Adagio for Strings

by Incandesca

And Never Again, I'll Go Sailing

'No.'

It was the one word that repeated in her mind. The only word. All she could process.

No. No. No, no, no, no.

To the waves above and depths below. Poseidon and Neptune, no.

"Please," she whispered, unheard in the uproar of the music.

Her prayers went unanswered.

And her gem shattered.

Out of raw, animal instinct she fell to the stage. The lifeblood of her pendant pulsed its last breath, magic expended. As the light began to fade she scraped them together into her palms, feeling them cold and lifeless for the first time in her centuries long life.

So close. She'd been so gods damned close. To victory. To power. To the love, adoration, and the home that she deserved.

With tooth and nail and wicked song she'd fought, every accursed day on this horrible planet, with one goal in mind.

To come home.

Now she never would.

She glanced at her sisters with wide and frantic eyes, and they to her. Each clutched the broken jewels to their throats, and tried to pick up where they left off. One last ditch effort at salvation.

Their voices came out broken. Off-key. The antithesis of beautiful.

The crowd booed. They booed her. How dare they? Those disgusting, pathetic worms. They should be crawling at her feet, grovelling before her unmatched perfection, acknowledging their utter worthlessness in comparison-

But she could do nothing, and soon the upset crowd showed signs of violence. The same instinct that drove her to gather her ruined gem made her drop it to the flor.

She had to run.

And so she did.

---

"Yes, that's it. Listen to the sound of my voice. You didn't even know that you fell, but it's far too late for that, now isn't it? Just let me lull you to sleep, under my spell."

Adagio's lips quivered. The long, unspooling curls of her thick and honeyed hair brushed the mic.

She hadn't bothered with her usual, pain-staking preening rituals that morning. What makeup she did put on was the bare minimum, enough to fool dim-witted men into thinking she looked 'natural'. Because, apparently, some humans found appeal in the 'unkempt and bedraggled' aesthetic.

Freaks. But what could you ultimately expect from such simple-minded creatures.

And their freakishness was what lent Adagio her income. While the loss of their pendants had ruined their ability to sing, it did nothing to their speaking voices. When she discovered the strange online phenomenon of 'ASMR', and witnessed the sorts of fortune it could provide, she leapt at the opportunity with all the dedication of a starving animal. Dreams of imperial wealth, grandeur, and national influence were far from her reach, resting in ages of humanity since past, but the cash kept them alive. It kept them from drowning in this awful, wretched world.

"There you are," she cooed, in a lover's voice. It took every ounce of effort to hide her contempt. She'd learned to conceal her genuine hatreds of humanity well though. It only took her a century. "Swaddled in my arms - the arms of the ocean. Feel the gentle waves lap at your sides, your hair, your face. We drift in this little boat together, along at sea."

"Adagio! Breakfast was ready ten minutes ago. Get your fat ass down here already."

Adagio ground her jaw. Tamping down her anger she paused the recording, stood up, stretched. She popped her elbows, wrists, fingers, neck, finally the spine, and counted at least four distinct snaps.

Pitiful. Relieving the joints as a human felt decent enough, but nothing could compare to cracking the kinks out of her tail as a siren. So many more vertabrae to work with.

Her feet padded silent against the carpeted stairs. Aria stomped, Sonata danced, but Adagio had always been the quiet one.

Rubbing her sullen, sunken eyes, she didn't so much as greet either, bee-lining straight for the French press. If she was going to get through today without losing it, she needed her morning cup of joe.

Neither Aria nor Sonata bothered her as she worked, and thank Persephone for that. The last thing she desired was conversation - of any kind.

As the pot began to boil, she made for the stove.

Eggs and bacon. Creative.

Oh, and toast! Well now, Aria, let's not shake things up too much.

Scraping the cold food onto her plate, she put together an open-faced sandwich. Not particularly appealing, especially given Aria's tendency to oversalt things to death. She wasn't hungry either, but thought she ought participate regardless.

She was the eldest sister. By siren law, that made her the head of the family. Dysfunctional as it may have been, it fell upon her shoulders the responsibility of keeping everyone together. If she slipped, or relinquished control for the slightest moment, it would all come crumbling down, and they would lose everything.

Not that they had much to lose anymore.

It was hard sometimes. Most of the time, actually, it drained her of everything she had.

It was also better than being alone.

She slid her plate into place, waited for her coffee to finish brewing. Once done she poured herself a mug and sat towards the left end of the table, opposite Sonata.

Of the fact that Aria had stolen her spot at the table's top - again - Adagio said nothing. Her glare spoke for her.

If Aria noticed, she didn't show it.

"Thank you," Adagio offered, and took her first sip. "For breakfast."

Aria shrugged.

After her second swallow of coffee, Adagio bit into the sandwich, struggling not to spit it back out. Indeed, Aria had yet again oversalted the food.

"I forgot I don't like open face," she lied, and snuck an additional slice of toast. The added buffer made the meal marginally tolerable.

