//------------------------------//
// Spheres 
// Story: Stroll 
// by re- Yamsmos 
//------------------------------//

	Octavia may not have been as great a cook as she'd usually lead herself—and others—to believe, but she had very, very fond memories of working in her parent's kitchen back when she was just a young filly, with its enormous spice rack filled to the brim with dumb names and even dumber tastes, and its shelves constantly splattered with batters, sugars, and sauces on an hourly basis. Though she would've rather been alone to experiment with various foods like scientists with their particularly undeserving lab rats, her greatest, most pleasant memories lay with countless time spent helping her mother and her grandmother make breakfast, lunch or dinner. Hay, even just regular snacks here and there were more than enough to raise her spirits and give her such a large burst of natural high that she'd be bouncing off the blue walls of her house at the mere mention of whisks.

With the Kiss The Cook apron—a cheesy one at that, Gods it was horrible—she'd gotten a few Hearth's Warming Eve's ago and her chef's hat she'd proudly purchased with her very own, self-earned, laboriously-worked-for bits, Octavia would practically fly down the stairs with the zeal of a sky-hungry Pegasus, take a right turn around the corner, and muddle up the spherical carpet marking the entrance to the abode she was so ready to destroy by cooking in the next few seconds. There she would see her grandmother, happily and frequently visiting Octavia's mother and father just to come in and make her acclaimed "world famous" pancakes every morning. Each and every pony who ever lived in the world knew that Grandma Symphonica was most definitely fibbing whenever she spoke said phrase, but as they beheld the large stacks of syrupy goodness that surely would have rivaled Manehattan's entire skyline just by its lonesome, they wouldn't dare voice their understandably justified doubt. 

Grandma Symphonica was an absolutely amazing cook. Octavia had mindlessly wandered the streets of Canterlot many times looking for any fair opponent to her Grandmother, but none could come close. Even when she wasn't making her pancakes, the old mare was quite honestly so genius, so masterful, so incredibly tact when it came down to simply cracking an egg over a bowl, that Octavia time and time again exclaimed that she had to have been some sort of expert in the field. Now, Grandma Symphonica may have been a bass player at some point, but there was more than enough ample reason to believe that she had spent her last ten years learning everything she could about making scrambled eggs from grizzled old black belts nestled deep in the distant mountains of Chineigh.

Octavia and her Grandmother were very close, almost like best friends you couldn't quite separate. Octavia may have had her mother and father to talk to about personal issues, but when she and Grandma Symphonica were busy stirring pots and taste-testing in the kitchen way past her bedtime, the young mare wouldn't be able to help just letting all her daily encounters spill out like an angst-ridden sewage vent. Symphonica was wise, befitting such an old mare who'd most assuredly seen everything imaginable when it came to teenage fillies whose drama amounted to things like crushes and bullies. Her Grandma had things to say about those things, and even beyond, to subjects regarding grades, the future, careers, bass playing, music, life, love, and happiness. Even meatloaf, so... that was a good thing to talk about. She was a bit of a wordsmith at that.

Octavia smiled to herself. She still had the piece of paper framed by her bedside–

"You Goddamn scatbreath!"

"Hyaaaaaah!"

She heard the sound of a chair—likely a wooden one, if the horrendous cracking and snapping was any indication—breaking into thousands of itty bitty pieces. If Octavia thought Valkyrie looked it, she was about to use this unwasted opportunity to take what remained of the article of furniture and smash it over the Diamond Dog's head like some kind of pro-wrestler. Octavia shielded both of her gray ears and grit her teeth as the now telltale—as of five minutes ago—sound of a Magicarm savagely crunching into a jaw echoed through Sesame's apartment, ending with the thud of a Diamond Dog body like it had so many times before. By now, the events were rehearsed; Magicarm end to the face, thud, then more hitting, and then another Magicarm end to the face. Honestly, if she were Boxer, she would have just given up by now. She guessed there was more strength in his body than there ever could be in hers, and she wouldn't trade it for the entire world.

Something slammed against a distant wall.

"Dammit! Lavi, hit that son of a bitch!"

"Comin' right up!"

First, another crunch. Then a whine that sounded like a cross between seal mating calls and dogs begging for bacon scraps. Octavia bit her lower lip and hoped that the Diamond Dog wasn't just dead. Even if he was a bit of a jerk, she didn't want to see anything related to a beloved canine deceased on the floor... or really anything for that matter. The urge to vomit about worked its way up her throat.

A flurry of stomps clipped and clopped across the hardwood floor beneath the living room's carpet.

"Duck!"

She heard something crash into what she assumed to be the large oak cabinet that sat in the far corner. It wobbled and wobbled, and then began creaking from an almost unnoticeable volume to a deafening roar until it slammed onto something clearly alive.

