We were ready to move on Garcon, Rich’s former butler. Rich had acknowledged that Garcon might know a few of the contacts that had been part of the weapons deal. Maybe he was still in touch with them. It seemed likely, considering the kidnap of Rich.
I felt as if I could have done more. I’d had direct contact with Garcon, yet had still been surprised that the butler was in on the kidnapping. I wasn’t sure if I was getting slow, or if I had simply been distracted with the situation. Either way, I had to do better.
The records Rich had showed to me in confidence did not point directly back to my old employers. It wasn’t going to be that easy to track them down. However, a few of the names were familiar, intermediaries. They might know who I needed to talk to. And to get to them, Garcon might know how.
However, he knew my face. I would have to sit this one out. Besides, there was no better talent for recon than a pegasus, so Soarin and Rainbow took the task.
“I'm kind of disappointed,” said Rainbow. “When you asked me for a favor, I was hoping it had to do with explosions.”
“Why would I ask you that?”
She shrugged. “I was just hoping.”
“Well, at least we’re just staking out a house,” Soarin said. He elbowed Rainbow. “We'll spend some quality time together.”
Rainbow looked like she wanted to say something snarky back, but instead asked, “If we see this guy Garcon, can we go ahead and grab him? That would make interrogation a lot easier if we didn’t have to lure him out. I hate having to shake my ass to bewitch stallions, or whatever the hell it is my friend Rarity does.”
“As I recall, you’ve only ever attempted to seductively shake that axe head you call an ass once or twice. Everypony else you punched or kicked,” Soarin said.
“Having to do it once was one time too many. I know you have no problems whoring yourself out, but some of us have dignity,” Rainbow huffed.
Soarin shrugged, unperturbed. “Can't lose what you never had.”
Rainbow turned to me. “We’re going to get going.” She grinned. “Have fun.”
“Perhaps.” Though I was under no illusions that I would. In return for Rainbow doing this, I had to teach her next class at the Friendship School.
I am fortunate - perhaps - that I had taken more unusual jobs than this in my career. I like to believe that I have the ability to handle any new situation, through long experience and training. I was under no impression that being a substitute teacher would be easy, but felt optimistic.
Children tend to wear their feelings openly. That does not mean they are simple. Even young ones can have complicated life situations - me being an example. I have always found children very easy to read, though I occasionally feel lost about what to do with that information.
Rainbow had already set things up, so when I walked into the school that morning, they were expecting me. I already knew where the classroom was, however, so I didn’t ask for any help from the front office nor show my face there longer than necessary.
Down the hall, I found that Rainbow’s classroom was a pure reflection of herself. It was airy and covered in Wonderbolts memorabilia. I glanced at the lesson plan on the desk. The notes said I was supposed to speak on loyalty. I could think of a few examples. A bad one: my recent betrayal at the hooves of my former employer. Hmm, it might even make a good story to keep kids interested, if I spun it as fiction.
I flipped a couple of pages in the lesson plan, in both directions. Each day was scribbled “loyalty” in Rainbow’s writing and nothing else.
The door opened and I glanced up to see a pink unicorn mare coming in. She smiled. “Hi, Ms. Octavia, right? I’m Starlight Glimmer, the principal.”
I introduced myself, studying Starlight as I did. Habit, mostly, particularly after failing to notice anything about Garcon the first time I’d met him. That didn’t mean I was at fault or should have been able to sense ill intentions with a glance, but it did sting slightly.
With my glance at Starlight, I decided that she didn’t seem like a bad principal or a bad pony, either. Something about her caught my attention, though I couldn’t quite decide what it was. Maybe the way she carried herself. After all, Princess Twilight wouldn’t pick just anypony to run this school.
“So what are your skills?” she asked.
Close combat, stealth, espionage, counter espionage, sabotage, survival, improvised weapons, and lying. “I play the cello.”
“Oh really? I know Rainbow arranged for you to take over her class for today, but would you be interested in a permanent job as a music teacher?”
It had been actual years since I had last played. I wasn’t sure how rusty I might be. At the same time...I had to admit it was one of the few things I truly missed about my life from before. It was my special talent, after all.
And a job offer for steady employment. I wouldn’t need to get my old job back. I wouldn’t need to put my neck on the line. I would be doing what I loved.
So why in Equestria did I say, “Thank you for the offer, but unfortunately I must decline due to other commitments.” Maybe I wasn’t quite yet ready to let go of my unfinished business.
I saw Starlight’s eyes drift to my cutie mark, but she nodded. “No problem. Let me know if you need any help managing the kids today.”
She turned to go, but a shadow fell across the open door. My mother stepped into the room. She glanced at me as Starlight paused. “Oh, Ms. Harshwhinny, I didn’t expect you here so early.”
“I made a special trip today to inspect your music program.”
Starlight paused for a long moment, brow furrowed in thought. She eventually looked at me. “Ms. Octavia, I know you had planned to cover for Rainbow today, but would you mind coming with us to the band room? I’ll make other arrangements for this classroom.”
I suddenly had a bad feeling about this. Well, even more than my initial surprise at meeting my mother at this school.
We followed Starlight down the hall, my mother and I on opposite sides of her.
“What is Rainbow Dash doing today instead of her job?” my mother asked.
“She said ‘personal business.’ I didn’t pry,” I replied. Starlight apparently had nothing to add to that.
At the music room, Starlight opened the door for my mother, who entered. Starlight then said, “Oh wait, I forgot something. We’ll be right back.”
She nudged me a few steps away and let the door close. In a low voice to me, Starlight said, “I apologize for this situation, but I hope you can help me out. This inspector has extremely high standards. The truth is, we don’t really have much of a music program. I don’t want you to lie to her, but it would be a favor if you could portray the program as positively as possible. Er, given your role as a substitute teacher.”