For all the trouble she could have given Aria for her cooking skills, at least she could cook. Sonata's attempts at 'cooking' either resulted in house fires or consisted of ready-made microwave meals. Even that was a toss-up. Adagio still dealt with nightmares about Sonata putting tacos in the toaster.

"Ooo!"

Adagio's gaze shifted from her sandwich to the woman in question. As usual, she had her snout buried in the screen of her phone, but a broad smile spread her lips.

Sonata, noticing Adagio's raised brow, showed her the phone. "I got the job!" she exclaimed, tapping the email rapidly.

"Good for you," Adagio drawled, then stopped before taking another bite. "What job, exactly? I didn't know you were searching."

"Well, y'know the other day when you got all grumpy 'cause I ordered delivery using your credit card and you were like-" Placing her hands on her hips, Sonata's upbeat expression turned sour. "Grrr. If you're gonna pay out the ass for those damn tacos all the time start using your own damn money instead of mine, grr! Remember?"

"Vaguely."

In reality, Adagio recalled the event with perfect clarity. Namely, because she'd gone through the same song and dance with Sonata too many times to count. No matter where Adagio hid her credit card or changed the details, somehow Sonata always found them. After a while she just gave up. She'd never quit bitching though. Not 'til the day she died.

A day that, until last year, Adagio believed would never come.

"Well," Sonata said. "I thought about it super hard and was, like. Y'know what? You do mooch off Dagi to much. So I applied for a whole bunch of jobs! And I got one! See see?" Again, she shoved the screen in Adagio's face.

"Much as I appreciate the sentiment-" Politely, Adagio pushed the phone away. "Forgive me if I have doubts. What exactly was the job you received?"

"Making tacos!"

Oh dear gods.

"And other stufff too! It's like one of those food truck thingies."

"Tell you what. If you can manage not to burn down that poor unfortunate business' kitchen, I'll give you my congratulations. Sound fair?"

"I guess." Sonata pouted. Her shoulders fell, and she slumped into the seat. "I thought you'd be more excited."

"Oh, I am. It just happens I'd rather not pay for whatever damages you cause."

"Seriously, Adagio? Give her a break."

Adagio's lip twitched. She eyed Aria, fiercely biting her tongue as she spoke. "You know what she's like in the kitchen. If you're so confident in her abilities, any cost for repairs is coming out of your paycheck."

"Oh what, and I'm guessing you get to say 'I told you so' as well."

"That goes without saying, I feel."

"Unbe-fucking-lievable. Even when someone tries to please you, they can't. You just can't be happy for anyone, can you?"

"No. No, I'm afraid that's a rather difficult ask these days."

Aria threw up her hands. "Oh lord, not this again."

Adagio narrowed her eyes to fine slits, and she liked to imagine hissing, with her dagger fangs and serpentine tongue. It made her feel better. "Not what again? Please, do tell."

"Stuff it. You know exactly what I'm talking about. The Rainbooms, Sunset Shimmer, the Battle of the Bands? Get over it already."

Adagio's throat clenched. "I have gotten over it."

Aria faked a laugh, slapping the table. "Rich! I think that might be the worst lie you've ever told, and youve told a lot of shit lies." Crossing her arms, Aria leaned back and kicked her legs onto the table, mumbling, "Especially to yourself."

Deep scowling lines creased Adagio's face. Her chair screeched against the linoleum, and she pushed up, mug in hand. "I'm not dealing with this today."

Aria snorted. "Predictable. But whatever! Have fun whispering into the microphone for internet weirdos, I guess." She flicked her hand towards the stairwell.

Adagio contemplated long and hard slapping Aria across the face. Ultimately, she refused the bait. Aria wanted a rise out of her? Adagio wouldn't give it.

She did, as she crossed the threshhold of the last stair, provide one final comment. "For the record, breakfast tasted like trash. Perhaps dump less than an entire shaker's worth of salt in next time."

Not so much as looking back, she reached the hallway before Aria could return fire. Opening and shutting the door with a judgemental thunk, she turned her key and locked it firmly in place.

Ungrateful bitch.

After all this time, and Aria couldn't help herself fighting a battle she'd never win. Adagio ran this household. Not her. When would she get that through her idiot skull?

She didn't bother calming down before she returned to work. Distractions tempered her anger better than to stew.

Recording finished an hour later. Editing came simple, a matter of trimming and snipping the extra fat, balancing audio levels. Other channels provided sound effects to set the scene, but she didn't bother. Too much effort for no gain. This wasn't exactly her idea of a 'passion project' anyway.

Once she hit the upload button, it was a matter of waiting. On this hunk of metal she called a computer, it would likely take a few hours to process.

On reflex, after it published, she refreshed the page over and over to track her views. Adagio was as much a shark managing her content as she was in Equestria's oceans. If anything didn't meet her satisfactory standards for revenue, she shifted away to what did.

