Octavia's Reprise

by Venates

Chapter Nine

“Vinyl, I…” Octavia’s words were cut short as Vinyl snatched her glasses and replaced them on their owner’s face in two quick motions of her magic. Without a word, the unicorn stood up and walked away from her attacker.

“Vinyl! Wait!” Octavia stumbled to her hooves, desperate to catch up with her friend. Vinyl continued her silence. “Vinyl, I’m sorry! I didn’t know—!”

“You don’t touch the glasses,” the DJ finally said.

“Wh-what…?”

“No one touches them.” Vinyl stopped walking and turned her head to face Octavia. “No one. You don’t see me trying to grab at that bowtie of yours. Simple, stupid little thing, but it’s a part of who you are. So I don’t touch it.”

Octavia struggled for words. Hardly thirty seconds ago she finally felt as though she and her friend were rebuilding a bridge previously thought burnt for good. Now Vinyl stood at its edge, match in hoof. When the cellist gave up on finding words to somehow make the situation whole again, she looked at the ground, her body shaking. Vinyl continued to gaze at her, the glasses on her face letting no emotion through. She could have kept walking. She didn’t know whether or not Octavia would have the strength to follow, but she could have kept walking. Instead something burned in her. Words she long since believed she would never have the chance to say finally came forth.

“Do you know why I wear these?” Vinyl began. “What am I talking about; of course you do. You saw them. My eyes. Started happening just a few months after I got into the clubbing scene.” She started to pace around Octavia, observing her shudder from every angle.

“Ponies started asking me what was wrong. The eyes are a window into the soul, or so somepony once told me,” the DJ continued. “Not that I believed in souls at the time. Truth was, I was just losing a lot of sleep. A lot like when I was a filly.” Octavia remained silent, other than some heavy breathing. Vinyl’s voice started to increase, fueled by rage stored up for several years. “I told ponies that it was just because I was too busy living. It’s a party every day, every night down there; lemme tell ya. Ponies saw me in the clubs every time they went out, so they really didn’t question it too much. Heck, I even believed it. The thing I forgot, though, was that I was losing sleep even before I got big on that scene.”

Vinyl stopped circling her prey like a vulture. She now stood in front of the grey mare, tilting her head ever so slightly, unsuccessfully trying to read the emotions on Octavia’s face. She pressed on. “I was so mad at you, Octavia!” Vinyl’s voice cracked briefly. “I’d never been so mad in my entire life! I hated the very thought of you! So I stopped thinking about you. But that didn’t work. When I got a little money working gigs, I started buying some equipment from my old magazines. Thought maybe if I had the right gear, I could get the sounds and songs that had been banging against my skull since I was a filly out into the open. And I did. And you know what? They were great songs! I started playing my own music — my music — in the clubs, and ponies loved them. I wasn’t just a DJ anymore. I was an artist.”

Octavia’s head moved as though she were about to bring it up, then it fell as though she simply didn’t have the energy. Vinyl’s voice went from a roar to something much softer, though still carrying strong traces of venom. “It didn’t help. The songs were out of my head, and I was still lying awake every night. I even spent two weeks trying to remember and write down the song you used to play for me; I was that desperate. That didn’t help either. If anything, it made me worse.”

A few beads of water formed near where Octavia’s mane met the ground. Vinyl bent down low to address their source. “You see, Octy… I realized something you never did. When we were fillies, you said that song helped you sleep at night. Well guess what? That wasn’t it at all. There’s no such thing as a magical melody that just puts ponies to sleep. The reason you were able to sleep was because your mom sang it to you. And because you played it for me. It wasn’t the song. It was why the song was being played. When your mom sang it to you as a filly, it let you know that you were loved. When you played it for me… I felt loved. Ugh, Celestia, what I am I saying…” Vinyl stood herself back up again, no longer able to look at the shivering mass in front of her. “Look, I hate being sappy. But there it is. When you left, I had nothing. Do you have any idea what it’s like for somepony who you thought cared about you just decide they didn’t want to be in your life anymore?!”

Octavia finally looked up, her eyes like two violet oceans, and stared right into the heart of the DJ.

- * - * - * -

“C’mon! Just say, ‘strawberry’!”

Octavia said nothing.

“No, say, ‘water bottle’!”

Octavia said nothing, and turned a page in her book.

“Give it a rest, you two. Octavia isn’t some doll you make talk by pulling a string.”

Giggling, the two fillies a few years younger than the musical duo left the study area, leaving Vinyl and Octavia to themselves. The white counterpart turned to her grey roommate.

“How much longer are you planning on keeping this charade going, Octy?”

