Ah, the Navy. The beautiful, shimmering blue sea viewed from a magnificent vessel sailing effortlessly through it all, splitting it in half as it went by carrying merry, admittedly strapping young sailors heading to Gods' nowhere with smiles on their faces and their extravagant uniforms blowing briskly in the harsh oceanic wind. The greatest cannons this side of the world fitted in each and every nook and cranny across your ship, keeping you safe and letting any marine passersby know that, by loading their own puny instruments and causing you quite an unnecessary annoyance, their lives were to be ended or shortly put on hold with such gusto that they might as well have been blind and walking backward in a sandstorm naked on their hindlegs in summer. Such a life fitted the utmost grandest of individuals, ones who would shave their heads and don their garbs and put on their hats and drop their civilian lives in an instant whenever the country so called for their aid.
Let it be known that Octavia Philharmonica was a very, very poor seamare.
She'd probably helped Equestria's military dodge a bullet by not enlisting, so at least she'd done something nice for her country, as seemingly small as it came to her as of now. She'd of course trotted over to her local enlisting center one day in high school—with a tad bit of interest spurred on by... attractive older stallions visiting her school recruiting students—and, after opening the door, was greeted by a quartet of desks and cubicles that looked more like they belonged in an office building overlooking a massive metropolis and three ponies, a mare and two stallions, who dropped their golf clubs and began to speak to her. They'd asked her if she'd had an appointment—she didn't—and if she'd ever met with a Navy recruiter before—she hadn't, but she'd stupidly stuttered out, "N-N-Not Na- uh, not, excuse me, not Navy, no."—and what school she was attending and what grade—"Ponyville High. I'm currently a Senior, sir."—and then they'd given her the recruiter for her area's card, who wasn't in at the moment she'd arrived. Parting ways with a polite adieu, she closed the door behind herself and immediately began audibly mumbling to herself about how stupid she'd looked just then, and how unfit for such a large responsibility she was and would always be. Going home, and attempting to push away her terrible thoughts, she'd pulled out her double bass, grabbed the sheet of paper atop her highest shelf, unfurled it, yanked a stand from the floor, and began to work on the piece she'd started—and quickly dropped—writing. Her turmoil affected it greatly, however, so again the sheet went toward the ceiling to be forgotten for another few weeks.
The military came easy for other members of her family, as it was. Her father's line had done their duties for Equestria since it had begun being recorded, dating all the way back to the first Wayward War and up to as recent as Sand Flurry. Forte had no interest in discontinuing the legacy, and as soon as he was of age, he'd be up for signing any kind of paper a government official put in front of his face. Her father, smart as he always was, eased Forte into the Navy, noting his status as single and his aching for adventure as being perfect for seaway travel around the entire globe. Visiting exciting countries for months at a time, making great friends until you grew sick of them, and sitting all nice and tight in a ship that was like a massive city at sea. As soon as he'd gotten his high school diploma, Forte was off on a mission he couldn't describe to them, though being able to accidentally slip of its incredible danger. Maybe she'd helped the military dodge a bullet, but, honestly, she might have dodged one herself. Heading East to some sort of unintelligible "danger" didn't sound all that right to her so soon after enlisting, but, then again, being a soldier in the first place never really appealed to her anyway. She could handle her maestro, and Frederick once in a while whenever he felt in his "bossy mood", but she was her own pony, making her own decisions, and that was what the excitement of becoming an adult resulted in. What was the point in throwing it all away by joining the forces?
Though she had to admit... she really would like to visit Crumphill some day. She was sure, after researching and studying and loving Crumpish culture and—there was nopony around to hear this so it was fine to admit—adopting their accent, she could very well fit right in. She may not be up for Millwall, and rain was a bit untidy to her nowadays, and the currency was... odd, but she'd like it there. Probably. Maybe it was best she didn't listen to her father, like her sister had first and instructed her to afterward. Gods know where she'd have been sent off to by now, and the idea of being separated too far from music for a long period of time made her head ache excruciatingly. And painfully. Ow ow ow owie, geez... oof. That one was weird.
Well.
Look at me now, Father! On a ship in the bumpy seas. Is this what you wanted?!
A pair of claws gripped at her shoulders, shaking her from her thoughts. She looked back to find Lavi, who took one claw off her body and jabbed a talon back ahead. Octavia turned just in time, assisted by Lavi's unnecessary scream that rattled her two ears.