It disgusted her. To think she'd fallen so low as to trend chase. Whatever kept her sisters afloat, though. That was worth it.

Then trickled in the first comments. They came slow, before multiplying, exploding until she couldn't possibly keep up.

Regardless, she pruned what she could. Anything that crossed her personal boundaries or made particularly debasing remarks saw itself swiftly deleted.

In the pit of her stomach churned a frothing, sickened ocean. She knew of the unsavory aspects that drew viewers in, and she could tolerate it when they kept it to themselves. Typed out loud, it inspired nothing less than malignant revulsion.

There was a time, not that long ago, she could do more than just remove the comments. There was a time, when she was agelessly attractive and supernaturally powerful, that should anyone dare speak to her in such a way, she could remove them from the genepool.

A heated look here. A whispered word there. Fingers tracing a jawbone, and a haunting tune, and Adagio Dazzle could do to them whatever she pleased.

The stormy sea in her gut curdled. To think she could long for the days - any days - in the human world. She could almost puke.

She closed her windows, her tabs, and opened a new one.

'Sunset Shimmer'.

The words appeared in the search bar as though by magic. As if it hadn't been her that typed them, but a fundamental force of the universe.

She counted her luck, and hit enter.

Not anymore. She wouldn't live like this anymore.

She'd take her birthright back.

---

Finding Sunset's address proved stunningly simple.

Then, names on Earth and Equestria tended to verge on the unique.

Online, only two people went by the name 'Sunset Shimmer'. An interesting, but altogether unsurprising discovery. Sunset wasn't originally from Earth, after all.

It did cause her wonder if one had before found the other. That however led Adagio to a place she very much did not like. One Aria and Sonata was more than enough for a million lifetimes.

Once she'd picked the correct Shimmer - an easy enough ask given the difference in information, friends, and pictures - the matter boiled down to tracking every minute piece of data she could gather.

Evidently, Sunset had been quite busy in the past year. She'd even added a new girl to her friend group - obviously this world's equivalent to that cutsey idiot 'Twilight Sparkle'.

Adagio gagged. What an insipid name.

Several hours, group photos, social media links, highly questionable search queries, and much seething resentment later, Adagio had enough pieces compiled together to form the puzzle. Across the city, towards the poorer east district, in some shitty rundown apartment complex. That's where Sunset Shimmer lived.

It made Adagio laugh. It made her go rigid with contempt.

There Sunset was. Happy in every photo, living it up. Despite living in a fucking ghetto.

And her, with a spacious, expensive home in the suburbs. Entirely miserable.

But not for much longer.

Late in the evening, she came down for dinner. It was a quiet affair. Nobody wished to speak a word after that morning.

The moment she finished up, she returned to her room. Black clothes, gloves, a mask, scrunchie, and hairpin was all she needed.

Adagio smiled. She'd still have to worry about Sunset's neighbors, but not the girl herself. She was at a sleepover.

Adagio spent the remainder of the night on her phone. The later she left, the better - both to avoid any suspicion on her sisters' part, and any other prying eyes.

It wasn't until well after midnight she slipped out. Purse over one shoulder, hand seized firmly on her keys and wallet, she crept downstairs. A glance behind towards the darkness told that no one was watching.

Heart thumping, trembling ever so slightly, she grasped the doorknob and-

"What are you doing up?"

Adagio froze. For a moment her spine went stiff, before she growled out a response. "I could ask the same of you."

Aria scoffed, arms folded and one leg crossed over the other, leaning against the hallway wall. "I'm usually awake this late. Not that you'd know. You get as much beauty sleep in as early as possible."

"A woman of my pedigree ought to look her best."

"Not a hatchling anymore, Adagio. You're going somewhere for something, and I wanna know where."

"As though I owe you some sort of answer. I can go where I'd like, when I'd like. Preferrably without unwanted interrogation."

"You never seem to take that approach when Sonata or I go anywhere."

"That's different."

"Is it? If you can't bother yourself with giving us a shred of faith, then why should we?"

'Because I'm the leader,' Adagio wanted to say, but she kept her mouth shut.

"I'm going out for a walk."

"Where?"

Adagio sighed. Her risen shoulders slacked, but she did not move her hand from the knob. "I don't know, Aria. Anywhere but here. I've been reflecting on what you said earlier, and realized I need to do some searching. I can only do that somewhere I can be alone and breathe fresh air for once."

For a while, Aria said nothing. The silence stretched on until footsteps approached behind her, and a hand fell upon her shoulder.

Aria squeezed, and Adagio turned back to see her smiling. Not a sneer nor a smirk. Nothing ungenuine filled her purple eyes. Instead in them Adagio saw a warmth rarely exchanged by the most brutish of their family.

"I understand."

And then, Aria left, vanished into the blackness of the living room.

Adagio watched there, speechless. She only began to move remembering the reason she'd lied in the first place.

