//------------------------------//
// Drama During the Moon Festival! The Adventurous Month Ends Early?! 
// Story: The Adventures of Derpy, Lyra, and Octavia 
// by IsabellaAmoreSirenix 
//------------------------------//

"Absolutely not."

Derpy's eyes widened.  "But Octy," she asked, wearing the most adorable pout, "why?"

Octavia sighed.  How to explain this the proper way.  Of course, it would have been easy to be blunt with anyone, but with Derpy... "I just... I just don't think that going to that party is a good idea."

"But Berry Punch is my friend!  She was so nice to invite me to her party!"

She's also a lot of other things, Octavia thought.  A flirt, a drunkard, a one-night stand.... "Look, darling, there are a great many nice ponies at this academy, but on a night like this, ponies act... differently.  You may not like what you see there.  And..." 

Derpy was still staring up at Octavia with those sad, confused eyes, an endless golden pool of sorrow.  Her mere words couldn't even siphon out one drop.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but Lyra, back me up on this one!" Octavia called over her shoulder.

Lyra looked up from her manuscript.  "I don't know, Octavia," she said while using her magic to lazily trace red ink swirls in the air, "we can't keep her sheltered forever.  The best way for a character to grow is to put him or her in a new environment, after all.  Where's the party going to be held?"

"An abandoned barn outside campus," Octavia said, "and hosted by none other than Berry Punch."

"Really?  Just a barn?  I don't think that'd be big enough to hold all of Berry's liquor... oh."

"Yes, Lyra, good job," Octavia deadpanned. "You could probably get your PhD in brilliant revelations."

Lyra started polishing her hoof by rubbing it against her chest.  "Yes, I most certainly could, couldn't I?  Alas, I fear this world is not ready for the knowledge that I could give it."

"How unfortunate," said Octavia before turning back to Derpy.  "Please, I know it doesn't make much sense, but... just don't go, alright?"

"I know what the problem is, Octy," Derpy whispered at the ground.  "You're worried about Berry drinking."

Octavia took a step back. "Ahh, yes, well, I didn't want to say it in those words, but yes.  Then you know why going to that party would be a bad idea, right?"

Derpy shook her head.  "She's my friend," she repeated.  "I'll listen to what you tell me, but she's my friend." Then she turned on her back leg, and head hung low, she left the dorm room in silence.

Octavia collapsed on her bed and let out a long stream of air. 

"Well, it could have been worse," Lyra told her.

"Wait," Octavia said to Lyra.  She held up her hoof and pricked up her ear to hear the sound of Derpy's hoofsteps grow fainter and fainter.

Lyra stayed quiet.  She had gone through this routine many a time in those past two weeks.  "Clear?" she whispered.

Octavia waited a few seconds longer.  The only sound was the beating of her heart.  "Clear," she answered.

Then she threw a hardcover book at Lyra's face.

"I know I ask myself this hourly," Octavia began, getting off the bed to stand above Lyra, "but what the hell were you thinking?"

"Besides brilliant revelations that would make your tiny alien brain melt into slime?  Nothing of importance."

"You disgust me," Octavia hissed through clenched teeth.  "You make me so sick.  Why would you tell Derpy that going to a drunken party was remotely close to a good idea?"

"Oh come on," Lyra said, rolling onto her side, "don't act like it's such a scandal.  I've done it, you've done it, everypony over sixteen has done it."

"Yes, but it's Derpy," Octavia insisted.  "That mare would walk off a bridge if she was told that there was candy at the bottom of the water."

"So you think she's stupid then?" Lyra demanded.

"No, I won't deny she's an intelligent student at this academy," Octavia said, "just that she's rather jejune when it comes to functioning in society."

"Jejune, good word!" Lyra praised.  "The Word of the Day from last Tuesday, correct?"

"Yes," answered Octavia.  "And who was the mare you kept saying jejune around?"

Lyra chuckled.  "It was Derpy, of course--!" Once again, realization hit like a train.

"See?" Octavia said.  "There's the problem!  She can't handle a situation like a Berry Punch party!"

"What makes you say she can't?" Lyra asked.

"Common sense, the universe, a lot of things!" Octavia screeched.  "And maybe I'm being overprotective, but at least I'm not like you, trying to throw her into a bad situation for your own amusement!"

Lyra found herself switching to the defensive side.  "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, don't try to hide it," Octavia ordered.  "You said it yourself.  A new situation is how characters develop.  You don't see her as a pony who could get hurt; all you think is that she's a chance for a new lab rat experiment!  You... you... you're a bad pony!"

All of a sudden, Lyra burst out into uncontrollable laughter.  "Haha!  Hit the PG-13 wall, have you, Octavia?"

