Hell is for Sirens (Part 1)
“I don’t know, Su-Z. A gift card just feels like it’d be too impersonal a present for Dashie’s birthday,” Sonata Dusk said as she filled up the last of the emu’s troughs with feed for the evening. “I mean I get that I can’t get her that gaming chair she’s been wanting because money is tight and all, but a gift card just…just doesn’t feel like the kind of gift you give your girlfriend for her birthday.”
“I get what you’re saying, Sonata, I really do,” Su-Z replied as she did likewise. “But it doesn’t seem like you have a whole lot of other options. You said it yourself; money is tight right now.”
“Yeah,” Sonata admitted with a reluctant sigh.
It was the end of yet another day on the emu farm for Su-Z and Sonata. They’d spent most of the day inside the barn doing tasks like filling the troughs, cleaning out the pens, and brushing the occasional emu; things that were normally undesirable because of the high levels of physicality they demanded. But today those tasks were not only seen as desirable but as a blessing as well on account of the high humidity outside. Not only that, but given that Aria was at CHS today the two girls were able to cut a few small corners here and there that they normally wouldn’t have been able to. So all things considered it had actually been one of the better days on the farm for them.
The only thing that had been less than ideal about the day was Sonata’s near-constant ramblings about what she was going to get Rainbow Dash for her birthday. At least as far as Su-Z was concerned.
Ever since Adagio had informed Sonata that they couldn’t spare $100 from the household budget for her to buy a gaming chair for Rainbow Dash the young Dazzling had become a bit obsessive. The subject of Rainbow Dash’s birthday gift became practically the only thing Sonata ever talked about anymore. And it didn’t require any prompting either. The girl would simply walk up to someone at any random time and start going on and on about her dilemma.
It had gotten to be so bad that some members of the household – namely Aria – had taken to actively avoiding Sonata because they feared becoming the latest victim of one of her seemingly endless series of woeful soliloquies.
Su-Z, however, had felt no such need to avoid Sonata. In fact, she’d felt the exact opposite. She’d been feeling like she needed to be close to the girl during her troubled time. Perhaps it was because Sonata was the Dazzling she got along with best or maybe just because she was just such a caring and compassionate person, but the PostCrush girl genuinely wanted to help her friend. The only problem was she wasn’t sure how to help Sonata since the girl was shooting down every idea for a gift that was suggested to her, including the gift card one her and Kiwi had brought up back when all of this first started.
“I just don’t want Dashie to think I’m phoning it in, you know?” Sonata continued. “She’s such an amazing girlfriend and I…I just don’t want her to think I don’t care enough about her to give her something truly special for her birthday.”
Just then, as Su-Z finished emptying her feed bag, a lightbulb went off within the PostCrush girl’s mind. One brought about by Sonata’s choice of wording.
“Maybe you don’t need to get Rainbow Dash a gift for her birthday,” She said with a sense of revelation.
“Huh?” Sonata instantly replied in utter bewilderment as she looked up at her friend.
“Maybe instead of giving her something truly special you can do something truly special for her instead,” Su-Z explained.
“Do something special for her? Like what?” The Dazzling replied.
“Well you said she likes pranks, right?” Su-Z said. “Maybe you could plan a really awesome prank for her to do!”
It took Sonata second to process what Su-Z was proposing. But when she did process it she put her now-empty feed bag down and brought a hand up to her chin.
“Plan a prank for her to do,” Sonata reiterated softly as she pondered the idea further.
“Or...or you could plan an awesome prank that the two of you could do together!” Su-Z continued. “I’m sure she’d love that!”
The more Su-Z spoke of the idea, the more Sonata liked it.
“Yeah. Yeah!” Sonata excitedly exclaimed, before suddenly shifting to a more subdued and somewhat gloomy mood. “Oh, but I don’t know if I can plan a really awesome prank though. I’m not much of a prankster.”
“I can help you out if you want!” Su-Z said as she grabbed hold of the Dazzling’s shoulders with gusto. “I pulled pranks all the time when Kiwi and I were on-tour.”
“Really?” Sonata asked, surprised to hear Su-Z say that she was a prankster.
“Oh yeah. Recording artists play pranks on one another all the time when they perform together at big concerts and stuff,” The PostCrush girl expounded as she let go of Sonata’s shoulders. “Well, most do. Kiwi never really did because, in case you hadn’t noticed, she doesn’t have a big sense of humor.”
Sonata couldn’t help but giggle at Su-Z’s comment regarding Kiwi’s sense of humor, finding it to be exceedingly true.
“Anywhoo, I played pranks on pretty much every major artist out there while we were touring. Sometimes with help,” Su-Z continued. “In fact, there was this one time in Foaledo when Countess Coloratura and I spent an entire night together covering Sapphire Shores’ car in brightly-colored sticky notes.”
“What?! No way,” Sonata replied in clear and obvious skepticism. “You and Countess Coloratura did not do that.”
“Oh, we did it all right,” Su-Z assured her friend, with no shortage of pride in her voice. “And I have the picture somewhere in my phone to prove it. I’ll show it to you later.”
“Oh my gosh, you totally have to!” Sonata replied jovially, eliciting an amiable smile from Su-Z.
Just as the two girls finished their conversation, the back doors to the barn opened and Adagio and Kiwi walked inside, each of them escorting an emu at their side. Or rather, Adagio and Kiwi stumbled into the barn, each of them holding onto an emu in order to keep themselves upright as they guided it.
“Thank heavens this day is finally over,” Kiwi remarked tiresomely as she and her emu advanced further into the barn.
“Amen to that, sister,” Adagio just as tiresomely answered as she wiped an excessive amount of sweat from her brow. “I’m not sure how much longer I would’ve lasted out there.”
While both Su-Z and Sonata were undoubtably sympathetic to Kiwi and Adagio’s clear discomfort, they were each extremely grateful that it hadn’t been them outside under the scorching sun all day. Neither of them had a high tolerance for dealing with the summertime heat. They were much more a keen to dealing with cold, wintery weather.
