Rules of Etiquette

I’ve never liked Detrot all that much.

Motor City they call it, the birthplace of the automobile.

A rundown asphalt apocalypse of shut factories and poor business decisions is what I’d call it, but then I’m an unemployed cellist so what the hell do I know?

“It’s five in the morning, my love, come back to bed,” Adagio’s voice was as warm and sleepy as it was enticing, and I pulled my sleeping robe around my otherwise naked body a little tighter to ward off the chill.

As I did, I glanced back to the king-sized bed and smiled warmly.

The penthouse suite of the Cadillac Hotel, one of the nicest in the city, was quite a place. I could have fit the lion’s share of my apartment in a single room, and the view would have been quite extraordinary were it not for all the smog.

It was still quite breathtaking of course, the great skyline of Motor City was a striking one. Skyscrapers, like spears of steel and concrete, thrust out of the earth and poison smoke like defiant pylons of industry, and the new dawn light played all manner of colors in the spectrum of oil across the air and windows.

I’m not sure why I woke up, only that I did and that I was entranced by the view beyond the wide windows of the suite.

Such had been the case more often than not ever since the contract had been secured between the Last Note Lounge and better than a dozen Fortune Five Hundred companies and we’d embarked on our months-long trip around the nation, even spending one memorable week in Stalliongrad.

Three months in and I’d probably seen more of the upper crust of my world than I’d ever been privy to even as a premier cellist, which is saying something. The Canterlot Philharmonic Orchestra is widely regarded as one of the finest in the world and, as such, I have attended some truly extravagant events, but the sheer power on display amongst the board rooms and country clubs where Adagio held her meetings left me feeling a little out of my depth.

Adagio on the other hand, who was currently curled up like a great cat, bundled up in the comforters and sheets of the enormous bed, seemed entirely comfortable in such situations.

Watching her execute her little power plays between CEO’s and millionaire shareholders was not dissimilar to watching a master pianist execute a highly technical masterpiece while blindfolded. Moreover, Adagio insisted I attend all of the meetings alongside her, even if I wasn’t quite certain why.

I could only assume there was a greater underlying intention behind it, one that I’ve been more than happy to go along with.

Well… willing to go along with.

I sighed quietly, feeling more than a little inadequate.

“Octavia~” Adagio whined restlessly from under the covers.

“Sorry, darling… can’t sleep,” I said quietly, stifling a small laugh, before turning back to stare out the window again. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

“Mm… sleeping is far less satisfying when I do it alone, you know,” came Adagio’s grumpy reply, and she rustled under the sheets, poking an arm out to gesture for me to return to her.

I sighed again and chuckled.

“Whatever did you do before you found me then?” I asked wryly, wrapping my arms around myself to ward off the cold. “Lay awake at night and suffer?”

There was a stretch of silence before Adagio finally replied.

“More often than you might think,” the quiet response caught me off guard and I blinked in surprise.

I sidled back over to the bed and slipped beneath the covers and I felt Adagio’s arms go around me, and a reflexive sigh of relief escaped my lips. There was something indescribably comforting about the feeling of being held by someone you trust utterly, something that made all the tense muscles in my body relax in a soothing wave.

“I love you,” I said quietly as I nestled closer, and her fingers wove delicately through my hair.

“As I love you, my Melody,” Adagio whispered, her voice low but more wakeful now.

I stared at her pensively for several moments; her gorgeous, raspberry eyes had a distance to them that I could almost feel. I reached out, brushing my fingers along her cheeks.

“Talk to me, love,” I said, breaking through the dense silence. “Please…”

Adagio closed her eyes and sighed.

“What should I talk about, dearest?” Adagio asked, a tension in her voice.

“Whatever is troubling you, perhaps?” I ventured, before leaning in to brush my lips against hers. “You’ve been distant lately… don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

“Have I?” Adagio whispered, before furrowing her brow in that curiously charming manner of hers, “perhaps I have…”

“Is… is it me?” I asked the question that had been digging into my heart like a persistent thorn. “Have I done something wrong?”

Adagio shook her head firmly before reaching out and fixing her hands over my hips and pulling me close, and I blushed furiously she pressed her deliciously full body to mine. Even after having been a couple for nearly half a year, I still found myself entertaining whole fleets of butterflies in my belly every time Adagio made one of her customary advances.

“Never,” Adagio said, her voice still a gentle whisper. “It’s me, or at least I believe it is… there is a weight on my soul, dear Melody, and I’m not quite certain how to resolve it.”

“Then let me help,” I pressed the issue, My palm resting against one warm cheek. “Are we not together in this? I should think we’re a couple, and partners, in more than just title.”

“Of course we are,” Adagio replied, her eyes suddenly burning intensely. “I… I rely on you more than you know… and it all feels so horribly unbalanced.”

I felt my stomach fall as she spoke the words.

I didn’t strictly disagree on that point, nor could I. I possessed substantial savings thanks to my frugal lifestyle but my new lack of employment prospects meant they wouldn’t last forever. I’d given up my apartment mostly due to pragmatism since I’d not be using it for almost a year, and my possessions had been moved into one of the rooms of the Last Note adjacent Adagio’s quarters.

Even Good Form was no longer in my employ, if only technically.

With the mass renovations and expansions of the Last Note, and the inevitable influx of new employees, Adagio had all but begged me to let her take on Good Form as Head of Staff.

I’d agreed, of course.

I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d had to let him go, although honestly I doubt he would permit me to. This way he still technically fulfilled the role he wanted in taking care of me and was, in addition, responsible for fully maintaining the discipline of the wait staff in the Note.

Something he seemed to do with great relish, or inasmuch relish as someone so perpetually phlegmatic could aspire to.

The crux of the matter now was that I had become little more than arm candy to Adagio. I know she didn’t think of me as such, but as much as I believed in the concept that a woman had to have more than just her career giving flavor to her life, one also had to have some kind of fulfilling work on the other side of that coin.

I refused to become some dilettante trophy wife who could only lounge and become more vacuous by the day!

