Stroll

by re- Yamsmos

Mortification

Reading was an escape. A fun, loopy slide that twisted and turned round and round, sending the mare further and further away from whatever chose to ail her at a breakneck, quite possibly record-breaking speed that any Wonderbolt would have silently nodded and smiled impressively at. Reading was a savior, if she was going to go so far in admitting. There had been many a time when she was a filly when there was nothing that could assist her in any form or fashion. Sawing away at her monstrously deep double bass only served to remind her of what she was supposed to be doing anyway. Her friends weren't always up for life-threatening hikes into the woods, sometimes keeping to themselves so they could do something infinitely more intelligent with their lives. Her three wonderful Labs, as spry and jovial as they may have been, had their own times when they didn't particularly wish to engage in a game of fetch with the young mare.

It only took the single turning of a snow white page and the sound of accidentally—slightly—ripped paper to send Octavia off on some dumb little adventure, or story, or anything that could keep her mind occupied and far away from the problems plaguing her head. If a supposed friend of hers suddenly up and spat at her with a slew of insults and name calling, if the weather was just a tad too dreary, or even if she was just having an absolutely Godsawful day—probably the result of a day-to-day teenage existence mixed with hormones and school—Octavia would very professionally lift her chin, adjust her posture like she'd seen her mother do during her concerts, and very calmly walk toward the library to check out a book. It was almost therapeutic in a way.

She could walk hundreds of miles on a straight channel if the sides were lined with books.

While stalking through the rows and rows of bookshelves, a twist of her gray head could reveal a touching love story about a griffon and a pony along the border line of their countries. A whipping of her smoky mane could help shine the light coming in from the window above her onto the cover of a non-fictional memoir about life-saving, medicinal-if-you-would dogs. A sparkle of her purple eyes would mirror back at her from the surface of a tale about the horrors of explosive war, slow death, and the tyrannical uprising of an abused underdog born in the depths of an alleyway marked with Princess-defacing propaganda and leftover, sagging cardboard boxes branded with the logo of a dangerous bomb company.

She could turn to her right and find a cute picture book with a little dragon who had some serious catsup issues.

All in all, however, there were many things that made Octavia happy, and one of them was a good book. Hay, even one that looked moderately appealing at the most could grab her attention and inform her of a vastly underrated author that deserved more attention, the name of which she would constantly mention here and there so somepony could look at her one day and say, "Hey, who's 'so-and-so'?" And then she would giggle to herself and proudly reply in a loud tone, "Oh, they're just the great author who wrote 'this-and-that'! You should check them out; they're highly unknown right now."

Gods, she was a dumb kid.

...

A dumb kid who, without any ounce of boastfulness or self-horn-tooting, was pretty book-savvy. There weren't too many genres she strayed away from—though her mother was a little more than a tad upset when she found her youngest daughter nose-deep into The Mad Mare by Bowling Lane—so Octavia had pretty much read it all, and savored the trip the whole way. Scrambled quotes she'd hastily written down on loose-leaf paper were still framed and tacked to a wall somewhere around her present-day house. A few of her own copies were nestled an inch inside her bookshelf that was more filled with leftover snacks, mugs, and sheet music than precious reading material. She could probably recite each and every line from The Cardboard Time Machine's first book in the series, one that she'd read and perused and skimmed through so much that she constantly tore and had to repair pages.

Really, if someone wasn't aware of her whereabouts, and she wasn't off somewhere mucking about with her dear old friends, she was on a library bender that wouldn't see its end until the next century if she wasn't stopped. She'd return home at the drop of a hat, however, with no amount of fuss and no pouting lips. Instead, she'd march out into the cold, dripping rain, smile at the clouds above, scurry back to her house, and fall onto her bed with a bag of newly checked-out books by her side. Reading was an escape, and it gave her a way to escape the dreadful safety of her house without actually stepping hoof outside.

Actually, now that she thought about it, she could probably glare at books and claim their existence as being her one reason for keeping to herself these days. You couldn't quite crack open a fresh one and hum at every little printed word if a pony was nagging at you quietly from behind a pair of tinted shades, now, could you?

