//------------------------------//
// Around 
// Story: Stroll 
// by re- Yamsmos 
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	There were things to say about uncouth behavior, rather... distasteful things that led to sobbing ponies and blood red eye sockets staring you back from the silver spoon in your hooves that in turn shoveled ice cream straight from the tub. There were things to say about roaming the streets without a single sense of morality and decency, with your head held so high you could break your neck if the wind was just a tad stronger and your hoofsteps so dainty that planting bone to ground on a loose piece of clothing could very well be the final line between life and death, favoring the latter but loving the very brink of the former.

There were things to say about the fashions of aristocrats and their gold-digging housewives, held so critically-acclaimed they might as well have been the painters of the Manea Lisa or the Princesses of the Sun, Moon, and Love themselves. There were things to say about their stashes of gold and bits kept tightly and securely locked away behind large safes that could withstand bursts of Balefire magic straight out of Starswirl The Bearded's white horn, so that they and only they could open it up and swim in all its shining, blinding glory with as much glee as a filly who finally got her dessert after a whole evening of enduring the eating of her dry meatloaf and soft wheat bread.

There were things to say about the attitude of said snobbish morons, who treated the people below them with the same discrepancy of a lawn mower to the wide field of grass that lay before its churning, turning blades perfectly hidden underneath its shiny, welcoming green coat of industrial paint. There were things to say about the looks and glares that shot at other ponies like the crack of a Magicarm or the wind of a whizzing arrow—usually shoved toward stranger ponies with small suitcases or the expression of genuine wonderment in their eyes—all too befitting of an entire population of stuck-up ponies living miles above the rest of their compatriots down in Ponyville and the likes inside big, fancy houses, with pens scribbling away at their checkbooks while their indoor pools began their installations.

There were things to say about how much you weighed, or how much food you ate the previous night, or how much you ate the past few weeks, which judged both you and the body you currently occupied and maintained, one ending up crying in a fetal position and the other ending up with a tub of lovely ice cream in their shaking hooves. Gorging oneself was seen as both a detriment and a sign of wealth, a thing that led to mixed messages and showed its true colors in the local private schools of the city, where to-the-bone-skinny fillies raised eyebrows at this-chair-is-too-small-for-being-five-feet-wide-plump colts greeting their peers with the same. It wasn't like they were starving, but it wasn't like they should go for a fifth plate either.

There were things to be said about going out in the middle of the burning day to feast at local fast-food chains—McDuckles, for example—with their frolicking foals tumbling about within their depths and acne-ridden teenagers manning registers with as much attitude and positivity as a red brick on an all-black wall. There were things to be said about the ungodsly smell that permeated the air and stank up something incredibly fierce, reminding retired Royal Guards of the war and prompting horrifying flashbacks that led to heart attacks and morgues. There were things to be said about ordering the largest hayburger you could see, then sitting down in a nice little booth all to yourself with its disposable napkin dispensers and ketchup and mustard bottles, and simply eating to your heart's content until your belly was full and there was so much grease on the ends of your hooves that you might as well have been rolling outside on a farm with fat pigs and devilish boars.

And that's exactly why Octavia tended to do so in the dead of night, where only tall streetlamps and the moonlit sky could stand to witness her "highly absurd and juvenile cravings". 

She as well guessed there were things to say about wearing such dreadful articles like a baseball cap, or traveling with barbaric griffons who would rather clean their guns and fire upon crowds than sit down on a comfy ottoman and enjoy a nice cup of Pu'er tea. Baseball caps were deemed fit for such things as being dreadfully sweaty, unkempt, and pumped with so much adrenaline that serial murders could happen at the drop of their black and white hats. Griffons, rare as they may have been to see simply roaming about anywhere near Canterlot, were believed to be ghastly individuals, with bloodlusts of one-hundred-and-three and claws scaringly sharpy and ready for use. Only such people like Gustave le Grand with his large mustache and Dexter the Griffon with his seemingly invulnerable nether regions (it was good for comedy shows) could be held in bright white lights with their names in yellow-trimmed stars. 