For a reason she couldn't shake, turning the handle and stepping out, Adagio felt... guilty, somehow. It wasn't as though she hadn't lied to either of her sisters before, but this time was... different. Something about the kindness in Aria's words. The sympathy.

Adagio couldn't remember the last time any of them had fully trusted each other. Not perhaps since their hatchling years. And yet, Aria trusted her.

And Adagio broke it.

She shut the door - silently - locked it. It wasn't worth dwelling on. Trust was a worthless, ephemeral thing. The power, the magic, the purpose - that was what mattered. Aria wouldn't understand that, and for that reason Adagio had to lie. There wasn't any other way.

The drive took forty-five minutes - thirty to reach the city past copy-paste, cookie cutter suburbia. Fifteen to reach Sunset's area.

Rather than take the risk of parking at or across the apartment lot, she pulled into a lonesome gas station a short walk's away. Dreary, dim fluorescent lights flickered through the window, like a fading ghost in the dark. Two other cars had parked there - one truck and SUV - both their occupants fast asleep.

Taking her purse, she slipped into the night's arms with barely a click of her car door. Inside the bag she felt for her can of pepper spray, squeezed for reassurance. She hated the fact she had to rely on such an object for self defense now, when once she could use her mere voice as a weapon deadlier than any dagger.

Nearing the right street, she ducked into a faded red brick alleyway. The mask came on first, concealing all below the eyes. Next came the hoodie, large and loose tugged over her blouse with its hood up to further hide her identity. Last the gloves, and in her hoodie pocket went the pin and pepper spray.

Wrinkling her nose, she hid the purse behind the dumpster. She'd need to give it a thorough cleaning later - potentially throw the whole thing out - but when she returned home with her pendant? Any sacrifice would have been worth it. A purse meant nothing in the face of power.

At the complex itself, no one was up. No one around. Or, at least, nobody stopped her.

She didn't know the exact apartment number Sunset rented, but it didn't matter. The single, lonesome motorcycle gave it away.

With a swift and subtle motion, Adagio flicked out the pin. Her squinting eyes darted left and right, ensuring once again nobody remained to witness. When she was certain, she eased the pin inside.

Seconds passed as she wiggled the makeshift lockpik. Minutes, perhaps, two or three at most. She wasn't quite as proficient with this as Aria, but they'd each participated in enough illicit activities to be near peers.

Still, those seconds or minutes or hours stretched on forever. The fear of being caught, knowing she had no defense but the cannister in her pocket, petrified her.

But nobody came, and the lock clicked. Without wasting a moment more she pushed past the door and shut it, peals of thunder slamming against her breast.

Against the door she leaned, catching her breath, gathering her wits. Now that she was inside, the chances of being noticed were far lesser.

First, she went through each room, closed every set of curtains. She wasn't an idiot - wasn't going to turn on the lights - but someone could still see her in the dark. Likelihoods were slim, but she wouldn't allow any room for slip-ups.

Then began her search. Fortunately, Sunset's apartment wasn't exactly what Adagio would describe as roomy, nor well furnished. Sunset lived cheap, which was perhaps to be expected of an independent highschooler.

It struck her for the first time, opening a cabinet, that she might not even find what she'd come for. How could she know Sunset had bothered to take any of their shattered gems - let alone one? Would she have cared?

No, she must've. Sunset was a lot of things Adagio despised, but foolish was not one of them. She had been among the few to notice Adagio and her sisters when they arrived at CHS. She wouldn't overlook such a glaring detail as their pendants - intact or otherwise.

Adagio wouldn't spare a detail, either.

She checked the kitchen cupboards, under furniture, atop the highest shelves, and to be safe placed everything back where it belonged when she finished. When she left this place, her presence would go unnoticed save for her missing jewel.

Last, she entered Sunset's bedroom. She looked in the closet, under the bed, pillows, lamps, and finally began to doubt.

Maybe she had been wrong about Sunset. Mayb she had forgotten the gems, or knew enough to know they didn't matter. Maybe this had all been for nought, and back Adagio must return to a life of gray, human monotony with her past forever stolen, and a short, ugly future ahead.

Would she, when Persephone knocked at her door, welcome her with open arms?

One nightstand remained. Five drawers, each holding the potential for damnation or rescue.

The first contained chargers, guitar picks, empty candy wrappers.

The second held pens, pencils, notebooks, binders, a calculator.

The third sketchpads, markers, colored pencils, paints and brushes.

The fourth spare jeans and skirts.

Adagio's hand shook. Her chest cinched tight, until she fought to breathe.

With agonizing slowness, she curled her gloved fingers 'round the handle, then yanked it open.

She choked back a sob.

There it was.

Broken into five pieces, all jagged and cruel. Each rich, dull ruby glinted up at her, showing her masked and hooded reflection. Beside, another pendant lay, whole and orange and oblong.

She didn't know what it was, and she didn't care.

