Maintaining Her Composure

Twilight once more pondered the irony that she lived in a tree library.

It wasn't that she disliked living in a tree, nor was it that she didn't love living in a library.

The tree was cozy, green, vibrant, natural, fresh, alive, all those gorgeous, wonderful things that you could talk to Fluttershy about without having to resort to interpreting high pitched squeaks and low volume whispering.

She loved her tree, it was like like living inside a comfortable, beautiful air freshener. Library's had a tendency to get stuffy, after all.

Oh, that wouldn't have bothered her at all though. Living in a library was a dream come true to Twilight Sparkle. Waking up to her hoards of faithful books was a Hearths-warming present she gave herself every morning.

"I really love books." She said to herself. It was just something she felt she had to do. The books deserved to know.

She found irony in the fact that the library was inside the hollowed out remains of a tree.

All those books, printed on the cannibalized remains of the very symbolic local branch library. Ha. Sure, most of those books would have been printed on paper from other trees, of course, but the hollowed out remains of this one had to end up somewhere.

"Twilight!" Spike yelled from the doorway, obviously having tried and failed to grab her attention politely.

The unicorn coughed into her hoof awkwardly.

"Er, yes, Spike?" She chuckled weakly.

She turned and glanced at the dragon in the entrance to her private room. He was wearing a little red bowtie and carrying a glass of milk in one hand. It looked cold and positively drinkable.

"I was going to offer you some freshly baked cookies and milk," Spike grinned, "But it looks like you went and had dessert without me, anyway."

Twilight's eyes narrowed at Spike. "What's that supposed to mean?" she grumbled indignantly.

Spike just kept grinning. "Twi, I told you, hiding the empty tub of double-fudge-caramel-ripple-peanut-butter-swirl ice-cream under the desk doesn't work if I'm at head height with it." he gestured with a claw raised above his eyes, about level with the table.

"Ah-ha!" Twilight declared triumphantly, "that's why I hid it on the top shelf behind the... dictionary... this time." She trailed off as she saw Spike's grin twist into a smirk.

"Uh huh. You're a genius with a capital J right there Twi." Spike chuckled as Twilight flushed with embarrassment, glaring at her own feet.

'Darn it, Brain, you're supposed to be the smart one here!'

"So, anyway," Spike said, putting his milk down for the moment on the nearby table, "There was something else I wanted to talk to you about. Well, besides the fact that you've got ice-cream all over your, well, everywhere I guess."

"I do- Gargh!" Twilight realized just how sticky she felt, even in places that really should not be able to get sticky from eating ice-cream. She must have been on one heck of a binge this time.

Spike didn't try very hard to keep a straight face as Twilight scrabbled about with her magic, cleaning herself for the moment.

Alright, Brain, maybe if we stare at him hard enough he'll burst into flame! Go! This is your chance to redeem yourself!

"So, yeah, about that other thing," Spike stared at his feet, idly kicking a dust bunny around, "I was... I was sort of, er, I'm, uh... Geeze, Twilight, could you stop staring at me like that?" Spike moaned, "It's making me uncomfortable."

Bah, he's fireproof anyway, too much collateral damage would be inflicted if we succeeded.

"Thanks," he gave her a weak grin, "I was sort of just, uh, going on a date now, so, I'll be gone for a few hours, okay?" He spun on the ball of his foot, another moment that made Twilight jealous of the darn biped, and tried to flee before questions could be asked.

He failed. Twilight made sure of that.

She levitated him back, closer to her, face height.

"Really?" She asked, eyebrows raised to their limits, "Rarity didn't sa-"

"Oh," Spike cut her off, "I'm sort of over Rarity anyway." He blushed.

"Then, who?" She left the question hanging in the air.

"I'm going on a date with Sweetie Belle..." Spike finished lamely, adjusting the little bow tie.

Twilight knocked him out of the air with a pouncing hug.

"Oh, Spike, that's wonderful!"

"Gah!" Spike gasped, "Girl emotions! They burn!" he wheezed, "Burn!"

Twilight giggled and put him down gently.

"You'll be okay without me, right?" Spike asked gently.

"Of course I'll be okay. Why wouldn't I be okay?"

"I know you're supposed to take care of me and stuff, not the other way around," Spike scratched at the back of his head with a claw, staring at his feet, "But I really worry about you sometimes. You need to get out more."

"Get out more? Why would I need to get out more?" Twilight stammered, "I've got my books-" She gestured to the teetering tower of novella beside her, "And I've got my friends. What more could I want? I've got everything I need!"

"Yuh-huh." Spike intoned half-heartedly. "Which of us are you trying to convince there, anyway?"

Twilight looked at the floor, brows furrowed, lips pouted.

"Hey, I'm fine, okay Spike? I got you too, right?"

"I'm going on a date for the next few hours, remember?"

"Oh. Yeah." Twilight massaged the bridge of her nose with a hoof, "Right."

There was a knock at the door.

"That'd be her!" Spike grinned with barely restrained enthusiasm, "Dinner's in the oven, I baked ratatouille, hold the rat," Spike glared at Owlowiscious, "I'm taking the Creme Brulee cookies though, they're for me and Sweetie."

"Creme Brulee cookies?" Twilight grinned. "I've never tried one before."

"Nopony has!" Spike declared, chest swelling with pride, "I just came up with them. Caramel-vanilla cookie dough baked with chunks of toffee and given a soft custard filling and a sugar glaze."

"That..." Twilight mused, "Actually sounds ridiculously good. Can I have one?"

"Nope!" Spike sang as he once more turned to leave.

"Hey!" Twilight clutched her chest with mock indignance, "What did Pinkie Pie and I tell you about sharing."

"I guess you're right Twilight," Spike said with a mischievous grin, “I'll trade you one for some ice-cream.”

Twilight's stomach gurgled loudly. Traitor! The unicorn blushed and looked sheepishly at her own hooves.

"I'm just teasing you, Twi, I'll see if there's any left when we get back, okay?" Spike suddenly became a lot less jovial. Voice heavy as lead, yet soft as a marshmallow and twice as sweet, "I do worry about you, Twilight. Don't do anything crazy whilst I'm gone, okay?"

And with that Spike rushed to the other door, the door to the outside world. When it closed, for this one time, Twilight was left inside whilst Spike was on the other, accompanied by a filly' laughter, the sound of tinkling silver bells.

Ah. Sweetie Belle. His new special somepony.

Twilight ignored how empty her stomach felt despite being full of a very large, very expensive tub of ice cream and dove back into her book.

'The lateral sulcus divides the frontal lobe and parietal lobe above from the temporal lobe below. It is believed that the fissure connects the Pons to the horn in unicorns, acting as a neurological ley line through which magic can be channeled and-'

Thud.

Twilight Sparkle's face hit the book.

"Come on, Twilight, it's just a little advanced neuroscience. You love this stuff." She didn't bother raising her head from its papery pillow.

"It's Friday night, what could possibly be better than studying texts on hard-sciences?" She rolled her head, landing with another small pumf onto her ear, staring at the pile of books in front of her.

She saw a thin booklet at the bottom of the pile. Normally, such a small pile of pages would have escaped her notice. However, her current mood had given her, shall we say, a unique perspective.

Carefully she levitated it from the pile so as not to disturb the tower above it. It was only about thirty pages, but she allowed herself to mull over it. At first her smile was barely visible to an outside observer, scarcely a twitch at the corners of her lips, a creasing of her brow. By the last page, though, she sported a goofy grin, a smile that spread right to her eyes.

She knew what she was going to do tonight after all.

‘I feel so... busy these days.’

“O...y...”

‘Not that busy is unrewarding, of course, it’s wonderful to be in such demand.’

“Oct...ia...”

‘To have the privilege to be on stage, to perform, to-’

“Octavia!”

“Hmm?” She snapped out of her reverie, “Sorry. Vinyl?”

“I said we’re recording; red light’s on.”

“Oh.” Octavia drifted off again.

“Lost in your own thoughts there?”

“Pardon? Sorry, what was that?” Octavia shook her head, focusing a little.

“I’ll take that as a definite yes,”

“I should probably start playing, shouldn’t I?”

“Nah,” Octavia couldn’t see the DJ through the one-way glass separating them, but she could swear she could hear the smirk, “I’m figuring we call this a single. ‘Sounds of Silence, Track 1’, right? Put this on the stereo, pump it full volume, for when the neighbours are playing their music way too loud right? Just play the silence louder!”

“Vinyl, that’s not how sound wo-”

“Oh, and in case you couldn’t tell, I’m totally smirking at you right now.”

“-rks. Yes, well,” Octavia chuckled, “I suppose I am feeling a little bit off. How about we take a short rest, I’ll listen to what we have so far.”

“Sounds good, Octy.”

“Vinyl, I can’t help but notice the recording light hasn’t, well, unlit yet? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“Two words, Tavi, two words: Blooper reel.”

“Oh really?” The earth pony lowered the violin in her hooves. “Is that so?”

She was only greeted by cackling laughter over the intercom.

“Viny Scratch, none other than DJ P0n3 herself, sleeps with a nightlight on-”

“Hey!” The intercom hissed.

“During the daytime.”

“It’s a NIGHTlight, okay! The whole ‘day’ thing makes me uncomfortable.” Octavia still couldn’t see, but judging from the sound of the two-way intercom, her operator shuddered rather violently, “Whole thing's just unnatural if you ask me.”

“Fortunately, nopony did.” she grinned.

“Octavia is allergic to nuts!”

“Vinyl Scratch uses way too much perfume!”

“Octavia is a butt!”

“Viny- Wait, did you just call me a butt?”

“Yeah.” The intercom paused. “I think I just called you a butt. You... Butt?”

Octavia couldn’t help but giggle. The giggle became a chuckle, then became a legs-go-limp raucous laughter. The silence from the intercom could have meant two things:

One: Vinyl was completely unamused or, much more likely B: She was rolling on the floor laughing too hard to hold the intercom button.

Whatever the case, Octavia gathered her instrument, packed it in the studio’s case, and left the sealed room with a grin. As she passed the mixing room she confirmed to herself that, yes, it was most definitely situation B.

Leaving the instrument in the studio’s rather modest collection, a veritable armory of arpeggio, the mare walked out to find a nice cafe.

Sometimes, when you’re too busy to have some spare time, she decided, it is best to make some.

Now, without Vinyl’s fleeting presence, Octavia reflected on how alone she was in the busy Canterlot cafe.

She had another performance tonight, in front of thousands, not just a friend behind a piece of polished glass. The solution?

“Ah, thank you, I’ll have a double shot espresso, please?”

“Will that be decaff, ma’am?” the waiter lazily drawled.

“It better not be, heathen!” Octavia declared.

“Ah.” The waiter nodded slowly. “That sort of day, huh?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” She agreed, sinking back into her chair.

She waited, lost again in her own scattered thoughts, watching the other busy ponies canter past. She saw happy couples, lonely business ponies, proud artisans, all mingling seamlessly into the city around her, and here she was-

“Your beverage madame?”

-Relaxing for the first time in a long, long week.

“Thank you, that will be all for now.”

‘Liberation.’

She took a sip. Oh dear. This would simply not do.
‘It seems caffeine alone is not enough to quell the discomfort’

“Oh! Excuse me, Garcon?”

“Hmm? Yes, is something wrong?”

“I cannot abide by this injustice any longer!” Octavia declared, lost once more in her train of thought, “Ponykind cannot survive on coffee alone! Do you happen to have any danishes in this fine establishment?”

“Why, yes, we have a fine selection of-”

“Then select one, please.”

The waiter grinned. “Right away.”

‘Ah. Now all is right in Equestria.’

She hoped that she was simply hungry. The gnawing feeling in her gut should finally abate, then.

If not? She sincerely hoped she was sick.

‘I’d hate to feel like this if I were well, after all.’

‘Hrrm, it is coming together quite nicely, yes, but it is merely gorgeous. It’s lacking that certain ‘je ne sais quoi’, that, that... Oh! I have it!’ Rarity grabbed a variety of sharp implements absentmindedly, as she so often only felt safe doing when Sweetie Belle was not in the immediate vicinity, ‘To go from gorgeous to fabulous all it needs is a little bit of-’

Thump. Ding!

Thud.

“Gwah!” Rarity shrieked, “What in the- I’m busy creating, darling, don’t make me go artistic on your vandal faces-” Rarity shrieked again, sharp implements prodding into her.

“Yeah, see!” She exclaimed nervously, trotting towards the entrance, “If you saw how much damage I just did to myself on accident imagine what I could do to you on purpose.”

“Err... Hi Rarity?”

“Twilight?!” Rarity gasped, helping the poor purple pony off the floor. “What are you- Why-” Rarity just spluttered and gesticulated.

“Why was I sprawled on the floor in a way that makes Pinkie Pie look subtle in comparison?” Twilight huffed as she spat a lock of her hair out of her mouth.

“Well, I wouldn’t have put it so snarkily, dear, but yes that is essentially it.”

“I tried knocking.”

“Twilight, you do realize the boutique door-”

“Swings open unless you lock it?”

“Well, yes.”

“Rarity, the sign says ‘closed’.” Twilight, with the generous assistance of a white helping hoof, scrabbled off the floor in as dignified a manner as the situation allowed.

Which is to say: Not very, but neither her nor Rarity brought any attention to it.

“Oh, so it does,” Rarity chuckled nervously, “Silly me.”

“So, when I knocked,” Twilight grumbled, “I sorta... Fell right through.”

The little cogs and gears in Rarity’s head, all neatly arranged and accented in gold leaf, whirred almost audibly.

“So- You fell off balance from knocking? Even with no resistance, darling, nature saw fit to gift you with three other perfectly functioning legs, which would look absolutely spectacular in this new line of socks I’m working on, I must say, do you think you could come by later and-”

“Focus, Rarity?” Twilight half pleaded, self-consciously glancing at her now-supporting-her-weight legs.

She supposed they did look-

Rarity giggled. “Hypocrite, much, dear?”

Twilight blushed. Right! She was here on a mission.

“I knocked so hard ‘cause I got...” Twilight blushed and smiled a little sheepishly, glancing off to the side, “I got a bit excited, and I rushed right here.”

“Was it one of those new cookies Spike made?” Rarity sighed dreamily, “Sun, moon and stars above those were-”

“He gave you some, but not me?” Twilight deadpanned. Rarity blinked in confusion, the only response that readily came to her, so Twilight shook her head of all the excess baggage. Mission. Right.

“Rarity. You, me-” Twilight thrust out a flyer with her magic, “Canterlot. Tonight. My treat. Interested?”

Rarity gave the other unicorn a thousand-mega-watt smile by way of reply.

‘Success!’

“Why, Twilight, Canterlot? That’s always a big yes in my book. What’s this, by the way?” Rarity reached out and read the flyer she was being offered, silently thanking that she still had her glasses on, “Canterlot Symphony Orchestra?”

“I was just studying musical theory and-”

“Of course you were, of course.” Rarity murmurred.

“Hmm? What was that?” Twilight’s head cocked to the side, reminding Rarity of a curious puppy.

Frankly it would have been easier to kick the puppy.

“Oh? Sorry, dear, nothing, do go on.”

“Right!” Twilight beamed and nodded, her ‘dramatic’ entrance but a distant memory now that she was in the zone, “Well, Celestia sent three Very Important Pony tickets a week ago and I didn’t want to make a big deal about it, for reasons that should be obvious in hindsight.” Twilight frowned thoughtfully, “But I thought this would probably most likely be your thing. I was hoping you, Fluttershy and myself could enjoy the orchestra, what do you think?”

“That sounds absolutely, overwhelmingly, splendid my dear!” Rarity swooned, rushing to a trunk behind her, “Oh, I must find us an outfit! Binoculars! Fancy hats! Shoes, dear, what shoes?”

As random articles of clothing flew threw the air, audibly whizzing past Twilight’s ear, she decided now would probably be the best time to back away slowly.

By the time Rarity heard the tinkling of the store’s bell Twilight was halfway down the block puffing like the Ponyville Express.

She promised herself to never, ever complain about Applejack’s exercise regime again.

Not that she didn't absolutely adore and appreciate Rarity and her accouterments (she did!) she had just seen Rarity get like this before and, unfortunately, it had involved a rather generous application of makeup and what Rainbow or Applejack would have deemed 'A painful amount of frou-frou'.

Twilight shuddered. At least she didn’t have to deal with anything like that with Fluttershy. The pegasus was far too, well, Fluttershy to pressure Twilight into much.

“Gah!”

“Fluttershy, it’s just me, Twilight!” She tapped at the cottage window. She smiled momentarily when the yellow pegasus appeared in the window, but that died fairly quickly when the curtains were gently, but firmly, pulled shut. Then the shutters were softly, but determinedly, slammed.

Twilight opened her mouth to raise an objection, but was quickly cut off by the rather distinctive sound of construction work.

“Right.” She muttered, “I’ll just leave you to that.”

Twilight turned to leave, meandering up the forest trail back to town, when she suddenly stopped.

‘Ugh. I can be so thick sometimes.’

Scrunching her eyes tightly shut Twilight Sparkle prepared the teleportation spell that could totally and rather easily pass through barricades totally unimpeded which would probably have been the smart thing to do in the first place she chastised herself.

Kra-kow!

Poof!

“Fluttershy?” Twilight asked nervously. The first thing she saw upon recombobulation was a rather panicked pegasus, back against the door, breathing heavily through a claw hammer wielded in her jaws.

The pegasus gave the unicorn intruder a wild-eyed look, eyes darting between the hammer and Twilight rapidly.

Kra-kow!

Poof.

‘Right. Maybe the barricades weren’t so much to keep me out as to keep her in. Let’s... pretend that never happened and move on before I have to think about this any longer than necessary.’

‘Excellent idea.’ Her brain agreed. It being the smart one, Twilight deferred to its opinion.
‘We should probably find out what was worrying Fluttershy so much, though, she could be in serious-’

Well, most of the time.

‘When she’s in a less homicidal mood, mayhaps?’

‘-Err, well, yes, right. Still, that leaves us with a ticket.’

“Who should I try next, then?” She wondered aloud. She put as much space between herself and one of her best friends as possible as she did so.

‘Okay. Now, who do I ask next? Oh look! Sugarcube Corner! I could ask Pinkie Pie!’

She took a step towards the door, then another… Then a step backwards. Then another.

‘I’m afraid I can’t let you do that Twilight. I’m assuming direct control here.’

‘Brain? What is the meaning of this?’ Twilight internally huffed, ‘Pinkie is one of my closest friends!’

Images flashed before Twilight’s eyes. Untold prophecies, unspoken promises, unknown truths.

Pinkie Pie stagediving the orchestra.

Pinkie Pie ransacking the tuba.

Pinkie Pie crowdsurfing the Canterlot Elite.

Worst of all? Pinkie Pie appearing on stage out of nowhere and playing the Pony Poky or something on every instrument in the orchestra, much to the confusion of everypony involved.

‘No, Twilight,’ her brain softly corrected, ‘The worst part is that it is only the worst possibility we can comprehend at this moment.”

Twilight gulped silently. She then gulped loudly, to clear her throat of the first gulp, the implications making her mouth almost as dry as her sardonic wit.

She smiled and turned to trot off, consider her other options, when the tinkling of a shop bell caused her to break into a cold sweat and a dead sprint.

“Hi Twilight! Have you seen my accordion anywhere? I think I-“

“NopesorryPinkiegottagoBye!”*Pop*

“-Oh, alright then.” Pinkie shrugged. “Maybe I left it in the oven again.” She giggle-snorted, a hiccupping laugh that was completely, blissfully, devoid of self-awareness.

“I’m so silly!” She brought a hoof to her head with a mock gasp, “How could I have ever thought to put my accordion in the oven… Accordian music isn’t sugary enough anyway. I need something like- Oh, hey Lyra!” Pinkie leaned out, waving emphatically at the innocent bystander.

“What’s up Pinkie?” Lyra grinned.

“Grab your harp!” Pinkie declared, “We’re going to make sweet, sweet music together!”

Lyra stared. Pinkie stared back.

Lyra blushed. Pinkie smiled back.

Lyra coughed awkwardly. “Err, Pinkie, I don’t think Bon-Bon would like it much if I made,” a nervous chuckle, “Sweet, sweet music with you.”

“Aww, would she get all jealous? We can’t have that, no, not at all.” Pinkie nodded sympathetically.
A deep sigh of relief from the unicorn.

“I know! Why don’t you invite her too, so she won’t get jealous.”

Lyra’s face lost a losing war. The natural occupant, the forces of Green, were rapidly losing to the forces of deep flushed Red and pale White. Green was obliterated and the remaining forces sparred for dominance.

All in all it was rather fun to watch, Pinkie decided, making soft battle noises to herself as she watched the display.

“SorryPinkieIgottaGo, ah, getreadyfortonight, OhNoNotYouAndMeTonight, IMeanI’mGoingToCanterlotTonightandOhGeeze!”
She became a little green pinprick on the horizon in a matter of seconds, dust, debris and slow-moving pedestrians sent hurtling through the air behind her.

Pinkie Pie shrugged again and went back inside the bakery. Looks like she’d have to try to bake some more musical sweets herself, alone, again.

Sigh.

“Must be a unicorn thing.” She muttered to herself.

The noise stirs her, but she is ensconced in soft.

Soft.

Soft is good. Soft is nice.

Soft and fluffy.

It was, she decided, a most decidedly decision-making worthy cloud.

She’d have to take it back home and… Err… Do something…

Eugh. Too much thinking, not enough napping.

Hnggggg.

Eugh. There’s that noise again. Her ear flicked.

“Rainbow Dash!”

Heh. That’s my name, don’t wear it out. Not that you could wear out Dash. Dash was, like…

Big word. Too hard to… Thing.

Hngggg. Another rumble from the back of her throat. Yay, naps! Naps are cool.

“Rainbow Dash!” Oh. Noise was Twilight.

Go away, Twilight, unless you have something awesomer than naps to-

“I got a ticket for you, we’re going to Canterlot tonight to-“

*Whoosh!*

“Ohmygosh!” Rainbow squealed as she snatched the tickets out of the unicorn’s grasp.

“Hehe, I didn’t think you’d be that excited about tickets to see-“

“Tickets to see the Wonderbolts Live in Canterlot tonight?! You do not know me at all egghead. I mean, look at these things, they’re so awesomely awesome they don’t even need to have the Wonderbolts on them! This must be one of their new tricks, right!”

The purple unicorn stared blankly, well-oiled gears whirring visibly behind those gorgeous, oh-I-could-so-kiss-you right now eyes, awesomest friend ev-

“Rainbow, that’s a treble clef.” Twilight noticed Rainbow start to grin again and sighed a little heavier.

“No, Dash, that is not a stunt name. It’s a classical musical symbol. Like, when you read music?”

Gag. Retch. Reading music? Classical music? That’s like… The eggheadiest thing of all time. All the work of reading with all the fun of not even hearing boring music.

Wait. No. This idea is totally salvageable.

We just gotta awesome things up a Dash.

“Alright, I’m in.”

“I’m sorry to- Wait, what?”

“Sure, I’d love to! It’ll be a great test run of the new SnoozeMasterTronNimbus. Trademarked.”

“You do realize you’re staring at a cloud right.”

“Only the comfiest cloud ever.”

“So. I’m giving you this ticket… So you can, what, bore yourself to sleep?” Twilight asked sarcastically. Like, really sarcastically. Eyes were rolled hard enough to press the limits the sockets could bare.

Which makes it all the more impressive that Rainbow Dash was far too cool to notice that and just nodded fervently with a totally stylin’ grin.
“Oh.” Twilight stared. “I’m taking this-“

“Hey!”

“Yes, thank you, and I’m going to see Applejack. Don’t you have nap testing to do?”

‘Oh yeah! I bet if I anchored it right this baby could keep me comatose, good word that even if it is a bit eggheadish, right through a gale force storm. Oh, man, I so have to try that now!’

“Hey, Twilight, before you go-“

Eugh. She didn’t even say goodbye. That’s just, like, rude or something, I think.

I should totally ask Rarity if what Twilight just did was rude later, just to be sure, I mean, I was even going to go to her snooze-fest and everything!

Snooze fest! Woo!

In an otherwise still late-afternoon sky a single cloud lazily drifted overhead, propelled by the snores of its occupant.

It was pretty radical.

"Ok," Twilight muttered bitterly to herself as she trotted back to the library in defeat, "let's make a role-call shall we?"

Fluttershy: Possibly temporarily crazy/homicidal.
Rainbow Dash: Not her thing and she doesn't have the patience to suffer through it quietly. Maybe if 'symphony orchestra' were a contact sport...
Pinkie Pie: Once Pandoor's box is opened there is no going back.

That leaves myself, Rarity and a spare ticket.

Now, who am I missing?

"Hey, Twalight? I has hoping you could help me out with some-"

"Applejack!" Twilight declared triumphantly.

"-er, no, see, what I was meant to be askin' y'all is-" the farmer helplessly continued.

"How would you like to come to Canterlot-" Twilight forged ahead excitedly.

"-If the library had any, ah, books-" Applejack swam desperately against the torrent of words.

"-to see the symphony orchestra tonight! I just need another pony and everything will be all-"

"-On accounting, cause we're crunchin' the numbers and it ain't lookin'-"

"-good." They finished together simultaneously.

"Accounting?" Twilight tilted her head quizzically.

"Orchestra?" Applejack stared dumbfounded.

Twilight stared for a moment, processing what she had just offered to Applejack, the down-to-earth, sensible, not-one-for-frills-in-any-way, farm girl. High class theater tickets in the capital city.

Twilight's thoughtful expression sank slowly into a dejected frown. Then Applejack, as she was wont to do time and time again, surprised Twilight.

"You know what, Twi? Sounds right 'bout exactly what I need around about now. Count me in."

Twilight stared dumbfounded for a few long seconds, causing Applejack to nervously scratch the back of her neck idly with a foreleg.

"I mean, if it ain't too much trouble, you did invite me so, erm, yeah?"

Twilight sighed a weary sigh, her cynicism once more bubbling to the fore.

"Ulterior motives. If you got 'em, better tell me now Applejack."

"I'm pretty sure I ain't got any, Twilight. Ain't got any exterior motives that I know of either."

The unicorn's mouth trailed off mouthing words soundlessly as she processed just exactly what was wrong with that statement. Settling on 'Just about all of it' Twilight plowed forward with all the grace of Pinkie Pie after a little too much punch.

"I mean is there any reason you wanna go besides, well, the music?"

"Oh! Well, yeah, I figure a big event like that, I still got my vendor's license from the Gala and they can't exactly fill up at the buffet from their seats, right?" Applejack asked hopefully.

Twilight massaged her temples. This was, surprisingly, still far better than the other outcomes she had planned, not least of which was that Pinkie Pie was wearing an Applejack suit again.

"No, they can't, and you know what? It's fine, I'd love your company, you can come on one condition."

"Name it!" Applejack sighed gratefully.

A loud rumbling emanated from a small rain-cloud overhead, drifting lazily against the soft afternoon breeze.

"Please, for the love of all that is Equestrian, don't snore."

Sheet happens.

View Online

Octavia had thought she was lonely before.

Oh, how she envied the innocence and naivety of herself mere hours before.

