could see the apology in her tears, and I wanted to tell her that there was nothing to apologize for.
In the meantime I had to find a way out of this. I had to think before Aria’s song drove my own thoughts out of my mind. If only I could close my ears the way I could my eyes, to shut out the music. But all I could do was try not to listen. I couldn’t stop myself from hearing.
There had to be a way out of this before Adagio got her own voice back. Probably after that they would make me hate Sonata just out of spite, and then they’d go on to take over the world, or at least destroy it. How could I stop them?
Then I realized that I was finally thinking about siren magic with full belief. No longer was Sonata just a pretty girl with a few quirks. She was absolutely, definitely, a magical creature. She had really ensorcelled me with her voice.
That was it. The sirens’ power worked by making me rationalize whatever they wanted me to think. If I actually believed that it worked by magic, then it didn’t work. This line of logic sounded so ridiculous in my head, but I actually heard Aria’s voice weakening. My legs were feeling stiff, and I pulled in my knees. I could move! I was doing it!
I realized that there was a volitional element to this as well. I wanted to let Sonata tell me what to do, because her happiness meant something to me. And I didn’t particularly dislike Aria or Adagio before that night, and I would have been friends with them if they had acted friendly to me. But I didn’t want them hurting other people, and I thought that they needed to learn a lesson.
Aria’s voice went softer still, until it shattered and broke to the point that she sounded like Sonata did that first time in the car. I stood up and walked over to Sonata. I held her hand. For a moment the tension still hung in the room. Sonata was the one to break it.
“Well, this is kind of awkward.”
I laughed. “Yeah, it’s always weird when someone’s just tried to use magic to get you to give the same magic to another friend who wants to take over the world, and then it doesn’t work, and you’re all wondering what to do next.”
That emboldened Adagio, who gritted her teeth and said, “How did you break our spell?! No one has that kind of power, least of all some loser boy with no magic of his own.”
I went through my thought process. “I’m the only one you’ve ever told that you were trying to cast a spell on. It doesn’t work that way.”
Sonata raised her hand. “Actually, we would tell people all the time. Adagio wrote all our songs and she loved putting in give-aways. We had a whole song about telling people that they were under our spell and that they had to do whatever we told them. Then we had another one about telling people they were going to love and adore us. I mean, we were practically one step away from doing a song called, ‘We’re evil sirens from Equestria and we’re using magic on you’.”
“But people still didn’t believe them. Well, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it was the power of love that broke the spell.” Sonata blushed and nudged me with her shoulder.
“Oh, make me sick,” said Adagio. “We still have to figure out what’s going to happen next. Are you just going to let us out of here?”
“Of course I am,” said Sonata. “We’re all still besties. That’s something else I’ve learned recently, that a little fight or argument can’t break real friendship. You two will always be my friends.”
Adagio rolled her eyes, but Aria looked contrite. “I’m glad you feel that way. I-I’m sorry I tried to melt your boyfriend’s brain.”
“It’s OK. So listen, I told you that I got the apartment next door for you. Why don’t you guys go over and check it out. It’s a two bedroom, two bath, very convenient. You can stay there tonight and we’ll talk in the morning. The door is open and the keys are on the table.”
They both stood up and headed for the door, but I caught Adagio’s sneer. “Sonata,” I said, “are you sure you can trust them? They won’t come back here and try again?”
She still addressed them. “You won’t, will you?”
Aria said, “I promise,” but Adagio was more reluctant. Her hesitation gave Sonata her answer.
“I’m sorry you feel that way. I think Chip’s right. You’re still my friends, but you’re going to have to earn my trust. In the meantime...Ah-ah-ah, ah-ah.”
The other two sirens’ eyes went saucer-wide as Sonata sang for them to stay in the apartment, get a good night’s rest, and not leave unless there was a fire or similar emergency.
Aria and Adagio started walking toward the door, unable to stop themselves. Adagio couldn’t resist saying over her shoulder, “I can’t believe you did that. That’s the first time ever that a siren has used her powers against another siren.”
Sonata nodded. “Let’s work together to make it the last.”
The door closed, and there we were. “Some night, huh?” I said.
“Yeah. Can I ask you for a big favor?”
“What’s that?”
“Will you stay with me tonight? I know you said you didn’t want to sleep with me, but if it’s just sleep...I don’t want to be alone.”
I leaned over and gave her a hug. “I will. But can I ask you for something?”
“Hm?”
“Can you sing me to stay? You see, I find I like doing what I’m told, if you’re the one telling me.”
She led me by the hand to the bedroom.