A scientifically brilliant but antisocial former student of Canterlot High seeks out Adagio Dazzle, now alone and down on life. He promises to restore her powers in return for help with a massive scientific breakthrough.
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Wow...
Okay, that was a surprisingly intense pair of conversations with the present and future rulers of Equestria! I do think that Celestia was being rather unnecessarily stern there; if you want to welcome an old adversary as an ally, and know that they're having some trouble regaining their emotional equilibrium, it might be better not to open with "I'm not apologizing to you, and honestly you deserved what my teacher did to you." I mean, nothing Celestia said was actually wrong, but she really needs to work on her delivery. I know that a theme here is that the Sirens are beasts who respect and seek to emulate those who best them, but this seemed to do more harm than good. It sort of made me wish Ray had stepped in and told that old geezer of an alicorn to shut up already.
And then there was Adagio's conversation with Twilight. Quite a lot to unpack there.
The takeaway, that Twilight needed a peer to keep her grounded and rein in her own worst impulses should she ever find herself going off the rails, was an insightful point...though it's worth noting that Celestia never needed that. But still, as the Princess of Friendship, the Sirens can serve a useful purpose in that regard, since I doubt Twilight would want to be isolated in her reign the way her teacher was. And while that kiss seemed like pure fan service, as a fan of this story it's a service I approve of. Though I do wonder if it's a hint that Twilight and Adagio will have a physical relationship in the future...
My one real critique is that the sheer degree of self-awareness required to realize all of that, as well as the self-confidence to say it out loud to someone else, doesn't really seem like Twilight (and only somewhat like Adagio). But that's compared to their canon selves; the two of them, in this story, are a bit older and wiser, having been through more and know themselves better. So I can give that a pass.
Now let's just see if that's true for Aria and Sonata as well.
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Like, sure, the kiss was pretty fanservicey, but I tried to allude to it to some extent. Namely all the way back during Ray and Adagio's drunken night together, where she mentioned that she didn't really care about appearances, especially when it comes to humans but also ponies to some extent. I always saw it that, as a siren from a world where they saw everything as beneath them, they had a general indifference to what something looked like, just what it could do, whether it was a threat and so-forth.
Now, banished to a world of humans and with weak powers, then no powers (after their gems were shattered), they were aware of sexuality, but I always felt that they still held onto that old 'appearances are nothing compared to what someone/pony can do'. Ray got his big dose of respect from Adagio for a number of reasons, since he supported her, helped her out of her rut, showed his competence in slowly moving towards getting her powers despite the eventual reality that he couldn't without her gem. Being the first to give that to her (amongst other things, hehe) and his ongoing drive to help her has made their relationship clearly ironclad.
Now that she has her powers in her grasp (just shy of it because the stone's incomplete, but will only take a short while to fix back home), she's carried that mentality forward; Twilight is a threat to her, and as a siren who craves being adored and has demonstrated a love for a challenge, Twilight is just that. That makes our friendship princess an extremely tantalising figure.
As for the self realisation, Adagio's was obviously when she was forced to accept the fact that she was a massive screw up with her choices, and that by opening herself up to others and looking at things without the any absolute certainty in her own abilities, this is what will make her stronger than she's ever been; she will soon have her powers back, but also the knowledge that she can have them taken away if she doesn't play smart. And she will play smart from now on, even if she might sometimes let a little of that power get to her head. Just as well she has Ray there to keep her grounded.
For Twilight's own revelations, and without dedicating a very long tangent to cover them here when it's meant to be Adagio and Ray's story, it's one of those things where my plan to make episodic/slice of life stories where our protagonists interact with a whole host of characters as they settle in to their new place in life, and I definitely want to make one of them a bit more about Twilight's last couple of years since we last saw her in series. Especially as she received more close, direct tutorage for taking the throne. Largely it'll involve more frank discussions between Celestia, Luna and Twilight now that Twilight (who even late seasons, still walked on eggshells around them) has been allowed to realise that she now has to treat them as equals as well.
Still, more to come in the epilogue chapters, at least in terms of the Dazzlings themselves.