The rain fell hard. Cars splashed as they shot down the roads, unwillingly sending waves of dirty water onto the pavements and soaking the legs of pedestrians. As night began to fall, the droplets of water camouflaged into the darkness , leaving only the sound of their impacts remaining.

Hours passed. The rain began to fade, or rather, was drowned out by the howling of sharp wind. It was a harsh and cold night outside, that much was obvious.

Then suddenly, a spark of orange on the horizon, and the wind began to calm. Birds emerged from their nests and greeted the sun as it rose into the sky. People, cars and dogs followed suit; the day had begun.

Later, night fell yet again. With it returned the rain, this time accompanied by zeus weapon of choice; lightening.

What was it going to be next?

Would the rain go?

Or with the way the weather had been turning, would it become snow? Would her view be buried under a blanket of white? Now that, that would be an interesting change. She hoped that would happen.

All she had now was this window. Her wants, her needs, her passions... all of it was but a distant, blurred memory. Now, it was just her and this window. Morning, noon and night. She didn’t sleep anymore, she just drifted in and out of consciousness. Sometimes, if she was feeling particularly energetic, she even switched positions.

She didn’t know what to do.

She wanted an answer, but at the same time, didn’t have the effort to find one. Not this time.

No more cards left. She always pulled them back from their lowest point, but how could anyone come back from this?

The thought had occurred to her - at what point was something classed as non-existent? Say there was an area of space, billions of miles away, that had no matter, or gas, or gravity, and wasn’t even reached by sources of light. Did that area exist? If it was entirely unaffected by the elements and remained unchanged for millenia, was it even really there?

Adagio was jealous of it. Non-existence was a preferable reality to her own. She had even considering becoming a permanent member of the void. It would be so simple. Just unlatch the window she had grown so close to and step out into oblivion. Simple, yes, but whenever she worked up the courage to try it...

Oh.

That made sense now.

She was scared to do it herself. Yet, she had built a barrier behind her door to stop contact with the two beings she was sure would more than happily assist her. Why had she done that? Not working up the courage to do it herself was understandable, but why was she scared of others doing it? She didn’t have anything left to live for, so why was she so scared?

Why?

The answer, frankly, was simple. Let it be known that when push had come to shove, Adagio Dazzle was a coward.

And this was her punishment. She was a siren, feeding on jealousy and hatred was her biology. But there were other ways, she knew.

Adagio used to say nothing could help them, but she was lying. There were spells, enchantments, or even skilled ponies out there that could have helped. Of course, back then she never saw it as lying. She always saw herself as the unsung hero, doing everything she must to provide for her sisters. When in reality, she just like playing the villain. She enjoyed it, she was good at it! But now faced with the void, if she could do it all again…

It would be different. If she’d have known this would be her punishment, she'd take it all back. Every fibre of the woman she had become. She’d betray it all. Every single thing that made her who she was, she would trade it right now, just to make things go back to the way they once were.

Just to take her back to Equestria.

Just to give them their powers back.

Just to make her sisters come back.

But that was an empty hope. Things were never going to go back to the way they were. Now, it was just her and the window, stretching on for eternity until she finally worked up the nerve to end it herself.

Maybe she would do it tonight.

Then again, maybe it would snow. She would hate to miss that.

Adagio sucked in a sharp and deep breath as pain shot through her body. Her knuckles clenched tight, and she forced down on the breath she was holding in. She held this position for as long as she could, before finally pulling her head out from under the running water and gasping for breath.

The water around her feet was running red, caused by the large gash along her nose. It didn’t appear broken, luckily, but the Not-Aria had definitely retained her sisters level of strength and done a good deal of damage.

Only when she was sure the sister-things had definitely left the house did she dare venture out of her room. About time as well, as her face had become crusted with dried blood, and her hair matted together with sweat and vomit. Not showering hadn’t bothered her at first, but now the smell was being to get to her, and she refused to leave behind an ugly corpse, whatever the situation.

Pressing her hand against the cool tile wall, she lowered herself to sit on the bath floor. Slowly the red around her began to fade, turning a slight pink before disappearing all together.

At what point had she messed up?

She was born a siren, and did what always came naturally to her. Was her mistake enjoying it so much?

Humans were born omnivores. They ate meat. They did what came naturally to them. How was doing what she did any different to humans buying meat at the store? Will they all too one day meet the same fate as her? Or something worse? Were the lives of animals really less important than the feelings of other humans? All Adagio did was make people sad; humans killed their food to eat it.

Yet here she was, alone, while families sat around the dinner table enjoying roasted dinners.

Would it make her happy if she knew they would suffer too one day?

No, surprisingly. For the first time, seeing others suffer wouldn’t do anything for her.

She didn’t want revenge, or vengeance.

She just wanted her sisters back. She could feel it. Inside her.

It was difficult to describe, but as each day passed she became more and more aware of it. There was a snake wrapped around her skeleton. It was living. Breathing. Moving.

Something alive was shuffling around inside her, trying to find a way out. It’s exit was destroyed, but it was still in there. It was alive, and it was starving. Dying. It was dying inside her and she was defenseless to help it.

Adagio clutched at her chest.

“I can feel you. You’re there.”

When unicorns came to this world they lost their horns, but retained their magic. A unicorn in this world had just as much magical ability as she had in Equestria, but no conduit to access it. Why sirens were different to unicorns she didn’t know, but when they had come to this world, they had pendants that took the form of that conduit.

So surely by that logic, what they suffered was the equivalent of a unicorn losing their horn? They still had the magic inside them, just lacked a way to expull it.

She didn’t know where to even begin finding an alternate way to extract it. Of course during the first few weeks after the accident that was all her life had consisted of -trying different gemstones and gluing together pieces of the old ones- but none of it had worked, obviously Eventually she stopped trying, it simply meant-

“Wait,” she said suddenly, her voice less than a whisper.

The tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She repeated that thought process back to herself.

“You're still there… just... inside.”

There was a hope. The magic was still alive, inside them.

All she had to do was get it out.

And she would do so by any means necessary.