Despite Kiwi and Adagio’s exhausted states they each managed to corral their emu back into their pens fairly quickly. And once they were done they each made their way over towards Su-Z and Kiwi at the front-end of the barn, where they both promptly took a seat on a nearby bale of hay to rest up for a minute. What followed was silence throughout the barn - save for the sounds of light panting emanating from Kiwi and Adagio. A silence that was only broken when the unmistakable pinging of a cell phone started to ring out throughout the barn.
“Oh, that’s me!” Su-Z eagerly exclaimed as she quickly reached into her right pocket and withdrew her phone, recognizing the pinging as a text notification.
Wasting no time, Su-Z tapped the text notification icon on her phone to see who it was that was texting her, and after the sender’s name and message appeared she quickly read through it.
“Oh no,” She uttered softly as she dawned an expression of dread while rapidly tapping her phone and then placing it up to her ear.
“Everything okay, Su-Z?” Kiwi inquired concernedly as she got up from her seat.
“Shh!” Su-Z replied sharply as she took a few steps off to the side for some privacy.
Soon enough Sonata and Adagio began to share Kiwi’s concern for Su-Z. It wasn’t like her to get riled up so quickly, or even get riled up at all. She was one of the most easy-going people they’d ever met. The only time they’d ever seen her lose her cool was when they’d played cards one night and she’d started talking about her family, which led each of them to assume that the text message she’d just received had something to do with either her mom or her sister.
A few seemingly never-ending seconds passed as the three girls waited for whoever Su-Z was calling to pick up so they could hopefully find out what was going on. Eventually though the mystery person picked up, and when they did they heard Su-Z speak a name that none of them had expected to hear.
“Dolly?” The younger PostCrush girl said.
Shocked expressions immediately appeared on the faces of the three other girls in the barn as soon as they discovered that the person who’d texted Su-Z and was now speaking with her on the phone was apparently Sonata’s daughter, Dolly Dusk.
“Dolly?! What’s wrong with Dolly?!” Adagio precipitously, and worrisomely, spoke up as she hastily approached Su-Z and held out her right hand. “Give me the phone! I want to talk to her!”
Su-Z, in response, simply extended her left arm out to keep Adagio from getting any closer to her. Which of course only exasperated Adagio further.
“Let me talk to her!” The Dazzling leader demanded right before swatting Su-Z’s arm away from her.
As Adagio continued to persist in trying to seize Su-Z’s phone from her, Sonata and Kiwi continued to maintain a respectful distance from the girl. The reason for this being because both of them weren’t sure what else it was they should do. Anxiety and confusion for why it was that Dolly had called Su-Z with apparent bad news was what kept Sonata from taking any action like Adagio had. As for Kiwi, she just simply felt like a third wheel – or rather fourth wheel – in all of this developing drama.
“It’s your Aunt Adagio,” Su-Z said into the phone as she continued to hold the eldest Dazzling back as best she could. “She says she wants to talk to you.”
“Dolly, sweetie, are you okay?!” Adagio shouted so that Dolly would be able to hear her through Su-Z’s phone.
The poofy-haired girl ceased her struggles with Su-Z for a few more seconds as she, along with Sonata and Kiwi, waited for the younger PostCrush girl to hear what Dolly had to say.
“She said to tell you that she’s okay,” Su-Z eventually relayed to Adagio, eliciting an immediate sigh of relief from the Dazzling. “But that she doesn’t want to talk to you right now.”
The relief Adagio felt instantly dissipated upon hearing that Dolly didn’t want to talk to her.
“W-What?” The Dazzling uttered softly in shock and dismay.
“Just…give us a minute, okay?” Su-Z requested tentatively as she walked past Adagio and headed for the barn doors.
Adagio said nothing nor tried to stop Su-Z as she passed her. Likewise, Sonata and Kiwi both remained silent and passive as Su-Z walked past them and exited the barn.
Once Su-Z was outside and assumedly out of earshot, Adagio hurried back over towards her sister and housemate with a not-so-subtle look of aggravation on her face.
“What the hell is going on here?” She whispered heatedly to them, just in case Su-Z wasn’t as far away from the barn as she believed her to be. “Why is Dolly calling Su-Z and why is she refusing to talk to us?”
At first both Sonata and Kiwi were confused by Adagio’s use of the word ‘us’, since technically it had only been her that Dolly had refused to talk to. But putting that little technicality aside – mostly because they were both fairly certain that Dolly would’ve refused to talk to either of them anyhow – the Dazzling and elder PostCrush girl just looked at one another with faces that silently communicated the question: Do you know what’s going on here?
But before either Sonata or Kiwi could say anything aloud Adagio spoke up again.
“When did Dolly and Su-Z even become so close anyways?” The Dazzling leader continued, sounding even more heated than she had a moment ago.
“When Dolly came to visit a few weeks ago, remember?” Kiwi answered.
Adagio did remember Dolly’s visit to the farm not too long ago. And how could she not? Given how little she’d seen of her beloved niece while she was growing up, the Dazzling leader made it a point to always make sure she cherished any and all moments they got to spend together now that she was back in her life. She remembered Dolly talking to her about how school and her marine biology studies were going, about movies she’d seen recently, and about how she’d even been thinking about adopting a cat. She remembered practically everything about the time they’d spent together during the visit.
But what Adagio wasn’t remembering right now was that she hadn’t spent every waking moment with Dolly while she’d been on the farm. There’d been a few times where she hadn’t been in the same room with Dolly, times like about a half-hour after dinner when she’d had to run to the store to pick up some strawberry ice cream because they were all out of it – and it was Dolly’s favorite flavor. A time that Kiwi remembered very clearly.
“They became friends after talking for a bit while you were gone,” Kiwi explained. “So what? What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is that this friendship of theirs is resulting in Dolly keeping secrets from us,” Adagio promptly fired back. “Dolly never kept secrets from us before she became friends with Su-Z.”
It took all of Kiwi’s self-restraint to keep from rolling her eyes at how much she felt that Adagio was overreacting to all of this. And at how much the Dazzling was jumping to conclusions too.
“First off, Dolly isn’t keeping secrets from you, Adagio. She just said she didn’t want to talk to you is all,” The PostCrush girl animadverted. “And second, even if she is keeping secrets from you I doubt that it’s on account of her being friends with Su-Z.”
