• Published 18th Sep 2015
  • 2,698 Views, 115 Comments

I Can Smile - Eyeswirl the Weirded



On her own, Sonata hatches a scheme that involves making the most of what she can do better than the others ever could.

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Chapter 3: Too Many Teeth!

After what felt like a longer period than the sirens' whole banishment (not that Sonata was keeping track, Aria was the one with the calendar fetish), they wound up back at Rarity's place, carrying half the bags each. The sun was going down as they went through the door, each setting their bags down on the living room table. Rarity gracefully reclined in a puffy chair and Sonata, in all her acheyness, flopped over on the couch.

The next thing she knew, it was early morning. Groggily, she sat up, happy that most of yesterday's pain was gone. To her slight dismay, there was no sign of loot on the coffee table, but there was a shiny little red box with a dark-blue bow next to a piece of paper. A quick look around revealed no Rarity, the coast was clear for swiping stuff! She of course started with the little box, realizing then and there that she had no real way of hiding swiped loot apart from a tiny pocket in her shirt. The box would barely fit, not to mention it would look like she had a weird little rectangle sticking out of her boob. Hoping that the paper was at least a check for all her pack-mule labor yesterday or something, she picked it up and unfolded it. There were no numbers in front of a few zeroes, but there was fancy penmanship!

Dear Miss Dusk,

I fear I must apologize, as it seems I nearly worked you to death today. I had only just caught my breath when I heard you snoring (it was only light, lady-like snoring, don't you worry) on the couch, and had thought you were simply lacking rest in this difficult time for your group. This was four hours ago. I have since attended to the bags myself, but I wish to thank you again for all your assistance.

As it happens, I procured you a little gift while we were out, but now I worry that it undercuts the value of your help. Just the same, I hope the token of thanks (located in the box beside this note) is to your liking, and if you should wake before I do-

"Oh, good, you're up!"

Sonata jumped half a meter in the air, looking around in a panic to see a giggling, apologetic-looking Rarity.

"Oh, goodness, didn't mean to startle you, Darling! I would have volunteered a more comfortable place to sleep than the couch, but I wasn't confident in my ability to move you, post-consciousness. Did you sleep well?"

Her heart still thumping, Sonata managed a shaky smile. "Y-yea, feelin' great!" It was true, this was the softest, plushiest sofa she'd ever partially sunk into!

Rarity nodded. "Pleased to hear it, did you read the note?"

Sonata quickly looked around, but she apparently lost the paper in her jump of terror. Luckily, Rarity opted to summarize.

"Well, the jist of it was; 'I'm sorry to have given you such undue exercise, please accept a gift to make up for it, and I'll be going to Fluttershy's for breakfast soon if you would like to come along.' Would you?"

As Sonata hadn't eaten since the cupcake incident from the day before, free noms sounded pretty good. "Ehm, y-yea, sure!"

Rarity smiled an elegant little rich girl smile. "Splendid! Allow me to prepare a few things and we'll be off shortly." And then she went somewhere else in the house. To do rich girl preparation things, probably.

Alone with the little box and aware that it wouldn't be swiping at all if she took it, Sonata quickly whipped the tiny lid off and looked inside. It was a shiny necklace, the thin, metal (she couldn't even guess what kind, but it was like, grey-shiny) chains leading to a pink, rounded, equally-shiny valentine heart thing as big as her nose. Holding it up, she stared at its shininess, watching what little light pierced Rarity's fancy windows flicker and glint off of it in the dimly-lit living room.

Sonata felt herself smiling, her actual, meaty heart doing little twirls as the awareness sunk in that this was hers, a gift from somebody that trusted her enough not to rob her in her sleep. Then her heart held very still and felt very sad at itself as she looked around, the opportunity to not be able to fit much of anything in her pocket anyway still there as she sat alone in Rarity's living room. There were shiny knick-knacks all over the place, but it didn't look like she'd be able to fit much of it in her outfit. At least not without sticking out, and that was always a dead giveaway. And REALLY uncomfortable.

So, since it looked like it was the only thing that would fit anyway, Sonata smiled, tugged the little flap of her shirt collar open and gently lowered her new necklace into her one pocket. It still felt like a pretty good haul to her.

