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// As long as we're together 
// Story: What now? 
// by truekry 
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Her hands were clasped around the warm cup of coffee. Her gaze wandered to her sisters, both dressed in thick jackets, hands clutching their own warm drinks. It was relatively quiet around her. Sounds echoed from the kitchen, which allowed her to draw the conclusion that the cook was not asleep yet, unlike the waitress who rested her head on the counter. The neon sign buzzed outside the rundown diner and proclaimed to guests that it was opened twenty four hours a day.
 
Carefully, Adiago Dazzle sipped her beverage. It tasted as bad as the diner looked. Her lips curled, the terrible coffee forced down her throat with a shudder. Nevertheless, she could have as much as she wanted for a dollar. And it had been their last dollar.
 
“Well?” Aria asked dully. She blew a few times before she also took a gulp. “What do we do now?”
 
She would have loved to answer, but her mouth remained closed. They had nothing – no money, no place to stay, and certainly no friends. They only had the clothes on their backs. She was the oldest, and it was her job to take care of her sisters, but she had failed.
 
“We could go back to school, get our degrees, hook up with a cute guy, have a family, and become housewives!” Sonata said in her usual cheerful way and grinned at them. “And Saturday, I’ll make us waffles!”
 
Adiago did not feel like correcting her sister, for it would mean having to remove her cold fingers from her mug. Instead, she preferred watching out the window at the snow-covered streets of Canterlot. No one was out in this weather. The humans were celebrating Christmas once again. At that thought, the siren had to smile slightly. What these people called Christmas today was nothing like the festival it was one thousand years ago.
 
“I don’t think we can do all that by Saturday,” Aria said and also smiled lightly. “But perhaps we should really go back.”
 
This caused Adiago to stare at her sisters before she slammed her cup on the table. “All that we have now is our pride! Do you really want to throw that away too?”
 
Sonata and Aria exchanged glances. “Pride isn’t going to keep us warm.”
 
“Pride won’t fill our bellies with tacos.”
 
Aria groaned. “What is it with you and tacos?”
 
Sonata’s shoulders shrugged casually. “They’re pretty tasty.”
 
Adiago shook her head. “Do you guys really believe,” she shuddered, “that friends,” the word was laced with poison as she uttered it, “will keep us warm? Especially those six? Don’t forget, unlike us, they are real teenagers. What can they do? Hide us in their wardrobes like some stray dogs they picked up off the street? Feed us with leftovers from the kitchen? Make beds for us out of blankets?”
 
She waited a few seconds for a response, but her sisters’ heads only lowered despondently, and they drank the horrible coffee. Those two were simply too good for this world. If only her plan had worked. They would have been able to swim in the clean rivers of Equestria, feasting on the freshest fish, and able to use their magic again.
 
“Hey,” Aria piped up again. “Why do you think Father left us behind on this world anyway?”
 
Adiago only snorted derisively at the mention of their father, while Sonata seemed to become glummer. “Oh, I’m sure he had his reasons. Maybe it was an embarrassment for the old geezer that his children were sirens. Maybe it was best if he hadn’t gotten involved with one in the first place! It doesn’t matter now. He’s been dead for a long time and forgot about us even longer…”
 
“How can you say that?!” Sonata inserted hotly, jumping up. Her outburst also tore the waitress from the land of dreams. The elder lady looked around tiredly before her eyes settled on them, looking irritated. Sonata sat down again and lowered her head. “Father loved us. After all, he was the one who made our amulets for us. He always tried to make time for us, but he had so much to do.”
 
“And yet he was so glad to be rid of us. Otherwise, why did he always take so many journeys?” Adiago rebutted. “And then he went and brought us here, only to leave us behind.”
 
“You have to admit that we never made things simple for Father.” Adiago looked at Aria, fury in her eyes. “We weren’t the best behaved foals.”
 
“We were foals trying to get his attention! He was our father. He was supposed to take care of us, not those two...”
 
“Princesses?” Aria finished her sentence. “Somebody still had to teach them, right? And Father was the best when it came to magic. They all had their obligations. Equestria was young; many had to make sacrifice—”
 
"He was our father! Not theirs!" Adiago interrupted her once again. "I saw it in his eyes. He saw us as monsters. No horn, only fins. We were the consequences of a love he had grown ashamed of. He did not love us and was happy to finally unload us here, to finally be rid of us…”
 
“Do you really believe that?” Sonata asked carefully. “Do you really believe that was the reason father brought us here?”
 
“I don’t know!” the siren roared, crying now, collapsing into her seat. “I don’t know what to believe. Ever since those Elements… I just don’t know…”
 
Sonata and Aria rose from their seats without looking at each other and came to stand at both sides of the despondent siren. Adiago felt as the arms of her sisters were gently wrapped around her body. “We’ll get through it, Adiago,” Aria murmured into her hair. “We always seem to get through somehow. Thousands of years in this cruel world haven’t gotten us yet, neither will another thousand.” She sniffed.
 
Adiago didn’t want to think about it, but they had owed their longevity to their amulets. Without them, they would soon grow old and… It was a sobering thought.
 
“We still have each other. As long as we have that, we’ll be okay. I just know it,” Sonata said, now a bit more cheerful. “We’ll have to find something that doesn’t have to do with singing. I’ll miss it for sure, but there are so many other things in this world.”
 
“Like tacos,” Aria added with a laugh. She got a firm nod from Sonata.       
        
“Like tacos.”