//------------------------------// // Circles // Story: Stroll // by re- Yamsmos //------------------------------// Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. The noise was driving her crazy, and there weren't many times that Octavia found herself claiming a sentence bearing any hint of resemblance to that. Sure, her roommate spent a lot of time spinning records and entertaining parties—usually late at night, so as to annoy Octavia to her utmost efforts—but all the Earth Pony had to do was simply wriggle out of her comfortable sheets, drop down to her clean-as-soap floor, groggily trot over to get her broom from her closet across the foot of her bed, and slam its blunt end on the carpet beneath her hooves with a threatening shout of promises better left unsaid that entailed pulling cords and snapping vinyls. Of course, Octavia would never do it—mostly because she knew that her roommate had the capacity to do a lot worse, being a Unicorn and all—but the blaring dubstep downstairs would slightly decelerate all the same, and Octavia could satisfyingly head off to Dream Land once again. The sound of dripping water from a faucet was also a large detriment to her state of living and sanity. Her roommate had an odd penchant for leaving things just a tad wrong, like a front door that is slightly ajar and allowing any wannabe thieves easy access to their abode, or a toothpaste cap that looked to have been screwed on by a five-year-old filly with some form of arthritis in each one of her little hooves. Octavia was a bit thankful that they didn't share a bathroom, but no matter what time of day it was, she could still hear the telltale sound of an unturned faucet drip drip dripping into the presumably disgusting sink and its contents below. Octavia was a firm believer in privacy—and she'd only been in her roommate's restroom once to retrieve her stolen mane brush—but if the sound were to continue for another moment in her life, the mare would claw her eyes out with a pair of spoons and leave them on the sink as a friendly reminder to switch off all appliances before leaving the house. Maybe then she'd show her. Her younger brother, back when she still attended middle school, held a particular interest in the little silver spoons and forks that their family used to dine with, always muddling around with them and building "log cabins" as he had aptly named them. Octavia had been young at the time—obviously—and calmly, embarrassingly, shook her gray head whenever her sibling even touched his utensils. She'd gotten picked on horrendously about it once she had told one of her friends, who in turn had told one of her friends, and so on and so forth, but this was something she could easily ignore and roll her eyes at. Still, she had to remind Forte many times that it was silverware, not silver wear. She'd seen her friends put spoons on their muzzles back in grade school, and she'd always wanted to try it until she started seeing it affect her brother. Her dad, even, was a constant offender of the largest rule in eating history: don't scrape your Godsdamned fork on the Godsdamned plate. Whether it be after another exciting day for him down at the Guard Depot, or just because of his being happy to finally eat with his family day in and day out, the old stallion simply couldn't contain himself from laughing out loud and tapping, sliding, or scraping his forks on their polished plates. Octavia had cringed multiple times as a filly, though it was mostly due to the odd looks of ponies outside directed at the kitchen's nearby window—which Octavia sat by—and her utter hatred of fork scraping extended into her later years. Though Canterlot aristocrats with their big dumb hats and their dumb clothes were well aware of proper etiquette and thus would never even think about messing up that badly, there was always one bad apple in the bunch. Octavia guessed that that was why Sweet Apple Acres always had the best product. They never really had any bad apples in their baskets. SKREEEEEEEE. Octavia slowly turned her head, her purple eyes narrowed beyond belief and an incredibly distressed frown plastered on her lips. The fork in her hoof remained where it was, attacking the otherwise peaceful citizens of her Caesar salad with sharp, destructive dexterity. The griffon sitting at the table next to her swiveled around in her chair casually, the most nonchalant look on her face ever witnessed by the entirety of the world. Seemingly unaware of her hellish onslaught upon the ceramic plate in front of her, Lavi raised an eyebrow and lifted her silver fork from the chili fries sitting next to her burger. "What?" Lavi might as well have been dragging her claws down a stretch of green chalkboard. That would've been infinitely better. The snort issued from her beak signified that she really, honestly, legitimately believed she hadn't done anything wrong in the