Octavia grit her teeth around the double-bass’s carrying case. The faux-leather grip did little to alleviate the weight, true, but she doubted she could have carried it this far as it were if it had been a polished-brass finish instead, as some unicorns preferred.

Well, not without having her dentist appear out of nowhere out of sheer professional horror.

“Well, even then, what I wouldn’t do to have some company through this trying endeavour.” Octavia griped internally as she took another laboured step away from her loft, another laboured step towards the concert hall.

“If not, at least, for a helping hoof. Logic would serve that this would get a little easier over the years, would it not?”

The ever-growing weight of the instrument she was lugging beside her, the gnawing pains in her sides, spoke volumes of proof to the contrary.

“I suppose I was younger, then, too.” She muttered to herself through the handle, eyes flashing dangerously at the ponies walking passed her, as if daring them to comment on her age. Whilst, intellectually, Octavia knew that they simply hadn’t understood her garbled begrudgements, her emotional side was declaring a small victory in allowing herself to be categorized as “young-ish” another day uncontested.

The thought got her through the next ten steps.

“Eugh. Vinyl’s off being, well, Vinyl, I suppose, so she can’t help. No-pony in the orchestra would help me, none that I could trust, certainly. It’s all politics to them, power-plays rather than, as Scratch would say, power-chords.”

Two more lurching steps and a sullen sigh.

“Making First Chair should have made life easier, simpler at the very least, but now I have to deal with squabbling string sections, persnickety percussionists and feuding flutists fighting for my favour, or my failure.”

One more lurching step. Octavia tried to raise the next hoof in sequence, a hindleg, but she ended up just falling back on her plot, sitting down with a rough, defeated exhale, placing her instrument case down beside her with far more dignity and care that she had allowed for herself.

She sat unnoticed, unheeded, invisible on the Canterlot street. Unless a bypasser knew her, really knew her, she was invisible. It was a trick she’d learned rather early on in Canterlot: Beggars and buskers were unnoticed with a determined passion in the city. The mere act of sitting on the cobblestones with an instrument gave the musician a perverse sense of privacy. Nopony glanced at her twice, in fear of being guilted out of some of their ‘hard-earned’ bits.

It also fed the growing beast welling up inside of her that she had come to know as ‘loneliness’.

“Why has this instrument become such a burden?” She fumed in her little bubble of isolation amidst the bustling city-dwellers, turning to address the subject of her current distress “It surely can’t purely be the physical aspect, can it?”

She stared at the worn case, immaculate and immolated in equal parts through years of love, with an eyebrow raised at it, as if expecting a witty response from it.

As usual, none came.

“Oh, come now,” she chided the inanimate container, “all these years we’ve shared together and you continue to have no insight for me now, in our time of need? We used to have such amazing, wonderful times together, you and I. We used to be spectacular together, gracing the symphony, we could spend hours just playing, just practicing, just-”

It was at that very moment that a cold snap rocked down Octavia’s spine and engulfing her entire body to the tips of her hooves, every hair in her grey coat bristling as the wave broke over each in turn. The world went grey and black, the rich tapestry of the sound around her became a dull, faded blur of hollow and distant echoes. For the briefest of moments her heart fluttered weakly against her rib cage as the musician realized just how scared she was at this very instant in time.

“I just realized that I was saying all of that in past tense, wasn’t I?” she continued, mystified.

She paused, thoughts and ideas warring in her psyche, a turbulent and crashing mess of dissenting opinions that refused to coalesce. The grey earth pony, in a world just as grey as she at that moment, decided to see if maybe it would be slightly less confusing if she were to think out loud.

“I don’t think,” she began numbly, “I love what I do anymore.”

Oh, buck.

‘So much for making anything less confusing to me.’

She became dimly aware of a faraway voice calling to her.

Octavia blinked once, twice, finally coming to terms with reality, grudgingly, once more to address the yellow-orange pegasus in front of her.

He had a worried smile and a scraggly brown mane that calmed the earth pony down a little.

“Miss?” his rough voice rumbled at her ears, dimly registering in her mind.

“Miss? Are you alright?”

Octavia nodded slowly, more to herself than to the pegasus.

He frowned slightly.

“Are you sure?”

Octavia, still staring directly ahead with a look that could only be described as ‘shell-shocked’, twitched as if to nod again then, thinking a little more on it, shook her head instead.

“No. No, I don’t think I am.”

“Oh.” The pegasus said simply, eyeing the large case beside her. “Would you like some help, then?”

“Yes.” Octavia spoke slowly, enunciating very carefully as if worried that her words were fragile and delicate, that they would shatter if they weren’t treated with caution, “I think that I would very much like some help right now.”

“No worries at all, m’am.” The pegasus nodded politely and gently picked up the case beside her, Octavia staring at him like he was the most fascinating creature she had ever seen.

“Thank you, so much.” She said graciously.

He smirked in response, his features taking on a hard edge. Malice congealed itself as a glint in his eye.

Octavia barely had time to blink, let alone register the sudden change, when the stranger cocked his wings and made to launch into the sky, instrument in his possession.

He managed to let out one short, sharp bark of laughter before he rocketed up, far away from Octavia’s grasp.

The musician relaxed her body, lying flat on her back on the sidewalk beneath her, forelegs crossed calmly across her chest, contemplating her sudden, overpowering desire for a stiff drink.

There was a soft, almost dainty, knock on the oak door.

Twilight braced herself. Only two ponies she knew would have knocked like that, Fluttershy or Rarity.

Whilst they may have been her friends, and they most surely were, her apprehension at that moment was, she felt, rather well-founded.

On the one hoof was Fluttershy. Notably, the correlation between how far away from Fluttershy she was at this moment and how in tact her jugular vein was still an unknown variable but for once Twilight Sparkle didn’t feel like researching. She didn’t even feel like graphing.

Twilight could, however, officially mark out the final data point on her other incomplete graph “Fear vs. Urge to Graph”. It was the first time she had found a reliable ‘null’!

On the other hoof was Rarity. Whilst she was definitely the preferable of the alternatives...

Twilight opened the door to her imminent doom.

“Why, Twilight, dear, I had just finished on your ensemble and was about to put together one for our other companion this evening when I realized I still didn’t know who it was! Why, I don’t even know what colour to use, let alone gender or size! Tell me, just who shou-”

“Applejack.” Twilight blurted out.

Rarity gave her an unamused look. “No, dear, let me finish, who did you gift that third-”

“Applejack, Rarity.” Twilight insisted.

“Yes, yes, Applejack, but who did you give the ticket to?”

“I gave the ticket,” Twilight spoke slowly, getting the distinct feeling she was walking on faberge egg-shells, “to Applejack.”

“Oh, dear.” Rarity’s eyebrows furrowed together, visibly in thought, “So, you weren’t simply trying to mention an unrelated incident with Applejack?” Rarity massaged the bridge of her nose with a foreleg, muttering for a moment.

“The same Applejack we both oh so dearly know and tolerate? The farmer who thought a garden party involved manual labour? The Applejack that, and I wish this were merely hyperbole, when I told her she was singing a bit sharp, she thanked me for the compliment. I told her it was A Flat Minor she asked me, ‘What’s Applebloom done this time?!'”

Twilight gave a weary sigh of admission.

“To be fair to Applejack, I’m far more familiar with the kind of culture I find in a petri dish, myself.”

“Yes, dear, but at least you appreciate more intellectual pursuits. If you can’t kick it, compete with it or profit from it, at the very least, Applejack-” Twilight’s sudden poker face was answer enough for Rarity to go suddenly quiet again.

“She’s hoping she can put that vendors’ licence she acquired for the gala to a more effective use.”

“Well, as kind a gesture as that is Twilight, there must be somepony that could...” Rarity trailed off, waving a hoof in a vague gesture.

“I know, I know, really. It’s hardly what I’d call an ideal situation, as much as I appreciate Applejack’s company, but let’s face it, she’s the best we could hope for.”

“Fluttershy!” Rarity contested.

“Let’s just say she’s carrying sharp herself.” Twilight grimaced.

Rarity raised an eyebrow, but continued. “Rainbow Da- Nevermind, she’s worse than Applejack for this sort of thing. Just as easily bored but a lot more vocal about said. Hrrm.”

Rarity tapped a hoof to her chin thoughtfully.

“Pinkie Pie? She does have a certain appreciation for music, doesn’t she?” Rarity wondered aloud.

“That’s what I thought too. Sorry, Rarity, but I’m going to enjoy this.”

“Enjoy what, dear?”

“The chance to see what my face must have looked like when I imagined all the things Pinkie Pie could have done had I invited her.”

“I have no idea what-” Rarity’s face started spasming violently, as if she’d just had a stroke as she bit into a very spicy lemon.

Twilight just sighed again and nodded.

“We’re definitely bringing her back a record for her gramophone, though.” Twilight helpfully added. “Just because we can’t bring her to the orchestra doesn’t mean we can’t bring a bit of it back for her.”

Rarity shook her head slowly, attempting to toss the previous catastrophic ‘what-ifs’ from her mind’s eye. A few quick blinks later and she was ready to address the waking world again.

“A kind gesture, one that is probably for the best.” Rarity agreed.

“Who does that leave us with?”

“Spike?” she asked hopefully.

“Right now he’s searching for gems. He’s sort of looking forward to a night alone, probably because that means I won’t be here to stop him from gorging himself.”

“Lyra?” Rarity was almost pleading now.

“Bah!” Twilight scoffed, “Rarity, even I know that inviting somepony’s marefriend out to an expensive concert like that, without inviting said marefriend, is a tiny itsy bit of a faux-pas.”

“Well, certainly,” Rarity mused, “But we’re both exclusively into stallions, are we not?”

Twilight coughed awkwardly. More of a surprised choking, really.

Both eyebrows shot up this time.

“I fall in love with the mind, not the vessel which contains it.” Twilight answered primly, furiously attempting to fight back against the rising blush.

The eyebrows raised yet more on the white unicorn.

“No.”

Twilight nodded a little stiffly, no longer able to make eye contact. The wooden floor beneath them was a lot more forgiving, unless you tripped of course.

A wide, toothy grin enveloped Rarity’s face. Twilight was briefly reminded of a picture of sharks she had seen in textbooks. The difference being that Twilight was not nearly as afraid of sharks. The only thing they could do was eat you.

“Oh, this is just wonderful!” Rarity beamed.

“Really.” Twilight deadpanned.

“Of course it is, dear, of course it is!” Rarity continued on, though she quickly changed to hushed tones and drew in closer to the terrified mare, “Why’ve you kept this to yourself for so long, hrrm?”

“No pony ever brought it up?” Twilight shrugged.

“Oh really?” Rarity went back to playful eyebrow waggling, “Not even, say, Rainbow Dash?”

“Nope.” Twilight shook her head, swishing her bangs in thought. “Why would she?”

“Really.” Rarity deadpanned this time.

“What?” Twilight asked, her tone bordering on hurt. “She isn’t a...”

Rarity waited for the other horse shoe to drop.

Twilight leaned in, eyes darting back and forth for any eavesdroppers.

“Homophobe, is she?” Twilight asked nervously.

Rarity stared for a moment, a very long, drawn out moment. Twilight felt more and more self conscious as the seconds ticked by.

“Bwa hahahaha!” Rarity fell to the floor cackling, wheezing for breath.

Twilight huffed, more than a little offended, but for the moment relieved to know that, no matter how hetero her pegasus friend was, she wouldn’t be singled out by her for liking mares.

It wasn’t until Rarity started banging a hoof to the floor, tears in her eyes, begging for mercy when Twilight realized she had just thought that out loud.

‘Cognitive dissonance’ Octavia recalled. ‘The distress one feels when one holds two conflicting ideas and keeps referring to oneself in the third person.’

On the one hoof, she had just been robbed of her oldest, most treasured possession. On the other hoof, she had been robbed of it because she was still far too busy contemplating what meaning, if any, it still had to her.

Any bitterness she had for her assailant had disappeared immediately after she noticed he had flown off in the direction of the orchestra. Now, as she continued her journey unencumbered, she could reflect on the situation without the pressure of getting there in time.

"Well," Octavia muttered to herself as she cantered down the busy streets, "This is, what, the third time this exact thing has happened since we've been in Canterlot? Ah, nothing like it for a bit of stress relief, should give me something to look forward to when I get there."
Octavia was about to laugh at her own thought when she again had the audacity to point out to herself that she had just implied she wasn't looking forward to actually playing the concert that evening.

"Why do I need to be so bloody perceptive sometimes?" she growled to herself, further reinforcing the little pocket in the crowd around her she had carved out for herself, "I mean, really, you'd have thought that would be more the conductor's role, or the composer's. I mean, really, even the pony who crafts my instruments has more need for perception than I do, all I do is rub some tight strings together and make a pretty noise and look thoughtful." She paused for a moment, mentally chiding herself.

"That's not true," she conceded to herself, "I'm very good at making the pretty noises by rubbing strings together. I'm the best string-rubbing pony there is in Canterlot I dare say!"

She smiled to herself in an odd sense of pride, contrasted greatly by the looks of ponies around her. Octavia had long ago passed the point of self-consciousness. She was drunk on self-revelation at the moment. The hangover could come later.

"And until I find something that would cure this inexplicable bout of ennui-" Octavia continued the train of thought to its logical conclusion, "-I don't think I should do anything rash. I can't simply quit on years of striving and passion and work because of a bad day, as much as I have come to realize it is something far worse. No, I'll play tonight, I'll play just as well as I usually do, as I always do, and we'll see what comes next then."

She rounded the corner to the theater that night's concert was being held in. It was an elegant behemoth, a creation of marble and granite and dark glass with a long, domed roof. Unicorns and earth ponies whose special talent had been sound spent months of collective brain power working out the precise acoustics and materials to use for this very building.

It was an engineering marvel, as beautiful to behold as it was practical. Whereas large construction being called 'practical' may seem like an oxymoron the use of natural acoustics instead of magical amplification saved a lot of unicorn-power for sound that was arguably superior. Thousands of ponies could be seated in the gorgeous creation, at various heights and distances, and still hear the music perfectly.

As well they should.

It was also a convenient marketplace for pegasus ponies looking to hock a stolen instrument on short notice.

"Hello there!" Octavia smiled brightly at the bewildered thief from earlier. He was puffing, far too out of breath to take wing again, just as Octavia knew he would be. It was a thrice-darned heavy burden to carry as it was on hoof.

"Thank you so much for carrying that for me, you were a real help." Her expression was saccharin sweet.

"Look, ma'am, I don't know which of us you're trying to kid here, and whilst you caught me fair and square, I'm not exactly a fair and square kind of guy. I'm not heartless though, I'll give you a real markdown on what I was hoping this'd get. Most guys like me? They'd just shuck it to you with a mark up for sentimental value. So what do you say?" He gave a soft, bitter smile, "200 bits?"

They both knew that if Octavia called the guard it'd be a lot easier for the pegasus to cut his losses, destroy the evidence, and flee. In his own mind he truly was being generous.

Octavia's smile never faltered for even a second. It was only when she blinked that you could see the acid lurking behind her eyes.

"Alright, girls? We ready to go?" Twilight called from her room to the two ponies waiting for her in the library's foyer.

"Just a minute, Twilight!" Rarity tittered, "I've still got to get Applejack into her ensemble!"

"What?" AJ sneered, "You'd be embarrassed to see me in public otherwise?"

"No, Applejack," Rarity sighed, "that implies I won't be embarrassed of you if we can squeeze you into this."

AJ shot her a dangerous look. "You callin' me fat?"

Rarity scoffed. "Again, no, Applejack, fat I could work with. There's at least a bit of give to it. You've put on a fair bit of muscletone since I last measured you. Dressing you is far more like upholstering furniture than haberdashery."

"Oh." Applejack thought that over a bit. "That's all right then. Guess I don't have to feel too guilty about feeling a mite bit peckish then."

"Oh, fine" Rarity groused, "If it'll keep you still for a moment."

Rarity's magic enveloped a few mushrooms from the kitchen counter. The mushrooms danced and eddied across the room to Applejack's eager and expectant mouth.

"Well, I'm ready to go, and the train is-" Twilight stopped mid-step, finally low enough on the staircase to see her two guests.

"-NO!" Twilight wrenched the mushrooms out of Rarity's magic. Rarity shuddered, her mind cowering from the instantaneous conflict lost to the insurmountably more powerful unicorn. It was an awe-strikingly awful experience, like losing an arm wrestling match to a migraine that could bench press a steam engine.

Rarity was so overwhelmed by Twilight's display of power, the first time she had actually, truly, felt the depths of the unicorn's power, that it had to be Applejack that voiced the obvious question first.

"What in the blue-blazes are you doin' Twilight?" She moaned, "I'm starvin' and those smelled delicious. You weren't savin' them for yourself, were you?" She asked, momentarily chastised.

"Those were Amanita phalloides specimens! How many did you eat, Applejack?!"

"In Equestrian, Twilight?"

"It's a type of alpha-Amanitin producing basidiomycete fungus!"

"Twilight, I have no idea which Equestria you thought I was referring to, because it was obviously not this one. So, what, it's got a lot of vitamin a in it, or-"

"It's colloquially known as a death cap mushroom. How many did you eat before I stopped you?" Twilight demanded again.

Applejack's eyes bulged in shock, creating an expression uncannily similar to the one Rarity still wore.

"None, that was going to be my first bite. So, what, that sweet smelling thing could have killed me? Aren't poisons supposed to be all bright and bad-smelling and such, so as critters don't accidentally eat them?"

Twilight beamed for a moment. "Very correct, Applejack, which is why this is possibly the deadliest of all known mushroom species. Not only is it so toxic, but it actually looks identical to straw-mushrooms, which I've got in the ice box if you're still hungry."

"Ah, no offense, Twilight," Applejack looked rather queasy all of a sudden, "But I don't feel particularly safe eating mushrooms identical to the deadly-poison ones if you're keeping them next to each other."

"Nonsense, Applejack, they're in completely different locations. The safe ones are in the kitchen and the dangerous ones are-"

"Rarity grabbed these ones from the kitchen, Twilight." Applejack deadpanned.

"Oh." Twilight frowned deeply.

"So?" Rarity asked hopefully.

"Welcome back to the world of the living, Rarity."

"Oh, hush, Twilight, if we don't feed this bottomless pit soon she'll never keep still."

"Ah. Well, I'll cut up some fresh fruit, and I'll make a mental note to bring samples back to the lab after preparing them immediately."

"I swear, darling, it's just like that time Pinkie Pie tried to stir that powder into her tea and it exploded." Rarity shuddered. "The nerve of a cup of tea, of all things, acting so brutish."

Twilight nodded seriously. "Yes, well, it's a good thing the phosphorous exploded before she could drink it. Wouldn't do to poison Pinkie Pie, that'd be pretty prickly to puzzle out."

"Well, at least poisoning is a lot more ladylike, far more befitting a good cup of tea." Rarity nodded to herself.

"There is an awful lot I don't understand about the upper classes, Rarity. Thank you for reminding me why."

Twilight sealed the last of the killer mushroom in a glass jar and sealed it. As she trotted back down to the lab to find a place for it, brow furrowed in concentration as she focused desperately on not tripping on her flowing blue gown, she managed to call back a final few words of wisdom to her friends.

"I think I got it all, but just to be on the safe side, if something appears to be really sweet when it shouldn't be, it's probably going to try to kill you."

"200 bits is fair enough, I suppose, to compensate you for your troubles." Octavia sighed and gave the stallion an apologetic, giving off the honest appearance she was sorry for inconveniencing him by making him rob her.

'Always play into the ego. Pretend you're talking to Vinyl."

"Could you please just lift it up for me? I'm just going to grab my bits purse..." The grey earth pony trailed off, half-turning as if to grab a non-existent bag from her back. As she knew he would the pegasus turned as well, bending over to grab the heavy instrument in his teeth.

Octavia's sweet smile became a ruthless grin as she tensed her body like a spring. The pegasus was bowled over, his center of gravity far more forward than it should have been to pick up the heavy double-bass, as Octavia delivered a bone-crushing blow to his furry plums.

With a satisfied smile and a wink Octavia picked up the instrument from the ground and curtsied the crippled pegasus, whose gasps of pain were only matched by his expression of unbridled shock.

He tried to muster up a profanity, a curse, anything, but it all came out as a high-pitched wheeze as Octavia entered the building that she would perform what could possibly be her last concert ever.

With a determined nod, Octavia strolled in to take her position on stage behind the red curtain, to await her fate.

A Major Key Change

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Twilight Sparkle felt exceedingly insecure at that moment as she instinctively put Applejack between herself and the other occupants of the train.

It was one thing to simply catch a train to Canterlot, but another thing entirely to catch the train to Canterlot whilst wearing the sweeping blue ball gown Rarity had designed for her, the one she had worn to the Grand Galloping Gala. Whilst she was always an aficionado of almost all things alliterative, of course, the Gala itself had been a bit of a disappointment.

Twilight Sparkle had never really fit in in Canterlot, not nearly as much as Rarity would have to say the least, growing up. Her parents had always been scholarly and not much for the inane politics of the capital city, of course, but they were in the minority it seemed.

So, whilst Twilight never actually associated herself with the ‘finer’ ponies of society, others quite often associated her with them. A big problem with that is the wealth that comes inherent with such classifications, the entitlement of titles as it were, so as Twilight sat on the train in her gorgeous dress she couldn’t help but feel terrified despite herself.

Rarity was mostly oblivious to her friend’s fear, what little ticks she picked up on more than easily attributed to the awkward unicorn’s typical neuroses, basking in the attention of the other ponies on the bustling carriage. The attention quite often spilled over to Twilight, which just made her even more uncomfortable amidst the piercing and inquisitive gazes.

There was a solace in Applejack’s shadow, though. The practical farmgirl, though dressed in her own extravagant outfit, had a level of apathy for the attention she was receiving almost bordering on disdain.

Twilight noted that whilst Applejack was far too straightforward to be passive-aggressive the pile of refined muscle beside her was doing an exceptional job at being aggressively-passive. The sheer indifference radiating off her seemed to repel most approachers, supposedly Rarity’s would-be suitors based on her pout as each one shrivelled back, one by one, from Applejack’s stony gaze.

“Well,” Applejack woke Twilight from her own introspection with a ‘soft’ jab to the ribs that nonetheless caused her to wince, “You’ve been awful quiet there, Twi, somethin’ the matter?”

“I am sharing a sudden overwhelming amount of empathy for Fluttershy right now, I think.”

“All this attention,” Applejack gestured at their dresses and nodded towards Rarity, who was currently grinning ruthlessly at some of the more dashing stallion passengers, “Bummin’ you out too, huh?”

The unicorn nodded almost imperceptibly. “I’m not used to all this attention, Applejack. I like books. You can read a book without them trying to read you back!” She moaned, slumping in her chair slightly.

“Yeah, it was like this with my aunt and uncle too, growin’ up in Manehattan.” Applejack grunted slightly, pulling the brim of her Stetson lower over her face as she continued, “All them frilly porcelain ponies tryin’ to gauge you, psych you out. I felt like a hog on market day, all those ponies starin’ at me tryin’ to figure out what I was worth. Even to your own family there, Twilight, you can just feel like a slab of meat they trot out for showin’ off. Ain’t right, ain’t right one bit.”

“I don’t get how some ponies can enjoy that sort of attention.” Another meaningful nod at Rarity, who was currently batting her eyelashes at one of the newer passengers, a brown earth pony with a shock of a darker mane and an hourglass cutie mark. Twilight couldn’t help but think he was actually pretty cute, if not handsome, as he blushed furiously and tried desperately to look away from Rarity’s lightning gaze. “It’s sort of...” Twilight trailed off thoughtfully.

The train lurched, knocking the earth pony that was Rarity’s latest victim off balance, and his head hit the table of the booth he was sitting at. Twilight and Applejack shared a brief glance of worry when he didn’t sit back up. They finally noticed, alerted by Rarity’s almost evil giggling, that the pony was grinning like an idiot into the table, finally somewhere safe from the siren call that had him so captivated.

“Demeanin’.” Applejack deadpanned. “Degradin’? A majorly embarrassin’ pain in the hoof?”

“I was going to say ‘scary’, actually.”

Applejack smiled and wrapped a foreleg around Twilight shoulders, pulling her in for an impromptu half-hug.

“Hey, don’t you worry ‘bout it, Twi.” Applejack used the tone she reserved for reading Applebloom a bedtime story, “You can have Bucks McGillicuddy if anythin’ goes to Tartarus in a saddlebag. I’ve still Kicks McGee for myself, and that’s more than enough.”

“It’s not really that sort of thing I’m afraid of,” Twilight muttered, appreciating the affectionate gesture nonetheless, “I mean, between Shining Armour teaching me shields like only he can, and my own ability to vaporize stuff just by thinking about it hard enough, a hoof doesn’t quite cut it.” Twilight gave a weak, apologetic smile.
“I mean, I’m not bragging, and I know you’re really strong, and I don’t think I’m better than you-”

“Yeah, but Twilight, did you maybe consider,” Applejack looked around thoughtfully as she cut Twilight off, “That I might want the excuse to go toe to toe with one of those hoity-toity pompous jerks and show ‘em how we do it down on the farm?”

Twilight and Applejack shared an easy grin.
“What are you grinning about now, Rarity?” Applejack huffed indignantly.

“You two look adorable together like that.” Rarity couldn’t suppress a little squeal even if she tried.

She didn’t try at all, frankly.

“Hey Twilight’s not into-” Applejack turned to the other unicorn thoughtfully, “You aren’t, are you?”

“I fall in love with the mind, not the vessel.” Twilight muttered darkly, internally flinching as anticipated Applejack’s knee jerk reaction, the pleasant friendly hug to disappear in an instant.

An instant that never seemed to come.

Twilight opened her eyes, realizing she’d been forcing them scrunched shut since her own hasty admission, and looked at Applejack in wonderment.

“You’re... you aren’t mad at me?”

“What?” Applejack flinched then, holding Twilight closer a little, “No! No, oh geeze, no, and don’t you ever think that. Sugar cube, you constantly make me wonder how a pony as bright as Celestia’s sun can still be thicker than two planks length-ways sometimes.”

“It’s just, I mean, almost everypony says they’re okay with it, but like-”

“I’m still touchin’ ya without actin’ like you’re somethin’ from the Everfree?”

“Yes!” Twilight blurted out, throwing her hooves over her mouth seconds later. “I mean, you’re acting-”

“Just about the same as I was thirty seconds ago?”

“How much of a hypocrite would I be if I asked you to stop being right?”

Applejack chuckled, tussling Twilight’s mane playfully much to Rarity’s chagrin.
“I may not be as intamallectual as you unicorns but I still got good old country-style wisdom floatin’ around in my noggin’. Also, I’m best friends with Rainbow Dash, it sort of comes part and parcel with her.”

Twilight smiled in relief, the last bit of creeping worry and doubt flowing down through her and out through her hooves, seeping through the floor and away, leaving her feeling light and relieved.

“You should always trust your friends, sugarcube.” Applejack winked.

‘This should make a great letter to the Princess this week, but there’s one thing that’s still nagging at me.’

“What’s Rainbow got to do with anything?” Twilight asked in genuine confusion. “Rarity mentioned her too, but, she’s like the straightest pony I know, and Rarity says she isn’t a homophobe. Is it her parents? One of her best friends?”