“Don’t act like you know Dolly, Kiwi. You don’t know her like we do,” Adagio practically snapped back at Kiwi, sounding downright offended by the girl’s words. “We’re her family, her blood. We know her better than you do now or ever will.”
Kiwi would’ve been lying if she’d said that she didn’t feel wounded by Adagio’s remarks. While it was true that she hadn’t known Dolly nearly as long as the Dazzlings and that she wasn’t related to the girl by blood, the harshness of Adagio’s words cut her deeply. Ever since she and Su-Z had come to live with the Dazzlings she’d been told that they were considered family. But now she was starting to wonder if perhaps that wasn’t quite as true as she’d been led to believe – at least as far as Adagio was concerned.
“Dolly shared everything with us when she was growing up,” The Dazzling leader continued. “It wasn’t until after her last visit when she apparently became friends with Su-Z that all of that changed. So I think it only makes sense that Su-Z is the cause of Dolly suddenly being so secretive.”
At this point Kiwi had heard just about enough out of Adagio regarding Su-Z. She could let all of the Dazzling leader’s remarks about her go without a fuss, but she couldn’t let the girl’s near-paranoid remarks regarding Su-Z go without giving her a piece of her mind.
Just as Kiwi took a step forward to confront Adagio though, Sonata – who’d been surprisingly passive this whole time – abruptly cut her off.
“That’s enough, Adagio,” The younger Dazzling told her sister firmly.
Needless to say, Kiwi was taken aback a bit by Sonata’s sudden intervention in the discussion. But what took her aback even more was that Sonata’s intervention appeared to have humbled Adagio and subdued the girl’s diatribe.
“B-But Sonata…” The poofy-haired girl replied, in a very uncharacteristically tentative manner, before being cut-off.
“No buts,” Sonata retorted. “Dolly’s not a little girl anymore, she’s an adult. And if there’s something going on in her life that she doesn’t want to tell us about than she doesn’t have to.”
It was clear from the expression on Adagio’s face that she had something she wanted to say, but despite this she remained silent.
“And furthermore, you can’t blame Su-Z for Dolly’s choices either,” Sonata added as she pointed her right index finger squarely in front of her sister’s face. “So I don’t want to hear you say anything more about her friendship with Dolly or their phone call just now. Understood?”
Adagio immediately nodded her head in acknowledgment, much to Kiwi’s continued befuddlement.
The PostCrush girl had known from hearing the Dazzlings’ story about the Overlook Hotel that Sonata could be pretty intimidating when it came to matters regarding her daughter, but until now she’d had no idea just how intimidating. Sonata could be downright terrifying. The sheer sense of fear that the young Dazzling was able to conjure within her without even raising her voice was admittedly impressive. Especially considering how easily that fear appeared to have tempered Adagio’s rantings.
“Good,” Sonata said a bit less sternly as she lowered her finger, turned around, and headed for the door. “Now let’s go have dinner.”
Despite being in a near state of shock like Adagio, Kiwi quickly recomposed herself and followed Sonata out of the barn. Leaving Adagio alone, whom she felt both needed and wanted some privacy after being essentially eviscerated verbally by her younger sister.
As Kiwi made her way over towards Sonata, and subsequently over towards the house, she couldn’t help but notice that the Dazzling’s car was parked in the driveway. Signaling to her that Aria was already home from her day at CHS.
“I’m sorry about Adagio,” Sonata apologized to the PostCrush girl as soon as she’d caught up with her. “She didn’t mean to bad-mouth Su-Z or anything like that. She’s just very…concerned about Dolly is all.”
“So I’ve noticed,” Kiwi simply replied as they continued to walk towards the house.
“And to be honest, I am a bit too,” The Dazzling confessed. “When I heard Su-Z say Dolly’s name after saying ‘Oh no’ I couldn’t help but feel that Dolly was in some sort of trouble that she didn’t want me or Adagio or Aria to know about.”
This, Kiwi could understand. Perhaps it was because Sonata was Dolly’s mother – as opposed to Adagio – or because the young Dazzling was expressing her anxieties in a much more calm and rational manner than her older sister had, but for some reason they seemed more genuine to her than anything Adagio had been spouting earlier.
“You…you don’t think that’s actually the case, do you, Kiwi?” Sonata then inquired. “Su-Z was probably just overreacting with that ‘Oh no’, r-right?”
“I’m sure she was,” Kiwi instinctively assured her friend. “You know how Su-Z can overreact to pretty much anything. Remember how she freaked out when she learned that the real story of Pocahontas was nothing like the animated movie?”
“Yeah,” Sonata replied with a giggle. “She said that everything she knew was a lie and that she’d never watch another Disney movie ever again.”
“But then next movie night when we watched The Little Mermaid she watched it with us,” Kiwi interjected. “So I think it’s safe to say that whatever it is she’s alarmed about now it’s no big deal. Su-Z’s just being, well…Su-Z about all of this.”
Another few giggles escaped Sonata’s mouth.
“Yeah. You’re probably right, Kiwi,” The Dazzling replied with a slight hint of confidence in her voice. “I’m sure everything’s fine.”
Kiwi tried to think of something to say to further reinforce her belief that Su-Z was overreacting and that Dolly wasn’t in any trouble, but she was unable to find the right words. So instead she simply gave her friend a small smile, which was apparently enough to do the trick as Sonata quickly gave her a small smile back.
The following few seconds for the Dazzling and PostCrush girl were spent in a relatively comfortable silence as they continued to make their way up to the house. But once they got up to the porch that silence was promptly broken as they found themselves once again in the company of Su-Z, who was still on her phone.
“Okay, okay, fine. Just call me later, all right?” The younger of the two PostCrush girls said into her phone. “Yeah. Talk to you later, Dolly. Bye.”
Her call ended, Su-Z put her phone back into her pocket and proceeded to turn around to address Sonata and Kiwi.
“I tell ya, that girl worries me sometimes,” She very nonchalantly told her friends before heading towards the front door.
Neither Sonata nor Kiwi said anything in response as Su-Z opened the door and stepped inside, but one look at Sonata’s face would’ve revealed to any who saw it that Su-Z’s remark had rattled her a bit.
