Author's Note

Set after Grey Light, New Day, but before the epilogue. This story refers back to events in Adagio's Lament, although reading it isn't required reading for understanding this chapter.

An Old Soul Song

Melody & Dazzle

“You what?”

Adagio stared at me from across the table, her fork dangling from her fingers as she lowered the bit of salmon she’d speared on the end of it back to her plate. I just shrugged and smiled as I took another bite of my shrimp alfredo, chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then swallowed and repeated myself.

“I want you to meet my parents,” I said again, and Adagio’s expression turned a touch brittle. “Properly, I mean.”

“It’s… not that I’m opposed in theory, my Melody,” Adagio said slowly as she toyed with the bit of fish on her plate. “But your parents are quite mortal, human, I mean, sorry… force of habit.”

“It’s alright,” I chuckled slightly and took another bite, giving my lover time to gather her thoughts and continue.

“Your father knows me, and he remembers me I’m sure since I never sang anything out of him,” Adagio said with a touch of concern, then frowned. “Well, at least he knows ‘Serenata’ and both of your parents would recognise me on sight, I assure you.”

“I’m fully aware,” I said with a nod. “We’ll have to tell them the truth… the entirety of it, I mean regarding who you are.”

“I doubt exposing that many sins all at once would go over well,” Adagio replied dryly, gesturing with her fork as she did. “Not unless… Oh, what is it they say nowadays? ‘Not unless everyone gets real cool about a bunch of stuff really quickly.’?”

I snorted with laughter.

“Besides, we’re less than half-way through all of the meetings we have to attend and have very little free time unless you’ve forgotten,” Adagio added as she took another bite. “We can’t exactly pop back to Canterlot for a quick dinner.”

“Eat, then speak, darling, please,” I grumbled, rolling my eyes, and Adagio smirked at me. She’d done it on purpose. “And that’s not an issue… my parents don’t live in Canterlot anymore, although they kept the house.”

“Oh?” Adagio raised an eyebrow, then grimaced, “ah… let me guess…”

“They moved to Prance about a half-year after I moved out,” I said cheerfully. “And the only opportunity that, oh… that fashion mogul-”

“-Hoity Toity-”

“-yes, him, the only time he can meet us is two days from now in Prance,” I smiled, took a bite, and swallowed. “So, I told my parents we’d be in town, and they’re thrilled to be meeting you!”

“I’m sure they are,” Adagio responded in a terse voice before taking another bite of her salmon.

I stalled out for a moment as Adagio’s arid tone washed over me, and I felt my good humor fading as she tensely finished the rest of her entree in silence before spearing a piece of broccoli hard enough to elicit a sharp clink of metal from the porcelain plate.

“My love… I…” I began, trying to break through the wall of silence she had erected. “Have… have I done it wrong? I didn’t mean to make you-”

“I’m not angry,” Adagio said stiffly

“Darling, please,” I set my fork down and reached across the table to her, stopping a bare few inches away. “Won’t you talk to me?”

I wasn’t going to close the distance myself. I needed her to reach back, I needed to know she would reach back. As childish as it seemed considering I knew full well how deeply she cared for me, and I for her, I felt the need to know she would still reach out to me even after I’d seemingly stepped in it quite badly.

Adagio sighed and inched her hand over to lay it on mine, and I let out a small sigh of relief.

“I’m frightened, my Melody,” Adagio admitted quietly, and I cocked my head slightly in question. “I’m frightened that they won’t approve, and yes, I’m aware of how silly that sounds given how old I am.”

“I don’t think it’s silly at all,” I assured her as I turned her hand over to twine my fingers with hers. “I would feel the same way, I think.”

“You aren’t a monster in human skin, my dear,” Adagio replied sullenly

“Neither are you,” I replied quietly. “If anything I wonder if you weren’t a human in a monster’s skin all along.”

Adagio blinked at that, then chuckled in that pleasant, sultry manner of hers. Her laughter always gave me a bit of a thrill, with how throaty and husky it always was. Perhaps it’s pointless to say this of a Siren, but Adagio’s voice was truly sublime.

“My point still stands, though, my Melody,” Adagio said in a calmer voice. “I was eighteen, or so I said, when I first met your parents, and wearing a different name, and now?” She gestured down to herself and shook her head resignedly. “Better than fifteen years later I’m only a bit past twenty-four by mortal reckoning, and you expect them to simply accept my inhuman nature as par for the course.”

“Well, obviously not,” I replied, shaking my head and chuckling. “I can’t very well expect them to swallow all of that with no more than a spoonful of sugar, now can I?”

“Then what, pray tell, do you intend?” Adagio pressed the question, leaning on her arm over the table and fixing me with a stern look.

“My parents deserve to know you, my love,” I said quietly. The look on Adagio’s face softened a bit at that. “I love you more than life, but they’re my parents… if I have mistakenly made light of this, let me correct that now.”

I dabbed at my mouth with my napkin, set it down, pushed my plate away, and fixed Adagio with a look that bent all my intentions toward her that I was able.

“I do not give one bloody toss whether they accept you or not,” I said gravely, and Adagio’s eyes widened. “My parents love me and I believe they will understand in time, but even if they do not I still believe this is something worth doing… is that acceptable?”

Adagio relaxed back in her chair and sighed.

“I suppose it is, my dear,” she allowed with a small, tired laugh.