---

It was hard to tell if a thing that you didn't plan to happen happening in your plans was a hiccup or not. Adagio would probably know, based on her love of her long, rambly explanations on priorities and direction and targets and blah-de-blah, but Sonata's situation felt distinctly hiccup-ish. Rarity took her over to Fluttershy's place for breakfast (the nickname 'Flutter-Butter' came to her right away, because Fluttershy was just spreading butter on toast at the time) and somewhere in her feeding frenzy, Sonata must have agreed to go help out at the animal shelter. Rarity might have mentioned how willing to offer her servitude Sonata had been the day before, but it was drowned out by enjoyment of some really tasty toast!

Flutter-Butter could do toast. That was what Sonata learned from that encounter. Maybe she could swipe a whole person, just to make toast for her? She didn't know how yet, but fitting her in her shirt was right out.

On the way to the smelly animal shelter, Sonata had some time to think. One of those thoughts was that the place they were going was probably going to suck, because in addition to the many funny smells (wet dog hair and poo, for starters), there probably wasn't much of anything valuable to swipe. On the other hand, there was Fluttershy, whose toast-making capabilities made it worth coming here for her alone. Alone was a good word choice, because Rarity had left Fluttershy and Sonata to go in themselves when they got to the animal shelter's front door.

This was going to be cake!

"Thief!" accused a voice, "Dirty thief, dirty thief, B-waaaark!"

Fluttershy gasped, looking at the offending parrot, perched in a nearby hanging cage. "Mister Tropico, that is not how we treat guests!" She looked at Sonata with wide, apologetic eyes. "I'm sorry, he's an old bird and his eyes aren't so good."

Sonata, standing very, very still as the realization that she hadn't totally just been busted by a psychic bird sank in, let out a short, nervous giggle. "Haha, w-what does that have to do with calling people thieves?"

"Oh, Rainbow Dash took one of his crackers once, he's just shouted that at blue people ever since."

Blink.

Fluttershy smiled. "Anywho, right this way, please!"

"So," Sonata began as they walked past the front desk and toward the back rooms, "what's the difference between this place and a zoo, anyway?"

"Well," the Mistress of Toast answered as she led the way, "an animal shelter is meant to take care of the creatures inside, but a zoo keeps them for the entertainment of visitors. I, um, don't really like zoos as much, because the animals there-"

They walked by some cages and Sonata tuned out. Most of them already had dogs inside, but they looked about big enough for a person of about She Who Spreads Butter Beautifully's size. As Fluttershy was walking in front of her, the siren grinned devilishly, the means by which to start this person-swiping all worked out in her head.

"Hey," she said with the friendly smile when there was a break in Fluttershy's I-rather-dislike-zoos meandering, "do you think we could let these doggies run free for a bit?"

Fluttershy stopped to look at her. "Eh, w-well, it's not quite their play time yet-" she noticed several pairs of ears perking up and tails wagging at those words.

Yes, thought Sonata, back me up, fleabags! "C'moooon, you don't want to keep 'em all cooped up like penguin sharks, do you?"

"You mean killer whales?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Uhm, I don't really know if now's the best time for-" The yipping of a smaller dog got her attention, drawing her eyes to his. They were wide. Soft. Pleading. She looked back at Sonata only to be startled by a similar expression.

"Pleeeeease?"

Smiling, The Butterfly of Buttering gave in, unlatching the door to the nearest cage, to the excitement of every canine in the room. "Well, okay, but I should warn you; they might be a little rambunctious at first, especially around new people."

Sonata beamed. "Nooo problem, Flutter-Butter!" Phase One complete: I am a genius! Under ordinary circumstances, abducting a person to make you toast forever might have been a little messed up, but if Sonata remembered right, Fluttershy was the one who shot her in the face with magical butterflies during the Battle of the Bands, so fair's fair. It may have just been her astral projection, but that didn't mean she didn't feel anything, dammit!

They began releasing the hounds together, but Sonata couldn't find any solid opportunities to kick Fluttershy into one of the cages without trapping a mangy mutt at the same time. Dogs were a big responsibility, and she could do without one of those, thank you very much! Luckily, once every cage was empty and the smelly fur-bags were scampering around sniffing each others' butts, The Patron Saint of Cooked Bread turned to her with a little smile and a suggestion.

"We should probably take this opportunity to refill their bowls. Do you think you could run water dishes to the sink while I crawl part-way into the cages to get them?"

Great difficulty accompanied not smiling like Adagio at her Adagiest in that instant. "Sure thing!" Standing behind Future Toast Machine as she turned around, got on her knees, and started crawling in to reach the first water bowl, Sonata chose then to make the evil smile, raise one foot, line it up with the wiggling rear in front of her, wind it up for a kick, and scream in agony as a pointy set of jaws sank into her own bottom.

