Strum of the Strings

They had been away from Equestria for over a thousand years. They had degraded Discord at the time of his defeat, snickered at Sombra and his suffering when he and his kingdom vanished, and laughed at Luna when she was sent to the moon. They were too smart to lose. They were unstoppable. Discord was cocky and Luna was too hasty, and Sombra had forced immortality and much of his powers into himself through the use of crude dark magic. He would never be as powerful as true immortal deities, like the Draconeqqus, the two Alicorns, and the Sirens.

Sirens were beautiful guardians of the sea that helped ponies who were lost and away from home. Each Siren had a beautiful gem as a part of his or her chest. The source of his or her powers. But one day...three sisters realized that they could gain more power if they left the water. So they moved to the land and sang their songs, which created chaos that could have been mistaken as the work of Discord. Sometimes the Sirens would take on the forms of ponies to get closer to their prey and absorb more energy.

But then...they made their mistake. Had they known that she was singing to Star-Swirl the Bearded...they would have acted in a much different way. But Aria and Adagio were so obsessed with power, and she was so captivated by his eyes...that they fell. Pushed, actually. Pushed through the portal to another world. They spent three days and nights trying to get through to their home, and each time they failed. It was only after a week or so that the portal opened itself in secret, and it would do so for a brief period of time every thirty moons.

They spent their time learning how to blend in. They learned to change with the humans as their world became more advanced. They would sometimes spend decades in hiding, trying to conceal their true ages from the humans. They were never caught. They survived.

And then, one night, they saw it. The sudden explosion of dark energy shot up into the sky, and it was weakened only by a rainbow of pure magic. The jewels that were once a part of the Sirens’ bodies, now reduced to pendants worn around their necks, shimmered. And they knew that their chance to reclaim their powers...to be adored and worshipped...to seek revenge on the Alicorn princess who stood and watched as they were exiled...had come.

She stood outside of the cafeteria with her fellow Dazzlings (as they now called themselves). "Follow my lead," Adagio ordered her."Or my lead," Aria remarked, half-serious, half-kidding. She could lead if she was as smart as Adagio...but she wasn't. In the end, she and Sonata followed Adagio's lead as they entered the room full of students, singing their favorite tune. Sonata's eyes landed upon a boy who had his back turned to her...to them...how dare he ignore her? She was to be adored by everyone!Sonata walked past him. As she did, she brought her hand up to his left shoulder and paused before she let it give a gentle slide down his back, where his guitar hung. Her dexterous fingers stroked the strings once, and then she moved along. She didn’t look back. But the boy, who she would later know as Flash Sentry, looked up from his conversation with a classmate and gaped at the blue-haired girl.

Why did she do that? She pondered her motivations as she stood beside Aria and sang her words, “Shine brighter…” Aria and Adagio were flirting with the other students, but their contact was limited. Aria often expressed disgust with the humans and their lack of powers. She preferred to avoid them as much as she could. She did say that she would tolerate them more when they worshipped her.

Was it because he reminded her of Star-Swirl? They looked nothing alike. This boy was clean-shaven, copper-skinned, and blue-eyed...nothing like the gray-eyed, gray-haired, gray-skinned stallion she had been entranced by.

She realized why she was drawn to Flash as she stood by the entrance to the cafeteria with Adagio and Aria, hands raised high, a triumphant smile on her face, and her jewel pulsed with power.There was nothing special about the boy. He was nothing. He was stupid. He was weak. And he was innocent. Sonata had been seen as just that by her fellow Sirens: nothing. Stupid. Weak. And innocent. Maybe the last one was true, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew that she had picked the perfect target to feed off of. He would fall head over heels over her...over them...and be under their spell in no time.

There was something else to him, something that she had sensed often in the human world. Love. He had it in his heart. It wasn’t pure or true love, but it was love nonetheless. As she found more excuses to be near him, she learned more of his love. It was once for a beautiful girl with a fiery temper, but she had been disgraced in her failed attempt to conquer Equestria through the use of the humans. The love was now for an Alicorn princess, and Sonata was shocked when she learned that in their absence, two Alicorns were created. One was now the Princess of Love, the other, the one she would soon meet, was the Princess of Friendship. He loved the Princess of Friendship, but it was not a pure love...it was the love born from admiration. The love a simple soul would feel for a great, god-like being.

The love she had had for Star-Swirl. And he had betrayed her. Now it was time to see how he felt as he played with her emotions. She would play with this boy's.

And so she sang to Flash and fed off of him as she waited for the princess to rescue the brave knight...and when she came, she won him back. Sonata felt something spark inside her, something that she thought she would never, ever feel. Jealousy. A powerful emotion she had sensed in countless ponies and humans, but never once had she felt it herself. She loathed it. She approached Flash with it and sang to him once more, and as she did, she worked with his generic desires and insecurities to turn him against his love. But her spell only lasted for a day. And Sonata's heart, like her jewel, was broken into several tiny pieces...