After a dorm room mix-up, Derpy, Lyra, and Octavia find themselves living together for one month at Princess Luna's Academy for the Fine Arts. Chance of survival? 1 percent. Chaos took the other 99.
After a dorm room mix-up, Derpy, Lyra, and Octavia find themselves living together for one month at Princess Luna's Academy for the Fine Arts. Chance of survival? 1 percent. Insanity's taken the other 99.
My novel for NaPoWriMo 2014. My own chance of survival? -30%. Insanity's already won.
Cover art: "Oh Derpy XD" submitted by Metallica1147 on Fanpop
“I am skipping, skipping, skipping, skipping, because I’m very haaaappy! Today is the day when I get to meet new ponies, and we’ll have fun and plaaaaaay!”
Needless to say, Derpy was very happy about her first day at Princess Luna’s Academy for the Fine Arts. Yes, there it was. Happy, first day, and academy rolled into one sentence. Yes, she understood English. No, she didn’t have a concussion. And no, no, no, her crossed eyes did not make her stupid. She couldn’t be stupid, not if she was able to be accepted into Princess Luna’s Academy for the Fine Arts, one of the best schools in all of Equestria.
Derpy walked along, holding a map of the campus with her wingtips. “Let’s see,” she said, flipping through the colorful diagrams. “My room’s in the East Tower, and…” She glanced outside at the late-afternoon sun hiding behind a blanket of dark clouds. “The sun is out! And the sun rises in the east! I’m going the right way after all!”
Derpy did a loop-de-loop in midair. “See, I knew I could do it without the Doctor’s help! Oh, he’ll be so proud of me! Maybe I can be a little lost sometimes, but absolutely nothing can go wrong today!
However, there is a close cousin of stupid in the English language. There isn’t an exact definition, but you can see it very clearly in certain ponies. Ponies that dive straight into a situation without any worries. Ponies that think their classmate’s stories about the horrors of perpetually running on caffeine are just exaggerations. Ponies that miss the dark gloomy storm clouds outside as a sign of this is not a fun place.
Yes, let’s call it naive.
“…naïve to think I could manage the xylophone and the bassoon,” Octavia grumbled as she dragged the heavy cases up the fifth flight of stairs. “I haven’t even brought up my cel— oh!”
With a resounding crash, the cases tumbled around one mare collapsed on the waxy tiles. She pulled herself out with a laborious grunt before wrapping her tail around the handles. Yanking on her tail, she made them scrape across the floor with every step.
“I wonder if this is even worth that scholarship money,” Octavia wondered aloud, before checking herself. It was one thing to get a letter with a fancy-looking government seal. It was quite another to find the goddess of the Night with her head through your kitchen window and shouting, “MANY CONGRATULATIONS TO THEE, YOUNG PAUPER! THY PRINCESS HAST GRACED THEE WITH AN ABUNDANCE OF WEALTH FOR THINE ACADEMICS! NOW IN RETURN, PLEASE OFFER UP SOME OF THINE HASBROWNS!”
Octavia remembered the horrible ringing in her ears that commenced afterwards and shuddered. If she were anypony else, she would have pondered how sompony so loud could possibly enjoy music.
Of course, Octavia was best friends with Canterlot’s top DJ, Vinyl Scratch.
Even just thinking of that name managed to raise Octavia’s spirits. Come on, she urged herself. Just a little further, and you’ll get to settle into your room with Vinyl. Besides, if Vinyl could handle wheeling in a full set of subwoofers into their dorm room…
Octavia stopped dead in her tracks.
Oh Celestia, why.
Many times, Vinyl had told Octavia to ‘look on the bright side.’ Octavia had never understood why. She could see plenty of bright sides in her life. The bright sunlight that made her wince and squint her eyes as they streamed from the windows, the hallway light that shone through a crack in her door for the sole purpose of assaulting her tired eyes, the list went on and on. And now, here was a new one: the lights on a turntable dashboard that spelled certain doom.
Octavia fell to her knees. Celestia, why?!
And through all of her conversations with Vinyl, Octavia repeatedly denied that she was negative. Because it was true. She wasn’t negative in the slightest. See this little slight here? <> Good, you’re not oblivious. Know what you don’t see? Negativity, that’s what.
But perhaps just the slightest bit of pessimism.
“Pessimism! Ooh, that’s a good one!”
Lyra rummaged through her mane, creating a strange series of squeaks and honks before pulling out a neon green pen with a crazy purple feather duct taped where the eraser would be. She stuck that end in her mouth as she walked along. Some talented mouth manipulation, and the word ‘pessimism’ was written on the underside of her right hoof.
Satisfied, Lyra tossed her Word of the Day calendar high into the air, and somehow it landed perfectly in her saddlebag.
Pessimism. A good word, but where to use it? It certainly wasn’t apropos for Lyra’s day so far. A nice little walk around campus had greeted her with a spontaneous musical number, a fascinating conversation on giving the mythical species flufflepuffs a homeland, and a plethora of confused stares.
Yup, it was turning out to be a great day so far!
Lyra took the stairs two at a time, then three, then one, then four and back again. That was the order of her life, to be unordered. It was interesting, it kept ponies riveted...
Lyra stopped and wrote the word riveted under pessimism. Hmm, maybe Bon Bon would be up for some riveting discussion about pessimism? Probably not. She'd just shake her head, give a small smile, and finish unpacking. That would be a pretty Bon Bon thing to do.
With that thought in mind, Lyra stopped to rummage through her saddlebag, causing several pins like "80% caffeine" and "don't bet on sinking ships" to fall off the worn flap. Finally, Lyra decided to forgo that morning's six seconds of "organizing" to dump all the bag's contents onto the ground.
"Aha!" She declared triumphantly, pulling out a dog-earned scrap album. The pictures were faded, but their colors still warm like pastel paints. Her golden magic aura enveloped the pages as she turned to the ones from her fillyhood. First day at school, dodgeball tournament, birthday with a drooping Boston cream pie… dang, her parents had a strange fixation with tortured looking fillies. She'd have to ask them about that later...
There it was. First grade, school pictures, and there was Bon Bon wearing that exact look of knowing laughter. Next to her was an enthusiastic Lyra in a bright rainbow headband, three hair bows, dozens of ankle bracelets that went past her knees on all four legs, layers of bottle cap necklaces, and one crazy smile. Despite how heavy her accessories must have weighed on her, her entire posture gave off the feeling of jumping, even in a still photo.
In the next retake of that photo, Bon Bon was nowhere to be seen.
Lyra picked up the pace as she trotted up the winding stairs to the east tower. Maybe after they settled in, she could ask Bon Bon to proofread her story. After all, Bon Bon never knew how to take a break from writing... though to be fair, neither did Lyra. Writing was so natural, just like breathing. And here she was, at the finest academy in Equestria, which would reward her for - basically - breathing! How could Lyra get a better deal?
...Well, maybe by not having her professors read it.
It was irrational, Lyra knew. After all, she wrote to have other ponies read it. That was the whole point. But still, it felt strange, thinking of deadlines and prompts, of the feared read ink staining her frail little words. By signing up for her creative writing major, Lyra had essentially given her teachers a key to unlock her vast, enchanting world of fairies and sea ponies and hum—
A crossword puzzle fell out of Lyra's backpack. Curious, she picked it up and buried her nose in it.
"Hmm," she read, holding it upside down, "9 across. A word meaning discombobulated, out of touch with the real world, with thoughts unintelligible to normal ponies."
"Crazy?" Lyra wondered aloud, to the stares of the random students walking by. "No, not enough letters? Insane? No, not quite..."
Then the lightbulb turned on. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "I know!" With her magic, she reached for her quill and filled in the spaces.
Eccentric.
Derpy panted for air as she made it up the last flight of stairs. "...East Tower..." she gasped. "How... How was supposed... to know... the sun sets in… the west? Oh Derpy, you're such a scatterbrain!" Yet she was still smiling, and though not quite with the buoyant enthusiasm of earlier, she still walked with a bouncy rhythm. "Oh well, at least I got to see more of the campus! And more ponies! I can't believe they all stopped to help me find the tower. Gosh, everypony here is so nice! I can't wait to tell the Doctor..."
Derpy skidded to a halt. "Oh no!" she cried. "It's late; he must be so worried about me!" Taking a deep breath, Derpy narrowed her eyes in her serious (but still ridiculously adorable) game face. "I'm coming, Doctor!" she shouted, pumping her hoof in the air before with a strong flap of her wings, she took off flying for her room.
As she rounded the corner, Derpy heard noises. They weren't anything like the nice noises she had heard all throughout her day: chirping birds, laughing ponies, violin music from open windows, spontaneous musical numbers. No, what she was hearing then was quite the opposite. It was the worst, most not-nice sound there could be.
The sound of two ponies arguing.
Derpy touched down on the doormat of Room 305, where the shouting was coming from. Then she checked the piece of paper the nice superintendent had given her, and sure enough, there was the number 305 in bright blue lettering.
Suddenly, the little pegasus didn't feel quite so on air anymore. The foreboding door seemed to tower over her, the shiny gold plaque a judging eye flashing down on her. The walls started to shrink, yet everything felt so big, far bigger than her. Even her ribcage felt bigger with each violent pounding of her heart.
Derpy shook her head. She couldn't open the door.
Fortunately or unfortunately for her, she didn't have to.
Without any warning, the door exploded open, a pillow shooting out of the entry way at speeds not even the pegasus could dream of reaching. Derpy glanced first at the door, then at the pillow, lying harmlessly on the ground. She had never known pillows to argue. How very interesting this academy life was, Derpy figured.
She poked it with her shaking hoof. It was soft and fluffy, just like the ones at home. Pillows couldn't possibly hurt ponies, Derpy knew, not when they were so good for cuddling. Maybe she could help the pillows not argue anymore! Yes, that was the plan.
So filled with resolved and a joyful grin, Derpy strode upon to doorway and peeked her head in.
Inside the room was chaos. Bags strewn everywhere, sheets tossed off the beds, articles of clothing tossed every which way. And in the centrifuge of this destruction were none other than Lyra and Octavia, both currently screaming their heads off.
"In the name of Celestia, would you please stop dumping your things here?" Octavia implored. "This isn't your room. I know for a fact that Room 305 has been reserved for Octavia Melody and Vinyl Scratch, the second of whom needs someplace to put her subwoofers. I'm very sorry for the confusion, but I must insist, you really need to get out!"
"If you'd quit being stubborn as a mule," Lyra shouted back, "you'd actually get a brain and figure out that this is my room. Room 305 is Bon Bon and Lyra Central; I checked with the secretary this morning. There's obviously been some sort of mix up on your end. Now, I'm not going to kick you out... not yet, anyway, but seriously, let me just get to my closet!"
Octavia groaned and leaned against the desk on her side of the room. "Would you please just go to the superintendent's office and straighten this out like I've suggested a million times?"
"What, no way!" Lyra exclaimed. "I'd miss dinner that way!"
"Oh, how tragic," Octavia mocked. "I haven't even been able to stop at the lockers in the concert hall because of this mess." She snarled at Lyra. "I've a horrible day bringing these instruments all the way up here, and you're out of your mind if you think I'm taking another trip. You should go check!"
"I know what you're trying to do!" Lyra shouted. "You want me to leave so you and your vagabond can subjugate this place!"
"You're crazy!" Octavia retorted. "Go get your head examined!"
"Crazy?" Lyra shrieked. "Crazy? Do you have any idea how overused that word is? If you're going to insult me, at least use cockamamie or imbecilic!"
"I rest my case," Octavia said.
"Your case is upside-down by the humidifier," Lyra answered.
With a scream worthy of an Applewood audition, Octavia ran over to the humidifier, where as luck would have had it, her violin case was sitting. "The strings!" she cried. "Oh, the strings will get out of tune, the wood will contract, and I'll never be able to play this violin again!" She shot Lyra dagger-like glares. "I hope you... you... have a very bad day!"
"With your mother!" Lyra shouted.
"What does is that even supposed to mean?" Octavia sneered. "Wonderful insults, freak show."
"Hey, my characters are nice!" Lyra said defensively. "I'm out of practice writing insults! Maybe I should practice by carving some into your cel--"
Enraged, Octavia chucked at Lyra the first object she could grab out of her bag: a juice box of chimmichangas.
"I will--! Wait, you like chimmichangas? You know, my friend has a place here in Canterlot where they make really good ones. And not the cheap Manehattan type; I'm talking about fresh--"
"Umm, excuse me," said Derpy nervously as she knocked on the door. "I... Uh, well, I..."
Both Lyra and Octavia watched her in absolute silence.
Derpy had no idea what she meant to say. Perhaps she meant to give an inspiring speech about embracing the magic of friendship, or maybe she meant to really politely ask them to be quiet. Whatever the case, what she meant definitely wasn't what came next:
"You have really nice pillows! Do you think I could borrow one for the night, since... well, there's not really a bed here for me."
Octavia stormed out of the room.
"What do you mean 'a mistake'?"
"I'm sorry, Miss Melody," said Raven as she shuffled papers on her desk, "but you're not the only roommate mix-up case to come up today. It seems some of our lower secretaries who were in charge of transcribing the names and room numbers were rather... absentminded." At the last word, she gritted her teeth and shot a death glare at the harried ponies running about frantically in the room behind her. "July writing camp indeed."
With a huff, Raven turned back to Octavia. "As it is now, we simply don't have the ponies right now to handle your specific case. Of course, we'll put you on the list, but at the rate we're going, you probably won't get your proper room for about a month."
Octavia's jaw dropped. One. Whole. Month. At least Vinyl's subwoofers was the devil she knew. Those two lunatics? All she could foresee was chaos.
"Believe me, I'm not pleased about the situation either," said Raven. "And now they're going on about another month long writing contest or something. Ridiculous business. Will that be all, Miss Melody?"
One. Whole. Month.
"No!" Octavia said just a little too loudly, her voice just a little too high pitched. "No, no problem at all! I can assure you, everything will be just fine!"
That night, the students would swear they heard a cat being strangled in a bassoon at the top of the East Tower.
Survival Chances at Zero?! First Day Troubles at the Academy!
Unlike yesterday's doom-and-gloom atmosphere, today was absolutely perfect. The sun was shining, the fall leaves were like flowers in full colorful bloom, and little squirrels scurried under the many benches scattered around the academy courtyard. It was the perfect day for being outside, and many students were taking full advantage of the nice weather by biking, walking, or just sitting and enjoying the warm sun before Monday came and sealed them in the coffins of the spirit called cram sessions. Octavia and Vinyl were no exception, as the two of them were sitting on one of the benches in the park. Vinyl's smile was as bright as the sun. Octavia wished she had brought sunglasses.
"I know you are, Tavi," Vinyl said, "but come on, what did that poor cat ever do to you?"
"What did I ever do to the universe to deserve this cruel fate?" Octavia deadpanned. "It's the nature of existence, Vinyl."
"Sheesh, don't be so dramatic. You'll get your room sooner than you think."
"No, it's... well actually yes, that's cruel too, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about when I pulled Mrs. Bubbles out of the bassoon. Her... her eyes. They may be cross-eyed, but I felt like both of them were burning into my soul." Octavia shuddered at the memory. "I don't know who that pegasus is, but she has powers beyond this life, Vinyl, I swear. I don't know how I'm going to survive this next month."
"Oh come on, it can't be that bad," Vinyl reasoned. "Just say sorry a couple dozen times, pay the veterinarian bills, and maybe by the end of the month that pegasus will stop looking at you like you're a demon out of Tartarus. Though to be honest, Tavi, you've got some anger issues. Maybe you should... I don't know, see somepony about that."
"Thank you for making me feel so much better, Vinyl," said Octavia with a downcast expression. "Honestly, I probably will have to take your advice if those two mares are as crazy as I think they are."
"Look who's talking, Cruella di Vil," Vinyl muttered under her breath.
Then Vinyl crumpled under 'the look.'
"Nothing, nothing, nevermind." Vinyl cleared her throat. "Are they really that bad? I came by your room this morning, and the unicorn seemed pretty friendly."
"She has a bin of foals' letter blocks."
"Oh."
"Yup, my thoughts exactly."
"Well, hey, it can't be all bad!" Vinyl said with a smile that looked painful.
"Oh really?" Octavia raised an eyebrow. "And just what makes you think that?"
"You'll get to meet new ponies!" Vinyl replied. "Take me for example. Turns out that roommate mix-up got me paired with Neon Lights of all ponies! Do you have any idea how many concerts he's done across Equestria? If he hears my remixes and likes them, who knows what that could do for my career! I'd be top of the charts, my name in lights, and—"
Octavia stood up. "You know, I've never really appreciated the beauty of dying nature before," she said, her eyes blades of steel. "Maybe I can find a fallen tree branch around here and hit you on the head with it!"
Vinyl audibly gulped, and she scooted to the other side of the bench.
"Oh, look at me!" Octavia cried, collapsing onto the bench and holding her head in her hooves. "Just one night with those two has turned me into a psycho-manic!"
"So now you realize it," Vinyl muttered.
"I can't go on like this," Octavia said, determination burning in her eyes. "Something has to be done. And I think I have just the perfect idea!"
"I guess I'll assume that idea has nothing to do with accepting the circumstances and finding the bright side?" Vinyl asked.
"Oh Vinyl, don't be ridiculous," Octavia chided, already trotting away. "It's already far too bright out here."
"Ahh! Doctor, that's way too bright!"
"Oops, you're right, Derpy," said the Doctor, tucking his hoof held flashlight into his pocket, "terribly sorry. Good news is that Mrs. Bubbles will be quite alright. Though honestly, with that kind of mare staying in your dorm, I'm not sure I can say the same for you."
"Oh, it's okay, Doctor," Derpy said brightly as she gathered her little golden tabby in her front hooves. "She did say that she was sorry, so I don't think she'll ever do something like this again."
"I still feel like we should report her though," the Doctor said.
"On her first day? Oh no, that won't do at all. She must have worked so hard to get into this school; I don't want to ruin things for her. Besides, that was just one day. I'm sure she's really a nice pony on the inside once you get to know her! Remember what we all thought about that donkey who came to Ponyville? Now he comes to all of Pinkie Pie's parties!"
"Yes, but this isn't Ponyville, Derpy," said the Doctor, lifting her face to have one eye gazing into his. "I want to make sure you can take care of yourself."
"What makes you think that I can't?" Derpy asked, the beginnings of a pout forming on her face.
The Doctor nervously shuffled his hooves. "It's not that I think you're not capable," he started, choosing his words carefully, "just that academy life is a strange place. There will be good ponies, sure, but also some not too good ones."
"And where have you seen evidence of that?" Derpy asked. The Doctor was taken aback by her seriousness. "On your travels to other planets? Well, you can't use that experience to predict everything that happens here, you know that, right?"
Derpy reached up and patted her friend on the shoulder. "Equestria's a peaceful place," she said. "I know it's surprising to you, but it is. The magic of friendship is stronger here than anywhere else you've visited, right? Well, I want to consider that mare a friend."
"And I appreciate that you want to help me," Derpy continued. "You're a really, really good friend. But... I can handle myself. You'll see. You have absolutely nothing to worry about."
The Doctor sighed in defeat, not because of her argument, but her eyes. Seriously, the cuteness was utterly terrifying at times. "Alright," he conceded, "though I truly hope this month goes by fast. My roommate is such a slob, he's always playing guitar, and honest to Celestia, I think his name's Brad or something by the way he talks."
"Oh, cheer up, Doctor!" Derpy said as she hovered by the door. "You have the chance to make another super-duper best friend!" And with that heartfelt sentiment, she took off, her little pegasus wings fluttering like a hummingbird.
As the door swung shut, the Doctor could just hear Derpy call across the hallway, saying, "Ooh, you're giving out candy? That's so so nice of you! Oh my gosh, this school is the best!"
The Doctor sighed. "Oh Derpy, you're... you're..."
"You're not going to believe this!" Lyra exclaimed.
Bon Bon flattened her ears against her head. "You know what else I'm not going to believe? That you are physically capable of keeping your voice at a normal volume. For Celestia's sake, there are other ponies around!"
But Lyra wasn't paying attention. "You wouldn't believe it! The limp body in her hooves! The deranged look in her eyes! The little pegasus, sobbing under her ruthless gaze! I'm boarding for a month with a villain right out of our old comic books, Bon Bon!"
The other mare sighed as she idly pushed around a dry salad with her fork. "I thought you said you hated this girl."
"Oh, absolutely!" Lyra said with no less enthusiasm. "She's bossy, doesn't use the Oxford comma, and hasn't even touched The Immortal Game. As a pony? Forget about it. But this is the beauty of writing! In my world, I can appreciate everypony, even if their mere presence makes me want to puke!"
Bon Bon continued munching away at her daisy sandwich. "Honestly, sometimes I can't understand the way you think. Haven't you considered just once that some ponies can be normal, with normal bad days that are... normal?"
"Where's the fun in that?" Lyra asked. "And please, for Celestia's sake, find a thesaurus."
"Of course," Bon Bon said, rolling her eyes as she sat in the relative peace of their lunch table. "Well, putting that mare aside, how was your day, Lyra?"
"It was wonderful," Lyra replied. "The cafeteria's selling some great cookies today."
Bon Bon raised an eyebrow. "Really? That's it? No alien sightings or crusades for flufflepuff independence or another story about those hum--"
"I just keep thinking about that mare, that's what! I... Seriously, Bon Bon, this is the best thing I've seen in so long." On impulse, the unicorn roughly pushed aside her tray and stood up with a dramatic flourish of her front hooves, causing the table to nearly tip over. "You... You've gotta meet her!"
"Wait, now? Lyra, I don't know--"
Her daisy sandwich flew out of her mouth, but both Bon Bon and Lyra had been long gone. Now they were nothing more than two multi-colored blurs racing up the East Tower.
"Lyra, what in Equestria is wrong with you?!"
But Lyra only tugged impatiently on her hoof as the two mares flew down the hallway. All of a sudden, just as she was about to turn the corner, Lyra skidded to a stop.
"...imagine it!" came a voice from within Lyra's dorm room. "Sleeping under the trees with a full night sky of Princess Luna's stars! Much better than being trapped here in a cramped and stuffy dorm room with two strange mares, aren't I right?"
"And I thought we were the English majors," Bon Bon whispered in awe. "That mare's got a silver tongue."
Lyra's smile glowed with pride. "I know. Isn't she the perfect antagonist? You and me, we're writing her death scene."
"Would it be like camping?" asked another, squeakier voice. "I love camping!"
"Exactly!" the first voice answered. "Just like in one of those romance novels! Ooh, have you read The Trip of Our Hooves? I love the star watching scenes in that book so much!"
Just then, an inequine roar pushed down the door with a terrifying slam. Then in the doorway, right in front of a face palming Bon Bon, was Lyra, her eyes livid.
The Trip of Our Hooves? Lyra wanted to scream. The Trip of Our Hooves?!
"Unacceptable."
Eat Carrots Quietly! Observe Aliens at a 30-Meter Radius!
"Here we go," said Bon Bon before walking back down the stairs.
"That... That pathetic excuse for a book," Lyra began, "is the most cliche, tedious, poorly paced, adverb-riddled, plothole scattered, contrived piece of keyboard head smashing I have ever had the misfortune to exist in the same universe as! You're crazy for even stomaching the first paragraph!"
Octavia's pupils visibly diluted, and she gritted her teeth. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said, dripping sarcasm as she advanced steadily towards the unicorn, "I was unaware that your personal opinion was the epitomy of decent literature."
"Epitome!" Lyra shrieked. "Epitome! Bon Bon," she cried, growing weak at the knees, "look at her, just look! This malpropist is by far the best real life villain I've ever encountered!"
And with that, Derpy rose from the bed. "Oh, please no," she said, clutching a pillow to her chest, "don't tell me you two are going to start arguing again."
"We're not arguing," Octavia corrected testily, "we're discussing. Or at least I would be if that one were sane enough for reasonable discussion."
"Hey, you take that back, vile fiend--!"
"No!" Derpy shouted at a volume that surprised even herself as she stood between the two other mares. "Please, no. I... I..." Tears began to well in her eyes. "I just want to have a good first weekend here before classes start. And I'm sure you do too. So... Please? No fighting?"
"I..." Lyra shuffled her hooves uncomfortably.
"Well, you see, the thing is..." Octavia began but quickly trailed off.
"Oh please, please, pleeeeeease?"
Lyra had written many a demon with a piercing gaze that could cause instant death. Octavia had cowarded under and subsequently risen about thousands of staring eyes in a grand concert hall. But this... this... puppy dog stare was not of this world. One glance at the other fiery mare, and the decision was made. Both Lyra and Octavia hung their heads.
"Oh yay, yay, yay!" Shouted Derpy as she did air sumersaults around the two girls before gathering them into a hug. "This is going to be the best friendship ever!"
Lyra and Octavia squirmed uneasily in Derpy's hooves. "Oh yeah, just great..."
Scritch scritch.
Crunch.
Silence.
Scritch scritch.
Crunch.
Silence.
More silence.
Crunch.
Scritch scritch.
Crunch.
Scritch scritch.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
With an exasperated sigh, Octavia set down her violin bow and rosin. "Do you mind?" asked Octavia, her eye twitching ever so slightly.
"Wha?" Lyra asked with her mouth full of carrot. "This is my room for the month too, you know."
"Yes, but the... the munching." Her thin voice cracked.
"Oh no," Lyra said monotonously. "I have committed the greatest of sins, the paramount of crime, the height of all things evil: munching."
"Could you please just not do that while I'm trying to practice?" the musician asked. "Make whatever noises you want to afterwards, but please, just not now."
Lyra's voice dropped to a low alto. "Oh really? Any noises I want to, eh?"
Octavia made a tiny retching noise. "You disgust me."
"You're nice too, sunshine." Narrowing her eyes, Lyra moved her front hoof back and forth experimentally, balancing the green ends of the carrot before letting it sail through the air to the trash can. It was a perfect shot.
Yawning, Lyra turned over in her bed. "But really, isn't there an actual band room here for you to practice in?" she asked.
"There is, but it closes at nine," Octavia replied.
"Huh, musicians aren't night owls then. Well, except for maybe you, but you don't count. I have no idea what you even are yet. How would you like to be a changeling?"
"Would that involve abducting everyone you hold dear and draining you of all positive emotion in the most torturous way possible? Even then, no, since I'd still have to get within a 30-meter radius of you to do it."
"Really?" Lyra commented. "Huh. Most ponies jump at the chance to be in a novel."
"Most ponies try to aim higher. I'd almost pity your hometown enough to give everypony there a hug, but alas, it would still probably mean being within a 30-meter radius of you. And ponies in general, really."
"You know," Lyra said, "I should really consider buying you a pet hermit crab this Hearth's Warming Eve. You two would get along swimmingly."
More silence.
Click. Octavia's violin case neatly swung shut.
The clock on the wall tocked.
Octavia slowly breathed in and out.
Crunch.
Her neck creaked like an ominous door opening to a dark alleyway as Octavia spun her head around 180 degrees. Sure enough, there was Lyra, lounging on her bed and staring at Octavia with two unnaturally wide, unnaturally green eyes.
You could see each and every vein in Octavia's neck. "May I help you?" It was a line straight out of a horror movie.
"Nope," Lyra replied, still staring.
"Is there something on my face?"
"Besides your pus-like personality? Nope."
Octavia's shoulders sagged, and she turned away with a toss of her head. "What are you doing?"
"Studying you."
Another eye twitch. "Why, may I ask?"
"I do it to everypony," Lyra replied matter-of-factly, "but you're different. You require extra observation."
"For what?"
Lyra shrugged. "For dissecting and unravelling the minds of the equine race."
"So it's true," Octavia said in her default deadpan. "I'm sharing a room with an alien."
"If that were the case, most would find you lucky," Lyra said, "myself included."
"Oh really?" Octavia asked. "And just what would you do with an alien?"
"Talk to it, have tea with it, observe it, figure out how it behaves normally, psychologically scar it, observe that, write a book, and dissect it for science."
"A brutal dissection, I assume?"
"You've got it."
"Ah," said Octavia. "Lovely. Perhaps you and I have something in common."
More silence.
"I'm going to kill you," Octavia said in a conversational tone, as if commenting on the lovely weather that day. "You know that, right?"
"Well you'd better not do it here," Lyra replied, just as nonchalantly. "I'm betting that Mrs. Bubbles incident will seem like nothing compared to how she'll react if she walks up to a gory murder."
Octavia's eyes followed the direction of Lyra's hoof, pointing straight down at the small bundle of blankets steadily rising up and down. Her soft blonde mane poked out of the cocoon. Even in her sleep, there was a peaceful smile on her face.
"Alas, you're right," Octavia said, then paused. "Gah, just saying that sounded horrible."
"Imagine how it feels hearing it," added Lyra, who was now flipping through a manuscript with a quill of red ink. "Every word you say kills another part of my soul. Maybe I really should write you as a changeling. Or no, that's not evil enough. A succubus sounds much more up your alley."
"Oh, what a relief. For a minute I was worried I was losing my touch."
"Alright!" Lyra said, pumping herself up as she safely tucked away Bon Bon's manuscript in her bedside drawer to make room for the typewriter balancing precariously on her lap. "Evil demon succubus changeling, let's do it!"
Octavia sighed as she climbed into her bed, which she had pushed as far away from Lyra's as possible. "You know, after what you just said, this is going to sound crazy, but then again, I think any soundwaves that travel within a 30 meter radius of you are somehow distorted into crazy talk. Which... actually explains a lot. Anyway, I'm going to... try to be nice to you. But only because I don't want to have that one--" she pointed to Derpy, "--mentally snap, leaving me with two asylum patients. Make sense?"
"Yeah, sure," Lyra said. "I guess I'll pitch in if it will keep this place orderly enough for proper study of my live specimen of an evil demon succubus changeling."
"And already I'm regretting this decision," said Octavia. "How wonderful. Can you please just go to sleep or something so I can practice in peace?"
"With my potential murderer in the room? Haha, no thanks," Lyra said.
"Fine," Octavia said, "how about we both go to sleep, so neither of us have to cut off our ears from the grating sound of each other's voice?"
"You know, I think you're starting to get the hang of this whole 'being nice' angle," Lyra commented.
"Thank you." The room temperature dropped a solid five degrees.
"Hey, cheer up!" said Lyra just as she was about to turn out the light. "At least tomorrow's Monday!"
Lunch Time Romance? Best Friends Are Worst Enemies!
Ancient myths from the dawn of time say that after the gods created ponykind, they bestowed upon them the greatest gift known to mortals. More precious than gold, more beautiful than rubies, more vital than the sun and moon. Their gift is essential to life as web today know it: without it, our world would be naught but chaos.
This gift is 30-minute lunch period.
Octavia stood in a slow line that shuffled up to what she fervently hoped was the salad bar. She craned her neck, trying to see above the winding trail of ponies, but to no avail.
"Trying to be a giraffe, I see." Octavia spun around to see none other than Vinyl, giving her typical goofy smile.
"You know, I'm not even going to insult you back, because after last night I am so glad to see you, Vinyl." And with that, Octavia stood on her hind legs to give Vinyl a lung-crushing hug.
"Dear Celestia," Vinyl managed to choke out, still grinning up at the other mare, "which changeling took Tavi and replaced her with you?"
"No," said Octavia sternly, "don't even mention changelings to me. But other than that, hello."
Vinyl laughed. "Well, somepony's in a good mood today."
"All the ponies in my classes so far are wonderful," Octavia said, "but already I think my professor favors me," finishing with her chest puffed out in pride.
"Yup, that's my Octavia," Vinyl said. "If we were roommates, I'd cut out half your brain and use it for Music History. Sheesh, that class is already a killer. So. Much. Reading."
"Haha, sure Vinyl," Octavia replied with a laugh as she grabbed a tray. "You'd probably just end up selling my brain to scientists to dissect..." Her eyes suddenly went wide. "Oh, hell no."
Vinyl craned her neck and raised an eyebrow at Octavia. "What's up?" she asked, confused.
"One night with that mare, and already she's infecting my brain." The mare placed a hoof to her head.
"What, the unicorn?" asked Vinyl, absentmindedly tossing an apple.
"Lyra's her name, and yes, her," answered Octavia, saying the last word the way somepony would say maggots or vomit or 25-minute lunch period.
"So I guess last night wasn't best friends' sleepover with makeup and pillow fights?" Vinyl asked.
"Oh Celestia, no. And don't you dare say that around her; it'll just give her ideas."
"Come on, Tavi," said Vinyl as she piled salad onto Octavia's tray, "can't you two even try to be friends?"
