Rules of Etiquette

I came back to consciousness in a state of bliss.

Rather than bother with what felt like the Herculean task of opening my eyes, I nestled into the warmth around me and took stock of myself. I was probably more comfortable than I’d been in most of my life, and it was a struggle to remain awake. Furthermore, there was a deliciously buttery feeling around my thighs and legs that I tentatively identified as supreme sexual satisfaction, not that I would know from experience, and I was nestled against the softest pillows I had ever felt.

Ah, no, wait, those are breasts.

I blinked and looked up to find Adagio cradling me in her arms, her eyes closed gently in slumber and her chest rising and falling with even breaths. The sheets were pulled up around us, the comforter thrown lightly over us, and I noted immediately that my hands were free, as they had at some point in the evening found their way around Adagio and locked themselves there.

I was also still, as Vinyl would put it, ’very naked’ except for my bow tie.

It was tied loosely in place around my neck and it was quite the only thing I was wearing.

A day ago that would have been embarrassing in the extreme, but now it felt… good. The bow tie did originally belong to Adagio after all, and wearing it like this gave me a curious feeling of completion.

I looked around the room and spied my target, a clock, and it read a bit past two in the morning. It had been just a little before ten at night when I’d arrived and I had… somewhat lost track of time after that.

A part of me knew I ought to call Good Form and let him know I was alright, but I was just so damnably comfortable. I looked back up at Adagio and rather than try and move, I took the time to appreciate her.

Her strong, deceptively muscled arms were curled around my slender shoulders, keeping me pressed against her, and her gorgeous hair was pooled around her face like a corona of summer sunlight. Those wonderfully full lips were open slightly with sleeping breath, and I was possessed by the sudden mad urge to kiss her again.

So I did.

I leaned my head up slightly and let my lips come to rest on Adagio’s. I tasted the gentle exhalations of her breath as I kissed her, and suddenly I didn’t want to move. I wanted to stay there, frozen in that single kiss until there was nothing but us. I became almost painfully aware of just how warm and soft she was in my arms, and how good it felt to be held by her.

“Adagio?” I whispered gently, it pained me to wake her up but I needed her to be awake with me.

Maybe it was selfish but I was craving the sound of her voice.

Adagio’s eyes fluttered open, her long lashes tickling my face, and I giggled quietly.

“Mm?” Her reply was a faint, musical hum, and I smiled.

“I’m so sorry,” I said immediately, my voice still low, “I just… I wanted you to be awake and so I woke you up. That… that sounds so silly and childish now that I say it out loud.”

Adagio chuckled, then pulled me closer and I squeaked in delight as she kissed me.

I let my hands rove over her soft skin, firm muscle, and down to her full hips. She really did have the proportions of a pagan fertility goddess.

“Never apologise for wanting my attention, my love,” Adagio murmured as she nibbled at my ear, and I melted in her arms. “I am always happy to oblige you.”

‘My love’, she called me. I felt as though my heart were fit to burst. She called me ‘my love’ and the sound of those words sent silent fireworks through my mind, and I couldn’t help but smile.

“Call me that again,” I said softly, and she smiled back at me.

“Call you what, my love?” Adagio was teasing me and I adored her for it.

I leaned in again and kissed her, and Adagio held me close. I was, I think, happier in that single moment than I’d ever been in my life. After years of searching for my beloved mentor, for the woman who had shaped me for years after she had left my life, I had finally found her.

And she loved me still.

“Are you alright, my Melody?” Adagio asked in a gentle voice, and I shivered as her fingers trailed up my bare back. “You’ve gone quiet.”

I stared into her eyes, warm raspberry jewels that they were, and reached out to touch her cheek as I replied.

“Why did you leave me?” I asked quietly. “Why did you have to go?”

Adagio frowned, and as she did I began to suspect that the eldest Siren sister was incapable of doing anything less than beautifully.

