The Red Sky Burns! Go, the Beating of My Heart!

by D4ftP0ny

Kokoro desu ne!

The sky was a brilliant icy blue over the town of Ponyville as the sun reached its zenith in the sky, its rays bright but cool as they reached out and caressed the thick blanket of snow that covered the fair village. It had snowed a great deal the night before, so much so that nopony had tried to venture out even at midday to go anywhere or do anything; this left the snow untouched and beautiful, its icy facets sparkling like a billion diamonds in the cold winter sunlight.

Yet beneath the beautiful winter scene there burned a thirst for justice and the pursuit of something unjustly taken, and in a boutique at the far end of Ponyville two mares as fair as the new fallen snow were about to receive a surprising visit.

“Rarity my love, I must speak to you about something very important,” Octavia said, blowing elegantly across her tea as she sat at a low table set in the middle of the Boutique. The style of the building as a whole had not changed since the gray mare had moved in, but the low table and seating mats directly in the center of the room certainly brought an eastern flair to the home/business. The dark-haired mare took a delicate sip of her tea as the door at the far end of the room swung open dramatically to admit the brilliant white coat of her beloved, the diamond mare of Ponyville- the one and only Rarity.

The white unicorn swept into the room like a flamboyant summer breeze, her sapphire magic clutching half a dozen objects in its ethereal grasp as she smiled winningly at Octavia.

“Yes, Octavia?” she piped happily, her voice melodic and carefree. “What is it that you must speak to me about?”

The gray mare took a sip of her tea, her eyes closed in unflappable calmness for a moment. Then, after several long seconds of silence, she lowered her cup to the table and turned towards Rarity and the myriad of projects that the unicorn was working on simultaneously with her magic. Her eyes narrowed infinitesimally.

“Must you work while I talk?” she asked quietly. “It is a matter of great importance, and one that affects us both.”

“Oh darling I couldn’t simply stop,” said Rarity with a giggle and a wave of her hoof. “I’m far too creative and unique for that. Whatever it is, I’m certain that I’ll be able to juggle several projects at once while I listen!” She turned her best, dazzling smile on her marefriend as a glowing blue sewing machine clicked away noisily behind her head. “So what is it, song of my heart?”

“I see…” Octavia nodded once. “Well, I suppose it cannot be helped.” She let out a silent sigh and touched her tea mug with her hoof. “Rarity… I must leave you.”

The sewing machine behind Rarity made a sound like a piano wire being struck with a fork as the unicorn’s eyes went wide and in a heartbeat her magic vanished from around the objects around her, allowing them to crash, thump and clatter their way to the floor with a great deal more commotion than necessary. Octavia winced, but after a moment she opened her eyes and risked a look at Rarity.

The unicorn’s eyes were impossibly wide, and in the light streaming in the window caused the tears in her sapphire depths to sparkle like the waves of a lonely sea, devoid of hope and full of sorrow.

“L-leave..?” she whispered pitifully. “But Octavia… light of my heart… w-what have I done to drive you away, since this is no doubt all my fault?” She raised a hoof and pressed it firmly against her chest, her heart pounding loudly enough that it could be heard all around the room. “My heart… my young, fragile heart is breaking for you, Octavia… why..?”

“It is nothing you have done, Rarity-chan,” said Octavia, her lips quirking into a small, secretive smile. “In fact, it is only because of your youthful vivaciousness that I have stayed this long.”

“W-whatever do you mean?” asked Rarity as her tears sparkled like diamonds in the sunlight.

The gray mare smiled and sipped her tea once more. “You still know very little about me, Rarity. I am a wanderer by nature, and as such I do not stay in any one place for very long. Canterlot was just the last place I rested, and after moving here with you I thought perhaps my wandering days were done.” She settled the tea mug back to the table, her purple eyes swirling with regret and determination. “But I cannot stay any longer. I must return.”

“Return where, Octavia?!” Rarity gasped as she took a step towards the other mare, kicking aside the remains of a crystal glass into which she had been trying to etch the word Octy-wocty in broad, flowing script. “Where must you go?!”

“I must return… to Neighpon. To my home.”

“But why, Octavia?! Tell me WHY!” Rarity gave her head an unnecessary jerk to the right, causing her tears to fly away from her face into the sunlight and sparkle like faceted cubic zirconium as her mane defied gravity and floated dramatically around her head. To her surprise, Octavia’s smile simply grew.

“Because my father… has been murdered.”