"With all the work it took for me to have you as a friend?" Octavia threw her head back in mock laughter. "Fat chance."
"Point taken," said Vinyl, grabbing a daisy sandwich for herself. "Seriously, didn't your parents ever teach you that superiority complexes aren't all that endearing to ponies?"
Octavia kept her head fixed forward, but Vinyl could still feel a glare cutting through her soul.
"Anyway," Vinyl said quickly, "how about acquaintances? And don't tell me that that's impossible. We can't have you strangling cats all month. Didn't you learn anything interesting about her last night?"
"Other than the fact that she thinks I'm an alien changeling vampire or something? Nothing I couldn't have picked up on already, the little carrot-eating freak."
Vinyl rolled her eyes. "If you want ponies to be nice, Tavi, you need to meet them halfway. Oh well, break this down for me. What exactly did you say to this mare?"
"Polite requests, reasonable complaints, crippling insults, and probably a death threat or two somewhere in there."
Much to Octavia's surprise, Vinyl threw back her head and, instead of chastising her, broke out into roaring laughter.
"Vinyl, what's going on?" Octavia demanded.
"Oh, oh Celestia, it's too much," Vinyl cried, tears squeezed out the corners of her eyes. "Tavi... sometimes you're just too much, Tavi.... In the name of Celestia, I can't even, haha! You two are going to be great friends!"
Octavia dragged Vinyl out of line by her ear. "Come on, out with it!"
"Isn't obvious, Tavi?" Vinyl said once she was able to properly breathe. "You're treating her exactly like me!"
Octavia just stared. "I don't get it."
"Think back to yesterday. How many times did you threaten to punch me in the face?"
"I never--!" Octavia paused to think. "Well, alright, there was that one time... oh come on, a garbage can can't do much damage anyway... you could survive a cinderblock falling on your head, couldn't you?"
Vinyl snorted, chuckling all the while.
"I hate you."
"See!" Vinyl said, gesturing to Octavia with her hoof flying wildly. "That's my point! We're best friends because we talk to each other like garbage! It's the same with that mare Lyra!"
"Ha, ha, ha, I don't think so, Vinyl," said Octavia. "Now come on, let's find a table."
All around them, ponies were aiming to do the exact same thing. They milled around in large groups, those already seated moved over to accommodate their friends, and the rest started food fights because food fights are fun. And thus, the two mares arrived at the absolutely, positively, most terrifying part of 30-minute lunch: finding a place to sit.
"The gods have terrible taste in humor," Octavia grumbled.
Somewhere in one of the academy's many music rooms, a cymbal clash could be heard.
Yet it was a much sweeter sound compared to what Octavia heard next.
"Octavia! Octaaaviaaaaa!" Derpy called as she waved her hoof in the air. "Come sit by us!" She pointed to Lyra, scribbling in a newspaper held upside down. "We saved you a seat!"
"Oh Tartarus why..." Octavia groaned. She glanced to her right, and there was Vinyl, wearing a devious grin.
Her eyes widened. "Oh don't you dare, Vinyl--"
A mischievous light glinted in the DJ's eyes. "Bye, Tavi!" she shouted over her shoulder. "Have fun with your new friends!"
"No, no, no, a beheading's too swift," Octavia muttered to herself as Derpy and Lyra grew closer into view with each of her shaking steps. "First I'll string her up in a deserted field for a few hours... yes, yes, the right amount of terror... then I'll sell her to the aliens. It's perfect, perfect! Ahaha, ahaha, ahahaha!"
Outside, a fluke lightning bolt went off, followed by a pegasus shouting, "Sorry! I just don't know what went wrong!"
Lyra grinned smugly. "My star," she said, glowing with pride, "already she's on the walk to villainy."
"You could take a walk too, creep," Octavia said. "A long walk off a short pier."
Octavia's head swiveled back and forth to get a full view of the cafeteria. Surely in this crowd, there had to be somepony calling her name. That stallion in the corner, he was waving at her, right? Right?!
Alarms went off in Octavia's head as she was attacked by a large and strangely soft bear net. Derpy looked up, forelegs still holding Octavia in a hug, and her eyes shone with an absolute brilliance.
"Yay!" she shouted, clapping her hooves after dragging Octavia to the empty chair. "Now all my friends are here!"
"Faust, why have you forsaken me?" Octavia's head collapsed into a pillow of salad.
Derpy giggled. "Silly Octy, that's not how you're supposed to eat salad!"
"Yeah, 'Octy,'" said Lyra, restraining a snort, "'leaf' the sleeping to the dorm room. 'Lettuce' supply your 'parsley' knowledge with a 'basil' technique for proper etiquette. Also, carrot, carrot, carrot."
"No," said Octavia as she buried her head further in lettuce. "I'm done. Tell the doctor I'm dead and need immediate brain bleach."
"Unfortunately, such an autopsy would only further Miss Lyra's ahh... unique hypothesis about you," said a new voice.
Moaning in agony, Octavia glanced up from her salad to see...
"The Doctor," the brown-coated stallion said, offering his hoof from across the table. "And you I take it you are Miss Octavia Melody?"
As if struck by lightning, Octavia was suddenly sitting perfectly erect. "Ahem, why yes, yes I am," she said, extending her hoof in return. "And you are the Doctor you said? Doctor who?"
A twinkle danced in his eye. "Just the Doctor is fine, Miss Melody."
"Octavia," she said. "You may call me Octavia."
"Octavia," the Doctor said, his accent softening the a's and giving the t and the v slight emphasis. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance."
Inwardly, Octavia grinned. See, Vinyl? I can do acquaintances no problem. "Likewise."
Out of the corner of her eye, Octavia spied Lyra staring at her with curled lips and two eyebrows that disappeared under her mane. Octavia frowned, but the look only persisted, now with a subtle mirth behind it.
"So this is the infamous Mrs. Bubbles strangler, Derpy?" the Doctor asked. "Interesting. Please take care that such an incident does not occur again, Octavia. My dear friend here would be most terribly distraught."
"Oh, of course not!" Octavia agreed quickly. "No, it will never happen again. Please, accept my apologies."
The Doctor nodded his head. "Looks like you may be better off than I feared, Derpy. It was a pleasure to meet both of you young mares. Miss Lyra, if their is ever a campaign for flufflepuff independence, you most certainly have my support. While I'd love to stay and talk, I'm afraid my next class is on the other side of campus. I merely came to check up on Derpy."
He tipped his head to all three mares. "Good day, Derpy, Miss Lyra, Octavia." Straining his neck, he looked up at the front of the cafeteria. "The line's much shorter now, Derpy. On my way out, would you like me to get you a muf...?"
But Octavia wasn't listening to the Doctor anymore. "And just what are you thinking about now?" Octavia snapped at Lyra.
"Oh, nothing," the unicorn answered in a sing-song voice, "though I have a pretty good guess about what you're thinking. You know, nothing sells books like a little dash of romance--"
A blush rose to Octavia's cheeks. "And now I'm leaving," she said matter-of-factly. And with that she gathered the scattered leaves of her salad, tossed them in the trashcan, and walked away with a toss over her mane.
"Aww," Derpy said, hanging her head. "I wanted all my friends to stay."
Lyra gently lifted Derpy's face by the chin. "Cheer up, Derpy!" said Lyra. "Miss Grouchypants will be at orchestra practice after classes, so we'll get the whole afternoon all to ourselves to do anything we want."
Just like that, Derpy lit up like a Hearth's Warming Eve tree. "Really? You'll hang out with me?"
Lyra nodded. "You've got it."
"This is great! We can.... Umm.... What do you want to do?"
"Anything you want, kid," Lyra said. "Anything at all."
"Anything?"
"It's the first full day of classes, right?" Lyra asked before leaning in for the dramatic finish. "Then let's go absolutely wild."
Fight the Breezie Sprites! Love Sings in the Moonlit Grove!
Derpy's eyes were opened wide and shaking in their sockets.
"Oooooh," she sang as she rocked back and forth. "Pretty!"
"Ahhhh," Lyra said next to her, just as transfixed. "Isn't it mesmerizing, Derpy?"
She nodded her head emphatically. "Yup! It's so, so... so pretty!"
"You know, there are probably Breezie sprites in there," Lyra said.
"Really?" Derpy exclaimed with a gasp. "That's sounds amazing! Even though I don't know what Breezie sprites are, they sound really nice!"
"Oh no, not at all," Lyra corrected matter-of-factly. "Breezie sprites are horrible, demonic creatures that latch onto your head and suck you dry of all your happy memories, leaving you a cold and empty husk to drown eternally in their flaming eyes of endless suffering! Aren't they the best?"
"Ohhh...." Derpy was still puzzled. "Yeah, they're... err... really cool!"
Lyra's forehead creased. "It's okay, kid," she said, bouncy as always. "You know, Breezie sprites aren't very well documented because of myths that say they're made up, so we don't know a lot about them. Maybe we'll be the first ponies in all of Equestria to discover a friendly demon Breezie sprite!"
"I don't know..." Her ears drooped.
"Their wings are sparkly."
"Well, then they can't be all that bad!" said Derpy, perking up again like a flower in the sun. "How do we get them to come out?"
"My research," Lyra began, "says that Breezie sprites look for bold, confident ponies, since they're mostly likely the ones with the most happy memories to suck dry. So it's a good idea to open your eyes really wide and not blink if possible. Then, sing a happy song by them; that's always a good sign that you're defenseless against their teeth of death. Also, say 'pepper quill' a bunch of times. No clue why that one works. I saw it on a flyer by the Manehattan Theater, so I guess it has to be true. Isn't science funny that way?"
"Yeah! Ooh, I wonder if they like muf--"
"Let's find out, kid!" Lyra shouted, grinning from ear to ear. "You ready? One, two, three! My little pony! I used to wonder what friendship could be--"
Suddenly, the door was flung open, and in walked Octavia, dragging an instrument case behind her.
"You!" Lyra screamed, leaping to her hooves and pointing an accusing hoof at the newcomer. "I thought you were just incredibly antisocial, but now I know you're just ungoddessly dense! You do not appreciate this wonderful pegasus filly nearly enough!"
"I'm a special snowflake!" Derpy shouted in triumph, still unblinking.
"I swear," Octavia grumbled as she tried to catch her breath, "in another life, I'd never choose a bulky, heavy instrument like a cel..." She trailed off as she looked up at her two roommates. "Oh, for the love of Harmony, have you two honestly spent the past two hours staring at a potted plant?"
"Shh!" Lyra ordered, still concentrating fully on the tiny daisy. "Your rotten personality will never make the Breezie sprites come out!"
"Hi, Octy!" said Derpy with an enthusiastic wave. "How was your day today?"
"Oh, forget that grumpypants, kid," said Lyra.
"Yes, and how about you lead by example?" added Octavia, collapsing on the bed. "Ugh, after that brutal practice today, I just want to be left alone."
"Oh no!" Derpy cried. "Poor Octy! I'm sorry you had a bad day! Here, do you want a hug?"
"No!" Octavia screeched, scuttling away from Derpy's forelegs held in front of her like a zombie. "I want to live, I want to live!"
Lyra rolled her eyes. "What a drama queen," she remarked.
Octavia didn't even have an opening to retort as she trembled behind the Great Wall of Pillows she had created as a shield. "Thank you for your concern, Derpy, but really, I'm fine. Just..." Her face screwed up in pain. "Just being a drama queen like Lyra said."
"Oh." Derpy let her forelegs drop.
Phew. Octavia breathed a sigh of relief.
"But you get a best-friends' hug anyway!"
Octavia's heart nearly jumped out of her chest. "Wait, no, noooooooo!"
Lyra was close to tears by that point. "By Faust, she even does villain cliches!"
And with that, Derpy lunged in for the kill, breaking through the pillows to quarterback-tackle Octavia in a fierce hug.
"Can't... can't... breathe..." Octavia choked out before collapsing.
Lyra chuckled and walked over to the two mares. "Even I'm not cruel enough to torture her like that. Come on, Derpy, get off of her, before she develops even more psychological trauma."
"Okay!" The pegasus dived off the mattress like a diver from a springboard, somersaulted in the air, and landed lightly, gracefully, on her four hooves.
Behind her, Octavia trembled, her eyes wide in horror from under the sheets.
Lyra grabbed her saddlebag from the bedpost and a blue turban from who-knows-where. Then she bucked open the door and gestured with a silly flourish. "Let's get going, kid! It's time to paint the town red!"
"Ah, I simply love this town, you know?"
Together, the two young mares strolled through what could have only been Canterlot's shopping district. Lyra's telekinesis was laden with about a dozen shopping bags, all overflowing with the most curious of items. Sock puppets, ornate candle holders, a piece of red paper enchanted to fold into a lantern, the deed to a history museum, a foal's mobile, and something alive shifting around at the bottom of a hatbox.
"I mean, where else could you find a store that specializes exclusively in corkscrews from the year 766 ANM?"
"It's amazing," Derpy said breathlessly, not really paying attention. Though she had bought nothing and didn't plan on buying anything on their outing, her head was pivoting every which way, just as it had been for the past three hours. Her eyes, round as saucers, never lost their wonderment as they drank in the sights and sounds of that beautiful city.
"Of course, it's not perfect," Lyra continued, "at least, the ponies certainly aren't. Remember that couple who called us a pair of street urchins for gawking at that glow-in-the-dark wine cooler? But seriously, that store was so fun. China measuring cups? A vase of peacock feathers? The things rich people think of is hilarious!"
Derpy cocked her head to the side so she could see all Lyra's bags. "But I thought you were rich," she said.
"Oh, I guess I am in a way," Lyra answered with a shrug, "but not that kind of rich. I'm not high-class rich, the ones who live in the creepy old haunted mansions and can trace their roots back to the princess. My family's new money, from Fillydelphia. They're the ones who could go to those high-society balls, but only if they bribed their way in. Because it's not 'our city.'" Lyra's eyes were cast downwards. "But it is," she whispered. "It's my city."
Then the unicorn looked up and shook her head. "Oh, what am I talking about?" she asked, tapping the side of her head, as if her thoughts were water stuck in her ear. "Ooh, there's an ice cream vendor! Want some?"
Derpy nodded excitedly. "Yes, please!"
Together they ran up to the ice cream vendor, already hoofing out cones to the little fillies crowding around him. Derpy and Lyra eagerly joined the line, much to the surprise of the philanthropists passing by with their noses stuck in the air. Whenever she heard a disapproving humph, Lyra just adjusted her turban, smiled affectionately at the little fillies and colts, and looked away.
Finally, it was their turn. Derpy got coconut with chocolate-strawberry swirl. Lyra got vanilla.
"Really?" Derpy asked, holding back a giggle. "Nothing extra special like ravioli-pineapple?"
"Vanilla is extra special," Lyra said defensively. "It's a classic."
Lyra took the tip of her ice cream and smeared it on Derpy's nose. "There, now you're a classic too! And speaking of classic, how about we go someplace really amazing?"
Taking Derpy's hoof, Lyra ran through the dense crowd of ponies with ease. She darted around legs, under carts, over signs, through aghast shouts, in the air of that magical place. And with Derpy by her side, she felt amazingly light, unlike anything she had ever felt before. That mare was the most magical part of it all. Lyra's heart felt strange, exhilarated. She felt as if she could fly.
Then she remembered Derpy was a pegasus.
"Wee!" Derpy whooped as she flew so high that her hooves brushed the rooftops, her tiny wings apparently undeterred by Lyra's weight smashing into lampposts. "Wee! This is the best, Lyra!"
At that, Derpy finally looked down and realized how high up they were. "Oh. Okay!"
Derpy's wings snapped shut.
"Weeeeeeeeeeee!"
"If I die," Lyra shouted over the wind, "let me just say I have no regrets. Weeeeeeeee!"
Derpy made a graceful pirouette on a park bench, while Lyra crashed face-first into a pile of grass.
Lyra lifted her head and spit out a mouthful of dirt. "You are the craziest mare I've ever met, Derpy Doo," she said, grinning so much it hurt. "It's been an absolute honor."
Lyra sighed and sat down on the bench. "Good job on taking us exactly where I wanted to go, by the way," she said. "This is the Moonlight Grove," began Lyra, making broad, sweeping gestures to the willow trees with silver-tipped leaves that swayed lazily in the slow twilight wind. "Legend says that Princess Celestia commemorated this garden about 400 years before Canterlot Gardens, though a formal commemoration was never given. Apparently it was meant to be part of her private estate by the castle, but after her fight with Nightmare Moon, she changed the plans to keep it open it the public."
Lyra closed her eyes. "It has a sad history, which is probably why more ponies go to visit Canterlot Gardens. This place is a memorial to the lost castle in the Everfree, but also to anypony lost to violence or disharmony. They say the tears from ponies remembering the ones they love water the willow trees, giving them their silver leaves. I've always thought it's nice of the dead. I mean, you can see yourself in the leaves, so maybe they're saying that the ones you lose live on in you."
"That's beautiful," Derpy whispered.
For a while, the two mares sat in a comfortable silence under a silver willow tree. While there were still ponies milling around, there was a calmer, more peaceful atmosphere surrounding Moonlight Grove.
Then in the peaceful murmur of a slowing city, a delicate soprano slowly crescendoed: "Come now, my love, to the garden of stars. Where the ponies of nighttime do play. For it's cool and it's bright and the moon's safe at night. Come, my love, let's be up and away."
Derpy's ears perked up at the sound of Lyra's singing. "What song is that?" she asked.
Lyra shrugged her shoulders. "I have no clue," she said. "I just thought of it now. What, haven't you ever been in a spontaneous musical number?"
She shook her head.
"Really? Huh. Weird. You wanna sing with me?"
A blush rose to Derpy's cheeks. "Oh, I don't know, I'm not very good..."
"Which just proves to me that you need to sing with me. Come on, don't be shy." Lyra stood up and pressed her hoof against Derpy's. "Don't let me sing all alone; Octavia will think I'm crazier than I already am."
Maybe it was Lyra's exuberant smile, or the silver leaves like stardust, or the silver light reflected in Lyra's shimmering eyes, but something deep within Derpy prompted her to say, "Okay."
Then before Derpy knew what was happening they were already off. Lyra's bags and their ice cream cones were abandoned in favor of twirling through the willow trees. Somewhere in the spinning, Lyra's turban unfurled into a silk blue scarf wafting through the air. And still they danced around other ponies, who all stopped to watch - with wonder, not disgust - as they sang loud and strong:
Come now, my love, to the garden of stars. Where the ponies of nighttime do play. For it's cool and it's bright and the moon's safe at night. Come, my love, let's be up and away.
There's nothing to fear if you stay close to me. We're soaring, we're falling, we're rising in song. Don't close your eyes, lest you leave from this dream. Come, my love, let's be up and along.
As the morning sun rises, the time's come to part. Don't see it, don't see it, the moon holds us tight. Silver's worth far much more than gold in my heart. Stay, my love, it's a magical night.
Derpy was a painter. She didn't plan to paint that day. Yet she did, but not with sprite sparkles or red. She painted the town with silver.
Hoof in hoof, Derpy and Lyra ran singing through the backstreets of Canterlot. They passed by concerned shopkeepers, disgruntled tourists, and the occasional amazed mare or stallion who left humming along. But it wouldn't have mattered even if they were met with the hostile glares of a changeling hive. (Well, except maybe Lyra, who'd go searching among them in the hopes of finding if the vampire changeling myths were really true.) All that mattered was the blur of indigo over their heads as they spun faster and faster around each other, dancing in rhythm of the song and the world flying under their hooves.
"Wait, Lyra, I..." Derpy paused to lean against a wall to catch her breath. It was an effort that soon changed from trying to recover from exertion to trying to find air between fits of inexplicable laughter. Lyra soon joined in, for what reason, neither of them knew. Perhaps they had surpassed even song, and now could only express their thoughts in giggling. Perhaps it was something in the air. Perhaps Octavia's fears really had come true, and the two mares had finally snapped. Whatever it was, it didn't matter. All that matter was that Derpy and Lyra were left in fits of hysteria.
Lyra wiped away the tears of joy from her eyes as she looked up at the sky. Then, ever so gently, with the carefulness of handling china and the meaning behind Derpy's more exciting hugs, Lyra pulled Derpy close.
"Look, kid," she whispered, pointing at the clouds. "Look."
Derpy looked, and her face split into a smile. Above their heads, flakes of white danced in the wind. They swirled down from the heavens to brush lightly against ponies' fur before rising back up to settle along rooftops. Within minutes, the entire capital was covered in a silk blanket of white.
"Snow," she breathed in awe.
Lyra smiled. "Happy First Snowdrop, Derpy."
"I'm a horrible pony."
"Oh, don't be so dramatic," Octavia chastised as she came over with a mug of steaming cocoa.
But Lyra was already far down in her own little world. "What if she doesn't make it?" she whispered to herself in horror. "If... if she doesn't make it..." She buried her head in her hooves. "I'll be stuck with... with you!"
Octavia just rolled her eyes and walked away. "Here you go, Derpy," she said, giving her the mug.
"Thank woo, Ot-a-vy," said a pile of patchwork blankets with two gold goggly eyes.
Lyra looked up with a start. "She speaks!"
"Of course she does, you dimwit," retorted Octavia. "She has a common cold, not the cutie pox."
"There's nothing common about this mare," said Lyra, moving to the blankets' side. "Derpy?" she said quietly. She placed her hoof where she assumed Derpy's head would be. "I... I'm here for you, okay? Don't worry. I'll stay until the very end. And then, after... after you... I'll put you in my book! Will that make you happy, Derpy?"
Octavia facehoofed.
Lyra burst into tears. "Oh, what have I done?" she lamented to the above powers of the ceiling fan. "Was one night of bliss worth this tragedy? Can mistakes as grave as mine ever be truly atoned for? Will this emotional experience lead to my first bestseller?"
Octavia facehoofed harder. "It's your own fault, you know," she reminded Lyra. "Galavanting through the streets of Canterlot on a Monday, honestly. You save that kind of silliness for the weekends. Didn't you say you had the first draft of a short story due Friday?"
"What does a petty thing like my academy grades have to do with this travesty?" Lyra snapped. "Have some respect for the mourning!"
"Have you even started on it?"
"Ha, as if!" Lyra laughed. "The key part of being a writer is doing pretty much anything else than writing. Inspiration comes through living life, you know."
"Not if your grades rely on it," Octavia said sternly. "Dear Celestia, I'm calling an intervention. Gather your inspiration, let... let the sick rest in peace or whatever, and go to bed. Tomorrow afternoon, we're going to the library."
"No good, I'm busying enjoying the wonderment of mocha ice cream with Bon Bon that day. 'Tis an occasion I'd chop my left leg off for. Though I'd be happy to chop off yours instead!"
Octavia was too tired to argue. "Fine. Thursday afternoon, you, me, and Sniffles here. Academy life isn't just about fun, you know. It's time we got to work."
"Oh, fine," said Lyra, crawling into bed and turning out the lamp on her bed stand. "Good night, Derpy. Don't kill me, other one. Or at least, let me be awake for it. If I can write fast enough, it can be the ending to a great murder thriller."
"I'll be sure to throw in that consideration," Octavia deadpanned.
"Good ni... i... achoo!"
"For the love of Celestia," Lyra cried in happiness. "Even her sneezes are adorable! Oh, it's too much! Come here, you!"
"Ahh!" the pile of blankets screamed as a shadowy figure attacked. "I wanna live!"
Octavia smirked in the dark. "Justice is a sweet, sweet thing."
Terror at the Library! Books Make Great Jenga Towers!
A wail like the screeching of a banshee sent Derpy, Octavia, Lyra, and Bon Bon running. The labyrinthine walls of bookshelves were a blur as they pushed themselves faster, faster, faster. Their hearts were fluttering birds fighting to get out of their ribcages. The pounding in their ears was incredibly loud compared to the deathly silence around them.
Well, it had been until the banshee, anyway.
A surprised cry, and Derpy collapsed to the floor.
"Girls!" she cried, lifting her head weakly from the dust bunnies nestled in the aging carpet. "Go on without me! Save yourselves!"
Lyra screeched to a halt and spun around, sending bobby pins flying at Sonic Rainboom speeds.
"No, Lyra!" Derpy screamed.
"No, the token cute one!" Lyra yelled before rushing to the back while Bon Bon and Octavia continued to run like there was no tomorrow.
"Go, Lyra, please!" Derpy said. "I... I'll be... fine..." Her constricting throat made her words shaky.
"Come on, kid, get up!" Lyra roughly grabbed Derpy in her magic aura and placed the pegasus on her back. Derpy shifted to avoid Lyra's wacky feather headband before the headband fell off entirely. They were off and running, Lyra's chest heaving dramatically. Derpy stuck her tongue out like a dog on a car ride.
Up ahead, Bon Bon and Octavia held open the heavy double doors. "Come on, come on!" Bon Bon shouted. "You can make it!"
"I'm going to leave you to die, Lyra!" Octavia yelled. "You know that, right?"
With one last cry of effort, Lyra pulled her and Derpy over the finish line and tumbled down the stairs into a tangled mess. Just as they were about to get up, the floor shook with the force of the double doors slamming shut.
Bon Bon sighed and leaned against the wall. "Well that was lovely," she said with a pout.
"I just don't know what went wrong!" Lyra complained, stomping the ground. "What happened?"
What happened indeed, Octavia wondered. Despite her persistent pessimism, even she hadn't seen this coming. It was all going so well...
Dust mites floating in the air. A warm, inviting smell of parchment. The faint ruffling of pages like falling leaves. All was quiet, all was peaceful, all was orderly and normal.
And there was absolutely no sunlight.
Octavia leaned back in her chair to gaze up at the ceiling of glass, showing a flock of birds flying in the sky. That afternoon had been an absolute blessing; it was almost unreal. No crazy impulses to strangle cats or hit ponies with sticks or anything above the base diagnosis for an asylum. No, everything was just as it should have been.
Looking back down, Octavia's eyes roamed around her... friends, for lack of a better word, seated around one of the library's many tables. There was Derpy, sucking on a quill tip as her eyes scanned the famous paintings in her textbook. Next to her were Bon Bon and Lyra, who were passing a sheet of paper back and forth and scribbling on it in bright red ink. Occasionally they would whisper heatedly to each other, but for the past half hour they had been perfectly respectful to the library's strict "if-you-so-much-as-sneeze-above-20-decibles-I-swear-I'm-going-to-smash-your-brain-with-a-stapler-lawsuits-be-damned" rule.
Octavia legitimately smiled. Perhaps she should start treating libraries as consecrated places of worship. Any place that could silence that insufferable unicorn mare was a miracle upon this planet.
Yes, everything was just as it should have been.
"What's up with Mira's line here?" asked Bon Bon, circling a part in red ink. "Why would she slip into a country accent all of a sudden?"
"Because," Lyra explained, "she's remembering her childhood on a farm."
"I can remember being 2 years old," Bon Bon replied, "and I don't slip into infant jargon."
"But her emotional memories are triggering a relapse."
"No, it makes no sense. Change it."
"But... B-But..." Lyra clutched her manuscript to her chest like a mother holding a newborn foal. "I loved that line! The emotion, Bon Bon, the emotion! Take out that one line, and the whole chapter is like a dry, empty husk!"
"Kill your darlings," Bon Bon said with a shrug as she crossed out the line.
Lyra placed a hoof to her chest. "Oww, Bonnie! Where's your sense of sympathy?"
"Somewhere in the gutter with my patience. You realize that I still need to look over my work too, right?"
"Of course!" Lyra said. "But Bonnie, you know I'm right. Come on, that line's perfect!"
Bon Bon sighed. "What," she began, "is the point of peer editing if you don't actually listen to your editor?"
"I am listening!" Lyra protested. "I'm just choosing to not pay attention to what I hear."
"Fine," Bon Bon said, pushing the manuscript back across the table. "If you want a dialect-disoreiented, contrived, and frankly flat person in your story, be my guest."
Lyra audibly gasped, one for each of Bon Bon's complaints, until her entire front section of her body looked horribly bloated. "Mira isn't flat at all! She's the most robust character build in my entire story! Just read about her curves!" She paused for a second to think. "And how dare you say those other things? Mira is my baby!"
"And you feel like mine," Bon Bon remarked, exasperated. "Look, remember Neighponyan? How his Summer Diamond adapted too quickly to the change of dialect when she moved to Appleoosa?"
"No, she didn't!" Lyra protested.
Bon Bon shook her head, got up, disappeared behind some bookshelves, and emerged seconds later with a thick tome in her mouth. It fell on the table with a loud thud that made the other two mares look up from their books in surprise.
"Chapter 14, paragraph 75," Bon Bon cited. "There," she pointed. "Summer goes from using dear to darling in just two lines."
"Ponies use darling in Manehattan too, you know! And besides, what about Charley Horse and A Tail of Two Princesses?" She levitated the book in question with her magic and let it settle neatly on top of Bon Bon's book. "In Chapter 9, Princess Amara distinctly transitions into the royal archaic after a flashback."
"That's because the line she said in archaic was still part of the flashback," Bon Bon corrected. "Here, the prequel, there Amara says "thee," but only in the context of..."
Soon, the two English majors had created a rickety stack of books that came awfully close to breaking through the ceiling.
"Could you please levitate this book up there for me so I can humiliate you again?" Bon Bon asked.
But Lyra wasn't paying attention as she rifled through another of her own books. "Aha!" she shouted triumphantly, shoving the book into Bon Bon's jaw. "There we go! Line 17, Rose Petal says, 'I'm right.' And then again! So that means I'm doubly right!"
"Yes!" said Octavia once she had pulled out another book from the stack. "11 to 10, I'm in the lead again!"
Derpy's eyes narrowed in concentration. She flew up and down their pseudo-Jenga tower in search of a book just loose enough to pull out. It had to be light, preferably a paperback, and already jutting out of the stack--"
"Ooh!" Derpy gasped as she flew by a book with pretty gold trimming. Eagerly, she clamped her muzzle around the book's spine and pulled hard.
Octavia looked up at the tower. "Uh oh." Leaping into action, she grabbed Lyra and pinned her legs to her sides. "Please," she appealed to the gods, "take her instead."
Crash!
All four mares were adrift in a sea of books bent, scattered, and dirtied.
Clip clop, clip clop came the sound from a nearby aisle. It was the librarian.
"Quick, what do we do, what do we do?" Bon Bon cried, looking frantically for an exit.
Octavia placed a hoof on Bon Bon's shoulder and said very slowly and solemnly, "Play freeze tag."
A little known fact: a librarian's sight is based entirely on movement. Doesn't move, doesn't exist. Unfortunately for Octavia, this particular librarian seemed to have forgotten that detail.
Octavia's heart was sent pounding uncontrollably as the librarian surveyed the wreckage equivalent to that of a small typhoon with her half-moon glasses. She saw all the books strewn out of order, and she saw one, two, three faces of absolute guilt and terror.
With a shrug, she was just about to pass their aisle by when the fourth pony finally broke through the sea of books to find air. Air that was filled with dust mites. Dust mites that just so happened to settle inside her still stuffy nose.
"A... A... Achoo!"
For a second, one could hear a pin drop.
Then the menacing click of a stapler.
Present Tense and Past Accents! Lyra and Octavia Share a Moment!
A sleepy mumble came from under the sheets: "No, Mum, five more min 'till the aliens take my brain. Yeah, Ah packed muh backpack. Yeah, Ah'm sure the aliens will wanna see my cel..."
Click.
Silence.
Click.
With a loud groan, Octavia turned in her bed and pressed a pillow to her ears. "Ugh, what in tarnation's goin' on?"
The musician's bleary eyes opened to the wavering orange light of a candle still burning defiantly upon the nightstand despite the late hour. No, not late, Octavia corrected as she squinted to make out Derpy's Bye Bye Puppy clock above the door. It was so late it was early.
But apparently that wasn't any excuse for her roommate. Because sure enough, Lyra was still awake, eyes bloodshot as they raced to keep up with her hooves flying across the typewriter.
"Oh, fer the love of mah viola, what do ya think you're doing up at this time of night?" Octavia asked, her words slurred by sleep.
Then Octavia laid quietly in bed, pricked up her ears, and waited. Any second now, there would come some kind of lewd pun or antagonizing sarcasm or crazy conspiracy theory that would send her flying into a slew of scathing retorts.
But the only thing flying in the air that night was silence bouncing off empty walls.
And a stray fly, too. But who cares about that.
After about two minutes, Lyra's head turned about a centimeter in Octavia's direction as her words were finally processed in Lyra's mind. "Must... write..." came the words, pried from her mouth like a mummy from its sarcophagus.