“Because we had fed for too long in Canterlot,” she replied in a weary tone. “Prior to meeting you we had already been in the city for almost six months, riling up local bar scenes and such.”

“That seems somewhat low class for you,” I teased, and Adagio rolled her eyes and grinned.

“It was Aria’s turn to pick the feeding grounds and she prefers the ground level to the penthouse suites,” she replied with a long suffering roll of her eyes. “In fact, we nearly kicked off a gang war, which was our reason for leaving.”

My eyes widened at that.

“How?” I asked. “A-and why?”

Adagio sighed. “Back then our powers were such that if we fed in one place for too long the negative emotions became… exponentially more intense.”

I thought back to how bad things got at CHS just for the week and a half the Sirens had been there, and suddenly understood. It had never gotten worse than a shouting match or harsh words, but those had been bad enough.

“As for why of it?” Adagio actually looked a little ashamed as she continued. “We stayed for almost a year, which was well past our usual self-imposed limit, because of me.”

For a moment I just stared at her. It didn’t take a master detective to suss out why Adagio had refused her sisters’ apparent desire to leave Canterlot.

“Because… because you wanted to stay-”

“-with you, yes,” Adagio admitted. “I had originally taken the teaching job with the idea of spending a month or two fleecing your family for their wealth,” her gaze turned, and I could hear the self-hatred in her voice. Her grip around me actually tightened as if she were afraid I would pull away. “Except then I began actually teaching you and I simply lost myself… you were just so earnest and devoted, and I had never had such an apt pupil before.”

“You shaped me,” I told her simply. “Your lessons etched themselves indelibly on me, and I’ve lived them ever since.”

Adagio let out slightly bitter chuckle.

“I was a poor teacher,” Adagio replied, and I felt her bury her face in my hair. “I adored you, your total certainty in me, your loyalty, and your respect… it meant the world to me… and knowing I was unworthy of it was an unbearable sort of pain.”

I furrowed my brow and pulled myself up closer so we were staring eye-to-eye across the pillow we were sharing.

“Adagio Dazzle, whatever your intentions had been,” I stared evenly at her as I spoke, “what you did was shape me into the woman I am today, and I daresay your lessons are better than half the reason I’m as driven, capable, and skilled as I am!”

“You’re being unfair to yourself, I think,” Adagio replied sternly, though I could feel her relaxing. “You have more talent in your left hand than some have in their entire family tree.” Her hand rose to rest under my chin and angle it up so she could press her lips to my neck. “And you are so very beautiful.”

I let out a shuddering breath.

“That’s overstating it a little, don’t you think?” I countered, shivering as her impossibly soft lips graced the hollow of my neck. “I’m not curvy enough to justify my height nor petite enough to pass as ‘cute’, if I’m honest I think I’m rather plain.”

Adagio nipped at my neck and I let out a squeak of pleasure, and she grabbed my hip in a sudden passion, pulling me forward to grind my sensitive sex against her leg. I gasped as she pressed forward and I felt her fingers dig into my pliant backside.

“How dare you say such a thing,” Adagio hissed, and she rolled her hips, sliding her leg up and down, and drawing out a low moan from me. “How dare you call this exquisite body of yours ‘plain’.”

What happened next will make me blush red as a rose no matter how many years pass.

Adagio sat up sharply, gripped me gently by the hair at the back of my head, bent me over her lap…

And brought one hand down, palm open, in a ringing slap across my bottom.

The sound I made was not one of pain.

“You will-” smack “-never again-” smack “-call yourself-” smack “-plain-” smack “-in my presence or otherwise-” smack “-ever again,” Adagio was breathing hard as she lifted her hand away, staring down at me. “Are we clear?”

Had I been coherent I would have agreed but at that precise moment I was a gelatinous pile of woman quivering blissfully in Adagio’s lap. I could feel the warm, delicious sharpness of the air against my bare ass and the trickle of my own pleasure drenching down my thighs and legs.

So I just nodded instead.