Feeling that there was no point to staying outside any longer - and wanting to be somewhere air conditioned – Sonata and Kiwi quickly followed behind Su-Z and went inside. Though neither of them got very far past the threshold on account of Su-Z more-or-less blocking the entrance as she stared into the kitchen.
Curious as to what it was that had caused her best friend to stop so close to the doorway, Kiwi – in addition to Sonata - turned her attention towards the kitchen. What the older PostCrush girl saw initially was nothing out of the ordinary; Aria sitting at the kitchen table scrolling through her phone. But as soon as she shifted her line of sight a tad to the right she saw someone else sitting at the table as well who was typing on a laptop. A girl with pig-tails and glasses wearing a uniform of some sort whom she was fairly certain she’d never seen before.
“Who’s that?” Su-Z asked softly Sonata before Kiwi had a chance to.
“That’s our friend Sugarcoat. She’s a student at Crystal Prep Academy and manages the magic act of another friend of ours,” Sonata answered. “But I have no idea why she’s here right now.”
“She’s here because I asked her to look over our finances,” Adagio suddenly said from right behind the three girls, mildly startling each of them.
“Why’d you ask her to do that?” Kiwi inquired, making no effort to hide the concern in her voice.
“Because after I couldn’t find that $100 for Sonata I got a little worried about our money situation,” Adagio answered. “And I figured since Sugarcoat manages Trixie’s magic act and is an aspiring business woman she was the best person to ask for a bit of help. So I called her last night and she said she’d take a look at our books after school today as long as one of us was able to pick her up from CPA.”
Kiwi, Sonata, and Su-Z all looked at one another with anxious faces for a moment. Each of them knew that the household finances weren’t all that great, but none of them had imagined that they’d be in such poor shape that they’d need a third-party person to come in and have a look at them.
Quite frankly, the whole thing made each of them fear that perhaps they were in danger of losing the farm.
“How’s everything looking, Sugarcoat?” Adagio hollered as she walked past her sister and housemates and headed for the kitchen.
“Too early to say,” Sugarcoat promptly answered in her usual monotone manner, and without either looking up from her laptop or ceasing her typing too. “I’ll let you know in a bit.”
Adagio simply gave a small shrug in response to Sugarcoat’s reply before silently making her way into the kitchen and taking a seat to Aria’s left. Feeling that the Dazzling leader had the right idea in this particular situation, Kiwi followed suit and walked into the kitchen without saying a word as well. Leaving Su-Z and Sonata alone together by the front door.
Curious as to what exactly Sugarcoat was typing on her laptop, Su-Z decided she too would make her way into the kitchen. Though instead of sitting down like Adagio and Kiwi she planned on going around the table to more-or-less hover over Sugarcoat while she worked. But before she could even take one step forward she felt Sonata’s hand gently take hold of her shoulder.
“Hey, um, Su-Z. C-Can I ask you something?” The Dazzling inquired softly.
“Uh, yeah. Of Course, Sonata,” Su-Z replied.
“Okay. I just…I don’t want it to seem like I’m…like I’m trying to question your character or anything like that,” Sonata falteringly started to say. “But I just…I just need to know that you’d tell me if Dolly was ever in any kind of trouble. Y-You would tell me if that were ever the case, right?”
Surprisingly, Su-Z’s initial reaction to Sonata’s question was to merely give her friend a look of bewilderment, which obviously did little to improve the Dazzling’s doubtful disposition. But soon enough the PostCrush girl lost her perplexed expression and answered her friend’s question.
“Um, yeah, I guess I would,” Su-Z said. “Unless Dolly explicitly told me not to tell you that is.”
While the PostCrush girl’s answer was less than ideal for Sonata, the young Dazzling still found it to be satisfactory. At least for now.
“All right. Thanks, Su-Z,” Sonata said before she started making her way towards the kitchen.
Su-Z remained behind for a moment as she briefly racked her brain trying to figure out where Sonata’s strange question had come from. While she found it true that Sonata could be unpredictable and downright weird at times - Aria’s words, not her’s – the PostCrush girl simply couldn’t figure out where the Dazzling’s suddenly high-level of concern for Dolly was originating from. Sure she was the girl’s mother and all, but what reason did she have for being so worried all of a sudden?
It never once crossed Su-Z’s mind that the phone call she’d just had with Dolly was even potentially the source of Sonata’s unease.
Deciding to put her friend’s odd inquiry aside for the time being, Su-Z swiftly headed into the kitchen. When she got there she immediately made her way around the table and leaned back against the nearby counter, giving her an almost unobstructed view of Sugarcoat’s laptop screen. What she saw was pretty much what she’d expected; a spreadsheet full of numbers, formulas, charts, etc. But what she hadn’t expected was for it all to be so detailed and intricate that she couldn’t even make heads or tails of any of it.
The kitchen remained fairly quiet for another few minutes with the exception of the sounds of typing. Eventually though Sugarcoat ceased her number crunching and turned her laptop around so that everyone sitting at the table could see the screen.
“Okay, here’s what your situation looks like,” The Crystal Prep girl started to say as she stood up and pointed to a graph displayed on the laptop. “As you can see, when you first took over this farm your operating expenses were outweighing your revenues but not by much. However, as you can see here your expenses have recently increased drastically due to various changes in your variable costs leading to a greater deficit between -”
“We don’t need the full report, Sugarcoat,” Adagio interrupted the Shadowbolt. “Just give us the bottom line.”
Sugarcoat couldn’t help but shoot Adagio a quick look of asperity for having interrupted her. But just as quickly as she’d done so she lost her tart expression and returned her attention to the group as a whole.
“The bottom line is that you’re going through money more quickly than you’re bringing it in,” The girl summarized.
“Heh. Tell us something we don’t know,” Aria impassively, though with a hint of mordancy, remarked as she continued to scroll through her phone.
“Well what I’m betting you didn’t know is that at the rate you’re losing money you’ll be completely out of it in approximately six months,” Sugarcoat expounded.
