Finish with a Flourish
Rarity walked side-by-side down Canterlot streets with a pony that wasn't the kind of pony she would see herself walking side-by-side with.
"You're very charming, I must admit, but you're certainly not the kind of pony..." Rarity made a rolling gesture hoof, "I'd see myself with."
Pony Joe smiled easily – though Rarity would call it rakishly, because that's a far more dashing word – "You don't normally go for gentleponies then?"
Rarity was about to laugh along with him when the words caught her mind, like loose fabric snagging on a thorn. There was Blueblood, but he was... no, how about that horrid bore-- hrrm, if that's how she remembered him, that spoke volumes enough.
"No." She whispered in surprise as the realization dawned on her. "I don't think I have, no. Don't you think, just once, I rather should?"
Just that same, easy going, charmingly rakish smile from the pony walking beside her. Rarity didn't mind that one bit.
She wondered if Twilight was having the same luck.
Twilight stared at the address on the back of the donut receipt. She certainly hadn't written it, Pony Joe hadn't, Applejack couldn't have... which meant it had just magically appeared since she had gotten it.
"Err, Twilight?" Applejack nudged her side, "You alright there?"
"I... I have to go," Twilight called over he shoulder as she bolted, heading towards the address on the back of the receipt.
There were... gaps in her memory, she realized. Memory spells were something she had practiced over the years, something that had saved her friends from Discord's Chaos magic, and she had come to learn what it had felt like to have your memories manipulated.
It's like... It's like eactly what it is. There is no apt analogy or metaphor for what it feels like to search through your own head and feel parts of it missing and fragmented, damaged. It feels dirty and violating and abominable.
And apparently this address could help.
It led to an older building, near where Twilight used to stay outside of the palace, she thought. The door seemed familiar, achingly so, but Twilight couldn't place it. It was definitely the place she'd find answers.
She knocked twice and listened to the flurry of activity behind the door, an unprepared rush.
The door swung open, almost jerked off its hinges rather, by a frantic earth pony about Twilight's age age, with a treble clef for a cutie mark. It was the mare that had so enthralled, so enraptured her previously at the concert.
"Twilight Sparkle," she breathed, frantic, clutching a bundle of sheet music to her chest, "I... I didn't expect you'd get here so soon. I thought I had more time!"
"More time for what?"
Octavia darted forward and pecked Twilight on the lips, before turning and spinning on the spot, heading further inside. The kiss lasted only a second, a second which left Twilight absolutely stunned, until Octavia thought better of it, turned, and kissed her a bit harder.
That, she deemed, was far more worth it. And Twilight was just as good as she remembered.
"I've spent years, years studying something a very, very clever pony did, trying to make sense of it, trying to work out how to compose it. They didn't make it easy for me, it was very complicated, but I think I've done it. I finally, finally think I've done it." She sounded frantic, like Twilight herself did after a very long night in the lab. She had the feeling the comparison was probably all-too-apt.
Twilight followed her further into the room in a daze. It was a claustrophobic room, feeling at once too big and absurdly too small. It was brimming with music books and instruments, a small kitchen, a rather decadent looking bed off to one side... but mostly books and sheet music, filling shelves built into every wall of the almost cylindrical room.
"Wow," Twilight breathed, at an utter loss for words.
It felt... it felt like she wished the library could. She walked around in a daze, admiring all the research notes and endless compositions. She couldn't help but hum a few that caught her eye, feeling the hair on the back of her neck stand on end at a peculiar few. Glancing at the research notes, and what she could understand of them, this was a laboratory, of sorts, dedicated to the magic of music, and musical magic.
No wonder she felt so at home here.
"Celestia let me keep it," Octavia explained, as if Twilight should know exactly what she was talking about, "After... after, well, everything, she thought it was the least she could do."
"It suits you," Twilight agreed, lips still tingling from the kiss, admiring the crafstmanship of the instruments on the back wall. "It looks like you were trying to do something amazing here."
Octavia smiled wryly. "A very clever pony left a lot of her research notes behind when she forgot about this place. I've been trying to build on them ever since."
Twilight stopped her meandering, turning and staring at the musician in stunned amazement. "How could a pony just forget about all this?" She looked back at the room with a newfound appreciation for it. "All this magic, and music, it's... it's amazing."
