Epilogue: Party Hard
Soarin allows his gaze to drift around the Wing Fling currently consuming all of Prism Plateau. Idle chatter weaves through the air, a chorus of laughs and conversation just barely discernible over the heavy beat thumping from the dance floor. The final rays of the setting sun cast the clouds in reds and scarlets, creating an illusion of a burning sky. An illusion, Soarin notes, that is greatly enhanced by the various clouds scattered around the Academy that actually are on fire.
Somehow the gritty tang of the smoke combines flawlessly with the various aromas drifting up from the dining area. With a graceful flap of his wings, Soarin dives from his vantage point above the wreckage of the mess hall and spirals down toward the buffet. His hooves touch down gently, accompanied by a soft puff of ash. With the trained eye of a connoisseur, he examines the dishes artfully scattered across the singed tabletop.
The usual party fare is present, of course: ample horse d'oeuvres, a fondue fountain, cupcakes topped with tiny, fondant-sculpted Wonderbolts, painstakingly arranged in Spitfire's favorite formation...
Soarin squints. The tiny fondant Fleetfoot is nowhere to be found, and while somepony's supplanted Misty Fly's cupcake with a limited edition Nightmare Moon figurine, the rest of the treats remain untouched. Soarin shrugs to himself; it's not the first time Fleet's fallen out of Spitfire's good graces, and it certainly won't be the last.
Ignoring the DRE's wedged in between the serving platters (ready-to-eat desserts are great for contributing to the desperate, apocalyptic theme of the Wing Fling, but not much else), Soarin carefully nudges a steaming apple tart onto his plate, warily eyeing the seemingly-scorched edges.
"This isn't really burnt, is it?" he asks the pink earth pony behind the table. She bounces over, accompanied by a cheerful, albeit rumpled, Tender Greens.
"Nopeity nope!" she trills, pushing Tender Greens forward. "Go on, Green Bean, tell him about it!"
With the pink mare's smiling encouragement, the Academy chef clears his throat. "Well, Lieutenant Soarin, we wanted the food to go along with the theme of the night." He points to the giant banner proclaiming 'The Wonderbolts—One Thousand Years of Protecting Equestria from Destruction!' Beneath the title, a partially scribbled out, mouthwritten addition reads 'most of the time.'
"At first," the pink mare continues, "we were gonna get a dragon to lightly toast all of the food, but then Applejack was like 'Pinkie, that'll just burn everything' and she was totally right! And so then I was like 'EVERYTHING'S RUINED' and that Wonderbolt lady looked like she was having a heart attack but then Tender Greens here had a super-brilliant idea!"
The stallion gives Soarin a sheepish smile. "I figured that we could make everything look singed by using s—" The word dies in his throat. He tries again, frowning, "We used colored su—sug—" A bead of sweat trickles down his forehead. "I garnished everything with colored sugar," he whispers.
Pinkie sniffs, her eyes brimming with tears. "You've come so far." She pats him on the back affectionately, then returns to her quadruple-pronged fondue rotisserie.
"I'm impressed," Soarin agrees. Biting down on his plate, he moves over to the punch bowl where a barpony gives him a cup filled with a sparkling, golden liquid. Soarin pins the drink underneath a clamped wing, then begins winding his way through the ponies grouped around various small tables. If you can even call these tables, he amends as he narrowly avoids snagging his tail on the ragged edge of a tabletop. Looking back up, he spots a lone figure seated at the edge of the designated food area.
A moment later, Soarin's setting his plate onto a table that looks suspiciously like a section of the kitchen wall, balanced on a hefty pile of crumbling bricks. He places his glass down carefully, then slides into the empty seat beside Fleetfoot. While the view from the table isn't as impressive as it would be from the clouds, there's something to be said for being immersed in the festivities. Soarin observes the party as he lets his tart reach optimal temperatures.