“I never intended to make it seem as though I wasn’t taking this matter seriously, my love,” I said softly, wringing my hands as I considered my words carefully. “But my father is the reason we met at all, and my mother has adored your work for many years, even if she’s only ever heard the one composition I happen to know she holds it in exceedingly high esteem.”

“Does she now?” Adagio gave me a small, self-assured smile. “I wasn’t joking when I called that work ‘good enough for a journeyman’, you know… it was hardly my best.”

“Then bring some of your best,” I met her eyes firmly, and leaned in. “Let me play some of those compositions for them!”

“I… I suppose I could send for a few of them,” Adagio looked reticent for a moment. “I hardly think a recital will sway their opinions if they judge me poorly, though, my Melody.”

“You would be surprised,” I replied with a laugh. “Trust me, won’t you?”

Adagio sighed and nodded, reaching out to slip a hand through mine and run her thumb over my fingers gently. I’ve heard some people say that endlessly repeating the words ‘I love you’ robs them of their meaning, and I find myself in dire disagreement with those people.

That being said, I can only imagine the reason they might have come to that conclusion is that the words came out as hollow. Love is so much more than words, after all… saying those three words repeatedly does not make it so, but when the words are paired with those small persistent affections, they become so much more.

When I say ‘I love you’ to Adagio, it’s more than words, it’s the way her hand so easily finds mine when we’re near one another. It’s the way my head rests pleasantly in the crook of her shoulder when she holds me, and the way her gaze lingers on me for just long enough that it’s clear how hard it is for her to look away.

It’s all of those things and more.

“To Prance, then!” I raised my glass, still half-full with a fine chardonnay, to meet Adagio’s glass.

“Come what may,” Adagio agreed.

My parents’ Prench Chateau was, much like our home in Canterlot, more understated than some of the other homes in the area. With that being said, the standard for being called ‘ostentatious’ in this country is a significantly higher one than it is in ours.

It must be said that my father has done quite well for himself. His business in terms of the music industry is booming, due in no small part to his partnership with Record Scratch Studios. My father has never been what you’d call hidebound, but he is a product of his age and time, and having someone like Vinyl Scratch consistently present and able to advise him on the minute changes to the musical landscape has served him quite well.

Well enough to keep his company well abreast of the others in the industry, anyway.

“I must say, I’ve not been in a place like this for a good while,” Adagio remarked as we walked down the long, smooth stone path through the gardens that made up the front of the Chateau. “Reminds me a bit of Byzantium, actually.”

Didn’t you spend some time in Prance?” I gave her a curious look, and she shrugged.

“Not really,” she admitted, “Prior to going to Neighpon we were in Brayton for a good while, then that whole Tudor and Lancaster mess happened.”

“Was that your fault as well?” I raised an accusatory eyebrow, and Adagio chuckled.

“No, it wasn’t,” Adagio shook her gloriously maned head. “Those two houses had every reason to be at one another’s throats, Sonata and I avoided that mess as much as we could.”

“Sonata and you…” I trailed off, and Adagio let out a small, weak laugh. “What about Aria?”

“Well… my dearest, most belligerent younger sister was feeling nostalgic for the conquests of the Sirenic empire at the time, as I recall,” Adagio replied, looking a little uneasy. “I believe she raised a blade for Lancaster and went on to fight through several of the battles disguised as a man… not hard given her less than impressive, ah, assets.”

“Did you just call your sister flat?” I laughed, and Adagio shrugged.

“At any rate, she got it out of her system around the fourteen-seventies, and by then things had tied up nicely anyway,” We strolled past a long plot of flowers, roses ironically, though unsurprisingly since they were my mother's favorite, and Adagio knelt to admire them. “I don’t think she affected the outcome much, but she certainly had fun.”

“You are aware you’re talking about a war in which tens of thousands died, yes?” I said dryly, and Adagio sighed as she stood and met my gaze.

“Remember who you’re speaking to, and about, my Melody,” Adagio said quietly. “Whether you agree with me or not, we were proper monsters in those days… my sister cut a crimson path through your kind with a smile on her face for better than a decade before she got bored and we hopped a boat to Neighpon.”

I wilted back, wrapping my arms around myself for a moment as I struggled for words. She wasn’t wrong of course, but I had put a bit of effort into trying not to think too hard about certain aspects of their pasts, specifically the bloodier aspects, but at times it was hard to ignore.

Adagio sighed quietly and pulled me close. “I’m sorry, darling, I am… but this is who we were, for better or worse.”

“I’m fully aware,” I replied as I rested against her, slipping my arms around her as I did to pull myself closer into her embrace. “And you know I don’t judge you for those days… right?”

“It does not change what we did, though,” Adagio pressed. “We may have been influenced by our Heartstones, but that cruelty was still in us.”

I sighed and shook my head, pulled away a little, and brought my hands up to cradle Adagio’s face and draw her down into a kiss.

There was nothing I could say to change what had happened or what they had done, but I could tell her without words that at the end of the day it truly didn’t matter. I knew my history, and I knew that my own people were hardly blameless when it came to record-setting levels of death and devastation.

“Miss Dazzle, you know that no matter what, I will always be yours, right?” I said softly, and Adagio blushed but nodded silently. “Good, because you’re becoming maudlin and that’s hardly any kind of mood to be in when you meet my parents.”

Adagio chuckled and pulled me for another, more playful kiss, and I squeaked in delight as she spun me about in the garden a few times before setting me, flustered and red-faced, back onto my feet. I glared up at her for a moment, although the expression was spoiled somewhat by my smile, as I silently gestured to my now wind-tossed hair.

