Something To Be

by Tealove

Don't Say Goodbye

“Octave, get your hooves off of that instrument this moment!”

I gasped and whipped around to see Melomane glaring down at me. In the many months that I'd been living in the back room of his shop with Glissando, he'd raised his voice at the both of us almost hourly, more at Glissando than me. Yet each and every time he yelled I expected the world to come crashing down on me. He never raised a hoof to us and always made sure our basic needs were taken care of but he was definitely not the most nurturing pony alive and that always made me more than a little fearful of him.

“What do you think you are doing?”

My mouth opened, closed. I glanced up at the violin I'd just put back in its hanging bracket rack and wondered if he knew I'd already been touching it. Every time he was out of the shop I was all over the store, testing and playing with as many of the instruments as I could. By now I knew the basics of almost all the instruments and could even play a few simple songs by ear on a couple different stringed instruments. Did he suspect as much? Was he just waiting for proof before tossing me out on my hindquarters? I struggled for words that didn't come and he glowered over me.

“The rack is loose,” said Glissando as she came from the storage room. “Three of the violins fell this morning just before sunrise. You should have seen how high Octave jumped.”

“What?!” Meloman shoved me out of the way to inspect the violins. “Which ones? How badly were they damaged?”

“The last three.” Glissando came to stand beside me, magenta eyes looking up at the rack and a semi-bored expression on her face. “They actually fell into the loose sheet music basket so they didn't get really scuffed up or anything. The last one needed a bit of polishing but that's about it. Octave made sure it was perfect before hanging it back up.”

The old stallion turned to us with clear disbelief in his eyes. He stared hard me and I resisted the urge to gulp. “Next time leave it there.”

“Whatever you say boss.” Glissando saluted, then turned tail to head back into the storage room. I followed as quickly as my hooves would allow.

“How do you make lying look so easy?” I demanded in a whisper.

Glissando tossed her two-tone mane and grinned at me, returning to her inventory checklist. “When you've been doing it as long as I have it becomes as easy as breathing. Here, take this second page and we can get this done quicker.” Reluctantly, I took the second sheet and got to work, a pencil in my mouth. Glissando glanced at me with a smirk. “You know, you're going to have to tell him someday. Or learn how to lie. I'm not always going to be here to save your flank.”

“You keep saying that,” I muttered around the pencil, “but you're still here, aren't you?”

That shut her up and I couldn't help but feel a little guilty. Glissando had been really very good to me since we'd been thrown together. She took me under her wing, as it were, and had truly become my best friend. Sharing a room as we did we often stayed up nights just talking and those conversations made me feel closer to the brash unicorn than I had felt toward anyone before in my life. I knew she didn't want to stay working for Melomane forever and wanted to go out and figure out what she was good at, but she'd been threatening to leave since the first week I'd arrived. I was used to her idle comments about it by now.

“How come you're not afraid of him?” I asked after a few minutes of silence.

“I don't know. I've known a lot of ponies over my life and he's actually been one of the nicest.”

“You make yourself sound so old.”

I heard her sigh on the other side of the room and say quietly, “I feel old some days.”

Turning, I looked at the back of Glissando's head. How could I not have noticed how unhappy she'd become? Was I so wrapped up in my own head that I neglected to see how miserable she seemed? I set my pencil down on the checklist and walked across the room to stand beside her. “I'm sorry.”

She looked at me and quirked a brow. “For what?”

“For not being a good friend.”

Rolling her eyes, she went back to work. “What did I tell you about reading too much into things? You didn't offend me, you didn't bother me, I just didn't have anything else to say.”

I shrugged and sat to watch her work again. “Is Melomane really the nicest pony you've known?”

“Besides High Note? Yeah.”

She said it so matter of factly that I didn't know how to react at first. As often as I talked about my family life Glissando had never opened up about her own. Now I was more curious than ever. “What about your parents?”

“I never knew my parents.” Another emotionless statement as she worked. It was one I didn't quite understand.

“How can you not know your own parents?”

“Easy. They dumped me at the Manehattan orphanage before I was old enough to remember what they're faces looked like.”

I gasped, both shocked and confused at the same time. “Why would they do that?”

Now she turned to look at me, true irritation in her eyes. “Because they didn't want me, obviously. Can you finish this up? I gotta pee.” Without waiting for my reply she levitated the rest of her list over to mine and left the room. A voice in my head said I should follow her but I was afraid of angering her more. It wasn't that I assumed she'd come from a good life or anything; what filly would run away from home if everything was as it should be? I'd just never given it any real thought because, I was realizing, I really was too wrapped up in my own head.

