Adagio

by NaiadSagaIotaOar

Chapter VIII [Draft]

Adagio awoke with a start, lurching upwards, groping about her neck—it wasn’t until she felt a chain and the familiar weight of her locket that she dared look anywhere else.

She was laying on a mattress, she realized, in the middle of a lavish room that must have been as large as the house she’d spent the last few years calling home. Dull, smooth black walls rose up around her, enlivened by fixtures of gold and jewels. A chandelier hung from the ceiling, jagged arms cradling misty orbs of soft white light that illuminated her surroundings.

She could only have dreamed of such opulence. An armoire, studded with colorful, twinkling gems, carved out of the same crystal as the walls, by itself would have been the shining star of any household she’d have craved. Bookshelves lined one wall, accompanied by a desk…

If she wanted to, she could go on. On the surface, it was exactly the kind of place her gem would have her believe she deserved to inhabit.

And yet, while remembering what had happened was like stumbling blindly through mist searching for a sewing needle, she doubted that all the jewels in the world could make that room into anything but a cage. A decadent cage, perhaps meant to appeal to her vanity, to make her feel cherished and precious, but still a cage.

And that was before she noted the absence of a door.

The other absences made her chest tighten. Her sisters were nowhere to be found.

She gulped. A chill ran down her spine, and she fought to stay calm. Her heart raced and leapt recklessly to dark thoughts.

There was a tremble in her when she pushed herself up from the soft satin sheets of the bed, and not just because of the cold air of the room. For the sake of her sanity and composure, her mind narrowed the slurry of questions and worries coursing through her to just one.

Where am I?

---

Adagio stood, all alone, atop a rocky precipice. Frigid, biting air would have chilled her right through the sheer, flimsy gown she wore, but a ruby hanging from her neck sheathed her in warmth and kept the whipping winds from knocking a single hair out of place.

Below her, sounds drifted upwards. Yells and screams, cries and shrieks. Metal clashed with metal, white snow on the ground became stained with red. On the plain below her, a battle spread so thickly she could barely see the ground.

The green mist wafting up from them, though, was another matter. That, she could see clearly. Every desperate lunge, every pained shout, every furious roar, everything those ponies did sent swirling vapors into an ever-growing banquet for her. After a thousand years of starvation, just being near that miasma made her quiver.

And yet she dreaded it. That feast, right in that moment, was so engorged with magic that it would nourish more than every scrap, every morsel she’d scraped into her gem back in the human world. Thinking about the ecstasy that devouring it would bring made her head swim and her knees grow weak.

But when she looked down at the ponies, she couldn’t bring herself to find any joy in it. War was such an ugly thing. Down there, on that battlefield, vicious, cruel, vile power, that existed for no reason but to exist and be powerful, reigned. Ponies clad in crystal marched and slew and spilled blood, only so that they could keep marching and spill more blood.

Such a hideous, wretched display had no right to her power. When she inhaled, the vapors rose up, rushed into her gem in a torrent, and she trembled. Strength suffused her body, filled her veins, but it carried a deathly pallor and tasted of ash.

Her fingers crept up to the pearl set in her left ear, that gruesome thing—she could not think of an object that could better encapsulate the ugliness of war than that horrible creation.

From above her, a blur sped by, careening into the snow behind her. She turned, languidly, and watched a pegasus mare right herself, shake off the snow, and stare right at her. Yellow feathers ruffled in the breeze, four legs tensed. Recognition and horror flashed through the mare’s eyes, but fierce determination soon followed.

Lifting the corners of her mouth into a smile, Adagio held a finger to her lips. “Shh,” she shushed, then pursed her lips, blew the mare a kiss, and sighed a single note. Music slipped out of her mouth and flounced off to do her bidding.

The mare’s eyes went vacant and glassy, and she toppled over just before she could charge.

Cocking her head, Adagio slowly made her way over, kneeling beside the mare, throwing away a helmet and tearing a patch in a flight suit. She was a pretty little thing, that mare, at least to Adagio’s eyes— she still had trouble telling ponies apart sometimes, but that striking mane, of orange slashed with yellow, and elaborate tongue of flame on her flank made this one immediately stand out.

Adagio listened again to the sounds of battle reaching her. Then she looked down at the mare, pat her on the head, and stood up. “It’s your lucky day, little pony,” she murmured as she walked back to the edge of her surveillance point.

There was enough unpleasantry ahead of her without adding to it.

Not too far off, a screaming spear of jagged black crystal shattered against a globe of flaring white flame. An unnatural shadow lashed out, wreathed in blazing violet fire, but light as pure and blinding as the sun banished it with ease.

The king, it seemed, had more trouble dealing with an enraged princess than he’d anticipated. He’d fared much better in their last engagement; Celestia had adapted, perhaps, or the strain of keeping an army of slaves mobile and responsive had taken a toll on Sombra’s prowess. Their engagements were rarely decisive, but it seemed as though Celestia’s long life gave her something of an edge. Adagio might have celebrated, if she hadn’t been busy wishing she could be in Celestia’s place.

Her good mood crumbled quickly, lances of spite twisting the melody going through her head into something vicious. In preparation, she murmured a cutting harmony and called to the presence within her gem. She did not hear a song answering her call, not like she used to, but something stirred in there, and the power she’d just devoured funneled into it.

Strands of ethereal music floated all around her, twisting in the air to the tune of sounds that existed only in her head. A thousand years’ worth of dreams came to life and reality, but they had a kind of pallor to them; they existed, but did not live, changed but neither grew nor evolved. As long as they remained idle, infectious beauty permeated their surroundings, but the second she willed them to act shackles of pain and malice constricted them.

Her greatest gift had turned to a disappointment, the riches of her world turned to dust, vibrancy turned to bitterness. As she inhaled and took in a miasma of churning emotionally-charged mist, her song gamboled and tugged, pleading for release. It wanted to be free, to make the world beautiful, and Adagio desperately wanted to let it do so.

Such a powerful yearning took hold of her that she could barely stand. Her hands trembled, her knees turned to jelly. She knew that letting it out would be torturous, but the weight of keeping it in tried to tear her apart.