Shaking her hand loose, Adagio brought it to rest on the curve of my bottom, gently stroking the quickly reddening skin and making me tremble in delight.

“Good,” Adagio replied, her hand still moving back and forth in a petting motion. “Really, Miss Melody, I don’t recall teaching you to be so self-effacing… too much time spent around men expecting you to be docile, I should imagine.”

My breath was leaving me in shivers and shudders as my mouth was turned up in a delirious smile. I found myself reflecting on how very enlightening this evening had been… why, I was discovering all kinds of new things about myself.

A veritable journey of self-discovery, this night was turning out to be.

A moan tore its way out of my throat as Adagio went from stroking my sore bottom to sliding two fingers, almost distractedly, into my dripping cunt. They worked in and out of me repeatedly, never ceasing their assault but never rising to the tempo I desperately needed.

I bucked my hips, trying to speed Adagio along, but it only earned me her ire as her fingers slid out from inside me and she brought down another open-palmed slap against my rear.

“Be still,” Adagio commanded as she reinserted her fingers, “I’m not finished doling out your punishment yet, and if you try that again I’ll do worse.”

“W-What could p-possibly be worse than this?!” I whimpered as I tried furiously not to reach back to touch myself or to move my hips any more.

The words she said put a cold chill in my belly.

“Worse,” Adagio replied, her voice filled with a smirk, “is me stopping altogether.”

Well… I did ask, didn’t I?

For an entire agonizing hour Adagio inflicted the most ecstatically pleasurable punishment on me, always keeping me right at the edge of release but never pushing me over it until finally, when I was more or less incoherent, she sank her fingers deep inside me, brought a hand around to gently cradle my neck, and hissed into my ear:

“Now cum for me.”

By that point I had learned to obey.

My mouth fell open in a soundless cry, and I swear my eyes must have rolled back into my head as came to a shaking, quaking climax. It rolled over me a force of nature and when it passed I went slack, utterly spent, and laid panting and sweating in Adagio’s lap.

I was vaguely aware of her moving around me, but my senses were dulled and gray from overstimulation. The scent of something floral drifted by my nose and the sound of running water reached my ears but they were so distant to me in that moment that I paid them no mind.

I felt her return, more than saw her, just as I felt her remove the bow tie from my neck. Then I felt myself rise, being cradled in arms that held me close and safe, and I curled instinctively into Adagio’s embrace as she carried me, bridal style, into her bathroom where she gently and lovingly lowered me into a heated bath.

Adagio sat beside the bathtub, clad in a terrycloth bathrobe, and hummed a soft tune as she scrubbed at my arms and chest. I recall her taking her time with my legs and then carefully moving me forward to wash my back. Then she laid me back again and doled out a small glob of shampoo and began working it into a lather in my hair.

With practiced motions she massaged it into my scalp and I felt myself drifting out of my own body as I relaxed. Her hands were talented and precise, and I had the distinct impression she had once done this professionally.

Given her true age, though, I suppose that’s probably more likely than not.

“Are you well, my love?” Adagio asked in a tender tone.

I sighed blissfully.

“I am so much more than well, my dearest Adagio,” I replied breathily as I let my head loll against her shoulder. “I love you so dearly…”

“Even with all the years that lay between us?” Adagio asked, and I could hear the uncertainty in her voice. “Even with all I’ve done?”

I lifted a hand from the warm water of the bath and twined our fingers together.

“I have missed you for all of those years,” I replied, looking up to meet her gaze. “And I swore I would find you one day, and I finally have and, although I’m certain I didn’t realize it myself, I was even saving myself for you.”

That got a quirked eyebrow from her, and Adagio laughed her rich, husky laugh.

“Because you knew I would be immortal?” She asked.

“Well, if I’m honest…” I replied with a small laugh, “I think I’d rather convinced myself you’d been having me on about that whole ‘immortal’ bit… no, I was prepared for something of a December-May relationship, as it were.”