“Please, you look better like that, anyway,” Adagio waved her hand dismissively before pulling a small comb out of her clutch and passing it to me.

“Thank you, darling, you do so know how to charm a girl,” I laughed as I ran the comb through the long black strands, pulling them back to a semblance of order.

“Well it’s how you go to sleep every night when we share a bed,” Adagio remarked playfully.

“You’re a louse, Adagio Dazzle,” I passed her the comb back with a neutral glare.

“And how,” Adagio stuck out her tongue briefly before tucking the comb back from whence it came.

It’s times like this I wonder what it is I’ve really gotten myself into, being with someone like Adagio. Not that I’m unhappy, quite the opposite, I’m practically blissful, but there’s so very much about her that I don’t know, and our time in Manehattan only highlighted that. Of course, I do mean what I said when I told her I truly didn’t care about her past, and perhaps that makes me callous, but I don’t feel that it’s inaccurate to state that the Adagio Dazzle who committed those actions and the Adagio Dazzle that I want to fall asleep next to every night for the rest of my life are two very different people.

Or perhaps I’m just making excuses.

C’est l’amour.

“Come on then you brute,” I took her hand and tugged her along towards the Chateau. “My parents await with bated breath.”

“Is that a fish joke?” Adagio jibed, nudging me in the ribs, and I groaned.

“You’re intolerable sometimes, you know that?” I replied dryly, and received a hum of agreement in response, and I scowled. “Really, darling, can you at least try to be serious?”

Adagio slowed her gait, glancing at me with a worried look before sighing and giving me a small nod.

“I’m sorry, my love,” Adagio said softly. “I’m nervous… I’m worried… and I’m afraid I’m acting out a bit because of it.”

“I know,” I pulled myself a little closer to her, drawing her arm around my waist so she cradled me as we walked. “But I told you, regardless of the outcome of this meeting… you will never be without me.”

“You would choose me over your parents?” Adagio asked weakly.

I sighed, resting my head against her chest as I considered my next words carefully. The answer to that question was, technically, a resounding yes, but at the same time I loved my parents dearly.

“If my parents would choose to neglect my happiness, then yes,” I finally said as we reached the doors to the large manse. “Because you are my happiness, Miss Dazzle.”

“As you are mine, my Melody,” Adagio turned to face me, and I shivered as she brushed her fingers over my cheek.

I don’t need any other proof than this to know my feelings for Adagio as true. I can’t look into her raspberry-colored eyes without my heart stirring like a caged tempest. I can’t feel her touch without leaning into the press of her fingers.

I cannot kiss her without feeling as though I never want to stop.

“Alright, enough of that,” I pushed back from Adagio with a smile. “Keep it up and we’ll never get through the door.”

“Drat, thou hast sussed out my dastardly plan,” Adagio chuckled before leaning down to brush her lips over mine. “Fine, let’s get this over with.”

“You talk like we’re attending an execution,” I knocked on the door a few times, then stepped back.

A moment later the door opened with a creak. Behind it was a tall, statuesque woman roughly on the scale of Adagio, though her silver hair was tied back in a long, and painfully straight braid.

I’d always thought that Pleasant Purpose had a strange name because, all things considered, while she certainly had purpose, she was hardly what you’d call pleasant about it even at the best of times. She wore a perpetual frown of disapproval on her face, as if she’d just discovered a poorly made souffle left to moulder on the kitchen counter, and there was an air about her that suggested you had just failed some secret test in her mind.

That being said, her capability as head of the house’s servants was unquestionable.

“Welcome home, Young Miss,” Pleasant said stiffly, and I gave her a thin smile.

Young Miss…

Pleasant Purpose has been in my family’s service since I was a little girl, even longer than Good Form, and she has only ever called me ‘Young Miss’. I suspect that she will continue to do so until I’m old and gray because, despite knowing factually that the woman is better than twice my age I can’t actually identify any signs that she has changed in the more than two decades I’ve known her.

She ages much like a mountain, I suppose. Just getting colder and more stern as the eons pass.

“Miss Purpose,” I gave her a small nod, “how are you keeping?”

“I am well,” Pleasant responded curtly before turning to Adagio with a critical expression.

Adagio returned the cold look expertly, with those raspberry eyes of hers, normally so warm, now looking like sharp shards of cold, frozen blood as she and Pleasant sized one another up.

“And you are…?” Pleasant asked the question in a manner that made the hairs on the back of my neck rise in anger.

She wasn’t precisely rude, but Pleasant Purpose had a very certain tone to her voice that she took whenever she felt someone was unwelcome.

“Adagio Scyllia Dazzle,” Adagio drew herself up to her full, regal bearing, and for the first time in my life I saw Pleasant Purpose retreat slightly.

It was a momentary thing, just a slight drawing back, not even a full step backwards, but I felt a small surge of triumph that manifested on my face as what I suspect was a catlike smile.

“My girlfriend,” I clarified, “we’ve been seeing each other for some time now and I felt it was past due for her to meet my parents.”

“Very good,” Pleasant replied politely, but I could see the tension in the set of her jaw as she stepped aside. “Welcome home, Young Miss.”

“Thank you, but I’ll be home when I return to Canterlot, I’m afraid,” I replied evenly.

“Of course,” Pleasant turned rigidly, gesturing for us to follow her.

“That was catty, my love,” Adagio whispered to me as we fell in behind Pleasant Purpose, and I sighed quietly.

