At Your Service

by Deyeaz

XVIII - All Good Things (Come to an End)

XVIII - All Good Things (Come to an End)

Day seven.

It was time.

The festival was well underway. The schools, on their final days, decided to have their own parties to allow the children to partake in the frivolities in some way or another. Those that tended to their stalls in the bazaar were putting their goods on the market, making sure that they had what they needed.

Vinyl, Octavia, Frédéric, and Midnight, donned in their ethnic clothes to commemorate the event, were driving to the surface where the merrymaking would take place, with the latter’s blood family tailing behind them in a minivan, eager to make it there by noon. Once parked somewhere close by, they zipped down the roads towards city hall, where they were to ring in the celebration.

The shah of the city, a rotund stallion with a beard as large and as white as his smile—save for the gold canine tooth—was making his annual speech about the origins of this holiday. Midnight translated it all for his friends: Over a thousand years ago, one of the ancient dragons, a terrifying creature by the name of Argorok, had laid waste to half of the face of Equestria. One of the lieutenants under Luna’s command, a Sarosian Pegasus mare by the name of Astral Lily, had rushed to the frontlines to fight the beast while she was stationed in Hoofghanistan. With her mighty arrows and the help of her many warriors, Astral Lily had managed to defeat Argorok. However, many of their lives, including Astral’s, had been heavily risked. The lieutenant would later die of sepsis, due to the severity of her burns.

The shah wanted today to not be a day to mourn a lost heroine. But to instead let this day stand as a reminder of the saviors responsible for stopping a tremendous reign of smog, flames, and terror, and to be grateful that Astral had been able to kill Argorok so that the citizens of Hoofghanistan, and the rest of Equestria, could live in harmony once more.

Applause surged through the crowd, as the men and women cheered, clapped their hands, whistled, and/or stomped their hooves. The shah then dismissed the citizens, and they went about their way to whatever caught their fancy.

To the west sat the market, where a considerable amount of the vendors had set up shop to sell their goods. The east held a great deal of interactive entertainment and games. Including bungee-jumping from the holes created for the lower level of the city. The south had team sports and family activities. The north end held entertainment in the visual and musical arts. That was mainly where Midnight and company would spend their time, once evening rolled around.

They embarked to the west side first, their collaborative idea of killing time consisting of mainly browsing the stores for their wares. Midnight would have adamantly complained that his wallet was taking a cruel blow from the constant shopping they were all doing. Yet, he knew better than that. He brought his protests to a screeching halt and merely went along with it, trusting that his fake smile could hide the financial anguish he kept inside.

It initiated with brunch at one of the more distinguished restaurants. Midnight’s family had already set up a reservation there. They informed him that they would all be seated at a group of tables all pushed together, placed by the back of the building. They pulled up to the designated place, approaching the doors.

“We go?” Comet Ash said as he killed the engine to the SUV. He stepped out in papyrus-colored robes that trailed his ankles, with a sky-blue sports jacket thrown on. Galaxy, Star Hopper, and Night Glider followed, donned in the same style dresses as Octavia and Vinyl. Yet they were respectively clad in pink, blue, and black. Nebula emerged afterwards, the wizen grandmother dressed in a more modest outfit of black.

The next forty-five minutes were spent waiting, placing orders, eating, and mainly conversing. Time at the moment had once again made haste, blazing through those forty-five minutes almost instantaneously. It was relatively awkward, though. The silence was only broken once every five minutes or so. Maybe it was the tension that Midnight emitted; after all, being in the ritual dance was quite an honor. Slipping up and making any mistakes would be very jeopardizing.

Even his friends’ and family’s words of encouragement didn’t draft a strong enough breeze for his sails. All he could do was bide his next seven hours, until sundown at eight, and hope for the best.

After eating brunch, where Comet and Midnight had split the bill, they went to the south side for the family recreational activities being held in the major park. Save for Nebula due to old age, and Midnight and Octavia due to lack of talent at the sport, Vinyl, Frédéric, and the remainder of the family played a friendly game of volleyball against half a dozen of Comet’s old high school friends. Nebula and Midnight were catching up after nine years of separation, the stallion and his grandmother rattling in Ponsi. He was elated to hear that she still worked with sand art for the masses, despite her visual impairment. She still received glowing responses from her peers for the complexity and beauty of her work.

Nebula nudged her grandson and motioned to Octavia. The cellist merely sat there, stirring the grass beneath her with an index finger, the long digit stroking each blade smoothly. Midnight felt rather guilty for abandoning her, even if it was to shoot the breeze with Nebula. Still, he wanted to help her in some form or another, given her inability to understand Ponsi and join in on the conversation. “Are you bored?” Midnight asked with a weak grin.

