The ambient noise of the restaurant fell upon her deafened ears, muted and quiet and flowing around her. But she didn’t care.
Every clatter of a spoon on a plate was a distant lull of thunder, and every glint of light off a glass was a silent bolt of lightning. The restaurant may have been a storm, but she was in the eye of it, an island in an ocean of nothing.
She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to expel the weariness from her body. Of course it didn’t work, though; if it had, she would have been feeling better a long, long time ago.
Her entire body ached with a tired soreness. It was better than pain, but not by much. Her mind wandered back to that night a week ago, as she lay on the cloud wet ground, broken and bleeding, calling the name of a pony who never showed up.
But the pain in her body was nothing compared to the pain that wracked her heart that night. It faded as quickly as it went, but it seemed to sap the emotion with it, leaving her feeling numb and empty.
With a disgruntled sigh she stared at the now-cold bowl of soup in front of her. She stirred it with her spoon, watching as the creamy liquid swirled round and round like a hurricane.
After a few seconds she gave up and set the spoon on the side of the plate, reaching for the newspaper beside her. She read the headline but it didn’t register in her mind, the letters instead blurring and fading like a dream.
She was suddenly distracted by a discreet motion in front of her. A pony had taken the seat across from her. “Hey, Daring.”
Daring Do blinked and frowned. “Fire Fight. Or Spitfire… or whoever it is that you are.”
The other mare winced. She was dressed like she always was, in her brown bomber jacket and gray baseball cap, eyes tucked behind a pair of sunglasses.
“Which is it then,” Daring asked, her voice dry and heartless. “What name’s your real one?”
“Spitfire Maverick,” she answered. “Fire Fight’s my alias.”
Daring nodded slowly. “Alias. Sure.”
Spitfire sighed, taking off her sunglasses to catch Daring’s eye. “Look, Daring, I’m sorry, alright?”
“Oh, you’re sorry?” replied Daring. “You’re sorry? Well, that just makes everything better, doesn’t it?”
Before Spitfire could reply, another voice quickly cut in. “Would you like a menu, ma’am?” asked the waitress, balancing a tray of drinks on her back.
“Uh, no. No thanks,” Spitfire quickly replied in a gravelly voice.
The waitress nodded and faded away into the sea of diners and tables as quickly as she had come.
An awkward silence fell upon their table. Daring picked the spoon up again and absentl-mindedly began stirring her soup. Spitfire tapped on the table impatiently, eyes darting around the restaurant as if searching for danger.
And for a good reason, perhaps. Trouble seemed to stalk her, if the last week had taught her anything.
Daring closed her eyes and sighed, rubbing her forehead to stave off the headache that thundered through her head like an invading army. “Fine. Spitfire, then. How much was real? How many lies did you tell me?”
“Not many.”
Daring scoffed at that and rolled her eyes.
“Please, Daring,” Spitfire pleaded. “You’ve gotta believe me.”
“How can I?” snapped Daring. “How? After everything you’ve done?”
Spitfire sighed, biting her lip. “I… look, not everything was a lie. I really am an author, and I’m also a flight mechanics instructor at Canterlot University.”
“Then why the whole fake name thing?” Daring pressed. “Why couldn’t you just tell me the truth?”
“Are you kidding? You’ve seen what my line of work is like first-hoof,” Spitfire replied. “It’s dangerous—deadly even. I didn’t want you to get too close and get hurt.”
“Yeah? Fat lot of good that did,” Daring spat back, tapping a hoof on the newspaper. Captain of the Wonderbolts reported seriously injured, unable to lead, the headline announced.
Spitfire sighed, rubbing her temples. “I know, I know! Because… because I made a mistake, alright? You just… I didn’t… I couldn’t…”
“You couldn’t what?” Daring persisted. “Couldn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth? Couldn’t call me a friend?”
Spitfire shot up, appalled. “Daring, you are my friend!”
“Yeah, right!” she replied, her voice rising. “You wanted to use me to get into the Wonderbolt Archives just so you could go on your stupid treasure hunt, and you didn’t even think to tell me that you were being hunted by a mercenary group! You call that friendship?!”
Spitfire slammed a hoof on the table and the noise resonated like a thunderclap. “Fine! Yeah, that's what I wanted to do, but you just… I got scared, okay?!”