Grabbing the checklist and pencil, I sighed and went back to work.

~*~*~*~*~

The sun was sinking behind Canterlot castle by the time Melomane felt his day of work was completed. As usual he closed and locked the front door by four, then spent an hour doing paperwork behind the register before threatening us bodily harm if we so much as breathed wrong around his inventory, then leaving and locking us in for the night. For the first time in weeks I did not feel relief as the old stallion left us. Glissando had given me little more than stony silence all day, and when she did speak to me her answers were short and her tone was clipped. For awhile I'd gone about my chores feeling heavy and guilty; her bad mood was my fault after all. But as the day progressed I started to get irritated with her. Now, as we ate our usual dinner of hay fries and dandelion burgers, I was close to angry.

Why was it okay for her to ask me endless questions about myself, my home life, my family and expect answer but not okay for me to do the same? She was my first real friend but I always thought the point of having a friend was to be able to share everything. Did she not trust me? Who would I tell?

As anger simmered inside of me I looked up from my meal and over at her cot, harsh words on my tongue. They fell away when I saw her face. Her eyes were sad and she was poking at her fries with disinterest. A lump formed in my throat that was hard to swallow. “Glissando...” My voice was oddly thick and all my earlier feelings of guilt crashed down upon me. “I'm sorry.”

She shook her head and chuckled mirthlessly. “How many times do I have to tell you to stop apologizing?”

“I'm so-” I bit my lip and looked down sheepishly.

“You didn't do anything wrong, Octave. I just don't like to talk about my life before this place. It sucked. A lot. This is better and it's now so why dwell on the past?”

“Because it's what makes you who you are.”

“No, it's not.” Her rebuttal was so firm that it made me blink. You make you who you are. The choices you make, the ponies you choose to be friends with, the paths you wander down. But your past does not make you anything. All it is is a weight around your neck. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about.”

We'd seen ponies with every personality imaginable walk through the doors of the shop. Some were happy and talkative, some were more mellow and contemplative. Others were quiet and serious and occasionally we'd meet one who was jaded and cynical. Glissando and I always teased one another with me saying she'd end up one of the happy talkative ones and I'd be the cynical guarded one. Clearly we both had been wrong. I didn't know the extent of her hurt but caring for her as I did now, it made me hurt. She was every much my sister as Pinkie and Blinkie had ever been, more so in so many ways.

I abandoned my dinner and crossed the room to climb up onto Glissando's cot. She didn't protest or act like this was out of the ordinary, but when I leaned my head against her withers she leaned her head against mine. As the light grew dimmer all around us we stayed together until the cold night air began to seep in and we were forced to move. I set Glissando's untouched food aside while she made a small fire in the fireplace. She turned back as I was crawling under one of her blankets and smiled slightly.

“You've changed.”

Surprised by the statement, I raised my brows at her in question. “I have?”

She crawled under the blanket with me and nodded. “You used to be scared of your own shadow and barely looked at me when I talked to you. Now here you are trying to make me feel better. Being here in the city has changed your coloring a bit, too. Different air, I guess.”

“What?” Now my brow wrinkled. “I don't look different.”

“Dude, you looked like a big ball of colorless blah when you got here. Now your coat looks like a clean gray and your mane is leaning toward black.” She narrowed her eyes and leaned closer to my face. “Your eyes are darker, too.”

“No. A pony doesn't just change colors like that!”

“You're right,” she conceded. “But we're not talking blue to pink here. It's subtle. Even your eyes are changing shape, though I guess that happens more often than anything as ponies get older. Go look in the mirror.”

Defiant, I hopped to the floor and trotted over to the nightstand we shared and looked at my reflection in the mirror atop it. I turned this way and that, looking over my body, my mane, staring into my own eyes. Was I really that different? Looking back at Glissando I asked, “Did you change?”

She shrugged. “Dunno. I don't remember what I used to look like. I've been here for a long time.”

“Why have you stayed?” Though the fire was burning brightly now it was still chilly in the room, and I made my way back to the warmth of Glissando and her blanket.

“I don't know. Before you came I was really thinking about leaving. I love music and everything about it but this place is not where I want to be for the rest of my life. Sure as heck isn't going to get me my cutie mark.” For the first time since I'd known her, she looked slightly embarrassed. “Then you showed up and changed everything.”

“You stayed for me?”

She gave a small shrug. “Wouldn't be right to just leave you with Melomane. I remembered what it was like to be new here and terrified of everything and everyone unfamiliar.”

I couldn't stop myself from snorting. “You? Terrified? You're not terrified of anything!”

“I used to be. Still am sometimes, I just know how to hide it better.” She looked at me. “You'll learn to, too. Eventually.”

