An Opal's Dazzling Bell

by Draxonos135

Stray Cat

It was a dark and stormy night in Other-Questria, and in one ordinary convenience store, siren Adagio Dazzle walked out with an umbrella on one hand, and a bag filled with snacks on the other.

Alright, these snacks should be enough for the movie night, even someone like Sonata shouldn't be able to eat all of this in one go.

She looked around and saw the heavy rain pelting down from the sky everywhere, except for the spot under her umbrella, of course.

Geez, this is quite an extreme weather. I wonder who broke up with Celestia this time to make her cry this much.

So, not having any more time to waste, Adagio walked back home as she had a second thought about her statement.

That princess is the one in control of the weather, right? Or did she control the moon? Ugh, my thousand-year mind and stay in the human world are taking a toll on me.

*Meow*

Adagio stopped and turned around to the source of the sound, who turned out to be none other than a peculiar white cat, who let out another *meow* as Adagio looked at them.

She promptly got a condescending smile and crouched down.

"Well, aren't you in luck. It seems I just so happened to spot you, and I find you just pitiful enough to grant you some of my benevolence."

The cat's frown remained on their face.

"Ugh, what am I doing, talking to a cat? It's not like they know what I'm saying anyway," Adagio reached for her bag. "Look here, I bought some snacks for me and my sisters, but it turns out, the packages sport a little bit more than I expected."

Adagio took out a bag of fish-shaped chips, and opened it.

"You can have a bag of this stuff, it won't feed you during the entire rainstorm, but it should last a while."

The cat grabbed the bag, shoved their face up into it as Adagio stood up and continued on her way home.

As soon as the cat took their head off the bag, though, they looked at Adagio walk away for an extended period of time...

---

"Aria! Sonata! I'm back!"

Adagio placed the bag and umbrella on the table as her fellow sirens promptly arrived: Aria with her usual scowl and her hands saved on her pockets, while Sonata cheerfully strolled.

"Did you find the stuff?" Aria asked, glancing at the bag.

"Yeah, I got the snacks you wanted," Adagio sternly eyed the other sirens. "Did you get the movie?"

Sonata gave Adagio a thumbs up.

"Good, looks like we're set for the movie night. Especially since I bought enough food so that Sonata doesn't eat it in one go."

Sonata smirked.

"Is that a challenge?"

Adagio, sporting the most threatening glare she could muster, looked at Sonata face-to-face.

"It's a warning."

Sonata shrank.

"O-Okay..."

With all that done, the sirens grabbed the food and headed to the couch to begin their movie night.

That is, until Aria and Sonata saw something and stopped.

"What's wrong, you two?" Adagio asked. "Why did you stop?"

Aria narrowed her eyes.

"I thought you told us no pets allowed?"

"Yeah, I said that," Adagio narrowed her eyes. "Did you and Sonata try to bring that talking dog again?"

"Um, no," Aria folded her arms. "If anything, now we're wondering if you think you're an exception to your own rule."

Adagio blinked once. "What?"

"Yeah, Adagio, it's not fair!" Sonata whined. "Why do you get to bring a cat, and we don't get to bring pets of our own?!"

*Meow*

Adagio flinched and turned around, spotting none other than the same cat from before, now sporting a blue color on her muzzle.

"Ugh, this thing again," Adagio rolled her eyes. "I didn't buy this cat or anything: I heard them meowing in the rain, and since I felt a bit sorry for them, I gave them a bag of fish chips."

"Oh, Adagio, don't you know that when you give a stray anything some food, it's going to see you as a way for it to get more food?" Aria scoffed. "Of course, the animal usually waits at least a day before looking for food again."

"Poor little thing, she's probably starving," Sonata clasped her hands. "I bet if you don't give her more food, she's going to eat you alive, Adagio."

Aria flashed a sly smile.

"I'm suddenly finding myself siding with Adagio this time: maybe we shouldn't feed this cat anymore."

"I know what you're trying to say, Aria, but sadly for you, I have something call a survival instinct," Adagio crouched down and grabbed the cat. "And besides, even I'm not heartless enough to leave an animal like this out in the rain."

Aria and Sonata gasped, the latter hiding behind the former as she clenched a fist.

"Who are you and what have you done with Adagio!?"

Adagio rolled her eyes and promptly looked at the tag on the cat's collar.