Across the newly-cracked runway, directly next to the triple-decker, floating dance floors, a set of charged thunderheads mark the entrance to the first-ever Wonderbolt Death Course, which—from what Soarin can see of it—loops around the Plateau in a dangerously stormy, mercilessly winding, absolutely awesome test of talent. A steady stream of Reserve and full-time Wonderbolts alike flock to the entrance. Soarin turns to his teammate.
"Man, Fleet," he chuckles. "I gotta give it to you. If Spitfire hadn't come back when she did, you might have gotten away with this." He takes a bite of the apple tart, and it's good that he's sitting down because sweet mother of deliciousness that's amazing. Savoring the gooey, caramel-apple goodness seeping into his soul, Soarin almost doesn't hear Fleet's strangled whisper. Almost.
He shakes his head slightly, just enough to clear some room for coherent thought processes to occur, and asks, "What was that, Fleetfoot?"
"Spitfire has my cupcake," is the hoarse response. Reluctantly tearing his eyes from the tart, Soarin looks up and follows Fleet's haunted gaze across the sea of makeshift tables, quickly spotting the familiar profile of their Captain seated a few yards away. Directly in front of Spitfire sits the Princess, Twilight Sparkle, and on a pure white plate between them is a cupcake topped with a tiny Fleetfoot, posed mid-flight. The sculpted Wonderbolt rotates with every idle movement of the Captain's golden hoof. Around.
And around.
"It's my job on that plate, you know," Fleet says, eyes glued to her spinning miniature.
And around.
Soarin frowns. "Is that Spitfire's negotiation face?"
And around.
Fleetfoot shakes her head. "It's the politician one. She doesn't move her head as much when she's negotiating."
And arou—The Captain stops the cupcake abruptly and leans forward, eyes alight with energy. She begins to speak rapidly, and though Soarin's too far away to make out what's being said, he's spent enough time around Spitfire to recognize the delicate calculation behind her animated features.
"She's trying to sell something," he observes. The Princess begins to speak, and Spitfire dons her Active Listening Expression. The conversation bounces back and forth, both mares barely closing their mouths before the other jumps back in with a response. And then the debate's over; Spitfire cracks a grin and leans back, her folded wings relaxing ever-so-slightly. The Princess offers a small smile in return.
Sensing the critical moment has passed, Soarin treats himself to another bite of tart. Oh yesss.
When his singing taste buds cease their hymns of praise, Soarin opens his eyes to see the Captain trotting over, a cupcake-bearing plate gripped in her mouth. Fleetfoot whimpers. Spitfire reaches their table and sets the plate down on it, sliding the cupcake over to its non-edible counterpart.
"You," the Captain says, her voice deathly soft. "Are a very lucky mare." She pulls up a chair and joins them, propping her elbows upon the tabletop as she massages her temples. Under the pretense of taking a drink, Soarin moves his cup of cider out of her reach. Spitfire's posture has 'I don't get paid enough to deal with you idiots' written all over it—maybe with a bit of 'This wasn't in the job description.'
"This is above my pay grade," Spitfire mutters to the table.
Close enough.
"I had to persuade a Princess of Equestria that networking is just professional friendship—"
Oh boy.
"I haven't slept in over thirty-six hours—"
Throughout their careers, Soarin has noticed three main patterns in his relationship with Spitfire. First and foremost is his role as deputy, and all of the professional duties that accompany it. The second, currently relevant purpose he serves involves an uncanny impersonation of a bobble head. Captain's tired? Soarin nods; she should get more sleep. Cap's stressed? Soarin nods; Headquarters needs to chill the hay out, and those recruits are ridiculously undisciplined. Cap's having a bad hair day? Soarin nod—wait a minute. Is that a nod-appropriate situation? I mean, on one hoof, she needs to look her best, but then again...
"Soarin?"
Whoops, should be nodding. Soarin adopts a generic 'you're totally right' expression and bobs his head vigorously.
