Octavia’s mother was even colder in person.
She had the shrewd, calculating gaze of a harsh literature professor, the perfectly elegant posture of a dancer, and the jewelry of a high-class socialite. In reality, she was only one of these things—but she did think herself wiser than all three combined.
“So,” her mother began, already dripping with condescension as she strode into the room, “you’re growing up quickly, aren’t you?”
Octavia cocked her head at that. “Huh?”
And her voice came out so small that it almost scared her. Hardly more than a squeak.
“That’s not how we ask for clarification, Octavia,” her mother corrected.
She did it differently than Flash’s father. The corrections, that is. She did it with a smile on her face, her chin held high, her hoof poised gracefully mid-air. She did it like it was a favor. Like it was the nicest thing she could think to do for her least-disappointing daughter.
“Pardon me?” Octavia muttered mechanically.
Her mother nodded in understanding. “Your cutie mark. Your father told me all about it.”
Why didn’t you just come ask me about it? Octavia thought to herself.
“I’m quite pleased,” she continued, taking another few steps into the room and closing the door behind her.
It was a pristine place. Octavia remembered it very well; the muted pastels, the understated lace edges and swirling patterns, the way it all matched so perfectly. It wasn’t like Flash’s room, where everything was a mish-mash of things he liked, all of them from different points in his life and different sources and different phases. It was a living space—a space that evolved and grew and changed.
This place was practically bought out of a kit. All of it matching. None of it chosen.
“Oh, I always knew you’d carry on the family tradition,” her mother said, reaching out to caress her daughter’s cheek. “My little Melody. You’ll make a lovely musician.”
Octavia pulled back and out of her mother’s touch. “But I… I didn’t play anything.”
Her mother sort of hiccuped.
It was an odd little thing. Barely there, really. Just a tiny glitch, a tear in her facade.
“Oh?” she asked, barely disguising her suspicions. She pulled her hoof back in towards her chest. The motion reminded Octavia of the way she had yanked her own hoof away from a hot stove. “Your father told me you played him something on the piano. Are you telling me your father is a liar?”
Octavia shrank into herself. Her bangs drooped into her face. “Um. No.”
“We’re better than filler words, dear,” her mother corrected.
“I-I wrote something,” Octavia said. “And I played it for father on the piano. But I—"
“Look at me when you’re speaking to me,” her mother snapped. All of her soft edges were dissolving, bit by bit, into the hidden harshness of her face. Her lips pressed together into a thin, pale line. She tilted her chin ever upward, always looking down upon her daughter.
Octavia tore her eyes away from the rug. “I got my cutie mark for the writing. Not the playing,” she explained meekly. “I think I might be a composer, mama.”
Her mother paused.
There was a long moment when she said nothing. Her eyes seemed to be scanning Octavia’s round, foalhood face for signs of weakness or lies. She slowly ground her teeth as she did so, and it made the muscles on her jaw pulse.
Having found no signs of a lie, her mother closed her eyes and tilted her head up towards the ceiling. She sighed once, melting into the exhale, then looked back at her daughter with fresh eyes.
“Octavia, we’ve talked about this,” she said simply.
Octavia curled her tail around her tiny flank. “I-I know…”
“Then you remember what I told you about composing?” Her mother asked.
Octavia heaved a great sigh. “That it’s… not sensible.”
“And why not?”
“Because it’s hard to get work.”
“Unless you’re…”
“Beehcloven, Moztrot, or Buck…”
“That’s right,” her mother said sweetly, giving her filly a gentle pat on the head. “You’re going to be a performer, dear. A studio musician. It’s a nice, stable profession. There’s plenty of work for a studio musician, especially with radio becoming so popular.”
Octavia sighed wearily, but said nothing.
“Pardon me?” her mother said, almost mockingly.
Octavia looked up at her mother. “I know… But—"
“Ah-ah! Buts are for jokes, and this is not a joke, young lady,” her mother recited, again waving her hoof in the air with authority. “If there was any doubt about you being a studio musician, do you think I would have paid for all of those piano lessons?”
Octavia did not reply. She only stared down at the uncomfortable pink rug under her hooves.
Her mother cocked her head. “Octavia?” she prompted, a threatening tone rising in her voice.
“No…” Octavia groaned at last.
“That’s right.” Her mother nodded.
Octavia didn’t move or respond. Her mother watched quietly, waiting for her little filly to speak up and thank her, but no words came. Octavia only glared down at the rug with a quiet, seething anger.
Sensing that her job might not be done, Octavia’s mother moved around to her daughter’s side, and sat down next to her on the rug. Octavia did her best to lean away from the unwanted contact.
“You’re very lucky, you know,” she said. “Not everypony your age has such a kind path set out for them. It’s scary out there without a plan.”
Octavia still remained silent.
“One of these days, you’ll thank me for everything I did for you,” her mother said, squeezing her tightly. “You’ll have a nice job, and a nice house, and a nice husband, and a nice family. Just like your father and I.”
“But mama, I—"
“Ah!”
Octavia huffed softly to herself. “Mama, I thought you were a composer.”
Her mother took a long pause.
She was a difficult mare to rattle, Pianissimo. Even a small stutter or a misspoken word would have been cause for mutiny, let alone an elongated pause such as this.
Still, Octavia remained rooted to the spot, her mouth tightly closed.
Her mother sighed sharply. “Yes, well. That’s a different story, isn’t it?”
Ocatvia didn’t think it was a different story at all.
Her mother sniffed, getting to her hooves. “In any case, the cutie mark is a good thing. Don’t forget to come down for your lesson. It starts in an hour.”
“I know,” Octavia grumbled.
Her mother looked at her with an odd sort of disdain, then nodded.
She left the room without another word.
There was a moment, a long one, where Octavia could only sit still and try not to cry. She wondered briefly if that was the her of the past or the her of the present, or perhaps some mixture of the two. She quickly realized that it made little difference.
“She’s not always like that… is she?” Flash asked carefully.
Octavia jumped. This intruder in her memories had expertly faded into the background for the duration of the uncomfortable conversation, and now towered over her tiny, youthful form like a monster.
As much as she expected to be afraid, though, she wasn’t. Flash may have been much taller than she was, but he didn’t look down on her—in fact, he didn’t seem to realize that she had shrunken down at all.
Octavia sighed. “Sometimes,” was all she managed to squeak out.
Flash fidgeted, rearranging his wings as he searched for something to say.
It was the sort of thing that, if anything, hurt more to look back on.
Octavia knew how you were meant to talk to a foal. She knew you were supposed to be excited, to give affectionate pats and words of encouragement, to emphasize the good in situations.
Her mother had done none of those things.
She had never even said she was proud.
Octavia wondered what she would have done in the same situation. If somepony she had cared for had brought her good, if unexpected, news. Vinyl, perhaps.
Being invited to a musical performance in the woods, maybe.
