Ardent Orange

Phweeeoooooo.
Spitfire let out a low, lengthy whistle.
Like steam from a kettle, Fleetfoot knew what it meant. But not why it was happening. She ran the last minute back in her head.

Morning debrief with Spitfire. Normal day planned, no surprises to anypony that mid-ranking ‘bolt evaluations were underway this week.

Rainbow Dash touches down. “Captain, ma’am,” salute – bearer business had come up. It happened – bearer business meant bearer business, and the team was well past clear on that priority.

Confirmation from Spitfire, and a salute as she took off east towards Canterlot, as Fleetfoot and Spitfire watched. So what was up?

Spitfire turned to her. “First Lieutenant Fleetfoot, you and Second Lieutenant Soarin will be in charge today. Run the drills, check one another’s blind spots.”

Fleetfoot stiffened at the formal address.
“Ma’am?”

Spitfire faced back east. She raised a hoof and twice tapped the arms of her sunglasses. The captain’s damned talent for thermal version. Fleetfoot frowned and looked back east too, catching the last glimpse of Rainbow Dash vanishing behind a cloud bank. No contrail.

“Spit?”

“The thermals, Fleet. Use your wings.”

Fleetfoot shut her eyes and breathed in a sigh. She let her instincts touch her magic, and the sky filled with the blues and reds of breezes and heat before she even opened them. She squinted back towards east. That path of thermals Dash chose to fly through did feel instinctually like it blew east – but her magic was telling her that they started to curl south hardly a furlong south – back home to Ponyville.

Rainbow of course could fly direct if she wanted to, but she rarely flew with a cap on her mana. A faster flight path to Canterlot was right there within her aura’s sight, just 20 degrees north. Rainbow Dash loved faster. Fleetfoot blinked.

“Damn it, captain.” Fleetfoot huffed. The next question was directed at the hot red flare in front of her, not at the disappearing pegasus. “Why?”

Because the problem wasn’t that Spitfire was right. The problem wasn’t that she was always wearing those damn sunglasses, so you’d never know if she was judging just your flight or judging your magic. The problem was that she couldn’t have just trusted a mare who saved the world, and checked anyway.

“Because it’s my job, lieutenant.” Spitfire turned south, to an even stronger south wind, and flared her wings. “This evaluation’s just getting started.”

She shot off.

Fleetfoot slammed her stupid eyes shut as the cannon of pegasus magic flared in her face. “Buck, buck, buck!” She flailed. “I bucking hate Mondays!”

Bite the bullet
Put the money in the bank
Slapstick knife through the gullet
I’m the poison you drank

Adagio stared apprehensively at the lyrics Sonata had written into the group chat a moment ago. Sonata beamed a sunny smile in her video window.

“This fucking sucks”, Aria groaned over the call. Sonata frowned and opened her mouth. Adagio started grimacing. Gift-giving free-styling classes had been a slight miscalculation-

“At least I’m not in a rut, you slut, you dumb mutt, sniffing all the butt-”

“Oh my gaaAAWWWD-”

Adagio Dazzle, conqueror, destroyer, exile, battle of the bands loser, moron, terrible leader, pop star on hiatus - couldn’t slam the deafen button faster if she tried. She closed her eyes, pinched the bridge of her nose, and sighed into her palm.

Getting older was weird. Distance from her sisters was weird. The swapping of priorities of not-so-sacrosanct machinations to a mundane, adult human life was weird. Her eyes opened and wandered around The Final Sun.

An hour past lunch on a Monday, her fourth bar was quiet aside from the din of a mellow jukebox.
They’d thought well ahead and made roots for themselves. Time-tinctured concoctions had been an easy investment centuries past, providing for ventures both before and after The Battle, and aside from working electronics to reignite their music, she spent most of her days making deals or working hands-on across her businesses to still have a grip on the wheel of something, anything.

Changes in her peripheral vision had her looking back down at her tablet. Aria and Sonata had actually stopped fighting and were waving at the screen for her attention. They were smiling now that she was looking. She tapped to unmute.

“Hey,” said Aria. Adagio let out a breath as Sonata smiled sheepishly.

“Hey," stated back Adagio.

Sonata closed her eyes and smiled with her chin resting in her hands. “My bad.” She paused for a bit while Aria and Adagio looked on.

“I am having fun with it all, people are still getting a kick out of my tunes. But it makes me happy to stick to music too. It was nice,” she opened her eyes, “even with you two at each other’s throats.”