Applejack just stared. She opened her mouth to speak but Rarity cut her off with a harsh whisper: “I think it’s best she figures it out for herself darling.”

The farmer scrunched her face in thought, then nodded silently, leaving Twilight more bewildered than ever.
“I’m going to get some coffee, either of you two need anything?” Twilight groused slightly, her previous relief tempered by the unanswered question lurking in her periphery.

“I’m a scientist, darn it! I can work this out with experimentation... later.” She muttered darkly as she left the carriage.

Rarity and Applejack waited until she was safely in the next carriage over before Applejack was forced to ask the inevitable question, not quite capable of believing her own ears.

“Did- Did Twilight just hint that she was going to work out what Rainbow Dash had to do with liking girls... By experimenting with her?”

“Yes. Yes, I do believe she did.” Rarity answered primly, with slight overtones of matter-of-fact and a fair smattering of smug to taste.

It took all of two seconds for the composure and decorum the two extremely-well-dressed ladies presented to be irrevocably shattered by rolling, completely unladylike and most certainly undignified laughter.

Not even Rarity could bring herself to care at that point.

Octavia took her position amongst the orchestra, as she always did, unpacked her newly-reclaimed double-bass, which was selected for the pieces tonight, tuned the instrument, as she always did, and felt absolutely none of the excitement performing usually instilled in her, which had worryingly never happened before.

‘You’re just being silly,’ she chastised herself. ‘You’ve been expecting to feel like that, so you’ve probably just talked yourself into it.’

‘Then again,’ she countered against herself, ‘I expect the sun to rise each morning, I expect to feel hungry before breakfast and I expect Vinyl to annoy me before I even leave the apartment. My expecting it doesn’t influence it, it’s merely common sense.’

Octavia sighed, waiting for the last remnants of the orchestra to take their positions and make their final adjustments, before final rehearsals would begin.

She silently thanked that the flask of whiskey concealed in her case hadn’t been noticed by the thug from earlier.

By no means did this make her an alcoholic: It’s a very common practice for a musician to be slightly inebriated to give their best performances. It stills the nerves and dulls the pains that are brought on by such constant, precise and repetitive movements.

Octavia was amongst one of two classes in the philharmonic; the ones that used alcohol before a performance and the ones who used cheap drugs instead.

The philharmonic seemed to compose mostly of pegasus in the brass and woodwind sections, due to their proclivity for air and breathing and what-not. Their wings were also rather useful for playing such instruments as oboes and flutes, in lieu of hands. The earth ponies were mostly on percussion, piano, composing or conducting, smaller roles that needed that special endurance or something that only an earth pony’s natural talent could provide.

The special endurance could sometimes, not surprisingly, encompass the ability for a pony to hold their liquor.

Finally there were the unicorns. Those ponies were in, well, frankly almost everything. They seemed to be the vast majority of the philharmonic, except in a few sections. Their magic gave them the obvious leg up, of course, but the more hushed, and socially unaccepted reason, was that unicorns simply had much more of a place in high society. The best schools were for unicorns, the wealthiest parents used magic. Of course, there were some ponies like Filthy Rich whose special talent was making money, or running numbers or just intelligence in general. Whilst these ponies were not uncommon they were hardly the majority, and they didn’t have much in the way of appendages adaptable for musical instruments.

Octavia was a very special case, not only one of the few earth ponies in the philharmonics illustrious history, she was also one of the youngest to reach first chair. Whilst it was more common for earth ponies to be prodigies than unicorns in her field it was highly uncommon for her to be the best of the best as a strings musician, something the magically-talented held a distinct monopoly on outside of country music.

Performing for a crowd of the countries elite, trying to live up to her title of best-of-the-best, was hard enough on its own. The constant fear of being judged by her peers, constantly jockeying for her position, all around her the whole time though, waiting for her to make the slightest slip-up to contest the recently-appointed ‘lifetime’ appointment?

“Curse these ponies,” she muttered as she took a measured swig from the silvery flask, “They drive me to drink.”

‘That accursed succubus is finally being distracted! Now’s my chance!’

Time Turner felt safe to raise his head and tentatively flee Rarity’s line of sight, silently blessing the purple unicorn that, whatever she had done, granted him the moment of respite needed to get to safety. He mentally amended to himself that he owed this stranger a debt, should he ever see her again.

By the time Rarity realized, when Twilight got back with her steaming cup of strong-smelling, obviously very-black coffee, all she could do was let out a disappointing clucking of her tongue.

“Darn, darn, thrice darned like socks.” She cursed more for her own benefit than anything else, “He was my type, too.”

Twilight and Applejack collectively raised an eyebrow, but Twilight was the first to ask.

“You have a type, Rarity?”

“Why yes, of course, Darling!” Rarity feigned indignation, clutching a foreleg to the approximate location of her heart, which Twilight noticed was a bit lower than Rarity indicated but couldn’t bring herself to mention without coming off as ‘really creepy’.

“What would that be? Breathin’ and a stallion?” Applejack grinned.

“You give me too little credit, dear!” Rarity grinned despite herself, “I’m far more discerning than that.”

“Oh?” Twilight asked as innocently as possible, ignoring the gnawing urge to correct Rarity on her knowledge of her own anatomy.

“They have to be gorgeous breathing and a stallion, of course. Preferably available, too, but that’s only a bonus if you’re not merely window-shopping.”

“You’ll have to settle down some time, Rares, I think.” Applejack chuckled.

“Strange. We try telling our sisters the exact same thing, don’t we, and they only ever seem to take it as encouragement.” Rarity took the opportunity to fix Twilight with a decidedly flirtatious look.

Twilight was far less than impressed, however. “Rarity, if you do that again, I’m telling Spike on you.”

Rarity pretended to pout for a few seconds, but Applejack and Twilight’s giggling was too infectious.

They were still laughing, having avoided any major squabbles, when the train finally pulled into Canterlot station. Twilight beamed with pride for her friends and just a bit because of the knowledge that Spike now owed her ten bits.

Octavia played through the rehearsal as she always did. Perfectly.

Whilst her fellow musicians made a few minor slip ups during the rehearsal, hitting a note just a little too sharp or flat, just a little out of synch on a tempo change, Octavia refused to give them the ammunition against her.

She got no satisfaction out of being better, no feeling of schadenfreude at their slip ups. She simply felt the keen absence of disappointment, which was more than good enough for her.

‘No matter what happens tonight. No matter what happens when those curtains open. I will be ready. Let nopony be able to say I’m slipping.’

‘Come what may I shall be ready to give it everything my all.’

“This is it.” Twilight breathed.

The impressive building loomed before them in the dying sunset. The last glints of Celestia’s rays glinted off the polished marble and glass structure in breathtaking crystalline rainbows, sparkling and eddying in the ripples of the last pulses of light. Rarity’s eyes trailed over the elegant curves of stone and steel, the beautiful mastery of the muted natural pallet, the positioning near the heart of the greatest city in Equestria...

“It’s so beautiful isn’t it?” Rarity let out a barely-concealed squeal, her constant desire at expressing her passions being constantly at odds with her desperate desire for a front of dignity clashing once more. “The glass, the stone, the glass, the marble, the culture!”

“Rarity, you said glass twice.” Applejack idly muttered, letting out a low whistle of admiration herself as she did so.

“So shiny.”

“Rarity, you’re drooling a little.” Twilight murmured, eyes darting across the architecture.
The vaulted arches and domed ceiling which always drew your eyes up and across the sweeping ceiling structures, perfectly calibrated for acoustics, the use of the ever-present golden-ratio in every aspect of the lines and angles, the sheer pony power needed to move and manufacture and cut and refine that much material was overwhelming her.

Whilst Rarity was fixated on the aesthetic and cultural significance, and Twilight was marvelling the sheer magnificence of ponykind that it could create something so magnificent, Applejack was marvelling something else entirely.

“This place is going to be packed awful tight.” She muttered.

“Not really,” Twilight whispered back in reverie as they approached the behemoth before them, “It supposedly seats up to four thousand ponies comfortably.”

“Four- you mean hundred, don’tcha, Twilight?”

“No, I really mean four thousand.” Twilight muttered back. “Because of the way the building is shaped you can have at least three stories of ponies.”

“Four thousand ponies, average ticket price of eighty bits, two concerts a week...” She trailed off.

“One hundred and ten musicians in the orchestra, hired through blind audition, the first orchestra in the world to do so.” Twilight shot out facts as she distractedly measured up the masonry and the building’s potential structural integrity.

“One hundred and ten, huh? So, what, is that, six hundred bits a week each?” Applejack calculated, “three hundred per performance?”

“Triple that, I think.”

“Trip- Whoah.” Applejack flinched momentarily, “Okay, so, assuming the whole building is tax scuba-dived-”

“I think you mean ‘subsidized’, dear,” Rarity corrected primly as they took a place in the line snaking around from the entrance, “When tax bits pay for government luxuries it is a subsidy.”
“Right, that,” Applejack scowled, “So, they’re making about two by eighty by fifty bits a year, take one hundred and ten by about, whoah Nelly, two thousand by fifty.”

“You forgot to factor in the fact that there’s three thousand ponies per show minimum, there, Applejack.” Twilight amended.

“What’s that come out to?”

Twilight paused and stuck her tongue out thoughtfully, eyes darting back and forth at unseen shadows, as if she were desperately trying to focus on an irate bird swooping at her.

“That’s two million, four hundred thousand bits subtract one million one hundred thousand in wages.”

“That’s still almost one and a half million bits!” Applejack squeaked, comparing the paltry sum the entire farm brought in by comparison. “Why the heck does the government put money intoit?!”

“Culture is priceless in society, Applejack, not that you’d know about that.” Rarity sneered slightly before catching herself. “Sorry, that was uncouth of me, I don’t know what came over me, I am so very, very-”

“Save it, Rarity,” Applejack grumbled, “‘not really your fault anyhow. It’s all these other bug-up-their-butts ponies around here. They’re like a hive mind, suckin’ you in, tryin’ to make you one of them. It was like that in Manehattan, too.”

“You know I’m not like that, though, surely Applejack? We may have our differences and disagreements, but surely you know I’d never outright look down on you like that?”

“Not yet, anyhow, Rare’s.” Applejack sighed bitterly. “Sometimes it just gets to the best of ponies, though.”

“Twilight, you grew up in Canterlot, you don’t honestly believe-”

“First of all, Applejack, if the orchestra does turn a profit it’s turned over to the treasury, the subsidies just help to ensure that more ponies can afford to even see the orchestra, not just the really-well-off. Patrons would otherwise have to pay nearly double, I think, last time I checked. Celestia has always been adamant that ponies should never be excluded from beauty and wonder because of where they were born.

Secondly, Rarity... I did grow up in Canterlot. Applejack is far more right than I care to admit to. You think I went almost my entire life to date without making friends solely because I was a little awkward?”

“To be fair, dear, it is more than a ‘little’, particularly before we met.” Rarity pointed out gently.

“Did you know that, as the Princess’s protege’, I am more revered than most duchess?” Twilight growled. “Oh, how ponies would take advantage of that. My parents are already pretty revered themselves, it took my brother years of outstanding service in the guard to stop the rumours he was made captain just because of who our parents were.”

“Your brother is one of the most powerful unicorns in all of Equestria, though!” Applejack exclaimed, “You’re telling me ponies thought he just, what, bought the position?” She mulled it over for a second. “Actually, I’m not all that surprised.”

“Are you two honestly saying-”

“Rarity, I know this is hard for you to hear,” Twilight sighed, “But think about your own experience here. We both know how talented you are, everypony who’s ogled Applejack and I since we got here is proof enough of that.” Applejack blushed slightly, shooting accusing glances at every stallion she saw.

“When you first got here a couple asked you about your hat. They loved it until- What changed their mind?”

“I told them I was from Ponyville...” She murmured.

“What one thing saved your reputation?”

“I... told them I was staying in the castle as a guest of the princess...” Rarity muttered, putting the pieces together.

“How much of your success here can you honestly, definitively put down to your own accomplishments?”

“All of it!” Rarity exclaimed desperately, “I’m a self-made pony!”

“That wonderful yellow dress of mine” Twilight smiled softly, “How many do you think you would have sold if Fancy Pants hadn’t stepped in when he had?”

“I- Surely- But-” Rarity stammered. Applejack just winced at Rarity in sympathy.

“Ponies around here are so used to judging you on who you know, they stop caring about who you are.” Rarity was almost openly crying now, a soft wetness streaking her eyeliner around the edges, the faintest of snifflings heard even through the bustling of the crowd. “They don’t care about you, they care about how they can use you.” Twilight was building volume now, her soft consolation taking on the bitter pangs of hurt herself, “They get close to you, they build your trust, they smile and they laugh and they stab you in the back and rip out your still beating heart.”

The small crowd around them stopped in silence for a brief moment, staring at the panting unicorn with beaded tears and a scowl splattered across her face.

“That’s why I only ever stayed with Spike in Canterlot, Rarity.” Twilight growled. “Ponies knew who I was and they weren’t afraid to use me for it. The stallion that took my virginity-” She took a moment to glance up and glare at either of them, as if daring them to act surprised. When they both nodded slightly, enraptured in the sudden mood shift, Twilight continued, “He was trying to get a dowry out of Celestia. It turns out he didn’t feel for me at all. I would never have known if Celestia hadn’t taken the opportunity to teach me listening spells that week, and he happened to be in range when we practiced, and I overheard him laughing to his friends about how rich I was going to make him.” Tears were streaming down Rarity’s face and Twilight now, but where Applejack and Rarity were horrified and enthralled, Twilight was just plain bitter from opening up a long-ago scarred wound. “I think Celestia knew. The timing of the lesson was perfect, and in retrospect, I had wondered why she had brought in the jasmine tea for the lesson, we only ever had that when we had our private discussions... She knew, but she didn’t have the heart to tell me.”

“How much of a hypocrite would I be if I stopped asking you to be so damned right all the time Applejack?” She smirked at her own dark humour. “Go ahead, ask, I know you just figured it out.”

“We’re waiting in line, but we have VIP tickets, don’t we Twilight?” She whispered, drawing Twilight into a gentle hug.

Rarity still swaying gently on her hooves and furiously questioning everything that had ever happened to her in Canterlot. The new perspective changed her views about everything, all those little gestures, the smiles, the way ponies were swayed so easily no matter her opinions... It was like a psychopathic surgeon had sucked out her all her blood and replaced it with crystalline ice.

Twilight nodded at Rarity for Applejack’s sake, and let out in barely a whisper; “I didn’t want to do this for her sake, but it’s far too late now.”

“No.” Rarity stomped a hoof. “No, as true as what you say may be, surely my own talent must have contributed somewhere, somehow? They must have appreciated me for at least some of it?”

Twilight sighed bitterly and pulled out the diamond-studded tickets.

“Compose yourself, Rarity, I’ll give us both a moment. We’re about to become very popular.”

After a few minutes to adjust the streaks in her makeup and straighten their manes Rarity weakly nodded she was ready, not quite able to express words.

Twilight held the tickets in front of the trio and stepped out of the line. As they passed ponies muttered and whispered, pointing at them. It was notoriously difficult to get these tickets, more than a matter of mere bits, and everypony knew it.

Where seconds prior they were paid no mind in the line, even with the unicorn’s furious outburst, for all intents and purposes invisible, simply walking past with the tickets in view caused Rarity and Twilight to be swamped by suitors and lackies, begging to know the designer of their dresses, clucking about their perfume, finally recognizing Twilight’s cutie mark.

They left Applejack well enough alone after she ‘accidentally’ kicked a few stallions in the shin and stepped on a few hooves. For the element of honesty she had a remarkable poker face when she was mad.

“You see that, Rarity?” Twilight’s eyes flashed dangerously, “We’re not important until a little piece of paper says we are. I recognized that pony from the garden party you were so ecstatic to be invited to...”

“But he didn’t recognize me until I was worth remembering...”

Their excitement for the theater was dulled monumentally, the previous jovial air the three had projected replaced by an atmosphere that was almost morbid.

The orchestra was warming up. They were playing ‘For Auld Lang Syne’, a beautiful traditional piece associated with the coming of the New Year and celebration. Only Twilight seemed to recognize that, before that, it was traditionally played as a funeral dirge.

It seemed fitting.

Octavia closed her eyes.

Even with her eyes closed she could see perfectly, in her minds eye, everything around her.

The orchestra fell deathly silent.

The hushed whispers and expectant murmurs of the anticipating audience was snuffed out, voice by voice

The rattling of the rungs of the curtains crackled their own metal sonata as they slid across the old iron track that held the thick, soundproofing material. By the time the hiss had become a whisper there was nothing but silence remaining in the entire amphitheatre of thousands, save for the occasional cough from the settling air.
The music began, Octavia began to play.

Her dark, blind world exploded in technicolour as the ripples and warbles of one hundred and ten professional musicians played together in perfect unerring harmony. The sound carried flawlessly from their musical pit at the throbbing heart of the theatre, ripping through Octavia’s apathy like a drunk driver through a cyclist’s marathon, leaving nothing but an overwhelming feeling of disbelief that what had come before were there at all.

Then the bodies fell back to earth, to stretch a metaphor like one of an aforementioned cyclist’s dislocated joints.

Octavia’s ennui settled back, merely excited and scattered briefly from that brief moment, the excitement, the thrill of performing again. Lost in her own world it could have been long minutes or mere seconds, she couldn’t tell, her hoof was just playing the notes that had become so habitual to her.

That was part of the problem, wasn’t it? That it was so stale, so repetitive.

There was no goal to strive for anymore. She was working with Vinyl on a series of her singles, she was first chair strings, there simply wasn’t anywhere to go from here.

Where do you go once you've already gotten there?

Octavia couldn’t help but empathize with the first pony to climb the tallest mountain. She bet that, after the excitement and adrenaline wore off, his next words must surely have been “Well, now what?”

‘That was the real question, wasn’t it?’ Octavia sighed as her bow string danced across its counterpart strings on the double bass, eeking out beautiful, yet achingly too familiar, wondrous warbles and haunting melodies.

Octavia opened her eyes and sighed bitterly, her personal rapture lost from her grasp.

Her eyes scanned the ocean of ponies around her, mostly chatting and gossiping amongst themselves. She practically growled to herself. To these ponies the orchestra wasn’t a thing to be seen, to them it was more important to be seen.

‘How can I go out in a blaze of glory if nopony is around to notice?!’

She was caught, not once faltering in her unwavering perfection, staring bitterly around the unappreciative audience when a pricking of purple caught her eye. She turned her head slightly, shifting her gaze to the VIP box that, surely, the most uptight of charlatans must be attempting to distract her from-
‘Oh.’

She can finally see the flickering for what it truly is.

Spellforms are glistening in the air in front of the VIP box, as the most beautiful unicorn is lost in her own personal rapture, waving her head back and forth in perfect time with the allegro they were currently playing, notes and chords merging and mingling in a visual display in front of her, a perfect visual representation of the beautiful music being played to her.

‘She’s weaving light into the music as she hears it-’ she realizes, ‘She’s taken the music as she hears it, from all the sections of the orchestra at the same time, and perfectly recreating it.’

She glanced back and saw the indignant looks some of the more offendable ponies were shooting at the box, glaring at the wonderful pony that was so involved in the music they were too busy gossiping to appreciate.

She turned back to the mare, and it most definitely was one heck of a mare, in the Vip box. Her spellform wavered, a section of it dropping and falling from the stream of light in front of the unicorn.

The unicorn mare opens her eyes and meets Octavia’s gaze directly, a furious blush on her cheeks that was visible even in the majestic darkness of the theatre hall.

They stare into each other’s eyes, Octavia feeling a slight blush raise herself. Neither of them looking away, caught in some sort of spell that the unicorn had no intention of casting, for an eternity.

It took a full twenty seconds for Octavia to realize what had caused the eddies of light she had been casting to falter, what had caused her to meet Octavia’s bewildered and enraptured gaze in the first place.

For those twenty seconds Octavia had been so wonderfully captivated by the beautiful unicorn’s display she had forgotten about her own.

For those infinitely long twenty seconds, Octavia’s bow string hovered still and silently over the double bass as she had simply forgotten to play mid-piece.

A Minor Falsetto (Part One)

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“Twilight!” Applejack hissed, “That was mighty pretty and all, but I think you just went and broke that poor mare!”

“I’m sorry!” Twilight hurriedly shot back, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry! I don’t know how to fix it!”

“Well, at least you got her attention...” Rarity trailed off thoughtfully.

“And just what in the hay is that supposed to mean?!” Twilight yell-whispered, her strangled voice occasionally breaking off into indecipherable high-pitched squeaks.

“It means, dear,” Rarity whispered back, “She’s pretty cute, don’t you think? She looks like the smart, quiet type, or rather, your type, wouldn't you say?”

“Yes, but, I mean no and, I mean-” Twilight floundered, her blush returning at full force.

“Rarity!” Applejack hissed, “I think you just went and broke the poor mare before she got a chance to go an’ fix the other poor mare!”

“Really, darling? She’s already picked up the piece, as if nothing ever happened.”

“Oh...” Twilight murmured, more than a little disappointed.

‘Why am I disappointed?!’ She flailed at herself internally, ‘Just because she was able to go on like nothing ever happened so soon doesn’t mean anything, not that I want it to mean anything, even if I do, I just-’ Twilight gulped. 'Oh dear.'

“Equestria to Twilight?” Applejack waved a foreleg in front of Twilight’s eyes, snapping her out of her reverie and causing her to blink furiously a few times, “You’ve been starin’ at that wall over there and blushin’ for about a good, long minute now.”

“I’m just, err, embarrassed. For ruining that poor cusician, I mean, musician’s performance.”

Rarity grinned a diabolical grin that made Twilight wholly uncomfortable. Even Applejack shuddered slightly, caught in the collateral damage of the imminent gossip cannon, which was primed and ready to shatter through previously held notions.

“You just made a portmanteau of ‘cute’ and ‘musician’ then, Twilight.” Rarity smirked at the spluttering unicorn.

“No I didn’t!” The accused firmly crossed her forelegs and pouted.

"So you think she's cute?" Rarity went on, ignoring Twilight's desperate pleading.

"I didn't say that!"

“So you don’t think she’s cute then?” Rarity cooed. Applejack stayed silent, on the one hoof desperate to help her trapped friend from a fate comparable to death, on the other not wanting to be caught in the situation herself. She had a family to go home to, darn it.

“No! I mean, yes, she’s really cute, I mean, why did I just say that?!” Twilight moaned.

“Well, if it helps,” Rarity leaned in for a conspiratorial whisper, very carefully putting on a stage-whisper that pretended to be quiet whilst never dropping a decibel from the moments prior, “I think she likes you, hmm?”

“R-really?” Twilight grinned a little, hopelessly disgusted by how excited she sounded but too eager at that moment to care, let alone do anything about it.

Applejack muttered to herself as she watched the conductor. Twilight couldn’t make sense of most of it, but she could hear the words “This” and “End well.”

“Oh yes-” Rarity hissed in a way that could only be described as ‘serpentine’. Her eyes flashed dangerously, “-See the way she’s still blushing? How she’s standing up straighter? She was slightly hunched over a few minutes ago, dear, no sign of that anymore. The way she flicks and darts her eyes over at us without lingering? She’s trying to impress you, darling, and she wants to see if it’s working, but she’s too embarrassed to want you to know.”

“You mean- You mean-” Twilight stuttered a little, words, usually her most faithful of allies and compatriots, eluding her, “-You mean she’s not upset with me because-”

Rarity purred in the way that Opal did when she had caught a particularly obese mouse, ready to pounce, “Not in the slightest. If anything, I think you’re the only pony in this entire theater Octavia even acknowledges the existence of.”

Twilight just grinned like a dope for a while, completely oblivious to the world around her, bobbing slightly in time to the music with the almost-drunken grin plastered all over her face. She had plenty of time to be ashamed of herself later, and she would bet her last bit, had it not already been spent on this evening and books, that Applejack would make plenty sure that she did.

“Consarnit, Rarity, why’d you have to go and say a thing like that?” Applejack hissed. “We don’t even know if she likes girls that way!”

“Oh, but we do.” Rarity purred once more, “we do indeed, Applejack. That illustrious mare that has our own purple hopeless romantic Twilight, insofar as she is hopeless at it, so twitterpated is none other than Octavia, first chair strings of the philharmonic, amongst other things.”

“So-” Applejack made a ‘go on’ motion with a hoof, watching the earth pony in question as she did so. Rarity was right; She did seem to be glancing their way a bit, and she definitely seemed to be making a point out of looking like she wasn't...

“She’s very much into the lavender lovers.” Rarity paused for a moment. “I realize that may be a confusing expression, but it means she prefers the company of her own gender. I’m not specifically referring to Twilight, who is lavender in both senses.” Rarity amended with a tight, thoughtful frown.

Twilight was still too lost in the music and her thoughts to pay any attention, let alone perceive it as a possible slight.

“And how do you know that, exactly, Rares?” A skeptical eyebrow, a tight frown, from Applejack.

“I- Oh dear.” Rarity blinked, appearing for all the world that she had bitten into a lemon, “I don’t recall. I know it as surely as I know to keep Sweetie Belle away from the kitchen at all times.” Rarity rolled her jaw a few times, seemingly desperate to get the taste of half-baked gossip out of her mouth.

“That’s pretty darned sure, I s’pose.” Applejack nodded her concession.

Twilight was still enraptured by the music. Her gentle swaying was soon accompanied by soft and measured swishes of her head, as if drawing an infinity symbol endlessly with the tip of her horn.

Before too long, as Rarity and Applejack watched in continued amazement, the music began to flow through Twilight again. Her horn glowed and rippled once more, the soft illumination glimmering through their private box.

It was a few moments before Rarity’s discerning eye noticed the slightest change in hue from before.

“Oh dearshe coughed into a hoof, “we may have to have a little talk about that later.”

“Twilight’s aura, my less observant friend,” Rarity grinned a cheeky grin, “Has taken on a slightly lighter tone than before yes? Haven’t you seen that colour before, somewhere?” Rarity leaned in for dramatic effect, blushing slightly, "Somewhere quite recently, hmm?"

Applejack blinked in confusion, eyes darting back and forth between Twilight, whose eyes were closed, totally oblivious to everything but the music she channeled through her, and the musician on stage that seemed to be the focus of the two unicorn’s attention at that moment.

‘It does look familiar, but- Oh.’

“Twilight!” Applejack scolded, “Yer magic’s the same colour as her cutie mark, ain’t it?! Just how long have you been starin’ at that poor mare’s flanks?!”

Twilight didn’t reply with words, nor did she deter from her steady rhythm, but she did grow a grin that was rather decidedly less-than-innocent.

To Rarity the word that came to mind was lecherous. To Applejack it was seedier than a dried apple. The only thing that mattered to Twilight, however, was the grey mare onstage that was blushing even harder than the awkward introvert who was currently making the subtle-as-a-sledgehammer-to-the-shin advances.

To Octavia, the word that came to mind was passionate.

As the heavy red curtains fell, signalling the end of the performance, and as the sounds of the symphony were rapidly replaced by the rumbling of the retreating masses, Octavia paused for a single moment.

