Stroll

by re- Yamsmos

Misery

"So then I told her... well, I didn't tell her, I asked her. I said, 'do you have a jersey? Because I need your name and number.'"

Octavia let out a huge, uproarious, completely juvenile whoop more at home at a Hoofball game than in her current residence, throwing her head back and tossing her mane across her spine as she bellowed toward the ceiling, absolutely positive that what had just been told was funny not only because of the little glass sitting in front of her on the counter, awaiting further tipping and emptying. She returned down to the sweet, sweet embrace of Earth, and thereafter her senses, wiping an eye with a wobbly hoof and a shake of her — now that she thought about it — annoyingly pulsing skull.

"And what did Frail shhay?" She asked, waggling her eyebrows at him as he chuckled in kind.

"Please, he didn't even care. In fact, I think he was curious enough for a threesome."

"Fuhuhuhu!" Octavia chortled, settling her drink back on the counter so she didn't drop it. Which wasn't unusual. Or would be the first time. "I doubt you'd even be able to contain yourshelf. Jussht busy away with Frail and leave the poor dear to watch you two make out the whole night."

Concerto's brown mane shimmied as he nodded vigorously. Shimmied. Like Saint Nick on a chimney in the dead of winter. She always wondered how he managed to do that every year. "Well, everypony needs to see something new once in awhile."

Octavia shook. "I'd have to... disagree with that."

"Oh yeah?" Concerto asked, turning to her. "You've only been playing with us for almost a year so far. You'll find that it's infinitely harder to avoid new encounters than you think."

"I suppose," Octavia supposed, reaching for her glass and muttering, "I hardly think I'll grow to like Symphony any generation soon."

"The Symphony's not too terrible," Concerto claimed. Octavia frowned. She didn't mean the Symphony Symphony. "You'll get used to it. Plus, you could make a better name for yourself playing that double bass than sitting next to Parish or Ballad."

"Shhhhould be fine," Octavia slurred.

She peeled her ears back and minded her throat.

Oh yeah. She was on her fifth drink. It's funny how the bottom of a glass looked the same no matter how many times you looked into one.

Being drunk was something. Some kind of something. The kind of something that was, in a way, vaguely similar in form and — consequently — fashion to a dividing line. A wedge in the front of a locomotive (what were those called again she knew the word but it wasn't trickling from her tongue at the moment) in case of debris or bovines blocking their path to, in finality, success, in the shape of a bright train station and bits in its occupants' pockets. A wedge that didn't stop for one second, very reliably able to violently push out any and every kind of something else that dared to hurt what was trudging along amiably behind it, kicking a cloud of dust and furious wind in its thin-walled wake.

If Octavia was a boss Gods kind of Godsdamned train, her passengers would freeze to death in the summer and her coal ponies would hate her insides every minute they worked at them.

"I mean, the glass is empty," Concerto piped up, prompting Octavia to lower it from her gaze. Ha. Gaze. "You could always eat it like Discord in those old tales."

"You can't even read, Concerto."

"That's unfair," Concerto shot back, pointing a hoof, then coiling it around his own cup and taking a swig. "And untrue," he tried, letting out a breath. "You're a liar, Octavia. You're a liar and I hate you."

"You're brown."

"I'm a lightish brown, thanks," Concerto affirmed, brushing a hoof down his chest. "And you look like a donkey."

She felt a breath catch in her gut before it could even think about exploding out. She pushed it back down with a small, nasally sigh, and blinked at her coworker. That remark was a bit of a line-crosser, but she wouldn't — couldn't — really afford to get pissy at her only real friend in her new workplace over a little, jokingly spat insult in the midst of an irreversible, definitely-regretful-tomorrow-morning bender of a night.

According to Concerto, the members of the Canterlot Symphony, buggered as they were, never particularly indulged in such nonsense as "juvenile drinking sprees" unless it was holiday, and even then, they'd be so prim, proper, and modest going about it that they'd pretty much be a church priest without all the inappropriate colt touching. She... hadn't known of any actual examples of such a thing. In fact, every priest she'd ever met were either massive cocks, or as nice as could be. Then again, you'd think that they'd try to be as nice as could be to lower suspicion oh Gods no!

"So, first year," Concerto started, as if the title was something worth even adding. Rude. She knew he didn't mean it, but, still. She was back in grade school, with unnecessary nicknames that didn't stop sticking to her, like Teacher's Pet, and Bitch. "How are you enjoying it so far?"

