The Counterfeit Octavia

by Diamond Sparkle

Chapter 1-Who are you really?

It was cold and misty in the Royal Canterlot Cemetery, where the great and the good were interred, and the mournful music of a double base filled the air. Vinyl Scratch made her way through the mist towards the source of the music, to where a beautiful grey pony with a purple treble clef for a cutie mark was weeping as she played beside a gravestone with a copper disc set in it, her long mane and tail blowing in the wind.

"Octavia, why are you crying? Don't worry, I'm here," Vinyl said. Octavia paid no attention, and when Vinyl tried to hug her, to her horror she passed straight through her. Looking at the gravestone she saw the words VINYL SCRATCH written on it. As she did so the wind got stronger and pulled her away from her girlfriend, sending her tumbling up into the sky.

Vinyl woke up, and felt for Octavia to wake her up and tell her about her nightmare. Octavia was always ready to comfort her when she was unhappy for any reason. But there was no warm body lying next to her, and she remembered that Octavia was dead and would never be with her again. I'll never feel her warm kisses again, never hear her play music again or have her walk along beside me. I'll never hear her voice again. Up to the point where Octavia's cancer had left her bedbound and unable to speak, she had done her best to comfort Vinyl. Now she lay in the Canterlot Funeral Parlour awaiting her funeral. She got up and without brushing her teeth or her mane, went off to see Octavia one last time. She was ushered into the room where Octavia lay by a pony with a pony skull as his cutie mark, and left alone. Octavia looked beautiful, as if she was only asleep. The mortician had clearly done his best to make her look good, and her favourite fiddle was in her dead hooves. Vinyl bent over Octavia and planted a warm kiss on her cold forehead. What if I could take her home and put her to bed, and she got better? Don't be stupid Vinyl, she would bloat and rot and in the end only her bones would be left.

"Octy, I did my best. I pestered the doctors and nurses to try and cure you, I tried healing magic from Zecora and I got an audience with Princess Celestia and begged her to make you into an alicorn. She refused. Of course she did. I wanted to have you cremated so that I could take you home in an urn and keep you close to me when I sleep, but it was your wish that you be buried and I will respect that. But I still hate the idea of leaving you alone in the cold dark earth. Hopefully you are up in Heaven awaiting my arrival. Goodnight, my love. Sleep well." She closed the coffin.

The funeral later that day was a large one, for Octavia was a popular pony with a large number of fans, most of which were kept at a distance from the grave. Princess Celestia herself attended as Octavia had been one of her favourite musicians, placing a wing over Vinyl to try and offer some comfort. Vinyl managed to hold her sadness in until the gravediggers started shovelling the dirt into the grave, and then sat there and howled for her lost love. Finally she headed home, to the house she had once shared with Octavia. On the way she came across Trixie, who had been one of those at the funeral. "Trixie, if you really are as great and powerful as you say you are, I'll pay you a couple of thousand bits if you cast a spell for me that will bring Octavia back to me." Much to her surprise Trixie shook her head.

"The Great And Powerful Trixie knows as an accomplished and renowned user of magic that one should never mess with necromancy. It never works well. At best, you would get a few days with Octavia-until her brain rotted from within and she died a second, final death. More likely you would get a zombie that did only what you told it to do. Or worse, much worse, you would get a carnivorous undead possessed by some demon from the depths of Tartarus that saw ponies including you as food. It's illegal for a very good reason-it's far too dangerous to do."

Angrily Vinyl carried on walking home, and when she got there she found one of the many ponies that had been waiting at the funeral, a brown earth pony with a rope noose for a cutie mark. "Vinyl, please could I talk to you in private please?"

"I'm not in the mood, I just want to grieve in peace," Vinyl replied.

"I know a spell that can bring Octavia back to you," the pony replied.

"But Trixie told me that spells that raise the dead cause nothing but trouble and danger. I want Octavia back, not a mindless zombie or a pony eating demon."

"I can do that, just let me into your house and I'll cast a spell that will give her back to you. Not as an undead thing but as a living, breathing mare, the mare that you love so much."

"All right then, I'll give you a chance."

She let in the strange pony, and he entered her kitchen, opened one of her windows, and said," I need you to leave the room, so your presence does not mess up the magic, and then you'll have your Octavia back again by your side."

She did so and noticed a flash of green light under the door. When she opened it Octavia was standing there, and she rushed to her side, hugging her and covering her face with kisses over and over again. "Octavia, you're back from death, I can hardly believe it." Octavia's body was warm, not cold and dead. "He brought you back from death and then he...where did he go? He must have climbed out of the window. I was ready to pay him thousands of bits. Play me a happy tune, Octavia, on your fiddle."

Octavia hesitated, and when she did so, the music that came out was anything but nice. In fact it was so awful that Vinyl pressed her hooves over her ears. If this was indeed Octavia, then her ability to make music had clearly been left behind in the afterlife. Vinyl said "Stop it, stop that racket." She hesitated and thought to herself. "You're not Octavia, my Octavia knows how to play the fiddle and you don't. So who are you really?"

Author's Note:

The picture can be found at http://shadow-rhapsody.deviantart.com/art/Sad-Octavia-267633151 It's not at all NSFW so as far as I know it's ok to put it here.

This fanfiction takes place before the Canterlot Invasion so the vast majority of ponies know little or nothing about changelings.

Comments

[vampyr-pony]

Please update soon? its beautiful for what you have and i cant wait to read more.