And yet, as I had feared, that ornery bastard Stalling had ensured I was blacklisted from every reputable organization in the area.

It wasn’t said out loud, obviously, for fear of discrimination lawsuits and such, but my orientation towards the fairer sex had made me persona non grata amongst the so-called cultured elite.

The admission from Adagio still stung though, and I curled against her as if wounded.

“I know…” I said in a small voice. “I… I’ve been trying to find something… anything, but no one will have me after Stalling had his word in.”

Adagio looked down at me with the oddest look of surprise on her face.

“B-but that hardly means I’m giving up!” I forced some determination that I wasn’t sure I was really feeling into my voice. “I know I… I don’t contribute anything and I know that you say you don’t care, but I also know that I’m little more than a pretty girl on your arm for the time being and-”

“What on Earth and Equestria are you talking about?” Adagio asked, her voice becoming a harsh hiss, and I recoiled a little at the fire in it.

“I… well, you only said what I’d been thinking,” I explained slowly, shifting a little uncomfortably as I sat up and pulled some of the covers around me. “About what we have feeling unbalanced, I mean, after all I…” I scoffed a little bitterly, my lips twisting in time with my gut, “I’m not exactly doing anything, am I?”

Adagio’s face went several fascinating shades of red and purple as she worked her jaw, seemingly lost for words, and I quite had the feeling I had misinterpreted her comment.

A feeling that was confirmed when she spoke in a strangled voice:

“I was talking about myself!”

I blinked in confusion.

“You… what?” I pulled the blankets around me a little as I stared at her. “You feel… like you’re… what? Not doing enough?”

“Obviously!” Adagio cried, sitting up and yanking back a share of the covers in annoyance to try and rebuild her cocoon. “How could you possibly think I would ever say something like that of you?”

“W-well, it’s not as though I haven’t been thinking it!” I countered defensively. “You have to admit I haven’t exactly been very productive the past few months!”

Adagio grabbed one of the large, overly puffy pillows that were scattered about and pressed it over her face, letting out a strangled scream of frustration into that was muffled by the thick fabric.

Dropping the pillow, Adagio fixed me with an even, withering glare.

“I… understand how you could come to that conclusion, my love,” the last two words had an inflection that sounded much more like ‘you lovely idiot’, “but rest assured that is the furthest thing from my mind… literally.”

Adagio was the one to curl in on herself this time, pulling away from me as she did while staring down sullenly at the rumpled bedclothes. Something in her body language conveyed a sense of unease, of wrongness, and something else as well.

Guilt.

“Adagio?” I said her name softly.

We so rarely used one anothers names, I realised. It was always pet names, or terms of endearment, and in a way that habit lent a greater weight to the word than even I had anticipated. I saw my love flinch at the sound of her name, and her eyes darted around as if looking for an escape. I got the sense that she’d said something she hadn’t meant to, or that she had tipped her hand accidentally and shown me something she’d been keeping close to the vest.

Considering her true age and experience, such a mistake was out of character for her.

Or… perhaps it wasn’t.

Not if I considered it in another way.

I had seen the brittle nature of Adagio’s mental fortress three months prior, when the idea of losing me for the better part of year had driven her into a drunken rage. She had struck an obstacle that her unstoppable drive had found utterly unyielding and she had smashed to pieces against it.

I wondered if perhaps her slip-up hadn’t just betrayed something of her mind. I wondered if the fact of its occurrence also revealed her state of mind.

Reaching out, I let my fingers press gently to her cheek to guide her face back to align with my own. Her raspberry eyes were so beautiful, but this morning they were speckled with fear and doubt.

“What are you hiding from me?” I asked firmly, her gaze boring in her, and I saw her flinch.

For all her grace and savvy, Adagio had never been able to lie to my face.

“It’s my fault,” Adagio’s voice was a small, tear-choked whisper, and felt a trembling shiver sink deep into her bones and stay there. “It’s all my fault.”

“What is?” I asked, feeling an unfamiliar fear well up from my gut. “What could you possibly have done?”

“This,” Adagio cried bitterly, her mouth twisting up in a pained frown, “you!”

Adagio pulled away from me, rising from the bed in a jerking, hasty motion as she flung the sheets and blankets from her naked body and swept up her nightgown, pulling it fast around her and yanking it tight to ward off the cool morning air.

She was still shaking.

“Me?” I asked in a pained voice. “What did I do?!”

“NOTHING!” Adagio cried, still not turning to look at me. “It’s me! I’ve ruined you and I can’t… I can’t stop hurting you!”

I stared at her, flabbergasted and confused.

“Adagio, my love,” I began tentatively, keeping my voice in a low, placating tone as I rose from the bed slowly to approach her, “I’m sure I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” I laid my hands gently on her shoulders, feeling the broad muscles there which were even now quivering and tense with strain. “Please… if you don’t talk to me then I’ll never understand!”

The eldest Siren sister, my lover, and the center of my world, was silent for a long time. I never lifted my hands, instead just letting her feel me close and hoping that she would come back to me from wherever it was her mind had taken her.

Eventually, she did, turning her head to look at me with one eye that was wide and terrified as she hugged herself.

“I can’t breathe,” Adagio croaked out the words. “Every day it feels like I’m drowning or choking to death on the stress…” slowly, she turned to face, and I swear I’d never seen her look so fragile. “Every day I balance a thousand tempests in a thousand teacups, each on a thousand spinning plates on a thousand poles, and if even one drops…”

Adagio shuddered violently, and I swear I heard a clicking sounds come from her jaw as she grit her teeth hard.

“Any one of these people I’m dealing with has the potential political clout to ruin my sisters and I,” Adagio hissed, “I’ve never had to deal with humans like this before, fearing them like this…” she heaved in a gasp of air and shivered again. “You keep me grounded… I’m not sure I could do this day in and day out if I didn’t have you by my side.”