Rarity gasped and placed her hoof to her mouth, her eyelids fluttering demurely as her hair continued to float next to her without explanation. “Murdered?!”

“Yes… murdered,” Octavia growled, her eyes suddenly blazing with the fury of a thousand suns as she crushed the tea mug in one hoof. “Murdered by a rival clan…”

Now Rarity took another step forward, her hoof clacking against a coconut that she had been busily carving into a likeness of Octavia holding an ermine. “A rival clan?!” she whispered hoarsely. “A rival clan of what??”

“A rival clan…” Octavia’s hoof slowly rose to the left side of her face, and after a moment’s pause she drew it quickly down her cheek, across her chin and to her right ear… and once she had completed the motion she turned her amethyst eyes to Rarity, the only part of her face not covered by black cloth. “…of ninjas,” she hissed. Her coal-black bangs dangled down almost to her mask’s eye slit, giving her a hooded, mysterious look that made Rarity’s heart pound even louder. The white unicorn gave her head a shake as she raised a hoof to her chest once more.

“You… you are a NINJA!” she exclaimed, stating the obvious.

“YES,” Octavia said softly, her voice hissing like a snake’s scales moving across leather. “Everyone in Neighpon is a ninja, Rarity, and I am no exception… except for the one thing that is different about me.” She raised a hoof to her face and touched it to her forehead as tea dripped down her leg. “I am… a half-blooded Equestrian and Neighponese ninja… something that no ninja clan has ever had… and there are those who would kill me for my mixed heritage.”

“W-what?! No!” Rarity shook her head again, hard enough that it really should have messed up her curls but it totally didn’t. “But why would they kill you? Why would they kill somepony they don’t even know?!”

“Because…” Octavia turned her face away from Rarity, the light shifting dramatically as she did so to cast everything but her eyes into deep shadow. “…because I’m a monster, Rarity.” Her words seemed to echo strangely in the building, as if they were somehow a different shape than the rest of them, but Rarity didn’t hear the difference. “A half-blood monster who brings destruction wherever she goes… that is my curse.”

“No! Octavia, I know you!” she exclaimed, taking another step towards Octavia. “The Octavia I know is kind and loving and a really super-great kisser! You can’t be a monster because I said so!”

Now Octavia turned back to Rarity and the lights returned to normal, her eyes sparkling like flowers touched with morning dew. “Rar…ity,” she said, her words drifting from beneath her mask.

“The Octavia I know is fun and beautiful, and those are not the qualities of a monster!” Rarity sobbed, her tears flowing down her cheeks like really really wet lines. “Please! You have to know my heart to know your heart, and my heart knows you’re not a monster!”

“But I-,”

“Believe in the me that believes in you!”

“Rarity, I-,”

“Now I’ve got a fire in my belly!”

“…wait, I-,”

“I have to find the stallion that killed my father!”

“…your father lives down the street, what-,”

“Please please please don’t leave I really love you!” Rarity threw herself across the table and grabbed Octavia’s hooves with her own, her eyes shimmering like ten thousand diamonds shining just beneath the surface of a really shallow pool. “And that’s enough to make you not a monster, because a beautiful maiden such as myself could never fall in love with a monster!”

Now Octavia’s eyes widened, and behind the intimidating surface of her super cool ninja mask Rarity could see her walls coming down. “I… I suppose that’s true,” Octavia whispered. “I… I do love you, Rarity… and perhaps if a monster is capable of love… she is not a monster in the first place…”

“Yes… yes!” Rarity sobbed, her hooves clutching Octavia’s tightly. “So… does that mean you’ll stay with me?”

“No, I still have to go back to Neighpon.”

Silence fell over the two mares in the now quite messy Boutique, and a gentle breeze whistled through the room to accentuate the quiet. It stretched and stretched for quite a long time until finally Rarity gave her head a shake.

“No… but you mustn’t! If you’re not a monster you must stay with me!”

Now Octavia shook her head, but it was a way different kind of head shaking than Rarity’s because it was kind of sad and not all crying like Rarity’s was. “I must go back, Rarity, and find out who killed my father!”

“Um, I used that line earlier…”

“Yes, but it’s actually part of my story.” Octavia’s eyes burned with determination once more as she squeezed Rarity’s hoof. “But I swear to you, my beloved Rarity-chan: I will return to you once I have fulfilled the prophecy that surrounded my birth and killed the evil clan of ninjas who would threaten our beautiful, peaceful lives together!”

“You’re in a prophecy?!”

“Well yes- all ninja half-breeds have to be part of a prophecy. Now I must go!”