Octavia turned her head to look at the group accompanying her. Lavi leaned her head back, raised a claw up to her beak, and let out a deafening yawn that raised brows and shot hard glares her way from what looked to be a group of teenage buffalo who cringed and sucked on their lower lips once they realized who they were dealing with. Valkyrie let out a sigh once she realized that Octavia was staring at her, her right claw thumping on the carpeted floor with the finesse of a jackrabbit, eliciting a few awkward instances of shying away and cowering from the other individuals in the line behind and around them. T stood quietly, an almost unnoticeable smile on his face as he breathed the promise of fries and hamburgers in through his nostrils. W remained at attention in front of her, an unconcerned look on his face that told stories of deadpan telling-offs and annoyed one-liners, like something out of an old spy movie. His chest inflating and deflating from underneath his armor, he looked over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of Octavia's curious stare. He looked from her and to the front of the long line before them and the end of it after them—dragons, minotaurs, bison, buffalos, other griffons, and even a Changeling all waiting for a quick but satisfying meal—then frowned back at her and shrugged his shoulders.

He didn't need to say a word. Octavia already knew that it was going to be a little while before they got their food.

A small clump of her mane caught her attention. Raising a hoof, she prodded at her head in an attempt to simply fling the offending few hairs another way, but too late realized that she was still wearing her baseball cap. The slightly wet texture of the hat—affected by the still dreadfully pouring torrent of rain outside—prompted her to suck on her teeth, quickly adjust the positioning of her piece, and let her hoof clop back onto the floor with a small floomf. It remained to be seen whether or not she was getting used to having it on, but after an incident like that, Octavia felt that maybe it would just be best to give it back to W. She appreciated the offer, but a baseball cap wasn't necessarily in her style, nor was it in any of the aristocrat's or paparazzi's styles either. Standing in line for greasy fast food with armored griffons and a hat on her head was sure-enough bait for roaming journalists who'd get their rocks off from a new camera lense or a simple mentioning on Manehattan Happenings. 

She sighed.

It nevertheless felt a little... alien, in the end, even with its inclement weather protection and possible identity sheltering. She would have given it up to W right then and there at that very moment in the entirety of the Earth's movement through the vast depths of space and time, but the conversations around her ranging from last week's sawdust to next week's hunting schedule drowned out any attempt at speaking she could have tried to uphold, so, with a pursing of her lips and a readjustment of her hat, Octavia stood in silence and contemplated why somepony would choose to make a popular fast-food chain's walls a bright, lovely, absolutely depressing dark brown.  With a name like Breezies—one that she assumed would belong to a fancy restaurant and not a dimly lit fast-food chain—Octavia could only raise an eyebrow and frown at the lack of bright colors. The building wasn't a log cabin, for Gods sake, the least they could have done was have it match the misshapen overhead lights and engage in a friendly, quiet game of neon yellow. She stared up at one such bulb once she stopped on this thought, then leered and realized that she shouldn't do such a thing again. Though they as a whole were dim and provided only small circlets of light in their immediate adjacent areas, the bulbs were sure as hell hot on her fur.

With a loud calling of, "Number seven-twelve-fifteen!" coming from the registers a few feet away from her, Octavia looked to her left, inwardly praying to all the gods she knew that there was a spare booth open that fit four griffons and a single pony amidst a sea of green dragons and... was that a cat? The creature she was observing sat on its table, a huge grin on its face and a pair of wild eyes accompanying its rather ravenous course of dining from what appeared to be a pet bowl. Looking up, its face full of orange paste, it meowed through the uproar of number calling and order shouting, silently judging her.

Yup. A cat. Hopefully, it was far away enough that Octavia wouldn't break out in hives, Gods, that would be a disaster like no other.

"Number eleven-ten-fifteen!"