"Right!"
Octavia, sucking in a hard breath of air that felt close to collapsing her lungs, leaned to her right and yanked the Scuttlebug's steering wheel hard, sending the ship to its starboard side with a lurching and a tipping that, from what she could see in the corner of her eyes, up-ended a crate of supplies that flew into the air and struck a griffon pirate across the face on the upper deck below her position, sending him to the floor in an instant. She raised both hooves up to her mouths to suppress and hide her terrified gasp, but she scrambled for the wheel that she'd suddenly—completely—let go of and guided the Scuttlebug to its completion of skirting around the massive rock that had been destined for it not a moment prior.
It was raining. Storming. Wet, and soggy, and windy, and ice cold, and sickly, and completely adamant on spilling out her bits of breakfast onto her stomach and the podium at her hooves. She was sweating profusely, unable to tell whether it was the weather or her own stress levels spattering down her face, with her mane in ragged wisps and clinging to her forehead without relent. Her lungs heaved and hoed incessantly and almost to an unhealthy level, chilling her head to the bone and making her feel as if she'd suddenly float away from the wheel and soar into the gray, gray sky above to disappear forever and ever. Each and every time she moved a bare millimeter in the open air was met with discomfort and a shaking motion, neither helping her keep her grasp on the steering wheel and, in effect, the Scuttlebug and her crew.
Octavia narrowed her eyes and furrowed her brow.
But she didn't give a shhhhit about all of that.
She was not giving up. For there were people depending solely upon her and her alone at this moment.
Leaning forward, and adjusting her hindlegs' footing on the wooden floor, Octavia peered over the wheel and felt her breath falter.
"Rogue one!"
A sudden clamoring of "Braaaaaaaace!" went about, and Octavia, fully familiarized with the word by now, lowered her head down and to her right breast. Her hooves were turning white from her grip on the instruments. Clutching her teeth, she felt the Scuttlebug take the rogue wave head-on, sending the entire vessel upward at a snail's pace. For a second, it felt as if she were on that rollercoaster she was always scared of back at home but had braved once, at the tippy-top of its highest peak and waiting for the car to take her down to the depths of Hell even though the view from so high up was particularly nice, and then the Scuttlebug suddenly dropped like a sack of rotten potatoes, having successfully taken on the wave's gargantuan stature. As the bow hit the ocean hard, Octavia and the rest of the crew—judging by the noises—jolted in place, a few falling right onto their arses and issuing cries of pain.
As the ship returned to its more usual routine of slipping, and sliding, and moving around and up and down and left and right and shaking like it was in an earthquake, Octavia reached a swift hoof up and wiped her brow, having to push a little harder due to the hat screwed tightly around her head. Her heart felt ready to burst out her chest and onto the ground. With her teeth chattering, she made 'o' shapes with her lips and attempted to mind her breathing...
"By the Upstairs, it's a rough one today!"
"Keep it up up there!"
"You've got this Octavia!"
"Kick some ass, mare!"
The crew—or at least the ones that could bear the cold accompanying their movements—raised their forelegs up and balled up fists, shouting out cheers that were as rocky as the ship's violent vibrations.
A grin met her mouth...
...which was quickly flattened as the Scuttlebug ground against a rock formation, scraping up bits of wood and sending one of its left cannons against the lip of the ship's port side. Clenching her teeth, Octavia—having to catch herself as she awkwardly bounced backward on a single hindleg from the impact—bent back forward and rushed the rapidly spinning wheel, almost feeling her bones snapping as she ceased its mindless rotations. One eye as tightly shut as she could make it, she started up a low groan that grew into a strained shout, pushing and pulling all her weight back to her body to yank the wheel to her left side. Her muscles ached, the wheel acting like some kind of bestial, godly, impossible being not letting up until it brought the whole ship to an unfixable, sinking list in the sea. Her right hindleg wavered and shook, and she suddenly felt her heart drop as the leg gave out, collapsing hard onto the floor with a loud thump that had surely made a massive, purple bruise all across it. Still, she reached out her forelegs and began to push the wheel back.