Twilight looked back and saw Octavia had disappeared. There was the rustle of a bunch of papers being moved around, and she reappeared with a stack of napkins, yellowed slightly with age, detailing curious etchings and sketchings of improbable, impossible, memory re-arrangement magic.
"You were asking how a pony could just forget about all of this? Well, Twilight, now you know."
"That's the second time you've used my name, and I'm sure I've never told you it," Twilight muttered, her eyes never leaving the napkins and diagrams that Octavia had handed to her, "I'm starting to get the feeling this isn't purely hypothetic- argh!" Twilight clutched her head, throbbing pain consuming her, enveloping her. Octavia winced sympathetically.
"Even after all this time," she said, rather miserably, "you're still not allowed to remember?"
"Remember... remember what?" Twilight gasped out between floods of pain. Octavia scurried through the room to the back wall and unhooked a double-bass from it. Taking a seat in the centre of the room she began to play, long, slow, soothing tones, tones that eased and abated Twilight's pain. She played like that for a few minutes until the crashing, roaring waves of pain became less frequent, less tumultuous, trickling into little more than aggravating eddies.
"I studied your notes," Octavia whispered, so quiet that Twilight wasn't sure she hadn't just imagined it, "on what you did that night. I think... It was hard, I will admit candidly, and there are surely a myriad of risks but... would you like to remember, Twilight? Remember me?"
Another arc of pain, like a heated metal shard in her skull, lanced through Twilight's core, her being, and she screamed in pain. Octavia stopped playing, dropping the instrument, moving to rush to Twilight, but she was stopped with a gesture, even as one hoof remained plastered to the side of the unicorn's head.
"Keep playing," she whimpered, "it helps, it helps oh so much, please don't stop, don't stop, please." She was babbling and she knew it, but she was far too far gone to care, now. "Just please keep playing."
So Octavia did, and those long, slow, soothing notes returned.
Finally, after another few minutes, Twilight managed to pull her hooves away from her skull, again a horribly unpleasant numbness, but far better than the alternative. "What are you playing, anyway? I've never heard this composition before."
"In a way, you have," the musician sighed, still gracefully drawing bow across strings as she talked, eyes glued to the music sheet in front of her, "because, in a way, you wrote this. It's the musical equivalent of a memory spell."
Twilight stared, mystified and horrified in equal measure, at the instrument and again at the beautiful pony playing it. "You're using earth pony magic to use unicorn spells," she breathed in amazement, "that's incredible." Then the second part of her brain caught up with her as she remembered what kinds of spell she was using.
"Yes, before you bother asking, memory spells are incredibly dangerous. You, of all ponies, should know that very well." Octavia sighed, "And yet you don't."
"I still don't understand," Twilight whimpered, now, rubbing her skull and feeling... stupid. She felt stupid and weak and forgetful and wrong.
"Would you like to? Twilight, if you want to, you have to trust me. You have to trust me completely and utterly."
"I don't even know you!" Twilight half shouted, clutching her head, feeling it was a lie, knowing it was a lie. "How could I trust you?" she asked, knowing she could, knowing she did, just not knowing why, not possibly knowing why.
"Because you used to," Octavia cooed, softly, calmly, "because you used to trust me with your life, and I with yours."
Twilight thought about it, the raging, screaming inferno in her head ripping her every-which-way, the low and calming music only doing so much for the storm now. It was hard to think, hard to think through the pain, hard to... hard to brain... easy to trust... she trusted this pony...
"Yes! I trust you," she screamed, now, the room whirling around her, nauseating her, confusing her, reminding her. "I trust you completely."
"Oh good," Octavia opined, almost wryly, "because if Celestia ever finds out about this, she'll quite probably murder me where I stand."
"Wait, what?" Twilight had a chance to shout in panic before the music changed, no longer soothing, no longer calming, but now a din, a caucouphonous racquet, the room's resonance converting the roar of the instrument into a franatic and frenzied riot of mish-mashing sound. No melody was present, just a wall of discordant notes. No real rythmn could be spoken of, unless one listened very closely.
Twilight felt like it was tearing her brain apart, shifting it, grabbing it by the shrapnel and pulling, tugging, twisting it, re-arranging parts long-ago hidden and buried. She remembered... she remembered a funeral... and a cafe... a jail cell? Yes, definitely a jail cell, but not for her, no... and the cafe, the cafe came after... then there was a picnic, and a kiss, oh yes, and music, so much music in so little time, so much progress.
