Uncertainty was quickly becoming an unlikeable but familiar emotion for Adagio. The first time she felt it was when she and her sisters had landed in this world, banished by Starswirl the Bearded; the second, when she and her sisters had been defeated by the Rainbooms, and had been forced to cope with their now completely-human lives. The third time was when she had suddenly found herself, much to the efforts of Sonata, growing closer to the group that had turned them this way, almost to the point of them all being "close friends"—a term that Aria despised enormously.

Now that she thought about it, those moments of uncertainty had all been in the span of about a year. Soul Writer's arrival on the scene might as well have been the catalyst for them. Not that she blamed him; in truth, seeing Sonata grow happier each day in the "enemy's" company was nice, as lame as that sounded in her head. And once she and Aria were "tolerable," as Sonata obliviously and bluntly put it, well, that same description could be said for herself. It was nice; what she felt was nice.

In that sense, was certainty quickly becoming a rarity? For some time, that had been a question on Adagio's mind. She was the leader of their group; and then, all of a sudden, they were a trio of bickering, independent sisters of humans. Even after they had reconciled thanks to the Rainbooms, there had always been a missing feeling in her.

She had missed power. She had missed being in power. She had missed having power over others. Could one blame her, if there was a biological reason behind it?

Could one excuse her, then, for wanting to have a taste of that power, even if for a moment?

Adagio would never tell Sonata—the girl cared far too much for her own good—but one of the reasons why she had even bothered sauntering up to Artifex was because he seemed vulnerable. Easy picking. A good test subject for her experiment in power-play. Sonata didn't need to know; and Aria didn't need to care.

Because of that omission of knowledge, however, of what her purpose was, her actions could be seen as selfish. And, indeed, they were; that much she knew. Adagio was a vain creature, one that prided on having everything she wanted. Even if there were obstacles in her way, she'd push them aside, complete with a sultry smirk, and accomplish her goal with whatever method she deemed fit to use.

Of course, those "vain methods" were indeed in vain. Artifex had reacted far worse than she had expected; and she had reacted far differently than she had planned. There she had been, the former villainous Siren leader, feeder on mistrust, misfortune, and perhaps a hint of misanthropy; feeling concerned for someone obviously scarred in more ways than one.

Certainty had long been out the window since then, even if that window had originally been made for the sole purpose of creating that hard-to-now-reach-certainty.

Ah, life. You work in mysterious and often ironic ways, do you not?

Life answered, "Go the f*ck to sleep, Sonata!"

Why does life sound like Aria? Oh, wait...

"Aw, c'mon, Aria! This show is actually really good!"

"I don't care what kind of crappy show you're watching! It's nearing midnight! And I want to sleep!"

"So why don't you?"

"Because someone refuses to turn the goddamn volume down!"

…Aria had always been a loudmouth, now that I think about it. Huh. I'm thinking about "it" a lot, now that I—huh.

"Please, Aria? Just twenty more minutes!"

"No!"

"Fifteen, then!"

"No!"

"Ten!"

"Just shut up and go to bed!"

"Dagi?"

Oh, goody... "What is it, Sonata?"

"Can I stay awake for ten more minutes? Five, at least?"

"We'll compromise." Adagio yawned, then repeated herself. "Compromise. Yeah. You can stay away for…seven and a half more minutes."

"Yay!"

Aria shouted one final curse, before her door suddenly—and explosively—slammed shut.

Adagio looked out the hall for a moment longer, hearing Sonata happily giggling at some "anime" show, before sighing and getting up and closing her own door. At the very least, in this sudden sea of uncertainty, the boat of familiarity remained aloft.

Adagio's mind drifted from thought to thought. Tired as she was, most thoughts were just fragments of a larger idea; yet she could not use them to lull herself to sleep. In the midst of those thoughts was a common idea; but its purpose, its reason for being there, eluded her.

Then, just as Sonata let out a loud gasp, and Aria screamed another curse, the idea was gone, lost in the winds of memory. Adagio, frustrated, turned over on her side, mumbling something incoherent.

I need to sleep, she groggily thought. Maybe once it quiets down...

From downstairs, she heard what sounded like some sort of "theme song" playing, presumably from the television. A few minutes passed—she heard Sonata mumble something, then let out a brief cry—and then she heard her sister come up the stairs. The light in the hallway went out as Sonata entered her room.

Quietness reigned supreme once more.

And Adagio's thoughts became louder than ever.

Primarily on her mind was that of the issue of that cold, distant, aloof, young man she had come to know: Artifex Frost. But it wasn't so much of an issue of his character; rather, it was the issue of why it was an issue. She'd blame Sonata if it was actually her fault, which, surprisingly, it wasn't. No, this was no one's fault but Adagio's.

She tossed and turned; then she turned her pillow and tossed it across her bed, hearing it land with a thump against the floor. She brought a tangerine hand up to her forehead, closing her eyes, counting to ten three times, trying to steady herself and find a moment of clarity.

Artifex. Artifex, Artifex, Artifex. Artifex Frost. That Frost kid.* The *Frost kid. The strange kid. The kid. The...

Except…he wasn't quite a kid anymore, was he? No, he was not a kid. Certainly younger than Adagio and the Sirens, and no older than perhaps Sunset or Applejack, but there was something about him that suggested he wasn't just any kid.

It has to be his eyes. They're so…full of something. Of what, though? And why are they so piercing?

The image of Frost came to her like a phantom. He stood at the end of the room, looking away; but she could still see the side of his face, see the curvature of his frowning jaw, his tightened lips and cheeks, the way his eyes were always slightly narrowed. Gradually, the phantom became full, and the image of the kid—not kid; young man?—grew to encompass his entire person.

