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The silent cry of a young siren

Chapter 9:

The silent cry of a young siren

It had been at least two or three hours since the darkness of the night had fallen upon the city of Canterlot; the weather was a bit windy, yet that didn’t seem to bother anyone, walking the street.

The atmosphere in the town felt rather cold: nobody seemed to pay much attention to a man, desperately shouting at the phone, or to a poor little street cat, soaked in water, trying to findsome warmth in a little box that it had chosen as shelter, placed next t a trash can.

Suddenly a cry was heard, slowly followed by the sound of voices, singing an enchanting tune: a bright greenish smoke began to rise from inside the: “Canterlot Pan” fast food restaurant and soon the shouts of an angry mob.

Every costumer suddenly stood from their chairs and began to fight with each other: some simply quarreled, others decided to engage physical fights.

While this was happening, the sweet enchanting melody, sung by three hooded individuals, sitting in a corer, still filled the heavy atmosphere. Then, once the magical green smoke was finally full of negative energy, it entered the red gems the sirens wore around their necks; in the end everybody collapsed on the ground, as if all of their strength had been completely sucked out of of their bodies.

Only the sisters, still sitting at their table, remained unharmed and perfectly calm at the same time.

“Uh...” Aria commented, taking off her black hood: “...That was barely worth the effort Adagio: I’m tired of fast food, I need a meal!”

“I understand” her older sister quickly replied, as Sonata and she reveled their faces from under the hoods: “But the energy in this world isn’t the same as in Equestria; we can only gain so much power here...”

“Ah, I wish we had never been banished to this awful place!”

“Oh really?!” Adagio giggled with an unexpected smirk on her face: “I thought you enjoyed coming here, isn’t it what you said the first time we decided to come to this place?”

“Yeah, but that was different!” Aria answered, playing with a curl of her hair:

“How’s that different, dear sister?”

“Well...for starters we didn’t have much of a choice back then, since we didn’t really know our way around the city, but know that we’ve been stuck hear for quite some time, we should at least be able to find some more decent place to eat”.

While Aria was saying these things, Adagio hadn’t stopped gigging and was trying her best not to burst into laughter from seeing her young sister, getting nervous from something so insignificant to her as finding a more pleasant dining; unluckily she wasn’t good at hiding things, not from her sister at least.

“Why are you laughing at me?” Aria questioned, as soon as she noticed at tear of joy, slipping from Adagio’s left eye: “Wait a minute!” the girl, exclaimed, imagining what that was all about in the first place: “...are you enjoying yourself at my expense?!”.

Hearing that question, Adagio could not help but answer with a soft lady-like giggle:

“Oh, come here you little!”.

At that point the youngster took her revenge on Adagio, messing her hair: “Hey!” was her sister’s answer: “That’s not fair, you know I much effort I need to put into brushing my hair every morning!”

“Oh, of course I know dear sister!” Aria replied with a laugh: “That ought to teach you not to keep the bathroom all for yourself for three hours in the morning and especially not to tease me!”.

After a cold stare that lasted no more than a few seconds, the two sirens fell into one another’ s arms, both bursting uncontrollably in laughter: the bad experience they had a long time ago had truly made the two of them inseparable; sure they still had a few arguments from time to time, but nothing they hadn’t been able to work on together.

While the two girls went on giggling and crying from joy, the third of the sisters, Sonata, did not seem as pleased as her fellow sirens, in fact she kept staring at the window next to her without uttering a single word.

Adagio was the first to notice her sister’s unusual behavior: “Sonata?” she said, inviting the young girl to wake up from her daydreaming:

“Ye...yes, what?!” Sonata exclaimed, startled:

“What is it that you’re thinking about?”

“Uh...” the youngster sighted heavily: “...it’s nothing”

“Not true” Aria intervened suddenly: “You’re hiding something, I can tell”

“Girls” the youngstest of the sirens repeated, clearly bothered: “...It’s nothing really”.

“Listen here, sis” Aria quickly answered with the serious face expression she hadn’t put on in years and that frightened her younger sister the moment she saw it: “You’d make a liar as much as I’d make a gardener, so spill the bins, now!”.

Perhaps because that: “Now!” had been said with a particularly threatening tone of voice or perhaps because she just needed to get rid of the heavy burden she felt on her chest, Sonata finally decided to give up and reveal what was bothering her. “Fine” the young girl answered her sister’s exclamation: “But, at least, promise you won’t tease me”

“We promise” Adagio replied, as her sister was taking a deep breath.

That day had been particularly calm, maybe even too much. Sonata was just headed home from her regular scouting turn, her sisters and she had in fact decided to take turns to scout the nearby neighborhoods, looking for any useful information, yet Sonata hadn’t been exactly lucky that day.

“Ah...” the young siren sight heavily with a sad tone in her voice and a frowning expression on her face: “And here I come empty handed, I truly hope the others won’t get mad at me”.