To be honest, she... could, and actually kind of did a lot. Maybe that was why her roommate just sat there most of the time. There was no point in communicating with someone if they just ignored you.

...

Geez, she was a bit of a jerk, wasn't she?

...

...

She turned to her right. Through the cracks of a sparsely populated bookshelf, she could spy the four griffons thumbing through piles and piles of old, new, large, and small books on a round table. Lavi was holding a book in both claws, turning it over and over with a shut eye. T sat beside her, quietly seated and looking like he was too engrossed with whatever sat in his grasp. W, standing at the other side, was holding an open novel in a talon or two, his head darting to and fro to the likewise open gateways lying on the table directly in front of him. One, apparently, seemed to ridicule him with its irrelevance. He shut it with a shake of his head and placed it on the pile to his left, adding to its height. Valkyrie was standing next to her superior, back straight and her face almost hidden behind her choice of pastime. She looked like one of those fillies who tried too hard to make it look like they were reading when their teacher was looking. She'd seen it a lot with the popular girls in her middle school classes. Their resident smoker, meanwhile, was doing what he did best outside. Craning her neck and narrowing her eyes, Octavia searched for any sign of devilry or mischief in Valkyrie's eyes, or movements, or anything, but only found a disgruntled frown and a low curse that everypony in the library could hear.

Her spying glance flitted over to a pair of ponies near the griffons' table; a mother and her child. At the sound of the unexpected utterance, the former glared, bared her teeth, and covered the ears of the latter. They simply pressed their lips against their cheeks and stared back up at their caretaker.

W, having taken notice of the innocent bystanders, stopped what he was doing for a second, looked their way, whispered a quick apology, and elbowed the culprit next to him. Valkyrie put her book down and stared back at him, somehow not realizing what she'd done within the boundaries of a public, family-friendly city library. Considering who it was, "family-friendly" probably wasn't a good way to describe who or what they really stood for. In fact, most of the things that came to Octavia's mind to do the job instead weren't words she liked to let out into the world.

Or anywhere for that matter.

Space included.

Octavia turned back to what was currently afoot: the magazine currently opened to page thirteen in her hooves. Adjusting her position on the floor, the mare bunched up her shoulders and shielded her dive by placing its bottom end closer against her stomach. Lower lip pouted out idly, she quietly turned the pages to see what else was in the latest issue; she hadn't been able to get a hold of last month's, thanks to another concert they'd had—which, for whoever's information, ended up pretty shoddily—and this month's was wholeheartedly promised to be a good one. It had been hyped up for the better part of almost half a year now, and Octavia wasn't just going to wait around for Trottingham to go to the store and see what all the heavily anticipated fuss was about.

Page sixteen now.

Her eyes widened.

Holy shit.

"Hey Octavia–"

The mare in question jumped up at the sound of another individual's voice, heart lodged in her throat as she practically shoved her magazine back into the shelf that she'd got it from. Breathing in and out through her nostrils so that whoever it was couldn't see how quickly she was taking in oxygen, Octavia turned to the far end of the aisle and saw Lavi standing there with the most contained bout of laughter the mare had ever witnessed behind a pair of squirrelly cheeks. Octavia cleared her throat. Lavi turned her head to her right, still staring at the mare out of the corner of her eyes.

She smirked.

"Was that Snatcher?"

Octavia screwed up her face.

"I'm not familiar with the name, Lavi."

The griffon's grin increased in volume. Octavia remained calm. Not that she had any reason to be anything but. She wasn't doing anything.

Lavi leaned a little to her left. Octavia mirrored her by leaning to her right.

Lavi leaned a little to her right. Octavia, her left.

Lavi's eyes narrowed. Octavia's in kind.

As if a switch had been thrown, Lavi suddenly perked up with an almost overexaggerated rolling of her shoulders. Bringing up a fist, she pointed a thumb back at her companions' table and explained, "So the others might need some help with getting more books."