And just as she felt her strength waning, and prepared to give it more than her all, a mustard yellow aura suddenly faded in about the wheel's figure, shimmering and glowing in the cloud-created nighttime. A pair of golden claws, then dark bronze, then navy-black, and then finally—shaking uneasily—jet black. Octavia looked over at their owners.
Sesame Seed, his face strained, struggled to give her a wink and a cheeky grin as sweat began to pour down his brow.
Lavi nodded at her quietly, teeth flashing.
Valkyrie regarded very simply, and very happily: she nudged her with an elbow to her left side.
T blinked, then flexed his chin.
And W, gasping here and there from his injury, opened his beak and let loose a mighty order.
"Ziehen!"
"Jetzt!"
With the aid of a fry cook Unicorn, a giddy ambiguous lesbian, an aggressive sailor-crazy bully, a quiet bookworm, and a grizzled old stick in the mud, Octavia let out her own command.
"Get goiiiiiiiin'!"
The wheel turned, honestly much too quickly with the quintupled effort. Lavi and Valkyrie tumbled to the ground, tripping over Octavia, who fell to her stomach and swiftly returned to the wheel before they had to do it all over again. Sesame, eyes looping about, shook his head and fell to his haunches. T stumbled backwards, then went over to pull Lavi and Valkyrie to their fours. It was W who remained, stomping over to her right position and placing a hoof on her shoulder.
She jumped at the contact, but only needed to know its owner to feel calm once more.
"Take us outta this storm, huh?" W asked her.
Octavia, maneuvering the Scuttlebug past a collection of sea rocks, had to chuckle much too feignly. With her mane blowing furiously in the wind, she turned her head and asked, "O-Oh, was that what I was doing? And... and here I was thinking this a Sunday stro–"
"Look out!" Valkyrie screeched.
"Aiiiiiieeee!" Octavia squealed back, almost breaking her spine and whipping about to pull the wheel again. The Scuttlebug took a sharp left, then, after she felt they'd cleared whatever had been in front of them, Octavia yanked it back. Immediately, Valkyrie began wailing with laughter.
"Wahahahaha!"
"WAS NOW REALLY THE BEST TIME TO SCARE HER?" Lavi hissed.
Octavia grit her teeth. She glared daggers at the griffon currently clutching her stomach. "W'UHD YUU NAHT DEW THAHT YOU BLUHDY GIT WHEN OI'M STEER-IN' THE BLUHDY SHIP?!"
Everybody stared at her.
Octavia leaned her neck back, blinking rapidly. Oh no... had she just...
"Did you just go Full Crumpet?" Lavi giggled.
Her retort seemed to only worsen Valkyrie's amusement.
"WAHAHAHAHA!"
Octavia regarded the steering wheel. Then Valkyrie. Then the wheel. She grabbed hold of it and moved her arms to spin it as hard as she Earthly could.
"Ya do that, I think we're all going over!" Sesame piped up.
"It's not worth it, Octavia!" Lavi called.
"Octavia!"
"What?!"
She looked back.
All five of them were pointing... past her.
She turned, slowly, to face the wave towering over the Scuttlebug's bow, and the shadow it cast even in the dead of the stolen daylight.
She blanched and, caught off guard, spun onto her arse as the wheel launched her to the ground.
And the Scutlebug, unaided, rose up toward the cloud-ridden sky, remained airborne for three entire, terrifying seconds, and impacted the ocean so hard that Octavia felt she'd completely bent something the absolute wrongest of ways. Hitting the upper deck side first, she clenched her teeth and needily sucked in breaths of newly choked oxygen, her eyes fixated on the steering wheel to her right that dawdled and spun lazily, as if taunting her to get up and feel her late injuries so it could laugh and point and make fun of her and call her "Teacher's Pet" and "Bitch" and not invite her to her party and make fun of her Homecoming dress so she wouldn't want to go back to another school event again and call her parents poor even though they weren't so what the point in saying it in the first place and just being ruthless as all hell and tormenting her and calling her Wallflower and making her want so hard to just send her across the Symphony Hall into the pile of stands they never used and being named Symphony and–
"Aaaaaaaaaah!"
She flung herself onto the wheel, grabbing hold of the spokes and keeping the Scuttlebug on its straight-ahead course, gritting her teeth and thinking nasty thoughts inside her head that she was incredibly thankful only had the capacity to fester as some kind of mental illness.
Who's laughing now, Symphony?!
