The Siren

by McPoodle

Interlude 2C

“How does your magic work?” Stygian asked Sonata.

“We sing,” Sonata said simply. “The music makes ponies hate each other. They fight. The music also turns some of their anger into a kind of magic that we can eat. That makes us more powerful, so we can sing songs that affect more ponies.

“Adagio saw that ponies’ lives were getting better as the years went by. That they weren’t mad at each other all of the time, so a single siren’s song didn’t work anymore. So she made new songs for all three of us to sing, and that was enough to enslave this entire town. This was our first big project, and it worked great—until you heroes came along.”

“I’m no hero,” Stygian said. He said the phrase like it was something he said a lot—perhaps mostly to himself.

Sonata shrugged. “If you say so.”

“And the ponies become your slaves after you feed on them?” Stygian asked.

“Yes,” said Sonata, “but only so long as we keep singing. I think it takes a day after we stop for them to snap out of it.”

Stygian took some more notes. “You’re telling me an awful lot about your powers. Don’t you know that we’ll use this information against other Sirens?”

“What do I care?” Sonata asked scornfully. “All of the other sirens hate me. They hate each other, too. In fact, that’s all sirens do or want to do—hate. Not hating is not natural for sirens.”

Stygian looked up from his notes. “You don’t seem to be hating very much.”

Sonata scowled and looked away. “There. I’m hating now. And I told you—they hate me extra hard.”

“Alright,” said Stygian quietly.

---

"I’m ready to see a demonstration,” the bearded pony—Star Swirl—said sometime after sunset. He was standing with Stygian and the rest of his “Pillars” on one side of the cave, away from the cage. On the other side, right next to the cage, were Raggedy and another slave pony. This one was named Shapeless, because of how his face looked after a lifetime of losing fights.

Neither one of the slaves had the names that they were born with, Sonata realized. She guessed that slaves lost their names along with their freedom.

“You said you can control who your magic affects,” Star Swirl said. “If you’re lying there will be consequences. Just to be safe I’ll cast a sound-proof spell around the six of us. Stygian, you will be our control. If the Siren tricks us and enslaves you, I will avenge you.”

“Um…alright,” said Stygian. “G…go ahead, Sonata.”

Star Swirl raised an eyebrow at the use of a name for the Siren, then created the bubble around the six of them. (The blue one’s suspicious eyes never left hers.)

Sonata wondered if this spell excluded air like the one he had cast on her. After a few seconds she decided that it was a different spell. She then began to sing.

The two heavyset earth pony slaves looked at each other, then shook their heads trying to resist.

Stygian tilted his head, trying to analyze the song. As he watched, Sonata shifted her key. (Or some other musical change, Stygian thought. This was not one of the areas that he was an expert on.) There was something undefinable in the wordless music now, something that told Stygian that the song was about the pain of being a slave.

The resistance of the two test subjects crumbled, and they started fighting each other, trying to bash each other’s heads in with their hooves.

Star Swirl, seeing that Stygian was not angered—although he did look a bit entranced—took a chance and put himself outside of the sound bubble. He made sure to stabilize the spell first, so it would keep going even if he did fall under the Siren’s spell. After all, he had instructed the other Pillars on how the Stabilizer worked. He then cast an analysis spell on Sonata and the battling slaves, allowing him to see the magic in her music, and the energy that she was then feeding on.

“That is enough,” he said after he was sure of his data.

Sonata stopped singing as soon as she was instructed to do so. She too was satisfied by this session. Not only had she been well fed, but she had had a chance to work on her accuracy and control. She had seen the look of dismay on the faces of some of the Pillars and had inflected her magic to make the ponies start pulling their punches, only thinking they were grievously harming one another.

Star Swirl looked back at the bubble, and on seeing the ponies inside signaling to be released from its effects, poked the bubble with his horn and so caused it to pop.

“That was awful,” said the frail unicorn.

“Most distressing,” said the pinkish pegasus with a far-off accent.

The others nodded in agreement.

“A necessary price to pay for the safety of all ponies,” Star Swirl said sternly.

The yellow pegasus with armor walked up to the two still slaves and looked into their swirling eyes. “She’s enslaved them!” he exclaimed.

“Oh!” Sonata replied. “That’s automatic. I can let them go—”

“Not just yet,” Star Swirl said as he approached. “I want to see if I can do it first.” He walked around the pair, firing off several spells in quick succession. None of them appeared to have an effect.

While he was doing this, Stygian walked up to the cage. “I saw what you were doing with the spell at the end there,” he said to her in a low voice. “If you have that much control, what were you making them think? What did each subject see in the other?”

Sonata beckoned Stygian to bring his ear right up to the cage. “I made each of them see the other as Star Swirl, with one of those magic-stopping rings on his horn,” she whispered to him.

Stygian backed up with a hoof over his mouth, trying to suppress a laugh. Then he stopped himself and put on a stern look. “That wasn’t very nice.”

Sonata looked confused. “You weren’t asking me to be nice!”

“Alright,” Star Swirl said, defeated. “I have the analysis spell back in place. Release them.”

Sonata nodded. And then she stared at the pair of ponies and blinked. At least, that was what most of the Pillars saw.

The two ponies shook their heads once again as they were free of the spell. They looked at each other’s battered expressions, and then looked nervously over at Star Swirl, but he was too busy thinking over what his spell had told him to notice.

“Very interesting,” Star Swirl said. “I may have to see you cast that a few more times on some different subjects to be sure I understand how best to convert what I saw into a unicorn spell.”

“Oh dear, I hope not,” said the pink pegasus. “That didn’t look fun at all.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Star Swirl assured the others. “You won’t have to watch.”

That seemed to be enough to mollify them.

The wizard then strode over to Stygian, looking suspiciously at his proximity to the cage. “I noticed you weren’t casting Analysis this whole time,” he said, his eyes narrowed.

“Oh. Sorry,” said Stygian. “I was too caught up in the novelty of the magic I was seeing.” He levitated over his writing set. “I can take down your notes?”

“Hmm…Alright.” And then Star Swirl started dictating, which Sonata tuned out entirely.

She looked at Stygian curiously. She couldn’t be sure because he was in her peripheral vision, but she could have sworn that Stygian had in fact been casting the Analysis spell this whole time. It was a passive ability, like her control over her slaves.

Perhaps the wizard couldn’t see that.