She gasped out a short, single note, and her cursory surrender scratched an itch and turned a boulder to pebbles.

A dull thrumming by her ear bid her ready herself, like a goad jabbing at her side, and she almost encouraged the pain. No matter how much it hurt to be stifled when she sang, it had to be better than her current quivering state of silent begging.

Far, far too late, an electric jolt coursed through her spine, her mouth opened, and a screaming tsunami exploded into the air.

Her body dissolved into churning water and seafoam, then surged outwards and expanded until it dwarfed any pony.

She dove off the precipice. Halfway down, she caught herself in the air, threw her head back, opened her fanged, ravenous maw. What began as a piercing shriek of a roar melded seamlessly into a pulsating symphony.

Below her, the battle screeched to a halt. All eyes turned to her, from both near and far.

The battle didn’t start again, but a celebration did. Gripped by insatiable lusts, ponies saw enemies all around them and serenaded their new goddess with the sounds of violence and tumult.

It was just then that Adagio finally reined herself in. The thirst had been quenched, her urges indulged. Her song had a kind of false life to it, dancing through the air and leaving touches of fury wherever it touched.

But when she saw that there was more to the world than her music, and took in the slaughter for all that it was, all she could do was turn her eyes to her owner and pray that it would be over soon.

How she hated the power he still held over her. She saw him pinned beneath a gold-clad hoof and wished with all her being that it was her jaws that beset him. A fantasy stole her attention for a moment, of his last days being spent gripped by terror.

But for now, she knew that it had to remain a fantasy and nothing more.

Her owner called for her aid, and she had no choice but to comply. She dragged herself through the air, baring her teeth and beckoning her target—an alicorn princess, no doubt equally horrified by the viciousness on the battlefield and just as eager to end it.

With the distances involved, Celestia had plenty of time. If she desired to, she could silence the enemy beneath her right then and there.

But no goddess could ever watch their subjects die.

Celestia turned her eyes to Adagio, just as planned.

And just then, Adagio thought that she saw the princess’ mask open, and something other than a battle-hardened monarch looked back at her. There was a grieving sister buried somewhere underneath that regal facade, and somehow Adagio knew exactly who Celestia was for the very first time.

White wings flapped, and tongues of lashing flame joined Adagio’s melody in the air.

She summoned up the power of war and strife, but something gave her pause. Her magic felt just the same as it always had, but the second Celestia’s fires tested it, it faltered and crumbled. Beyond the deathly pallor, her song had a hollowness to it, one that she immediately recognized from a millennium ago. It felt like something was missing and she’d just noticed then.

Flames that she should have smothered engulfed her, shields that she should have broken stood defiantly. She slumped against the cliff, gripped by despair. The day she’d been fearing had come at last, at the worst of times.

And what a strange revelation it was. She’d experienced a sort of spiteful joy when she’d first foretold of it; a hope that an empire would crumble without her, that its king had been reckless and foolish enough to damn himself by depriving her gem of its companions. But that had all been before she knew how Sombra intended to avert it, and now that she knew she wished for nothing more than a world where her power would not fail her.

Another tongue of flame lashed at the same time that her eyes drooped shut and swirling shadows seized her.

When next her eyes opened, she laid on a familiar bed, in the clutches of a formidable chill. Fangs of cold sank into her, permeating her whole body heedless of the thick blankets covering her. She wrapped her arms around herself, clutched her bedsheets to her skin, but none of it helped. All she could manage was to lay there, tremble and hope that it had an end.

Her own ragged breaths disrupted silence’s reign, at least until she plucked a melody out of her memories and let it soothe her in the background. She knew that she’d need it if she wanted to get through the day. She liked to think she’d already run out of tears to shed, but very recent memories had since proved her wrong.

Still, when she looked up and saw the familiar ceiling of lifeless black crystal, a riptide dragged her under an ocean of despair. She drew her knees to her chest, damned herself for her own failures, and wept. They’re not your sisters, she’d told herself over and over and over again, and now that she knew what had come of her actions she wished for nothing more than the willpower to have convinced herself earlier. She remembered holding Sonata again, hearing her voice again, searing every sensation into her mind and wishing that it could’ve been real. Looking back, she wished she’d had the strength to be cruel to them, though she knew she’d think differently if she saw them again.

It could’ve been so much easier. That first night, when she’d found out for herself just how easily Sunset’s mind could be molded, she could’ve—should’ve—had the gems in a matter of hours. It was impossible not to count the tragedies that might’ve been avoided if she’d acted differently that night, when whatever it was that seemed to shield Sunset from her later hadn’t been present. The opportunity had been hers, and thus, the weight of failure fell squarely on her own overburdened shoulders.

She stayed in bed until her tears stopped, and then slowly pushed herself up. As had been the norm for what felt like a time as long as she could remember, it was not eagerness that compelled her to rise and dress herself, but grim determination. She had to live, no matter how bleak the day seemed. No matter what she had to endure, there was nothing more important than survival.

She told herself that every waking hour. Nothing was more important. A few days ago, she thought she believed herself when she said that.

Her chamber—a cage made of gold and finery and luxury as decadent as any she’d dreamed of—was lit only by a swaying crystalline chandelier that cradled spherical gem-candles. She could see her bed well enough, as well as the mirror and wardrobe by its side, but the rest of the room was shrouded in shadows.

And, in the deepest depths of Sombra’s empire, the shadows had eyes. Adagio felt them everywhere she looked and saw darkness. They were there, slithering about, peering into every nook and cranny they could find. They weren’t always open; Sombra was only one unicorn, and his attention could not be infinitely divided. But those eyes were there. Always. Lurking in every corner, the threat of their nocent gaze silently stated.

When her earring had not yet pulsed by the time she stood by the door, a creeping dread preyed on her. It came as something of a small relief, being left to her own devices for the time being, but it was balanced by perilous uncertainty; she couldn’t be sure what it was that Sombra had in store for her, but she wished for nothing more than to never know.

How cruel it was, making the only emotional bonds to have weathered the centuries seem like knives in her back. If only I could have stopped loving them, she whispered in her head, and thinking what kind of monster would make her think such a thing made her blood boil with impotent rage.