"Bless ya, Derpy," Octavia whispered as the pegasus coughed in her sleep. Then she turned her attention back to the unicorn. "Writing what?" she demanded. "Yer final will and testament? Can I help?"
The click-clack of the keys only picked up in intensity. "My story," she mumbled, eyes glued to the paper. "I only have 2,000 more words to go."
Octavia did the mental calculations as quickly as her tired brain would allow. "That's... that's... a lot."
"Uh-huh."
"And you can't type any quieter, can ya?"
"Nu-uh."
"Well that's just perfect." Octavia collapsed in bed and pressed both her pillows to her ears in the hopes of blocking out the sound. But like the tick of a clock during final exams, the click-clack droned on.
"Trying to suffocate yourself?" Lyra asked absentmindedly as she typed. "Can I help?"
"Oh, but I wouldn't wanna distract ya from yer writing, now would I?" Octavia asked with a voice of pure sugar. "Procrastination's a bitch when it comes back to bite you, isn't it?"
"I could think of a few things to bite in return," Lyra growled.
"Oh please, you're just setting yerself up now," Octavia teased.
Lyra finally pushed the typewriter away and sighed. "You're really weird when you're tired."
"Think about how I feel around you all the time."
"Look," Lyra said, "can you please just shut up? I have work to do."
"Please?" Octavia commented. "Oh wow, someone's being polite today! Well, because you asked nicely... still no."
"I swear, you were put on this earth with the purpose to bring ponies misery."
"Just doing mah job then." Octavia rolled onto her side so the candlelight created a rim of gold around her amethyst eyes. "Though you know, it's your own fault. You should have gotten it done a lot earlier."
"You can't rush inspiration," Lyra said. "I woke up tonight and was filled with absolute genius. Well, more than usual, anyway. I knew I had to write, late night be damned. It's the beautiful life of a writer, and it's worth all those sleepless nights just to produce a masterpiece of literature."
All that could be heard was the buzzing of the fly.
"That is the biggest load of garbage I've ever heard," Octavia said.
"For the love of Celestia, Octavia, I'll say anything when I'm tired."
But Octavia wasn't. Suddenly, she felt wide awake, like her blood was a criss-cross of waterfalls racing through her veins. She stood up and tiptoed over Derpy to get to the corner of the room by the foot of her bed.
"What do you think you're doing?" Lyra hissed.
"You'll see," Octavia said, kneeling down to flip open her violin case. "So, while we're up, what's your oh so compelling story about?"
Lyra stared at her the way one would stare at a demon alien changeling: with suspicion, terror, and in Lyra's case, a strange and unexplainable excitement. "You're kidding, right? You really want to know?"
"Well, with that kind of reaction, I'm not hanging on by the edge of mah seat," Octavia said while she applied rosin to her bow, "but Ah am curious."
For once, Lyra was stunned into speechlessness. "My story? Well, it's about... it's about... Well, you see, it's a bit hard to describe..."
"Are you kidding me?" Octavia asked. "Ya stay up at two in the morning for the sake of a story you don't know anything about?"
"Hey, I didn't say I didn't know anything!" Lyra said defensively. "I just have trouble putting it into words."
"Thank Celestia you're working toward a writing major," Octavia deadpanned. "And shush, don't wake Derpy up!"
"I know, it's just... oh, forget it. You of all ponies wouldn't understand."
And on most occasions, Octavia wouldn't. And in fact, she probably didn't then. After all, there was no logical explanation other than fatigue as to why Octavia would set down her bow, turn her eyes to Lyra, and say with absolutely sincerity, "I can try."
Lyra shrugged her shoulders. "It's about a lot of things," she said quietly, "and not just juvenile things like fairies and Breezie sprites and hum--"
"Can ya speak up a bit?" Octavia asked as she yawned. "I'm on the other side of the room, you know."
Lyra rolled her eyes. "Do you want to hear what it's about or not?"
Octavia sucked in a deep breath, which probably would have been employed to deliver a withering blow to Lyra's ego. Instead, she maintained a patient silence.
"It's about this magical land," she began.
"Oh, how original," Octavia commented with a pointed look at Lyra's horn.
"It's extra magical, okay? Anyway, everypony is under a terrible curse that takes away all the laughter there is. And it's up to this one little girl, born in a new generation that doesn't even remember what laughter is, to break the spell. It's a story about love and fidelity, about growing up and falling, about betrayal and trust and friendship and finding beauty in little things."
Silence.
"...And this is why I don't tell anypony about these things."
"You know, if I had a heart," Octavia said, "I might find that actually endearing. Is that how you feel about your life right now, Lyra?"
Much to Octavia's surprise, Lyra broke out into laughter. "This? Absolutely not! No, this is because Bon Bon dared me to write about the cheesiest setup I could think of." Lyra paused and stared into the candle burning low. "But I still want to do well. After all, it is a story, no matter how it came into the world. It is important."
"It's important in the gradebook too," Octavia added pointedly.
"Pft, I'm not worried about grades," Lyra said with a dismissive wave of her hoof. "All I need is to submit 4,000 words of something, and so far I have..."
Octavia rolled her eyes. "You're going to cry now, aren't you?"
Lyra nodded, rubbing her eyes. "My baby!" she cried. "I can't rush and write down whatever first comes to mind! It takes thought, time, effort, and... what are you doing?"
Octavia walked up to Lyra with her bow and violin in hoof. Then wordlessly, she began to play.
It was a soft, quiet melody that gradually built into long, beautiful legatos. The notes flowed gracefully from Octavia's hooves to sing in the nighttime air. Notes that spiraled higher and higher suddenly dropped to unheard of low pitches, then back again to nearly screeching heights. Octavia swayed ever so slightly with the music, though her expression remained stoic. Then, with a flourish of her bow, the last note rose on tiny wings to dissolve into the air.
The little fly dropped dead.
Lyra sat for a moment in silence. "That was... quite honestly, the worst classical piece I've ever heard."
Octavia made a slight wretching noise. "Of course it was, you idiot," she said. "I'm playing bad on purpose so you'll hurry up and write, and I can go to sleep!"
Lyra needed no further prodding, and she returned to her typewriter once again, this time with a panicked fervor as clashes like a dying parrot echoed in the dorm room.
"Honestly, the things Ah do fer ponies," Octavia grumbled.
Lyra suddenly paused in her typing to look up at Octavia. "Say that again," requested Lyra, tilting her head to the side in confusion.
"Say what?" Octavia demanded. "Are ya mad fer real?"
"There it is!" Lyra said, pointing her hoof in Octavia's face. "You have a country accent!"
Octavia was always grateful for any kind of darkness, but the darkness of that night held her special appreciation of being able to mask her reddened cheeks. "I was not!" she protested, indignant. "How dare you suggest such a thing!"
"So I was right today at the library!" Lyra continued. "It must have taken a very emotional experience to make you change speech like that! Haha, take that, Bon Bon!"
"I was talking differently because I'm tired, you idiot," Octavia said. "Now would you please write your silly story so we can both go to bed?"
Lyra waggled her eyebrows. "I'm sure you'd like that very much."
"Oh, but I have something you'll like too," Octavia said. "I was talking to Bon Bon about the details of your assignment yesterday, and do you know what?"
The last thing Lyra saw before the candle flickered out was Octavia's villainous sneer.
"Hi, everypony! Lyra and Octy aren't here, so I'll be running the show today! Oh, I... I hope you don't mind. Don't worry, I'm sure we'll have a lot of fun together!"
Derpy smiled as she skipped down the hall. She really didn't know how it had happened, how she had ended up all alone that morning. Everything had seemed perfectly normal with her friends last night, but this morning...
"Lyra! Lyra! Lyrie lyrie Lyraaaa!" Derpy chirped while rolling up her sleeping bag. "Don't you want to get up?"
A pair of venomous green basilisk eyes poked out from under the heavy orange comforter. "No," the creature said with fearsome resolution and the cutest pouty face.
"But you'll be late for class!" Derpy said. "Besides, it's a bright sunny day, with flowers and sunshine and sunshine and friends and applesauce and sprinkles and..."
The groan that issued from the comforter could shake mountains. "No. No sunlight. Not today."
Derpy laughed, playfully lifting a corner of the blanket. "Octy, is that you?"
The corner was yanked from Derpy's hoof like the snapping jaws of a dragon.
"Oh, forget about her, Derpy," said Octavia, who was packing up her instruments. "If she doesn't want to get up, then there's no use trying."
Derpy took a step back and bit her lip. "Are... A-Are you sure you don't want to come to breakfast with us?" she asked sweetly, softly, like a the voice of a child, pure and innocent. (At least when they weren't crying, whining, fighting, or any other child activity.) "It'd be really, really nice if you could."
The basilisk blanket shifted, but did no more. "Kid, I am super lazy today," said Lyra, pulling the fabric around her head. "Which is like normal lazy, except I have a cape."
"Okay..." Derpy's tiny frown brightened when she said, "Well, have a good day, Lyra! Have fun being..." she waved an uncertain hoof in Lyra's direction.
"A rare species of Writerius insomnius," Lyra said.
"Right! Have fun being that! Octy, are you ready to go...?"
Derpy trailed off when, instead of a pony, she saw a grey blur zipping all over the room. "Sorry, so sorry," she said over her shoulder as she started lugging her instrument cases out the door. "Apparently dorm room assignment isn't the only substandard part about this academy's administration. Schedules have been mixed up; I'm due for an appointment with my wind ensemble instructor in negative two minutes."
"Oh! Well, maybe I can come with--"
"Great, thanks for understanding, haveagooddaybye!" The door closed with a resounding slam.
Derpy's waving hoof fell to paw at the ground.
But that was five minutes ago; no need to dwell on the past! Now Derpy was walking down the East Tower corridor with the usual skip in her step. Of course, it was a little lonely, not having her friends with her, but the way Derpy looked at it, it was also an opportunity. A chance for an adventure she just might not be able to have with her friends around. Maybe, just maybe, a chance for independence.
At least if the Doctor didn't shut her down.
"I know you already will, Derpy," echoed his voice in her head, "but please stay close to your roommates. You never known what may happen at this academy."
"But what could possibly happen, Doctor?" asked Derpy. "There's nothing dangerous here!"
The Doctor sagged in his chair. "Derpy, I'll be absolutely, completely honest here: It's nothing short of a miracle that you haven't been killed by walking down a flight of stairs."
Derpy suddenly came to the spiral staircase leading down the East Tower. Its bright gold banister shone in the early morning sunlight, catching Derpy's eye.
"Oh, Derpy, would you please act like a proper pony for once in your life, dear?"
"Kid, I don't know if that's the best... Octavia, where's the first aid kit?"
"Weeeeeeeeee!" Derpy sang as she slid down the banister. The wind played with her mane while the world around her became a blur of white, purple, and gold. She gave another whoop to release the feeling of her heart jumping in her chest. And still she went faster, faster, until she was deposited to the ground with a soft plop.
"Owwie," said Derpy, trying to stand up in spite of her sore bottom. Then she broke out into a wide smile. "That was so much fun!"
Looking around, Derpy quickly located a clock above the archway leading to the castle courtyard. Apparently her slide had saved her an extra ten minutes, and the breakfast hall wouldn't open for another twenty.
If Derpy were able to find a way to magical slide upwards, she'd be spending those twenty minutes having the time of her life. But alas, not even Derpy's cute puppy dog eyes could shake the cosmic forces of gravity... yet.
Where to go, Derpy wondered, where to go? If Lyra were with her, they'd be running towards the library to do a little light reading. If Octavia were there, then... still, the library, where she would claim there to be peace and quiet. Or at least, until she saw Lyra there as well. Now, Derpy was from Ponyville, and so she didn't quite understand the way that city ponies seemed to like yelling and glaring at their best friends. So she would probably be sitting through the whole sign of friendship as she quietly ate a muf-- Ooh, bubble!
A shiny floating sphere reflecting all the colors of the rainbow floated past Derpy's nose.
Derpy's cutie mark was of bubbles. Bubbles were essentially her destiny in life. So could anypony blame her for bending obediently to the whims of fate and following the bubble, wherever it led? Of course not.
So she followed the bubble into the courtyard.
To be perfectly honest, the courtyard looked horrid that time of year. I mean, keep in mind that Canterlot is built on top of a mountain. Mountains get pretty cold after summer passes. The chilly winds shook the threadbare tree branches and rustled the brown, crumpled leaves scrapping against the sidewalk. It was uninviting. It was freezing. It was desolate.
Well, except for one.
In the center of the courtyard was a dancing mare. Her coat and mane were rich purple tones to contrast the washed-out grey of the sky and the grass. When she glided across the dirt, her mane briefly glowed the lavender of a delicate flower. Her movements were fluid, her demeanor of grace. Yet there was something inexplicably sad about her dancing. Her fluid movements transitioned from one wild spin to the next. She didn't feel like she was entirely in control of her dancing; rather, she was only a puppet being guided by silver silk strings. Derpy's eyes widened when she saw tears drip down the mare's face.
But worst of all was the laughing. It was the kind of crazy, deranged laughter that made Derpy's knees knock together. In the back of her mind, she could almost hear the voices of her friends telling her to turn back, to run for help, to do anything other than steadily walk towards the dancing mare, still laughing horribly as she cried.
"Hello," Derpy called, then louder. "Hello!"
The mare screeched to a halt when she saw Derpy. "Who are you?" she asked warily. "What do you want?"
Don't be afraid, Derpy told herself. Don't be afraid. "My name's Derpy!" she said, extending a hoof. "What's yours?"
The mare averted her eyes. "None of your business," she muttered.
"Oh." Derpy's ears drooped. She felt the enclosing silence press down upon her, force her to speak. "What are you doing out here so early in the morning?"
"I don't have to tell you anything, little girl," she said. Derpy could smell grapes in her breath. "You're not a cop; I know my rights. Nothing wrong with being out here. If you have a problem with that, then just move along."
"Oh, good, because I don't have a problem at all!" Derpy said cheerfully.
The mare's eyes narrowed.
"I don't have a problem with you," Derpy said, softly, quietly, gently. "I think that you're anything but a problem." She pointed to the scattered bottles around the mare. Only one smelled of bubbles. "Were you the one blowing bubbles?"
Hesitantly, the mare nodded.
"Why?"
"'Cause they're pretty," she answered.
"I think they're really pretty too!" Derpy said. "I mean, they're really simple and all, but the way they float through the air freely with all their pretty colors... it's so beautiful." Derpy sat on the barren ground and gazed up into the sky. "I wonder if I'll ever get to feel that way. Free. Beautiful. Unafraid."
She looked back at the mare, who was staring at her with bloodshot eyes. "I think we all have the chance to feel that way. And... I think I stopped to look at you dance because you were so free, so beautiful, so unafraid."
Derpy's eyes shone like gold. "But I think it'd be a lot nicer if you weren't crying."
"Well, what are you going to do about that?" the mare grumbled as she kicked up dust with her hoof. "Wave a magic wand and make everything better? Ha, as if. What do you care? What do you even know about me?"
"I know you're an alcoholic," Derpy answered simply.
The mare opened her eyes real wide, so wide that Derpy could see her pupils swimming in the liquor, but beyond even that, little droplets of tears like dew on her eyelashes. "Don't I scare a little thing like you?"
Derpy shook her head. "You did a little at first, but not anymore. You don't want to hurt anypony, not even yourself. I... I don't know how you'll not do that anymore. Like you said, I don't know anything about you. But... please, just for this moment, I don't know quite why, but... I would really like to dance with you."
It was strange, reckless, even crazy, but Derpy took the alcoholic's hoof and gently guided her across the ground. At first it started slow, as the other mare tried to pull away, but soon they began to spin, faster and faster across the dead garden. There was no rhyme or reason to it, just the sensation of spinning round and round as children sometimes do. They were spinning back in time, to a place where the wilted flowers shone beautifully in the sunlight, and a mare's laughter was pure and free, if only for a little while.
"Wee! Isn't this fun?" Derpy asked.
The mare smiled. "Yeah... yeah, it is."
Neither pony noticed as bubbles rained down like snow.
"That last fifteen minutes just may have been the single worst thing of my entire life!"
Octavia glanced over the top of her book. "Who do I send my bouquet of flowers to?"
"Oh no, Lyra!" cried Derpy, running to tackle the distraught unicorn in a hug. "What happened?"
Lyra screwed up her face in pain. "I... can't..."
"Please, be strong!" Derpy clung to her even tighter than before. "I know it must be sad, but you can say it!"
"Not if... both my lungs... rupture," said Lyra, turning a delightful shade of blue.
Derpy gasped and backed away, as if Lyra were a hot stove. "Oopsie." She blushed.
"Just tell us whatever you need to so you can get out," Octavia said.
"You can't just trivialize my feelings, heartless wench!" Lyra exclaimed before fishing for a piece of paper in her saddle bag. "That's a pretty good line," she mumbled, "maybe I can use it in my next chapter.... And tada!" With a flourish, she stored her quill in her bag.
For a second, all Lyra did was stare at her two roommates with the biggest smile imaginable.
"Here it comes," Octavia said.
"Oh, it's horrible, simply horrible!" Lyra cried while placing a hoof to her forehead. "How could she, how could she? What have I ever done to her to deserve this? What have I ever done to the universe?" She started shouting to the almighty cosmic forces of the ceiling fan. "Is this righteousness, to wallow in despair as I do?" she shouted. "Or is this amusing, huh? Is it? Is there some sort of satisfaction in causing misery to lesser creatures? Answer me, oh cruel world!"
"It's almost as if you were but a mere character for some higher creator to write about as he or she saw fit," commented Octavia. "Having a writing outlet is probably the only reason you haven't started a civil war."
Lyra staggered back and forth across the room in her distress.
"Oh, for the love of Celestia," Octavia said, "just sit down before you knock over something on my side of the room."
"Why do I have to listen to anything you say, evil changeling alien?"
Octavia raised an eyebrow and gave Lyra the infamous look.
With a sigh, Lyra collapsed face-first onto her bed. "Cat strangler," she muttered grumpily.
"Hey, I thought we were over that by now!"
Eternally faithful, Derpy rushed to Lyra's side as the unicorn started screaming into a pillow. "Lyra, what happened?" Derpy asked, tears beginning to well in her own eyes.
"Kid, I don't know if you're able to hear this," Lyra said.
Derpy took Lyra's hoof and gave it a gentle squeeze. "I can," she insisted. "I want to be able to stand and help you, just like we did in the rebellion against the minator-selkies, remember?"
Lyra stole a guilty glance at Octavia's flute case. Oh well, it wasn't like a little grape jelly could hurt it much. "Yeah," she whispered, wisps of a smile beginning to form on her face at the memory.
"And the march into snarglemachoo territory, and the skydiving off the Merderr lords' palace!"
"Grape jelly really is useful," Lyra noted.
"Yeah!" Derpy said. "And I'm like that jelly, ready to help you out! Please, Lyra, if you can't tell me regularly, can you at least confide in me in Hippoloogian?"
Lyra sniffed and mumbled, "Ma herdoooooooo tantiooooooo gasdervonoooooo mu latrenoooooooo, Detu-samoooooooo."
And Derpy replied, "Nett, Octaervonooooo nett bitujoooo serdoniooooooo."
"Ooooo?"
"Oooo. Ooooo-oooo ooo oooooo."
"Faust above, end it now," said Octavia, holding out her forelegs like a crucifix.
Ooooo," said Lyra, shaking her head.
"How about Snobbinese?" Derpy asked. "Mien herten-money, money-money-give, est benrere trophy wife gutentangerine mansion yandurie, I-am-an-absolute-prick?"
"No, no, Derpy," said Lyra. "If I'm going to say it, I want to not sound like a cat with brain damage from being strangled in a bassoon."
"I...! I...!" Octavia was at a loss for words.
Lyra took a deep breath as tears ran down her face. "I was... was... criticized!"
Octavia slammed her head into her book. "I'm dead, aren't I?" she asked herself. "I've died in sin after I played that wrong note at my recital, and now I'm paying for my crimes."
Derpy's eyes widened. "Oh! Well, umm... that sounds really bad, I guess. You know, the c's and the z together. Scary. Not that there's anything wrong with c's and z's! They're just..."
"Just an F sharp!" Octavia lamented. "Is that the way of the world, that one little F sharp is so important that karma should bring this upon me? Oh, I wonder how long I've been dead. I hope my family didn't take it too hard... no wait, would that mean they didn't care too much about me then? But I don't hope they're too sad, either! Hmm, wonder what dress they buried me in."
"It was the worst, Derpy!" Lyra continued. "I was there in the library with Miss Flyleaf, and as she was reading my short story, she... she... she wrote on it with red ink!"
"But isn't that the color she's supposed to use to edit your story?" Derpy asked. "I've never really understood why though. Red's such a scary color. Sometimes, though! On the fall leaves and ice cream and candy, it looks really nice! But on paper, with the c's and z's, it's... oh dear, I'm doing it again..."
"Again and again and again!" Octavia said. "I must be in a time loop of despair! But then, what is time? Am I dead? What does this mean?"
"Huh, Derpy?!" Lyra cried, showing her the blemished paper. "What does this mean? 'Your sentences are too long'? That is a perfectly punctuated sentence! Why should its life be cut short before its time? When the world become such a scary place for an innocent compound-complex sentence?"
"Since the creation of c's and z's," said Derpy, slightly trembling. "Since the creation of crazy Lyra's and crazy Octy's."
"No, that's too crazy!" Octavia shouted, now addressing one of Derpy's stuffed bunnies. "And yet it's the only thing that makes sense! That one--" she pointed a hoof at Lyra, "--has been a time traveler all along! I really am a demon alien changeling! Oh, what a cruel world!"
"I can't stand for it!" Lyra yelled. "I won't have it! From this day forward, Lyra Heartstrings will fight towards equal treatment of compound-complex sentences, and she will protect them, as she uses them in place of natural dialogue! As we tunneled through a submarine, there was a charm bracelet, and it winked in the grocery bag! A painting sailed to China, but a grasshopper fell down a rabbit hole, while the goalie made a trip! Yes, and yes I will say, while I enact this perfect plan! Haha, and haha, as haha, haha, haha, ahahaha!"
Derpy got up and backed away from Lyra, who was now more cross-eyed than the pegasus. "Oh, hehe," she chuckled nervously. "I really need to get going; there isn't much time until--"
"TIME DOES NOT EXIST! IT'S A LIE, A LIE!"
From out of nowhere, Octavia did a ninja flip through the air to kick Derpy's alarm clock off the stand. The cute puppy face with its sparkly minute and hour hands was nothing more than a smoking pile of scrap metal.
As Derpy scrambled to the door, she realized that there was only one letter she should be afraid of: the letter to a mental institution.
"...And woosh, she jumped in like a ninja and threw my teddy bear at a lamppost! I didn't even know physics could work like that!"
The Doctor nodded as he calmly sipped a cup of tea. "That's quite the adventure, Derpy," he remarked. "It's a miracle you made it out alive."
"I know, right?" Derpy said, sagging in her chair. "But now I don't know what to do! I don't know if I'll be able to go back there! I don't even know what a compound-complex sentence is!"
"Hmm...." The Doctor sighed, deep in thought. "You could always stay with me and my roommate..." The stallion trailed off as he looked around at his roommate's accumulation of beer bottles and empty bags of chips that obscured three-fourths of the carpet. The only safe haven was a meter high pile of books upon which the Doctor had the sense to place a lawn chair, a tea set, a socket screwdriver, and blue shower curtains on all four sides.
"Ahem, yes, so as I was saying, you could always check into a lovely jail cell..."
"At least you and your roommate understand how to leave each other alone," Derpy said.
"Yes, Derpy, I feel eternally grateful to the gods," the Doctor deadpanned.
"But sometimes, I don't know if I understand Lyra and Octy," Derpy continued. "I mean, I sometimes wonder if they really like sharing a room with me."
"Well, how do they behave around you?" the Doctor asked.
"Oh, they're very nice! Octy and I study well together, and afterwards Lyra and I have lots of fun!"
"What about when all three of you are together?"
"They're still really nice! Other than constantly looking up at the clock and wrinkling their noses at each other, it's all great when we're together! Plus, those fire eye contacts they always wear around each other are cool!" Derpy gasped. "Maybe I should get some too! Then we could form a superhero team, like... The Very Nice Ponies Who Will Burn You Alive With One Stare So Please Say Sorry To The Frightened Ponies And Buy Us Milkshakes!"
"So you think Lyra and Octavia like staying together?"
"Well," Derpy began, "they can't act that much differently than they do around me, can they? Of course, every so often they..." Derpy shook her head and laughed. "Oh, I'm being silly! They're my friends! If they were having a problem with living in the dorm room, they'd tell me!"
Suddenly, the door to the Doctor's door room was swung open with a violent crash to reveal a frazzled Octavia.
"Derpy!" she cried. "Lyra's snapped! She's been laughing in compound-complex for five minutes straight! I can't take it anymore!"
Derpy puffed out her chest. "Like that," she said.
"I got you your cat, too," she said, reaching into her saddlebag to pull out Mrs. Bubbles. Or at least, what could be assumed to be Mrs. Bubbles. Her eyes were spinning dizzily, her sleek gold coat was a tangled hairball, her face was squished on the right, and one could feel an aura of absolute loathing emanate from her.
"Look, staying in that saddlebag while I ran was a much better deal than staying back there," Octavia told the disgruntled tabby before letting her run and nuzzle Derpy.
Derpy squealed in delight. "Hello, kitty I haven't thought about in 10 days! Thank you so much for bringing her, Octy! Oh, and do mind the gaping plothole on you way in."
Octavia jumped to bypass the endless vortex of doom embedded in the wooden floor. "So are we even now?" she asked, limping on four legs covered in a mish-mash of cat scratches.
"Sure we are, Octy! Have some tea with me and the Doctor!"
Relieved, Octavia managed to squeeze herself into the tiny confines of the shower curtains. "Oh finally, some peace and quiet," she said with a sigh. "And how have you been, Doctor? It's been quite some time since we've seen each other."
"Indeed it has, Miss Octavia," said the Doctor, handing her some warm herbal tea in a plastic cup. "I have been well, and especially so now in the pleasure of your company."
"Is that so?" Octavia gave what was supposed to be a ladylike giggle, until her nervously beating heart squashed it into a startled cackle. "Well, it's a pleasure to be here too. I must say, you certainly have... lovely shower curtains?"
The Doctor waved them aside with a blush. "Trust me, Miss Octavia, you do not want to hear the story of how those came to be."
"Ahem, of course," said Octavia, grasping for a new topic. "So, what are your hobbies, Doctor? Or, well, you are a Doctor; perhaps you already have a job?" And a wife and kids? Just how old are you, Doctor? I'll have to ask Derpy. because if he's over 30... meh, still doesn't matter.
"Oh, I enjoy roaming different galaxies, exploring time and space, that sort of business," the Doctor replied. "I'm a time traveler, you see?"
Octavia did a spit take with her tea. "A-A... time tr-traveler?" she spluttered.
"Yes, it's a wonderful hobby," said the Doctor, leaning back in his chair. "All those alternate universes created, all those time loops broken! Fantastic, I must say!"
Octavia's eye twitched.
"Oh well," Octavia grumbled as she walked out, "my month is too hectic for a romance subplot."
"Tell me about it," Derpy echoed, just as downcast. "What kind of romantic experience is his time machine supposed to be? It can't even break dimensions!"
BLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
"Get up, get up, you're surrounded!"
"Ahhh!" screamed Derpy, tumbling off the bed.
"Fer the love of Harmony, Lyra!" Octavia shouted. "I'm gonna stick that stir-fry brain of yers on a spike and shove it six feet under!" Then with a glance at Derpy, she daintily cleared her throat. "With the most sincerest love and friendship, of course," she finished sweetly.
"Owwie..." Derpy rubbed her sore head. "Lyra, why did you shout at me? Have the goblin servants of the Feral Deer Clan risen up again?"
"No," Lyra shrugged, stowing away her megaphone. "I'm here to be your personal alarm, letting you know it's time for classes!"
Derpy blinked rapidly, riding her eyes of sleep. "Even when the sun's not out?" she asked, pointing to the pitch-black window.
Lyra's eyes widened. "Oh."
Octavia sighed as she untangled herself from her bedsheets. "Come on, you two," she said. "I'm buying Derpy a new clock."
"Ooh, shiny!"
Octavia sighed and walked over to the wind chimes aisle, where Derpy was poking each sparkly crystal. Her face lit up as they reflected red, blue, and green. "Come on, Derpy, you don't need any of these."
The pegasus' lower lip trembled. "But... but... shiny!"
"Please, we're here to buy you a clock, remember?"
"I know, Octy, but can I have five more minutes?"
One look into those golden eyes, and Octavia knew that her weak resolve would get blown away like a paper bag in a hurricane. "No," she said, her eyes firmly closed. "I'm sorry, but you already used hat excuse six times already. Don't you want to see the clocks?"
Derpy looked up at Octavia. "Are they shiny?" she asked.
"Yeah, I'm sure some of them have to be," she said.
"Yay!" Derpy rocketed into the air with a powerful flap of her wings. "Let's go look at the clocks! Bye bye, wind chimes!"
Octavia would have breathed a sigh of relief, but the universe was not that kind. For when she turned the corner, that breath went down the wrong pipe and sent her into a coughing fit. When she could finally breathe properly, she looked up to see Lyra.
Or at least, she assumed it was Lyra. Right now she was buried in a straw brim hat, Angel Beats headphones, banana-printed shorts, a T-shirt declaring "Keep Calm and Blame My Sister," an orange glow-in-the-dark bracelet, and panda slippers.
"What do you think of this clock, Octavia?" Lyra asked, holding up a sparkly pink one with gemstones encrusted on the handle.
"I don't know what to think," Octavia said. "I can't think of anything coherent except for 'what the hell have you done, Lyra Heartstrings?'"
"Why, Octavia dear, I've simply been helping the Equestrian economy," Lyra replied. "Ah, so you're against capitalism, too? Better add that to the villain list!"
Octavia's mouth opened and closed over and over, too stunned to form words.
"And besides," Lyra continued, giving Derpy a wink, "aren't you supposed to be helping Derpy pick out a clock? Shame on you! Hey, Derpy, you like this one, don't you?" the unicorn asked, pointing to the gemstone-lined one.
Octavia sighed, shook her head, and headed to the back of the aisle. "How's this one?" she asked with a plain grey clock in her forehooves. "Isn't it nice? Very durable, I'm sure!"
Lyra stuck out her tongue. "Faust, Octavia, don't you have any taste at all? Do you want to make our room look like a prison cell? I've never seen anything so depressing! Well, besides you. You, and your coat color, and your face, and your personality, and your rain boots, and your..."
Derpy's ears drooped. "Octy, it's very nice," Derpy began, "but, umm, maybe we can choose Lyra's clock instead? Don't you think it's pretty?"
"Well..." Octavia walked over to it, picked it up, and turned it so its back was facing up. At once, her face went pale. "Oh, err, trust me on this, you won't like this clock, Derpy. It's not... not..."
"Oh, but listen to it!" Derpy insisted. She turned the key in the back, and a sweet melody began to play. "Isn't it wonderful?"
"It-It is, but I... I just think..."
By this point, Lyra was paying attention once again, only this time her expression wasn't snarky or playful. Rather, her gaze was steady as she observed Octavia intently.
"What is it, Octy?" Derpy prompted, hesitant. "What's wrong?"
"It's just that..." Tears started to form in her eyes.
Then Lyra stepped in. "Hey, you know what, kid?" she said with a smile plastered on her face. "I think Octy's right. You know, sometimes things are built to look all nice on the outside, but on the inside they're just piles of scrap metal. Durable's the way to go."
"But--"
"I've got tons of glitter and sequins at the dorm room," Lyra said. "What do you say all three of us decorate the clock together? Nothing store-bought; we'll make it just how you want it. And it'll be fun, too! An arts and crafts project for us all to do together!"
Derpy's expression brightened like a whole city's power generators kicking in at once. "Okay! Come on, let's go!" she said, tugging Lyra's hoof. "If we hurry, we can start decorating before classes!"
Lyra just smiled and put down the gemstone-encrusted clock.
As Octavia was reaching for her saddlebag pocket, she brushed her hoof gently against Lyra's. "Thank you," the earth pony whispered.
Lyra's smile grew wider. It was the first nice thing she had ever heard come out of Octavia's mouth. And she liked it. A lot. "You're welcome, demon alien changeling."
Hope Is Like a Bubble! Derpy, Octavia, and the Great Dog Mystery!
