“I’m sorry, I think I upset your marefriend.”

I definitely did, but I don’t think I could have done anything differently. Spitfire tried to look contrite all the same, dragging her eyes away from where Rainbow and Lightning were disappearing towards the house over her shoulder, and dropping them to her lap.

“Don’t sweat it, she’ll live,” Aria said, waving her drink around in a carefree gesture before sipping it through the straw. “She’s normally upset about one thing or another.”

Apart from the short lip of sand before her, the clearest ocean Spitfire had ever seen stretched from one edge of her peripheral vision to the other, and above the unbroken horizon fluffy, happy cumulus clouds dotted the sky in the distance. “Even here, in this wonderful place?” She couldn’t imagine being unhappy here. It even looked like Aria had chosen that exact spot because the palm tree overhanging them would provide shade once the sun reached its zenith at noon and became too intense to bear, but remain out of their way the rest of the time.

Aria’s lips pressed into a thin line curving up, a rueful impression of a smile. “Her demons are all internal. Nowhere to run – or fly – not even here.” She pinched the bridge of her nose with a hoof, closing her eyes and shaking her head, but only for a moment. “Leads to her getting cross about the silliest of things. I told her to get that transplant.”

“Transplant?” Spitfire didn’t remember anything out of place from Lightning’s Academy checkup, but that had been several years before.

“To replace the heart with a second liver. So she could drink more and care less.”

To punctuate the remark, Aria took a deep draught of her cocktail. Spitfire chuckled, but she vaguely remembered hearing the same joke from Fleet a few years before. Once Aria’s straw started making the slurping noise of only finding air between the ice cubes, she set down the functionally-empty glass.

“Is that your strategy then?” Spitfire asked, sucking up another strawful of her mojito and feeling everything be fine just for a second. There were definitely worse vices to have.

Looking down at her barrel and smoothing some stray patches of fur with one front hoof, Aria’s face was blank. “I never cared all that much to begin with.” She made a small gesture of turning her hooves up, a shrug that never reached her shoulders.

“Yes you did,” Spitfire said, more softly than she’d spoken until that point. Aria arched an eyebrow, so Spitfire clarified, “Maybe not about most things, but… Since your sister mentioned what happened to your gems, I’ve been mentally comparing it to losing my wings.” Not voluntarily. Even with the warmth of the sun on her feathers, she felt a shiver run through them, travelling into her spine and up her neck however hard she fought it off. Some subjects pegasi did not discuss. Wing loss was top of the list. “I know how much I’d care. So I don’t believe you.”

“Oh, we lost our wings too,” Aria said immediately. Conversationally, like it was no big deal.

…

Spitfire had no words.

Mentally flailing from the shock revelation, she knew her eyes had shot wide open and she’d otherwise frozen, which Aria must have seen but didn’t react to.

“Or flight fins, you might call them,” Aria continued, “which you can see earth ponies clearly don’t have.” She held up her forelegs, glancing at each just below the knee, and then raised one hoof over her shoulder and tapped the top of her back.

A dorsal fin and shin stabilisers, rather than wings? Obviously that would never stay airborne without magic, but even then, while the streamlined profile would be great for speed in a straight line, she couldn’t imagine a siren like that having much agility.

And then Spitfire realised what she was doing, and shook her head to try to think clearly again. Ok, not clearly, but with perspective. Siren flight mechanics weren’t nearly as important as how Aria could never fly again.

“Grounded and magicless,” Aria said, tipping her head back on her neck to gaze at the sky, “cut off from the wind and the waves by our own bodies.”

Why had Princess Twilight made them earth ponies? Spitfire wondered. Would they have been too hard to keep track of as pegasi? Surely the Princess of Friendship was better than just doing it to punish them. However bad they’d been, nopony deserved that.

“And home at last,” Aria added more wistfully, then gave a quiet snort and continued, “but it’s a home we barely recognise.” She brought her head all the way forwards to rest her forehead on one hoof, in turn resting on the other at the elbow on her stomach. She looked across at Spitfire, one eye peeking out from behind the hoof. “It’s all rather morbid when you add it up, isn’t it?”

All Spitfire could offer was a commiserating smile. Everything she’d seen of Aria, with all her barriers, gave the impression she’d treat a hug as a patronising invasion of her personal space. But Spitfire might have hugged her anyway, if not for being there to track down Fluttershy – when the risk of alienating Aria was just too great – because anypony in her situation deserved it. Perhaps needed it.

