Her attention had drifted wearily upward, to the shimmering blue horizon and the full, bright white moon hanging in a mess of purples and silvers amongst it all, but there was no way to wriggle her way out even if she played the dirtiest she could stomach.
The moon became discernable and blurry beyond all heavenly compare, shifting into an unrecognizable blob as her brain yanked her by the throat and stole her time from the simplicities of basic nature once again.
And the question it had for her was very, very simple, and very, very clear.
Her years of going through school, from grade up to high, the name Octavia Philharmonica brought up enticing, vivid images of dangerous adventures in the nearby Everfree, incomparable spunk that you couldn't help but feel the need to root for, and the largest amount of care-free happiness one could ever imagine in a popularly-believed Canterlot-born filly who just wanted to stick up for anypony who couldn't rightly do it themselves. There was barely anything to worry about back in that day and age—save for not catching up on work in her assigned math book, the rare meatloaf dinner, practicing for Orchestra concerts, and whatever she'd end up wearing for the hot summer day—and her afternoons were spent mindlessly frolicking with her loving friends and bounding over fallen pine trees and skipping flat rocks across silver lakes and throwing rocks at what looked to be mushrooms but oh hell that's a hornet's nest oh Gods oh Lords oh Zacherle get in the lake wow Harvest you got hardcore screwed up guess you suck but we sure scared them off and we did it together high hoof girls and scaling massive boulders and running through the bustling town and laughing genuine laughs and feeling genuine feelings and smiling and running and standing at the top of a hill and seeing for miles, and miles, and miles and now she'd simply just forgotten it all, enjoying her fridge's wonders and not the possibles of her life's, sitting on her couch and ugly crying and taking quiet showers and eating from shitty noodle cups and drinking herself to near death that she sometimes hoped would come early and shaking her head at her past and not even blinking at the five-thousand bit per-week check in her mailbox and the aching question came to her yet again and it was:
What the hell was she even doing with her life?
And the answer she had had waiting for it was very, very simple, and very, very clear.
She was living it.
She'd lost touch with the green leaves and the tall trees that she'd once called her and her friends' borderless domain, but she could only shrug because that's just how life was, and she couldn't stray or dawdle or fidget or stutter lest she end up losing it by either her own hoof or her own head and be completely unable to win it at all. Ha. Win. Like a Godsdamn Hoofball game, with all the Ponyville High results to boot, terrible, asshole players and final scores (or lack thereof) and all. There was no career to be built on being a worry-less child, and that's just because she wasn't a child any longer. She was an adult—or at least in the ever so smallest kind of way—with responsibilities, and a house bill to be paid, and an unjustifiably large appliance bill to be ignored and then begrudgingly paid, and hundreds of importants to remember, and things that she had to do before she lost it all just because she'd been her real self and not the refined, upper-crust mare she'd had to become in order to keep being something in general. She couldn't remain a mistake. She had to become a success. And that success brought with it all the chin flexing, and bow adjusting, and leg lifting, and posture straightening, and chest puffing, and heavy frowning, and bit toting she was so, so well known for doing amongst every little gossiping circle that filled every inconceivably hideous gap in Canterlot's little pockets.
And, despite the success, she still, somehow, some way, remained but a complex mistake. A monument for everypony to see and discuss. A figure to highly regard and aptly sidestep. A living definition of what it was like to strive for everything and find absolutely nothing once you'd surmounted it all. There was nothing in the spoiling money, and the rotting fame, and the flash of the cameras, and the rumble of her bass, and the dark of the night from a homeward wagon window. In the reflection of the bit, and the coffee cup next to the newspaper, and the flickering bulbs, and the polished wood, and the finely carved glass, there was her. And that was the biggest mistake of all.
Her name was still Octavia Philharmonica.
And there was no fixing that.
She finally found the waning strength to control and mind her own blinking back in the present, and the parting waters at the bow of the advancing ship and the creaking of the masts standing tall and the small bells at the corners of the doors and the dragging of the barrels on the partly wet deck approached her ears cautiously, settling on a volume they could all silently appreciate and quickly thereafter ignore.
