Imagination
“No, no, no!” The conductor waved his baton in the air, breaking off the music. “You all seem to be forgetting that I’m marking time here! Follow my tempo.” Timely Performance’s magic flared around his horn, a light purple aura flickering over his baton and carrying it upwards, swishing it through the air in time with the mauve unicorn’s words. “1-2-3-4-5-6-1-2-3-4-5-6! There! Is that better?”
“Yes, maestro!” responded the orchestra in tandem.
“Good.” He smiled in satisfaction. Timely Performance turned to his right, a smile on his face as he raised his baton over the cellos. “Once more, from the top. Mademoiselle Melody, on my cue.”
The concert hall’s balconies filled with ponies, each of them covered from head to tail in black cloth, leaving only their eyes uncovered. They hid. For the most part. But they could not escape Octavia Melody’s practiced eyes.
She watched them, careful not to attract too much attention to herself, keeping them only in the corner of her eye. For all the rest of the world, Octavia was merely a cellist, her instrument and bow poised, awaiting the conductor’s flourish.
But she was so much more than that.
One of the assassin ponies poked his head over the balcony railing, his eyes briefly but pointedly settling on Timely Performance before he ducked back into his hiding place.
Target confirmed, thought Octavia, tightening the grip on her bow by the slightest amount, preparing herself for the assault. She didn’t know why they were there, but one thing was certain. They were after the composer.
The assassins struck suddenly, moving in perfect tandem. They jumped from the balconies, some landing amid the crowd of musicians, aiming to prevent anypony from escaping, while a few let loose their throwing stars, gleaming silver that shone in the stage’s lights, nearly blinding Octavia. But she was the best, her talent honed from years of training with the monks on the very tip of Mount Lhorse.
She dove out of her seat, knocking aside the stars with her bow. A single drop of poison flicked off of the weapon, landing on Octavia’s hoof, making her grit her teeth in pain.
“Begone from here!” she shouted at her assailants. “This orchestra is under my protection! You will leave this place or you will suffer!”
One of the assassins straightened slightly, those bright red eyes staring into Octavia’s own. The masked pony reached up and pulled down on the cloth, revealing a white muzzle.
“Madame String,” said the assassin with Timely Performance’s voice, “would you be so kind as to bring Mademoiselle Melody into the land of the living?”
Octavia blinked. The assassins dissolved, the leading white mare replaced by Timely Performance’s scowling visage.
“Have you returned to us, Mademoiselle Melody?” asked the conductor testily.
“Y-yes, maestro,” answered Octavia, her eyes blinking, the image of black-covered ponies still bright in her vision.
“Where did you go this time? Just out of curiosity?” The orchestra rumbled with humorless chuckles.
Octavia shifted her glance towards the stage’s wooden boards. “Nowhere, maestro. I was here.”
“Well, it certainly didn’t seem like it.”
“I’m sorry, maestro.”
Timely Performance scoffed, his magic slightly brightening as his baton rose back into the air. “I don’t want apologies Mademoiselle Melody. I want you to play. On my cue.”
“Yes, maestro.” Octavia straightened slightly, her hooves poised on her cello’s strings, her eyes fixed upon the baton, already counting out the rhythm in her head.
I-2-3-4-5-6-1-2-3-4-5-6
The baton twitched downwards.
***
Octavia packed away her cello, carefully stowing away her bow, placing her blocks of rosin into their compartment with a few practiced, fluid movements. She stretched out, trying to work the knots out of her back hooves. The hours she had spent balanced against her cello had done her no good.
“Good practice, Octavia.”
The cellist craned her neck over shoulder. A light blue mare stood behind her, her brown mane brushed back perfectly and a light smile on her lips. Octavia finished zipping up her case’s various pockets.
“Good practice, Beauty.”
“Are you going straight home today?”
Octavia hoisted her cello, stumbling slightly under its weight. “Yeah. I should actually get going. The train leaves in a half hour.”
“Oh. Well, I and a few others were planning on heading out to eat. Care to join us?”
