Sonata bounded down the stairs with the energy of a hyperactive 10 year old. The kitchen sounded unusually lively. Though it was late enough in the day that both Adagio and Aria being up wasn’t too strange, the pair usually kept their aggression at a sort of quiet and tense simmering point. It was only when Sonata made her presence known did things tend to boil over until all the girls got fed up with one another, breaking off to one electronic distraction or another.

Getting to the bottom of the stairs, Sonata titled her head and peered through a doorway so she could look into kitchen. The answer to what had got the other two Dazzlings so worked up quickly became apparent: one of the girls from school was inside, dressed as a spy.

Sonata focused her eyes and raised an index finger to her chin. What was her name? Lixie? Hixie?

“Trixie,” Adagio said in an aspirated tone, “if you’re going to bitch about what’s in our fridge than you can just close it and find something else to eat!”

Trixie! That was it… The other two girls must be mad because they caught her trying to steal our delicious Luncahbles! Still… who can blame her?

“I was just surprised!” Trixie said as she sat down at the table and began tearing into a peanut butter and jelly Lunchable. “I love Lunchables, but I figured you three had more expensive taste.”

“I prefer quality meals,” Adagio said motioning to herself. “The other two idiots here generally don’t care what they stick in their mouths.”

“Pfffft…” Aria replied with a smirk. “Look who’s talking!”

Adagio narrowed her eyes. “That’s not what I mean! I’m talking about the weird and disgusting stuff you make out of leftovers.”

Aria folded her arms across her chest. “Pizza topped with chow mien, is awesome, Adagio.”

“More like ‘awful’,” Adagio retorted.

Aria lifted her nose into the air. “I will not apologize for art!”

Trixie began to snack on the ‘sandwich’ she had constructed as she looked back and forth between the quarrelling girls. “Do you two do this every day?”

Adagio scrunched her lips to one side of her mouth. “Well, usually Sonata is here by n—”

“Hello!” Sonata said cheerfully as she thrust herself into the kitchen.

Aria sighed heavily. “You just had to mention her, didn’t you?”

Adagio rolled her eyes. “She lives here! She was bound to show up at some point! We’ll only get solace when a toy’s age warning woefully over estimates Sonata’s intelligence and she chokes on a piece of plastic shaped like a taco.”

Trixie cocked an eyebrow. “How… how do you girls manage to share a house together?”

Aria and Adagio looked at each other then back to Trixie.

“Uh… We just do?” Aria said replied in a slightly perplexed tone.

Adagio shook her head. “Trixie, what the heck are you on about?”

“You all seem to hate each other,” Trixie said. “How do you all put up with it?”

Adagio and Aria turned towards one another and both raised an eyebrow.

Adagio turned back to Trixie. “It’s called ‘family’?” she answered, stressing ‘family’ as if the answer was apparent.

“Speaking of family,” Sonata said as she leaned down and placed her face inches away from Trixie’s, “are you our new mommy?”

Trixie’s face contorted in confusion. “Uh…”

Aria and Adagio’s eyes shot open wide as Aria began to cough and sputter on her coffee and Adagio sprayed hers across the table onto the side of Trixie’s face.

“So-Sonata… cough… cough…” Aria exclaimed. “What? Why?!”

Trixie scowled at Adagio and wiped coffee away from her face. “Can we save the spitting on me until we’re behind closed doors, please?”

Adagio gave Trixie a sheepish look.

Sonata grinned. “Well, now that everyone is paying attention to me—” Sonata produced a letter that looked like it had one of its corners bitten off – “It’s here!” Sonata shouted. “And only partially eaten.”

Adagio loaded an annoyed expression and fired it off at Aria. “You really need to get rid of that goat.”

“Hey,” Aria said in a protesting tone. “I opened the gate so he could roam free! How was I supposed to know he’d actually like it here enough to stay?!”

Trixie leaned forward slightly and peered at the letter. “So, what is it?” she asked.

Adagio and Aria groaned.

“Don’t encourage her!” Adagio cried.

“Yeah,” Aria agreed, “you keep talking to her like that and she starts thinking she’s people.”

Sonata’s smile widened as she held up the letter. “I’m glad you asked, Mixie!”

Trixie narrowed her eyes. “It’s Tri—”

“This is a letter from the creators of Dinosaur Monorail, no doubt saying they love my entry for the shows series finale and will use it right away!” Sonata’s happy smile suddenly turned wild and malevolent. “You see, the conductor of the Rocket Rail decides the dinosaurs are a plague on the planet and uses the time machines to cause several volcanoes to erupt simultaneous across all the different time periods!”

Adagio’s brow knit. “How can they explode simultaneously, but in different ti—”

Sonata continued, “The eruptions wipe out all the dinosaurs!” Sonata’s grin began to grow darker and darker. “Some die quickly in the fiery explosion of debris and lava! Other’s die slowly as the ash thrown up into the sky blocks the sun and kills off the dinosaur’s food supply, causing them to slowly starve to death!” Sonata said cheerfully. Her grin suddenly went supernova. “The main family dies when the T-rex they adopted finally gives into his base predatorily instincts and devours the pterodactyls!”

“Wow…” Trixie muttered. “That sounds rather… heavy… for a children’s show.”

