//------------------------------// // Rolling // Story: Stroll // by re- Yamsmos //------------------------------// Grudges. Oh how Octavia hated those. Her mental pair of eyes rolled heavily, a likewise nonphysical groan escaping her lips. Grudges weren't exactly some thing that she wasn't used to. Though she really hated to admit her admittedly large number of shortcomings that had taken place in her early years, Octavia had bottled up grudges over mostly nothing once she looked back on them all as a whole. There were grudges regarding school, there were grudges regarding other ponies, there were grudges regarding relationships, and there were grudges regarding life in general. There was always something Octavia didn't like, and as her list grew longer and longer, she found that she started to get a tad worried about her state of mind. Though she had loved school as much as her dogs or her string bass, there were a few... bad bits of hay in the stack. Middle school, for example, had been a plethora of change and a dogma of superiority. The first year in school to show her how to open a locker, get actual A to F grades, and overall stress over finals as hard as she had for anything ever before. There was animosity about the temperature of her History teacher's classroom, either scorching her during the spring or chilling her during the winter. She wasn't one to bring a coat, but she wasn't one to simply relent for one. There was a sense of hostility between young Octavia and her cafeteria mares, the two groups giving each other glaring looks as one side scooped slop and the other side begrudgingly ate it. There was even a bit of enmity surrounding Octavia and a group of Unicorns who had bullied foals in her grade school by purposely cheating them out of winning games of wallball. They had claimed they were professionals at a sport that didn't technically exist, and bloody noses on foals broke her heart to oblivion and one. Oh how she hated those Unicorns. She hoped that, even eleven years after the fact, those foalish Unicorns were still spending their grueling, graying days helping out with the bustling school's recycling and stacking the cafeteria's chairs and tables like a bunch of obedient children. She laughed, a grin spreading across her face as she sighed. Ahhh, she really hated those stallions. She had frozen at the thought, and only realized why a second after. Hate was a bit of a strong word... was it not? Well... she couldn't exactly hate those ponies, they were just mindless colts at the time. They didn't necessarily know any better, did they? They were just being teenagers; full of angst and rife with stupidity. Octavia grumbled all of a sudden, her own thoughts having possibly insulted her. Well okay maybe she was one of those two things at that age. And she definitely wasn't stupid. Honors classes, almost straight A's with just a few B's along the way and a single C in one of her math classes after a recurring incident with a pair of scissors and a staple gun, and enough education in her head to qualify her for college to study on Musical History and get accepted into the Canterlot Symphony to become the Lead Bassist. Definitely not stupid. She blinked. What exactly was the definition of stupidity? She had assumed that it was just having a lack of intelligence, but now that she thought about it, there were huge historical figures like Forest Jump and Caboose Car who were, admittedly, not the brightest tools in the shed, and they had both saved Equestria in their own odd but fascinating ways. So even the dullest of blades still held some use. Oh yeah. She had gotten sidetracked. Mentally admonishing herself, the mare thought for a brief second on what her first topic had been, then aha'd at the revelation in silence. Yes. Grudges. A completely immature idea that somehow embedded itself in ones mind so that they could justify the means to their ends, like some brainwashed soldier committing genocide in the name of his beloved country. Grudges were stupid things, things Octavia hadn't notably held for years. It wasn't so much as forbidding grudges—though they were still things she'd rather not have—but it was more about acting on said grudge. What was the word? Ah yes. Revenge. The dish best served cold. Getting revenge was absolutely childish and a waste of time that all could have been better spent not doing something ridiculously absurd. And that's why Octavia absolutely loved it. Oh Gods how sweet revenge was. The mare realized she was giggling and couldn't—didn't—want to stop herself. She had all manners of exacting revenge, ranging from absolutely unmissable to there's-no-way-they'll-ever-find-that. She had never held any really recent grudges, but when Peg Board had spilled a whole glass of water on her sheet music during practice a couple months back, there was a time for being understanding and cowardly, and it was surely not that time. So with a quick few seconds and a friendly distraction, Octavia had simply walked over to his cello the next day, loosened every one of his pegs in an amazingly ironic situation, let his end pin fall to the floor with a thud, and then rattled his fine tuners, walking away to witness his few second