It took Octavia a split second to realize that the voice up front was calling for another customer, and another split second to realize that it meant the line would be moving up a unit. Once again all too late, Octavia stumbled forward thanks to the hulking body mass of a figure behind her, almost causing her to trip and slide into the admittedly suspect brown stain coating the Welcome carpet to the line's left, a large yellow folding sign next to it telling visitors to Watch Their Step with a large black stick figure of a pony with their flank in the air and their face on a long horizontal line, signifying the floor. Octavia found it a bit curious that the sign bore an equine instead of a... anything else really, but stowed her thought down and swiveled about to find the culprit to her shoving.

The search was crisp and short, like a toasted piece of Pan bread. Valkyrie, shooting Octavia an uncaring look over her shoulder, flashed a toothy grin. The mare, rising to all four of her hooves, calmly walked back into the swarming line to a flurry of upraised arms and accusing shouts.

"Hey, what the hell, mare?!"

"Get to the back of the line, mud-slinger!"

"That's not cool, man!"

She'd heard insults like that back on the street; they were nothing too original. She ignored them, her face now bare inches away from a griffon's rear once she turned her head back around to face forward. Eyes wide and irises mere pinpricks, she pouted her lower lip and looked up at the owner's face. Lavi, craning her neck, yawned into an open claw and stared back at her in a presumed attempt to see what all the fuss was about. The instant her eyes landed on Octavia, Lavi lowered her foreleg and glared. Muttering something under her breath, she sighed into the air.

"Valkyrie?"

Octavia nodded.

Lavi rolled her brown eyes, opening her beak and letting out a guttural groan. "Goddammit... here." Stepping a few inches out of the way, the griffon extended an arm, placed it against Octavia's bare back—causing the mare to grit her teeth and eep in surprise—and quickly slid her ahead and directly behind Valkyrie. Though she was incredibly wary that she would have bumped into the aggressive bird, Octavia gave out a split second acknowledgment of relief when she realized Valkyrie hadn't even noticed her approach. A glare drew upon her brow, for she now had a sacred mission that she had to complete. Frowning, she tilted to her right, raised a hoof, and tapped the griffon's right shoulder. With such a grade school trick, Octavia didn't expect Val to fall for the bait, but with a flick of her head and a look of anticipation on her features, sure enough, she did.

Seizing this momentous opportunity that would have surely been recorded in history books worldwide, Octavia stepped to her left and slid past Valkyrie, purple eyes wide as she waited for the griffon's realization of what had just occurred. Octavia didn't dare look back; she could picture the exact look of anger and fury on her adversary's features once she turned her armored body around and found the small, fragile, easily squishable gray mare innocently staring ahead on the carpeted ground in front of her.

"Who did– oh you son of a..."

There she goes.

A raspy sigh. "Fine." Valkyrie began thumping her claw against the floor again. "Gee gee, Octavia."

Gods, Octavia hated that bird. She was stuck-up—incredibly so—and exuded the strongest displays of both hatred and pitifulness that Octavia had ever seen in her entire life. She'd had bullies in grade school that had stolen her pudding cups at lunch time; she'd had bullies in middle school that would sabotage her bass and defile her reading material; she'd had up-and-coming criminals in high school that had spray painted an admittedly hurtful phrase in the Orchestra room and enjoyed stealing her homework. None of them—not a single one—came close to the extent of Valkyrie's boorishness. Why, if she had her double bass and a nice bow, she'd–

Wait, what?

"Next up, please!"

She was ready this time. For the longest while, Octavia had thought that she wasn't born to do anything lasting on this world. She'd gone through school and gotten good grades like about seventy-percent of normal students did, attended college, and got a pretty okay job in Canterlot. Sure she was good at playing the bass, and sure she landed herself a position as the Lead Bassist in the Canterlot Symphony, but that was just foal's play. Octavia had always mentally prepared herself for the time she realized that she was destined to do something great. Something amazing. Something incredible.

She stepped forward.

The line stepped forward with her, much more satisfied that they wouldn't have to yell at her for stepping out again.