"Opalescence?"

"That's a cute name," Sonata remarked. "I'm not sure, though, maybe you could let us

"It's not a name I came up with; that's what their tag reads." Adagio carried Opalescence in her arm. "Which means they must have an owner."

"Well, had an owner," Aria said. "I mean, you found them on the streets, right? I highly doubt that if the cat still had an owner, it wouldn't have been picked up by the time you met them."

"Maybe the cat ran away from home because they didn't like their owner?" Sonata suggested.

"Okay, calling this cat a "they" will get on my nerves pretty fast, so let's assume they have a gender," Adagio raised an eyebrow. "Like... Female..."

Growing unsure of her thought, Adagio quickly looked at Opalescence's behind.

"Definitely female!"

"You know, that's not something you should proudly after looking at an animal's bum for confirmation."

"Yeah, Adagio, that's kinda low, even for you."

"Shut up!"

Suddenly, the sirens heard someone knock the door.

They thus walked up to it and opened it to find a young girl outside, wearing a purple rainsuit.

"Hello, Rainsuit Girl!" Sonata chirped. "What brings you here?"

The girl took off her su it's hood, revealing herself to be Sweetie Belle.

"My name's Sweetie Belle, and I came here 'cause I was wondering if you had seen-"

And then she saw the cat.

"Opalescence!" Sweetie Belle chirped as Opalescence jumped into her arms. "Rarity was so worried for you!"

Adagio raised an eyebrow. "Rarity?"

"She's my older sister, and she asked me to look after Opalescence while she was helping Sunset get ready to wake up early tomorrow."

"I see," Adagio folded her arms. "That doesn't explain what she was doing on the streets, though."

Sweetie Belle hummed. "Well, Rarity's been putting Opalescence on a diet-"

"And that pretty much sums it up: she was trying to find actual food by pretending to be a stray cat!" Sonata snapped her fingers. "Sneaky girl!"

"Well, I'm glad you didn't hurt Opalescence," Sweetie Belle said. "Although, I have to ask, did you feed her any fattening foods?"

Adagio reached for and grabbed a bag of the fish-shaped chips, and looked at the content.

She smiled nervously.

Sweetie Belle thusly whispered.

"Could you give me a bag of those to try and keep Opalescence in line?"

Adagio's eyes widened as Sweetie Belle gave her a wink, and smiled as she handed the bag to the girl.

"Be sure your sister doesn't find out about it."

"Don't worry, she won't."

Sweetie Belle and Opalescence bid farewell and left, while the sirens waved goodbye, Adagio in particular sporting a little smile as she asked out loud.

"Will we see them again, I wonder?"

Realizing what she said, Adagio flinched and slowly turned around to see Aria and Sonata flashing smiles at her. The former a smug one, the latter a cheerful one.

"W-Wait, I-It's not what you think-"

"Adagio Dazzle," Aria said. "Would you just so happen to have enjoyed seeing that cat and girl?"

Adagio folded her arms and looked away.

"O-Of course not! I'm just happy that the cat's owner's sister came to pick her up, a-and besides, you can't say the girl wasn't adorable."

"I do agree with you on the girl, she was kinda cute," Sonata tilted her head. "But you did ask "will we see them again, I wonder?" as if you were curious if this would be the last time you met them-"

"Oh, shut up you two! We have a movie night to get to!"

Adagio stomped to the couch, and Aria and Sonata exchanged little smiles before they followed her.

---

Outside in the rain, Sweetie Belle carried Opalescence under her arm, trying to protect her from the rain as the cat constantly tried to get over her shoulder.

"Opalescence, calm down!" Sweetie Belle said, grabbing the cat with her arms and giving her a look. "What's gotten you all riled up?"

Opalescence meowed as Sweetie Belle looked back at the house of the sirens, which gave her an idea.

"You want to keep eating with those girls, don't you?"

Opalescence blinked, and Sweetie Belle smiled.

"Okay, how about we do this: tomorrow, we're going to pay a visit to those girls, and we'll stay there until Rarity wonders where we are, okay?"

The cat finally seemed to calm down as she stopped struggling to get past the girl's shoulder, allowing Sweetie Belle to calmly hum a tune as she kept walking back home.

Tomorrow could be a better day.