"Dammit Valkyrie! That hurt!"

"Get up, idiot!"

Octavia herself grit her teeth and brought up a protective gray foreleg up to her cheek, flinching as the leg of a table chair flew over the counter behind her head and soared into the rest of the kitchen, scoring a hit on a collection of dirty glasses and breaking more than half of them. As its contents shattered and spilled onto the floor, Octavia involuntarily scooted away, bringing the stallion by her side closer to the lazy susan's door adjacent to her body. She turned her head, watching as Sesame's chest rose and fell in what she noted to be a normal-looking fashion. She breathed a sigh of relief, but couldn't quite shake the fact that she felt incredibly useless at this exact second in time. No, it wasn't because she was intelligently hiding inside Sesame's kitchen behind his large countertop while an obviously brutal-sounding, need-she-remind-herself dangerous fight waged beyond in the living room between griffons and a Diamond Dog and minotaur.

She watched as Sesame grit his teeth, slightly shaking his head as his body tried curling up into a ball.

It was more that she didn't know enough in medical terms to selflessly aid Sesame and his injured forehead, as minor and almost childish it appeared to be. She adjusted the foreleg she had placed under his own and up to his right shoulder, bringing his head up and causing him to mutter something definitely not family-friendly under his breath. She'd have to berate him later for cursing, both in general and in front of a lady. It was a bad habit to get into.

"Godsdammit just let me die will ya?" He grumbled half-heartedly, almost as if he didn't quite know what he was saying.

"Oh hush," Octavia replied, quickly repositioning her stature on the floor to better accommodate Sesame's now wriggling figure, "just sit down and think happy thoughts."

Octavia suddenly leaned forward and craned her neck to look at the collection of pots and pans hanging above the countertop, roused by the body that had slammed into the other side of it. She watched as a familiar navy black claw grabbed at a black Stalphalon frying pan, wrenching it from its hanger and beginning its unintended use immediately out of the gate, if the sudden clanging now reverberating through her skull was any way to tell.

"Alley-oop!" The voice of Lavi called, the sound of wood against fur following instantly after.

"That's basketball you–" Valkyrie grunted, "–clod!"

Octavia would have rolled her purple eyes if it weren't for the mumbling emanating from next to her. 

"Happy thoughts, huh?" Sesame asked, cracking open an eye and weakly smiling at her from his position on the hardwood, "My bad, I'll get right to it..." He thumped his head against the floor, then bared his teeth . "Gods..."

Octavia chewed on her lower lip, looking around to see if there was anything she could at the very least try helping him with. She tapped her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she looked to her left, then found herself shaking her head at the spoons and forks inside the drawer her eyes had landed on. She looked to the right and past Sesame, about trotting over to the other drawers and shelves she found across the open side of the kitchen until the frying pan, now curled and bent, bounced into view and slid across the floor. The foreleg she had raised in preparation for moving slowly clopped back to her side. Octavia shook her head.

"There has to be something... come ooon," she spoke to herself, her turning growing increasingly faster and more hectic as the precious seconds of the present flew by.

"There's a baking tray in the rack."

Octavia spun. "Excuse me?"

Lavi was currently draped over the top of the counter, her upper body dangling between Octavia and Sesame as she gave an admittedly patient expression toward the latter. She blew the loose feathers atop her head out of her brown eyes, then reached a claw out and grabbed the tray from the black cleaning rack adjacent to her position. Regarding Sesame with a quick, almost happy, "Thanks!" she hopped off the counter and back onto the other side, her new weapon being put to clanging good use. The tray vibrated with the first hit, then began thumping once Lavi realized it was less a shield and more a blunt object. Octavia swallowed a lump down her throat.

"Just..."

"I beg your pardon, Sesame?" 

Sesame groaned, rolling over and staring at Octavia with both of his eyes—a more polite way to speak to somepony, she had to inwardly remark. "Just let Boxer do what he has ta do..." he reached a foreleg up and rubbed at his temple, the black locks of his shaggy mane being brushed upward with his movements, "usually all he needs to feel satisfied, and then he leaves. When those griffons get their asses handed to 'em–" Octavia almost scoffed. "–don't fight it." 

A hulking figure soared over her head, rustling the pots and pans hangers and careening into the oaken closet door in the corner of the kitchen. Octavia's eyes widened as the minotaur, his jeans and fur now scratched, cut, and split, placed his hands on either side of his sunken head and pulled the appendage out. He turned around, hooves stomping along the ground like a toddler just learning how to walk and instead opting on stumbling about. His yellow tinted eyes spun in his head as he shook it, then landed and locked on Octavia's position.