And, suddenly, her mother was much more than an external mirror; Octavia reflected something much deeper than her mother’s round jawline and fine mane.
It opened a pit in her stomach she could have sworn she’d filled in long ago.
Flash cleared his throat. “I guess you don’t introduce many ponies to your parents either, huh?”
Octavia scoffed, bitter as always.
Before Flash could continue his misguided platitudes, a loud, sharp scraping sound rang out through the room.
It caused both ponies to jump and spin to look for the source.
Towards the back of the room, Octavia’s bureau had been tugged out from the wall. The sound of it dragging along the wood floors still rang through the room like the howl of a sick dog—or perhaps like the haunting cry of a whale.
Flash took a nervous step backwards. “Who moved that?”
Octavia got to her hooves and approached the bureau, not so much trepidatious as she was innately curious.
Memories were coming back to her. The sound that the bureau had made on the floor was so familiar—she remembered wedging herself between it and the wall, shoving with all her might, to reveal its backside.
Flash followed behind Octavia, though slower. “Octavia? I don’t think—”
But she slipped behind the bureau without another word.
A little chuckle escaped her as she looked upon her old hoofwork.
The backside of her bureau was absolutely covered in pen. Drawings, musical notations, even full sentences decorated every square inch of its surface, running over one another until it all became a jumbled mess of scribbles and doodles.
She poked her head over the top of the bureau and, with a smile, motioned for Flash to come see. “Come take a look,” she said. “This is one of my better memories, I think.”
Flash looked confused, but did as he was asked and came to peer at the back of the bureau.
“Whoa.” His eyes ran over the impressive collection of dark pen lines. “This is—did you do this?”
Octavia nodded. “When I was teenager,” she said. “To practice.”
“Practice… what?”
“Holding a bow,” Octavia said, almost wistfully. “Or, rather, to build a little bit of hoof dexterity before I ever tried. I wanted to learn to play the cello.”
Flash nodded slowly, though he seemed to only partly understand.
Together, the pair of ponies surveyed the many overlapping patterns on the back of the bureau. Some were quite light and shaky, drawn in pen with an unsure hoof and hardly recognizable as any common shape or symbol. Others, though, seemed to be more than mere drawings—they had been traced so many times that they had become something more like a carving.
Flash reached out and ran his hoof over one such carving. “There’s nothing you can’t do with hard work…” he read carefully, as if translating it from some unfamiliar language. “Why does that sound familiar?”
Octavia flushed a bit and looked down at the floor.
Flash chuckled. “What’s that look for?”
“Oh, it’s…” Octavia cleared her throat, brushing her mane away from her face. “Rockhoof,” she admitted softly.
“Rockhoof! Of course!” Flash smacked his forehead with one hoof. “What’s so embarrassing about that?”
Octavia took in a deep breath. “I may have had… something of an attachment to Rockhoof,” she explained carefully.
Flash furrowed his brows. “What, like… you had a crush on him?”
“No!” Octavia snapped. “No, no—goodness, is that all you stallions think about?” She gave Flash a gentle shove.
“What? That was really vague!” Flash said with a laugh.
Octavia sighed and crossed her forelegs over her chest. “Ugh. He was my imaginary friend, alright?” she grumbled. “It’s just… it’s very silly. I was far too old for something like that.”
Flash arched an eyebrow. “You’re talking to the stallion who had Zapp on the walls of his bedroom well into his teens,” he reminded her. “At least Rockhoof was a real pony.”
“Oh, please. That hardly makes a difference,” Octavia murmured.
Despite her protestations, she hid a smile, turning away from Flash in a show of mock embarrassment. Or perhaps real embarrassment. Or perhaps a little of each.
"What do you think you're doing?!"
Octavia sucked in a breath, playfulness gone, and smacked a hoof over her mouth.
Flash peered around the edge of the bureau. Octavia reached out to yank him back towards her in a panic, but couldn't quite reach him.
"It's your mom," Flash reported.
"I know who it is!" Octavia snapped back.
"Octavia Melody!" Her mother barked, stomping one hoof on the floor. "Come out here this instant!"
Octavia hung her head. She snuck one almost-comforting glance at Flash, and slunk out from behind the bureau.
Her mother made a sound of disgusted shock. "Well, young lady—you had better have a good explanation for scuffing up the hardwood like this," she said, gesturing to the bureau sharply. "What in Equestria were you doing back there, hm?"
"Um—"
"We're better than filler words, Octavia."
"I was practicing."
It always sort of scared Octavia, the way her mother could just tug things out of her like that. She'd admit to anything just to see even a hint of surprise in her mother's eyes.
Pianissimo furrowed her brows ever so slightly. Nothing more than the tiniest pinch to her skin. "Practicing what?" she asked softly, though she already knew the answer.
Octavia held her head high. A tiny lock of her mane fell from behind her ear, and she reached up to quickly tuck it back into place. "The cello."
The silence that hung between them was heavy with familiarity. It had the comfort of a fight they'd had a thousand times, an argument that was scripted down to every sigh and sideways glare. Yet, even though it was familiar, it had a bite to it. Like an old liquor. It grew stronger, more abrasive with each passing day. Imperceptibly so, of course—until, one day, it was just too strong to drink.
And you wonder how you got here. How long it had been abandoned on the shelf to ferment. How long you'd thought nothing of it until it was too late.
Pianissimo looked at her daughter with the weariness of an alcoholic considering that undrinkable drink.
She blinked, once, long and slow. "We've talked about this," she said, though there was nothing behind it beyond duty.
"Mum, I—"
"I told you, I want you to learn an earth pony instrument," she droned. The words fell from her mouth without need for thought or emotion. "I told you why, didn't I? Don't you remember?"
Octavia sighed.
She had.
And she did.
And it made her blood boil.
Pianissimo turned her back on her daughter to close the bedroom door. Just like that, whatever chance of escape still lingered was sealed away.
She looked back at her daughter, a scientifically perfect look of pity and sympathy painted over her features. "Darling, you know I love your sister dearly."
Octavia rolled her eyes. "You know, mum, I'd be a lot more willing to listen if you'd quit trying to pit me and Fids against one another."
"This isn't about some sort of petty competition, Octavia," her mother said softly.
Octavia held her ground.
It was a competition. Even if she wasn't sure of the rules.
Realizing that her daughter wouldn't be budging any time soon, Pianissimo sighed deeply and meandered over to the bed. It squeaked under her weight, and that gave her a moment of pause—though Octavia knew full well it squeaked for anypony.
"Come," Pianissimo said, waving her daughter in close. "We should talk."
"We can talk from here," Octavia said.
Pianissimo sighed again, this time dropping her face into her hooves. "Your sister is quite the masochist, you know," she muttered.
Octavia cocked her head. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Her mother looked up at her. "It means she's an expert at making her life much more difficult than it needs to be," she said, no small amount of bitterness hanging on the back of her tongue. "First the fiddle, then that bluegrass band, and now that marefriend of hers…"
"She's only doing what she wants to do," Octavia said meekly.
