Stroll

by re- Yamsmos

Crying

There were many, many well-ensuring things that Octavia could point to in her childhood that may have led her to believe in the virtue and celebration of a life full of vast riches and incredible wealth. There were numerous newspaper clippings about brand-new entrepreneurs and spectacular celebrities staking massive claims and throwing huge parties, or buying humongous bath tubs of gold with platinum shower heads, or taking extravagant vacations to Oslo with their fifteen coworkers who couldn't give a rat's speckled arse about how expensive their food is or how wide their finely-carved bed's oak frame is. There were talks on her house's bespoke TV with its large static frequency and unreliable volume button about how happy and wondrous being rich and famous was, where you could buy whatever you wanted and enjoy the finer luxuries in the Equestrian life. Actresses buying Olympic swimming pools for their bouncing children, sports stars taking their marefriends to five-star restaurants in Prance, movie directors throwing celebrations filled with booze and seared Ahi tuna on small toothpicks Earth Ponies like her couldn't possibly use without popping a multitude of blood vessels in sheer frustration.

To her, and, well, about every other little filly and colt who ever lived, being rich and famous was the sole thing in life to both strive for, and die for. The only thing worth doing once you were fresh out of high school, with farewells to your parents and hello's to elsewhere. You couldn't possibly change the world stuck inside your hometown where the front headline on the newspaper would be the nice old mare not showing up to wave at ponies on the street one Monday. The bright lights of Manehattan, or the beaches of Los Pegasus. They called to ponies, young and naïve, beckoning them with inviting smiles and delicate hoof waving. Everypony when they were older wished—and wanted—to be actresses, or sports stars, or movie directors with their dumb toothpick tunas. Looking back on it now, Octavia couldn't necessarily blame them. Who wouldn't want to have lots of money they could use for whatever purpose they desired? Even the most charitable of ponies wanted money just so they could give it away. Hay, maybe they wouldn't even use it for their own betterment. They might use it to get their own child into a nice college, or they might invest it into helping their parents get taken care of in their ripening old ages. There were ponies who could use it to adopt a foster child abandoned by horrible parents, or ponies who would spend their waking hours giving up their homes as a nice, warm shelter for neglected pets, namely dogs.

There were also bad ways to spend money. Stupid ways. Idiotic, even.

Octavia wasn't the only one from her childhood who had grown up to be rich and famous.

There was no way to get around it. No real way to sidestep the ugly, very real truth about it all.

She hadn't learned it when she first found herself at the Music Academy. She hadn't seen it when she first stepped hoof into her dorm, her old saddlebags falling tiredly to the floor in tandem with she. She hadn't smelled it when she had eaten her first meal there, an admittedly nice tray of green beans and salad. She hadn't heard it when she first flew into her classroom for the day, silently thanking the Gods above as the school's bell dinged above her head. She hadn't touched it when she first felt her new double bass, admiring its sleek finish and polished scroll. She certainly hadn't tasted it when she had fallen to the vinyl tile floor, courtesy of the local group of jerkass ponies thinking themselves higher than the rest. She certainly hadn't inwardly felt it when she showed up the next day before class started to loosen their strings and discard their bows.

There was a day, not too long ago, that Octavia remembered. There was nothing special about it; it had been a usual day at the concert hall, with a warm sun peeking in from the windows and a bright blue sky reminding her the wonders of simply being alive. The Symphony had practiced seven songs that day in preparation for the coming concert taking place a little over two months from then. As usual, jokes were cracked between the frequent few, the conductor snapped a few batons out of excitement, and Octavia—along with the rest of the crew—felt neither tired nor invigorated. She had left with the concert hall with the promise of a relaxing rest of the day doing nothing but eating ice cream and drinking wine. She, at the time, was living in a fairly nice apartment complex in Canterlot just down the street from an exceptional winery. Octavia had taken a seat in the thankfully empty carriage for the night and ridden it all the way back home. She had walked up the staircase separating the two blocks with nothing but hunger and thirst on her mind. Her key had been shoved into the keyhole and turned without a moment's notice.

Octavia had walked over to her kitchen, her purple eyes glazing over as they focused on nothing in particular. Something stopped her dead in her tracks. Maybe it was a feeling, or a sense of being, but Octavia had not entered her kitchen that night. She found herself stepping toward the one window in her house that didn't present her the side of another house. This window was special. This window was the reason that the price on it was so unreasonably high for an already pricey apartment complex. This window was the direct logic behind her moving of the couch months prior. This window held it all.

