• Published 19th Oct 2018
  • 1,384 Views, 40 Comments

Creeping Normality - Eyeswirl the Weirded



Adagio's career takes off in a way she'd have never thought possible. Aria and Sonata are less than thrilled.

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Chapter 6: Ledge Suspension

Aria sighed.

Sitting just outside a lawyer's office over the slightly muffled sounds of Sonata yelling at some rent-a-cop, she was forced to admit, if only to herself, that they might have been screwed. She'd been so sure about this one; so sure that this was gonna be the plan that landed them in millions of dollars they could do whatever they wanted with, maybe even be set for life.

Tracing an idle hand over the gem fragments in her pocket, feeling their sharp edges somehow deepened the sense of their betrayal. They were supposed to be the perfect evidence to show that the Rainbooms had destroyed their irreplaceable property, the means by which they'd establish their case and sue those girls for every cent they were worth, which had to be a lot if they were getting away with using magical super powers in broad daylight. They even had proof! Picture and video evidence of those girls showing off and doing their 'hero' stuff on social media!

Adagio had insisted that this plan would never work, that she only held onto the pieces of her gem for sentimental reasons and the off-chance that she might be able to fix it somehow, so it would have been all the sweeter to prove her wrong using exactly those pieces. And now, if Adagio ever heard about this little failure, or the others, Aria would have more than a few eggs on her face. Maybe she could stop the 'you idiots' and 'I told you so's by throwing actual eggs back, let her wash that out of her stupid hair.

Finding the remains of one of their gems had felt like a lucky break while they were tearing the house apart in search of more of Adagio's stashes, hoping to find one that Adagio herself had forgotten about if they were lucky. Money was getting tighter and tighter, to the point that they were even looking for holes in mattresses and loose floorboards and stuff. Days of on-and-off searching (between naps and snack breaks) rewarded them with all they had left of the gems, but now Aria was just wondering how much they'd get for pawning the pieces. They were still nice and shiny, and people always spent big bucks for jewelry, right?

None of it mattered, though, because the lawyer didn't just reject their case entirely, he told them to leave and never come back! He even called security on them when they tried to convince him otherwise, which was when Sonata, feeling all legally-minded now, opted to try this 'sovereign citizen' thing she'd heard about on the internet, something about getting what you want by citing rules nobody's ever heard of in the legal system. Aria had a sinking feeling the minute Sonata started telling them that she was a free entity and that the security guy in there now had no jurisdiction over her or whatever, so she'd just walked out, sat down, and waited for the bitter end.

She could still hear it going in there.

"You can't touch me, this is a free country, I have the right to be wherever I want to be! I do not consent! I'm not breaking the law, you can't taze me if I'm not breaking the law, Idonotcons-AAAIIIEEEEEE!!"

Aria sighed.

%%%

"Chrysaliiis...?"

"I know, I know, but hear me out: We want to go out and have some fun, right?"

"Right."

"And we want to ensure some media attention while doing so, right?"

"Right, but-"

"And we know the best way a pair of pretty ladies can get attention, right?"

"Are you sure you're not just trying to get me into a swimsuit like yours?"

"Of course not," tittered Chrysalis, dressed only in a tight, black, shiny slingshot bikini that left very little to the imagination, "black isn't your color at all. If I were you, I'd go with something red. Although," she added with a cheeky smirk, "if you do want into my swimsuit, I'm not-agh!"

Chucking her shirt in Chrysalis's face and smiling to herself when she heard the indignant huff that followed, Adagio disappeared behind changing room doors. As much as she was growing to like the woman, she didn't want to be that close, but she could certainly put up with the flattery until Aria came along.

If Chrysalis is as interested in her as she is in me, I can't picture Aria saying no. She'll quit hitting on me after that, right? Or at least tone it down when she has someone else to play with whenever she comes around? Maybe she'll like Sonata, too.

She might have felt some sense of sleazy guilt for thinking of feeding her two oldest companions to an apparently ravenous love-monster, but she knew Aria wouldn't mind the chance, and even in the event that she wasn't interested, Sonata would be offended that she'd been left out if she wasn't so much as asked.