“No!” blurted the mare, her monotonous reverie shattered by the question. She winced at her abrupt reaction, her chances of not appearing rude sinking drastically, and repeated in a lower voice, “No. I’m doing fine. I promise.”

“Here.” The scribe offered her his cellphone and a pair of sound-negating earphones. “Watch some movies, listen to some music, text some of your friends—anything to keep you amused, Octavia.” He had decided not to spoil such a lovely name with a simple alias like “Tavi.”

“I assure you, Midnight, I’m fine,” she replied, holding a hand up in polite declination. She wasn’t ready for his stubborn head-shaking and refusal of her refusal. After a few seconds of verbal and gestural battling, Octavia conceded. “Ugh… very well.” She accepted the device and tapped in Midnight’s rather embarrassing passcode. Rather than expecting the keypad to fade away, the screen shook, and the words “Incorrect password” flared above the keypad. “What is the password?”

“2326.”

She was rather awed by the capacity of the memory card. She asked how he had managed to reach a cap of 256 gigabytes on such an infinitesimal piece of plastic and silicon. He had told her that he had tweaked it immensely with magic and a nanotechnology engineering book he had borrowed from the Canterlot Library. “Granted, I had to burn through… what, two or three cards to get it right.”

He had every genre of music that suited his tastes, and every genre that stuck out like a sore thumb. From hard rock (being the most dominant in quantity), to that “hippy hop and rap” she deplored, to that “dabble step” Vinyl got a kick out of, and to the classical music that Octavia herself found blissful euphoria in.

She had listened to about ten or so tracks of Beethoofen before she decided to… explore more of his music. She had dabbled with some of his rock music, and found some of the softer and indie subgenres to her liking as she lent her ears to the melodies of Diamond Jam, Bad Moons, Arctic Windigos, and Young the Dragon.

She found very few hip hop songs that she even remotely liked, only finding some approval of in some works of ZeCommon and (oddly) a Kendrick Lamare song or two.

She snickered at his guilty pleasure of pop icons Michael Applejackson and Justin Timberdrake, but she still found some… robust passion as she listened to them.

Needless to say, she didn’t even touch the dubstep and electronic music; not because she was a philistine, but because she had had some rather… unwelcome history about the last time she had tried to listen to such a category. She still shuddered at the resurfacing memory of when Vinyl had blasted her with music so tremendously loud, it almost blew her hair and clothes off.

After her experimentation with the good handful of the different genres, she went back to her more refined taste in classical music.

After the two hours, thirty minutes of their games and conversations, they all decided to leave for the eastern end of the city. A good time, too, they were to release the children from school at four o’ clock. Some of the activities seemed to catch their eyes, like bungee jumping for Galaxy, Comet Ash, and Nebula—the old pony still had some spunk in her yet; a karaoke bar for Night Glider, Star Hopper, Octavia, and Frédéric; and an arcade for Midnight and Vinyl.

Granted, after what had gone down last night, the situation between the latter two was a rather bizarre one. The first few minutes were spent in verbal silence as they played a co-op zombie shoot-em-up. He was rather impressed by her sharp eye and quick aim. Whether she chose this game because she wanted to ventilate all of her frustration on the slew of two-dimensional undead, or her focus on the first-pony shooter had reached high levels of dedicated concentration was still to be evaluated by the Sarosian.

Later, Octavia and Frédéric decided to see what the two were doing, which was merely a friendly putt-putt golf match. Both aristocrats rolled their eyes at their simpler friends; while Midnight’s skill at the game was quite fair, Vinyl was subpar at best. Maybe because the former actually made the calculations of the outcomes of his swings, or because the latter constantly kept putting in so much muscle power into her shots. She eventually rage-quit and threw both their little plastic putters like boomerangs. Midnight had to catch them with his magic and return them to the angry clerk at the front desk before they could sail into the go-kart derby and mutilate somepony.

Coincidentally enough, Vinyl’s outrageous toss led to their next choice in frivolity.

Octavia and Vinyl won second place in their race in the go-kart derby. They did exceptionally well, as they were the ones who had been friends the longest, thus giving them a greater advantage in terms of teamwork. Meanwhile, Frédéric and Midnight could do nothing but bicker and argue about how to control the car, when to turn, how sharp the turn should be, and how cool it would be if they could drift in such a tiny vehicle. They ended up in fifth.