And it had all revolved around her.
All of it, the common thread from the tapestry rewove itself to the frenetic, heavy notes of the double-bass, all painting a portrait of a long-forgotten, forcefully forgotten, beautiful musician mare. Of her.
She was remembering her.
Her first kiss... her second... her first time... oh, geeze, why'd she have to remember that? She itched, burned, wanting to scrub the memory from her brain, before remembering trying exactly that once before and then a brilliant, burning, howling, screaming whiteness from the attempt, and then, and then-
Now. She remembered now, this room, this place, this mare.
Twilight clutched her head, rocking herslf back and forth, as it all came back, all flooded back. The notes... the notes made her remember and the pain subsided, like ripping off a bandaid after slowly pulling and peeling at it.
"Twilight?" Octavia whispered from the dias, placing the instrument down delicately and approaching the prone unicorn with just as much reverence, "How are you feeling?"
Twilight just stayed curled up in a ball on the floor, rocking herself slowly, as she heard the gentle hooffalls approach.
"Twilight?" the voice whispered, terrified, above her. Then, louder, "Please, tell me you remember something, anything!"
Twilight's hoof shot up off the floor and gripped Octavia by the scruff of her neck, pulling her down into a deep and passionate kiss. Twilight's eyes were wide open, bright, as she broke the kiss, a thin strand of saliva still dangling between them, when she finally spoke.
"I just remembered that I love you, just now."
Octavia smiled, tears forming in her bloodshot eyes. "How could I ever forget?"
"Ooh, that's nice." Chrysalis cooed. "When I return to my full strength, all of Equestria will- Glurk!"
"Just keep eating the soup, Ms Queen." Fluttershy scolded as she pressed another spoonful into the scowling changeling's mouth, "I made sure to make it with plenty of love, just for you, but it only helps if you actually eat."
"Feed. Changelings don't eat, we feed, so – Glurk!"
"Why can't you be nice like Discord?" Fluttershy wondered to herself. "I do hope Twilight doesn't find out about this..."
"What she wanted is irrelevant!" The queen declared. "Feed me!"
"Oh... alright."
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I've been utterly confused since like, chapter three. So a confusing end suits the story for me. Good work!
4828010
I'm very sorry about that. Honestly hoping Demesne is the result of all the practice this story's given me, that this story could never benefit from.
4828015
I don't mean that in a bad way, Numbers. But at the same time I've still enjoyed the read. Which is all I actually care about. I'm not one of the snooty elitist types. If you can creatively entertain me, you have succeeded.
That said, Demesne is absolute gold and I'm a happier man when it updates.
... Wait, what? No, seriously, that last scene just came out of nowhere.
The rest of it was fine, if a bit abrupt in resolution but that bit at the end, I have to go back and see if anything at all relates to that, because I don't recall it.
Though I do now kind of want to see a Chrysalis/Fluttershy fic. Fluttershy knows about flipping out in the quest for love. And that was at a Canterlot event, too.
4828053
It was a reference to the very, very first chapter.
Don't worry about not getting it, it's more a joke for... people who read the whole thing in one go, rather than a year.
But, damn it, I've been holding on to that joke for a year now, I couldn't just not tell it.
I should probably reread this to get all the details but I do remember the main premise of the story. Very good, sir.
I have an odd feeling about this chapter. It's almost like something is missing. Although that might simply just be because I have spent a lot of time considering how things went after Twilight damaged her memory.
Did they stick Applejack with the bill?
4828059
Back to chapter one then!
For a second, I truly believed every chapter of this story was going to be a sonnet . . . written by Twilight. However, I am not disappointed with this turnout.
A little abrupt, but this remains one of my favorite stories on the site. You write the best Twilight of anyone I've read.
Not bad. A bit of an abrupt end, but not bad at all.
I did find an error though.
The end is worded incorrectly. As it is, Octavia is saying that she trusted someone with Twilight's life, which obviously isn't what was intended. Something like, "because you trusted me with your life, as I trusted you with mine." would work better.
4828059
Oh, yes, that makes a bit more sense now.
Seeing this finally updated to complete was a bit of surprise!
A bit of an abrupt resolution, but exposition tends to bring about that sense of abruptness. (A flashback to a conversation with Celestia might have helped with that abruptness...)