Looking up at me with her eyes brimming with tears, Adagio slowly relaxed her fingers, reached out her hands, and let them come to rest on my hips, pulling me close to her as she did, and her hands traveled up and down my body, leaving shivers behind wherever they touched.

“Every time I feel like I’m about to crack or snap during one of those meetings,” Adagio said slowly, letting her forehead come to rest on mine, and I could almost feel the mental strain she was under as she did, “every time I think I can’t do it… or that I’m about to fall apart, I look at you and I see that same, perfect, total confidence in me that you’ve always had and… and I would tell myself, ‘one more time, I can do this one more time’, an endless string of ‘one more time’s.”

“I had no idea,” I said gently, then leaned up and brushed my lips against hers. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“How could I?” Adagio asked in a pained voice. “How could I say I was fraying at the edges… coming apart at the seams every day only to lay in your arms every night and feel you put me back together again?”

“Because you love me,” I said quietly. “And because I love you.”

Adagio let out a quiet sob and relaxed into my arms, and I wrapped them around her, holding her tight as she shook silently.

“I feel like I’m going to throw up most days,” Adagio gasped out, “like my stomach is trying to twist in on itself, and every morning I wake up wondering if this is the day I fail and damn us all!” She held onto me tightly suddenly, and sobbed again. “And if I drag you down with me I don’t think I’d ever forgive myself, not after everything you’ve done for me.”

“What have I done?” I asked incredulously, “what have I done that makes you feel as if everything in unbalanced? I’m barely doing anything!”

“You destroyed your career for me!” Adagio cried out as she pulled back, her face twisting into a pained rictus.

I staggered back at the sudden passion and fervor in her voice, and stared as Adagio shook, unconsciously clenching and unclenching her fingers .

“If you hadn’t been involved with me you would still have your position in the Orchestra!” Adagio continued furiously, “everything went wrong because of your relationship with me!”

“That’s ridiculous!” I countered, sweeping my hand in a cutting motion as I felt my temper rising. “My relationship with you didn’t make that wretched excuse of a director any more or less of a bigot!”

“You could have kept your life without me!” Adagio snapped. “Look at what I’ve done to you!”

I blinked, and for a moment I saw it again: the brittle, strained nature of Adagio’s mental walls that bore so much weight as she tried to protect her sisters, herself, and me at the same time as she tried to balance everything else, building a future for them as well as fearing for their safety.

“I fell to pieces because I feared losing you again,” Adagio’s voice cracked as she ran her hands through her hair wild mane of hair. “I lost you once all those years ago and I couldn’t bear for it to happen again, but I could do nothing about it! Then…” she let out a wracking sob that turned into a half-hysterical laugh, “then you just… gutted your entire life right in front of me and suddenly my problems vanished!”

“It was about more than just you, darling,” I said in a small voice, reaching out to her as I spoke but she recoiled from me and I felt a stab of pain go through my heart as she did. “I couldn’t countenance working for that horrible man once I knew what he was about, you understand? My integrity… it wouldn’t allow it.”

Adagio just huffed and looked away from me, and something about that petulant action at that moment did it.

My patience quite simply ran out.

I stomped my foot on the ground like a furious child and let out an inchoate scream of rage.

“WOULD YOU GET OVER YOURSELF YOU OVERDRAMATIC, ORANGE, GUPPY!” I shouted, grabbing one of the large pillows and slinging it into Adagio’s face with a dull thwump that staggered her backwards in shock.

Stomping forward and kicking the errant pillow away, I closed the distance between us and reached out with both hands to capture her face.

“You listen to me, Adagio Dazzle, and listen well,” I snarled, dragging her down to my level, “you do not get to decide what my moral integrity is worth, nor do you get to claim dominion over it!”

Adagio’s eyes had gone wide as saucers as I glared at her.

“I left that miserable organization for me,” I continued, unwilling to give up the momentum I’d managed to gather. “I will not, ever, permit my music to be played in service to a hidebound bigot whose only concern is pleasing a bunch of mean-souled, anachronistic, old fogeys who wouldn’t recognize real love if it bit them right in their wrinkled old arses!” I was breathing hard by this point, my cheeks flushed with anger, and Adagio was staring in shock, but I wasn’t done. “Do not believe for a moment that my remaining on that orchestra, knowing the things I know now and irrespective of our relationship, would have been anything less than the total compromise of my ideals and artistic soul, Miss Dazzle!”

I let out a slow, shuddering breath as I let Adagio go and took a step back, wringing my hands as I forced myself to calm down. For Adagio’s part, she remained where I left her, poleaxed by my outburst.

“If I am truly sorry for anything,” I said in a quieter voice, “it is only that I did not recognize the guilt and pain my actions caused you until now,” I sighed, rubbing my temples for a moment as I shook my head. “I ought to have been more considerate, because I… I see how you came to believe that what I did was for your sake, but please, please understand that I acted for my own peace of mind, more than anything.”

After a few moments Adagio closed her eyes, let out a shaky breath, and I watched as she slowly start to piece herself back together again.

Truly, I did feel bad that I hadn’t realised how much strain she had been under the past few months, but in fairness my love is an old hand at dissembling and if she didn’t want others to know her mind then they could damn well sit and spin for all the good trying to read her face would do them.

“I just…” Adagio began, her voice still cracked and raw, “I feel as though I’ve gone back to the way I was before… ruining lives to ease my own,” a shudder ran through her as she covered her face with her hands. “For so long this was the way of things, I would snare someone’s heart and destroy their life until they were of no more use to me, then I would lose interest and… and leave.”

Ah, and there it was: the crux of the matter. I sighed quietly, grimacing as I finally understand the heart of Adagio’s pain.

“You are not the woman you once were, Miss Dazzle,” my voice was low but it held a strength that surprised even me as I took a step forward and took her hands, pulling them from her face. “You were a destroyer once, yes, and you have your share of sins, but you are different now.”

“How can you know?” Adagio asked weakly. “How can you know that I won’t just… take advantage of you?”