Then, with speed that would allow her to compete as the first earth pony to qualify for the Wonderbolts, she packed her instrument and fled the orchestral pit. She left naught but a flurry of loose sheet music swirling in her wake, which settled peacefully over the the twitching bodies of the slower members that had been placed in the unfortunate position between Octavia and the exit.

It wasn’t for another minute, when she had finally reached the backstage quarters, that she realized she had no idea what she was doing.

‘I stop to catch my breath for the shortest of moments,’ she growled internally, ‘and already my thoughts catch up to me’.

All these thoughts and more whirled through the maelstrom inside Octavia’s head, warring and sparring fiercely for dominance, fighting to be heard over the clatter of the others.

From the eye of the storm emerged one, clear thought. Whilst the others had hurried to catch her in a mad dash, outpaced only until she stopped for breath, this one had bided its time. No, whilst the others had their mad and graceless dogpile for supremacy, this one had practically sauntered in at the opportune moment to whisper:

“So, just how long do you think she was staring at our-”

With a few more determined pants, Octavia nodded to herself as if in acknowledgement to a silent question. She squared her shoulders, raised her head, dedication flashing across her steely, if tired, eyes.

She ran, once more, in the direction she hoped would lead to her crossing paths with the mysterious unicorn from before.

She practically flipped around a corner, the sheer speed and absolute reckless abandon enough to send her skidding on two hooves, her velocity impeded only when she came muzzle-to-ribs with another unicorn she was all-too-acquainted with.

“Where's Sweetie Belle? She was supposed to be here like-” Scootaloo glanced around the clubhouse for any form of clock, watch or even sundial that had withstood the maelstrom of their 'time telling cutie mark' attempts. Finding none, she settled for “-a while ago.”

“She told me she was gonna hang out with her sister today.” Applebloom suggested as she glared at the manual before her, as if staring it down would finally convince the darn thing to make a lick of sense and co-operate.

“Isn't her sister with yours, though, at that boring thing with the ponies playing the stuff. You know, the boring stuff, and things?”

Rip

Applebloom waved frantically, desperately shaking at the page stuck to the bottom of her hoof.

Scootaloo let out a weary sigh and ripped the offending paper off with her teeth, spitting it to the ground.

“Tree sap...” she muttered bitterly. “Remind me again how we got covered in tree sap fixing clocks?”

“I think the cuckoo was a little too ripe,” Applebloom groused, scuffing her hoof against the treehouse floor, each little kick coming away with a little squelching peel as she inadvertently glued and unglued herself to the floor.

“All this finicky junk is Sweetie Belle's racket anyway,” Scootaloo moaned, “and she's not even here.”

“Well, she ain't with Rarity,” Applebloom muttered, “Applejack would have brought me, too, otherwise. Unless she's punishing me for somethin'. I didn't do anythin' wrong lately, did I, Scootaloo?”

Scootaloo rubbed the bottom of her maw in thought.

“Depends, really,” she mused, “define 'wrong' and 'lately'?”

“Well, okay, you may have a point.” Applebloom groaned, “But why wouldn't she just tell me? Why'd she have to go and-”

“Or,” Scootaloo cut off with a grin, “And hear me out here, or Sweetie Belle isn't with Rarity at all.”

“But why would she lie to us?” Applebloom wiped her eye, much to Scootaloo's embarrassment. Puh-lease, not like she'd cry if Rainbow-Dash had-

Well, not in front of anypony else, at least.

“Well-” Scootaloo smirked a little,“Maybe she's doing something she's super embarrassed about, like weekend-detention, or visiting really weird family, or hiding the fact that she's a robot!”

“Don't be silly, Scootaloo,” Applebloom scolded, “You know as well as I do Sweetie would never be embarrassed about her family around us. We've met her parents, for Pete's sake, its not like they could get much worse!”

“Yeah, guess you're right. So, first we check the school, then we check out the robot thing?”

“Heck yeah!”

Author's Notes:

Thank you to Warmaisch for helping me edit, to Courtney Southwell for being a constant source of inspiration, and to Oblivion2K for threatening disembowelment if I didn't keep writing this, it really means a lot to me.

Now, for the more masochistic stuff: Fun.

I have been doing an exceptional amount of university work, however, I've been using that as an excuse. Simply put, I need to write more, and I need to make myself write more. That's why this chapter is so short:

I plan on updating up to twice a week, every week, for the foreseeable future. Any lateneness on my part is encouraged to be punished by mailbomb.

I will be writing more, hopefully better, and that includes an upcoming One Shot I hope you all like that is already written just waiting for approval.

I sincerely apologize for the wait.

Echoes from the Past (Part 1)

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"Octavia Philharmonia, you treblesome, er, troublesome child, how do you know you hate it if you won't even try?"

"I don't know, mother, I haven't tried being set on fire yet either, and I strongly suspect I would be rather disinclined to pursue that proclivity."

"Octavia, please," the older grey unicorn was practically pleading with her daughter at this point. "If you'd spent as much time reading sheet music as you did the saurus you'd be..." Her mother seemed at a loss for words, a rare blessing.

"Wait, the saurus? You mean the thesaurus right?" Octavia asked skeptically.

"Don't stutter, dear, it's unbecoming of a lady." The mare tossed her shock of a snow-white mane, the only truly distinguishable difference between herself and her daughter beside her cutie mark, a songbird in flight.

Octavia failed to keep herself from rolling her eyes. Honestly, though, she wasn't trying very hard, not really.

"I keep telling you, I'm not a unicorn. I'm not like you, Mother!"

"Now, dear, you know we don't love you any less for not being a unicorn like your father and I," it was a well rehearsed lie, one that Octavia almost believed this time – Her mother's eye barely even twitched, and she'd almost completely covered up the tic at the corner of her mouth – but still a lie that Octavia constantly lived in the shadow of.

"Mother, dearest," Octavia sighed, "How many earth ponies can even learn to play woodwind instruments?

"Are you saying," her mother put the words delicately, as delicately as her satin-smooth voice could carry the words, "that you'd have rather something in the brass family?"

"No, mother," little Octavia pinched the bridge of her nose with a hoof.

"Strings, then?" hopefully asked with overtones of pleading, seasoned to distaste.

"Mother," Octavia snapped, forcing the shocked older unicorn back a step, "that's even more inconceivable for an Earth pony to play." Ah, there was the eye twitch again.

Octavia grinned sadistically.

"Earth-" Eye twitch, "Pony," Mouth tic, "Earth," Eye twitch with a vibrating inflection, "Pony." Mouth tic with an eyebrow furrow kicker.

"Dear," the distraught pony half-shouted before recomposing herself, breathing deeply, "it's not in good taste, and in a rather vulgar display of bad manners, to break your mother like that." she chastised.

Octavia nearly apologized, very nearly, but as the oboe twitched in her hooves the bitter taste of bile rolled across her tongue, overwhelming the desire for a sweet apology.

"Maybe-" She had a devious look in her eyes, "Maybe I should try..."

"Yes?" Her mother asked hopefully. Oh, maybe she'll try compositional work! Or conducting! Or-

"Percussion." Octavia declared with an air of finality.

"P-percussion" her mother gasped, falling to her haunches in shock, "you can't honestly mean that Octavia?!"

"Oh, but mother dearest, wouldn't I look ever so dapper banging my hooves upon a glockenspiel?" she emphasized the dreaded Germane accent, a language that in Equestria would only ever be associated with a silly group that wore comical clothing and drank too much cider, "Or perhaps," Octavia couldn't help but feel some genuine giddiness at the thought of her next words, "I could take up the xylophone"

Her mother clutched a hoof to her heart.

"Or the drums!"

The older mare's eyes crossed, she looked like she was going to be visibly ill.

"Or the triangle! Perhaps the gong? Very exotic! Oh, speaking of exotic, if you're so desperate for me to play a wind instrument, maybe I should play the Earth pony's wind instrument!"

Each new suggestion had struck her mother like a physical blow, reeling her, sending her into a horrified retreat... But she still had the presence of mind to process just what her daughter was suggesting.
"No!" she gasped, "Play the triangle, if you must, play rock music on drums!" she spat the bitter words out, "But please, Octavia, please, for my sake, don't suggest-"

"Mother, why don't I take up the bagpipes?"

Octavia watched, with no small amount of satisfaction, as he mother promptly uttered a heart-wrenching wail and fainted.

"Well," the filly muttered, "that was far more amusing than it had any right to be."

She fumbled the oboe in her hooves with a smirk.

'How could she possibly expect me to play this accursed, glorified rod?!'

Out of sheer spite the grey filly raised the oboe to her lips and gripped two of the levers, blowing into it.

It would be completely unrealistic to say that natural talent allowed Octavia to play a perfect E note on her first attempt. Through sheer luck, however, not only had her hooves picked the correct levers by chance but her spite-filled raspberry into the instrument emulated the proper technique.

It would be completely and utterly unbelievable to say that Octavia managed to play her first note perfectly. If Octavia hadn't been there when it happened, she wouldn't have believed it herself.

She was so enamoured with that one smooth, long note, the crisp sound, the thought that she had made this, she had created this beautiful trill that emanated from the mere rod in her hands, she was so enamoured by it that she spent the next ten minutes trying to replicate the happy accident.

Ten minutes later, satisfied with the result, she pulled the music booklet from her mother's limp arms and studied the hoof position she'd need to raise an octave.

Each new note took progressively less and less time to learn. Each note came closer and closer to that first happy accident.

Forty minutes after passing out Octavia's mother came around to see the filly struggling through her first scale. Her daughter's grin was infectious. Though the simple scale was hardly an orchestral composition, well, it was still the first time she had ever felt truly proud of her daughter.

After a few minutes of contented silence she wordlessly stood up, much to Octavia's shock, and walked up to the booklet. Still uttering no words, her face an expressionless mask, she flipped the thin booklet to a simple song, a nursery rhyme she had sung to her daughter whilst she was very young, one of the few roles she hadn't fobbed off to the nannies.

Octavia smiled gratefully at her mother, struggling to play the simple rhyme and reading the unfamiliar notes. Despite all the trial and error, and her storied history in the musical arts, it was still one of the sweetest things her mother would ever hear... Her baby girl's first love for music.

The filly blinked gratefully at her wordlessly smiling mother who sat with her, softly turning the pages when Octavia finished them, so as not to interrupt.

She wondered how long it would take Octavia to notice her new cutie mark... She didn't want to spoil the moment, though, not yet.

"Go on, dear, the Princess is waiting."

"Is that... Mother, are you crying right now?" Octavia blinked incredulously.

"No, no, of course not, I just have a little pride in my eye, that's all." Tremolo Pizzicato smiled at her daughter warmly. "I'm just so proud of you, my little filly, growing up so fast."

"Mother, I am still just a teenager" Octavia stated evenly, "Thus, I reserve the right to remind you of this fact next time you suspect I'm associating with degenerates."

"Oh, dear, it's not the degenerates I'm afraid of," Tremolo sighed, "Degenerates hold no sway over you. I can ignore ponies that you have better judgement than to be influenced by." This caused her daughter to blink furiously. It wasn't like her mother to compliment her, or admit any modicum of trust, at least not out loud. "It's just that Vinyl filly I'm afraid of."

"Did..." Octavia was shocked, utterly, by the implications of this simple statement, "Did you just accuse Vinyl Scratch of not being a degenerate? I'm sure if she were here she'd be insulted, in a rather vociferous manner I might add."

"Of course she would, dear. It'd be too bad for her reputation," she rolled the word around in her mouth distastefully, "if anypony were to suspect just what sort of head that mare has on her shoulders, when it is sober of course. Thinking like hers is a very dangerous pastime my dear, and I don't want to see you as collateral damage."
Her mother dropped to a low, scandalous whisper. "Besides, we all know she's a filly fooler, who knows what she sees in you?!"

'Ah. That old chestnut. Should I tell her?'

Octavia couldn't help but sigh in defeat. Another time, another place? But just before one of the most deciding recitals she would ever perform in her hopefully illustrious life?

'No. No, I most definitely should not.'

"Dear, you're muttering, it's most unbecoming of a filly about to have a performance before royalty."

"Ta very much, mother."

"That's a good girl. Now go on, your father might even be in the audience, ooh, wouldn't that be lovely."

'Now, that's a very good question. Or, rather, is it possible at this point for me to be disappointed once more by him not showing up again?'

"Why'd you have to tell me that?" Octavia seethed.

"Tell you what dear? Your father-"

"Now I'll know he meant to be here!" Octavia quietly shouted, her muted volume more than compensated by the power of the emotion behind the voice, drawing eyes upon her by the other members of her quartet, "And when he doesn't show up I'll be disappointed, again! And then I'll hate myself for allowing myself to be disappointed, again!"

Her mother stared at her in shock, before drawing her daughter into a tight hug. Octavia burst into racking sobs into her mother's shoulder, the usually cold and distant parent, though far closer than Octavia's father, giving what little warmth she could.

"If the Princess herself could set time aside for your performance," she whispered into her daughter's ear, "then I don't think you have anything to worry about."

The crew dispersed around them, a few shouts and barked orders from stage hands and the conductor letting the performers know that, if they needed to have an emotional breakdown, to do it now, because the curtains would lift in a scant minute.

Tremolo gave her daughter a quick nod and bolted offstage.

Octavia steeled herself, preparing for her first real performance that would matter, the result of this set determining whether or not she'd be able to learn at the Royal Conservatory, and perhaps eventually a spot in the Orchestra upon graduation from the prestigious school.

Alternatively now could be the exact moment she'd pinpoint later in her life where everything went wrong, when her parents disowned her, when she turned to alcohol to dull the pain of a lifetime dedicated to failure, a booze soaked busker in the gutter with oh buggery sod, the curtain's lifting!

The quartet stared in wide-eyed horror as they realized no matter how much time they were allowed for preparation nothing can prepare you for a calmly smiling Princess Celestia in the front row of the audience. If she had been neutral, or unreadable, she would have simply been a critic, and thus easy to ignore, they'd practiced that. If she'd been frowning, or bored, they could have been filled with the urge to prove her wrong. Instead, with that genuine warm smile and those wise and patient eyes, the only direction they truly had to go was down.

You don't look at that face and not think "Oh, bollocks, I'm going to invent three new and unique ways to disappoint her just by opening my mouth, aren't I?"

None of them did. One of the stallions of the quartet, Allonso, plonked the first thrumming chord on the piano, the opening for the piece, snapping the other three out of their reverie. Octavia fell back into reality, following pure muscle memory whilst her higher thought processes were otherwise occupied or incapacitated.
.
The others seemed to be doing the same on their own instruments. It didn't take long for Octavia to find her groove on the bassoon, having long ago taken a preference to the deeper instruments, the underappreciated flow that gave the more melodic instruments their tone. Without the bass's timbre the more easily discernable instruments would sound hollow.

Octavia found her Nirvana, her Zone, losing herself in the rehearsed music and letting nothing else invade her senses. This is mostly why she was surprised to learn, later, that she hadn't even noticed the harpist fling herself offstage babbling and weeping incoherently.

Whilst Celestia had shown amused concern the other judges, of which there were about a dozen, had scored the poor mare down for that.

It was about this time, though, as the adrenaline wore off, Octavia realized that her father was not in the audience.

"Fortissimo Crescendo had booked attendance, ma'am," the steward politely informed the seething mare, "but he was not in the audience, no."

Another steward, this one a powder-blue pegasus resplendent in his uniform red vest with gold trim, hurried in a flurry of feathers to the first steward. He whispered something to the first, much to Octavia's bemusement, that caused him to stand up straighter, as if he were worried he was being watched by an overbearing matron. But the only pony that would fit that description-

"Princess Celestia requests a private audience with you, miss Octavia."

"Right, well, this is still a salvageable situation," Octavia stated pleasantly, much to the stewards' surprise, "Can you tell me whether it's good news or bad?"

"Err... The note doesn't say, ma'am."

"Oh." Octavia deflated. "I was hoping I'd have a chance to run, but it would be most embarassing were I to flee good news."

The steward nodded dumbly.

She turned to the second steward, "On the other hand, I may be showing up to have my name dragged through the mud."

The pegasus nodded dumbly too.

The grey mare hefted her bassoon and glanced back and forth between the two, mentally weighing up her chances. She then realized that she'd be attempting to run from a nigh-omnipotent ruler of the sun with an army of bored soldiers under her command. Whilst this made the primal part of her brain more convinced, it made the conscious part of her brain more determined to suck it up and face her fears.

Unfortunately the primal part reacted faster.

Octavia finally managed to reach the small study Celestia had sequestered for herself by tricking her body to flee towards it.
This wasn't as difficult as it may sound at first. The reason the hind-brain acts faster is because it simply doesn't think and is thus a metaphorically unarmed opponent in the battle of wits.

As Octavia opened the walnut-wood door and saw Celestia, bespectacled and poring over a mountain of paperwork, hindbrain and forebrain unanimously agreed that if this went sour that Octavia would be required to drink as much liquor as equinely possible to make sure that forebrain couldn't do anything this stupid again.

"H-hello?" Octavia stammered, "Your Majesty? You requested me? I mean, I know you requested me, I don't doubt that one as powerful as yourself would simply forget such a thing," Octavia seemed to have her hoot lodged in her mouth, it seemed, and was hoping that some part of the verbal cascade would dislodge despite all current evidence to the contrary, "The questioning tone was referring to a lack of information on my part, not the presumed forgetfulness of yours, unless you did forget, in which case I just unintentionally severely insulted you, which I cannot stress enough I didn't mean to-"

"You may breathe now, my little pony." Celestia smiled, still not looking up from her paperwork.

Octavia gasped, her face returning to its natural colour – albeit slightly paler than usual – and realized just how close she had come to passing out.

"Your panic is most common amongst our subjects," the princess continued her warm indulgent smile towards the menial work, "frankly I'm not sure where they get such notions from."

Octavia continued to hold her breath in, lest her voice betray her again.

"I mean, I don't bite," Celestia chuckled, finally glancing up at Octavia for the first time since the musician had entered the room, "Unless, of course, you ask me very nicely."

The grey mare had turned bright red, though whether this was from a blush or the fact that she still hadn't dared breathe again was anypony's guess.

"I suppose it would be cruel to let you suffer in, admirably literal, silence anymore Octavia." Celestia stated plainly.

Octavia noted the lengthy pause.

'Oh now that is just mean.'

"Well, I've had my fun, as I am wont to do." Celestia chuckled warmly again, "I've summoned you here, Octavia Philharmonia, for an official acceptance. Of sorts of course."

"Of sorts?"

"Oh, it's more of an acceptance and a conditional promotion of said. You see, my little pony, my faithful student has recently made some rather large strides in the field of bardic magic. This is particularly notable for a rather curious reason." Octavia blinked as this settled in.

"I suppose that reason is why you need me, Princess?" Octavia blinked again, just to make certain.

'Oh dear her did I just presume the princess needed me?!'

"Why, yes, Octavia, that's precisely the reason." Celestia's eyes twinkled from behind the gold-framed spectacles, "You see, she has made some several leaps and bounds in a field of magic she has absolutely no experience in. Though her wonderful singing voice, if I do say so myself, has gotten her this far and proven her understanding of musical theory-"

"You need a musician to help her progress. So, I'd be her tutor then?"

"Oh, good heavens no," Celestia laughed, genuinely laughed, "If anything Twilight will be teaching you. My student is many things, most of which are wonderful, but this form of patience is a virtue that somehow eludes her, making learning an instrument an exercise in futility..." Celestia sighed.

"So, you need a musician to..." Octavia trailed off helplessly.

"Dear me, I'm doing a terrible job at explaining this aren't I?" Celestia raised a hoof, "Don't deny it. Ponies have a habit of filling in the blanks themselves based on what they assume. That never ends well for anypony involved." She sighed.

Octavia just nodded dumbly, suddenly feeling great empathy with the stewards from before.

"Well, to actually test some of her conclusions she needs a capable musician. For her own benefit I was hoping to acquire the services of someone her own age, someone I deemed worthy of wielding the new magics she will inevitably test with you." Another sigh. “It has been dreadfully hard to find a pony that either of us could deem as her equal in their respected field, much less one that I could trust.”

"If I may ask, your majesty, why is that a problem?"

"Because my faithful student has an awful habit of asking 'can' I do it, and not 'should' I do it. It seems with great power comes great irresponsibility for some reason, though I fear she's far too humble to appreciate just how powerful she is." she blinked thoughtfully at the wide-eyed Octavia, "Don't worry, I doubt she'll put you in any, echem, much danger. Honestly, Miss Philharmonia, I wouldn't have her any other way."

The look of pure, unbridled pride did not escape Octavia's notice. This is a particularly notable achievement because Octavia was currently staring rather pointedly at the ceiling.

"I'm sure you'll be very pleased to meet her. If you choose to accept my offer you will be rewarded fairly, if such a unique opportunity isn't award enough, as you may soon discover. She'll be waiting for you here, in this office, tomorrow morning at nine in the morning, sharp. I cannot emphasise this enough, though, Octavia; Do not be late."

"And what happens if I am?" Octavia murmured, unconsciously admitting she'd already accepted the offer, a fact that dawned on her almost immediately after she finished saying it.

"Octavia, you have nothing to fear from me, I understand perfectly that life has a habit of getting in one's way at the best of times." Celestia counted...

One...

Two...

'Ah' she mused appreciatively, 'the apex of the relieved sigh.'

"Twilight Sparkle, on the other hand?"

Octavia's throat tensed at the worst possible moment, eliciting a gagged splutter. For some reason the princess found this highly amusing.

As Octavia quietly left the office, offering a wan smile as way of parting, Celestia signalled their visit was at a close by politely glancing back at her paperwork and nodding at the guest.

Octavia couldn't help but think about her new 'colleague' tomorrow...

It had been a long day, very much so, for Octavia, and the adrenaline was finally wearing off. She was overcome by a wave of emotions, kept back until now by a rigid barrier of shock and awe, surging through her. A giddy grin split her face as she rushed to the now-familiar green room, knowing her mother would be waiting for her there.

She had to be very careful not to rip the door off its hinges from sheer excitement.

The room was filled with nervous tension and excitement of its own, a sign of ongoing rehearsals and performances sure to be taking place, but a muted palette amidst a sea of bustling pastel colours clearly identified her mother from the crowd, if not her demeanour. In that she blended right in, looking almost overwhelmed by the anxiety!

'Surely it must be a trick of the light,' Octavia smirked, 'or else it appears dear old mother has been weeping from the stress. I shan't make her wait any longer, hmm?'

Octavia practically bounded over to her, for all the world like a puppy that had retrieved a particularly large thrown stick, embracing her with a small 'oompf' of collision.

“So!” She exclaimed, “Mother, I know it is highly improper for such displays of affection in public!” Octavia somehow managed to babble primly, “But the news is even better than I could have imagined in my wildest fantasies!”

'Well, maybe not quite as wild as the one with the sentient bowstring and the, ecchem, well, yes, this is my mother...”

“Octavia...” Her mother whispered, “Your father he-”

Octavia growled a little.. A million thoughts flashed through her mind;

“He didn't show up, but he still loves you” or “I'm sure something just held him up on the way here” or “He may still not show you the love he assures you he feels, but he's still your father.” or some variation of the above.

A million possibilities swirled and eddied in her mind, complemented by the rabble and frantic energy of the ponies around her.

“He's... With Celestia now.” was not one of them.

Another, far off voice called over the din, obviously a producer or director of some kind judging from the sharp, authoritative tone; “This is the call for those in the next time slot, Stage One, will performers of “A Stallion In Denial!” please report, I repeat, Stage One, Denial!”

Octavia couldn't help but laugh, hearty chuckles into her mother's shoulder, unable to read her mother's expression because of their embrace.

“No, mother, I can assure you, I just met with Celestia and he wasn't there!”

Her mother wilted further still into the hug, feeling less like a pony and more like an oddly shaped sack of sand.

“He's dead, Octavia.”

“Oh come now,” Octavia leaned out of the hug with a wry grin, “That's just far too cliché, isn't it? I mean, really-”

“Stage Two,” the distant voice echoed, loud enough to cut through the din but falling deaf upon two mares ears at that moment, “Stage Two, 'Bargaining with Griffons'. This is a call for Stage 2, Bargaining, hurry those flanks there a ponies waiting!”

“-This has to be some sort of sick joke!” she justified, “I mean, faking your own death is a bit much for avoiding your daughter's recital but, I mean, if he didn't want to go he should have just said!”

“Dear,” the newly widowed Ms. Pizzicato choked out, “He loved your music more than you'll ever truly know...”

Octavia's eyes flared.

“Well, maybe he should have shown me sometime, he could have shown up, just this once, just this one time, and maybe I'd believe that, but you're telling me-”

“Stage Three,” a different frantic voice interrupted, cutting through the conversations with a magical megaphone, emphasis on the 'mega', “Alright, there's been a bit of an unexpected change, Those performing 'Slow Start's' Alla- Hmm, Ael? No, that's not right... All-egg-rezz-a,” here there was a muttering away from the mouthpiece, but still loud enough that Octavia could readily identify the immortal words 'close enough', “will be moved to make room for Rage!'s rehearsal. We are dreadfully sorry for the inconvenience! Stage three, 'Rage!'”

There was the shattering of several hurled glass bottles, the splat of fruit, in the speaker's general direction.

Octavia rammed a hoof into a dainty throw pillow, causing it to erupt in a dainty white, though somewhat anti climactic, explosion of fluff.

“You're telling me, mother,” the other hoof crashed into the throw pillow, bleeding it of what little fluffy interior it had left, “that it would literally kill him to show up?!”

For as much damage as she'd inflicted on the limp pillow, whose remains hung limply from one of her front hooves, the words seemed to have struck her mother far more, cut far deeper, than what her paltry physical blows ever could.

“That he couldn't even- If I was so important to him- Why couldn't he have just been there for me?!” Octavia shrieked into her mother's shoulder, absorbed in a tight embrace she'd been too preoccupied to notice coming, “How? How did he-”

“He was out drinking, apparently,” her mother whispered, stroking her grieving daughter's mane, “a shock in and of itself. Stiff, stoic old Forte, getting liquored up like a commoner, hrrm?” Her daughter scoffed, choking back a racking sob of her own, “Turns out he was celebrating with some friends of his, probably all just as stuck up as your father, not a drinker the one of them, all celebrating his little girl's big break. He was so sure you'd do well, dear, so sure, that as far as he was concerned you already had the part.”

Well, now that was a surprise. Octavia leaned out of the hug, staring into her mother's watery eyes, looking for any sign of deception, of sugar-coating the truth, of something, something she couldn't quite describe but evidently wasn't there, no matter how hard she looked.

“Well, this much I knew, dear, but I didn't think he'd get so caught up in it all. It appears, however, a rather large and violent stallion challenged your father, stupid, silly Fortissimo being the prideful, stupid stallion that he is agreed. Apparently the whole thing started out over him saying his daughter would get the part. You may have seen her, she ran off the stage halfway through the performance?” Even now, even in the darkest of moments, her mother still seemed to be able to wear that tight, smug grin of hers.

“So... What, Father just-” Octavia gulped, the image of her dad lying bleeding in the gutter far, far too vivid in her mind's eye. In the brief respite she managed to overhear a stagehand again, this one calling out some Fancy words, The Misery if her old school lessons were of any use.