There on his wrists were another matter altogether, though Adagio could not speak of their meaning to her. They were scars; light ones, old, faded, healing. But scars nonetheless; scars that still stuck out, she presumed, to Artifex, in such a way as to persuade him to never wear shorter sleeves. She remembered the first time they met, how he had collapsed due to some sort of overstimulation; she wondered, far longer than she normally would have, if his scars had hurt that day.

She frowned, as more, unfamiliar feelings grew in her. It seemed that a heavy weight set upon her shoulders. It reminded her of the centuries of burdens she had borne; but this was different. Whereas those burdens could easily be cast off as being expendable, worthwhile, collateral damage in the winds of time and the woes of history, this burden, this weight—she could not bypass it. She could not excuse it.

Is this…guilt?

She was reminded, then, what Artifex had said to her at the party. How she had demonstrated some ounce of goodwill, not just towards him in his apology, but in her willingness to do whatever it took to keep herself and her sisters alive— even at the cost of potential power.

Then, she remembered her own words, her own account. Her actions. Little favors. The incident with Superintendent Discord. Were these the willing perpetrations of a former Siren…or something more, something else entirely?

Even then, she still wondered: Why do I feel guilty?

Adagio went over what happened in the day. Artifex's frown. His tired and irritated tone. His leaving.

Is that what I feel guilty about? Artifex leaving?

No, there had to be more to it than that. Artifex didn't seem the type to just up and leave when confronted by someone like Adagio. In fact, he didn't seem like the kind of person to run from his problems. It had to be something else; something personal.

She tried to recall what Sonata had said of Artifex throughout the time period between the party and today. She tried to recall her own observations. They all came to mind, but served little purpose than as a means to refashion her thoughts again and again until they no longer were unique but rather worn-out clichés of hypotheses and conclusions.

Maybe he's just tired. Maybe he's been having trouble sleeping. I certainly am.

But the question—the large and general question, the cursed interview interrogative, the question that every child asked an adult until the adult no longer had the patience to answer—persisted: why?

That stupid young man…how has he ensnared me so? She shook an overly-dramatic fist at the sky, frowning as she imagined herself delivering a stunning soliloquy to an equally stunned audience; and in that crowd she saw Artifex. He wasn't smiling. Her fist came back down, and with the rest of her arm fell against her side with a dull thump.

She sat like that for what seemed like minutes for her; but the moment she turned over, a bolt of shock jolted in her system. 1:00 had rolled around, and just moments before it had been midnight. Either she was stuck in some temporal jump stream, or she was so tired that she couldn't even comprehend her own temporal experience.

She rolled back onto her back, an arm lying against her forehead. Suddenly she felt very hot, and she realized that she had on far too many blankets than needed. She threw some of them off, but the heat would not go away; in fact, it seemed to spread, from her chest, to her toes, and then back up to her head.

She was sick; she had to be. Yet she did not feel an urge to retch, to vomit; no sense of nausea, nor lack of a sensible balance, attacked her. She was hot, and nothing else.

She then threw off the rest of the blankets, trying to cool off. She cringed as she felt beads of sweat slowly slide down the side of her face. Quickly, she wiped them away. More beads replaced them.

Adagio sat up. She glared down at the foot of the bed, as if hoping to scare away the dark shadows that followed the moonlight. But her heated expression and heated stance—literally—only served to make her glare appear more as one of discomfort as opposed to frustration. The shadows remained; as did her sour and baked attitude.

She rubbed her eyes. Where was sleep when she needed it? Rarely had she gone so long without rest. Though she was a self-diagnosed "night owl" ("night-Siren?" "night-ex-Siren?"), she hadn't had much time to practice her "literally-stay-up-past-dawn" skills while on her mission of conquest. Was that the sound of mice chittering in the walls, or just the squeaking of the bed? Were those shadows really moving, or was she imagining it? Was Artifex Frost standing in the middle of her room, stoic glare and set frown, or was she—

She blinked, and he was gone.

"Gah!" She threw herself against her pillow. "There's got to be something to help me sleep..." In the distance, from behind closed doors, she could hear the gentle snoring of Sonata; Aria, too, appeared to have finally falling asleep. A brief rush of wind giggled from outside; leaves rustled; the night was awake.

Adagio's ceiling slowly became intolerable to look at, as did the rest of her room. Finally, she closed her eyes, and tried to steady her breathing, hoping that the slow rate would calm her down long enough for her to fall asleep.

Yet the moment she closed her eyes, the visions returned; they were of the boy, and the young man, and the scars, and the flower, and today, and yesterday, and last month; they were of everything that had happened and had not happened, of power, of tragedy, of hope, of despair. More importantly, uncertainty filled the visions like a cement solution, sealing them in her mind without holes to breathe from, letting them suffocate under its weight and stickiness.

Uncertainty. A familiar emotion. A familiar vice, a familiar familiar. Bothersome. Troublesome. Uniquely annoying, unwaveringly persistent.

Adagio's eyes opened. She groaned, and rubbed her eyes. "Damn it," she whispered, sitting up. "Why am I so bothered by this? Just get to sleep, Adagio. Don't worry about that boy—that young man—that…that…ugh."

She glanced at her clock. 1:30. A half-hour had been spent simply struggling to sleep. Lost time. Lots of lost time, and rest.

"Argh..." There wasn't much she could do other than hope that, eventually, her body would give in to exhaustion, and fall asleep on its own. But, until that time arrived, she would remain here, staring up at the uncertain ceiling, tired and bothered.

With no other choice, Adagio resigned herself to her fate.