Sonata was of course exaggerating thinking her sisters would be angry at her for coming back home with no interesting news for them to use, as that happened often to any of them, but still she was upset for not succeeding in her task.

Having walked through the city square, where one of the kids, playing soccer, had almost hit her with the ball, the siren entered a dark corner in the street that led to her house in the poorest area of the whole town.

As soon as she took a few paces; the loud barking of a dog was heard and soon after a terrible smell of rotten fish filled her nose; yet she managed not to vomit in the middle of the street. The depressing view of houses, falling apart, combined with those unpleasant sensations only made matters worse for Sonata who was now feeling more sick than the time she had eaten rotten chicken at: “Canterlot Pan”.

It did not take her long to reach her house, perhaps because she had dashed all the way home to avoid running into any trouble. At the sight of the front door Sonata took one last anxious breath, before setting her eyes on the knob.

Right at that moment she heard an unexpected noise, resembling that of a large metallic object, falling on the ground and then rolling; the girl turned her head curios.

She found out that what had so suddenly fallen on the ground was nothing but a trash can full of smelly rubbish. The girl turned away disgusted, but another much lower sound made her turn around almost immediately.

“Uh?” the girl said curios, seeing something, moving suspiciously under the rubbish that had ended up covering the road; her question was soon answered.

A small figure emerged, a tiny dog, a puggle to be precise: its fur was gray as dust, its legs short and trembling like those of a baby, its paws could barely sustain its weight, its cute ears were constantly flapping.

“Wow!” the young siren exclaimed at that sight, feeling her eyes crying from joy, as her cheeks became red and warm as chilly peppers: “Who are you, little one?”.

Exited, Sonata neared the little dog in order to gently stroke its head, yet as soon as she got too close, the puggle barked softly and got back to hide under the rubbish.

“C’mon, cutie” the girl repeated with a sweet tone in her voice: “There’s no need to be afraid, I just wanna be friends”; unluckily the dog was still too much frightened of the siren to come out.

It did not take much time for Sonata to understand that if she wanted to befriend the little puggle, she would first need to gain its trust and what better way to gain an animal’s trust than through its hungry stomach?

Having realized what she had to do, the youngster quickly entered the house and headed to the kitchen. The atmosphere inside was strangely calm and silent, as if nobody was there.

Truth to be told, the only one Sonata didn’t see in the house was Adagio, but she did not bother to wonder where she could be, as she imagined her older sister had gone scouting the surrounding area herself, despite she was to do just that the day after.

Aria on the other hand was peacefully resting on the sofa in the living room; Sonata did not wish to wake her up, so she tried to move as slowly and silently as she could to reduce the inevitable squeaky noise the wooden floor produced every time she took a step forward.

Despite all, the young siren managed not to interrupt Aria’s slumber, good thing, too, for she desired everything but being caught moving sneakily all over the house, looking for food.

In the end Sonata took some dry meat from a jar in the kitchen and headed outside once again, moving carefully so she would not wake Aria.

She found the puggle exactly where she had left him: “Hey, little one” the girl kindly whispered, showing the food she had taken to the dog: “I’ve got something tasty for ya”.

Once the siren had placed the meat on the ground, the little dog left the rubbish can and neared the girl: its eyes were big, dark, and visibly tired, yet they shined in a bright light.

The puggle smelled the dry meat with its small humid nose, making sure the food was fresh enough to eat, then started gobbling everything up piece by piece.

As the animal was eating, the girl kept staring at it with great attention, as if she had never seen something so adorable: the animal was literally devouring its meal, as if it had not touched food in days. When it had finished, the puggle set its gaze upon Sonata, staring at her, while drops of saliva escaped from its mouth.

“I guess you were really starving” the siren giggled, finally being able to stroke the little one on the head, without it running away; the puggle answered with a light bark.

“I’m sorry little friend” Sonata said, guessing what the dog was trying to communicate: “I can’t give you anymore food for today, but, if you come back tomorrow, I’m sure I’ll be able to find a little something for you to eat. Sound good?”.

As the girl stood up and turned around, headed to the door, the dog gazed upon her, as if it had been surprised at Sonata’s answered, then another light bark escaped from his mouth.

“Don’t worry” the siren repeated with a kind smile on her face: “If I promised I would come back tomorrow, you needn’t fret, little friend. I’ll bring you something tasty, I promise” having spoken these words, the siren disappeared, closing the door behind her, leaving her new animal friend alone.

The next day Sonata kept her promise and brought some more dry meat to the dog that had been waiting for her the entire time without moving from the place they had first met.

“See?” the youngest of the sirens, giggled happily, seeing the puggle launching hungrily at the food: “I brought you your favorite food, just as I said as I would. Was there any need to fret like you did yesterday, when I left?”.