Octavia laughed. “We’re only a year from graduating, Vinyl. I’ve been pretending to be a Canterlot pony for this long, and I don’t see much reason in raising a fuss.”

Vinyl snorted. Octavia started talking with the noble accent years prior, and for some reason insisted on continuing to use it. She would say that it was practice for living and performing in the Great City someday, but sometimes Vinyl wondered if maybe she was just using it to hold herself a few notches above her peers. She could never bring herself to openly admit this, of course. “So are you going to stick with the cello for our final?” Vinyl asked.

“I think so,” Octavia answered, “although the double bass is a close second.”

“What, not the violin?” Vinyl asked with a snigger.

Octavia smiled and shook her head. She still had the violin she used to play as a filly, but had since grown tall enough and trained well enough to use it properly. It didn’t stop her from spending a few slow nights squatting on their bedroom floor and playing it the way she did as a filly, singing with a drawl for her roommate’s amusement. “What about you?” Octavia asked, returning the question.

“I dunno, I’m kind of leaning towards the keyboard…” Vinyl admitted.

“Piano,” Octavia corrected.

“Keyboard,” Vinyl replied, not looking up from the book she was studying. She took a quick sip from a cup sitting next to her. “It’s the only thing I’ve really gotten into here, though that’s probably because of all the time I spent converting the one in practicals into a synthesizer.”

“The look on Professor Baton’s face when you played The Equestrian National Anthem using a cacophony of quacking noises will always be one of my most cherished memories of this place.”

“Mine too,” Vinyl laughed. “As will the fact that I ran his detention slip booklet dry that day. I don’t think he ever thought he would need to buy a second one.”

As the girls sat giggling together in their studies, a mare around their own age knocked on the open doorway.

“Hey, are you Octavia Melody? Ooh, neat record player—!”

“Don’t touch,” Vinyl said without emotion, batting a yellow hoof. Octavia couldn’t help but chuckle; even after all these years the turntable was Vinyl’s most prized possession, and the fact that Octavia was the one to bring it into her life warmed her to no end. It was in remarkably good shape for its age as well, save for one scratch at the top, the colt who put it there now sporting a similar one that never seemed to heal quite right.

Octavia turned to the newcomer. “Yes, my name is Octavia Melody,” she said with a regal voice.

“A scroll came in for you today,” the mare explained, rubbing her hoof slightly. “I was sent to deliver it to you.”

“Really?” Octavia asked. “Couldn’t they have just dropped it in the mail box, as they usually do?”

The mare shrugged. “I’m just the messenger,” she said, hoofing an envelope to Octavia. “Anyways, I’ve got some studying to do myself. Be seeing ya.”

Vinyl continued to stare intently at the book in front of her, while Octavia’s gaze was now fixed on the new parchment. She carefully tore it open using the edge of her hoof and removed its contents. Vinyl didn’t pay it much mind; Octavia was the best student in their class. Little surprises and special treatment weren’t exactly uncommon for her. What did catch her attention was the sudden heavy breathing, quickly accompanied by stifled sobs. Vinyl looked up, heart suddenly beating unusually fast for somepony simply sitting down. “Octy… What happened.”

Octavia’s lower eyelids were raised high, acting as floodgates. Her mouth was wide, teeth bared, and her ears were flat against her skull. “It’s Dad,” she managed. “He left mom.”

- * - * - * -

“So don’t you dare even assume that I don’t know what that kind of pain is like!” Octavia screamed, the cold memory still fresh on her tongue. “He was my father! He was supposed to love Mom and me no matter what! Instead he blamed me for taking all of our money for school, and Mom for not making more herself!” Octavia rubbed her eyes. “So he just left. He left, and never said where. As though neither of us meant anything. His flesh and blood and the mare he swore to love forever. Poof. Gone.”

Vinyl’s ears dropped, and her entire frame shrank. “Aw, jeez, Octy… I had no idea that was still bothering you. I mean, the whole time we’ve been here, you didn’t seem—”

“I’ve been putting on a mask, Vinyl.” Octavia said, her voice starting to cool. “The fact of the matter is that every time I thought of this town, I had to remind myself that he wasn’t here anymore. Every time I thought of my mom, I remembered how… dead she became. Like her very life force went with him, and left a shell behind. Everything that used to make me happy turned around and did nothing but make me miserable.”

Vinyl stared at Octavia for a moment. “That’s…” she uttered. “That’s exactly how I felt.”

Octavia got to her hooves, arching her back into a perfect posture. “So you see? I do know what it’s like.”

“But you still had me!” Vinyl said suddenly. “Was the pain really so bad you had to push me out of your mind too?”