Octavia's jaw dropped as she let out a large sigh. "More? By the Gods, we've been in here for the past two hours!" She bunched up her cheeks in a frown and shook her head, the glare on her face addressed to the griffons still skimming through books across the room. She pouted out her bottom lip when she realized her tone, then raised a brow at Lavi. "Not that I'm complaining, mind." She really wasn't. It was actually a bit of a nice break from walking outside, walking outside in the hot sun, and walking outside in general.

Lavi made a shrug in the direction of the magazine that Octavia wasn't earlier reading. "Clearly," she said with a snort. Turning, she looked over her shoulder and beckoned, "C'mon. Valkyrie's gettin' a little butthurt over it, and unless you wanna see this place without its rooof..."

Octavia flattened her lips and drew her neck back with a brow to the air, thinking that such a drastic course of action was on a much, much broader and more controversial spectrum than the aggressive griffon usually tended to not stray too far from, but widened her eyes and hurriedly followed Lavi's tail when she realized that that was foolish thinking. If anything, sparing the town entirely was probably the least Valkyrie would wander off and go do. The poor, fish-flinging citizens of Baltimare surely didn't deserve a thorough incineration by way of angry cat bird.

Now that she thought about it, she couldn't really think of anyone, any place, or anything– wait, meatloaf.

Yes.

With her newly-remembered mortal enemy now lodged somewhere deep in the cruxes of her brain, Octavia turned the corner at the end of the magazine section and headed to the right, toward the round tables and soft blue chairs that she found hard pressed to not simply fall into and snooze upon. It was only a few hours past the afternoon, and she was feeling absolutely beat. Maybe, if the others took longer than she was currently estimating, she could sneak away into the nearby bathroom or something like at rehearsals and go to sleep, then say she was vomiting when she exited the room so she could be quickly excused and sent home. Home sounded pretty alright right now.

...

Changing topics, she had to admit that there was some kind of... difference heading into a seemingly trivial study session now compared to her days back in the Academy. The haunting flashbacks creeping into her mind—deemed far too risque and downright horrible for the world to hear—were thoroughly squashed back down to Tartarus where they deserved to stay, and she flicked her smoky tail behind her and continued on her way.

She hummed to herself, cocked her head, stared out a nearby window at the busy road outside, and supposed that it felt different because, really, what was there to lose right now if she didn't succeed in studying up with the griffons? A flurry of curses from Valkyrie? An anguished sigh from Lavi? W in a crummy mood? As much as she very much didn't want that to occur, she had to admit that it was a far cry from the devastating results that came with failing back at the Academy.

Back then, there was a lot more than just simple sorrow that emerged from royally banging up your tests, and—consequently—the rest of your life, or as much of a life as your musical career could bestow upon you. Back then, being starved beyond all belief, stressed out to the point of tearing her mane out, and tired as all hell was a normal thing for Octavia, who woke up at two in the morning to get as much studying as she could in and then went to bed at midnight only to repeat the unhealthy cycle a bare hour later. Back then, there was an actual reason for her horrible washed, rinsed, and repeated act, a very simple one that just the utterance of it was an ample enough fuel to keep Octavia from crashing onto her table with a deafening clunk of her Earth Pony head and a scattering of her mane across the milk-stained oak.

Symphony rehearsed the phrase as well, the arsehole.

"F is for failure."

Poetic, in a way, but blunt and to the point. Which wasn't blunt, actually. Blunt was, like, a hammer, and a point was the end of a knife. A blunt knife point was pretty much useless in a way, almost like the trash cans and rubbish bags that she was so fond of comparing herself to in an only half-jesting manner. You couldn't rightfully carve out a pumpkin for Nightmare Night with a hammer, now, could you? You could try, but it would be one big bloody mess. One big, orange, pulpy mess that would rival any glass of orange juice Octavia had poured herself as a filly. She was not a particularly huge fan of the drink, it turned out. One bad experience with clumps of pulp was enough to put her off the drink forever.

Whatever. She'd always liked wine more anyhow.

On the subject of wine, Valkyrie threw Octavia's train of thought off the rails as she practically threw her book onto the round table with an overly long, drawn-out sigh and an aggressive rubbing of the bridge of her nose. "These Goddamn things are gonna make me kill myself. Seriously."