Comments

[forbloodysummer]

This is really sweet

I wish Adagio didn't talk to herself in the first scene, as it kind of pulls you out of the story as something real people don't often do. But it's tricky when there's only one character in a scene, and you want there to be some dialogue

[Draxonos135]

9681593
I probably should've made her say that in her head. XD

[forbloodysummer]

9681598 Maybe, yeah? Or perhaps you could introduce the cat earlier, so Adagio says those things to Opalescence instead? I really liked the line about the rain being because of Celestia's breakup, and I could see Adagio saying that to a cat in a conversational way.

[Draxonos135]

9681608
I see, I'll have to think about that next time I write something like this.

Thanks for the feedback. :)

[Hopeful_Ink_Hoof]

In reality, Opal knows exactly what the sirens are, and it is her plan to eat all three giant fish women!

[Knight of the Raven]

I'm late to that party, but there's such a thing as voicing one's thoughts aloud. On one hand, Adagio very probably loves the sound of her own voice enough to do it; on the other hand, she's most likely smart enough to keep her thoughts private when someone could hear them, even if they're only mundane resignation about her glutton of a roommate on the way back from an equally mundane convenience store.

I found Adagio very in character, incidentally. Of course she'd help someone out of pity rather than out of kindness.

Yes, I got some 'because it amused me' and 'why not?' vibes from her as well, but again, very in character.

'Let no good deed go unpunished!' is a thing, though, and now she's got a cat to deal with. Yes, she was looking forward to seeing both Opalescence and Sweetie Belle again, but let's see how long that lasts once the latter tries cooking in their home.

"the sirens" felt a lot less intrusive than the constructs locked into my gun sights, and replacing them with "they" would be closer to fine-tuning than to fixing. I found "siren Adagio Dazzle" at the beginning a little odd, like writing 'unicorn Rarity walked out with an umbrella in her magic' would make me raise an eyebrow, but that's not a mistake to be fixed per se. There's such a thing as writing styles, after all.

I liked Adagio's absent-minded, flippant jab at Celestia about the weather, even if she got her actual job completely wrong from start to finish (not a surprise, since she possibly got banished before Celestia ever harnessed the sun). It's a good thing she didn't spend time in medieval France during her exile, else she'd have gone with 'ah, Celestia must be beating her sister again' instead.

There were a few mistakes with said tags; the commas at the end of "It's not like they know what I'm saying anyway," and "I have something call a survival instinct," should each be a period.

Other mistakes include "Adagio Dazzle walked out with an umbrella on one hand" when it should be 'in one hand' (unless she's balancing her umbrella on the back of her hand just to prove that she's better than all of you peons, which I honestly wouldn't put past her), "who turned out to be none other than a peculiar white cat" where "who" should be 'which' since the subject there is "the source of the sound" rather than the cat itself, and an erroneous space that made the final product "The girl took off her su it's hood" rather than 'her suit's hood.'

You also missed a word in ""You know, that's not something you should proudly after looking at an animal's bum for confirmation."" ('declare,' I assume, or something equally pompous considering the context and just who's talking), whereas the sentence ""I'm not sure, though, maybe you could let us" just stops without being completed.

Finally, I liked these lines;

"Well, aren't you in luck. It seems I just so happened to spot you, and I find you just pitiful enough to grant you some of my benevolence."

"Good, looks like we're set for the movie night. Especially since I bought enough food so that Sonata doesn't eat it in one go."

Sonata smirked.

"Is that a challenge?"

Adagio, sporting the most threatening glare she could muster, looked at Sonata face-to-face.

"It's a warning."

(Incidentally, there could be some benefit to describing just what this "most threatening glare" looks like, but it works as it is for the purpose of this story.)

[bernabex27]

Me gusto tu historia fue agradable de leer aunque fue corto fue preciso y justo lo que necesitaba para contarse en esta historia. Bien hecho.

Mmm... Podría ser que a futuro veamos una secuela de opal con las dazzling

[bernabex27]

I liked your story it was nice to read, although it was short it was precise and just what I needed to be told in this story.
I congratulate you, well done.

Mmm ... It could be that in the future we see a sequel to the opal cat with the dazzling

[Draxonos135]

9682833
Maybe

[Wild Stallion]

Simple but sweet. I loved it. Thanks for writing!