The thought of Sonata's angry pout and annoyed foot-stamp drew a quiet giggle as she got dressed in a white-and-blue-striped bikini (in the same hues of her Eezy-Cheezy uniform, because she happened to find one among the shop's selection). It was close-fitting, but not digging into her or riding up uncomfortably, and while it showed plenty of skin, it was easily more modest than what Chrysalis was going with.

Honestly, anyone standing behind her can see almost everything. Then again, our glittering scales used to be enough to entice without the angle of being able to reveal more later. Maybe her near-nudity works on the same principle? My hair covers almost everything but my legs from the back, so maybe I should try it some time.

Shrugging to herself, she stepped out to greet an already smiling Chrysalis.

"Stripes? Good choice; the lines show your curves even from a distance."

Blushing a little, Adagio opted to pretend she was going for that. "Thank you. So, where to?"

%%%

Swiping the keycard and pacing into to her hotel room late that afternoon carried with it a relieving kind of bliss, like lying down on a soft bed after a long day. The difference, Adagio immediately noted, was that the feeling normally came with having accomplished something in the day prior, having actually done some kind of work, which was decidedly not what she was up to with Chrysalis today.

She did say that they call her 'Queen' around here, but I wasn't expecting to get the whole day off so easily. Perhaps the fact that we're due to stay a few more weeks here is relevant and I suppose I haven't technically had a 'day off' since the tour began, but she barely needed to do more than ask nicely.

That was the dream, wasn't it? To have that kind of power, that kind of influence, to have all of her whims granted with just a wave of the hand and maybe a flirty gesture? At the same time, she knew it wasn't as simple as ordering people around and never thinking about the weight of her actions, that she could never let herself be careless even if she held more sway.

If anything, I should have been even more diligent at the Battle, should have had the doors leading under the stage welded shut, should have-

"Welcome back."

Startled by her maid, again, Adagio clamped down on her budding mental tangent and the sense of annoyance at herself for already failing to be diligent while berating herself for not being diligent enou- She managed a smile. "Eh, yes, hello. Did you need something?"

Felt Feather stared back at her in silence for a moment, as though uncertain whether or not to respond at all. "As it happens, that was my question for you."

"Hm?"

"I have not had an abundance of tasks to attend to during the day, so I have taken to cleaning the hallways and elevators leading to this room."

"I thought the lobby's floor tiles were shinier than usual... Even the dining room tables looked more polished when I popped in for a milkshake and a sandwich." She was a little perturbed by the way Felt twitched, Adagio swearing she could hear a tiny, pained squeak. "Er... Would you like one too, or...?"

"No Madam, but, i-if I may...?" She waited for a nod of confirmation before continuing, her eyes growing soft and sad. "Please do not take my job."

As the realization that this girl was much easier to read through her eyes than her mouth-

Will that work on Mr. Sandwich, too?

-sunk in, Adagio noted that she probably could have just asked Felt to bring her food as opposed to getting it herself, even if she happened to be walking near the source anyway. She smiled placatingly. "Sorry, I've spent the better part of the past year doing the serving, and as I still spend most of my time following directions rather than giving them, especially around cameras, it's pretty much become habit to do things myself by now. Perhaps I could find more for you to do if you joined me at work?"

The quiet dismay in the girl's eyes quickly gave way to warmth and hope, even including a tiny smile before she composed herself into her usual stoic expression. Or lack thereof. "That would be welcomed, thank you."

Adagio shrugged a little. "No problem. On that topic, do you think you could bring me my mail whenever it arrives? Might save Mr. Sandwich from running all over to bring it to me."

At this, Felt Feather raised an eyebrow much more noticeably. "Mail? All of your postage is delivered here to the hotel, and nothing addressed to you does not pass through my hands. There has been no mail since your arrival in this city."

Adagio's eyes widened as fear and panic shot through her heart like electricity, most of all for the connections she immediately made to Cheese Sandwich's 'fan gifts.'

He lied to me. Possibly twice. And I ate what he gave me both times.

While the awareness that she might have been poisoned jumped up and down at the back of her mind, saner thoughts held it at bay as she looked for more information. "Is it... is it possible that someone could just drop something off for me, or...?"

