Octavia
“So how has the first month of school been, love?”
“It’s been pretty good, Mother,” I said to the mare on my laptop screen.
“You and your roommate have been getting along, I hope.”
I nodded. “Mm-hm. Rarity’s a really nice mare. We actually have a lot in common.”
“That’s good to know. How about your human friend? What was his name again?”
“Oh, Marcus? He’s really nice, as well. He, Rarity, and I have gone out a few times already, and I’ve been helping him get acclimated to the Canterlot atmosphere, teaching him where all the major landmarks are and what-not.”
“Well, that’s really nice of you, dear!” my mother said cheerfully. “I told you that making friends in other majors would be a good idea.”
I rolled my eyes. “Uh-huh.”
“Well, I’m about to leave for work in a few. I’ll talk to you later, okay? Love you!”
“I love you too, mother,” I smiled, and just as I ended the call, the door to the dorm room opened and and Rarity walked in holding two envelopes, a flyer, and a magazine.
“We’ve got mail, darling!” she chirped jubilantly as she handed me the magazine and one of the two envelopes.
“I don’t know how you can be so upbeat in the morning without something in your system,” I commented as I looked over the cover of Musician’s Monthly. “I can’t fully wake up without a cup of tea in the morning… Speaking of which, I think I’m in the mood for some Earl Grey today.”
“Well, in my profession, it helps to be a morning pony, so I’ve… conditioned myself, so to speak,” she explained as I prepared my tea. “Oh, and before I forget, we also got this flyer for an upcoming school event. There’s going to be a Pre-Nightmare Night party!”
“Yeah, the school has one every year in the middle of October,” I told her. “I’ve never gone, but I’ve heard a lot about it from my classmates. The various student clubs set up booths and tents around campus and sell trinkets, clothes, food, and other attractions. There’s even a haunted house run by the Performing Arts club. It’s a big fundraising opportunity for the club and it gives the Fashion majors a chance to check out the competition for the big costume fashion show on the actual Nightmare Night.”
I noticed Rarity’s ears perk up in an instant. “Hang on… did you say ‘fashion show’?”
“Mm-hm.” I nodded. “The designers have their creations worn at the Pre-Nightmare Night festival so that they can check out the competition and make modifications to their own… why are you looking at me like that?”
“You know, Octavia, darling,” she said sweetly, “I don’t know if anypony has ever told you this, but you have a lovely physique that’s just perfect for modelling.”
I blushed. “Oh, really? Well, I’ve never been told that before but- Hold on a second!”
“Oh, come on, Octavia!” the unicorn begged, getting on her knees and holding onto my legs. “I really need a model for the show, and I do mean it! You do have a great physique.”
“I don’t know, Rarity… I mean, I’ve been on a stage before, but modelling? That’s a little out of my comfort zone...”
“Please?”
“But-”
“Please?”
“I-”
“Please please PLEEEEEEEEEEASE!!!”
It hurt to say “no” to Rarity, it really did, but I was really unsure about this. I don’t know if I would be well-suited for-
“Octavia, it wouldn’t hurt you to be a little more adventurous.”
My mother’s words suddenly echoed in my mind, and after brief consideration, I cursed myself for what I was about to agree to.
“When will my costume be ready?” I asked with a tinge of regret.
The next thing I heard was a squeal that was loud enough for the Crystal Empire to hear. “YES! OH, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!”
“Don’t mention it...” I chuckled nervously.
“I wonder if Marcus needs a costume, too,” she thought out loud. “I’ll have to ask him on the way to class today.”
“Speaking of which, isn’t your next class in twenty minutes?”
“Oh, you’re right! I suppose I should get going, then. Thanks again, Octavia!” she said again before leaving the room.
I let out a long sigh. “All this craziness and my tea isn’t even done yet,” I muttered. I looked over at the flyer that Rarity had brought in and saw the section about the haunted house. While I wasn’t one for horror, I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t at least intrigued by it.
Maybe I’ll go if Rarity and Marcus go with me.
SEVERAL HOURS LATER
Celestia
“I’m telling you, Tia! This diet is KILLING me! If Marcus hadn’t snuck me that blueberry muffin, I’d probably be dead right now!”