Out into the hallway she stepped, where she all but ran headlong into a silent guard. The stallion stood chest-high next to her, peering up through a somber, faceless mask. Were it not for the hints of flesh peeking out through gaps in his armor, he wouldn’t have looked so different from a statue.

His timing, however was truly unfortunate. He was no Sombra, but in the moment, Adagio didn’t particularly care. He was an extension of Sombra’s will, in some sense; a slave much like her, only a thousand times weaker. Anger and hatred stirred in Adagio’s veins, and since her ideal target was far, far out of her reach…

He’ll do.

A sound began as a growl. Low, guttural and savage, it ripped through the air, left deep rents in the walls, and tore a plate of armor off of the unfortunate stallion. The pony underneath was unharmed, but another snarl shredded his armor to ribbons. Only his helmet remained untouched, the rest of his uniform turned to scrap and clattering to the ground.

Then Adagio turned her eye on the pony himself. A click of her tongue pinned him to the wall, though he remained grim and still.

Teeth clenched, one hand balled into a tight fist, Adagio crept forward, staring into that pony and feeling her pulse quicken. She could do whatever she wanted to him, and nobody would bat an eye. In her head, she imagined it was Sombra she had pinned, and oh, the things she wanted to do…

She got as far as whipping up another song when she clamped her mouth shut.

No. I’m not like him. I will never be like him.

She let that pony crumple on the ground. Then she pushed right past that miserable little stallion, feeling not even a little better for her spiteful outburst. Hatred lingered in her, quiet and seething, spurred by her indulgence, but without a proper target all it could do was sink inwards.

Moments like that were victories, she told herself. Tiny, infinitesimal victories scored against her, without her enemy even lifting a finger.

It was difficult to move away from that thought, but she had to, and so she did. There was too much gloom shrouding the past for her to see through. Such a mire would be difficult to escape, if she let herself sink too deeply and get too tangled. As much as she’d hated being thrown back onto the battlefield within minutes of her return, long before she’d had a chance to catch her breath, she found afterwards that she’d almost prefer diving off another cliff into another army.

Her mind could go to strange places when it was alone, after all. Duties were loathsome things, but they kept her in the moment and gave her something to look forward to; thoughts of the future were all that had kept her mind from shattering, she mused. She tried to keep some particularly favorable ones in her head as she wandered the shadowy halls of the palace she’d come to know so well.

There were not many places in Sombra’s palace that she claimed to like. Very few, in fact—the chamber she resided in was as lavish as anything she’d stayed in during the last thousand years, but it was still a cage, and she couldn’t rest there as long as she knew that.

But there was one room she was rather drawn to. There was, as far as she knew, only a single garden in the entire palace, and it surprised her that there was even that. Gleaming flora, radiant under what little sunlight pierced the dreary sky, lay sprawled out in a little alcove. Vines studded with twinkling rubies crawled and wrapped around glistening pillars, while blooming emeralds swayed gently in an ethereal breeze. Sombra’s predecessor must’ve had quite a fondness for arcane botany, but she could only imagine that simple resilience was all that kept it alive; it would simply be too much trouble to cleanse, and so it remained neglected instead. A single tranquil jewel amidst a stagnant, wretched shadow of an empire.

No wonder she liked it so much, then.

A fountain in the middle of the garden trickled idly. Adagio sat down beside it and cradled her gem in her hands.

She wondered what had brought on that sudden weakness from before—perhaps it merely her gem decaying from being isolated, cut off from its brethren. Or perhaps it was just her magic’s way of revolting against Sombra, protesting the destruction he made her wreak.

The reason didn’t matter too much, she supposed. Neither situation was one she was capable of remedying herself.

She breathed deeply, glancing about to see if she was being watched. Satisfied that she wasn’t, she brought both her hands to her gem, closed her eyes, opened her mouth, and started to sing.

Music filled the garden. Somber, quietly hopeful tunes flowed out of her mouths—she and her sisters had songs of anger, and had slipped into them a few days when the tension between them climbed, but they had songs of forgiveness, too, welcoming songs that they would sing when they were ready to make peace.

In the thoughts that she clung to, in the dreams that made pushing forward a necessity, she was not alone in that garden, and it wasn’t just her music keeping her company.

---

Adagio’s search of the room she’d awoken in had yielded few insights. There was no way out, not that she could see, but if she could overlook the oppressive atmosphere, she could almost fall in love with it all. The armoire housed some of the most beautiful, intricately decorated dresses she’d seen, the bookshelves lining the walls offered to stimulate her mind, and a basin of still, heated water invited her to a bath.

None of it had put her mind at rest, though. When she’d found no sign of escape, it was all she could manage not to fall into a corner and weep.

Suddenly, a chill overwhelmed her. An icy, frigid aura enveloped her, and in the corners of her vision she thought she saw shadows writhing and dancing. Darkness came to life, all around her. In the farthest corner from her, what had been dim, flickering shadows darkened to a ravenous black blot.

And then a man appeared there. It didn’t seem as though he’d stepped there, more like the shadows had peeled back to reveal him like he’d always been there. Even at a healthy distance, he managed to loom over her. Burnished steel plates girded him from the neck down, fashioned simply and devoid of ornamentation; a rich scarlet cloak, trimmed with white fur, made up for the armor’s simplicity. Draped by a thick mask of shadows, an ashen-gray face framed by an unkempt mane of inky black stared at her. Piercing crimson eyes, cold and callous, seemed to be plucked right from her dimmest, darkest memory.

She could not have known that man, and yet she knew she did.

Before she had time to dwell on that faint recognition, he drew closer. His posture was stiff and rigid, his movements awkward and unbalanced, but a carpet of black mist carried him more than he walked.

Between the physical disparity—he was several inches taller than her, and nearly twice as broad—and the ease of his magical displays, she felt creeping dread preying on her. She felt small, like a grain of sand adrift in an ocean.

Just as she’d swallowed that fear and opened her mouth to speak, the man’s eyes bored into hers and she felt frozen where she stood.

“We met once, you and I,” the man said. His voice was deep and reverberating. “You were a small, frightened thing, then, dreaming and oblivious. Neither of us wore these bodies, back then.” He glanced down at his hand, regarding with the same contempt he might have held for a cockroach. “But your counterpart says she’s taken a liking to them.”