"With regard to certain incidents in the past, all deliveries are briefly inspected, documented, and reach their destinations only through particular channels, or they are to be rejected entirely. Security detail should see to it that nothing is simply 'dropped off.'"

So it probably wasn't fan mail. It was preposterous to think that Cheese Sandwich had something malicious in mind with his packages of sweets, and Adagio couldn't remember even feeling the faintest bit ill after ingesting anything he'd given her, but he didn't seem like the type to lie, either. This would require investigation.

"Miss Feather? I believe there's something else you can help me with..."

%%%

A well-dressed man and woman walked hand-in-hand under the lights of a long, scenic bridge in the early evening, moonlight glittering over the sea and well into the horizon.

"This has just been the most wonderful evening," said the woman, "I can't think of anything that would make it better."

Releasing her hand and taking a step backward, the man smiled tenderly. "I can."

Slowly dropping to one knee, he produced a small box from his pocket, holding it where the woman could reach as she looked on in awe. Hesitantly reaching out, she opened the box and gasped, tears of joy in her eyes and a smile splitting her face. The camera closed in on the contents of the box; many tiny, crisp rings of potato partially submerged in golden, gleaming fondue.

Poofy stepped into view during a shot of the two eating the rings on a bench together, sighing happily.

"Ahh, love." Then she turned to face the camera with a smile. "Try our new dipping rings; cooked potato with melted cheese! Only at Eezy-Cheezy!"

Eezy-
Cheezy!

%%%

Life was okay sometimes.

That was Aria's only, somewhat hazy thought as she stretched out on the recliner in the living room, her feet up and a calm, comfortable sense of ease settling over her muscles and leaving her just feeling all cozy.

Naturally, this was around the time that Sonata burst in with a particularly emphatic slam of the front door, startling Aria out of her calm coziness and into that full, heart-pumping, wide-awake, there's-no-chance-I'm-getting-back-to-sleep-any-time-soon feeling. Before she could loudly voice her complaints, however, Sonata marched around the corner, reflecting her anger right back at her as she held up a thin piece of folded, white cardboard bearing a picture of a beach on one side.

"Look at this thing!"

Sitting up, somewhat perturbed, Aria leaned forward to better examine the postcard that she quickly deduced was sent by Adagio when Sonata held it open. It contained a picture of their former leader along with a tall, dark, smiling woman, the two of them wearing swimsuits and sipping colorful drinks as they casually posed for the camera. On the opposite side was Adagio's handwriting.

Been having some fun out here, I even made a friend!
How are you two? Have you found jobs yet? Because if not,
I think we might be able to find something out here for you.
I can't say what it would be or how long you'd be doing it,
but I'm sure we could figure something out.

Contact me any time!
-Adagio

"Who the...? Hang on a sec."

Fishing her phone out of her vest pocket, Aria tried a few different search terms before finding an article about 'Poofy' hanging out with some actress labeled 'The Queen' at a water park. 'Article' was perhaps too generous a term, because it mostly contained pictures of the two in their bikinis, often zoomed in a little further than necessary, but she still got the sense that they were having a good time together as they splashed about in pools, shot down water slides, ate hotdogs, and just lounged on big, inflatable pool rings while wearing sunglasses.

Seeing all this, Sonata stomped a foot. "Rrrrgh! This is bullshit! She's living it up and rubbing it in our faces while we work and work and work and get nothing! I mean, maybe we're not doing actual jobs, but this is totally harder, so we should be getting more anyway!"

Aria began to form a response, but her attention was quickly drawn back to the pictures, particularly one in which Adagio and The Queen ('Chrysalis,' was apparently her name, though Aria didn't spend much time reading the text) sat on backless barstools as they sipped colorful drinks (possibly the very same ones in Adagio's postcard) together, the cameraman having made the most of angles and the lighting to get a shot of their backs, their wet, orange and dark-blue hair flat and shiny as it stuck to their still-glistening figures in the relatively dim light of the little indoor rest area by the pools. She vacantly noted that the two in the picture probably knew they were being ogled, because both were arching their backs just enough to make their-

"Hey!!"