Aria reached down to her roofed side table and lifted up a fresh cocktail. A Long Island iced tea, from the looks of it, much like the last. She took a long sip through the straw, closing her eyes and leaning back to rest her head on the back of the chair. Some of the tension slumped out of her muscles and the corners of her mouth crept upwards in a relaxed smile, which didn’t diminish when she opened her eyes again and took in the view out to sea.

“But it’s not so bad really,” she said, taking another sip, her eyes half-lidded but more likely from contentment than desire. “Flying, for example, is so long-gone now that I hardly remember it, let alone miss it.”

A dazed Spitfire accepted there was no way she’d ever be able to relate to that. All those times she’d interacted with Princess Celestia, yet the perspective of an immortal had never seemed further away. To not remember flying, the freedom of hanging in the air, instinctively balancing lift and weight, thrust and drag…

Continuing, Aria said, “Same with swimming, in any meaningful sense.” She gestured open-hooved to the panorama they sat in front of. “Open sky and sea for as far as I can see; that’s immersion enough to make do.”

And the sun loungers being situated on the sandy salient, giving water on three sides, made more sense in that context. Not that it would otherwise be a bad spot, with the waves almost hypnotic in their tranquility, but the vibrant green of the forest was picturesque too, and mostly unseen from their spot.

“And the magic…” Aria struggled with that one. Her easygoing expression faltered, but, after turning her attention to her cocktail for a couple of seconds, she shrugged again and picked up the same lazy almost-smile as before. “That doesn’t matter to me nearly as much as my voice itself, so as long as I have that…”

...Wait, what?!

Pony ears were often the hardest thing to control when it came to not visibly reacting, and it took Spitfire a lot of effort to keep hers from pricking up at that. She then made doubly sure her voice would obey in sounding like she was just casually contributing to the conversation before speaking. “I thought you three lost them along with your magic?”

Aria grinned and raised an eyebrow. “Ever seen a town burst into song for a spontaneous musical number, all singing in harmony despite never having heard it before? And none of them singing off-key either, but all having the resonant voices of professional singers?”

Of course; it was the reason she went through every training session quietly hoping that nopony on the squad was going through a personal crisis that week, so they might actually get things done instead of singing about their lives. If she had to hear Soarin go through one more rendition of Equestrian Pie…

Was that not normal, then? Did that not happen in the world Aria had spent a thousand years in? Everypony could sing, as long as they felt confident; that was just how singing worked.

“Equestria has magic in the air, quite literally,” Aria finished, “and it means my voice is just as good as always.”

“Congratulations on getting that back,” Spitfire said, and she meant it. Since she was holding her glass anyway, she raised it in a toast in Aria’s direction. Aria returned the gesture, and if there’d been a moment on the visit when Spitfire felt they sincerely connected, that was it. Even if there was some lingering dread that ‘just as good as always’ might be implying that Aria was potentially armed at that very second?

The happy response from Aria didn’t last long, with her staring out to sea looking pensive. “It’s safe now, though. Without magic, my singing can’t bewitch anyone.”

The mild clenching in Spitfire’s stomach eased up after that confirmation, but she also couldn’t help having some sympathy for Aria. Would a manticore with its claws removed be a fair comparison?

Aria dropped her eyes down to the cocktail glass in her lap, studying it while her thoughts were most likely elsewhere. “No more conquering Equestria for me.” Then she set her drink down on the side table and paused for a few seconds to yawn, with Spitfire noticing that the rebellious siren far from society still covered her mouth as she did so. “But I can live without the crowds of others adoring my voice, because, having gone without it for two years, I love it myself more deeply than anypony else could understand.” Where arrogance might have been expected, Aria spoke only with satisfaction.

Any Wonderbolt could relate. Not understand, no – just as Aria said. But perhaps those who finally flew again after being injured and grounded for long periods could start to appreciate it. Maybe it was a self-image thing, with the discomfort caused by who you were and what you could do in your head not matching up with reality in the flesh? And in Aria’s head, she had a voice to fill stadiums, Spitfire guessed.

“I like the independence that comes with that,” Aria looked up and to one side thoughtfully. “I’m not at the mercy of others’ approval anymore.”

That does sound ever so freeing. Know your own strengths, and perform for yourself. If anypony else likes it too, that’s just a bonus. If you needed the roar of the audience to fuel your self-worth, you’d never be happy off stage.

Aria had her drink in her hoof again, like it naturally belonged there. “The world can do its own thing, for all I care,” she said, waving her glass in the general direction of the mainland, her offhoof gesture declaring ‘the world’ to be something far away. “It’s no concern of mine.”