“How scandalous,” Adagio jeered playfully, “now get out of the water before your beautiful skin starts to wrinkle.”

Adagio toweled me off, something she insisted on doing herself, and as I left the bath I had to lean the lion's share of my weight on her. I wasn’t heavy by any means, but my legs had taken up with unsavory sorts and implemented some kind of strike against the bourgeoisie oppression of my brain, and thus refused to support me.

As it was I was half-carried back to the bed, and I curled against Adagio as she pulled the sheets and covers back over us.

“I suppose this is a bit late to ask,” I ventured sleepily as my head found that deliciously soft spot on her chest. “But I hope I can call myself yours now, in the official sense.”

“If you would have me in return,” Adagio replied, her voice was almost a plea.

I smiled as I wrapped my arms more fully around Adagio’s generous chest, purring softly as I trailed my fingers down the defined muscles of her back.

“I think will,” I replied with all the impish smugness I could manage, and her laugh was like music to my ears.

Two weeks more had passed and they were quite the most blissful weeks of my life up to that point.

Orchestra rehearsal was, of course, a constant. If we weren’t touring we were practicing, and well we should be, but between those hours spent in the rehearsal halls of Canterlot I devoted every spare hour I could to Adagio, making up for fifteen years of lost time wasn’t going to just happen after all.

Of course we spent a good portion of that in the bedroom, but significantly more of it was spent simply being… together.

We whiled away hours walking side-by-side through the snow-dappled business districts of old town and the so called magnificent mile. Drove the length of the winter-clad wonderland of the Gold Coast, with all the wealthy homes done up in their most ostentatiously gauche Christmas finery.

For all my love of my music, a woman’s career can’t be her entire life. No one’s can… not really. There has to be more to it than simple accomplishment.

There has to be something more civilized for it to be called ‘life’ and I found that in Adagio.

She was every inch the urbane wit I remembered from childhood, with her wry, caustic humor never failing to earn a laugh. Our conversations spanned topics I could never have hoped to reach with anyone else; politics, history, art in its many facets from music to sculpture.

There was no topic she didn’t have an opinion on, and no opinion that wasn’t well considered if not influenced by first-hand experience.

And in a thousand years she had a lot of experience.

“Wait, wait,” I pleaded, struggling to swallow. “For the love of all that’s holy let me finish my drink first unless you want me choking to death.”

Adagio gave magnanimous gesture of her hand and I swallowed the mouthful of pinot gris I’d taken a moment earlier.

It was late in the evening and Adagio’s presence wasn’t required at the Note for the night, so we had decided to go out to eat. The restaurant was a high class affair called La Mer, and it served some of the better wines in the area, that and their lobster thermidor was to die for.

I had dressed for the occasion, a daring open-backed, shoulderless gown of pale grey silk whose straps were woven around my neck and were accentuated by my ever present pink bow tie. Adagio looked gorgeous, naturally, but I strongly suspected that woman could crawl out from under an engine block and make it look good.

She hadn’t, obviously, and was wearing a form-hugging dressed with a high neck reminiscent of a kimono mixed with an event gown that seemed to be made of overlapping golden scales which caught the light beautifully. Around her neck was a silver necklace studded with amethysts, and a similar ring on her right hand. Her wonderfully voluminous hair was done in an elaborate updo that I’m certain violated at least two laws of physics and a handful of Federal statutes.

“Alright, go on,” I said, still laughing.

“So, no shit, there we are,” Adagio began with a laugh. “Charlemane is kneeling before the pope who’s about to crown him, everyone is watching, the whole cathedral is silent and suddenly the silence broken by a deafening crunching sound.”

“Don’t tell me…” I muttered, blushing a little as I felt Adagio’s leg tangle playfully with mine beneath the table. “Sonata?”

Adagio nodded her head dolefully.