"Andy!"
"Scoot, lass!"
Octavia held firm. Way, way, far down, she could see the slightest amount of a light, and, if she wasn't in her current predicament that surely wouldn't fit the idea, she would have thought she was heading toward the light at the end of the tunnel she'd heard so many... varied things about in her life. She blinked. She could see light.
"No! I see light, we're almost out!"
"Sweet Sputnik, she's caught the Sailor's Gut!" Andy shouted cheerily. Octavia jumped in place as he slapped her back with an open claw and, presumably, raised the other one next to his beak. "Lads, look at 'er! She's caught the Sailor's Gut!"
"Yeeeeeaaaaah!" was the outcry.
Sailor's Gut, huh?
Huff. Huff. Huff...
...she quite liked that.
She let out a hot breath that parted a few stray hairs from her eyes and refocused on what she was doing. She'd had an audience for most of her life, people who were there to judge her every move and motion. People who'd paid money just to wait for the tiniest semblance of a screw-up to scrap together a rumour or an article over. People who would do anything to get up there themselves and ridicule her for her every decision in life leading up to her current place in time. People who judged. It came down—all down—to judging.
But here, right now, she was in the company of friends, and people who were depending on her. And the Captain of a ship, as kooky as he may have been, who surely knew what it looked like to screw up at sailing.
And she wouldn't dare disappoint a single one of them.
Feeling her breath as shaky as ever, and flexing her tired chin to work her locked jaw around and unlodge it, she coiled her hooves around the wheel's spokes until the ends met her wrists. She spread her legs out to better get a sense of her position at the helm. She flicked her tail.
Look at me now, Father.
"Hyah!" She spun the wheel to her left, aiding the Scuttlebug's avoidance of the sandbar that had threatened to ground them. She spun it right, hugging the rock so as to not end up crashing into its jagged cousins to the port side now. The light was getting closer and closer, like a vision in a crystal ball, or a scary pink face at the end of her house's mailbox. Her heart was racing now. They were so, so close, and they were getting there by her hooves alone.
She was...
She was saving them!
And as the Scuttlebug burst through the cloud layer and burned brightly under the scorching sun pleasantly kissing them over and over again, and as the crew erupted into deafening cheers and shouts of her name, and as she leaned her head back and let the afternoon light bake her skin, and as she felt her long mane hit the ground, and as she opened her mouth ever so slightly to just feel it all, Octavia couldn't help the tears that began softly spilling from her shut eyelids. Her nose burned, and she wiggled it.
The storm, continuing its violent fury behind them, went on to further shores.
Even while the now distancing sounds of thunder and crashing waves met her ears, the peace of a calm but wavy sea, and the swaying of the wooden ship, and the whistling of the wind, and the fluttering of the sails, and the stomping of the griffons and pony as they just couldn't believe their eyes and ears... relaxed her. She let out a breath, eyes still closed, then opened to make sure she didn't fall down the stairs toward the deck.
She hit the main floor and was immediately swarmed by griffons, male and female, who nudged her and bumped her and shook her around and smiled at her face and shouted her name and kept doing so even as she went toward the middle of the deck, opened up the hatch, and began to descend the ladder. Lost in the sea of griffons, her absence went unnoticed.
She found herself in the cargo hold.
She trotted over to the rear wall.
She minded a nearby crate bearing words she loved to read.
She took a nearby crowbar and propped it open.
She pulled a few items out.
She threw her back against the wood.
And, with a few bottles of rum by her side, she began to drink.
The liquid burned down her throat, and she cringed, realizing how dry it all was. Swallowing, and clearing it as it went, Octavia shook her head and raised the bottle once more.
Her face cracked at once, and she choked on the alcohol, almost spitting it back out.
She grit her teeth tightly—painfully—and closed her eyes as she started weeping.
Her head was searing hot, and then cold all at once, and she lowered her selected bottle and placed it down to clutch at her skull with one hoof. The other went over her mouth, making sure that the nopony around her wouldn't be able to witness her current state of... whatever was happening to her right now.
She'd done it...! She'd gotten them out of the storm, and had sailed the ship the entire time with the help of her friends! She'd saved lives...!
Then why in the name of all Gods was she losing it right now?!
Huh.
Huh.
Huh.
...huh.
...huh...
...huh...
...