The world is filled with noise. Yelling ponies on the telephone, thundering hooves, happy whooping laughter, happy-hour whooping laughter, calling from across hallways, blaring phonographs, and a million other such unpleasantries. Such is the nature of the world, making it difficult to find a token moment of silence.
But oh, when it comes, how sweet it is.
"Alright, Derpy," said Octavia, scanning the parchment once again, "let's see if you can get a perfect this time around. Ready?"
Derpy nodded her head. "Yeah!"
"Famous Reneighsance painter, artist, and sculptor."
Octavia sighed. "No, Derpy. How about this one? She was a painter who went against the expected style of art in her time by using bright colors and Southern themes."
"Ooh, it's... O'Keefe, right?"
Another shake of the head. "One more, you can do it," Octavia said rather unconvincingly. "This stallion was the premiere landscaper of Solar Park in Manehattan."
"Oh, this one's easy, Octy!" Derpy exclaimed.
A foreign emotion, hope, swelled in Octavia's chest. "Really?" she asked, thinking it too good to be true.
"Yeah! That's Frederick Law Olmstead!"
Like a needle, Derpy's words tore the little balloon of hope to shreds. And Vinyl wonders about my negativity, Octavia thought to herself. Putting away the list, she told the pegasus, "Just write horse puns, and you'll be fine."
"Okey dokey, Octy!" Derpy sang. Then her grin widened. "Hey, that rhymed!"
Octavia allowed herself a small smile, only to have her facial muscles writhe in pain. One day, she would find out if it ever hurt Derpy to grin from ear to ear like that. "Is that all the studying you need to do?"
"Uh-huh!"
Octavia toppled onto her bed and kicked her hooves lazily in the air. "Then we did it!" she exclaimed. "And, by the looks of it..." She glanced over at Derpy's new clock, a blinding disco ball of rainbow glitter. "...We've finished our homework before seven!"
"Wow," said Derpy. "Are you sure it's not Daylight Savings Time?"
"I'm pretty sure," Octavia replied. "You and I were just very productive this afternoon."
"Woohoo!" cheered Derpy, raising her hoof in the air. "Hoofbump, Octy!"
The musician shrugged and lightly tapped her hoof against Derpy's. "Good work!" she praised.
For a minute, the two sat in silence, that token gift that is so hard to find. Yet silence is still not as quiet as it seems. For once the yelling ponies on the telephone, the thundering hooves, the happy whooping laughter, the happy-hour whooping laughter, the calling from across hallways, and the blaring phonographs fades away, quieter sounds seem that much louder. Octavia could hear Derpy's gentle breathing, the clock ticking, the floorboards outside creaking, and her own heartbeat keeping time in the quietness around them.
Octavia sighed. "We left Lyra at the store, didn't we?"
"Yup!" Derpy answered, just as chipper as before.
"Do you think she'll find her way back?"
Derpy shrugged. "I have no idea!"
Suddenly, a horrible thought came to Octavia's mind. "We're not going to have to..." She shuddered. "...look for her, are we?"
A series of images flashed across her vision. A panicked Octavia galloping in the rain. A sobbing Lyra sitting forlorn under a tree. The burst of light when their two desperate eyes met. A romance ballad playing somewhere in the background. And most distinctly, the sound of Lyra's hysterical laughter.
"Meh, she's a grown-up pony; she can find her way!" Octavia said.
Derpy's forehead crinkled slightly. "But what if she can't?" she asked. "What if she's lost, or hungry, or scared? Please, Octy, we have to find her!"
Octavia felt her whole body quake in terror. Celestia, Faust, anypony, the simple earth pony implored, I don't care how, just save me from those eyes!
Just then, there was a knock on the door.
"I'm coming, my love!" Octavia cried as she ran to the door. "I promise, even though I may or may not already be dead, I'll leave you everything in my will!"
Exuberant, Octavia pulled open the door, revealing a petite mare, golden coat and mane like orange autumn leaves, standing on the doormat and shuffling her hooves.
"Hello," the mare said, looking up at Octavia through her eyelashes.
Derpy catapulted herself off the bed to land beside Octavia. "Hiya, Carrot Top!" she said with a friendly wave. "We saw each other the first day of school, right?"
Carrot Top's expression brightened. "Yeah, I remember," she said. "That musical was really fun! Do you know if the statue was ever repaired?"
"Doubt it, I think it was from the 400's. Everything was a bit of a blur after the lightsaber bit. Canterlot ponies sure don't do it like Ponyville."
"Oh yes, nothing like just jumping on rooftops. I mean, who else could manage to wheel in 800 tons of cream cheese, not to mention the fireworks..."
"Is there something you needed, Carrot Top?" Octavia asked.
Carrot Top's eyes widened with a start. "Oh, yes!" she said. "I just wanted to ask if you've seen my dog, Ronnie. He's not in my dorm room, and I was wondering if maybe he wandered into yours somehow."
"Oh, no, we haven't seen a dog here," Octavia said. "Sorry. I hope you'll find him--"
A grey and yellow blur rushed forward to tackle Carrot Top. "That's horrible!" Derpy cried. "I can't imagine how terrified I would be if I lost Mrs. Bubbles! Well, actually I can, since my friend Octy tried to strangle her in a bassoon the first day we met." She gasped. "That experience means I can empathize with you! So I know losing a pet is horrible, which is the same conclusion from before, but still--!"
"A-haha, haha," Octavia chuckled, none-too-gently pulling Derpy away from a slowly but steadily asphyxiating Carrot Top. "Now, darling, we can't keep Miss Carrot Top waiting, not if she wants to find her dog as soon as possible."
"But I want to help, Octy!" Derpy insisted. "It-It's like Lyra's been telling me! There are two times in our lives when we need to stand up in the name of justice: in the face of injustice and when there's only one slice of apple pie at lunch. And Carrot Top's related to the Apple Family, so..."
"Oh, but I don't want to cause any trouble for you!" Carrot Top said.
"Yes!" Octavia squeaked, her voice jumping an octave. "Ahem, yes, we'd only get in your way..."
"But if you could help me," Carrot Top continued, "it would be so nice of you! I'm really worried about Ronnie, and so--"
"Say no more!" Derpy said.
"B-But..." We finished our homework before freaking dinner! Octavia thought. I could watch a movie or learn a new song or actually go to bed at a decent time!
But the look in Derpy's eyes was too much to resist. "Come on, Octy!" Derpy shouted, grabbing Octavia's hoof and pulling her out the door. "We have a mystery to solve!"
"This is ridiculous," Octavia said for the umpteenth time.
"Can you absolutely, positively testify that you were present at Donut Joe's on the 11th of this month?" Derpy asked a mare with a white coat and pink mane.
Moonshine held back a giggle. "Yes, Detective Derpy," she said, "I was definitely there!"
"I see," said Derpy, pacing back and forth behind the fountain in front of the academy's main entrance. In her wingtips she was turning over a pipe. "Interesting, very interesting. So then you can testify based on your own firsthoof witness that Joe's Special Jelly Donut Surprise was the... hang on a minute," Derpy said. Blushing sheepishly, Derpy gave Moonshine her pipe. "Can you tell me why this pipe isn't blowing bubbles?"
Moonshine smiled and levitated out her handkerchief. "This end's just a bit clogged, that's all." She wiped her handkerchief over the mouthpiece before returning it to Derpy. "There you go!"
"Yay, thank you so much!" Derpy shouted before abruptly reverting back to her 'detective mode.' "So you can testify the Special Jelly Donut Surprise was the best, most superb, most fantastic donut anypony there had ever tasted?"
Moonshine nodded solemnly. "I would swear my life on it."
Derpy's mouth fell open into a tiny, surprised O. "Umm, there's no need for anything like that," she said worriedly. "I believe you."
The other mare chuckled. "Would you like half of my donut?" she asked, warm like bread just out of the oven.
Derpy's jaw dropped. "Wow, how did you know?" she asked. "You're really good! Hey, would you like to join us? We're trying to solve a mystery!"
"No, I'm sorry, I'm meeting up with somepony," Moonshine said, "but you can definitely have part of my donut!" With her magic, she cut the dough straight down the middle and levitated half into Derpy's open, expectant mouth, complete with tongue wagging.
She gulped down the donut in one bite. "Wow, that was great!" she exclaimed, wiping jelly from her face. "Thanks, Moonshine!"
"No problem, Derpy!" the unicorn called over her shoulder. "Have a nice evening!"
"You too!" Derpy waved back, even after Moonshine had turned a corner. "Thank you for helping with the case!" Content, Derpy sat down on the rim of the fountain. "Wasn't she the sweetest, Octy?" Derpy looked around, but the musician was gone. "Octy?"
Derpy found Octavia a short ways away, hitting her head repeatedly against a tree. "Silly Octy!" Derpy said with a laugh. "I don't think you're going to find Ronnie in the tree!"
Octavia stopped and looked at the pegasus. "Oh, so you still remember we're looking for the dog, do you?"
"Of course I do!" Derpy said. "Otherwise, why would I be interrogating all those ponies who walked by?"
"I can't...." Octavia was about to let loose a string of complaints, but she realized by this point in the month that her words would fall on deaf ears. So instead she held her tongue, and when she felt calm enough to speak, said, "You know, Derpy, have you considered maybe changing our approach? Perhaps instead of interrogation, we could scan the park and see if the dog is here."
"That's a great idea, Octy!" Derpy started blowing bubbles from her pipe as she turned 360 degrees to get a full view of the park. "Aha!" she cried triumphantly. "Ronnie must be in there!"
Once again, hope rose like a bubble in Octavia's chest, that is, until she followed Derpy's line of sight to...
"An ant hill," Octavia deadpanned as she watched her roommate dig in the dirt. Ow. There went the bubble. "You're legitimately searching in an ant hill. You know, I've seen some things in this past week, but this, I don't even know what to say."
"But it's not an ant hill, Octy!" Derpy protested. "It's a hole the size of ten sidewalks!"
"That's because you're looking through a bubble." Octavia put her hoof over the end of Derpy's pipe.
"Aww," Derpy said, her ears drooping.
Octavia pressed a hoof to her heart. "That's justice," she told herself proudly. "The sweet, sweet sound of--"
"Ronnie!" Derpy cried as a bark rang out through the park. "That's Ronnie!"
"Wait, there are plenty of dogs here!" Octavia shouted, but Derpy had already started flying away. With a sigh, Octavia took off running until Derpy paused next to a red oak tree, looked ahead, and shouted, "It is Ronnie! It says so on his collar and everything!"
Could it be? With newfound vigor, Octavia ran faster. Yes, it is, it must be! Oh, Celestia bless this day! "Whoever brought back this dog," Octavia cried with joy to the sky, "I'll give them whatever money I have left when I die, whatever love I have when I'm alive, everything! Thank you, thank you--"
When she passed the oak tree, Octavia screeched to a halt. "Oh, hell no."
Next to an ecstatic Derpy was none other than Lyra, riding atop the largest Germane Shepard Octavia had ever seen.
The toothy sneer Lyra gave her sent tremors through Octavia's very being. "Say that again, Octy?"
Boredom in Room 305! Scrapped Plot Devices Are Finally Used!
The afternoon sun shone jubilantly through the window. The last few families of bird gave one last tweet goodbye before a pair of pegasi led the south for the oncoming winter. Inside, the two enchanted wall candles filled the room with a cozy warmth. Derpy laid on her back and braided her hair. Octavia sighed again. Number 24.
Lyra made a tick in her notepad. Her research was dull that day. Besides the tick marks, she had only written three bullet points, leaving a yawning expanse of white staring back at her, which Lyra didn't like at all. So she was left to stare at nothing else but her boring specimen. Lyra saw her reading a paperback book, or at least, she was pretending to. Her glassy violet eyes weren't moving in a straight line down the page, and she hadn't even turned the page in the past five minutes.
Lyra rolled over in her bed to stretch and get a piece of bubblegum. She chewed on it thoughtfully as she continued watching, waiting for something, anything to happen.
Absentmindedly, she reached for her calendar. Word of the Day: Galvanize. Verb. To shock or excite into taking action.
Lyra liked the sound of that, considering her afternoon. Today's word may have very well been jejune or tepid.
The observer grew impatient, like a child rapping on a glass tank to awaken a fearsome anaconda. Maybe she should knock on Octavia's head. Knock knock, who's there? Clarinet. Clarinet who? Laughter. What's so funny, Octavia would ask crossly. Your pissed off face.
Lyra smiled. This idea was getting better all the time.
Before she had the chance to put it into action though, Octavia said, "Alright, call me crazy for even saying this--"
"You're right, Octavia," Lyra butted in, "it'd be crazy to hear a deranged cat strangler talk. I think there's one more obstinate set of vocal chords in this world that need to be twisted into silence."
Octavia flipped her mane in Lyra's general direction as she continued. "Perhaps this may be... the weirdest thing--"
"You want the long list or the short one?"
Octavia's eyes narrowed. "The weirdest thing I've ever said this month--"
"Here we go with the talking part again," Lyra said. "I've told you--"
"I think we might actually be bored!"
Silence.
A stunned Lyra struggled to keep her mouth from shaking. "You're kidding, right?" she asked, legitimately in amazement. "You've got to be kidding."
"I know!" Octavia cried. "I can't believe it either! I didn't think it was possible for me to be bored anymore!" For a moment, she gazed wistfully into this distance like a soldier recounting his home and family. "Organization, peace of mind, the last donut... so many things I've dreamed about. I can hardly remember them now."
"Where did we go wrong?" Lyra spluttered. "We've been on a roll for twelve days!"
"I don't know," answered Octavia, hanging her head, "but there's no denying it: we're bored."
A grin spread like the sunrise onto Octavia's face. "And it is a beautiful thing."
Lyra fell to her knees. "Noooooooooooooo! What does this mean?"
Then suddenly, the two mares heard a tiny, delicate clearing of the throat. They swiveled around simultaneously to watch Derpy slowly get to her hooves. Her expression betrayed no emotion whatsoever as she fixed them with a quiet, steady gaze.
"Ladies and Octy," Derpy said with frightening sobriety, like that of an obituary reading, "in my humble opinion, I see only one possible option in this situation."
Lyra and Octavia leaned forward, hanging onto each word.
"Let's have a party!"
"Wow, Octy, I didn't know speakers could fill up a room!" Derpy exclaimed.
Octavia leaned against the side of the speaker as she tried to catch her breath. "Vinyl... has things..." she said in between pants, "...in her... dorm room that I... do not know about... nor really want to question."
"Good idea!" Lyra shouted, hopping over the bed to meet the others. "Come on, let's get this field exper... I mean, party! Let's get the party started!" Then she grabbed a record, put it on the turntable in the phonograph, and hooked it up the speakers because magic.
"Why is it not starting?" Derpy asked.
"I don't know," Lyra said, walking around to the output plug. "Maybe it needs to be 'hoofed up' or something."
"B-But," Octavia spluttered, "it's the year 1003!"
Lyra shrugged before giving the metal box a mighty kick in the side.
Boom! It tipped over to collapse with a resounding thud.
All three mares hurried around the gaping plot hole where the speakers were slowly sinking, down, down, down into oblivion.
"Great," Octavia said. "Just great."
"Pst, Octy, it's your line!"
"Oh, it is?" Octavia fumbled with the comic book in front of her. "Err, what page is it again?"
"Page 12!" Derpy said, muffled under a bucket draped over her head. "You, the evil Queen Spinach-and-Broccoli, have just captured me. Now you say..."
"Oh, right! Umm..." Her eyes quickly scanned the page, filled with a mare in a frilly pink dress crying in distress. "'I have you now, Mira!'" said in a voice just barely more emotive than her standard monotone. "You'll never escape!"
"Ooh, this is the good part!" Derpy said. "I get to say my catchphrase! 'You're wrong, Queen Spinach-and-Broccoli, for I am..."
Standing atop their dresser, Lyra dumped a bucket of sparkles on Derpy's head. "...'Mira Mira, Miracle Meraki!'" Derpy shouted, raising her hooves over the bucket. "'And in the name of my toy advertisement, I'll punish-- A-A-Achoo!"
With a loud sneeze, Derpy sent sparkles flying into Octavia's face.
Very slowly, as if trying not to disturb a sleeping guard dog, Lyra went back down and pulled the bucket off Derpy's head. The little pegasus burst into laughter when she saw Octy coated in glitter. Lyra audibly gulped at the earth pony's glare.
Octavia remained unamused.
"Ooh, I know!" Derpy shouted, scrambling to pull out a pink plastic kit from under the dresser. "Let's have a makeover!"
It only took Octavia one look. The makeup kit slid safely back under with the dust bunnies.
"Ma'am, do you know that at the very moment, in your own home, you may be one of the thousands of ponies infested with merry-berry-hornets?"
Octavia pulled the phone out of Lyra's hoof and tossed it into the laundry bin.
"Pizza's here!" Derpy shouted, standing at the door.
"Great, I'm starving!" Lyra yanked open the door to find a young stallion about to fall over from balancing six pizza boxes on his back.
Lyra shook her head. "The struggles of an earth pony," she said, then laughed. "Just kidding! Thanks so much! Derpy, can you get him his tip?"
"Aye aye!" Derpy answered with an army salute before flying away.
Octavia, suspicion brewing inside her, went to the door in Derpy's place. "When did we order pizza?" she asked Lyra.
The unicorn shrugged. "I don't know. Derpy must have sometime along the way."
"Derpy, did you order the pizzas?" Octavia called.
"Uh-huh!" answered Derpy, searching under the bed for a purse.
Octavia raised an eyebrow. "Did you already pay for the pizza?"
"Yup! I sent it by magi-scroll a few minutes ago!"
"Uh-huh. Are just where did you get the money?"
Derpy tried to lift her head out from under the bed, only to bang it against the railing. "Owwie..."
"Oh, Derpy!" Lyra cried, leaping into action as she wrapped her forelegs around the pegasus. "Are you okay, kid?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," she said before turning back to Octavia. "I got the money from a purse, silly!"
"Okay, I'm not even going to keep going with this setup. You got it from my purse, didn't you?"
"Depends," Derpy said, "is yours blue, black, and splotchy?"
"I don't know, kid," Lyra whispered in her ear as she looked up worriedly at the smoke steaming from Octavia's ears, "but your face just might get to find out."
"You know," Derpy said, dazedly staring up at the ceiling fan, "sometimes I wonder if I'm God."
Octavia said, "Lyra, hide the soda."
"Woohoo!" Derpy cheered. "I won Fillydelphia Avenue!"
"Darn," Lyra mumbled as she placed Derpy's money in the bank. "I would have had a full side, too. Oh well, your roll again."
Derpy rolled a six. "Wow!" she said, nudging her candy cane piece along. "One, two, three, four, five, six!"
There was that little candy cane, defenseless against a wall of blaring red. "Haha, you fell right into my trap!" Lyra said. "Four crowns; you owe me a twenty!"
"Ooh, congratulations, Lyra!" said Derpy as she gave herself up to bankruptcy.
"Thanks, kid!" Lyra said. "Now, if you sell me Fillydelphia, you can gain back fifteen."
Just then, Octavia burst out of the closet. "You play that game with fake money, idiots!"
"Look at me, kid!" said Lyra, strumming a base. "Do you have any idea how awesome I am right now?"
Derpy clapped at the performance. "That's--" Screech! "--great--" Twang! "--Lyra!" Clash! Derpy winced and flattened her ears. "Owwie..."
Octavia lay curled in a quivering bundle in the corner. "I give up," she murmured before passing out.
"Octy! Pst! Octy!"
Octavia rolled over in her bed. "Yes?" she hissed to the surrounding darkness.
"Are you mad at me still? Derpy asked.
"Probably somewhere deep down. I feel numb and devoid of life more than anything, honestly."
"Oh."
Silence.
"Goodnight, Octy."
Octavia smiled in the dark. "Goodnight, Derpy."
What Do You See? Memories in the Heart of Canterlot!
"For the last time, I don't need your stupid help!" Octavia screeched.
Lyra rolled her eyes at Octavia. "You won't be saying that after you burn the entire building down to ashes. Ooh, can we add attempted arson to the list of your villainous endeavors?"
Octavia gritted her teeth as she struck the match again, to no avail.
"You know, there's such a thing as ovens in this school," Lyra reminded her.
"There's also such a thing as putting down your typewriter and coming to the dinner hall before everypony's done," retorted Octavia. "Honestly, you're crazy, always writing nonstop about those silly hum--"
"Watch it!" Lyra shouted as the match ignited a spark that passed alarmingly close to the unicorn's face. With a yank of her magic, she snapped the match and ground it into dust. "Give me that," she demanded, looking to the blue Tupperware container that Octavia had been trying to heat up.
"Unicorns can't do everything, you know," the earth pony grumbled.
"They can perform a simple warming spell," Lyra retaliated. Her horn began to slowly fizzle a bright neon green while she levitated the container of frozen ravioli. Octavia watched unimpressed as the plastic edges turned a bright red...
And then burst into flames.
"Are you certain you applied to the correct school, Lyra?" asked Octavia, snickering. "I could see a lot of potential for you at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns."
Just then, the door swung open, and Derpy entered the room.
"Ahem, yes, Octavia," Lyra loudly declared as she kicked Octavia's leg, "I'm so glad you were willing to cooperate with me on heating up the ravioli."
"Of course, Lyra," a disjointed, robotic Octavia answered. "Are you alright? I would be so sad if your backfired spell hurt you in any way. Yes. So sad. I think I will cry now. Wa. Wa."
"Hi, girls!" Derpy said. "I wasn't able to get any chips from the vending machine, but Moonshine was kind enough to give me one of her muf..." Her eyes widened into saucers when she saw the smoking black ashes.
For a moment, there was silence. Then, Derpy said, "You know, it's a really nice night tonight! Maybe we should go eat at a restaurant!"
Would you like me to list all the ways in which that plan can backfire? Octavia thought to herself. The Moon Festival is tomorrow; ponies all over Equestria will be crowded the streets to throw an unsightly ruckus. Ugh, just the thought of going out tonight is... "Not a bad idea," Octavia said aloud. "Many restaurants will be open for the eve of the Moon Festival."
"Lyra, what about you?" asked Derpy, bouncing up and down in her excitement.
Yes, Octavia thought, proud of herself. Negative outlook indeed, Vinyl. The evening has the potential to go well. Well, as long as we don't have...
"A chance to walk through the bustling thoroughfares of Canterlot?" Lyra said. "Count me in!"
Octavia groaned. Oh, horseapples.
"This'll be great!" Lyra cheered, twirling around in a circle with Derpy.
Why can you not hear the cries of my internal suffering?! Octavia screamed.
"And Octy's even staying quiet for once!" Lyra exclaimed. "This night gets better all the time!" Lyra stopped spinning, but she continued holding Derpy's front hooves. "Do you know what this night could mean?" Lyra asked, her eyes distant and dreamy. "After dinner, we find a quaint little cafe with chairs outside. I sit down with my notebook and begin to write. All around me, there is the atmosphere of a world drifting slowly off to sleep. The candlelights in shop windows give a warm glow to the faces of happy couples strolling along, as all of ponykind is nestled in a blanket of gently falling snow. It's going to be perfect, just perfect!"
"I hate this."
Lyra trudged behind Octavia and Derpy as they pushed their way inch by inch through the heavy crowds. She was bent down like a frail old grandmother about to be blown over by the chilly arctic winds stinging in her eyes. "Why did I ever want to leave our dorm room for this pathetic excuse of pegasi-managed weather? For Celestia's sake, at least the burnt ravioli would be warm!"
"Oh, quit whining about every little thing," Octavia called over her shoulder. For a second, her hooves lost their even rhythm. "Wow, did I just say that?" She shuddered. "Weird."
"We've been walking in this weather for over half an hour," Lyra said. "Why haven't we found a restaurant yet?"
"It's not my fault the past three have been so crowded," Octavia answered. "Be patient, and we'll find one." That is, if I don't push you down a well.
Suddenly, Derpy spun around to face her two friends. "Do you know what I love about tonight?" she asked. "More than the candy, or the snow, or the dead trees. It's the ponies. I mean, just look at them!" She made a wide, sweeping gesture to the crowd. "Everypony's seems so happy! There's that little filly running around; maybe she's playing hide-and-seek! And those two over there, making snow ponies! And that nice couple on the bench; look how nice they are, sharing that cup of hot chocolate! Oh, I wonder if that stallion is okay. He looks a little sad. Hopefully the festival will cheer him up! And it's all under the Princess's stars, and the wind is nice, and we're all like one big family, and... and..."
Octavia tilted her head so that she could see Derpy's face. "Are you crying?" she asked, incredulous.
"Nuh-uh," Derpy murmured as she blinked furiously. "Everything's just really, really pretty." Then she turned to look at Octavia. "Octy, maybe this is a silly question, but... what do you see when you walk?"
"Umm... Let's see..." Her eyes took a brief panorama of the Canterlot street. "I see a lot of snow... it's on the tree branches, those will probably break from the weight soon.... And there's... ponies, of course... and I don't know, really. I hear things though. Ponies are whispering; they're hissing like a tea kettle. Somepony's shouting in the distance. Hoofsteps are there too, like they can shake the ground. And..." She pricked her ears up. "Laughter. I hear laughter too."
Derpy nodded. "And you, Lyra?"
Lyra, her mouth muffled by her tightly wrapped scarf, murmured. "Test subjects. No other alien demon changelings. And there's a carrotdog stand." Lyra sped up to a trot. "I don't care what either of you say, because I'm getting myself a carrotdog."
As Lyra wove through the dense crowd of ponies, Derpy shrugged, saying, "We might as well find a place to sit and eat."
Octavia nodded and followed Derpy's lead. It didn't take long for them to find an open bench once the crowd started to thin.
Octavia tilted back her head to watch her breath condense and rise up to the silvery leaves of the Moonlit Grove. Meanwhile, Derpy took out her sketchbook.
Flipping open to an empty page, Derpy tapped her pencil against her temple as scattered images from the past two weeks flashed through her mind. A first snowfall of the year. A sparkly clock. A dancing mare. A rickety tower of books. A jelly donut. And a smile, at least once, somewhere in each day.
Soon, the faint scratching sound of graphite could be heard. Curious, Octavia scooted closer to the pegasus. "And you, Derpy?" she whispered. "What do you think of when you walk through Canterlot?"
Derpy looked up and smiled. "I think of home."
"Hey," Lyra called from a little ways away. "I've got carrotdogs! One for me, one for Derpy, and one for Octavia's alien race to torture. Dig in, everypony!"
For a while, there was just the sound of quiet munching. "You know," Octavia said, dabbing her mouth with a handkerchief, "this week wasn't that bad. Still difficult, of course, but really not that bad. It's hard to believe that we're already halfway through the month."
"Lyra nodded. "I know what you mean. And with the Moon Festival tomorrow, it'll be the official beginning of winter."
"As if this wasn't enough?" Octavia said with a laugh, stretching out her hoof to catch a snowflake.
"That's what I normally think too," said Lyra, "but this year feels different. I feel like I'm about to start something new, you know?"
They did know. Both Derpy and Octavia nodded their heads before returning to watching ponies pass through the garden. The light of the moon reflected off the silver leaves illuminated their faces with a soft and mysterious glow.
Then Octavia pricked up her ears again. "I think I hear music," she said. She looked a little ways ahead, where a young stallion was setting up his instrument in the garden. Octavia decided to go up to him, with Lyra and Derpy following close behind.
He was a plain-looking stallion, with a grey coat, faded blue overalls, and thick-rimmed glasses. His mane was unkempt, and by the looks of the passerby's upturned noses, he hadn't bathed in weeks. He was one of the poorest ponies in the richest city in the country. He was homeless.
Yet Octavia stood by in quiet respect as she listened to him play. Lyra noticed the musician's head sway from side to side. When he was done, Octavia made her way over to him. "That was Humoresque, wasn't it?" she asked him, much to his surprise.
Not knowing what else to do, he nodded.
"It was quite lovely."
That brought the stallion a smile. "Not many Canterlot ponies appreciate Appleloosan music. You play the fiddle, miss?"
"Yes, in fact, I do. I've played since I was seven."
"Then perhaps you know this?" He played eight notes.
"Gavotte," Octavia said. "G Minor."
"Then you must know that it's a duet piece." The fiddler glanced down at a second closed case. "I have a friend who plays, but he's been having the most terrible sickness because of the weather. He's in a shelter now. Would you possibly...?"
Octavia smiled, as gently as the falling snow. "Ah would love ta play."
As Octavia knelt down to unlock the homeless stallion's case, Lyra noticed more than a few Canterlot ponies give her the evil eye. "Oh, shut up, all of you," Lyra grumbled. "You don't know anything, anything at all." Then she sat down on the sidewalk with Derpy and listened to Octavia play.
Derpy felt her heart skip in her chest. It's really beautiful, she thought, but sad, too. That sadness, it can't just be the song. It has to be something else. Something deeper. Octy, is everything okay?
As Octavia kept playing, the music swelled. It swelled in the air, drawing a growing ring of ponies, but it also swelled in the hearts of her friends to the point where the emotion in those note felt unbearable a pressure. And still Octavia played, her eyes closed to the world around her. She was in her own little concert hall, with only two ponies needed to fill the room with applause.
She let the last note ring into silence, then kept her eyes closed while the crowded melted away into the cold park winds. When she opened them, she felt a strange warmth all over, from her hooves to her head to her heart.
Octavia laughed. "You've gotten good with that warming spell, Lyra."
Lyra's voice was broken by a sob. "It's called a hug, you idiot."
Drama During the Moon Festival! The Adventurous Month Ends Early?!
Derpy's eyes widened. "But Octy," she asked, wearing the most adorable pout, "why?"
Octavia sighed. How to explain this the proper way. Of course, it would have been easy to be blunt with anyone, but with Derpy... "I just... I just don't think that going to that party is a good idea."
"But Berry Punch is my friend! She was so nice to invite me to her party!"
She's also a lot of other things, Octavia thought. A flirt, a drunkard, a one-night stand.... "Look, darling, there are a great many nice ponies at this academy, but on a night like this, ponies act... differently. You may not like what you see there. And..."
Derpy was still staring up at Octavia with those sad, confused eyes, an endless golden pool of sorrow. Her mere words couldn't even siphon out one drop.
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but Lyra, back me up on this one!" Octavia called over her shoulder.
Lyra looked up from her manuscript. "I don't know, Octavia," she said while using her magic to lazily trace red ink swirls in the air, "we can't keep her sheltered forever. The best way for a character to grow is to put him or her in a new environment, after all. Where's the party going to be held?"
"An abandoned barn outside campus," Octavia said, "and hosted by none other than Berry Punch."
"Really? Just a barn? I don't think that'd be big enough to hold all of Berry's liquor... oh."
"Yes, Lyra, good job," Octavia deadpanned. "You could probably get your PhD in brilliant revelations."
Lyra started polishing her hoof by rubbing it against her chest. "Yes, I most certainly could, couldn't I? Alas, I fear this world is not ready for the knowledge that I could give it."
"How unfortunate," said Octavia before turning back to Derpy. "Please, I know it doesn't make much sense, but... just don't go, alright?"
"I know what the problem is, Octy," Derpy whispered at the ground. "You're worried about Berry drinking."
Octavia took a step back. "Ahh, yes, well, I didn't want to say it in those words, but yes. Then you know why going to that party would be a bad idea, right?"
Derpy shook her head. "She's my friend," she repeated. "I'll listen to what you tell me, but she's my friend." Then she turned on her back leg, and head hung low, she left the dorm room in silence.
Octavia collapsed on her bed and let out a long stream of air.
"Well, it could have been worse," Lyra told her.
"Wait," Octavia said to Lyra. She held up her hoof and pricked up her ear to hear the sound of Derpy's hoofsteps grow fainter and fainter.
Lyra stayed quiet. She had gone through this routine many a time in those past two weeks. "Clear?" she whispered.
Octavia waited a few seconds longer. The only sound was the beating of her heart. "Clear," she answered.
Then she threw a hardcover book at Lyra's face.
"I know I ask myself this hourly," Octavia began, getting off the bed to stand above Lyra, "but what the hell were you thinking?"
"Besides brilliant revelations that would make your tiny alien brain melt into slime? Nothing of importance."
"You disgust me," Octavia hissed through clenched teeth. "You make me so sick. Why would you tell Derpy that going to a drunken party was remotely close to a good idea?"
"Oh come on," Lyra said, rolling onto her side, "don't act like it's such a scandal. I've done it, you've done it, everypony over sixteen has done it."
"Yes, but it's Derpy," Octavia insisted. "That mare would walk off a bridge if she was told that there was candy at the bottom of the water."
