Born Again

by Kickback

Out on the Road

It was raining.

It had been raining alot lately.

Aria Blaze gave one last long drag at the smoldering cigarette between her teeth before winding down the window. Stray drops of water sneaked into van as she threw out the bud onto the winding road. She gave a brief look down at herself. Her torn baggy jeans rested against her legs comfortably and her dirtied white tank top hung lazily off her shoulders. With a quick motion, she flicked irritably at the stick, leaning back in her seat, letting her cheek fall onto her now empty fist. Her other and steadily held onto the wheel, her eyes kept on the slick road ahead of her, past the thick glass window. Not like her sister's eyes. Sonata excitedly sat up, clasping her fists over her taut knees, smiling brightly as she watched the wind-shield wipers go back and forth. As if their dance was the most interesting thing in the world.

Truly, she had to be the worst.

But she was practically one of the only things Aria had left.

Here she was. Another day as a human. Another day as an ordinary, powerless, fucking human. Just how long had it been? How long had it been since their power was taken? Since their most precious possessions, no their very hearts were shattered to a million pieces right in front of them? Weeks? Months? By the Sea, it might as well have been her whole life with how long it felt.

The constant rattling of the equipment and supplies sliding around in the back and pitter-patter of the rain near drove her mad.

Aria slumped back in her seat. She gave a quick glance over to her sister. Clad in her favourite pink skirt but opting to rock a woolly sweater around her torso. Sonata just sat there, kicking her legs back and forth, smiling up at everything. Not a single thing her gaze snapped to wiped her happy grin from her delicate, young features. Aria couldn't help but wonder just how long those looks will last. For her and her sisters both. There was nothing special about them now. Not a single thing. For centuries, they had been kept sustained by their immortal blood, fueled by the negative energy of the humans. Now they couldn't absorb it so it was only a matter of time before they started to age just like they do.

Why didn't that bother her? Aria wondered. There was no way Sonata didn't know how bad their situation was. She had been alive almost as long as she had. Sure she wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, Aria made sure to let her know that practically every day. But she was a Siren and the last thousand years hit her just as hard as did her and Adagio.

As Sonata turned her gaze outside, watching the bright headlights of cars go by, mesmerized by the way they blurred in the rain, Aria quickly looked behind her seat. There sat Adagio, her once perfectly kempted hair now seemed dull and sagged as she leaned her back against the inside of the van. She had long since abandoned her overly stylized outfit and sported a cheap windbreaker over a black tube-top paired with simple tight-fitting jeans. She was frowning, something Aria gritted her teeth slightly at. Ever since that night, Adagio just wasn't herself. Something broke inside her. There was always an empty look in her eyes and truth be told, that tortured Aria.

Her gaze came back to the road, clasping both her hands tightly on the wheel. She glared hard at the traffic. She was just angry. All the fucking time. Sure, they weren't that bad off. Their bank account was still loaded. What? You really think that she and her sisters would be so stupid as to not collect and save money over the last melenia? That's just absurd.

Still, leaving their home behind wasn't something Aria was all that pleased about. It had happened so fast. She was scared, she was crying. She looked to Adagio for answers but as it started to happen when they staggered back to the house. The life drained away from her big sister and when Aria pleaded to her, screaming;

"What do we do?!"

All she responded with was;

"I don't know.."

So ever since, Aria had to be the big sister. She told them to pack. Pack lightly, she told them.

"Get in the van, we're leaving!" She said.

So that's what they did. They hit the road. Sonata had this bright idea to become a different kind of band. Music was in their blood, how could they possibly just give it up? So now alongside their clothes and belongings, rattling around in the van with them and Adagio was all their band equipment. Aria's guitar, Sonata's entire drum-kit and Adagio's...well, she didn't have anything. Aria could barely get a word out of her. She was like a doll that just followed them around wherever she and Sonata went.

Aria didn't know what else to do but run. She figured for sure that those girls would call the cops. In their eyes, in the humans' eyes...in the ponies' eyes, they were evil. Never had they ever been caught like that. They were always smart, calculating, working in the shadows to further their ends. Never living too large, never getting a little too greedy. That was the danger and beauty of real Equestrian magic, it seemed. It clouded their judgement, made them sloppy, reckless. They were just too over-confident, too assured that a fucking pull door could keep their plans secured.

Now all their plans, all her plans was to just keep alive. Keep managing to get food, keep finding shanty little places that'll let them play.

How dare they think her and her sisters evil? Aria angrily slammed her forehead against the steering wheel. If there was one thing she had learned about humans over the years, it's that THEY'RE evil. The horrors they commit to eachother and their planet and for what? As far as she was concerned, the three of them taking over would have been best for them.

It didn't matter though.