The soft chill in her bones she shook away returned in her thick fur, and she shivered once again in an involuntary response.
Her ballcap's black bill was blocking her view of the blessed moon, and she lifted her chin to search for its grace.
And it was just what it was.
High up in the sky, as far away as it could possibly be able to be. A smart choice, she noted. An intelligent one far more intelligent than the enemy it skirted.
It wavered again, and she began to look slowly about her surroundings in an attempt to keep herself from drifting off. The bags in her eyes tried their damndest to drag her eyelids down and help her whole body slump over, but she wasn't going to let that happen. She didn't deserve sleep. Not like all the hard workers down below did, pulling ropes and lifting crates and helping keep an entire ship and its occupants afloat and alive. Her friends, even. Sesame had been in a particular hell of a career for a better part of his life, and W, Lavi, Valkyrie, and T were all exciting world wanderers just looking for one precious piece. They had goals, and aspirations in their lives that would lead them to success, and glory, and, of utmost importance, happiness. They had meaning. Method.
Octavia sat on her fat ass in a big fancy house, complaining about feeling "lonely" and selfishly drawing sympathy toward herself like some Godsforsaken vacuum of angsty bullshittery, crying like a little bitch in her bathroom and bloating herself up on her sofa like she was still in middle school and had suffered a terrible, ruthless, anguish-filled break-up that only an unhealthy lifestyle and Godsawful cuisine could barely stave off. She had more than a regular fortune in her bank account, and yet she uselessly wasted her equally useless time whining about it and saying that she didn't deserve it and that it was tough to even look at it all. She constantly placed herself on an infinitely undeserved pedestal she constantly claimed was far, far apart from the rest of the aristocratic company she normally kept, but she was just the same as they were, wasn't she?
Uninspired. Harsh. Bitter. Rude. Uptight. Boastful. Jealous. Ugly. Terrible. Atrocious. Nefarious. A soulless pit of dogshit not a single person on the Earth would bother cleaning up. An astronomical cunt who tore down the spirits of those around her and absorbed them herself, like some kind of... Godsdamned vampire to feed her eternally starving ego and her self-justified misery. When was she going to get it through her head that she had it all? She was at the top of the world. Thousands upon thousands of people would do more than kill for her ridiculously desirable position, and here she was groaning about how hard it was, and how she hated it all, and how she hated herself, and how she wanted nothing more than to just leap from the sidewalk into that incoming wagon streaking mercilessly down the street next to her. She was poison. Like a cancer, or a tumor that was just waiting to burst in your skull and spatter your head across the walls. She was a ticking time bomb. She was herself.
And yet she was standing on the ship of good people, both figuratively and literally. She'd made quick friends with soldiers from the opposite country as her, griffons who treated her kindly and fairly like they would some kind of old friend, but she wasn't any old friend now, was she? She was a burden; she was a snot-faced child they'd been forced into babysitting so she could return home and go back to her "shitty life" and her "crying times" and her "oh-woe-is-me" garbage. She'd burned down the house of a stallion who deserved nothing less than a good ending, his life having only worsened by ten-fold with his unintentional introduction to her walking, talking, miserable mess of a half-assed, cookie-cutter personality. Andy, an innocent boat captain with incomparable spunk. Cheers, even, hailing from the country she always pretended she'd hailed from and helping her achieve a level of recognition she never thought she'd actually admit to having prior received like she'd done so every single time she delved into the underwater minefield that was her own boggled brain and handicapped head. Each and every crew member who worked their hardest to keep the Scuttlebug up and chugging along, raising sails and carrying buckets and cleaning flintlocks and washing decks and cooking food and laughing laughs and being good, good people she couldn't believe she was even allowed to be near. Good, good people doing things they were meant to do.
Those kinds of people were the ones who deserved every good thing in the world. Every wish, and every dream of theirs a reality. Those kinds of people deserved what she didn't, because by no definitive means was she a good person. Those kinds of people, who physically toiled their hours upon hours away with physical labor, nose in the dirt and their legs hard at work to achieve some kind of higher line in the sky. The working class. The good people who went uncredited. They deserved praise, and admiration, and love, and care, and money, and time, and happiness. They deserved to be happy. They worked themselves dry to the bone day in and day out, just trying to get by. Just trying to survive.