Startled, again, Aria wasn't sure if that was the reason her face had gotten so hot. "W-what?!"

Sonata was giving her an especially annoyed look. "You could at least pay attention when I rant about stuff!"

Aria rolled her eyes. "If you paid attention more often, I wouldn't have to explain things so many times." She quickly drifted back to the pictures, particularly noticing the way Chrysalis's swimsuit rode up on her, only aided by her sitting position. "Y-y'know, maybe we've should've joined Adagio when she-"

Sonata smacked her on the back of the head. "We can get all the ass we want when we're super rich and famous too! Now let's go look through that spooky old house on the abandoned hill where legend has it there's a buried treasure somewhere in the desolate halls from which intruders are said never to return!"

Rubbing the back of her head as Sonata set off, probably without a clue of where she was actually going, Aria huffed.

"Bet you'd wanna go if it was a cake in that slingshot..."

Noting that a cake in a slingshot bikini made no sense whatsoever and that it'd probably just be all squished by how the thing is supposed to be worn, Aria shook her head, decided that she needed to get laid, and got up to follow Sonata.

%%%

"Any time, 'Dagi-O!"

And away went Cheese Sandwich, Adagio standing idly with a little bag of chocolate-and-cream rolls. She waited a solid minute after he was out of sight, then held the bag out to her side. "Miss Feather? Take this to my room, would you? I think I'll enjoy a few later this evening."

"At once, Madam."

Adagio smiled to herself as Felt Feather took hold of the bag and left.

Once she's had his 'gift' properly inspected, I'll know whether or not he's drugging me with anything and move from there.

In the meantime, she had her other schemes to worry about, namely whether or not the Rainbooms were going to respond more openly to her trap and if Aria and Sonata would accept her invitation.

If just one of them comes, the other will inevitably follow, but it's been at least a week since I sent them that postcard and I haven't gotten so much as a text message.

The stupid, Rainboom-mocking commercials were even longer ago, but at least she saw some kind of feedback in the form of messages on those girls' social media. It pleased her to know that while the Rainbooms weren't quite laughing stocks, they were getting their share of mockery through bacon jokes and comparisons to the 'Rainbow Sugar Patrol.'

I might not be able to draw energy from it anymore, but their reactions in some of the comment sections? Delicious!

Short-tempered Rainbow Dash and Sunset Shimmer had provided the most entertaining material, but there was a special spice in the way Rarity desperately tried to keep her composure before proving to be no better. The others had a gem or two apiece, but those three were the ones whose pages she read with a bowl of popcorn.

By the time her fun was finished, however, she determined that, if the Rainbooms had any intention of taking their frustrations out on her, they never said as much online. The seven of them weren't exactly being taciturn with their feelings on the subject (though Fluttershy's reactions were... difficult, to place), which was how Adagio knew that they'd clued in on her little trap, having reminded each other on a few different occasions that their impotent (and hilarious!) rage was just playing into her hands. She'd pieced together from several separate posts that they must have worked out what she was up to, and despite their collective annoyance, feared that retaliation would end with all of them in prison.

Adagio took this to mean that their public stance was that they would let her be, but could still very well be convening in private to talk about taking action, so she concluded that the commercials, while amusing, had failed to give her closure on the subject. At least they were still leaving Aria and Sonata alone.

She chuckled to herself. One group of angry girls she wanted to fend off and ensure never came near her again with help from her wealth and good fortune, the other she tried to coax into rejoining her with help from her wealth and good fortune. She was sure that Sonata would have had something stupid to say about it, were she here.

%%%

"This shit'll make us rich!"

Aria would have rolled her eyes were she not so focused on fighting off the thick, choking stench of raw sewage as the two of them walked through the bowels of Canterlot. Not in the gross, mucky part, obviously, but the narrow, concrete paths at the sides. Not that that was much better in Aria's watering eyes, but it was either this or...

Wait, how did that idiot get me to go along with this?!

She remembered the plan that came just before this one, and how they'd had to comfort each other while sipping hot chocolate after hours of freaking themselves out and jumping at shadows in that stupid, old, creepy, treasure-free house, but not how Operation: Bumble Through Sewer = Profit came to be.