“The entire congregation, myself included, turned our heads,” she continued, “all of them staring at my sisters and I… and Sonata was staring innocently back with some kind of crunchy sweet wafer she had sang out of a street stall vendor still in her mouth!” Adagio threw her hands up in mock dismay. “I was mortified! We’d been in the human world less than a century but it wasn’t exactly hermetic arcana to know not eat in a temple during a ceremony!”

“What did you do?” I asked, leaning forward and returning fire on her game of footsie with some playful tickling along her thigh. “Do tell.”

Her cheeks flushed prettily and I felt my heart racing.

“I plucked the wafer directly out of her mouth,” Adagio replied, “stood up, pitched it out the window and off the nearby balcony, then turned back and sat down.”

“And then?” I pressed, still chuckling.

“And then,” Adagio continued. “Aria began to snore.”

“Good heavens,” I was holding a hand to my mouth and it was all I could do not to burst into fits of laughter in the middle of the restaurant.

“At that point the soon-to-be Holy Roaman Emperor turns his head to regard us from where he is kneeling before the Pope,” Adagio laughed mellifluously, and I loved every note of it, “the Pope himself is staring at us too, which is when Sonata, bless her, takes yet another wafer from where she’d apparently stowed them in her robes and crunches into, and Aria slips off of the pew to clatter to the ground and continues to snore!” I give up entirely, and the restaurant is filled with my laughter. “Now here I am staring in disbelief at my sisters and finally I just start shrieking obscenities and bellow out my strongest amnesia song.”

“Wait,” I interrupted, coughing as I tried to catch my breath, “you wiped away the crowning of King Charlemane? But that happened!”

“Well, obviously,” Adagio replied, waving her hand dismissively. “I put a little too much oomph into my spell, and ended up blanking the whole day out for everyone in the city. They woke up the next morning and just… did it all again.”

“Wouldn’t that play havoc with their schedules?” I asked, still chuckling.

Adagio coughed again, her cheeks reddening.

“Ah, yes, about that,” Adagio made a little wheeling motion with her hand. “Their astrologers and such were so confounded by the lost day it caused a bit of havoc,” she leaned back in her chair and took a sip of her own wine. “Apparently, they did all kinds of things to make up for it, but by then we’d fled the city. It played merry Tartarus with all of their rituals, since they were measured by seasons and the like… anyway I’m at least passingly certain that’s where that whole ‘leap year’ nonsense came from, sorry about that.”

I jumped slightly in my chair and let out small squeak of surprise that I judiciously turned into a cough as I felt Adagio’s foot, sans her shoe which I assumed was still under the table, slide far up my leg and come to rest somewhere far more sensitive.

Blushing, I cleared my throat, took a drink, and fixed her with an even stare.

“Really?” I asked, trying to keep my voice as flat as possible.

“I don’t see you stopping me, my love,” Adagio cooed, still leaning back and I realized she had done it so she could extend her leg more.

I rolled my eyes but my smile couldn’t be kept from my face as I met her eyes.

“You’re a louse, Adagio Dazzle,” I replied, playful causticity in my voice.

“And how,” Adagio agreed with a toothy grin, before pulling her foot away.

Well she did because otherwise I would have ruined my dress, and I was rather fond of it. I certainly wouldn’t have dared take it to a dry cleaners… I could only imagine the whisperings that cleaning would have provoked.

“Have I told you this evening how lovely and enchanting you are?” Adagio asked gaily, still grinning over the lip of her wineglass.

“At last count it was eleven times,” I replied with my own smile as I swirling my glass and took a small sip, “but please, do go on.”

“Octavia Melody?” A slightly reedy voice spoke up from nearby and I glanced to the side.

My eyebrows rose in surprise. Being seated a few tables away was a tall, thin man that I recognized easily, though the woman he was with I did not.

“Bolero,” I said, my surprise evident in my voice. “Good evening, what a coincidence.”

“Indeed it is,” he said genially. “Allow me to introduce my wife, Stretta.”

