The Lifestyle of the Party
“Soarin? Are you in here? Oh, hey, you guys have pizza!”
It was a tried and tested fact of life that, no matter how extravagant the bonanza, no matter how big the blowout, the coolest bit of any party was always the kitchen. Spitfire set down her beer and took in the scene: Soarin sitting at the table, a whole, untouched pizza in front of him, while High Winds and Misty Fly giggled mixing drinks at the counter.
“I swear,” Spitfire said, dropping into a chair opposite Soarin, “I love flying more than anypony, but I’m not sure I could stay on the squad if they ever started restricting our diets.”
“You’d have to get a day job,” Soarin grinned, offering the pizza in her direction with a generous spread of both wings.
“You could do after-dinner speaking,” High Winds called from across the room. “That way, you’d get a meal included with each job.”
Spitfire and Soarin both nodded appreciatively. Then Spitfire eyed the pizza, confirming that it was indeed Soarin’s usual pick: the firecracker. Dozens of green chillies bobbed in the ocean of melted cheese, looking irresistible as she pulled a slice loose.
“Nah,” Misty chimed in, “you’d be talking about flying without actually doing it, and that would drive any of us crazy.” She took a sip from the tumbler High Winds gave her, then made an impressed face at her cohort. “You’d have to do something completely different, like, give hooficures or something.”
Pizza slice halfway to her mouth, Spitfire paused. “I’m really not sure which would be worse.”
Misty Fly grinned and offered the tumbler in her direction, and after a moment’s consideration Spitfire extended her other hoof towards it. Only as she received it from Misty did she notice its vibrant red colour, which led her to expect a flavour like cherry or tomato as she raised it to her lips.
“Banana?” she asked as she handed it back. “Huh. And… mango?”
“Yep!” High Winds beamed. “I’m gonna have to write that recipe down.”
“Too slow,” Misty rolled her eyes, pulling out a camera and snapping a picture of the array of drinks on the table. Whether she’d be able to reverse-engineer it from that was anypony’s guess, but High Winds shrugged all the same and clinked her own tumbler against Misty’s.
A lifetime of wariness of paparazzi held Spitfire back from eating until the camera was safely put away again, but as soon as it was gone she stuffed as much of the pizza slice into her mouth as she could, unable to wait a second longer.
Soarin, too, had a slice in hoof, and by now was halfway through his. He leaned his chair back on its rear two legs as he sat, pizza in one hand and beer bottle in the other. “I wouldn’t worry about the diet thing,” he said between mouthfuls. “If we had to watch what we ate, the Apples would stop sponsoring the Grand Galloping Gala.”
“Good point,” Spitfire chuckled. “I’ll lay my fears to rest then.”
“No one does pie-in-the-sky thinking like you, Soarin,” Misty said as she and High Winds trotted by. Spitfire got the impression they would have tousled Soarin’s hair if he’d been sitting nearer. The two of them disappeared through the doorway and out of sight. Spitfire took a swig of beer and tore a chunk out of the chewy crust of her pizza slice, with cold beer, hot dough and cheese and hotter chillies melding – or melting – together in her mouth.
“Did you see where Surprise got to?” Soarin asked, finishing off his slice.
Spitfire grunted. “I think I heard mention of karaoke, so, I can guess.”
Groaning audibly, Soarin took a long drink of his beer. “Again?” He reached for a second slice of pizza, again motioning for Spitfire to do the same. “Are we gonna have to get up there too, so everypony gets some downtime from Surprise serenading them?”
“Probably,” Spitfire said, taking him up on his food offer. “We did Paradise by the Rainbow Dashboard Light last time, didn’t we?”
Soarin nodded mid-mouthful.
“Hmmm.” Spitfire chewed a while, running through her mental repertoire. “Guess we could see if they’ve got Set the Fire Streak to the Third Bar?”
“Nah,” came Fleetfoot’s voice from the doorway, “we should all get up and do The Chain.”
Spitfire snorted, and Soarin tried to but it came out more as choking. “Fleetfoot Mac. That’d be a good one,” Spitfire said.
Fleetfoot slapped Soarin on the back a few times until he gave her a hooves up, then pulled a chair over from the counter, straddled it back-to-front, and grabbed a slice of pizza for herself. Someday Fleet would wait for food to be offered to her before taking it, and the whole squad would know they had a changeling in their ranks.
“Did you guys see the orange stallion out there? He’s cute.” Fleetfoot had a hungry look in her eyes, which the pizza slice she then wolfed down did nothing to quell.
“Earth pony?” Spitfire asked. “Tall, white mane?”