Octavia sat up a tad, turning to face Concerto. She looked back down at her cup out of the corners of her eyes, pouted her lower lip, and gave a shrug.

Though her response wasn't one so deviously planned, and, in fact, surprised her just a bit, there was still a deep-down part of her that expected Concerto to give her a somber reaction, one of half-lidded eyes and acknowledging nods. Maybe a hug. A drink would've been nice, too. A drink would've always been nice. A drink or four. Five? Was she on five?

She took the second to look down at her frothy-edged glass, blink at the bubbles that met her gaze, and finish what remained inside before her thoughts could continue festering, an open wound on the inside of her cheek that met every meal she ever ate. No matter. She'd just keep adding onto her horribly growing number. What negativity ever came of drinking, besides alcoholism, liver failure, scaldingly hot retching, eternal vomiting, kidney failure, dependence, hallucinations, birth defects, blackouts, pinprick brains, lung infection, blunt death, worried friends, worried camps, worried group chats, worried lessons, worried parents, worried self, worried life, worried hospital, worried cards, worried IVs, worried machines, worried Unicorn magic, worried coworkers, actually maybe not the worried coworkers...

"How's the apartment?"

Octavia let out a little noise, blinking herself back into the reality-based side of the world. That she lived on. In. Reality. Whatever.

"I worry that it'sh," she crinkled her nose, "it'sh, bleh, it'sh it'sh it'sh..." Concerto let out a whinny, almost knocking his drink to the floor. Octavia in the meanwhile found herself narrowing her eyes, leaning forward, and talking to the little shotglass slightly to the left of her, "...it'sh, um, I worry that it'sh... too shmall?"

Concerto tilted his head. "Too small? Really?"

"Are you coming ont'me?" Octavia asked.

"Gods I'd hope not. Frail would be incredibly upset if I brought a mare home."

"What if I sat on that niccce sofa you had and just watched you two all night?"

"Then you might be Wrong, too," Concerto inside-joked.

Octavia widened her eyes. Then she narrowed them. Not that that mattered. On her tongue sat a very comprehensive, exquisitely coherent choice of words that would make Concerto giggle out of his dumb little seat and stop the entire waking world in its earthly tracks.

She opened her mouth and very aptly belched in his face.

Concerto turned his head and fussed up his face like he'd heard a crass joke, bit on a fresh lemon, or, as was this time, smelt something particularly dastardly. Octavia gave a wobbly grin at absolutely nothing, content with her response. Waving a hoof around and groaning, Concerto griped, "Gods, mare. You sick freak. You damn mutie."

Octavia put her glass back down after having picked it up, stared at it, and realized it was empty again.

"Are those all words your mother shaid to you at shome point? Shome... uh–"

"I'll have you know my mother was very supportive in my formative years."

Octavia had... no response to that. No reply, really. No real one, at least.

"Mmhm."

She diverted her attention elsewhere. Waving a little hoof, she caught the sight of the bartender, mouthed a quick word, and pointed at her glass. The Unicorn looked her way, nodded, and turned around to fetch another glass.

Seemingly satisfied with himself, Concerto hummed along to Pavane and busied himself with tapping on the top of the counter to the rhythm, either completely adverse to the promptly fired looks of the other patrons aimed his way, or not caring in the absolute slightest. Seeing as how it was Concerto sitting next to her and not some other pony like Parish or Frederick, it was most likely the latter.

She buried her cheek into a hoof and turned at the hip to look his way. She heard him stutter and slur into the right note after having started on a flat one, watched as he pursed his lips and crinkled his nose, and giggled childishly as he muttered a very small, "Shit," that sounded through the whole bar.

Concerto. Concerto Concerto Concerto.

She smirked, right hoof subconsciously reaching for her glass.

He was a friend. An incredible, sheltering one, like a sturdy house, or a bridge overhang after trudging through the lovely rain. Rain was a beautiful thing, but you didn't really want to get fully soaked to the bone and sick as a dog now, did you? He was the first pony in the Symphony to have introduced himself to her when she'd started a few months prior, bass case in tow and a huge, very much wrong smile plastered on her face. So far, she'd known him by two names. The first was the one he'd made up on the spot. I. C. Wiener turned out to be a very recognizably false alias, but she'd still lost her way and howled at it as he vehemently denied its transparency, ignoring the "hurry ups" and "get on with its" from the other band members glaring at the two.

