The Golden Roofs
They got off in gilded Canterlot, the city on the mountain. The home of the Celestial Sisters, the cultural heart of all Equestria with playhouses and concert halls to spare.
Yet no great halls or classical pillars could be seen where they stood, nor music heard. The city on the mountain, but a city all the same with poor neighborhoods and alleys filled with refuse, some of which could walk.
In their construction long ago, vain effort had been made to ensure such ill-favored places were beautiful. Stained and discolored murals adorned the outside of salt taverns, picturing myths few of the illiterate patrons even knew. White streets had long turned to full black, and decades-old potholes revealed even that to be a thin facade over mundane bricks.
It was all Discord could talk about as they trod through the fading light.
“That’s so absurd it’s not even funny. Bricks! You had to make them and haul them up a literal mountain to this insane city-sized monument to Celestia’s ego. A mountain made of… wait for it… stone! Ready for the taking! A mountain of it! I know I’m supposed to thrive on chaos but this is just wasteful to ship over some rocks when you’re standing on one with your own four hooves.”
“Discord, as fascinating as ancient architecture can be, why are we here?”
He shrugged, loping curiously along on his mismatched legs. “How should I know?”
Octavia gave the husky sign of irritation turned silently to restrained anger. “I have a few hours left before losing either my music or my soul. Chop-chop.”
“You brought us here, not me. It’s your past.” Discord scratched idly at his chest, looking around with an expression of curiosity. “Is this something you would change? Not that I don’t entirely agree, but it seems like a non sequitur to present concerns.”
Octavia wore a stone face as she gazed around. Memories tickled the back of her mind, but none very close or personal. “I grew up two blocks over. Why your train would drop us off here I have no...”
A new sound broke her words, shrill and pathetic. A baby’s wail, screeching across the battered walls.
Octavia’s false teeth clicked as her lips pushed them back in a grim smile.
“Ah. Now I get it.”
They followed the noise as it went on, unabated and uncomforted. A turn down an alley brought them to its source: a grey newborn, lying naked atop one of the dozen overfilled trash cans. Not even a basket or blanket gave her comfort, and the purple eyes bulged wide as it cried again with fading strength.
Discord’s gaze slunk over to Octavia, and her cold expression.
The baby fell quiet. Octavia spoke. “I almost remember this. Not the scene itself, but the chill breeze, the being alone.”
“You wish for your parents?” Discord asked with a rare serious expression. Yellow magic glowed around his horns. “We can see what would have happened it they –”
“No. Sweet Celestia, no.”
“Not even to know what they looked like?”
“No. Gods damn them.” Anger scrunched Octavia’s wrinkled muzzle.
“But the whole reason we’re here is to –”
“Let it go.”
“Alright, alright.” Discord wiped off the magic on his legs, blowing out and wincing as the baby unleashed a fresh cry. “So what happens next?”
Octavia glanced his way. “Don’t you know?”
“Please. You think I keep track of every Orange, Pear, and Apple in Equestria? I told you: you’re the one driving, not me.”
It made sense, not that Octavia was prepared to admit it. It felt right to get off the illusory train when she did, though no outside clue bid her so. Like an instinct, a thing always known. An acceptance of Discord’s promise to change the past, whether or not she fully believed it.
But not this part. Gods damn them.
She moved to pick up the baby, more from curiosity than sympathy. Her hooves passed right through, of course. A ghost of the past. Or was Octavia the ghost, in this place where all else was yet to come?
The clatter and clang of a falling trash can broke her musings. She smiled thinly and turned to the drunken mare who had stumbled into the alley. Curly haired and with a patched black and white coat like a cow, the stranger pushed one hoof into the wall as she retched on the sideways can.
The duo watched in silence as the mare belched, snorted back a noseful of phlegm, and vomited again over several long, awkward seconds.
“You like jokes, don’t you?” Octavia said dryly. “Here’s the punchline.”
“Pardon?”
A fresh cry snapped the mare’s head upwards. She staggered over to the baby, red eyes wide with revelation, salt-dried lips mumbling improvised words of care as she scooped up and wrapped the young Octavia in her own stained neckerchief.
Octavia took in a slow breath. Her frown returned as she took in the scene with grumpy indifference.