“Your driving was absolutely abysmal!” critiqued Frédéric of Midnight, hobbling out of the go-kart in a huff. He knew he shouldn’t make a big deal out of it, but he hated losing. Even in childish things like go-kart races. “Honestly, how we didn’t crash into the nearest fake prop is beyond me!”

“Oh, shut your damn mouth!” hissed Midnight vehemently. He wasn’t as furious about his failure, but he still felt like he had tried. For Frédéric to berate him even after his magnum opus of driving certainly didn’t ring right.

“Or what?!”

“Or I will put both of my hooves so far up your ‘special talent’ that they won’t even be able to make glue outta me!” Vinyl laughed uproariously at the threat, the image that it planted in her head not even attempting to help her calm down. Frédéric, while perturbed by the insult, still couldn’t help but crack a smile. Octavia could only fire a menacing leer at the Sarosian, who would weakly apologize to stop her from boring holes into him with her eyes.

Unbeknownst to all of them, the clock had struck seven-fifteen. Midnight gulped as he examined his watch. The four of them exited the arcade hurriedly and boarded the Vespas, with Comet and family back in the minivan, and gunned the engines for the north side of Jalalabuck. The commute was shoddy, the streets overloaded with cars. They had to find a safe spot in the street to stop and run to the final event if they were to make it on time, Nebula carried in her son Comet’s hulking arms.

Thankfully, they had made it on time to see the dancers getting ready to perform. One of aforementioned dancers approached Midnight and grabbed him by his collar, quickly hollering at him in Ponsi. He retorted back in the foreign tongue, but was immediately pulled to the side and out of sight.

“Where the hay’s he going?” asked Vinyl as they watched him drag Midnight away.

“They take him to change into proper clothes for dance,” answered Comet. “Now quiet. Sundown comes.”

They raised their sights to see a clock tower, erected high and proud. The citizens intently watched the minute and hour hand revolving slowly, until the former finished its orbit, and the latter rested on the “۸” symbol. The clock blared its loud gong eight separate times, the peals flowing through the whole northern portion of the city. The pedestrians cheered and applauded loudly as the sun took cover beneath the horizon, while the drivers honked in celebration. Fireworks skyrocketed upward, blasting into miniscule, technicolor pieces and painting the sky kaleidoscopic palettes and hues. It was so bright, it was as though the sun never even went down.

“Whoa…” hummed Vinyl, awestruck and mesmerized by all of the colors. “It’s beautiful…”

“It most certainly is, isn’t it?” commented Frédéric, the myriad of colors catching his breath.

Octavia merely nodded vigorously, stunned by how gorgeous the night sky looked. He looked over and saw Comet and Galaxy sharing a quick kiss, the wife having to stand on the tips of her hooves and her husband having to stoop down a bit for their lips to connect. Nebula hugged her granddaughters tightly, Night Glider and Star Hopper returning the gesture wholeheartedly. Star Hopper almost shed a tear, and Night Glider could feel her standard apathy melt away to be replaced with a warm smile.

Octavia and her friends examined their surroundings and saw actions almost similar to those done by Midnight’s family. Couples, old and young, kissing one another, whether they be husband and wife, or merely coltfriend and marefriend. Friends and families embracing and greeting one another, raising their glasses of tea, cappuccinos, or alcohol merrily, sharing a smoke or two, pushing aside their card games if only for a moment to rejoice with their fellow players. A fair handful of these folks even greeted Frédéric, Octavia, and Vinyl in the same manners, all imbued with love, peace, and blessings.

That’s when they discovered that this city, with all of its inhabitants and visitors, saw themselves as family. They didn’t bother with whether they were of different breeds, different sexes, different ages, or even if they were from other countries. They still greeted, hugged, kissed, and celebrated as one unit, as though they would do so for a long-lost sibling or parent.

Love is the coal that makes this train roll, eh? Octavia mused, remembering the conversation she had with Midnight only a few days ago. She felt… warm inside, realizing that his words didn’t just apply to his household. But applied to everypony—everyone—here.

“Hey, look! It’s starting!” Star Hopper exclaimed cheerily. They turned their attention to the center of the road. The classic song of a Hoofghani rubâb and drums began to flutter through the area. Seven ponies—four stallions, three mares—danced their way down the street. The ladies were donned in the same Hindi clothes as Octavia and Vinyl, yet the colors remained a solid royal blue for them all. Their faces were sheathed by a thin veil, and belled bangles were attached to their wrists, hips, fetlocks of their hooves, and at the ends of their tails. Each sway released a plethora of chiming that made many a stallion—and a fair share of mares—turn their heads in awe and delight.