She flattened her ears against the sides of her head and blew air out her nostrils. Parting a few locks of hair to scratch at her neck, Octavia frowned to nopony but herself—especially since there were no other ponies to be seen, anyway—and silently prayed she'd be able to get out of the slightly claustrophobic most-definitely blazing air inside the restaurant. With heat came sweat, and a sweaty Octavia was an absolutely cranky one. She would have loved to practice her irritation on the definitely-deserving Valkyrie, but W, T, and Lavi sure as hay didn't deserve to witness the horrendous explosion that would have likely occurred. 

Flicking her head back with a lengthy sigh, Octavia brought a hoof up and scratched at her eye, a hard frown plastered on her lips as she sucked in through her nose. This action—an admittedly regrettable one at that—served only one real, horrible, teasing purpose. With the aroma of salted fries, sizzling hayburgers, and peppered salads dancing through the humid air like valiant, armored knights with lances under their wings and their cape of delicious flowers flowing behind them, Octavia found herself salivating at the corner of her lip. Noticing it, she widened her eyes, stood completely still for a second, and sucked it back up like a chameleon after a lovely meal of bug guts and tree sap.

Slightly afraid that somepony had witnessed her disgusting action, she craned her neck, felt it give way like a rotten piece of driftwood, and looked around to inwardly assure herself that she had safely gotten away with her action. It may not have benefited her in any real way—seeing as how not a single individual in this incredibly unappealing town personally knew her or what careers she was currently employed in—but one thing that Octavia wholeheartedly believed in was that it was always the thought that counted and not its actual results. This self-prescribed thought process led Octavia's sights to a lone Diamond Dog sitting at a table with a rather bright tropical shirt on, his hands grasping either side of an oozing hamburger with grease dripping down his chin. Moving his jaw around like a busy bovine, he regarded the mare with a pair of rough eyebrows that held an irredeemable wish to escape their light blue confinements and a frown so heavy she could see the two stumps of his bottom teeth sticking out from his bottom lip. 

If Diamond Dogs bore actual resemblances to the adorable breeds of domestic canines, Octavia deduced that this jewel-obsessed brute would be a rather ugly looking Pug, or a Bulldog on a bad, bad day, presumably one without a relaxing belly rub or a delightful nap under the blazing sun. Nonetheless, the Dog's look of... annoyance, she assumed, served its purpose. Slowly turning her head back around, Octavia found enough time to cough into a hoof to allow her to once again foresee the forward movement of the lunch line. As she was now accustomed to, this was accompanied by the loud call of a rather... young sounding voice, now that she heard it in closer proximity.

"Number two-fourteen-fifteen!"

She got on her tippy hooves and leaned to her left, now intent on seeing just how young the individual manning the register was. If he was a teenager, maybe she could find an incredibly easy way to ward him away from this kind of job, and set him on the right path to redemption in his parents' eyes and a much better-led life devoid of anything with salt or grease clinging to its messy bottoms. A familiar groan from behind her caused her to retreat back to her prior position and turn her head with an annoyed glare.

"Sputnik, how long is this gonna take?" Valkyrie rasped, dragging her claws down her eyelids. "I'm hungry as hell! My gizzard is just itching for some fries here!"

"Stop complaining, would you Val?"

The griffon bore her teeth and crossed her forelegs. 

"You're hungry too, aren't you W?" Not giving him enough time to respond, she quickly added with a firm glare, "Would it kill you to stop telling me what to do for once?"

"Oh, yes, I'm hungry too," W replied, not a single ounce of emotion in his voice as he slowly turned his head to face his subordinate. "Unlike you, though, I don't have to go around gorging myself because I think I'm too skinny. Also, yes."

"Ouch," Lavi proclaimed, sucking on her bottom beak and flinching away from W's sight.

"Number twelve-eighteen-fourteen!"