“Peela Pear. My mother. Well, the only mother I ever had.”
Octavia willed the vision forward. Strangely, the world complied. They saw the bath in the moldy sink, the tiny apartment she would learn to call home.
They saw the crate that was her crib. The filly babbled innocently, watching as her mother hustled out with bits jangling in her saddlebag.
“Mama needs a break, sweetie. Be good, and stay there with your friends.”
Her ‘friends’ were a toy metal truck and stuffed bear, both with enough strings and bits to choke an infant to death. The night passed in darkness as Octavia cried and slept and cried, with a filling diaper and empty stomach. And she kept crying when Peela returned, drunk and staggering, to collapse on the couch.
Thrown bottles shattering against the wall. Missed meals. Threats to ‘Put you back in that alley where I found you.’
Birthday parties with cheap cakes. Trips to free concerts in the nearby park. And when the stars aligned and Peela did go shopping, and did think to cook…
Octavia swallowed, somehow tasting the low, oozing sweetness of pot-roast pears. How long had it been?
“She tried,” Octavia said grudgingly. Her eyes grew wet. She wiped them, and they hardened. “She shouldn’t have. Orphanages do better, but Peela was an idiot. She talked stupidly about how ‘fate’ brought me here, how I was her ‘second chance.’”
“I see,” Discord said delicately.
“Her real daughter was ‘Octavia Melody,’ too,” Octavia sighed. “Peela made me go on visits to the gravestone. Dead at three months old.”
Her face twisted into something darker than anger, just for a moment. “She said the baby got sick, but you’ve seen how she is.”
“That’s not really a Pear-ish kind of name.”
They watched an argument brew as four-year-old Octavia learned the words to yell back.
“Canterlot isn’t a Pear-ish place,” Octavia said, watching blandly as a bottle was thrown. “She left the farm to be an actress, caught up in the romance of Canterlot’s fairy tale. She ended up working for whatever restaurant or bakery hadn’t fired her yet, eternally convinced that her big break was just around the corner. Not that she attended try-outs or acting classes or anything like that.”
Her eyes moved to the side, to the window. From here, they could see the golden roofs of mansions in other parts of the city.
“That is something I learned from her. It’s not enough to want your dreams. You must lunge for them.”
An empty house, and empty cupboard. Young Octavia knocked over the trash can for wilted cabbage leaves Peela had thrown out.
Enough.
“This,” Octavia hissed. “I didn’t need this. No one does. Even she didn’t. Peela could have made a good living, could have… hmph.”
She turned to Discord, waved dismissively to the scene. “Well? Fix it.”
“Fix it?” he repeated, with a smirk and raised eyebrow.
“You said we could change how things occurred. Take away the poverty, the neglect. We’re in Canterlot, for goodness’ sake. Let it be Canterlot for me.”
Yellow magic glowed around Discord’s horns. The smirk twisted mischievously at its corners, then grew into a full smile.
“You really think it’s that easy, don’t you?” He chuckled lowly, ending it with a girlish giggle. “Oh, sweet Celestia! What fools your ponies be.”
Octavia opened her mouth to question, but his talons snapped, and it all vanished from sight.
And there she was, in the alley with the crying infant.
Dusk was only beginning. Peela was still at the bar. But here came a pair of wealthy ponies, having missed their carriage and now quite lost as they wandered their way home. A large unicorn with a bowler hat and jovial mustache, and an earth pony in a silk green dress.
They heard the cries, ran forward with shouts of sympathy and dismay, but also wonder. The mare could not bear children, and Octavia became their miracle that day. They brought her home, bathed her, loved her. As did their loyal servants, whom they always treated well. Octavia grew into a fine Canterlot mare – cultured, vapid, spoiled. She took cello lessons, but they were squeezed between ballet, painting, and long beach-side vacations.
The years passed, flowing quickly like a river in spring. She caught the eye of Concerto of all ponies, and he caught hers. A mediocre musician, but of a prestigious band in a city that valued pedigree more than talent. His family was rich, and her father approved. They would sometimes put on little concerts together for the family at Hearth’s Warming, but as time went by her cello became a novelty to be dusted by servants. She had three wonderful children, and all loved each other in the way rich ponies do. Not without warmth or depth of affection, certainly, but as the children grew up all became generally content to see each other on holidays and funerals.