The next thing she knew, she was on her knees and lightly rubbing the spot she was bitten. Fluttershy had probably jumped and bonked her head on the cage, judging by the way she was doing the same with her scalp. She scolded the dog that bit Sonata for being a bad, bad boy who had to go sit in the corner now.

The Lady of Crispy Bread looked at her with wide, worried eyes. "I'm so sorry for that, I told you they could get rambunctious, but they never just bite people for no reason!"

"Yea, yea, it's okay," Sonata said with a forced, but convincing, and of course, cute smile as she waved off the apology, "don't worry about a thing!"

Fluttershy looked relieved at this, nodding and returning to her task.

Sonata guessed that Toothy McButtchomper must have really wanted his water bowl filled, so she didn't risk making him mad by trying to kick The Goddess of Toasters into his cage again. Instead, she did what she said she would do; took the bowl once it was offered to her, walked over to the nearby sink, filled it up, brought it back, and handed it over for Fluttershy to put back. Simple!

The next cage, however, she stood behind Fluttershy as before, got ready to kick her into the cage, and then looked behind her. There was a dog, just a little one this time, growling at her. When she slooowly lowered her foot to the floor, the dog quit growling, instead standing there wagging his tail. There wasn't time to test his aggression for raised feet as Fluttershy turned around to hand her the next bowl, which she filled in the same way as the first one.

With the next cage, she did the same thing, seeing two growly doggies this time. She quickly thrust a foot backward to shove the dogs away, wound up that same foot to kick Fluttershy, and was surprised from behind by both puppies at the same time, one painfully latching onto each cheek.

Once more, she screamed, Fluttershy hit her Secrets-of-Toast-containing head on the cage, and quickly moved to scold the bum-biters. There were more apologies from Fluttershy and more pretending not to mind getting her butt chewed up at all from Sonata before they continued as before, at the latter's urging.

In the next minute, Fluttershy was on her knees in front of a cage, Sonata was standing with a foot raised, and surrounded by growling dogs. Starting to sweat, she made no move to kick Fluttershy into the cage for a future of well-heated bread, which seemed to spare her a mauling. A few cages later, Sonata understood for sure that she'd only been getting bitten when she tried to kick Fluttershy, most of the dogs now leaving her alone. A few were still watching her, but in less growly, lunge-y ways.

They must REALLY like toast here!

When there were only a few cages left, Sonata realized she was running out of opportunities to swipe Fluttershy, so she glanced around, saw no dogs growling at her, quickly raised a foot, wound up a kick, and got dog-piled on by bitey, growly balls of smelly fur and their many sharp fangs, screaming as she rolled around on the animal shelter floor.

A minute later, Fluttershy (after wincing and massaging the top of her own head again) was doing what she could to pull the dogs off of Sonata, pleading that they stop now please because Sonata wasn't here to hurt anyone. The would-be kidnapper almost made the mistake of correcting her, but it only came out in the form of-

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!"

And much growling and barking, though not from Sonata herself.

A second after another living bear-trap clamped onto her behind, she heard a ripping sound, catching sight of a little dog running off with her skirt. "HEY!!" She managed to push her way out of the dog-pile and quickly stagger to her feet, immediately giving chase through the animal shelter. "Give that back you little flea-hotel!"

She chased it out past the front desk and a family that had just heard all about the joys of owning a dog and out to the parking lot, where it led her in circles as though playing a game other than Murder the Siren.

"Give! Me! Back! My! Skirt!!"

Fluttershy called out. "Mister Fuddlypaws, you drop that skirt RIGHT NOW."

The dog let go of the torn, pink cloth, which Sonata hastily snatched up. "Ha! Stupid little-"

And then she realized she was outside without a skirt on, freezing in place. With a quick look around, she caught sight of several people standing, staring, snickering, and one holding up a cellphone at the sight of the siren covered in scratches and bitemarks, along with her blue-striped underpants.

Flushing crimson, she squeaked, dropped the skirt, and bolted back inside, running all the way to the back-most back room to escape the searing embarrassment.

---

Sonata sat on a little crate in the back-most room she could find, the lights out and only dim illumination coming from the doorway to the next room. She held her head in her hands as she let out a defeated, depressed, very-much-not-happy-about-how-this-was-going sigh. And then there was another bite.