As the line moved forward once more like a monotonous group of cogs in an equally boring machine, Octavia widened her purple eyes and realized she was currently in the middle of a griffon sandwich, with both sides of her hopefully toasted bread carrying dangerous crank weapons and enough thick armor to withstand more than a few talon swipes. Octavia, on the other hoof, wasn't so fortunate to have a thick hide on her body, and observing the now hostile looks directed from Valkyrie to W, she wasn't sure that now was a good time to like it that way.

"Excuse me, sir?"

Octavia sucked in a breath, not realizing that she hadn't had enough oxygen in her system until she swallowed three more. W spun, a confused look smothered on his face. Octavia bore her teeth and ducked as the griffon's Magicarm on his back swung around and about clocked her in the muzzle.

She looked over to where W now faced, and was absolutely surprised when she found an honestly miserable looking Unicorn manning the register, a folded white hat atop his rust-orange head, which he adjusted before continuing. "Sir, you're holding up the line."

"Oh," was W's simple, almost nonchalant reply. His head swiveling about, he looked to the line behind him, observed the presumably impatient looking glowers and glares from various creatures of the entire world, coughed into a talon, and turned to Octavia with a seemingly dumbfounded, "Uhh..." that reminded the mare of a swimming instructor who'd just been asked if foals could float. Obviously, they couldn't. Who would ask such a thing–

"You wanna go first, Octavia?"

...first? Octavia had never gone... first before. She felt an answer on the very edge of her pink tongue, but something caused her to open her mouth and simply drone the most inhumane noise she'd ever made in her entire life. It bore an odd resemblance to the auditory offspring of a fuzzy walrus on a caffeine high, and a cat's loud yawn after waking up to the sun no longer grazing their undercarriage, one they shrilled at the top of their lungs as they arched their back and stretched their dumb little cat paws. Octavia had never really been a fan of cats—seeing as how she was on the brink of being horribly allergic—and she most definitely learned to hate them even more once Vinyl had gotten her own little sack of feces called Woofy. Vinyl had relented on giving the damned thing to her coltfriend a few streets down, but the smell of spoiled litter and fish carcasses still loitered through the air like the stain of confidence upon the Unicorn's sunglass-propped brow.

Octavia had now just realized that the Unicorn manning the register was still frowning at her, as if he'd attached fish hooks to hundred pound weights and stuck them into the corners of his lips. His yellow eyes stared straight back at her as he thumped one hoof on the wooden countertop in front of him, while the other one scratched at the large scruff of black facial hair sprouting from his chin. Opening his mouth as if to say something, he instead sucked in a large gasp of air and pursed his lips to his left side, waggling his eyebrows at her almost angrily. It was then that Octavia noticed she had been... scooted closer to the Unicorn. She turned her head back to glare at Lavi, who simply raised a talon and made a circle with her thumb and pointer.

There was something to say about the flannel shirt the Unicorn was wearing, a noticeable box shape hiding behind one of its front pockets. It was colored a dark sage green, like it had been taken straight out of a dense pine forest somewhere back westward a ways, or carbon copied off of W's shemagh that always lay wrapped around his gray feathered neck. There was something to say about his long, bedraggled black mane; scruffy, messy, and wispy, it looked like the hair of a mask-wearing psychopath after living in the woods by himself, or like the remnants of medicinal cotton balls after tearing them apart too far. There was something to say about his posture, which he readjusted so that he was now, oh, scratching... his... eyelids so dangerously Octavia swore she'd heard Valkyrie whistle from behind her.

This behavior struck a peculiar spark in her.

The quiet murmurs of the line waiting impatiently for their food suddenly grew to abrupt, sh sharpening whispers.

The Unicorn caught her attention by rapping on the counter, almost teetering the cash register sitting nearby. "Do you want something to eat, ma'am?"

Octavia adjusted her hat. She walked up to the counter. She reared up on her hindlegs, then allowed her fores to clip and clop onto the surface. Narrowing her eyes, she shot a hot burst of air out of her nose, scrunched up her muzzle, and replied confidently, "Salad, thank you."

