Where there’s Fire, there’s Smoke.
by NavyPony
Day Four
“Good afternoon, ma’am! I hope you’re having a great day!?” High Winds’ eternal enthusiasm might’ve been an asset on the training field, but it was grating just about everywhere else. My smoke pit was no exception. “I think it’s beautiful!”
Still, it wasn’t appropriate for me to dislike her just because she was so painfully happy all the time. “Sure. I’ve had worse days.” My answer made the mare’s smile flutter ambiguously for a couple seconds until it levelled out at a slightly toned-down level. Thank goodness. “And what about you, Winds? You’re on Echo Track this week, right? How’s it treating you?”
“It’s great! A little difficult, of course, but I enjoy the challenge!” Then with all the subtlety and tact of a first-class entertainer, the filly changed the subject completely. “Are you smoking again?”
With intentional, dramatic slowness, I pulled my cigarette from between my teeth and gave it a long stare, as if trying to decide whether or not it counted as smoking. As if it wasn’t obvious. “I suppose so.” I put the cig back in my mouth and took a short drag before raising an accusative eyebrow and adding, “Why?”
Her eyes darted back and forth between the cig and my face before responding with the last thing I would’ve ever expected a young pony to ask me. “Can I have one?”
I put my eyebrow back down, thought about it for a moment, and shrugged. “Sure, I guess.” I fished the pack from my flightsuit’s pocket and tossed it in her direction.
For her part, she fumbled with the packet for a bit and slid out a cigarette. After giving the thing a once over and deciding which end to put in her mouth (she got that part correct) Winds just stood there looking stupid while I refrained from laughing. In her defense, I was being less than generous. “Umm, got a light?”
I did, of course, and I pulled out my lighter as she leaned towards me. “So,” I started, lighting up what I very much suspected was her first cigarette, “I didn’t know you smoked.” My suspicions were more or less confirmed when she took one puff and devolved into a desperate coughing fit. “You alright?”
I didn’t think she heard me, at first, but she responded almost as soon as she regained control of her lungs. “Umm, yeah, ma’am. Ahem. I mean yes. I’m fine, ma’am.”
That eyebrow went right back up. “Really? Because you sound a little bit un… un…” My degree was in aerospace engineering, which I have always maintained is a perfectly rational excuse for having the occasional trouble finding the right word. “Un…”
“Unaccustomed? Uninured? Unhabituated?” High Winds’ degree was nowhere near as useful as my B.S. in aeronautical physics, as evidenced by the fact that she knew however many synonyms for the word I wanted. And not just big ones. “Unused to?”
I scowled a little bit, just enough to remind her that I was still her CO. “Exactly.”
The ‘scary officer’ routine still worked, apparently, and much better than it used to, judging from the way her eyes went wider than dinner plates. Making rank will do that. “Umm, yes ma’am. Ahem, sorry ma’am.”
“But really.” I tried to make it clear from my tone of voice that I was less upset than she seemed to think I was. “I never figured you for a smoker.”
She grimaced apologetically and tried taking another drag. The ensuing coughing fit took slightly less time than the first one. “Well…”
No doubt in the slightest – definitely her first cigarette. “Meh.” I shrugged my shoulders in my best imitation of a colonel. It was funny because I was a colonel. “I suppose we all have to start somewhere – I suppose this is as good a place as -” a stray thought struck me. “Remind me again how old you are, Winds?” It was a rare occurrence, but occasionally there was the rare ‘Bolt that got accepted before she was of age. “I’m not enabling underage drug use, am I?”
“What? Ahahaha!” I think she interpreted my question as a joke, because she didn’t recoil the way a straight-laced junior officer like Winds would have otherwise. “No ma’am, of course not, I wouldn’t!” The way she laughed was refreshing, like she was still an aspiring highschool hopeful. I guess it was evidence that she’d spent so little time in the service – elsewise she’d simply roll her eyes. Or kiss up, me being her CO and all. “I just, I never really had the chance.”
My eyebrows really weren’t getting a rest today. “But you want to? Did all the…” I waved the hoof holding my cigarette in a vaguely evocative fashion, “the brainwashing not take hold?”
“Uhh, brainwashing?”
I nodded as sagely as possible. “Brainwashing. The whole ‘Smoking’s bad. Smoking’s dangerous. Smoking will kill you. Don’t smoke,’ and all of that?” Not that I disagreed with much of it, but that didn’t keep it from being brainwashing. “It’s not as if most ponies can get through the school system without a mostly rational hatred of smoking.” I neglected to mention the fact that this hatred tended to extend to smokers as well. “I suppose you somehow slipped through the cracks?”