Sonata shrugged. “Gotta explain how all the dinosaurs died somehow!”

Adagio rolled her eyes. “Somehow I’m not hopeful they’re going to pick it up.”

Aria nodded in agreement. “Yeah! No one is going to read a script written in crayon, doofus.”

“… That’s not what—” Adagio sighed heavily. “Never mind…”

Aria continued, “They’re especially not gonna try to read anything in your chicken scratch!”

Sonata smiled. “And that’s why I drew and mailed a story board of the whole thing!”

Once again, Sonata’s words caused Adagio and Aria’s eyes to go wide.

“Sonata… you… you didn’t…” Adagio uttered.

Aria shook her head. “Those poor bastards.”

Trixie looked back between Adagio and Aria. “What? What’s the problem?”

Adagio frowned heavily. “Sonata is a very—” Adagio paused and stared upwards as if some of the messy locks of her hair contained the word she was searching for “—skilled artist.”

Aria chimed in, “Yeah, she’s great with detail, but…” Aria wrapped her arms around herself and shuttered.

Adagio picked up where Aria left off. “But what she draws is usually horrifying!”

Aria nodded. “Yeah, just imagine if that famous Italian painter dude they named a samurai tortoise after… uh… Duh Itchy had a DeviantArt account.”

Trixie cringed. “Trixie is could have lived without that mental image.” She gave Sonata a puzzled look. “But why would you want the show to end? If you like it enough to write an episode for it, why the ending?”

Sonata’s expression suddenly turned very serious. “That show has already friggin’ soared over a megalodon!”

Aria let out an exasperated sigh.

“Oh, here we go!” Adagio said in an annoyed tone as she leaned back in her chair.

Trixie’s expression revealed Sonata’s explanation did little to answer the silvery-blue haired girl’s question. “Er… Was that like… an episode, or…”

“It’s called Dinosaur Monorail!” Sonata insisted. “Not Dinosaur blimp! You know they made that stupid airship just so they could sell more toys! I mean… Who makes a show for kids just as a marketing excuse to sell a buncha toys?! That’s just evil!”

Aria suddenly sat upright as a quick shiver seemed to pass through her head and down to her toes.

Adagio cocked an eyebrow at her. “What’s your problem?”

“I dunno,” Aria replied. “For some reason I just got this weird sense of existential dread…”

Adagio rolled her eyes. “Me too, it’s called ‘listening to Sonata talk for any length of time!” She turned to Sonata. “Just open your stupid letter so we can all get on with our lives.”

Sonata happily hooked a finger into the chewed corner of the letter and tore the top open. She took out and unfolded a piece of paper then held it in front of her, her eyes slowly scanning the printed words on it. Sonata’s gleeful expression quickly fell into an ocean of disappointment. “Another restraining order.” She sighed heavily, lowered her head, and shook her head. “Story of my life…”

Adagio looked unfazed. “I knew it. Looks like we’ll have to update the list of places Sonata’s banned from, again.”

Sonata’s shoulders began to heave up and down as she quietly stood in the kitchen, her head still lowered. “Hhehhh… sob… choke…”

“Ugh… Not again,” Adagio said.

“WhouaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAHHOUAAAAAAHHOUAAAAAH!”

Trixie frowned as she watched Sonata suddenly erupted into body wracking sobs and tears that practically formed waterfalls going down her cheeks.

Aria placed her hands over her ears as Sonata wailed. “Seriously?! You get one of those every time you submit an episode somewhere! What’s the big deal?!”

“WHOUAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAHEEEEeeHHH… choke… But… But… sob… I tried so hard! …Sob… And I got so far! But in the end it doesn’t even matter! WHOUAAAAAAHOUAAAAAHOUAAAAAHOUAAAA!”

Aria rolled her eyes, pushed her chair away from the table and stood up. “Alright, stop bawling like a baby. Let’s go to Greasy Pizza’s already.”

Sonata looked up, her expression suddenly changing as if someone suddenly threw a switch from ‘sob miserably’ to ‘hope springs eternal’. “Can we throw skee balls at all the animatronics?” she asked in a hopeful tone.

“Is there any other reason to go?” Aria said as she walked out of the room.

“Yay!” Sonata exclaimed happily as she discarder her letter and followed Aria.

“Oh!” Trixie said as she stood up. “Trixie will go, too! Greasy Pizza’s never fails to remind me my life could always be much worse!”

Adagio chuckled as Trixie followed the other two girls. “Heh, well looks like I get a nice quiet day all to myself.”

‘SLAM!’ came the answer from the house’s door.

“Yep,” Adagio said to the empty kitchen. “Finally a day where I can just lay on the couch and not have to deal with idiots making a racket with the stupid things they’re doing.”

Silence was Adagio’s only answer. She reveled in it for a few seconds before she started to impatiently tap her foot against the kitchen floor.

Adagio sighed heavily and stood up from her chair. “Hey, wait!” She called out. “I need to get changed!” she cried as she discarder her purple robe.

Author's Notes:

Mythril Moth's Greasy Pizza's continues to be a thing that traumatizes children even across dimensions.

Also, I appear to have stumbled into some bizarre story arc. I'm sure this can only end well for all parties involved.