The Unicorn regarded her with a deadpan look, complete with a single eyebrow that ever so tantalizingly rose upward, accompanying the stretching of his chin and the scruff of facial hair that sat comfortably with it. His frown deepened ever so glumly. This was not the reaction Octavia had expected. Maybe a simple chuckle, or a snort of laughter, or maybe just a tilting of his head, not... where was he going?

The stallion was now walking to Octavia's left in a bit of a hurry, his hoof waving as he called, "Chili Pepper, you're up!" He didn't even bother turning his head to address the rather unkempt-looking teenage Pegasus who stepped up after him, who took a second to adjust his hat from under the strict confinements of his green mane and clear his throat from behind a wobbly red hoof. He began to call out orders as his fellow employee lit his horn—eliciting a dijon mustard yellow aura reminiscent of his narrowed irises—and began refilling the small black tubs of small little ketchup, mayonnaise, and relish packets.

Octavia was a bit stunned at the realization that the restaurant apparently had no real care in the entire world for the lavishness of mustard, but she shook her head and turned to W with a soft, "I'll be just a second." She grinned at the griffon as he threw her a look of confusion only to nod afterward in silence, then swiveled about and trotted over to where the Unicorn now stood, his horn levitating another identical tub of ketchup packets into the empty space next to the dreaded mayonnaise ones on the shelf. He paid her no mind, the various sounds of the rowdy kitchen he belonged to being Octavia's only real answer. As the tub thudded into place, the mare had to ask.

"Is there a... reason you lot don't stock mustard here?"

The Unicorn furrowed his brow and tightened his throat, but said nothing. Turning to his right and staring down at something out of Octavia's line of sight, he lit his horn once more and opened what she assumed to be a swinging door if the clatter against the adjacent wall was any indication. A spray bottle with a light blue liquid inside came into view, followed by a yellow dish rag that he magicked from the counter next to him. Unfolding it in his aura, he adjusted his hat with a low hum, raised the spray bottle up, and shot its contents onto a rather suspect stain coating a corner of the table close to him. Wiping it with a hellishly squeaky sound, he gazed Octavia's way out of the corner of his eyes every now and then, his cleaning work growing more and more aggressive.

He'd burn a hole through the marble if he wasn't more careful.

"It wouldn't hurt to be a bit more... soft with it, would it?"

He growled at her. She debated taking a step back, but without a flick of her head to look behind her, she wasn't entirely sure she'd be stepping hoof onto a clean surface. She stood her ground, but cleared her throat. The Unicorn continued to scrub hard.

"I um, noticed that you're a pony." Stupid, Octavia. Stupid. "A bit odd to reside in a town such as this, don't you think?" Better?

He snorted. "Sure beats Canterlot."

Octavia's eyes widened, both because he'd finally spoken, and that he'd... kind of... hurt her a little bit.

"You've got a point though," the Unicorn continued, not even looking up from his work as he frowned at his targeted ketchup stain. "This place is pretty anti-pony." Raising his bottle up, he cocked an eyebrow, admired his work, and hummed to himself, turning about on a swivel to look at Octavia. He took a deep breath, then added, "Well, it's a living though."

"Living can have a few different definitions here," Octavia replied, purple eyes scanning the horrible light fixtures and the peeled away paint lining the walls. "This is akin to a rotten box fished out of the river." She bit her tongue immediately. How in the hell was she supposed to talk to this stallion after insulting his workspace? If somepony had insulted her playing the bass, she'd glare at them, frown a disgusting frown, and tell them off with the utmost casual expression she could muster...

...she stopped. Her nose instinctively went up, sniffling at the air in front of her. What was that smell?