Aria instantly stopped scrolling through her phone upon hearing Sugarcoat’s delineation. In fact, she stopped holding her phone altogether. The pure and unbridled shock she felt after hearing Sugarcoat’s words caused her to loosen her grip on the device and send it falling to the floor, where it made a very audible thump once it made contact with the hardwood surface.
“What?!” The Dazzling hollered in horror - along with her sisters and housemates - as she vehemently got up from her seat.
“It’s all right here,” Sugarcoat replied as she pointed to a different part of her graph, seemingly unfazed by the simultaneous cries that’d just rung out at her. “If your financial situation stays its current course you won’t have any money left to keep the farm running in about six months or so.”
Sugarcoat then pointed to another part of her graph.
“And as you can see here it won’t be long after that that you won’t be able to keep the farm, period.” She concluded.
The three Dazzlings and two PostCrush girls all huddled closely together in front of Sugarcoat’s laptop to get a better look at the graph the girl was explaining to them. Each of them studied it attentively for a moment, not only to verify for themselves what Sugarcoat had said to them to be true but also to try and find any potential mistakes the Shadowbolt may have made in her analysis. Not one of them found any such mistakes, and it was hard for any of them to deny that the descending line on the graph was anything but a troubling sign.
Nothing short of sheer dread began to creep into Adagio, Kiwi, Aria, Su-Z, and Sonata as the reality of their situation became clear to them. They were in very real and very serious danger of losing their home. Memories from each of their times living in the van down by the river soon flashed before each of their minds’ eye, heightening their fears for worry that they may soon find themselves back in that awful predicament. Not only that, but fear that they’d be separated began to take hold as well. The Dazzling and PostCrush girls had really come to love one another as a family – for the most part - and the thought of having to part ways if the farm was lost was more painful to each of them than losing the farm itself.
“So what can we do?” Aria spoke up as she shifted her attention from the laptop to Sugarcoat. “You said we’ll run out of money in six months if our finances don’t change course, so that must mean that there are changes we can make before we reach that point. Right?”
“There are, yes,” Sugarcoat confirmed as all eyes in the room focused on her. “The best option would be to try and get a loan from the bank. One that would cover at least the next six months’ worth of expenses.”
“Yeah, I doubt that’s going to work,” Adagio explained very matter-of-factly. “We tried getting a loan from the bank not long after we bought this place. They wouldn’t give us one because they didn’t deem us to be, and I quote, ‘economically viable’.”
“I see,” Sugarcoat replied. “Well then the next best option would be to make drastic cuts to your variable costs wherever possible.”
Sugarcoat shifted her gaze over to Kiwi and Su-Z for a quick moment before promptly returning it to Adagio.
“This would include letting your new farmhands go,” The Shadowbolt then said.
“NO!” All three Dazzlings fiercely retorted simultaneously, eliciting a very noticeable look of stupefaction from Sugarcoat and a couple of discreet smiles from Kiwi and Su-Z.
“A-All right then,” Sugarcoat said as she recomposed herself. “In that case I’d recommend you find another source of income to increase your household earnings. I doubt that doing so would solve your money problems completely, but at the very least it should help you stay afloat for a few months longer.”
“Find another source of income?” Sonata half-said, half-asked. “But how do we do that? We all already work full-time jobs.”
“Yes, but three of you are only getting paid for doing the work of one person,” Sugarcoat replied, focusing all of her attention on the Dazzlings. “And I hate to break it to you, but that’s why you aren’t economically viable. Having three of you doing the work of one person and only being paid one salary makes no financial sense.”
Adagio, Aria, and Sonata each opened their mouths to offer a rebuttal to Sugarcoat’s claim. Though when none of them could think of a reasonable counterargument they promptly closed their mouths without uttering so much as a single ‘um’. As much as it pained the three sisters to admit it, Sugarcoat was right. Their current employment situation wasn’t financially feasible. In truth the Dazzlings had come to realize the financial folly of their shared job as librarian at CHS long ago. But given how much each of them enjoyed working at the high school and being around their friends they’d simply decided to ignore said folly, believing that the profits from their emu farm would supplement their income enough to allow them to continue splitting the librarian job three-ways.
But now that they’d seen Sugarcoat’s analysis, they knew that they’d been wrong in that belief. Very wrong.
“All right,” Adagio sighed reluctantly. “We’ll look into finding some new jobs first thing tomorrow.”
Aria and Sonata said nothing in response to their sister’s edict. Though one look at either of their faces would reveal that they clearly felt just as reluctant about the whole thing as Adagio did.
“Good,” Sugarcoat replied as she closed up her laptop and put it away in her bag. “And while you’re doing that I’ll talk to my mom about seeing if she has any connections that might be willing to help you.”
“Huh?” The Dazzling and PostCrush girls all uttered in response.
“My mom has a lot of connections in the Canterlot City business community. Most of them at companies that deal with things like marketing and logistics,” Sugarcoat began to explain. “It’s possible that one of them might be willing to help you out for a small fee or a percentage of your profits. I’ll admit it’s a bit of a long-shot, but you never know. There could be someone out there who wants to get in on the emu-business.”
To say that the Dazzlings were touched by Sugarcoat’s offer to seek help from her mother for them would’ve been an understatement. They were moved by it, almost to the point of shedding tears of joy. As were Kiwi and Su-Z, who’d only just met the girl today. Sugarcoat had already given them her time to help them analyze their finances, and now she was willing to go even further for them. She was willing to try and find them some professional connections to not only help save their business but to help grow it as well. Only a handful of times had either the three Dazzlings or two PostCrush girls been shown such generosity, and each of them considered themselves fortunate to have a friend like Sugarcoat.
“Thank you, Sugarcoat. For everything,” Adagio said heartfully as she held out her right hand across the table to the Shadowbolt. “We owe you one.”
Sugarcoat extended her right hand out to shake the Dazzling leader’s but stopped about halfway through when she felt her phone vibrating within her pocket.
“Just a second,” The girl said as she reached into her pocket, withdrew her phone, and answered it. “Hello?...Uh-huh…Uh-huh…I see…”
For about a minute the Dazzling and PostCrush girls stood silently as Sugarcoat continued to talk on her phone, during which time they each tried to piece together who the Shadowbolt was talking to and about what by listening to her various remarks and replies. Though given that Sugarcoat’s remarks and replies were brief and not that various beyond ‘uh-huh’ and ‘I see’ they had a difficult time piecing any answers together.