"You're totally right, Cap," he says. "This was really bad timing; the coffee here is an insult to caffeinekind; Headquarters is delusional if they think those destroyed files are gonna be replaced by next inspection; why haven't you had a vacation in over three years; and no, I don't think expecting the Academy to remain standing is asking too much of your subordinates."
He pauses, frowning. "I think that was everything."
"Incompetence," Spitfire prompts.
"THE INCOMPETENCE!" Soarin roars, thumping a hoof on the table for emphasis. "Really! You'd think that two squadrons of Wonderbolts would be capable of following the directions you gave them, but nooooo..."
Spitfire turns to the silent mare. "Yeah, Fleet, what was up with that?!"
"I know I screwed up, okay?" Fleetfoot hisses abruptly. "You don't have to keep rubbing it in. I tried to do your job, I failed spectacularly, and you showed up right as I was trying to fix everything. Congrats. I don't have your skill set. Aren't you special?" She spits the last word, glaring at her cupcake.
The DJ changes songs, but the cheers and whistles from the dance floor do nothing to alleviate the tension hanging over the table. Eventually, Spitfire sighs.
"You did your best, Fleet. Yeah, you overstepped your boundaries, but it was a lot of responsibility without a lot of preparation, and some of it was out of your control. But all this—" she gestures at the festivities around them. "—would never have happened if you hadn't had your stint as Captain. Lightning Streak and High Winds would probably be in everypony's manes if they weren't too busy with all these activities." She cracks a half-smile. Fleetfoot returns it, hesitantly.
"So does this mean I'm off probation?"
The smile vanishes. "Not a chance. However," Spitfire gets up from her chair and stretches. "—you can put your cupcake back with the rest of the team." She turns toward the Wonderbolt Death Course, the familiar glint of competition smoldering in her eyes. "Now if you'll excuse me, a certain Reserve Airmare's challenged me to a race for her rank, and I need to put the little upstart back in her place. General my flank." She trots off.
Silence.
"In all fairness, that could have been a lot worse," Soarin offers. "She really seems to like the theme of the party." Fleetfoot grunts.
"Spitfire's always thought making the Wing Fling a strictly formal event was redundant, since the Gala is basically the same... thing..." She frowns, blinking.
Soarin swallows a disappointingly lukewarm bite of tart, then reaches for his cider. "Really? She's never said anything about it."
"She wrote about it in... in her diary." Fleetfoot twists around, eyes scanning the dining area. Soarin nearly drops his glass.
"You could read her diary?"
"The Princess did," Fleet murmurs. "Spitz wrote a lot about—" She abruptly freezes, wings tensing at her side. "We're being watched."
Soarin frowns. "We're celebrity stunt fliers at an aviation party, Fleet."
"No, not like that. I swear, that stallion wasn't there a moment ago, but now he's staring straight at us." She inclines her head ever-so-slightly to the right, where Soarin spots a vaguely familiar pegasus.
"It's a party, Fleet." A trickle of exasperation seeps into his voice. "Ponies come and go all the time. You need to relax—get a drink or something."
If Soarin didn't know better, he would say that Fleet's voice holds a hint of panic as she says, "No, it's not the first time I've seen him. He's been here all day, right there, and he's not the only one; he's just the only one sloppy enough to let us see him."
"Fleet—"
"It's the E.S.S. I know it." She leans in. "I didn't know we even had a secret service, and now I'm under twenty-four seven surveillance."
Soarin laughs. "Fleetfoot, you're being totally ridiculous." She ignores him.
"See that bush?" she whispers, eyes darting towards a seemingly-innocuous rhododendron. "Secret agent. Same for that cloud—" her ear twitches. "—and the barpony. They're watching me, I can feel it. I can't do anything, or go anywhere, without them watching. I couldn't even sleep last night, my coat won't stop crawling." Her voice cracks, just a tiny bit. "They're watching me, Soarin."
