Question by Michelle Twistaloo
“You like her don’t you?”
The reaction was instantaneous, and not totally controlled by the pony to whom the question was directed to. A splurging of juices, sugar, and anything else that had went into the milkshake, mixed not 10 minutes earlier, hung now not in her stomach, but on the face of the questioner.
“O...kay, I’ll ignore that.” – The questioner, named Lyra, said as she used some of her magic to try and clean her face, before it dried out and stuck to her fur. – “But the fact remains, if you like her, you got to ask her out...”
Octavia wasn’t one to have such extremes reactions to anything but tardiness, certainly not to one innocent question, yet her body had betrayed her feelings, and those had shown via a milkshake coming out in rapid sucession. Yet, despite that, she was sure she could hide away the truth, if she could get calm.
“I certainly don’t!” – And her speech, which for a human would be affected by a monotone equivalent to a British one, came out loud, and clear, certainly not contrived and awkward, or tinted by emotion, for the most part. – “I may spend some quality time with her, but that doesn’t mean I have romantic feelings for her.”
“But you need to!” – And Lyra, which had mostly found success in removing the spit and juices out her face brought out a hoof from under the table, placed there due to the peculiar she sat.
“Well, I’m not going to, so...”
It was a subject Lyra brought out an awful lot, too many times for Octavia’s liking. She had taken Lyra for what she was - a peculiar mare, with peculiar interests and fantasies – but she would never have thought her a matchmaker. Either way she wouldn’t fall to her intense questioning and admit her feelings, that most certainly weren’t there, for the other mare.
As routines went, that one wasn’t too bad, Lyra would bring out the subject, almost religiously, to the point of annoyance, Octavia would dismiss it, despite the bubbling feeling in her rib cage, Lyra would press and push, trying to let her give something up, Octavia wouldn’t falter, and Lyra would eventually give it up and they could finally spend some quality time discussing gossips or the like. It was after that that Octavia would return to her empty house, and mostly just either play the Cello or read one of her romantic novels, where the dashing and well built stallion would take the heroine in a magic fueled carpet ride dream sequence, or something like that.
Because she wasn’t going to bring out the question, not now, not never.
Because she didn’t feel it, and even if she did, she wasn’t raised to love, she was raised to be a high society mare. And those don’t go around dating someone they meet on a secluded bar somewhere, no matter what Lyra said.
She just had to forget the question,“Want to go out?”.
The tense despair here...is most delightful.
Story itself has a good setup, but grammar issues abound. Most of the hyphens you use are unnecessary, there needs to be more commas in the dialogue at places to make it feel more natural, the first ellipsis should either be removed entirely or replaced with a hyphen, the very last sentence doesn't need that extra period.
Again, cello should not be capitalized. This isn't Victorian English, where any and all Words with some form of Meaning can be Capitalized for Emphasis.
On a more stylistic note, I found the description of Octavia's accent as British unnecessary and clunky. Any OctaScratch fan already knows what she sounds like, and use of either the in-universe Trottingham or Canterlot to imply a British accent is the accepted form to keep from breaking immersion.