“…Okay, I’ll be there soon,” The Crystal Prep student said right before ending her call, putting her phone back into her pocket, and addressing the group of girls once more. “Well it looks like I’ll be calling in that favor already. I need a ride to the police station downtown.”
Needless to say, expressions of confusion and concern crossed each of the Dazzling’s and PostCrush girl’s faces when they heard Sugarcoat say where it was she needed a ride to.
“Why do you need a ride to the police station?” Aria inquired before anyone else had a chance to.
“Trixie’s been arrested and she needs me to bail her out,” Sugarcoat answered.
Sugarcoat’s answer elicited a variety of reactions from the other girls in the room. Kiwi and Su-Z maintained their confused looks as they each tried to remember exactly who Trixie was, having recalled one of the Dazzlings mentioning her before. Sonata gave a small groan as though she weren’t surprised in the least and gave a quick eyeroll. Aria also gave a similar groan but gave herself a light facepalm instead of an eyeroll. And Adagio just started to laugh uncontrollably.
“Ahahaha!” The eldest Dazzling blurted out as she wrapped her arms around her stomach.
“Okay, what did she do?” Aria asked in an exhausted manner.
“She was going forty in a twenty five zone,” Sugarcoat answered.
“Wait. She was arrested for speeding?” Kiwi then asked. “Don’t the police usually just write tickets for that?”
“They do, yes,” Sugarcoat replied. “But then if you get too confrontational with the officer writing the ticket you get arrested. And Trixie got too confrontational with the officer writing the ticket.”
Aria and Sonata each gave a second, more dejected sounding groan in response to Sugarcoat’s explanation for Trixie’s arrest. Adagio just laughed even harder.
“You’re…You’re kidding me!” The poofy-haired girl uttered between her bursts of laughter. “That is…that is absolutely priceless! Ahahaha!”
“Yes. Priceless,” Sugarcoat replied sarcastically. “Anyways, if you could give me a ride downtown I’d appreciate it.”
“Yeah, alright,” Aria said as she picked her phone up off the floor and put it in her pocket. “Let’s go bail Trixie out of jail.”
Aria and Sugarcoat then started to make their way over towards the front door. Only to be stopped half-way there when Adagio called out to them.
“Hold on, hold on. I’m coming too,” The Dazzling leader said as she tried to recompose herself.
“Seriously?” Aria asked as she turned around to face her sister. “Why?”
“Um, because Trixie is in jail, Aria,” Adagio replied, as if the answer were obvious. “This is something I need to see for myself. And maybe take a few pictures for posterity while I’m at it.”
Now it was Aria’s turn to give a small eyeroll.
“Fine, let’s go,” The pig-tailed Dazzling replied.
Aria and Sugarcoat waited a second for Adagio to join them before turning back around and once more making for the front door. Though, once again, they didn’t make it very far before someone called out to them.
“Wait. Can I come too?” Kiwi addressed the group of girls.
“Ugh,” Aria grunted out as she stopped dead in her tracks and turned around yet again. “Why?”
“T-The police station is only about a block away from Cybil’s Retro Candy Store,” The PostCrush girl answered tentatively, picking up on Aria’s frustration. “I-It’s the only place in town that has Verburg satellite wafers. I ate the last of them a few days ago and just wanted to get some more.”
“Fine, whatever, let’s just go already,” Aria said. “I have other things I wanted to do today besides drive people around town and bail other people out of jail.”
Kiwi quickly made her way over towards the front door. Once she reached Aria, Sugarcoat, and Adagio though they didn’t immediately depart like she’d believed they would. Instead, they all stayed where they were for a moment as Aria looked over at Sonata and Su-Z, who were now the only ones left in the kitchen.
“Anyone else want to tag along?” She rather irksomely asked her sister and housemate.
Both Sonata and Su-Z promptly shook their heads.
“Okay, let’s – ow!” Aria then said as she turned back around and took a step forward, only to immediately stub her left toe on something.
“You okay, Aria?” Kiwi inquired.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” Aria replied with a small wince as she looked down to see what it was she’d hit. “I just ran my foot into Sonata’s stupid tablet is all.”
All eyes shifted downwards towards where Aria was looking to see that the Dazzling had indeed stubbed her toe on Sonata’s stone tablet.
Not long after the incident at the Overlook Hotel, the young Dazzling had found the strange tablet half-buried in the backyard near a dying tree. Normally such an unaesthetic object would’ve elicited nothing more than a brief, cursory interest from Sonata, but for some reason the tablet had inexplicably caught her eye. So much so that she’d brought it into the house, where she’d proceeded to put it down near the front door and simply leave it there for a number of weeks.
“Oh yeah. Forgot about that thing,” Sonata admitted.
A few mumbled, practically incoherent words could be heard emanating from Aria as she knelt down to pick up the tablet.
“Well since you clearly don’t care about this stupid thing that much I’m going to throw it out,” The elder Dazzling then very articulately, and acutely, retorted.
“What?! No!” Sonata quickly replied as she ran over to her older sister. “I do care about it, honest! I…I just forgot I left it there is all!”
Then, almost as if she were Oliver Twist pleading for some more food, Sonata held out her arms in front of Aria.
“I’ll put it in my room where it’ll be out of the way, I swear,” The girl promised.
In truth, Aria wanted nothing more in that moment than to throw the tablet in her hands away. And not just because she’d stubbed her toe on it. She also wanted it gone because it gave her the creeps. She couldn’t explain it, but whenever she looked at it she always felt a slight chill run down her spine. Maybe it was just because it looked like something straight out of any of the numerous horror movie she’d seen, but whatever the reason Aria simply didn’t care for the damn thing in the least.
However, since Sonata was promising to keep the tablet in her room where she wouldn’t have to see it anymore Aria reluctantly handed it off to her younger sister. That, and the middle Dazzling found Sonata’s begging to be so pitiable she thought she would actually feel bad if she didn’t capitulate to the girl’s plea.
“Thanks, Aria,” Sonata said once the tablet was in her hands.