Adagio felt her eyes widen, slightly. She definitely knew that man—memories crept back to her, of a stallion standing above a goddess dreaming in her lake.

“I know much about you,” the man said. His narrow eyes burned in their sockets. “Your kind makes weapons out of words, so I will not mince mine. I am King Sombra.” His name and title rang with a hammer striking a gong, lingering in the air and saturated with a domineering, imperious weight. “There is a land of strife, beyond the reaches of my palace. Swear yourself to my side, and you will have a never-ending banquet.

“You have seen your counterpart. Her fate is your alternative.”

Thoughts clawed their way to the forefront of Adagio’s mind. She saw her own face in them, a beautific visage so marred by lies and treachery that she could feel nothing but scorn towards it, and yet wracked with such anguish that she couldn’t bear to add more to it.

Swiftly, though, two other face entered her mind. For their sake, she stood tall and straight, met Sombra’s eyes and spoke clearly. “Where are my sisters?”

“They are safe. My offer extends to all three of you.” Sombra turned to face one wall and gestured; crystal flowed like water and sculpted itself from a naked wall to a door. “The halls of my palace are open to you. Go and see them. We will speak again soon.”

It took Adagio a long while to work up the nerve to approach the door. There was something foreboding about it all, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever it was that awaited her on the other side would be something quite terrible. Necessity eventually overcame fear, but it was a lengthy struggle.

Stepping out the door put her in a gloomy hallway, where her suspicions were instantly confirmed. Everywhere she looked, shadows danced in the wake of flickering motes of flame that lined the walls and shifted from searing red to eerie green and misty purple. The air was still and odorless, its touch frigid on her skin once she left the comfort of her room.

Those shadows. They were alive, she realized. There was a will behind them, dark and forceful, and they were all eager to heed the call of the palace’s master. When she moved, they crawled along with her, tugging at her just strongly enough to not be forgotten.

Adagio faltered momentarily. Every aspect of the hall conspired to send her cold pangs of dread, haunting fears that she could not dispel. Promises of pain and misery that awaited her if she attracted their ire. She ducked back into her room, closing the door behind her and all but reveling in the tenuous security that was gifted to her there. There, she was safe; she suspected she was supposed to think exactly that, in order to encourage her to remain in that gilt prison.

But she couldn’t, of course. Her sisters were there, somewhere not far away, if anything that man had told her could be trusted—and, for whatever motive, he seemed to prefer that she willingly acquiesce, though she was certain that, in her present state, there was little to stop him from taking what he wanted from her. That thought made her tremble, helplessness weighing her down like an anchor chained to her ankle.

Hesitantly, she reached up to her locket, wrapping her fingers around it as she clamped her eyes shut and breathed. Caution told her to leave it at that, once a gentle echo of a hum told her that her shards were still there. She presumed that the only reason she still had them was because her captor hadn’t realized they were there; they were small enough to escape his notice, perhaps.

Which meant she couldn’t rely on them. Just thinking about those shards, the one glimmer of hope she’d laid eyes on in the last few months, being taken was almost as unsettling as being out in that hallway with the shadows.

“Find them,” she whispered to herself. “Find them.” Drawing in a long breath, she pushed the door open again and slipped out. Shadows gathered around her, corroding her will. “Find them.” Her own voice distracted her for an instant, gave her something else to dwell on. She took a few steps away from the safety of that door. “Find them.”

That hallway seemed like it might stretch on forever. She didn’t think she’d actually gone very far, but it seemed as though there were miles behind her.

Suddenly, the wall beside her, just like the one in the first room had done, shaped itself into a door.

She froze at the sight. Shadows gathered all around her, and this time she wondered if she wasn’t as alone as she might have guessed.

She hurriedly threw the door open once she reached it. Just as she’d hoped, the room she stepped into—which was distinctly less thoroughly furnished than hers had been, though what decorations there were tended to be just as gilded—was a place of refuge, separated from the writhing shadows by a wall of crystal. Her heart leapt with joy when she closed the door behind her and felt the chill receding.

---

“Sunset.”

“Adagio. You’re… I’m glad you’re alright.”

“I… don’t know where we stand right now. We’ve got some things to talk about, I think.”

“Yeah. I think we do. This doesn’t seem like the time.”

“No. It doesn’t. What about your sisters? Are they safe?”

“I think so. I haven’t found them yet, but I think they’re close by.”

“Don’t worry. If there’s a way we can make it out of this, we can find it.”

“If all you’re going to do is tell me things I already know, you’re not going to be much help.”

“True. Let’s go find your sisters, then.”

“Do you hear that?”

Adagio paused, cocked her head, and listened.

There was indeed a sound, slithering through the air. It was so soft she wondered if she’d been hearing it along and never noticed, but now that she did…

It was a somber, quietly majestic sound.

“Yes. It… it sounds like…” There wasn’t anything else it could have been. Her own voice was unmistakable.

Sunset moved towards the door resolutely, gripping the handle before turning to Adagio. “Go find your sisters.” She hesitated, then put on a transparently reassuring smile. “I’ll come find you when I’m done.”

Adagio’s brow furrowed. “What’re you—” She shook her head; thinking of what her double had done made brought white-hot anger. “She’s the one who tried to bring us here. What do you think is going to—”

“I don’t know. I’ll be fine, I think.”

She sounded more certain that time, Adagio realized. Too certain, perhaps; a girl who’d seen a siren turn a woman to a quivering wreck and a house to rubble should not have been so calm about approaching one. Not unless she…

Ah. Of course.

Whatever Sunset had seen when she looked into the other siren’s mind, it must have encouraged her—had her scream, then, come from feeling the other siren’s pain? Sombra had used her fate as a threat…

In the end, Adagio folded her arms, and sighed, but then gave a stiff nod and made her way to the door. “If you’re sure.”

Sunset didn’t answer that right away.

Stepping out into the hallway was as much of a shock the second time as it was the first; it was like stepping from a dream to a nightmare, and the paleness that came to Sunset’s face and the shiver that ripped through her said it wasn’t any better for her.