She placed both her forelegs in an angled L, elbows spaced far out, and made a bubble of warmth around her mouth with her hooves. She brought in her hindlegs and scooted closer to the wall, wriggling herself around to try and keep warm. She was feeling... very tired, now. Was there any... was... ah, yes. The sack of tomatoes, over there, by the rum. Grab it, you fool. Yes, there you go. Bring it, yes. All right. Perfect.
With her makeshift pillow of possibly spoiled fruit, a half-empty bottle with its much fuller brethren beside it and her, and her mind as cold as the Artic tundra, Octavia leaned over and sunk her head down to sleep.
And sleep she did.
"Octavia?"
Oh Gods fu... Godsdammit.
She rose to her rump once more, wiping her eyes and the tears still staining her cheeks. Blinking away the sleep she'd had only two seconds of, she opened her mouth and asked, "W? Is that you?"
To quietly confirm her suspicions, she watched as a black claw, and then a gray, plumage-covered face, was lit up by a small lamp. W, fiddling with it, grabbed it by the top handle and walked over to her position as if... knowing... where she... was. Oh. Though she had to remember T's smarts, there had to be somebody intelligent onboard to know the contents and locations of the ship's cargo. Somebody who'd be all right with actually talking in the first place, as well.
Still, the old griffon gave her a look when the lamp's light casted shadows of bottles against the wall behind her. She knew the look. Like the kind that Vinyl gave her whenever the Unicorn found one of Octavia's chocolates hidden in one of their cookbooks, or wrapped in a plastic bag inside one of their potted plants—"A fern is a responsibility."—or on top of her highest shelf next to her sheet of paper, or inside the silverware drawer, or underneath the toilet, or in her mouth. The kind that Octavia genuinely despised seeing. Like, piss off. I'm hungry and I want chocolate. Just because one of them lived a much-too-healthy life of steams, greens, and automobiles didn't mean that they both had to play by the same rules. They split the house in half for a reason, as it was. And not just because Vinyl insisted with a grin and a rapid head nod. And also not because Vinyl took away Octavia's paintbrushes and cans so she couldn't interfere. And also not because Vinyl bought a large catwalk that Octavia couldn't climb up to interfere. And also not because Octavia wasn't home at the time she did most of it.
Godsdammit Vinyl.
"Octavia..."
"W, I just steered a ship full of griffon pirates, griffon... mercenaries...?" She ended with an upward inflection, then, noting W's shrug, continued, "...and a fry cook Unicorn, out of a terrible storm following a terrible boarding party of upright dogs with flintlocks and swords, following a terrible mistake in a terrible day after a terrible journey across a country I'd already terribly known. Terribly." She tapped her lip with a hoof. "That was a bit repetitive, wasn't it... no matter." She sighed. "I think I deserve a rest."
"It's not the rest, Octavia."
"A mare needs a drink, W." This was getting a tad annoying now.
A griffon needed his too, apparently. W began scooping her's up.
"Hey."
He began to walk back to the crate she'd plundered.
"Hey!"
She rose to her hooves and almost immediately fell back down.
By the Gods what was in those bottles?
"Hey!"
"Octavia."
She started back up and swiped at W's foreleg currently placing her bottles back inside their homes.
W only sighed.
"Octavia."
She clawed at him. He rose to his hindlegs and raised the few bottles he had left up toward the ceiling. Octavia stared angrily up at the unachievable height, then fell back to her haunches and crossed her forelegs, pouting out her lip.
"W."
"Octavia."
"Give me my drink."
"I will give you the bottle."
"When it's..."
"When it's empty."
"...I was certain of that."
"I'm glad."
"W."
"Octavia."
"I need a drink."
"No you don't. You need some rest."
"Drinking helps me sleep."
"You're such a liar, Octavia."
"Just because you're older than dirt doesn't mean you can treat me like it, W."
"Haw! That's a good one. Did Lavi teach you that one?"
"No, actually, I... just now thought of it... was it really that funny?"
"I haven't heard it before."
"Which is weird because it's just so... simple a joke."
"It's easy."
"Right, it's... not... tough to think about."
"Because 'older than dirt' is a phrase and..."
"Yeah..."
They both sighed.
Octavia looked back up at the glasses still dangling and chiming here and there in W's claws.