On the one hand, you've left things in very good hands for a resolution.
On the other, should you decide on some form of sequel, the option is open to you.
So well done! 'twas worth the wait.
Complete?? Awwww, but we need more. Anyway, loved it. Looks like I wasn't following you before even though I read a ton of your stuff. Fixed.
Still fun.
Never got notification of the last chapter so I got to read the last two chapters at once. I reread the first chapter to get the Fluttershy joke and ended up rereading the entire thing. This is a really well crafted story. Thanks.
New chapter? Yeeees.
epilogue?
Make a sequil for this story of sweet sweet love and sweet sorrowful loss.
i beg of you for this story to continue!
well writen and well made this story is amazing!
Mr Numbers, my dearest fellow,
A some what short but oh so sweet and fitting ending to a delightful story.
I've adored this story from the very beginning and it's been a worthwhile vehicle to let your obvious talent grow and develop and so bringing to us the brilliant Demesne.
I must admit it's been a while since I've read 'Sonnets' the whole way through and I am going to have to do that once more to make sense of the ending but I can assure you that will be a pleasure rather than a chore.
Saw just a couple of minor errors which can be forgiven.
With that I bid you good day.
That was a great story
Got a little confusing during the course of the story being mostly a flashback 
Stupid Twi you should never try for perfection when it comes to love 
I would love to see how their lives go from that point on 
But that is totally up to you well done. 
Aw, it's over? Just when I was getting a jonesing for some good OctaLight.
Huh. I didn't expect the ending to come so quickly. Not that it seem all too abrupt in the context of the actual narrative, but I'd gotten the impression the story would be longer.
It's nice to say that I've seen it finished, and no longer have to wait for more. lol
It was a fun ride.
Awww I'm sorry to see this tale end. I thought/hoped that it would continue a bit longer, but alas...
Though it was a wonderful tale and I loved it while it lasted. It now joins the ranks of wonderful stories I have read and will one day return to reread.
Thank you for the wonderful story! It has been a pleasure!
This...this was gorgeous. I've reread this story more than any other fanfic(some of those were due to confusion, I'll admit) and its just such a beautiful piece. This is going to be one of those stories that I keep bookmarked everywhere and come back to, again and again.
As confusing as having memories modified, but infinity more delightful.
11/10/5 stars.
Well then, this wonderful story was heavy with confusing yet cheekily sneaky wit and it took some real thinking to piece together the direction of everything!
A stallion is like cake, what is the cake?
One piece of blasphemous information really threw me for a loop, brilliant sir.
As most others have said, feels like the ending could have been longer. It's still really good though, even if I'm still trying to piece things together. One thing that still confuses me: Twilight's story early on about the guy who took her virginity (which was the reason why she hated Canterlot so much) seems to contradict with the fact that she seemed to lose it to Octavia. I know she wiped her memories of Octy, but surely she'd notice something was missing when she was with that other guy.
"My hymen's gone? When did that happen?"
Also, that Sweetie Belle/Spike arc never got a resolution. Not that it was particularly important or anything, but still. I'm sorry, this sounds like mostly negativity but I still really liked this story! It was classic you!
5250004
In truth, the further in time I get away from this story, the more frustrated I am with it. What I would do differently now, how I'd do it differently, how much better I could theoretically do it, all lessons I learned from actually writing this.
So, I'd like to thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for finding a quote from this, no matter how long, that can still make me smile with a little bit of pride.
Goodness, MrNumbers. Why... What the everlasting? I thought this was a nice, well written story - which it was, masterfully so - that focuses on Twi falling in love with Octavia after the concert, not a story that would do a 180 at the last few chapters, completely disregard the present, and go into a mindnumbingly sad love story of two lovers split by a single, harsh mistake then reunited. That was just... Not expected. I actually went from "Twi and Octy fall in love" to "Twi and Octy fall in love but they've met and hated each other" to "Twi and Octy fall in love but they had loved each other before before falling out" to whatever plot you were thinking of when you wrote this unimaginable, weird story.
This was wonderful. Heartbreaking and heartwarming in turns, and hilarious throughout.
To be honest in the beginning I was a bit disappointed by this one.
While it was cute and fun to read it started out just like any other "x falls madly in love with y" story and I'd been hoping to find one of those romances that take their time to build and grow a relationship..