She raised her drink to her lips, gazing out towards the horizon, and they sat in silence for a while as Spitfire did the same. Tempting though it was to glance sideways at Aria from time to time to gauge her mood, Spitfire knew she couldn’t do so without it being noticed, which would interrupt whatever calm Aria had found there.

“But it feels smaller,” Aria said after a time, as if she were talking to herself, “living without that ambition.” Her focus appeared to be on the sunlight sparkling on the crests of the tiny waves, and the hoof not holding her drink rubbed her chest over her heart as she spoke. “You just enjoy things as they are, rather than looking forward to where they’re going, or driving to get there.”

That sounded a lot like retirement to Spitfire, something a lot of ponies apparently looked forward to. Not her, though: the day she stepped down as captain would be the saddest of her life. To wake up in the morning with nothing to strive for made her wonder why to bother waking up at all.

One of the techniques she’d considered for getting Fluttershy’s location was to bring Aria around to Spitfire’s way of thinking. If Aria could be encouraged to empathise, she might tell them what they needed to know. ‘Not much chance of that’ had been her conclusion, but instead the reverse had happened, and she found herself understanding Aria’s perspective more and more.

But the quiet exchange wasn’t to last. After another thoughtful pause, Aria’s voice turned waspish. “Is that enough to rule me out as a suspect?”

From the way the tips of Aria’s ears had turned red, Spitfire guessed she’d realised how she’d been self-analysing, and perhaps that the last bit didn’t make her sound too happy about her situation.

While some ponies might cooperate more if they thought they were in more trouble than they were, others might push back harder. Aria didn’t come across as the first of those sorts. And the softer approach had been working, so backing down the threat level was probably the best bet.

“You never were.” ‘Person of interest,’ she thought would be the correct term. And she had to maintain some pressure, remembering how Aria had toyed with them earlier. That might be why she was being more talkative now, although that could also have been thanks to the extra cocktail she’d been through in the meantime. Or even how she didn’t have Lightning and Rainbow as an audience anymore. “We’re here because a princess is interested in finding your sister regarding the suspected abduction of one of her friends.”

‘Good luck with that’ politely smiled the message from Aria’s raised eyebrows. “Do you have enough evidence to make the charges stick?”

What charges? There was probably something, like refusing to help an investigation, perhaps even tied in with national security, what with Fluttershy’s necessity as an Element of Harmony. But nothing that would be taken seriously unless Spitfire absolutely knew what she was talking about, which she didn’t. Next best thing, then. “No, but you’d probably be on the royal watchlist for life.”

There was bound to be one of those, right? Even if it was just Princess Celestia’s list of promising up-and-coming cake bakers.

“We’re sirens,” Aria scoffed. “Our magic is fuelled by your misery. We tried to take over two different worlds and we’ve never once said we’re sorry, because we aren’t.” From the way she held eye contact with Spitfire, there was no doubt she meant every word. She smirked. “We’re already on every watchlist Equestria has.”

Funny to think how Spitfire had been empathising with her just two minutes before, when she now seemed so alien. “Fair point,” she conceded, frowning.

Aria’s lips shifted into a grin as she spoke, one that looked like she couldn’t help it spreading. “That’s one of the many reasons I live on a deserted island: it’s quite a challenge for ponies to blend in while trying to spy on you surreptitiously when it’s known that nopony else lives here.”

At the thought of highly-trained spy ponies not quite knowing what to do in response, the grin slowly appeared on Spitfire’s face as well.

“After a few days,” Aria continued, plainly trying to hold back her snickering, “once it became obvious I was building a house and intended to remain here, they chose to leave me to it rather than stay and build their own.” She turned her lower lip up in a cartoon pout, then covered her mouth with a hoof as she descended into tittering.

So Aria had arrived in Equestria, and, having served her time in the other world, been greeted with a new body, not far off a new life, and had the chance to be a part of society again, and responded by fleeing to the far edge of Equestria to live apart from everypony? “Kind of a self-imposed exile,” Spitfire observed.

Shaking her head, Aria held off actually speaking in response until she’d had another strawful of her drink. “Nah, I’m not Adagio.”

Just as with Sonata the day before, Spitfire’s attention became even more focused at the voluntary mention of Adagio’s name. Again, she had to bite down on any external reaction, managing to control her ears that time around.

“I’d have come here anyway,” Aria said, “for the textbook description of paradise. And I’m not keen on any ponies or people; the ones watching me just have better taste than most.”

Spitfire snorted despite her frustration over no further Adagio details being revealed, and shared a companionable grin with Aria as they each savoured their drinks. She could have gladly emptied her glass in one go, but between remaining sober enough to get what she needed and the trip to the makeshift bar interrupting a conversation which might be getting somewhere, she thought best to stick to one. However perfect several more might have been on that beach.

