Stroll

by re- Yamsmos

Whispering

There was an odd, most likely unconfirmed, severely confusingly harrowing thing about the very existence of meatloaf. She knew the one, and knew it well. That... disgusting amalgamation of lovely, lovely wheat bread, and disgusting, ground-up, hard-to-chew meat, usually composed of sick, dying, mothering cows just on the brink of unconsciousness and ineptitude. Octavia knew all kinds of meatloaf. She had survived numerous, dangerous encounters with the quote-on-quote "food-item". There were the small mountains that barely looked like loafs of bread, and there were the loafs of bread that looked so close to bread that Octavia swore she wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a burnt piece of toast and it. There were the kinds with sauce dripped lengthwise across it, as if some five year-old filly with arthritis decided that today would be the day to show off her wondrous skills at arts and crafts by raiding her home's refrigerator and acquiring the B2 Steak Sauce perfectly preserved for all kinds of messy meals. There were the dry loafs, the worst kind out of the less-worse-but-still-horrible species. She knew the ones.

This hatred wasn't—couldn't be—unjust. That just simply wasn't right. Surely it was no accident; no, it was most definitely deliberate, like an act of revenge with out-of-tune strings or old broom handles to surprised faces. There was, though she hated to admit it, a time where she anticipated meatloaf. A time where she believed that eating meatloaf was the real first step into puberty, a rite of passage if you will. None of that nonsense about voices and octaves (heh), or hormones and behavior. To begin the journey to becoming an adult, one first had to consume meatloaf. Little Octavia, giggly, dumb, and oh-so-horribly-wrong, had wanted to tag along with her mother to one of her coworker's houses for a going-away party. Octavia's mother had had connections with the kind mare-of-the-hour, and happily let her daughter come with her, thinking her in better company than if she had been left behind at the house. Truth be told, her mother always had the right idea. She most likely would just raid the refrigerator and drink milk and eat cookies the whole night if she were left alone at that age.

Octavia and her mother had trotted over to the house, opting not to take a carriage in favor of getting some well-needed exercise. It had only been a couple blocks away, a bit more than a nice jog to Octavia's young heart and tired legs, but they had arrived fashionably early to the party to the cheers and shouts of middle-aged ponies dressed in colorful party hats and nice dresses. This observation was the first sign to Octavia that things would take a turn for the worst that night. Dresses? Inside? In a private domicile, out of sight and out of mind from any prying eyes who dared roam around outside? Well, at least there were other fillies and colts there. In fact, that had been where she had met Golden Harvest, the small and shy filly hiding behind her mother's blue leg who would later become the most prepared mare Octavia would ever know in her entire life.

So she guessed that there was at least one saving grace during that fateful night all those nights ago. Or years ago, whatever. That night had been the night where she had expected maturity, but instead received a sad, sad reminder of what could ultimately come to destroy her if she so much as touched its surface. Unfortunately for her, Harvest had insisted on staying by her mother's side almost that whole night, so her and Octavia's first interactions added up to simple hello's and how are you's. Festivities were mostly food, and that was where Octavia had headed next, her mother's bowtie still placed around the white collar draped around her neck. Her hooves clipping and clopping against the hardwood floor of her mother's coworker's house, Octavia's purple eyes had lit up at the sight of what she saw laying on the beautifully crafted dinner table, its obviously-store bought chandelier shining its brilliant, Gods-like light down upon its platter and still-steaming self.

A perfectly-shaped, perfectly-presented, perfectly perfect loaf of wonderful, wonderful meat.

Long story short, Octavia took a whole plateful, grabbed a fork, and sat at the table with a delighted smile on her face. She dug in, took her first bite, and spent the next few hours vomiting her lungs out in a bush outside, softly weeping as some of it stuck on her mane and fur. What else was she supposed to do? Stay inside and risk embarrassing her reputable mother? Not a chance. Thankfully her mother was mostly caught up in socializing with other ponies to notice her absence, and she had claimed her status as a big pony long before. She could take care of herself, and did. Though she had walked back home with her mother asking her when she had last been running around in rotten oatmeal, Octavia went through the whole night almost unscathed.

