//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4 
// Story: A melody of the Night 
// by Etyco Filly 
//------------------------------//

	Octavia woke up in the early afternoon. It had been four months since her first date with her marefriend, and they had only grown closer. So close even, that one week earlier they decided, on Octavia's request, to visit the earth pony's parents. She then sent a letter informing them of her visit to “introduce them to somepony”.
Now, the cellist kept pacing through the hallways of Canterlot Castle, obviously stressed out of her mind by her “announcement” later that day. She really needed to calm down.



She really needed to calm down, it was going to be a long day, and tired as she was, it wasn't going to be easy, she really didn't need stress to make it even harder. The cellist hadn't slept much, actually sleeping was too hard while in the same bed as Luna, and while she did manage to fall asleep eventually, a loud noise from outside their room had woken her far too early. 
With consciousness came back stress, and with stress came back her inability to sleep. Normally, burying her face in her Lunar Plushie helped her calm down and fall asleep (at least when she wasn't busy burying her face in her), but that had only served to remind her of the reason behind her stress.
After roughly half an hour of aimless walking around the castle, the cellist's eyes got caught on a pony near the end of the hallway. Was that Vinyl? What was she doing he- A loud pop interrupted her train of thought, and the supposed DJ disappeared in a flash of light. Weird. 
Octavia needed a coffee.



One cup of coffee later, she was finally alive. The cellist didn't usually need coffee to start her day, but sleep deprivation affected her harder than anyone she knew. That hallucination from earlier didn't really surprise her, but it wasn't going to happen again, at least not that day.
Just as Octavia stood up, a deep blue alicorn entered her view.
“Morning, Luna. I'm surprised you're up already.”
“Couldn't sleep after I woke up without you. How long have you been awake?”
“Err, around thirty minutes? I don't know. What time is it, anyway?”
“Early.” responded Luna, her expression turning to disgust. Her face returning to normal she resumed. “And that means we still have a lot of time before meeting your parents. What are we gonna do? After I'm done with my coffee, of course.”
“I thought of practising my cello for a while, but I don't know about that that now. Any ideas?”
“Why not do that? You know I love your playing, and I believe it'll help us both stay calm.”



“Are you sure about this?”
“Not really, but it's not like I have a choice, really. I've already told them I'd be bringing somepony home for tea. I can't just ditch them like that.”
“Well, you could just go there alone and say your special somepony couldn't make it because of some emergency at work – I could make something up really quick, there's always something to do as the ruler of Equestria.”
“That would work, but what's the point? Postponing something that has to happen will only make the situation more awkward. They're my parents, they deserve to know what happens in my life.”
Luna replied with a grunt that faintly resembled “okay”.
After five more minutes of walking through the streets of Canterlot, the earth pony mare suddenly turned right, stopping in front of a tall freshly renovated building, whose light blue colour made it stick out in the middle of the Classic Canterlot. It also had two doors, one made out of solid oak, the other made of glass, leading into a staircase.
“We're here. My parents own the building. They bought the whole thing just a few months before I was born. Their flat takes up the entire ground floor, while the other storeys are made available for a relatively low rent. They've basically retired at a young age and are now living off their fortune.
“I'm gonna go and knock now. Just follow the plan.”
Octavia approached the wooden door and knocked three times. Soon after, Octavia's mother, a middle aged golden unicorn mare with a light brown mane opened the door, an honest smile adorning her face.
“Oh hello Octavia, you're early.”
“Oh, I am? Haha funny. Must've underestimated the time needed to get here.” She wasn't nervous, she was perfectly calm, her breathing wasn't faster than that one time she had accidentally had an adrenalin injection. She could still speak. She was perfectly fine.
“Err, wouldn't it be overestimated in that case? Anyway, I don't see your coltfriend anywhere, did he get impeded by something?” Alright, maybe she was a little nervous, but she couldn't let that get to her. She needed to follow the plan.
“Actually, mum...” Having guessed her cue, the hiding alicorn stepped into view. “This is my marefriend, Luna.”
The older mare kept smiling for a few seconds, before passing out.
After a few moments of silence, the grey mare spoke up again. “Well, that went better than expected.”
Just then, a large light grey stallion who looked younger than was stepped into the hallway and spotted his wife by the door. After running up to where she laid, he looked up, opening his mouth, as if to question Octavia about what had happened. However when he spotted the mare standing next to his daughter, an understanding grin spread on his lips.
“Oh, hello Octavia, I see you've brought your marefriend. Come in, we'll do introductions in just a sec, I just need to lay down Golden on the couch.”
As they entered the living room, the couple sat down on a couch, while Octavia's father lay down the unconscious mare on the couch across the table from them. He moved to the armchair on the side of said table as if to sit down, then turned towards the kitchen. “I had better make some tea. I'll be right back.”
Just as he said, after a few moments he returned to the living room. “Alright, now that I've set the water to cook, let's get started. I don't suppose I need an introduction from you, Princess, but I'm Paperstack, Octavia's father. I used to be a simple bureaucrat, but I stumbled onto an interesting investment, which ended up making me rich. Not wealthy, just rich. Enough to retire very early with my wife.” He glanced over at the unconscious mare. “And this is, quite obviously, her. She's where Octavia got her musical talent. She used to play professionally, and now she plays for smaller audiences at charity auctions, for example.”
This apparently spiked Luna's curiosity, her ears turning towards her interlocutor “Oh? What instrument does she play?”
Paperstack beamed proudly. “Oooh, many, and all of them perfectly, too many to just go through them mentally. She does have a personal favourite, though. The violin.”
“Oh wow, that's pretty impressive.”
“It is. Albeit unlike her daughter she doesn't compose.” After a short silence he added “I do feel bad for talking in her stead, but what can we do? Have an awkward conversation about the weather until she wakes up?”
And so the three of them chatted for the better part of an hour – the princess and former bureaucrat doing most of the talking, and Octavia chiding in from time to time to comment on or correct something that was said. Ironically, the topic of weather did come up.
“... Yeah, my big sister does that all the time too. I guess that's big sisters for you. Oh perfect, you're awake honey, and you owe me hundred bits.” The musician only groaned in response, then proceeded to greet her guests with more enthusiasm.
A debt, though, what could that mean? Just before Octavia could try to satisfy her curiosity, her lover asked a question of her own. “How can she owe you hundred bits? Don't you two share your funds?”
“Well, we made a bet.” He paused a moment, thoughtful. “You see, while we possess a rather satisfying amount of money, it's by far not infinite. We have to give ourselves allowances in order to avoid spending all of our money and ending up having to work again. Next month I shall get hundred more bits to spend, at her expense.” Octavia's parents were both very organised, one due to his former job, and the other just by nature, and their finances were perfectly planned out over about fifty years. They had even admitted to their daughter she would get around a fifth of their current wealth after their death, not that this was the happiest topic. Forty percent would go to charity purposes.
“Dad, what was the bet about? Did you bet on me?”
“Yes, your mum and I got curious about why you never expressed a crush or had a coltfriend before. I ended up betting you liked mares, and she bet you were straight but you just hadn't found 'the right one' yet.”
“Huh, okay then. Now that I think of it, it doesn't really surprise me, neither your bet, or the fact that you bet.”
“Oh and honey,” Golden Note said “you should know that I'm not shunning you, I just want you to be happy. I just wasn't expecting it. Neither that nor Princess Luna appearing on my doorstep. I am curious though, how did it happen?”
“Well, it was about four months ago, at the royal wedding...”