Which is exactly what I got just a few chapters later
Thank you very much for this beautiful, heartwarming and really well done story!
Cool story, but what's with the random cutaway at the end?
BEST. ENDING. EVER!
Beautifully haunting story. Though now I am sad that I won't see this AMAZING side story with Fluttershy and Chrysalis!!
At first, I was going to favorite this since the first few chapters were funny and it ended very sweet.
But I can't bring myself to do so, since I found the last few chapters too confusing, even with the explanation given.
I might reread this at some point and favorite it then, but for now I'll just give it a like.
6392470
It's not too hard to understand. Octavia and Twilight had a relationship in the past, and Twilight, being disappointed that her first time wasn't perfect went and became a crazy pony and tried to remove that memory to do it again and bucked it up.
5250162 do you plan on rewriting this or plan on making a sequel?
6643407
I'd rather work on new things, honestly.
6644841 thats understandable but if you ask me you should make a blog and ask your followers if they want a sequel...you know see how many want one and how many dont
6645633
Well. Yes. But I wouldn't want to write it. I'd rather do other things. I do this for fun, you realize. What my followers want past that point is irrelevant unless I'm being paid. I have no obligation otherwise.
That's not me being selfish. I spend a lot of time and effort writing and I'm very proud of how much further I've come as an author since Sonnets. I don't think it reflects my abilities anymore and it'd be really an embuggerance to work towards continuing it rather than, say, Demesne. Or Mare Who Once Lived on the Moon.
6646771 i respect that but you must respect my opinion, which is you're making it sound like you dont care what your readers and followers think...i mean what would you do if everyone of your followers (which wont happen) asked for the sequel? You would be disappointing all of them
6646816
The thing is that if you force someone to do something that they don't want to do then both the person and the work suffer.
If MrNumbers wants to write a sequel then that's all well and good, and I'd definitely read it.
If he doesn't then that's his choice and as readers we should respect that.
And yes, I realize this comment is old. I just had to throw in my two cents.
Nice story, good work.
Well... This goes in completely unexpected directions...
We start off with a story about the evils of high society and two mares disillusioned with it. Then, a couple chapters in, we turn into a story about bardic magic and tragic love lost to memory altering spells. It's really two different stories that have little to do with each other stapled together. It's kind of interesting when the description and the first few chapters lead you down expecting one path, only for the story to take a completely different turn.
That said, both parts of the story were fun to read and the pairing was one you don't see often yet work well in the story. Even the conflict in the second part was interesting and fairly unique, while being pretty believable. Twilight has always had (at least in the first couple seasons) a pretty loose grasp on what types of spells are ethical/healthy to use.
Thank you for sharing this story with us.
I wonder what happen next after the two get back together, and why would the princess murder Octavia, also will Joe and rarity keep seeing each other.....
Read this after your later works.
Honestly its just like you said- slightly confusing and at times inconsistent, reads like an early version of your later writing.
However underneath that is a great premise and some really cute scenes of a pairing I've not thought about but which you make believable.
Probably the most inconsistent thing would be why Tavi was finding her life so unbearable if she had all her research and hope to make twilight remember again underpinning it all.
Stoked for more mare in the moon chapters tho. Love your work
8141299
They make a lot of sense for unicorns and pegasii though. It's more pointing out racial differences.
But yeah. I wrote this when I was much younger. There's a lot wrong with this story that I'd go back and do differently.
I came here to read this story after reading The Mare Who Once Lived in the Moon, and wow, has your writing improved between this story and that one. I spent much of this story confused about what was happening, or wondering why we were wasting our time focusing on irrelevant side plots, if they can be called that. That scene at the end with Chrysalis? I guess it answers the question of what was wrong with Fluttershy at the beginning, but that's a question that never should've been asked at all, because it was completely irrelevant to the rest of the story. And the way it abruptly appeared after the very abrupt ending of the actual story (abruptly, of course) just made the ending feel very confused about what it was trying to do.
I can recognize that there's the framework of a good story buried in the last four chapters or so, but it's dragged down by so much unnecessary ballast that it's hard to enjoy it. But knowing how far your writing has come since this, it's a worthwhile read if only to understand that everyone starts somewhere, and I'm sure I'll enjoy more of your later stories much more than this one.
8141865
For real. For context? I wrote this when I was 17.