"Well, that's just it: she's only doing what she wants to do," her mother repeated. "With no back-up plans, no safety net, no regard for how it reflects on—"
She cut herself off.
Octavia could fill in the missing words with ease, but it didn't make the picture any clearer.
"What's wrong with Lightning Dust?" Octavia asked.
Pianissimo scoffed. That seemed to be the extent of her answer.
In the ensuing quiet, Octavia found her gaze drifting about her bedroom. She hadn't ever thought much about what her room looked like—she hadn't cared since she was a tiny foal, and back then she'd had even less autonomy—instead focusing on utility. If the bed held her up, it didn't matter that it was an ugly, frilly, not-like-her-at-all sort of mess.
But… well, now that her mother had planted the thought in her head, she wondered if she might be happier if her walls were a different color. Or if she had carpet. Or perhaps some posters.
Like Fiddlesticks.
"Your sister is going to have a very hard life when she leaves this house," Pianissimo said. "She's sheltered, now, but that rebellious streak isn't worth a thing in the real world."
Octavia pinned her ears down against her head. She didn't say anything.
"The world won't be kind to an earth pony playing a unicorn's instrument." Pianissimo stood, and the springs creaked again. "You need to make better choices."
And Octavia wasn't quite sure if that meant better than her sister, or better than the choices she'd already made.
Maybe she meant both.
Pianissimo moved to the door and pulled it open a crack. She hesitated on the threshold, though, and turned to offer one final thought:
"I don't want you to get hurt, Octavia," she murmured. Then, with the same low tone: "don't forget about your piano lesson."
The door clicked shut behind her.
If, in all of her soul-searching and web-weaving and over-complicating, Octavia could say one positive thing about her mother, it would have been this:
She certainly had a way with words.
More than that, she had a way without words. She could construct intricate arguments based solely upon words she had never spoken, and would never speak. She could guide your mind through an elaborate series of hoops and hurdles to have you thinking that you were in the wrong every single time.
She was wasted as a musician. She should have been a salespony. Perhaps a lawyer.
The unsaid words swirled through Octavia's mind even more fervently than the words which still lingered above the mattress.
"I want you to learn an earth pony instrument" because you could never learn anything else.
"You need to make better choices" and you're so incompetent that I need to make them for you.
"I don't want you to get hurt" and you will.
Because you can't.
Because you're not like Fiddlesticks.
Because you could never rise to a challenge like that.
And you never will.
Octavia let out a wild shout and kicked her hind legs out in a wild bucking motion, aiming at nothing but the air. She landed forcefully and, quite liking the harsh sound of her hooves on the hardwood, reared up to pound them down again.
The momentum carried her up in an arc, and she slammed her front hooves down just this same.
Again, the back.
Back, front. Back front.
Rhythm escaping her, the rocking motion became a wild thrashing, kicking and screaming and just trying to get the energy out.
"Octavia, stop!"
A strong hoof on her shoulder.
Octavia fought against it for a moment, but the strength was not like that of her mother. It was firm, but not trying to hold her back. Its only intention was to calm.
And so she tried.
Her eyes still screwed shut and leaking tears, Octavia sucked in a ragged breath. She choked on it.
“Y-you gotta chill out, okay?”
Eugh.
Octavia smacked away the hoof on her shoulder. “Don’t tell me what to do, Flash,” she spat, her voice hoarse with vitriol.
“Uh… who?”
The question caught Octavia off guard. She cocked her head to one side, then fought to open her eyes. Though her vision was clouded with tears both cried and uncried, she could make out the face before her with perfect ease:
Round. But not like Octavia. Octavia’s face was round on purpose, as if she’d been carved that way. She practically had, after all.
No, her face was round by mistake. A little bit lopsided—though perhaps that was due to the way she tended to hold her face. There was no sense of symmetry there. No awareness of her expression, how she appeared (or tried to appear) for others. Her face was her face. Everything she ever thought or felt was written all over it.
It didn’t help that she was snow-white pale, and so any hint of a blush took over her cheeks in moments.
Her cheeks flushed pink. She looked down at the ground. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Vinyl,” Octavia said, breathless.
Vinyl blinked. “Yeah. Were you expecting somepony else?”
She wanted to be angry.
She wanted to use this chance to yell more. Really empty out her lungs of every wisp of hot air that remained.
But she couldn’t.
Octavia stumbled forward and threw her forelegs around Vinyl, embracing her tightly. She felt the mare stiffen. She even made a small sound, some choked yelp of surprise. Slowly, carefully, one hoof reached around her shoulders and squeezed her back.
“You okay?” Vinyl murmured.
“I just—” Octavia’s voice broke, and she let out another tiny, anguished noise. “I’m just so happy to see a familiar face.”
Vinyl shifted. “Uh. Okay. Weird,” she muttered. “I mean… I guess that’s what I’m here for, right?”
That snapped her out of it.
Octavia cleared her throat and pulled away from Vinyl. Now that she wasn’t so focused on her face, she could take in the somewhat unfamiliar cut of her mane—a short, jagged disaster hap-hazardly dyed green, blue roots proudly on display.
It had been a long time since she’d seen that manecut.
She still remembered the hurt in Vinyl’s eyes when Octavia told her it was hideous.
That had only been about a week after they started dating.
“It doesn’t have to be,” Vinyl said quickly. “I mean, I can go. I mean… I can do whatever, I guess. Just say the word.”
Their eyes met, briefly, before Octavia’s once again skated to the floor.
“It’s fine,” she said. “You should stay.”
“Okay.”
“But I don’t want to talk about my mother.”
“Okay.”
Octavia nodded sharply.
The pair was silent.
Vinyl was… perhaps ‘twitchy’ is the right word. Octavia could sense the little fits and starts as she tried to move towards her, decided against it, rerouted her hoof to scratch at the back of her neck. The way she tried to look at Octavia, then at anything but Octavia, then back at Octavia. The way she kept breathing, as if to speak, and never found a word.
Octavia sniffed. “Why don’t we sit?” she said.
“Yeah,” Vinyl agreed, nodding enthusiastically. “Yeah, that sounds good. On your bed?”
Octavia cringed, though not voluntarily.
"Or not," Vinyl quickly amended.
"No, no," Octavia drew even further from Vinyl, and moved mechanically towards her bed. "That's quite alright. It's… well, you're my marefriend, now, aren't you?"
A nervous smile flashed across Vinyl's face. Gone in an instant.
That feeling welled up in her stomach. Like she was boiling from the inside out.
But this made sense.
This was meant to happen.
And so she crossed the room and climbed numbly up onto her mattress. The springs groaned under her, and she silently pleaded with them to keep their opinions to themselves.