“Because the very idea of it seems to terrify you to your bones,” I replied wryly. “Look at you… you’re practically coming apart at the seams at the mere idea that you’ll go back to the person you were.”

‘Isn’t that fair?” Adagio hissed the words out in a tone I would have taken for anger if I didn’t know how scared she was. “Isn’t it fair that I be wary of what an utterly horrible monster I once was?” Her fingers twined with mine and she pulled me close as if she feared me pulling away.

As if I ever would.

“If I ever truly hurt you, my Melody,” Adagio said in a low, gentle voice, “I do believe it would properly kill me.”

“You cannot dwell on your past mistakes forever, my love,” I replied, pulling away just enough to look up into those wonderfully warm raspberry eyes of hers. “You can’t weep over them forever either… what kind of life can we have if you never let them go?”

“Why should I?” Adagio bit the words out bitterly. “What am I that I am immune to the consequences of my actions?!”

“No one is immune,” I said firmly, hardening my gaze on her. “But as to what you are? You, Adagio Dazzle, are a lady, and if I remember my lessons correctly,” I smirked a little as I went up on my toes to kiss her quickly before dropping back down, “a lady is not her tears nor her errors, she is power and poise, she is grace and excellence in all things.”

Adagio’s features fell to a neutral stare for several moments as she took in my words, her eyes never breaking from my gaze as she did.

I all but held my breath as I waited for her to respond. I knew her well enough by now to know that I’d broken through something in her psyche with my words. I could see that fantastic mind of hers spinning and whirring as she slowly nodded, like a debater conceding a point, and then closed her eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again and giving me a faint smile.

“You shame me, my Melody,” Adagio said finally, a wry smile turning her lips upward. “I think all of this time spent being human has rather bent my mind… I don’t recall becoming unhinged so easily before now.”

“The strain of the mortal coil, I’m afraid,” I said, chuckling dryly as I did. “It happens to the best of us.”

“I suppose it does,” Adagio agreed before slipping her arms around my waist and pulling me close. “And yet I still feel that… that guilt, for what has happened to your career.”

“It’s not got me in the finest mood either, my dear,” I replied blithely. “But it is what it is, it wasn’t your doing and, frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way… not if it meant working for that odious wretch for one moment longer than I had to.”

Before I could say another word, Adagio let out a small huffing laugh, then made a grunt of effort as she lifted my at my waist and slung me over her shoulder.

I let out a startled and wholly undignified squawk of surprise as she carried me over to the bed, my legs and arms flailing as she dropped me down onto the soft, voluminous mattress. I had barely managed to right myself before Adagio had poised herself over me, grinning down like a predatory cat as her wide, full hips straddled mine.

“I wonder if I couldn’t improve your mood, my love,” Adagio said in a frustratingly nonchalant tone of voice, her relaxed smile never wavering. “Do you think so?”

“I should think that it’s within the realm of possibility,” I replied, not to be out-done in the manner of cool demeanors.

My mouth went utterly dry as Adagio responded by shrugging her shoulders, doffing her nightgown with a roll of muscle, and I got an extremely good view of just how powerfully built she was. She was flexing, I knew, and she was doing it entirely for my benefit, and I licked my lips as I let my eyes trail across the perfectly defined body that was currently mounting me.

As usual I was transfixed by how much Adagio Dazzle was built like a Goddess of old Roam, powerful and unashamed, which was something that never failed to stir up an aching heat in all kinds of interesting places in me.

I shuddered as she idly trailed her fingers past my navel, along my ribs, and came to rest cupping one of my breasts, and I didn’t bother suppressing my moan as she captured the peak between her finger and thumb, pinching just hard enough to send a jolt of pleasure through my body as she rolled her hips slowly, grinding herself against me.

“How’s your mood now, dear?” Adagio’s voice was infuriatingly calm and teasing, despite how wet I knew she was.

“Rising,” I said, my voice dropping to a husky growl as I stared up at her through strands of my own hair that was pooling around me like an inky halo.

Adagio reached out to me with one delicate hand and placed it softly on my throat, her fingers closing lightly around my neck, and the sheer sensation of it sent a shiver down my spine that was so intense that my legs quaked at the sudden pressure.

“Mm… you do love to play the submissive, my darling, don’t you?” Adagio cooed playfully as she gave her fingers a few experimental squeezes. “You just love it being taken.”

I did.

I loved being handled by Adagio.

Her strength was more than just physical too. I loved the iron core of her personality, the rigid and unwavering power of her will that kept her standing regardless of what life threw at her.

And I especially enjoy how she gets frisky whenever she gets emotional.

A stray thought flickered through my mind as I met her beautiful eyes, and marveled at how they seemed to almost glow. Maybe this is just how she coped with stress.

And then I remembered something just as Adagio’s fingers gave the vein and artery of my neck another delicate squeeze, sending an intoxicating sensation of lightheadedness through me.

Adagio wasn’t human… she’s a Siren, a pathovore, and a small smile curved over my lips as I realised what was really going on.

Adagio isn’t getting frisky.

She’s stress eating.

A small part of me wanted to burst out laughing right then and there, but the far more significant part of me that was absolutely adoring the attention that Adagio was lavishing on me stuffed that part into a small box and kicked it roughly into the corner of my mind.

It was my expert opinion on the matter that pride should never come into one’s relationship. This feels prudent for all manner of reasons, among which being that Adagio and I had seen and would, fortune willing, continue to see one another at both our highest and lowest points. Pride would only make those low points moments of shame, rather than of intimacy, which I felt they ought to be.

So with the best will in the world: pride be damned, I have no shame whatsoever at being Adagio’s favorite ‘comfort food’.

I moved my lips, speaking low and purposefully weakly as she gave my neck another squeeze, and I watched as her eyes narrowed with care. Her hand left my neck, leaving it feeling cold and empty as she bent at the hips and leaned down to me, her ear bent towards me.

“What was that, my love?”

“I said,” I began, my words taking on a challenging, mocking tone, “are you going to take me or not?”