The stallions were in different garbs: white pants that seemed to billow down to the legs until they were tucked into a pair of dark brown boots, royal blue long-sleeve shirts, the sleeves also tucked away beneath a pair of gold-studded, fingerless gauntlets made out of some hard pleather. An overhead vest made of the same materials stood upon their chest, and their hair was shrouded by short, royal blue headcovers, enforced by a gold band around the foreheads. The Pegasi had holes in the back of their costumes for their wings, while the unicorns had a hole in the head veil for their horns to poke through, both holes rimmed with gold.

This first waves of dancers pranced forth down the street, their movements fluid as water and light as a feather. To the newcomers—namely Octavia, Vinyl, and Frédéric—it appeared to be some sort of syncretism of Trotswanan setswana dance, Brayzilian capoeira, and Neighpanese Awa dance. The crowd cheered uproariously as the shah was being transported on a topless chariot, waving eagerly at his citizens as both dancers and floats/attractions slugged along behind him.

“If I might ask, what sort of dance are those ladies and gentlecolts performing?” asked Frédéric, intrigued by their exotic movements.

“Tartarus-raa toophan,” Galaxy answered reminiscently, mind generating images of when she was a filly and had participated in this dance. “Tempest of Tartarus,” she translated to a half-confused Frédéric. “It is created in honor of Ms. Astral Lily. Had she not arrived, many of us would not be here today.”

“I believe that’s him over there!” announced Octavia, pointing at a dancer with no headcloth and an impressively long white mane. “Midnight!” She cried, waving happily.

Midnight, eyes widening in surprise as he was entering the fray, spotted the source of the exclamation. He quickly waved back to his cheering and applauding his motley crew, blushing as he saw Octavia’s excited expression. He quickly regressed back into focus, mimicking every movement of the dancers by his side. He could still remember every ritual dance that he’s witnessed for seventeen years to the very dot, exercising those memories into reality. All he could do now was pray that his swimming sessions gave him the upper body strength he needed

Large sweep to the right with right hoof, 270 degrees, starting from left side of left hoof and ending behind by six inches. Left fist, thrust up to create 45-degree, straighten arm. Stamp lightly with right hoof three times, each stamp advancing forward four inches. Spin after third stamp, stop and repeat motion with left hoof and arm. 120-degree sweep to the left, starting from right, 45-degree jab, three advancing stamps.

Lower torso, leap, spin a full 360, land on right hoof. Pose upright: right arm cocked back 90 degrees, elbow next to kidney, hand and fingers flat and straight with arm. Bend left leg at 60 degrees, hoof raised sixteen inches off the ground, femur and pelvis making a 45-degree angle. Arc left arm overhead, bent 60 degrees, back of knuckles facing up, fist facing forward.

Crouch low, arms raised to make a 100-degree angle with back. Leap high, twenty inches off ground, spin kick with both hooves, lean forward 180 degrees. Land on hands, let hooves dangle. Stand on one hand, lower body, front flip back onto hooves.

He felt alive, for the longest time. It was as though gravity, air resistance, all the restrictions of physics did not apply to him. The raucous cheers of the civilians only egged him on, flooding him with mirth as his hooves and his hands swayed like vessels at sea. He spared no quick glance at any of his friends and family, for he was heavily concentrated in executing the dance perfectly, mind relentlessly percolating calculations and exact measurements.

“That’s… very impressive,” commented a bemused, yet fascinated Octavia. She was unsure, yet mesmerized, at how intricate and delicate the whole ritual seemed to be. Midnight moved down the line with the rest of the dancers, as well as floats that scuttled behind them. “Where are they going?”

“Back to the city hall,” answered Galaxy, following the crowd to the aforementioned location. “Let us go with them?” In agreement, they slowly crawled back to their destination.

The attractions in the center of the road pulled in much attention and wonder, like a black hole devours light. One with a painted portrait of the battle between a ferocious black dragon, Argorok. The lieutenant Astral Lily stood beneath, a mare in silver armor, sporting a long mane of auburn. A longbow fletched from willow was clutched in her hands, string primed to release the arrow notched in it and skewer the vicious enemy before her.

Another seemed to be a play on wheels: it consisted of a large papier-mâché dragon, supported in the air by the five or six Pegasi inside it, painted black and bearing narrowed, angry red eyes. A mare in gleaming silver armor and a cloth quiver was wielding a large bow, no doubt reenacting the battle as Astral Lily, shouting out epic lines at the papier-mâché Argorok, who “roared” in pseudo-enraged retaliation.