He shoves his glass of cider over to her. "Drink. Now."
She lifts a shaking hoof and downs it in two desperate gulps. The glass clatters to the table as Soarin places a hoof under her chin and turns her face to meet his. Green eyes lock with magenta, the latter pair growing increasingly unfocused.
"Fleetfoot, I need you to listen to me. Are you paying attention?"
"Soarrin, it's the Equethtriaan...wahh?" she slurs.
"Nopony is watching you," the Lieutenant states firmly. "If anyone's looking at you, it's because you're a famous stunt flier. You worked extremely hard to save this party from disaster, and you aren't going to let some silly conspiracy about secret agents stress you out. They don't exist. Okay?"
"Mmkay," is the dazed response.
Soarin removes his hoof from her chin and picks up his final bite of pastry. Fleetfoot sits quietly for a moment longer, then shakes her head. Her mane glistens like ash in the twilight.
"Feelin bettur?" he asks, through a mouthful of bittersweet perfection.
"Yeah... Not sure what I was worried about, this party is great. I mean, if our high and mighty commander thought it was worth the hassle, how wrong can I be?" She grins and leaps up from the table. "Thanks for the talk, Soarin. You're a freaking national treasure." She snaps her wings out and takes off, zooming toward the dance floors. A moment later, the music dies, replaced with a scratchy yell.
"HEY EVERYPONY! Capture the Captain begins in ten minutes! Make sure you check the roster to see what team you're on. Eighth Squadron, don't even bother—you're all Shadowbolts."
Soarin chuckles. "Well that seems to have worked just fine," he says to nopony in particular.
"By Celestia, I thought you'd never give her the stupid potion," the rhododendron replies. "Aren't you supposed to be reporting to your contact right now, Agent?"
Soarin squints at the horizon. A small sliver of sun is barely visible. "I've got time. The meeting wasn't about anything we didn't already know, and I doubt the Director wants to sit through a two-hour recounting of all the reasons why having an Element of Harmony on the performance team is both the best and worst idea ever. I hear the Service's Ponyville branch is a bit preoccupied at the moment." Soarin stands up and flashes a grin at the agent hidden amongst the shrubbery. "Besides, I'm not under orders to lay low, and Capture the Captain is about to start."
Stats
Page generated in 0.045 seconds
Total duration
755 users online
708,591 hits today, 2,561,572 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Well, that tied it all together beautifully. Great conclusion to a great story.
And for the record, I could read Spitfire's diary.
Best chapter. I loved Soarin as Spitfire's yes man.
And that ending...
OMG! Soarin's one of them! It's a conspiracy!
There aren't any secret agents in Equestria
The first time I saw Spitfire's journal entry I just went "NOPE" and moved on. But I just went back and put forth the effort required to read it. Her cursive isn't any worse than my mother's at least. And reading it was totally worth it
(but why did we only get one page?! She was just getting to the good part...)
Wonder if Rainbow won that bet...
Soarin' is a secret agent. It all makes sense now.
5941678
No, it's not the ones you least expect, because someone always suspects them them that very reason. It's usually the ones you suspect somewhat, but almost immediately dismiss because of more likely (and thus, actually less likely) candidates. Middle-of-the-road is the way to go.
5941919
Just let Sweetie Bell condense them for rainwater!
5941052 I'm glad you liked it! And thanks, the record has been updated:
i.imgur.com/cK9i1sp.png
5941416 5941728 Care for a glass of cider?
5941053 Haha, it's a lot of fun to write his dynamic with Spitfire that way.
5941612 Coming probably never to a FimFiction near you: Records of a Princess Slowly Losing Her Mind Over the Nigh-Illegible Scribbles of a Wonderbolt Prone to Purple Prose
5941678 To be honest, I didn't either. I was writing and it kind of just happened.
5941919 Thanks!
img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130810063248/tumblrroleplay/images/thumb/0/05/Magic_meme.gif/200px-0,320,18,178-Magic_meme.gif
The pseudo-scientific explanation involves some hazy description of arcane residue left over from the Rainbooms serving as a catalyst for a combustion reaction to convert the water molecules into magical energy or something I have absolutely no idea
Heh. Suspected the part with Soarin when he didn't actually drink the stuff himself.
