Father
By Craine
It had been nearly a week.
Six days, seventeen hours, fifty-three minutes, and thirty-eight seconds. Counting the time didn’t make it any more bearable for Adagio Dazzle. For that matter, neither did sitting in the living room, staring at her shattered pendant. Did that stop her from doing just that?
No. And, evidently, it didn’t stop her fellow sirens, Sonata Dusk and Aria Blaze, either.
The shattered pendant glowed red again, like it had been that entire week, spilling a bloody-red light onto the apartment walls. Adagio’s ears caved at the organic beat that followed. Again. At least, while she was packing, she could drown out the sound, if not the light.
The eldest siren gave short glances to her sisters. Sonata, with her pink boots removed, sitting on the floor, hugging her knees tight. Aria, scowling tiredly at the pendant, her hands tucked between her cris-crossed legs.
Adagio stared at her own fists pressed down on her bare thighs.
The crystalites glowed again, and the three women shifted.
“It’s getting worse,” Sonata mumbled from behind her knees. “He’s… he’s getting worried.”
Aria scoffed. “‘Worried.’ Right.”
Adagio lifted her stare to the pendant again, all but shuddering at the eyes that lifted to her.
“Maybe I should just…” Adagio was actually afraid to finish that sentence.
Aria scoffed again and rolled her eyes. “Maybe if you stopped hesitating.”
Adagio whipped a glare at her. “Maybe if you quit stopping me.”
“Maybe if you actually finished packing. Not like we can take anything with us.”
“It’s called decency! Look it up!””
Aria opened her mouth with a breath and a raised index finger. She stopped and offered a guilty frown. Adagio adopted the look. Sonata just sat there, hugging her knees even tighter.
“Sorry…” Adagio mumbled.
Aria tucked her hand back between her legs. “Yeah…”
A phone rang beside the youngest siren. Sonata whipped her head to the glittered, blue device and reached for it. She saw the name on the screen and stopped. With a slight frown of her own, Sonata returned to hugging her knees.
“Are you ever gonna answer that?” Aria asked.
“Mm-mm.”
Adagio raised a brow, and Sonata tried to hide further behind her knees. The eldest siren tightened her fists, pressing harder on her thighs. She reached for the pendant.
“No!” Aria shouted, slapping a firm grip on Adagio’s wrist. “Not yet!”
“When, Aria?!” Adagio shouted back. “If not now, then when?!”
The purple siren released her older sister and held a fist to her own forehead. “I don’t know, okay?!” Her fist fell to her lap. “Just… just not now.”
“He’s been calling us all week,” Sonata muttered from behind her knees. The older sirens turned to her, a little surprised. “If we don’t answer, he’ll come looking for us. And if he finds out we’ve been avoiding him…” She started shaking.
Adagio stared down at her thighs again. “I can’t believe I’m saying this―”
“Oh, please don’t say it,” Aria said with a frown.
“―but Sonata’s right.”
Aria hung her head with slumped shoulders. “The universe has gone to Hell.”
“We failed him, Aria. And one way or another, he’s going to figure that out,” Adagio said.
Aria brought both palms to her face and leaned on her ankles. “I know.”
Adagio took a softer tone. “Then why are you so afra―”
“I am not afraid!”
The pendant glowed again, and they all shivered. Adagio glanced at it again, then back at Aria, who kept her face buried in her palms.
“This is all your fault,” Aria muttered.
Adagio couldn’t look at her anymore. “I know.”
The purple siren’s hands fell to her lap, and she shot up to her feet. “Whatever…” She skulked from the living room and turned into the hallway. “You two do what you want…”
A slammed door was her only parting gift.
Adagio’s stare lingered on the shattered pendant a while longer. A quiet sob broke her reverie, and she looked up at a trembling, crying Sonata.
“Stop it,” Adagio ordered with a frown. The quiet sobs continued. “Sonata…”
The blue siren sniffed and tended to her tears, but more tears fell with every wipe. She held her sobs, but shook even harder than before. Adagio’s heart sank, and she couldn’t help but crawl forward, over the pendant.
The moment Adagio settled next to her younger sister, a pony-tailed head burrowed against her shoulder.
“What if he doesn’t give us another chance?” Sonata whispered through her shudders. “What if he doesn’t forgive us this time?”
Sonata’s phone rang again, and she frowned through her tears. Adagio reached for the blue device and read the screen―fifteen missed calls from Pinkie Pie. Her brow furrowed in pity.