Almost.

She had been lied to by her consciousness, her brain, and her body. That was not okay.

What was she doing again?

Oh yes.

Keeping herself occupied while she stumbled through a dark cave, an admittedly comfortable messenger bag draped over her body and her bowtie lovingly standing at the base of her neck, as if wanting to help guide the mare's way through the cavern with its own natural luminescence. She had assured her dear old accessory that it shouldn't need fret about helping her, as it had done enough for her in her life already. To be honest, she was growing increasingly bored, and its quality and quantity building up in her was the most likely suspect in her lesser-coherent thoughts. Her hoofsteps continued to make the same exact noise they had an hour or two ago, and a few loose locks of hair dangled in her face, threatening to scald her eyeballs if she so much as acknowledged their cursed existence. She sighed.

She really did hate meatloaf though.

One of her hooves connected with something wet. The coat of fur that had made contact immediately clung to her skin with the texture of a wet dog. She flinched, rattling the appendage as she took a step back and threw it into the air to look for any sign of irreversible damage. She grit her teeth, sucking on them as she noticed how damp and cold her gray hoof had suddenly become. Much to her surprise, V simply stepped by her, nothing but a raised eyebrow exerting amusement. Drawing her neck back with an admittedly confused frown, Octavia looked back down at her still-raised foreleg, her purple eyes piercing through the dim light around her. Flinging a few more droplets of water off it, she shook her head, adjusted her bag, sucked on her teeth as it caught a lock of her mane, and continued walking with the Griffons.

She didn't honestly like just calling them Griffons. To her, it seemed just a tad racist; a title she had given them out of simplicity. That wasn't a good enough excuse for her to label somepony—excuse her—somebird by their species. It would be like calling a group of donkeys "mules", or like calling, case in point, Griffons Griffons. She could easily call them by name, and she honestly didn't know why she hadn't already started doing so. It wasn't like she didn't know of their names. She, instinctively, looked up and to her left, facing their sides. There was T, walking behind in the back with his piercing golden eyes scanning their granite surroundings casually. L, walking in front of him, raised a violently shaking claw up to her gaping mouth, waving the talons around as she rolled out her tongue and yawned into the air. As if realizing that Octavia was looking at her, V's head turned to her right, a single eye glaring her way. Octavia glared back. The Griffon faced forward with a frown.

W, his lovely Candidate nestled inside the brown leather holster fixated on his back, excitedly nodded his head as if he were an anticipatory young colt striding through an all-female metropolis, a seemingly satisfied smirk on his sharp-looking beak. A small light flickering off a nearby collection of rock cast its glow on the appendage immediately as she thought this, the pointed end now brightening up like a clean dish in an infomercial regarding a new soap product. Octavia understandably felt her ears lay back against her head. W or not, there were still pretty dangerous things on their natural figures.

Her hoof splashed against another puddle.

Octavia flailed her hoof upward as if she were a Royal Guard in the presence of Princess Celestia herself, furrowing her brow in an ugly way as she pressed a frown against her teeth. A sneer worked its way across her face as she growled from some horrible realm deep down in her throat, looked to the ceiling, and flicked the collected rainwater from her soaked fur and into the strangled air floating around her. As was her luck, the rainwater loudly pitter-pattered against V's armor. The Griffon swiftly turned her head an almost-full one-hundred-eighty degree angle, her eyes narrowed in stunningly surprising silence. Octavia hated being scared, and she surely wasn't afraid of V even one bit.

But the look on that Griffon's face at that very moment in time made her bite her lower lip and turn away in an instant.