Aria rolled her eyes with a smile, fidgeting around with a guitar. Adagio let the tension out of her posture and smiled back more sedately. “I’m glad new stuff is working out for you too.”

“Yeah yeah. And its good to see you behind another bar, really. I know you’re happier when you get to manage something.”

“Sure, sure. And the backup gigs are going good?”

“They’re working out at least.” Aria twanged a string. She frowned, and moved to tune a peg a little. Adagio’s smile grew, watching happily as Aria zoned out for just that little bit to fix it. Seeing her sisters doing well despite her mistakes did make her happy. Fighting over the direction of the band a few years back had been a series of hiccups her family had finally gotten over a few months back, and even if she wasn’t working in music now, she was glad they got to. Aria figured out the tuning and smiled.

“I kinda worry about it, Dagi,” Adagio and Aria looked up.

“That you haven’t gone crazy.” The two looked back at her, questions already in their eyes. “No, I mean,” Sonata started waving her hands around in front of her face. “Like. I mean. Because of all this splitting up and settling down. Like.” Aria was blinking a lot. Sonata mumbled out a now muffled “ahaha, shit, aaah….”

Adagio didn’t really. Know. How to respond to that. She tilted her head to the side in befuddlement.
It wasn’t much, but it was enough for her untied work ponytail to roll on down to long, flowing hair.

“Oh no,” added Aria. Her eyes shot open. She hid her mouth behind the guitar head.

“Wh-, what?”

Despite the screens between them, her sisters were doing the best impression they could of two busted siblings hesitantly making eye contact with each other. It was almost nostalgic.

Aria finally went first. “Remember Morgan Le Fay, Adagio?”

How could she not remember her time as Morgan Le Fay? They’d found humans with magic for the first time – nothing strong enough to get home, but enough to be a real challenge. And they’d had their fun, so much fun, really! “Of course I do.” Her mind spun through decades of machinations, growth in their earthbound siren magic, and battles of blade and sorcery.

“But what happened next, Dagi? I think that’s what ‘Nata means.”

Adagio paused. As they always did, the humans passed away. Morgan and Merlin, and the knights of the round table faded to legend. Even now, it was still a series of bittersweet memories, no one ever quite amassing so much power and so much magic directly towards them at once. “I mean, they all died.”

“Yeah. You were at the top of the world, Dagi.”

“Yeah?”

Sonata was poking her index fingers together. Aria was grimacing.

“What?”

“Dagi, um. “

“The Prench and Braytish wars, Dagi.”

“What about the Prench and Braytish wars?”

“Dagi.” Aria frowned.

“What?”

“Dagi.” Even Sonata turned stern.

Befuddlement turned cross. “What??”

“The affairs, Dagi, and all those podunk town tours, -”

“This is ridiculous. You two are ridiculous! I did not go crazy from decades of power and success and, and decide to-”

Sonata and Aria’s expressions were stretching thin.

“Flirt my way – into –”

They were grimacing even thinner.

“All of those beds, for centuries, causing diplomatic incident after diplomatic incident just to, uh, ah. Shit.”

There was a pause. Aria was trying to make eye contact only with Sonata through the screen again. Adagio stared a thousand yards through her tablet. “Do you two both really think I did that because I got bored?”

“Well, siren chaos food, and all, but, I mean,” Sonata did a hand-wavey thing for the umpteenth time that call. “Seven hundred years?” Aria was less hiding behind her guitar head and more so using it as something to bang her forehead against.

“Well.” Adagio blew out a breath. She tossed her hands up. “I probably won’t do something like that again, since you two warned me, I guess!”

“I sure hope so!” chimed back Sonata.

“I sure hope so,” Adagio repeated.She put her hands down. The three looked at each other. The pause stretched out.

“Well! I’ve got to get back to work!” Adagio threw out.

Aria snapped out of her fugue. “Who’s going to come in your bar for a drink at... Two forty on a Monday?”

“Well, me, for starters!”

The pause came back.

“Alright. Nice talking to you two,” managed Aria.

“Yeah! Yeah.” Sonata chirped.

Adagio flipped her tablet over face down and laid her forehead into it.

“Dagi, you have to hang up first.”

No one responded. Two hanging up noises soon beep-booped from the call.

Adagio propped her head back up in her hands.

It was still weird.