The cellist glanced around awkwardly, rubbing at her neck with a hoof. “I don’t think I can. I’ve… got a lot of things that I need to do. Like wash dishes and… stuff. So I can’t.”
Beauty gave a few hesitant nods of understanding. “Alright. That’s fine. I’ll just go tell the others.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t worry about it!” She flashed a reassuring smile. “I mean, if you’re too busy, then you’re too busy! I’ll see you next practice, Octavia!” Beauty Brass turned, quickly walking back to her group of friends.
Octavia raised a hoof in farewell, the motion making her cello slide into an uncomfortable position. She winced, rolling her shoulder, forcing her instrument back to its proper place.
I should have said yes, she thought. What am I going to do at home? She looked over her shoulder. Beauty Brass and her group were chatting amongst themselves. They hadn’t left yet. There was still plenty of time, nothing was stopping her from trotting right up to them and asking whether she could still join them. Beauty Brass was a nice pony; she’d surely agree to it!
It would just take a few words!
***
Octavia pressed her head against the train’s window, a sigh fogging up the glass.
The train was, as it normally was at this hour, almost completely empty. Octavia and her cello had taken up an entire bench, normally an unforgivable offence on a train, but an inconsequential detail when there was only one other pony in the entire cart.
Octavia wiped off the fog with her hoof, watching Canterlot’s tall buildings whip past.
“You’re pathetic,” she told her reflection. The reflection responded with a disappointed look.
Then the face in the window shifted, growing slightly angry at Octavia’s accusation.
“I’m pathetic?” asked the reflection. “Try looking in a mirror!”
Octavia’s brow furrowed in confusion.
“Alright, maybe that wasn’t the best choice of words, but you know what I mean!” The Octavia in the window leaned forward slightly. “You can’t go around blaming your reflection for all of your mistakes.”
“Well, you certainly could have helped.”
“What could I have done?”
“I don’t know!” exclaimed Octavia, throwing up her hooves. “Something!”
“Yeah,” said the reflection with a snort, “that would have worked.”
Octavia scowled at her cheeky self. “You could have told me.”
“Told you what?”
“To go back and talk to Beauty.”
The reflection rolled its purple eyes, extending its hoof and somehow managing to tap on the glass. “You seem to be forgetting that I’m not real, Miss Melody. Just a product of your hyperactive imagination. Besides, there were no mirrors around and you can’t have a reflection without mirrors, can you?”
“This isn’t a mirror.”
“It’s a glass pane with reflective qualities, it’s certainly close enough!” responded the other Octavia with a huff. “We wouldn’t even be having this conversation if you weren’t so pathetic.”
“Where do you get off, calling me pathetic? If that isn’t just the rudest thing!”
“Hello pot. I’m kettle. You’re pathetic.”
Octavia scowled through the window, slightly unnerved by the sheer speed of her doppelganger's snark.
“But you know,” said the reflection, now taking dainty nibbles from a sandwich, “this could have been entirely avoided.”
“I know.”
“Beauty is a very nice pony.”
“I know.”
“Would it kill you to make some friends?”
Octavia rubbed at her eyes, fogging up the window with another sigh. “Honestly, I’m starting to sound like my mother.”
Three high-pitched tones sounded from the train’s speakers. “The train is now approaching Aria Avenue. Please remain in your seats as the train slows to a complete stop. Please secure your belongings and exit the train in an orderly manner. Thank you for riding with us today.”
Octavia placed a hoof on her cello case, throwing one last look at her reflection. The Octavia in the window stared back, but offered no more words.
***
The entire building was throbbing. The windows shook in their sills, the wooden door trembled in its frame, a constant, rhythmic throbbing. Octavia placed a hoof on the doorknob, the vibrations quickly rattling through her leg and into her head.
The throbbing picked up speed, growing faster and faster until Octavia could barely stay on her hooves. Then it surged, a powerful blast that shattered all of the windows and tore the doorknob off the of door, sending Octavia flying backwards. She twisted in the air, landing on her side rather than allow her cello to break her fall.