"We just gotta find some shinies," proclaimed Sonata as she valiantly marched ahead with a stolen metal detector, thoughts of wealth and luxury drowning out the odors that would stick to her hair and clothing for days to come, "and we'll be filthy, stinking, and rich!"

Oh yea, Aria thought as she forsook any notions of correcting Sonata, that's right; she came to me babbling about how she'd heard there was tons of gold in the world's sewer systems and practically demanded that we either go look for it, or I come up with a better idea, because it was that or going crying to Adagio for money.

Aria had her doubts every step of the way here, but now she knew: Her failure to come up with any, any alternative to sifting through gallons and gallons of vile sludge in the hope of finding discarded, golden necklaces or something flushed down the toilet by careless idiots was something she was going to regret for the rest of her life.

It had all seemed so easy, just a couple days before Adagio left; she was sure she could wait until Adagio wouldn't be around to get in the way, go to the studio, seize total control of everything Adagio had, and be in charge from then on, nothing Adagio could ever do to get on top again because of some legal stuff she'd have worked out when they got there. Nothing had gone the way she hoped, and now she and Sonata were in deep shit. Literally, if they weren't careful. They owned the house (well, Adagio owned the house, but it wasn't like she was gonna charge them rent), but they barely had enough to pay the bills last month and in a few more weeks, they'd be flat broke.

But... maybe it wasn't too late?

Her pride had fiercely protested the very idea of it even when confronted with all of their failures up to this point, but she couldn't shake the feeling that maybe they really should have accepted Adagio's offer (to join her in being famous, not working at a fast food joint, obviously) after all. They could call Adagio, tell her they'd come join her, get on their knees and beg forgiveness if they had to, and finally be living on easy street.

Then they could dupe and double-cross her whenever they wanted instead of having to start from scratch!

Even so, she practically had to force the words. "...Hey. Sonata?"

Still waving the metal detector around, Sonata didn't look back. "Yea?

"I've... I've been thinking, we-"

Sonata's metal detector bee-wooped to life, drawing a big smile from its holder. "We've got a bite, let's go!!"

She charged ahead, the rest of Aria's sentence coming out as a dejected sigh before she moved to follow. They ran through the sewer trying to find something that might be made of metal other than various pipes and fixtures, Aria unwilling to say out loud that if they were looking for gold people flushed, they should probably be searching the muck, not the comparatively clean walkways in the hopes that a pile of riches would just be randomly lying around. She knew it meant they were completely wasting their time this way, but at least they wouldn't be wasting their time and soaked in excrement. Besides, Sonata would get hungry and give up eventually.

Running around a corner that was getting a particularly lively response from the detector, they saw a man in shabby-looking clothes and messy hair. He turned to face them with a faraway look in his eyes, as though trying to discern whether the two girls were even real.

"It's beeping at this hobo," Sonata said while pointing the detector at him, her expression turning sweet. "Hey mister, do ya think you could spare us some gold?"

If not for the air here, Aria would have gaped.

The homeless man mumbled something under his breath as Sonata gently poked him with the detector, still using her 'innocent girl' voice.

"C'moooon, you probably live here, you musta found something down here by now, right? Just give us a little!"

Aria leaned over while the transient idly eyed the detector and scratched himself. "Sonata, what the fuck?! If he had gold, don't you think he'd at least upgrade to living in a box on the street or something?!"

"I'unno, hobos are dumb! That's why they're hobos!"

"You do realize that we're on the verge of becoming hobos here."

"...So?"

Aria didn't have time to decide on explaining the subtleties of the thing to Sonata or just smacking her upside the head before the man in front of them said something that wasn't words and reached into the pocket of his ratty jacket, drawing a knife.

Aria ran like the foul-smelling wind, and was relieved to hear (though the acoustics of the sewer made it a little hard to tell) Sonata's terrified wails and footsteps closer to her than the hobo's heavy steps and inane gibbering. She could have sworn she heard a heavy thud, but didn't do the stupid horror movie heroine thing of turning back to look, just kept running until she was out of breath. It wasn't until Sonata stopped beside her, hands on her knees as she panted the putrid air, that Aria dared turn around. She let herself breathe a sigh of relief, but a loud rumbling noise from nearby got her to whip around again.

