The sun shone bright as ever that balmy, late-July morning as Octavia walked away from the Rainbow Record. Mundane, mostly-harmless radiation beat down on the concrete sidewalks and asphalt roads, slowly baking the industrial turf. Hard light glanced off the framework of still-unfinished buildings, like steel claws reaching towards the sky. Manehattan seemed like a beast frozen in the the moment, waiting for the other hoof to drop, so to speak.
But Octavia couldn't worry about that. The train to Canterlot left in two hours.
Her seat would still be there, of course. Whether or not she remained part of the orchestra, she'd already paid for the round trip. The train company wouldn't care about her actions the night before, so long as the bits were in the right coffers. Such went the flow of business.
But that was just about the only thing she didn't worry about as she walked down the long streets of Manehattan. In the full light of the morning sun, she saw just how dangerous this place could have been. Narrow alleys provided ample opportunities for horrors unspeakable, and even now Octavia could pick out shifty characters loitering in the shadows.
At least she did not walk alone. The streets were populated with a thin spread of ponies going through their morning routines. There weren't enough of them for her to lose herself in the crowd, but Octavia kept her eyes straight ahead and her pace brisk, as if she was determined to get somewhere. Basic psychology—the more she looked like she had somewhere to be, the less likely another pony would bother her.
Gradually, as she neared the wider streets of Middle Manehattan, her mind drifted back to the apartment. She fully intended to return and thank Vinyl Scratch and Rocksteady properly some day, but she couldn't imagine how. She didn't own much that wasn't still tied in some way to her parents' estate, and though she knew her mother would never go so far as to take back the cello, her father lacked those inhibitions. Disownment was a real possibility, after such a debacle as the previous night, and with her family connections would go most of her capital.
Her parents would be on the train. Meeting them again was already patently inevitable, but the knowledge that their first reunion since the concert would take place in an enclosed, inescapable space did little to calm Octavia's nerves.
And what of her cello? She'd left it at the concert hall, after all. There was no telling if it would be at the hotel, or if somepony might have run off with it. In any case, she simply could not leave in the city. Her mother might forgive her some slights—and even her father had his share of mercy—but to lose that cello fell beyond any public disgrace. Disowned? Her mother might well have her name erased from the family records.
Octavia shook her head violently. Worrying solved nothing. She had to focus on getting by, doing what she could to make things work out. She lived, and her leg didn't hurt anymore. That seemed a good place to start.
She made it to the edge of Grand Park and stopped for a moment to marvel at the wildness of it all. A miniature forest, tucked away within one of the biggest cities in the world. The contrast only served to make the park all the more beautiful. She leaned against the railing and inhaled the scents of life. Just one brief moment of bliss. Even at the end of the world, or whatever this was, she could allow herself that much.
“It certainly is gorgeous, is it not?”
Octavia looked over, and her eyes fell on a stallion. He had a coat as white as a cloud, with blue eyes piercing through like the midday sky. His mane matched them, a soft curl between stubby ears, and a pale blue lightning bolt drifted listlessly against his flank. His wings were folded against his back, but they were obviously quite a bit larger than average. He reminded Octavia of an ancient statue, a classical youth eternally captured in pale marble.
He glanced at her. “The park, I mean.”
“Yes,” Octavia said. “Yes, very pretty.”
“The sun gives the plants a whole new life, metaphorically and literally. The colors you see in raw sunlight are simply incomparable to anything else.” A smile ripped suddenly across the stallion's face, and his eyes shone wide. “Oh, if only moments like these could last forever! Sunny days and cloudless skies, on to eternity!”
“But they can't,” Octavia said softly.
“Eh?”
Octavia shook her head. “Sorry, I just mean that… without the rain, the trees can't grow, you know? And if we had nothing but summer, we'd grow to despise the heat.”
“That's true… I suppose.” The stallion smiled as he extended his hoof. “White Streak. Royal Guard. Currently off-duty.”
Octavia met his hoof. “Octavia Melody, cellist with the Canterlot Royal Symphony.” She grimaced. “Well, formerly, anyhow.”
“Eh? Formerly?”
“String of bad luck. My career is likely going to end today.”
White Streak gave her a sympathetic look. “I'm sorry, miss.”
“It's fine. I must face it eventually, after all.” A pang of momentary melancholy dropped Octavia's gaze to the concrete beneath her hooves. “Hardly the worst thing that's happened today.”
White Streak looked back out at the park, his expression unreadable. “You heard the news, then.”
Octavia inhaled sharply. Something about the way he'd phrased 'the news' not only made it abundantly clear what he spoke of, but also that he had some rather strong feelings about it.
