There were times to think, and there were times to... not... think. Octavia had to focus on the road, or, well, rock/tunnel/pathway/area ahead of her and W. Though thinking was—if Octavia remembered correctly—very, very healthy for an individual and absolutely vital toward a completely sane life devoid of terrible, terrible sleeps and horrible, horrible dreams, thinking sometimes had to be halted like a group of dumb little foals in a dumb little game of Red Light Green Light. In the fashion of Red Light Green Light, however, there would always be that one unaware filly or colt who would continue to go forward; a young stallion shakily marching off toward war, but with a boring old school instead of a war-torn battlefield and (hopefully) good grades instead of (hopefully) ensured victory. They would stumble and curse their little foal curses, and then saunter off sorrowfully as if they had lost a... chess game or something. What were foals into nowadays?
Oh Gods that made her sound really old. Even though she was just the young age of twenty-five—and even though she very much knew so—Octavia suddenly grimaced, worrying about aging and life way more than she really should have at that moment. Her face screwed up as if she had smelled something strong and vaguely... fierce, Octavia shook her head and rattled her brain around, brushing a few loose strands of hair out of her eyes that she had thrown in her unreasonable thrashing once she had finished. Where was she? She seemed to be losing herself a lot lately while she was losing herself already. Think back. Smelling, feeling old, Red Light Green Light, sanity...
Thinking! Right.
There were times to think, and there were times to not think. This was most definitely a time to think.
Wait that wasn't right.
Was she trying to think or was she trying not to think? She had, honestly, already forgotten how she had started her thoughts this time around. Wait! She had thought, which meant that she was trying to! Well actually, she couldn't rightly approve that, seeing as how your brain worked no matter if you wanted it to. Thinking about nothing? Your brain is focusing on something anyway, like that candle in the distance, or those thousands of yards stretching ahead of your vision. Thinking about darkness, which is basically nothing? I mean, you're thinking about that thing, aren't you? Thinking about thinking? Now you've just gotten yourself in trouble with the paradox police. Or were you? Was thinking about thinking a paradox? Octavia imagined a stallion sitting down on a blank white space of the world, thumping his chin contemplatively as he hummed, a large, puffy cloud floating by his head that displayed certain things like trigonometry, watering flowers, eating candy bars, and ponies–
Oh Gods Octavia what in the...
She shook her head. She didn't really think she was capable of thinking up things like that.
"What was he gonna do with that spatula?"
"What?"
She turned, eyes wide and cheeks burning.
"Nothing!"
W, walking by her side, narrowed his blue eyes and looked from his left and to his right. Thankfully—fortunately—the Griffon had found a hidden pathway around the large pool half a mile or so back. Correctly deducing that Octavia was in no real mood to go skinny-dipping in a vat of rancid cave water, and incorrectly claiming that the mare by herself wouldn't be able to step a few yards without breaking a hoof or tumbling down a hole somewhere, he decided to accompany her through what they all assumed to be the last few parts of the tunnel until sweet, sweet sunlight. Of course, since dead ends were always a possibility—even though Octavia really, urgently wished that they weren't—W told V, L, and T to swim down and see if they could find a way out themselves, and if they could, to try and get help from a random passerby who would coincidentally be perusing around the ruins of a smoke-filled mountain range.
Yeah, right W...
That was just wishful thinking if Octavia ever knew it. Wishful thinking could only get you so far. She knew what dreaming about dating a prince led to, and she knew it well: sitting at the other end of a small dinner table, as far away as she could muster from... errr... Prince Blueblood himself. Gods forbid she even think about that. If she recalled correctly, and she was pretty Gods damned sure that she did, the stallion hadn't even gotten done ordering his entrée before the mare dropped her menu on the table, purposefully pushed the pompous popper's pilsner over, and walked off with a roll of her eyes and a satisfying amount of laughter in her system, which she of course dispelled not a moment later while still within the area of the restaurant. If there was anything to look for in a stallion, it was not their tendency to interrupt a mare whenever she was speaking... which didn't just extend to Octavia. Even their waiter had to stumble a bit as Blueblood—dammit—decided to shout across the room to a business associate of his.