"So you think she's stupid then?" Lyra demanded.
"No, I won't deny she's an intelligent student at this academy," Octavia said, "just that she's rather jejune when it comes to functioning in society."
"Jejune, good word!" Lyra praised. "The Word of the Day from last Tuesday, correct?"
"Yes," answered Octavia. "And who was the mare you kept saying jejune around?"
Lyra chuckled. "It was Derpy, of course--!" Once again, realization hit like a train.
"See?" Octavia said. "There's the problem! She can't handle a situation like a Berry Punch party!"
"What makes you say she can't?" Lyra asked.
"Common sense, the universe, a lot of things!" Octavia screeched. "And maybe I'm being overprotective, but at least I'm not like you, trying to throw her into a bad situation for your own amusement!"
Lyra found herself switching to the defensive side. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Oh, don't try to hide it," Octavia ordered. "You said it yourself. A new situation is how characters develop. You don't see her as a pony who could get hurt; all you think is that she's a chance for a new lab rat experiment! You... you... you're a bad pony!"
All of a sudden, Lyra burst out into uncontrollable laughter. "Haha! Hit the PG-13 wall, have you, Octavia?"
Octavia allowed herself a small smile. "I suppose I have."
"You're almost wonderful sometimes." Lyra leaned back into the pillows. "And yeah, I get what you're saying. I shouldn't push Derpy into something she's not ready for yet."
"And I know that I can't keep her hidden from those kinds of things forever," Octavia admitted.
"Foal steps, then." Then Lyra paused. "Wow, when did we start sounding like parents?"
Octavia shook her head, her long black mane hiding a smile as she crossed the room. "You know, if you're trying to flirt with me, you're doing a poor job of it."
"Ha! Remember you're still my primary focus of observation; I can't go around contaminating the specimen."
"You could probably pass for a doctor, talking like that," said Octavia, now riffling through a stack of sheet music in a binder.
"Writers are everything," Lyra explained proudly. "To write about a world, we ourselves must be a world of ponies, from doctors to mechanics to stylists to--"
"Crazy cat ladies?" Octavia asked.
"Coming from the alleged cat strangler."
"To be fair, it wasn't my cat; it was Derpy's."
"Oh yeah!" remarked Lyra. "The plot hole cat!"
"So you're the crazy part of the phrase," Octavia began, "Derpy's the cat, and I'm the lady."
"Nah, I'd say you're just as crazy," Lyra said. "Besides, crazy cat crazy is far less cliche."
Octavia paused as she grabbed the handle of her violin case. "We have the strangest conversations sometimes," she remarked. "I think your insanity is contaminating the air."
"Love you too, crazy," Lyra said, then she looked at the case. "Ah, going to torture my poor, defenseless ears again? Have you no mercy, heartless changeling?"
"Hey, you say I'm certifiably crazy," Octavia said. "It's in my job description to have no mercy."
Then she opened the case and out spilled two gallons of grape jelly.
"Are you dead yet?! Are you?! Have I killed you yet?!"
"I think a part of my soul has withered from sheer terror, does that count?"
"Not good enough!" Octavia threw the metal makeup kit to the floor in favor of her next blunt object, a fallen curtain rod. Though for the past twenty or so minutes she had just been hitting pillows, it didn't ease Lyra's tension in the slightest.
"I have put up," Octavia began, "with so much these past two weeks. Carrot munching, cat strangling, a revoked library card, sleepless nights, a 64-bit deficit on pizza, you name it. But this!" The musician held up her grape-jelly coated instrument. "This is low, Lyra Heartstrings, even for you!"
"For the last damn time, I'm sorry, okay?" Lyra shouted. "I'm sorry Derpy and I were playing and got into your instrument cases. That was wrong. But do you honestly have to bite my head off?"
"Wait, why didn't I do that earlier?" Octavia asked herself, her teeth glinting in the light. "That would have shut you up a long time ago!"
"See, that's what I'm saying!" Lyra yelled. "You always explode over everything that goes wrong, Octavia! Can't you just accept an apology?"
"No! Not when I've put up with so much crap these past two weeks! You heard me play that stallion's violin last night, didn't you? You know what this instrument means to me! And you have the nerve to say you're sorry, as if that fixes everything? Damn you!" She beat Lyra's pillow to a pulp.
"Why do you always have to be so negative all the time?" demanded Lyra. "You know what a normal pony would do? They'd get pissed, take my money, and things would straighten themselves out. But you? You always act like everything's the apocalypse! Ever since you first walked into this room, you blew up so easily!"
"Well can you blame me?!" Octavia roared, to the point where ponies outside the door fell silent in shock. "I'm so tired of friendship and harmony! I hate everything about this place! I hate your crazy conspiracy theories, your Faust-damned wardrobe choices, your bloated ego that puts Blueblood to shame, your flippant attitude, your snarky comments, your stupid face, everything! I hate looking on the bright side, I hate pretending to be your friend, and I. Hate. You!"
"Octy!"
Octavia turned around. Derpy was standing in the doorframe.
~~~
"I hate everything about living with you! I hate it so much, it makes me sick!"
A mare's face slammed against a wall.
"Momma!" a little pegasus screamed. "Momma!"
~~~
Octavia had always thought she'd have been the first to bail out of this insane ride of a month. Maybe Lyra, if she became bored with her specimen. But not once in a million years did she think it would be Derpy, looking like she had just received a slap to the face, to run out the door with tears in her eyes.
"Great, now look what you've gone and done!" Lyra shouted.
That was the last straw. In a frenzied rage, Octavia kicked all of her belongings out into the hallway. "I'm done," she said to Lyra. "I'm done with all of this nonsense. This month is over. I quit."
The Moon Festival. For the politicians in Canterlot, it marked the anniversary of the day that Princess Luna officially rejoined her sister to complete the diarchy of Equestria. For the tourists from Prance or Zebrica, it was a holiday to commemorate the official start of winter. But for the average Equestrian, the day was simply a chance to celebrate a princess whom they loved.
Octavia sighed as she looked up at the sun, low on the horizon. “I don’t regret what I said,” she told Vinyl. “It had to come out. Sure, I’ll admit that there were nice times with them, but overall, the hyperactivity of those two mares was just too much to handle.”
“If that’s the case,” Vinyl replied, “then why has it been the only thing you’ve been talking about all afternoon?”
Octavia peered into the cup of cocoa in her hooves. Because this hot chocolate is the one I gave Derpy when she had a cold. Because that dog barking in the distance is the Germane Shepherd that Derpy and I spent all day trying to find. Because that filly’s moon lantern is covered in sparkles that Derpy would love. Because all the noise and bustling and annoyance, Derpy wouldn’t see any of it. She’d be so excited.
Octavia started blinking furiously as the world blurred. She’s sitting here, Octavia thought. She’s right here. She bought one of those crystal sugar sticks they were selling back there. She’s swinging her legs under the bench. She’s look up at the sun and smiling and chattering on about how pretty the festival looks with the children’s lanterns strung around the garden. She’s happy.
Out of seemingly nowhere, a white hoof obscured Octavia’s vision. “Hello?” asked Vinyl, waving her hoof back and forth in front of the musician’s face. “Equestria to Octavia, Equestria to Octavia, do you read me?”
“Huh?”
Vinyl’s forehead crinkled in worry. “You zoned out for a bit. I was talking to you about finding a new dorm room for the month. My friend Sea Swirl, her roommate works a night job; if you timed it right, you could sleep there until they work out the rooms. Sea Swirl’s a nice girl, really down to earth—“
“I am a bad pony?” It burst out of Octavia’s mouth like blood from a re-opened wound.
“What the hell makes you say that?” Vinyl asked. “I didn’t know it was a crime to take advantage of an unused bed.”
“No, not that,” Octavia said. “Just… Am I weak or self-centered, not being able to handle two weeks of insanity?”
Vinyl shifted to face her. Placing both hooves neatly in her lap, she asked, “Well, what do you think?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Vinyl,” Octavia moaned, kicking her empty Styrofoam cup into the nearest trash can. “They weren’t arsonists or anarchists or anti-Harmonists or terrorists or any other kinds of –ists. They didn’t want to blow up the school or overthrow Princess Celestia and Luna or destroy the Tree of Harmony or spit on a Moosart concerto. They weren’t bad ponies. Just two mares who got under my skin and made me uncomfortable. Was that so horrible that we had to split up like we did?”
“You know,” said Vinyl with a smile, “the Octavia I talked to at the start of this month wouldn’t have cared about any of that stuff. I’d say you’re not as bad as you think.”
“But I still stormed out,” Octavia said. “I left everything in pieces.”
“What, are you saying you want to go back after all?”
“No!” Octavia shouted. “Maybe I could stay with Derpy if I taught her not to take my money, but Lyra is way too crazy to handle! I can’t go back to that kind of insanity. I just…” She rested her chin in her hooves and closed her eyes. “The head banging on the piano is gone. Now, there’s nothing but silence. And… I just don’t know how to fill it.”
"Celly! Pst! Celly, over here!"
With a roll of her eyes, Princess Celestia wove her way gracefully through the crowd of ponies to stop right under the bright neon sign that had suddenly appeared. "Yes, Discord?" she asked.
"Oh come now, Sunbutt darling," said Discord, twirling a lock of her mane in his talons, "I've just had the most wonderful revelation, and of course, I wanted to share it with a good friend such as yourself."
"Obviously," the princess said, narrowing her eyes. "What is it?"
"Chaos," he said, relishing the word. "It's so strong, you could taste it. Turns out that one of your little ponies is feeling discordant, Celestia. Isn't it wonderful?"
"What do you intend to do, Discord, and when will you read an Equestrian law book instead of coming to me?"
"Ooh, testy, aren't we?" Discord said gleefully. "I'm reformed, don't you remember, dear? I'm not going to do anything bad, per se, but curiosity is a power force in this world..."
"Does it involve explosives?" Celestia asked.
"Nope!"
"Is it entirely legal?"
"Well, the term 'legal' is a tricky one..."
Celestia sighed and turned away. "Go ahead, Discord."
“I’m supposed to know everything about ponies,” Lyra told Bon Bon. “That’s why writers observe ponies, of course, to know just how they would act in a story. But this! I don’t know how to handle it, I just don’t.”
“I never took a social sciences class, you know,” Bon Bon said, “so if you’re asking me to give you a deep psycho-analysis, you might want to look elsewhere.”
“But that’s just it, I can’t! Bon Bon, you’re pretty much the only sane thing holding me together. Without you, I’d be wandering around this whole festival and thinking about Derpy. I remember so much, so freaking much! Walking through her, I keep on remembering the first time I took her to this garden, and how we ran singing through the trees like we were five years old. It’s been happening all day, everywhere I go, and I don’t know how to get rid of it. I feel like I’m trapped in one of those stupid, cliché romance novels like The Trip of Our Hooves.” Lyra kicked a loose pebble as she walked past it. “Great, just great! And now I remember how I criticized Octavia for liking that book! This is madness, the essence of madness! Quick, where’s a quill?”
“Again, not a psychology major,” Bon Bon said as she watched her friend rummage through her saddlebags, “but I think what you’re feeling is more commonly referred to as a guilty conscience.”
Lyra slumped against a tree trunk. "What do you mean, 'guilty conscience'?" she asked. "What do I have to feel guilty about?"
"Well," Bon Bon started, sitting next to her friend, "this mare Octavia, she thinks you're strange, right?"
"Yeah," Lyra said.
"She thought so from the very beginning?"
"Uh-huh."
"And so what did you do?"
"I kept being myself, of course!" Lyra exclaimed. "I'm my own person; I don't feel the need to change who I am just so ponies will like me."
"But you don't need to keep putting ponies off, either," Bon Bon countered.
When Lyra stayed quiet, she continued. "I know you, Lyra. For as much as you like 'unravelling the behavior of ponies,' you like being a little of a mystery. You jump into every single battle without any warning, you march to the beat of your own drum, but you don't turn around to see if your army can catch up."
Lyra gasped, placing a hoof to her chest. "The cliche phrases!" she cried. "You wound me!"
Bon Bon smiled and shook her head. "You know what Octavia would think of that? She'd think you were even weirder than you already are. And that's my point. You can't treat ponies the same way you treat me. Some ponies need you to leave a trail of breadcrumbs to follow you into the forest."
"Okay, now you're just doing it on purpose."
Bon Bon threw back her head and laughed. "Only because I can."
Lyra sighed, and she stared into the shining face of the moon. "Answer me honestly, Bon Bon," she requested. "Am I a bad pony?"
"Why, not at all," Bon Bon said, then paused. "Well, not most of the time, anyway."
"Out of the way, out of the way!" Discord called, pushing his way through the crowds. "Important chaos business at work!"
The draconequus waved a strange contraption, a sonic screwdriver with a pulsing blue light that seemed to function as a kind of metal-detector. "The signal's fluctuating," he said to himself, "but I'm getting closer! Finally, a bit of fun tonight!"
"You're just mopey and grumpy and super-possessive of your instruments!" Vinyl said. "You're not a bad pony!"
"Thank you so much for that," Octavia grumbled. "I still have no idea what to do, though."
"Oh, I think you do; you just don't want to say it." Vinyl gave her a pointed look.
Sigh. "I'm going to have to apologize, aren't I?"
"You're damn right you are! Isn't it exciting?"
"I don't think I'll be able to go back to that dorm room, though," Lyra said. "Not after what happened this morning."
"Maybe not," Bon Bon said, "but no matter what you decide to do, you need to at least get some closure."
"You're making it sound like I just had a breakup or something."
Bon Bon smirked. "Didn't you?"
"Ooh, what could it be?" Discord wondered as he swung from a vine of sand. "A broken heart, a political divide, an anti-friendship canon, a fight over the last slice of apple pie...!"
"There's nothing wrong with being a downer sometimes," Vinyl said. "Heck, a lot of times it's good for keeping your head on straight. But if you're going to be that kind of pony, you should consider how it affects the ponies around you."
"Wow," said Octavia, impressed, "when did you become such a philosopher?"
"'Tis the beauty of a young night and aged alcohol," Vinyl answered sagely.
"Alcohol!" Octavia exclaimed. "Berry Punch's party! How could I have forgotten?"
"Hey, relax," Vinyl said, "you have plenty more chances to get wasted tonight."
"No, I don't mean that! I mean that Derpy's probably there! I have to go, right now!" I... I have to make things right.
"Bye, Bon Bon!" Lyra called over her shoulder before taking off galloping. Don't worry, okay, kid? she thought. You have a friend coming to help.
Gleefully, Discord broke through the final hedge bush, only to come face-to-face with a lonely tree and an empty bench.
"Darn," Discord grumbled. "No chaos after all. Just a bunch of sappy Harmony."
Backstories Revealed! A Tearful Reunion Under the Moon!
I'm coming, Derpy, Octavia thought to herself. At that point, between the burning in her lungs and the cold wind nipping at her face, that thought was the only thing pushing her forward. She kept glancing over her shoulder to the train station, now just a pinprick of light. Before her was another light, the light of the abandoned barn. And there was Octavia, suspended between the two dots of gold, just as she had been so many other times between Derpy's pleading eyes.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" Octavia shouted with a fierce growl to the withered corn stalks as she pushed them to the frozen ground. "How could I have been so stupid?"
"You're not, Octavia," said a familiar voice. "Well, maybe a little for stepping on my face."
With a yelp of surprise, the earth pony jumped a good two meters straight into the air while Lyra simply continued lying on the ground and goofily smiling up at her. "What the hell do you think you're doing this time?" Octavia demanded. "Were you trying to give me a heart attack? Or no, I get it. You're out here looking for ridiculous nonsense like aliens or spaceships or hum--"
"Sheesh, just when I thought we had finished arguing." The words didn't come out nearly as lighthearted as Lyra had hoped. "Can't I be here for the same reason you are? Derpy's my friend too, you know."
Octavia's widened at her mistake. "I-If that's so," she began, her voice strangely mellow, like watered-down cider, "why are you lying here? Derpy's inside the barn."
"I lost my nerve," Lyra answered simply, gazing up at the sea of stars above. "Pounding heart, locked joints, constricted throat, everything. I couldn't do it. So I've been sitting here, trying to pull myself together, at least until I heard you coming. Would you mind giving me a pull instead?" Lyra held out her hoof.
Ignoring it, Octavia lay down next to Lyra instead. "I don't know if I can," she whispered. "I don't know if I can pull anypony up. All I seem to do is sink farther down."
Octavia sighed, breathing in the quiet country air. "I haven't felt like this in such a long time. I suppose farms get to me."
"How so?" Lyra asked.
"Well, I'm a country girl, for one. You probably pieced that together by my accent. My father was a rock father; my mom was an apple farmer."
Lyra gave a low whistle. "Sheesh, talk about crazy family reunions. Bet you had a bunch of hyperactive ponies hugging stone statues."
"I wouldn't know," said Octavia with a shrug. "I haven't associated myself with my family in a long time."
"It wasn't like I ran away or anything," Octavia added hastily when Lyra raised an eyebrow. "It was just that... after I got my cutie mark in classical music... you could pretty much tell I was the odd one out. My father picked up on that quickly. Sharp as his pickax, that one. Mother was hurt, but it slowly dawned on her after a while that the life I live now would make me the happiest. I suppose the one who took it the hardest was my sister."
"Sister?"
"Uh-huh. Quartz Clarity."
"Don't you mean 'crystal clarity'?"
"Nope," Octavia answered, "it's quartz. It's pretty fitting, considering that she's so indiscernible. You'd probably like her."
"Oh really?" Lyra asked. "What does she look like?"
"Take me," Octavia said, "and swap black for blue and grey for green."
"I feel like I hear that a lot." Lyra tapped her chin in thought, then shook her head. "Probably nothing. Anyway, so she seems nice."
"She is," Octavia agreed. "Nice, charming, outgoing, vivacious. Describe me, then use the antonyms to describe her. As sisters, we got along fine. Not super-close like a lot of Apples are, but we were reasonably well-adjusted. No talking late at night about our darkest fears, no dressing up like twins, no following each other around everywhere. We were just two mares who lived in the same house and played the fiddle together."
"The fiddle?"
"Yeah. Not what you expected from me, most likely. Even when I started studying the classics, I still enjoyed playing Appaloosan duets with her. I feel like... like that's the only time we really understood each other. When I left for the academy, she hoofed me my violin, and... I felt good. Like she understood why I was leaving, in her own special way. That was the only reason I was able to get on that train, because of that violin."
"That's really sweet," Lyra said.
"That was the violin you destroyed with grape jelly. So, more fruity than sweet, really."
Lyra turned over to face Octavia. Her bright green eyes had flown open wide. "Oh Celestia... Octavia... I-I'm so sorry, I... I had no idea what... that violin... oh Faust, oh Faust, I'm so stupid!"
"You're not, Lyra," said Octavia. "Well, maybe a little, but I suppose you can't survive in this world without a little stupidity."
"But Octavia, you just made everything I did ten times more horrible!"
"Guess you need to buy me a violin ten times more expensive then," she answered. "Seriously, Lyra, don't... don't worry too much about it. It... it did what Clarity wanted it to do. It got me on the train to Canterlot. And right now, both of us need to get on the train to Derpy. So let's... err, pick up our violins and... err, wait..."
Lyra chuckled. "Right there is a prime example of why you're not a writing major." Then she looked back up at the stars. "But yeah, I get what you're saying. We can't be afraid of anything, not when something so important is on the line! We've got to take action, and with a good friend to stand by us, we can--"
Then the barn roof flew off.
Lyra was the one who summed it up the most eloquently. "Oh buck."
"Oh Celestia, she can't be dead, right?!" Octavia screamed as she ran.
"You're telling me!" said Lyra, right on her back hooves. "Do you have any idea how hard eulogies are to write?"
As Octavia screeched to a halt in front of the door, a million possibilities flashed before her eyes. Explosives caused from mixed drugs, an insane drunk with a weapon, a whole herd of drunks with weapons, a whole herd with explosives, the list went on and on. But even within that vast list in her mind, there was no scenario that could have come close to preparing Octavia for what lay inside.
Or, more precisely, what didn't lie inside. No empty bottles of alcohol, no strange-smelling substances, nothing seemingly harmful of any kind.
All she and Lyra could see was Derpy whooping with joy as she crowd surfed on the world's largest beach ball.
"I'm sorry I made you two worry about me."
From their place on a nearby hill, the three ex-roommates could hear the music sending slight tremors through the ground, and the multi-colored lights illuminating the dance floor. If Derpy squinted, she could make out the faint silhouettes of ponies forming a conga line.
"Holy Celestia, Derpy!" Lyra exclaimed, looking down at the party. "What magical artifact did you steal from the castle, and what did it do with Berry Punch?"
Derpy giggled, embarrassed. "Oh, I don't think I really did anything, other than a few suggestions. Tonight was all Berry's doing. Though, it was nice how she when she saw me... umm, well, you know... she asked how she could cheer me up at the party. She really is a great friend."
"You're absolutely right, Derpy," said Octavia, "and we're sorry that we couldn't be good friends like she is. Instead, I doubted you and treated you like a child. That was wrong, and..." She took a deep breath. "...I'm sorry."
"Aww, thank you, Octy!" Derpy shouted before lunging in for a hug that for once Octavia did not resist.
"Though to be fair," Lyra said, "Octavia was just trying to look out for you."
"You're right," Derpy said, untangling herself from Octavia. "I appreciate that a lot, Octy. Just... I don't want ponies to think I can't take care of myself. I know it seems like I can't, because I don't talk about drinking or those kinds of things, but that doesn't mean I'm oblivious to them. Does that make sense?"
"Yes, it does," said Octavia, "but what I don't understand is what happened to you back at the dorm room."
"Oh." Derpy's ears flattened against her mane. "It's... it's n-nothing, really..."
Lyra lifted up the little pegasus' chin. "Kid, it seemed pretty important to you, so it's important to us. Now, come on, talk to us."
Derpy nodded and closed her eyes. "I guess that seeing you fight made me remember when my parents fought when I was a little filly."
"Sheesh," Lyra grumbled, "when are we getting to my tearful backstory?"
Octavia sharply kneed Lyra in the ribs.
"It's not like their relationship has scarred me forever or anything," Derpy continued. "I understand why they split it off. My dad drank a little too much, and Mom spent a little too much money. They're both doing better now that they're apart. They seem happier, and I wouldn't want them to stay together for my sake if it made them both sad. I guess that I just didn't want the same thing to happen between us three at the academy."
Tears started to well in Derpy's eyes. "I-I see what I did now," she said. "I tried to make two ponies be friends when they didn't want to, and--"
"Oh Derpy, it wasn't your fault!" Octavia cried. "You just wanted to make sure we would all get along for the month!"
"Yeah, kid," Lyra agreed between sniffles. "You didn't do anything bad, okay? It was all me and evil alien changeling."
"Thanks, you two," said Derpy, "but I want to get this out, just so you understand, okay? I know that I can't force everypony to be friends with everypony, that there will always be those ponies who just can't reconcile their differences. And... and that's not necessarily a bad thing. And I know that smiling when somepony has a bad day can't fix all the problems, and... and..."
"I think it'd fix a lot of problems if you smiled right now," Octavia barely managed to choke out.
"O-Okay." Derpy's trembling little smile could have outshone the moon.
"The feels!" Lyra wailed. "I can't take it!"
"Hey, it's okay," Derpy said as the two other mares converged for a group hug. "Can I just ask you two for one favor?"
"Anything, kid," Lyra sobbed. "Anything at all."
"The next time something's bothering you, can you please just tell me instead of trying to hide it? I can handle it, I promise."
"I th-think that can be arranged," Octavia said. "Oh Faust, where's a tissue when you need one?"
"So does this mean the group's back together?" Lyra asked eagerly.
"After tonight?" Octavia asked. "I don't think even an alien demon changeling could be heartless enough to refuse. Especially if it means getting to complain about all the weird things you do, Lyra. Derpy, honey, when we get home, I'm giving you a very, very long list of grievances."
"Hey, but we're not going home just yet!" Lyra protested. "From the looks of it, there's still a major party going on down there! I don't know about Octavia, but I'm definitely not missing it for anything."
"Oh no! I need to get there quickly to warn everyone of the impending disaster!" Octavia laughed over her shoulder before running down the hill.
"Hey, wait up!" Lyra called before glancing behind her. "Derpy?" she asked. "You coming?"
Derpy just nodded as she dried her eyes.
"Hey kid, you okay?" Lyra asked.
"Yeah," whispered Derpy, smiling up at the full moon. "I'm just so glad to have two wonderful friends."
Rise of the Tomato Alien! Derpy's Sister Comes to Visit!
"Oh come now, that's your answer to everything. It's clearly a grapefruit, it has to be."
"Nah, too lumpy for that," Lyra commented. "If the alien's disguising itself, it's doing a poor impression of a flowerpot."
Octavia pressed a hoof to her forehead. "I honestly don't know why I bother asking you anything. Although," she added, tilting her head sideways, "from this angle, it sort of looks like a firehydrant."
"Now that's ridiculous," Lyra said. "Why in the wide world of Equestria would our Derpy bring home an alien fire hydrant? There are much better, nicer looking aliens to choose from!"
"Hi, girls!" Derpy said. "This is my little sister, Dinky!"
Both mares' eyes widened.
"It's a filly?" Octavia asked.
"Ha, likely story," Lyra answered. "Alien brainwashing technology has improved far more over the years, you know, but their database is still lacking in the finer details of equine culture."
"You know," Octavia said, "I sometimes lie awake at night and think to myself whether you might actually be an alien. It's the perfect cover story for you, you see? Send ponies off looking for aliens so they don't notice what's right under their noses. Of course, then I get terrified that your influence has been so strong to prompt me to even think about that sort of thing. And then I start thinking about turning back the clock, but we all know how well that train of thought turned out--"
"I wike twains!" Dinky exclaimed.
Octavia gasped. "It talks, too?"
"This requires a much more thorough study," Lyra decided before walking up to Derpy and tentatively poking the strange alien-grapefruit-flowerpot-fire hydrant sitting on Derpy's back.
"Hewwo!"
"Quick, Octavia, get me a quill and pen!"
Derpy laughed. "Have you two honestly never seen a foal before?"
"Quartz Clarity was born two years before me," Octavia said in her own defense. "And living on a rock farm doesn't exactly provide the best environment for encountering young ponies."
"I'm Mommy and Daddy's only princess," announced Lyra proudly. "And I already knew the aristocrats carried around aliens. It's the only logical explanation when it comes to them."
Derpy shook her head. "I guess we have a long day ahead of us, don't we? Mother is visiting my aunt while she's in town for the Moon Festival, but Dinky's too scared of the dog there. We only have to watch her until Mom gets back at..." Derpy squinted to make out the time on her sparkly clock. "...six o'clock! So, just three hours!"
"Fantastic!" Lyra said, her forelegs overflowing with parchment. "It'll essentially be a mini-Derpy, correct? It's a great case study opportunity, with comparing data, finding correlative traits..."
Octavia just shrugged, focusing entirely on Dinky as she did a hoofstand to stare at the foal from upside-down. "I swear," she mumbled, "somehow, for some reason, that lamp stand is going to explode."
Derpy looked between the two and nervously chuckled, not quite knowing what to do. "You will try to be careful with her, right? She is only three years old, after all."
"Of course!" they both exclaimed.
"You know where the emergency red button is, right?"
"Of course!"
"And you know my mother's insurance is only 50,000 bits?"
"Of course!" answered Octavia.
"50,000?" Lyra asked. "Alright, I can work with that."
"Well okay then!" said Derpy. "I'm sure everything will work out just fine!"
"Hey girls, I'm going to make a salad," Octavia called across the room. "Anypony want some?"
After receiving two appreciative sounds in reply, Octavia set to work, pulling various greens and vegetables out of a magic box that kept things cool and was-not-a-magical-refrigerator-why-would-you-ask. She rummaged through the cabinet to return triumphant with a bright yellow bowl, then she set to work.
Just then, Dinky tottered into the pseudo-kitchen. "Dewpy said dere was fud here!" the three-year-old exclaimed.
"Um, yes," Octavia answered. "Do you eat salad, Dinky?"
"Yay! I wike salad!"
"Alright," said Octavia with a smile. "Give a minute or two, and the four of us can eat, okay?"
"Okie dokey!" Then Dinky sat down on the floor with a plop.
Shrugging, Octavia turned around and began to open the bag of fresh lettuce.
Dinky blinked.
Octavia placed the lettuce in the bowl.
Dinky blinked.
Octavia swallowed a lump in her throat. In went the chopped carrots.
Dinky blinked.
Octavia began to feel beads of sweat trickle down the nape of her neck. What is it doing? Octavia thought to herself. Is it scanning my brain for information on the equine race?
Dinky blinked.
Plop. In went the shredded cheese. Its eyes, Octavia thought to herself with growing horror. So... big... so... sparkly...
Finally, the last ingredient to put in the salad was a tomato. Octavia picked it up, looked at it, and then looked at Dinky.
Dinky blinked.
Octavia held out the tomato so that it was parallel to Dinky. Then she squinted, tilted her head, and suddenly, everything clicked into place.
"Alright then!" Octavia exclaimed happily as she tossed the salad. "That makes perfect sense!"
"Wal Domunashun!"
"No, no, let's try it again," Lyra said. "World domination."
"Wal Domunashun!"
"No, Dinky," Lyra insisted. "Repeat after me. Wor-l-d."
"Woorrld."
"Dom."
"Dom."
"I."
"I."
"Na."
"Na."
"Shun."
"Shun."
"Good!" Lyra praised. "Now, let's put it all together. World domination."
Dinky nodded and exclaimed, "Wal Domunashun!"
Lyra sighed. "Close enough. Here, Dinky, let's try this one. 'Take me to your leader.' It's simple, see?"
"Tack me ta ya leedar!"
Lyra snickered. "Hey, Octavia," she called, "I think her speech takes after you!"
"Ha, ha, ha," said Octavia, not even raising her eyes from her book. "Don't make fun of the tomato, Lyra."
"What?"
"Um, nevermind," Octavia said before suffocating herself in the safety of her pages.
Lyra shrugged and turned back to Dinky. "Okay, how about 'we come in...' No, that's too boring. How about 'we have come to conquer this planet'? Do you think you can manage that?"
"Uh-huh!" said Dinky.
"Such a good alien overlord," praised Lyra, her face glowing as she gently squeezed Dinky's cheeks.
"Wa hav cum tooo kon-currr thi panet!"
Suddenly, Lyra gasped. "I get it now!" she cried, her magic aura violently tearing a quill and a piece of parchment from Octavia's hooves, much to the latter's disgruntlement. "You're not speaking in English! It's your own alien language! Haha! Everything makes perfect sense!"
"And so," said Derpy, smiling at a blank white wall, "we never even had to use the emergency button!"
Lyra and Octavia each raised an eyebrow at Derpy. "And you say I'm crazy," Lyra muttered.
"Aww, are we leaving already?" asked Dinky as her sister helped her into her winter boots. "Where was the part you were talking about, sis, with the fighting and the action and the explosions?"
"What is she talking about, Derpy?" Octavia asked.
"Err, nothing!" said Derpy hastily. "Hehe, kids, you know..." Then the pegasus glanced down at Dinky, wearing a sad little pout. "Hey," she said, bending down to lift the foal's chin, "we can still have an explosion." She rummaged through her saddlebags to pull out a little remote control with a bright red button. "Here you go, Dinky!"
"It was awful knowing you, Octavia," said Lyra as she watched what may have been the fate of the world tumble into the hooves of one little foal.
"Of all the things," Octavia whispered in awe, "of all the things that could have ended us, it was a tomato."
"Meh," Lyra said with a shrug. "I suppose it's all the same in the end. Tomato, tomato, and all."
Octavia facehoofed. "Press the button, Dinky, please."
Dinky did just as Octavia asked.
Suddenly, a great stream of confetti rained down from the ceiling while a banner saying 'Emergency Party!' unfurled.
Dinky grinned from ear to ear. "Wow, that was amazing! Do it again, do it again!"
Lyra burst out laughing. "Mares and gentle colts," she announced, "presenting our resident Pinkie Pie."
A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every equine creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it! Something of the awfulness, even of Death itself, is referable to this. No more can I turn the leaves of this dear book that I loved, and vainly hope in time to read it all. No more can I look into the depths of this unfathomable water, wherein, as momentary lights glanced into it, I have had glimpses of buried treasure and other things submerged. It was appointed that the book should shut with a spring, for ever and for ever, when I had read but a page. It was appointed that the water should be locked in an eternal frost, when the light was playing on its surface, and I stood in ignorance on the shore. My friend is dead, my neighbour is dead, my love, the darling of my soul, is dead; it is the inexorable consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that was always in that individuality, and which I shall carry in mine to my life’s end. In any of the burial-places of this city through which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, or than I am to them?