“Vinyl…” Octavia began, posture faltering and head falling, “When I first found out what my dad did, you were there for me. You were the only one there for me. And I can never let you know how much that meant to me at the time. But…”

“’But’…?” Vinyl took a step forward.

Octavia looked up. “That summer… It changed me. You knew that better than anypony. I turned into a mindless automaton, and put all of my effort into the one thing that I believed could never leave me. My music. I just wish I could go back and slap some sense into that big fat—”

“Octavia.” Vinyl was now close enough to put a hoof on her friend’s shoulder. “It’s okay. I… I really went off on you just now, and you didn’t deserve that. Well, at one time you did, but not now. I can tell you’re trying, and that counts for something. To me, anyway.”

Octavia sniffed. Then she smiled. “Right now I feel like you’re the only pony it should matter to.”

Vinyl smiled back, then did something long overdue for the two girls: her hoof slid around Octavia’s shoulder, her other foreleg soon doing the same, and pulled her into a deep hug. It wasn’t as rib-crushing as the one Octavia received from her mother the day before, but with its embrace she felt something that had been missing from her heart fill once again, if only ever so slightly. Octavia returned the hug, the void filling more as she did so.

“Your mom too.”

“What?” Octavia pulled herself back far enough to look at the voice’s owner properly.

“Your mom. It should matter to her too. Although I’m under the impression that she forgave you a long time ago, so pretty sure you’re in the clear there.”

Octavia chuckled and removed a hoof from behind her friend to give her eye one last rub. “Thanks.”

“Err… Am I interrupting anything?”

The two musicians looked over to the source of the new voice, pulling themselves apart after realizing they were no longer alone. A mint green unicorn stood on a path that snaked by the pair, a lyre poking gently out of a saddlebag on her back.

“Oh… Hello, Lyra. What brings you here?”

“I thought I heard your voices,” she answered. “I know it’s late, but I got caught up talking to Miss Cheerilee. She’s the school teacher here,” she said as an explanation to two confused looks.

“Oh…” Vinyl said.

“Yeah… I was actually hoping to bump into you guys again while you were here. I mentioned that I ran into you yesterday to Cheerilee, and that you’ve both been doing really well career-wise. She hoped that I would ask you guys, if you don’t mind, if you would want to come by the schoolhouse tomorrow, maybe talk to the students about what you do…?” she tried hopefully. “Apparently they started doing some lessons on music recently, and with some of the kids still not having cutie marks… Well, she thought maybe you guys could inspire them or something.”

Vinyl and Octavia looked at one another. Eventually Octavia responded, “Well, I’m not sure how much longer we planned to stay, but I daresay one more day couldn’t hurt much. I found my special talent in that schoolhouse myself, you know.” She turned to Vinyl. “Would you mind…?”

“What, are you kidding? Reliving the glory days with my best friend in front of a bunch of impressionable young minds?” Vinyl turned back to Lyra. “You bet. Tell this Cheerilee mare that we’d love to.”

“Great!” Lyra said happily, the task recently given to her so quickly accomplished. “I’ll go swing by her place now; hopefully she’s still awake. I think her classes start at nine.”

Octavia nodded. “We’ll be there.”

“Perfect. Catch you guys later!” With a wave and a smile, Lyra left the two musicians to themselves.

Octavia spoke first. “Well, I suppose we should discuss what we’re going to say… Just so that we are on the same page, and the like.”

“Nah, we’ll be fine wingin’ it,” Vinyl replied. “Besides, it really is getting kind of late. We should get some sleep.”

“Ah… Yes… yes, of course,” Octavia said, following Vinyl back to her mother’s house. “Erm, Vinyl…”

“Hm?”

“I know I don’t have any instruments with me or at the house, but… if you want… maybe I could ask my mom, to, um…”

Vinyl chuckled. “I’m not a filly anymore, Octavia. I don’t need a mother to sing me to sleep. Besides; I’ve got a gut feeling I’m going to sleep just fine tonight.”

Octavia smiled sadly. They walked quietly back to a very familiar home, the light of the moon guiding them.

- * - * - * -

“I’ll write you every day, okay?”

“Vinyl, I…” Octavia had trouble finding her voice. “Are you sure you don’t want to come? I know mom would love seeing you again.”

“I’m sure, Octy.” Vinyl put her hoof on the budding cellist’s shoulder, the hustle and bustle of the train station around them lost to their senses. “You guys are dealing with a lot right now, and I really feel like what you guys need is some time alone to be there for one another. I’ll be there in spirit. And… Well… with your dad gone…” Vinyl hesitated, unsure if she should even finish her sentence. “Look, I know things are going to be hard… financially. You guys never said anything, but I know spending every winter and summer break there since we met can’t have been easy. And I don’t want to be a burden. Your mom doesn’t need that.”