“I think you’re blowing this whole thing way out of proportion, Luna,” I sighed as I continued to look over the numerous e-mails that I had received over the last few days, as I had been doing all afternoon. “I’ll agree that Withers’ methods are a little unnecessary, but since he has tenure-”
“Since he has tenure, I cannot fire him. Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she groaned. “There has to be some kind of loopy hole in the system, though.”
“You mean a loophole?”
“Whatever it’s called, I need one.”
I let out a groan.
“Oh, I’m sorry, sister,” Luna pouted crossly. “If I’m annoying you, I’ll gladly vacate your office. You clearly have more important things to do.”
“No, no. It’s not you,” I corrected. “I just got through this last e-mail, and I’m a little tired from reading all that business stuff, is all.” I immediately closed my inbox and went to my usual news site, catching up on current events, but then one article in particular caught my eye. “Luna, come over here for a second.”
My little sister curiously walked over to me, glancing at my computer screen to see what was going on. “College Students Arrested in Las Pegasus?” she read aloud.
“There’s a video embedded into the article.”
“You’re talking to a mare that just figured out computers. Simple terms, please.”
I sighed. “We can watch a video about the story instead of reading it,” I explained as I clicked “play”.
The first thing we saw was footage of young fillies and colts being led to police vehicles, and a newscaster narrated the scene as Luna and I watched it unfold. “Sirens woke up the block as several students at a Las Pegasus community college were arrested last night at a party held by the students. After responding to several noise complaints from neighboring homes, the Las Pegasus Police Department arrived to find copious amounts of illegal substances on site, and the students involved were subsequently apprehended.”
“Only in Las Pegasus,” Luna commented with a chuckle. “Oh, when shall they get their performance together?”
I, on the other hand, was not amused in the slightest. “Luna, this isn’t funny. What if this happens at CUFTA?”
“You’re not serious, are you?” she asked. “You’re talking about one of the top schools in the country, Tia.”
“That doesn’t mean that things don’t happen.”
“I’m sure Marcus will be fine,” Luna scoffed dismissively. “Speaking of which, he should be back by now. I’ll see you later, Tia.”
“Uh-huh,” I mumbled as she left my office. Even as I walked back to my bedroom, I wondered what would happen if Marcus were to attend a party at school. What would happen if anypony offered him drugs or alcohol? How was I supposed to keep him safe?
“Okay, Celestia. Just stay calm. Hector and Maria trusted you to take care of their son for a reason. You’ll be able to figure something out.”
Luna
It had been only ten minutes since I left my sister’s office. In that short time, I went through excitement, shock, disappointment, and slight anger. Never had I gone through this many emotions in such a short about of time.
Why?
Well, somepony let a certain news story scare her into forbidding somebody from attending a party at their school, prompting that somebody to leave that somepony’s room feeling disappointed and cheated.
And I felt just the same for him.
“Was that really necessary, Tia?” I asked.
“What are you insinuating?” she asked back with a defensive tone.
“Nothing, I just think that you aren’t giving Marcus enough credit. I’m sure he knows how to conduct himself. I understand your concern regarding the fact that it’s a college party, but this is an art school in Canterlot, not a community college in Las Pegasus.”
“I can’t take any chances,” she said dismissively. “I have to protect him.”
I raised an eyebrow at her, wondering if that was truly her intention. “This is starting to seem less like wanting to protect him, and more like not wanting to let him go. When Marcus’s parents let him come here to study, I doubt they wanted him to stay locked up in a castle all the time.”
Celestia then looked up and gave me the same raised eyebrow, as if I was the one being unreasonable. “Thank you for your input, Luna, but I’ve made my decision, and it’s final. Marcus is not going to that party.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but decided not to. The tone of Celestia’s last words were a clear sign that there was no way she’d change her mind about this. She was definitely not going to let Marcus go to that party.
However, that didn’t mean that he wasn’t going.
TWO WEEKS LATER
The night of the party had finally arrived, and Marcus was dressed in his timberwolf costume and ready to go. I cast a temporary flight spell on Marcus before flying out of his bedroom window with him in tow.