Derpy sighed and put down her book. The world was spinning. The lights above her head, the white tiles just out of her hooves's reach as they dangled on the chair, the bowl of freshly tossed salad greens that Derpy hadn't touched. Though to be fair, everything was always spinning, wasn't it? The planet of Equus continued to spin, as did its inhabitants, going in and out of their days in the timeless routine that had held steadfast for millennia.
Yet every so often in this rhythm, something, somepony, somewhere, for some reason, would stop. Just for a second, in the breadth of a heartbeat, something would change. The world would jump with a start. The age-old universe would be taken by surprise.
However, Derpy thought to herself, that surprise was most likely not found on the other side of the table.
"It's horrible, simply horrible," Octavia lamented, stabbing into her salad with a vengeance. "Honestly, don't ponies have anything better to talk about than the private lives of others?"
"You'd think they would, but nope," said Lyra. "It's so boring. What would be less boring would be knowing just what's gone wrong this time."
"If only ponies thought I were boring instead of blowing everything out of perspective." Octavia slammed her hoof against the wooden table top. "One drink! One drink with the Doctor during the Moon Festival, and now everypony's going around saying we're an item. Why, just why?"
"To be fair, two weeks ago you'd have been the one trying to spread those sorts of rumors about yourself," Lyra reasoned.
"I suppose," said Octavia, "but that never took off; we all know it. But... there's still a part of me that would like those rumors to be true. It's just... I'm at a loss, you know? I don't want ponies to keep spreading lies. But I have no idea how I'm supposed to stop it."
Lyra stopped chewing her hayfries and gave Octavia a fixed, serious look, or at least, as serious as she could manage while wearing a floppy bunny-ears headband. "Heads up!" she shouted, roughly shoving Octavia's textbooks to the other side, where they dangled precariously on the edge. "Make way for some real life advice!"
"This'll be good," grumbled Octavia.
"Hey, you don't think I've dated before?" said Lyra. "With the kind of personality I have, all sorts of crazies start coming out of the woodworks. But never mind me, this is about you. You say you do like him?"
"A bit," Octavia admitted, "I don't know. It's this thing in the back of my mind, more than anything. I could be walking along, see him, and think to myself 'I wonder what our foals would look like' or something like 'that weird screwdriver he has, I wonder what--'"
"Too much information, Octavia," Lyra quickly cut in, trying to conceal a laugh. "I think you're veering dangerously close into creepy stalker phase."
"No, I never said anything like that!" Octavia protested.
"Doesn't matter, because I'm calling an intervention. You need to stop, you hear me? And even if you actually wanted to have a romantic relationship with him, do you think it would sit well in his mind that you started coming onto him just as ponies started the gossip mill? Bit of a happy coincidence, don't you think?"
Octavia sighed. "You have a good point." Then she shuddered. "That may have been the worst-sounding sentence to come from my mouth. Anyway, so what do I do about everypony else?"
"Set the record straight," said Lyra. "Find a place where you two will be together in a crowded place. Not too crowded that you can't have personal space, but... I don't know, like the main atrium at seven in the morning. Be seen with him, give him the evil eye or something like that, and soon any possibility of romance between you two will be swept away from their puny craniums."
Octavia's eyes widened. "Seriously? That's your idea?" she asked. "No alien invasions or mass executions via flufflepuff frooglas or anything else ridiculous?"
Lyra gave a toothy grin. "There are those days when I happen to wake up with my head on straight," she said. "Now, we have to be careful about this, since if you do it incorrectly, we'll end up with breakup rumors on our hooves, and those are far nastier. Let's see, if you act... well, like you do when the bathroom's taken at six in the morning..."
Derpy tried to pay attention, but it only resulted in her staring up into the spinning lights. Which resulted in her getting vertigo, which resulted in the knots in her stomach tightening to painful degrees, and on and on until she was Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole, with no end in sight.
A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every equine creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.
A secret, she echoed in her mind. Am I keeping a secret? The worry that weighed on her mind wasn't one she could just spill out in an angry huff like Octavia was.
Derpy closed her eyes. She could still hear Dinky's voice from after the Moon Festival resonating in her bones, in her eye sockets, in her ribcage, in her skull. What should she do? she wanted to ask. What, what, what should she do?
"...And we'll even end up helping the banana industry in the process!" Lyra finished.
Octavia smiled and shook her head. "Thank you, Lyra, but I think I'll just talk to the Doctor. Who knows, maybe we can something out. Perhaps not a friendship, but, well, you know..."
Derpy couldn't sit there anymore. If she did, she would throw up from anxiety. "Oh, look at the time!" she exclaimed. "It's time for our next class!"
Octavia's eye twitched. "Time..." she whispered. "That great lie of existence, time... I've made a horrible mistake..."
"Woohoo!" Lyra cheered. "Way to go, kid! You fixed her!" She held her hoof out for a hoofbump, which Derpy returned with only a little less than her normal enthusiasm before she started gathering up her books.
Lyra placed a hoof on her shoulder. "Hey, is everything okay?" she asked, her brow creased in worry.
Derpy nodded just a bit too vigorously. "Yeah!" she said. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"If you're not floating around in that beautiful head of yours like usual," she explained, "then something pretty heavy's got to be weighing it down."
"No, I'm just under the weather," Derpy said as the bright yellow sunlight made her eyes squint. "Trust me, I'm fine."
Lyra picked up her own books, while giving Derpy a strange look. "Okay, if you say so, kid," she said slowly. "Remember, what we agreed on at Berry Punch's party didn't just apply to me and Octavia. If you need to talk about something, Octavia and I..." She looked around, but the seat beside her had already been long vacant. "...Well, I'm here, at least."
"I'm fine, really!" Derpy said as convincingly as she could manage. "I'll see you at the room after classes, okay?"
"Alright," said Lyra, nervously glancing at the clock overhead. "See you then, kid! Have a good day!"
"Thank you, you too!" Derpy echoed back to match the hollow echoing of her hooves on the tile.
The salad remained untouched at the center of the table.
"Alright, ponies, please pass up the rough sketches of your landscapes to the front of the room, please!"
At once, there was a flurry of ruffled papers around Derpy as students searched for their assignments. Under the desk, Derpy twisted a piece of looseleaf paper in her trembling hooves.
"Ooh, yours is really pretty, Derpy!" said Sea Swirl, pointing to Derpy's sketch of a brisk autumn day.
"Oh, thank you." A dropped pin could have been louder than her voice.
Sea Swirl's expression mimicked Lyra's perfectly. "Are you alright?" she asked, tilting her head to the side.
Why does everypony need to ask that? Tears started to form a dull sheen over her golden eyes. Not trusting her voice, she pursed her lips and nodded.
"Mrs. Pastel, doesn't everypony's drawings look great?" said a voice in the very back of the room, to the collective sighing of everypony else.
The teacher paused, giving a small, patronizing smile. "Why yes, Roseluck," she said. "And what about your sketch?"
"Mine's pretty good!" answered Roseluck. "I worked really hard on it!"
"I'm glad to hear it, but remember, art isn't just about hard work. It's also about vision, Roseluck."
"Absolutely, Mrs. Pastel!" There was a brief pause, filled not by laughter, but stony silence. When Mrs. Pastel walked away to collect papers from the other side of the room, Roseluck cupped her hooves around her lips and stage whispered, "Hey, Sea Swirl, you never answered my question from yesterday. Is your refrigerator on, or what?"
Sea Swirl rolled her eyes and stared straight ahead at the blackboard.
"Wow, way to be nice," Roseluck teased. "Sea Swirl can be so mean sometimes, right?"
Her joke was meant with a screaming wall of silence.
Derpy bent her head low so that her mane covered her face. Everypony has problems, she thought to herself, whether it's gossiping or annoying Roseluck in the back. I can't say that my problems are more important, can I? She let out a long stream of air. Everything will be okay. I just need to send a magi-scroll to Mother. But until then... The uneaten salad churned in her stomach.
"Haha, aren't I right, Derpy?" Roseluck asked, poking Derpy's shoulder. Instantly, the pegasus's petite body tensed up.
"Go away," Derpy whispered. "Go away."
Roseluck recoiled, as if burned. "Derpy... are you--?"
"Miss Roseluck," said Mrs. Pastel crossly, "I don't suppose you could tell the class which era of art brought in the popularity of using perspective, could you?"
Perspective, Derpy thought. It's all about perspective.
The pegasus kept walking faster. It wasn't that Roseluck was annoying her or anything, just that she was... yeah, pretty annoying.
"Come on Derpy, please!"
With a sigh, Derpy turned on the back part of her hooves. "Yes?" she asked.
"I wanted to know if you're okay," Roseluck said.
"Yes, I'm fine," answered Derpy like an automated machine.
"You didn't seem fine in class today," she said, "and I know that your eyes weren't red from any contacts."
"Why does it matter to you?"
"Because I don't like seeing ponies sad," answered Roseluck simply.
Derpy's eyes widened.
"Look, maybe it's not my place to say. I'm not part of your group of friends, and I know I annoy you, but if there's anything I can do to help, just say the word."
A strange piece of Derpy's heart contracted. "I... I've just had a family issue come up."
"Oh, I know all about that," said Roseluck. "They're nasty things, aren't they? My father's in the process of being released from prison; it feels like my whole life has been one family issue after another."
"Really? But you seem so calm in class!" exclaimed Derpy. "Doesn't it bother you?"
"Well, I can't do much else, honestly. But it won't help me, dwelling on things I have no way of controlling. I have my problems, just like everypony else, and I guess you can't let worry turn everything into a problem ten times as huge. You need some perspective. There were nice things in my day, and sometimes that's all you need to get through a day, right?"
Roseluck seemed oblivious to Derpy's mouth hanging wide open. "Where was I going with that? Oh yeah! So, if you ever need to talk to me about stuff, I'm always there, okay?"
It took Derpy a minute to return from the bouncing rocket that was her thoughts. "Oh! Sorry," she said, "I guess I'm just not used to seeing this side of you."
Roseluck shrugged. "Everypony's a mystery, right?" she said before glancing at her watch. "I've got to get to my next period, but I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"
For some reason, Derpy found herself blushing. "Yeah," she said. "Thank you. Thank you!"
"Anytime, Derpy!" shouted Roseluck as she wove through the thinning crowd. "You have a good day!"
A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every equine creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.
Derpy felt a little weight lifted off her shoulders as she trotted down the stairs. On a sour day like hers, mysteries like Roseluck were wonderful indeed.
Octavia's New Violin! Author Is Lazy on Late Friday Nights!
"Brilliant!" Octavia repeated for the tenth time that afternoon. "Absolutely brilliant!"
"What... What exactly did I do?" Derpy asked meekly.
At that, Lyra burst into laughter. "Oh, oh dear Celestia, that's rich! Octavia, we do not appreciate this kid nearly as much as we should. She's perfect, absolutely perfect."
"Why, what did I do?" the little pegasus persisted, tugging on Lyra's bright orange scarf as they walked.
"Haven't you heard the rumors?" Octavia asked, incredulous. "Since yesterday afternoon, everypony's been speculating about you and Roseluck being a couple!"
"What?!"
"I know, I know!" agreed Lyra with a huge grin on her face. "I could hardly believe it either, that talk could travel that fast. The beauty of words, I take it. But of course, you would know all about that beauty. Your idea was so fantastic; nopony in his or her right or left mind could have seen it coming! Nopony's going to remember Octavia and the Doctor now!"
"But, but I didn't mean to do anything!" Derpy tried to explain. "I just talked to her after class. Why would ponies think that Roseluck and I liked each other?"
"Oh Derpy," Octavia said, "anypony who can maintain a conversation with Roseluck for more than a minute or two without tearing out their hair has an inequinely close relationship with her. Honestly, I'm amazed you could keep up the ruse that long."
"But she's not like--"
"Well of course we know she's not really like that," said Lyra. "That's part of the ruse, you see. But wow, what a ruse it was!"
"Absolutely!" Octavia agreed. "Funny thing about ponies, how gossip's here today and gone tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe tomorrow the headlines will be Roseluck and the Doctor."
"Hmm, the Doctor and Rose." Lyra paused to think. "Nah, it'll never catch on."
"Hey, where are you going?" Octavia asked, stopping at the bottom landing of the stairs. "Our room is this way, dummy."
"I know, I know," answered Lyra, a twinkle gleaming in her bright green eyes. "But first, we're taking a little detour."
"Tada!"
Hesitantly, Octavia picked up the instrument case, weighing it in her hooves. "What's this?" she asked softly.
"I said I owed you a new violin, didn't I? Well, here you go! Open it, Octavia."
Octavia bit the end of the silky red ribbon and pulled to unravel the bow. Two quiet clicks, and the case was flipped open to reveal a violin, with fine horsehair for the bow, taunt new strings, and wood polished to a shine.
"Like it?" Lyra asked.
"Like it?" Octavia echoed, turning the violin over and over in her hooves. "Lyra, this violin... this violin is worth two thousand bits."
"What, is that bad?"
Octavia sighed. "It feels cold," she said. "Distant. Unfeeling."
"Gee, well doesn't that sound familiar?" Lyra grumbled. "You just have to break it in, like a shoe!"
Octavia just rolled her eyes.
"Come on, Octy, play for us!" said Derpy.
Octavia looked at the violin uncertainly. "Well, alright..." Then she picked up the new violin and began to play.
"You know, I've always wondered how she can do that with hooves," said Derpy dreamily as she listened to the song. "It's almost like-- eep!"
Derpy jumped as she felt a soft pair of hooves touch the back of her head. "Lyra?" she asked, craning her neck behind her to see the unicorn horn peeking out from the side. "What are you doing?"
"Braiding your mane," she replied simply while separating it into three sections. "It's relaxing whenever my mom does it for me. It relieves worries."
"What makes you think I'm worried about anything?"
"I could tell from earlier at lunch," said Lyra, now with bobby pins jutting out of her mouth. "You seem better now, though. Is everything better?"
"Yes," said Derpy. "An issue came up with Dinky, but it's better now." Her eyes fell to the ground. "I... I don't really want to talk about the details, if that's okay."
"No problem. Just know that we're here for you, okay?"
Forgetting the braid, Derpy nuzzled into Lyra's chest as she listened to Octavia play. "Yeah," she whispered contentedly. "Yeah, I know."
Movie Night at Room 305! The Advent of References!
"Can't I just remain an enigma of existence or some other existential nonsense?" grumbled Octavia, squinting as bright rays of sunlight streamed through the windows. "What is it now?"
After banging its horn on the underside of the bed, Lyra's face emerged triumphantly from the dark depths of Octavia's suitcase. With her kind of smile, that day could have been Hearth's Warming Eve, summer vacation, and her birthday all rolled into one.
Naturally, Octavia was stricken with terror.
"How long have I known you?" Lyra demanded.
The musician glanced at the wall calendar. "Er... roughly three weeks?"
"Exactly! And not once, not once ever, did you stop to mention this?!" She held up in her magic a glossy set of packaged film reels.
Octavia's eyes widened like a mouse trapped in a corner. "Oh come on, I haven't watched those in ages!"
The cat threw back her head in laughter. "But you like them enough to bring them to the academy! Out of all the ponies I've met, I'd never have expected you to own a full set of Zombies and Transformers™ action movies!"
"Hey, you can't say that!" scolded Octavia Melody™. "That's copyrighted!"
Lyra Heartstrings™ gave Octavia a pointed look. "Not for those under the Hasbro gods."
"Hi, girls!" greeted Derpy Hooves™, climbing through a hole in their dorm room wall. "What's up?"
Lyra gave Octavia a devious sneer. "Oh, it's good that you're here, Derpy!" said the unicorn. "We were just about to watch some of Octavia's film reels!"
"Wait, no we--!"
Derpy's eyes could have lit up Los Pegasus. "A movie?" she nearly squeaked. "That's so amazing! Are we having popcorn, too?"
"I don't know, Derpy," said Lyra, swiveling around to face Octavia. "Are we, Octavia?"
Octavia sighed. There's no way to win in this world. "I'll be back in two minutes."
"And on that day, ponykind received a grim reminder: They lived in fear of the Megapoids."
Lyra almost toppled off the bed. "Oh my Celestia!" she cried - with actual tears leaking from her eyes as she laughed. "Is that really how it starts off?"
"Shh!" reprimanded Octavia, blushing furiously. "Be quiet, it gets better!"
Still grinning from ear to ear, Lyra wiped away her tears of mirth. "Oh, I don't know if it can get much better than this. This is going to be fantastic, absolutely fantastic!"
"Alright, prediction time, everypony," said Lyra. "Which one in this lot is going to die first?"
Derpy's eyes widened. "Oh, I don't think that anypony's going to die--"
"That dude with the purple eyes," said Lyra.
"Mauve eyes," said Octavia.
"Yeah, him. He's going to die first."
"And why exactly is that?" asked Octavia.
Lyra shrugged. "His hair is styled weirdly."
"That's it?" Octavia asked. "Hairstyles determine life or death in your world?"
"Well yeah, of course!"
Octavia smiled and shook her head. "You're impossible."
"A storm's coming, Twelve," said a shrouded figure standing on a balcony. "Do you think Cherry Blossom will make it back alright?"
"Of course she will, Nine!" said another stallion. "Cherry's made of far tougher stuff than a little wind and rain."
"Nine and Twelve?" Lyra scoffed. "What kinds of names are those?"
"They're code names, idiot," Octavia replied, "so they can't be traced by the NLR."
"Pretty stupid code names, if you ask me," commented Lyra. "I mean, imagine walking down the street and hearing about somepony called Nine. It'd raise some heads, wouldn't you think?"
Octavia shrugged. "Maybe, I don't know, ponies can be pretty oblivious. More popcorn, Derpy?"
"Yes, please!" she said, offering Octavia her bowl.
"That's the first time I've heard her talk all movie," whispered Octavia to Lyra. "Do you think she's okay?"
Lyra turned to see the little pegasus quietly munching on popcorn as she stared intently at the screen. "We're only five minutes in," she said. "Maybe she's just trying to focus on the setup."
"Or bidding her time," suggested Octavia.
"Says the evil demon alien changeling."
Octavia threw a kernel of popcorn at Lyra's face.
"Oh my gosh!" squealed Derpy as a tiny cat-rabbit animal came on screen. "That's so cute!"
"It's the devil," Octavia said simply.
"What? But it's so adorable!"
"It has red eyes," said Octavia, "and a creepy smile. That is a textbook devil."
Lyra grinned. "You would know all about that, wouldn't you, Octavia?"
Octavia slammed her face into her popcorn. "I set myself up for that one."
"Yeah, yeah you did. Good job!"
Octavia buried her head once again.
"Okay, now that's totally, one hundred percent, without a shadow of a doubt, blatant fan service."
"No it isn't!" Octavia protested as she watched Azre use her hybrid powers to transform into a skimpy metal fighting skirt. "It's part of her abilities as one of the Transformers!"
"I'm sure that's what every stallion over ten is thinking when they watch this scene," said Lyra. "Absolutely."
"We have a serious problem on our hooves," said Nine, seated at the head of a long oakwood table. "Now that Five's shown up murdered, the NLR has found us. They know our operations, our locations, our very identities. Now," he continued, standing up to pace behind his nervous companions, "the information that was leaked to them was of the highest security. Security that cannot be hacked. Security that only the ponies in this room have the ability to override." He gave each pony a pointed look before folding neatly into his chair. "Need I say any more?"
"It was Twelve," said Lyra, pointing a hoof slick with butter at the screen. "It had to have been Twelve. That guy is mental as hell."
"No, it's Azre," said Octavia. "She's way too serious, and she doesn't communicate at all with anypony. She's really sketchy, if you ask me."
"Hey, I thought you had seen this movie already," Lyra said.
"I haven't seen this one in so long; I've actually forgotten the ending."
"Well, at least that's our guard against spoilers," said Lyra before taking another hoof full of popcorn.
"I think the traitor's Cherry Blossom," said Derpy.
"Really, kid?" asked Lyra, raising her eyebrows above her mane line. "I don't know. I mean, Cherry's smart and all, but come on, we all know she's pretty useless in a fight."
Derpy just shrugged and kept watching.
"Well, I'm off," whispered Azre, looking to the distance, where a giant robot towered over Manehattan. "I suppose this is goodbye, then."
Cherry Blossom grabbed her hoof just as she was about to walk away. "No, it's not," she insisted. Tears were poured into her eyes, as if her face had two shimmering hazel teacups that were just about to overflow. "You're the strongest, bravest pony I know."
"Sometimes in life, that's just not enough."
"But it is for me," said Cherry Blossom with a smile. "Just promise me that you'll come back to us your brains safe and sound, alright?"
Azre remained silent for a moment, her fiery red hair blowing in the empty wind. "I don't want to become a liar," she whispered.
"Then let me make the promise instead: You're going to come back to us, Azre."
Lyra covered her mouth with both hooves, lest a snort bubble up to the surface. "There's no way around it," she said. "Those two are gay, right?"
Octavia smirked. "Oh, absolutely."
Tch-tch-tch-tch-tch!
Munch, munch.
Heavy panting. A desperate cry for help. More lasers. More flashing lights. More gunshots.
Munch, munch.
Tch-tch-tch-tch-tch-tch!
Munch.
Octavia rolled her eyes. "You don't even care, do you, Lyra?"
"Not at all!" Lyra replied cheerfully. "This whole scene is far overdone. I mean, having the Megapoid dispatch rounds of flaming spikeballs from its eyes in order to zombie-fy ponies? Come on, that's straight out of a cheesy 920's flick."
"Have you ever heard of just going along with the flow of the movie? It would make everything--shh!"
"Finally, she learns to shut up!" cheered Lyra before nearly choking on a grey hoof roughly slammed into her mouth.
"Shh!" repeated Octavia, eyes glued to the screen, where Azre was hovering above the city via a hovercraft surfboard. "Listen!"
Then slowly, an orchestral piece built like rolling waves, first with the booming drums, then a solitary flute, then heralds of brass instruments, and finally a cello wailing before fading into silence.
When Octavia finally removed her hoof, Lyra started laughing once again. "Haha! Is that why you like this movie, Octy? For the soundtrack? Ha, if I didn't loathe you with every fiber of my being, I'd find that so cute! Haha!"
Octavia rolled her eyes.
Nine closed his eyes as he stood above the Megapoid's head, now riddled with holes just big enough for a pony to fit through. "It's all up to you know, Azre. Protect Cherry Blossom; she's just a civilian. Solve the mystery of who killed Five. And... And if it turns out to be Twelve, then you know what to do."
"You can't!" Azre screamed. "You can't just die!"
"Azre... no, Number Thirteen... you don't yet understand what it means to fight the Megapoids, what it means to be a full-fledged Transformer. This..." He gestured to the buildings sleeping in smoldering ashes. "...this is nothing to me. Life, it doesn't mean anything once you start fighting Megapoids. But you have to still stay alive, understand? You need to fight."
Azre stepped forward, tears brimming in her violet eyes. "I love you," she said, clear and strong.
Nine opened his eyes a sliver. They were the color of breaking clouds. "I know." Then he jumped into the Megapoid.
Azre winced as she felt the metal creature she was standing on shake horribly as Nine tore it apart from the inside. Then with a suddenly blast, she felt herself being propelled for miles before crashing into a crumbled wall.
As fire from burning metal rained down around her, what power was held in a few tears?
"Oh my Celestia..." A wailing like an elephant could be heard as Lyra blew her nose.
"Why?" sobbed Octavia. "Why does it have to end for him like that?"
"I know, I know!" said Lyra. "Oh Celestia, I can't do this..."
"I-I thought you were fine with Nine dying," said Octavia. "You said so in the beginning."
"That was before I knew how amazing he was!"
"Wait," said Derpy, her eyes dry as could be, "isn't Azre supposed to be gay?"
Both Octavia and Lyra looked up from the tissue box simultaneously. "Shoot, that's right," said Octavia. "Great, now Megapoids destroy ships, too."
Lyra grinned. "Still shipping it," she said.
"You truly were foolish enough to believe that you could trust in such a silly thing like friendship?" mocked Zero, pacing around the three captives, while his army of zombies stood guard. "I bet you would be surprised to learn the truth. One of your comrades has betrayed you. And I know who."
"This is it," said Lyra, leaning in. "It's going to be Twelve."
"Have you not been watching the movie?" demanded Octavia. "Twelve would never side with the NLR, not after his battle with the Megapoid. It's Azre; she's too cold about everything."
"Come on," said Lyra to the screen, "it's the crazy one."
"It's the aloof one," said Octavia.
Zero sneered. "It was a pleasure working with you, Cherry Blossom."
What followed next was a good five minutes of screaming "What?!" in varying pitches and levels of volume. Meanwhile, Derpy calmly chewed the rest of her popcorn.
"I told you," she said simply. "It had to be Cherry Blossom. She was too good."
At that, Octavia shook her head and patted Derpy's shoulder. With a smile, she said, "It's always the quiet ones."
Cooking Up a Catastrophe! Derpy Wears a Chef's Hat!
Everypony likes breaks. After day after day of running around, trying to catch up on work only to have even more rain down, taking a break is nice. It's like having a long winter end, then going south to a beach, because beaches are nice! Well, most of them. You know, there's this one beach in Chicago where the sand is all grayish and gritty and it's just not a nice beach. One time my family went there...
Breaks! Breaks are nice! Except of course, when...
"Teachers have completely missed the bucking point of break!"
"Tell me about it," said Lyra, eyes glued to her typewriter. "'Write the first twenty pages of your winter novel, class! It's not like you had any plans for the three day weekend or anything! No, that would be preposterous!'"
"Compose a 64-measure piece," said Octavia. "Because of course, that's a perfectly feasible task when you have an extra 24 hours on your hooves. Problem is, I don't spend 24 hours working on composition everyday, so I'm screwed."
"Break sucks," said Lyra.
Octavia sighed, shredded up another page, and tossed it into the overflowing waste bin. "I couldn't have said it more eloquently myself. Come on, all I want to do is just play my cel--"
Suddenly, the door burst open and Derpy rushed in.
Octavia pulled out her pocketbook. "Another repair, it seems..."
"Girls!" Derpy shouted. "This is the most horrible news I've ever heard!"
"Yup, break sucks, join the club," Octavia muttered.
At once, Lyra leapt to her hooves to tackle Derpy to the floor. "Oh my gosh, kid!" said Lyra, who may have been hugging Derpy or trying to strangle her. "What happened? What did they assign that was so bad?" A fire sparked in her eyes. "Torturing the rest of the student body is one thing, but making Derpy suffer too? That's crossing the line! Come on, kid, grab your oopli stick! We're going to make those teachers pay!"
Derpy wiggled her way out of Lyra's grasp. "No, no, it's not that!" she said. "It's Sea Swirl! She's come down with a bad fever, and she's feeling really horrible!"
"Who is this pony, and why should we care?" asked Octavia while she calculated the repair costs.
Lyra stared at Octavia, appalled. "We should care because Derpy cares!" she said before turning her attention back to Derpy. "Is there anything we can do?"
"Well..." Derpy shuffled her hooves. "I was thinking of making cookies for her."
"Derpy, hon, you're sweet and everything, but if you want to get cookies from Jewel, you'll have to use your own money."
"No, that's not it," said Derpy. "I was thinking of actually baking them... well, not by myself. I've never really cooked before. I was going to ask you two for help, but..." Her eyes scanned the floor, covered in paper. "...you seem really busy, so I'll--"
"Wait!" Lyra gasped, clinging to Derpy's foreleg like a mare drowning in an ocean. "I'll help, I'll help!"
"But I thought you had to work on your novel."
"It doesn't matter!" cried Lyra. "Helping my fellow pony is far more important!"
"But isn't it due by the end of the week?" Derpy insisted.
Lyra dropped to her knees to drown in the vast sea of crumpled paper. "Please. Let. Me. Help. You."
Octavia sighed and closed her pocketbook with a snap. "I suppose I'll come help you as well, if only to make sure you don't get into trouble. Where are we going to bake, Derpy?"
"I asked Daisy if she could let me use the Cooking Club's room, and she said yes," replied Derpy, holding up a shiny key for the others to see. "We'll have to buy the ingredients, though."
Octavia glared at Lyra. "You," she barked. "Store. Now."
"I hate my life," said Octavia, collapsing under the weight of the grocery bags.
"Good to know!" answered Lyra cheerfully, picking up the nearest bag. "Oh good, you got the two percent milk. Excellent work, Octavia!"
"I will slit your crazy throat with one of those chopping knives they keep here," Octavia threatened.
"But then the blood would get into the cookies!" Lyra said. "Actually, I wonder what that would taste like. Who knows? It might be good!"
Octavia rolled her eyes as Lyra held out a hoof to help her stand. "And you say that I'm a vampire."
"Girls, look what I found!" shouted Derpy.
When Octavia turned and saw the pegasus, she shook her head and gave her standard 'oh Derpy' smile. Lyra, on the other hoof, broke out squealing. "My Celestia! My Celestia, could you honestly get any cuter?"
"I don't think so!" exclaimed Derpy, grinning under her giant, poofy chef's hat.
"I don't even need cookies; she's more than sweet enough for anypony," said Lyra to Octavia. "Come on, let's get baking!"
"Hmm," said Octavia, skimming the recipe. "The first ingredient is four cups of all-purpose flour. Derpy, could you please get some from the bag? There should be one already open."
"Okie dokie lokie!" said Derpy with a military salute.
"What?" Lyra protested. "Derpy, you're in charge here. You should be the one reading directions and giving orders, not her?"
"And why exactly is that?" asked Octavia crossly.
"She's wearing the chef's hat, Octavia," said Lyra, as if speaking to a five-year-old. "It's practically her birthright you're taking away from her."
"Oh, but I don't mind at all!" said Derpy.
"But it's really fun to be the boss," said Lyra. "Just watch!" With a whoosh, she was back with four cups of flour poured into a yellow mixing bowl. Offering up the bowl, the unicorn bowed so low to the ground that her horn scrapped against the polished tiles. "Here you are, ma'am!"
Derpy took the bowl eagerly. "Oh, look!" she said, nearly dunking her head into the flour. "It makes little white clouds!"
"Woah, really?" Lyra gasped and rushed to Derpy's side. "Hey, kid, that's really cool!" She dipped the tip of her hoof in the flour, then lightly tapped Derpy's nose. "Boop!"
Derpy giggled. "Hey, you can't do that to the boss!" Then she retaliated by reaching up on the tips of her hooves to do the same to Lyra. Soon, the air around them was filled with laughter and flour.
Octavia sighed and went to buy another bag.
"Next, it says we have to mix the batter until smooth," Derpy read aloud. Armed with a wooden spoon and her enthusiasm, she drove it straight into the batter, where it stuck as if it were frozen in the Arctic. The chef tried to mix it, but her two seconds of strenuous effort were in vain. Turning to Octavia, she said with wide, shimmering eyes, "Could you please stir it for me?"
Octavia nodded and scooted closer to grip the spoon. While she was able to move it through the batter, it was slow work, and after a few minutes, the batter was still as lumpy as before.
Lyra looked up from the bag of chocolate chips, which she quickly stuffed behind the empty mixing bowl. She chewed, swallowed, then said, "Need some help?"
"No, I'm just fine," Octavia answered.
Lyra sighed. "You're stirring it wrong."
"And just how would you know?" Octavia asked. "Last time I checked, you didn't major in cooking."
"I know because I've cooked before, which is more than I can say for you. You can't just stir in one continuous motion." She pulled the bowl from Octavia's lax hooves. "You need to do it in curves, turning the bowl as you go, and always scrape the sides. Tada!" Within a minute, the batter was as smooth as glass.
"Wow," said Octavia, her eyes round like saucers. "When did you learn to do that?"
Lyra shrugged. "My mom taught me when I was little. I guess it's stayed with me."
"Seriously? But you're a Heartstring! You should have to do... you know..."
"Actual work?" Lyra supplied, to which Octavia nodded meekly. "Hey, baking's fun once you get the hang of it. You seriously haven't cooked before?"
Octavia shook her head. "My sister Clarity was more interested in that sort of thing. I just stayed out of her way and let her do what she liked in the kitchen, as long as I got good food in the process."
"I've never baked before!" Derpy added. "My mom always sad I would cause some sort of explosion if I did."
"Can't imagine why." Octavia snorted. "But in all honesty, Lyra, it's cool that your family does things like cooking. I never expected that you'd be the type to know how to cook at all."