“Vinyl, you were never once a burden to my mother…”

“Shush.” Vinyl now had both hooves on her friend’s shoulders. “I’m going to write you first. Remind you that I’m out here thinking about you. Okay?” Octavia nodded vigorously, but made no sound. “And then you can write back to me whenever you’re ready to. Let it all out or just talk about the weather, it doesn’t matter to me as long as I know you’re healing.”

Octavia nodded more. Vinyl pulled her friend into a warm embrace, paying no mind to her dampening shoulder. “I’m going to miss you so much, Vinyl…”

“I’ll miss you too,” Vinyl said, pulling her friend back to show her the honesty in her eyes. “and I’ll be right here when you get back, okay?”

“Okay…”

“Say hi to your mom for me. And Rarity, too.”

Octavia sniffed. “I thought you hated Rarity?”

Vinyl chuckled. “Nah, I could never hate that pony. I mean, yeah, you guys talking about fashion and ‘high society’ all the time got on my nerves, but she’s got a good heart.”

Octavia gave a small giggle.

“There.” Vinyl pointed at Octavia with one hoof. “That laugh. Take that with you. It’s my gift to you.”

Having trouble forming words, Octavia simply pulled her friend into another hug.

With the sound of a whistle placing the them back into the world, the two friends hesitantly pulled away from one another, the grey mare somberly boarding the train, and the white unicorn staying rooted until it was out of sight. Three months later the station looked almost exactly the same, with the exception that the train came from a different direction. A white unicorn stood as though she hadn’t left her spot in all that time.

As the train came to a halt and ponies began to disembark, Vinyl Scratch spun her head in every direction for any sign of her favorite mare. When she finally spotted a familiar black mane, she headed as directly for it as possible with other ponies trying to push past in the direction she just came.

“Octy!” Vinyl threw her forelegs around her old friend’s neck. “I was starting to worry about you! When you stopped writing, I… Hey, is everything okay?”

Octavia stood with Vinyl around her neck, receiving the hug but hardly returning it. Slowly she lifted a hoof to gently remove her pony-sized necklace. “Everything is fine, Vinyl. I am pleased to see you again.”

“You don’t sound fine…” Vinyl said backing up, sounding a little hurt.

“I said I am, and I’d rather like it if you believe me.”

“Oh… kay…” Vinyl could not have been more confused. This mare looked like Octavia, but she couldn’t help but feel as though some force had replaced her in a few short months’ time.

The two girls walked from the train station to the school, hardly saying a word the entire time. Vinyl tried to initiate conversation at multiple moments with such simple questions like “How was your summer”, or “How is your mom doing”, but the grey mare only gave back curt replies rarely consisting of more than one word. Once at the school the girls made for the same room they lived most their lives in. Octavia didn’t unpack much; her things included a violin case, a small pouch with a few different bow ties, and a set of very plain bed sheets. Vinyl allowed silence to overtake the room for a while before finally mustering the courage to try a much harder question for Octavia to answer before the mare in question spoke first.

“I’m heading for the cafeteria.”

“Oh…” Vinyl said, courage now leaving her. “Yeah, I’ll uh… I’ll join you.”

The silence during their walk continued to plague Vinyl. Something terrible must have happened while her friend was away, and the fact that she felt she couldn’t trust the closest thing she had to a sister was incredibly unsettling.

“Hey, farm pony!”

Both roommates stopped dead in their tracks. They turned to see a group of three mares standing not far from them, staring right in their direction. Two of the mares — one grey and the other pink — were looking at them with evil-looking smirks. The third stood just behind them, her mint-green hoof falling from where it was pointing, as was her smile and the look in her amber eyes.

“What did you call me?!” Octavia snarled.

“Well, we were just talking to Lyra here…” the pink mare said. She and her smiling counterpart started walking towards the pair of roommates. “Do you know her? Few years younger than us. Big campus. Hard to meet ponies.” The pink mare spoke quickly, as though trying to get trivialities out of the way before reaching her main point. “Aaanyway… Guess what she just told us?”

“What,” Octavia asked, her single word laced with as much venom as possible.

“She says that she saw you quite a bit this summer. Trying to get a job in the town you both grew up in. In Ponyville.”

Octavia’s teeth were grinding, the noise from doing so being her only response. Vinyl looked back and forth between her and the antagonists, unsure what to say or do.

“Well?” the pink mare asked, her counterpart simply smiling smugly. “As a Canterlot pony, doesn’t that offend you?”

“Hey, lay off of her—” Vinyl finally found her voice, but Octavia quickly scared it off again.