slightest. If Octavia made any noticeable indication that she wholeheartedly agreed with the griffon's apparent innocence, she sure as hell didn't show it in any way, shape, or form. Lavi snorted. "'f you wanna snag a fry, you're free to." After what Sesame—that crazy bastard—did with the grease fryer that earlier fried that batch? Surely the griffon was just screwing with her– oh and now she's eating them that's only the slightest bit disgusting. Octavia screwed up her face in an attempt to show mass disturbance, but she could only feel in horror as she gave a small smile and a bunching of her right cheek. "I believe I'll suffice, Lavi." "More for me!" the griffon replied happily, an upward inflection accompanying her rising golden claw—filled with salted potatoes—and its shoveling of food down her gullet. Biting down on her lower lip, Octavia swallowed a lump in her throat and turned her attention away from the carnivorous evisceration trying its hardest to be presented to her. She swiveled about in her chair, a want of escape from her current situation branded into her lovingly wandering mind. Lovingly being a... necessary term. She didn't exactly want to punish her mind, did she? That would be horrible, almost like kicking a puppy. A nice, cute, naive puppy—maybe a Corgi of some kind—that hobbled around with its tongue hanging out and dumb little growls and grumbles escaping its ungrown gullet. Valkyrie still stood as angry as a three-legged bulldog, a single claw reaching up to pull away the dreadfully gray curtains fluttering in front of her just far apart enough for her to look outside without being seen, like some creepy stallion with too much down time and too little social time. She'd seen the newspapers; the reports didn't lie. If the fact that Sesame owned an apartment in this horrible town sounded depressing enough, his chosen locale also coincidentally happened to overlook the street that his workplace was located on. Octavia thought on this for a second, realizing just how agonizing it would be to wake up every single morning at his alarm clock's beckoning call, look outside for the day's most likely terrible—suiting such a town as Tall Tale—weather, and instantly see your wonderful, glorious, lovely fast-food chain that you slaved away at for hours on end day after day week in week out month and month dealing with grease fryers and dealing with meat and yelling at kids and talking to scary dragons and smelling horrible and smoking nicotine and generally being miserable in a town that hated ponies as much as Octavia absolutely vilified the dreaded pile of slob called meatloaves. She had a bit of a grudge, you see. She wasn't sure she'd gone over that already. Had she? These things just started blurring together sometimes. Ah... just like high school... "Hey, Octavia?" She sat up straight and reflexively lifted her chin, only noticing that she'd done so when W snorted to himself. The mare cocked an inquiring eyebrow as he did so, but quickly realized her movements and cleared her throat more shakily than she would have liked. Thankfully, the griffons around her seemed to neither realize nor care. W, seated at Sesame's navy blue couch, bunched up his claw and the now messily oily rag encased within its iron grasp, pausing to regard it wearily before simply stuffing it down behind his chest plate. Adjusting his hold on Candidate, he threw his left arm onto his crossed hindleg and swiveled about to face her. "You two about done?" Talk about rushing a lady, old W. He waved his claw around loosely, popping his neck in the process. "We need ta figure out where we're headed next." "I say we head to Baltimare," Valkyrie said from her position by the window, a single talon still parting the two sheets of fabric and allowing a triangle of sunlight to leak into the otherwise dim apartment's interior. "Horsehoe Bay and everything. Probably got a few ships that can take us back to–" "If I recall, Val, you're not supposed to speak to a senior officer unless you are spoken to." Octavia saw T, from his position on the floor whittling away at a wooden sphere, smile toothily and shake his head at W's sudden recount. Lavi, out of the corner of her eye, halted her feast for a few seconds of her life, seemingly decided it wasn't worth it to interrupt, and continued again. W looked up, a casual expression on his face as he added, "And nobody bucking spoke to you." The room went quiet. T coughed into a claw. Holding Valkyrie's gaze, W stared at her as if waiting for her to spew a worthless remark, only to slowly crack a smile before chuckling. "You've got a good point though. It's a start, but there's no way in hell I'm heading back to Griffonstone Kingdom without anything to show for it." Valkyrie shrugged, impressively unfazed by W's kidding around. "Worth a shot," she claimed, turning her head and peering out the window once more. "I doubt the