"Tsk tsk, haven't I drilled it into your head by now that I thrive off of unpredictability? Besides, my parents don't like to abuse our money like other Canterlot ponies do. Power can go to your head, after all. Sometimes I try to pretend like our money doesn't exist."
"Which is why you have me buy all the ingredients?" Octavia asked.
"No, I have you do it for the same reason that Derpy's wearing a chef's hat," said Lyra. "There is a chain of order here, and guess what? You're at the very bottom."
Lyra's playful smile transformed into a sneer. "Speaking off that chain..."
Derpy wobbled on her little stepstool. Splat, splat, splat! Three eggs met their untimely doom.
"...we'll be needing more eggs."
"Er, Derpy?" asked Lyra, hesitantly tapping her on the shoulder. "Are you okay?"
"Of course," Derpy answered, focused with a frightening intensity on the batter in front of her.
Lyra raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure of that? Because that's an awful lot of sugar--"
"Hey, I'm the boss, right?" Derpy said. "Don't worry, Lyra, I know what I'm doing."
"What was that about letting power go to your head?" Octavia whispered fearfully.
"One thing's for sure," said Lyra, "we're never letting her wear that chef's hat again."
Octavia gave Lyra the look. "You don't mean that whatsoever, Lyra Heartstrings."
"Cuteness is a drug," Lyra said.
"So is whatever's in those cookies," said Octavia as Derpy pulled out a tray filled with grey, crumbling, smoking mush. "Is there such a thing as dying from sugar poisoning?"
"I think aliens teleported Derpy's cookies away and replaced them with space matter."
"For once, I agree with you," said Octavia in all seriousness.
"Should we call for help?" Octavia asked as she unblinkingly watch the space matter come closer to Derpy's mouth.
"With that deranged look in her eyes? Nopony can help her now. Oh well, at least she'll die cute."
A chomp rang throughout the breathless silence.
"Mmm! These are delicious!" Derpy exclaimed. "Here, try one!"
"So I don't have to write an obituary?" asked Lyra in breathless relief.
Octavia hesitantly bit into a cookie. "Hey... these are... umm... really good!"
"Don't spit it into the sink," Lyra hissed. "Think of the disaster if it got into the water supply."
"Will you two help me wrap them for Sea Swirl?" Derpy asked.
"Yeah, of course!" exclaimed Octavia. "Then how about we do something without chefs hats or rankings? Something where everypony's on an equal playing field?"
"Ooh, like hoofball?" asked Lyra.
"Nope! Like homework."
"Buzzkill," Lyra muttered.
"But first..." Octavia turned to Lyra and dropped her voice to a deadly whisper.
"You're stopping by Jewel."
Special Request Episode! The Search for the Non-Existent Painting!
Derpy murmured sleepily as she pushed her hoof through a hole in a massive sheet of ice, wider than the entire city of Canterlot. Her bright golden eyes opened to a wasteland of snow, with dark clouds sailing overhead and trees standing shriveled like the elderly marching to death.
"Burr," said Derpy, rubbing her front hooves together for warmth. "Oh no... the painting... what's happened to the painting..."
"Hey, Derpy!" called a voice behind her. Derpy whirled around just in time to see Octavia's head pop out of a sea of wrapping paper like a jack-in-the-box.
Derpy laughed. "Silly Octy," she said, "where's your bass? You said I'd get to hear you play!"
"You mean this?" asked Lyra from above Derpy's head. The unicorn was sitting atop the crystal chandelier of the music room. Around her neck was slung a bass, shining in the light.
From below, Derpy clapped and cheered as Lyra started playing various chords in rapid succession. There may have been words accompanying the notes as well, but they were lost to Derpy's memory, like wind passing in one ear and out the other.
"Pretty sweet, isn't it?" asked Lyra, flashing Derpy a toothy grin. "Wait, hang on!" The mare stuck her head in a jack-o-lantern, only to pull it out seconds later. "We're late, we're late, for a very important skate! I said I'd..."
After that, her words became garbled, as if she were speaking from the bottom of a pool. Yet Derpy nodded along with every movement of her lips, and when she stopped speaking, Derpy dutifully wheeled the baby stroller towards the cumulus clouds surrounding Canterlot Castle.
"Hey, can you open the door for me?" asked Lyra while trying to balance half a dozen lamps in her front hooves.
Derpy was about to burrow a path when suddenly, she heard a strange squelch, squelch sound come ever closer. Then the door opened with a loud bang, and Octavia the Octopus was standing in the doorway... well, if octopi can stand at all. They certainly can't sit, though; that would be preposterous!
"You can't go this way," said Octavia as she slid down the banister. "There are ponies outside, rioting for a revolution. Something about equal rights for stallions. Crazy, isn't it?"
Oh dear, I wonder if the painting will be alright, Derpy worried. "Is there another way around?"
"Go to the lockers, Derpy," Lyra instructed. "You'll find a way there."
"But we're still in the clouds!" Derpy insisted.
Octavia facepalmed with all eight tentacles. "Derpy, your head is what's in the clouds. Turn around, darling."
She did, and instead of her friends standing beside her, there was a row of shiny green lockers in front of her. The locker number 1130 stood out in gleaming silver.
Derpy shuffled her hooves nervously. Oh, but what if the Doctor jumps out?
Taking a deep breath, she pulled on the lock as hard as she could, so hard that when it flew open, Derpy lost her balance and was set tumbling into the water. When she wiped the water from her eyes, she saw to her relief that a rack of identical, paint-smeared smocks had popped out of her locker.
"Hey, I'm getting closer!" she exclaimed happily. "The painting must be nearby!"
Just as she was about to run off, she heard Lyra's voice shout, "It's not safe to go alone, kid! Here, take this!"
Derpy looked down and saw in her hooves a china bird, pulsating a neon blue glow. "Thanks!"
Her answer came in the form of a piercing scream.
"Lyra!" Derpy shouted.
"It's okay, kid," she said, rubbing her head as she sat on the floor. "My bed just fell apart, that's all."
"Oh no!" Derpy gasped and ran to her. "Do you need help?"
"Nah, I've got it. Could you give me back the sonic screwdriver I gave you?"
Derpy reached into her saddlebag, and instead of the china bird, she found the screwdriver, just as Lyra had said. "Here you go!" she said.
"Thanks, kid." Then she proceeded to work, re-screwing the screws and re-hammering the nails of her bed frame.
"I could really go for some cookies right now," said Lyra after a while and a second.
"Yeah, me too! Do you want me to stop by Jewel and buy some for us?"
"Nah, that's fine, I'll just bake them myself after this is through."
"Wow, Lyra, you're amazing! You can put a bed back together, and you can bake? That's so cool!"
A warm blush tinged Lyra's cheeks. "Aww, it's nothing." Then her head disappeared into a slice of bread. "Hey, aren't you running late?" she asked, breadcrumbs clinging to her locks of hair.
"But I'm not running!" exclaimed Derpy.
Lyra raised an eyebrow. "Ah, but aren't you? The bad wolf is coming. You're always running, through time and space. We all are, when you really think about it. But now's not the time for thinking! It's time to run!"
"Oh, that's true," said Derpy. "Well, good luck with your work! I'll be with you in spirit!"
Lyra smiled and shook her head in a very Octavia-ish way. "You're too cute sometimes."
"I mean it!" said Derpy excitedly. "I'll be a little ghostie-ghost to hold the nails." Then suddenly, at the drop of a heartbeat, her face fell, farther and farther down the mountain, leaving her with nothing but a butterfly mask. "Oh wait. I'm a ghostie-ghost now. Ghostie-ghosts don't eat cookies. Waaa!"
Lyra gasped and leapt to her hooves. Enveloping Derpy into a hug, she cried, "I will find a way to make you ghost cookies!"
"Really?" Derpy asked with a sniffle.
"Of course, trust me!"
"Okay then!" said Derpy. "Bye-bye, Lyra!" Then she stepped through the door and into an apple orchard. Its verdant green leaves looked almost too lush to be real, and the shining apples were the same as their size put strain on the branches.
Derpy walked through the deathly silent place in awe. "I came here," she whispered to the empty orchard, "when I was in first grade. My mom and my dad were here too. It was before I learned to fly, so he'd balance me on his back and fly me up to the very tops of the trees. And when I'd get tired of that, we'd play a game where my mom and dad tossed me apples and I had to run in circles around the tree trunk to catch them."
Squish, squish. From beyond the last row of apple trees, Octavia the Octopus came into view.
"Would you make good calamari?" was the first thing Derpy asked her.
"Do you remember the painting, Derpy?" asked Octavia with a strange urgency. "Do you?"
"Uh-huh!" Derpy nodded, her standard cheerful smile branded on her face. "It's a pretty picture. But it's broken. I need to fix it."
"Dinky has it." Her voice echoed as though she were speaking in a small, confined room with the sound bouncing off at odd angles. "When you find her, tell her that she dropped this." She held out a Barbie doll, with a long blond mane and cracked blue eyes.
"I will," said Derpy, stowing the doll safely in her saddlebag.
"Would you like some bubblegum?" Octavia asked, holding out an opened package. "I can hear the echo in my head. Patch the hole with bubblegum."
Before she could take a piece, her ears pricked up and turned to the right. A dog howled.
"The wolf is coming," said Octavia, patting Derpy's shoulder with a tentacle. "Would that make you the little piglet?"
"I'm sorry I called you calamari, Octy," said Derpy, readjusting her butterfly mask.
"Oh, it's quite alright. I won't last long, anyway, not like this. I can't stand the sunlight in this place. It's always nighttime in the dinner halls, you know?"
"What?" shouted Derpy. "I can't hear you anymore."
"You'll find Dinky having supper in the nighttime!" shouted Octavia, cupping two tentacles around her mouth as the apple trees began to sway. "You wanted a cookie for desert, right? The cookie is the sun."
"I wanted my painting!" Derpy shouted. "Do you know where it is?"
Octavia's violet eyes glazed over. "Oh Derpy," she laughed, "you're head's always in the clouds! Oh Derpy, your head's always in the clouds! Oh Derpy..."
"You never came to watch me skate, Derpy," said Lyra, standing right behind her with the same expression as Octavia's. "I was playing the bass; it was amazing! But it's okay, Derpy. There will be another time. After all, you're going to play volleyball with us next weekend, right?"
"I can't hear!" Derpy screamed. "I can't hear! Where's the painting, where's the painting?"
Somewhere above her head, the bad wolf laughed. "The world is odds and ends, is pages in a book, is the echo in the moonlight. Silver. Silver is beautiful, my friend."
"Stop this at once," echoed a mighty voice, and a doe burning bright like the stars charged through the orchard. "Stop! This ends now!"
"Why, my dear?" answered the unseen wolf. "The world is running through the trees while singing, the world is dancing drunk at morning, the world is cheesy movie nights, but for you, dear... For you, it is always a lesson."
Sighing, the doe turned to Derpy. "The painting does not exist yet," she told her. "Make sure to do your homework."
Derpy blinked, and when she opened her eyes, there was Dinky, sitting in the middle of an ice rink that about to split in half, and offering her big sister a platter of cookies that didn't exist.
Finding a Way to Help! Derpy's School Talent Show!
Octavia flipped her mane to curl around the right side of her neck. "Could you pass the orange juice, Derpy?" she asked politely. "I think Lyra's face is about to spontaneously combust, so we'd best have liquids on hoof to douse the subsequent flames."
Derpy giggled, then slid the jug across the cafeteria table. "Could you hoof me a muf--?"
"How you two wound me!" Lyra exclaimed. "You, who I called my friends! This isn't my typical breakdown! This is actually important!"
"I sometimes wonder if in your childhood you ever decided to eat a tape recorder, and it keeps replaying in your stomach. It'd explain quite a bit about you."
After gulping down a piece of her waffle, Derpy asked, "What's the matter?"
Octavia briefly glanced at the newspaper in Lyra's trembling hooves. "If it's something about the nobility being stupid and the princesses having to clean up the mess, it's nothing we haven't heard before."
"No!" Lyra cried, about ready to tear out her mane. She thrust the school newspaper into Octavia's hooves, knocking her buttered toast to the ground. "Turn to page three and read the headline!"
Octavia's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "'Its Happening!" she read in her monotonous voice. "Princess Luna's Academy Holds Auditions for It's First Annual Talent Show!' So it's an excuse for a bunch of the student body to make fools of themselves in public, what else is new?"
"Ooh, a talent show?" Derpy asked. "That sounds like fun!"
"No, in the headline!" Lyra cried. "Look, just look! The 'its' in the first sentence should have an apostrophe, while the 'it's' in the second should have none! What, did that apostrophe have such rebellion in its heart that it chose to wander so far from its proper destiny in life? Is this the terrible fate of journalism, that illiterate monkeys bang their heads on typewriters in order to spit garbled-up news in our faces? It's a travesty, I tell you, and I won't stand for it! Something must be done!"
Octavia's eyes searched Lyra's for a second, then she quietly reached for another piece of toast.
"Could I see the paper, Octy?" Derpy asked. She flipped to page three once again. "Hmm," she said, munching thoughtfully on a piece of toast, "it says that auditions are tomorrow after eleventh period in the auditorium, and that ponies can try out in groups of three. Plus, all the proceeds will be donated to the Canterlot Foals' Hospital! Oh girls, wouldn't it be so much fun to do a routine together?"
"Well, now that I think about it," said Lyra, "I've always wanted to explore stand-up comedy. It'd be a new type of writing to explore, don't you think?"
"I suppose we could go the 'try something new' route with comedy... if, of course, we wanted to fall flat on our faces in front of our friends," said Octavia.
"Nice alliteration!" said Lyra.
Octavia smiled. "Thank you! Now, I feel that we're going to enter as a group, we should stick to what we know. So..."
"If you say we're going to play instruments, I will be so many kinds of disappointed in you," said Lyra.
Octavia closed her mouth.
"Come on, we have to be creative in our routine!" Lyra insisted. "Comedy routine, who's with me?"
"You can do what you want," said Octavia, crossing her forelegs, "but I'm sticking to my cel--"
"Oh, can't we all do a routine together?" asked Derpy. "Lyra, you can play an amazing bass! And Octy, isn't calamari funny?"
Both mares stared at the pegasus.
"Never mind..." whispered Derpy, blushing.
Octavia reached out a gentle hoof to tap Derpy on the shoulder. "And what would you like to do for the talent show?"
"Well..." She twisted a lock of her golden mane around her hoof. "I don't think ponies would like to see somepony paint as an act... Oh, that reminds me! I need to write myself a note to get new paints from the art room for my project."
"Oh, you have one of those projects too?" asked Lyra as Derpy tore a corner of the newspaper on which to write. "That first draft I have due..." She threw her hooves up in the air. "Oh well, participating in a charity is far more important!"
"For once, I'm inclined to agree with you," said Octavia.
"Do you think... if you're set on performing separate acts... that maybe I could join one of yours?" asked Derpy tentatively.
"Of course!" said Lyra with her typical beaming grin. "Which would you like to do?"
Derpy hesitated, then slowly turned to Octavia. "I did play the tambourine in my third grade school play..."
Derpy looked to the ground, downcast. "You're angry at me, aren't you, Octy?"
"No!" exclaimed Octavia, just a little too quickly, a little too loudly, and a little too high-pitched. "No, everything's fine!" She ran a shaking hoof through her frazzled mane. "Let's just try it again! Pick it up from measure... measure..." The musician sighed. "Measure 1, okay?"
Derpy nodded, less than enthusiastic.
"And a-one!" said Octavia, hooves ready at the strings of her guitar. "A-two! A-one, two--!"
Ching-ching-ching!
Octavia sighed, and Derpy dropped her tambourine. "Too early again, right?" the pegasus asked.
"Yup. But it's alright!" said Octavia, trying to twist her face into a smile. "So maybe the tambourine's not your speed. That's fine. How about... er..." Her eyes scanned the music room. "How about the bugle?"
"We tried it," said Derpy flatly.
"The ukulele?"
"Tried it."
"The bassoon?"
"Tried it."
"The saxophone?"
"Tried it."
"The xylophone?"
"Tried it."
"The sousaphone?"
"Tried it."
"...Anything ending with phone?"
"We haven't tried phoning for government intervention. Though I think anypony who walked by here already has."
Octavia's eyes softened in pity as Derpy flopped down, lifeless, into a chair. "Oh Derpy..." She walked towards Derpy with her forelegs held stiffly in front of her. She stopped in front of the chair, looked confusedly at her outstretched legs, then settled for a clumsy little pat on the head. "I'm sorry for this, but the school doesn't have any musical saws. There must be something else that you can play, though. Have we tried the musical triangle yet?"
Derpy shook her head.
"Well, let's try it out then!" she said, clapping her hooves together and giving Derpy her biggest, best smile. In response, Derpy picked herself up and started walking like a creature out of the Trotting Dead.
"So this is looking on the bright side..." mumbled Octavia while watching Derpy head for the musical triangle. "Yikes."
Then she briskly trotted over to the stand holding Derpy's copy of the sheet music. "Okay, Derpy," she said, "you come in here." She placed her hoof over a measure. "Follow along as I play, and I'll look at you as your cue to come in. Alright?"
Derpy nodded. "Alright," she whispered.
Octavia shook off her concern as she picked up her acoustic guitar and began playing chords that vibrated throughout the entire room. Her hooves were light and nimble, caressing the strings with the gentlest of touches to produce a sound of sonorous grandeur. Finally, she glanced over at Derpy.
Ding! The ending note rang into silence.
For a moment, both mares stood in the deafening quiet.
"I'm going to see how Lyra's act is coming along," said Derpy.
Octavia nodded emphatically. "That sounds like a wonderful idea, darling."
"Oh my Celestia, she broke you, didn't she?" Lyra said with a gasp when Derpy walked into the room. The budding author stood up at once and began to circle around her friend. "Your wings are limp," she noted, "your head is low, your legs are like lead, and your face..." Lyra's eyes widened in horror. "You're not smiling! Oh, Derpy!" Lyra gave Derpy an anaconda-like hug. "It's alright!" Lyra said. "This disaster can be easily fixed with two things: the number of the music room, and an ungoddessly amount of pepper spray."
Derpy smiled a little. "Lyra, it's okay," she said.
"No, it's not, but it will be soon. Fortunately for us, you came to the right place. After all, what's better for cheering somepony up than a comedy act?"
It was like a little knob in Derpy's back was winding up her smile, notch by notch. "Yeah! Yeah, you're right!"
"Then let's get practicing!" she hoofed Derpy a scroll that trailed to the ground when unravelled. "Here are the acts I've written up," she explained. "Not joke after joke; you can't just sound like you're reading off a script when you're saying a joke, right? That's just the general outline of where I think the act will go. We'll get some audience participation, all that loveliness, but anyway, that's not important."
Lyra booped Derpy on the nose. "All you need to do, kid, is be my sounding board. Ask the obvious questions, slip in some puns, basically have it so I'm not standing up there talking to myself. Get it?"
Derpy nodded. "Uh-huh!"
"Okay! Then here's our first trial run!" Lyra turned to the rows of empty desks that served as her audience. "So a Diamond Dog, a unicorn, and griffon walk into a sweet shop. The griffon says to the unicorn, 'I sure hate the government.' The uni--"
"Aww, that's so mean!" protested Derpy. "Why would any griffon say such a thing?"
"It's part of the joke, Derpy," said Lyra. "It'll make sense at the end, I promise. Anyway, the unicorn says to the griffon, 'Suuure, of course. I bet ponies in Griffonia would be singing your government's praises. Granted, of course, that they could talk with their heads mounted on spikes.'"
"But Griffonia's reformed!" said Derpy. "They have a much more benevolent king who's in charge now!"
"Oh come now," said Lyra, "everypony likes a bit of political humor now and again, no harm by it. Anyway, the Diamond Dog says..."
The imaginary dial on Derpy's back spun all the way down to jaw-dropped, eyes-popped, heart-stopped disbelief.
"And then everypony died by the poisoned soufflé!" Lyra finished. "What did you think, Derpy? Funny, right?"
Derpy sat huddling in a corner.
Lyra collapsed to her knees. "My Goddess," she breathed, horrified. "I've turned into Octavia."
Very, very quietly, Derpy slipped out the door.
"It's no use," Derpy said to herself as she kicked a stray piece of paper along. "I can't join in the talent show. It's not going to work out, even though..." She sniffled, blinking rapidly. "All I... all I wanted to do was... was..."
Just as she was about to turn the corner where the art room was located, Derpy screeched to a halt outside a classroom door, where two particularly distressed voices were emanating.
"Oh, it's hopeless!" moaned Berry Punch, head in her hooves.
"No, it's not!" insisted Carrot Top. "We can make it work; I know we can!"
"Not with Sea Swirl sick, we can't," replied Berry Punch with a sigh. "I know... I know there will be other years. But this year... it's been special, you know? I guess all I wanted... all I really wanted to do..."
"...was help," Derpy breathed.
"Woo!" Lyra cheered as she trotted to the end of the line. "Comedy act, Lyra, you've got this audition down! Maybe you had to fix a few things, but it's good, it's all good now! Just a little jab at the government, that's all! What could go wrong?"
"...we remind ponies," said Miss Raven, speaking into the stage microphone, "that while we encourage individuality, we will be putting limits on what can or cannot make it into the actual performance. Please keep in mind that Princess Luna will be our esteemed guest..."
Lyra's hooves trembled, shaking the parchment, filled with a plethora at crude jokes centered around the princess' reign.
"I'm dead."
"Excuse me, miss?" said Octavia, delicately tapping a mare on the shoulder. "Is this the musical section?"
The mare nodded enthusiastically, shaking her wavy blue and pink-streaked mane. "Yes, it is!" she said, gesturing to the winding line of ponies in front of them.
"Oh my," said Octavia, "there certainly are a lot of tryouts."
"Yes, I was surprised myself," said the mare. "And what are you planning to play for the show?"
"Oh, just a little medley of classical music on my guitar," she said, patting her case.
"Well that's a funny coincidence; I'm playing the guitar too! And so are a lot of ponies, as far as I can tell!"
Perplexed, Octavia leaned her head far to the right. Except for a few scattered exceptions, everypony in that line was carrying a guitar case.
"Oh buck."
"Hey, Octavia," said Lyra, scooting over to give the newcomer room to sit. "You didn't make it in either?"
"Nope," replied Octavia, flopping down in her chair. "After the seventeenth rendition of Concerto No. 9, my judges fell asleep. How did your tryouts go? Competition must've been steep in the comedy department, huh?"
"Hehe, yeah," said Lyra. She discreetly kicked the pile of shredded parchment under her chair, where it would rot in shame for all eternity. "So, any more acts trying out? It's getting late."
"Just a few, I think. Do you want to stay until the end?"
"Yeah, why not?" Lyra kicked up her hooves to rest on the back of the chair in front of her. Who knows, maybe it will do good for my wounded pride, she added privately.
"And for our final music audition," said Miss Raven, "may I present a cover of "Isn't It Fine," originally performed by Sapphire Shores, with an alternate ending performed by Berry Punch, Carrot Top, and Derpy Hooves."
"Derpy?" the two mares said simultaneously. "What's she doing here?"
They watched with wide eyes as the curtain rose, revealing Carrot Top on the fiddle. Rising a bit more, there could be seen Derpy and Berry Punch, wearing silver and gold skirts respectively, and holding ribbons in one hoof and a microphone in another.
The soft murmur in the auditorium slowed to a halt when the spotlight fell on them. Under their chairs, Lyra and Octavia held hooves.
"Isn't it fine," sang Berry in a strong, resounding base, "to laugh when you're happy? Isn't it fine to cry when alone? Isn't it fine to live in the sunlight? Isn't it fine to leave stars alone? Everything has its purpose, everything has its time. We had our time to love; now it's time to say goodbye."
Berry Punch spun in circles, ribbons trailing behind her in a rainbow, while Carrot kept playing the fiddle. Derpy stood as still as could be.
"The stars are out tonight," continued Berry Punch, "dancing in the light. They remind me of how we used to be. Before we had to fight. Isn't it fine to feel heartbreak, or sit and cry in the rain? Isn't it fine to shy from the stars, when all they bring is pain?"
"It's fine..." came the breathy refrain. "It's fine..."
So entranced was the audience by Berry Punch's dancing that nopony took notice of Derpy until the spotlights focused on her, hovering above the stage. She raised the microphone to her lips.
"It's fine," came Derpy's voice, a soaring soprano to mingle with Berry Punch's low voice. "It's fine, it's fine, it's all very fine. But is that what you want, to be fine all the time? There's chaos and torment and love, swirling in the air, my love. If you stay silent, you fall, my love. There's orders and routines but at times, my love..."
The other two ponies melted away, leaving Derpy standing alone on stage. "Isn't fine to cry when you're happy? Isn't fine to stand up when you're sad? Isn't it fine to work in the sunlight, then dance with me when night lands?"
The two ponies stopped singing. "But where should we go?" Berry asked as the fiddle's notes became higher and faster, like tinkling bells.
Derpy smiled, unfurling her ribbons. "Let me show you."
Then together they danced and sang:
"Come now, my love, to the garden of stars.
Where the ponies of nighttime do play.
For it's cool and it's bright and the moon's safe at night.
Come, my love, let's be up and away.
There's nothing to fear if you stay close to me.
We're soaring, we're falling, we're rising in song.
Don't close your eyes, lest you leave from this dream.
Come, my love, let's be up and along.
As the morning sun rises, the time's come to part.
Don't see it, don't see it, the moon holds us tight.
Silver's worth far much more than gold in my heart.
Stay, my love, it's a magical night."
And as Lyra and Octavia watched in breathless wonder, they couldn't hear the shakiness of some of her notes, nor notice the brief stumbles in her steps. They didn't see the ditzy girl who dropped her books in the hallway, or the klutz who crashed into a tree whenever she flew. The stage had transformed her into somepony new, yet her joyful smile was the same as ever.
"I've been filled with morbidity today," whispered Lyra, "but now... I feel like I could die, yet I don't want this to stop. Is that normal, Octavia?"
Octavia leaned close and nuzzled Lyra's cheek. "It's fine, you sentimental idiot," she murmured in reply, tears welling in her eyes. "It's absolutely fine."
Let Go of Your Fear! Presenting Octavia at Carneighie Hall!
"No, I don't know 'the thing' about planning," answered Octavia, forming air quotes with her hooves, "but your admirable lexicon never ceases to amaze me."
"Plans never work out," Lyra continued. "I came to Princess Luna's Academy for the Fine Arts with the plan to spend my time living - really, truly living - in this city. No rules, no watching eyes. Just me and my life. And you know what I ended up doing instead? Baking cookies and singing in parks and finding lost dogs and buying some random mare a new violin. Ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous!"
"But," said Lyra, sharping turning around to walk backwards alongside Octavia, "do you know what I wonder? Has this past month been living? Is this what it means to live?"
"You've been up late reading Neightzsche's writings on existentialism, haven't you?"
Lyra paused. "Touche, but that's not the point. The point is that everything I've done this month feels so mundane."
"If this month has been mundane, I'm terrified to learn what you call exciting," said Octavia.
"I'd like to learn that myself," said Lyra. "I mean, before I came to the academy, things were even worse. All that time I'd either study how to read or how to kiss-up to nobility. Not the most exciting thing in the world, to be honest."
Lyra sighed. "It's just that you read all those stories about boarding school being chock full of daring and dangerous escapades in the pitch-black of midnight as you race to overthrow the alien principal or to protect the student body from being mind-controlled or to do both while having an affair with your special somepony! And what am I doing? Drinking a soda while strolling down a lane."
"To be fair, it's quite good soda," said Octavia before taking another swig of lemon and lime.
"We have the entire afternoon before us, Octavia! If we were to go anywhere, anywhere at all, where would you go?"
Octavia craned her neck over the crowd to look towards the east. "There," she said, pointing to an ornate granite building spanning half a block. "I'd go there."
"Carneighie Hall?" asked Lyra, astonished.
Octavia nodded. "I've only been there once as a kid, but my Goddess, it was the most beautiful night I've ever experienced." Her violet eyes gained a misty, dreamy look. "All those ponies," she said softly, "with all their money and finery come together to sit down, put wealth and status behind, and just watch a performance they'll never be able to buy back again. Because we're all equal when the curtain rises to reveal our God, the conductor, and his legions of angels, the musicians. And the music swells and swells, and your eyes and ears open wide to fill up your entire self with the song. Everything else... it just fades away. Fades into peace. And then, even after you walk out of that hall, silence is never quite so empty anymore."
Octavia blinked, looked into Lyra's curious eyes, and blushed. "So yeah, it's a nice place," she mumbled.
"Carneighie Hall, eh?" said Lyra slowly, pensively, as if the name were a puzzling idea. "What time is it open?"
"Most evenings," answered Octavia, "though it takes hundreds of bits to get in. And even if we had the money," she continued quickly when Lyra reached for her saddlebag, "you have to reserve seats months in advance. All the shows for the rest of this year must be sold out."
"Not the show I know," said Lyra, a twinkle in her eye.
"Lyra," Octavia said warningly. "What is going on in that crazy head of yours?"
Lyra grinned and looked behind Octavia. "Did you get all that, Derpy?" she called.
"Aye aye, captain!" said Derpy, balancing a dozen soda cans in her hooves. "Selkie Attack 8.3?"
"Nah, let's do it like we did when we fought the ogres of Moor," said Lyra. "Bring me all the duct tape you can find, kid."
Octavia's face was plastered with terror.
"We're going to Carneighie Hall!"
"Why did the door have to be open?" asked Lyra for the tenth time as she paced around the now useless tower of soda cans. "It's never supposed to be open!" She angrily kicked a can, causing a little trickle of soda to fizzle out onto the pavement. "So much for my brilliant plan."
Octavia scrutinized the rusting maintenance door, partially obscured by to overgrown bushes. "It's disconcerting," she mused. "It's ominous. It's foreboding. Perhaps... perhaps it's a message. A message that says... that breaking into Celestia-damned Carneighie Hall is a terrible idea! Did that ever cross your mind?"
"Oh, I don't know," replied Lyra, "I have a great many ideas crossing my mind, crossing in every direction possible. Amazing what can happen if you obliterate the bright red signs that tell you what you can or can't think."
"Well here's a sign for you!" Octavia screeched, pointing to the name Carneighie Hall printed in gold on the building's front. Carneighie Hall is a respectable, well-established, culturally significant place! It has security ponies, it has guards--"
"It also has Derpy."
"What did you say?" breathed Octavia. Her eyes followed Lyra's hoof, pointing down the long dark hallway, where a clash, like a little pegasus bumping into a pipe, resonated. "Oh, hell no."
Lyra raised an eyebrow. "Yes, Octavia?"
"You know what I should have said when you asked me what I wanted to see the most? You, with broken bones in all four legs, lying in an emergency room."
"Not dead, though?" Lyra asked. "Octavia, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were growing soft in your old age."
The musician rolled her eyes.
"Come on," said Lyra, practically hopping in circles around her. "Deep down, somewhere, there has the be that thrill inside you. That sense of adventure that wants you to explore the unknown, to indulge in a little wrongdoing, to see the cliff you're teetering on and jump off. You feel it, don't you?"
"I feel that I want to actually be invited to this concert hall," replied Octavia, "and somehow, my gut is telling me that getting on the invite list is quite challenging when you're arrested for breaking and entering."
Lyra scrunched up her face. "Ew, you listen to your gut? What could your gut have anything to tell you other than indigestion?"
"Oh? And what do you listen to?" Octavia asked.
Lyra sprinted through the maintenance doorway. "I don't think," she shouted over her shoulder, "I just do."
"Could you please shut up for two seconds?"
Octavia stared, affronted. "I haven't said anything since we got here."
"No, but I can hear it," Lyra told her. "Those little gears running through your head, trying to make up a million excuses and cover stories you can deliver if we're found out. Would you just stop already? It's driving me mad, and trust me, you don't want to see a mad Lyra Heartstrings. That'd be like wanting to see an asteroid crash to Equus or see the universe be sucked into a black hole or see somepony throw up. Ugh, now that last one, that last one makes absolutely no sense."
Octavia shook her head. "Mad just does not cover you, Lyra, does it?"
"Nope! Never has, never will! Plenty of ponies are mad; the whole universe is mad, I'd say. Being mad along with them is so terribly boring, isn't it?"
Octavia sighed, and the two walked for a while in silence. "What... makes you so sure?" Octavia finally asked. "What makes you so sure that we won't be caught by anypony?"