I had yet to meet a single student, or even see the inside of the music room. On the other hoof, I was fully prepared to deceive my mother, or at least well-practiced at it. I nodded. “No problem.”
Starlight Glimmer
The client
We went back to the music room, where my mother was looking disdainfully at the empty seats of an orchestra arrangement in the large practice room. I sized up the place as quickly as I could.
“What would you like to see first?” I asked.
She eyed me. “So you’re a music teacher? How do you play?”
I wasn’t expecting a softball. That didn’t reduce my apprehension, though. Nothing for it, then. I opened one of the cello cases lined up around the wall.
The instrument inside was a base model, the kind a school would buy, and dusty. The strings looked brittle. It was surely out of tune. I picked it up.
Some mares would struggle with the weight of such a large instrument. I was used to it, or I had been once. At the least, I was in good shape all around, and propped it up to begin tuning. Standing there with the cello, I was still trying to decide if I should trust my muscle memory or very carefully plot out what I was doing. I was so caught up in doing so that I missed the nostalgia of drawing the bow across the strings for the first time in years.
“Are you tuning it?” mother asked. “Are these instruments not in peak condition?”
“Time ensures that nothing stays perfect and unchanged forever,” I replied.
Mother had tolerated the cello when I was a filly, but had never really liked it. She couldn’t change my special talent, and was never accepting of the fact that music was unlikely to bring me fortune or power.
I touched the bridge and then cranked the pegs. Another stroke of the bow. There it is.
I closed my eyes and leaned into the cello. Something simple, something I knew by heart. Before even the national anthem, the first song that came to me was the theme of Ponyland Pals, a cartoon from when I was a kid. I won’t say that learning to play the song was the reason I took up the cello, but the two events happened near-simultaneously. I’d practically played it constantly around home.
The opening notes put a flutter up my spine even as I played them. Octavia Melody: covert operative, weak to children’s music.
The last time I had played was for a cover during a job. It had been almost five years ago. Before that...well, I’d been home. It had been so long since I’d simply been caught up in the music, doing something that wasn’t a means to end, or killing somepony. Just a way to create, to express, to actually feel something comforting.
The song was short, just a jingle really. I finished it, and opened my eyes. Mother looked like she’d seen a ghost.
No, that didn’t mean wide eyes and gasping mouth. This was still her, after all, and she’d sooner tell a spirit that it haunted rather poorly than she would scream. I doubt Starlight even noticed her change in expression.
But I saw it, and had no idea what to make of it.
“I think that will do,” she said, quietly.
Mother had never shown anything but contempt for the song. I’d played it so much when I was a filly. How long had it been since she’d heard it?
Moreover, I wasn’t sure I had much more in me. I was, as I suspected, rusty after so long. I didn’t know if I could remember another song.
Mother turned to Starlight. “Things seem to be in order.”
“Glad to hear it.” Starlight shot me a quick look of gratitude behind mother’s back and then escorted her out of the room.
I let out a long breath and gently placed the cello back in its case. After that, I turned for the door.
I didn’t know why my mother was here today. Maybe it was just a coincidence. She hadn’t let on to Starlight that we were related, either.
Out in the hallway, I heard the faintest sound of voices. The air had changed subtly. I glanced at a wall clock. Classes had now started for the morning and students had passed through the hallways and were now behind closed doors.
I heard hurrying hooves, and Diamond Tiara rounded the corner, nearly crashing into me. She gasped in surprise even as I steadied her. “Octavia! What are you doing here?” She glanced behind her and said in a different tone, “Are you undercover or something?”
“This would be a poor place for it,” I said, gesturing to the empty halls. “No cover to be under.” I looked at her. “Shouldn’t you be in class?”
“I’m running kind of late. It’s been hard to leave daddy behind these mornings,” she admitted. “I should get going. I have Loyalty class first.”
“What a coincidence.” I smiled. “I think I can arrange for a hall pass.”
Class went well. Once you’ve faced your mother in the morning, a dozen youngsters are trivial. I stuck with my plan to tell anecdotes about my life cleverly disguised as parables. Not everything I had ever done involved stealing secrets or punching perpetrators. Sometimes, a story about loyalty can come from sticking with long hours of boring paperwork, because it was simply what I had been told to do.
Though in the lens of that, my employment had been somewhat less glamorous than even I usually considered it.
Through class, Diamond Tiara didn’t exactly hang on my every word, but knowing what she knew about me, perhaps she could see through some of my narrative veneer.
At the end of the day, I left a few simple notes for Rainbow and departed the school. To my surprise, a visitor was waiting for me at the school gate.
“Mum?”
“You can talk to me, you know,” she said. “What are you doing, Octavia?”
She was going to have to be more specific, but I took a guess what she meant. “Today was a favor.”
“For Rainbow Dash? And how do you know her?”
“I met her only a few days ago.” Attempting to pander, I said, “Surely you agree that I may be able to teach her a thing or two.”
“You never tell me anything. I was completely surprised to see you here today.”
I thought about her reaction when I had played. My eyes went to the cello case on the ground beside her. With the juvenile band stickers on it, it could be none other than mine, from years ago.
She saw me looking. “I thought you might want this.” She picked up the case and held it out. Surprised, I took it.
The dynamic between us had changed. I was still reeling, trying to figure it out.
I took a leap, extending an olive branch of my own. “Mum...I’m busy tonight, but can I come over tomorrow?”
She nodded. “I’ll make dinner. Bring your cello.”
I made my way back to the turnip loft to drop off the cello, mind in a fog. It only made me look forward to interrogating Garcon more, to distract myself.
Was that what I was doing? Avoiding the problem? Was the conversation I just had with my mother a problem?
I shook my head and got into the headspace for interrogation. I headed for Soarin’s place.