“Whatever,” Aria replied before turning around and finally heading out the door.
Sugarcoat silently followed behind Aria, who in-turn was followed by Adagio and Kiwi.
“Finally,” Adagio remarked as she exited the house. “I can’t wait to see Trixie behind bars.”
Both Sonata and Su-Z noticed Kiwi give a small, derisive eyeroll as soon as Adagio finished speaking.
“Adagio, do you know what schadenfreude is?” The PostCrush girl asked as she also walked out the door.
“No, Kiwi, I don’t know what schadenfreude is. But please tell me because I’m dying to know,” The eldest Dazzling replied sarcastically just before walking out of earshot of the two girls.
Kiwi closed the door behind her leaving Sonata and Su-Z alone in the house, along with a still silence that was rather rare in the Dazzling/PostCrush household. The silence didn’t last long though as Su-Z soon walked over to Sonata, feeling curious about the stone tablet that the girl had been so determined to hold on to.
As Su-Z looked over Sonata’s shoulder at the tablet, she couldn’t help but wonder why exactly it was that the girl wanted to keep it so badly. Sure it was an interesting enough object on account of the Aramaic-looking symbols etched into it, but it just didn’t seem like the sort of thing that Sonata was usually interested in. It wasn’t new or cute or even brightly colored. It was old, dull, and looked like it belonged in a museum. In other words, something more along the lines of what her sister Eclipse would’ve found fascinating. But not Sonata.
“So why do you want to keep that thing so badly?” She eventually inquired aloud.
“I…I don’t know,” Sonata answered as she brought the tablet in closer to her chest. “It’s weird but…but when I found it out in the backyard I felt like it…”
Sonata paused for a brief moment before giving a small sigh and walking over towards the kitchen table.
“Forget it. You’ll just think I’m crazy,” The Dazzling then said.
“No I won’t,” Su-Z assured her friend as she followed her into the kitchen. “I promise I won’t think you’re crazy, Sonata.”
Once she reached the table, Sonata put the tablet down and just stared at it until Su-Z arrived next to her.
“I felt like…like the tablet wanted me to find it,” The Dazzling eventually said. “Believe me I know how that sounds, but it’s true. When I saw it sticking half-way out of the ground I felt like it was calling out to me, like it wanted me to dig it out and bring it inside the house.”
Admittedly, Su-Z did find what Sonata was saying to be somewhat crazy. The tablet was a piece of rock, how could it want anything? But, considering that her and Kiwi had once used a magical artifact to keep re-living the same day numerous times, she couldn’t dismiss the Dazzling’s claim as entirely crazy. Or even entirely impossible for that matter. Highly implausible, perhaps, but not entirely impossible.
Su-Z shifted her attention to the tablet as well, hoping that maybe if she stared at it for a bit she too might feel it call out to her too. But after a few seconds of staring silently at it and feeling nothing she quickly came to the conclusion that she wasn’t going to experience the same thing Sonata had claimed to have experienced when she’d first found the hunk of rock. Still though, the PostCrush girl wasn’t ready to outright disregard her friend’s claim.
“Okay, so then what?” Su-Z asked. “Cause I’m guessing that you finding the it and bringing it into the house couldn’t have been all the tablet wanted, right?”
“I’m guessing. But I have no idea what to do next,” Sonata replied as she placed her right hand on the tablet. “I think whatever else it may want has something to do with these symbols on it, like maybe they’re instructions or something. But since I can’t read them it’s hard to know for sure.”
“Hmm,” Su-Z muttered as she focused more intently on the symbols etched into the tablet. “If these symbols really are instructions written in some ancient, extrinsic language then maybe we might be able to translate them with the translation app on my phone.”
“You have an app on your phone that can translate this?” Sonata inquired as Su-Z pulled out her phone.
“Well I don’t know for certain that it can, but I’m pretty sure that it’ll be able to,” Su-Z said. “I mean, if it can translate what ghosts say I’m pretty sure it can translate some old symbols.”
“Huh, neat,” Sonata simply replied.
After a few seconds of scrolling through her phone Su-Z opened the translation app she had mentioned. Once it finished loading she pointed her phone’s camera at the tablet and snapped a picture of the stone, and within only a matter of seconds the app worked it’s digital magic and produced a translation.
“W-Whoa,” Su-Z replied with a slight tremble in her voice. “This is not what I expected.”
“What’s it say?” Sonata asked as she leaned over to take a look at what was displayed on Su-Z’s phone.
At first Sonata had intended to just read what was displayed on the phone silently to herself like Su-Z had done. But as soon as the Dazzling laid eyes on the translation she felt an inexplicable urge to read it aloud.
“’Ade Due Lustitia. Come forth, infernal judge.’”
For a moment Sonata and Su-Z’s eyes met as they each turned to face the other with looks of confusion plastered on their faces. Though said moment of eye contact turned out to be very brief as soon all the lights in the kitchen began to rapidly flicker on and off in a seemingly random manner, diverting the girls’ attention away from one another.
“Um, w-what’s wrong with the lights?” Sonata asked anxiously as she instinctively drew herself closer to Su-Z.
“B-Beats me,” Su-Z answered just as anxiously.
For a good ten seconds – which felt more like ten minutes to the Dazzling and PostCrush girl – the lights continued to perform their haphazard dance of illumination before suddenly turning off all at once, leaving the two girls in utter darkness - save for the iota of natural light of twilight that managed to creep out over the western horizon and through a few windows that is.
With the mad flickering now over, Sonata distanced herself a bit from Su-Z as both she and her housemate began to scan their surroundings. Though with only the smallest amount of light seeping in through the west-facing windows neither of them were able to truly see very much. At first glance everything seemed to be as it was in the room before the lights had gone hay-wire, but when Sonata looked over at the far end of the island counter she could’ve sworn she saw a shadowy silhouette belonging to something that hadn’t been there earlier. Something distinctly human-shaped.
“S-Su-Z,” The Dazzling said as she tapped her friend on the arm to further get her attention.