A lightning bolt of passion and lust scorched across her eyes as she whipped her head around to glare down at me before sweeping her hand around my head and tightly gripping my hair just above my neck.

“Insolence!” Adagio spat, as she shook me like a kitten, and I smiled up at her as I was caught up in her game. “What utter, blasphemous insolence!”

I continued to stare up at her smiling, my arms laying limply at my sides as I playfully licked my lips.

Adagio’s nostrils flared in mock outrage before she tightened her grip further and dragged my head down to the bed, pinning me there before lifting her hips up, moving forward, and positioning herself directly above me.

“Why don’t we use that smart mouth for something more productive?” Adagio purred the words out as my eyes widened in surprise.

A shuddering thrill rolled through me as she pressed herself down onto my face and every one of my senses was eclipsed with her scent and weight. That body-rocking shudder of pleasure rolled through me again, and I let out a low, hungry moan as I began to lick and suck greedily, and Adagio rolled her hips as she panted raggedly, pressing herself against my mouth over and over again.

I’m not sure when but at some point one of my hands found itself burying three fingers into my cunt, working them furiously in and out as my larger and decidedly more powerful lover rode my face to her first climax.

Another quaking shiver ran through me as I quickly followed suit, my legs jerking as thrashed under her weight.

There was something primally satisfying about being taken like this by Adagio, to feel her weight on me and her dominance. It made me weak in the knees as I lapped my tongue out, devoted to giving her the pleasure I knew she wanted, to take pleasure in the act myself which I knew was feeding her twice over.

I felt her thighs close around my head, the strength in them submerging my mind in a haze of lust. The way she was clenching around me, rocking herself back and forth as she gasped and moaned, was driving me mad, and I squirmed beneath her as my body raced with pent up energy.

Adagio’s palm pressed against my forehead, pinning my head to bed as she arched her back and let out a moaning cry of satisfaction as she came hard across my mouth, lips, and chin before sagging and slowly laying down backwards.

The pair of us were strewn lewdly across the bed, me on my back, my face a mess and my hair no better, with Adagio sprawled atop me, and our heads between one another’s thighs as we panted and gasped for air.

“Is it just me,” Adagio huffed as she stirred in exhaustion, “or do a great deal of our conversation end this way?”

“Are you complaining, my dear?” I asked wryly, my eyes still closed as I rode the high of my latest orgasm.

“Mm… that’s not precisely how I’d put it,” Adagio said, chuckling as she shifted around and rolled off of me.

I may or may not have let out a faint grumble of displeasure as her weight left me, and I turned on my side as she righted herself, coming to rest beside me where I could comfortably curl against her. The way she held me in those moments, with her arms around me and squeezing just tight enough that I would have to exert a little strength to get away, told me I could just relax, let go, and that she would keep me safe.

Although I never asked, I hoped she felt the same way when I held onto her, despite me being lesser to her weight, frame, and strength which meant I was less holding her close and more clinging to her.

“Today will be difficult, won’t it?” I asked quietly, nestling nearer to her and inhaling deeply.

She still smelled faintly of sunlight, and even after all these months I couldn’t quite place how I knew that so certainly.

“It will,” Adagio’s reply didn’t have the strain I’d expected in it.

There was a faint resignation in it instead, and a weariness of the kind you get when you have to do something onerous that you’d rather put off til tomorrow so that, when tomorrow comes, you could put it off again.

“Can you do it?” I asked, glancing up and meeting those fierce raspberry eyes of hers.

Adagio just smiled down at me.

“I suppose I can,” she replied easily, “one more time.”

I have never sought wealth, at least not in the sense that most would consider it. My wages earned from the Orchestra were far from inconsiderable, and my ability to manage my own finances came mostly from a nature of frugality and disinterest in material possessions. I will say that I’ve never quite understood the obsession with opulence and gauche displays of the depth of one's pocketbook which, to my eye, has been very nearly the only reason to have over a certain amount of money.

My father and mother travel the very highest circles of social elite and I have found it to be a place that I have very little interest in. I have, in those places, seen some demonstrations of affluence that truly beggar belief. Things that have exceeded the bounds of good taste only to sprint wholesale past ‘tactless’ and shoulder-barge their way into the realms of heavy-handed boorishness the likes of which only a syphilitic moron could imagine to be a good idea.

Growing up, I was instilled with the idea that wealth was meant to be used responsibly and wisely.

My parents owned quite a nice home, though far smaller than their peers, and much of their wealth went to philanthropic endeavors: my mother funds no less than five different scholarships, while my father funds two as well as maintains multiple non-profit organizations that help the less fortunate afford schooling, medical aid, and the like.

This was, my father always taught me, the purpose of wealth in the hands of the wealthy: to be wisely distributed without the need for the endless red tape of bureaucracy, and to ensure those in need did not remain so.

‘Without the many,’ my father once said, ‘from whence would come the wealth of the few?’

Or as my mother more succinctly put it: ‘Noblesse Oblige’.

Call me naive if you must, but until lately I’d not realised just how rare that point of view was among the wealthy ‘elite’, and it was only in spending the amount of time with Adagio, meeting the absolute cretins that hoarded money for no other reason than to afford another gold-plated yacht that it truly struck home.

I only wish I was joking about the yacht.

With that said, I’d quite ceased to bother asking Adagio where we were going next and whom we were meeting. If I recognized them then I knew it would only sour my mood and in my opinion one need not worry about that which one cannot control.

To do so just means you suffer twice, after all.

With that bit of zen crockery in mind, I laid my head to the side, resting it on Adagio’s shoulder as the long-bodied vehicle Adagio had procured for transport carried us through the streets of Detrot.

Our hands gripped one anothers, fingers twined playfully together as we sat in comfortable silence. It was these moments that I lived for, these quiet times when there was none but us, and the whole of the world was shut away. Adagio was resting her cheek against the top of my head as the car rolled smoothly along, and I relished the slow, even sound of her breathing.