Snatching each rough shard, shoving them into her jeans pocket, she closed the drawer with trembling care, went out into the hallway, turned left, passed through the living room, locked the front door, and left.

She found her purse. She put the gems inside. She swapped out her clothes. She returned to her car.

And drove home.

---

She tried everything.

Or, as close to everything as she'd get without magic.

She'd tried with expensive superglue. She'd tried to sing - in her voice so unbeautiful. She tried anything that seemed remotely capable of putting the pieces back together. In one hilariously desperate moment, she'd even attempted to crush it in her palm, in the hopes it might somehow merge together again.

Not even the best reviewed, thousand dollar jeweller could fix it. He was, if anything, stunned. None of the techniques he knew worked.

At least, when he saw the pain on her face, he was willing to refund her. A small blessing, but not what she wanted.

Really, she should have seen it coming.

Magic had made those pendants. Magic had flowed inside them. Magic had been what fuelled them, and with her sisters' voices did bind them.

And, magic was what destroyed them.

Towards the back of her mind, she knew she should give up. But she couldn't. Her pride, her desire, her need to reclaim that piece of herself wouldn't permit it.

And even without the stress of finding the silver bullet, there was the fear and anxiety of the authorities catching up. She'd taken all the reasonable pre-cautions, done her due dilligence. Not one officer had shown at her doorstep, but it didn't stop her from wondering.

It would be worth it.

That's what she kept telling herself, over and over again. It would be worth it. It would be worth it. In the end, when she put the pieces back together and retook her magic, it would all be worth it.

She'd use her powers to put those idiot Rainbooms under her spell. She'd make them tell her where the other pendants were, and she'd fix those too. Then, with her and Aria and Sonata whole once more, they would come home, and every little insect beneath her shadow would adore her. Never again would she be forced so low, and never would the ghastly lure of Persephone drag her down to Hades. Never would Adagio Dazzle die.

She believed it must be possible. She believed it must, because if she didn't, she'd fall apart. If she fell apart, her sisters would follow. And then...

She tried not letting it get to her. Yet, knowing she had her old life in the palm of her hand, unable to do anything about it, drove her mad.

"Addy, Addy, look!"

Adagio ground her teeth. Brows pinched, the tip of her pen stabbed through the paper, into the wood of her desk.

"Not now, Sonata. I'm working on something."

She was. Obviously, she hadn't told either of her sisters about that night, or for that matter the past two weeks. They didn't need to know. Not yet. Not until she had her pendant in one piece, glowing bright on her bosom.

"But Addyyyy, it's super importaaaant!"

"What?!" she snapped. Jerking her head Sonata's direction, spit flew from her mouth, hair cascading wildly over her lined face. "What could possibly be so important you're interrupting me?"

Sonata flinched. Adagio's maternal, older sister instincts kicked in, but she drove them down. Nothing was more important than figuring out how to fix her gem.

Nothing.

"I-I," Sonata sputtered. Her lower lip trembled, and wetness threatened to break the edge of her eyes, run down her cheeks.

Adagio wanted to hug her. To comfort her, apologize, go out and buy her tacos or icecream or whatever she wanted. Sonata didn't deserve to be yelled at.

But she did none of those things. Instead she sneered, hissing her next words with dripping venom. "Spit it out already. You're wasting my time."

"I j-just, just wanted to show you my paycheck." Feebly, she held the slip of paper in her hand. "I didn't burn anything down like you said I would. I th-thought you'd be proud of me." She sniffled, dropped the check, and ran out the door. "I'm sorry."

Adagio shut it behind her. Her gaze lingered passingly on the check before returning to her notebook, tapping it severely in the attempt to dredge another malformed idea from her mind's depths.

So what if Sonata cried a little. Life was suffering, and pain, and shit misery. She'd thank her when Adagio presented them with her whole, renewed pendant.

An hour ticked by, and she had nothing to show for it. Deciding a change of scenery and something else to focus on might give her brain the boost it required, she left for groceries, calling out to Sonata that she'd return later. Aria would also be home soon from work, so the little ditz ought be fine for the interim.

She pulled into the driveway a couple hours later, the back filled with various items they needed, from the usual staples of eggs and rice to a pack of paper towels and clean wipes. She'd also taken the liberty of picking up a few things she knew Sonata would like. With enough time passed between then and now, she realized with some small shame the way she'd treated Sonata. It wouldn't make up for it, but it should at least help.

Aria's car, as Adagio expected, was also there.

What she did not expect, opening the front door, was Aria to greet her. Arms folded, scowling, her eyes blistered with a silent rage Adagio had seldom times seen - never directed at her. Tucked in the background stood Sonata, shuffling and wide-eyed.

"Hello," tried Adagio, smiling. She held up one bag-heavy arm, rustling the contents. "As you can see I have groceries, so if you'd be so kind as to step aside-"

"No."

Adagio raised her brow. "Pardon?"

"I said no."

"And why not?"

"Leave them at the door. I'll get them myself."

