Octavia Melody, a committed cellist with an upper-class taste about her.
Zephyr Breeze, a otiose hair therapist that wishes for the elusive.
These two opposites have nothing in common, and placing them in a room together (say, an elevator) would likely result in chaos.
But what if we overlooked something? Maybe the two of them are a lot more similar than what we assume them to be if we just have them talk with each other.
Only one way to find out and two ways it could go; up, or down.
I'm not kidding on the 'one way' either, as this is the first Octavia & Zephyr story on the site.
Made for the May Pairings Contest 2022.
Chapters (1)
Very nicely done
Wonderful piece and outside the the possible use of an obvious cliché [and there's nothing wrong with using a cliché when it's the best answer] there isn't anything I feel needs critiqued. You're summary of your thought process honestly says it all, the logical ground for this interaction is a brief discussion on themselves and what common ground they might have. Octavia feeling some burn out makes sense and Zephyr would recognize that. Zephyr can be a bit showy and Octavia should be able to recognize that in turn and it feels very in character for her to call him out on it especially when just being dismissive is removed as an option. I see no faults in characterization or motivations anywhere so I say you handled this pairing quite flawlessly.
I was drawn into this story because I too did a somewhat similar pairing. Similar in that my pairing was also the first story tagging the characters together and in a bit a of a stretch comparable in that I used Vinyl, who has ties to Octavia, and Autumn Blaze, who like Zephyr has ties to Fluttershy but obviously not as directly. Also [although I didn't necessarily know this going in but did suspect based on the description] both pairings are chance encounters of plutonic strangers with out romantic overtones. Granted it feels a lot less of a stretch to get Vinyl and Autumn interacting than Octavia and Zephyr so I applaud your bolder move there as well.
Lovely little story.
You pretty much explained everything I could have complimented it for, so I'll say it was a lovely character piece for a underrated side character and Octavia.
You really capture what I imagine is Zephyr Breeze's insecurity and admiration towards Rainbow Dash extremly well.
You also paint a serviceable picture of Octavia as the anti-social professional, trying desperately to master skills she's not confident she loves doing anymore.
Overall it's a extremely well paced and thoughtful piece and I appreciate you writing it.
Thank you for posting!
This has to be one of my favorite fanfics now, plus Zephyr here is at his best! Good job!
I loved the story. You’re right, the situation written seemed like the only possible way to get them together.
And yes, you’re right: this is the first Zephyr and Octavia story on Fimfic. I’m sure Zephyr and almost anypony would be the first, as I discovered that there weren’t any Zephyr and Sassy Saddles fics when researching for the past 2022 Crackships Contest.
Again, this was lovely. I don’t really have much to complain about, in all honesty, apart from one thing: Zephyr’s dialogue. I’m aware that we have very little characterisation of him outside of “his” episode, but in that episode (and EqG) we see him being very fluid in hand/hood gestures, and very dramatic. He can be overly dramatic in the form of “poetry” (to quote Rainbow Dash: bleugh), or where he’ll use slang and abbreviations.
There were a few times when reading this (beyond the beginning) where I wondered if it was Octavia speaking when it was in fact Zephyr. I understand how characterisation of characters like Zephyr can be difficult, I really do, and like I said: it’s my only complaint.
The writing was brilliant, the situation was written well, and Octavia’s characterisation and comparability to Mozart was top-notch. I’d recommend keeping it up.
This was a neat little story and it really felt like Zephyr and Octavia had some chemistry.