Even Bad People Like Milkshakes
Adagio was lounging at the back of a booth when Juniper arrived, feet casually propped against the table, exhibiting her cat-like ability to seem completely comfortable anywhere. Tinsel ran along the back of the curving red leather seats, and flashing fairy lights lined the walls in an omnipresent expression of Hearth Warming cheer. Inescapable festive music played from a wall-mounted television by the serving counter.
The siren opened one eye as Juniper sat down. "It's about time you got here."
"Uh, this is the time you said to meet," replied Juniper, nodding at the café's wall clock.
"The time to be here is when I have arrived. Clocks," snorted Adagio, rolling her eyes, "have no sense of timing."
Juniper gave her a sidelong glance, then giggled. "...okay. I'm getting a milkshake. Do you want some eggnog? It's festive."
"I will pass on your culture's atrocity in a cup, thank you. Two milkshakes, then."
Waving her hand in the air, Juniper caught the attention of the server, and ordered. Business was slow, so it wasn't a moment before two tall chocolate milkshakes in thick glasses were set down on the table.
Adagio nodded regally. "Good. Then I declare this meeting of the unreformed-"
"Semi-reformed," interrupted Juniper.
With an exasperated sound, Adagio continued, "-villains of Equestria open. When are you going to drop this 'semi-reformed' idiocy anyway?"
"They're not that bad. At least they like me."
"They ruined everything-" growled Adagio, half-rising from her seat.
"New topic! New topic," interrupted Juniper as quickly as she could. "You should invite Aria and Sonata to these. They're unreformed villains too, right?"
Adagio pointedly took a deep draw of her milkshake through the looping straw, then gave Juniper a baleful look. "As I've said, I have spent quite enough time with that pair of morons, and I do not need them intruding on what little time I have apart from them. You have no idea how long they've been hanging around my heels, always expecting me to come up with the plans. 'Where are we going to sleep? How are we going to eat? I'm hungry, I'm sticky, it's raining' - well, they can shut it."
She took another vicious suck at her straw.
"Yeeeah... that uh, does sound tough." Juniper coughed. "I've been meaning to ask - just how long have you been here? I know you got banished, but..."
Adagio shook her head, with an irritable sound. "Too long. Far too long. I've lost track."
"So, like, a few years...?"
"I can't believe how long it took you idiot bipeds to come up with even the most half-hearted attempt at replicating magic. You have no idea what a relief it was when you discovered electricity, and finally invented lights that weren't on fire. And as for the dark ages... the last century positively flew by in comparison."
Juniper's mouth hung open. "Uh. Uh. Yes! I'm sure it did." She looked down at her drink to cover her confusion. Adagio was way older than she looked.
Sunk in her own gloom, Adagio didn't notice. "I can still remember arriving here. Trapped in a world without magic, full of gaunt, lanky earth ponies that didn't even know how pathetic they were, expected to totter around like them on these - these ridiculous bifurcated stilts!" she burst out, indicating her own legs. "I can't even swim properly, because if I put my head underwater and breathe in, it does not work."
Unable to help herself, Juniper sniggered. She knew she shouldn't, but-
"Sonata almost drowned," added Adagio. "Three times. She is a slow learner. Are you laughing?"
"Only at other people's suffering! I'm allowed! Semi-reformed."
"Well... okay," allowed Adagio grudgingly. "At least you're not trying to cheer me up by getting all sappy at me. If you ever even start on that, we're so through."
Juniper's eyes flashed guiltily to the carrier bag next to her seat. "Nope! No sappy stuff. I'm dangerous and power-mad, and I care more about fame than anypony!"
"Good. Those ponies taint everything they touch," replied Adagio, leaning back. "I've heard that Sunset was a perfectly presentable power-crazed psychopath before they ruined her."
"Maybe we should invite her to the next one-" Juniper began in a joking tone, and stopped as Adagio's eyes flashed with vengeful light. Before the siren could reply, however, a very familiar set of voices rang out through the café. The Rainbooms had flashed up on the television, launching into their rock rendition of a traditional Hearth Warming's carol.
Adagio jerked to her feet, snatching a fork and holding it like a javelin ready to throw. "Shut that off or prepare to lose it!"