Fleet nodded, and Spitfire pictured it for a moment. “Meh.”
“Oh come on,” Fleetfoot held up her hooves, “he’s gorgeous!”
“His marefriend certainly is,” Soarin said, eyeing Fleet over his pizza.
“Really?” Fleetfoot perked up, wide-eyed. “Two-for-one!” She raised her beer in celebration, then drained it. “Well, that’s my plans for the evening sorted then.” But she made no move to leave, and instead reached for a second slice of pizza.
Spitfire waggled her eyebrows at Soarin. “I hear that fan from the Vanhoover show is here tonight.”
“Which fan?” Soarin asked, a picture of innocence only slightly ruined by a blush and furtive eyes.
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll remember,” Spitfire smirked. “Just make sure you stretch afterwards this time. I don’t wanna hear you creaking during warmup for the next two weeks.”
“Oof,” Soarin shook his head, “I’ll remember that next time somepony passes the evaluation forms to me ‘cause she’s too sore from ‘partying’ to sit down to do her paperwork.”
“Hey, that’s not fair,” Fleetfoot cut in, “Spitfire was gonna dump that on you whether she got laid the night before or not.”
Spitfire held her hooves up helplessly, but her protests fell on deaf ears.
Finishing up her second slice, Fleetfoot frowned. “Was that the Saddle Arabian mare with the green eyes?”
“Yeah, that was her,” Spitfire nodded. Her cheeks felt the tiniest bit warm, but that was probably just the chillies on the pizza.
“Nice. Oh, by the way,” Fleet sat up, “do you know if Blaze is still around?”
Spitfire shook her head, but Soarin stepped in with an answer. “She was in the garden about half an hour ago, so, probably?”
“I’d think so,” Spitfire said. “She’d have dropped in to say goodnight if she’d headed off since.”
“Sweet.” Fleetfoot pushed herself to her feet, chair scraping noisily on the kitchen floor. “She owes me ten bits.”
As one, Spitfire and Soarin nodded wearily. “What was the wager?” Spitfire asked.
Fleetfoot grabbed her beer and drained the mouthful remaining, chucking the empty bottle into the empties bucket with one hoof while picking up a fresh one from the crate on the side table with the other. “How many shots Thunderlane would need before he made a move to talk to that blonde cheerleader.”
Spitfire snorted, covering her snout as she erupted into laughter, and Soarin grinned around the last of his pizza.
“How many?” Spitfire asked as Fleet crossed the room to the door.
“Too many,” Fleetfoot snickered. “He could barely stand, let alone string a sentence together!” She pressed a quick kiss to the top of Spitfire’s head and blew one to Soarin, then headed out the door into the party beyond.
Finishing her pizza and emptying her own beer, Spitfire too got to her feet, pulling out two more bottles from the crate and tossing one to Soarin. She looked around the various kitchen worksurfaces hunting for a bottle opener, but soon gave up and pried her own out of her snug pocket.
“Oh Soarrrriiiiin,” came a sing-song voice from the doorway. Spitfire looked up to see a pale blue earth pony she recognised at once.
“V-Vanhoover!” Soarin spluttered, recovering swiftly enough to only spill a few drops of his beer on the kitchen floor.
“It’s Sonata,” she said absently, crossing the distance between them and almost launching herself into his lap. “How’s my favourite little flying pony doing? Have you been– Ooh, pizza!”
“Help yourself,” Soarin said, blinking, as he tried to shift his weight to accommodate supporting a whole other pony. Sonata dived in, extracting a slice of pizza and driving it into her mouth in one smooth movement.
The sound of a throat being cleared, delicately if impatiently, came from the doorway.
“Oh, right!” Sonata’s eyes went wide. Then swivelled to Spitfire. “I have a friend who you’re very keen to meet!”
Spitfire peered at Sonata for a few moments, wondering if that sentence made sense to her. Then Spitfire shook her head, figuring that the quickest answer was probably just to look round the doorway and see for herself. Uncapping her beer and pocketing the bottle opener again, she stepped around the fridge and wandered across to the doorway.
In the dim light beyond, a pony stood outlined, blocking out most of the corridor beyond with the biggest mane Spitfire had ever seen. The figure took a step forward, dainty but deliberate. “Hi,” she said, “I’m Adagio.”
The light hit Adagio’s face and Spitfire felt her breath catch.
“I’m Spitfire.” She pursed her lips. "Soarin?" she called back into the kitchen, "I'll be around, ok?"
They'd probably end up finishing the last few pizza slices together cold for breakfast.
Author's Note
Realised I hadn't written Spitfire in four years, so I made this up in an hour or two.