“Oh, oh no, good gracious no,” her mother hugged her tighter, chuckling bitterly, “no, Forty was far too gentlemanly, to let such a disagreement go that far. No, apparently your father was just so sloshed, when he asked the stallion to take it outside, and the bloody fool agreed, it was dark and he just walked right over the edge. Small blessings, he probably never realized what happened.”

“So, you're... He got sloshed and walked off the side of a mountain?!” Octavia asked incredulously. Her spine ramrod straight she once more peered into her mother's eyes. Still no deception and only the slightest traces of humour.

No, no this was it, wasn't it?

“He was so proud of you, my little girl, he really, truly was.” Her mother held her once more in the firm, tearful embrace, “And I'm sure I speak for the both of us when I say I'm truly sorry he never got to express that.”

The words rang hollow, but the sentiment was appreciated.

“Stage Five! Now calling for Stage Five! Poly Vinyl Puppet Show!”

Octavia growled and, for reasons she didn't quite fully understand, growled at the stagehand across the busy room.

“Acceptance! It should be Acceptance, shouldn't it?”

“Err, no ma'am, I'm afraid that's been pushed back to time indeterminable.”

“Figures.”

No justice in the world.

It was at that bitter revelation that Octavia laughed, really, truly laughed, tears streaming down her eyes. She was vaguely aware of her mother's cooing, of a delicate hoof stroking her hair lovingly, as Octavia's body finally gave out as the last of the emotions left her battered and drained body.

Still, through the haze of the depression, she always felt this nagging at the back of her mind that she had an appointment tomorrow.

A Minor Falsetto (Part Two)

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"Vinyl!" Octavia groaned. "What a surprise, running into you here."

"I'd rib you about making a pun." Vinyl wheezed, "But it looks like you already took all of mine out. Pre-emptive strike there?"

"Oh please," Octavia coughed as she stretched her neck, "You say that like I ever have a plan for anything."

"Hey, compared to me, you're like that old tutor of yours. What was her name, again? Too-Bright Snarkle? Twit-like Not-cool?"

"Firstly, anypony who is capable of living in conditons that aren't squalor, let alone of the abject variety, is fit to have that comparison drawn of them. Secondly, she wasn't all that bad."

Vinyl cocked an eyebrow.

"Okay," Octavia grudgingly admitted, "she was exactly that bad. What's your problem with her, anyway?"

"She organized my record collection! Alphabetically, by genre!" Vinyl snapped.

"Oh, dear, what a fearfully evil act. Did she twiddle a moustache and cackle maniacally the whole time?" Octavia smirked, though there was no hint of malice in it, just the sort of comfortable cruelty that only long, long years of friendship allows.

"Well, none of the records were in their original covers! I just put them back on the shelf where they felt right! I still can't find everything!"

"You sure that's because of her?" Octavia dusted herself off, smiling gently, "and not because they're your weapon of choice against ex boyfriends?"

"That's totally their fault too!"

"I believe you, Vinyl," her voice indicating everything but, "just like it was their fault you dated them at all."

"Yeah!" the unicorn either completely missed the sarcasm or, far more likely, chose to ignore it, "I mean, what was with those jerks. They should have been able to work out they weren't good enough for me long before I did. They'd known themselves way longer than I knew them, after all."

"I cannot argue with that logic." Octavia mused.

"Yeah, see-" Vinyl started before a glance from Octavia cut her off.

"I meant," she continued with a wicked grin, "I can't argue with that logic because there isn't any."

Vinyl stared at Octavia, slack jawed. Octavia stared back.

They both fell into each other, laughing.

DJ PoN3 lowered her trademark shades a little, the hint of a tear forming in her eye, wiping it away absently with a hoof.

"You beat me to it, there, Octy." Vinyl chuckled.

"Strange," Octavia threw a hoof to her chest melodramatically, "and here I thought that beats were your area of expertise."

Vinyl's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Them's fightin' words, miss prim. I'll beat you up!" She laughed until she saw Octavia raise an eyebrow.

The unicorn mulled over her word choice and- Oh! She paled noticeably.

"Oh I didn't mean- I mean, you know I- Oh geeze..." the DJ wilted under Octavia's glance. Finally the grey mare burst into laughter, patting Vinyl's white shoulder's reassuringly.

"Hey, it's okay, you were reaching for a pun, I get that. I think that should be-" she waggled her eyebrows a little for effect, "punishment enough."

Vinyl groaned, a serious deadpan expression betrayed by the corners of her mouth twitching desperately,

"That was awful and you know it."

"Well, now we're even. Besides, we both know if we ever got our hooves down and dirty, Vinyl my dear, you wouldn't last five minutes."

"Hey!" she protested, "I totally could. I've got the whole 'wiry raver' thing going on. What have you got?"

Octavia just stood there and tensed. Powerful, athletic muscle rippled through, causing shimmering coat to ripple like silken waves as the taut sinew flexed beneath it, hinting at Octavia's deceptive bulk beneath. The mare couldn't help but smirk.

"You're catching flies, Vinyl."

The unicorn slammed her mouth shut. "I keep forgetting you can do that." She groused, "It's not fair. You're supposed to be the... refined one," she moaned, though there was no real malice to the words, just the flow of a familiar argument between even more familiar friends, "I'm supposed to be the dancing machine." She head-banged, her glasses never once slipping. She'd paid quite a large amount of bits, Octavia knew, to have them specially made for deceptive grip.

"Well, just be glad I love you too much, Scratchy."

"Aw, that's sweet, I love you too, swirly-butt!" She grinned. There was a tender, chaste hug shared between them.

Twilight galloped around the corner like a headless chicken on a mission, a mission which may have involved a large quantity of methamphetamines based on Twilight's usual lack of grace, to find-

"Well, just be glad I love you too much, Scratchy."

A sentence she had obviously just heard completely out of context and should wait for the reply before jumping to any heart breaking conclusions.

You cannot draw a conclusion from a single data point, the scientist in her reprimanded the hyper-anxious, neurotic, hopeless-romantic portion of her, also known as 'the majority'.

'Right' Twilight thought, 'let's see where this goes first. Then I can have a heartbroken meltdown.'

"Aw, that's sweet, I love you too, swirly-butt!"

Yep, that cut it. That's the sort of lewd comment Twilight was assured only two loving ponies did behind closed doors, ones that should always, always, be knocked on before entering and-

Well. Let's just append that thought with the knowledge that Cadance can blush, no matter how pink she already is, and not dwell more on it, shall we?

She felt a hoof slide across her neck, silky soft, and murmured commiserations. Not even bothering to ask Rarity how she had managed to catch up, she allowed herself to be led away.

"Now, why, exactly, am I running into you, you never did say?"

"I just got a heads up from Princess Luna, right?" A few ponies were aware that Luna and Vinyl were drinking buddies, fellow creatures of the night. Fewer ponies were as excruciatingly aware of their antics as Celestia and Octavia, who had to deal with the mythical resulting hangovers. "Turns out Celestia gave tickets out to here favourite primo numero uno student for special admission to one of your performances, right?"

"Well, as flattering as I suppose that is, I don't suspect that's the whole story, now, is it?" Idly, she muttered to herself, "I wonder if she's anything like the last one..."

"No, see," the unicorn huddled up, eyes darting left and right and grinning ruthlessly from ear to ear, "It's the same one. Apparently Twinkleplot Snarkle."

"I wonder if I saw her in the au-" Octavia stopped, suddenly, her jaw slackening and her shoulders slumping.

Vinyl waited patiently, or as patiently as it was possible for the DJ, but that lasted for all of a few seconds before she started poking Octavia in the ribs, trying to get a reaction from her.

None came.

Vinyl was leaning towards Octavia's barrel, attempting to search for a faint telltale thump or any indication the mare was still breathing when-

She was bowled over by the force of her friend exploding, in the euphamistic sense, and falling backwards onto her plot, in the literal sense, a look of shocked dismay on her face.

"I've been so thick!" She blurted, "Thick, thickity thickface, just whip me up a thickshake because I have been so-"

"Thick?" Vinyl offered.

"Dense!" Octavia snapped. "It's her! Why didn't I work it out sooner than this? Thick!"

"Who's her?"

"The bleeding mare that I-" Octavia's head whipped back up. "That I now know how to find! Vinyl, thank you!" She darted forward and wrapped the unicorn in a choking hug, "Thank you so much!"

She darted off again down the corridor, leaving a wheezing and very thoroughly confused DJ in her wake.

"Err..." The DJ breathed to herself, "You're welcome?"

Octavia skipped down the hallway in bounding lunges, occasionally kicking her hocks together in glee, as Vinyl stared on in confusion.

"Oh, heya, Twilight!" the gatekeeper of Twilight's sanctuary greeted, "what can I getcha?"

"The usual, Joe," Twilight murmured, "Sweet ambrosia and consummate joy."

"Coffee and glazed doughnuts coming up. Freshly baked, freshly brewed and served with today's crossword."

"You are the centre of my universe, Joe” Twilight nodded, hoofing a healthy handful of bits onto the counter, “the gravitational anchor point which holds me in orbit in a turbulent and unloving void.”

Twilight stalked towards her Spot in the joint and reverently took a seat. She collapsed into her seat, her head unceremoniously clunking against the table, occasionally raising a few inches to make room for doughnut. Applejack dropped an extra two bits onto the counter before following her. A silent nod between her and Joe was all that was needed.

Applejack had managed to make a business contact the night of the gala, having found a kindred soul in Joe and as a result Pony Joe and Applejack had come to a degree of friendship and even mutual respect.

The end result were the best apple fritters in Equestria.

Joe turned to Rarity, who was eyeing the counter wearily. Her eyes had an almost manic gleam to them, which Joe was all too familiar with.

“You're hoping for a low-fat, low sugar option are you?” He grinned.

Rarity leapt back as if she had been slapped, staring at him now with the same desperate eyes.

“Well, I'm sorry, luv, but there ain't any. It's all deep fried, sugar glazed and coated, artery clogging goodness.”

She responded by furrowing her eyebrows, glancing between Joe and the... Figure ruining morsels, and back.

“Yes, they'd go straight to your flanks. Honestly, they're fairly gorgeous, but a few couldn't hurt. Yes, the amount you're considering is more than a few. Yes, I also serve some of the best darn milkshakes in the city. No, I'm not reading your mind, but close enough. Yes, I can keep a secret. Nopony but us has to know.”

Rarity glared at the grinning, burly, hunky, stupid tempter before her. Did you know that lifting all that batter and stirring it gave a stallion deceptively thick muscles? That's just... Unfair.

'This would be so much easier if he weren't so... Argh!'

“Here's twelve bits.” She growled. “Give me whatever you deem your finest selection.”

“Would you like a paper bag for-” he circled a hoof in thought, “leftovers?”

“No evidence.” Rarity hissed.

Joe nodded with a knowing smirk, which would only have served to infuriate Rarity further if he wasn't acting like such a stupidly good-looking, if a rough around the edges, gentlecolt. Instead it just gave him the air of the rapscallion, with boyish charm and-

As Rarity fumed internally as he silently passed her a tray of fatty sugary goodness.

“Do you know how how much jogging I'll need to burn off these?!”

“Less than a marathon, more than a Running of the Leaves.”

“Really?” Rarity stopped.

“More or less than you thought?”

“Less. Better throw in another two or three to make it even, then.”

Pony Joe grinned and did as he was asked, glancing over at the sullen Twilight Sparkle, who was staring at her doughnut forlornly, reciting nihilistic poetry. Occasionally Rarity overhead some that she recognized.

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

"Twilight, was that a quote of the immortal bard?"

"Yep." She growled into the table, "The long dead one."

“Now, I don't mean to pry- Well, actually, I do.” He stated plainly, “But Twilight hasn't seemed this downtrodden since she failed that test a dozen years ago, or so.”

Rarity stared.

“What are ya more surprised at, the fact that I remembered that or the fact that Twilight failed a test?”

“I'm not entirely sure.” Rarity answered honestly.

“Well, I'd never seen her so shook up about something before or since, 'til now. Ain't right seeing her like this.”

“Poor dear, just fell for a mare pretty darn hard.”

“Not as hard as the landing I take it?” Joe grunted as he fiddled with some knobs on the coffee machine.

“Exactly.” Rarity nodded, levitating the tray of doughnuts over to Twilight's table. Applejack grabbed her fritter and continued to listen to Twilight, words that Rarity couldn't hear nor understand. She'd seemed to have taken to latin, now, for some reason.

“So she's into mares then, huh? Explains why she turned down all those stallions she turned down over the years.”

“Mind.” Twilight snapped, sending Applejack rocking back in her seat, eyes bulging, “Not body.”

“Dear, you keep seeing that, but if you want us to believe that you need to be a bit more subtle in your ogling.” Rarity turned, eyebrow raised.

Twilight scowled and demolished a powdered doughnut.

“Well, it was partially my fault, as loathe as I am to admit it,” Rarity turned back to Joe sighing, “I remembered enough to tell her the mare she fell for was, in fact, of a similar persuasion. I conveniently forgot, however, that I knew this because of the gossip columns about her and her partner.” Rarity scowled, “A fact that she found out rather personally.”

“Ah.” Joe said simply, levitating a tray of hot drinks to the table. Twilight levitated the pot and gingerly poured one out for Applejack, another for Rarity, before pouring the rest directly into her mouth. Applejack watched in amusement, nibbling on her fritter.

“Twilight. Manners. Vulgar.” Rarity snapped.

Twilight glared at Rarity in defiance as she continued chugging straight from the visibly-steaming pot.

“So, gossip magazine columns huh?” Joe mused, watching Twilight with cautious amusement himself, “must have been a fairly famous pony, then.”

“Or, rather, her partner was. Vinyl Scratch, you see?”

“Oh, her,” Joe mused, “Yeah, I've heard of her, she does some good stuff. Pony Rock Anthem, right?”

“Among others.” Rarity mumbled bitterly.

“I take it you're not a fan?”

“No, no, her music is perfectly fine, and Sweetie Belle seems to enjoy her immensely regardless, I'm still mulling over the whole-”

“-Inadvertently broke your friend's heart thing, right?” Joe finished with a sad nod. “Gotcha. You might want to go ahead and console her, now, anyway.”

Rarity grabbed up her doughnuts, the fresh heat wafting out of the bag tugging at what little remnants of self control she had left, as she afforded Joe one last glance.

“Subtly trying to move me along for other customers are we?” She smirked.
“Lady, you're the only customers I reckon I'll see the rest of the night.” Joe laughed, easily, “I reckon if I get you with your friends whether they'll notice how much you've been ogling me, too, or if it's just wishful thinking.”

Rarity blushed, doing her best to mask it with a scowl, as she snatched up her bag and stormed over to the table, leaving Joe laughing behind her the whole way.

“Well, what was all that about sugarcube?” AJ greeted her, taking the last bites out of her first fritter. Her only fritter, sure, but based on the way that she was eyeing Rarity's veritable sack of doughnuts, Rarity knew she'd be ordering more as the night, inevitably, progressed.

“That rather presumptuous stallion accused me of ogling him!” Rarity fumed.

Applejack blinked. Even Twilight looked up from her current doughnut, a white-icing coated ordeal with purple sprinkles Twilight had carefully arranged into Octavia's cutie mark. Rarity hoped this was Twilight merely dealing with metaphorically getting over the mare and not, say, some lewd mental imagery.

“Rarity.” Applejack started, “When he was talkin' you made eye contact sure enough, but uh, rest of the time you were starin' at them muscles of his. Or his mane. Or his withers. Frankly, you were ogling up a veritable storm, there, missy.”

“Well, it's not my fault he's got that whole diamond-in-the-rough je ne sais quois going for him.” She scowled at the grinning baker, who waved a spatula back at her with a toothy grin, “Frankly it's his.”

“Yep.” Applejack deadpanned, “Sure is real wicked of him taking advantages of his, er, 'rugged' good looks of his.”

“Well- Surely he's far too old for me anyway.”

“Not really, Rarity.” Twilight muttered as she took another ferocious bite of her dough-butt, “He's only a few years older than us. Been working here as a busboy since I was in school, he didn't inherit it until a just a while before I left for Ponyville actually. Shame, that, his doughnuts are so much better than his Dad's.”

Twilight momentarily levitated a pile of doughnut crumbs in front of her, arranging them into a cascade of swirling flecks of sugar flying around in the shape of a pulsing love heart. She smiled wistfully, even as the sweet-heart froze completely over, falling back to the table with a dull thunk.

She was still staring fondly at the frozen heart as it burst into cold, cold flames.

“So, he's just a bit older, owns his own business in Canterlot, and Rarity isn't hearing a word I'm saying because she's too busy staring at his barrel?” Applejack tactfully ignored the burning effigy beside them and snickered as Rarity drooled a little, stuffing another doughnut into her mouth absentmindedly, oblivious to the small pop of the explosion that snapped Twilight back out of her trance, only causing Rarity to absently brush charred frozen crumbs from her mane.

“Well, Rarity, hope your evening goes better for you than it did for me.” Twilight smiled, a sad bittersweet little number but a genuine one. “I know for a fact Joe doesn't have much luck with the ladies up here, used to be a fun topic of ours.”

“Nopony appreciates a right amount of scruff around these parts, eh?” Applejack muttered, a second apple fritter having mysteriously appeared onto her plate at some point.

“I did this place's accounting for a year, once, for extra credit.” Twilight smiled, her eyes glossing over momentarily in fond nostalgia, “They do little more than break even, most pony's around here are too good for this place, right? Turns out they run this place almost out of spite for the snobs, and there's just enough ponies around to keep them in business purely out of guilty pleasure.”

Applejack snorted, spraying a little bit of powdered sugar on Rarity in the process. Of course, Joe had chosen this exact moment to reach a high shelf for a particularly heavy sack of sugar, so Rarity didn't even notice.

“Well what happens when there's an unexpected business expense? Those ovens can't be cheap, for instance, and business would grind to a halt without bakin' in the bakery. A loan can't really be a viable option, since the interest would eat into the profits, since customers eatin' aren't makin enough, right?”

“Oh, now that's the best part,” Twilight grinned goofily, sitting up straighter in her chair, “I think Shining Armour is in on it, and probably Luna too if the recent lack of moon pies is any indication. Every time something like that happens they get a mysterious tax break, about as much as they were losing, based on 'services to the crown'. I don't think the Guard have had to pick a new lunch spot in years."

Rarity grinned. “A hero to the guard you say?”

“Well, I wouldn't say hero but-”

“Well I would.” Rarity sighed happily.

“Oh fer the love of-” Applejack sighed. “Hey, Joe!” She called out.

“Yes, Miss AJ?”

“Get your flank over here for a minute.”

“Oh, I can't do that, there could be another customer here any second!”

“Who you tryin' to fool, ya big galoot? Now, just mosey on over here a mo.”

Joe chuckled and meandered from behind the counter as Rarity shot Applejack a frantic look, a few elegant frantic hoof gestures and a few none-too-subtle glances at all available exits and a few windows.

Twilight stared at Applejack in confusion... Until Applejack winked at her, and Twilight's eyes widened, a little 'o' shaping her lips.

“Joe, you know Rarity. Shame we didn't get to chat more on the train, of course, but you know her just the same.”

“O' course.” he grunted.

“You think she's a fine piece o' mare, don'cha?”

Rarity's head flopped forward, slamming onto the table with a staccato 'bang' as she groaned, ears flopped in resignation.

“O' course,” he repeated, “Stallion'd be lucky to have a gal like that.”

Rarity's head didn't lift from the table, but an ear pricked up, causing Twilight to giggle slightly.

“Well, figure you two could just get this over with and snog, or sumthin', already?”

“Applejack!” Rarity snapped, her head raising from the table like a dawning sun, and of approximately the same shade of red.

“I've got no objections to that.” Joe grinned.

Rarity squeaked and shot Twilight a pleading look.

Twilight glanced at Rarity slyly. “You know, Rarity, he's a common pony in a big, fancy city like Canterlot, place that thinks it's too good for him. Not only is he a diamond in the rough, but it's also a sort of forbidden love, don't you think? Just like out of a fairy tale.” Applejack applauded Twilight silently, shooting the unicorn a wink.

Joe grinned, blushing slightly, rubbing the back of his scruffy mane awkwardly with a hoof. “Well, you flatter me miss, but I wouldn't know-”

He was interrupted by a throaty, almost bestial, growl as Rarity pounced, bowling him over and peppering him with smooches.

Joe watched helplessly, not that he had any objections of course, as Twilight grabbed up their sacks of donuts, trotted out of the store, and a little purple hue switched his 'open' sign to 'closed'.

Hoo, boy.

Octavia rifled through her old sheet music, the special sheets that had been kept aside from her years doing magical research, bound in thick faux-leather so that any latent energies couldn't escape and wreak havoc on her strings.

Near the very front of the tome was a simple leaf of music, the music contained on it yet simpler, almost like a cheerful lullaby sung to an infant.

She grabbed and it gingerly put the old parchment on the music stand, resting a cello beside it, as she scrounged around the small nook attached to the music room for some blank parchment, quills, ink, everything she'd need to write a letter.

It, too, was a simple letter, using very little words but heavy with meaning, one that was placed beside the sheet music on the stand as the 'ritual' demanded.

She took up the cello and played, a song she and Twilight had penned years ago, one of the very first songs the two had composed together in fact, a piece she hadn't played in years.

It was the first truly bardic spell they had created, a means of sending letters between them, across vast distances, keyed to work on two ponies who held each other in their minds, guiding it through the empathetic link.

A spell that hadn't worked for Octavia for years she didn't care to count... until, of course, tonight.

She gingerly put down the bowstring and smiled in relief.

The parchment with the letter was once more blank.

It had worked. She remembered her.

For the first time in years, it had worked again.

“I wasn't that bad, was I, Applejack?” Twilight muttered through a mouthful of bear claw. “You know, earlier?”

“Sugarcube, you were a heck of a lot worse with the goo-goo eyes.”

“Oh.” Twilight sighed.

“Don'tcha worry none, Twi, frankly it was just as hilarious, we ain't holdin' none of that against you.”

Twilight smiled a little at Applejack and leaned into her a little as they walked, just happy to have a friend. The fact that every other happy couple they happened to pass that night was brushed aside, or had a mysterious storm cloud appear above them, or be assaulted by a volley of custard-creme pies. That was purely a series of highly unlikely coincidences.

“We pick her back up in the mornin', right?”

“If'n she so chooses to leave.” Applejack chuckled.

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder, Applejack mine, Rarity knows to always leave them wanting more after all.”

“Lucky stallion, right?”

“I'm honestly happy for them. Joe's a sweetheart, and Rarity, well-”
“Hey, as long as I don't have to tie her down around my brother anymore, it's a win situation for us.”

“I just don't see what other ponies see in Big Mac.” Twilight glanced back at AJ, “His vocabulary doesn't even have the word vocabulary in it.” Her eyes widened a moment and she shot Applejack an apologetic look, “No offense.”

“Well, shoot, he's always been more of the math type anyway. Calls it the universal language or sumthin', I don't really get it.”

“But, just earlier-” Twilight blinked.

“Oh, business maths I can do. Nah, Mac is more like a physician, only not the doctor kind.”

“A physicist?” Twilight offered helpfully.

“That's the one, though that word must be real cruel on anypony with a lisp.” She chuckled, “Anywho, sits around one day and bam, apple to the head, next thing you know he's talkin' about how the ground makes light all bendy or somethin' like that.”

Twilight's eyes widened, again, for a much longer moment. “Mac and I are going to have to have a serious talk when we get back.”

“See, I just thought it was the concussion talkin', but then he went and made all these fancy numbers to prove it, so, I dunno. Reckon he'd do a lot of progress with Rainbow Dash, at least the tail end of her, if she weren't so busy chasin' after us girls and our tail ends.” The farmer grinned.

“I still don't- Wait, Rainbow Dash hits on us?”

“You in particular, Twi.”

“No way.” Twilight didn't say it sarcastically, or defiantly, or with any tinge of disbelief. This was purely a statement of logical fact. “I would seriously have noticed by now.”

Applejack raised an eyebrow, grin never fading. “Twilight, you really are just the most adorably naïve little mare I've had the good fortune to meet, you know that?”

“What do you mean?”

Applejack coughed slightly, drawing her voice into a passable rasping mockery of Rainbow, “Oh hey, Twilight, how's about you and me stay up for a late night anatomy study session, you up for it?”

Twilight's eyes sparkled. “Oh, yes, that was so fun, we stayed up all night reading about sensitive nerve clusters on pegasus wing joints and the application of pressure to certain points of a unicorn's horn to-” The gleam in Twilight's eyes died as abruptly as they began, and a scowl tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Oh dear Celestia she was talking about erogenous zones wasn't she?”

Applejack burst out laughing, grabbing in futility at her sides.

“Hey she- Oh that's just...” Twilight fumed, “Rainbow!”

“If it makes you feel better,” Applejack breathed between wracking laughs, “she said after that she had a powerful fun evenin', learned an awful lot from you. Apparently even put it to good use, if she's to be believed, which is somethin' I'm rather dubious to do, though.”

“No wonder she kept lighting scented candles!”

As years of 'friendship' with Rainbow Dash was scrutinized by a unicorn in very visible shock, Applejack went on, offering helpful pointers and tips the whole walk back to Twilight's old room.

Even as Twilight scrutinized, for some reason, the back of their receipt from the doughnut shop, Applejack was deeply glad that she had forgotten all about the musician from earlier.

Echoes from the Past (Part 2)

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The funeral was in three days.

It was so dumb.

It was so unbelievably, incredibly moronic that there were just no words to describe it, but Octavia found the attempt to find one rather cathartic nonetheless.

‘Idiotic, moronic, blithely imbecilic, nonsensical, doltish, ludicrously puerile, undignified, moronic-’

Wait. Damn. She’d used that one already.

Her father had gotten drunk and just flat out walked off the edge of Canterlot whilst picking a damned fight. Her father for Celestia’s sake. The stallion, one who she would have deeply suspected was a gelding if it weren’t for the damning proof that was her existence, who was so quiet and distant and reserved, for whom every carefully measured response was silently thought and weighed.
Her father, for whom love was a carefully rationed, finite, resource, doled out only in the most extreme of circumstances.

There was a rumour that, when Octavia was born, her father didn’t put down his newspaper for the entirety of the... session? Procedure? Regardless, not once did his knotted brow unfurrow, putting his newspaper down only when he had absolutely finished with it to grab another one, gently and with practiced efficiency, from the pile beside him.

Over the eight hours he did not nap, snooze, sleep or slumber, nor did he grab a book. He just perused his pile of papers, patiently listening to the screams of his belaboured wife.

Even when Octavia was finally brought forth into the world he kept his attention firmly on his paper. He asked the nurse two questions from behind his printed shield.

“Gender?”

“Why, it’s a beautiful baby girl, sir.”

An affirmative grunt, though it may just have been a stifled cough, and the next question was asked.

“And she is?"

“A strong, healthy Earth pony, sir.” The nurse had said, though really was more of a question, apparently, with doubt just now creeping into her perkiness.

“Pity.” Her father had muttered, putting the paper back onto the pile and finally, now, trotting over to his wife and giving her a single peck on the forehead.