“So, what if Auntie Celeste checks my room while I’m gone?” he asked.
“Don’t worry about that. I cast an illusion spell on your room to make it look like you’re in your bed, sleeping like a baby,” I assured proudly.
“Looks like you thought of everything, then,” he said, stroking my ego even more.
“I sure did!” I laughed, reveling in the praise.
It took us five minutes to get to the school, and once we did, we were amazed at how festive the event was. All of the students were dressed in costumes, and there were countless booths and tents around the campus. “I wonder if I should start going to school here,” I thought.
“Thanks again for helping me sneak out,” Marcus told me as we landed.
“It was my pleasure,” I smiled. “Now go have fun, and I’ll make sure Celestia doesn’t find out that you left.” With that, I left the school and headed back to the castle.
Rarity
It’s been about a half hour since Marcus arrived, and he was currently in the haunted house with Octavia. I never pegged her as the horror type, but the mare needed some excitement in her life, so who was I to stop her?
In any case, this allowed me to scour the booths in search of a souvenir shop of some kind. I figured it would be nice to give Marcus a cute little trinket, what with this being his first taste of the Nightmare Night season, and all.
“Hey there! You in the Audrey Hepburn getup!”
I turned toward the direction of the sudden voice. “Me?”
“Yup!” the tall mare in the manticore costume smiled. “You seem like you’re looking for something.”
“Well, I was looking for a souvenir for a friend of mine.”
“Well then you came to the right booth! I’m selling Blind Boxes!”
I tilted my head. “Blind Boxes?”
“You heard right!” she answered as she held one in front of me. “They each cost seven bits, and they have a random piece of handmade jewelry inside. You never know what you’ll get!”
“Well, that sounds interesting,” I smiled as I took out my bit purse. “I’ll take that one off your hands.”
“Pleasure doing business with ya, missy! Enjoy the festival!”
“Thank you,” I said graciously as I headed back to the haunted house, where Marcus and Octavia had just gotten out.
“Wait a sec, where’s Rarity?” Marcus asked.
“Here I am!” I called out as I briskly walked towards them.
“What’cha got there?”
“Well, while you and Octavia were in the haunted house, I made a quick trip to one of the souvenir booths and picked up a little something for you.” I handed the box over to him, and I smiled at the curious face he made.
“What is it supposed to be?” I asked.
“It’s a Blind Box,” I explained. “Inside each one is a random trinket of some kind, but you never know what you’ll get.”
“Really? Cool!” Marcus happily opened the box, his excitement reminding me of my little sister on Hearth’s Warming. The item in the Blind Box turned out to be a metal wristband with the words “CUFTA Pre-Nightmare Night Festival” engraved into it. “Where did you get this?” Marcus asked.
“From that booth over there,” I answered as I pointed in the booth, and then I noticed something… different about Octavia. She couldn’t stop smiling for some reason. “What’s got you so giddy?”
She giggled. “Oh, nothing. I just enjoyed the haunted house more than I thought I would.”
As much as her sudden enthusiasm… surprised me, to say the least, it was nice to see that Octavia was finally enjoying herself.
SEVERAL HOURS LATER
Celestia
“I wonder how Marcus is doing?” I thought. “I haven’t heard from him all night. Luna said he was in his room, but he couldn’t have been in there for so long.”
“Good night sister.”
I let out a pathetic yelp as I jumped in surprise, looking behind me to see my little sister. “Luna? Goodness, you scared me!”
“My apologies. Checking up on Marcus, I presume?”
I nodded. “I just want to make sure he’s okay,” I told her before peering into his room. “Oh, he’s sleeping already?” I whispered, a forlorn expression adorned my face as I closed my nephew’s bedroom door. “Maybe I was a little too hard on him. I’m starting to wonder if I’m being a little overprotective.”
Luna shrugged her shoulders. “Well, regardless of whether or not you are, you already made your final decision,” she told me, and I could hear a tiny bit of venom laced within her words.
“I’ll have to make it up to him, then,” I said as I walked past her. “It’s the least I can do.”