damn thing ever made it out of Griffonia," she kicked something out of Octavia's point of view that sounded metallic, "and I seriously doubt this box has anything to do with it, let alone being anything useful in the first place." The box. The one Octavia had been instructed to help opening when she had met the griffons. She had completely forgotten about it; it hadn't come up in awhile, though that was mostly due to the fact that Valkyrie most likely hid it on her person to avoid paranoia-induced theft or some kind of speciesist thing that Octavia would've loved to verbally ridicule. What kind of pony could just hate somepony else for being who they were? Disregarding Valkyrie's not being a pony in the first place, it just seemed pathetic. Lavi got out of her seat from next to Octavia, her cardboard lunch tray grasped in a talon and her soda in two. Throwing them into the trash can in the corner of the kitchen, she walked over to where W and the other griffons were situated. Octavia meanwhile was left to dip her chin and stare glumly at her glop-covered tray of salad. If there was ever a more depressing thing than Octavia not finishing a delicious helping of green leaves and assorted vegetables—and not wanting more, even—she wasn't sure she'd ever be prepared to handle it. The more she thought on the matter, the more she slowly realized that salads were kind of dumb, and if she wanted a meal consisting of nature's products alone, she could just head outside and breathe in all the cigarette smoke and ozone drifting into the beautiful, blue, Celestia-blessed sky. She leaned forward and bit down on the edge of her tray, trotting over to the trash can with rehearsed balance and finesse that she'd acquired after realizing that spilling one's plate of food around bothersome aristocrats and penpushers was something that led to ridicule that she quickly learned to despise... like meatloaf. She found herself dumping her tray into the plastic bag of the dumpster with a hint of anger. Meatloaf. Gods she really– "How about Canterlot?" "Gods, please no." She wiped her front hooves together to rid herself of the muck of ranch, only to look up and cautiously narrow her eyes at the amused looks wafting from the living room. Oh she'd said that aloud. Whoops. She cleared her throat and began to trot over to the quartet as W reached back into his breast plate, retrieved a small square-shaped piece of paper, and began unfolding it on the ground in front of him. Octavia saw that many red dots had been marked on certain spots on the now obvious map. "So, we're in Tall Tale," he began, jabbing the paper where four light blue building stood in the middle of an olive green cloud. He looked up, watching as his subordinates and Octavia started to form a half-hearted ellipse around his new position on the white carpet. "That's about as far west in Equestria as you can go. Now, there's the Undiscovered West even further that way," he said, pointing a claw to his left, "but as far as I'm concerned, that's bat country, and we're not stopping there." The griffons chuckled with him. Octavia screwed up her face, wondering what was so funny. Mouthing a silent What? to herself, she continued to listen. "Our favorite mean-ass bird–" Valkyrie immediately grinned. "–suggested we head back east," he recounted, stabbing the town hall of the town labeled Baltimare, "to Baltimare. We've got Horseshoe Bay to work with, and if we're lucky, we could get old Screwby to help us get back to Griffonstone." "What about north?" Lavi asked, walking closer to her leader and pointing upward from Tall Tale on the map. "It's been awhile since we've hit up Vanhoover, and it's not too far up." Valkyrie spoke, "You really wanna listen to those lumberjack ponies just say 'eh' all day? Didn't think so." She hadn't even given Lavi time to respond before finishing for herself. Octavia shook her head. W gave a sigh, licking his beak absent-mindedly. "Not really my point exactly," he said, raising both his eyebrows and ruffling his feathers, "but I'm not itching to head back to Vanhoover in the first place anyway. Good thinking though– proximity. I like it." Lavi nodded happily, presumably to herself. Octavia had been watching confusedly, not very familiar with tactics such as these—whatever they were—but she knew an opportunity when she beheld it. Practically springing upward and into the lazily spinning ceiling fan above her head, she opened her mouth and asked. "What about Ponyville?" W bit his bottom beak. "Train doesn't head to Ponyville, and I'm not really too excited to stomp around backwoods Equestria hundreds of miles to pony town itself. Good idea though, something might've popped up there. Weirdest things always happen in Ponyville..." "Like that whole Discord fiasco..." Valkyrie guffawed. Saw it, Octavia thought. "Or Nightmare Moon," Lavi added. Heard about it, Octavia thought. "That