Fortissimo Crescendo... That’s what the epitaph would read anyway, but it would always be her father’s grave.

The stallion who had literally killed himself out of stupid, moronic, imbecilic pride for his beloved daughter, a powerful emotion he had rationed out, it seemed, far more frugally than any other.

Well, technically, he had wandered blind drunk off the side of the mountain, but that didn’t sound nearly quite so poetic.

Octavia needed to grieve. She needed time for solace, for introspection, for- for whatever the bereaved do in this situation, truly.

So why did she find herself waiting, dead on time, in front of the door that Princess Celestia had instructed her to the day before?

Surely the princess would have understood a delay - she had no doubt in her mind of that - so her reasons were obviously her own.

It would have been infinitely more helpful, however, if she had simply known what those reasons were.

She knocked on the door, twice, and listened to the flurry of activity behind it with faint amusement.

The door swung open, almost jerked off its hinges rather, by a stunned purple unicorn about Octavia’s age, with an explosion of stars for a cutie mark. Octavia noted it, quickly, before making eye contact, lest she be considered ogling.

There are many problems with a society that tattoos such intimately useful information so close to such a usefully intimate location.

She needn’t have worried, it seemed, as Twilight scanned her own cutie mark.

“Treble clef? I’m sorry, I was expecting a Miss Octavia- You would be?” Twilight sighed bitterly.

Octavia fell back on her political training. Namely, hiding bewilderment with courtesy so as to not betray that you have no idea what the hell just happened; “Octavia, yes. Octavia Philharmonia, pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“But- treble clef!” Twilight blinked, pointing an accusing hoof at Octavia’s rear.

“Is my cutie mark, yes, and perhaps staring and pointing at my rear may give ponies the wrong impression.” Octavia raised a single eyebrow gracefully, a practiced gesture to focus on hiding how badly she wanted to fall to the floor giggling right now, even as an usher stared and scurried off, at the absurdity of her-

Well, this could be called a job interview of sorts couldn’t it?

Twilight, for her part, dropped her hoof and her jaw, blushing beet-red. “Oh! Oh, no, I’m so sorry, please, come inside, I have tea brewed and- Rushing Caravan, actually- uhh, I was just expecting, well...” She trailed off, pointedly looking at the door frame as she led Octavia inside a room that felt at once large and small.

“An octave signature?” Octavia mused as she surveyed the room she was being led into. It truly was a very big small room, which sounds quite perplexing until any thought is put into it.

The room was quite large in terms of actual floor space, all of it being open plan including the little tea room set up, consisting of a countertop, a fridge and a kettle on the stovetop, but it had that ambience that small cramped studies often do. It felt very close, and warm and snug, definitely snug, despite the room easily being able to accommodate a two pony apartment.

Above all it was filled with shelves of organized papers, research notes and sheet music, a veritable armory of musical instruments hanging off the back wall, and a sunlit dais in the middle for a pony to perform on, leaving the walls of the room accessible at all times and all equally acoustically viable to listen from.

Octavia had never felt so at home in her entire life. From the glances and curt nods Twilight kept giving the room as she pottered about, the musician suspected the bizarre little mage felt similarly, which was insurmountably relieving.
Even if they were to have a hostile work environment, at least it was one heck of an environment to be hostile in.

“Actually, I was expecting a tenor clef.” Twilight grumbled as she poured the tea. Octavia sniffed the air, slightly- perfectly steeped Rushing Caravan? Oh, Celestia, the only thing that could make that tea better was-

“I also managed to scrounge up some macaroons from the castle, if you’d like?” Twilight turned with a tray of perfect little confection biscuits, seemingly gleaming in the sunlight.

“Twilight, if you can look past the fact that my cutie mark is, in fact, stupidly wrong, I think we are going to be very, very good friends.” Octavia declared as the tea and biscuits, or ‘bikkies’ as her father had insisted on referring to them, were served in generous portions. Thankfully Twilight poured, as hooves made such a mundane exercise, well, often entirely less than ‘mundane’.

“Well, it is stupidly wrong, I mean, at the very least there’s the octave clef, which now that I think about it is even in your name so-” Twilight’s indignant rant came to an abrupt halt.

“An octave clef would make a lot more sense, come to think of it...” Octavia trailed off thoughtfully, even as Twilight stared at her dumbfounded, flummoxed and otherwise just plain baffled.

“Friends?” She squeaked.

“I mean, I suppose a tenor clef could also- Oh? Oh yes, friends, of course. You have strucken my cold, cold heart with hot, delicious tea and biscuits, I fear that we must be friends now. I’m afraid that’s just one of those things we shall have to live with?” Octavia grabbed a nearby bowstring, using it to flick a macaroon off the plate and send it arcing through the air to land daintily on a hoof, at which point she proceeded to alternate between nibbling and sipping, oblivious to Twilight as she was, lost in her own personal refreshment rapture, until she heard the gasping and wheezing.

The earth pony shot her a concerned glance, wondering where Twilight had gotten the brown paper bag from. She chalked it up to magic.

“Twilight?”

"I"
Gasp
“Just give me a mo-”
Wheeze
“Moment, I just-”
Crackle
“Need a moment to-”
Gasp
“Breathe.”

Octavia had seen some pretty major panic attacks before. Vinyl used to get them pretty badly before going on stage, no matter the crowd, and the performer’s asthma had really not helped those situations.

In a way it was incredibly relieving for Octavia to be put into the position she was in now. It was familiar, it was practiced, it was rote. She just needed to work out what would distract Twilight the most so she could occupy the forebrain whilst the hindbrain processed the buildup in peace.

Copious amounts of alcohol were not situationally appropriate.

“You know what, Twilight?” She ventured, acting as if the panic attack totally wasn’t happening. The last thing a panicked person wants is attention drawn to themselves, after all.

Wheeze
“What?”

“I think my cutie mark isactually an octave clef.” She was deadly serious and thoughtful, drawing Twilight away from her current thoughts to dwell on just how stupid this was.

“Your mark is quite obviously a treble clef-” Gasp!“- though.”
“Ah! That may be the case!” Octavia declared triumphantly, “but we all know that an octave clef is two interlocked treble clefs, right?”

“R-right.”

“Cutie marks are symmetrical, are they not, same on each side?”

“They are, yes.”

“So, I submit to you, then, that my cutie mark is two treble clefs tied together with an octave!”

Twilight thought about it for a moment. She nodded seriously pondering the implications, considering them, weighing them up.

She then promptly fell onto her back laughing her plot off, legs free wheeling in the air.

Octavia feigned being hurt, quite half-heartedly, “Come now, really, I thought that was rather quite clever!”

“It was the dumbest brilliant thing I’ve ever heard!” Twilight practically howled, flopping onto her side with a manic grin. She suddenly frowned, a tight worried little number, and rolled back onto her stomach, staring at Octavia in wonderment.

“You did say friends, though, right?”

Octavia’s eyebrows shot up in genuine shock.

“Is that really what had you so panicked?”

Twilight grumbled, a deep roll at the back of her throat, not unlike the noise small children make when they know they’re caught but don’t quite want to admit it just yet, the similarity not being purely coincidental either.

“Does the idea of having a friend really panic you so much?”

“Yes!” Twilight blurted. “I mean, then you have to constantly worry about whether you’re not spending enough time with them, or too much time, and even then when you’re talking to them do you make eye contact, because if you do it too much you seem creepy, but not enough and you’re vacant and uninterested, and then do you talk to them? I mean, you want to talk to them, but then you’re always worried about saying the wrong thing, and then they’ll never want to talk to you again, which just sort of wastes all that time you spent wondering whether you were spending too much or too little time with them!”

Gasp!

Octavia worried for a moment Twilight had started freaking out again, a not unfounded fear in the least, but took a relieved sigh when she realized it was only because Twilight had said that all in one breath.

Whoah.

Octavia tried to think of something, anything to say. She settled on what she’d already worked out.

“Whoah.”

“Yeah.” Was the heartbreakingly sullen response, particularly for a mare who had, seconds ago, been rolling ‘round laughing at some terrible wordplay.

Okay, Octavia admitted, it was totally brilliant wordplay, but still.

“Well, no matter what, you’ve got me,” Octavia declared, offering Twilight a hoof off the floor, a hoof which was gratefully accepted, “because we’re stuck together until this whole research deal is over, right?”

“Y-yeah...” Twilight stammered, a spark re-igniting behind her eyes as she straightened more confidently, “Yeah! Yeah, that’s right, we’re in it for the long haul, aren’t we?”

“I couldn’t leave you if I wanted to.” Octavia grinned, thinking fondly of Vinyl.

Twilight looked suddenly panicked again. Octavia sighed and pulled her into a tight, chaste hug. “It’s just a joke, Twilight. I was being sardonic.”

“Fuh-” Twilight stuttered, “Fu-fu-fuh-”

“Hmm?” Octavia made a note to future self- If it’s something that Vinyl would do or say? Don’t do that around Twilight Sparkle..

“Physical contact,” the unicorn wheezed, “It burns!”

Octavia glanced at the mare slowly wilting at her side.

Oh dear.

“Be right back gotta shower for a quick moment, bye!” Twilight blurted out before Octavia slumped to the ground rubbing her eyes, leaning against a weight that had simply turned into a flash of light.

Oh, dear.

She eyed the remaining macaroons and the teapot.

At least there was some justice in the world, she grinned.

“Okay-” A slightly soggy Sparkle said within seconds upon her return, glancing at the crumb spattered Octavia who shot back an awkward glance of her own, “- we’re probably going to have to lay down some ground rules.” She punctuated the remark by summoning a checklist and quill, tapping it lightly.

Octavia’s grimace flicked, almost imperceptibly, around the corners at the implied half joke. An olive branch extended- without actually touching hooves in the process, of course.

“First: No touching. Ever. I know, I know, it’s a weird rule,” she glared off to the side, rolling the words in her mouth as if they tasted bitter to her, “but it’s a pretty important one to me.”

“Well, how do you get around that one?” Octavia tried to ram down the curiosity in her voice, let only the sympathy show, but she wasn’t entirely sure if she succeeded. Twilight either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

“Unicorn.”

“Ah.” Octavia nodded.

“Second rule; You’re free to help yourself to anything here, it’s your workspace too, but I request that you keep everything organized. If I suspect you of creating clutter just to mess with me I will vapourize you.”

“What do you deem an acceptable level of clutter, then?” Octavia flinched

“Well, you don’t have to be as neat as I am, of course. You are the arts student.” Twilight made a dismissive gesture with a hoof.

“Art student.” She kept her tone neutral, if slightly deadpan.

“Yes, of course, because art students don’t have the same mental and organizational discipline of hard science students. You’re more eccentric!” Twilight stared at the ceiling in thought for a moment, allowing Octavia a chance for a stealthy glare, “Ooh, that’s a good word, I’ll have to remember it for scrabble with Spike later.”

She bit back a retort. On the one hoof, that was in no way a little offensive a generalization. On the other, though, the oblivious unicorn seemed to be smiling at her gratefully now, and honestly just seemed to think she was being accommodating.

Oh dear, she honestly didn’t think that was a horribly offensive generalization?

“Well,” Octavia tried to think less about that, “What's the third rule?”

“Third rule?” Twilight cocked her head, “Why would there be a third rule?”

“There's always a third rule! It's like, a rule all its own.”

“The rule of there always being a third rule?” Twilight raised her eyebrow this time.

“Close enough.” Octavia nodded, “So, what is it?”

“Well, as a matter of fact,” Twilight sighed, “there is a third rule; Our work here comes first. No late night cram sessions when we're due to work with each other the next morning,” Octavia swore Twilight winced in pain as she said that, but couldn't for the life of her work out why, “always be here ready and in prime condition for maximum efficaciousness.”

“What if I'm hungover?” Octavia joked.

The 'joke' part of that seemed to fly well and truly over Twilight's head, as evidenced by craning her neck up- Or maybe that was just Twilight looking down her nose at the earth pony momentarily.

“You drink?” The words were heavy with accusation.

“Well, just a tipple.” Octavia shrugged, “When I go out with friends, sometimes.”

Twilight's eye twitched, slightly, as she stared at the musician open-mouthed.

“Just wine!” Octavia hastened to add, “and sometimes a Cosmopolitan. Or whiskey on the rocks. Sherry's nice too...” She trailed off, her shoulders slumping with each new addition.

“You realize it's poison?” Twilight gaped. “Not just that, but highly flammable. I use it around the lab frequently-” Twilight declared, locking her laser-glare on Octavia, “as disinfectant, because it is very, very good at killing things.”

'Think, Octavia! You can't win with logic-Not only is this mare obviously a superior debate combatant, but, well, there has never been anything particularly logical about drinking. Some piece of obscure trivia, perhaps? That might distract her, certainly, but it's a bandaid- Where do the two intersect?'

Octavia squirmed in her seat and sweated visibly for a moment as Twilight patiently awaited rebuttal.

'Ah-ha! Historical quotes! Obscure enough to provoke thought, poignant enough to dispel argument!”

“All medicine is poison,” Octavia straightened and recited, matching Twilight's gaze with a steely one of her own, projecting confidence she didn't quite feel, particularly after learning point two. “What matters is the dosage.”

Twilight seemed to slump, all hostility, intentional or not, leaking out from her tense withers and down through her hooves.

“Yes, you're quite right, I'm being overly dramatic again. Maybe. To be fair it really is good at killing millions of tiny things at once.” Twilight nodded, massaging the bottom of her jaw in thought. “But it just, well, it just gives me the heebie-jeebies.” she punctuated the remark with a shudder, “killing parts of your brain like that. Why would you want to do that? For all intents and purposes you're destroying aspects of yourself, which begs the question of how much of your personality is linear or a culmination of experiences, which again is affected by being so drunk you don't remember the night before, but if you're still conscious, is it truly, say, you experiencing that night-”

Octavia sat patiently whilst Twilight babbled. She was starting to pick up on just how this mare worked, now, though-

She drained the last of her tea, a tragic shame for a good cause that she couldn't savour the rest of the exceptional brew, and surreptitiously clinked her empty porcelain cup against the saucer.

Twilight's ear perked and flicked towards the sharp clink.

“Oh, dear, I'm not being a gracious host at all am I? Would you like a refill?” Twilight sighed and mentally gripped the teapot again.

The musician graciously, and gratefully, accepted.

Octavia sipped and met Twilight's expectant gaze again, smiling gently.

“Should we get on to business, then?” she suggested, “Or would you rather discuss the nihilistic ramifications of insobriety?”

The words had the intended affect; Twilight's eyes twinkled at the prospect of getting to work, visibly. Her pupils even dilated a little.

Octavia had seen that happen to Vinyl's eyes before, a few times, whenever the other mare got an adrenaline rush. She could barely stifle a giggle at the idea of-

Actually, no, the idea of the purple pony getting an adrenaline rush from bookkeeping seemed oddly fitting.

“Right! Well, where should we start?” Twilight clapped her forehooves together and giggled gleefully, like a foal on Hearthswarming.

“Well, I suppose I would like to know more about what you're doing? Celestia only truly broached it in the broadest sense.”

“Right!” Twilight jumped up, bustling about the deceptively-large room and grabbing a bunch of scrolls, “Composition! We should go over what I've come up with so far, and why I'm doing it.”

“Right.” Octavia agreed, the ghost of an amused smile appeared as she watched Twilight dance across the shelves, grinning and enthusiasticly and waggling her hips in time to an unseen beat-

Octavia blushed, blinking suddenly. Oh, no, no, no. That was not allowed. This mare was far too high-strung. If she were a bowstring, like the ones she had used years ago, Octavia would have thrown her away immediately for fear of snapping the moment any tension was placed on it.

Even then she wasn't afraid the bow was capable of nuclear fission.

Still, as Twilight bobbed about, humming tunelessly and burying herself under scrolls, Octavia looked desperately for physical flaws, anything she could focus on to distract her from something as stupid and invasive as Celestia thrice damned attraction.

Her mane was too straight and orderly- But she grinned at the mental image of the daft unicorn taking to it with a scalpel and a protractor.

“Hmm?” Twilight murmurred, the scrolls dropping momentarily, “Don't be silly!”

'Oh dear, oh dear, I just said that aloud?!' Octavia panicked 'Am I truly that distracted?!'

“I use a slide rule, much more efficient than a protractor. The scalpel is a good idea, though.” Twilight nodded, before getting back to scroll searching.

That was just too much. Octavia felt the butterflies in her chest hammering at that. The butterflies were obvious very confused because what Twilight had just implied was obviously just very silly and not heart-wrenchingly adorable at all.

Oh, dear.

“There!” Twilight finished, dumping the scrolls at Octavia's hooves, snapping her out of her reverie. “This should be enough to start!”

A few of unfurled enough to reveal notes and bars. Sheet music? They must be, but they all had the names of spells, from the few titles Octavia could see, let alone the ones she could recognize.

“So, I hear you play the bassoon?” Twilight beamed. Octavia nodded. “Excellent! Bass, bass is crucial for this. Well, Octavia, how would you like to be the first earth pony magician?”

Octavia considered it carefully.

“Wouldn't growing a horn be rather painful?” She posed as diplomatically as she could whilst a rational part of her psyche, afflicted with the mental image, crawled into a deep, dark spot and rocked back and forth, crying.

Twilight's eyes widened in horror.

“No! No, that's- Trying to do that is immoral and more than slightly tribalist!” Twilight hissed, glancing at the sun out the window, barely even wincing despite looking directly at it.
She continued slightly louder, “And that would be a Very Bad Thing that I would never think to attempt because earth ponies are pretty tops. They're, they're quite swell, really.”

'Well', Octavia stared blankly, 'I'm horrified and more than slightly morbidly curious, now.'

“No!” Twilight continued explosively, whipping back around to stare at the other mare with wide eyes and a chesire, toothy grin, the bright cheery look only find on madmares and nightmares- Octavia couldn't quite decide which, or both, Twilight classified right now- “No, I'm planning on manipulating the ley lines and natural thaumaturgic energy of the natural pony anatomy and channel it musically much like a unicorn directly harnesses the fey forces with their horns!”

“Could you repeat that again please-” There was a loud squeaking sound as Octavia's chair scooted back a few desperate hops, “-but slower?”

Twilight sighed.

“I'm trying to allow earth ponies and pegasi to be able to manipulate natural thaumaturgic potential in the same way that unicorns do.”

Octavia blinked. She understood all those words individually, sure, but somehow they became strange and alien lumped together like that.

Twilight sighed and rolled her eyes again.

“I'm using music to channel magic in other tribes.”

Oh.

Oh!

“So, this music?” Octavia gestured around her.

“Yes!” Twilight declared triumphantly.

“This music right here is actually spells.”

“Yup!” Twilight bobbed her head.

“You composed all of these?” Octavia made a sweeping gesture, incredulity dripping off her face.

“By candlelight, mostly.” Twilight sighed. “Some of them may have wax stains on them, I’m afraid.”

“Then why do you need me?” the musician - though she was starting to feel creeping doubt whether the title was a fair distinction between the two of them right now - practically blurted.

“Because I’m a unicorn.” Twilight sighed again, deeper, pacing the room now. “Whenever I try to sing these-” she glared at Octavia as if daring her to comment on her singing. She continued when none came, “- It just focuses through my horn again without me realizing. Sure, there’s potential in teaching foals how to cast magic through music, which is an achievement unto itself, but the goal was to be able to let pegasi and earth ponies experience what magic is like! So, I need somepony who isn’t me."

“I do have that rather elusive trait, don’t I?” Octavia nodded.

“Oh, goody, I do oh so love sarcasm,” Twilight replied

Oh, is that how she’s going to play is it?’

“What a clever response.” Octavia stared back, equally emotionless.

Both of them engaged in a tense stare-off, waiting for the other to crack. Ultimately, they both broke out into giggles at the same time.

“I’m hoping that the use of instruments will act as a sufficient focus,” Twilight continued, coughing slightly as she regained her decorum, as Octavia’s mother would have put it, “A talented vocal artist pegasus, with their natural magical aptitude for manipulating air currents, would have been perfect for this.”

Octavia just sat patiently, a questioning glance. The word hung in the air between them, unasked but still evident.

But.

“But that might have made the vocal chords the focus. I don’t want untested magic to be inside somepony.”

“Well, that’s just common sense, I suppose-” Octavia noted Twilight’s sheepish glance.

“Well, hindsight is twenty-twenty.” The unicorn coughed into a hoof, “I learned my lesson, though!”

Octavia raised a hoof and opened her mouth as if to reply. Octavia lowered her hoof and closed her mouth.

Octavia decided that some things are best left unknown.

“No pony was hurt at least?” She asked instead. Twilight didn’t seem to hear. She was busy pacing, and muttering something.

“No pony was hurt, though?” she asked a little louder, forcing the panic out of her voice.

“Hmm? Oh! No, no-one was hurt. Badly. At least, nothing permanent. Physically permanent.”

‘Well, that’s reassuring.’’

“Hmm? I’m sorry,” Twilight turned desperately to Octavia, “Nothing bad should happen this time!”

‘I just said that out loud again didn’t I?’

“Oh hey! You talk to yourself too!” Twilight beamed, her smile far, far too wide, a corner of her eye tugging slightly, “See, we have so much in common, you should totally not leave me! You’re the best candidate so far, I swear, you’re the only one I’ve found remotely likable!”

Well, that caught Octavia off-guard.

“I thought this position was strictly professional?” She accused, beating back down the blush and playful flutter of her stupid, dumb, moronic, fickle heart.

“Oh, yeah,” Twilight spat out distastefully, “but everypony else knows it. They’re all like ‘oh hey Celestia totally thinks I’m so great, why don’t you appreciate her, hey we should go out and be totally great together’ and it’s so- eugh.”

“Eugh?”

“Eugh.” Twilight confirmed.

“So you rather me, who just accepts that you’re far superior.” Octavia grinned.

“Yes!”

There was a long pause. Octavia became absolutely poker faced, watching the unicorn’s relieved expression morph into one of absolute horror.

“No!” She blurted out, “That’s not what I meant at all! I mean, I don’t think I’m better than you, or that you’re worse than me, we’re just different, and different doesn’t mean bad, and I-” Octavia’s sly grin was answer enough for Twilight. She deflated, her head hanging a little limply as she just stared apologetically at Octavia.

“Okay, I totally walked right into that one didn’t I?”

“Humility is not one of your strong points is it?” It was an observation, not an accusation.

“No, but magic is. So-” A bassoon was levitated over to Octavia, who sat up a little straighter to hug it to her.

Octavia looked at the bassoon warily. “What am I playing first?”

“Well, let’s try,” Twilight flipped through the sheaf on the music stand, “a little bit of something simple.”

“What will this piece do?” Octavia was definitely wary now.

“This one should just reheat your beverage of choice.” Twilight stared at the parchment. “Though I’m not sure. If the key signature is a little off on this one it may end up boiling your saliva.”

“Oh.” The response was like the music; rather flat.

“Don’t worry, I’m about ninety five percent sure this is right.”

“Ninety five percent sure?”

“Well, eighty to ninety five percent.” Twilight amended with a shrug.

“Delightful.”

‘Princess Celestia better include hazard pay...’

“Oh, don’t worry, she is. Or, I should say, will. Sorry, I'm used to addressing that in the present tense."

“Did I just do it again?!”

“No, no, that’s what every other applicant asks at about this point.” Twilight sighed.

“So, for this spell, there were other applicants and you still don’t know if it does what it’s meant to?!” Octavia was now utterly enthralled. Whereas before her survival instincts had been screaming in her ear now they seemed content to pull up a chair and just observe, perhaps even learn something.

“Hmm? Oh, no, I just mean ever. This isn’t the first time I’ve needed test ponies, you see? So few ponies value scientific discoverythese days, though, it seems.” Twilight sighed again and gazed out a window longingly.

“I value room-temperature bodily fluids, actually,” was the muttered reply.

“So?” Another curious tilt of the head back towards Octavia. “Aren’t you going to play?”

Good question.’

Octavia readied the bassoon and played, tentatively at first, before losing herself to the music. It was simple, certainly, but it had a strength to it, a solidness, and she lost herself to this point of time and space as the music flowed through her, igniting her core, funneling through the bassoon until-

She blinked, realizing the piece had finished. She felt momentarily disappointed and blinked at Twilight, who had come around full circle with her pacing, who replied with a sad smile.

“I know, it doesn’t feel long enough does it?” Twilight gulped at nothing, swallowing the lump in her throat, “The problem is that if it goes on for as long as it feels it should, the cup boils over.”

I just totally forgot about the grievous bodily harm, didn’t I?’ the mare sat in mortified shock. At least there was fresh tea, now, to-

“Pffffft!”

The tea exploded from her lips in a fine misty vapour. She clinked the cup back onto its saucer in disgust.

“That was awful. Atrocious even.”

Twilight zipped over, her brow knotted tight, a magnifying glass levitated to the rim of the small porcelain cup.

She lifted the cup to her lips and-

Pfffft!”

Both ponies started desperately pawing at their tongues ineffectually, trying to rid them of the taste of the not-tea.

“Okay, just as I suspected,” Twilight lisped, moving her numb tongue as little as equinely possible, revulsion flashing across her face whenever she got so much as a hint of the aftertaste pang back.

“You suspected that would happen?” Octavia sprayed crumbs, having turned to crunching down the last macaroon left from earlier she’d been saving just in case. It did a decent job of masking the foul, bitter aftertaste..

She made a note to thank her past self.

“Well, feared, really.”

"You let me- Why would you- What is wrong with the music to make it do that?!?!” Octavia demanded with another cascade of crumbs. A speck landed on Twilight’s nose.

It spoke volumes of the magnitude of her discomfort that she barely even noticed, wiping it away disdainfully with the back of a hoof.

“It’s not the music!” she implored, “It’s the instrument. It’s totally wrong for you.”

“But I’m a bassoon player!” Octavia rocked out of her seat, shouting now, “It’s what I play.

“Yes, and you play it very well,” the unicorn agreed with a vigorous nodding of her head, sending her neat bangs into a momentary flurry of apologetic disarray, “but it’s the wrong instrument for you. It poisons what you play. Actually, from the way you hold it, I don’t think you’re meant for woodwind at all.”

Octavia just seethed, staring at the ignorant, naive, stupid, frustrating- oh dear, she was doing it again wasn’t she?- unicorn with barely-restrained apoplexy.

“Have you tried...” Twilight browsed the wall brackets around them, selecting her weapon of choice from the armory, “perhaps something from the strings family?”

“I used to play strings.” Octavia grudgingly admitted, “but they’re hardly an earth pony instrument.”

Twilight grinned at Octavia with wide-eyed, bushy tailed, genuinely excited glee, even going so far as to bounce between back hooves a little, not unlike a child that’s had far too much sugar and is being offered the prospect of more. She had a delighted grin without any malice hidden behind all its good intentions.

You know, the kind of grin that instills the foreboding sense of impending doom on whomever receives it?

“Isn’t that exactly what we’re trying to do here though?” She pointed out, lifting a hoof almost trembling with excitement. “Make earth ponies do unicorn things?”

“Well, yes, but-”

“Well! Let’s get to it then!” She effortlessly levitated an improbably-heavy looking cello down from the wall.