Her cancer was caught and treated early by the best doctors in Canterlot. The mare aged gracefully and died in peace. The funeral was touching, then it ended.
And Octavia was alone.
She stared at the mare in the casket, could not bring herself to call her ‘Octavia.’ Even dead she looked ten years younger. An emerald gem was clasped at her neck. The lines on her face were soft, the dimples wide from a lifetime of smiles.
Octavia ran a hoof along her own cheek. The bones were gaunt, the lines like iron trenches. She had pushed herself so long, so hard.
A claw settled on her back. She did not startle.
“Is this what you want?” Discord asked. A mocking tone hung in the words.
“What about my music?” she said.
“You saw.”
“Yes, I did.” Octavia’s old, stony discipline began to return.
The stranger in the casket. The old, rich grandmother. A talent for music, yes, but there were too many distractions, too much for a proper lady of Canterlot to learn and do.
She closed her eyes, remembered the free concerts Peela had brought her to. The crisp black suits of the musicians, the magic as they worked cat-hair rods across tools of string and wood to make the most beautiful sounds she had ever heard. She remembered babbling excitedly on the way home, begging Peela to take her again.
And… Peela did, didn’t she? Every Saturday that summer, and the next.
“Passion does not occur accidentally,” Discord said, flippant despite his words. “It needs focus, attention. Nurturing and planning in quiet moments. Even desperation, one might claim. After all, if the talent doesn’t really matter then it will never become more than a hobby.”
“I don’t need a friendship lesson,” Octavia said, her voice graveled and dull. She sighed, shook her head, and turned away from the stranger.
“No. Not this.” She swallowed hard, growing a little stronger. “What good would this be, if I lost all my music? I might as well have accepted Tirek’s offer and been done with it. A less comfortable life than… her, but we’re both dead all the same.”
A steadying breath. “Take me back. We’ll change something else.”
Discord said nothing. The darkened parlor faded into a dingy apartment.
Then a schoolroom. Octavia saw herself in a prim black skirt with books stacked upon her back. The classroom was spacious, the teachers stern and attentive. Other students chafed under their uniforms, but Octavia loved it. A step closer to those magnificent maestros in black.
Canterlot’s public schools had an abundance of wealthy patrons. Her band room was a paradise. The instruction… less so. Forty minutes a day, structured songs with every emphasis placed on simply playing the correct note on the sheet. Stringed instruments were for older children – she was assigned bongo drums.
So she stole books for cellos and violins, studying them when she should have been doing math. Rulers slapped her fetlock, then again when she came in a dirty uniform, and again when she stole a lunch without hoofing over her half-bit.
But progress came. Her first time playing a violin in class was hailed as borderline prodigy. The teachers didn’t know she had been sneaking in for months to practice.
“Do you feel guilty over that?” Discord asked.
Octavia glanced towards him. “Of course not, I was seven.”
Discord shot her a winning smile. “It’s impressive how little you’ve changed, don’t you think? Even then you were an obsessive little musical bulldozer.”
They were back in the dingy apartment, in a screaming argument. Peela had broken the violin Octavia brought home, and she wouldn’t be trusted with another.
Anger crossed Octavia’s face, but it faded. “That’s another thing I got from her. We lived in Canterlot, but it wasn’t ‘Canterlot.’ You know what I mean. It wasn’t the city on the mountain, the answer to our dreams. Yet we still believed in it. We knew the squalor we lived in was unnatural, unworthy. Distinct and separate from the gold roofs outside our windows, where we would one day belong.”
A bottle crashed.
Then a beat-up, secondhand violin appeared in the apartment, though the water went off for a few days. It came without the bow, but the school had plenty and no one noticed when one disappeared.
The school. Worried-looking adults asked eight-year-old Octavia pointed questions. She knew they wanted to take her away from Peela, so she lied.
The principal’s office. Ponies kept offering tissues she didn’t want, looking down on her with mournful sympathy. Ten-year-old Octavia listened woodenly as they explained that normally she would have to go to the orphanage (and they were so sorry to have to say it like that), but thanks to a Blueblood-family donor there was a small dormitory for ponies like her. She could gather her things and go right there.