"You're really not going to give me my alcohol back in one piece, are you?" She asked, knowing full well what his answer was even as she asked the preceding question.
"No."
"Bother," she replied, getting back up to all fours and plopping herself back down onto her rump against the wall. "Would've liked to unwind after all..." she spun a hoof around lazily, "...this."
"If it were some kind of expensive wine, I could see past letting you have a sip or two. But this stuff will probably give you short-term memory loss, and not in a hangover kind of way."
"Is it really that concentrated?"
"This rum is illegal in both Equestria and Griffonia, Octavia. Hell I think it's..." He looked at one of the bottle's labels with narrowed eyes. "...pretty not good anywhere, actually."
Octavia thumped her head against the wall, then cringed at the pain. "Easy to forget sometimes that Andy and his crew are actual pirates sometimes."
W grinned, then placed the bottles back into the crate, took the lid over the top, slammed his fist against it, took the lamp, and walked over to sit down on Octavia's right side. He put the lamp a few inches in front of them. His blue eyes looked much blacker in the light of the flame. "You are doing very illegal things right now, Octavia."
She bumped him with a foreleg, something she... hadn't done in much, much too long. "That really doesn't help, W," she said, though she still felt a shiver run up and down her spine at the action. Oh Gods, that was... awkwardly done. Idiot.
"Just trying to lighten the mood. Then again, I didn't have a lot of friends in school for a reason."
"They had schools back then?" Octavia asked cheekily.
"You're a very rude pony."
"Just trying to lighten the mood."
"Have any friends?"
"A few, actually. Though most of them are long gone by now. A few are close, though, still living in the same town. Haven't really seen them apart from far away in the marketplace, however." Lyra, Harvest, Minuette... she really missed them these days. If she'd had the guts to talk to them, she would, but... the marketplace held... others she didn't want to brave seeing, who would most certainly rue the day they saw her. She sighed, even before she knew she'd have to again as W asked with a grin.
"Any boyfriends?"
Octavia stared at the ground. Then she whipped her mane around and tilted her head. "Are you hypocritically intoxicated at the moment, W?"
W actually began to burn red. It... actually looked really funny. "No, I... I don't know why I asked that. Every time I ask Lavi she just kind of looks at me."
"Lavi is an adult, W. You can't just ask an adult about their dating life."
"Well, obviously. It's just a conversation starter on the road. Party banter. Valkyrie's mostly the one who talks about it anyway."
Valkyrie... popular with the guys? Was... what?
"Is Valkyrie... a popular choice?"
W screwed up his face. "I think you know how... rude Valkyrie is. It's safe to say she fits in much better than we do."
She'd assumed that griffons were kind of prunish sometimes, but not... all the time. Gods, compared to Equestria's knack for being too Godsdamned happy all the time—which certainly proved to isolate her further—she... actually wasn't too sure which would be more hellish. Have people smiling all the time, or yelling all the time? She'd take neither, thank you very much.
...
A goal, now.
She had a goal.
She put on a brave face.
"He's not a boyfriend, but... his name is Noteworthy."
W smirked. "You ponies have such weird names."
Octavia shrugged. "What odds can you have for tradition?"
"Prost to that," W replied, nodding to himself in the flickering light. He crossed his arms and sank against the wall.
"I, erm..." She sighed, then steadied her breathing before it could get too bad. "I intend on seeing him again once I return to Ponyville. We sort of... parted on horrible terms last we truly spoke."
"You still see him, based on that last part," W correctly presumed.
Octavia nodded. W lit up, clearly proud of his sleuthing. "He still goes to my concerts."
"That's really sweet of him."
Caught in an add-on to her sentence, Octavia felt her cheeks burn. Yes it... was very sweet of him. Even after all this time, he still spent bits to first travel to Canterlot, and then get into the hall to see her shows. And, surely, all without a spoken word. She knew what it was like to... yes. She very much did know. "It's a bit of a goal of mine, now. It all just depends on how quickly I can accomplish it."
W sat up a tad. "Well! It's still a long ways to Griffonia, and then Griffonstone Station up to the North is also a long ways..." Octavia deflated, but it seemed that W had counted on that, "...but, I might have something to help us get there faster. And I'd be more than willing to make sure you get on that train and head on back homeward as well. That goes for Lavi, Valkyrie, T, and, well, I'm sure Sesame too."
