//------------------------------// // Another One // Story: Aria Blaze, Mother of Rainbow Dash // by im a nopony //------------------------------// - age 1 This wasn't going to be too difficult right? Just walk in like everything is normal? Or should she avoid them? Hide this little ankle biter for a few days before revealing it, or have them make it so noisy her eardrums bleed? Aria was having a tough time deciding on what to do. Everything seemed to happen so fast, because it had, and already she was considering just keeping the kid around for almost no reason other than, why the fuck not? Just a few hours ago she had left to go shopping. Her trunk now filled with diapers and powdered milk and whatever it was babies needed. She didn't know what they needed, people on TV mentioned going to classes for this and she had never been to one. She would just have to face it. There was no way she could avoid the questions after bringing lots of shopping bags into her room when she almost never went out. No, she just had to Siren up, and face Adagio, and maybe cave so she wouldn't have this responsibility. Goddess she hoped Adagio would force her to take the kid somewhere else. “Ready Rainbow?” Aria asked the kid at her feet, squatting down in an effort to communicate that this was serious. “You're about to meet my sisters. And I want you to not fuck this up for me. If you fuck this up for me then I might was well lock you in a room with no food or water for a few days.” Aria said in a baby voice, removing any seriousness from the threat. Instead of giggling like Aria expected, Rainbow just nodded, seeming to fake understanding what she said. It was adorable how much effort the baby was putting into trying to fit in and it made Aria laugh. “Stupid kid.” Aria said as she stood back up and opened the front door. “Aria's home!” Sonata called from the living room. “I can hear the door Sonata, you don't have to tell me.” Adagio yelled from her room. “No ones come to meet us, so that's good.” Aria said. “Just keep quiet until we get to my room.” Aria picked up Rainbow awkwardly while holding the grocery bags at her wrist. It hurt, but it was nothing compared to when she had the idea to use wrist weights while gaming, so she kept walking. They passed Sonata who was casually watching TV with a bowl of popcorn. Aria managed to walk quick enough before Sonata noticed how quiet she was being that she made it into the connected hallway. Her room was at the end, and Adagio's was the first one on the right. The effort it took to keep her arms stead as she walked was more than she expected. She couldn't drop her arms or else the noise of the bags hitting her hips would alert her sisters that she bought stuff, and was holding a baby. Rainbow still held a stoic look on her face, a strange sight for a baby. She was focused, at least until her short term memory kicked in and made her forget that she had to be quiet. The bed creaked in Adagio's room, in a mad dash Aria made it to her room, tossed the baby onto the bed like it was canned beans, and put the groceries down so she could go back out and get more. Aria turned around, took one step, and then the small laughter happened. That little betrayer, was laughing from being thrown. Aria would make her laugh, see if babies liked being thrown from rooftops, maybe she'd get a giggle out of that too. “Aria?!” Sonata yelled in panic, the sound of her hopping off the couch and running down the hall filled Aria with dread. “Aria are you ok?” Sonata asked as she screeched to a halt at the end of the hall, right outside Aria's room. She should have closed the door, because now Sonata could see the bags of diapers on her floor and the small child on her bed. “Oh my god.” “It's not what it looks like!” Aria shouted. “Well what does it look like?” Sonata asked, still flabbergasted. Eyes torn away from the baby just to look at Aria as she gave her explanation which was sure to be entertaining. The house hadn't had any good fights for a while and for once Sonata would like to not be on the losing end. “Well,” Aria started stumbling, “Obviously it's just, it's well, I don't know, what does it look like?” “It looks like there's a baby on your bed!” “Oh yes that, well there's a perfectly good reason I assure you. If I could think of one.” Aria said, noticing the peek of orange hair around the corner. “What is going on here?!” Adagio's voice roared. Adagio hated fights that didn't involve her, she hated loud ones even more. She hated noise and yet whenever there was a discussion she was the loudest of the three, and never seemed to realize why she got migraines after their fights. “Sonata, would you mind telling me, what the hell is all the yelling about?!” Adagio hadn't come into the room yet, standing just outside in the hallway. “Well I just, you see, there's an uh, it's,” Sonata stammered. “Enough, Aria, what's going on here?” Adagio asked. “Well you see, it's just an, uh,” Aria stammered. “She just said that.” Adagio said. Both Sonata and Aria started up again, their voices filling the air as Adagio rolled her eyes and pushed past them both into the room. “Well well well.” Adagio laughed. It was not the reaction Aria was expecting. “You aren't mad?” Aria asked, scared by this unexpected laughing Adagio. “Mad?” Adagio chuckled again before, “OFF ALL THE STUPID THINGS YOU GOOFBALLS HAVE DONE!” Aria sighed with relief, the world was still right. 3 years later, age 4 “Adagio!” Aria yelled, glee in her voice. “What?!” Adagio yelled back. “This little brat is gonna be a money maker!” Aria yelled, holding up Rainbow by an arm. Rainbow just dangled there like a corpse. That corpse happened to be giggling with a massive smile. “She outran everyone at the park. We timed it, she ran a mile in like six minutes. A natural born athlete. Kind of scary how fast she was going. Like something out of a nightmare.” “Aria, we already have money.” Adagio said. “And one other thing, I don't care.” Aria frowned and placed Rainbow down. “Hey, I gotta talk to Auntie Dagi here for a minute, go play forehead bat for a while.” Aria said. Once Rainbow was gone Aria turned back to Adagio with a frown. She knew Adagio didn't like Rainbow any more than she needed to. But a little faking would be nice. Aria only pretended to love the monkey worm with legs as much as she felt was necessary. It had been a hard few years with Adagio doing her best to contribute zero effort into helping with Rainbow and things were just going to keep being hard unless she brought it up. “I know you hate her but-” “So you do know, good, I was worried I would have to remind you.” Adagio joked. “She's been really down lately because of you.” Aria finished. “Me?” Adagio asked. A genuine shock to her voice. What could she have done to make that brat care about what she thought? She was doing her best to be nothing to that brat. “I don't think so.” “Really, Adagio.” Aria said. “She's trying a lot to be nice to you and impress you and you wont even give her a second glance.” “Want me to care about her?” Adagio spat. “Teach the kid to sing opera or something. Make her do anything that's actually useful for us.” “She's four years old.” “Never too soon.” Adagio said, ending the conversation. 