“Yes. Yes I did,” she replied. She lifted her gaze to the park. There were a few ponies out and about. A mother shepherding a rambunctious colt, a teenaged couple cuddling beneath a tree with a textbook, a lone jogger in the distance with no destination in sight. Early risers, perhaps unaware of what had been announced just an hour ago. There was no telling at what point they'd find out.
Octavia glanced at White Streak and caught him staring at her. He tried to disguise it by looking past her down the street. “You believe it?” he asked, lowering his voice.
Octavia sighed. She leaned forward and crossed her forehooves over the railing. “Not really. It's going to be a long time before I can, I think.”
“Mm.” White Streak looked up at the sky. “I don't believe it either.”
Octavia's ear twitched as something in her brain sprang like a tripwire. There was an oddness in White Streak's tone, some subtle clue in the way he worded things. “It's a strange time to be alive,” she said, now alert.
“I couldn't agree with you more, Miss Melody.” White Streak arched his back, and his wings unfolded smoothly, like swords withdrawn from sheaths. It was all Octavia could do not to gape.
They were enormous. The musculature impressed her on its own, but the feathers themselves were just massive. Each one spanned half again as long as Octavia's leg, and wider besides.
He caught her staring, and a smile played across his features. “Impressed?”
“Sorry,” Octavia said. “I didn't mean to stare.” She glanced over again as White Streak folded his wings again, marveling at the smoothness of the motion. “They are quite impressive, if you'll pardon my saying so.”
“I'm afraid they're more trouble than they're worth,” White Streak said with a shake of his head. “It's a genetic defect, or so I'm told. They're cumbersome, even in the air, and they're impossible to groom.”
Octavia relaxed just a bit. “I'd imagine,” she said.
White Streak's smile shifted slightly, and his eyes narrowed. The all-but-imperceptible change caught Octavia's attention once again. Was he trying to impress her? Take her off her guard? He didn't seem… dangerous, and it was the middle of the day, but Octavia kept her guard up all the same. Something definitely felt off.
“So,” White Streak said, as casually as if discussing the weather, “What do you think of Twilight Sparkle, hm?”
Octavia didn't answer right away. The little pony in her head jumped up and down, waving her tiny, imaginary hooves in an attempt to warn about something indistinct yet extremely important. “I think,” Octavia said, finally, “That she is a good person. She seems to me like the sort of pony who… gets things done, you know? Driven would be a good word.”
“Driven indeed. But to what end, I wonder?” White Streak stared off into the distance. “What do you think she plans, Octavia?”
Octavia glanced around. The two of them were alone, and the only other ponies were out of earshot. Again, that nagging feeling that something wasn't right. “I… can't say,” she said. “I'm not her, after all.”
“I can't either, but it does make one wonder. Somepony with Celestia's implicit trust, gaining so much power in such a short time…”
Octavia stopped thinking as White Streak's words well and truly hit her. “Oh?”
“And Celestia, thousands-of-years-old Celestia, suddenly 'dies' of unknown causes—”
“Hold that thought for a moment,” Octavia interjected. She stifled a laugh, before meeting White Streak's eyes. Something in his look kindled a spark, the pieces coming together. “Are you actually, honestly, unironically suggesting to me that Twilight Sparkle had something to do with Celestia's death?”
White Streak started to say something, but Octavia held up a hoof again. He remained silent as she continued. “Twilight Sparkle. The pony known to write letters to Celestia every week, without fail, for years. The same pony whom Celestia raised almost as her own daughter. Who saved Celestia herself on more than one occasion. That Twilight Sparkle.”
“A pony who fairly recently discovered that she could take up Celestia's power as her own,” White Streak countered. “A pony who stands to inherit all of Equestria in Celestia's absence. Is it so far-fetched to think that Star Swirl's so-called heir can match the power of the Queen of the Changelings? To kill Celestia is absurd—for if so, any of a hundred assassins would have done so by now—but to imprison her is not so impossible, especially with Discord in collusion.”
For a moment, Octavia's mind refused to process all of this. When she did, the little pony moved slowly, lingering over every syllable with an imaginary magnifying glass. Slowly, oh so slowly, Octavia's conscious thoughts caught up with what White Streak was implying.
It took every iota of willpower she possessed not to turn and just walk away. “Oh really?” she said through gritted teeth. “So you'd believe that the Prime Bearer of the Elements of Harmony is capable of treachery on such a scale?”