Vinyl seemed rooted to the spot for a moment, then suddenly lurched forward and scrambled over to the bed. She, too, clambered up onto the lofted pink mattress and tried to look natural. It took far too much effort to be believable.
The mattress dipped in the center, and both ponies tilted towards each other.
Vinyl leaned into it.
Octavia leaned away from it.
"So…" Vinyl said, trying to figure out what to do with her forelegs. "I dunno what to talk about."
Octavia sighed. "I'm sorry about my mother. She has a way of making things more difficult than they have to be." She looked sneakily at Vinyl out of the corner of her eye. "Believe it or not, this was her being reserved. The one thing she hates more than anything is misbehaving when we have company."
"Even when the company is misbehaving?" Vinyl said with a laugh. She nudged Octavia gently with one elbow.
Octavia tried very hard to laugh, but the sound came out a bit like a dismissive scoff.
"Sorry," Vinyl murmured.
"It's fine," Octavia said. "I don't like joking about it, though."
Vinyl nodded. She swallowed thickly and audibly, and shifted away from Octavia. "Should we go somewhere else?" she asked. "We can go to my house. My parents would probably love—"
"My piano lesson starts in twenty minutes," Octavia said quickly.
"Oh." Vinyl seemed to deflate. "Right. Not enough time, I guess."
Octavia did not respond.
Her stomach was still boiling. She remembered this feeling, as much as she wanted to forget it. An uneasiness that permeated every little loving act of the new relationship. Everything feeling awkward and clumsy. All of the chemistry they had had before dissolving.
She hated it.
She hated remembering it, too.
She hated that she had to feel it again—dear Celestia, was once not enough?
Vinyl chuckled. "This is weird, right?"
Octavia bristled. "What is?" she asked, almost accusatory.
"Us. Dating," Vinyl said. She made an odd expression to go with. "We've been friends so long, I just figured we'd be good at dating, y'know? Like right off the bat."
"I'm sorry, am I not doing this good enough for you?" Octavia asked. She meant it as a joke—or so she told herself—but it came out about two ticks too sincere.
"No!" Vinyl's eyes went wide. "No, no! That's not what I—I was just—"
Octavia did not interject.
She didn't know why.
Vinyl sighed. "Sorry."
Octavia sighed. "It's fine."
"We'll get better at this," Vinyl said. Then, sensing Octavia's chilliness, she corrected herself: "I mean… I'll get better at this. I guess."
Octavia did not show any sign of approval.
She wanted to—honest she did—but that roiling feeling in her stomach was taking over. Burning, bubbling, rancid reflux that was eating its way up her esophagus.
In fact, she was feeling rather headache-y and nauseous.
Like a hangover.
Octavia doubled over in pain, hooves pressed to her stomach, trying to keep the bile down.
"Tavi?"
She moaned softly, curling her rear hooves up in an attempt to collapse in on the pain.
"Tavi? Are you okay?"
A hoof on her shoulder.
Firm, but not pushing.
"Octavia?"
She heaved softly.
"Octavia, what's wrong?"
The full force of her hangover rammed into Octavia's stomach as she vomited onto the carpet.
The pony beside her made a sound of mixed surprise and disgust. Judging by the way the mattress moved under her, they also tried to scramble away from the awful smell.
Octavia hung there, still doubled over, limp as a ragdoll hung out to dry. She coughed once, and the taste of it was so awful she nearly vomited again.
"Oh, that's gross," Flash muttered, his voice muffled by the hoof was using to cover his snout. "Octavia, are you okay?"
Octavia heaved again, but managed to keep whatever was left in her stomach down. "Peachy."
"Oh, ew…" Flash whispered.
Octavia was about ready to shoot off something sassy and vomit-scented at her unwitting companion, but she felt a strong grip around her barrel. Before she knew it, she was being hoisted into the air, slung over Flash's back, and carried… somewhere. Somewhere away.
"You really stink," was all Flash said, accompanied by his own barely-suppressed gags.
Another mouthful of something vile dribbled out of Octavia’s mouth. Flash, to his credit, didn’t complain directly, though Octavia could feel the shudder run down his spine. The thought of fighting help briefly passed through her mind, but the wave of exhaustion which slowly washed over her managed to wipe it all clean.
Twice.
That was all she could think.
Twice had Flash been there to clean up her mess.
Twice had Flash carried her on his back away from the things which made her sick.
Twice had he swallowed his own pride to help.
Twice.
Floorboards creaked under Flash’s hooves as he moved through the house. Octavia tried to imagine the floorplan, to match it to that of her childhood home, but it was no longer familiar. She supposed that was a good thing.
Flash grunted. A screen door groaned, then sprung open and slapped against the side of the house with a flimsy clap.
Fresh sea air. Salt and spray. Sunlight, but diffuse—not searing like an ice pick being driven into her temple. Just soft, grey-white light that surrounded her on all sides and embraced her gently.
“Here we go,” Flash muttered, mostly to himself, as he edged to the front steps and descended to the sand.
Octavia could feel the sand give way beneath Flash’s hooves. He was twice as heavy as usual—quite possibly more, those damn bird bones of his—and his hooves sank deep into cool caverns with every step. Still, he marched with purpose towards the ocean, the sound of it growing louder and sharper, the feel of its spray kicking up into Octavia’s face.
It was bracing. Perhaps not in a good way. But she wouldn’t dare critique Flash.
“Alright, down y’go,” Flash said, clearly out of breath.
Slowly, steadily, he lowered Octavia down to the sand. He used one wing to guide her gently into a small valley, which cradled her softly.
“Just, uh…” Flash hesitated, looking over the scene before him and wondering how to proceed. “Just wait here, okay? I’ll bring you some water.”
“I’m sorry,” Octavia said.
Flash paused.
Octavia wasn’t looking, but she could sense it. She could sense the Flash-sized hole in the spray as he stood between her and the sea. She could hear his hoof crunch back down into the sand, then fidget side to side, a soft sht-sht sound without rhythm or direction.
“I’m a disgusting mess,” Octavia blubbered, the usual steadiness of her voice so quickly overwhelmed by tears and lingering nausea. “A disgusting mess who crawled back to her ex the first chance she got.”
Flash snickered. “And almost vomited on her.”
“Flash!”
“Sorry.”
“I just…” Octavia sucked in a shaky breath, tasted the bile anew, suppressed a gag, and pressed on. “Oh, who am I kidding? My mother was right. I’m just a fuck-up. I’m worse than a fuck-up—I’m a fuck-up who can’t cope with failure. A perfectionist fuck-up. What in Equestria’s name am I meant to do with a personality defect like that?”
Flash was quiet.
His hoof traced through the sand again, that gentle sound somehow twice as loud as the waves on the shore. Octavia tried to burrow deeper into the sand, but found the sound only magnified—that low sht-sht now an overpowering zhush-zhush. She could feel her chest swelling up like a hot air balloon, filled with all the other nasty things she longed to expel.