Octavia’s eyes blurred. She wiped them, found herself in the apartment. The young Octavia simply stood there, crying without sound. There was nothing to gather. The violin fell apart a long time ago.
A slow, almost whistling breath out sounded behind Octavia. She glanced back to see Discord awkwardly scratching his elbows, looking everywhere but towards her.
She caught his eyes, and he smiled weakly. “What did it?”
“Take a wild guess,” Octavia grumbled.
She turned, finding herself a little earlier in time. Peela promised to get her another violin, but she had been promising that for months. Octavia whined, and Peela reminded her she was adopted and was really ‘owed’ nothing at all. Peela stormed out in search of a bar, and the carriage hit her on the way home. This was the last Octavia ever saw her.
“You idiot,” Octavia hissed to the slamming door.
A little earlier. The idiot asleep drunk on the couch. Octavia glared down her nose at it.
Discord gave a very quiet cough. “Do you… hate her?”
“I used to,” Octavia admitted. She released a breath, and the sharp anger in her eyes turned dull. “I forgave her a long time ago. She tried. She failed. That is all.”
Asleep, Peela looked at peace with the whole world. Octavia felt tears return to her eyes. She reached down, and some kindness in the illusion let her touch Peela’s cheek. The mare smiled drowsily and leaned into her hoof.
Octavia let it rest there, just for a moment. Then she pulled away, looked away. She could take no more.
Her voice broke. “I don’t think I love her. Is that wrong?”
“I am entirely unqualified to answer,” Discord replied.
Octavia gave a breathless laugh. “Coward.”
“Got me in one.”
She pressed on, away from the apartment. Forever. She stood in her black uniform before the dorm, staring up towards it. A pleasant, new building with clean sheets, flushing toilets, and a stocked cafeteria. Sad and ironic as it was, Octavia’s life would be better here.
So much better.
Then a shout came. Cheerful, bright, and loud; a sun rising through memory and time.
“Hey! Hey, you!”
Still shaken by their mother’s death, Octavia young and old startled and stared as a newcomer ran up behind them. A pure white unicorn, with wild blue hair and pink eyes like gemstones in the same uniform as Octavia.
“You’re moving here too, right? I’m Vinyl Scratch!”
A white fetlock wrapped around the young Octavia’s neck and pulled her into an immodest cheek-to-cheek nuzzle. The child stammered and mumbled, while the old Octavia watched with wide eyes and a hoof over her mouth.
“Quick, let’s get in and pick out our rooms. I don’t want to be next to any boys.”
The young mare trembled with energy and excitement, pulling Octavia rapidly in her wake.
Octavia laughed out loud, hard enough to send coughs through her withered lungs. How comical! How amazing children are, that they simply approach one another and declare, ‘You are my friend.’ That was how it began. An assertive declaration which Octavia was too confused to decline.
She remembered full well their antics that day, and watched with childlike glee. Led by Vinyl, they went for a ride in the dryer, jumped on the beds, and threw paper airplanes off the balcony. They got scolded and spent an hour after dinner washing dishes, but every time their eyes met they burst out laughing, both of them. Octavia couldn’t remember ever laughing so hard before, but there she was: squealing, begging Vinyl to stop because her sides felt ready to explode. And of course Vinyl sneaked into her room that night and made a tent out of their sheets to play at camping.
Octavia laughed so hard as she watched them, jumping and throwing her hoof into the air like a child herself whenever they found triumph. It was easy to get swept along, but Vinyl was like that. She always was.
Octavia was still laughing when she began to cry.
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God damn amazing
Always fantastic what you write <3
Well... that's certainly an interesting way to start things.
Interesting and sad, considering what we learn of Octavia's childhood with Peela Pear (who almost makes even Grand Pear at his worst look nice) and the way it shaped much of her life. It's true that Peela Pear tried, but honestly, in a way, that's almost worse than if Peela Pear had been a straight up abusive parent who Octavia could unreservedly hate. Because from the looks of things, Peela Pear did love her at least a bit, but by itself, love is not enough, or at least it's not enough if it's not above a certain level, because it needs to be strong enough to lead to actual action.