I walked back to my bedroom, clutching my sleeping robe as I made my way through the halls. Luna’s moon was the only source of light, but it was sufficient enough to allow me to see where I was going. It took me a while to reach my bedchambers, and while I could have easily teleported there, I needed to think a little, and walking helped the thoughts flow.
“I guess I was being a little paranoid when I said that Marcus couldn’t go. If I hadn’t seen that news article, I probably wouldn’t have said no. Hopefully he’ll give me a chance to make it up to-”
“AUNT CELESTIAAAA!!!”
“No. No. It is WAY too late in the night for this.”
I turned around to look at my other nephew with a fake smile. “Yes, Blueblood?”
“I’m heading out for the night, and I could use some extra bits,” he told me, putting his hand out expectantly.
I resisted the twitch in my right eye as I responded. “Sorry, sweetie. It’s such short notice, and Auntie is a little short. If you had told me earlier, I could’ve-”
“Oh, come ooooooooooooon!” he whined. “Marcus gets to go out and I can’t!?”
Wait… what?
“Could you say that again?” I asked.
“Marcus gets to go out and I can’t?”
“But… But I just saw him in his room. He was asleep!” I said, getting more confused by the second.
“Well, I saw him leaving the castle with Aunt Luna. She was using some kind of spell to carry him.”
In an instant, I teleported into Marcus’s room and looked at his sleeping form. As I walked over to him, I hoped against all hope that Blueblood was lying, but when I reached out to touch Marcus, my hand passed right through him. At first I was shocked, and then I became angry…
And that anger quickly turned into fury!
I threw on a simple dress with a spark of my horn and teleported over to Luna’s room, where she was lying on her bed, reading a book.
She looked up at me and blinked in surprise. “You know, I’m pretty sure knocking was a thing before my banishment.”
I was not having any of her smart-aleck remarks. “Luna, where is Marcus?”
“In his room, sleeping, like I told you the last time you asked,” she answered sarcastically.
“That’s interesting, because Blueblood told me that he saw Marcus flying out of his bedroom window towards the school.”
Luna gave me an incredulous look. “You do realize how ridiculous that sounds, right?”
“Of course, but then Blueblood mentioned that you were flying with him, and that you were using a spell to carry him with you. Sounds a lot less ridiculous, doesn’t it?”
“That may be so, but you’re forgetting that you saw Marcus in his room sleeping not ten minutes ago. I was there with you when you checked.”
“I know, but after Blueblood told me what he saw, I checked again and saw that it wasn’t Marcus sleeping in his bed, but a mere illusion spell meant to fool me.”
I could hear Luna cursing under her breath.
“You’d think that I could trust my sister not to go behind my back,” I said.
“What was I supposed to do?” she asked.
“Mind your own business, for one,” I retorted. “Raising Marcus is my responsibility, and my word is final. I don’t need you being a bad influence on him.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Raise him? He’s seventeen! He’ll be grown in less than a year. If anything, you’re merely taking care of him.”
“Regardless of his age, I’m still his aunt, and he needs to get over his problem with authority.”
Luna scoffed. “If there’s anyone with a problem that they need to get over, it’s you. You keep treating him like a baby when he’s almost an adult. Did it ever occur to you that the more you try, the more you’ll push him away?”
“Luna, I’m warning you, don’t push me!” I threatened. “I don’t want you near Marcus for a month, got it?”
“See? This is exactly what I’m talking about. You have this incessant need to control everything! Mark my words, Marcus will end up wanting nothing to do with you.”
“That’s enough Luna!” I warned. “Drop it or I’ll-”
“You’ll what? Use the Royal Canterlot Voice on me? We both know you can’t bring yourself to do that to your own sister.”
I hesitated. She was right. After all we went through, there’s no way I could use the Royal Canterlot Voice on my younger sister. Besides, she wasn’t who I should be focusing my attention on. I left Luna’s room and flew out of the nearest window, heading towards the night chauffeur. “I need a carriage-car parked at CUFTA as soon as possible!” I ordered.
“Y-yes princess!” he said as he hopped into the carriage-car and hastily drove off. I took to the skies once again and flew at a slightly slower pace in order to give the driver time to get to the school.
“Oh, Marcus. You are in SO much trouble!”