“I’m not sorry,” I said cooly, “she could’ve been more welcoming to you.”

Adagio chuckled, a warm, lovely sound that kindled a small flame in my heart. Normally it was Adagio who was possessive and protective of me, but this was, as they say, my turf, and she was the one who felt out of place. It was on my shoulders to ensure she was treated as she deserved.

“I don’t want you alienating people for my sake, though,” Adagio muttered back, softening the gentle admonishment with a nuzzle against the top of my head. “Be nice, alright?”

“If you insist,” I grumbled playfully.

Pleasant led us into a large parlour whose bay windows looked out over the vast gardens stretching out from the east wing of the Chateau. This, I knew, was my mother’s handiwork, because regardless of my father’s aesthetic appreciation for flora, he wasn’t much of a botanist. My mother, on the other hand, could probably grow a rosebush in the Mojave.

By contrast, I once failed to keep a cactus alive in my teens, and have since decided I’m far more my father’s daughter, no matter who I look like.

“How lovely,” Adagio breathed as she stepped past Pleasant to stop at the windows, her eyes sparkling in delight as she admired the view.

“I wasn’t aware you liked gardens, my dear,” I said quietly as I joined her at the window, waving a dismissal to Pleasant who nodded and vanished down the hall.

Presumably to fetch my mother and father.

“Once upon a time, I had my own garden,” Adagio’s voice was distant and filled with grief. “It was nothing so grand as this, of course… a simple garden in the depths of a forest where I lived with my-”

I looked up at her as she paused, and felt a deep, stabbing pain of heartache at the look in her eyes.

“My love?”

“It’s nothing,” Adagio replied gently. “I have lived a long life, my Melody, and it is full of sorrows… some more vast than others.”

“I… I see,” I turned away from her, feeling as if she’d pulled away from me in that moment, and I found that I liked the sensation of that not at all. “Are you alright?”

Silence met my question for several moments before she sighed and turned to me with a melancholy smile.

“I am so long as I am with you, my dearest,” Adagio said with certainty.

“Well, that is a most hopeful impression,” a proud and familiar male voice said from the far end of the room, and I turned in Adagio’s grasp to smile broadly at my father.

Legato Melody is a tall, robust man with a thick head of neatly kept hair that was once as dark as mine, but is now shot through with early veins of bright silver. His outfit was one that matched him well, a plain, dark polo and gray slacks. He opened his arms to me and I raced towards him to practically leap into his arms, and he wrapped me in a warm embrace as soon as I was near enough.

It had been better than a year and a half since I’d last seen either of my parents. Living a continent apart from one another will do that, of course, especially as all of our schedules were rather busy.

That and I am, in my heart of hearts, something of a daddy’s girl, and I very likely always will be.

“Oh my darling daughter!” My father crowed as he set me down, giving me another strong hug. “You don’t know how thrilled I was to hear you were coming to visit, it has been far too long!”

“I agree,” a strong, feminine voice that was at least as musical as Adagio’s said from deeper in the hall.

My mother, Soprana Melody, is the first and last word in stately elegance. Those are not my words, but the words of an influential columnist who saw her in a live performance of Der Freischutz six years ago. She stands a little more than two inches over my father, and is in every possible way the definition of a ‘Lady’, with stately, patrician features, warm, dark eyes, and a regal bearing to shame a Queen.

It was my mother, more than anything, that I felt awful about not visiting.

“Mother,” I greeted her warmly as I stepped close and hugged her, sharing a kiss on each cheek with her as I did. “How have you been?”

“Better these past couple of years,” She replied softly, kissing the top of my head as she did. “I’m still in remission, fortunately.”

“Almost two full years now,” my father said boisterously.

“Remission?” Adagio’s voice was brittle. “You mean you-?”

“Did my daughter not tell you?” Mother said sternly, before fixing me a sharp look. I wilted back as she did, I’ll be the first to admit that while my glare has quite the oomph behind it, I never quite mastered the phosphorescent blaze that my mother had attained. “Octavia, for shame!”

“Mother! It’s not as though it’s something that comes up in average conversation, now is it?” I retorted, trying to regain some ground, but my mother had my number and snapped a hand out grip me by the ear.

“Ow, ow, ow!” I chirped as she gave my ear a good tug.

“Octavia Melody, you know better than that,” my mother chided me, before letting go and turning to Adagio. “I’m so sorry about that Miss… oh, my stars…”

Adagio winced but hid it well as she offered my mother a small smile. At my mother’s words, however, my father turned and examined Adagio more closely and I watched his expression turn to shock.

“I… I know your face,” my father approached her as though she were a specter, his eyes wide and stunned. “You’re… no, that’s not possible… Serenata, wasn’t it?”

“It was, once upon a time,” Adagio’s reply was uneasy, but she didn’t shy away.

“You look as though you’ve barely aged,” my mother breathed as she stepped closer, her eyes narrowed and exact she looked Adagio up and down. “As my husband so rightly put it… that’s not possible.”

“Not possible for a human,” I said quietly from behind., drawing a look from all three.

I took several strides forward, putting myself between Adagio and my parents, crossing my arms firmly over my chest as I stared them both down. Admittedly, I wasn’t much of a bulwark, given my relatively slight frame, so me positioning myself in front of Adagio probably looked a little silly.

With her greater height, broad shoulders, and defined body, me protecting Adagio was not dissimilar to a tabby cat trying to defend a lynx.