Shrugging, Adagio did as requested and set the bags on the porch. "It's about to rain soon," she said, gesturing towards the clouded, grayish sky. "I'd rather not get wet."

"Well too bad, because you will."

Sighing, Adagio rolled her eyes. "This is getting childish. Let me through, Aria, or I'll make you."

Aria said nothing, moved not an inch. Adagio's glare settled onto her face, and the air between them blistered.

"If this is about what happened with Sonata, I apologize. I shouldn't have yelled at her. Look-" She plucked one bag from the step, revealing a pack of taco shells, a gallon tub of bubblegum icecream. "I even got some treats, just for her, and plenty of taco fixings."

Sonata's eyes lit up. "You did?"

Aria held up a palm. "Can it. You know damn well what I'm pissed about."

Adagio, expression neutral, returned the bag to its spot. "I'm afraid I don't."

Wordless, Aria reached into her pocket. Wordless, she pulled something out. And wordless, she revealed the contents.

The color drained from Adagio's face. Her pupils shrank, and from the cornr of her vision she saw Sonata react much the same.

"I-I-"

"Is this why you've been such a fucking cunt lately?"

"No, I-"

Aria's voice rose. "Is this why you yelled at my sister?"

"Please, Aria, listen to me-"

"No!" Aria shouted, right in her face. She jammed a finger into Adagio's chest, hard enough to hurt, and Adagio instinctively stepped back. "I'm fucking done with your shit! I'm done with you constantly moaning and crying and whinging and complaining! I have a job. Sonata has a job. We make money. We've moved the fuck on. And I'm tired of you and your petty, shitty little grievances dragging us down! I put what little faith in you I had left that night when you told me you were going for a walk, but that's not what you did, was it? Was it?!"

Adagio tried to say something. Her mouth flapped uselessly, and nothing but half-aborted sounds came out.

Above, thunder boomed.

"You want to cling onto the past so fucking bad? Fine!" Aria, stepping back, hurled the shards into Adagio's face. Their sharp edges nicked her skin, drawing blood, before they fell and scattered.

"No!"

Adagio fell to her knees. She scrabbled with her palms, scraping against concrete, chipping nails, searching.

Her voice broke. "Please, not again-"

Above, the sky opened.

Rain poured down, matting her hair to her face. Soon, Adagio couldn't tell the rain from the blood, or her tears.

"Pathetic."

Shaking her head, Aria moved to close the door. "When you've gotten your shit together, feel free to come back. Until then? Fuck off, and leave my sister alone."

The door slammed, but Adagio didn't notice. She gathered each piece, clutching them to her heart, and rocked on her heels. They tried to slip from her fingers or between the cracks, but she wouldn't let them go, and she didn't care the way they sliced her open.

"Not again. Not again. Not again. Not again."

---

Adagio slumped into the front seat, a single grocery bag in her lap.

"Sushi... cola... pita chips..."

She listed off each item - that which comprised her supper. Setting the empty bag aside she shoved the soda into her cup holder, sighed, and cracked open the box of grocery store sushi.

For two weeks she'd been living in her car. She was thankful to have had her wallet and keys when Aria slammed the door on her. Otherwise...

Well, she didn't like to think about that. She had her doubts that Aria would actually have thrown her onto the streets without any resources to her name. Then again, she didn't think she'd ever be thrown out to start with.

If nothing else, she'd have gotten some degree of support from her 'fans'. Recording videos in the car, she gave vague updates on her 'temporary homelessness' situation, and watched the donations pour in. For this, at least, she didn't have to degrade herself through borderline sexualization.

In some ways, though, it was worse. She might as well have been begging on the street, for all the difference it made. The taste left bitter on her tongue, but she bore it with plastic smiles and false gratitudes.

After her meal, she popped open the glove compartment. The pouch with her pendant was still there, and she sighed with relief.

She took it, dumped the shards into her hand, and gazed into their faded crimson beauty. In their cracked, roughened facets, she saw herself a thousand times.

But not only herself as she was now.

Rubbing her thumb across each remnant, memories arose. To say hello or goodbye, she couldn't know. And so she clung to them, keeping them right beside for as long as she could until they departed.

Over a thousand years ago, she was the first of her pod to hatch. Not just the first of her sisters, but the whole nursery.

She remembered what it looked like. All those eggs - tens, dozens, hundreds of them - all packed together in hunkered clusters. From the outside view, you wouldn't know any of them were separate, but sirens were different. Even as a freshly hatched guppy, she knew the striped purple egg to her left, the splotched fuschia to her right, were hers.

Her pod.

Her family.

Her sisters.

And just like she knew they were her sisters, she knew she had to take care of them. She was the oldest. She was the largest. She was the strongest, the most experienced.

Aria didn't hatch for a couple weeks. In that time others in the nursery hatched, but to them Adagio said few and fewer. Sirens weren't the most social creatures, especially in the hatchling years. Those early times were best spent learning - how to hunt, how to ride and resist the current, where and where not to explore in the ocean, which prey to chase and which were too quick or too dangerous.