Octavia cast her glance downward, and found the Unicorn cupping a hoof around a burning object held in his other hoof. A lighter, surrounded in his magical aura, quickly sank back into his flannel shirt's pocket as he lowered one leg and raised the other to his lips. Chomping down on the white cigarette in between his teeth, he puffed out a cloud of white smoke and frowned at her. "It's really not." His fag gained a new outline, one that floated it up next to his face as he pursed his lips and blew another burst of gloom onto the counter. "I actually really love working here," he said, the deepest frown Octavia had ever seen plastered on his mouth. "Nice ponies..." Octavia frowned at him disbelievingly. He didn't rephrase his blasphemous statement, much to her surprise. "...good food, a nice paycheck. It's all I could ever need." He returned the cigarette to his mouth, then widened his eyes and looked at Octavia. "You're still here?" He nodded toward the register. "You know your food's ready, right?"

Was it? Octavia turned her head. W was leaning a few inches over the counter to grab at the large brown bag being handed to him by Chili Pepper. A large splotch discolored the bottom of the sack, a telltale sign of good food and horrible bathroom hours if Octavia's past experiences were any fond reminder. W gave her a look of curiosity, completely betraying the admittedly adorable twinkly stars in both Lavi's and Valkyrie's eyes and the rare grin on T's beak. The four griffons began walking toward the other side of the restaurant, W in particular giving her a nod toward their presumed destination. She nodded back, then craned her neck around to gaze at the Unicorn.

"So you're with those griffons then, huh?"

Octavia growled. Oh no he wasn't.

"You could just... leave, you know."

He about choked on his cigarette. "Leave what, my job?"

Octavia bobbed her head.

"You do know I can't do that, right?" He scrunched his muzzle, then scratched his head. "I mean, not saying that I would anyway, since I love it here and everything, but I just... can't."

Octavia cocked her head. "What, is Breezies secretly some kind of mob boss headquarters? Did you sign a blood pact or something?"

The Unicorn lowered his head and stared at her from between his eyebrows. "Very funny. No." He raised his head again, then levitated a small plastic casing of twenty-ounce cups from a cabinet next to him, passing them toward the back of the kitchen with a deadpan look just as an employee yelled through the blaring of an alarm.

"We need more cups!" Though the voices reverberating from the kitchen continued—even seeming to get louder—Octavia could still distinctly hear the rather astounded voice speak again. "Oh!"

The Unicorn smiled to himself, but downturned it just as quickly as he'd allowed it to come. He blinked in silence for a few seconds, then brought the cigarette back up to his lips and puffed on it. "Where's the bowtie from?" He asked, turning his head to the right to face Octavia. Running his eyes up her neck, he added, "Unless you play the accordion in Tall Tale's Triplet, you don't have a concert tonight, and definitely not here of all places."

Octavia opened her mouth to reply, honestly a bit prepared to answer such a question, but clamped it shut once she realized what he was doing.

"Do you truly like it here?"

The Unicorn sighed into the air, rolling his eyes and staring at the ceiling fan above him. "Why are you still asking me this?"

Octavia stared him straight in the eyes, a glower on her face. "Because I can tell when somepony is bored and absolutely miserable out of their minds." She took a step forward, continuing, "I work at Canterlot, and I see it everyday, and have for the past five years of my life."

The stallion snorted. "Canterlot sucks."

Octavia took a sharp breath, not even believing herself as she involuntarily added, "It does indeed." She felt a small ringing in her ears, like she'd just gone through the train tunnel under Canterlot and was beginning to ascend to the city in the sky. Gritting her teeth, she seethed. Had she really just said that? Canterlot was her home.

The Unicorn tapped a hoof on the counter idly, taking a long drag from his nicotine before pulling it out, studying Octavia in silence, and asking with a smirk, "What's with the hat?"

Octavia lifted her chin. "What's with yours?"

Yellow eyes grew wide, then shrank back to normal size. The Unicorn blinked rapidly, his head turning this way and that as the cigarette in his magic remained as still as a black rock in the desert sun. He continued his action for quite a long while, slowly reclining backward to presumably rest against the white wall standing behind him. His spine thumping against it, he swallowed something in his throat, and his face took on a genuinely confused look. He blinked once more before dipping his head and speaking in a lower volume.

"...I don't know."

"Sesame Seed!"