To be honest, Octavia hadn't even really gone on that date on her own terms. There was word that the Prince was offering a free dinner after one of her concerts for one "lucky" mare... which turned to be only her, as no other mare had stepped forward even five minutes after the stallion had, for the tenth time, announced it. What was Octavia supposed to do? She was hungry, and "spotted-shrimp-scampi-on-a-platter-of-fish-eggs" sounded neither appetizing to her or right. She really wanted to have a nice talk-to-talk with the pony who thought that abducting unborn fish to use as food was a spectacular idea, and then, afterward, she could find the individual who founded the activity of milking cows to do the same.
I mean, really, who was the wise guy who first looked at a cow grazing happily in its field and said, "I think I'll drink whatever comes out of these things when I squeeze them!"? Just... ugh! If she were the wife of said wise guy, happily knitting some type of sweater or cute beanie or something, and her husband walked into the cabin with a bucket of white, bubbly liquid spouting exclamations of tastiness and awesomeness, Octavia would silently nod in agreement, knit her sweater or cute beanie (hopefully the cute beanie), and plot when next to shred poison ivy leaves onto their toilet seat. Where they lived, there was no paper, and so nopony would even notice...
She was getting off track again. She was devolving into murder plots toward fictional characters she had made up in her head, just like she usually would for her books. If there was ever a villain to root against, it was Red Eye. Octavia shook her head before she could go into further detail. Dut duhduuuuhhh, yes, thinking. Or not thinking. She couldn't quite remember.
Oh.
Dammit. She was supposed to be focusing on the road. Had she really just made up another whole monologue again–
THUNK.
Her hoof immediately flew to the freshly injured part of her scalp, beginning to rub at it vigorously before Octavia even had time to grit her teeth tightly and growl through her teeth.
"Bloody...!"
W turned his head, Candidate bouncing along his back as his body moved with him and halted. Tilting his head, he raised an eyebrow.
"You all right, Octavia?"
She moaned quietly, letting her hoof fall back to the floor with a cute little clop along the rock. Or, well, at least she thought it was cute. If W's silent nod and about-face were any indication, he thought it was moderately appealing at best. Octavia adjusted the bag around her shoulder, feeling relief as she placed it somewhere besides the position it had held for the past four hours. Gods she really hoped she didn't have to wear saddlebags for too long in the future. If one strap across her chest was enough to irritate her, she didn't want to think about two.
She looked up from her grumbling to find W smiling at her coyly.
Her nose scrunched up in response as she asked, "Have you seen something, W?"
He simply brought up a balled claw, shot it forward, and stuck its pointer into the darkness...
...wait, was that a light–
"I see light, Octavia!" He laughed. "I think we're almost there!"
The Griffon suddenly darted off at a jogging pace, which for Octavia looked to be the beginning of a pony's gallop. Shaking her head with a smile on her face, the mare sped off after him, surprisingly finding herself able to keep pace with him as he marched toward the pairs salvation. Well, to be completely honest, Octavia couldn't blame him. Really, she had had enough of tunnels for a lifetime and a half. If she ever stepped hoof into the threshold of a dark, dank underground again in her slowly dwindling days of living, it would be far too early. Faaar too early indeed.
Her head collided with something hard and feathery. Stumbling backward as her loopy eyes spun on stars, Octavia groaned a disgusting note before blinking rapidly, staring at the backside of W's heavy armor plating as he stood still and silent. His tail, swishing idly, smacked Octavia on the side of her head. Glaring, Octavia sidestepped the Griffon and walked around his side, intending on looking at what had stopped his manic run. She barely took a step forward before realizing what the light they had seen was.
Nestled inside a large, volcano-like protrusion in the ground before them glimmered a gathering of bright blue, yellow, and pink jewels. Their exteriors twinkled at them like stars in the night sky, beckoning them closer and closer until they were a hair's breadth from the awe-inspiring collection.
"Oh Sputnik..."
"Gods forbid..."