3 years later, age 7 “Don't hit the kids. Don't hit the kids. Don't hit the kids.” Aria mumbled to herself repeatedly as she stood outside on the curb. Not only was she certain she would put someone in the hospital before the week was over, she had to do it wearing the worst clothes she had ever seen in her life. Khaki green button up with a sash and khaki shorts, the worst kind of clothing in the world and she had to wear two sets of it. “I don't think I have enough sandwiches.” Rainbow said, looking through her backpack. “They'll have vending machines, we'll just buy something if we run out.” Aria said. Assuring Rainbow there was nothing to worry about was easy. Rainbow was an easy to please carefree kid who didn't need much more guidance than being told where to shoot. So when there was a troop of scouts that promised her plenty of physical exercise while learning skills, she took it. And forced her way into the boy scouts instead of the girl scouts because Rainbow thought the uniform was lame. The only condition was that Aria needed to supervise, a deal she wasn't able to turn down because Rainbow had also paid for her joining and fare for was now going to be a week long camping trip. Something Aria would have liked on it's own, with a music player, guitar, actual mattress, in her own backyard at a lake house she owned, instead of in an actual forest surrounded by children. The bus came around the corner and stopped in front of Aria. She moved to get on but stopped when kids started to come out. Aria put great effort into not cracking and screaming at them for stepping on her lawn. According to the scout leader this was the last stop so decided to do the run down here. Aria wished that she could send the message to his mind that they could have done this on the bus instead. “Here's some more sandwiches.” Sonata's voice chimed in a sing song voice behind her. She was shoving more sandwiches into Rainbow's bag. The “Kind” soul she was. Sonata was deceptive like that, seeming nice. She wasn't, not for a mile, she wasn't stupid either no matter how much Aria called her that. At times she could tell Sonata was trying to get Rainbow killed on purpose. Just small suggestions that didn't come across as joking. “So are they leaving anytime soon or what?” Adagio said from Aria's other side. “Soon, I hope. Come to see Rainbow off?” Aria asked. “Nope.” There was a flash and a whir of wires, coils, and film. “Just wanted to get another picture of you in this cute little uniform.” “Please don't make me go.” Aria begged. “She stole the money from MY wallet. MY money says YOU'RE going.” Adagio said stabbing her fingers into Aria's side. “Now I do have some bad news for anyone bringing along their game boys.” The scout leader said. “Where we are going there will be no outlets, which means no way to charge them. Once they're dead, they're dead.” “Oh no.” Aria said, hair standing on her neck. “That also means no AC,” Oh no, “No light bulbs or lamps,” Oh no, “no vending machines or fans. We'll be roughing it in the forest for a whole week and having lots of fun without technology.” Aria groaned, “Oh how do I get myself into these messes?” “I think it's on account of you being so stupid.” Sonata said. 11 years later, age 18 “Fluttershy.” Rainbow dash said. The bottle landed on her, and so she had two options, kiss her or tell her a truth. The rules before were that they would have to kiss or do a dare but the dares were shot down as a rule because of how out of hand they got. Rainbow Dash was hoping to get kissed a lot tonight, not like she needed practice or anything. And it wasn't like she found all of her friends super attractive and she was worried her more masculine attitude kept them from seeing her as attractive. Nothing like that. “Truth.” Fluttershy said, disappointing Rainbow. “That's OK, my kisses are legendary after all, not sure you could handle it.” Rainbow said. “Oh please Rainbow, ask her already so it can be my turn again.” Rarity said. “Fine, Fine. Fluttershy,” Rainbow thought of an easy question that wouldn't be too out of place, and easy enough for someone like Fluttershy to answer. They had all made the mistake early on on getting too personal with the shy girl that they found out things they wish they hadn't. “Who, do you have a crush on?” There was a small chorus of ooh's from Pinkie, Sunset, and Rarity. “Is it one of us?” Pinkie asked. “One question at a time, Pinkie.” Applejack said. Reigning in the pink party girl. “It's, um,” Fluttershy mumbled the last part. “What was that darling?” Rarity asked. “It's Adagio.” Fluttershy said, disappearing behind her knees she hugged. “My aunt?” Rainbow said shocked. “But you've known her since you were five.” “I know.” Fluttershy said from behind her knees. “Don't crushes like that usually fade over time?” Twilight asked. “Nah.” Sunset answered. “I used to have a crush on my personal teacher who practically raised me.” “Human or pony?” Pinkie asked. “Alicorn, actually. I actually told her I had a crush on her when I was a filly.” “What happened?” Fluttershy asked, emerging from castle knees. “She laughed, told me there's no wrong way to fantasize, and left it at that.” Sunset said. “Okay but can you please not have a crush on my aunt? That just feels wrong.” Rainbow said. “You're whole family is hot Dash, you're just gonna have to get over it.” Applejack said. “It hurts to hear but that's the honest truth. “You're all just lucky I'm not actually a saiyan.” Rainbow said, glaring daggers at Applejack. Fluttershy mumbled, “Not even real anime.” “We are not having this discussion again!” Rainbow yelled.