Octavia was beginning to get very tired of sitting alone in the park and of having nothing to do: she had listened to the tape player Vinyl had left behind, but it had no vocals or physical instruments in it, and what is the use of music, thought Octavia, without vocals or physical instruments?
Vinyl had not been gone for very long, but a combination of the summer midday heat and the silence of a Vinyl-less environment had left Octavia feeling rather sleepy and slow. It is, therefore, rather understandable that when she saw a white colt pass by and spied the cello case slung across his back and read the words “Property of Octavia Philharmonica” printed along the side of the cello case, the first thought that crossed Octavia’s mind was: That colt has a very nice cello case.
The second thought, for those who are curious, was That son of a bitch, followed by a flurry of activity as she slid off of the park bench and ran towards the colt.
“You!” shouted Octavia. “Stop! Thief!”
The thief was, however, a thief and thieves have a tendency to not listen when told to stop. In fact, they do almost exactly the opposite of stopping in that they tend to move faster. Typically in the direction away from whatever is telling them to stop.
And so, Octavia found herself running through Canterlot’s central park, chasing after a white colt whom, despite the hindrance of the cello case, was very quick on his hooves. Indeed, he was a good deal faster than Octavia, steadily pulling ahead as the chase continued, but he was unable to escape Octavia and her rabid devotion to her cello.
The thief wove in and out of trees, avoiding the set paths whenever possible, and Octavia followed him every step of the way, panting and sweating as she was. She followed even as the thief made a sharp turn and beelined towards the lake that was Canterlot Park’s central feature.
“You’re kidding,” Octavia muttered in disbelief. Then, louder: “You’re kidding!”
The thief did not respond, continuing his dash towards the water.
“You’ll warp the wood!” Octavia put on an extra burst of speed, aiming to intercept the thief before he took his swim.
As previously mentioned, however, the thief was a good deal faster than Octavia. The cellist let out a groan of frustration as the colt dove into the lake, a groan which turned into a yelp as Octavia tried to stop and instead found herself slipping against the grass.
Oh, buck me, thought Octavia as she took a deep breath, tumbled forward and broke the lake's surface. And Octavia fell.
And she fell.
And she fell.
And she fell.
Octavia fell so far that she had the time to think: Well, I certainly am falling very far. I hope that there's nothing hard at the bottom of this fall, for it is a very long one. Oh, for some reason there's no need for me to hold my breath despite the fact that I'm underwater. Or, I think I'm underwater. How strange.
Of course, this is not what Octavia thought, though she certainly had the time to think it, if she so chose. Instead, her thoughts were more along the lines of: This is going to be very cold. Then: This isn't cold at all. Then: What is happening? WHAT IS HAPPENING?!
And then Octavia did not think very much of anything, merely wondered at her current situation as she floated down and down, never picking up or losing speed.
Well, at least I'm not actually wet.
Octavia landed in a shallow pool of water, thoroughly soaking her hooves.
Joy.
Octavia stepped out of the puddle, kicking out her hooves in an attempt to dry them. This was a largely useless activity, however, and mainly succeeded in dousing the area immediately around Octavia with several droplets of water while still leaving a rather wet layer of water on her hooves.
“What a bother,” muttered Octavia, wiping her hooves on the grass she stood upon, “I would have brought a towel if I knew that I was going for a swim.”
Her hooves now a fair bit drier than before, Octavia looked up from the ground.
It was very green around the puddle; a sheet of dark green grass that stretched up to a wall of vines, bushes, and trees that formed an almost perfect ring around the puddle. Perfect, that is, save for a thin path that lead off in a perfectly straight line.
However, Octavia was not focused on the grass nor the vines nor the bushes or the trees or the nearly perfect ring that they formed around the puddle. Octavia's eyes were focused on the acid green unicorn whose face poked from the ring of vines and bushes and trees. A face topped with a bright red propeller hat and flecked with droplets of water.
"Quick Quill?" asked Octavia. "Is that you?"
Quick Quill gasped, darting backwards into the wall of vines and bushes and trees. His voice was just audible: “She speaks! Falls down from the sky, lands in a pond, then speaks!”
Another head, this one blue, but wearing the same propeller hat, poked through the plants.
“Snap Shot?” asked Octavia.
Snap Shot gasped as well, darting back into the bushes just as Quick Quill had. “She does speak! And speaks rather finely at that!”
“Doesn’t she?” asked Quick Quill’s voice.
“She does!” confirmed Snap Shot.
“What are you two doing here?” asked Octavia.
Both heads poked out of the wall of green, throwing a questioning glance at Octavia.
“Doing here?” asked Snap Shot.
“I don’t think we’re doing much of anything here,” said Quick Quill.
“A bit of standing—”
“—a bit of leaning—”
“—a bit of speaking—”
“—which you do wonderfully, by the way,” added Quick Quill.
“You really do,” confirmed Snap Shot. “Especially for somepony who fell from the sky. You don’t even have a pair of wings.”
“Indeed she doesn’t!”
Octavia shut her eyes, reeling slightly from the onslaught of words. “Perhaps that was the wrong question. Where am I? Did you two fall into the pool as well?”