What the hell did she do? Play music?
What a fucking joke.
...
...
She craned her neck forward and stared down, down, down into the black abyss of the night-time waters streaming by the bow, and there was nothing to be found there but a quiet, beckoning comfort and a welcoming pair of wide open arms.
And her heart beat frantically, wanting to leap as well.
SLAM!
An ear of hers went up, the other pointing downward.
"Ugh..."
POOMP POOMP POOMP POOMP.
The ugly gray mare in the lapping water gained a new, refracting friend.
A horned orange one, with a messy black mane, who didn't deserve wasting his time.
"You're pretty ready to go home, aren't you?" It asked her, a small white object burning by its head.
She drew in four whole seconds of air into her nostrils, and dispelled them for twice as long. Close it up. Somepony else is here.
Then she turned her head, and gave Sesame an answer after hearing one herself.
It's mainly to save you from trouble.
"It's m... yes. I am."
Sesame plopped his rear down on the deck and puffed on his cigarette. "Don't blame ya," he said as she too fell to her haunches and rested her spine against the wall, "Ponyville sounds like a blast."
She blinked a tear away from her eyes and attempted to pass it off as a yawn. "It's not just going back to Ponyville." It's about devolving back into an insufferable, troglodytic husk. "It's about... going back to... things."
Sesame flashed a grin and moved his forelegs erratically. "Well. What. Kinds. Of. Things. Beep."
Drinking herself, hopefully, into a coma.
"Patience, and tea, and time with my music. We have a concert this week, and I need to be prepared."
Tea? You brainless moron. He doesn't even care. He was just making a joke because you could barely talk to him without choking up like some crybaby kindergartner.
"What, you guys aren't practicing any dance numbers this month?"
For the longest time since she'd first met him, Octavia had found Sesame more than just a tad odd. That he was weak-minded and crazy to be smoking cigarettes and giggling about and cracking jokes after losing his only supply of wages and source of relative safety, something she assumed a more sane person would be shaking and losing years of sleep over. And now, maybe, she was the one who needed a check-up. Sesame wasn't working at his terrible job anymore, and was going on an adventure. And she was sticking by her career with nary a third or fourth thought, even with her constant claims of horror and regret.
And, just as selfish as she was, and would forever remain, she opened her mouth and had the audacity to ask:
"Why don't you get off at the mole with me?"
Sesame sniggered like a child, not realizing the weight that the question—not even directed at her—had on her. But it only made sense, didn't it? Two ponies weren't meant to go trodding through the thick woods and snowy mountains and wet mud and wartorn borders of Griffonia. He may have wanted an exciting, hair-raising adventure but... they could have one heading back to Ponyville. Or wherever he wanted to get off at. They could get some actual food in them and talk to their own kind for once. Back to Equestria prop
"...er."
Octavia shut her mouth, having finished her piece.
Sesame scratched his head.
"I... I think I'd rather stay onboard."
Octavia set her jaw and ground her teeth together.
You're being unbelievably selfish, you twat. Let him do what he wants, and stop getting in his way. You're nothing but a burden. Some kind of border gate dangling its key from much too high over his head. Get over yourself.
He continued, daringly, "Tomorrow, Lavi said she wanted to try and beat me in a fishing competition in the afternoon, and I told her that I was a fishing champion, and then people started placing bets, sooooo... I need to stay and collect the pot." He took a drag. "Hoo..." He clucked his tongue and looked at her, smoke swirling from his mouth. "Besides, I... we've got different destinations back inland."
Octavia raised a hoof. Was he... he wasn't saying he'd head back to Tall Tale, was he?
"Speaking of pot..." He trailed off, reaching into his shirt pocket and pulling out his cigarette box, which he opened up with a flick of his hoof and presented Octavia, "I never had the idea to ask you. You want one?"
Octavia only glared.
Sesame's jaw fell slack, and he clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "I didn't... not like pot, I meant like, as in like something you smoke. It's... it's just a cigarette. It's... bad joke."