Staring at the two of them was a massive, monstrous crocodile, easily six meters long and two across, making Aria idly wonder how it got into this sewer in the first place. Not confident that she had it in her to flee for her life again so soon, Aria felt a cold dread that seeped all the way into her bones. Then she heard a distant voice echo through the tunnels.

"There it is!!"

Unconsciously, she turned her head to see the Rainbooms, all dressed up in their fancy Hero gear (save Rarity in a form-fitting hazmat suit), Rainbow Dash pointing in her direction.

Oh, fuck me with a shovel.

%%%

Meanwhile, in Santa Monica, Adagio sat in the cozy chair of her hotel room, idly looking over her schedule for this last week in/near Hollywood. Across from her was Chrysalis, comfortably stretched out in a provocative pose on the couch, but Adagio got the impression that it was less another attempt to seduce her and more that just being her resting state.

At least she's wearing pants this time.

"Hey," Chrysalis asked with a little smile, "it's been a while since our outing at the water park, right? I still haven't seen those friends of yours anywhere." She blinked, a contemplative look on her face. "Or, at least I don't think I have. What do they look like, anyway?"

Thumbing through her phone, Adagio smiled. "I'll show you, they're riiight..."

She trailed off, worry increasingly clear in her eyes. Chrysalis sat up, watching Adagio's entire body slowly lock up before she stopped searching, looking back at her with an unsettlingly stiff, uneasy grin.

"...I have no pictures of them."

An awkward little quiet ensued, Chrysalis briefly needing to look away. "You girls never, er, took selfies or anything together?"

Adagio softly shook her head. She'd heard of the activity, took a picture of herself once, felt self-conscious over the tiny, immortalized version of herself, and re-did it eight times before giving up and deleting them all, but never had a reason to take pictures of the others when they were pretty much always within easy reach anyway.

Which meant that, should something happen to them, she would have nothing. The rational part of her was already smoothing over the cracks and ripples in her mind by noting that it was extremely unlikely that she'd need to hire a detective or anything to look for them and the tour was almost over, so she'd be able to take their pictures soon anyway, but the cold tingles through her chest persisted.

Chrysalis, for her part, did her best not to look as uncomfortable as she was getting.

She lost in thought again? There's gotta be a way I can have fun with that, but this girl looks like she's about to cry.

"So," she said with a peppy smile, "you picked out what you wanna wear for the game show?" She already knew the answer, but could see in an instant that this had the desired effect of shaking Adagio out of whatever sad little bubble she'd gotten herself into.

"Eh, uh... Yes, the, Poofy outfit. I'm there as a mascot, not as myself, so I don't think tight, glittering dresses would be allowed for me."

"Tight, glittering, short dresses," she corrected with a playful wink. "We'll be sitting at little counter-top things the whole time, so no one in the audience should even be able to see our lower bodies."

"I'm guessing it gets warm?"

Her smile tilted towards predatory. "It does when your fellow celebrity guests see your lovely legs."

"Ah." Her face utterly passive, Adagio's attention returned to her phone. "Good tip."

Adagio didn't even notice Chrysalis's wry smirk as she read over the message from Felt Feather.

[Inspections are complete.]

Author's Note:

"Life is so unnerving, for a servant who's not serving,
he's not whole without a soul to wait upon..."

I wouldn't count on this being true of 99.99% of the human population (singing candles not being the best source of wisdom to start), but Felt Feather is one such person, and just doesn't know what to do with herself if she isn't fulfilling her favorite task of catering to someone.

I was tempted to go into a full comment section imitation for what Adagio saw on the Rainbooms' mystable pages, but it mostly would have just been lame jokes at their expense and some of them getting especially angry about it, which doesn't sound particularly fun to read or write. If you've ever seen people raging at each other over the internet before, you've seen what I probably would have come up with, and I felt that Adagio's reaction to it was the more important detail anyway.