The television flickered as the waitress hurriedly changed the channel, then it settled down to a news broadcast. Adagio sunk back into her seat, slamming the fork back into the cutlery pot with unnecessary force. "They're everywhere! Singing, singing, shoving it in my face that they ruined us! We were supposed to be the ones that everypony knows! We were meant to rule!"
"...yeah, it is annoying how they're everywhere. And they're so humble about it! 'Oh, darling, it's just a little fame,'" Juniper mocked, in an echo of Rarity's voice. "It's more than a little fame if you don't have any!"
"I was so close! I had that entire school in the palm of my hand, and that was only the start! With the broadcast magic-"
"-technology-"
"-you have, my voice would have been everywhere! I would have ruled this pathetic world!"
"Well, I was - I was a film star! I had magic, and I was so tall, and strong, and beautiful! Everypony was looking at me! I could have been famous!"
"You should have been!"
"I know! I - I let them out of the mirror, and then they said 'well done', but - but then I had to go back to the cinema the next day, and I got in trouble for leaving without finishing my shift, and I had to clean all the cinema floors! Scrubbing on my hands and knees to get rid of sticky drink stains and old popcorn!"
"When I sing, it - just doesn't - they ruined everything! After all this time without magic, it came back, and I barely tasted it before it was taken away again!"
"That's so unfair!"
"I can't believe you let them out, only so they could swan off and be film stars and singers while you had to go back to sweeping up their stale crumbs!"
"Me neither!"
"So we should destroy them!"
"...uhm," replied Juniper awkwardly, coming to an abrupt stop. She took a long sip of her milkshake, and looked over at Adagio, who was breathing heavily, her face flushed with emotion. "Maybe not yet...? I'm going to a sleepover, and Rarity and Fluttershy are going to give me a makeover, and..."
Adagio threw up her hands in exasperation. "You see? You see what they do? Everything they touch." In a lower tone, she added to herself, "If I still had my powers, I could have just made you agree with me."
"...I can hear you," protested Juniper. "No villain on villain fighting, that's the club's first rule."
"There wouldn't be any fighting if I sang you the right song," replied Adagio, a predatory gleam flashing in her eyes for a moment. "Besides, you're semi-reformed. I could just enchant you half-way."
"The rules, Adagio!"
"Fine," Adagio exhaled, with a pout. "You know that if I ruled this pitiful excuse of a world, I'd make you the biggest film star that ever lived."
Juniper blinked, pushing her glasses up her nose. "You would? Why?"
"Because-" Adagio began, and then floundered slightly, on unfamiliar ground. "Because that's what you want. You deserve it."
"I do want it," agreed Juniper, unable to suppress a flash of longing. "But if you ruled everypony, it wouldn't matter what I wanted, would it?"
"...yes, it would."
"So you want to make me happy?"
Adagio's mouth opened and closed, a distinctly uncomfortable look on her face.
"So you want to make me happy and you'd give me everything I want, if you could?"
"I - what does it matter? I can't," said Adagio shortly, crossing her arms.
"It matters because you want to," replied Juniper brightly. Reaching down beside her, she pulled a package from the carrier bag and pushed it across the table. "Here. This is for you."
"...a Hearth's Warming gift?" asked Adagio, in tones of wary uncertainty.
"Yes. Because I want to, too."
Adagio gave Juniper another sideways look, then tore at the paper roughly. Within, carefully padded, was a silver handled mirror.
Juniper coughed, her cheeks colouring. "It's not magic, but - from one recovering villain to another?"
Picking it up, Adagio examined the mirror from a few angles, then gazed into it and swept a stray lock of her hair back into place with her fingers. Looking up, she smiled at Juniper. "I like it," she replied. "It's a fitting piece of tribute for one as beautiful as I am."
"...um. Yes."
"When I rule, you may have a place in the royal harem."
Juniper's cheeks flamed red. "First rule!"
Author's Note
I wrote this in a morning, from the prompt 'Juniper Montage/Adagio Dazzle' to fill in a missing story in the Jinglemas 2018 story collaboration. It was a fun challenge, especially for characters I'm less practiced with.