“Not… human?” my mother said in confusion, glancing between the two of us before shooting my father a look of concern.

“It’s alright, my love,” Adagio said gently, putting a hand on my shoulder as she did.

She didn’t push me aside, but the faint pressure was there and it took an act of will not to simply stubbornly plant my feet and refuse to move. I knew, intellectually, that this would not endear her to my parents but…

But she was mine. My girlfriend, my lover, and one day… so much more.

She hadn’t asked me yet, but at this point I suspected our ultimate union was a foregone conclusion.

“As I told your butler, my name,” Adagio put her hand to her chest and drew herself up in a regal posture to rival my mother’s, “is Adagio Scyllia Dazzle, and yes, I once wore the name of Serenata Dazzle,” she deflated a little as she met my parents’ looks of concern. “Something that, I freely admit, I did for the express purpose of ingratiating myself to your family for less than… reputable reasons.”

My mother and father shared a look in that silent manner of married couples, where I could see a full conversation passing between them despite the total lack of words.

Finally, my mother turned back to Adagio and crossed her arms in a manner I realised was almost identical to mine. Or I suppose mine would be identical to hers.

Well, at least our tempers are quite similar.

“Explain,” my mother said curtly.

“Very well, shall we take a seat?” Adagio gestured to the various couches, chaise lounges, and cushioned chairs. “I would advise one, at the very least, along with a stiff drink.”

“I’ll hear this sober, if it’s all the same to you,” my father replied sternly. “I don’t take kindly to getting swindled, Miss Dazzle.”

“You’ll find she did nothing of the sort!” I spat, and my father took a step back in surprise.

In truth, my vitriol surprised even me.

“Enough, my Melody,” Adagio said quietly, “I’ll handle this.”

She slipped her arm around my waist and I hummed my approval as her hand settled lightly on my hip while we walked to a loveseat and she sat down, patting the spot next to her.

Rather than obey her silent request, I very pointedly looked at parents as I sat down in Adagio’s lap, draping an arm over her shoulder and nestling myself protectively over her.

Adagio flushed and I found myself smiling as she struggled not to blush herself crimson in front of my parents.

“D-Darling,” Adagio hissed, “what in Nodens oceans are you doing?”

“Being obvious and clear,” I replied sternly, “now I believe you were going to explain something to my parents?”

I watched as my parents shared another one of those infuriatingly silent conversations with a glance before turning back to us, and Adagio cleared her throat delicately.

“You’ll have to suspend disbelief for some of this, I’m afraid, but I’ll tell you as much as you wish if it means you’ll approve of my relationship with your daughter,” Adagio began, and I felt her arm settle over me as if she were afraid I’d vanish. “As I said, my name is Adagio Dazzle, that is my true name, and as your daughter said… I am not, and never have been, human in the strictest sense of the word.”

Neither of my parents looked particularly convinced, but Adagio continued.

“I have lived for, by human reckoning, some span just over two thousand years,” Adagio’s voice took on a stronger quality as my parents stared, wide-eyed at that statement. “Although I’ll admit to not being wholly certain that the translation of my first millennia of life is exactly equal in span on this world.”

“Ahem, ‘this world’?” my mother said in a tone of disbelief.

“Believe it or not, she isn’t making it up,” I cut in, “I never told you, but during my years and Canterlot High there were a series of… incidents, do you recall?”

“I do,” my father replied gruffly. “The matter with some bully or other ruining a dance, and some odd light shows?”

“One of those ‘light shows’ were my sisters and I,” Adagio clarified.

Over the next hour and a half, Adagio recounted the events that occurred during the ‘Battle of the Bands’, which I seem to recall, hazy though the memory was, to have become significantly more literal than one might expect. She even described things I hadn’t known about the matter, like her sisters and their constant bickering, their short tempers stemming from their desperation to finally return home, and their final humiliation when their Heartstones were shattered, leaving them incapable of using their Gift.

Before my parents could rediscover their voices, I spoke up as well.

“I can attest to this, as one of my very good friends is from the same world as Adagio,” I pulled out my phone and sent her a picture of Aria and Sunset in the VIP room of the Lounge that the latter had sent me, showing their progress. “Sunset Shimmer, I’m sure you remember her?”

“I certainly do,” my mother said quietly. “She was quite a terror until she turned over a new leaf, isn’t that right?”

“She was,” I agreed, remembering Sunset’s early years at CHS, “she and her friends possess artifacts from that world that allow them to do marvelous things…”

“Rather than trouble them, though,” Adagio added, pulling me a little more snugly against her. “I would happily answer any of your questions.”

“I am beginning to regret turning down that drink,” my father said wearily, “in fact… Pleasant!”

My father had barely raised his hand before Pleasant Purpose was at his side, although I couldn’t quite account for where she had come from. That odd sort of stealth was something she shared with Good Form.

“Glenlivet, neat,” my father said with a sigh, “actually make it a double.”

“And a glass of old vine syrah for me,” my mother added, before glancing at the pair us, and I could see her nature as hostess take over. “Anything for you two?”

“I’ll have what he’s having actually,” Adagio gestured at my father.

“Water for me, and do keep your intake to a minimum tonight, my love,” I sighed with a laugh. “You down that stuff like it’s spring water.”

“I’ve been drinking for more than a millennium, my Melody,” Adagio gave me a withering look, I smiled back at her teasingly. “I can hold my liquor thank you very much.”