Octavia had slowly trot toward this window, her eyes not yielding to the bright light staring at her from the outside. She stood for a brief second once she had reached it, and then she had thrown her forelegs atop the railing she had custom installed for the very purpose. The brilliant bubinga reminded her of its being as the mare gave it a thoughtless look. The curtains hanging by the sides of the window fluttered their mulberry selves to her from the air leaking in from her still-open front door. Octavia had regarded the furniture behind her, deep gray with mahogany posts shimmering at her from the chandelier hanging above them. Her kitchen, stocked to the brim with Pule cheese, Domain de la Romane-ee wine, and leftover Grape Terrace boxes, was forgotten. The glow of her lights seemed to have faded away. Her hooves had shaken on the railing ever so noticeably.

There were no sounds. Octavia's tuned, long-practiced ears had heard nothing at that moment. The streets outside were quiet. The complex seemed dead, like a symphony of ponies six feet under.

The mare had simply turned her head, back to the bleeding sunset and distant forests lovingly dancing at her from countries away.

That was when she knew.

There was no up side to being rich and famous. No nice thing to find, or even glance at. Nothing to grasp with your hoof. All those cheap little things that were mercilessly gored into her growing brain by gossiping tabloids and ink-ridden newspapers and deafening TVs and junk radios were nothing but crude lies used by celebrities and the common populace to... infect more innocent ponies with their secretly plagued stories of success and welcome. Stories that would get them off their dreams of college and education and on empty beliefs that would bring them to all courses of the world only to give them harrowing disappointment and familial failure. No pony right in their mind would want to see the solemn shaking of their parents' heads. They wanted to see nodding, cheering, hugging even, from the ponies who loved them most. They wanted to hear applause as they witnessed their names in bright, shining lights from skyscrapers. They wanted to be stopped by ponies on the street as they walked to the deli, ones who would ask for autographs or pose for group pictures. They wanted to see the fruits of their long, difficult labor blossom into golden crops, flavorful beyond belief and yielding promises so wonderful that even Celestia herself would marvel.

They wanted to be known as great.

They wanted to be known.

She wanted to be known. That's why she had went to college, wasn't it? That's why she had spent long nights studying up on the histories of Neightoven and Mozart, wasn't it? Octavia wanted to be known. She wanted to see her name in bright, shining lights, she wanted to sign autographs and pose for group pictures, she wanted to see her golden fruits of labor. Octavia Philharmonica, Lead Bassist of the Canterlot Symphony. The first Earth Pony since Chopin to "make a name" for herself in the wide world of the music industry, where Unicorns with their glowing magic and Pegasi with their feathery wings reigned supreme. Gripping bows, plucking strings, pressing valves, holding figures. Simpler things for others of her species, but less so for others of her race.

Why was she still doing it all?

The thought came to her out-of-the-blue, almost like the single thought that had started this whole session.

A voice soon did the same, rousing her from her thoughts.

"Octavia, are you okay?"

A sniffle escaped her nose, but she answered anyway.

"Yes," she said. Not necessarily, she thought.

The scent of rock and smoke began to fill her nostrils once again, forcing her to swear that the snot she had not two seconds ago dispelled would be a better alternative.

"We're almost there. Just a little further," called L, a cocky look on her face.

Where was she again?

"You looked pretty zoned-out back there, Octavia. Thought we'd had a dead pony walking for a few minutes," W added, still pulling the lead. "Then again, you were still walking, so we thought we might as well leave you be. And hey!" He suddenly whooped, smiling at the approaching beams of light lying in the way of their trail many a meter away. "Sure helped you, didn't it? You were out of it long enough for us to about make it all the way to the exit!"

"Yeah," came V's voice, prompting a small sneer on Octavia's face, "you didn't have ta listen to another one of W's shitty war stories." She turned the mare's way, a pair of flat lips (was that right?) pressing against her beak. "Looks like you lucked out." The Griffon gave a roll of her eyes as W replied back with a choked bout of laughter.

"Shitty? Is that right?"

"It's the same one every time!" V exclaimed, her voice echoing dangerously through the cave's admittedly claustrophobic confines. Octavia thanked her lucky stars that she wasn't Roseluck. That mare had had it bad. "You go to Sergeant Yeller, he shoos you to your post, you see something in the distance, think it's an enemy and rush after it—might I add abandoning your Sputnik-damned post—and then find yourself caught in a minefield!"

Whoa. Octavia felt a giddy smile cross her face, which suddenly dipped and flitted as she cursed inwardly. Had she really missed all that?

"Uh uh uh," W tutted, "you forgot one important part though!"

A sigh. Octavia wasn't sure if it had come from V, L, or even herself.

A growl now. Definitely from V. "Yeah yeah," she began, obviously displeased with her remembrance, "you actually saw something and it turned out to be a Changeling spy disguised as Yeller."

"And then what did I do?" It was Octavia's turn to roll her eyes. He was really enjoying himself.