Adagio stood next to Sunset and put a hand on her shoulder. It was easier to push back her own dread with someone to look better than. “Be careful,” she said. All the grudges and disagreements between them were deemed irrelevant; Sunset had potentially useful information, and that meant Adagio cared about her.

Sunset nodded. “I will.” She took a moment to steady herself, but when she set off in the direction the song had come from, Adagio saw her still shivering.

And then Adagio felt herself doing the same, when the shadows all around her made their presence known.

She turned and set off in the opposite direction, murmuring “Find them” to herself.

---

Adagio let her voice die down—her song didn’t end; it never did, but she brought it to a pause—when she heard footsteps approaching, and lifted her head anxiously.

She and Sunset looked at each other for a long while, silently.

“I… heard you singing,” Sunset said. She looked about the garden, pausing as if to take it all in. Then she bit her lip and face Adagio directly. Pain, confusion, concern and fright all swirled about in her eyes, almost palpable in the air around her.

Silently, Adagio stood, pausing to brush an errant lock of hair out of her face and smooth her skirts. Then she looked at Sunset—she looked so young, with a face as youthful as a siren’s but lacking so much of the grace that came with longevity.

“I’m sorry you’re here,” she said.

Sunset looked at her for a moment. “I’m not,” she said, eventually. She gulped, then wrapped her arms around herself. She did a better job suppressing her terror than most, but there was still a shudder to her as she drew closer. “Can we talk?”

Adagio swallowed and glanced about the room. “Not for very long,” she said. Sombra had… plans for her, she was certain. But until then…

She sat on the rim of the fountain, and beckoned Sunset to join her. “And I don’t think you’re going to like most of it.”

Sunset gave a small nod, but complied. “I… saw what Sombra did to you. When I…”

“I thought you might have.”

“What’s… what’s going on here?” Sunset bit on her lip, and her voice wavered. “I think I already know some of the answers, but…”

Words gathered on the tip of Adagio’s tongue, and this time she felt no pain ready to stifle them. How elated she would have been, if only she had known that joy a day or two before. “It’s… all very complicated,” she whispered. Drawing in another breath, she felt a tinge of pity in the eyes that met hers, and it made her want to turn on her heel and march down the hall.

The silence that followed was a difficult one to break, laden with unease from both parties. “You… must have some idea,” Adagio began, at last, “of where we are, at the very least.”

Sunset nodded stiffly, glancing briefly around her. “Equestria,” she murmured, half-heartedly as if she—understandably—thought it an impossible answer. “You, then, does that mean you’re… no. What are you? You couldn’t be a siren.”

And there it was. Somehow, Adagio couldn’t help but think that she wasn’t going to like this part of the history lesson. “Why not? I wear the face of one. I sing with the voice of one. If anything, I’d say I have more claim to the title than” —unwanted empathy threatened to stifle, so she locked it away under a scowl and told herself that she hated that other woman who dared to use her name— “that arrogant tart you’ve been carrying around.” Purposeful iciness slipped into her voice, accompanied by a haughty demeanor. “What else do I need?”

“But you can’t be. There were only three of you, that’s what Adagio…” Sunset’s frown intensified for a moment. Then she shook her head. “No, she wouldn’t have lied.” She stared at Adagio’s ruby.

“As I said. It’s complicated.” Adagio drew in a long breath. “Star Swirl was a meticulously habitual note-taker, you know. Scrolls, journals, unfinished spells… he left his entire magical journey behind for all the world to see, even when it took him to disciplines no other unicorn dared to touch.”

“I know that.” Sunset nodded quickly. “He even tried to study—” She froze suddenly, eyes going wide and paleness crawling into her face. “Time,” she whispered, with such care it seemed as though the word was veritable blasphemy to her. Painful enlightenment touched her eyes as she edged away. “You’re from another—”

“No.” Adagio shook her head gravely. “But you are. This is my time,” she said, gesturing to the world at large and enduring a pang of melancholy. It seemed less immutable to her now, the state of her world, and it was all the more mocking for it. “You and your friends were taken from yours.”

Sunset clasped her hands together, silently slipping into what looked to be deep thought—she took the news in stride remarkably well. “But you were also taken,” she said eventually. That sympathy returned. “I saw it in your…”

“Did you?” Adagio looked away, biting her lip. Bowing her head, closing her eyes, she remembered that loathsome night.

Immediately, she wished she hadn’t. Instinctively, a song started to form in her head, jagged, harsh and cruel, the tip of a claw that she hoped might rend Sombra’s heart from his chest.

She made herself stop instantly. Just for a little while longer, she had to survive. No matter the cost.

“So that’s what you saw,” she murmured. Glancing out the corner of her eye, she saw Sunset drawing closer and recoiled, standing sharply to her feet. “You know where we are now, and who I am,” she said, forcibly adorning her face with a cold stare. “There is nothing left to say.”

There was, of course. In a world of shadow of crystal, one compassionate soul would hold her attention utterly, if only there were no eyes peering at them. Seconds spent in comforting arms were risks she could not yet afford again.

“Of course there is.” Sunset, like clockwork, stood straight up. “We’re going to fix this. If we were brought here, we can get back.” She stepped closer, stopping just out of reach. “I know you don’t want to do this.”

“Identifying a problem doesn’t mean you have the answer.” Adagio stared back, wondering what must have been different about Sunset’s Equestria. Purposefully, she drew a hand up to her ear, pinching the gem set in her earring. It laid dormant for the moment, some of its most insidious stipulations lifted with her return, but it remained a shackle that no key she knew of could open. “And not every story has a happy ending.”

Just then, a shiver went down her spine. Slowly, unfurling behind her, she felt but did not see an eye. It bored into her back, latching onto her with a cold, unblinking stare.

Sombra was summoning her. She hated it, but knew it.

And then she had a decision to make. Speaking softly would brand her a traitor, marking the scene with traces of deception. That, she could not afford, not when the ice she stood on was already so thin.

But if she were the one keeping the peace…

I’m sorry. You don’t deserve this.

Sunset looked at her, hopeful and determined.

A sudden lash of sound brought her to her knees.