“Sonata―”
“I don’t wanna talk to her…” Sonata hissed. “She had no right to yell at me. It's my choice to go to school, or hang out, or whatever. Not hers."
Adagio brushed a finger along those blue bangs. "You know that's not why she yelled..."
Sonata closed her eyes. "Doesn't matter. All she did was make this easier.”
The pendant glowed again. The phone stopped ringing.
Adagio lifted her arm, letting Sonata’s head rest on her chest. She held the shaking blue girl, eyes glued to the pendant.
“I can talk to him… if you don’t want to,” Sonata said.
“No, you can’t.”
Sonata didn’t argue with that. The pendant glowed again, bright that time, its pulse louder. Adagio swallowed dryly and reached for the pendant. A blue hand fell over her arm.
“Please, Dagi,” Sonata whispered. “Please don’t tell him about our friends?”
Adagio wrapped both arms around the frightened girl. “I won’t. I promise.”
The eldest sister held Sonata a moment longer, then released her. She lay on the carpet, her head resting on Sonata’s lap. The blue woman nodded solemnly. Adagio turned her head to the jewel. As though diving into cold water, she inhaled deeply, reached out and took it.
All faded to black.
Adagio was swimming.
It was strange, though; the sensation―as familiar and welcome as breathing―felt alien to her. Perhaps the unending darkness around her was responsible. Or perhaps the distant waves of blue and violet dancing across the horizon.
Or perhaps she just wasn’t used to being in her old body.
She stared sadly at her yellow, cloven hooves, then down over her scaly, finned tail. She narrowed her eyes and sighed, watching barely-visible bubbles ascend to an unseen surface. A yellow light shined in the dark, and she swam to it.
For minutes she swam, wondering how she could possibly keep her promise to Sonata. All thoughts left her when she arrived before a tall mountain, curved and sharp. She swam further and passed the mountain.
She descended along the curved superstructure, stopping only when she reached the bed of this dark ocean.
There she waited, staring up at the yellow light that guided her there.
The mountain behind her moved, and Adagio suppressed her yelp. Her stomach caved as the ocean bed lifted toward the light, taking the mountain with it. Four other mountains came into light. They surrounded the siren, all curled in her direction.
She trembled, rested on her curled arms, and wrapped her scaly tail around herself.
The yellow light brightened, almost blinding the siren. Then there were two. Staring at her. Blinking at her. Dwarfing her. She gulped and bowed her head respectfully. The voice that followed made her ribs cave from sheer pressure. She hid her labored breaths.
“You are alone, Adagio? Where are your sisters?”
Adagio lifted her eyes to meet the gargantuan lights above. “We… have something of a complication.”
The lights narrow. “Are they alive?”
Adagio’s eyes widened. “Y-yes, of course. I’d never let anything happen to them.”
“Indeed,” the voice agreed. “That is why I trusted you with their safety. And with your task. Which brings up another important question…” Adagio trembled harder and huddled more behind her tail. “Where are my Equestrians?”
Adagio tried and failed several times to speak.
“Have I not given you the tools to succeed?” The voice asked. “Have I not allowed you the time?”
Adagio’s eyes fell from the light. “Y-yes. Yes you have, but―”
“Why, then, do you come to me alone with empty hooves?”
“I...I―”
“Look at me, whelp.”
Adagio obeyed.
“Now… I gave you those pendants to circumvent the side effects of those magically barren bodies in which they trapped you. What could have possibly stopped you from restoring your power and returning to Equestria?”
The siren gulped again. “We… we were overwhelmed. We came so close. We had the powers in our grasp, and so much more just waiting to be taken, but…”
“Speak.”
Adagio’s dorsal fins raised in terror. “The Elements of Harmony defeated us in battle.” She brought her hooves to her mouth.
The five mountains shifted and bent around her, and tiny bubbles rose from her eyes.
“Please don’t be angry―”
“The Elements of Harmony? Used by humans?!”
Adagio nearly swam away, but fear locked her fins solid.
“How is this possible?”
The siren gulped for the third time that day. “There was an Equestrian with them. And another―a princess.”
The giant lights grew. “They gave humans magic…” Adagio said nothing. “Have you not sung your song? Have you not turned the tide?”
Now came the hard part.
“Our pendants… The ones you gave us…” Adagio was quite sick of gulping by then. “They’ve been shattered.”