“Pool, ma’am?” asked the pair in tandem, their heads tilting slightly.
“Yes, pool. In Canterlot Central Park.”
Their heads tilted the other way. “Canterlot, ma’am?”
Octavia blinked, throwing her own questioning look at the two. “Snap Shot, Quick Quill, are you both feeling well?”
“Quick Quill?” asked Snap Shot.
“Snap Shot?” asked Quick Quill.
“I’m afraid we don’t know anypony by those names,” said not-Snap Shot. Then, too not-Quick Quill: “Do we, Tweedledum?”
“Do we, Tweddledee?”
“I don’t think we do.”
They nodded at each other, then turned towards Octavia. “We don’t,” they said resolutely.
“I… I see.” Octavia took a step backwards. “It’s just, you both look remarkably like two ponies I know.”
“Sounds about right,” said Snap Shot (who was really Tweedledee, but whom we shall continue to refer to as Snap Shot for convenience’s sake).
“Indeed,” agreed Quick Quill (who was really Tweedledum, but whom we shall refer to as Quick Quill for convenience’s sake).
Octavia narrowed her eyes slightly. “How so?”
“Well,” began Snap Shot, “we look like two ponies—”
“—two ponies that you know,” added Quick Quill.
“Quite right, two ponies that you know. And we are, in fact, two ponies.”
“Two ponies that you know.”
“As we are two ponies that you know, I see know reason that we wouldn’t look like two ponies that you know.”
“Marvelously reasoned,” complimented Quick Quill.
Octavia took another step back. “Yes, fantastic. I really must be going, however; a thief made off with my cello some time ago. I don’t suppose you’ve seen a white colt with a cello case pass through here?”
“Have we, Tweedledee?” asked Quick Quill.
“Have we, Tweedledum?”
“I think we have!”
Again, the pair turned towards Octavia. “We have!” they said in tandem, adding nothing more.
“I see.” Octavia paused. “Would you mind pointing me in the proper direction?”
Each one of the Tweedles poked a hoof through the wall of plants, pointing towards the path behind Octavia.
“He went that way,” said Snap Shot.
“Indeed he did. Went that way very quickly.”
Octavia turned her head, glancing down the very straight and rather narrow path. She turned back towards the Tweedles, nodding slightly. “Thank you for your help.”
“No trouble,” said Quick Quill.
“No trouble at all,” agreed Snap Shot.
And without further ado, Octavia turned sharply, heading down the path and away from the puddle at perhaps a faster pace than was strictly necessary.
“Those two,” she muttered to herself, “are enough of a headache in a normal situation.”
The path was perfectly straight, without so much as a hint of a curve. For the first ten minutes, perhaps, dense vegetation surrounded its sides before giving away, and giving away rather abruptly at that, to a seemingly endless field of grass.
Octavia took a few steps forward, squinting slightly and raising a hoof to defend herself against the sudden influx of sunlight. She hadn’t realized just how much protection the bushes and vines and trees had afforded her against the sun until she no longer had them.
In time, however, Octavia’s eyes adjusted to the new lighting conditions. She looked down, prepared to follow her path once more.
And she saw grass, same as all of the other grass in the endless sea of grass she currently stood upon.
“Oh dear,” Octavia muttered to herself. “Well, no matter, I can simply turn around and reorient myself with the jungle path.”
Octavia turned, feeling rather proud of herself for having come up with such a clever plan, only to find that there was no jungle at all behind her, merely more grass.
“Joy,” said Octavia in a manner that was decidedly not joyful. “Well, there’s that. I suppose that I’ll simply have to carry on using only my natural sense of direction. The sun was in my eyes when I started, so I must have been going… this way! Maybe.”
Having no better hunch to go on, Octavia headed towards the sun, squinting slightly as she did so, but carrying on in her struggle. She walked for quite a while. Or, it might not have been long at all. It was quite difficult to tell, really; Octavia could have sworn that the sun was rising and lowering as it pleased. All that could really be said was that, however much Octavia walked, she did not feel hungry or thirsty or tired, though she could have gone without quite so much sun.
Keeping this in mind, one can imagine Octavia’s relief when she found that she had reached a rather expansive tree whose branches cast quite a lot of shade.
“What a stroke of luck,” Octavia said to herself. “An immense tree at the exact moment that I’d gotten fed up with the sunlight. It’s far too convenient, really. Nothing could possibly come of this.”
However, Octavia ignored her brief bout of cynicism, casting Harpo as the culprit behind her pessimism before finding a very comfortable spot right against the base of the tree.
“I’ll just rest here for a while, allow my eyes to rest a bit. Then I’ll find the nearest city and find that thief. And a way back home, as well, I suppose. Cello takes priority.” And Octavia closed her eyes, nestling into her chosen space and breathing a sigh of comfort.
Her eyes shot open.
“But how strange,” Octavia wondered aloud, “to see Snap Shot and Quick Quill here. What did they call themselves? Tweedledee and Tweedledum? I think that was it. What a ridiculous prank to play, if that was indeed a prank.” A slight pause. “In any case, I’m likely worrying myself over nothing; they were probably just very similar looking ponies.” And Octavia shut her eyes once more.