“So, whatever it is that you’re looking for…” Adagio lowered her voice to a growl. Towering over Sunset, she reached inside her power, summoned up a torrent of magic, prepared to let it loose, and forced herself not to cry. It wasn’t going to pleasant, what she was about to do, but there were other lives at stake and she couldn’t afford to let her facade be a weak one. “... I don’t have it. Nothing does, not here.”

Sunset tried to stand until a drifting strand of music made her legs petrify and turn rigid, leaving her helpless on the ground.

“You are not going to escape this place,” Adagio proclaimed in the same instant she told herself not to listen. “The kindest thing to do for yourself is to accept that.” Magic seeped out of her gem and lent more weight to her voice; just a touch, but still more than she could bear. Instincts that a voice in her head had cultivated and nurtured for a thousand years told her to be content that her enemy was being humbled, and she had to beat back that joy.

She wasn’t like him. No matter what kind of tyranny she may have wished for, his was far worse. There was no beauty there, not like there was in her power. His was a malignant blight, hers a shroud of sublime radiance.

In a way, she was being merciful. It wounded her to drench Sunset’s hope, but she whispered to herself that what she did was far kinder than what Sombra himself would have done.

The last that Adagio saw of her were two weary teal eyes looking back at her, weary and pitiful and heartbreaking instead of bright and hopeful.

An insistent thrum by her ear told her that her presence was demanded elsewhere. She turned sharply and left Sunset alone in the garden.

---

The halls of the palace had been a labyrinth, once, and the room Adagio sought most difficult of all to find—purposefully so, she suspected—but too many summons had taught her the path well. When she knew she was close, she stopped in place, touched her fingers to her gem, and let her magic envelop her. Again her flesh dissolved into water and foam, the dress she’d been wearing falling to the ground in a heap just as she broke into a brisk trot upon four dainty hooves. The flesh she garbed herself in was as alien as her human body had once been, even then, and she despised every second she had to wear it, but that had just made her body into one more thing she didn’t control—Sombra had little but disdain for the human form, and didn’t particularly like being dwarfed.

Shortly after her changing, Adagio strode through a grandiose archway, the sole portal of the palace that led to a room with stature matching the owner’s title. This one room, situated right in the building’s core, crackled with power, seething as seeping magic from a dozen or more experiments permeated the air. Crystals of many forms dotted the walls, some twinkling while others resonated, many etched with jagged runes. In the center of the room lay a great circle of such runes, portions of which Adagio vaguely recognized from an ancient scroll she’d seen the palace’s loathsome master carting around. It was there that space and time alike had recently been hewn, torn and stitched back together.

Off in the corner, there was a table riddled with things that terrified her: three haphazard piles of ruby shards, alongside a red geode she only faintly recognized. And three crystalline earrings that nearly made her wail where she stood.

Most importantly of all, though, perched in an alcove on the far side of the room, there stood a lonely, somber casket of crystal. At the distance she saw it from as she entered, the murky surface was nearly opaque, but were she to draw closer she would see the faces inside.

It wouldn’t have mattered to her if it were a thousand miles away instead of a dozen yards; the contents had long since been seared into her memory, a brand that held nearly as much power as the enchanted shackle on her ear. She pictured them clearly, every detail as vivid as the first time she’d seen them, whether she chose to or not.

She wondered sometimes, when she had the leisure to entertain such thoughts, that even the casket’s placement could be called a torture. Its position, such that she could barely even try to ignore it, was cruelly clever.

“Soon,” she whispered. “I’m coming. Just…” She clamped her eyes shut, and tore them away. “Just a little while longer.”

She had no time to dwell on whether her promise had been heard; shadows bared themselves, crawling and writhing and slithering like hellish serpents. They gathered in front of her, and a steel-shod hoof struck the ground.

Despite herself, she retreated, forced back by a wall of coiling dread. She dared not meet the king’s eyes, not when she knew he would already be displeased with her. She could seethe back in her chamber, but until then…

As soon as she felt eyes on her, she flinched, waiting for the pain that would force her to kneel. She never did it without being prompted, and the king was always willing to prompt.

But not that day.

Somehow, the absence of pain felt like the crueller act.

King Sombra loomed over her, his powerful frame dwarfing her dainty mare form. The look on his face was as dour, grim and steely as ever, the coldness in his eyes more chilling than the frigid wastes outside the palace.

Still keeping her head bowed and her posture demure, Adagio dared to speak after a long silence. “I…” She winced, expecting a disciplinary lash, but continued when none came. “I did as you asked.”

“Did you?” An aura of magic gripped her face and forced her to let those fierce crimson eyes peer into hers. “When last you stood before me, I do not recall asking you to go dancing with a shadow of your sistren. One week, I gave you, and you could have done it in a day.”

Adagio’s earring flashed, and a whip-like pain made her knees buckle, but Sombra’s grip kept her on her shaky hooves. A dozen excuses came to her with practiced ease, but she knew there was not a single one that could let her avoid paying the price for her recklessness.

“You spared me the trifling difficulty of hunting the shards down myself. That is all that you have done for me.” Sombra’s eyes burned, wisps of violet smoke forming streaks in the air; his magic was palpable. “And now I find you can barely contest Celestia. Explain to me, then, why you still deserve your reward.”

A terror worse than any she’d known in centuries coursed through her body. Protests came easily: she was surprised by her own weakness when she fought Celestia, she was too cautious in the face of unknown magic during her mission to the other time. “Please. Y—you have the gems. Let me mend them, and I c—I can be—”

“Spare me your simpering.”

The grip on her face released, and Adagio staggered. Then Sombra’s horn flickered, the pearl in her ear lit up, and a force struck her across the face just as her insides felt like they tried to rip themselves to pieces. A shriek escaped her lips as she collapsed to the ground.

What came next was only a haze, but it felt like an eternity before the gleaming thing in her ear relented, and by then she wanted little more than to curl up and sob until it ended.

When she looked up, she saw Sombra approaching the casket, speaking words she couldn’t understand, and she forgot all about her weeping. A flicker of hope welled up inside her chest; she thought at once that finally, finally, it would all have been worth it. All the burdens she’d endured, all the pain she’d inflicted, all the tragic wretchedness that had tarnished her, everything.