Octavia continued her trot toward the griffon group, listening for any response to the mean old bird that she could deem valid enough to not spit back at. With nothing but a shaking of W's head and a turning of Lavi's head to face the mare, Octavia cantered past the latter and asked the former, "What exactly do you need, W?"

W looked up from his rapid studies for just a second, snorted, then went back to it. "Just some help, is all."

Octavia rolled her eyes. That was a bit of a dumb question. Lavi already told her what they needed. "Which sections would you like for me to look through?" She asked, already turning her body around to head back toward the aisles of bookshelves lining the rest of the library. She wasn't exactly going to be unhappy to search for more books, but at the same time, Academy flashbacks bit at the back of her head. If she wasn't traumatized already, she would be soon.

W chuckled. Octavia, not noticing anything funny happening prior to it, raised a brow and scanned her surroundings as the griffon told her, "Oh, we don't need anything like that." Octavia swiftly turned to her left, an evil scowl on her face and her lower lip pouted out. Lavi, the victim of her angry onslaught, only gave a girlish giggle in response. The mare growled from deep within her throat. "We just need you to help us over here." Letting out a low drone as he turned to the pile on his right, he stuck out a claw and prodded their spines as he added, "Don't have a lot left, if you don't mind."

Octavia grinned. "Of course; no problem," she replied, a shiver running up and down her spine before she trotted around the back of T and headed toward W's side. The old griffon, noticing her choice out of the corner of his eyes, released one of his claw's grips from the side of the book he was reading and nudged the chair next to him out.

The mare about tripped to the floor, having not expected such a gesture. Barely catching herself, she plopped herself onto the rather shoddy piece of furniture, spoke a quick but genuine words of thanks to W—who nodded and hummed at her—and leaned forward to get to work. Her hooves, familiarizing themselves with the act of grabbing massive books to surf through them after an almost five-year drought, quickly reached toward the pile to her left.

Gods, this was going to be pretty boring this time around. As fond as her memories of libraries had been, her later years had told her that the premises of such places were pretty much vacuums that sucked the life out of anyone's prior wonderful day with the intensity of a punctured space station wall. If she couldn't rightly blame her lack of sleep for the bags under her eyes back during her days at the Academy, the dim lights of the local library with the kind librarian heading the front desk and the rows of reading ponies sharing her troubles were next in line.

Grabbing hold of the first book on top, Octavia brought it back toward her chest and let it thump in front of her on the table. She raised a brow when she noticed the title.

She regarded W, "'A Guide On Griffonian Artifacts', by Bird Watcher?" The old bird glanced her way, blinking silently. Turning her head to her right and staring at him from the left corner of her eyes, she asked, "Just what are you looking for?"

The three other griffons turned about and watched W as well, prompting Octavia to peer at them in kind. With their lips (beaks?) pressed against their cheeks, they remained quiet as if anticipating some kind of answer from their leader. Octavia, prodding her chin with a dainty hoof, joined in on their gazes.

W let out a little tut and spoke like he was long dreading his response. "Look for anything with the title of Boreas."

Octavia drew her neck back. Boreas? Was he massacring the word Borealis somehow? As she'd bore witness to, pony culture and griffon culture were very evidently far apart in terms of similarities to each other, but she was preeeetty sure that the Northern Lights were still called the Northern Lights overseas. She hummed to herself, but decided not to question it. Pointing out people's mistakes in daily dialogue turned out to be a lot more tedious than one would think.

She shook her head as she brought a hoof up and leafed through the pages lying before her, the sound of old paper crinkling in her flickering ears. Boreas. Octavia let out a small snort. Just what were the griffons doing looking for a natural phenomenon in a book about artifacts? What– were the, were the Northern Lights just some kind of idol left over by the Gods? She turned another page. Boreas. What a cute little–

She stopped.

She blinked. Then leaned forward. Then narrowed her eyes. Then let her jaw slack. Then mouthed the words she found. Finished, she turned her head and found W staring at her, probably out of legitimate concern for her prior questionable actions.

Octavia took a quick glance back at the book to make sure she wasn't hallucinating somehow. Was it a typo, maybe?

She pursed her lips and asked, "The Idol of Boreas?"