“Why do you keep doing this?” Flash asked.
Octavia furrowed her brow. “Doing what?”
“Talking about yourself like this,” Flash said. “I dunno. Maybe you made some mistakes, but I certainly didn’t see any in there.”
“That’s cute.”
“Look, don’t patronize me, okay?” Flash said, pounding his hoof into the sand. “Believe it or not, I actually do have critical thinking skills. Sorry if I don’t talk like you, but it doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”
Octavia lifted her head. “O-okay, wait a—”
“You’re the one with puke all over her face,” Flash went on, his fervor spinning out into the wind. “You’re the one who went way out of her comfort zone with alcohol last night. And you’re the one who keeps shrugging her shoulders and giving up at the first sign of trouble!”
“Flash, I—”
“Maybe I don’t know everything, okay?” Flash said. “A-and I’m sorry if I pretended like I did. But it’s only because I’m actually really scared right now, and I’m just trying to—I dunno what I’m trying to do!”
Octavia pushed herself up from her divot in the sand, just enough to rise to the level of Flash’s chest. “You’re trying to have some control,” she said softly.
Flash scoffed. “N-no,” he stuttered, doing his best to look at anything but Octavia’s face. “No, that’s not it.”
“It is,” Octavia insisted. “I should know, kettle.”
Flash rolled his eyes. “Now who’s being cute?”
Octavia sighed.
The ocean waves rolled in, rolled out. A steady and reliable rhythm, whether you wanted it or not. Octavia watched the way its foamy fingers clawed their way up the shore, reaching for the hoofsteps in the sand, erasing them with ease. A destructive pattern. Always washing away.
“Just quit calling yourself a fuck-up, okay?” Flash said. “I dunno what I’m supposed to do with that. Makes me feel useless.”
“Believe it or not, my self-deprecation has nothing to do with you, Flash,” Octavia muttered.
Flash made a low, non-committal sound.
“It’s a habit,” Octavia said simply. “One lovingly bestowed upon me by my mother.”
Flash scoffed. He looked out to sea, eyes focused on the horizon where grey ocean met grey sky.
“Is this your new tactic, then?” Octavia asked. “Ignore me and hope I go away?”
Silence.
Eyes on the horizon.
Octavia ground her teeth. She could still feel the slippery remains of the bile on her molars. “Look. It doesn’t really matter what you think, anyway,” she said, spite in every syllable. “What matters is what I think. And, back then, what my mother thought. Mistakes aren’t an objective truth, Flash. Something can be the wrong choice even if it’s right.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Flash murmured.
“Oh, so you can speak.”
“Shut up.”
Flash gazed out at the ocean a moment longer. It was a focused look, the sort with effort and purpose behind it. A wrinkled brow. A fierceness in the eyes. As if he were trying to print the image on the inside of his skull before daring to look away.
After a few moments too long staring, he turned and came to stand beside Octavia once more. Then, after another long moment of consideration, he eased himself down into the sand beside her.
The wind from the ocean seemed to finally be whipping his mane out of its perfect coif. It was the first time Octavia had even considered that there might be an unstyled shape to it under all that gel and ego—not even a full night’s sleep had seemed to disturb it, though that likely owed more to the statuesque nature of their slumber than any mystical powers of his hair product.
And here it was. Tugged out of its perfection lock by lock. Grabbing at his cheek with a sort of ardent desperation that seemed to unnerve him, as he batted the blue tendrils away with one hoof.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he said, at last submitting to the chaos of the wind.
Octavia heaved a sigh. “I don’t know, kettle. Sometimes I just say things without thinking.”
“That’s not true at all, y’dumb pot,” Flash said. “You think I don’t know you well enough by now to know you never speak without thinking?”
Octavia paused. Then she realized she was pausing and quickly said, “And how long exactly have you known me?”
Flash shrugged. “Who’s to say, really?”
Octavia growled under her breath.
“So what did you mean?” Flash asked. “About how even right choices are wrong?”
Octavia sighed. “I don’t know, Flash,” she said wearily. “I just think that sometimes even the right thing can be wrong in the moment. Like you protecting your mother.”
Flash shifted in the sand. “You think that was the right thing?”
“Of course,” Octavia said quickly, turning to look at Flash in disbelief. “Of course it was. But it also… wasn’t. I mean, I didn’t see much of the aftermath, but I’m sure it didn’t go well for you. I’m sure your father considered it a mistake, didn’t he?”
Flash laughed. Once, and very dry. “You could say that.”
“Well, there you are,” Octavia said. “It was a mistake, but it wasn’t.”
“Hm.”
A particularly strong gust of wind whipped up between the pair, and Octavia’s mane was stolen up by it, twirled into a twisted cone, wrapped about her face and neck. She battled it, slowly but firmly, until Flash reached over to pull it away.
Their eyes met. Octavia was suddenly very aware of the regurgitated remainders of soup and cider which were now drying to the fur on her chin. Flash, however, didn’t seem to pay it any mind.
“Yeah,” he said, “I think I know what you mean.”
Octavia turned away from Flash, breaking their eye contact. “Do you?”
“I think the right thing can be done the wrong way,” Flash continued. “Like, for instance, ending a relationship that needs to end, but maybe doing it, uh… less than gracefully.”
Octavia wanted to be embarrassed. She nearly was. Nearly let that bloom of heat overtake her cheeks, nearly turned away and tried to clumsily and the conversation. Nearly gave into the shame that came with the all-too-recent memory.
But then she thought about it.
“I never told you about that,” Octavia said, her voice even and low. “What would you know about that?”
Flash blinked. “Uh. I mean, I sorta put two and two together, Tavi,” he said, though nervousness was building in his voice. “Y’know, the way you talk about Vinyl, and… and how she was just then. And that night when you—I mean, when Vinyl and Twilight—well, there was a lot of yelling, and—”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Octavia said curtly. “You weren’t there.”
“I never said I was,” Flash shot back. “I just—look, you’re not as private as you like to think. It’s written all over your face. You feel bad about what happened between you and Vinyl. I think you still like her, even.”
“Of course I do!” Octavia nearly shouted. As much as she wanted to, the heaviness in her chest wouldn’t allow it.
Flash seemed taken aback, to say the least. He pinned his ears back against his head. The wind kept tearing at his mane, every shockingly blue lock a bit of kelp which flailed in the mercy of the tides.
Octavia tried to scoff, another superficial show of nonchalance, but the sound caught in her throat. “Of course I do,” she repeated. “What a stupid thing to say.”
Flash, for once, seemed to agree with that.
The taste in Octavia’s mouth—whether it be from the vomit or the words she’d allowed to spill out of it—was quickly becoming unbearable, and she felt the urge to do something she had never done before. She let it roll back and forth over her tongue a few more times, the bitterness only increasing, before she wound up and spit into the sand.