“A cello? I used to play the violin but-”

“Oh, I think you’ll pick this up very fast.” Twilight nodded again, like a bobblehead with a loose spring to Octavia’s eyes, “Truly, try it!”

So Octavia played.

It felt so natural to her hooves. The bowstring gripped with a simple enchantment, the the other hoof dancing across the frets, hitting the occasional sour note but ultimately?
It was perfect. Like wearing a cozy pair of slippers on a cold winter morning.

“I told you so.” Twilight beamed brighter than a lighthouse, her teeth polished to a shine by glistening smug.

The pieces to a puzzle were falling into place, a puzzle Octavia hadn’t been able to see until now. A chain of dominos, each individual a simple idea on its own, with no greater meaning, but when lined up-

They come crashing down.

Spectacularly.

“Have you composed anything non-magical?” Octavia lined her hoof back, daring to lay the final domino in its line.

“Oh, yes, of course. Whilst I was still practicing. Quite interesting, really, how music is just applied mathematical formulas for the most part.”

“Applied maths?”

“Oh, yes. I don’t even know what it’s going to sound like until it’s finished!” Twilight chirped happily, cheerfully oblivious to the dangerous tensing of the muscles in the other mare’s neck, “Fascinating, truly.”

“You’ve only been studying music for a few weeks, too?”

“Oh, I’ve always enjoyed it, certainly, but I haven’t taken it up as a hobby until fairly recently.”

"Show me." Octavia demanded.

“Excuse me?” The unicorn took a step back, a hurt look evident for Octavia to see. Her heart thumped in protest.

“Show me something you’ve composed.”

“Oh. Err-”

A few pages of complex sheet music were put in front of Octavia.

“You sing the high notes, I’ll accompany you.” She all but growled. Twilight nodded, confusion guiding her actions more than rational thought.

And so Octavia played.

And so Twilight sang.

And so it was beautiful.

The musical notes tinkled and swirled in the air around them, pirouetting around the ears and parting with the briefest of kisses, promises of notes to come, of rises and falls and melodic rapture.

And so it was beautiful.

And so Twilight sang.

And so Octavia was forced to endure her life’s passion, her spark, her profession, her drive, her very being... be mastered flawlessly, and with unrivalled and unparalleled elegance and perfection, by the unassuming little mare beside her who had taken it up as a hobby some time this year.

And so Octavia played, tears in eyes, unable to resist the song’s demand to be heard, its quality a magic unto itself.

And then it finished, with a gentle and unassuming flourish.

It wasn’t perfect. Perfection would deny all that came after it the hope of rivalling its beauty.

Perfection was a flaw unto itself. If it were perfect, to many it wouldn’t have inspired such a want for greatness, a want to strive for that same wonderful rapture. How could they? It had already been achieved, and all future attempts would be meaningless.

To Octavia’s ears, though, it was excruciatingly perfect.

Her father had gotten himself killed over his pride for her the night before and this is what she was stacked against?

Twilight watched as the earth pony hugged the cello close to her body defensively. She watched as the mare’s anger melted, cascading off her and replacing it with eerie calm.

She mistook this as a sign to be incredibly relieved, as obviously everything had just turned out alright after all.

“So-”

“Can I keep the cello?” Octavia asked, her words drenched in syrupy sweetness.

“Ah, yes. Yes, by all means!” There was uncertainty now, just a little.

“Copy of some of the music?”

“Ah, the foal level spells are here, the piece you just played is all yours now and-” she scrabbled around in her little paper piles, relaxing in the mindless task, “I have some experimental compositions I haven’t tried yet combining earth pony music and unicorn jazz.”

Octavia skimmed the ‘spell book’. She glared deadpan at the unicorn.

“You do realize that most unicorns don’t learn these until at least about their middle to late teens, surely?”

“Really?!” Twilight gaped, “But they’re so practical! I don’t know how I could live without my Mending spells.”

“Mending spells.” Octavia’s voice wavered slightly, “You mean the kind that great craftsponies can spend their whole lives trying to master? You learned as a foal?”

As a foal Octavia had been desperately trying to even work with a bowstring, denied any chance to compete or perform with unicorns, shot looks whenever she tried one would give to a crippled child, or a disabled one, because she didn't have a bone growth jutting from her forehead.

“Of course! It’s really not that hard, once you get the hang of it.” Twilight implored. That dreaded doubt was back, certainly.

"It’s really not that hard, once you get the hang of it". Like a bowstring. Like the bloody bowstring of the cello Twilight had just happened to figure out was perfect for her? From a glance and two weeks of experience?!

Oh, but sure, that was all it took for the unicorn to master everything Octavia had struggled her entire lifetime to achieve, and then surpass it. What's worse, she did it so dispassionately, like it was just another math problem to solve.

What's worse was she was right. Apparently she had solved it.

Is there anything,” Octavia snapped, “that you can’t do so bloody perfectly?!”

Silence. Piercing, all consuming silence, broken by the sound of a single teardrop.

Twilight stared at her hooves.

“I don’t think I’ll ever have a pony like me. Not if they don’t need me for something.” She said quietly.

Octavia stared, slack jawed, filled with impotent and directionless rage, no longer with an outlet to ground itself upon. She stared at the pathetic figure slumped before her, the beautiful and wounded unicorn who moments ago had been full of childlike innocence and enthusiasm, and she paused.

She moved, as if to reach out to Twilight, to comfort her, to tell her that everything would be okay.

Octavia still had her grip on that accursed booklet of perfection, though, in that hoof, and the movement caught her eye. She stared at it and she remembered.

With a short, conflicted scowl, she placed all the notes and paper into the cello case, rested the instrument delicately on top of it, and walked defiantly out of the room.

Vinyl opened the door to her flat, toothbrush hanging limp to one side of her mouth, shades slightly askew.

“This better be good since you got me before I have my energy drinks.”

“It’s noon.”

“Yeah, I felt like getting up early for some practice. Still getting the taste of hangover out of my mouth. All this natural light is not helping, Octy,

“I would like to take you up on your longstanding offer, my friend,” Octavia growled, ramming a pile of sheet music into Vinyl’s white chest, creating a sort of polka-dot pattern as the unicorn clutched it in bewilderment. “Let’s go get thoroughly smashed, hammered and downright sozzled."

Vinyl’s eyes softened, toothbrush levitating out of her mouth momentarily. “Look, if this is about your Dad, drinking isn’t going to help, you know.”

Octavia blinked. She’d almost completely forgotten about-

No. No she hadn’t.

She’d just rammed it back to the farthest corners of her mind and told it to shut up whilst she focussed on other things, and she had officially run out of things to focus on.

The floodgate burst, suddenly, as Vinyl stared at her in sympathy, leaning forward as Octavia collapsed into her shoulder.

“Octavia,” Vinyl muttered into her ear, “I love you, but I am way too hungover right now to deal with this.”

“Oh.” She muttered, taking a step back, choking back sobs. “I’m sorry for pushing my burdens on-”

Vinyl took a step to the side and gestured with her head, toothbrush flopping in the process.

“Nah, it’s chill, just meant I reckon I got a head start on you anyway. Come in, I’ve got, uh, scotch and cola, rum and cola, gin and cola,” she grimaced, “sorry I ran outta juice, same goes for the vodka actually.”

“Whiskey.” Octavia muttered as the door closed softly behind her, more for Vinyl’s hangover than out of politeness she suspected.

“On the rocks, like always, coming up-” Vinyl canted up to the little wet bar she had set up in her apartment.

“Neat, this time, thank you.”

The toothbrush fell to the floor with a squishy clatter.

“Whoah. That bad huh?”

“You wouldn’t believe.” Octavia grumbled. “I’m going to have to attend my father’s funeral sometime very soon, inevitably blame myself for his death and have a lot of soul-searching introspection on what he actually meant to me, most likely with Princess Celestia in attendance knowing I’ve disappointed her student, still paying her respects to a stallion whose last act was out of sheer pride for me and-” Octavia turned about as pale as the unicorn beside her, looking for all the world like sisters for a moment, “-oh Tartarus that sounds infinitely worse now that I say it out loud. Leave the bottle, please, I’ll owe you immensely for it.”

Vinyl shrugged slowly, wincing visibly even beneath the shades as she concentrated her magic on pouring a drink. “I’s cool, can’t stand the stuff myself,” she finished pouring the drink and replaced the tooth brush, “just keep it around for you anyway. Gimme a good vodka any day. Heck, even gimme a terrible vodka any day, even the cheap stuff has, whatcha ma call it, ah, character, that’s it.”

“Ta.” Octavia nodded before downing the shot in a single quick gulp, tossing her head back so as not to let the burning fire linger any longer than it had to to serve its foul purpose.

“Vinyl... Vinyl are you crying?” She asked tentatively as she refilled her glass, slugging another sickly shot.

“Tears of pride, Octy. Tears of pride.”

“Huh. Maybe when I asked you out, I should have challenged you to a drinking contest.” The bottle was eased of its liquid burden, a burden that Octavia gladly assumed.

Vinyl tapped a hoof to her chin, rolling the brush in her mouth thoughtfully, and finally mused, “You know what? That might have worked. Prize could have been sloppy makeouts if you won or something, and I might have been drunk enough to go through with it.”

A smirk, now, and nopony could smirk like Vinyl. The quality of smirking is inversely proportional to the levels of shame one possesses, and Vinyl had long since been running on empty.

“Would have been heck’a awkward the next morning though.”

A fine spray of whiskey mist erupted from a very-wide-eyed Octavia.

Vinyl went on as if nothing had happened, “Then again, would our friendship have been worth one night of drunken, experimental sex? I mean, I would have gone all at it, you know. I mean, I’m straight, sure, but if I’m going to make an exception it’s gotta be worth it right?”

Her best friend stared at her silently, expression completely neutral.

It was still neutral when she picked up the bottle of whiskey and proceeded to take desperate gulps from it, though she did wince a little in the process.

“I hate you so much right now.” She grumbled, hiccuping slightly.

“You only hate me ‘cause you love me.” Vinyl grinned, spinning on her hooves to face back towards the stairway.

“Yes, yes I thought we had established that. What you just said was utterly cruel.”

“True.” Vinyl turned to Octavia with a serious expression, “but I figured you’d want something else to brood about, something you did right.”

And with that she trotted back up the cheap stairway.

But not before Octavia got a few key glances at her ample, bobbing posterior.

That whiskey bottle didn’t know what hit it.

Echoes from the Past (Part 3)

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Octavia woke up on an old, weathered couch - too new to be classed as antique but too worn to be anything but - with a throbbing hangover, an empty whiskey bottle cradled in her hooves and a throbbing hangover.

Wait, did she just think that one twice? It was too hard to concentrate.

She was quite hungover, you see.

Her mouth was filled with cotton demons, her eyes were collapsing under their own weight and her skull felt like it was trying to flee her head and scatter itself to the far corners of Equestria, and probably would have succeeded if it weren’t for all that damned scalp getting in the way, or that it was debating separating into pieces and couldn't agree on the dividing lines.

Her nose twitched - it had caught the scent of something.

Congealed cheeses, fats, oils...

Octavia righted herself on the couch, head flopping lazily over the armrest, which had long been worn down past the ability to provide any actual support, as her eyes slowly pried themselves open.

Being waved around at about nose height was a glistening, glittery paper bag lined with foil, filled with a-

“Doner kebab.” Octavia groaned, swatting at it with a forehoof, “gimme. Get in my mouth you stupid floating grease stick.”

“C’mon, Octy, I go out and get you something nice and what do I get for it? Not even a ‘hello, my stupidly smexiful best friend in the whole wide world’ for it?”

Octavia pried her eyes wider still. It appeared that the kebab wasn’t floating of its own accord, as all truly blessed foods should do, but was being waved at her by by her grinning best friend’s magic, who appeared to have worked off the last of her own hangover, just in time to torment the pony flopped on the couch.

“I learned a spell earlier that boils the saliva inside a ponies mouth. Gimme the kebab before I’m forced to use it.” Octavia grumbled, taking another ineffectual swipe at the foil, watching it jerk away at the last second with a low, miserable groan.

“That was ambiguously worded. Let me take a swing,” she jerked the kebab back, “of my own at this; it boils your own saliva, right?”

“Well, yes,” Octavia growled, propping herself into a more reasonable position, “but then you would be forced to watch me suffer and it would be quite unpleasant, I can assure you.”

“Yeah, flaw in that plan, I’m already totally watching you suffer. How’s that going for you so far, anyway?”

Vinyl took a pillow to the face. With her guard down the kebab was an easy target. Octavia went in for the kill.

It was over in seconds.

It is a well known fact that greasy foods loaded with carbohydrates, like kebabs, eased a hangover and absorbed alcohol from the system in a poorly understood method known to the lay pony as ‘sopping up’.

Whether or not this actually works is currently highly disputed, most likely because it’s only been ‘proven’ by the first hoof accounts of drunk ponies. Octavia had no hesitations adding her agreement to the list, though.

“How much do you love me right now?” Vinyl smirked as Octavia absolutely went to town on the kebab.

“Dear Celestia above, I almost feel equine again.” Octavia moaned through another mouthful.

“Well, in that case, get your best bowtie on, bodacious bootylicious babe, we’re going clubbing!”

“Vinyl, my head is clubbing me.”

“Which is your body’s way of telling you you’re too sober to deal with this right now. Listen to your body Octavia.” Vinyl nodded, flashing a toothy grin.

Now any truly right-minded pony would see that was a terrible idea. They would see the flaws in it and how, inevitably, they would end up feeling so much worse because of it and quite possibly in the Canterlot drunk tank.

“You know what, Vinyl? That sounds like a great idea. Might even be a lot of fun.”

Octavia was not a truly right-minded pony at that moment, though.

She was quite hungover, you see.

For all the porcelain towers and ivory spirals Canterlot city wasn’t entirely ‘elite’. The upper crust had to have a lower crust to compare themselves to, and look down upon, to reinforce their fickle sense of self worth after all. Just because they were too good for such dreary things as manual labour and food service didn’t make those jobs unnecessary.

This resulted in Canterlot’s thriving working class, the ponies who actually did all the work and made life for the nobility possible. This resulted in the working class having its own businesses, homes and a chunk of Canterlot all to itself, close enough to work for the nobility but not too close, lest they get the idea that they were, Celestia forbid, equals.

Octavia found herself in one of these districts now, being led by the nose by Vinyl, whose head was bobbing away to a beat nopony but her could hear.

“So, what is our destination of choice this evening?”

“Why?” Vinyl bobbed her head at Octavia, grinning manically, “does knowing even matter?”

“Well, no,” she admitted, “but it would be nice to get a feel for your-” Octavia paused to scrounge for the words, “weapon of choice, shall we say, in your continuing war against my braincells and sobriety?”

“Hey!” Vinyl grinned, slugging her friend in the shoulder, “This time you’re dragging me into this little war we’ve got going on. That’s, like, a heck of a big difference and you should be thanking me as your guide.”

“Does thanking you comprise of buying you a drink?” Octavia sighed.

“Well, yeah. Or a round. Heck, maybe a bottle of something, that’d be pretty kickin’.”

“This is a debt I should probably settle now, then.” Vinyl was dancing, now, keeping pace laterally with Octavia but powering ahead in about every other direction at once. “Lest I get drunk enough, later, to think that honouring it like that is a good idea.”

“Hey, I’m questionably sober right now and I think that’s a good idea!”

“Decidedly my point.”

“Hey! We’re here!”

Octavia stood, stunned, as Vinyl continued to bounce off towards the club. She wasn’t really expecting her to drink at an establishment called “The Blue Moon”, was she? An establishment she could feel before she could see, the vibrations from what she could only assume were very large, loud speakers sending waves through the cobblestones beneath her hooves even as she rounded the corner.

Of course the place was also probably visible from the moon with all the electric-blue neon it had trimming the edges and borders. It looked-

Frankly, it looked very Vinyl. It felt very Vinyl.

“Why do they call it the Blue Moon anyway? Is it so exclusive you’re only let in very rarely? Is it because some pony thought it unnaturally beautiful?” Octavia raised her eyebrow and shot Vinyl a sideways glance.

She didn’t think it were possible but somehow her friend grinned wider. Surely her jawbone should have gotten in the way at some point...

“Just wait for it.” Vinyl paused, pointing at the sign with a hoof, “Wait for it... wait for it...”

The venue’s front-neon sign flared into life. A picture of a mare’s moon-themed cutie mark with an emphasis on the flank.

“Charming.”

“Oh, man, this place is classy all round, right?”

Octavia stared. She said that sarcastically, surely- No. No, she hadn’t, she actually believed that.

“This is going to be a long night.” She sighed, massaging the bridge of her nose with the edge of a hoof.

“Yeah, if we’re lucky. Heck, might even be a long morning too, if we play it right. C’mon, let’s get blotto and mosh a bit!” Vinyl started bouncing ahead, bobbing and weaving through the crowd that had started forming around the entrance.

Vinyl stopped suddenly, or at least restrained her dancing to one spot, and Octavia walked right into the back of her. Rubbing her nose, she glanced up and over her friend’s shoulder to see they’d just danced their way to the front of the line to get in.

The unicorn shot her a knowing, triumphant smirk before turning to the bouncer.

He was a wall of muscle with wings. Both mares had to crane their necks up at him to make eye contact as he held a little clipboard in front of him, or more likely a normal-sized clipboard that the pegasus happened to dwarf, and looked that them in bemusement.

“You two ain’t on the list.”

Vinyl stared at him in confusion, Octavia in indignance.

“How do you know we’re not on the list if we haven’t given you our names?”

Vinyl shot an annoyed glance at her friend and sighed heavily, turning back to the bouncer, who was doing noticeably less bouncing than Vinyl, with a saccharine smile.

“You’re new here, huh? First day I take it?”

There was the sound of granite scraping on marble as the wall of muscle nodded sheepishly.

“Chill, man, I get that, but you gotta learn the dance if you’re gonna work here for long. C’mon, you’re not gonna fool anypony with half a brain, and my buddy here has at least, like, three of those.”

Vinyl turned back to Octavia as the pegasus started counting on his hooves, moving his lips noticeable as he struggled with the numbers. It appeared to be a losing battle.

“Look, ‘tavi, baby, I love you but you gotta let me handle this, chill? You see that clipboard there with all the names on it?” She waited until Octavia nodded, shaking her head sadly, exasperation dripping from her voice in thick, greasy globs, “No, you don’t. What you see gripped between tall, white and brawnsome’s wings there is a clipboard full of blank pages. They just use that as an excuse to turn uncool ponies away. Right now we don’t look the part, or something.”

Vinyl levitated her glasses off, polishing them against the fur on the nape of her neck. They drifted in her magic lazily over the back of her neck until, tongue lolled out in concentration, they banged against her spine, causing Octavia to wince.

Out from somewhere behind the glasses a necklace of glowsticks fell and clasped around her neck, hugging her chest.

“Sweet, that does me,” she declared as she replaced the glasses with a flourish, “but we haven’t done you yet. Actually, that’s a blatant lie, I totally got you covered earlier.”

Octavia blinked.

“What did you do to me whilst I was passed out on your couch?” Her voice was slow, even and obviously masking a combined sense of panic and murderous intent should that panic be proven validated.

Vinyl’s horn glowed, red this time instead of its usual electric blue. Octavia thought, at first, that she’d tried to do something with her mane and bow tie, which she had seen glowing in her peripheral vision-

The problem was that they didn’t stop glowing when Vinyl’s horn did.

“Vinyl. What did you do?” Her voice was deadly calm now, emphasis on deadly, which the unicorn cheerily grinned down.

She turned back to the bouncer as Octavia inspected the her reflection in the polished club walls. She was dully aware of the other two ponies in the background of her mind, obviously haggling about entry.

Her bowtie was glowing neon red. Her hair had gotten maroon highlights, too, which were also glowing like Vinyl’s necklace.

“Cool, he says we look rave enough to get in, now, and I gave the big lug a few pointers. I count that as a win, all in all.”

“Vinyl, I’m not going to kill you-”

“Love you too, Octy.”

“-because this actually looks rather dashing and it got me in the building. That’s it. That is the only thing that stopped me-”

“What, breaking my neck or somethin’? Come off it, ‘tavi, we both know-”

“No, no, you’re right, I’d miss you far too much, in spite of everything. Also an investigation would just be so much work, and I’m finally getting somewhere in my life that suspicion makes hiding a body worth it, and we both know how much of a hassle that is, anyway.” Vinyl opened the door and bowed low and dramatically, Octavia entering in response with the four-legged equivalent of a curtsy and a smile, “So no, you’re right, I wouldn’t do that. Instead I think I would take all your records from their covers and put them back completely at random. Quite possibly use a few of them as a coaster for a lovely pot of tea whilst I do so.”

Vinyl paled noticeably, an impressive feat under all that white fur.

“That’s just cruel, Octy.”

“Yes, that sort of is the point, isn’t it? Just remember that the next time you think to amuse yourself with me in my sleep and we should be fine, though, shan’t we?”

“Point taken, and I have just decided I am entirely too sober for this.”

“Agreed. What drinks do you recommend, here?”

“The liquid kind.” Vinyl declared, throwing an affectionate leg over Octavia and guiding her through the pulsing, writhing crowd to the bar at the club’s center.

“Well, I suppose that narrows it down considerably, yes.”

“No, really, I think they used to have an oxygen bar around here, but it’s totally for novelty value only.”

“Ah, and here I thought you were being witty?”

“Hey, that’s your job. What do I always say, of the two of us, you’re the great wit? No, wait, grey twit. Totally easy mistake to make.” Vinyl flashed Octavia a grin, turning back to the bar to flag down a bartender, something she was able to do with only a meaningful look and an almost imperceptible nod, noticed even through the thick wall of ponies. Vinyl had a magic all her own in places like this, something that had nothing to do with being a unicorn.

“You know what, I’ll give you that one. That was rather clever.”

“Yeah, I’m still sober enough for wordplay and you’re sober enough that your laughter is still all refined and stuff. We’ll have two Blue Moon’s please, figure you name the place after a drink you gotta get it right, huh?”

Vinyl trotted up to the bar, the crowd of ponies rippling around her, making room without realizing it was quite doing it. It was a subtle thing and Octavia couldn’t help but watch on in awe as Vinyl returned with two full highball glasses, brimming with liquid the same electric blue as the club around them, without spilling a drop..

“No matter how many times I see you in ‘the zone’ it will never cease to amaze me.”

“Liquor’s on the line, ‘tavi!”

“But it’s more than that!” Octavia insisted, “You’re just-”

“Hey, I got enough problems with my ego as it is. Let’s find ourselves a booth near the dance floor, these drinks are about as good as I could have hoped.”

Octavia took a sip, so as not to spill any as Vinyl dragged her across the room again in that excited manner of hers, and her eyes bulged.

“This is liquid ambrosia. Pure, transubstantiated nirvana nestled betwixt ice cubes, chilled and distilled happiness and sweet nepenthe.” She breathed, staring at her glass in fascination.

“That was just a poetic way of saying we’re about to get wicked drunk, right?”

“Oh, yes, yes indeed.”

“Chill.”

And then Vinyl downed the cocktail in a single gulp, wiping her mouth with the back of a foreleg.

“Two more please!”

“I haven’t finished mine, yet.” Octavia took a pointed sip of her drink.

“Huh? Oh, no, they’re both for me.”

“Of course.”

The booth quickly filled with empty glasses, which a waitress had offered to take away but Vinyl had refused on the premise of ‘nopony messing with her score card’, each empty glass of varying shape and size not just a memory of a drink, but a trophy for keeping it and its brethren down.

For the moment, at least.

Octavia felt a warm glow that had nothing to do with the alcohol coursing through her right now. She watched Vinyl’s head bob downed another shot, much like a bird would a worm, and smiled wanly. The unicorn was a party pony through and through, of that nopony could deny - not without Vinyl taking it as a personal challenge - but she wasn’t usually this much of a lush.

Sure, she indulged in, how did one put it politely, the occasional overindulgence of liquor. Perhaps quite often, in fact. What she was seeing before her, now, though, was Vinyl on a binge, which was an almost terrifying sight. What would fell lesser ponies and corrode lesser livers, making a liar of that particular organ’s name, in fact, was currently laid out before her in empty glasses, most of which were Vinyl’s.

Most, but not all.

Which is why Octavia smiled. Vinyl didn’t like to binge to this degree normally. This was a pony who had gotten hangovers down to a science, and then from a science to an artform. She knew the exact quantities of what, and when, to drink so that her hangover merely encouraged her to drink the next morning, and was easily remedied by a Bloody Mare, and not put her off drinking altogether.

She saved that for New Years. It was her way of starting off her resolution each year; I won’t drink for a month. Just to prove she could.

Octavia shook her head, trying to shake off all the tangents, and blinked firmly. The point of her long, often derailed train of thought was that Vinyl didn’t take binging lightly. She suspected, in fact, the Vinyl was actually taking one for the team to mask just exactly how devastatingly plastered Octavia planned to get in much fewer glasses.

Vinyl was a damn good friend and Octavia loved her to pieces.

Okay - maybe some of it was the liquor after all.

“Yo, Octy?”

“Huh wa?” Octavia blinked, shaking her head again, a bit more vigorously this time.

“Ha! That was totally dignified, my friend, totally. I was just asking ‘are you okay, in there’? I swear, I was about to grab my uh... what’s the word... climbing gear, that’s it, and dive in after you!”

Octavia snorted at the mental image, then giggled for a few seconds. A totally reasonable amount of time to giggle, she reassured herself.

Vinyl raised her eyebrows, staring at Octavia for a few seconds, then smiled slowly, that wicked shark’s smile from before, creeping up the side of her face like a malevolent sunrise.

“Hey, you know what’d be fun right now?” A pause, a lowering of the shades, a tilting of the head to look over them to complete the effect, “We should totally hit the dance floor.”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea!” Octavia slid gracefully out of the booth and beamed back at Vinyl. Well, mostly gracefully, she lurched just as she stood up for the first time, but that was probably because gravity had a local fluctuation at that moment. It certainly felt rather intense for a brief second.

She’d have to ask Twilight Sparkle about that the next time she ogled those cute purple flanks and thought definitively salacious thoughts about them. Oh, after Twilight apologized for being so perfect. Then Octavia could forgive her by finding out if she was a perfect kisser, or if she was a fast learner with her tongue in-

“‘Tavi?” Vinyl snickered.

“What?!” she snapped. For some reason Vinyl found this hilarious.
“You’ve been standing there, staring at the wall and drooling for, like, a while now. I was just checkin’ first, before I tried anything with the magic markers.”

Octavia glared and blushed furiously. Well, more so.

“So, dance?” Vinyl grinned goofily.

“... fine.” She sighed and allowed herself a soft smile too.

This would be fun. This would be fun. This was going to be fun.

She chanted it to herself like a mantra.

Vinyl led her to the dance floor, sashaying across the floor and bobbing to the beat. Octavia tried to mimic her but whereas Vinyl’s bobbing and swaying had a fluid, careless grace to it, well...
Octavia mostly just betrayed her inebriation.

“I think I’m getting the hang of it!” She yelled over the music.

“Yeah, looks that way!” Vinyl agreed, doing a little spin.

Octavia kept to her bobbing for a bit, quickly building confidence in her own abilities. Each time she thought she might have really gotten it, though, Vinyl blew her away again with an effortless grin.