"You brought him over back to base, playing along with his little game until you both stepped into the Comm Center."

"And then," L spoke, "you beat the living hell out of the Changeling while everyone screamed at you, thinking he was the actual Sergeant. When the real Yeller actually walked in, he smirked, lit his cigar or whatever, yadda yadda yadda, you got promoted, he gave the Changeling a claw to its gut as well, now you're stuck with us and Octavia in a dingy cave in the middle of nowhere!" The mare turned her head just in time to find L hovering in the air, aided by her fluttering wings as she waved jazz claws by the sides of her face. "Hurray!"

It was a very sarcastic hurray.

All turned toward T, awaiting his piece. He simply regarded them with a silent look and a cocked eyebrow.

"If you haven't noticed, L, we're almost out of here," W claimed, "which means you won't be able to hold that cave comment against me much longer. I'm not the one who said to come in here in the first place."

Dead silence. Only the thumping of paws, the clicking of claws, and the clopping of hooves remained.

"What?!" L shouted.

"But you totally were though!" V swore, suddenly halting and about-facing to their leader.

"..."

"Hell, you're the one who jinxed that damn rock blocking the entrance in the first place!"

"..."

"And you're the one who made me swim in freezing water just for V to spritz herself right next to me!" L cried, shooting a nasty glare at the Griffon in question. V's only response, naturally, was a paw clamping around her other arm and going up with it. Was she trying to roll up non-existent sleeves– oh now Octavia could see the black clothing underneath the armor. Never mind. The mare looked at T. He scrunched his beak and looked away, pretending to not exist as V did the same as her, expecting denial from him.

"...was I?"

"Yes!"

"Yeah!"

"You honestly were, I'm afraid," Octavia chimed in, eliciting a few nods from the female Griffons on either side of her. She suddenly realized that they weren't walking toward the exit anymore. This was a problem. T seemed to notice this as well, but proved to be no help in furthering the argument. He instead found a nice rock and leaned against it with a smile. Octavia scoffed. She wished she could do that.

"Could we... possibly postpone this conversation–"

W scratched his head. It was a deafeningly loud, very disgusting sounding noise, like a fork against one's rump. Wait what was V doing oh Gods there it is–

"Can we go, please?" L asked, beginning to walk away. "Not sure about the rest of you," she continued, fanning a paw their way, "but I'm not a big fan of staying inside this cave 'til next century once you two're done."

"No. I wanna hear her say it."

"You what?"

W lifted his chin up, staring the younger Griffon down with a steely gaze. "I wanna hear you say it."

V scrunched her eyes, turning her head to look at him from the left side of her corneas. She let her beak slack open for a while, keeping it up even after she asked again, "You what?"

"Valkyrie..."

Octavia's eyes widened. As did L's. And T's. And, apparently, Valkyrie's.

"You bastard. You said my name!"

"Could've just denied it," W replied coldly, eyes slowly landing on Octavia before going back. "Now she knows."

"She doesn't–"

"What's V's name, Octavia?"

The mare stopped.

W's eyebrows ascended from his unmoving position in front of the wide-eyed Valkyrie.

Octavia exchanged looks with Valkyrie. They copied each others expression.

The mare looked back up to W.

"Uh..."

"It's Valkyrie," he corrected.

Octavia blinked.

"Oh is–"

"What's her name, Octavia?"

"Valkyrie."

"There ya go." W rustled V's head feathers with a bone-crushingly violent noogie, then patted it as he began to walk off past L. "Forgot what I wanted a second ago," he said, a nasally chuckle escaping him, "let's keep going, shall we?"

Thank Gods.

V– excuse her, Valkyrie grumbled vengeful nothings to herself as she brushed the long white feathers out of her eyes. Walking past her, Octavia caught up with L and opened her mouth to speak.

"Yeah don't screw with W," L unknowingly interrupted, "he'll break any rule just to get back at you." The Griffon looked down at Octavia. "Bringer of Justice's what they called him back home. His real name's Glory in Griffon tongue, so I guess it makes sense."

Octavia raised a brow.

There was an immediate question on her mind, and so she spoke it as such.

"What, do tell, does Valkyrie mean in Griffon tongue?"

L shrugged.

"Chooser of the Slain."

She walked away as Octavia all but spat out her bottom lip in a reasonably over-dramatic frown, stopping dead in her tracks.

"Oh."

Comments

[Litihur]

So Griffins are Nordic? Hmm...

[re- Yamsmos]

6911824 I actually take griffon names from various different places. Poland, Sweden, Norse mythology, you name it as long as it's not African of any kind.

That's reserved for Zebras. Nice catch though. Definitely suits her, doesn't it?