new Princess, too," T spoke. Kind of figured, Octavia thought. Twilight had to suddenly have wings for a reason, didn't she? "Hell, those new Elements of Harmony are from there, aren't they, Octavia?" W asked, turning to her. He straightened his back, awaiting her response. "...yes. They are." What kind of Godsdamned train didn't go four ways? The Canterlot tunnels headed to here, Ponyville, Baltimare, and Manehattan! She had to take another train just to head back home?! How absurd was that?! She calmed down slightly. At the very least, she'd be home. Then she could turn her oven off and get some peace and quiet again. Finally, she'd be home. ... Peace and quiet. Peace and... "Where did Sesame Seed head off to?" Octavia asked, raising an eyebrow and swiveling about on a dime. "Who?" Valkyrie asked, looking genuinely confused. "Seriously Val? The guy whose house we're in right now? The stallion who literally burned his boss with french fry grease?" Lavi spat, the frown on her beak almost breaking it in half. "He's in the bathroom right now," W stated matter-of-factly, pointing to it. "As a matter of fact, he's been in there for a helluva long time..." Valkyrie raised a claw to the side of her beak. "Hey buddy! You jackin' off in there or–" UM-BLEGH! COFF COFF COFF! Octavia gave the others a slightly uncomfortable look. They mirrored it perfectly. A voice came from behind the door across the living room, muffled and obviously recovering. "Yeah yeah I'm... oh Gods... yeah I'm fine! Just gimme a minute!" Octavia was patient, and apparently, so were the griffons. They gave him two. Octavia about considered rushing over to see if he needed help, only to halt in her beginning tracks as the orange Unicorn stumbled out of the bathroom, his horn alit to flick off the light switch. Accompanied by the sound of his toilet flushing something Octavia was immensely grateful she didn't have to see, Sesame stuttered. "S-sorry, just... not good." "The hell's wrong with you?" Valkyrie asked, "Were you purging in there or what?" Octavia shot the bird a look. Valkyrie caught this, shrugging with a distinct frown on her mug and her eyes on the ceiling. "Yeah seriously what's up with you?" Lavi prodded rudely. Sesame blinked, first his left eye and then his right. He nipped quietly. His mane was a wreck. "Never thought I'd actually... do that. Back at the restaurant, y'know?" The others remained silent. Octavia hoped they were simply allowing him to continue like she was. "I actually just lost my job. I– I– I– I just quit!" Lavi snickered. "At least you didn't get frier'd–" Octavia slapped the griffon's wrist next to her. Lavi seethed, but said nothing. Valkyrie snorted. "I just can't believe I did that. It was, like, heat of the moment or something." Sesame blinked twice, sitting his haunches down on the floor. He coughed into a hoof for a second, then rose his head and pointed at Octavia. "It was you." She silently eeped. "You made me do it." His expression suddenly changed to one of horror. Waving his hooves around, he sucked on his teeth and sputtered, "I didn't mean it like that!" Somehow, the stallion knew that Octavia wasn't looking to take blame for a case of third-degree burns on a stranger. He wasn't an innocent stranger, mind her, but he was still a stranger. "Like, you talked to me, and that's what made me do it." He stared straight ahead, like he was judging a burning wick of a candle thousands of yards away. When he next spoke, he sounded like he was more asking himself than he was asking her. "How the hell did you do it." He blinked again, Octavia halting the response on her tongue in case he was going to continue. When he didn't, Octavia raised a hoof. "Sorry, what're we doing?" Sesame asked abruptly. Octavia huffed, whipping her mane around and running her hoof through it casually. W smiled at him earnestly, tapping the map and eliciting a resounding scrape. "We're figuring out where we're headed next." "Baltimare," Sesame said instantly. Obviously anticipating the weird looks on his audience's face, he gave a crooked smile and lit his horn, watching as the map gained a dijon mustard hue. Trotting up to the group, he brought the map over to him and looked over the top of it. Bringing out a hoof, he slid it from Tall Tale and across Canterlot, explaining, "Train here doesn't head to anywhere but. Doesn't go left and it doesn't go right." Bloody hell, Octavia thought. Of course it doesn't. "Straight away to Baltimare," he added, levitating the map back to its owner, "and you don't look the type to enjoy Vanhoover." Vanhoover was actually a very nice city, Octavia wanted to say. She hadn't had a concert there for awhile, but she could easily remember how extravagant its restaurants and its various food were. The ponies definitely said 'eh' like it was the only letter in the alphabet, but they were kind enough to help the Symphony's carriage get