Once upon a time I had wondered what it might be like to be as in love with another person as my parents were with one another and I am happy to say that the truth of the matter really is far better than anything I had imagined.

The lovely quiet came to a halt as the car cruised into the round-about of a towering skyscraper, one of the massive business pavilions of the Detrot downtown centre, and Adagio gave my hand a slight squeeze as she shifted in her seat.

“Must we?” I grumbled, not moving my head, and my heart warmed at Adagio’s throaty chuckle.

“I’m afraid we must,” she replied, “fortunately I’ve heard good things about this man, so perhaps it shall be less intolerable than most.”

“Tolerably intolerable, is it?” I asked playfully as I sat up and stretched, working the stiffness from my muscles that had resulted from the long drive. “Oh, how far we have fallen in our expectations, my love.”

Adagio rolled her eyes at my dramatic sigh as the driver opened the doors and she slid out with myself right behind her.

“Tolerably intolerable would be a sight better than the last three,” Adagio countered dryly. “That Blueblood fellow was on my final nerve and, acrylic glass or not, if he’d made one more lewd overture to you I’d have physically taught him the meaning of the word ‘defenestrate’.

“Weren’t we on the seventieth floor of the Mareiott?” I asked wryly.

“Indeed,” Adagio’s response was terse, and I giggled as I slid my arm into the crook of her elbow.

We walked into the building and, as we did, I glanced around, taking in the tastefully subdued blue and white tones of the decor. I was struck by the most peculiar sense of deja vu as we moved towards the elevator bank and of course it was entirely possible that I’d been in this building before, I’d been to Detrot on multiple occasions both with the Orchestra and with my parents as a child, but there was something else.

Something about the aesthetic was tugging at my mind.

“Are you well?” Adagio asked quietly as we stepped into the large, well-appointed elevator and she punched one of the highest floor numbers.

It was a sign of how important the place we were going to was that she had to enter a seven-digit security code to permit the elevator to accept the instruction.

“I am,” I replied pensively, “just… oh, it’s probably nothing, dear, I just feel as though I’ve been here before and, frankly, I probably have.”

Adagio nodded, shrugging as she settled back and took my arm again.

The elevator hissed silently upwards with what must have been bone-rattling velocity, because in moments we were on the forty-fifth floor of the building, and door slid noiselessly open.

I felt a slight surge of satisfaction when I saw none of the boorish examples of pointless wealth scattered around without a single thought for harmonious placement. A soft string quartet played over some hidden address system, and there were paintings placed evenly among the walls, a few that I even recognised, and all tastefully done, which I admired as we walked down a short hallway.

Adagio knocked twice on the door at the end, and I heard a damnably familiar voice answer on the other side.

“Wait, was that-” I began, before the door opened to a meeting room with a broad, circular table.

The man who stood on the other side was tall, robust, and had an air of friendliness about him that was matched only by his aura of distinguishment.

He had a pale complexion and his coiffure was a striking shade of royal blue that matched his sharp, glittering eyes which went wide when he saw me. A monocle rested primly in front of his left eye that quite fell from his face in shock, dangling in front of his sharp, dignified business suit.

“Octavia?!”

“UNCLE FANCY!” I cried happily, surging from Adagio’s stunned side and into the arms of my father’s closest friend.

“HA!” Fancy crowed with laughter as he pulled me into his arms and swung me around as if I were still a child, but he had always been a broad, strapping man. “Oh my dear! It’s been far, far too long!”

“It has!” I agreed as he set me down and pushed the doors the rest of the way open to allow Adagio to enter, and she eyed the pair of us with a wry grin.

I blushed, laughing with a bit of embarrassment as I met her eyes and nodded.

“Adagio, this is Fancy Pants,” I gestured to the man, “I’ve known him and his wife for my entire life, and he’s always been Uncle Fancy to me.”

“And?” Fancy said with a grin as he nudged me.

I rolled my eyes. “And he’s my godfather.”

“Is that so?” Adagio said with that enigmatic smile of hers, “then allow me to introduce myself…” she made a perfect curtsy, “Adagio Dazzle, proprietress of The Last Note Lounge in Canterlot.”

“And?” I echoed my godfather’s word with a smile that matched his own.

Adagio raised an eyebrow cooly at me before turning back to Fancy.

“And Octavia’s girlfriend, as it happens,” Adagio said as she offered her hand to Fancy.

Fancy took her hand firmly and shook it, and I saw his eyebrows shoot up at the strength with which Adagio shook hands. It had been quite a sight to see Blueblood cringe at the power of her grip, but my uncle gave as good as he got.

“Quite right,” Fancy said happily before turning to me, “I had heard you were in a relationship, Octavia, and I’m very happy for you.”

I blushed again as Adagio stepped into the conference room and I returned to her side, sidling close to her and resting my head on her shoulder.

“Thank you, Uncle Fancy,” I said with a warm smile. “I am so very happy with her.”

He nodded, and looked as though he was about to about to speak when the door at the far end of the small meeting room we were standing in crashed open with an almost imperial flourish.

A statuesque woman in a flowing cream-colored gown with alabaster skin, a waterfall of pink locks, and piercing violet eyes strode in with a kind of grace I was used to seeing in Adagio wearing a look of absolute delight on her face that was quite at odds with mellifluous string of Prench invectives flowing from her lips.

“Ma moitié!” she snapped at Fancy in her heavily accented english, who endured her fury with admirable stoicism as she stormed past him and pulled me bodily into her arms to crush me against her. “Why did you not tell me our niece was visiting!?”

“Well, I didn’t know,” Fancy replied as I struggled for air, her far from inconsiderable bust had quite cut off my air supply. “I had a meeting with this lovely young woman,” he gestured to Adagio, “concerning our company’s new executive bonus package, when I-” he paused as I flailed my arms, gesturing wildly for aid, “darling, please, let her go or we’ll have a funeral on our hands, won’t you?”

I was released and I gasped for air, panting as Adagio quietly shook with poorly suppressed laughter.