Seemingly satisfied, V shook her head and looked back to the pathway ahead. A chill went up Octavia's spine, a shaky dispelling of breath accompanying it as a response. The mare's mind wandered to the warm, fuzzy blanket nestled inside her borrowed messenger bag. With her ears laid back against her head, Octavia gave a tried smile to nothing in particular, hoping that they could make another resting spot in the coming half-hour or so. Very, very deep down in the seclusion of her wandering, wondering mind, Octavia hoped that, in spite of the odds so heavily stacked against her, it would be so, and she could snuggle up in the blanket by the crackling fire.

She stopped.

Wait.

Water?

She turned her head, feeling the telltale sound of straining reverberating from the fragile muscles. W, seemingly not noticing the damp, wet rock they were currently travelling through, continued on his way up front. In the midst of a now interrupted conversation with L, W looked back at Octavia as she called to him.

"W? It appears we're stepping on what seem to be puddles." Casting a glance around their surroundings as W's blue eyes stared at her, she looked back and added, "And it looks like the walls are a right bit shinier than usual." She allowed herself a smirk as W, along with the rest of the Griffons, took a few glimpses to their lefts, rights, ups, and downs. W, most likely attempting to pout his lower lip out despite lacking lips in the first place, nodded his head, obviously impressed. A giggle attempted to work its way out of her month, but she retrieved a large pillow and smothered it gently until it remained as still as a rock.

A single ear—her right one, always the most reliable one—suddenly flicked up, its opposite cousin soon joining it not a moment later. Octavia perked up, hearing what sounded like rain unleashing a deadly torrent across a weathered tarp in a raging windstorm. Expecting a collection of gasps and excitement when she turned her attention back to the Griffons, she instead found utter disappointment, watching as they continued to look up their surroundings as if it were a new book. An idea popping into her head, she nodded once to herself and pressed her lips together in an O shape. Sucking in a breath of air, she forced it out and elicited a loud, whooping whistle that caught their attention, the sound echoing down the rest of the cave even as L asked, "What is it, Octavia?"

Octavia scrunched her eyes. She had almost missed the question, too enamored by her utterly impressive whistling she hadn't known she'd harbored. Shaking her head, she replied, "Am I the only one who hears that?"

W's voice came to her from the front. "Startin' to get something now." He hummed, looking back at his crew with a grin to add, "Sounds like water." A trio of whoops flew from the other Griffons, accompanying their cheery smiles and their fistbumps—Octavia assumed they were called—into the air. Even V let out an uproarious laugh as she turned to L and high-clawed her. Octavia had to be completely honest with both herself and the other individuals around her. She didn't feel as overjoyed and filled with zeal as her companions did. She hated to admit it, but she felt a little left out.

"Oh thank Sputnik!" V shouted, chuckling like she had just drank a whole gallon of cider, "Someplace we can fill our canteens." A pop sounded out as the Griffon retrieved the offending flask from her side and opened its top, taking a second to shut one eye and widen the other in a vain attempt to peer down into its shadowed interior. Grumbling, she turned her claw over and shook the bottle up and down vigorously, its figure becoming a two-second blur before V simply frowned. The whole event mirrored a foal trying to get the last of the ketchup out of her container. Octavia mimicked her expression, hers more in disgust rather than annoyance, or whatever the hay V was currently thinking.

The mare cringed, "You Griffons would really suffice with drinking cave water?" Continuing her grimace as said Griffons turned back to raise eyebrows at her, she added, "You do all know that it's not necessarily healthy to do so, don't you?"

V's reply was instant, as if she had rehearsed it for centuries. "Well Octavia," she spat, obviously hating having to address her by name, "getting fresh water is kind of hard while you're trapped inside some God-awful cave." Rolling her eyes, she blew a raspberry into the air with an almost unnoticeable mist of phlegm. "You can't always have sparkling, diamond-flavored water whenever you so desire." The moment where V had became a giggly filly after hearing the news about water five minutes ago was almost enough to make Octavia's dislike lessen even more. This moment about five seconds ago was more than enough to hinder that. And, to be upfront, Octavia had never drank diamond-flavored water before.