"AUOCH!!"

Whipping her head around, she saw a little bulldog lightly growling at her, fangs still embedded in her hindquarters as she gave him a withering stare. As this didn't seem to effect him at all, she sighed again. "Sure, bite me all you want, I don't care anymo-" He bit her harder. "OW!!" Wincing, she managed a pained glare. "You know, when I say something like that, you're actually supposed to-" His little teeth loosened only long enough to snap her in a different spot. "YEOWCH!!"

Standing in the doorway with her arms crossed, Fluttershy cleared her throat, the bulldog immediately letting Sonata go and scampering over to her as though she had a treat for him. She did not, and looked down at him with a disapproving stare. "Cage. Now."

With the last butt-biter scampering off for its cage, possibly to shut and lock itself in as well, Sonata stared in amazement while tenderly addressing her sore posterior. "How did you do that?"

Giving Sonata a shy smile and trying not to look at her exposed underwear, Fluttershy shrugged. "Some people tell me I'm good with animals. Now," she said while holding the remains of Sonata's skirt in one hand and a needle with a spool of thread in the other, "why don't we see if I can sew up the damage here?"

In that moment, The Pope of Flat Wheat At Just The Right Heat looked almost angelic to Sonata, the only light in the room shining around her as her forgiveness (or complete ignorance, that was fine too) of the unsuccessful human trafficking shone down like a blessing from the heavens. Because she was standing in the doorway with a lit room behind her, but still. Abandoning her plans to person-swipe entirely, Sonata smiled. "That'd be great!"

---

Alright, this is getting ridiculous. Is she still sick?

Aria trudged through the still-peacefully-quiet house, not having heard a peep out of Adagio since she listened at her door yesterday. It was possible this was more than a one-day cold, but it was gonna suck if Aria had to be the one to nurse her back to health or any of that crap. Approaching the door, she heard a little noise. She didn't knock right away, instead tip-toeing closer to listen in like before. What she heard made her take a step back in shock.

No... She isn't...?

She leaned in again, waiting for almost a minute and a half before she heard what were unmistakably the sounds of someone sobbing.

Quickly, but quietly, Aria backed away from the door and went right back to her room, deciding that she didn't hear any of that.

She... She's just throwing a fit. Must have chipped a nail. Or lost her hairbrush. Or stubbed her toe. Big baby. I'll wait for her to come down from this, THEN we'll be back in business.

---

The lights in the back-most back room had been flicked on right after Fluttershy left and came back with juice boxes, Sonata stretching the last band-aid over a scratch on her knee as Fluttershy worked on her skirt. "Why did they all bite me in the butt at first, anyway?"

"Oh, I think Pinkie Pie trained them to do that. Don't ask me how. Something about people being less likely to sue or have the dogs put down if the only times people were bitten were funny."

Wincing at a slowly-fading bite-mark on her arm, Sonata chose to think that the damage of her recent mauling being spread out a bit more was probably better than all of the bites being in the same place. It hurt to sit down right now, but it hurt just as much to stand up! She sucked on the straw of her juice box in relative silence, just watching Fluttershy hum a cheerful little tune as she finished sewing up her skirt.

"Here," she said while offering the mended cloth and immediately looking away with a blush, "this should, uh, I mean, i-is this okay?"

Sonata took the skirt, quickly looking it over to find that the stitches were barely even visible, like the needle had been angled from the inside or something. Wow! Animal mind-control AND a freaky knowledge of sewing! She stood up to put in on, finding it to fit as snugly as ever around her hips. When she turned to thank Fluttershy, Sonata found her completely turning her head away, so she stepped over to lean down see what the toast-maker/doggie-tamer/skirt-fixer hybrid was looking at by resting her head on her shoulder.

This immediately elicited a startled yelp from Fluttershy, who scurried out of her seat and stood by the doorway with a flushed face. "W-what are you d-doing?!"

Sonata tilted her head a little. "Just trying to see what you were looking at. What was it?"

Fluttershy blinked twice. Catching on to the thinking, she nervously rubbed the back of her own neck . "Oh, uh, actually, um... It was more about, well, l-looking away from, y-you know, um... D-does the skirt fit right?"

Glancing down, Sonata gave her hips a quick swing back and forth and smiled. "Yep! Thanks for fixing it up, Flutter-Butter!"

Fluttershy (Fluster-shy?) flushed even brighter as she giggled. "Th-thank y-I mean, you're welcome." The blush only grew more vibrant as Sonata kept staring at her, the siren's smile slowly fading to a more contemplative look. "Is, um, s-something wrong...?"