Concerto proved to be a lovely companion. The saving grace from under the deathly scowl of Frederick or Beauty Brass that swept her up and helped her laugh a little bit. He was fun when they were focused. He was laughing when they were frowning. He was respectful when they were as bloody rude as they could manage without being fired, which, thanks to Dan's being part of a self-established neutral party, pretty much only barred them from flat-out throwing punches at one another, which it came to many a time. Octavia never pushed that far. She and Concerto may have been the two odd ones out, but they didn't dare step too far out of line.

Come to think of it, every near-brawl that had occurred since she'd joined up had been started by Beauty, continued by Frederick, and provoked by Parish, with the last two being the ones to actually bump heads. Usually it was over something as outrageously appalling like skipping a single rest — Frederick — or being too tight-assed — Parish — and so the fisticuffs (hooficuffs?) would just begin to, well, begin before someone was able to stop it. Which was usually Beauty, who pushed and pushed and let up just as the straws snapped in a case of the utmost indecency Octavia had ever borne witness to. And she'd seen the end of Hoofball games, where proxies yelled at coaches for the team, and coaches punished the team for... themselves? She never really understood it. Which was why she never played sports.

Being part of a team under the rule of a single, older pony seemed absolutely ridiculous.

Instead, she'd spent most of her high school days eating lunch with her friends by themselves, and keeping to mainly herself anytime she wasn't doing that. It turned out to be a bit of a lonely system, but it worked for her, and it wasn't really lonely in the end anyway, so why did she just call it lonely? Gods. Idiot.

Lonely. Being lonely.

If somepony had walked down 10th Street, looked to their right after five minutes of wandering, found the strength to smile at the horrible sign out front, and walked into Lefty's at that exact moment, they'd narrow their eyes in response to the low — actually, almost completely absent — lighting, look at the counter, spy her sitting on one of the stools, and just assume she was a lonely mare down on her luck with some guy next to her pestering her for sex... and sometimes trying to grab her beer. She slapped Concerto's hoof. He snickered and returned to his prior, not-screwing-with-her position.

She wasn't lonely, though, so they'd be wrong on all accounts. She was just a regular, Canterlot, upper-class, refined, classical, scrupulous Earth Pony mare with bits in her little bag on the counter next to her fifteen or more drinks, head hung low and her eyes doing nothing but glazing and staring like some kind of sentient doughnut utterly focused on the small wayward scratches cut into the wine cabinet's finely curved corners. Deep in her stomach were ounces of alcohol, and nestled in her brain were shambling, rambling, damn-bling thoughts that never left no matter how wet her throat was.

Actually, come to think of it, maybe she was lonely. She certainly looked it. Oh Gods she was lonely– was she lonely? No. But was she? She couldn't be. Twenty-one years of age didn't — shouldn't — equal lonely. Twenty-one years of age meant parties, and fun, and booze, and parties, and fun, and... and parties! She had the booze part, which she so promptly exercised by tapping her glass and eliciting a raised ear from Concerto, so she couldn't have been lonely!

Oh Gods what did it mean to be lonely, actually? It was, like, lacking. Of ponies. Or people, or people! She wasn't being racist. Speciesist? Whatever. Lonely was the lack of something. Anything, really. Lonely was... missing something. Missing as in absentia, or just aching for a prior known colleague of sorts. Lonely was her apartment, part of the lovely Strafford Apartment Complex filled with horrible characters that either already hated her being there, or wanted her gone because the others already hated her being there. Apartment 29, hers, was at the tip-top of the building — a corner apartment as well — and so even further was it isolated from the rest of the world she barely inhabited. It gave her a nice view, but you couldn't necessarily make friends with the waning sunlight and the rising moonlight. Princess Luna and Princess Celestia were never ponies you could just befriend, after all, if Frederick was to be wholeheartedly believed. She wondered if the Princesses ever got lonely.

Lonely was not something wonderful. That... was stupid of her to say. Of course it wasn't wonderful. It was Godsawful. Being lonely was absolutely miserable.

Loneliness at its core was misery at its finest.

Loneliness was trotting down the streets of Canterlot and not feeling an ounce of belonging. Loneliness was living in Ponyville and feeling the exact same thing. There was a certain sense of home that just never truly met her, even when she'd been living down in San Palomino and her birthplace was completely surrounding her. She never felt it walking through her front door, and she never felt it tucking herself in at night. Home was just a word she used because, well, what else did you call your place of residence besides exactly that? And it wasn't like she was completely alien to being home. She enjoyed the warmth and coziness of carpets under her hooves, and dogs meandering about panting and loving her, and it was very obviously home. But... maybe then her problem wasn't not feeling at home.