The Unicorn sprang up, his cigarette silently spilling onto the floor as he began fiddling with his hat and shirt. Octavia eeped in silence and flattened her ears against her head, slowly rotating about to find a rather furious looking griffon stomping up to the apparent Sesame with his face beet red and his blank white teeth grinding against one another like they were two faults of the earth's surface. Growling like a rabid animal, the bird brought out his left claw and shoved it toward the kitchen, shouting, "Get your ass into the kitchen! Smoking, again? How many times have I told you to stop taking smoke breaks in the middle of your damn shift?!"

Sesame got up with a frown on his face and began walking past the griffon. "About fifteen, but I lost count–"

"Don't be smart with me, you little bonehead! Go clean the grease fryer!"

Watching as Sesame simply deadpanned, "On it, boss," the griffon shook his head violently and tutted.

"Lazy, lazy, lazy." He walked over to where his subordinate last sat, bending over and picking up his discarded cigarette from the floor. Raising it up to his green eyes, the griffon hummed at it and frowned more heavily, lightly flicking the offending claw forward and not even watching as it landed in a nearby trash can. Letting out a sigh, he reared up on his hindlegs and placed both his gray claws on the countertop, now staring at Octavia with a hurt expression.

"Terribly sorry about my employee's incompetence, ma'am."

Octavia's eyes darted toward one of the slots lining the divider between the serving area and the kitchen, where said employee was stepping away from an out-of-view corner with his horn lit up brightly. She looked back at the griffon once he continued speaking.

"I do hope he wasn't bothering you, he tends to do that sometimes, I'm afraid." Sesame realized that Octavia was staring at him. The frown on his lips remained still, but he brought the object he was holding into her view. She blinked. What was he doing with the grease fryer? "If it's all the same, I'd like you to return to your seat where you won't be disturbed by the employees. We here at Breezie's try our hardest to bring you the best foods we can–" Sesame turned the corner and was now walking toward the used carsalesbird of a manager. Octavia began to walk more to her left, slightly concerned once she realized she was distracting the griffon as he turned more toward her and presented his back toward the still approaching Sesame.

What was he doing–

"–and to do that, we need full, undivided attention to our grills and our fryers. Have I told you about our french fries?"

Octavia shook her head, her lips pouted out and her eyes wide. Sesame now stood directly behind his boss, an annoyed expression on his face. The heart in her chest was beating heavily, almost drowning out the blood rushing in her ears.

She flitted her eyes back to the griffon. He licked his beak, laughed a short laugh, then grinned at her.

"They're to die for."

Octavia would have rolled over onto the floor and howled at the irony of the griffon's jackassery, but as she gritted her teeth and slowly stumbled back, she realized that the griffon himself was doing a great job of that. Sesame stood over him even after his shockingly frightening action, the fryer in his magic now completely devoid of its previous puddle of fresh fries and scalding grease. The busy noises of the entire restaurant had by now been reduced to only the store's manager's roars of intense pain, and though she couldn't see them all, Octavia felt the eyes of every single occupant staring into her back. Sesame caught her attention, waggling his eyebrows and extinguishing the light on his horn to allow the rectangular cage to thud onto his boss' singed head. As Sesame hopped over the countertop, Octavia was a bit thankful that she couldn't see what had become of the drilling griffon. It most likely wasn't pretty.

She really didn't expect Sesame to go that far.

"We should probably go..." Sesame said, trotting past her.

"Octavia?" The mare turned her head. W, Lavi, Valkyrie, and T stood behind her, their beaks agape and their eyes like saucers.

She looked at them in turn, then swung about to look at the front counter. The screams of the manager still echoed through the establishment.

Oh Gods, what had she done?

Octavia looked back at the griffons, then began cantering toward the exit door with a quick calling of, "We need to leave." With the distinct sounds of claws clattering against wood, Octavia turned the final corner, about slipped on the wet spot of water next to the bright yellow sign, and pushed her way through the door, practically shouting at the blinding sunlight that met her eyes.