Thirty minutes or so were spent returning to city hall. ‘Twas not easy, as the audience moved at a rather sluggish pace, pausing to either admire the art of the dancers, the art of the floats, or to trudge around at a coffee or sweets stall set up somewhere in the sidelines. After having to undergo such delays, Galaxy, Comet, Night, Star, Nebula, Octavia, Vinyl, and Frédéric finally entered city hall, still sticking to the sidewalks of the massive district capable of housing several thousand people comfortably. The dancers poured into the vicinity, rimming the outer edge of the circular street with the shah in the center, and the floats in between.

The music slowly intensified in speed, the dancing progressing in complexity. Some of the performers were executing incredible stunts: an example of such being one female dancer diving hand-first into the waiting hands of a male, backflipping four or five times, landing hoof-first into a second’s supporting arms, and slowly somersaulting once, landing in the arms of a third. The climax would arrive as the music had all but stopped, fireworks blasting off into the sky once more. The magnificent explosions of color painted the world once more, everypony applauding as the clock tower gonged ten times in gradual succession.

With that, the dancers all bowed low to the shah first, who chuckled heartily at their warm praise. ((Oh, please!)) he chortled, embarrassed. ((Rise, my citizens! You bow to nopony!)) With that, they dispersed, diffusing into the crowd to look for their family and friends.

Frédéric, Octavia, and Vinyl all looked around for Midnight. Yet he was nowhere to be seen. It shouldn’t be that hard, as he was the only one without a headcover to sheathe his long mane. Curiosity of his whereabouts turned to worry. Certainly he was here! But where? “Where could he be?” asked Vinyl nervously. “We’re sitting ducks here if he up and left.”

“He can’t have gone far,” reasoned Frédéric. “Let’s look around the crowd. He can’t be too hard to spot.” With that, they went off to look for him, bumping and squirming through the mass of bodies. He and Vinyl were able to slip through with a fair deal of ease, given that they were applying more force in their actions. Dainty Octavia, however, was slowly drifting away from them, the sea of equines fighting against her. She started to grow terrified as Vinyl and Frédéric gradually vanished behind the wall of citizens. She had eventually been bumped into a desolate little café of the city, not at all far from the crowd, yet out of earshot.

“Oh, no,” mumbled the nervous cellist. “Oh, dear. This is not at all good.”

“Boo!” barked a voice behind her. She jumped in shock, turning around to catch the culprit. She felt relief to see it was only Midnight, smiling. “Hey, are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m quite fine, thank you,” she answered, swallowing away the last of her anxiety. “That was an exquisite display of dancing back there, you know.”

“You think so?” Heat seemed to flare in the stallion’s face. He could only hope that it wouldn’t be painfully obvious to her. Alas, the continuous barrage of fireworks could no doubt replace the sun from how intense the brightness of each explosion was. “Th-these are some really great fireworks, no?”

“Oh, absolutely. They’ve always been quite gorgeous to me,” commented Octavia, who looked back up into the night sky, still captivated by such visual rapture. “Do you have any idea as to how all these colors are made?”

“Oh, yeah.” He still remembers chemistry, and how different substances could create different-colored flames when lit by a bunsen burner. “They’re all a bunch of metals. Lead, rubidium, zinc, potassium, magnesium, copper, boron… bromine… antimony…” he droned, losing his train of thought ever-so-slowly when he looked down at Octavia. He gulped. The light from the fireworks made her glisten. She looked radiant in her dress, her mane done in long draping curtains, one of them shading her right eye mildly.

“Thank you for the science lesson, professor,” bantered the cellist, stifling a snicker. Midnight’s heart skipped a beat at the sound of her elegant tittering. “What is it?” she later asked, putting a hand on Midnight’s shoulder at the absent guise his face had been sporting. The contact, despite the warmth of body heat and his barrier of clothes, ravaged his spine with shivers.

“Do it!” wailed his heart. “Come on, you big pansy! My right atrium is going out of style because of how long you’re waiting!”

“It’s… It’s… well, I can’t really express it in words, Octavia,” murmured Midnight. “So… er…” He could feel the impending weight of guilt ready to crush him if he followed through with his desire. Frédéric’s disappoint at his betrayal. Vinyl’s possible downheartedness. Octavia’s wrath at his actions.