When Aria finallly hatched, Adagio taught her the ropes. Even back then they fought. Always that push and pull. Always Adagio believing she had to reign her little sister in.

Why?

Because that's just how things were. So, obviously, that's how they always had to be.

Sonata was the last to hatch, both of their pod and their nursery. Now they could really swim, truly explore. Past the rocky cover of their nursery. Past the reef, into the deeper, wider parts of the ocean.

During guppyhood, you had to be careful. Bigger, meaner, toothier things would gladly make a meal out of you if you didn't learn fast. And Sonata was not a fast learner. But they kept her safe. They made sure she survived.

That was what family meant.

Survival.

Love was there too, but it wasn't the focus. It didn't come in the form of hugs and kisses and kind reassurances. If you loved your podmate, you made that known by making sure they didn't die.

Adagio carried that philosophy with her for centuries. Even when they grew to their full size, able to swim through air as much as sea. Able to sing towns into destruction, and feed off the chaos and conflict. The apex predator of Equestria's crystal blue tides.

It didn't matter what happened. It didn't matter how strong they got, or how capable either of her podsisters proved themselves. She was the first to hatch. The first to hunt. The alpha. She had to lead, because it was her duty.

Where did that get her?

She wondered if her true goal had actually been to return home. If it was, would she not have gone right for Sunset? Learned from the Equestrian transplant herself how to return?

Instead, she'd embarked on a foolish, ill-suited crusade for power. For glory. For the idea of imperious rule and adoration she once held.

It was never about home, she realized. Not even her sisters. It was always, always about her.

She closed her eyes, and closed her palm. A naive, hopeful part of her thought, when she opened them, her gem might, by some miracle, spontaneously reform.

Of course, it never did.

Upturning her fist, she released the shards into the pouch and set it aside.

Twenty minutes from the grocery store lay the Canterlot Bay Boardwalk. It provided one of the few locations she could park overnight without being harassed either by the police or other unsavory characters.

By the time she reached it, the sun had breached well past the horizon, drowning in east coast waves. The light that remained cast everything in a deep gold, as though taking after Adagio's plume of lion hair. Not as much a proud lion's mane as it had been, however.

One thing she hated about living in a car was finding a place to take showers. Local gyms proved frequent and open enough to allow her in, but then there was that matter of brushing her hair. That was a nightmare task in and of itself when she had her four different brushes, two shampoos, two conditioners - one leave-in the other wash-out - and hair mask. Without any of her product and only the one brush to her name, it typically took her over an hour each go, and left her with dry, frizzy scraggles and split ends.

She hated the way she looked - flat, ratty, unkempt, all baggy eyes and frown lines, not to mention the one set of clothes.

To her surprise though, she didn't care quite as much as she thought she would.

This time in the Fall, at this hour of the day, there weren't many around at the boardwalk. Any that were busied themselves in the process of leaving, and soon they'd all trickled out. Only she remained, alongside whichever other drifters settled by this quiet place.

Still in the throes of eventide, she pulled off her socks, her shoes. Trite as it felt admitting, she enjoyed walking on the beach. The sand between her toes seemed visceral, like reconnecting to an old part of herself she thought she'd left behind in Equestria.

Shifting sands transitioned to moist ground, then wet surf. The chill of September east coast waves washed over her feet, but she didn't mind the cold. It shocked into her a kind of alertness, an awakeness she'd felt missing from her life for quite a long time.

Wiggling her toes in the sand, she took the phone from her pocket, hit record.

For a few seconds, the feed showed only the beach.

"Good afternoon, my lovelies."

She turned the camera towards herself, smiling. For once, it wasn't false.

"Have you ever reached a turning point in your life? A point where you stop, think, and wonder, have I been doing it all wrong?"

Adagio took her first step into the water. It kissed her ankle, and she shivered.

"You've been doing things a certain way for so long, that you've forgotten the reason you started doing it to begin with. You tell yourself this is how things have always been. This is how I've always done it. So, of course, I must always continue to do it, because if I don't-"

She took a second step.

A third.

A fourth.

The waves lapped at her bare knees.

Then everything stops. It all changes. You lose what you were. And sometimes, it's fine to do that. It's just tradition. A part of your culture, your heritage. You were born with it, and continuing to live with it is a celebration of who you are. But other times, it's something more than that. Something worse."

A fifth.

A sixth.

Against her thighs now.

Her smile fell. She breathed in, and her voice came out heavy. "You didn't realize it until things got so bad, that you were hurting people. The people you love. Even yourself. But you just keep-" She clenched her fist, spitting the next word. "clinging to the past. Why? Because you think it's forever. You think it's immuteable. That things will always be the same, and if they ever stop being the exact same for one moment it'll all slip away."

She turned the camera, wading further until the waves touched her chest.