The mare froze.

"You!"

Octavia's heart halted as the minotaur suddenly charged, roaring all the while in a way she would have ridiculed at any other time.

She turned to her right and quickly shoved Sesame out of the way, then ducked as a blue fist slammed into the area her head had just occupied along the side of the counter. Looking up, and sheepishly grinning as the minotaur's eyes darted down to meet hers, Octavia eeped and rolled forward, successfully dodging the fist's descent into the floor. Landing on all four of her hooves, she spun about and only had time to widen her eyes before the minotaur came crashing into her. Her back thudding against the surface behind her, she involuntarily brought a foreleg up and slammed it into her opponent's face, efficiently buying her time to scramble her hooves around the counter to her rear to find something to use. Her first search ended in a quick failure as her hoof slid down the side and hit something circular on the way down, turning it to the right. Her second went a lot more smoothly, ending in her retrieval of what she seconds later confirmed to be a spatula.

The minotaur reeled in pain and rubbed at the six scrunched up ovals now embedded in his cheek, then bared his teeth and balled his fists up.

Octavia reached for a new object to her left, and found herself breathing heavily as she clutched the apparent hard fabric in her grasp.

The minotaur charged once more, his horns lowered for effect.

Octavia dropped to the floor, her gripping foreleg catapulting forward and planting whatever she had in her hooves onto his head. As she quickly cantered away, praying to the Gods above that she was safe for the time being and that she could rush over to the griffons for help, Octavia took an inward double dog dare to look behind her, and she found herself gawking at what she saw.

The minotaur was stumbling about mindlessly, his hands trying to wrestle the black and white baseball cap coiling around his skull and effectively blinding him.

Octavia smiled, jumped forward a step, wheeled around, and, roaring a shout she swore she'd never harbored in her entire life, bucked the minotaur right in the gut. He crashed back into the closet door spine first, the sounds of his impact combining with snapping wood and crumpling cardboard boxes.

The mare stood still for a short time, her breathing hitched and her body quivering all over. The sounds of fighting from beyond the kitchen were over, replaced by terrifyingly casual banter she couldn't quite understand.

He wasn't dead, was he?

Oh gods she didn't mean to do that no no no.

The minotaur groaned, his head limply rolling about.

Octavia breathed a sigh of relief, then, on shaking hooves, stalked over to the minotaur's position, reached a foreleg out, and grabbed at the baseball cap's curved bill. Glaring at the minotaur's endlessly spinning irises, Octavia gave a smirk, straightened her gripping leg out, and tossed the cap into the air in an attempt to land it on her head like a badass protagonist in her books.

The hat clapped onto the floor by her side.

She frowned. 

"Holy hell Octavia!"

The mare in question turned around, a wild grin on her face and her cheeks red. She hoped nopony had seen that.

"You kicked that guy's ass!" Valkyrie shouted, swinging a fist to her left from in front of her breast plate. "Way ta go!"

Octavia's lower lip quivered as she smiled to herself, her head spinning back to look at the minotaur still too dazed to get up and continue fighting.

"Nice job, Octavia," W spoke, "think he'll be outta the count for a little while."

The mare nodded to the old griffon, then suddenly frowned and raised an eyebrow. "What happened to Boxer?"

Valkyrie snickered. Lavi brushed the feathers out of her eyes and jabbed a stubby claw out to the nearby window, its glass completely shattered and letting in the blinding daylight.

"He needed some fresh air."

"He flew like a Pegasus though, damn!" Valkyrie exclaimed, walking over to the window and poking her head out. The otherwise dim apartment's interior was now brighter than the lights that were now scattered and smashed along the carpet. Octavia sucked on her lip. She'd have to be careful walking around on that now. Valkyrie brought a foreleg out, waving it as she called to below, "Hey buddy! No dogs on campus!"

Octavia retrieved her baseball cap from the floor, then placed it on her scalp and looked over at Sesame Seed still lying on the floor. He was looking at her, eyes half-lidded, but a smile on his face as he shook his head and muttered.

"No Godsdamned way..."

Octavia allowed a smile to cross her lips, then sucked a breath in through her nostrils and opened her mouth to ask about what to do next.

"Uh, Octavia?"

She turned to W. And then to T, and Lavi, and Valkyrie. All were backing up cautiously, their eyes wide and their beaks in frowns. Even in the corner of her eye, she saw Sesame rising to his hooves and trying to walk away.

"Yes, W?"

The griffon pointed.

Octavia spun.

The stovetop next to the closet was currently aflame, the assorted rags and paper plates next to it spreading the horrendous orange plague around the other side of the kitchen at a mile a second.

"...whoops."