“H-hello, Auntie Fleur,” I said through gasps of much-needed oxygen, “lovely to see you again.”

“Ah, ma belle pêche,” Fleur cooed, mussing my hair a little as she stroked my head like I was a kitten. “It ‘as been far too long!”

“Uhm, a-are we done for the day, then?”

A voice from behind Fleur drew my attention, and I glanced behind her to spy a familiar sight.

“Rarity?!” My jaw all but dropped open in surprise.

The young woman, whom I might have thought had been Fleur and Fancy’s illegitimate daughter had I not met her parents a few times, brightened considerably as she peeked out from the room Fleur had just left.

“Octavia, darling!” Rarity bustled out, her arms nearly overflowing with sketches of what looked like dresses and outfits.

I swept past my godfather and godmother and embraced Rarity, giving her a brief kiss on each cheek as she returned the affection.

“How have you been, dear?” I asked brightly, of all the ‘Heroes of Canterlot High’ it was Rarity I’d gotten along with the best. “It’s been ages!”

“It has, but ‘a woman’s work’ and all that, darling!” Rarity said proudly.

“This is quite a coincidence,” Adagio said as she stepped up beside me, and I saw Rarity’s eyes widen at the sight.

“Miss Dazzle, what a surprise,” Rarity said, her eyes widening briefly before she held out her hand. “How’s Aria?”

“Doing well,” Adagio replied with a warm smile, taking the proffered hand and shaking it delicately. “She and Sunset are like two peas in a pod that’s on fire.”

“Business per usual then, is it?” Rarity asked dryly, to which Adagio just chuckled and nodded. “As for coincidence… less than you might think. I’ve been in the city for about a week now meeting Miss De Lis every other day, and I plan to stay for another two to work out my next fashion line.”

“Miss Belle is our newest rising star,” Fleur said proudly as she swept past the three us and behind Rarity, putting her hands on Rarity’s shoulders. “J’adore cette femme, her ideas are quite novel!”

“Indeed, charmingly rustic actually,” Fancy said happily, “and inspired by her own love life, I understand?”

Rarity blushed but nodded.

“Actually,” Fleur began thoughtfully, “if you wouldn’t mind being our first test subjects I would greatly appreciate it… here,” she pulled a few choice sketches from Rarity’s arms and passed them to myself and Adagio. “Tell me, how do these outfits make you feel? And please, be honest!”

I took up the pages and examined them, and immediately something stirred in my heart. The outfits were simple, almost stunningly so, with a breezy, airy aesthetic that made me think of simpler times. It was as though someone had taken the modest, plain outfits from the middle class of a few centuries prior, touched them up for modern day, and then accentuated the sense of comfort they gave.

In a word they were…

“Nostalgic,” Adagio said quietly, and I glanced over as she took the word right out of my mouth.

I was stunned to see the faint beginnings of tears in her eyes, although I’m certain no one else saw them as she blinked rapidly before handing the paper back.

“They’re lovely,” Adagio said sincerely, “quite lovely.”

“Agreed,” I said, handing back my own examples. “Nostalgic was precisely the word I was looking for as well.”

Fleur and Rarity shared a triumphant look before turning back to us.

“That’s perfect,” Rarity said with a broad grin, “the name of this ensemble is entirely applicable then.”

She held up another slip of paper that looked something like a title card read in flourishing, curling calligraphy: NOSTALJ’A.

“I just wish I had more examples to draw from,” Rarity lamented as she looked down at the pages with a wan smile. “I do believe I’ve visited every museum in the nation to find inspiration for this line.”

Adagio glanced up sharply at that.

“Examples of?” she asked in a quiet voice, and both Rarity and Fleur looked up at her.

“W-Well, period accurate clothing, obviously,” Rarity replied, “why do you ask?”

A small smile appeared on my love’s face, and I suddenly recalled just how very old she was. Old enough to have seen each and every one of those fashions Rarity was speaking of rise and fall.

“I do believe,” Adagio said with that Cheshire grin of hers, “that we might be of some help to one another,” then she glanced back at Fancy, “could you spare me an hour before our meeting, dear?”

Fancy just waved a hand. “Please, take your time, I have nothing more after this meeting and, from the look in my wife’s eyes, if said no I would regret it.”

Fleur smiled and turned on her heel to go back into the room from whence she’d come, and Rarity followed quickly behind her. Adagio glanced up at me, as if looking for approval, and I just smiled at her and nodded.

“Go on, then,” I said, gesturing for her to follow them, and she smiled brightly and before leaning in to kiss me, and then trotting away.

“She’s quite something,” Fancy said as the door closed behind them.

“She is,” I agreed quietly. “And I love her so very much.”

“You know,” Fancy said, his voice falling low as he glanced over at me, “she looks damnably like that young woman your father hired better than a decade ago, doesn’t she?”

I froze, and a chill went up my spine as he spoke.

“The one who taught you to play the cello back when you were, what… eight or nine years old, wasn’t it?” Fancy looked thoughtful as he tapped his lips with one gloved finger, then suddenly snapped his fingers in delight. “Serenata! That was her name!”

“I… I don’t know really,” I said carefully, “to be honest I don’t quite remember what she looked like… it’s been so long and I was so young, and we don’t have any pictures of her.”

“Wasn’t her surname the same?” Fancy scratched his head for a moment before nodding. “Yes, I’m certain of it, ‘Dazzle’... Serenata Dazzle.”

“Well obviously she can’t be the same woman,” I said with a slightly weak laugh, “ I mean… it’s been more than fifteen years and if my memory serves then Serenata was… eighteen?”

I tried to look as if I was wracking my brains, and fortunately my godfather appeared to be doing the same.

“I wonder if they’re related,” Fancy said after a few moments of thought, “she was a wonderful young woman.”

“She was,” I agreed quietly, “I’m just sorry her teaching ended up going to waste.”

That succeeded in distracting Fancy, who frowned at my words and looked over at me, sighing quietly as he reached out and put both hands on my shoulders, gripping them firmly.