“Probably better than my father,” I joked, which earned an annoyed huff from near my mother.

Pleasant arrived with our drinks moments later, and as my mother and father were sipping at their drinks, my father leaned in a little, cradling his glass as he did.

“Miss Dazzle,” he began, drawing my love’s attention, “what exactly was your intention when you came into my home.”

“To fleece you of your wealth,” Adagio replied boldly, and I winced. I knew it was true, but hearing it was rather a different thing. “Of course, that all fell by the wayside when I started teaching your daughter… I’ve told her what I’ll tell you, I’ve never had such an apt pupil, and it broke my heart to leave her.”

“You never took more than your wage you asked for, though,” my mother put in, “and in fact, you even gave back your final paycheck when you could have kept it and left.”

“It didn’t feel right,” Adagio’s voice was soft as she hugged me tightly. “My heartstone hardened me to much of this world’s kindness, but not even an artifact of that grade could blunt me to the sheer, unbridled adoration of a child…” Shifting in her seat, Adagio buried her face against my back for a moment and sighed. “This may sound silly, but trust me, magic exists in this world in the little miracles, and there is more magic in a child’s pure heart than almost anything in the world.”

“I suppose given that you’re speaking about my daughter I can’t rightly disagree,” my father said with a certain smug satisfaction to his tone that only a proud papa can truly bear. “What about you personally… you’ve told us what you did at the school seven years ago, but I know nothing about you.”

“Indeed,” my mother swirled her glass before taking a sip. “For instance, if you’ve lived as long as you claim you must have had other relationships.”

“Mother!” I snapped, but my mother waved away my objection.

“It’s a valid question, darling, and you know it,” she said, before turning back to Adagio, “past performance is the best indicator of future actions, in my opinion, so?”

Adagio looked terribly grim for a moment, but then she nodded.

“I did say you could ask me whatever you wished, and that I would tell you if it meant you would give me a chance,” Adagio’s tone had taken on a wintery quality, and I instinctively curled against her to try and ward against it. “You ask if I’ve had other relations, the answer is yes… although the difference between my psyche and a human one was vast enough that it was almost never truly a partnership of equals.”

“I see,” my mother’s voice had matched Adagio’s in temperature, and I shivered.

My father was, wisely, staying well out of this conversation.

“Except for one,” Adagio amended, and I looked up sharply. She’d never told me about this. “There was one that would count, I think, by your reckoning.”

“A true relationship?” My mother queried, and Adagio nodded.

“Yes… it was nigh on three hundred years ago that I was married,” my eyes widened.

Married?

Adagio had been married? I mean, given her age and that her partner was surely human, that would mean she was a widower, but…

“His name was Timber Heart,” Adagio’s voice was electric with pain, and I could see even my mother draw back at her tone. “And we were wed in a small town whose name I never learned in the northern tsardoms… I was happy then, we were happy then… Timber, myself, and…”

Adagio choked.

I have seen my love in various states of distress and disarray, and nearly all of them have been in the throes of liquor, or at the very least in exceedingly heightened states of stress. Never once have I seen Adagio lose her composure so cleanly and so totally while sober.

“Miss Dazzle?” my father stood, a look of worry on his face, but Adagio just held up a hand to forestall him.

“...T-Timber, myself, and our d-daughter,” she finished.

My jaw clicked open in shock, an expression neatly mirrored by my father and mother who were staring at her.

Tears were openly streaming down her cheeks, and Adagio lifted her drink to finish it in a single pull.

“You… had a daughter?” my mother breathed, “does that mean there’s a bloodline out there that-?”

“No,” Adagio bit the words out so harshly that I almost jumped out of her arms. “No, my daughter never wed, in fact she didn’t even live to see her second decade,” there was a sharp intake of breath at that. “She and my husband were murdered, and I buried them in a small plot outside of our shared home that we’d lived happily inside of for years before their killers burned it to the ground.”

“Oh.”

It was not even a word, really, just a sound of abject misery made by my mother as Adagio shook in my grasp, her composure totally destroyed as she tried and failed to keep from crying. Carefully, I stood up and knelt in front of Adagio, taking both her hands as I watched streams of hot tears pour down her face.

Before I could say a word, my mother was kneeling beside me and took Adagio’s hands from me. I wasn’t sure what to do so I let my mother slowly and gently pull Adagio into her arms, and belatedly I realised she was crying too.

“Oh my dear,” my mother sobbed, “I’m so sorry… I am so sorry.”

Adagio didn’t speak, she just let out a small, broken sound of grief as she buried her face against my mother’s shoulder and simply wept.

I felt a strong hand settle onto my shoulder, and I looked over to see my father standing behind me with a solemn look on his face. He nodded silently for me to follow him, and I did. I wasn’t sure what else to do, so I entrusted the love of my life to my mother’s arms and followed by father out into the hall, and then the veranda where the sun was slowly setting.

“I… I never knew,” I said quietly as the glass doors clicked closed behind us. “She never told me.”

“I’m not surprised, I would think that talking about something like that would be impossible,” my father replied in a voice that was thick and raw with emotion. “I cannot fathom the kind of unyielding strength of character and will that it would take to just get up in the morning with the knowledge that your only child is dead, and that you are not.”

He turned to face me with tears glistening in his eyes.

“I can say, without reserve, that if I were to lose you and your mother in such a nightmarish manner-!” his voice cracked, and he covered his face with his hand for a moment, shivering as he regained his composure before looking back up at me. “If I were to suffer such a loss… it would kill me.”

