There was a man in her art studio.
Adagio stared at the man who was just ambling around the wide area, examining each piece; she felt sweat begin to form on her brow and raised a hand to brush it away. From all her years of being an artist, never had she been this nervous - and she'd been in contact with some pretty stuck-up, pretentious gallery owners that wished to display her work. But this guy - this tall man that had no flaws whatsoever, it seemed - was the best artist in all of humanity to Adagio; if she screwed this up, not a single gallery would want her art ever again.
She'd be ruined - all the blood, sweat, and tears she had poured into this life would be ruined if she were to be denied by him. She didn't want that - the world could come to an abrupt halt before exploding and Adagio wouldn't care; she just wanted this moment, this fragment in time to be over and done with - never to be mentioned again.
But of course that wouldn't happen in such a situation. Why would it, if Adagio was the only one willing it would?
Her brilliant raspberry colored gaze was following the man - whose name, she realized, she didn't even know. That wasn't a good sign - at all.
Her lips trembled in fear as he muttered something under his breath, tracing his hand over the delicate cavas that concealed her feelings; the painting was named Reminiscence, after the way she'd dragged herself from the bottom all the way to the top after the Battle of the Bands back in Canterlot. It described herself in such a way that one with the latest fashion eye wouldn't be able to tell it was her life captivated in such a piece; only Adagio would know - and she planned to make it stay that way.
Adagio jumped as a floorboard creeked under the weight of the man, and his voice protruded into her mind: "Well, Miss Dazzle... I have no others words to say to you but -" he paused, collecting his thoughts.
You didn't make it. You didn't make it. You didn't -
"... These are brilliant."
You made it?!
Adagio realized that the man was waiting for a reply; something, anything that would make her seem ellaborate about such a thing. So, she sucked in a breath and burst out, "Oh, thank you so much! You won't regret this, Mister..."
The man rolled his eyes, huffing in what seemed to be exhaustion. "Mr. Toity."
"... Mr. Toity." Adagio felt her face flush in embarrassment and she turned her back to him, using her long, lion mane-like hair to mask it. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to forget that happened - though she knew that neither of them would forget it, no matter how hard they tried.
"I'll be awaiting your arrival in Canterlot in a few days," Hoity Toity said matter-of-factly - a typical tongue in Canterlot now, from what she'd been hearing from some of the neighbors. Everyone now spoke highly, as if they were the most important things in the world; Adagio's heart thumped in recollection as she remembered when she used to be that way with her two best friends, Sonata Dusk and Aria Blaze. Since the night of Battle of the Bands neither of them had spoken to one another; Adagio had no idea where either of them ended up - but she was positive they'd figured out where she had.
Adagio turned around and faced him, smoothing her hair down though it wasn't even messy; her raspberry eyes focused on Hoity's darkened ones, shaded behind his sunglasses as he shrugged into his coat. She led the properly-dressed man to the door and opened it, allowing Hoity to step outside of her studio and into the hallway. Without a murmur to her, Hoity began to make his way towards the elevator just a few steps away, pressing the button and waiting for it to catch up to the third floor.
"Thanks again!" Adagio called after him as the elevator dinged.
There was almost a smile on his face as the doors closed.
Adagio looked around at her surroundings, taking in how wide the airport happened to be in Canterlot compared to New Hayven. She had only been in this place once before - back when she was coming to Canterlot High with Sonata and Aria; coming back now after six years felt as if it were almost peculiar.
With her head held high Adagio blew through security and baggage claim with ease - soon she was sitting at a small waiting area, thrumming her fingers against her thigh in boredom. Her suitcases were propped upright beside her, contents from inside peeking through the spots where the zippers wouldn't close all the way; Adagio sighed and threw her head back, groaning in impatience and wishing someone - anyone - would come to her rescue and save her from this awful Celestia-ridden place.
"Are you Miss Adagio Dazzle?"
The young artist snapped her head up at the sound of a voice; in front of her was a girl not much older than her, with long, strawberry-red colored hair and bright amber-gold eyes. Her darkened skin - a orangish-yellow, Adagio guessed - blended well with the rest of her. In her hand was a small pen and she clicked it rather impatiently, obviously wanting Adagio to say yes or no.
Swallowing, Adagio meekly answered the woman's question. "Y - Yes, I am..."
The girl let an 'mph' escape her lips as she turned quickly, the pen still twiddling its racket in her hand. "Follow me," she instructed and began to walk away, not even waiting for Adagio to leap up from her seat and hurriedly wrestle with her things.
Typical Canterlot people... Adagio thought hastily as she followed the girl through wide glass doors and out into the sunshine. The blasting light hit her straight in the face, causing Adagio to throw her arm over her eyes in an attempt to block some of it - to no avail, as now she had one suitcase in hand and a bag weighing down on her arm, threatening to send her toppling onto the ground if she didn't fix it.
The girl scoffed from beside her, and although she couldn't exactly see her Adagio had a feeling she was rolling her eyes. "Oh, please! Have you never seen the sun before?"
Not like this. Adagio shoved her thoughts to the back of her mind and relieved her arm of its duty, hoisting the bag back onto her shoulder. The girl 'mph'ed again and waved a expensive car - a limo, Adagio realized - over to them. Once the long black vehicle was in neutral, two men exited the front doors; one took Adagio's only ground-residing suitcase while the other held the door open for both of them. As Adagio followed the young girl towards the chafferers, she felt as if she were being pampered - it reminded her of her past days as a Dazzling, that of which Adagio wasn't hoping to remember her first day back in Canterlot.
"Um, hey," Adagio said quietly, turning to the girl and twining her hands together rather awkwardly, "I never got your name. What is it, if I may ask?"
The girl's amber-gold gaze flickered to her for a moment before going back to twirling her hair. "The name's Skylight - I'm Spitfire's daughter."
Author's Note
Hello! I'm new to FIMfiction, so bear with me as I try to figure this out... I know I'm not the best writer, but I hope that you all will enjoy this story even if it isn't as great as a lot of others. :)
Spitfire will appear in the next chapter - I'm sorry if this story is kind of confusing... I didn't really know what to put as the names of cities and things because in the human world of Equestria, they don't have names...
And I'm sorry if any of these characters in this story seem out-of-character. I'll try my best to keep them respectively in their character.