They were always out.

She had always wanted to try it– whatever! Not important! V was really starting to get on her nerves. That was important. Fact of the matter. Case closed. Problem solved.

Octavia sucked a long breath in through her nostrils, letting it out as she felt a small sneer cross her lips. Rolling her eyes, she suddenly realized that she was wearing something across her back. Humming a quick note—a bit of an E flat, maybe a D—she fell to her haunches and decided to make sure that her messenger bag was in perfect condition to return to its rightful owner. It surely must have scraped on a few rocks while they were stepping through that rather claustrophobic tunnel a mile back. Dust was a definite addition to the bag's exterior, just look at this place.

Wait.

Rocks. Scrapes. Dust.

Her heart soared down a canyon as she slid the nylon satchel in front of her, throwing open its flap as delicately as was possible in her panicked state. Oh Gods, she didn't... no, she couldn't give it back all battered and torn! If there was even a single tear in it, she might choke up. There was no way in hell she could let herself both do that and live it down. Sticking a foreleg inside it, Octavia felt around for what she was looking for and about collapsed when she found it. Grasping the clinking chain and coiling it around her hoof, the mare raised the locket out of the bag and almost let loose all the air stored in her lungs, seeing it completely unscathed.

She smiled, carefully placing the locket back into the confines of her blanket, deciding that even just a little bit of protection in the form of a fuzzy sheet was more than enough to satiate her ravenous worries. Closing the bag back up with a satisfying click, she slid it back around her body and made sure it was situated on her side comfortably. Feeling that it was so, and reasonably sure of her deduction, Octavia smiled to herself and looked back to the trail, expecting to see the Griffons setting up a campfire.

She had to narrow her eyes to even see L waving a beckoning claw at her from what appeared from Octavia's angle to be the beginning of a corner tunneling further into the cave. To be honest, she had given up hope that they would be ascending rather than descending about three hours ago. Galloping toward the Griffon, Octavia felt her hooves lose control as she found herself sliding across a heavy sheet of thousands of pebbles. Gritting her teeth and sticking her legs out as if she were a newbie on a frozen lake, Octavia caught her balance, stood still for a second, and looked up to find L struggling to contain her composure. Brow raised, the mare turned her head.

She had closed the gap between her and L rather quickly. That was a bit startling.

She cracked a grin as she hopped away from the solid puddle, brushing herself off coolly before trotting alongside the Griffon as they both took a hard right. The corner, spanning about two seconds in walking distance, revealed a new sight that caused Octavia's purple eyes to widen. If L's quiet, "Whoa..." was any indication, she had had a likewise response.

Past the idly standing W, V, and T was a large, rectangular slab of a room, large crops of tall stones and boulders marking inaccessible areas around a large, square, deep-looking pool of blue-green water. She really hoped that the Griffons would change their minds about drinking from that. Looking closer—ignoring the scary stalactites hanging from the ceiling—she swore she could see a few clumps of moss floating amidst it as well. Along the walls danced water-colored lights, born from the somehow self-lit pool situated in the center of the room. The far end from her and the Griffons was both a wall for the pool and the room, one in the same and providing what looked to be no other option.

Octavia glowered.

That water was easily twenty or so feet deep.

W, a coy smile on his face, turned around and clapped his talons.

"Anyone up for a quick swim?"

Comments

[DoContra]

And, to be upfront, Octavia had never drank diamond-flavored water before.

They were always out.

The supplies are very limited Equestria-wide, and growing baby dragons have priority since it's the closest they have to breast-feeding (baby diamond dogs also get priority since it works well as a milk-substitute for them).

[re- Yamsmos]

6819124 Wow, I hadn't even thought of that.

Man, Spike must be pretty lucky.

[re- Yamsmos]

6826111 Griffons should be capitalized. You're right.

But right now, besides simple codenames, it's all Octavia has to call them. A title. It will be undercase if she ever learns their names, don't worry. Hope you've enjoyed the chapters.