Aria searched around her pocket and pulled out another cigarette.

"Sonata."

At the sound of her voice, the cyan girl turned to her sister with an adorable, puzzled look. "What?"

"Light."

Aria gestured to the cigarette in her fingers, never looking away from the road as she pushed her hand further towards her sister. Aria heard her fumble around a bit in the glove compartment before she heard a light, satisfied gasp then a soft click. She gave a quick look over to Sonata, giving her a thin smile before bringing the smoke to her lips and taking a long, greedy drag. Sonata just beamed wide.

None of it mattered now. They had been beaten. It'd just be better if they each could just forget and move on. Try to adapt to their new lives. But when you've lived the same way for the last ten life times, how do you just...change?

She had to learn how to change because after all, there was no going back.

Right?

Just then, the engine gave a rasping click and smoke belched from the hood of van.

Aria punched the steering wheel.

"Fuck!"

Author's Note:

Just a little idea I had while watchin' the movie. Expect the second half soon.

Comments

[NaiadSagaIotaOar]

too assured that a fucking pull door could keep their plans secured.

To be fair, the door would have worked if they had known about Spike.

Decent start, and I'm interested to see where it goes, although you might want to go back and check for typos. I'd be glad to point out a few if you'd like.

And I'm curious what it is about Aria playing the guitar and smoking, because it's an astonishingly prevalent depiction.

[MrAskAPirate]

I like where this is going,
s6.postimg.org/5ul2jmext/continue_Monkey.jpg

It's also nice to see someone else who gives the Sirens enough credit to sock away plenty of money to live on without living too 'loud' and attracting attention... with the limited level of magic they had for all the time they were stuck in the EQG world, the last thing they'd want to do would be attract attention by driving Maseratis and living in a mansion that would make Kanye jealous.

7596221
Guitars are cool. Aria is cool (in a break-your-face kind of way). No further explanation needed,

Seriously though, I think her canon grumpy attitude and the common fanon that she's a bit of an introverted loner leads people to see her as the most likely Siren to engage in self-destructive behavior, be it smoking or drinking. I like to think of her as a bit of a gearhead, as well as the most physically capable of the three.

[MJP]

i wuld have liked the movie better if gloriosa would have been a sprit all along instead of being an overly emotinal facebook girl

[NaiadSagaIotaOar]

7596284

Guitars are cool. Aria is cool (in a break-your-face kind of way).

I don't know why you even bothered going further than that.

But I guess the rest of that makes sense too. I've always thought of Adagio as being too proud/vain to subject herself to stuff like that, though I could kind of see Sonata having poor enough impulse control to pick up a bad habit or two.

Admittedly, it's a little hard for me to not think of Aria as a cigarette-smoking guitar badass. I blame Theigi for being a genius.

[Eyeswirl the Weirded]

They were just too over-confident, too assured that a fucking pull door could keep their plans secured.

I've thought about this, and as Naiad said, while it would have worked anyway if not for the insanely lucky timing of Spike and Convenience Personified, I don't think anything they could have done would have made a difference narrative-wise. Even if they'd welded the damn thing shut, Vinyl would have torn the door right out of the wall with her car, or blasted a hole in the walls with sonic Bass Cannons, or anything else to instantly solve the problem just when it needed to be.

Hindsight is 20-20, but I figure if the Rainbooms were busted out with a Deus Ex Machina anyway, they'd just go whole hog with it had the sirens trapped them at the bottom of a pit under two hundred tons of concrete, whether they could still get the Rainbooms' magic after that or not. Even then, there'd still be some kind of 'We should have just done X' to it after the fact.

Anyway, I like this depiction so far! As Pirate said, they're playing things pretty smart, Aria's leadership is a little cold, but not detached or abusive, and their individual reactions to the situation feel right. I like Aria relying on what I interpret to be irritation and a hint of bravado to get through and keep the borderline infantile Sonata and apparently hollow Adagio on their feet, lest they succumb to despair and just never get up again.

Looking forward to seeing where this goes!

[Lord Nopony]

Interesting. I haven't seen the new movie yet, but I HAVE seen some "interesting" spoilers. Nonetheless, this seems like a good read. I'll follow it for now.

[Kickback]

7596221
7596443
Well, after Cut it Out, I tried to go with a more mature approach than just making her a punk tsundere.
Cheers for the feedback, guys. Always 'ppreciated.

[Pete100]

How dare they think her and her sisters evil? Aria angrily slammed her forehead against the steering wheel. If there was one thing she had learned about humans over the years, it's that THEY'RE evil. The horrors they commit to eachother and their planet and for what? As far as she was concerned, the three of them taking over would have been best for them.

I mean, she’s not 100% wrong.