She beamed, playing with her mane. "Thank you, W." It was quiet for awhile. W, realizing this, began to look around to pretend he was just taking in their surroundings for anything out of note. "I..." He looked back at her stammer. "I want to go home, W."
"I know, Octavia. And you will soon."
"I've come so close time and time again, but... if what you say is true, I feel like this time might be it. When, uh, when we get to Griffona–" She noticed her mistake and, realizing she'd spoiled the mood, blew a raspberry and corrected herself, "–Griffonia, what's our first step?"
W snorted. Octavia frowned. "Well, Griffona pbbt Griffonia is a pretty large country."
"Oh hush..."
"And Andy intends to land at the foot of Griffonstone at the docks we've made, so... I guess we'll get off the ship, say our farewells, and head off as quick as possible. We need to make a stop at Griffonstone for supplies, I hope you understand, but then we'll head straight for the Station as fast as we can."
She... really didn't understand, but, thinking about it now, it was certainly going to be a long road of nothing to the station, Griffonia's natural beauty that she'd heard so much about aside. Maybe another day or two wouldn't be too much a bother. As it was, she was already wasting fourteen or so of them on this... blasted ship. Gods, she'd love to feel grass beneath her hooves again.
As if hearing her inner thoughts, the Scuttlebug swayed. The liquid in her belly—as little as it was thank you W—sloshed about sickeningly.
"That's also why."
Octavia could only groan. Of course he'd see her unease at the motion.
"Trust me, I've seen it before. Lavi was reaaaally sick on our way here drinking with her friend Gibbs."
Octavia grinned.
"Think that's when Gibbs broke her guitar, actually."
"Throwing it on the floor, I bet."
"Yup."
"Sounds like... what are you doing?" W was getting up a bit, leaning forward and beginning to unclasp parts of his armour. Was he... she burned bright red.
"Feeling warm down here. Gimme a sec."
Octavia immediately turned her head away. Wait, obviously he'd be wearing something underneath. It's not like you had to wear clothes either. It wasn't... why was she getting so worked up over this? And over an old bird like W as well? Was she a child?
She heard the sounds of his armour hitting the floor one by one, following the low shoonk of pouches and bags alongside it all. Reaching her hooves up, she fiddled with her collar and bowtie absent-mindedly, scrunching up her muzzle and trying not to look but why wasn't she looking this wasn't weird or anything what in Gods' name was wrong with her?
Rolling her eyes at her ridiculous behavior, she dared a glance... and immediately frowned. She wasn't wanting big bulking muscles, but at the same time, she was now feeling very upset that she wasn't seeing any. Instead, what W had on underneath his armour was... rather fancy, actually. And, admittedly, very nice-looking. Almost to a fault.
Some kind of dull-grey waistcoat, with golden buttons down the chest and red piping along the collar, down the front, and along the cuffs, which bore a trio of buttons themselves. Two pockets on either side of his hips, and epaulets bearing white trimming in a stark contrast to the rest of the uniform. Some kind of rank, perhaps. She wondered what rank W had achieved back in his old mission days. Two claws undid the first few fasteners in the middle of his body.
W's cough stopped her staring.
"I... I wasn't staring."
"You haven't seen me without my armour, I just realized. Now I know why you look like that right now."
Octavia tightly packed her forelegs together in front of her in a crossing.
"It's my old uniform from back then. We're all wearing something like this, though Valkyrie wears hers mostly as a blanket or rolled up on her pack. In my tongue it'd be a... Waffenrock. Like a tunic."
Octavia looked back, cocking an eyebrow. "Is it comfortable?"
"I daresay our uniform designer is the best in the world."
Miss Rarity would have much to say on that topic.
With that, W let out a yawn that Octavia followed up by involuntarily mimicking.
"You did good today, Octavia."
"Did I?" She asked, secretly hoping for more praise. She certainly wouldn't give it to herself.
"You did," W said with a smile, "handled yourself in your first real bit of combat, and sailed a ship through a storm. I'd say you did incredibly."
Octavia bunched up her cheeks. "Thank you," she earnestly replied as W leaned back, suppressing another yawn.
"Getting kind of tired. Kind of nice in here, too."
"It is."
It was quiet. W closed his eyes and interlaced his talons in front of him.
"Hey, Octavia?"
She perked up.