Octavia's frown deepened, the assuredly unattractive look resembling the inside.
"I don't smoke," she told him matter-of-factly. The idea of even doing such a thing was enough to make her sputter and become bedridden.
Sesame rolled his eyes and groaned at the sky as he craned his neck around, clearly irritated.
"Come ooooon."
"I also have two siblings and have never succumbed to peer pressure." What an exciting bit of information nopony cared about. Do you think you're some kind of wonder to be able to say that? You're not an exception.
The box of fags returned close to its home, but remained just at the threshold. He must've been holding out on a plethora of distant hope. Hats off to that. Hers was more distant than Andromeda was to Earth.
"Fine. Be a child, then."
"Yes, not like you grown-ups and your inoperable lung diseases." Much better than the rope hidden in the back of the top shelf in the linen closet, though.
Sesame looked up at her at once with a grin gracing his lips.
"Afraid?" He asked, waggling his eyebrows like he had just made some kind of actual comedic monologue.
"Afraid of what? The diseases? I'm not sure just one will–"
Sesame shook his head, shutting her up immediately.
"No, afraid of anypony seeing?"
Octavia positively screwed up her face and, bringing up a foreleg, looked to her right across the barren front deck of the Scuttlebug, then back behind her to the main floor of ringed barrels, tightly-constricted crates, coiled and knotted ropes, simple-looking fishing rods, and rusty iron hatches. And the bandana-brandishing griffon that had apparently fallen asleep next to the central mast, nestled in a fuzzy blanket and sucking on his big claw as peacefully as an infant. Eaglet? That's what they called them, right?
"Anypony?" She asked first the empty ship and then, turning around, the brow-raising Sesame himself. "Unless I'm blind, there isn't another pony at ALL onboard."
Sesame shook his head dismissively, but still smiled despite the usual implications of the gesture. The sight of it caused her to, unbeknownst to herself at first, do the same.
"You know what I meant."
Actually...
"How is it that you use both 'body' and 'pony'?" More clarity, idiot. "In Tall Tale, I mean," she practically choked out, "I noticed that you used 'body' first."
Sesame looked... genuinely confused.
"Like, what?"
"You know. Somepony, somebody."
"Oh," he replied, puffing, "'body' for everyone, 'pony' for the blue moons. You rarely get the latter, so... 'body' is just kind of the norm."
Octavia nodded, letting out a sigh and leaning over to rest her head on the railing next to her. "One has to wonder how somepony gets such a job like you had."
Sesame hummed, "Is that one you?"
Another nod. She hoped it didn't look stupid.
Another hum. He really liked his low notes, but she guessed that there was a bit of a hesitance in a falsetto thanks to his restrictive voice box. Or maybe he just didn't want to. Or maybe he wasn't even consciously attempting to make music. Did you ever think of that, idiot?
Sesame licked his lips, bracing himself for a long explanation. "Didn't have a job. Then I got one."
Octavia cocked an eyebrow. "That was very anti-climatic," she noted quickly.
Sesame chuckled. "But seriously, I, uh... yeah, I didn't have a job. Not many places were hiring 'cause Tall Tale's got some..." he looked up at her and sucked in his lips, "...some really suspect segregation going on. Not like full-fledged 'No Ponies Allowed' signs, but you'd be hard-pressed to actually find some work if you had four hooves and an Equestrian muzzle."
Octavia turned her head. "So what, they're... racist?" The term is speciesist, you bafoon.
"About on the borderline. Breezie's was close to my apartment, the manager seemed nice at first, and I got a free meal every now and then. It wasn't too bad."
"Well, it sure was bad enough for you to trust a complete stranger in distracting said 'nice manager' so you could burn him alive with scalding grease."
Sesame tapped the ground to the unmistakable tune of Shave And A Haircut. "Honestly, if it didn't turn out to be me, someone else would have done much much worse."
"To what extent?"
Sesame looked up.