Her eyes shot open again.
“But they weren’t! I’m certain that they were Snap Shot and Quick Quill! But then why didn’t they recognize me? Though they had neither camera nor pen, and I’ve never seen them without their tools before. And they’ve traded in their hats. Not exactly my taste in hats, but I must say that the propellers rather fit their personali—”
“Would you shut up already!” came a rather scratchy voice from somewhere above Octavia’s head. “Some of us are trying to nap!”
Octavia jumped, nearly slamming her head against the tree’s trunk. She looked up towards the branches, but saw nothing but wood and fluttering leaves.
“Who’s there?” Octavia called.
“I’m there,” replied the voice. “Well, actually, I’m here, but my here is your there, so it all kind of works itself out.”
A pause. “Vinyl? Is that you?”
A pair of bright purple shades faded into existence on the branches above Octavia. “Not Vinyl, but it’s definitely me. At least, I think it is. See, because this is me, and I’m pretty sure that your that is my this, but you might have been talking to a branch or something, so I’m not totally sure.”
As the voice spoke, bits and pieces of the source of the voice manifested behind the shades. First a two-toned blue mane, then a cheeky grin, then the eyes, mostly invisible behind the purple lenses, until the entirety of Vinyl’s body had joined her voice.
“Were you talking to a branch?” asked Vinyl.
“I wasn’t.”
“Yeah, they’re not very good conversation.” Vinyl’s head tilted slightly. “Are you any better?”
“Better than a branch?”
“Well, you never know.” Vinyl disappeared, reappearing a moment later, her face a few inches from Octavia’s. “Have you ever spoken to a pony that made you wish you were speaking to a branch instead?”
“I’ve never wanted to speak to a branch. And I don’t think a branch would be able to respond, even if I did.”
“But it’s easier to talk at a branch than to speak with a brick wall,” replied Vinyl with a grin.
“That seems a rather cynical viewpoint.”
Vinyl shrugged. “I can be cynical and still be right.”
“You’re sounding like Harpo.”
“Really? I think I’d like to meet him.”
Octavia knit her brow. “What do you mean? Harpo is—” She broke off, staring at a spot just above Vinyl’s head.
“Harpo is what?”
“You… you have cat ears.”
“Really?” asked Vinyl. She reached a hoof up to her very cat-like ears and plucked one off. “Hey, you’re right! I thought I’d lost them!”
“Lost your ears?”
“Better than losing my head.” Having said that, Vinyl returned her ear to its place, fixing Octavia with a wide grin.
“Who are you?” asked Octavia.
Vinyl pulled a face. “I hate that question. Anyone who asks that question always expects some big, fancy answer and I’m not very good at those.”
“Then what’s your name?”
“That’s an even worse question. It’s not really my name, after all.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, a name is given, isn’t it? That means it must have belonged to somepony else at one point and I can never really own something that has belonged to somepony else.”
“But you’ve stolen cellos.”
“But I’ve never really owned one. Anyway, don’t you have another cello thief to be worrying about?”
“You’re right!” Octavia jumped to her hooves. “You said that you’ve seen him. Which way did he go?”
“He went This way,” replied Vinyl without pointing.
“Which way?”
“No, This way. Which way goes the other way.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
Octavia scowled. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that Which way doesn’t really matter to you. What matters is that you can go This way”—VInyl gestured towards the left of the tree—“or That way.” And here, Vinyl gestured towards the right.
“What’s the difference?” asked Octavia.
“About three letters.”
Octavia paced from left to right, glancing past the tree. “Both ways look the same to me.”
“I’m sure they do.”
“And you said that the thief went this way?”
“He did,” confirmed Vinyl.
“Then I should go this way.”
“If you want to go down a thief’s path.”
“Oh.” Octavia paused. “That doesn’t sound very pleasant.”
Vinyl shrugged. “The thief doesn’t mind it much.”
“Do both ways take me to the same place?”
Vinyl considered this for a moment. “If you followed them for long enough they’d probably reach the same place eventually.”
“That’s not very reassuring.”
“Yeah, but when has choosing a way ever been reassuring?”
Octavia paced a few more times, looking as far down each path as she could. No matter how far she looked, she could see no differences.
“Made up your mind yet?” asked Vinyl.
Octavia frowned. “If it’s all the same, I’d rather not follow in the path of a thief. I’ll head that way.”
“Suit yourself,” said Vinyl with a shrug. “Whatever way you choose, just remember that there’s no way back. At least, no way along that way.”
“And why is that?”
Vinyl seemed surprised at the question. “Well, that’s the way ways work here.”
“I see… Where is ‘here,’ exactly?”
“Here is where we are right now.”
“And where are we right now?”
Vinyl grinned. “Well, we’re in a plain with one really big tree. It doesn’t really have a name, though. See, there’s only one place that really matters here, so that’s the only place that gets a name.” She paused, her grin growing slightly wider. “And that’s Wonderland.”