Su-Z immediately turned to face Sonata to see what it was she wanted, only to see that the Dazzling apparently wanted her to look over towards the other end of the room as indicated by her pointing finger. Without hesitation the PostCrush girl redirected her attention to where it was Sonata was pointing, and as soon as she did the light suddenly came back on and she saw what it was that had caught her housemate’s attention; a pale-skinned girl with silvery-white hair wearing sunglasses who was leaning on the counter and looking straight at them.
“Yo, how’s it goin’?” The mysterious girl addressed them amiably.
“WAAAAH!” Both Su-Z and Sonata hollered out as they quickly grabbed hold of one another.
“Whoa, you two got some good lungs on ya. Those were a couple of pretty impressive screams,” The pale-skinned girl replied as she ceased leaning on the counter and started making her way around it towards the two terrified girls.
Every instinct within Sonata and Su-Z told them that they should run. Run away from the mystery girl that was slowly approaching them and who’d appeared out of seemingly nowhere after an unexplainable and haunting incident where the lights had frantically flickered on and off. But no matter how loud those instincts screamed both the Dazzling and PostCrush girl found themselves unable to move their legs. Their fear had petrified them to the point of ensuring that they’re feet would remain firmly planted where they stood for the time being, though each of them did manage to find enough strength to at least let go of the other. Other than that though all either Sonata or Su-Z could really do was move their eyes as they watched the sunglasses-clad girl slowly advance towards them.
At about the halfway point from where the mystery girl had started to where they were standing, both Sonata and Su-Z noticed four features about her that they hadn’t initially perceived. Firstly, they noticed that she was wearing an unbuttoned black suit jacket around her shoulders over a red shirt and black tie with two silver clips that attached it to the shirt. Secondly, they also noticed that she sported a pair of red, fingerless gloves on her hands with tags that read ‘HPJ’. Thirdly, they noticed that her silvery-white hair was done up in a short pony tail on the back of her head that was held together with a red bandana. And fourthly, and most peculiarly, they noticed that she had what appeared to be two small, black horns with rounded tips coming out of her head and a black arrow-tipped tail protruding from her lower back, giving them the impression that she was some sort of demon-girl.
“I’m Justice, former High Prosecutor of Hell,” The girl introduced herself as she reached the two girls and extended her right hand out to them. “Damn glad to meet you.”
Between the demonic appearance of the girl - apparently named Justice - and the fact that she’d identified herself as the former High Prosecutor of Hell, Sonata and Su-Z felt that they were in some seriously deep, deep trouble. If Justice’s claim was, in-fact, true - and there was much evidence to support that it was – then it meant that she wasn’t just demon-looking, she was an actual demon! And from everything they’d each been led to believe through things like books and movies, demons were nothing but bad news. They were monstrous creatures from the underworld that served a dark and cruel master. Evil beings that were bent on bringing harm to people and leading them to damnation through a variety of subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle tactics.
But as far as either Sonata or Su-Z were concerned, Justice didn’t seem to fit those stereotypes at all.
Aside from having a few of the typical physical characteristics associated with a demon, Justice hardly appeared to be a monstrous or evil being to either the Dazzling and PostCrush girl. Personality-wise, they each found her to be awfully nice. Friendly even. So far she’d shown them absolutely no signs of malice. All she’d done was graciously introduce herself to them, and, oddly enough, compliment them on their screaming skills. Overall she just seemed genuinely…nice.
Though not surprisingly, the idea of Justice’s affable demeanor simply being part of some sort of trick crossed both Sonata and Su-Z’s minds. But in all honesty neither of them believed that to be the case. As far as they could tell the demon-girl truly was an amiable person who just so happened to be a demon and the former High Prosecutor of Hell. Still though, the two girls both harbored a few reservations towards Justice given the fact that she’d appeared in their kitchen out of thin air, and they each thought it best to remain at least a little bit wary of her. But not so wary as to be rude and ignore her cordiality.
“G-Glad to meet you too,” Sonata replied tentatively as she took Justice’s hand and shook it. “I’m S-Sonata Dusk, former siren. And this is Su-Z, former, um…popstar.”
“H-Hi,” Su-Z said just as tentatively as she lifted her right hand in an affable gesture.
“A siren and a popstar, huh? Awesome! I’ve never met a siren or a popstar before,” Justice said as she ended her handshake with Sonata and then proceeded to place her right hand on-top of the Dazzling’s tablet. “So which one of you ladies read the tablet out loud?”
Neither Sonata nor Su-Z said anything in response. Instead, Sonata simply raised her right hand to indicate that she’d been the one who had read the tablet aloud. Though strangely, the Dazzling’s gesture elicited no immediate reply from Justice.
“I guessing one of you is raising your hand, and whichever one of you it is I’m going to need you to speak up,” The demon-girl eventually said just before she lifted her sunglasses up a bit to reveal a pair of white, cloudy eyes that’d been hidden behind them. “’Cause as you can see, I can’t see.”
“Oh, s-sorry,” Sonata apologized, feeling that she’d inadvertently vexed Justice. “It was me. I read the tablet out loud.”
“No worries,” Justice assured the former siren as she lowered her shades back down to their resting place on her nose.
As the Dazzling and PostCrush girl watched as Justice once more covered her eyes they could each feel the initial shock and anxiety of being face-to-face with an actual demon beginning to fade. And as that shock and anxiety began to fade a question popped into their minds. A question that, quite frankly, they were each surprised they hadn’t asked themselves until this very moment; Why was Justice here? It was obvious to both of them that she was physically here because of the tablet, but what was her purpose here? What exactly did she want from them?
“Well I’m guessing you want to get right to it, Sonata,” Justice then said. “So tell me, who do you want me to send to Hell for you?”
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I'm guessing she never read the original H.C. Andersen story. Pocahontas is hardly the worst example of "disneyfication."
Though I love that the newer musical of Hunchback stayed closer to the book, complete with everyone dies at the end.
Glad this story is back.
Only in the EG world can Sonata accidentally summon a demon from hell.
Now I'm imagining a crossover of Mormon Gold Plates and Death Note.
Better than doing it on her imo.
Agreed.
Spoken like a true mother.
That ain't good!
She has a point.
Wonder how she got herself there?
Typical Trixie for you.
What?
Wait, what!
https://m.