“Papa!” I sobbed, before walking forward and embracing him, and he pulled me close, almost desperately. He cradled me as he did when I was barely up to his knee.

“I wasn’t certain I believed your Adagio’s wild tale, but…” he shook his head. “Now, I can’t find myself able to doubt, nor do I think I will ever be able to unhear how she sounded when she spoke of her daughter.”

“She shouldn’t have had to!” I cried as I slapped my hands against his chest, suddenly furious, and I could feel him give a little as I stepped back with my tears of pain and anger held just barely in check as I stared up at my father. “You had no right! You and mother and no right to make her relive that!”

My father didn’t defend himself, he just nodded with a look of grievous pain.

“I could say we didn’t know,” he began weakly, “I could say this was never our intent, and that we only wanted to get to know her, but… the damage is done.”

“I know her story was hard to believe,” I stepped back, wrapping my arms around myself to keep myself from lashing out, “but what else could her answer have possibly have been? If she was telling the truth then that would mean whoever she was with was-!”

“I know,” my father sagged and nodded. “I realise now, and I realise what we did, unintentional though it was.”

I held up a finger under his nose, my whole body trembling with unmasked fury as I fought to find some kind of phrase or a word or something to say to him.

“This… this was my idea,” I spat, “my plan, and now… now you’ve made it my fault, father.” I spat the last word, normally said with such warmth, into his face and he flinched. “I… how am I supposed to look my love in the eye after this?”

“I can offer nothing but my most heartfelt apologies, Octavia,” my father said wearily. “Were it possible to take it back then I would, in an instant.”

“You… well, you can’t!” my hand shook in his face as tried to reign in my temper and found myself failing spectacularly. “I… I may never forgive you… either of you!”

“Peace, my Melody,” the gentle, familiar voice of my darling Adagio said as I felt her hand settle onto the small of my back, and I turned to see her and my mother standing behind me.

My mother still had her arms around Adagio, and their eyes were both puffy and red from crying. Adagio’s voice was still terribly raw, and the sound of it hurt my heart.

My father and I had been so wrapped up that neither of us had heard the veranda door open, or our respective loves approach, but I could see the pain on my mother’s face having heard my words to my father.

“Peace?” I choked the word out furiously, “what peace?! No, how dare they… how dare they!”

“They have inflicted significantly less pain than I have in my very long life,” Adagio said pointedly.

“Well excuse me if I don’t particularly give a damn!” I snarled, gesticulating wildly at my parents. “I don’t care who you’ve hurt, I care who hurts you!”

My breath came in short, angry gulps as I stood apart from my parents and Adagio, the former of which were looking at me with surprise, while the latter just looked sad. Pulling away from my mother, Adagio approached and held out her hands to me, opening her arm and waiting.

Damn her.

She knows me far too well.

Sighing, I stepped into her embrace and leaned against her, and as she held me tight I could feel the rage that had built up inside me like a poison slowly sluicing out.

“I mean it,” I cried softly as I pressed against her. “The world can burn itself out for all I care… all I want is you.”

“I know,” Adagio’s voice was tender as she stroked my back in calming motions. “But you can’t let your rage better you like this… you know that.”

I did know, and I hated it every time I let it happen. My temper has long been the worst part of me, and it’s something I know I share with my mother. It happened on numerous occasions when I was younger, as I grew up I became angry and withdrawn, and there were plenty of times I got into shouting matches with my mother. I came by my temper honestly, at least, and it was only after meeting Vinyl Scratch that I began to mellow out.

At my core, though, I’m just… angry.

Passionate, is what my father would call it, but anger is what people often see.

My mother and I are passionate people, but that means that when we get angry we tend to say things we don’t mean out of fury and spite. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve told my mother that I hated her, only to come crying back to her and apologising mere hours later.

“I can’t stand it,” I gripped Adagio’s dress hard, trying to keep my voice steady. “Seeing you hurting like that, seeing you in so much pain… it ruins me!”

“Miss Dazzle, once again I can’t apologise enough for my behaviour,” my mother said quietly from beside us. “As a mother myself, I can hardly even imagine the depth of your pain.”

“Three hundred years,” Adagio said hollowly, “and I can still see her face like it was yesterday.”

“How do you do it?” my mother asked, her voice pained and brittle. “How do you go on?”

Adagio held me tighter, and sighed.

“Is it awful of me to say that there are days that I wouldn’t be able to answer that question?” Adagio replied, and I shivered in her arms. “Although… those days are fewer of late, since your daughter found me again.”

I stepped back, looking up at Adagio’s lovely face as I tried to smile for her.

“I love you, darling,” I said through raw tears. “Never forget that, please?”

“Never,” Adagio swore, before looking up at my parents with more strength in her posture. “And to you two… I forgive you for your thoughtless questions,” my mother and father practically sagged in relief, “I knew that today would be a difficult day, I knew it perhaps better than my darling Melody, so now I ask you to understand that the reason I bared my deepest pain to you is so you would understand that your daughter means that much to me.”

Mother and father shared another conversational look, then nodded.

“We understand entirely,” my father said with a stiff nod.

“Secondly, I have another request,” Adagio stepped boldly forward, but now she seemed almost uncertain, like she was nervous. “I… I would ask for your blessing.”

My mother raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been dating our daughter for some time now, isn’t our blessing a bit peripheral at this point?”