It was hard to imagine the shop without Glissando there. I was always so easily discouraged and, yes, Melomane still scared me, and she was always there to make me feel better. What would I do if she ever left me? The idea was not something I could swallow easily. Yet I knew she wasn't happy. Was I willing to let her stay miserable just so I could be comfortable? What kind of a friend would that make me? I wanted for her to be happy. I missed the days of the easy smiles and the jokes that were so rare on her lips these days. I hadn't realized it before but now that I looked back I could see the slow fade in her attitude. To know she could have been out there trying to find what made her happy all this time, what she sacrificed for me made me feel horrible.

“Where would you go?”

She started across the room into the flames dancing behind the fireplace grate. “I don't really know. I've saved up almost every single bit I've earned here so I'd be okay on my own for awhile. I was thinking of going back to Manehattan for awhile.”

“To find your parents?”

“Nah. That's where all the action is. If I want to get into the music business I'd have to do it there.”

“But what would you do?”

Glissando tilted her head to the side and seemed to hesitate a moment. When she swiveled her eyes to look at me, she grimaced. “Promise you won't laugh?”

“Promise.”

“I've always wanted to be a DJ.”

I made a face. “What's that?”

She chuckled and shook her head. “They kind of provide music for parties. Not like the stuffy ones at the palace but better, more awesome music. Stuff you can dance to.”

“You can dance to the stuff the play at the palace.”

“Ew, no you can't. Okay, maybe you can but I can't.” She took a breath. “I want to be the pony that everyone sees coming and knows they're going to have a good time. I want to drop sick beats and headbang with the hardcore ravers.”

“I don't know those words.”

Glissando laughed heartily, then shook her head. “I want to make music.”

“Oh. Me, too!”

“Just different music. You're like creamy peanut butter and I'm extra chunky.” I giggled and she grinned. “That does not give you permission to call me fat, by the way.”

“So if I ever want to find you I'll just have to look for Glissando, the extra chunky peanut butter DJ.”

“No way! I want to go by something cool. Like, what do you think of DJ Pon-3?” She looked at me and I looked at her, and we both burst out laughing.

Even though I laughed I could feel the levity in me deflating. There was passion in Glissando, passion for something I didn't understand but that was hardly the point. I knew what it was like to want something but I doubted I'd ever wanted anything as much as she desired to be pursuing her dream. After our laughter settled I forced myself to ask, “So why don't you go?”

She looked at me with a quirked brow. “And leave you here all alone? Yeah, okay.”

“I can take care of myself,” I insisted.

“Yeah right! The first time Melomane yells at you and I'm not around to diffuse the situation you'll be running for the hills, sobbing.”

“I will not!” I held my head high though inwardly shuddered at the mental image. Glissando knew me too well. I was going to need to toughen up if I was going to make it here without her. Now that I knew what she so desperately wanted there was no way I could allow her to stay. Not on my behalf. “I'll be fine.”

“It's a moot point because I'm not going.”

“You can't stay here!” I tried to look as serious as possible. “I don't want you to stay here.”

She looked at me, skeptical. “Just like that? I thought we were friends?”

“We are.” I took one of her hooves between mine and squeezed. “That's why I don't want you here. I don't want you to be miserable and sad when you could be going after what you really want to be doing. Glissando, I want to make music too so I don't even know how long I'll be staying here.” We both knew I'd never leave on my own accord, not anytime soon at least, but I pressed on. “The more time you spend doing silly chores here the more time you waste in finding your special talent, in finding who you really are.”

“And what about you? Aren't you wasting your time here?”

“No.” I glanced at the closed door to our room, a small smile on my lips just knowing there were any number of instruments just in the other room. “All the screaming and the demands Melomane gives us during the day become worth it when he's gone and I can just play. I don't think I'm wasting my time at all.”

She looked down. “You didn't play tonight.”

“Because I thought you were mad at me! I couldn't play!”

“I wasn't mad at you.” She extracted her hoof from my grip and wove her forelegs around my neck to hug me tightly. For a long time neither of us said anything. She didn't have to say she was leaving now, I just knew it. Though it felt like pieces of my heart were breaking there was also an odd excitement rippling through me. I loved her enough that I could be excited for her even when I was heartbroken for myself. When she asked, “Will you play for me?” I knew she was asking for a final moment of something familiar between us. How could I refuse?