“I heard about what happened with the Orchestra,” Fancy said in a gentle voice. “The real matter of it, I mean, not the white-washed hogwash they fed to everyone else.”

I scowled, shaking as I felt my eyes burning. “Yes, well… nothing to be done about it now, is there?”

“They don’t deserve you, Octavia,” Fancy’s tone was iron-hard and I nodded, not feeling much better for the platitude but appreciating it nonetheless. “You can do better than them.”

“Can I?” I asked bitterly. “I’m curious as to how, given I’ve been blacklisted from every ensemble of any worth in the country and likely a few outside of it.”

“Then look beyond that!” Fancy insisted, crossing his arms as he stared down at me. “The Octavia I remember wasn’t one to quit regardless of the difficulty of her situation! It isn’t as though Orchestras are the only way to go.”

“Then what do you advise, hm?” I asked, feeling a touch of anger color my voice. “Where exactly can I go that I could play my music and be appreciated! I’ve no desire to make albums of any kind, I’m not a studio artist!”

“Then don’t be,” Fancy said gently, “use what you’ve got to make something new.”

“Something new?” I asked stiffly, and I could feel irritation boiling up in my chest. “I’m an anachronism, Uncle Fancy, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but I don’t really do ‘new’.”

“Your lover certainly does,” Fancy said with a chiding smile, and I blushed. “She’s looking beyond the normal scope of her business to grow it into something far more than a simple gentlemen’s club, as I understand it.”

“W-well yes but…” I stammered and stopped, how could I explain that Adagio had far more experience in this sort of thing than I did? “I hardly see what that has to do with me!”

“I own a company whose wealth lay within the art of fashion, and my wife is one of the finest models and designers in the world,” Fancy said with a wry grin. “Your Adagio’s company is one whose wealth rests on pleasing the senses… can you not think of anything you might contribute to that?”

I paused to stare up at my uncle for several moments as ideas detonated brightly behind my eyes.

Adagio had said she wanted to turn her Lounge into a place that catered to all types of desires… Hell, it already had an actual lounge where Adagio sang her sentimental old ballads twice a week, and that room was packed to the walls for every single performance!

“I think I see your meaning, Uncle Fancy,” I said in a wondering tone as my mouth went quite dry.

He smiled reassuringly and patted my shoulders briskly.

“You’re a brilliant young woman, Octavia,” Fancy said with a warm smile. “I look forward to your future.”

“As do I,” I said, feeling a weight lift from my shoulders for the first time in months as ideas sprang to mind.

The meeting that followed went as swimmingly as could be hoped for, with Fancy and Fleur agreeing to buy generously into the contract that Adagio held. Unlike the other meetings there was no wheeling and dealing, just a long, frank discussion of benefits, offers, and counteroffers that operated fully above board.

I didn’t expect anything less from my Uncle, he was a savvy businessman but he preferred to operate in good faith rather than through shady backroom deals.

With that said, I’m sure my presence was part of what eased the transition. He was far and away more willing to trust to Adagio’s good intentions while I sat there, my arm looped tightly around hers.

And so it was that, when we left the offices of my godparents and got into the car, Adagio was in significantly higher spirits than usual.

“Darling,” I began as I sidled in next to her and came to rest comfortably in her arms.

“Mm?” Adagio turned to look down at me with one eyebrow raised.

“I was just curious what you were talking to Rarity and Fleur about,” I said with a warm smile, it seemed a fine enough way to break the ice, “Fleur seemed in an extraordinarily good mood… I love my godmother to death but her moods make mercury seem stable.”

“Ah, yes,” Adagio grinned widely. “Well, I just offered to allow Rarity unfettered access to my storage unit in Canterlot, the one where I keep most of my wardrobe.”

“Isn’t your wardrobe in the Note?” I eyed her quizzically.

I had seen the large walk in closet a few rooms down the hall from Adagio’s quarters that could have passed for a sizeable apartment had it not been filled with rack upon rack of fine clothing. The idea that she had yet more clothing almost beggared belief.

“Well, yes, my modern wardrobe,” Adagio said, waving her hand nonchalantly. “The one in storage is… a little out of date”

I raised an eyebrow.

“How out of date?”

Adagio gave me a thoughtful, innocent smile as she pretended to look pensive for a moment before saying: “Oh… three or four centuries, give or take a few decades.”

“My darling Adagio,” I said in mock accusation, “are you saying you’re a hoarder?”

“First of all,” Adagio said defensively, holding up a finger, “I am not a hoarder, I only kept one or two outfits at a time… it just so happens that when you live for millennia that kind of collection does tend to… accrue, somewhat.” she extended another finger, “secondly, many of them were gifts and a lady doesn’t simply throw out a gift.”

I opened my mouth to make a joke that her gifts were given by people long since dust, but the words died on my tongue as I realised what it was I’d been about to say. To me they may have simply been historical figures or people so temporally distant from me that I was almost impossible to imagine them as, well, people.

But Adagio had met them, spoken to them, befriended them even. She had been admired by them, adored by them… perhaps even loved by them.

Sentimental value had a far different meaning for someone used to living many hundreds of years amongst a species that probably rarely lived half a century for most of her lifespan on this world.

“I see, I suppose I can understand that,” I said quietly, “and you’re going to trust Rarity to handle them with care?”

Adagio chuckled lightly. “At least in this respect I would trust Rarity to treat them like holy relics, my dear.”

“Mm, I suppose that’s fair,” I agreed.

A few more moments passed and I watched the city pass us by as I considered my next words carefully.

“I’ve… been thinking,” I began, my voice quiet, and Adagio turned to regard me again with curious look on her face. “Perhaps… I’ve been going about this career of mine the wrong way.”

“How so?” Adagio asked, cocking her head to the side in interest.

I turned to smile back her, and I saw her smile match mine as she saw the light of an idea in my eyes.

“What do you think,” I started, taking her hand in mine as I did, “about expanding the lounge area of the Last Note?”