“That’s not… I don’t want your blessing to date your daughter,” Adagio amended, shaking her head and sending her glorious curls bobbing about. “I want your blessing to marry her.”

You could have cut the air with a knife as Adagio turned to face me with flushed cheeks.

“I know that, perhaps, I do not look my best at the moment…” Adagio began, wiping at her eyes before opening her purse and drawing out a box made of warm, brown wood that looked hand-carved. “But I knew I would be doing it this way the moment you told me I’d be meeting your mother and father, my dear.”

I stared, wide-eyed at the box in her hand.

“When… when did you get that?” I asked quietly. “We’ve rarely spent more than a few moments apart in almost the last six months, when did you-?”

“I’ve always had it,” Adagio replied somberly before looking over at my parents who were slowly overcoming their shock.

“Well, all things considered I can’t find it in my heart to reject your request,” my father said a bit gruffly, but I could see how happy he was in the lilt of his lips and the lines around his eyes. “My love?”

My mother just nodded silently, her mouth covered as she tried to keep from crying.

“Well then, let’s do this properly, shall we?” Adagio said, before adjusting her skirts, kneeling in front of me, and holding up the box. “Octavia Melody, I never told you why I call you ‘My Melody’, but I’ll tell you now that it’s more than just because it’s your surname.”

I chuckled a bit weakly as I tried to fight back the wave of emotion that was welling up in my chest.

If I started crying now I’d probably never stop.

“It’s because I am a Siren,” Adagio continued, “and our voices are our Gift, and for so very long I felt as though I had lost that Gift forever…” she cracked the box open, and held it up, “until I met you, my Melody.”

The ring wasn’t impressive, but it was certainly old. It was a simple band of purest silver, crafted in a manner I couldn’t quite identify, and there was a small, clear diamond set carefully into it that looked a bit more recent than the rest of the piece.

“Once I wore this ring as a sign of my love,” Adagio said carefully, “and I would be honored if you would wear it now and be my wife.”

I had thought I was prepared for this. Adagio had never made any secret of her intentions towards me, and I knew it was quite literally just a matter of time before she proposed, so I had imagined that when it happened I would be braced and ready.

As it turns out, I was not.

I sobbed, nodding as my voice completely failed to come through, and held out my hand for her to slip the ring onto. It was light and unobtrusive, which I honestly preferred, and I’d been a little worried that Adagio would go over the top and get some enormous, extravagant piece of jewelry.

“I’m sorry if it’s too small,” Adagio said uncertainly. “I’m not sure if you prefer gold but-?”

“I love it!” I gasped the words out, falling to my knees as I wrapped my arms around Adagio. “Truly, I love it! It’s perfect.”

Adagio let out a quiet sigh of relief and embraced me back.

“Truthfully, I hate those large, chunky pieces of stone most socialites seem to prefer,” I laughed as I pulled back and admired the ring. “They always seemed so gauche, like they’re compensating for something.”

“Let us be the first to congratulate the both of you,” my mother said brightly as she stepped out from my father’s arms and held her hands out to both of us. “I, for one, would gladly welcome a new addition to our family.”

Together, Adagio and I stood, albeit a bit shakily, and moved into my mother’s embrace. My father joined us a moment later for a time we stood there as a family, united in warmth.

“I’m sorry,” my voice was muffled as I leaned my head against my father’s broad chest, “I didn’t mean those awful things I said.”

“I know, darling,” my father patted my back gently. “But I earned them nonetheless, I think.”

“We both did, I’m afraid,” my mother said as she took Adagio’s hand and squeezed it gently. “Your forgiveness means more than I can say.”

“Holding a grudge would hardly be the way to start this kind of thing, I think,” Adagio replied with a dry laugh.

Clearing her throat, my mother stepped away and tugged my father along with her. “Come now, darling, let’s leave these two alone for a moment.”

“I… yes, of course, dear,” my father capitulated, bowing to my mother’s grace and following her back into the house.

“Well…” I began weakly, leaning against Adagio as we turned to face the last vestiges of the sunset. “This was certainly far more of a disaster than I envisioned.”

“I suppose it was something like that, yes,” Adagio replied, chuckling as she looped her arm around my waist comfortably, and growing quiet as she did before speaking up again. “I’m… I’m sorry that I never told you about that part of my past.”

“Don’t be, my father did have a good point,” I admitted sullenly. “I’m not sure how anyone is supposed to talk about something so…”

“Still, I could have prepared you better,” Adagio pressed, “although you didn’t tell me about your mother’s condition.”

“Cancer, yes, for which I’m sorry,” I sighed and leaned my head against her chest. “I hate that it’s part of the reason I avoid coming back here… I’m always a little afraid, I suppose… does that make me awful?”

“No, it makes you human,” Adagio’s reply was gentle as she turned to kiss the crown of my head. “We try not to think about that which troubles us most terribly, and I’m no different.”

“I should spend more time with my mother,” I resolved quietly. “I really should.”

“I agree,” Adagio nodded gravely. “One never knows when a loved one will be gone forever.”

I suppose she would know that better than anyone else, and I mused on that for several moments as we watched the sun vanish over the horizon. A chilly wind blew over the Prench hills, and I shivered only for Adagio to wrap her arms more fully around me, and I basked in her warmth for a few moments.

“If I may,” I ventured carefully, “what… what was she like?”

Adagio was silent for a long time before sighing quietly, and I watched as a few more tears fell.

“Her name was Jackrabbit and, although they never met, she was very much like Aria, actually.”