Sombra’s horn ignited, and that hope bloomed. A ray of crackling magic leapt out of Sombra’s horn, and Adagio’s hope flared.

Crystals gleamed for an instant before the will of their maker took hold of the bonds holding them together. Cracks spread slowly, infecting the once-flawless surface of the casket.

Adagio had been creeping closer, trembling and wavering, but when a sharp whipcrack of magic sent countless shards raining onto the ground, she broke into a run. She hurried towards the casket as quickly as her legs could carry her, tears streaming from her eyes.

---

When Adagio’s search lead through a passage into open air and she found herself in a sprawling courtyard, she wondered for a moment if she’d stumbled across an exit.

She didn’t see one, not right away, but she saw something else that interested her even more: there was a lake in that courtyard, lined by a rim of stone that she knew ponies had once stood on. The water was still, and as clear as the crystal surrounding it; it was like a mirror, reflected stars twinkling like little sparks of underwater flame as she drew closer. As soon as she saw that lake, a prediction popped into her head, but it wasn’t until the very moment she stood by the edge, the deep gash plainly on view in the nigh-impenetrable sheet of crystal stretched over the surface, that she knew. An image right out of her oldest memory, brought to life at last and marred by knowledge of what came of it. Sombra had been there that day, she now knew; his fascination with her magic must have been what drove him to do all that he had done to them.

And then, looking just like she imagined she must’ve all those years ago, a leviathan sheathed from maw to fluke in scales of the most gleaming gold rose from the inky depths. The siren dragged herself out of the lake with her sinewy forelimbs, luminescent antenna shining like little stars in the twilight, a ruby in her chest winking and shimmering.

The siren never once looked towards Adagio. She dissolved into churning water and foam, compressing until she solidified into a tall, slender, nude woman with silky golden curls tumbling unbound down her back. Other Adagio moved to the rim and sat down in silence, staring deep into the depths of the lake.

Adagio thought she might cry. As far as she saw things, she hadn’t been truly alive until the moment she left that lake. Realizing that what may as well have been her birthplace was also where the vilest machinations she’d ever been caught in had begun…

It was a wonder to her that she made it to the lake’s edge without dropping to her knees and weeping, but she did exactly that.

She didn’t announce her presence aloud, though the crunching of snow underneath her feet must have done it for her. But, if Other Adagio knew she was there, she made no response. No greeting, no shunning, not even a sideways glance. Her eyes were glassy and still, her face pale, her hands clasped primly in her lap, her legs crossed at the thighs.

Adagio sat down beside her double, keeping her distance at first. A slight gust of wind made her shiver, but Other Adagio didn’t seem to notice, despite her nakedness.

That was where it got difficult. What am I to say? Adagio asked herself. Looking at her double, she didn’t think she was possibly cruel enough to be angry at her, even though she had every reason to be. She didn’t think she even wanted to be angry, but kindness was something she suddenly felt quite inexperienced with.

What would I like to hear, if I were in her shoes?

For a long while, doubt still left her silent; she didn’t know, not really, what her double’s life was like. Sunset probably did, thanks to that magic of hers—

So what would she do here, then?

Drawing in a slow breath, Adagio slid a little closer.

How close was too close? If it were one of her sisters she was approaching, she would most certainly be right by their side, but with Other Adagio, she couldn’t see that going over as well. So she kept a small amount of distance, staying just within arm’s reach, already running through a dozen possible things she might say in her head.

Eventually, she stopped trying to think about it so much. She could barely understand herself then and there, much less her double.

“I forgive you.” She wasn’t quite sure that was the truth, but saying it out loud made her believe it a little bit more.

And it got a reaction, albeit a small one. Other Adagio glanced—not at her, but at least more towards her than before—and spoke a single word. “Why?”

Why indeed? Adagio racked her brain, searching for both what she thought her double would want to hear as well as what was really true. “Because I understand.” That had to be it, or at least a component. “Parts of it, anyway. If…” It was a gamble, what she was about to say, but she didn’t think there could be any better answer. “If someone took my sisters from me, I don’t think there’s anything I wouldn’t do to get them back.”

She’d hoped for another reaction, kept her eye well-trained for hints of sorrow, or anger, or… anything, really. Seeing little more than a pale, blank slate of a face and being left in sullen silence for her mind to wander led her towards dreary thoughts.

Salvation came in the form of a whisper. “I told myself they were yours, not mine.” Other Adagio’s voice was flat, and lifeless. Adagio wasn’t sure whether she was speaking to herself or not. “Over and over again. I thought that maybe if I kept saying it, I could…” The first hints of emotion crept through cracks in her façade; weariness dominated. Other Adagio hung her head. “It doesn’t matter, not really. What’s done is done.”

Then she looked at Adagio, actually met her eyes, but only for a fraction of a second before she jerked away. “I’m not the person you want to—"

“Shh, shh. It’s alright. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“No. No, you’re not. But you’re not going to help me, either.”

“When did I say that?”

“You didn’t.” Other Adagio drew in a long, slow breath; she shuddered, but Adagio didn’t think it was because of the cold. “I need to sing a song,” Other Adagio murmured, “but I don’t have the right one. There are a thousand songs in my dreams, but the one I need isn’t there, because I’ve never had to sing it before, and now… now that there isn’t anything else I need more, I don’t know how to sing it.”

“Why do you need to sing?”

“Because there’s a song that needs to be sung. There’s nothing else, not in this world, not in any world, that can do what this song needs to do, and there’s nobody else who can sing it.” Other Adagio wrapped her fingers around her gem, staring down. “It has to be me. But I can’t. I don’t know how. All I can do is want it, and that used to be enough.”

Adagio felt a troubled frown coming onto her face, but before she could figure out what question to ask, Other Adagio breathed out a sigh. “This is where I met them,” she whispered, leveling a somber stare at the surface of the lake, “where I waited for them, even before I knew they existed.” She went silent for a long time. Her face was blank, eyes glassy and unfocused, looking at something distant and intangible. “Do you think they’re the ones waiting for me, now?”