"I think our last employee meeting, someone mentioned bringing in a gun that shot spears. And then they talked about a spitroast, which I'm pretty sure gets you five years." He practically launched upward with a wild grin, unaware of his Zecora-like rhyming. "Speaking of years, what about you?"
She was twenty-five. Hadn't they gone over that already? Shut up. It wasn't like age was something everyone kept track of. It wasn't like you two depended on knowing each other's birthdays. You're so stupid–
"I don't fully understand the question," she shut herself off swiftly.
He leaned over like a cool guy and placed his elbow on the rail. "How'd you get hired? In the Symphony or whatever?"
By way of hysterical prayer and very terrifying, red-patterned envelopes. It also helped your case if you were a Gods-fearing prune of a mare. Not like her. The Gods were just like she and everypony else.
"You don't necessarily get hired. It's invitational."
"Like golf?"
Heh.
"But not as much an eyesore."
Sesame brought up his hooves, almost brushing up against the cigarette box still hovering in front of his chest as he made a large square shape by his head.
"They don't have big 'Bassists Needed' signs out front in the window?"
Imagine that. They probably had the right clef, though. Not like her.
"If they did, I'm sure I wouldn't be where I am." Actually, you might be better off. You might be a master chef at some kind of fancy restaurant and have goofy stories to laugh about at your own private venues. Pfft. No, you're in a terrible place no matter where you are, because wherever you are, you're still you.
"Lonely and an alcoholic too scared to try new things?"
Octavia furrowed her brow. Back to this again? He seemed to constantly think it was a joke, and... you know, it honestly kind of was, regrettably thinking about it. What kind of adult felt sorry for herself and cried like a little bitch because she felt quote-unqoute "lonely"? Could she even consider herself an adult? Maybe it was a joke. Certainly not something she'd actually wholeheartedly believe if it wasn't herself acting as the subject matter. She minded the box again and snarled like an animal, "Fine. Give one to me, Gods damn you."
A smile fell upon Sesame's lips again, and he magicked the box out from under his chin and pulled out a fag, lightly tossing it to her. She caught it in an upward-facing hoof and, as if the concept of holding something was new to her, slowly brought the other hoof over to the first and wobbled it unsteadily. Maybe... no, not like that. Lower your hoof idiot. You think you're lifting weights? There you go. Maybe... this way? She cocked her head.
"How the hell am I supposed to hold this?"
She looked over at Sesame for an answer he might be holding up his rolled-up sleeves.
Sesame blinked. "I... actually don't know," he said after a stillborn pause.
Octavia scrunched up her nose, looked down at the very offending roll of nicotine, and promptly smooshed it with both her hooves like an arthritic grandmother trying to clutch a crayon. Raising it up to her mouth and ignoring every wailing warning alarm going bonkers in her head, she stuck it between her lips and watched as Sesame fished a lighter out of his flannel shirt's pocket, which he brought over to her face and flicked open.
SKRIT. SKRIT. SKRIT. PHOOM.
The end of the cigarette began to burn.
And Octavia immediately spat it out and began hacking out her two lungs onto the creaky floorboards that amplified in her bloated wake. Oh Gods what in the hell?! It was like a micro, Octavia-sized vacuum had stormed down her throat like it were the gates of Poland, punctured crude holes in her tubes with fifteen pairs of rusty foal scissors, and sucked out every precious breath of air out of her lungs with one second of hellish suction. Oh Gods she couldn't breathe, oh Gods she couldn't breathe, find some air, find some air Octavia, oh Gods just... air, air air air... air...
In the corner of her eyes, Sesame took a magic hold of Octavia's cigarette and lifted it from the floor, thereafter discarding it into the water over the bow with a gentle flick and reaching over to pull her up from her unintended fetal position.
He also had the audacity to ask, "How was it?" with a carefree, shit-eating smile plastered on his face like her mother's terrible popcorn walls in her nursing home's living room.
"You damn bell-end. I hate every inch of you. I hope you die from those things."
Sesame retracted his outstretched hoof, stared up at the stars, and let out a long, almost wistful sigh.
"Such sweet music."