As strange as it may sound, the dog replied with a light bark, as if it had understood the girl's words.

“Uh...” the siren giggled, stoking the puggle on the head: “What do you say, then? Are we friends or not?”.

Once again the dog barked, this time it even began to lick Sonata’s cheeks.

“Okay, okay!” the youngster, laughed happily, hugging the small dog: “I guess, we are”.

After that time the siren run to see her friend every single day to bring it food and to receive one or two licks on each of her cheeks.

The times she visited it became more frequent: every morning she got up earlier than her sisters just to “borrow” some of the food they kept in the kitchen to feed the little dog: once it was some eggs, then baby carrots, salmon fillet and in the end dry meat again.

What was funny about all of this is that, despite all the food disappearing from the kitchen, the other two sirens did not seem to notice or at least this is what Sonata thought, as her sisters never accused her of stealing the food.

The girl went to see her animal friend during the afternoon, too, and at night, before turning in: theirs truly became a magical relationship; Sonata felt bound to that little buggle by something she had never felt, a special kind of affection, very different from the one she felt towards her sisters; then all of a sudden something changed drastically.

One morning the girl woke up as usual at 6 am and took some food in order to feed the dog, but, as soon as she reached the place where the puggle and she usually met, the animal was not there.

The girl, searched for it, called for it several times, but her friend did not show up, despite all the tears the young siren cried that day and the ones that followed, the animal did not show up, never again.

“Now you know” Sonata finally sighed, when she had finished telling her story: “There’s nothing left for me to say”

“You!” Aria shouted angrily at her younger sister: “It was you who stole all our food, and here I thought I had started eating too much without noticing. But no: it was you who took all our food and for what?! To feed a common street dog!”

“Don’t call it that way!” Sonata replied furious: “It is not a common street dog we’re talking about, it’s my friend!”

“Yeah!” her sister answered, while her face became red as a chilly pepper: “A friend that was apparently so important that you decided we weren’t worth knowing”

“It’s not like that!”

“Oh, yes it is, it is indeed!”

“Aria does make a pretty good point” Adagio said, intervening: “Why didn’t you tell us about this friend of yours before, instead of stealing our food?!”

“We’re your only sisters, for pity’s sake!” Aria added nervous.

“I...I was afraid you wouldn’t like it, I guess it was a street dog, after all, plus we cannot exactly afford to have a pet right now”

“What you’re saying is true, but you still should have told us about your doubts: we mustn’t keep secrets from each other”.

“Ah” the youngest of the sirens sighed in the end: “You’re right, Adagio: I am really sorry. Maybe if I had mentioned this sooner we could have...I don’t know...found a solution together, but now it’s too late”

“What do you mean?” her older sister questioned confused:

“Now my fried is gone, forever I mean”

“It could still come back” Adagio said, trying to cheer Sonata up, placing her hand on her sister’s shoulder.

“No it won’t. Truth is, I’m afraid they might have taken it away.”

“Maybe it had an owner”

“No, it did not: I’m sure it had no collar around its neck”

“What does make you think that somebody might have taken it?”

“I’ve seen what they do to street dogs in this world: it’s not nice at all.”

Having heard these things, the oldest of the sirens stopped talking, creating an awkwardly silent atmosphere, yet Aria managed to break it with ease.

“Hey, Sonata, have I ever told you about the time Adagio here ended up having green hair?”.

At the sound of those words, Adagio covered her face embarrassed, yet did not try to stop Aria, she was trying to help Sonata after all.

“You see, some people here like to dye their hair, so, being curios, our sister bought one bottle of dye from a store not far from our place. But when she came back and tried it, while you were out, she found herself with green hair, what’s more it took forever to wash away that green!”.

Despite her mood, Sonata could not help but giggle, while a tear of joy lined her face”

“And have I ever told...”

“I believe that’s enough” Adagio intervened, preventing Aria from telling other embarrassing stories: “It’s grown late: time to go back home”.

At that moment, while Adagio’s cheeks were still red as tomatoes, the youngest of the sirens hugged her older sister in a tight embrace: “Okay” Adagio finally replied, smiling: “You win, okay, now let’s go”.

The thee sister left their seats, headed to the exit door, but as soon as they were outside; an unbearable noise similar to a thunder was heard, shorty followed by a blinding flash of light that almost spit the sky in two.

The sirens remained speechless, their mouths dropped and their gems emitted a strong vibration, before sparkling: the oldest of the sirens was the first to notice that unusual sign.

“Did you feel that?” Adagio exclaimed, turning to her sisters, grinning like she hadn’t done in a long time: “Do you know what that is?”; the other two sirens replied by shaking their heads.

“It’s Equestrian magic!”

“But this world doesn’t have Equestrian magic” Aria, protested, still not understanding what Adagio’s point was:

“It does now and we’re going to use it to make everyone in this pathetic little world adore us!”.

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