She was a slightly short woman with cherry red hair, a softly green complexion, a kind face, and had the weight of a woman who lived comfortably, but carried it in a attractive, matronly way. She very much reminded me of an almost archetypal mother figure and I found myself liking her immediately.

“A pleasure,” I said sincerely, then gestured to Adagio. “I’d like you to meet my girlfriend, Adagio Dazzle.”

Adagio inclined her head regally to the pair of them.

“Charmed,” she said, her lips curved in that enigmatic manner I found so fetching.

“Girlfriend?” Boléro raised his eyebrows slightly, “oh… I never realized you were, Ah… so inclined.”

“Is that a problem?” Adagio asked, her voice was perfectly civil but I could hear cold, hidden steel beneath it.

Stretta elbowed her husband gently in the ribs before turning back to us.

“Of course not,” she said warmly, and I found her voice to be pleasantly soft. “My husband was simply surprised, that’s all, he’s a bit dense but a good man.”

To my surprise, Boléro chuckled, nodding along to his wife’s playful deprecations. She leaned into him as she spoke, her head resting comfortably against his narrow chest, and in that moment I quite regretted every ill thought I’d ever had about the man.

True, he wasn’t a particularly exceptional cellist, and yes… I still didn’t believe he deserved to hold the first chair… but that was, perhaps, being unfair to him as a person.

“Are you here on some occasion?” Boléro asked brightly as they settled into their seats.

“Just spending an evening together,” I replied. “We’re both quite busy, the demands of business and life, such as it is… you?”

“Well, quite so actually,” Boléro replied. “I was going to make the announcement tomorrow at rehearsals but I see no issue in telling you now… I’m retiring from the orchestra.”

I blinked in shock. “W-What? Why?”

“He’s taking up a teaching position at the Fillydelphia Academy of Musical Arts,” Stretta said proudly. “He’s always wanted to be a teacher and he was offered the position last month!”

For a moment I felt displaced… caught cleanly off guard. The idea of giving up a position in the Canterlot Philharmonic Orchestra was unthinkable to me but, then, I supposed he wasn’t me. He had his own dreams and desires, and in truth I imagined he would make a phenomenal instructor.

Boléro’s technical skill had always been flawless, he simply lacked the finesse and passion of an artist. A role as a teacher, though, I imagined would suit him wonderfully.

“I fully intend to recommend you to my chair, as well,” Boléro said pleasantly. “We both know you ought to have had it long before now.”

“W-well I’m sure I don’t-” I sputtered, but Boléro waved his hand with a wry chuckle.

“Don’t spare my feelings, Miss Melody,” he replied with a self-effacing grin. “I had the chair by virtue of seniority and office politics, not my ability, everyone in the Orchestra knows you’ve got more skill than most of the string section combined.”

“Oh, I like you,” Adagio said, looking at Boléro and laughing smokily as she reached out and took my hand. “Maître d′!”

Adagio snapped her fingers and with moments an older man with dark skin and braided hair appeared, his suit sharp and neatly pressed and his beard trimmed evenly.

“How can I help you Miss Dazzle?” He asked curtly.

“Put their bill on my tab, dear,” Adagio gestured to Boléro and Stretta, “they’re celebrating a new career and tonight is on me.”

The pair stared at one another for a shocked moment before turning to Adagio.

“M-ma’am, you really don’t-” Stretta began, but Adagio cut her off.

“Oh but I do,” she countered. “Your husband recognizes talent and has very much earned my good graces by offering a hand to the love of my life,” she gestured to me and I blushed heavily. “In my very expert opinion that deserves something, even if it is simply an excellent meal in good company.”

“But-” Boléro put in, but he too was neatly given a verbal roadblock.

“Ah, Ah, Ah,” Adagio tutted, “it’s rude to deny a gift, don’t you think? Don’t make me offer again, I’ll look needy and I do hate looking needy.”

Boléro and his wife shared another look, she shrugged, he nodded, sharing that odd sort of language married couples seem to develop over tone.