She couldn’t answer at first, on account of coughing up a storm. “Ugh, ech. Ahem. I guess so, ma’am. I mean, open mind and all that, right?”
“Hm. And how’s that working out for you right now? What gave you the urge to try?” I exhaled in her direction, sending a puff of smoke her way just as she started to recover from her coughing fit. It was immature as hell, but watching her continue to gasp was rather humorous.
“I…” She floundered, looking back and forth between me and the cigarette she’d just pulled from her lips. “It’s… ahem, a new experience?” It was like she was asking if that was the correct answer.
“I’ve never brushed my teeth with turpentine, you know.” I have a spectacular deadpan delivery when I try.
Her brow clenched in bewilderment. “Ma’am?”
“I’ve never brushed me teeth with turpentine, I said.” Winds must have been less sharp than I’d taken her for – she just stared at me with that puzzled expression while I took another drag on my cigarette. “I’m saying that it would be a new experience. But that doesn’t mean it’d be a good one, and I don’t intend to try doing it. You see?”
“I… I think so.”
“So…” I paused to give her a chance she didn’t take. Nope, definitely not as bright as I’d given her credit for, else I wouldn’t have to ask the upcoming question. “Why did you want to try smoking?” She opened her mouth, only to have her eyes bug out and her words freeze in her throat. Which probably meant – yep, I could feel the breeze being pushed in as another pegasus glided down behind me. There were only two ponies about who should’ve been able to make Winds freeze the way she did, and being that I was one of them, the process of elimination only left one stallion. “Soarin.” I greeted him without bothering to turn around.
“Good afternoon, ma’am, and uh…” Either my ears were deceiving me or Soarin was speechless and I could literally hear him blinking behind me. I turned around to check. Yup, definitely speechless, although he ever-so-slowly turned his neck to stare at me, and there were a lot of expletives in that look.
But him being my XO – and a good one at that – he didn’t say anything while one of our subordinates was around. “Miss Winds,” he uttered, finally discovering his voice, “I wasn’t aware that you smoked.”
She looked at Soarin, down at her cig, over to me, and back to Soarin, her eyes maintain that hint of panic throughout. Then she did it again. “Umm… maybe?” she finally admitted, sounding unsure of herself. “That is, I’m thinking about starting…”
“Very well, Winds.” Even knowing Soarin the way I did (or perhaps because of that), I was relatively surprised at how calm he seemed upon hearing this. Knowing him the way I did, however, it was obvious that his composure was all external. “Can I make a recommendation?”
“Umm, yessir?”
“Quit.”
The young mare gulped quietly and slid her eyes in my direction; I supposed she was looking for me to back her up or something, but I just shrugged my shoulders and ashed my cigarette. “Don’t look at me,” I finally muttered with the thing in my mouth, “I think you have the right to kill yourself however you want.” That brought a scowl to my Executive Officer’s face, and yet another nervous gulp from Winds. “As long as it’s not illegal, of course – don’t disgrace the ‘Bolts by doing something that makes us look bad.”
Soarin just turned to look at me. His expression remained neutral, but I could practically see him suppressing an angry glare.
~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
“That could’ve gone better,” my XO said with an only slightly dark tone.
I shrugged nonchalantly. “It could’ve gone worse, too.”
“Only because she didn’t run away to Chaps once you started talking about killing yourself. You know, Lightning Streak came to talk to me again today.”
I lit another cigarette, only to be struck by a painful coughing fit when I took the first puff – low quality cigs. I eventually composed myself enough to form a complete sentence. Well, complete syllable, at least. “Oh?”
Soarin didn’t look at me, instead choosing to mutter towards the now-empty practice track. “He wanted to talk about your ‘suicidal tendencies’ – his words, not mine.”
“It did strike me that he wasn’t the type to let go of me smoking very easily. What did you say?”
“I told him that he shouldn’t concern himself over your habits.”
The very political way he worded his response gave me a little chuckle, but only because it was so atypical for Soarin. “You didn’t refute him. Ha!” I would have devolved into laughter, but a tiny fleck of something lodged in my throat, and it turned into coughing instead.
Soarin sighed, and suddenly looked much older than he had a few minutes ago. “I think you should quit.”
I took a couple deep breaths as I recovered from my coughing fit. “I like smoking.”
And that was where our conversation ended. Soarin said nothing else until I finished my cigarette, stowed the stub in my little ashtray, and headed towards the locker rooms.
“Have a good evening, ma’am.”
“You too, Soarin. See you tomorrow.”