panic until he realized what had happened, scowled at nothing, and fixed them in a matter of seconds. She had remembered smiling a devilish smile and pumping a hoof, almost dropping her double bass to the floor in the process. Scrambling to grab a hold of it, she had caught it less than a centimeter from where it had started. Though she hated to admit it, it wasn't too much of an unusual thing for her to suddenly lose interest in what she was doing and let go of her beloved instrument for less than half of a split second. It was the little things that bothered but, always the little things that pleased her, and acting on revenge like with Peg Board was absolutely fantastic and adrenaline-pumping. It was only okay to act on revenge if the pony who messed with you really deserved it though. You don't go over and flip the table of the pony who had accidentally bumped into you in the middle of the crowded Gala, and you would be an absolute monster for confiscating the snack that the little filly had swiftly taken before you even though it was one you were dying to try that current night. It just wasn't right to muddle with somepony's day or night simply because something so menial. These ponies had locked her up inside a janitor's closet for at least a little over a day, with nothing to sate her boredom save for a couple pieces of string and a box of old Cheerilee-O's. How that one mare in her school had gone on to star on cereal boxes puzzled her incredibly, but she had decided to not eat it anyway, in favor of not getting her muzzle coated in spider webs. Thankfully there had been a rather entertaining crossword on the back of it with a few jumbling puzzles, but she hadn't had a pencil and had to constantly recite what she already had. Gods she really hoped that nopony knew what she had partaken in. She didn't want to see Octavia Philharmonica Plays Cereal Box Games in the newspaper or anything. That would be completely destructive of her reputation as a refined, uptight, knowledgeable mare, and this was exactly why she was currently charging a quick path down the hallway directly past her now open jail cell, smacking into the side of the stallion she swore wasn't that close to the corner. As both tumbled onto the ground, Octavia gained the upper hoof and immediately scrambled up, reaching for her broom and smacking the sweeping end against the Pegasus' face as he spluttered and spat for her to stop amidst all the corn husks pushing their way into his mouth. Glaring, she kept her absolutely brutal attack up, not even noticing the mare behind her until she had tackled her to the floor with a thud. Now on the bottom and with her stomach to the floor, Octavia crawled backward along the carpet and shot upward, placing both forelegs underneath her end of the rug and flinging it forward, effectively trapping the confused mare inside it. As she struggled, cursing at a mile a minute, Octavia took a few steps back, suddenly hearing the sound of somepony stepping toward her quickly. Spinning on a heel with a hoof extended outward, she accidentally caught the flanking Pegasus in the face, a resounding smack accompanying his second return to the building's floor. Gasping, Octavia bent over to see if the stallion was alive, unintentionally dodging the freed mare's lunge. She gave a scared frown as the mare's head clunked against a nearby cabinet, her flying form immediately halting as she simply collapsed to the floor. As both ponies began to groan loudly in what she assumed to either be revelations of stupidity or legitimate pain, Octavia let out a quick breath, stretching her legs out after their intense workout not mere seconds earlier. Feeling something connect with her hoof and hearing another thud with a collection of gasps and wheezes, Octavia looked to her rear to find yet another mare keeling over on the floor in a fetal position, both pairs of hooves clutching her chest as she struggled for air. Turning around and letting her tail flow freely, Octavia realized that she must have kicked the mare as she was coming up behind her. Looking down at the struggling figure, she realized she was snickering and quickly stopped herself. It wasn't fair to be absolutely honest. The mare never stood a chance. Stepping over her, Octavia retrieved her broom and placed it in her mouth as she began to walk toward what looked to be the front door to her right. How many had the brutish Unicorn told her he had? Seven, was it? She grinned. Octavia had already dealt with three of them. Her eyes suddenly grew larger, now realizing that the ponies back there may have had weapons on them, better ones than the one she was currently holding. Her eliminator of tomato splatter certainly couldn't hold up to anything the other ponies might have. Oh Gods, if they had a Magicarm on them, that would be amazing. She would have gone back to see what she could have seen were it not for the muffled sound of something stepping around somewhere nearby. Now realizing that she was walking through the middle of a set of four doors to her left and right, the entrance to the room on her approaching dextral gave her the sound of somepony walking across a tile wood floor which—as everything else was dead