Octavia rose to all four hooves, but before she could turn towards the door it was kicked roughly in, slamming the ornate portal open and allowing the sunlight outside to pour into the suddenly much darker Boutique. Octavia and Rarity both brought their hooves up to shield their eyes, and Octavia let out a quiet growl.

“And who is it that intrudes on my lady’s home?!” she demanded loudly, her mane and tail blowing elegantly in the sudden wind that suddenly rose from the door. In the light at the door was a figure silhouetted by the brilliant light outside, and after a suitably dramatic pause the silhouette spoke.

“Who is it? That’s a fair question, Octavia of the Sacred Dragon Clan,” a hip, super cool voice answered. “And if I were to give an answer to that, it would definitely be my name, yo!” The light suddenly shifted as the figure stepped into the Boutique, and as everything went back to normal both Rarity and Octavia gasped aloud as their eyes beheld the intruder. She was a unicorn like Rarity, brilliant white with blazing blue mane and tail that glowed with righteous fury; she wore a bright white suit with an elegantly ruffled shirt beneath, a bright blue sash at her waist and a shining silver rapier at her hip. “As fast as a flash of lightning… as cool as a winter wind… the Blazing Blue Bass Cannon that is pulverizing Canterlot!” The intruder reached up and adjusted her cool sunglasses before giving the pair of mares in the Boutique a grin. “Vinyl Scratch… age 22.”

Octavia’s eyes narrowed and with a wave of her hoof her entire body was shrouded in deep ninja black, leaving only her mane and tail to continue blowing gorgeously in the unfelt breeze. “Vinyl Scratch,” she growled dangerously. “I should have known it was you.”

The mare in the doorway snorted. “Yeah, you really should have. And if you were a halfway decent ninja you WOULD have!”

“You DARE to impugn my honor with your vile words, knave?!” Octavia rose up onto her back hooves and raised her front ones in front of her, falling into a martial arts stance. “If you weren’t so base and ignorant, you would know that a true ninja takes more pride in not being seen than seeing others, which you are obviously too insipid and redundant to know!”

“If I knew what those words meant I would be super angry, I’m sure!” Vinyl’s magic ignited and drew the shining silver rapier from her hip, the blade flashing a brilliant red in the light from the suddenly setting sun outside. “But I’m not here to talk- I’m here to fight you for the hoof of Lady Rarity!”

Rarity raised her hoof and pressed it dramatically against her head, the extremely elaborate and beautiful dress that she was suddenly wearing pooling around her like ice crystals made into cloth. “Oh Vinyl! Why would you do this to me!?” she cried, her eyes filling with tears once more. “I… I thought we were friends!”

“You’re much more to me than a friend, Rarity,” Vinyl said, her brilliant white coat sending off shimmering sparkles in the setting sunlight that twinkled around her face. “I… I have loved you since the day we met, my lady…” She whipped the rapier around in front of her so that it made a ton of cool swishing noises. “-and I will not rest until you are mine!”

“Vinyl you blackguard!” Octavia said, brandishing a samurai sword that she pulled out of her magical ninja pocket. “I should have known that the super evil prophecy surrounding my totally unusual and unique birth would have chosen you as the instrument of my destruction!”

“Um… no, actually, I’m just here for the mare.”

“…oh, really?”

Vinyl shrugged. “Um, yeah. I dunno anything about a prophecy.”

Octavia blinked. “Oh… um. Did you… kill my father, perchance?”

“What?! No! Why would I do that?!”

“Oh, well, um… I guess it was worth asking…” Octavia gave her head a shake and brandished the katana before her, the curved blade glistening with bloodlust as she adjusted her stance and took the hilt in both hooves. “BUT I’LL STILL NEVER LET YOU HAVE RARITY!”

“OH YEAH?!”

“YEAH!”

“THEN WE SHALL FIGHT TO THE DEATH!” Vinyl exclaimed.

“Vinyl… Octavia… NO! Please don’t!!” Rarity gasped, her mane flowing about her as if she were in zero gravity as she cried really attractive, sparkling tears. “I… I love you both… how can I choose..?!”

Vinyl and Octavia let out war cries and leaped into the air, their blades flashing through the last rays of the dying sun as Rarity shook her head again.

“And how can I stop the two of you from killing each other..?!” she lamented as time slowed to a stop and the lighting became really stark and dramatic, freezing the three of them in a dramatic picture of violence, love, and betrayal…

Comments

[Night Spark]

This was freaking hilarious It felt like an SNL skit.