"Yes, W?"
"Tell me about him."
He didn't mean... did he?
"About who?"
"Noteworthy. Tell me about him."
She pursed her lips. Well, what current things were there to say? She hadn't really interacted with him fully since high school, but... she was sure he was still the same old Noteworthy. Then again, reminiscing on the old one might break her when she meets the new one... but a new Noteworthy wouldn't still be spending his money to watch her shows and leave without a dialogue, would he? A new Noteworthy couldn't be too far off from the old Noteworthy... so maybe he was still the same, if just a tad older. She sucked in a long breath through her nostrils and, smiling, bunched up her shoulders and lowered them once more.
"Well, I... for starters, he's... very kind."
"Mmhm..."
"One day in middle school—it was my birthday, actually—I was in Orchestra class, and we were suddenly interrupted by the Band next door rushing in and blaring Happy Birthday to me before fleeing the scene. I was so in shock that I couldn't speak, but I felt really embarrassed about being put on the spot like that. It was a terribly kind gesture, and I still feel bad about feeling... not too kind about it. It's not every day that a stallion gets ponies to do that for a mare, after all."
She tapped her chin.
"He's a very funny stallion, might I add."
"Mmm..."
"Are you masturbating over there?"
"Nnnope..."
Octavia shook her head, her grin returning. "He's..." Pfft, had she actually just asked W that? "He's, erm, one day, while we were waiting around after school ended with a group of friends, he was talking with another stallion, and it quickly grew into a joke about him getting hit by a stray bat in the road, and not a baseball bat, he added, an animal bat, and I don't know why it was so funny but I physically couldn't breathe at the time, it... huhhh, it was funny."
She hummed.
W hummed back, lower.
"I've known him a fairly long time. Since grade school, actually. Fourth grade, to be exact. It was when I..." She sucked in a breath. She couldn't lie around W. "It was when I moved to Ponyville from Canterlot, and before that I lived in the San Palomino south of Las Pegasus. Big desert. Lots of Spanish influence. I'm..."
"Mmhm..."
Octavia sucked it back in. Best to not let it spill further. "Um... he's tall, though I guess compared to me he's fairly average, actually, since I'm admittedly short for a mare my age... or all ages I've been thus far. I blame my mother actually. Anyway, he's also got this great laugh that I always loved to hear, and such a great smile as wide as the Western sky, and he's blue, and he's got these handsome golden eyes that I... always found myself unable to blink away from, and he's so smart and loyal and funny and kind and cute and..."
"Mmhm..."
"...and he's a good pony. A very good pony. He deserves everything good in the world, and I intend on helping him see it all, even if my presence alone as a pretty awful pony might ruin the scenes a tad. He's very brave, as well, much braver than anypony else I've ever known. I can't even imagine having the guts to say... what he's... said to me. I certainly wouldn't be able to do it at such a young age... but, maybe, now, I can muster up some kind of dialogue with him in the first place. I'll most certainly need the luck, at the very least. There's no telling what he thinks of me nowadays. I... actually don't even know if he's with anypony, as it is, I... I doubt he's with his friend Roseluck. I believe she got married, or maybe I'm mistaken, after school to her boyfriend. Or maybe I'm wrong. I have no Earthly idea. Be that as it may... I'd at least like to invite him for a meal and talk to him about things. It... won't be a confrontation, nor will it be a search for forgiveness. Neither out of anger nor borne from pity. These aren't loose ends. This is closure for a warring conflict, and the hopeful beginnings to a return to good health."
Was that really what it was, in the end?
What was she searching for, anyway? A simple conversation, but then what? A parting?
...
No.
Just have to keep a dialogue, and teach her body to haunt the cause. She couldn't let this go. It was a goal.
And Octavia Philharmonica never gave up.
Or at least not now. She'd probably given up on a lot of things in the past. Like trombone.
"W, are..."
She looked over, caught in a yawn, to find the bird sleeping, his head against the wall and drool trickling from the side of his beak.
She was... wow, she was fairly tired as well.
...
Without even thinking about it, she fell to her right and rested her head on W's lap.
Gods it was really cozy.
...
She hoped her mane wasn't still soaking wet.
And the last thing she thought about before falling asleep was whether or not she could take a good enough shower on a ship in the middle of the sea. Which she probably couldn't.