“But why come back to Equestria?” she asked. “This doesn’t seem much better than your previous banishment, from where I’m sitting.” Obviously, physically it was; physically it was better than just about anywhere. Did that really change it from being just as cut off as before, though? “And nopony was watching you there.”

“We all wanted to sing again,” Aria shrugged. “And Adagio had an old friend she wanted to look up.” She crossed her forehooves behind her head where she reclined, looking up and tilting her head to one side in thought. “It makes a difference that I chose it, too. I could get up and leave anytime I like, so I hardly feel trapped here. The observation ponies would probably reappear” – Aria rolled her eyes – “but that’s still a lot more choice than I had before.”

If singing voices and wings were equivalent, then yes, Spitfire would have moved worlds to fly again. Without hesitation. And accepted constant surveillance, too; although she might have just put up with it instead of galloping off to live away from other ponies. And even with that, nopony enjoyed being powerless, so she could understand the difference in attitude towards a voluntary withdrawal.

The hint about Adagio looking up an old friend could mean many things. A fourth siren, one who remained in Equestria for whatever reason when the others were banished? A mortal she’d once known, whose descendants were still around today? For that to have been a significant factor in why they chose to return to Equestria, it had to be important.

Asking about it – or showing any kind of curiosity there at all – would be far too obvious, and no doubt refused. Spitfire spent a few seconds mulling over everything Aria had said.

Where did she go next? She tried to remember which of the many angles tried with Sonata had worked best. The key there had been talking about Sonata’s relationship, a subject she’d been happier to open up about.

“So how’d you meet Lightning then,” she asked, “if you’re way out here by yourself?” Aria had left Ponyville the night she arrived, Rainbow had said, and done so alone.

“It takes a while to get anywhere when you’re an earth pony,” Aria grimaced, “particularly when you can’t afford the train.”

Spitfire’s eyes widened, contemplating how long it would have taken her and Rainbow to make the journey on foot.

As Aria continued, she put on a noble expression, her words gaining stature as they went on. “So the journey south west was a long, winding trek, sleeping under the stars, hitching cart rides towards the coast, and playing the flute in inn common rooms to pay for my meals.” She was in full-on courtroom bard mode by that point, gesturing with her hooves, her voice rising and falling to make the delivery more dramatic. “And though my saddle bags were my only constant companion, many colourful characters were met along the way.”

As Aria spoke, Spitfire’s eyebrow drifted steadily upwards, and her lips curved into a smile. “And Lightning was, what,” she played along, “working behind the bar in some pirate-frequented tavern at the port?”

“Probably,” Aria returned to her usual dry manner of speaking. “It would explain her proficiency at whipping up a daiquiri or a Long Island iced tea at a moment’s notice, which is one of the major things I look for in a mare.” She shrugged, waited a beat, and then nonchalantly added, “I met her after placing an advert in the paper on my second day here.”

Spitfire snorted with laughter, grateful not to have been trying to enjoy her drink at the time. Dramatic storytelling and perfect comic timing – the sirens might have given the Wonderbolts a run for their money as a headline act, even without their singing voices.

...Maybe that was going slightly too far, but still.

Her raised eyebrows – both of them, now – disbelievingly encouraged Aria to go on.

Mixing another smirk with an air of it not being a big deal, Aria said, “If the authorities are watching you anyway, why be discreet about it?” She finished her cocktail, bypassing the straw and drinking whatever was left directly from the glass, then set it down and rested her head back against the top of the sun lounger, eyes closed. A happy sigh followed.

“You know I’ll look that up in the archive when I get back,” Spitfire teased, “so you might as well just tell me now what it said.”

Reciting without opening her eyes or moving from her relaxed pose, Aria said, “Wanted: Gorgeous young mare to share a lifetime of sunbathing and cocktails on desert island paradise. Hatred of normal, nice ponies preferable, especially those to do with the Magic of Friendship.”

Oh, the alarm bells that must have set off with Princess Twilight…! And Aria said she placed it on only her second day back; talk about a pony starting as she meant to go on. “And that brought you Lightning Dust. I can see how it fits.”

Half-rising from her lounger to support herself on her elbows, Aria made a put-upon face with puppy-dog eyes. “We share a trauma of not being appreciated by the world.” The suffering in her voice would have put a starving filly to shame.

Rolling her eyes, Spitfire shook her head and finished her mojito. She really could have gone for several more. “Some might say you’re both just asses.”

“They might,” Aria chuckled, lying back and closing her eyes again. “And the world doesn’t appreciate how good we are at that.”