Octavia in the terrible, gut-wrenching meanwhile was on the verge of spilling each and every breaded sardine she'd eaten earlier in the morning, but she shakily rose to her hooves and threw herself onto the edge of the ship to find some semblance of stabilization. Her head was swimming and her stomach was bubbling and troubling her, helped by the suddenly violent feeling of the waves and not helping her in the slightest sense of the definition.
They sat in a relative, unfixable silence, one coughing and the other making sure to face the other way whenever he took another life-threatening drag.
His next question came up suddenly.
"What kinda music do you listen to?"
Octavia stopped herself from saying the obvious, and said the other kind of obvious. "Mozart. Neighthoven. Silent Signs."
"I mean when you're NOT supposed to be listening to music."
Was... was there a problem with her listening to classical music in her spare time? Oh. Wait. Yes there was. She was continuing her trend of being boring as all hell, like those candies an old mare gave you on Nightmare Night that she'd claimed she'd gotten from the war. Which was fifty or so years ago.
Octavia flexed her chin, stared down at the floor, and admitted, "Cigare Brûlé."
Sesame seemed to get lost in his thoughts for a while. A loooong while. "Think I've heard of them. Is she the one who made uh, what's it called... Big Speech?"
"That would be Of Monsters And Mares."
Sesame's ears fell flat.
"Oh, whoops."
"Plus, it's a stallion, not a mare."
Sesame pursed his lips and turned his head.
"Ooh, is he hot?"
"Oh dreadfully so," she said without even thinking or... even blinking. Gods, his beard, his mane, his voice, his eyes, his songs, his words, his lyrics, his... oh Gods his everything. What a blessing.
Sesame snorted.
"What's his story?"
"Lost his mare. Hated where he lived. Quit his job. Got sick. Went up north in a cabin to uh– and just wrote music." You fumbled talking. How stupid do you have to be to do that?
"Badass."
"He's... incredibly attractive," she wistfully sighed, resting her chin on the rail. "It hurts."
"That he'll never know a nobody like you?" Octavia glared. Again? Wasn't the truth the kind of thing you kept from people so they wouldn't end up being hurt? "Is that it?"
"I'll have you know I'm fairly popular around Equestria." Yes, being a background instrument in a band of cover artists.
"How's that going?"
"I drink heavily." And cry, and mope, and whine, and wonder the weight of four individual wheels combined with their pony-filled cabin.
"Nice." Long pause. He looked up at her seemingly... cautiously, with a noticeable hesitance and almost scared tutting as he asked, "You got anypony waiting at home?"
Octavia's heart stopped. This... wasn't something she liked discussing. Her ears lost all solidity.
"This isn't going to turn into some kind of romance, is it?" She asked, hopeful that she could move the conversation elsewhere to literally... anywhere else.
"No no no, not my type," said Sesame, vigorously shaking a hoof.
Octavia craned her neck backward, actually feeling kind of... offended at that.
"I'm actually just legitimately curious."
Octavia blew a raspberry. Avoid it. "Just a roommate."
"Hot."
Octavia bunched up her cheeks. "I'm straight." And where has that shut up shut up shut up SHUT UP.
"Wouldn't even consider it?" Really?
"I don't even know what they do to... erm, for that."
"Yeahhhh, I get you on that."
Octavia looked over.
Sesame's voice wavered. "Not theeeee... pegging thing, the- the no one at home thing. My last marefriend dumped me for a minotaur. Last I heard they're out getting arrested and doing long sentences."
Octavia pursed her lips and looked at him.
"She could've dodged a bullet."
Sesame didn't take the very clear compliment. "Nah. Don't make, 'scuse me, didn't make a good amount of bits for both of us. She was priority but... I have to eat too."
"That's sweet of you."
"Well, thanks."
Sound like somebody you know?
...
Does it sound like somebody you knew?
She returned to the rail, but somehow, some way, found the power to ignore the waters and, instead, focus on the navy blue horizon. The stars glistening high above, a practical field of bright white dots dancing across the landscape like shadows in a fire-lit cave, twinkled quietly. The ship rocked.
"There is... someone, actually," she finally admitted, the separation between the two parts almost marking them as separate sentences. Oh here you go.