"Absolutely nothing!" Lyra declared, putting an extra spring in her step.
The other mare spluttered. "You... you do know what will happen if we're caught?"
Lyra screeched to a halt. "No, Octavia, no I don't. So why don't you tell me? It must be really bad if you're panicking so much about it."
"We could be reported," Octavia said. "Breaking and entering a place like Carneighie Hall is a serious offense! We could have charges pressed, a fine to pay, maybe an expulsion from the academy, who knows?"
"Oh, how terrifying," Lyra mocked, waving her hooves in the air. "Petty law enforcement. Now, think about the advantages. If that's the worst to come out of the situation we're in, then what's the best?"
"The potential advantages do not outweigh the consequences--"
"Derpy!" Lyra shouted, her voice resounding across the grand auditorium.
"Look!" said Derpy from her place in front of the stage. "Front row seats!"
"You bet, kid!" Lyra hopped the railing to land in the seat right next to Derpy's. "Now," she said, looking her at Octavia standing in the doorway, "let's hear a performance by Canterlot's one and only Octavia Elizabeth Melody."
"Oh no!" said the musician, stumbling backwards. "Breaking into Carneighie Hall is one thing, but playing here? Actually playing here? Where so many famous musicians have come and gone, where many more famous ones have only dreamed of being? There are thousands of ponies more talented, more deserving, I can't!"
"Now, we could quibble over the matter of deserving for a thousand years," said Lyra, "but what fame really comes down to is the audience." She craned her neck back to see the rows of empty seats behind her. "And by the looks of things, you're being met with one hundred precent approval."
Slowly, like the sun rising over the mountains, Octavia's smile broke the surface.
"Now get backstage and find us something to play!" shouted Lyra.
It was a strange feeling that moved Octavia to race behind the blue velvet curtains, where an old, abandoned violin lay in a dust case tucked in a corner. Another feeling prompted her to swing open the case and carefully hold the instrument like china glass. Still another sent her tumbling, hurtling, falling onto that coveted stage, filled with the lights of the stars and the air of the gods and the little pounding heart of little Octavia.
Because in the end, what are feelings? These crazy impulses to the nervous system that send you running. These stores of emotional memories that are added to with each new neuron. These are the signs that tell us we are alive.
This is my dream, Octavia thought to herself as the first note vibrated into the concert hall. This has always been my dream. But dreams don't come true in this life. Which means you must be mad, Lyra Heartstrings. Absolutely, positively, barking mad. This whole month has been absolutely, positively, barking mad.
But I'm here. I'm playing in Carneighie Hall. This is what every musician dreams of. If such a place is dreamt of so often, does it even exist? Am I standing on wooden floorboards or the sparkling nothingness of the Dreamscape? I don't know. I can't see. I can't hear. I can't hear a thing. Octavia didn't know what song she was playing. She didn't even know the notes swirling in the air around her head.
Everything else... it just fades away. Fades into peace. And then, even after you walk out of that hall, silence is never quite so empty anymore.
Then suddenly, she heard applause. Not the applause of a concert hall filled to the brim with ponies. It was the applause of two ponies going wild, jumping and screaming and crying, to break the spell of silence.
It was the best five minutes of silence that Octavia had ever heard.
"So that's how you felt, Octy?" asked Derpy.
"Mm-hmm."
"So what happened after I left?"
Octavia tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Well, Lyra and I ran about the place some more. We found a silver-coated tuba tucked away, which Lyra insisted on playing louder than a roaring dragon. So of course, a security guard came rushing in. And let me tell you, it was the most terrifying moment of my life. Thumping heart, fur on end, everything. Like a glass had shattered, leaving me struggling to live without the rush of actually playing in Carneighie Hall. Carneighie Hall, I still can't believe it!" she squealed.
"So anyway, I'm standing there petrified like I've just had a nasty run-in with a cockatrice, and then Lyra strides up to him, all confident and Lyra-ish, and she says to him - right up front, I swear! She says, 'My name is Lyra Heartstrings, and I will send you two thousand bits from my family's account... No! Double it, make it four thousand! Well, then I suppose I should make such a sum in doubles, so a thousand doubles. Oh, what the hay, a thousand floats. That's right, I'll pay you a thousand floats to float your way along and out that door so my friend can keep having the time of her life.' And the guard just stands there in amazement, as was I. Then he shakes his head, smiles, and walks out the door! Honestly, I could have slapped that mare for being so blunt, but before I could get a word out, she tells me it was 'only because I can't very well study you while you're in prison, can I, evil demon alien changeling?' Isn't that such a Lyra thing to say?"
Derpy giggled. "Sounds like you've grown fond of her."
Octavia sighed and gazed up at the stars. "Oh, I don't know," she said. "You've seen me; I could never do the kinds of things she does every day, nor would I particularly want to. But once... just every once in a while... it's rather nice. It's rather nice indeed."
"You'd never have said that when we first met. Not in a million years."
"And here we are at the end. I can't believe this is the morning of November 30th, the last day of the month," said Octavia. "To be honest, I never thought I'd make it out alive. But of course, this month wasn't anything like I'd planned." The mare sighed and stretched out her back on the bench. "Do you remember when we first met," she asked, "and I was trying to convince you to stay out of our dorm room and sleep under the stars? Funny, how life circles back around."
"It is," said Derpy, watching a shooting star streak across the canopy of silver leaves in the Moonlit Grove. "You know, I can't believe there was ever a time when I was afraid of you, Octy. Thinking back on it now, it feels absurd."
Octavia sighed. "I hope you know now, Derpy, that I don't try to be scary or grouchy. Looking on the bright side of things... I just don't think I'd be able to do that earnestly. I'm far too cynical for that. But despite the... well, you know, the dark humor and the passive-aggressive death threats, I still enjoy this life. And I enjoy ponies like you very much."
Derpy took Octavia's hoof. "I know, silly Octy," she whispered. "You keep me and Lyra level-headed. You keep us from going insane. You keep us down-to-earth, where things are important. You... you have lots of good in you. Please don't ever think otherwise, 'kay?"
"Well, if somepony as good as you can say that about me, then who am I to disagree?" Octavia said with a laugh.
Derpy smiled and snuggled closer to Octavia's chest. "What..." she began, gazing up into the stars. "What will happen tomorrow, when we go to our proper dorm rooms?"
"I honestly don't know, Derpy," answered Octavia, "but don't think for a second that it'll be like this month never happened. Lyra will want to keep observing me, and I'll keep running to you for help. Same as usual, really. The only big difference is that you won't think a bear's trying to tear down the door each time Lyra snores."
Derpy laughed. "Alright, Octy."
"Good." She lightly tapped the pegasus on the nose. "Don't worry about it, okay, darling? What we should be worrying about," she said, jumping off the bench, "is where the hell we can find a taxi at three in the morning."
"Should we worry about homework, too?" Derpy teased as together they walked under the web of stars. "We finished our projects a bit messily, don't you think?"
"You know," Octavia said, "for once, I'll say to not. After all it's like your song. It's fine, Derpy. Everything's going to be fine."
After the two mares got home, and Octavia had already collapsed exhausted onto her bed, Derpy found a scroll laid on her pillow. When she opened it, a vial's worth of pink powder scattered into the air to form a shaky hologram, a hologram of none other than Derpy's sister.
"I have great news, sister!" said the hologram of Dinky. "The best news you've ever heard in your entire life!"
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Lyra demanded.
"Just what I said," replied Derpy as she stuffed a red and green Hearth's Warming Eve sweater in her bag. "I'm leaving."
"B-But you can't j-just... just leave!" Octavia spluttered. "Not now, not when we..."
"My sister Dinky sent me a message last night. It's finally happened. My mom's found a nice stallion. Her and Dinky, they're packing their bags and moving out of the apartment my father owns in Manehattan, and they're moving across the country to Los Pegasus to live with him. And I've met him, you know. He's a good pony and everything. He works as a crew member for a traveling show... well, he did work. Past tense. Hey, I remember that, Lyra! Anyway, his job didn't make much too begin with, but unemployment... well, that doesn't pay anything at all, really. And a family's something, you know, like you said, Octy. Something can't survive on nothing."
Derpy let the suitcase close with a thud. "So, I'm moving out with them," she continued. "See what I can do to help. I don't know, being a mailmare sounds like a fun job, doesn't it? At least it won't build up student loans. So yeah!" she finished cheerfully. "That's why I'm leaving!"
"Oh my Faust, Derpy," said Octavia, covering her mouth with her hooves. "What about going to school and being an artist? You will come back to do that, won't you?"
Derpy shrugged, still looking fixedly down at her suitcase. "Oh, Octy, it's okay," she said in a shaky voice. "There's more important things in life than becoming an artist. It... It's about getting to see your little sister being pushed on a swing set. It's about having her being lifted up on a set of broad shoulders to see the fireworks on the night of the Summer Sun Celebration. It's about letting her staying up until midnight to see, with heavy eyes just about to close, four black-booted hooves thunder towards the Hearth's Warming tree. And not by a mom, or a big sister. By a good and proper dad. That's what I want to make sure Dinky has."
"A-And you've talked to them about this, haven't you?" Octavia asked. "Your mom and Dinky and everypony?"
"Mm-hmm," said Derpy with a tiny nod. "Mom fought against it for a bit, but she came around. Dinky's just excited to have me over; she's already planned for me to help her decorate her new room. Even the Doctor said it's for the best. So yeah! Now all that's left is to tell you two!"
Derpy took a deep breath and looked up at the two other mares with clear, dry eyes. "Goodbye, Lyra. Goodbye, Octy," she said. "I know we've only known each other for a month, but still, it was really nice to become friends with you."
"Oh, don't talk like that, darling," said Octavia, clasping Derpy's hooves. "We'll write you plenty of letters when you're in Los Pegasus, okay? And you make sure to write too, ya hear?"
Derpy nodded. Her throat hurt too much to speak.
"Wait, wait, are the two of you insane or something?" demanded Lyra as she adjusted her tin foil hat. "Derpy, kid, if it's money you need, there's no problem! All you have to do is name an amount, and you'll find double that amount sitting in your family's bank account by this afternoon, I promise!"
It took several tries of different muscle combinations for Derpy to get herself to smile. "Thank you, Lyra," she said while hurriedly dragging her suitcase along the fuzzy blue carpet, "but that's alright. Goodbye, girls!" Not a second later did the door close with a slam, and the buzzing of two frantically flapping pegasus wings could be heard in the quiet.
Then breaking the quiet, Octavia slapped Lyra in the face.
"Ah, what in Tartarus, Octavia!" Lyra howled, pressing a hoof to her swollen cheek. "What did you do that for? Oh Celestia, you and Derpy went and ate the cafeteria's blueberries, didn't you? I told you they made ponies loopy, I told you, but does anypony believe loony Lyra--?"
"Would you listen to yourself?" Octavia shouted. "I can't believe you sometimes!"
"Yes, I know, trying to find a reasonable way out of a situation like Derpy's is such a horrible idea, isn't it?" Lyra said, narrowing her eyes.
"You think that you can live in this whole other world of yours and everything will work out fine, don't you? That... that everything can be solved your way, that you can throw charm and wit and money at a problem to make everything better. Well guess what, you can't! Because Derpy's situation extends far past needing some philanthropist's daughter to hit her up for some bits! Didn't you hear her? She wants to make sure that Dinky has a good and proper dad. And if you don't know what that means, then maybe you should do a little more 'observation.'"
Lyra was sent reeling, stumbling into a bedpost. "At least I'm trying to solve the problem!" she yelled. "You and your negativity, always blowing up everything! I'm not just some Faust-damned philanthropist's daughter! I'm Derpy's friend, and if money is the only way I can help her, then I'm at least going to give her that! You, you just sit and mope! What good is that going to do, huh?"
"Oh, like you're one to talk," Octavia countered. "Tell me, if you think you're so good at helping ponies, when was the last time you actually did, hmm? All your crazy talk about wanting to defend flufflepuffs and whatnot. Complete nonsense, all of it, but you never actually do something about it. And don't talk to me about Carneighie Hall yesterday; there was nothing on the line for you." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Do you know what I think? I think that the only reason you haven't been put in a straightjacket is because you're too afraid."
"This has nothing to do with me!" screamed Lyra, roaring above Octavia screaming 'oh yes, it does, oh yes it does!' "This is about Derpy, and to Tartarus with whatever you're doing, but I'm going to find Derpy, get her bank account number, and wire her thirty thousand bits."
"Is that so?" asked a voice at the door. "And just where do you think you're going to get that sort of money?"
Both Lyra and Octavia whipped around to see a tall, willowy, unicorn mare with a teal coat and platinum-blond mane standing before them.
"Ma'am, excuse me, but this is a private dorm--" began Octavia before getting the wind knocked out of her, courtesy of Lyra's strong right hook.
The young unicorn was aghast. "Mom?" she spluttered. "Wh-What are you doing here?"
"What am I doing here?" Mrs. Heartstrings screeched, her voice grating on their ears like two pieces of metal rubbed together. "All last night, your father and I have been asking ourselves what are you doing here! Art school," she scoffed, as if the two words were a bit of phlegm she was trying to cough up, "complete rubbish, I told your father over and over, but he insisted anyway. We had both heard the stories of what assortment of ponies find their way to art school, but no," she said, her voice a retched blend of wailing tears and sickening sugar. "No, he said. We have a responsible daughter, he said, a sharp and hardworking daughter, he said. Well tell me, where is that responsibility now?"
Lyra's brain only vaguely registered Octavia shaking under the bed. "Wh-Wh-Why m-mother," she said, trying to slow her voice against the racing of her heart, "whatever do you mean? I've been good, very good! My classes are good, my grades are good, didn't you get the report card--?"
"I quite honestly can't tell if you're playing dumb or are actually dumb," said Mrs. Heartstrings. "Here go your father and I, all trusting, letting you have access to a family account, thinking you'll spend it on reasonable expenses, and then the next thing we know a thousand floats has been used up for gambling!"
"Gambling?" Lyra repeated, scoffing. "You and Dad honestly think I've been gambling?"
"Well what else could it be? And to be honest, gambling, drugs, a Faust-damned cruise ship, I don't very much care what it is, all I care is that it stops now. Lyra, I'm pulling you out of this academy."
"What, don't I even get the chance to explain things?" Lyra demanded.
"Not when I have a meeting to be to in ten minutes. The carriage driver is waiting; pack your things, we're leaving."
"Please, ma'am, let me explain," begged Octavia, coming out from under the bed to stand between the mother and daughter. "I-I'm Lyra's roommate, and let me assure you that your daughter was not using your family money for selfish or nefarious purposes. It was for... a gift, shall we say. A gift for me, generously offered by Lyra."
"If she was buying you a cruise ship, pardon me, but I don't find that helps the situation."
"Well..." Octavia's eyes scurried like mice as their gaze darted back and forth along the ground, lest they be sucked into the vortex of Mrs. Heartstring's poisonous green eyes. "Perhaps gift isn't the right word. See, yesterday I was in a spot of trouble--"
"Oh Celestia and her sun, it's you!" exclaimed Lyra's mother. "You're the one who's been corrupting my daughter! Come on then, where's the stash of drugs, the stolen jewelry, bottles of alcohol, the cigarette cases? Out with it!"
"But... ponies..." Lyra said dazedly. "Magic... techno-colored... rainbows and sunshine... gumdrops... where in Tartarus do drugs come in...?"
"Please, you must believe me, it's nothing like that!" Octavia pleaded.
"Then answer me plainly, girl, because I haven't got all day."
"Alright!" Lyra shouted, staring down her mother. "Alright! Do you want to know what happened? I wanted to let Octavia inside Carneighie Hall, so we went in through a maintenance door, were caught by a guard on duty, and I paid him a thousand floats so that Octavia wouldn't get in trouble because of something stupid I decided to do. That's it, alright?"
Octavia watched Mrs. Heartstrings' expression with bated breath, only to let it out like air from a popped balloon as the shouting match resumed with newly found vigor. So much for the Element of Honesty.
"We finally come into wealth, and what do your father and I think? We think that we've been given a gift, that we can properly provide for our family, that we can send our daughter to a wonderful school that will give her a wonderful career. And what do you think to yourself? You think that this is your chance to abuse what we've given you, to rise above the law. And I'll tell you now, I'm not having it, not in my family."
"And as for you," she continued, rounding on Octavia, "don't think that you've gotten away with anything either. I'll report this transgression of yours. I'll make sure you never step inside that building again, understand? Lyra," she snapped, not sparing so much as a glance in her direction, "you have five minutes to pack whatever other worthless junk you've spent our money on. After that, you're gone."
The door slammed, Octavia collapsed into tears, and under the bed, there came a meow.
"Derpy," Lyra whispered, taking the golden tabby in her hooves. "She... s-she forgot her cat."
Secret Orchestrator Revealed! The Adventurous Month Comes to a Close!
"When we last left The Adventures of Derpy, Lyra, and Octavia, they had just been torn apart by the evil lackies of Money, More Money, and Law Enforcement. This dark and twisted triumvirate has resurrected the once-forgotten horror of this life, Project Reality. In an effort to defeat this dastardly plan, the brilliant and attractive Lyra Heartstrings, alongside the halfway-decent psycho-maniac Oct--"
"Oh, would you just stop it already?" asked Octavia, tears still coursing down her face.
"Aww, but I thought it would cheer you up!" exclaimed Lyra. "Come on, it's funny, right? Just a little?"
Octavia gave a feeble smile in return. "Just a little."
"See what a little optimism can do? And we're not shouting at each other anymore, either. I'd say that's a marked improvement."
"Marked," Octavia said, if not begrudgingly. Then she clung even tighter to Lyra. "It still really, really sucks, though."
"Yeah," said Lyra, her eyes lost in staring at the ground. "It really, really, really sucks."
"Three reallys," said Octavia. "Then things must really be bad."
"Yup. You know what, let's throw another one in there, for the heck of it. It really, really, really, really sucks."
Octavia slammed the back of her head against the bedpost. "Doesn't it just make you want to scream?" she asked.
"Oh yeah," Lyra answered.
"Then do it," whispered Octavia. "Scream."
Lyra nodded, squeezed her eyes shut, and tilted her head back to face the ceiling fan. "I hate this!" she screamed. "I hate this, I hate this, I hate this! I worked a less than average amount to get into this school, and now that's all being taken away from me?! It's not fair, it's not fair! Gah, why does it have to be like this? Why? Why?! It's not fair! I hate this so much; just make it stop!"
Lyra let her head drop and took in deep lungfuls of oxygen. "Hey, that felt pretty good," she remarked.
"See what a little pessimism can do?" Octavia said. She smiled, then Lyra smiled, and then both of them were smiling together.
Lyra curled herself into a little ball on the floor. "Things suck," she said, gazing listlessly at the whirring fan above her head.
Octavia could only nod as tears overtook her again. "Oh, this is ridiculous," she said.
"Tell me about it," said Lyra before she looked up and saw the musician zipping around her side of the room, knocking over books and overturning drawers before...
"Here it is." Octavia breathed a sigh of relief as she stuck a tiny glass vial of pink dust behind her ear.
"What are you doing, Octavia?" Lyra asked.
Octavia stopped, her hoof hovering over the doorknob. "I'm going to do what you've been telling me all month. I'm going to get counseling."
"Oh, Octavia, that really sucks."
"So I keep hearing," the mare responded to a light pink hologram of a pony, hovering above her outstretched hoof holding the vial. She let out a long sigh. "I just... I don't know what to do, Clarity. If that goes on my record, I-I just..."
"Well... maybe it'll be like the time ya were given detention in fourth grade, remember? When ya came home with the slip, you were crying so much. You were so scared that it would lower yer grades, and then what happened? Ya went, wrote lines for half an hour, went home, and that was the end of it."
Octavia sniffled. "No, I don't think it's like that," she said, pressing closer to the corner of the hallway she was curled up in. "This is serious, far more serious. What if... oh, what if I never get to go back to Carneighie Hall?"
"If that is the case, then there are plenty o' other fancy concert halls 'round Equestria. You'll find a way to shine in them."
"I know, I know," Octavia whispered. "Just... you know, playing at Carneighie Hall is my dream, Clarity." Her hooves trembled, shaking the pages of music she was clutching to her chest. "I wrote this piece thinking, imagining, feeling that I was there. Standing there, on stage, with so many ponies applauding me. What is this music now, now that that's gone? What is my music now?"
"Octavia..." Clarity's eyes briefly flickered shut. "Do ya remember when ya told me about that night in Canterlot two weeks ago? When ya played a duet with a homeless man in a park, and everypony stopped to listen? Why do you think they did that? I bet it wasn't 'cause the park was fancy. Darling, I don't even think it was because of your music. It's because of you. You, because you're beautiful when ya pick up that fiddle and play. More beautiful than anypony else."
"Oh, don't say that," Octavia said. "What about those times when you play at our family reunions and everypony praises you? If you were in my place, you'd have far more ponies come to hear you."
Clarity shrugged her shoulders. "Well, if we're playing with 'what ifs' then," she said, "maybe I would, and maybe I wouldn't. But Octavia, darling, when I saw ya board that train to Canterlot, I didn't think to myself that I didn't deserve to come with ya. I didn't think that your cutie mark meant ya played a better fiddle than me. That's just not how life works. We all have our different paths, ya know. Like in that little wood to the west of us, remember that one? How the trees are so close together that walking behind somepony just means gettin' wacked right in the head with branches? Life's sorta like that, I figure."
So that's just it then? Octavia wanted to yell. It's destiny or whatever that's taking Derpy and Lyra away? No, I refuse to believe such a thing. "But you didn't want to come with me, Clarity," she said, tears threatening to break down the walls behind Octavia's eyes again. "What if there was somepony who wanted to stay where she was, wanted to stay and do what she loved, but couldn't? What if she had to go far away and had to give up on her dream?"
Much to Octavia's annoyance, Clarity started laughing, full and rich like a ringing bell. "Oh, Octavia, love," she said. "You think that something like leaving the academy is going to stop your friends?"
"What do you mean?" asked Octavia, annoyed. "Of course it will! This changes everything!"
Clarity shook her head. "Ponies are stronger," she said, "stronger than anything on this planet, I'd bet. If a pony has his or her head on straight, then there's nothing that can stop 'em. They'd sooner die than give up on what they love."
When Octavia stayed quiet, she continued. "Let me put it like this, Octavia. That purple treble clef mark you have. What does it mean to you?"
Octavia paused, choosing her words carefully. "Well... it means that my special talent is music."
"Uh-huh. And why is it your special talent?"
"Why does anypony have a special talent?" asked Octavia. "Because I have a skill that I do better than most other ponies."
"And why is that?" asked Clarity patiently.
"I... I don't understand."
"Well, nopony said you had to pick up the fiddle. That was something you chose to do. Why? What about music is so special that you'd want to give your entire life to it?"
The words came out without Octavia having to think. "Because music is the rhythm of life," she said. "It makes ponies stop and, just for a moment, really feel an emotion. And because I don't know what I'd do without it."
"Ah," said Clarity with a knowing smile. "So why do you stop playing? What keeps you from locking yourself up in your room and playing away for the rest of your life?"
"Because I..." Then reality dawned on her.
Clarity's smile grew wider. "We need more than our dreams," she said. "We need other ponies, ponies who will stay with us, ponies who will let themselves trip as they stick with us, ponies who will run after us."
Octavia swallowed with great effort. "Thank you, sister," she whispered before letting the pink smoke dissipate into the air. Then she was running, running down hallways and up stairs and past doors, just to burst one final time through the door to her room.
There she found Lyra, sitting on her bed and staring at Derpy's painting of Dinky, laughing as she danced in gently falling snow. The determination burning in the unicorn's eyes was in such contrast with Dinky's smiling face that for a moment, Octavia's heart skipped a beat.
Finally, Lyra glanced up at Octavia. "You were right," she said, her voice made of gravel and shaking leaves and muffled roaring. "You were right."
Octavia's eyes softened. "Oh, Lyra, we both said things; now's not the time--"
"Yes, yes it is the time," Lyra insisted, rising to her full and proud height. "Let me tell you what we're going to do," she said as her eyes bore themselves into Octavia's. "We're going to bring that kid home. But first, we're turning in my homework."
"Run faster!" Octavia screamed, glancing at Lyra's whipping mane just out the corner of her eye. "Faster, faster!" she cheered. "Don't stop!"
In Lyra's magical grip there were two envelopes. One was her official assignment, the one she had given to the pre-readers and had approved by the teacher and had edited relentlessly. The other was secret, saved for the nights of insomnia and the moments of loneliness, the one she never thought she'd publish because it was too out there, filled with stories of flufflepuffs and positivity and hum--
"Now's the time!" Octavia shouted.
Zoom! Faster than a sonic rainboom went the envelope whizzing on top of the pile stacked outside Mrs. Flyleaf's door.
"Which story did you give her?" asked Octavia, still running.
Lyra smiled. "I've only ever had one story," she said.
Then both mares froze when they turned the corner and saw Mrs. Heartstrings standing in front of them.
"Come with me, Lyra," she ordered.
For a moment there was silence. Then Lyra whispered, "Move."
"What did you say to me?"
"I said move," answered Lyra, her voice growing steadily louder.
The woman's head looked so red that it might have exploded given five more minutes. "How dare you," she hissed. "Such insolence from my own daughter."
"I don't think so," remarked Lyra pleasantly. "You see, telling somepony to move is common if they're in your way. And you, Mum, I don't want you to be in my way anymore."
Then before Mrs. Heartstrings could reply, Octavia and Lyra, with Lyra in the lead, squeezed past her and started running again. However, they were not running away from somepony, but rather towards. Towards a little figure at the end of the hall, a figure who was coming closer, a figure who was calling out to them.
"I don't want to go!" sobbed Derpy, tears blinding her as she tried to fly in a straight line. "I don't want to go, I don't want to go!"
Then Octavia started crying, and Lyra started crying, until crash! and the three mares were one big heap of wailing and inexplicable laughing.
"Mrs. Bubbles!" shouted Derpy as Octavia pulled the cat out of her saddlebag.
"Oh, come here, kid!" cried Lyra before piling on top of Derpy and hugging her.
"You're ridiculous, Derpy," cried Octavia, wrapping her forelegs around both of them. "You thought you'd have the chance to get rid of us. You're ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous."
"And speaking of ridiculous," said a voice above him.
Like puppets with their strings suddenly yanked, the three mares looked up to see none other than the spirit of ridiculousness himself, sitting in the rafters and waving down at them.
"Discord?" said Octavia as they stood up to face the draconequus. "What are you doing here?"
The draconequus wrapped his snake-like torso around a stone pillar. "Oh, how you wound me!" he exclaimed, slithering down to the floor. "Is that any way to greet a friend? Especially after all I've done for you!"
"What's that supposed to mean?" demanded Lyra.
"Forgive me, my little ponies," said another voice. "I fear that Discord and I have much explaining to do."
Lyra, Octavia, and Derpy fell to their knees as the Princess of the Night gracefully walked towards them. Shadows from the rafters fell upon her face, yet they did not shroud her beauty, only make her steady, serene eyes glow brighter.
"Princess Luna," breathed Lyra and Octavia in awe.
Derpy stared transfixed at the alicorn's flowing mane. "Ooh, sparkly!"
"Forgive me," she repeated as she bade the mares to rise with a dismissive wave of her hoof. "Forgive me for the stress that this past month has undoubtedly brought you."
"I don't understand, Your Highness," said Octavia. "Do you mean the confusion with the dorm rooms? How would such a thing be your fault? And why would you apologize to the three of us?"
"It is because I am the reason behind that confusion," the princess said. "Or, more accurately, I sanctioned the reason behind that confusion."
"Well, thank you, princess!" exclaimed Discord, idly making origami birds that dissolved into lemonade. "I must say, it's about time you gave me credit for the things happening around this city!"
"Still don't get it," said Lyra blankly.
"You three know who Discord is, correct?" Luna asked. "You are aware that he has been reformed by the Elements of Harmony and is currently studying the magic of friendship?"
"Yeah, of course we do!" exclaimed Derpy. "I used to live in Ponyville; I saw it happen!"
"But isn't Discord supposed to be studying friendship with the Element Bearers?" Lyra asked. "Shouldn't he be in Ponyville?"
"Yes, but the issue arises with--" the princess began.
"Oh, those ponies are so boring!" complained Discord, now hovering atop a hammock. "With all of their little tea parties and slumber parties; they get along so well! Of course, there's things to be learned from that, but at the end of the day it's far too tepid. So one day I thought to myself--"
"That you'd take over my narration," Luna grumbled.
"--that why have just one group of friends to study? Why not have more test subjects?"
"Finally! Somepony gets it!" Lyra said.
"Yes, that was his general hypothesis," Luna said. "So he came to me and Celestia, asking to see if friendship could arise out of chaos."
"And you agreed with him?" Octavia asked.
"There comes a point," Luna said in a low voice, "when one will do anything to get that creature out of their mane for a month."
"So we let him come to my academy," she continued, "and observe my students' behaviors for a month."
"Creepy," said Lyra in a sing-song voice.
"Says the ponies who let the head of the government watch their dreams," Discord rebutted.
"At any rate, Discord chose to observe you three," said Luna. "He only interfered in small events--"
"But honestly, it was easy to catch on if you thought about it," said Discord. "Who loses a dog that's bigger than them? Who leaves a door open to one of the most famous buildings in the capital?"
"And my dream?" asked Derpy. "Were you in that weird dream I had?"
"Right-o, kid! Boy, it was fun, ruffling through the pages of your mind. I can see why Moonbutt gets a kick out of it."
Luna's eyes narrowed at Discord. "Ahem," coughed the princess tersely. "The results Discord conveyed to us were admittedly surprising, yet there is one more thing missing to either prove or disprove Discord's theory."
"What's that?" asked Derpy.
Luna smiled. "Are the three of you truly friends?"
A day ago, the answer would have been obvious. "But... we're about to leave," said Octavia. "Derpy's moving to Los Pegasus--"
"Not anymore!" Derpy exclaimed cheerfully. "That's why I was running back, to tell you! I just got a message from my mom, and there's nothing to worry about. It was amazing, really. Just as her coltfriend was about to get some props left behind from his last show, some crazy mare comes up to him and gives him a thousand floats! Can you believe that? With that money, they'll be able to move to Canterlot, and I'll be able to stay!"
Octavia spluttered. "But Lyra! Your mom's pulling you out of the academy!"
Lyra waved her hoof dismissively. "Pft, she says things like that all the time, but she never does. Believe me, she's going to come rushing back an hour in tears, we'll talk it out, and everything'll work out."
"Then why the hell were you having a breakdown like I was?!"
"Because after everything works out, she's going to kill me!" Lyra shouted. "I'm going to put back on a budget, Octavia! An actual budget! What am I supposed to do with my life on a budget, huh?"
Octavia facedhoofed. "I'm going to kill you," she said.
"Aww, love you too, friend," Lyra answered.
"Friends!" Derpy shouted, pulling them into a hug.
A quiet, maternal smile graced Luna's face. "There's your answer, Discord," she said. "And as for your dilemma, Miss Melody, in reward for your cooperation in further reforming the spirit of chaos to better serve Harmony in Equestria..." The princess of Equestria levitated three silver tickets into Octavia's hooves. "Front row seats to the famous "Midnight Symphony," performing tonight at Carneighie Hall."
Octavia gasped. "That's the one inspired by myths of humans, isn't it? Oh, the legends of how their fingers manipulated musical instruments..."
"Awesome!" shouted Lyra. "I left a muffin behind when we broke in; now I'll be able to get it back!"
"Cello rhymes with jello!" Derpy declared proudly. "So does this mean we're all back together?"
Lyra's smile faltered. "Well remember, kid, that we're only scheduled to be in that dorm room for a month. Afterwards, we're staying in separate rooms. Unless we all wanted to stay..." Lyra glanced in Octavia's direction.
"Oh no," she said, backing away. "This month's been all sorts of crazy; there's no way I'm doing that all year. However..." Her lips formed a sly smile. "...if Her Majesty allows it, with everypony sorting out the dorm rooms being so frazzled, perhaps we could swap out the names of... oh, perhaps rooms 304, 305, and 306?"
Luna slowly nodded her head.
"Yes!" Octavia cheered. "Come on, Derpy!" she shouted. "And you too, sentimental idiot! We have a show to watch!"
"You know," said Lyra to Derpy as she watch Octavia practically skip down the steps, "a month ago, I'd never think in a million years that I'd see her so happy." Her eyes widened. "Or see me so sappy! Ugh!"
Derpy laughed and draped a wing over Lyra's back. "I guess that's the magic of friendship."