“Only if you would do us the honor of joining us,” Boléro finally allowed, and Adagio smiled radiantly.

“We would be delighted.”

To my surprise I found I rather liked Boléro, and I felt a pang of dismay that he would soon be leaving. I had always considered him with a certain scorn, but his humility and generally kind nature really did endear him to me.

“Are you alright, Octavia?” Boléro asked as he took another bite of his cheesecake, then swallowed. “You look… distracted.”

At some point during the conversation we’d begun more casually using one another’s names. I find it almost galling that Boléro and I should have so much in common and that only my arrogance kept me from realising it.

“I suppose I am,” I replied quietly. “Boléro, before you leave I have a confession to make.”

“Oh?” He looked me in the eye with a wry, weary sort of smile. “Is it anything to do with contempt, my dear?”

I stiffened, and my hand found Adagio’s almost instinctively. She gave me a warm smile, though, as she stroked the back of my hand with her thumb.

“Don’t be so put out, Octavia, you’re hardly the only one,” he said with a chuckle.

“That’s hardly a laughing matter!” I shot back, feeling more than a little angry, with no small amount of that anger directed inward. “You’re a good man, Boléro, and damn any woman or man who says otherwise!”

Stretta smiled brilliantly at my remark before patting her husband’s chest.

“You see?” She said in that markedly pleased tone every wife gets when she’s proven right about something over her husband. “I told you she’s a good egg…” then she turned to me with a conspiratorial smile. “He was always too nervous to speak to you casually, you know,” she confided in a stage whisper. “You intimidate him, along with most of the other ramrod-arsed men in that Orchestra.”

“Hah!” Adagio barked out a laugh, before taking another sip of whiskey as she grinned toothily at Stretta. “Oh Boléro I absolutely adore your wife, tell me Stretta how on earth did he manage to catch you? With all the love in the world, you’re well out of this man’s strike zone.”

“I’ve been saying that for years,” Boléro lamented playfully, putting an arm around his wife.

“Believe it or not it didn’t take much,” Stretta replied with a laugh. “He’s honest, earnest, humble, kind… really, what more could a woman ask for?”

“Talent?” Boléro ventured with a self-deprecating laugh.

“That’s terribly unfair,” I admonished him, even though a day ago I might’ve thought the same thing.

“Please, I admire you too much for that, Octavia,” Boléro replied sternly. “My tenure and my family’s patronage put me in that chair, which is probably the worst kept secret in the Orchestra besides whoever Brassy’s latest affair is.”

“Those are only a secret because no one can keep track of them all,” I groaned. “Why that woman even bothered getting married is beyond me.”

“It’s all politics darling,” Adagio chided. “So long as she’s married and keeps up the basic pretense of fidelity she lends a certain respectability to her position in the Orchestra.”

“Just so,” Boléro agreed. “It’s why I was first chair at all, being the oldest member of the Orchestra and an ‘appropriately dapper-looking gentleman’, Stalling’s words not mine.”

Stalling Reins, the director of the Orchestra, and one of my least favorite people on the planet.

“It certainly wasn’t for my talent,” Boléro said with a laugh. “I’m capable, not exceptional, and certainly not phenomenal like you, dear Octavia.”

The unkind thoughts I’d had about Boléro and the word ‘capable’ came back to me a shame-filled rush and I grimaced.

“Well… skill and talent have no bearing on one’s quality,” Adagio said after a moment. “Whatever your skills, you have my respect.”

“And mine,” I added firmly. “For whatever blinkered arrogance I was originally possessed of, you may consider me a friend if you’ll have me.”

Stretta and Boléro shared a warm look before nodding graciously to me.

“We can always use more friends,” Stretta said, raising her glass, “and new opportunities.”

“Cheers,” I replied, raising my own glass.

Adagio’s and Boléro’s glasses joined ours moments later and I felt, in that moment, an odd sort of satisfaction. The primal and very necessary joy of good food, good company, and good memories.