“The Elements of Harmony are tools, Octavia. If the wrong mare inherited their power…”
He went on for some time, but Octavia didn't pay much attention. A kernel of something hot lodged itself in her chest, producing a burning feeling she was vaguely familiar with.
It occurred to her that she'd experienced this feeling before, when she was younger. Seven years old, to be precise.
A typical schoolyard bully had made fun of her for reading during recess. A book on music. He'd grabbed it from her—unicorns could do that—and tossed it into a puddle. Then, he'd stomped on it, laughing at her horrified tears.
The colt had needed stitches. It marked the only time Octavia had ever been suspended. Her parents had been livid. She'd cried for hours. For a long time, she'd considered that day to be the worst of her life. She'd never again come close to that level of emotional distress.
But now, that had changed. Yesterday's events had been far worse any childhood scrap, and Octavia could hardly bear to fathom the consequences she'd face today and in the future.
And then, this morning, she'd discovered that a pony who had seemed a universal constant no longer was. She'd seen the exhaustion on Twilight Sparkle's face and found a kinship in those eyes that were too tired for emotion. Yesterday had been the worst day of Octavia Melody's life. Today was the worst day of Twilight Sparkle's. And Celestia? Celestia was dead.
And now, this stallion, this guardspony, or so he claimed, suggested that that same princess who'd spent the last five years pursuing a life governed by the Elements of Harmony, who'd looked up at her mentor with naught but adoration as she raised the sun, had murdered her teacher just for the throne she sat upon.
On any other day, Octavia would have simply walked away. “He's mad,” she would have told herself. “A conspiracy theorist. A nut. Not even worth my time.”
But yesterday… today… there were no more normal days.
“—betrayed the trust of her mentor, so that she could take Equestria and turn it towards her vision—”
She cut him off. “You are simply wrong,” she said.
“Can you really be so—”
“So certain? So sure? Yes. Yes I can. I am absolutely, entirely certain that you are wrong.” Octavia looked at him, and the knot in her chest twisted tighter.
Anger flashed in White Streak's eyes, and the final pieces fell into place. Octavia could see it now, laid out plainly in those burning blues. He was a performer on a stage, and she the audience. The audience was not to criticize the performer. After all, the performer stood above them, and their words rang with the artist's truth.
“I see that I was wrong. You're just another damned fool deceived by her acts of kindness and her feints of innocence—”
The knot constricted Octavia's heart. Blood pounded in her ears like war drums.
“—do you not see the games she plays? She conspires with Nightmare Moon and Discord! Do you not see the gathering storm!?”
The knot in Octavia's chest exploded.
“Bloody Tartarus!” she screamed. “Do I see? Do I see!? Do you see!?”
He stayed quiet. Octavia's words poured forth, the dam ruptured now. “It's you who doesn't see, you bloody tosspot!” Tears welled in her eyes. “You're inventing justifications because the truth is awful.”
“I invent nothing. Celestia requires us to—”
“Celestia is dead! There is no conspiracy. Something you believed has been disproven, and now you… we are lost.” Octavia shut her eyes. “There is nothing else to it. Why should there be? You spew suppositions and baseless accusations, and you use them to craft a more preferable world for yourself. It is escapism, sir, and I will have none of it!”
Octavia spun about and walked away. She didn't look back.
Two blocks away, she felt the wave surging forth again. She ran across the street, ignoring the angry shout of a carriage driver, and slammed her back against the wall of the first building she could use to block the space between her and White Streak. She leaned against the brick and tried to calm herself, but his words, his bloody implications kept ringing in her head. Octavia shook, tears streaming from her eyes as she glared back at the park.
“How dare you,” she growled, biting her lip to stifle a scream.
It took her almost ten minutes to stop shaking. When she looked back around the corner, White Streak had vanished. She hoped she never had to see him again.
Octavia didn't have any particular love for Twilight Sparkle—the newest Princess and her friends had made a mess of things for the cellist on more than one occasion—but to accuse her of murder scarcely hours after the death of somepony she loved?
It was just bloody cruel.
It took another five minutes before she could find enough composure to leave that spot. As she finally stepped out of the shadow of the building, her anger slowly dulled. She had more important things to worry about than some sick bastard on the street. Her ruined life wasn't going to sort itself out.
The hallways of the hotel rumbled with excitement, and Octavia could see from the types of bags being carried out that it was her… rather, the orchestra formerly hers, causing the commotion. To be expected—they were returning to Canterlot today.
Octavia noticed the stares before the muttering, but she elected to give no indication of her awareness. She simply walked in and up the stairs, without stopping to glance at any of her former compatriots. The door to her room opened at the press of her hoof, recognizing her faint magical pattern with a chime.