“I will have you know that I will have nothing to do with that town!” Octavia yelled, fury cracking in her voice. “It has never produced anything of any significance, and a pony with my raw talent has no place among the filth that stems from it!”

Vinyl stumbled backwards, disbelief hanging onto every word.

Octavia continued her rant. “I have already been approached by an agency in Canterlot for a job upon graduation, playing for only the most lavish of nobility weddings! You,” she said, leaning into the two mares in front of her, “are nothing. It is my name at the top of every honor roll this school has produced since my arrival.” Octavia pulled herself back into a proper posture, her heavy breathing becoming steadier. She closed her eyes, and with an adjustment of her bowtie she said, “I am every bit a Canterlot pony. And you would do well to remember that.”

The two mares opposite Octavia hardly looked concerned. They said nothing, and walked away with a casual roll of their eyes. In the distance a mint-green unicorn was trying her best to leave quietly, making herself as small as possible while doing so.

Octavia gave her hair a small whip and resumed walking in perfect form. One wouldn’t even think her recent outburst just happened. Vinyl sat stunned for a moment or two before she trotted up next to her roommate.

“Jeez, Octy… That was…”

“I don’t want to hear it, Vinyl.”

“Octavia.” Vinyl put a hoof out to stop her friend. The grey mare turned to look at her with one steely eye. “What happened this summer? Something’s changed you, and I feel like I have a right to know.”

“What happened,” Octavia began, lowering the white hoof in front of her, “is that I realized everything I just said.”

“Octy, you can’t seriously mean that—”

“I do, Vinyl.” Octavia turned to speak with the unicorn directly. “When I arrived home, my mother was an absolute mess. I comforted her the best I could, but nothing worked. Each and every day was exactly the same, and even though I started to get better, she never did. She still didn’t have a steady job, so I started looking for some to support us. I played at a birthday party. Two weddings. After that, no pony seemed interested in hiring a classically trained musician.” Octavia lowered her head and continued speaking through grit teeth. “So I went to the park to play for change like a common beggar. It was by far the single most humiliating thing in my life. I have talent! I have potential! And no pony in that sorry excuse for a town has the common decency to recognize it.”

“Octy…”

“My father was smart enough to recognize this, rotten as he may be,” Octavia said, her eyes like two lavender plumes of fire. “He saw that no pony could get ahead there. No one from that town was worth knowing. And my mother,” she snarled, “stays even though there’s no opportunity there. She’s a fool. And I would be a fool to stay there as well. My place is not among the common folk. My destiny is to be a great Canterlot musician, and my path is already well on its way to achieving just that.”

“Octavia, you’ve never even been to Canterlot…”

“I will be spending winter break with the company that has hired me, and will move there permanently in the summer,” Octavia said matter-of-factly. “I’ve been convincingly imitating their speech and mannerisms for years; there’s no doubt I will find myself quite comfortable there.”

“Winter break? But what about your mom?”

“I’ve already made myself quite clear on that,” Octavia said simply.

Vinyl stood dumbstruck, her mouth agape. When they grey mare tired of this image, she resumed her walk towards the cafeteria. Vinyl watched her leave, unsure if she could even follow the monster that replaced her best friend.

She didn’t.

The first practicals class of the semester was just a day later. Vinyl Scratch was fighting heavy eyelids; sleep did not come easily to her that night, despite everything being perfectly quiet. Professor Baton, a balding blue stallion with wispy white hair, was calling off names.

“Magic?”

“Here.”

“Maker?”

“Here.”

“Media?”

“Here.”

“Melody?”

No answer came forth. Baton looked over his name roster into the string section of his class where his star pupil clearly sat. He tried again. “Melody?”

“That’s not my name,” the cellist replied.

The professor blinked. After a beat, a look of understanding crossed over his face. “Ah, yes… I heard about your father. It’s not uncommon for ponies to renounce a name when… Well. I assume you go by your mother’s name now? Miss Philharmoica, if I remember correctly…?”

“That. Is not my name either,” the grey mare said coolly, turning so her eyes could bore directly into her professor’s.

“Erm… Than how should I refer to you?” the instructor inquired.

“Octavia. Just. Octavia.”

“…Very well.”

It could have been from lack of sleep, or from something else, but not one pony even bothered to notice a single tear trail down a white unicorn’s cheek and onto the surface of a timpani in the back of the room.

Author's Note:

Author's Note can be found here.

Comments

[Shadow_Wolf]

Well...now we know the origin of the wedge...and it's a doozy! Great chapter!

[Venates]

4020830 Thanks! Hope all that buildup was worth it!

[FashionablyHospitable]

Man.

4020830

A doozy indeed.