Maybe it was just the feeling of... mediocrity. Looking at her crumpled up songs in her hooves after digging them out of the rubbish bin, seconds before being tossed back in. Rearing up onto her hindlegs to begin playing her bass. Risking a look out into the audience to find them absolutely enamored with her and the others' performance. Waking up in the morning, mane bedraggled and eyes struggling to remain open. Staring into the mirror and finding a gray mare with a dark gray mane and purple eyes and a white collar with a pink bowtie's band wrapped around it and hidden from view.

They went hoof in hoof, didn't they?

There was nothing more lonely than the feeling of mediocrity adjacent an opus.

Other things went hoof in hoof as well, though. Friends, like Concerto, and hard times somehow, always, found a very well-wanted connection together. When you were crying, or sad, or distressed, or angry, or distant, or numb, or nervous, or scared, friends would swoop in to be by your side, and if they weren't, well, then they weren't really friends, then, were they? Hoof in hoof. Talon in talon. Water in Beagle. W in T. Lavi in Valkyrie. Octavia in Sesame. Most of her life had been hard times — not as hard as, say, refugees, or the homeless — and it seemed that most of her life had been spurred on by nothing but Good Samaritans just trying to be decent people. Decent people. Not just ponies, but people. Real people, with real things that they were better off doing, instead put on hold just to give her an ounce of assistance. A gallon of it, mostly. Like a gallon of milk. Always there in the store, and always willing to better you.

Then again, she was deathly frightened of going out and buying milk. So many kinds, with differences she didn't — couldn't — really decipher. Milk jugs weren't supposed to be Daring Do puzzles.

Hoof in hoof. Hoof... on hoof. Hoof on... her shoulder.

There was a hoof on her shoulder.

She rose from her stool with the renewed vitality of a disturbed comatose patient.

"Buh?!"

She blinked and shook her head violently, trying her best to dispel the cacophony of her mind. Groaning, she worked her jaw around and began popping her forelegs.

"You were takin' a pretty 'ardcore nap there, mare. You all right?"

Octavia cleared her throat, leaning a tad forward to a proper, completely-awake sitting position. "Terribly sorry, sir. I'm perfectly fine, thank you."

The bartender, a Unicorn with a fantastically curly mustache and a head of messy hair, raised an eyebrow and smirked at her.

"Just feelin' like a couple thousand drinks, today?" He asked, bringing a hoof up and fanning it around the counter in front of him and her. Octavia looked. There were about seventeen glasses there. Much less than a thousand. She understood the sarcasm, but she would've joked a hundred instead of a thousand. Who rounded up by two digits?

She shrugged. "Just that kind of day, it seems."

The bartender chuckled. "Good answer." He coughed. "So, what are you getting up to in Baltimare these days?"

Octavia placed a hoof over her mouth to suppress a yawn. Barely succeeding, she tapped her half-empty glass and creaked her stool beneath her. "Won't be long before I leave, mind. It's nothing too important anyhow."

Friends in hard times. This stallion was another example. Could have just let her fester, but he took the time to prod for the better of both of them.

"I'll take that," the Unicorn replied, lighting his horn and adjusting the upside-down cups sitting patiently on the counter to be filled. "Not too many interesting things happening here anyway. Just another city in Equestria. Not like Ponyville. Now that's a place to be."

"I live in Ponyville, actually," Octavia smirked, catching the Unicorn's attention and eliciting a hum, "and it's miles different from any other place around here."

"Got your Elements..." he started.

"...and the catastrophes..." Octavia resumed.

"...and the new Princess..."

"...and random, upbeat songs–"

"Seriously!" He shouted, "How the hell do they even do that?!"

Octavia shrugged. "I have not a single clue. Some days, I'll be drinking my coffee, pull the curtains, and see the entire town doing the Charleston down the street."

"Meanwhile, I'm stuck managing a bar in downtown Baltimare at eleven-forty-seven in the morning with ponies like Em Dash stealing every waking bit from under my nose."

"Hey, that's a lie and you know it, Honey! You always know when I steal from you!" A voice from behind Octavia called, one that sounded like the largest amount of hype packed into the smallest amount of stallion. She was willing to risk a glance, but it was more than a tad rude to turn away from a conversation.

The apparent Honey brought up a hoof and aimed it at Em, clicking his tongue and spouting, "Damn right! Here, catch!"