quiet—scared the living hay out of her. A voice called out, one that she recognized, "Guys? The hell's going on out there?" Her purple eyes darted to an admittedly beautiful-looking dresser with a nice little bouquet of sunflowers sitting atop it to her right, directly adjacent to the door. She looked back to said door, then back to prior dresser as she dropped her weapon on the floor. Quickly trotting over to it as the hoofsteps continued, she pushed all her weight into it and heard the steps slightly quicken as her blockade began screeching along the missing pieces of carpet by her hooves. Gritting her teeth, she was about to begin a tirade of Gods cursing to pump herself up, only to stop as she looked up to check her progress, finding that she had pushed the furniture all the way to the front of the door. She stumbled away from it, breathing heavily as the stallion began banging on the door, saying, "Hey, what the– guys! This isn't funny!" Knock knock knock. "Let me out!" Quickly retrieving her broom, Octavia turned toward the front door and placed her weapon back in her teeth. Walking across a sizable mat that told her to enjoy her stay at Homestead Cabin, the mare found herself glaring up at the circular window hanging further up the wall directly ahead. She grimaced, knowing full well that if she were to make it out of this, she might have to stay here in favor of not walking through the Everfree alone at night. Eyes flitting back to the entryway, Octavia grasped the cold door knob with a hoof and twisted it, expecting to find her salvation in the form of an easy pathway through the forest, out of sight and out of mind. Instead, she was greeted to a ten-step staircase that led down to an open area, where the remaining three ponies stood around a campfire, their voices unable to be deciphered from where Octavia now stood in fright. She dared not move, knowing that the ponies would somehow see what she was trying to do if she so much as breathed. A breath escaped her, effectively ending her presumptions as the door she had swung open clanged against the wall to her left. She froze as the ponies' heads darted at her. Whoops. She jumped back and dove out of the way of the door, hearing the sounds of crossbow bolts sticking into the gravitation-affected closed door. She gasped horribly. These ponies almost killed her! She would've died if she hadn't gotten away! Not even a single word to defuse the situation, just an aiming of weapons and the flicking of triggers! Her voice came out shaky as she whispered, "Oh Gods," to herself. Thunder rolled from the front staircase. Eyes wide, Octavia looked to her left and found her broom. Picking it up, she swiveled around and stuck it against the opposite end of the doorframe, the charging Earth Pony who had intended to rush in now tripping over the makeshift weapon and crumbling on the floor with a shout. Watching as the next stallion simply hopped over her blockade, Octavia's ears pinned against the sides of her head, the brown Pegasus now staring at her with an agape mouth. Shaking his head, he stretched out his left wing and showed Octavia the front of his loaded crossbow. She instinctively eeped, crouching low to the ground and rolling along the wood floor. Hearing the sound of punctured oak, the mare got back to her hooves and turned to her right, finding a small table with a vase of roses atop it. Coiling her hoof around it as the Pegasus began to reload with a curse behind her, she about broke her neck as she looked to her left, flinging the glass vase at the stallion's head. As it shattered on impact, he held the now injured body part with a hoof, stumbling backward to collide with Desert Fruit, who knocked him to the floor as he sprinted into the room. Desert's hindlegs slid across the floor, his whole body admittedly impressively swiveling to face her as he bore a grin. He crouched low to the ground, standing in the middle of the room not two feet away from the still open door. She mimicked him, a snarl on her lips. Desert's horn lit up as his crossbow's Guncast sprang outward with a metallic clang, the steel weapon now glaring at her in kind. He tutted, shaking his head before tilting it to the side to aim down his sight. "I'm sorry," he lied. "I'm not," she replied. A shadow danced along the floor from behind the front door, growing larger until a hulking figure flew through it, tackling Desert Fruit to the ground as he magicked the trigger, the bolt flying into the ceiling and lodging into the lazily-spinning fan. Stepping away as the two wrestled on the floor for what she assumed would take minutes, she heard the telltale sound of head hitting floor and watched as her possible savior stepped away from the now unconscious Desert Fruit. He turned toward her, his wings holstering by his side to accompany his large Guncast and familiar dark bronze armor. The jet black Griffon nodded at her with a smile on his beak. "There you are," he spoke in a deep voice. Octavia chuckled as she grinned, recognizing this Griffon as the fourth member of W's group, T. He looked around, taking note of the unconscious bodies littering the floor by his paws and claws. He laughed a single note. "Nice job." She winked, "Thank you."