We hopped down from the bed together and I watched as she magically pulled a small suitcase from under her bed. There were very few belongings she had to take with her but they were all packed safely away, and with room to spare. Before she closed the lid she turned to me, magenta eyes serious. “There's something...I want you to have.” Her white horn glowed as she levitated something toward me. It was a hair ribbon, white with a pink bow on it. “This is the only thing I have from my parents. I guess it was in my mane when they left me at the orphanage and I was allowed to keep it. I want you to have it.”

I gasped, looking from the floating object to Glissando with alarm. “No! I can't take this!”

“I want you to. Octave, you're my best friend. If I can't be here for you anymore at least let me leave you with a part of me. Please? It'll make me feel better.”

It was impossible not to be moved. Hair ribbons had never been something I was particularly fond of but I knew having this small keepsake would make me feel a little less alone once she was gone. Sniffling, I nodded and the floating ribbon tied itself into my mane. Glissando made a face and grasped the ribbon with her magic again, removing it and fastening it instead around my neck. “There. Now you look all sophisticated and stuff.”

I laughed sadly and touched the bow. “Thank you.” Then I threw myself at her and hugged her tightly. She allowed me to cry for only a moment before she was gently prying me from her.

“Come on. You owe me a song.”

Out into the front part of the store I shivered. This room was always better heated than our own simply for the sake of the instruments, but somehow it felt colder than anything I'd felt in a long time. I looked around at the hanging racks, the stringed instruments, the woodwinds, the baby grand piano sitting by the large front window. I knew them all well by now. “Which one do you want me to play?”

Glissando stood beside me and surveyed the room. When she made her decision she nodded to a stool. Knowingly, I climbed up to stand on my hind legs atop it as she levitated a beautifully ornate cello to my waiting hooves. I slid one hoof into the clear plastic cuff that allowed earth ponies and pegasai to hold bows, then took a deep breath and set the bow to the strings. I was no musical genius by any stretch of the imagination, but I'd been teaching myself little my little, learning from my mistakes as I went and correcting everything my ears deemed wrong. And every time I played I felt nervous and self-conscious, awaiting a criticism from Glissando that never came.

Tonight as I played I knew she would have nothing but kind things to say and it allowed me to sink into the music. Every slight twitch of the bow, every movement of my hoof, every note that slid silkily into the air felt like a breath from heaven. My eyes closed and my body swayed with the motion of playing. Notes strung themselves together seamlessly to create a melody never heard before and unwritten. For a moment I forgot everything. I forgot my past, my present, my fears, and my sorrow. All that existed was me and the music. A warmth surrounded my body, something so wonderful and penetrating that words could never properly describe it. I opened my eyes to see Glissando watching me, eyes filled with tears and a smile on her face. She glanced downward slightly, meaning in the movement, and I followed her gaze. There upon my flank was a simple treble clef, the same shade of purple as my eyes used to be. I slowed my playing, shocked, but Glissando stepped forward and said, “Please don't stop.”

I nodded, still in shock, and turned back to the cello in my grip. Once more I closed my eyes and fell back into the music I was creating. So that was my special talent. It wasn't cleaning, taking inventory or doing chores, it wasn't even a particular instrument. My special talent was music. All of it. I knew without uncertainty that I could play any instrument in the shop if I wanted to, I could compose, maybe I could even sing. I would have to try sometime.

Though music filled the room it was impossible for me to miss the closing of the front door. I didn't open my eyes but I knew that I was now alone in the room and that Glissando was gone. My throat closed tightly and tears leaked under closed eyelids. Yet still I played, knowing it was the only thing that would get me through the night without having a complete and total breakdown.

Comments

[SuperPinkBrony12]

So Glissando became Vinyl Scratch, wow who'd have thought?

Also I feel bad for Octavia, she's all alone now and although she's realized what her special talent is she's unsure of where to go, hopefully Octavia didn't hang around that music shop for too long.

[DaMagiks]

The fic lives!
Nice to see Vinyl's origins but that ending was seriously depressing dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Vinyl_sad.png
They better met back up in later chapters

[Tealove]

1688771 I was hoping that would be a bit of a surprise! Things will pick up for her eventually. Don't worry.
1688883 Why thank you!
1689168 It does! I went back and reread everything and felt inspired again. So yay for that! Aw, I'm sorry I depressed you. But it will end well, I promise!

[Hat]

Amazing, stellar work yet again Tealove. The final scene was the best. Losing her friend affected her more than getting her cutie mark.
I think the start of the sentence You make you who you are needs a quotation mark. I liked that conversation.

[Storm Clouds]

So happy to see a new chapter of that story!
Great work!

[deleted91739]

Sad to see that this was cancelled.

[Loquacia Bloodrose]

Finally, someone makes a brilliantly written story of my origins and myself. It is a shame that it was cancelled. More hugs and Medals for you.