Octavia raised her hooves up to her chest and ducked as a foaming flagon soared over her head and landed onto Em's table.

"Eyyyyy!"

"Eyyyyyyyy!" Honey replied more vigorously in kind. He wiped his hooves and placed them on the counter. "So, uh..." he sucked on his teeth and scratched his neck, "...don't wanna be a stick in the mud, but we've, uh, kinda got rules here."

Octavia raised a brow. In the light of the bar, Honey looked like he was legitimately regretting whatever he was bringing up.

He motioned to his head.

Octavia tilted hers.

Honey smacked his lips. "You mind taking off the hat? It's just polite is all." He brought up a hoof and pointed at the doorway. "We've got a hat rack by the door, if you wanna put it there and not risk it being in the splash zone."

Oh. Octavia reached up to the ballcap's bill and took it off her head, then placed it on the counter in front of her.

She reached for her glass.

Then she stopped.

She looked back at the ballcap.

She continued looking at the ballcap.

She was still looking at the ballcap, which prompted Honey to also look at the ballcap.

They were both looking at the ballcap.

Honey spoke up, "Yeah. It's your ballcap. What do you–"

Octavia jumped from her seat, snatching the ballcap in her teeth and throwing down two bits in one fell swoop. Spinning around as she hit the floor, she barely told the entire building that she was, "leaving for a tad," before pouncing through the front door and landing on the street in a now dreadfully hot mess that crumpled and groaned like an old discarded beanbag chair. Shaking her head and cursing at the birds that were desperately fleeing the orbit around her skull, she scrambled to her hooves, bit on the ballcap once more, and began sprinting as fast she could muster down the busy street of almost-noon-ish Baltimare.

Racing down the sidewalk at a breakneck, definitely record speed, Octavia brushed past faceless ponies who swiveled about and shouted at her shadow, mind one, no two, three, no absolutely ahead of her every step of the way. The sound of her hooves clip-clopping against the concrete faded away as her heavy breathing and drum-like heart hammered into her ears. Even as her head told her to avoid the little box of construction on the sewer grate at the corner, she ducked her head, peeled her ears back, and jumped over the black and yellow lines of tape.

She thereafter snagged the final line, felt her grace instantly disappear, and hit the ground face first. Almost smacking herself in the nose as she shot back up, Octavia ignored the ponies who had stopped to assess and question her injuries, crossed the raging street without waiting before the crosswalk, weaved in and out of the waiting traffic — who shouted angry names and cursed stupid slang as she went along — and continued on her way without caring about the dust and rocks plaguing her face. She instantly cared about it, however, after thinking about it, and brought a swift hoof up to wipe her features before returning to her full-on mad dash toward the docks.

It was a blurred flurry of red-faced, heart-blasting, ear-shattering galloping as Octavia sped past the restaurant that had created her day's salad earlier, bumped into a duo of sailors who raised a tiny upset at her, and began storming down the dock. The thump-thump-thumping of her four hooves dwarfed the seagulls cawing overhead, the riggings creaking and crackling, and, now that she drew near to the Scuttlebug, the uproarious sea shanties bellowing to the entire world.

She took a sharp left and practically flew down the last line of wooden slats, only able to catch a breath when she saw the loading ramp still leading toward the rear end of the open cargo bay. Quickening her pace and just now beginning to feel that unmistakable pit grow in her gut, she jumped up the steps, skittered to a halt, and looked around for any sign of movement that could have somehow belonged to W. She released her grasp on the ballcap's bill and deposited it on her hoof, idly — lazily — jostling it about as she softly walked around the room.

"W? Are you around?"

She found herself looking to her left and right in her search, and only found barrels, crates, and boxes of things she couldn't rightly make out in the sub-darkness. Clearing her throat, she raised her voice so she could be heard above the shanties raging above her head on the deck.

"W? It's Octavia. I have your hat."

The bartender — she'd already forgotten his name — had said that it was, what, eleven-forty-five or so? With her run, it was, maybe, eleven-fifty-five, which meant that she still had an hour and five before the ship was due to leave for Griffonia. Where in the hell was everybody? She at least expected to find T down here, trying his hardest to read by himself away from all the noise, and knowing him, he'd know where W was, or at least take the hat off her and give it to him the next time they passed.

She changed her request. "T? Are you down here? Maybe in a corner somewhere?"

Octavia leaned to and fro on her hooves to look at the corners of the cargo bay, and found a new stream of light suddenly shine in from the heavens.