“Damn!” shouted Octavia, diving into her cello case. “It’s back!” She drew out her cello, laying it on its side, and her bow, loosening it until the strings hung slack. Her bag of rosin blocks came next, hanging open from her teeth.
A figure appeared in a second-floor window. It was pony-shaped, wearing a black suit of armor that covered the entire body, leaving only a short, two-toned blue mane and bright red eyes visible. The armor’s front seemed to be made of mesh, like the covering of a speaker. The throbbing sound emanated from the figure, seeming to shake the very air surrounding it.
Octavia gritted her teeth against the horrid consortium of sound, reaching into one last pouch on her cello case and producing two small, bright orange earplugs. She shoved them into place, taking a moment to revel in the silence before glancing up towards the armored pony, her old foe.
The Black Mare, Dub Trot.
Octavia flicked her head upwards quickly, sending a single rosin block flying upwards. She caught it on the loosened bowstrings, drawing it back with her free hoof and sending it pelting towards Dub Trot’s masked face. Another block followed, then another.
Dub Trot dodged them, her head weaving back and forth before propelling herself into the air with a blast of sound. Octavia turned in a tight circle, carefully dropping her bow and rosin blocks onto the cello case and taking up her cello by its neck. She kept turning, angling herself upwards and swinging with all of her might as Dub Trot came crashing down from above.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Ground Control to Major Tavi. Yo, is there anyone in there?” Vinyl tapped Octavia’s head again, making the cellist twitch comically.
Octavia gazed back at her roommate with a flat expression. “Hello Vinyl.”
Vinyl grinned brightly. “Hey Tavi. How was work?” Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Fine.” Octavia waved Vinyl’s hoof away, quickly working her way past the other mare and into her home. Dubtrot blared from the speakers at an unholy level, the same welcome greeting that Octavia had gotten ever since she first moved in with Vinyl Scratch. As far as Octavia could tell, it was the exact same song as well. Though she used the term ‘song’ very loosely with Vinyl’s music.
She also used the term ‘music’ very loosely when describing Vinyl’s music.
Vinyl trotted back into the house proper, magically shutting and locking the front entrance and diving back onto her well-worn chair. “You gonna lock yourself in your room, Tavi?”
“Yeah.” Octavia crossed the living room, pausing slightly before the door to her room.
“Want me to turn down the volume?”
“Please.”
Vinyl’s magic flared, the same sheen appearing over the speakers, lowering the music to more tolerable levels. “That good?”
“Yes. Thank you, Vinyl.”
“No problem.” Vinyl settled deeper into her chair. “Oh! A few postcards and letters and stuff got here today. They’re on the kitchen table if you want to check them out.”
Octavia hesitated for a moment, her hoof resting on her room’s doorknob, before turning into her small kitchen. As promised, a stack of papers sat on the kitchen table. A few were bills, congratulations on dedicatedly making her payments, those weren’t much of a problem and Octavia shoved them to the side, taking up a stack of square papers instead.
The postcards always had the same format. A quickly scrawled message on the front and a photo on the back, depicting Harpo Parish Nadermane doing whatever had tickled his fancy.
This one, from some remote village in Germaney, showed the purple composer at a bar, an amber drink in his hoof and a cheeky smile on his face. The message, scrawled in sloppy black ink, read “Wish you were beer!”
Another had Harpo locked in a hoof/claw wrestling competition with a Griffon, the composer straining and beet red and the Griffon hardly breaking a sweat. “Claws are cheating.”
And yet another, depicted Harpo in a beret, sitting on the edge of a cliff, watching the sunrise over a hamlet. The message was written in golden ink, a flowing, elegant affair.“C’est magnifique!”
This pattern went on and on, each one depicting a new place and carrying a new message, but always including Harpo’s cock-sure, adventure seeking smile. Octavia gave a half-smile. Harpo had always talked about living this kind of life, seeing new places, meeting new people. Good for him. He was living the dream.