Creeping dread seeped into Adagio’s confusion. More questions came to her, but the answers she thought she might hear terrified her into silence. She gulped, feeling the blood draining from her face, reaching up with a faintly trembling hand to twirl a strand of hair around her finger.

“I told myself they were,” Other Adagio continued. Her voice, still flat and lifeless, now seemed eerie, unnervingly calm. “Every time I had to hurt one of you, that’s what I told myself. That they were waiting for me, and that that made it all okay.” Her voice lowered still further, and she bowed her head; as still as she was, with that pallor about her face and the muted gem at her neck, it was hard to look at her and not see a corpse being forced to live. “I should’ve known. Obvious, really.”

Sputtered protests tried to escape Adagio’s mouth, but she realized how empty they all were quickly enough not to bother with any of them. She wanted, so desperately wanted, to insist that what she thought to be true simply couldn’t be, but it seemed to explain the conundrum of her double with such tragic perfection that she couldn’t imagine how she hadn’t at least guessed it before. It was obvious why, of course, from the way her heart sank to such a dismal abyss just from hearing about it.

Suddenly heedless, she recklessly threw her arms around her double, drawing her close and holding her tight. A heaving chest forced out ragged breaths, but she didn’t cry; shock and aches of the heart left with something closer to pain than sorrow. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, again and again as if she could change something by meaning it enough.

She had always found tears difficult to deal with, whether they came from herself or others, but she would gladly have taken weeping over the cold stillness that greeted her.

“It doesn’t matter.” A stony face looked at Adagio. “Sympathy will not breathe life into their flesh, grief will not spirit us away from this place. Sorrow will not tear down the walls and the chains that bind us.” Other Adagio blinked. Just for a second, there was a flicker of anger that came to her face, an ember struggling to be free and fiery. It was quelled after only an instant, but Adagio thought that it had to still burn, somewhere deep inside Other Adagio’s breast. “And, when the day finally comes that Sombra can cling to life not a second longer, it will have been neither your kindness nor your tears that felled him.”

Adagio gasped out bits and pieces of words that petered off into a weary sigh. “You’re right,” she murmured. Still clinging to her double’s shoulder, she closed her eyes and willed herself to calm. Selfish though it may have been, she reminded herself that her Aria and Sonata were still safe. As far as she knew—which was an absolute certainty, she decided for the sake of her sanity. Finally, she drew in a long breath. “I need your help to beat him,” she said, unable to completely stop her voice from cracking.

Other Adagio’s lip trembled and curled, her eyes clenching shut. A low noise that could easily have been a growl rumbled out of her throat. The hand holding her gem twisted into a tight fist. Then, all of a sudden, the growl turned into a soft mewl. A gem by her ear twinkled, and just like that, she went still again. “I can’t,” she whispered, shaking her head slowly. “I couldn’t fight him then, and I can’t now. I’m sorry. Truly sorry, but there’s nothing I can…” She turned away.

Adagio sighed. Drawing back, knitting her brow, she glanced down and hesitated. Her locket dangled, just as it had for the last few months; it was still there only because the contents had escaped notice, she reminded herself. Would Sombra notice, somehow, if she took them out?

Perhaps more importantly, was she so lost without them that it was worth the risk? Just thinking about losing them pained her so much she was reluctant to dare to look at them.

But she needed them. She needed someone, anyone, who could help her. With trembling fingers, she reached for the locket. The shards had always bolstered her when nothing else could; they had shown her visions of futures that kept her from going mad with grief, and—

Ruby shards, serenaded by a voice so angelic and flawless it could only have been her own.

She came to a sudden pause. The shards had shown her that vision mere hours before she’d crossed paths with her double. That same day, she’d learned that her own anger wasn’t enough to fill the shards, her own voice incapable of weaving the strands of magic, but…

Just then, though, something else was there to pick up the slack. It was so faint she might have passed it off as her mind playing tricks on her, but tiny strands of green crawled out of Other Adagio. They drifted lazily, meandering towards Adagio’s locket. From just one person, the bitter taste of grief was almost impossible to pick out, but each strand carried a potency that she’d almost never felt before.

Anger, despair… a siren mourning her sistren, craving the blood of the one who’d ended them…

Other Adagio was a wellspring of negativity just then. And with as much magic as she had enriching it…

It still wasn’t much, but it was infinitely more power than what her shards had had for the last year.

“Maybe you’re right,” she whispered. Releasing her locket, gazing once again into the lake and then returning to her double’s side, she thought that the whole world seemed clearer than it did a few moments before. Her pulse quickened, this time with excitement. “Your gem doesn’t sing to you anymore, does it?”

Other Adagio stiffened. She peaked back with puffy, reddened eyes. “No,” she said. “There’s something there, still, but it’s only been my voice that brings it to life. Yours didn’t either, did it?”

“No.” It just whispers.

But even that might’ve been too much. She looked down at her locket, wondering if all those visions her gem had shown her had just made her blind. “I think that we’ve both been letting something else choose the paths we walk on for far too long now.”

Cradling her locket in one palm, she carefully cracked it open with her other hand, locking eyes with her double and feeling an exhilarating rush when a glimpse of ruby brought the first hint of life that she’d seen in the other woman all day. Other Adagio’s spirit had been shattered, perhaps, but Adagio saw shards of it, then, that yearned for wholeness.

“We’re going to find a way to break our chains,” Adagio said, closing her locket and holding it tightly to her breast. “And once we do, we’re going to decide for ourselves what we really need.”

“I…” Other Adagio shook. She stared right at Adagio’s locket, eyes wide and full of longing.

“I can’t,” she said again. Adagio didn’t think she wanted to believe it, but she did. “Please, I’ve… I need to survive,” Other Adagio whispered. Her voice was grave and dour, morose instead of determined. “No matter what else happens, I need to—”

“Well…” Adagio looked down at her locket. “Now I know you’re lying, because what I needed was never enough for me.” Eying her double, playing through old memories in her head, pieces of a puzzle started to click together, and her sly smile grew wider by the second. She looked at Other Adagio’s pendant and earring, and chuckled. “I still need you,” she said as she pushed herself up to her feet and walked away, “but we’ll talk about that after I’ve convinced you.”