Nata and I could sing, but Adagio's voice was different. Even though it had no effect on me, I knew it was bewitching. Her voice, clear and haunting, was trained perfectly on the coasts where she was born and she sang with ease in the reef waters with Nata and I.
She was better in every way and she knew even though I would never, ever tell her! Every word that came out of Adagio's mouth smoother than every lie I've ever told, and I don't think she even needed time to come up with the messages her words made you see, she just... sang and smiled strangely as her voice flowed, smooth as waves and there was some kind of forced, unnatural charm to it that had Nata glowing and laughing. But me? I just felt twice as stupid when I fumbled and tried to get to her level.
She knew. She smiled, but it wasn't a nice smile. There was that same sweet and just barely over-doing it maturity she thought she had whenever she gave that look to Nata.
But this time there was a venom to it only I could see.
And I wouldn't forget it.
...
Adagio knew the word for every tone and lilt. She knew lyrics like I knew fights and she wanted the two of us to know it too. She was the one who took over the singing lessons Nata and I would stumble through so half heartedly every now and then like it was a joke.
She used that smile that glittered as gold as her coin colored scales to win Nata's trust. But I was fine with that. After all, she wasn't pestering me any more. No more calls to look at the newest fish she found, since colorful fish are what caught Nata's attention and those became few and far between as we went farther and farther north.
Adagio let little things slip, a turn here to be kept for so many days or a change in course to help me find the land where all the ponies lived with sea foam water that fell from the sky, which was like another Surface. I didn't believe that part of what Adagio said since there's no way a sun and moon could just float around on a Surface like that.
I never got the chance to tell her this, since she always was talking to Nata, or the other way around, while I led. They fell far behind so often, that whenever I did start to talk to them I'd always be frustrated with how slow they were, and just screamed at them whenever this happened.
Nata stopped talking to me. She stopped causing so many problems now that it wasn't me having to baby her. I could actually think a bit about what was important, like finding food or shelter. Let Adagio take care of her, she's got the time to play mommy to Nata, although, how she enjoys it I'll never know. Sirens like us can't have foals anyway, so why in a abyss's darkest reaches would she be so obsessed with being the one to make Nata's silly fish wraps or try and come up with nonsense stories to tell Nata before she goes to sleep? Nata's not a little filly any more!
Heck, I'm not even sure if she's a filly at all since, uh, it was a while ago but I told her that birthdays were against the rules since it's not like I'm gonna stick a sea slug on a clam shell and give her some garbage like that every year. When all this is over and done she'll be getting all the presents she wants from her father. That deadbeat owes her.
...
I breath out a loose stream of bubbles, hiccuping when one gets caught in my throat, and look up at the shimmering Surface far above our latest campground. Through the murky veil of water, I catch hundreds of little holes in sky so far away, where one of the Alicorn gods must have used their magic to poke holes in the darkened barrier so the sailors can still see before the sun is back next morning.
Nata and Adagio are hidden in the kelp bed that we were lucky to find, while I sit, guarding them from any predators that could sneak up on us.
I've never known much of anything about the Surface for myself, and if Adagio's words are true than we'll be Surfacing soon, Nata too. Adagio seems excited enough, in her own way and well... Nata doesn't really seem aware of what's happening. Like always.
I remember ancient sailor's tales that I heard of grand cities like reefs, surrounded by all sorts of weird things... 'landscapes'. What's that supposed to mean? I don't know and I guess I'll know when I see one.
Ponies are supposed to be very creative, their crafts aren't as nuanced or practical as the average seapony's and they even have stars buried within the earth, but once they fall from they star-holes that the Alicorns make they're called gems. Gems often end up in ships like Adagio's and they're good for trading.
I just... well, I'm apprehensive on exactly how much ponies trade and what they'll trade for. There's always so many tales from the Overworld that it's hard to know what's real and what isn't or what was when and what's now.
But would Nata's father... would he want me to pay him to take Nata and I in? We would need a lot of gems, which are like hearts, but dead, and if his name means anything to me it's that he's wealthy. I just know it. It's something a pony wouldn't name their foal unless they expected great things out of them.
"What are you thinking about, Aria?"
I shiver as I hear Adagio and realize I hadn't noticed her sneaking up on me.
"Tomorrow," I reply, lying as naturally as I always have without a flicker of guilt. Lies have never been anything for me to get worked up over.
"Is that true?" she asks, voice low and sneering like her smile as she sits down next to me.
Ugh.
Adagio...
"Yeah. There might be a storm coming, it's been too calm, wouldn't you say?"
"What makes you assume that?"
"It's always calm before a storm, Adagio. Quit playing dumb."
"What were you really thinking about?"
"Why do you keep saying I'm thinking of something else? Do you think I just sit here and have all these deep and meaningful thoughts or I sing my heart out?"
"Of course not, your singing is not from the heart and you have no reason to exhaust power like that."
"So, what was it Adagio?"
"Knowledge is power."
"What?"
She lifts her head so she no longer focuses on me, if she ever was in the first place. "It's something that ponies say."
"Well, I think it's stupid."
"Oh?" Adagio smiles a bit wider, but there still isn't any friendliness to it, only that dark, show-off gleam in her eyes, the one that matches her eyeteeth. The curly gold-orange fins around her face bounce slightly.
"Power's power. Knowledge is for scholars, power's for those who conquer. Everything is what it is."
"What about metaphors?"
"What? Don't you have something better to do than question me on things I don't need. I'm neither a scholar or a conquerer."
"Then what are you, Aria?"
"A bored, tired teenager. I don't care what else you have to say, just go bother Nata with this stuff. Gods know she could use it."
We don't say a word to each other the rest of the night. I stare straight ahead, while she hums a tune that gets on my nerves in ten minuets. Nata wakes up to a drama queen muttering about beauty sleep and a very short-tempered me who tells her to get her own breakfast.
Adagio's the one who has to stop her from eating the nearest rock. I couldn't read Nata's expression but the look she gave me after that... it was different from all the others, but I'm not sure why.
The ocean is a whole lot colder between us.