out of the snow one late winter night. "Definitely not," W replied, nodding. "Baltimare might be a good decision then, but if we don't find anything there I'm going to be very unhappy." "They've got a pretty big library down there; whatever you're lookin' for probably has some books about it in there," Sesame stated. "Trust me, I once served the head librarian at Breezie's. She wouldn't shut up about it." The griffons smiled to one another and nodded. "Well, it's settled then. We'll head to the train station in an hour and set out for Baltimare," W informed the group as he got up, making sure to place the map back behind his armor. "Octavia," he said, turning to the mare as she began to trot toward the kitchen table, "go back and finish your salad if you want, we've got about an hour of Valkyrie complaining ahead of us–" A trio of knocks suddenly erupted from the front door of the apartment. The interior snapped to silence. Octavia stepped away as the four griffons instantly crouched down into low positions, for some reason reaching for their weapons. W stood still, his claws around Candidate's forward wooden grip. All five watched as Sesame simply trotted over to the door, standing his ground and puffing out his chest. "Yeah, who is it?" A deep, grumbly voice called out, muffled by the four inches of dark oaken wood between him and a pack of heavily armed birds. "We wanna talk, Sesame–" "My contract with Greg is over, Boxer. I quit." "You don't just quit, Sesame! You signed the damn papers, you know what they said–" "I think I hear my shredder going off in my kitchen. You could probably find it there." Octavia's eyes widened. This stallion was brave, if nothing else. Maybe a little stupid—considering the owner of the grumbly voice to be some kind of muscular Diamond Dog—but brave nonetheless. "Once you get your paycheck, we want it, Sesame." Sesame lightly stamped his hoof. "I owe you nothing–" Another voice, this one a little more high-pitched and raspy but still masculine, shouted, "How's three hundred bits sound, asshole?" Sesame's mouth fumbled for a bit, but he sucked in a breath and replied, "Three hundred for what?" "You're an asshole, asshole," the apparent Boxer called, "every time me and my friends come in to your crummy restaurant, you treat us like garbage and mess up our orders!" Octavia gave a sideways glance to W and the other griffons. They mirrored it perfectly. "You're bad business, Boxer. Nothing personal." "Why I oughta..." "What?" Sesame asked, shrugging and seemingly unfazed by the thumps now emanating from his door, "You oughta what, Boxer? You're looking at five inches–" Oh, it was five inches now, was it Sesame? Octavia knew a four inch door when she saw it. How else was she supposed to know if something could muffle her roommate's music downstairs? "–of badass oak straight outta Vanhoover! What could you possibly do to break it dow–" Splinters of wood suddenly exploded into the interior, clattering on the floor and collecting like they were rocks on a riverbed. Stepping out of the stairwell outside Sesame's apartment were a pair of figures Octavia instinctively shrank back from. A Diamond Dog, clad in a black jacket with a purple scarf around his neck, and a light blue minotaur with a pair of denim jeans menacingly stepped forward, cracking their knuckles as they chuckled a fiendish chuckle. Sesame backpedaled swiftly, seemingly not expecting them to barge in. His one line of defense had vanished. Eyeing up the griffons and Octavia, Boxer laughed, "I see you made some friends, Sesame. Too bad they'll have ta watch me beat the livin' hell outta you." Octavia could only gasp as Boxer leaped forward, swiping a balled claw around and striking Sesame across the face. The Unicorn, uttering a short grunt, fell to his left and collapsed on his coffee table, shattering it on impact. As he grit his teeth and attempted to get up, the telltale sounds of Boxer stomping across his floor thudded into Octavia's head. The Dog halted in his tracks, turning his yellow eyes to the quartet of griffons aiming Magicarms at his and his companion's heads. He glared. "You think your bonehead weapons will hurt me? You birds are stupider than I thought." W cocked back the small lever behind Candidate's revolving cylinder. His blue eyes narrowed as he replied, "No. My claws will kill you." He jostled Candidate. "These are just for show." Boxer and the minotaur balled up their fists, arching their backs and hunching over into ready positions. Octavia widened her eyes and frowned, taking a few cautionary steps back. W and the others could fight this one; Octavia needed to see if Sesame was alright first and foremost. The punch of that Diamond Dog looked to have been bone-breaking. She froze up on the spot as Boxer roared instantly. "No you don't, mud slinger!" The Dog took a hostile step forward. "Down, puppy!" Lavi shouted. She fired.