Some of her saliva dribbled down her chin, but the rest landed in a neat little blob just in front of her hoof.
Flash seemed to be struggling to find something to say. Or, perhaps, struggling not to say anything at all.
Octavia bowed her head to wipe her chin clean against the back of one hoof. “Do you know what bit makes me feel the worst?” she asked darkly.
Flash stuttered something, but no full word formed on his lips.
“It’s not how good she is. Or how despicably I treated her,” Octavia said, her voice quivering. “It’s the fact that I broke up with her on the advice of my mother.”
Despite the roar of the waves, Octavia could hear Flash swallow.
"She told me that sometimes things end, and that being all upset about it is a waste of time and effort," Octavia said scornfully. "She said she divorced my father because he wasn't worth the effort anymore, but that they'd keep living together because no one else was worth the effort either. Who thinks that way?"
There was a blur of orange motion in Octavia's periphery, but Flash did not touch her. She almost wished he would.
He knew the answer to the question.
So did Octavia.
And yet neither wanted to say it.
"I’m more like her than I want to be,” Octavia said simply. Not because she didn’t have more words, but because she could feel the tears running to catch the ones she had left. “And that scares me, because I know what she did to everyone around her. I don’t want to be that pony but I—I think I already am.”
Her voice broke.
She began to cry.
It started small—a few tiny plips in the sand—but quickly grew to a full-chested, body-wracking wailing. As loud as it felt in her throat, though, the sounds came out strangled and small, ripped away by the wind, dying before they ever even reached the foamy edge of the sea.
Octavia cried. The cry she'd never had.
She hadn't realized until just now, with the ocean roaring in her ears and a prickly cold in her coat, but Octavia had not yet shed a tear over her lost relationship with Vinyl Scratch. She wasn't quite sure what that meant, exactly. Whether it said more about her, about Vinyl, about their time together, or about her mother.
No.
Not her mother.
She couldn't pin this on her.
Most things she could. She could find a way to twist them back in her direction, no matter how convoluted the explanation.
But crying. Crying was hers.
Octavia cried because her mother wouldn't have. It felt a strange sort of good, the same way throwing up could kind of feel good—because it was over. It was out.
She nestled her face down into her hooves, wiping tears and snot and sea spray and spit and Celestia knows what else all over her beautiful grey fur. She let out a gentle, final sigh. Her emptiness sat comfortably for a long moment as Octavia gazed out at the ocean.
Push and pull. Push and pull.
Then, suddenly remembering her companion, the emptiness was filled with a rush of embarrassment. The tide rolling in. Octavia rubbed her eyes and turned to face him.
Her mouth hung open for a moment. "What in Equestria are you doing?" she blubbered, wiping a hoof across her upper lip.
Flash glanced up, an eyebrow quirked. "Building a sandcastle."
He was, indeed. It wasn't much to look at—mostly a big lump with some windows dug out—but Flash patted and smoothed it with a surprising gentleness. One sandy hoof reached up to tug his matted mane out of his face, leaving a beige smear across his cheek.
"I'm crying into the wind and you're building a… a sandcastle?" she repeated.
She had nearly stopped crying. Just because she didn’t know what else to do.
Flash shrugged. "I dunno. Seemed like fun."
He said so without smiling. A sort of guilty nonchalance.
He picked up a nearby shell, turned it over in his hooves, and stuck it in the top.
It looked stupid. But it also looked sort of nice. The same niceness of a gimmicky vacation home, decorated in a soulless nautical theme.
“I guess I thought you could use some privacy,” he added. “You haven’t really had any.”
“That’s… kind of you,” Octavia admitted.
Flash shrugged again.
Octavia pushed herself to her hooves, ignoring the way her stomach heaved. She barely managed to lurch over to Flash's side before collapsing in a heap next to him, barrel to barrel. He lifted his wing at the very last moment and held it there, aloft over her, uncertain whether he was allowed to embrace her.
He watched her, very carefully, his hoof frozen in mid-air as he reached to adjust his single seashell.
Octavia put her chin down in the sand and stared down the door to the sandcastle. It was clear that Flash had attempted a big, grand arch—something like a drawbridge, maybe—but the actual execution was a bit lopsided.
Flash only stared at her. He curled his hooves under him, still holding his wing up like an umbrella.
"I can't remember the last time I built a sandcastle," Octavia said. She blew the sand away from her face in one short blast.
This seemed to break Flash out of his trance, and he snorted softly. "Me neither."
Octavia sniffed.
She watched as he adjusted the shell, observed, adjusted again. Smoothed here. Patted there.
“Flash?”
“Mhm?” he replied absently.
“Can I ask you a question?”
He shifted.
The wind shifted with him.
“Uh. Sure,” he said.
“How do you feel?”
The wind ceased.
Just like that.
Like a switch.
Under other circumstances (not normal, merely other), Octavia may have been afraid. On this beach, however, she took it as a sign that she was on the right track.
Flash forced a small laugh. “I dunno, wet? Sandy?” he replied.
His hoof shot back out from under his barrel, and he once again began messing with the sandcastle. Patting it. Smoothing it. Not nearly as gently as before—in fact, Octavia saw the archway begin to crumble.
“You know what I mean,” she said gently.
Flash only shrugged.
Octavia nudged her companion. “Come on, now. Here I am, spilling my guts, and you’ve hardly said a word about yourself all along,” she said. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
Truthfully, she hadn’t.
Not until moments ago.
But Octavia figured she ought to give herself credit for noticing at all.
“Spilling your guts,” Flash repeated wryly. “That’s funny. You’re funny.”
He mashed another window into the side of his castle.
The archway began to collapse.
Octavia reached out with her own hoof and held it up.
Flash paused.
He looked at Octavia.
Octavia looked back.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re holding up a sandcastle.”
“I felt it was an apt little metaphor.”
“For what?”
“Well, I’ve no idea,” Octavia said with an innocent blink. “Though, if you don’t want the next room to be a nice, long therapy session, you may want to figure it out.”
Flash set his jaw.
Octavia stared blankly back at him.
“I’m not the type of guy who needs to have… feelings talks,” he said at last, throwing in an eye-roll for good measure. “I’m a private dude. I do my stuff on the inside.”
Octavia scowled. “You seem to do more than enough on the outside.”
Flash shrugged. “I’m more of a listen-to-other-ponies’-problems fella,” he said. “I’m pretty good at it. Haven’t you noticed how well I’ve been listening to you?”
“Flash.”
He cringed. He deflated a little.
His wing collapsed. Right down onto Octavia’s back. Just like that.
Octavia rose to meet it.
“Everything we talk about. You always turn it back onto me,” she said. “I think you deserve some time in the spotlight.”
Flash drew in a sharp breath. “I dunno. I kinda feel like it’s… my job to get you through this,” he said. “And maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
Octavia laughed at that. Actually laughed.
“Shut up…”
“What in the wild blue yonder gave you that idea?” she asked. "After everything we've seen that's yours?"