But he didn’t care. He had finally grown weary of letting nature constantly take its course… and his happiness. He wanted to make a life-changing decision for once in his life. Even if it would blow up tragically in his face.

So he leaned in, stooping to her eye level.

“Midnight… wha–?”

He kissed her.

Not a mere childish peck on the cheek, but a connection between his lips and hers. He could feel his heart soar into the heavens, his brain letting loose gallons of dopamine to reward him for overcoming his internal struggle. It was a milestone for him, to be even remotely intimate with somepony. He knew he was uncoordinated with his lips, leaving them stationary and slightly puckered, but forcing his tongue down her throat was not the better option.

But he knew he had to make it as quick and as clean as he possibly could, for fear he would ruin the moment.

And her shoving him away made that all the easier.

The next thing he could feel was a surging sting of pain in his left cheek, his glasses barely sticking to his face. “How… dare you!” screeched Octavia in disgust, retracting her hand from slapping him. She was blushing madly, eyes contracted in fury. “You… you nightcrawler!” She didn’t care that she had promised not to call him that name. She was livid that he had performed such a crass and boorish action. He knew all too well that she was in love with Frédéric, yet he had shown no compassion or understanding for that fact. He had acted with insensitivity and lust, at least from her point of view. “Wretched, rat-eating, cavedweller!”

Each word felt like a spear, razor-sharp and as fiery as molten magma, goring through Midnight. He hated those slurs she screamed at him. But rather than lash out in anger, he could only stand there in heartache and terror, as the one pony he actually felt he had loved had reciprocated his affections with disdain and enmity. “Wh… please, listen to what I–”

“No!” She shrieked, as though she were a little filly who disagreed with something. Many of the ponyfolk were staring at the two of them and their quarrel. “I want to hear nothing out of your mouth. We’re departing from this city first thing tomorrow. And when we get back to Canterlot, I’m going to visit the Princesses for this… abomination.” Midnight winced. “They will have you removed from your job, your home, everything! I want them to get you out of my life! Understand?!”

His legs felt like lead beneath him, until he had slumped pathetically onto the ground. He was praying to deity after deity that this was merely some sick joke. But as she stomped away, shoving the crowd members ferociously out of her path, he knew that this was cold, cruel reality. “No…” he whimpered, the back of his eyes searing. Don’t cry, damn you.

Octavia departed, stomping away in an outraged huff. All he could do was watch her leave. Don’t… not here, at least. He was only capable of sitting there, silently crying, the saline pooling on the lenses of his spectacles. It wasn’t long before he fell onto the ground, pounding a fist into the cobblestone in frustration, suffocating on nothing as he wept like a foal onto the cold hard earth. He could feel the dust that she had reduced his heart to—grains finer than talcum powder, yet sharper than shattered glass—slicing through him in self-dejection.

Of course you’d sob like a little girl. You couldn’t even properly tell somepony you’re in love with them, let alone be a stallion for thirty seconds.

He was glad nopony could see him laying there miserably, failing to choke back tears. Disappointment would rain down upon him for lamenting in such a fashion at his age. He’d have no words to justify his weeping to anypony – not his friends, not his family, not the shah, not the citizens.

For all he could feebly choke out was the word, “No.”

~End of Chapter XVIII~

Comments

[rikusorasephiroth]

I expect Vinyl will slap her for that.

[The Infinity Doctor]

Well...that escalated quickly...

[Undead_Non-Brony]

Funnily is not a word. Oddly would work better

[Mr101]

Please... please have Octavia get a major comeuppance in the next chapter post haste.

[BureYaAkili]

AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA
Did not see that coming

[Deyeaz]

4917995 lek. A lot of people implied that the kiss would mean a "happily ever after." Even my editor thought this chapter would be the conclusion. Glad to hear that this was an unexpected chapter ending.

[Deyeaz]

4915695
4913043 I believe I can arrange something along your desires in the next chapter.

[Deyeaz]

4915572 Cripes. Thanks for catching that, man.

[Deyeaz]

4914822 In a good way, or badly? If the former, I can put my qualms at ease. If the latter... eh, I might change it. Once I stop drowning in AP homework.

[Mr101]

4919297
Yus, I like this. -Throws internet money at-

[BureYaAkili]

4919292
I didn't expect it to be the happy end,
I just didn't expect it to go that bad,
That was top mate

[The Infinity Doctor]

4919324 Good that it did, bad for Midnight...I have a feeling he might go into Twilight-level Panic Mode, or not, if Octavia's reaction was anything to go by.

[Muet]

...I think i broke...