//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 - Dolor // Story: A Ghost Within the Song // by Shadow_Wolf //------------------------------// Theme: The Beauty of the Beast - Nightwish Sometimes, when she dreamed, she could still remember the subtle strength of the earth beneath her; soothing in the memory of its presence and heartbreaking in the knowledge of its loss. In those dreams she yearned to feel the euphoria of living nature just on more time, to take back her missing heritage and be whole again. But even in dreams her birthright remained denied to her, her frail happiness choked off by a fog of numbing frost that always accompanied such dreams. And with the cold came the voices. Silenced as she was by the malevolent embrace of that fog, she could only listen as they murmured around her; and the longer she listened, the colder she became. How many of them surrounded her was impossible to guess, though one always seemed to call out beyond the others. She did not know to whom that voice belonged, only that it was she of whom it spoke and that it contained an authority as maddeningly familiar as it was irrefutable, an authority that could promise her eternal forgiveness as easily as everlasting damnation. With each passing moment, she yearned to deny the authority of that voice and implore it for understanding, but each time she tried, her own voice failed before she could utter a single word of explanation. Yet in spite of her suffering, a small part of her remained resolute before those voices as a unnatural song began to fill the growing voice they left within her heart; a discordant opus that slowly twisted her feelings even as her mind struggled to resist its call. But in this effort she knew she would fail, for the final notes of that song always signaled the end of her dream. How she knew this she could never explain, just as she could never escape the questions that waking left behind. What had she done wrong, and why did that voice chill her so? Wane light surrounded her as she shook awake, shocked and disconcerted as the last remnants of that dream crumbled into nothingness. On instinct, her right hand slid upwards to seek the slight weight that lay against her through, sighing lightly as her fingertips brushed across it. Still filled with the energy she had feasted upon earlier, the jewel resonated in time with the sound of her breathing and eased the phantom pains that clung to her as she took in her surroundings blindly. All around her, a mixture of familiar sensations wafted along her senses; the scent of various fruits carried by the touch of cool air across her neck as she lay at an odd angle against something firm and uncomfortable. Shifting to ease that discomfort, she felt her left arm brush against something, a soft chime echoing in her ears as something wet splashed across her bare skin to quickly spread beneath her forearm. Despite the sensation, however, she could not quiet bring herself to move and instead focused on breathing until her thoughts reoriented themselves. "Sonata," she whispered. "My name is Sonata Dusk..." Her named sounded strange and unnatural as she said it, almost as if doing so should have frightened her in some manner; but the act erased the last of her confusion and discomfort as she forced her eyes open to examine her surroundings directly. Auspiciously the room was lit well enough for her to make out the overturned wine glass against her fingers, otherwise its spilled contents could easily have been been mistaken for blood as it spread beneath the ice-blue skin of her wrist. Pushing herself upright, she ignored that thought and looked around, her eyes roaming into the darkened hallway just beyond the kitchen almost immediately. "You guys," she thought. She remembered sitting in the same spot earlier, talking with the others about the days events before their individual concerns over the upcoming Battle of the Bands had sent her friends off in each others arms as such worries often did. Most of the time she never really thought about their time together, but even if she would not admit it, such moments were always special to her, a kind of liberation to her mind that let her cast off expectation and bask in the emotional intimacies that meant more to her than any physical pleasure ever could. Of course, allure had always been an intrinsic part of their nature, one they had used many times for manipulation; but such times had become little more than an infrequent distraction when compared to the incessant hunger which haunted them since their banishment. The emotions that she had seen earlier, by contrast, had been something more; and whether it was the spiritual high of Equestrian Magic or the aftermath of honest laughter, for the first time in her memory, Sonata felt truly content in the aftermath of their shared companionship and let her thoughts drift back to her friends as she began to clean up the wine. Devious, abusive, deceitful and controlling, the kind of people who reveled in the misery of others; that was the Adagio Dazzle and Aria Blaze she knew, but that had not been who she had watched earlier. No, the girls she had watched earlier had been different in every possible way that mattered and for lack of a better term, it had simply been a nice thing to witness. Even at her most generous, Sonata could never have described either of her fellow sirens as loving, but earlier she had seen a kind of love the likes of which both girls would have readily and vehemently denied. Inexplicably, the memory seemed to call out to Sonata as it brought forth a long lost sense of understanding that took hold of her mind as her earlier discomfort resurfaced once more. It was in no way unusual for her to sleep with her friends - even if she rarely slept with them - but this time it felt as if her every thought urged her to run into the bedroom to nestle between them and lead them away from the evils they so often instigated so that the love she had seen would never fall away again. Try as she might, the longer she thought about it, the more she felt a sense of having missed out on something special as unfamiliar thoughts assailed in her ways she could not comprehend. But as quickly as the feelings came to her, they turned into feelings of revulsion that rushed through her in a wave of disgust. She was not a creature that understood others, she was a creature of resentment and suspicion given form, a monster that fed off the conflict she inspired. She was a siren! Facing the closed bedroom door, Sonata felt her eyes narrowing into a predatory gaze as a series of razor-sharp spines unfolded along her forearm as she did so; her mind seized by the sudden need to know what it would feel like to gut those sleeping forms and paint the walls in their still-warm blood. A single breath, she knew, was all it would take to snuff the life out of both of them and rid herself of the unbearable feelings they had inspired. All she had to do was strike, but as she felt herself move forward a reflection of inky shadow at the corner of her eyes caught her attention. Immediately she felt her hands clamp solidly over her mouth, barely stifling a scream as the spines retracted silently, her body frozen as liquid fire filled her veins. Trembling and barely able to remain standing, Sonata stumbled from the kitchen in a daze as she shook her head in denial of what she had nearly done. No matter the reason, she had always considered killing to be a crude, inefficient means of dealing with problems and knowing that she had not only thought of killing her friends, but that she had wanted to do so filled her with agony the likes of which she had never before experienced. Pain was an unfamiliar sensation to Sonata, one that her easy-going nature typically rationalized or ignored. As her legs finally gave out beneath her, however, she felt herself unable to escape it this time as she curled into a tight ball and sobbed pitifully. How she could have ever blamed the others for her own moment of weakness was impossible to understand, but far worse was how she realized the now she could not even call out to them for the help she no longer felt she deserved.