"But the thing you don't realize, is if you keep trying to preserve what you lost, you'll never gain anything new. If you always look back, you'll trip, and lose everything you tried to hold onto."

In view of the camera, she pulled a soaked, dripping pouch from her shorts. She opened the mouth, releasing the shards into her open hand, and held them up to see.

"This is my burden," she said. "This is my ghost."

She closed her fist around the pieces.

"I was born with this ruby. Every member of my family had one. It represented who we were, what we were. And what we were was singers. We had the most incredible, captivating voices you would ever imagine."

"Then, one day, it shattered. That same day, I lost my ability to sing. I've tried to get it back. I've practiced. I even took lessons. And it felt horrible, because this thing - this innate part of me I had once possessed and utilized with all the ease and nature of breathing - was stripped bare, and now I had to come to someone else to learn it all again. And it hlped, but it's not the same. I still sound hideous."

She thrust her fist towards the sky. Her digits, white-knuckled, quivered.

"I always loved the sea."

Tears came to her eyes. They streaked down her cheeks, over her lips. She tasted their salt.

"I still do. It's as much a part of me as this gem used to be."

Her voice wavered. Her throat seized.

But she forged on.

"And in my blindness and my desperation to hold on to what I once had, I forgot that. I forgot so many parts of myself I still had, in favor of this one thing that poisoned me. That held me back." She panned the phone wide. "But looking at this place, standing in these waters, I see what I've forgotten. And it reminds me of a song. It's a popular one - I'm sure you've heard of it."

She glanced towards the horizon. The dark silhouettes of sailboats bobbed in the distance, returning to port.

She returned the camera to herself, holding her fist up high. Enclosed within she felt the shards digging against her palm.

She didn't know how she knew they were hers, but she did. Whatever pittance of magic resided thrummed against her skin, warm and soothing. She liked to imagine it understood what she was doing, that it was offering its final farewell.

"I am yours," it seemed to say. "And I always will be."

Adagio smiled.

"The song ends like this."

She opened her palm, and returned to the water what it had given her.

"And never again," she sang. Her voice came out broken.

Off-key.

The antithesis of beautiful.

And Adagio no longer cared.

"I'll go sailing~"

Author's Note:

Thus brings us to the end of my Homesick Sirens trilogy. At least for now.

Also, my laptop decided to stop taking charge a few days ago. Thankfully, I store everything on my Dropbox so I didn't lose any progress. It did mean however I couldn't make any progress until recently, so I couldn't give this all the time and love it deserved. Yay for writing past midnight the day of the deadline!

Despite that, if you still enjoyed this story and would like to receive one of your own, see here for more details.

Comments

[Mockingbirb]

This story is a lovely addition to your Sirens series. I see you continue to write these bittersweet mood pieces, but now you more clearly show us a developing and deepening plot.

If anything, this third installment is even better than its two prequels (which I also recommend.)

"Recommended! 👍"

[Starlight Nova]

What order should I read this story in?

[Mockingbirb]

11677583
The same order as the order of publication date works fine for these three stories, if that's what you mean.

[TamiyaGuy]

This trilogy of fish angst served as a lovely melancholic little read, of which this felt the most evocative by a fair margin. It feels like you've made a backstory of your own for the Sirens which still feels respectful to the canon, adding in little gems through Adagio's reminiscence about the meaning of family, which helps explain why the three have stuck together for so long. And the ending, while uncertain, had a kind of… Adagio-ness about it.

I really appreciate your characterisation of the three sisters here. You inject enough depth into them to make them sympathetic, but still retain enough of their original traits to keep them feeling in-character. Aria's anger is still there, but you've turned it into something driven, pragmatic. Sonata's doe-eyed ditziness has become innocence, and the stripping away thereof. Adagio’s vanity is still, well, vain, but it now feels like it’s combined with the pride and sense of responsibility that comes with being thrust into the position of a leader. Even if she shows it through her classic levels of sheer, unmitigated bitch.

Which is why it was nice to see her fall, to see her realise exactly where her twisted ‘sense of responsibility’ had actually led her. Speaking of, I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of her present-day source of income. Not just the connection to her voice, but even the fame, the adoration. As creepy as some parts of it might’ve been – in fact, it kind of feels like you’ve injected a bit of yourself into some of these words. I do hope that Adagio’s bitterness about her ‘fans’ isn’t entirely your thoughts put to page, though, because these pieces you’ve written are a joy to read.

And the ending… Honestly? In a bittersweet way, I found myself laughing. Because through the romantic setting, the obvious connection to her home, and Adagio finally realising she needs to get her shit together? She’s still so Adagio. She’s vain and melodramatic, self-absorbed and overly-poetic. I was torn between sympathising with her plight and desire to be better, and just saying ‘for God’s sake you silly trout, get out of the damn water, go home, and put your clothes in the washing machine, they’re filthy by now’.

And I kinda can’t help but love that. Great stuff.