Flash only shrugged.
He ran another hoof over his sandcastle. It wasn’t so much to sculpt as it was to fidget—to mess with something so that he had an excuse not to listen to or respond to Octavia’s line of questioning.
This, of course, only nudged Octavia along further.
“You always do, don’t you?”
Hesitation. In his hoof, as he smoothed away the imperfections that no longer existed.
Octavia nodded. “You’re a fixer. Ever since you were a foal.”
Flash’s hoof dropped from the side of the castle. Not exactly a ‘yes’, but not exactly a ‘no’.
“That’s fitting. The fixer and the whinger. Dear Celestia, we’re made for one another,” Octavia muttered disdainfully. She scoffed lightly, a sound meant to be humorous but coming out so dry and biting that it could hardly be called such. “Could spend ages going round and round this way.”
Flash shook his head. Octavia thought she caught a hint of a smirk.
“Go on, then,” she said, giving him a nudge. “Break the cycle. You complain, and I’ll listen. That’ll be a fun change of pace for the both of us.”
Flash shrugged.
“Oh, quit shrugging!” Octavia scolded, giving her companion a smack on the shoulder.
Flash looked genuinely taken aback as he reached for his shoulder. “Hey!”
“How do you feel?” Octavia repeated, perhaps a tick or two more demanding than the last time.
“I feel… fine!”
“You just relived some extremely traumatic memories, Flash!” Octavia barked. “How do you feel?!”
Flash’s jaw worked as he tried to come up with a word. “M-messy, okay?”
Octavia’s brow furrowed. “Messy?”
“I feel like a—like a mess!” Flash insisted. “I feel like I’ve spent my whole life doing crap because other ponies told me it’d be good for me, and I never learned how to be… me!”
He said it with frustration. As if it were a difficult coworker, or an annoying trend, not a borderline personality disorder.
When he was done clenching and unclenching his teeth, though, Flash took a deep breath and allowed his eyes to drift closed.
“I do… the stupidest stuff…” he continued, much softer. “Every time I think I’ve grown up and become my own pony, I just… I just do what my dad would do, or what Trusty would do, or what I think I would do—I never do what I would do! Like—well, like—”
Flash stopped himself.
He blinked.
Octavia leaned forward, ever so slightly, to carefully watch Flash’s face.
His brows knit together the tiniest bit before turning upward in an expression of… confusion? Embarrassment? Before Octavia could decide, he actually cracked a tiny smile. The tiniest, stupidest smile. A smile that is uncontrolled, and suppressed before it can break out into something massively idiotic.
Flash started to chuckle.
Octavia chuckled, as well. More as a reaction to Flash’s chuckle than of any humorous realization. “Um… what is it?”
“I hit on Twilight,” Flash said, laughing all the while.
Octavia kept on chuckling, though it took on a tone of confusion. “You… hm?”
Flash shook his head again, his face all but breaking in two with the goofy grin he wore. “I hit on her!”
Octavia frowned. “Well, of course you did. You dated her.”
“Not then,” Flash managed to get out as his head bowed towards the sand. “Just now. In the hotel.”
Though the phrase ‘just now’ was a bit strange given the circumstances, Flash’s meaning slowly dawned on Octavia.
“I tried to kiss her!”
Just now.
In the hallway.
While Vinyl and Octavia had the fight they’d never had.
“You did what?”
Flash, now breaking down in hysterical tears, buried his face in his hooves. “I thought Vinyl had broken up with her!” he all but squeaked, still giggling and sniffling. “And I just—I just—"
Octavia's mouth hung open, unable to conjure any words at all as she watched Flash fall apart in the sand.
She supposed, in all honesty, she could picture it: a dejected Twilight, exhausted and angry, sitting alone in the hallway. Flash trying to fix it. Flash misunderstanding the situation and going in for a kiss. Likely propositioning a one-night stand to make it all better.
It was, perhaps, a childish frat boy's solution. But Flash was a bit of a childish frat boy.
Sometimes.
Sometimes he took offense to hypocritical practical jokers. Sometimes he’d stand in the throng of young mares at a party and talk about stupid things. Sometimes he’d hit on a princess at exactly the wrong instance.
But he’d also listen to you complain about your mother. He’d cook you soup and build sandcastles and throw mud at you when you were acting like a bit of a nob. He’d hold your mane when you got sick. He’d sleep on the floor so you could have the bed.
And that was pretty alright.
Octavia looked at him, all but crying in awe of his own stupidity, and saw what he meant about not being himself.
She could almost see the line which divided him from his father, his mother, his friends… the way his mind was split into pieces for each pony that had ever had an impact in his life. The way he was a mish-mash of all the ponies he knew.
Maybe that was how everyone was. Deep down, at least.
Maybe Octavia had those lines, too.
That was a surprisingly wonderful thought. Not because she was certain she had a piece of her mother in her, but because she was certain she had a piece of Vinyl.
Of Fiddlesticks.
Of herself.
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” Octavia said, laughter on her lips. Laughter in every word. Laughter even in the space between them.
This only renewed Flash’s utterly manic energy, and his cackling resumed at twice the volume.
And she felt it.
The line between Octavia and Octavia’s mother.
The choice to stand on one side or the other.
“What did she do?” Ocatvia asked, in the cadance of a young filly exchanging sleepover gossip.
Flash sucked in a breath between bouts of laughter. “She yelled at me a bunch and called me an asshole,” he said. “Which is—”
“Fair,” Octavia interrupted, smirking.
“It’s fair,” Flash agreed, his snickering fading at last. “Very fair.”
Octavia nodded, ghosts of laughter still on her lips.
Flash’s erratic breathing slowed more and more, settling once again into a calm, low rhythm. Octavia felt it as she leaned softly into him—or perhaps as he leaned into her.
“But, honestly, who cares?” Octavia said suddenly. Softly.
Flash snorted, wiping at the tears which streaked down his cheeks. “You, to start,” he said. “Me. I’ll take a wild guess and say Twilight probably cares.”
Octavia sighed. “We all do stupid things we don’t mean,” she said. “And stupid things we do mean. And stupid things that aren’t that stupid.”
Flash nodded. “That’s beautiful,” he said. Only half-kidding.
“Shut up,” Octavia replied.
Flash snickered to himself.
He ran a hoof over his mane, and the last of the product released its industrial-strength hold on that ridiculous faux-hawk.
It was long. She could have guessed that based upon height alone, but there was something different about its length now that it hung down against his cheek. It reminded her of… well. It was blue, and long, and jagged, and she'd known others with manes like that.
Octavia wondered if Flash might be made up of pieces of the ponies she knew.
She reached up to paw at her own mane. Her hoof quickly tired of the wisp-thin hair and traveled along her jawline to her chin, where she found the dried remains of her last sick.