She stepped into the room, and her breath caught.
Octavia traveled light, and she'd made the bed before leaving the preceding afternoon. There were only two notable things in the room.
The first was her bowtie. Where she'd lost it, she couldn't say, but somepony had returned it to her room. Octavia reflected on this happily for a moment, but her eyes then moved down…
To the cello case which rested upon her bed.
She ran to it like a lover returned from across the sea and embraced it with all the same fervor. A sob racked her body as she felt the familiar weight, and tears rolled down her cheeks as her shaking hooves undid the clasps. The bowtie slid onto the bedspread, only barely within her senses.
She opened the case only for a moment. Just long enough to take in the details. Just to be sure.
She closed it, and stifled another sob. At least this one thing had gone right. She would have to find whatever pony had delivered it and… find some way to thank them, somehow. How had they gotten in the room? Bribed a cleaning pony…?
There sounded a knock at the door. Octavia stiffened. Time to face the music, perhaps?
What did it matter? She'd come to terms with this ending. She picked up her bowtie and fastened its collar around her neck. Then she heaved the case across her back. This was all she had, but it was hers to carry.
She flung the door wide, expecting to see a fuming producer. Or perhaps Symphonia, the Concertmaster, demanding an explanation for the ruin of an expensive suit.
It was neither of those ponies, though not an entirely unexpected one. “Hello, Miss Octavia,” said Steady Tick.
The conductor himself.
He stood in her doorway, smiling beatifically. The light from the hall behind him rendered him in silhouette. He was a tall, handsome fellow, with a pale brown coat and white mane that gave him a dignified air. Octavia couldn't recall where he hailed from, precisely, but she recalled something about a parent who made violins. A piece of unmarked sheet music adorned his flank.
He was undressed, and there were telltale signs that indicated he'd only just gotten out of bed. A stray strand of mane here, a ruffled patch of coat there. His eyes drooped slightly, and his familiar glasses were missing.
“Ah,” Octavia said. “Mister Tick. I must apologize for yesterday.” She smiled, but she couldn't make the movement feel particularly sincere.
The conductor sighed. “I received word from your doctor after you left. He filled me in on the whole situation. Nasty business.”
Octavia chuckled. That might make things a bit easier. She made a mental note to thank her doctor. A lot of ponies needed thanking. “Well, then I suppose my explaining has been done for me.”
“Indeed.” Steady Tick cocked his head. “So, now the question is… where do we go from here, hm?”
Octavia felt her gut twist. “Indeed.”
“I'm sorry to say that a… first-chair position just isn't going to be possible anymore. Or at least, not in the foreseeable future.”
Octavia nodded. She prepared herself to hold back tears, but they never came.
“I'll do my best to keep you on. The producer wants your head on a plate, but I'm doing my best to calm her down.”
Octavia nodded. She found she just… didn't care. Too numb.
“While a first-chair position isn't possible, I'm fairly certain I could keep you on the orchestra. It's even possible that I could have you placed… hmm… second chair. Under certain conditions.”
Octavia blinked twice as a sudden stab of emotion hit her, something she couldn't quite identify or parse. A smile slithered across Steady Tick's face. The door handle glowed in tandem with his horn, and the door swung closed.
Octavia's mind just blanked. Her imaginary little pony stood and gawked.
“Now, under most circumstances I'd have to expel you from the orchestra entirely. You understand how it is…” Steady Tick's voice dropped into what could only be called a coo. “But there are… certain measures we could take to… ensure that you remain employed. You are, after all, an incredibly talented mare.”
He reached out with a hoof and stroked Octavia's cheek. He started to step forward, as if to push Octavia back towards the bed.
First confusion. Then disbelief. Then…
Then, Octavia realized something.
She'd been bottling a lot of things up, and she'd been doing it a long time. Before she ever joined any orchestra, perhaps even before she'd taken up the cello, she'd learned the noble-pony tradition of showing as little emotion as possible, masking everything behind either a polite smile, indifference—feigned or honest,—or a neutral frown. She hadn't even realized she'd grown tired of it. In all honesty, she wasn't really tired of it. It was simply part of her, a mask sewed to her face.
Her mind drifted back to her schoolyard days, back to that bully and that book. Words she'd used that she'd never breathed since, a feeling so terrible that she'd forced herself to stop feeling. Her parents hadn't truly needed to censure her—she'd done it first. She'd sewn her own mask, stabbing the needle through flesh despite the horrific pain.