The voices, now loud as could be, unknowingly sang to her with astonishingly harmonized vocals, "Still alive, all you love!" before being muffled once more. Octavia, seizing the opportunity, trotted over to the hatch and saw what had been deposited. A few duffle bags lay on the ground in a heap, bulging and sagging from oddly-shaped items trying their hardest to escape from within. She looked up, finding the sky and the main mast of the Scuttlebug, hoping to signal a passing griffon to open the door and help her out.

She saw an object move into view, and raised a hoof to begin waving.

It wasn't a griffon per-say. It was the ass of one, and it suddenly pressed against the hatch's little window and stayed there.

Octavia shook her head wildly, climbing the small stepladder up with her brow furrowed. Raising a hoof, she banged on the wooden frame, but found not a bit of success. The ass remained where it was.

She turned about. No matter. She'd just have to climb up. From the outside. On the rigging.

Octavia hurried down the body of the ship back toward the loading ramp, turned a corner, and suddenly felt her heart cease.

The opening she'd used to enter had been shut. A few boxes and crates sat just at the edge of the loading area, blocking off any chance she could climb over and try to force it open.

Her breathing spasming and her head now nauseously swimming, she vaulted over the obstacles and tried it anyway.

It was only about twelve! What the hell was going on?!

Octavia pressed her face against one of the windows on the ship's closed ramp, looking for anyone that could help open it back up. Her eyes flipped from object to object, finally settling on a clock situated near the dock's central area.

It read 12:59.

Octavia's jaw fell slack.

"Oh my Gods, it's Daylight Savings Time."

She inched away from the window, raised up a hoof, and tapped on the wood. This tapping became knocking. And this knocking became punching.

Her stomach began to roll and slosh and gurgle, and she watched as the dock began to move away from her ever so slowly, like a beast lumbering toward you in a nightmare.

Her punching turned into slamming.

"Somebody! Godsdammit! Somebody, please! Let me out!"

She grit her teeth and began using both her forelegs.

She had to catch a train.

"I have to catch a train!"

She had to go to Ponyville.

"I have to go to Ponyville!"

She had to go home.

"I have to go... ho-ome!"

She could barely see now. Her sniffling was catching up to her.

There was something wet on her hooves, and for a second she believed that she'd touched the water.

"Please!"

She pulled back her right foreleg and struck as hard as she could.

She wanted to go home.

"I want to go home!"

She fell back with that, rolling across the crates and the boxes and landing in a sputtering heap on the floor.

"Somebody, please!" She sucked on her teeth and looked around for anybody that could help her, but the only noises came from the outside taunting her just above her head.

Octavia placed her hooves on the ground, and suddenly cursed, falling back onto her stomach.

She brought her hooves up to her eyes and stared at them.

Cracked, and bleeding, they wobbled in her vision and began to dematerialize before her very eyes.

Godsdammit this couldn't be happening. This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be happening.

She was feeling light-headed now. She'd pass out if she weren't careful.

This wasn't real. She was on the train. She was going home.

Octavia rose to her hooves again, and fell down once more.

"Oh Gods oh please no. No no no."

She tucked her forelegs in in front of her stomach and shut her eyes.

"This is a nightmare. This is a nightmare. We're asleep, and we're going home."

Octavia hacked out a wail.

"We're asleep, and we're going home."

She opened her eyes, just the slightest, to look out the back window of the ship.

The boats and the docks began to shrink in size.

The city of Baltimare began to shrink in size.

The train station began to shrink in size.

The town of Ponyville began to shrink in size.

Home. Her home. Home began to shrink in size.

"Just a nightmare," she said to the water.

"Just a nightmare," she said to the dark cargo bay.

"Just... a nightmare," she said to the ship.

"We're going home," she said to the floor.

"We're going home," she said to nobody.

Comments

[the other sans]

Friends, compadres, amigos, compatriots, pals, buddies, friendly fellows, all just about the same thing which would probably be the same to Octavia but just different names for a drink. At least it wasn't milk with all its low fats, full cream, fresh, chocolate and all some other sorts of hubbub types. At least with wine she'd know her Merlot from her Chardonnay or even Aqua Panna... wait, what was that last one?

Never mind, seems like it's time to cap things off with another piece of Fate laughing her ass off by placing it within Octavia's hoof length and having her hit that ass but not doing anything. I mean really though, you'd think a place like Equestria where they manage their own Daylight, literally, would have a neat and perfect system to it. It's not like it's possible to have some... mortal... error... in it...