She suddenly felt quite dirty. Especially next to someone who weathered it all so well. So completely. Despite how such a skill might have weighed on him.
Flash cleared his throat, and Octavia was struck by the irrational fear that he had somehow heard all of those private musings.
If he had, though, he kept it to himself.
Instead, Flash Sentry pushed himself up onto all four hooves and stretched like a cat after a long nap in the sun. With a shake, all of the sand that had settled in his fur rained down on the castle below him.
Octavia looked up at him, dusting sand from her face with one hoof. “Where are you going?”
“I think I’m gonna take a swim,” Flash said simply, brushing the sand off his own forelegs. “You wanna come with?”
He looked out at the ocean, brushing his mane back from his face. "Uh…"
Flash rolled his eyes. "Come on, Tavi. I don't bite," he said.
He held out a hoof. Like a gentleman. Like a prince.
Octavia looked at it, not quite suspicious but certainly surprised. After a moment's consideration, she carefully placed her own tiny hoof in Flash's gigantic one, and felt herself tugged up from her divot in the sand.
Flash smiled. "There y'go," he said. "Knew you couldn't resist."
He ruffled her mane.
She laughed and batted his hoof away. Even though she didn't mean it.
Flash gave her a quick pat on the shoulder—the sort of touch exchanged between teammates before a game of buckball—and said, "c'mon!" before setting off across the sand. He cantered like it was nothing. Like the constant sinking and shifting didn't throw him off in the least.
Octavia, not nearly as certain, followed in a strangely-paced approximation of walking. The sand tried to swallow her hooves at every step.
But, the closer they were to the water, the firmer the sand became.
Octavia gained her confidence.
She walked, cantered, galloped into the waiting water, her mane streaming out behind her like an obsidian flag.
When her hooves finally met the ocean, she let out a tiny, involuntary sound of surprise.
Flash halted instantly and looked back at his friend. "Tavi? Are you okay?" he called, genuine concern in his voice.
"It's cold!" was all Octavia could squeak out.
Flash let out a loud, strong laugh. "That's half the fun, dummy!"
Octavia didn't quite agree with that, but she braced herself and plunged forward.
The chill shot a bolt of cold up her spine, causing her to seize a moment before her stride was renewed. The waves, gentle as they were, crashed against her legs in great arcs. The soft fur on her stomach was soaked in just a few strides. But Octavia did not stop at just a few strides.
She leapt over the lines of foam, clumsy and sinking and slipping as she plunged ever deeper.
Flash led the way ahead of her, fording into the ocean like an ox across a stream. His enormous frame and barrel chest kept him from needing to leap over the incoming waves. His wings, held out at his sides, cast great shadows over the water, and caused him to look even bigger.
Octavia paused. A wave hit her, and she faltered as the sand shifted under her.
It was a strange thing to watch. Flash only walked, pressing forward into the water even as his wings disappeared beneath the surface.
"Flash!" Octavia called. "Wait for me!"
He glanced back over his shoulder, smirked, and plunged into the ocean.
Octavia gasped softly, then sprung forward and met the next wave with the full force of her chest.
Her hooves paddled wildly, likely in terrible form, as she struggled against the waves. They were stronger than she had anticipated. She found herself fighting to keep her head above water, working every limb as hard as she could, paddling, paddling, flailing, and then—
The biggest wave. One that submerged her completely, knocked her back a bit.
She fought against it. Even as she lost her bearings completely, tossed and tumbled in the ocean, she fought to swim forward and up and through.
And, when she breached the surface of the water, it was calm.
Not an eerie calm. Not an unearned calm. The natural stillness that lies beyond the breakers. That hidden serenity of the open ocean, where one can float in peace and disappear into the foam.
Octavia spun in a slow circle. "Flash?" she called. "Where've you gone?"
She looked back out to shore, though she saw no sign of the pegasus.
"Flash!" Octavia shouted.
No response.
She grit her teeth and inhaled, ready for one last shout, only to be interrupted by a sudden force from below.
Octavia let out half a scream as Flash rocketed up and out of the water, holding Octavia on his shoulders and laughing wildly. He, of course, could not stay upright, and so crashed back down into the water, taking Octavia with him.
Her limbs flailed as she tried to resist the pull back down into the water, but she only managed to get in a good, deep breath before she was driven underwater by her companion.
The pair fought to disentangle themselves from one another, splashing wildly, giggling gleefully.
"See?" Flash said, the echoes of laughter still in his speech. "Not cold anymore, is it?"
Octavia shook the water from her face. "Speak for yourself—I'm freezing!" she howled.
"Oh, pft." Dismissive, but not substantive. To make up for it, Flash used one hoof to splash Octavia with a small arc of icy ocean water.
Octavia gasped. Utterly scandalized.
She splashed back.
It wasn't the first time the pair of ponies found themselves in a wrestling match. Octavia was reminded of the mud, the alcohol, very likely the piss and bike which had splattered against her the previous night. Or perhaps the same night. Or perhaps it didn't matter.
But this was different. Not because she found the ocean to be cleaner than the mud (in fact, she was privately certain it was much worse), but because of the sound.
It was maybe a silly thing to notice. But it sounded different.
The splashing of the water was lighter, gentler. Rather than being accompanied by a chorus of ooh-ing and ah-ing from a crowd, this was just the two of them. Two ponies, laughing without words, their mouths tasting or saltwater.
She dove for Flash.
Flash ducked beneath the surface.
Octavia paused for only a moment, sucked in a deep breath, and dove after him.
When Octavia opened her eyes, she found that the water was clear.
Remarkably clear.
Crystal clear.
Flash Sentry floated before her, suspended in the water like a dust mote in the air, beaming.
He looked nothing like he had when the two of them had first met. However long ago that was.
He looked new.
He looked… not quite messy, but not quite clean, either. A healthy mess. A purposeful mess. A collage. A cluster of neon sticky notes poking out of a favorite book.
She wondered if she might look the same to him.
Even the thought made her smile. A little cloud of bubbles rose from between her lips as she did.
Flash returned the smile, and his own column of bubbles, before paddling to the surface. Octavia followed his lead and broke the surface with a loud gasp.
Lost in each other's faces, the pair hardly noticed that the ocean floor was rushing up towards them, and that the surface was sinking down to meet them. It wasn't until hooves met sand and their ears met the fresh air that they noticed anything was amiss.
They looked at one another. Not in fear, not even in confusion. In the mutual understanding that this chapter was about to come to a close.
The ocean drained away.
Just like that.
Like the tide running out.
And, in only a moment, they were back in the hallway, staring at one another, each standing on their own four hooves.
They stood here a long moment. Perhaps thinking. Perhaps not. What precisely went through each of their minds is impossible to say, though they did not move from one another as they stood and thought.
Flash was the first to laugh.
Octavia was not long behind.
They laughed, leaning on each other, as they soaked the ugly carpet with seawater.
Neither felt badly about it in the least.