Another uncomfortable silence set in around them. Spitfire tried to reach out and hold her hoof, but Daring pulled it away, forcing her to retract it.
“I… I work alone,” Spitfire continued, through gritted teeth. “Because the people who get close to me burn out fast. So when we started to get close, I got scared. I realized I cared about you. And… and I didn’t want to lose you. So I panicked. I tried to get in without your help. And then I got caught, and then… and then I wasn’t there to help you when the mercs showed up.
“But that night? The one where you took me to the Wonderbolt Museum in the dead of the night? That’s when I realized that you mattered to me. I realized I could have listened to you talk about that stuff all night long, and I realized that for once, someone else cared about me.” Her form began to tremble as she spoke. “I… I don’t want to lose you now. Not after everything we’ve been through.”
Daring watched as Spitfire came apart in front of her and sighed. “Spitfire… look, you want to know something? It’s lonely at the top. Ponies think that as captain, I must have loads of friends up there. But I don’t. I’ve got dozens of ponies vying for my position, and looking for any opportunity to splice themselves in and take my spot. I’ve got tabloids thinking I slept or bribed my way to the top, and I’ve got hundreds of eyes on me at all times, talking about me and judging me. So when you came up to me that day…”
Spitfire blinked a few times, nodding along.
“When you came up to me, I thought we had something,” Daring continued, staring into her soup. “I thought that I had finally met somepony I could trust, and somepony as interested in Wonderbolt history as I was. Then I woke up one night to hear you were arrested trying to break into the archives.”
“I… I can’t imagine how you must have felt,” Spitfire admitted, playing with her sunglasses in her hooves. “You know that I’m not the best at thinking of others. But, we had something, Daring. Please, I want you to know that.”
“Yeah,” Daring replied, stirring her soup again. “Yeah.”
Neither pony dared to look at the other, and neither tried to speak, letting the ambience of the restaurant fill the gap instead.
“So,” Daring finally ventured. “Did you find whatever it was you were looking for?”
“The Insignia of Hurricane?” asked Spitfire. “Yeah. Got it from the mercs after they tried to get away with it. After I passed you off to the medics. Coupled with the Staff of the Shadowbolts… yeah, I don’t even want to imagine what they could have done with that.”
“So it's safe now?” asked Daring.
“Yeah,” Spitfire replied. “Safe.”
“You did some great flying that night,” Daring said absently. “I’ll give you that much. Maybe in another life you could have been captain of the Wonderbolts.”
“You weren’t bad yourself,” Spitfire replied. “But yeah. Maybe in another life.”
The conversation slipped away again, but neither pony tried to save it. After a few minutes the waitress came over to leave the check. “Did you want a to-go box for that?” she asked Daring.
“Uh… no thanks,” she replied. “Sorry, just… lost my appetite is all.”
“Not a problem,” replied the waitress with a cheery smile.
Spitfire pulled a bit bag from her jacket pocket. “Here,” she replied, scooping out a few bits.
“I’m not broke, you know,” Daring replied.
“Yeah, but it’s… it’s the least I can do,” Spitfire answered as she fumbled with the coins.
Daring watched as her former friend set a few coins on the plastic tray with the receipt in it.
“So,” Spitfire began awkwardly. “Daring… what are we?”
“I don’t know,” Daring replied evenly.
She winced at that, and Spitfire ventured a gaze at her. “Can we… can we still be friends?”
Daring sighed, feeling more weary than usual. “I… I don’t know, Spitfire. You really hurt me, you know. And… and I don’t know if I can be friends with someone I can’t trust. As the captain, I’ve got to keep an eye out for the team. But… you hurt me, Spitfire. And what scares me is that you’ll hurt others, too. And I don’t think I can live with that.”
Spitfire closed her eyes and sighed. “Great. Looks like I bucked it all up again,” she replied with a soft chuckle. “Daring… I know you probably don’t care and it means nothing to you, but I really am sorry. Sorry that I’m not a better pony, anyways. And I know it’s a lot to ask of you, but… can we try? Try to be… I don’t know. Something?”
Daring didn’t respond.
Spitfire reached across the table to take her hoof and squeeze it. But she failed to find it.
When she opened her eyes, Daring was gone, and Spitfire was left sitting alone, as the storm of noise rushed in around her to swallow her up whole.