Luna had just set the moon when the couple decided to leave for the castle. They had a date planned later that night and preparations needed to be done, after all.
“There's just something I don't understand Octavia. How the hell did you think they were going to shun you for being into mares? They really didn't seem like ponies who would do that... Well, I don't know, I've only met them a few hours ago.”
“To be honest, I don't know either how I could think that. My father is pretty much the most relaxed pony in Equestria, and my mum hates high society and their antics so much that I've seen her change her opinion on something just because it was the same as most important ponies. I swear I still don't know how she's so popular with all the ponies she insulted – directly or indirectly – throughout her life.”
“And I still don't know how your father can sound so uptight, but still be the most relaxed stallion I've ever met, at least during my life in this hectic and stressful modern society. Before my banishment there were those ponies that called themselves oracles. They were basically stoners. Oh, that reminds me, Celestia wanted to talk to me when we get back, said you could come too.”
“Wait a second, how do stoners remind you of Princess Celestia?”
“It's a long story.”



“Where is she? She should be in here.” said Luna as they entered her sister's cabinet. “I doubt she's already asleep, especially since I told her we would likely be here after nightfall. I think I should go check her chambers, instead of staying here and hoping she'll turn up before morning...”
Turning to the door, the alicorn was suddenly startled by a loud “pop”, followed by a scroll appearing out of nowhere. She swiftly picked it up and read it. “Says she'll be here in a moment.” 
A companionable silence soon settled in, only to be broken by the princess of the night: “Actually, while we wait, there's something I wanted to talk to you about. There's a spell called Alicorn Marriage. While it's still way too early to think about that, I want you to know about it. It essentially allows the caster – an alicorn – to give up a tiny fragment of their power in order to make their partner immortal. It's fairly complicated though and I won't go into details, it's also said to only work for true love, but I'm not entirely sure about that.” she hesitated a while before resuming her speech. “The reason I'm telling you this is because the last time I felt this way, the mare left me. It turned out she only did it to avoid hurting me by dying on me. So know this, if it turns out we're, as they call it, 'made for each other', we can work around that problem.” By the end of her sentence, the lunar princess was slightly blushing – enough to be visible through her dark blue coat.
The grey mare kissed the blue one.

The end.