Sesame joined her, and flicked his head her way.
"Oh yeah?"
"Mmhm." Her heart was feeling heavier and heavier as the seconds ticked by, and a particular heat swelled up in her gut and began a boil.
"Well... what's the deal with him?" Octavia sighed and turned away in a huff. "You don't have to say."
She clenched her eyes shut. "No, it's fine. I just... feel like the villain about him. Pretty much ignored him through school." You did loads more than that.
"Have you seen him recently?"
"He still comes to my concerts," she said with a giggle in her tone, "sitting in the same spot every time." Sesame was quiet. "After each of them I've... I've always seen him in the hall, and we usually spot each other through the crowd." She turned around, scooting on her haunches, and raised her forelegs in an exaggerated W. "I'd much rather avoid bumping into ponies with my bass, and it's much too close to yell across to each other, so I sprint away to try and put my stuff down for a second. And every time I've come back, he was... just gone. Blends in with the rest of the lot."
"He sounds like a good guy."
"He is, he is!" She brought up one of her two hooves and waved it around frantically. "He once stuck up for me in our middle school against... against some bully, risking life and limb for Gods' sake. He even had the whole band play Happy Birthday for me that winter! I was so shocked I froze up." And you didn't even thank him. You ignored him and didn't even mention it to him directly. You just gave some half-hearted, quarter-assed acknowledgement.
Sesame chuckled as she felt herself wind down. "What was his name?"
Octavia looked across the ocean. Her lips hadn't crossed paths with the name in years. Only her own mind had been its friend for the longest time, constantly bringing him up and talking up a storm more ferocious than the one it usually wracked upon herself. It's because you wronged him. You ruined his life. You wrecked and then you ran you stupid whore slut asshole leading him on...
And she spoke it, lingering on the final letter with a soft smile.
"Noteworthy."
Sesame took a drag. "You should talk to him."
"I don't even know if he'd want to after that," she claimed, turning Sesame's way and shaking her head. Her smoky mane didn't seem to agree with the motion, almost blinding her with a whip-like projection. "He probably wants nothing to do with me." She faced the water once again, and sank into her crossed forelegs. "That and... I don't know if he even lives in Ponyville anymore."
"He have any friends there?"
"A mare named Roseluck." A good, good friend. A good, good friend she was absolutely thankful he'd had and, presumably, still had.
"Well, why don't you ask her where he is?"
Octavia sighed. "She might not want to tell me either."
"They close?"
"Very much so."
Sesame sucked on his teeth. "Ooh. Yeah, I can see that being big." Octavia flattened her ears. "I'm sure if you tell her you're serious about talking to him, she'll let you know."
Octavia brightened up in an instant.
"You think so?"
"Said I was sure of it, didn't I?"
Octavia smirked. "I guess you did." With Sesame's nod being his only answer, both he and her adjusted their postures, leaned into the railing, and watched the stars. A thought spilled from her brain. "I just hope he's okay."
"Sure he is." Sesame let his words sink in before hopping away from the railing with a little thump and a click of his cheek. "I'm gonna turn in. I'll see you tomorrow, I guess. Or, later. It's like midnight right now."
"We kind of have to," she told him because, honestly, it was kind of true.
"Yeah yeah yeah," he repeated as he walked off, waving a hoof. "Good night, Octavia."
"Good night, Sesame." His hooves clipped and clopped along as he retreated, and the door to the stairway shut with a rather imposing crash.
She was alone again.
But it was... quiet.
She waited for a second. And then two. And then three. And four, then five. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. Forty. Two minutes.
And it was quiet.
Octavia peered upward, back to the shimmering blue horizon and the full, bright white moon hanging in a mess of purples and silvers amongst it all.
She was heading home in the morning. She would take any method of transportation she could find, Gods be damned, and get back to Ponyville.
But her first stop wouldn't be her home, or her oven, or her music, or her bass.
It would be Noteworthy's front door.
She had a mission now. One more important than the one she'd constantly been cracking since leaving it all behind.
She had a goal.
And a particular wave of warmth burned pleasantly across her body.
Octavia beamed. For real.