Also, it's a unique touch to have the first alternate Octavia's life have its share of good things, but also have its share of less good ones, and the good things it has not being the same that the 'actual Octavia's' life had. Typically in these stories, the alternate life either is the perfect paradise that one turned away because of a single awful decision or an absolute Hell on Earth that one will go througth if they don't change their behavior. I don't think I've ever seen this kind of balanced take on this kind of plot element. Props to you for it!
As for the second alternate Octavia's life, but it does seem to be following along the same kind of balance, as Octavia did know a different way of losing her mother, but at the same time found a friend, even if it's a version of her that's quite more talkative than we see in animated canon (although going by at least the comics, she does talk and is just quiet). Looking forward to seeing how the rest of their friendship will develop, as well as to whether we get to see this alternate Octavia's life to the end or if it will also stop along the way.
All in all, I'm still loving this, and still looking forward to what's to come!
11508423
Ah- just to clarify, what was seen after she rejected the vision of prosperity is her life as it really happened. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
To me, there is something about this exchange that is very alarming. The fact that Octavia asks, that the scene is set up this way, and the implications of what is presented -- it gives the impression that forgiveness for abusers is necessary. That good people forgive their abusers. That part of Octavia's flaws as an individual come from the fact that her withholding further sentiment makes her a bad pony that we see her as. That the type of situation Octavia was raised in is a forgivable one, that Peela Pear is a forgivable individual, and that forgiveness is necessary and good. Discord pointing out he is the wrong party to validate things is both in-character and makes sense, but the way it contributes to the scene as it exists is a familiar, harrowing one.
I grew up in a home that was equally bad (or arguably worse than) Octavia's, like her I also got no justice for it, and one of the things I learned in recovery isn't just that misplaced forgiveness exists, but that abusers are not worthy of forgiveness -- and that it isn't a necessary step in recovery. Not violently hating them, projecting that hatred, and letting anger corrupt a person unhealthily is vital, but recognizing that if you think of your abuser, thinking of them with hatred isn't wrong is also important. You can understand why your abuser did what they did and still healthily hate their guts or think of them as a horrible human being. If Octavia is accurate in recounting her guardian's behavior and motives, she has every reason to feel that way about Peela without feeling the guilt that society associates with not loving family forced onto her -- which is a real, harmful thing, just as much as being told it is necessary/humbling/admirable/good to forgive your abuser (when it is in fact, none of those things). If this sounds strange or jarring, it's probably because it is -- sadly -- and you really only find it echoed in trauma communities, alongside the sentiment/goal that the best revenge is living well (particularly for those who are barred from justice for their abuse). If you want full communities that can articulate this, r/CPTSD and r/raisedbynarcissits offer active hubs. The CPTSD Foundation and the works of Pete Walker are all very good resources for explaining things like this too, and why it's harmful.
(Also, if you're wondering because it's not something you yourself have felt or experienced: yes, not loving your abuser or event wanting a guardian -- so, effectively, developing without need or want for parental figures -- is a common outcome of CPTSD. Octavia's dry observation of Peela's trying and ultimate, defining failure is a real reaction, and generally encouraged healthy understanding of CPTSD-inducing guardians, figures, and situations. It's not abnormal or heartless.)
The one thing that I also wanted to comment on that was very clever was the alternate life Octavia sees for herself. Coming out of a traumatic situation and recognizing that even though it shouldn't have happened, no matter what -- but that it, by proxy, technically enabled something good to form -- is an important aspect of gaining insight and trauma recovery. Especially when it allows guidance towards the state of understanding (and even instances of rightful unloving displays) detailed above in her observations of Peela. It reminded me not only of reflections I've had and read others having, but seen in drastically less traumatic situations. The particular instances I remembered was another musician too, where in this documentary, it discusses how Tyler, the Creator came to the understanding that he didn't need a father, or to want a father, and that not having a father around was vital in his development -- both as an artist and a free-thinking, creative individual. So, props to you for showcasing that, and the chaos of life, even in what-ifs.
11533243
You are super 1000% correct that forgiveness and love (two very separate areas) are to be entirely the decision of the affected, and is not to be expected or demanded of them. The scene was not meant to suggest otherwise and I'm sorry that it came off that way.
Thus said I don't think forgiveness is necessarily inappropriate or wrong - again, a decision of the individual.