Octavia shoved the postcards aside, reaching for the letter that Harpo had sent. This one had come from Scoltland. The corners were wrinkled, the ink slightly faded in places. Not illegible and not written on napkins, though, so it was certainly an improvement from Harpo’s normal correspondence.
To My Two Favorite Fillies,
It’s been a very interesting few days. It seems that I’ve slept on everything but a bed. Grass, hay, sod, futons, hardwood, carpet, but no beds! It’s done wonders on my back. In the same way that a sledgehammer does wonders on cement. Which is to say that my back is in terrible, terrible pain. And you should feel bad for me and send food and things to this address. Of course, I won’t be here for very long, but I’m sure that it would get to me eventually. Or not. Scoltish ponies have as much of an appetite as I do. I suppose that it’s supposed to make up for the lack of Canterlotian manners. Which I rather like! The last time I let out a burp, the other ponies in the bar actually stomped for me.
I felt loved.
In any case, I was able to listen to some serious Scoltish folk music here! I rather liked it, even if I couldn’t understand a single word (they were singing in Equish, but I got lost in their accents), and I’ve added a few revisions to that work I sent you. The maestro wanted it by the 23rd, so this should be the last time I’m able to change it, but I really think that this is my best work to date!
With All Regards,
Harpo
The next page of the letter consisted of a hastily scrawled musical staff, a section of music clearly printed onto it. A few words in the corner read “Replaces measures 53-64.”
Octavia turned over the letter in confusion. “The work he sent?” she asked herself. “Vinyl?” she called.
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember getting any music from Harpo?”
A pause. “Like the new Daft Pony album?”
“No, Vinyl. Sheet music.”
“Noooooo. Why?”
Octavia turned back to the letter. Maestro wanted it by the 23rd. My best work to date.
Today was the 22nd.
“Oh, horsefeathers.”
Inspired by The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, a spectacular recent movie that I would recommend to most anyone. Like, seriously, I've heard it called the new Forrest Gump, and it really is on that same league.
WATCH IT!
ERMAHGERD!
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...dafuq is this? ninjaponies!?
Welp... You got my attention there...
I'm guessing you got your inspiration for this story from the secret life of walter mitty ? :D
3716348
Attention-getting ninjas... They dishonor their famiries!
3716352
Yupyup! I loved it!
Awesome! Looks really good! Instant favourite
I'm a big fan of OctiScratch, so I gave this a read. I like this story so far, so it gets a fave and an upvote.
Terrasora posted a new story? I'll just like and favorite now so I don't have to later.
Starting great, as your stories always do.
I'm looking forward to seeing that movie; It came out here in Germaney today and I plan on watching it tomorrow.
Well, this is going very well. I like how Octavia keeps spacing-out,
. I'll do that in my Pre-Cal class sometimes, then get a work sheet, then be like, " The fck is this sht??? You haven't taught us this yet!!!!" I hate spacing out for important stuff!!
And yet another of your stories I had to favorite.
Not that I'm complaining.
Well well.
Ain't this something. Certainly started with a bang, yeah?
Also... I see 3716348 was here already.
~Skeeter The Lurker
3716389 well I'm sure the movie doesnt have anything on your story cause I mean its got octascratch and ponies and stuff :D so yeah like and favorite
I'm going to be honest here
and to top it all off, I play the cello 
dunno maybe I'm overthinking it... Ah well. 
This story slightly scared me.
Not in the sense that the story was scary but because I tend to daydream about living an exciting life, not only that but I don't have many freinds because I'm afraid to approach anybody
Loving the story so far!
...continue...
3718819
I beat you, mwahahaha xD
3720025
Less talky. More read-y.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Oooh, what have we here?
Walter Mitty...
Actually reading it, I'm not sure how you're going to go through with only one day. I think I like the concept so far, definitely worth the read.
In case anyone, you know...
Okay: I want more and I want it by the end of the week, buddy.
When I started the story I was like "Awesome Octavia is an Assassin!" Then the damn conductor made her faze out and I was like "you ass!" But its still a good story. 8/10.
I'm confused