She'd pulled at those strings twice already. First at the bar, second with White Streak. Tugging at the mask and letting something else—if not her face, then perhaps her heart—glint past. These were, however, only temporary lapses in the facade, not true breaks from what she'd built herself into. The mask remained fastened. Loosened, but still attached.
She reflected that masks sewed to faces must hurt to tear away, right before she ripped the metaphorical stitches out.
And oh, the glorious pain.
Her lips parted in a vicious snarl. “No.”
Steady Tick froze mid-motion. “What?”
“I'd thought they were just rumors. Dear heavens, I tried to believe that you had some integrity.”
“Octavia, what are you—”
She lunged at him, her teeth bared. Her hooves pressed against his shoulders as she shoved him back onto his hind legs, stumbling, weak, until she had him pinned against the door. “Did you actually believe this would work?” she demanded. “How much self-respect do you think I have?”
“You… vomited on Symphonia's suit,” Steady tick said nervously. "Why... it wouldn't be a stretch to assume you'd arrived at the concert drunk, or better yet, that you'd been abusing some less than legal 'medications'—"
“Really?” Octavia half-screamed. “This is how low you'd stoop? Do my ears deceive me, Mister Tick? Because that sounds like bloody blackmail!” She stomped once, hard enough that she imagined little particles of dust falling from the ceiling in the room below. Oh, what a show they would hear! "Steady Tick," she said—snarled, really. "I'll have you know that I retain my bloody pride. The answer to your 'offer' is, and always will be, NO!"
Steady Tick's face bore the look of a foal whose parents had just denied it a piece of candy. “Very well,” he said averting his eyes as if from an accident on the street. “I suppose I can't guarantee you a place in the orchestra after all—”
At this point, Octavia remembered a specific word that she'd only uttered once.
“That's fucking fine by me!” she screamed. Steady Tick glanced nervously at the thin hotel walls, but Octavia didn't pay him any heed. “You keep your fucking orchestra, and you keep your fucking hooves off of me! I want nothing to do with you, you BLOODY! FUCKING! PRICK!”
“Octavia, please, calm down—”
“Calm down!?” Octavia cackled as the last of her self-restraint evaporated. “CALM DOWN!?"
She pulled back her hoof. The left one. The same one she'd broken scarcely a day ago. She prepared to break it again—right over Steady Tick's nose.
But she saw a flicker in his eyes as he watched her wind up for the blow. A slight curl of the lip, a narrowing of the eye. That was his way out. She'd attack him, maddened, and he would become the victim. Whatever injuries she inflicted would become her crime. No court would side with her with him as the one beaten and bloodied.
She lowered her hoof, saw the confusion in Steady Tick's eyes, and breathed out a long sigh.
She spoke softly this time, looking her very former conductor dead in the eye. “Oh yes, I will show you calm, you bloody waste of skin. If you ever approach me again, I will have you arrested for sexual assault. Because that is what a calm and rational pony would do in this situation. Do you understand me, Mister Tick?”
The conductor nodded. Expressionless.
Octavia smiled. Her eyes twinkled.
Then she spit in his eye. Tick cried out in shock, and Octavia followed up with a kick to the shin. Strong enough to hurt, but not enough that it would look like anything more than a bad accident. Steady Tick dropped. Octavia's hoof hurt, but she didn't care. Celestia could have exploded through the window in all her full glory, Twilight Sparkle could have smashed through the roof as a mangled corpse, and Octavia Melody wouldn't have batted an eye. The end of the world? It could go fuck itself.
She stepped over Tick and pushed the door open. There were a few ponies gathered in the hall, no doubt due to the shouting. Behind her, Tick lay on the hotel floor, whimpering pathetically as he clutched at a bruised shin. The imaginary little pony noted numbly that it all probably made quite a sight.
Without even a thought, she adopted the mask again. She straightened her tie as the blood rushed in her ears, then made sure that the cello case was firmly strapped to her back as the red mist clouding her vision slowly dispersed. She even smoothed down her mane with a swipe of her hoof as the silence fell across her like a leaden blanket.
Her eyes snapped up, meeting those of each observer in turn. “He fell,” she said in a soft voice. “Now has anypony got something to say, or are you all just going to stare like fools until the world runs down?”
The ponies in front of her didn't answer. Instead, they dispersed, either pretending not to care or shooting glances back in her direction as they hastened away. Octavia didn't bother to try and remember if she knew them or not. She started to walk. The pulsing of her heart intensified every moment, like the beating of a big bass drum. Harder, harder. Faster, faster.
She made it halfway down the hall before she broke into a run.