The yellow lights narrowed, and the mountains curled and grumbled.
“They’ve rendered us voiceless.”
A powerful growl echoed through the dark waters.
“Our powers are lost to us―”
“Enough!”
Adagio flinched like a scolded child, her ears folding back.
“I entrusted you, my eldest, most capable offspring, to enslave Equestria, and you return to me with nothing but excuses?”
“But I tried―”
“And what of these humans? They interfere with forces they cannot possibly understand! For what purpose?!”
“Please don’t be angry with them! They only did what they thought was right!”
The yellow lights flashed even brighter, and Adagio turned away.
“They robbed you of your ability―your birthright! They condemned you to die on a magically barren wasteland! Why do you defend them?!”
Adagio lifted her eyes back to the blinding yellow light. “BECAUSE THEY’RE OUR FRIENDS!”
By the time she realized what she’d done, the ocean bed was rising toward the already-unbearable lights. An enormous reptilian snout, gridded with metallic fangs, emerged from the darkness.
“Is that right…”
Adagio could only shake her head. “No, I didn’t mean―”
"How long?" he asked. Adagio blinked. "How long have they fed you their lies? How long have your pendants been destroyed?"
"J-just a few months."
The yellow lights narrowed. "And when were you going to tell me?"
Adagio could only gibber. A jet steam of bubbles left the giant's nostrils and pelted a gasping siren.
“Friends. Have you forgotten who gave you life? Have you forgotten your duty to me? To your home?”
Adagio just shook.
“If these friends make you forget your heritage―if they poison your mind with lies and complacency…”
“Please!” Adagio cried. “We deserve punishment! Not them―”
“I will kill them all.”
Adagio choked on her tongue.
“These humans you’ve adopted… They will perish.”
“But, you can’t!” The siren whined.
“And when their land crumbles, when magma consumes them, when their sky is eaten, you and your sisters will be condemned to the Great Sleep. Until I say otherwise. This exchange is over.”
Adagio began sobbing. “Don’t do this…”
Loud rocky grumbles erupted around the siren, and the shadows cut through the yellow light.
“Father…” Adagio whispered. “Please spare them?”
The mountainous digits closed down around her, but she did not swim away. She stared back up into those ageless yellow eyes with nothing but fear and respect. Before his fist closed around her, he whispered back.
“No.”
Adagio twitched to life, her lungs hacking water. Her eyes shot open as she turned aside, coughing and sputtering more water. A gentle palm patted her back until every drop of water left her lungs.
Adagio slowly rose to sit on her knees. Cold sweat cascaded down her face, her shaky hand rubbing the back of her neck.
She turned right and saw Aria trying to look disinterested. She turned left and saw a frightened Sonata. Adagio almost immediately turned away.
“Dagi?” Sonata peeped, shaking like a leave. “What did he say?”
Adagio saw the phone her youngest sister had been avoiding. She lunged forward on her hands and knees, and grabbed it. She settled back on her knees and stared long at Sonata.
She shoved the phone into Sonata’s chest. Blue hands cupped around the phone, her eyes wide and confused.
“Call her,” Adagio said, her voice strong. Sonata tilted her head. “Just… just do it.”
She slipped that time, her voice wavering. Sonata started shaking again, and she frowned through fresh oncoming tears.
“You told him…” That wasn’t a question.
Adagio tried and failed several times to speak. She watched tears fall on that phone, hands squeezing and shaking, more quiet sobs wracking her chest.
"You told him. And now he's going to kill them, isn't he?" Adagio couldn't look at her. "Isn't he?!”
Adagio reached out. Sonata slapped her hand away.
“No! Get away from me,” she hissed.
Against her better judgment, Adagio actually tried to get angry at her younger sister. She failed spectacularly. She blinked her own tears away, shot to her feet, and marched past a stunned Aria.
Adagio tried to ignore Aria rising to her own feet. She failed at that too.
“Hey,” Aria called. Adagio stopped mid-stride. “Is that true? Is he really coming?”
No. Adagio refused to cry. But if she stayed their any longer, she’d could add ‘never cry’ to her growing list of failures.
“We should finish packing…” Adagio whispered, if only to hide the tremors in her voice.
Adagio retreated to her room, shut the door, leaned back against it, and slid to her bottom. She pressed her hands hard against her ears. She hoped, if she pressed hard enough, she could've drowned out Sonata’s loud sobs.
She failed that too.