Octavia allowed herself a small smile.  "I suppose I have."

"You're almost wonderful sometimes."  Lyra leaned back into the pillows.  "And yeah, I get what you're saying.  I shouldn't push Derpy into something she's not ready for yet."

"And I know that I can't keep her hidden from those kinds of things forever," Octavia admitted.

"Foal steps, then."  Then Lyra paused.  "Wow, when did we start sounding like parents?"

Octavia shook her head, her long black mane hiding a smile as she crossed the room.  "You know, if you're trying to flirt with me, you're doing a poor job of it."

"Ha!  Remember you're still my primary focus of observation; I can't go around contaminating the specimen."

"You could probably pass for a doctor, talking like that," said Octavia, now riffling through a stack of sheet music in a binder.

"Writers are everything," Lyra explained proudly.  "To write about a world, we ourselves must be a world of ponies, from doctors to mechanics to stylists to--"

"Crazy cat ladies?" Octavia asked.

"Coming from the alleged cat strangler."

"To be fair, it wasn't my cat; it was Derpy's."

"Oh yeah!" remarked Lyra.  "The plot hole cat!"

"So you're the crazy part of the phrase," Octavia began, "Derpy's the cat, and I'm the lady."

"Nah, I'd say you're just as crazy," Lyra said.  "Besides, crazy cat crazy is far less cliche."

Octavia paused as she grabbed the handle of her violin case.  "We have the strangest conversations sometimes," she remarked.  "I think your insanity is contaminating the air."

"Love you too, crazy," Lyra said, then she looked at the case.  "Ah, going to torture my poor, defenseless ears again?  Have you no mercy, heartless changeling?"

"Hey, you say I'm certifiably crazy," Octavia said.  "It's in my job description to have no mercy."

Then she opened the case and out spilled two gallons of grape jelly.





"Are you dead yet?! Are you?! Have I killed you yet?!"

"I think a part of my soul has withered from sheer terror, does that count?"

"Not good enough!"  Octavia threw the metal makeup kit to the floor in favor of her next blunt object, a fallen curtain rod.  Though for the past twenty or so minutes she had just been hitting pillows, it didn't ease Lyra's tension in the slightest.

"I have put up," Octavia began, "with so much these past two weeks.  Carrot munching, cat strangling, a revoked library card, sleepless nights, a 64-bit deficit on pizza, you name it.  But this!"  The musician held up her grape-jelly coated instrument.  "This is low, Lyra Heartstrings, even for you!"

"For the last damn time, I'm sorry, okay?" Lyra shouted.  "I'm sorry Derpy and I were playing and got into your instrument cases.  That was wrong.  But do you honestly have to bite my head off?"

"Wait, why didn't I do that earlier?" Octavia asked herself, her teeth glinting in the light.  "That would have shut you up a long time ago!"

"See, that's what I'm saying!" Lyra yelled. "You always explode over everything that goes wrong, Octavia!  Can't you just accept an apology?"

"No!  Not when I've put up with so much crap these past two weeks!  You heard me play that stallion's violin last night, didn't you?  You know what this instrument means to me!  And you have the nerve to say you're sorry, as if that fixes everything?  Damn you!"  She beat Lyra's pillow to a pulp.

"Why do you always have to be so negative all the time?" demanded Lyra.  "You know what a normal pony would do?  They'd get pissed, take my money, and things would straighten themselves out.  But you?  You always act like everything's the apocalypse!  Ever since you first walked into this room, you blew up so easily!"

"Well can you blame me?!" Octavia roared, to the point where ponies outside the door fell silent in shock.  "I'm so tired of friendship and harmony!  I hate everything about this place!  I hate your crazy conspiracy theories, your Faust-damned wardrobe choices, your bloated ego that puts Blueblood to shame, your flippant attitude, your snarky comments, your stupid face, everything!  I hate looking on the bright side, I hate pretending to be your friend, and I. Hate. You!"

"Octy!"

Octavia turned around.  Derpy was standing in the doorframe. 


~~~


"I hate everything about living with you!  I hate it so much, it makes me sick!"

A mare's face slammed against a wall.

"Momma!" a little pegasus screamed.  "Momma!"


~~~


Octavia had always thought she'd have been the first to bail out of this insane ride of a month.  Maybe Lyra, if she became bored with her specimen.  But not once in a million years did she think it would be Derpy, looking like she had just received a slap to the face, to run out the door with tears in her eyes.

"Great, now look what you've gone and done!" Lyra shouted.

That was the last straw.  In a frenzied rage, Octavia kicked all of her belongings out into the hallway.  "I'm done," she said to Lyra.  "I'm done with all of this nonsense.  This month is over.  I quit."