"Huh? Nah, you just kinda remind me of Adagio."

"W-what?!"

"Well, I mean, of how she used to be, back home, before we got-" She reached up to her collarbone, feeling a split-second of panic before she remembered that what she was reaching for no longer existed. "Err... Before we left the sea. She used to be pretty quiet, y'know?"

Fluttershy's eyes widened, but she sensed an opportunity that took her group two weeks to reach with Sunset. "R-really? What was Aria like before?"

Snorting, Sonata giggled. "Ohh, she used to get crazy-mad about stuff, like all the time, but she really mellowed out a while after we got here."

Gingerly returning to her seat on the crate, Fluttershy picked up her yet-unopened juice box and smiled. "What was it like, living in the ocean?"

Almost unconsciously, Sonata sat back down too. "Well, it actually kinda sucked. For most of us, anyway. There were the coral spires in the middle of town, that's where all the hoity-toities lived, along with everybody that didn't wanna get munched by roaming bottom-feeders. If you couldn't get in, you'd probably live somewhere a little less, uh... safe."

Fluttershy frowned, but something in her eyes said it was the I'm-sorry-that-happened-to-you kind and not the oh-shut-up-nobody-wants-to-hear-it kind. "That sounds horrible."

To Fluttershy's slight confusion, Sonata giggled. "It totally was! That's why I came up with a plan to swipe some magic stuff to defend ourselves with, but I couldn't do it alone, so I tried to get help." Without thinking about it, she made her custom Adorably Annoyed pout. "Can you believe nobody even listened to me for the first week? It was like everyone was just okay with having to hide under hollowed-out rocks every night."

"No one wanted to to help?"

"Just one, a quiet kelpie that hardly even looked at anyone that didn't specifically address her. That was Adagio, back then. She was the first I tried to tell my plan that actually listened to the whole thing, but when I was done, she said it could never work because of guard patrols and seaweed-moving logistics and a complete misunderstanding of Abyssal Trench magic or something. But, since she listened to me, I figured I should at least listen to her. Turns out, she totally knew how to fix up the plan so it would actually work, and we only needed three kelpies!" As opposed to thirty-six and a marching band.

It struck Sonata as slightly weird that Fluttershy had no questions about what a kelpie was. "And what happened next?"

"Well, Adagio said that we'd need someone to be a distraction for the first part of the plan and have that same kelpie push a cart around the outer wall of the city real quick to catch the box the magic stuff would be smuggled through. I won't bore you with the details, but long story short, I wound up convincing Aria, kind of a lone-wolf tough girl at the time, that if the plan worked, we'd be the ones the scorpion-crabs were afraid of!"

"Scorpion-crabs?"

"Also known as "Tuesday Night!" And "Wednesday Night." And, pretty much every night, actually. Anywho, my plan as conducted by Adagio worked like a charm, the three of us had magic whichahoozits from the deep vaults under the central spire! She showed me and Aria how they worked," Come to think of it, she had some freaky knowledge too... "and we got to singing like never before!" Sonata giggled merrily, as though recalling a joyful holiday with her friends. "Well, I mean, any kelpie should be able to sing, just not to the point that making the bottom-feeders leave us alone was easy."

"And... that was what separated the 'hoity-toities' from everyone else?"

"Pretty much! The fanciest fish-folk had the magic, the rest of us had to find somewhere to hide, but then we had the magic! After that, I think her plan turning out so well went to Adagio's not-fluffy-yet head, because she was all about coming up with new plans for power and domination pretty much from then on. Ten years, one banishing, and several months later, here we are!"

Fluttershy looked back her wide-eyed. "Wow."

"Yep!" Sonata glanced around, a vacant smile on her face. "How'd we get to talking about this, anyway?"

Blinking twice, Fluttershy smiled sheepishly. "I-I'm not entirely sure." There was a short, awkward silence before she remembered what they were doing in the animal shelter to begin with. "Would you like to help me with the gerbils? They could use some exercise."

As this felt like as good a chance to make up for the near person-swiping she did, Sonata smiled. "Sure!"

Author's Note:

I can't tell if I'm making Aria borderline inscrutable, or completely transparent with this interpretation. Let's give her a little love! What would you guess are Aria's feelings from scene to scene?

Also; didn't want to dwell on backstories too much, but I think the most important details were included.