Great ending to a great story.
By the way, was that ending just a cliffhanger or is it hinting a sequel?
Well... That was something.
5943804 It wasn't intended to be a cliffhanger. Gotta leave some stuff to the imagination
I'm very glad you enjoyed it; while I don't plan on making a sequel for this exact storyline, per se, this format was so much fun to work with that I may indeed return to it. 
This was amazing.
I already knew you were a great writer, but I think you've cemented yourself as one of my absolute favourites. I've seen these letter stories, and stories about everything going tits up in a remarkably short period of time, before - but never done this absolutely perfectly.
My god, this is glorious.
5946573 Oh good, you like it! Thanks so much!
5947758 Thank you very much! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Huh. And here I was thinking I'd be saying, "RIP Fleetfoot." She got off pretty easy, all things considered.
5954601
media3.giphy.com/media/cpx6sBHuynwQ0/200_s.gif
I do believe it is time to worship you now.
Down with Celsius and all that.
5967058 The Centigrade scale will be overthrown. Welcome to the revolution.
This was spectacular. Damn-near all of it.
The correspondence format was used exceptionally well. Good job.
6035854 Thank you so much!
I don't favorite a lot of stories but I couldn't hit that button fast enough!
6798204 Ha! Well thank you, that's quite flattering to hear!
I use upvotes pretty sparingly. They are as meaningless as they are incredibly powerful in my eyes. They are meaningless because they dont tell you what you did wrong, what you did right, how you can improve etc. On the other hand in my eyes a vote is testament that a person likes that story or not. And the voting system being binary to vote you have to like/dislike the story entirely. No room for middleground. So technically if I wanted to upvote a story it has to be perfect. (At least by my standards) But I am not that strict of course. And this story is not perfect. But the closest damn thing to it I have ever read on fimfiction. I was laughing out loud several times throughout the story. It was witty it was well written the charachters worked well together, everything put together nicely. I was enjoying myself thoroughly and it worthed evey second I spent on it. So that is why I gave you my second ever upvote on fimfiction.
7053034 Second ever? Wow! That's quite the honor. I'm incredibly glad you found this story worth your time, and I really appreciate you sharing your thoughts!
I have just one comment- Soarin' really didn't need to give Fleetfoot the stupid potion. All he needed was to give her some HARD liquor. I find it has about the same effect, and I don't think Fleetfoot needed much help with that anyway.
This was just so good.....
I'm not usually the kind of person to just leave a non-comment like that and demand more but that was just awesome. Loved everything about it. I think using letters to deliver plot is brilliant because there are no luls in the action. Luaghed out loud at least twice each chapter and was in tears multiple times.
WatchPony did a good job pointing me in your direction.
So, yah. That was some god tier military comedy, have a like, fav, and rare flabbergasted comment from me. I'm now going to root through all of your stuff looking for more.
I haven't read any of your stories since this one, so I apologize if this comment seems redundant:
I'd love to see an anthology of sorts detailing some of Soarin's other adventures as an Agent that aren't necessarily Wonderbolts related.
I have review this HERE.
This was a wonderful story! Blown away by the amount of effort you went to with the images, it's certainly the most visually striking story on the site. I don't have anything original to say, but thought I should say something nonetheless, amounting mostly to 'well done, and thanks.'
Twilight is right, they should definitely weaponise the sonic blasts. And it's a lovely image that it's mostly Spitfire's force of will that holds the academy together.
Was wondderful right til the end. Another Equestrian despot setting created... switched right from comedy to horror.
Actually it had been switching once you put them in (chapter 2 i think).