“Where did you learn how to moonwalk?”

“Big brother.” She grinned.

Octavia opened her mouth to reply, then closed it firmly.

'Only child. Dad’s dead. Small family. Smaller family. Never aga-'

“Hey!” Vinyl shot her a concerned look, “Want me to teach you?”

“Hmm?”

“To moonwalk. You looked really bummed all of a sudden.”

“Oh? Oh! Yes!” she dove for the excuse. She was meant to be having fun after all, not thinking about...

No. Not even thinking about thinking about.

“Chill. Alright, just watch me.”

Octavia did. Vinyl breezed backwards for a few seconds, stopping slowly and continuing on the spot for a few more, shooting her friend a big cheesy, never breaking eye contact.

“What- how-” her friend spluttered, “Seriously, how did you do that? More importanly how did you expect me to pick it up just from watching you?”

“Oh, I didn’t, you totally can’t if it’s done right.” Vinyl nodded back, “and I totally nailed it. Nah, just felt like having my ego stroked a bit. Your expression was priceless, I gotta say. Now, you stoked for this or what?”

“I... yes, fine, I’d very much like to.” Octavia conceded.

“You bet you do. Here- You snap your hooves up like this, right? Then as you push back you just slide,” she demonstrated, slower this time, “the other one back. Then you snap, bam, that one back up and repeat.” Vinyl slid across the floor in slow motion.

Octavia tried to mimic what she’d just seen.

“Okay, cool, not bad for a first try.” Vinyl nodded her approval. “Frankly, terrible, but for a first try? Totally acceptable. Let’s work on making it not suck now.”

“Your leadership and tutelage is awe-inspiring.”

“I know, right? Okay- Don’t drag your hoof, keep it, like, just a little off the floor. It’s all in the ankles, ignore your knees for the most part, as it is. Also, try to pretend you haven’t had as many drinks as you have.”

“I probably wouldn’t have let you drag me into this if it weren’t for those drinks, though, you realize?”

“Totally, which is why I said pretend. You’re going to totally regret this tomorrow morning.”

“The oracle speaketh her prophecy. Let’s just see if I can’t-” Octavia slid backwards a little.

“Hey, there we go, that’s the slide down.”

Octavia grinned. Then she beamed. Then she giggled and did it again. And again.

“And there’s the snap! Nice work, now just trot back over and I’ll teach you how to do it on the spot- Octy? Octy, just, just trot back. Octy? ‘Tavi!”
Octavia was lost in focus though. She’d gotten her rhythm down and was more than happily lost in the moment.

Snap, slide, snap, slide.

Bump.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” a gravelly voice growled from behind her, “I believe you just spilled my drink.”

Octavia blushed furiously as she turned to face the pony she’d just flank-checked, a rather large purple pegasus with a black mohawk, tipped at the edges with neon-green. “Oh, I’m very sorry, I was just-”

“Not looking where you were going. Yeah, I noticed.” He growled. “Care to buy me a new drink to replace the one you so inconsiderately-”

“Hey just a moment!” Vinyl was suddenly at Octavia’s side, muzzle-to-muzzle with the pegasus. “That glass was empty and we both know it. What, you’re trying to scare some bits out of my friend here?”

“She spilled my drink.” He repeated, calmly. “Prissy pony like her don’t belong in a joint like this, anyway. Why doesn’t she go back to the high streets, leave us working ponies alone.”

Octavia almost allowed herself to be offended before remembering that she had thought the exact same thing herself scant hours before.

“Look, she’s cool, alright? A little tipsy, sure, but she’s totally chill enough to rock out here. I mean, she’s with me, right?” In years to come, when Vinyl had actually made a name for herself, that might have been the end of it. Such things were not to be. “And I say she’s, like, half again the mare I am. So why don’t you apologize for trying to scam her before I get mad.”

The pegasus smirked at her. Another pegasus, this one slate grey with a scruffy blonde mop of a mane cut, stood at his friend’s side.

“Yeah, you get mad? What are you gonna do? Take this outside?”

Took it outside. Her father had-

“Vinyl, let me just pay the stallions, I’d really like to leave now.” Octavia said calmly, feeling far too sober again.

“What?! But-” Vinyl glanced at Octavia, who pointedly looked away, mouth twitching slightly at the corners. “-Oh. Oh, that’s just wicked uncool, you guys.”

“Hey, she bumped into me!” The first pegasus snarled.

“Look, we’ll pay the bits, whatever, just back off so my friend here can get some air, okay?”

“No.” he stated firmly. Even his friend stared at him in disbelief.

“No? Look, guy, what more do you want?”

“Yeah, Blitz, what-”

He silenced his friend with a raised hoof.

“I want you to apologize, and admit it was all her fault.”

“Oh you cannot be serious!” Vinyl snapped, glancing at her friend beside her. This was starting to feel like a really bad idea in the pit of the unicorn’s gut.

Go big or go home.

“Featherhead, if you can’t see my friend here isn’t really in the condition to-”

“What’d you call me?” Blitz snarled. His friend took a step back, eyes widening.

Vinyl was too preoccupied with Octavia to notice.

“Featherhead, look-”

Crack.

Vinyl neck snapped back as she fell flat onto her rump. Octavia’s head whipped up, pulled out of her spiral of thoughts, and she stared at the red spatters on the unicorn’s face.

Vinyl’s muzzle was twisted at an odd angle, but she hadn’t noticed that yet. Cradled in her forehooves she was staring at the twisted wire frames of her glasses, the popped and shattered lenses balanced beside them. A wet, globby sniffle, caught on thick ropes of blood, as she stared at the fragments of her most treasured possession and-

Octavia snapped her attention back to the purple brute before her, the smell of whiskey suddenly all the heavy on his breath, his eyes wild. He took another lurching punch with a forehoof, wings poised and flared at his sides.

Octavia leaned into his chest, adrenaline raging and pulse pounding in her ears, wrapping one foreleg around his barrel as she pressed the punch up with the other. She rolled with it, pulling his momentum and twisting it, planting her hind legs and twisting around her waist like it was a ball-bearing. A lash out of her hind leg, sweeping the back of his, and he was sent sprawling on his back.

His friend stared at her in awe and, judging by the blush, she suspected something else a bit untoward.

She straightened and flushed noticeably, aware of every eye around her suddenly on the small group.

“He started it!” She pleads.

She heard a snarl and her legs were swept from under her, pulling her down into a brawl with Blitz on the floor. She managed to use the momentum to sink an elbow into his wing joint, crushing it against the floor, and was rewarded for her efforts with a knee to the gut.

“Woah, horseapples, I uh- Blitz do you need any-” His friend was cut off as he’s pounced by Vinyl, growling like an animal, drunk, dizzied and in a very mild state of shock. Her fighting style, if it could be called that, seemed to consist of flailing at the very confused grey pegasus as violently as possible.

It quickly hit a nearby gawker who takes a swing back, only for Vinyl to duck at the last second. The punch sailed over her head and hit another gawker behind her. Those two stallions start a brawl of their own and from there-

It doesn’t take very long for the guard to arrive, at that point.

As Octavia and Vinyl were led out with many, many others, bound in hoofcuffs, Octavia found time to criticize her friend’s... decisions.

“What did I say about insulting stallions, particularly those much larger and drunker than yourself?”

“I shouldn’t do it.” Vinyl mumbled, like a preschool filly being chided..

“And why’s that?”

“Because then it makes it a pride thing.”

“Good. So, what did you do when you called that stallion a featherhead earlier?”

“I made it a pride thing.” Vinyl paused to reflect on this. “I’m so lucky you’re going to be too drunk to remember this tomorrow.”

“That may certainly be, but now you’re locked in a small room with me until then.”

“... eep.”

Octavia glared at the unicorn for a few seconds before her expression melted into a soft, genuine smile. Around the bruises, of course, where her face refused to move as it should.

“Thanks for standing up for me though. You were quite the chivalrous mare, earlier.”

“Oh, yeah, I bet you that’s the bit you’re going to forget tomorrow morning, as well.” Vinyl grumbled sarcastically as the two were locked into the back of the police wagon.

“Party hard!” Vinyl whooped.

Octavia blinked.

Octavia blinked again.

She appeared to be quite hungover, in a completely unfamiliar location and-

Yes, yes she appeared to have been arrested the night before.

“Vinyl, I swear to-”

“Oh! Hey, sleepy head! You’re awake.”

“Unfortunately, that appears to be the case, yes.”

‘Hello cotton demons. Hello explodey-skull. Did you miss me so soon?’

“Vinyl, could you give me your best analysis of our current predicament?”

“Okay. You’re wicked hungover, we’re both in the Canterlot drunk tank and you’re probably remembering all the stupid things we did last night.”

“Stupid things? I don’t remember... doing...”

‘Oh dear Celestia above us is that what my dancing was like?’

“There it is. Guard said somepony is already working on getting us bailed out, though. Fairly certain they’re dropping all charges.”

“Dropping all charges? Of wha-”

‘Oh, I sort of instigated a brawl, didn’t I.’ She paused and mentally surveyed herself. Wincing, she dared glance down. Her hangover had done a rather good job at masking her war wounds until Vinyl made her notice them. She was covered in bruises, sores and a couple of scabs.

“If it helps any,” Vinyl smirked, leaning easily against the cell wall, “You should totally have seen the other guy.”

Octavia paled. “Why would that help any? How could that possibly help at all?”

“Because, ‘tavi babe, you made a stallion twice your size cry for his mummy whilst defending my honour,” Vinyl fluttered her eyelashes coquettishly, sporting a grin that was most unsporting, “My hero.” She cooed.

“There is... I cannot... Okay, I will take a small amount of solace in the fact that this cannot get any worse. It is, in fact, impossible for it to get any worse. Therefore it must all be uphill from here or, as you would delight in me calling it, a ‘suck plateau’.”

Vinyl’s eyes widened. “Octy, you just tempted fate. Like, a lot. Didn’t even say ‘touch wood’. You realize how screwed that makes us?”

Octavia stood up from the cot she was lying on, though she may have been better off sleeping on the floor, and made a great effort to stand in the middle of the small room, eyes cast heavenward, feet planted defiantly.

“Come on! I can take it! What’s the worst you can give me that I haven’t already done to myself? Hit me with your best shot, universe!”

“Just a tipple with friends, huh?” a new voice snorted. “I bet you think Canterlot is just on a bit of a hill, too.”

“Vinyl, you didn’t happen to learn ventriloquism without my knowledge, did you?” Octavia asked whilst continuing to stare pointedly at the ceiling.

“‘Fraid not, ‘She Who Tempts Fate’.”

“Drat.” Octavia sighed, turning and facing Twilight Sparkle, who was staring at her with no small amount of wry amusement. “Low blow, universe. That’s just...”

“Cheap? Unscrupulous? Petty? Shameless? Cruel? I can keep going, if you want.”

“Actually, that would be rather nice, thank you. I’d do it myself, but-”

“You’re hungover, yes, I’d gathered that.” Twilight sighed. “I know a spell that could help with that. Several, actually, but I suspect that you’d just resent me more if I didn’t let you nurse your self-loathing a little while longer.”

Vinyl snickered, drawing Twilight’s attention to her.

“Ah, I’m glad to see your nose set right. I was a little worried about that for a while.”

“Nah, s’all good. Might have given it a little character, you know, like a-”

“Like a cheap vodka, yes, you did say.” Twilight grimaced as Vinyl grinned unashamedly at her.

“You have a very strange friend here, Octavia.” Twilight sighed, “I’m not sure I completely understand her.” She paused, levitating out a small key and twisting it into the cell door’s lock. “Or you, for that matter. She did tell me the circumstances of last night, though, and with some eyewitness corroboration I think I’ve managed to get you out of any serious trouble. You were provoked, that was certain, you tried to stop when your aggressor was on the ground, you never used undue force...” she coughed, “Though what force you did display was, apparently, admirable, if you’re into that whole ‘macho, knight in shining armour’ schtick.”

“Hey! Octy! She’s totally blushing!” Vinyl yelled a little too loudly. “I think she likes you.”

“N-no I’m not, I’m just- I wasn’t!” Twilight stood there, mouth moving but words getting gridlocked somewhere behind it, causing her to blush harder still.

“Well, she is now!” Vinyl grinned.

“You are a crude and lecherous little pony, aren’t you?” Twilight growled, drawing her mane down over her face.

“I am totally a cool and legendary pony, thanks for noticing.”

“Vinyl, please,” Octavia stated calmly, hoping neither noticed just how badly she wanted to fall over laughing hangover be damned, “stop being cruel to the mare that is the difference between freedom and you being locked in here all day with me until somepony else works out the paperwork.”

“N’aww, but she’s so cute!” Vinyl beamed, hopping over to Octavia and bumping into her, “You two should totally-”

Both mares silenced her with an icy glare. Vinyl tactfully decided to not tell either of them that they were blushing just as hard as each other by this point.

Nah, she’d save that particularly juicy piece for later.

“So, Twilight,” Octavia declared in as loud and neutral a tone she could manage, “When did you study law?”

“Hrrm? Oh, last night, as soon as I heard about what happened.” Twilight beamed happily.

“You picked up... in a single night?”

“Well, besides helping my brother with his guard homework, I didn’t have any interest in it until... oh, oh no,” Twilight paled, “This isn’t like one of those things is it? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have... I mean, I didn’t mean to... I can’t help it if I just know things, okay?”

Octavia winced. She’d been so happy a second ago, and now just thinking about what had happened was...

The hangover had nothing on the guilt at that moment.

“Twilight Sparkle,” ‘Oh dear please let me have remembered her last name correctly,’ “I am sorry for what I said yesterday, and my behaviour. It was wrong of my to treat a friend like that.”

Twilight looked up at her, stunned. Vinyl stared and gasped.

Vinyl’s smile then took on unprecedented levels of giddiness as she bounded over between the two of them and pulled them together in a big, group hug.

“N’aww! That’s so sweet! You two are just so adorable, you know that? Like, full on, straight up cute. It’s practically-”

Twilight started wheezing a little.

“Too... much... contact...”

*Pop*!

“Huh. What was that about?”
Octavia sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose with a hoof.

“Celestia damn it, Vinyl.”

“What? Hey, at least she left the door open, we can just-”

“Hey! Prisoners must be escorted out of their cells.”

“What? But we’re released, you can just-”

“No leaving without your escort, ma’am.”

“Huh. Alright.” Vinyl trotted back and sat next to Octavia, who was currently slumped on the floor.

“How long until she gets back?” Silence. “A while, huh? Okay, okay, it’s chill, at least we still have each other.”

“Damn it, Vinyl, I love you like a sister, and you know that I always will, but words cannot express just how much I hate you right now.”

Vinyl snickered. Octavia shot her a glance with a raised eyebrow and a bemused expression.

"Sorry, sorry, I'm just thinking it's weird that you love me like a sister and that you totally want to jump my bones. Isn't that kind of..." Vinyl snorted and started rolling on her sides.

"Officers!" Octavia called out, eyes never leaving Vinyl, "Would you be so kind as to look the other way whilst I make the most of my time served?"

Dying Echoes

View Online

In nature matter has an equal and opposite, antimatter, which is identical but opposite to its counterpart. Electrons have positrons, for instance. When antimatter collides with its partner it creates a huge burst of energy and complete annihilation.

Octavia was briefly reminded of this as she watched an animated conversation between her best friend, a pony who had absolutely no concept of personal space, and her neurotic crush who- no, shutup brain, bad! - would, by all accounts, be her polar opposite.

“See, I’d figured medical alcohol was like, different, you know?” Vinyl mused as she walked step for step beside Twilight down the empty Canterlot street. It was still rather early in the morning around the Canterlot police station.

“Not at all! It’s much more concentrated, certainly, but it’s... I suppose an apt comparison would be comparing freshwater to saltwater. They’re both water, certainly, but... well, I suppose in this case the alcohol is more like the salt than the water, really.”

It was fascinating, to Octavia as she followed silently behind the two, just where common interests could be found.

“Huh. Do you know how they make the medical stuff? Is it, like, a spell I could learn or...?”

Twilight snorted. “There’s no magic, just a bit of science. Water and alcohol have different boiling points and densities so, with a simple distillation rig, you can refine alcohol relatively easily. You boil the alcohol, evaporate it, then condense it in a separate beaker making sure to get as few impurities as possible.”

“So, you just, what, make booze out of water?” Normally Octavia would have expected Vinyl to have grown bored, fast, but she genuinely appeared enraptured, riveted and otherwise enthralled. Though, really, that was probably to be expected from a pony who learned algebra studying BMI:alcohol intake ratios.

“Well, different plants make different liquors. The ponies in Stalliongrad use rotten potato peels to make their vodka, but honestly you can use anything with a bit of sugar in it.”

“Whoah. What if you just use, like, straight sugar?”

“Then you get rum.”

“You know an awful lot about drinks for a pony who doesn’t drink.” Vinyl laughed, skipping cheerfully along now, much to her fellow unicorn’s amusement.

“Oh, if I’m ever going to assist Princess Celestia in any meaningful way, I have to know everything I can that bears political relevance. Did you know that, less than two centuries ago, vodka constituted more than forty percent of Stalliongrad’s tax income? The rest is simply a case of analyzing fermentation of various hydrocarbon molecules and studying their effects.”

Vinyl seemed to consider that for a long second. “So, can, say, animals get drunk eating rotten fruit?”

“Oh, yes! Butterflies in particular have been notable for it, due to their incredibly high metabolism and extremely low mass.”

Vinyl grinned and spotted a particularly large, vibrant blue butterfly floating along the breeze in front of them, chuckling to herself. “Party on, little dudette.”

“Interesting. You assume the butterfly is a female?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, it’s a butterfly. Don’t get more girly than that.” Vinyl paused. “Well, ‘cept for pink butterflies I guess. Yeah, that’d probably do it.”

“So, where do you think baby caterpillars come from?”

“Immaculate conception.” Vinyl nodded with deadly seriousness, “It’s the birds and the bees, not the birds and the butterflies. They’re too prissy and innocent.”

“You make it sound like... that...” Twilight made some awkward gesturing with a hoof, “is something good ponies don’t do.”

“N’aw, you’re just projecting.” Vinyl shrugged, flicking her head down in a curiously practiced gesture to balance her shades lower down her nose, allowing her to peer seriously over the top of them, “I’m only referring to butterflies.”

“Projecting?” Twilight missed a step, Octavia noticed, stumbling a little.

“Well, yeah. Obviously you’re thinking of jumping Octavia’s bones back there, Celestia knows why her and not me, but you’re pretty far in denial about your whole sexuality thing insofar as you don’t want to have one, I reckon, because it’s not something good little ponies should have. If it helps I’m, like, ninety percent sure she’s got a massive lady boner for you too. Am I right? Come on, somepony tell me I’m wrong and I’ll buy you both a drink.” Vinyl declared with a sweeping hoof gesture, lowering her shades with a cocky smirk.

Octavia nearly faceplanted. Her front legs locked up, deciding on their own that maybe if she was completely still nopony would notice her, whilst her back legs had decided, independently of course, that continued nonchalant walking would probably be the best bet.

Her mouth was experiencing a similar problem, insofar as it was moving desperately, forcing words that would not come, trying to apologize or deny or something to end the situation whilst her brain was at a complete loss as to what those words could possibly be.

This was not helped at all when she noticed that Twilight herself was making far too similar noises, none of which were a denial. Vinyl looked back at the earth pony and winked positively voraciously at her.

“Ooh, looks like I hit a nerve after all. Bam! Oh, man, this is just too great for words. Listen, I’m going to trot off and do music stuff. There’s something ponies just love about a song that starts with the words ‘I wrote this the morning I got out of a Canterlot jail cell’.” She chuckled, “So, you two, go out and buy each other lunch, then let it get, like, super totally awkward for just long enough for one of you to leap out at the other for big, wet, sloppy make outs.” She pressed two of her forelegs together and made smoochy-noises as her victims watched in gaping silence, allowing Vinyl to turn and head away. She called out over her shoulder one last thing for Octavia, though.

“Oh! And if she knocks you up with her crazy unicorn magic stuff name the kid after me!”

Octavia and Twilight were left glancing between Vinyl skipping and dancing off into the crowd, cackling, and each other, awkwardly flaring into new levels of flaming hot blush with each pass.

Twilight was the first to speak.

“So I know several memory manipulation spells. It’s not hard, only complicated arcana-neuro-surgery, so I’m certain I can perform it on you, then myself, and we can forget that any of that just happened... Unless I accidentally make myself forget how to perform the spell whilst performing it... huh, hold on, let me just do some calculations.”

Octavia smiled weakly. “Why don’t you do them over some coffee? There’s a rather nice patisserie just ahead.”

“Excellent! Lead the way!”

Twilight was lost in her own little academic world. Surrounding her, much to the consternation of a passing waitress, were napkins filled with scientific diagrams, hoof sketched drawings of what looked like Magical Resonance Images and, quite notably indeed, a couple of doodled bars of simple melodies composed with lovehearts in place of the little circles, all stacked in organized piles or swirling in the air around her as she added to them.

Vinyl’s voice was still ringing in Octavia’s ears, and not just because her friend was always cranked up to eleven. It was far less literal than that. She was wondering if Vinyl was right.

That was a worrying thought. Deciding that she had better distract herself with a less terrifying prospect, like the scribbles in front of her, she-

“This is brain surgery.” Octavia blinked incredulously at the piles of studious viscera surrounding her.

“Well, surgery implies cutting, and blood,” Twilight shuddered in a manner that Octavia found adorable, then immediately resented herself for finding adorable, “this is a lot less gruesome than that. It’s merely forcibly extracting and erasing a chunk of your memory by overloading grey matter tissue... by... huh.” She blinked, then looked at her mass of napkins with a raised eyebrow, “actually, it’s probably not much better than I thought.”

“So, it’d hurt, right?”

“Well, technically, it would probably be one of the most excruciating moments in your entire life.” The unicorn’s eyes went ceilingwards, deep in thought. A few seconds later she shrugged and went back to scribbling, “I say technically because you’d probably forget about the pain as soon as it happened, since it would mean the spell was working. It’d be as if you never felt it.”

Octavia shuddered.

“What?” Twilight replied, eyebrow cocked at prime ‘I don’t get it’ position.

“Oh, it’s just... even if you don’t remember it, it still happened right?”

“Well, I’m a bit of a nihilist, so to me, no, not really.”

“Isn’t that, I don’t know, a little depressing?”

Twilight jerked herself bodily out of her notes, vibrating a little as she did so. “Why would it be?”

Twilight was giving her her full and undivided attention with those rapt, attentive eyes. She felt like she was being tested for some reason, innocent as the question was, Octavia still found herself squirming in the padded booth a little.

“Well, what happens when you die, do you think?” she mused, “Surely ponies are more than just flesh and blood mechanics. What of the soul?”

Twilight shuddered, diving back into her heaping pile of napkins, “And if there is an eternal afterlife? Even nirvana would get boring, surely. Forever is a long time... and what happens when you inevitably grow weary of it? Would you even be able to kill yourself in that place to end that?” she said, brushing the question off disdainfully. “No... no, I think infinite nothingness beats infinite somethingness.”

“Well, that’s rather bleak, too.” Octavia sighed. She couldn’t help but be rather put off by... everything. Who knew the perky (if somewhat unstable) unicorn would make for such a depressing conversationalist?

At this, though, Twilight brightened considerably. “Not really! I mean, I’ve got one life to live, right? It’s going to be short, barring some sort of freak ascension to alicornhood of some kind, and I have no control over the fact that, someday, it will end. My life is a finite commodity and you know what? I’m okay with that. It just means that every day I’ve got to spend learning something, doing something, making something that will last long after I’m gone. That’s the kind of immortality I’d love to have. The medical definition of death is brain death... personally, I think a pony dies the second they stop wanting to make something, do something, be something more than they did yesterday.” Twilight nodded to herself, glancing up from her napkin to meet the earth pony’s level gaze, at which she blushed a little. “Did I say something wrong?”

Octavia closed her mouth, for fear of permanent damage to her jawbone. Well, that was a complete one hundred and eighty degree turn on the mood.

‘She didn’t say it like it was some profound pearl of wisdom, or some conceited dreck. To her, it’s simply how she lives, and it’s a simple statement of fact. And this pony thinks I’m cute, if Vinyl is to be believed.’

Twilight looked nervously off to the side, making an adjustment to one of her many, many variables surreptitiously, “I’m sorry...”

Well, that got Octavia’s attention. Whilst outwardly she scarcely flinched in her mind alarm bells were sounding loud and true.

“You’re sorry? For what?”

“Well, you were just staring at me like that, and you didn’t say anything, so I just assumed...”

‘So, you two, go out and buy each other lunch, then let it get, like, super totally awkward for just long enough for one of you to leap out at the other for big, wet, sloppy make outs’

The waitress came back with a little plate of cannolis, which Twilight had insisted on paying for.

‘Just as the prophecy foretold!’ part of Octavia’s treacherous subconscious screamed at her, ‘It’s a sign!’

Octavia was about to listen to the rational part of her well-thought-out and intelligent rebuttal when she noticed that Twilight looked rather sullen right now. She’d just spilled out something obviously very deep and personal to her and she thought that she’d done something wrong.

Rational brain was rather rudely interrupted, and outright horrified, when Octavia gingerly brushed the cannoli plate aside, delicately cleared the notes between Twilight and herself, much to the unicorn’s confusion... and then proceeded to fling herself bodily across the table and pull Twilight into a deep... well.

It would be wrong to call it a kiss.

Frankly, it was a snog. A rather uncouth one at that.

After a period of time which was simultaneously far too long for a kiss to be and, damn it, not nearly long enough, the two breathless... well, lovers, I suppose we shall now have to refer to them, parted, slightly breathless, slightly pinker than they were moments before.

“Still want that memory spell, Twilight?” Octavia sighed, adjusting her bowtie absently, panting a little.

Twilight just stared forward in space, unblinking, head lolled at a slight angle.

“Twilight?”

“Bwuh?”

“Are you alright?”

“Mmm...”

“Oh dear, I do believe I have broken Princess Celestia’s student. I wonder if this classifies as treason?”

“Hurrr...”

“Okay, now I’m actually getting a little concerned.”

A thin bead of drool poked out of Twilight’s contented lips.

“Oh, bother.” With a sigh, and a satisfied expression of her own, Octavia picked up her wantonly neglected cannoli and gave it the attention it rightfully deserved, devouring it in a few large, yet dignified, always dignified, bites.

It was about this time that Twilight shook her head vigorously, snapping herself out of her post-pash stupor. “Oh... wow.”

“So-”

“Yes, I am more alright than I have been in a long time, I suspect,” there was an impossibly goofy, satisfied grin on Twilight’s face that was testimony to this, one that would have held in any self-respecting court of law - though a self-respecting court of law that adjudicates passionate kisses between two consenting adults is perhaps a bit of an oxymoron - “and, if you had broken me, that would have counted as treason, yes, though I am a duchess in my own right, so make of that what you will. Finally, to answer your last question first- err, sorry, I mean, your first question last, no, I don’t think I particularly want to forget my first kiss. Because seriously,” she pushed back into her seat, visibly melting into it as if her bones had decided that they were no longer required in this particular pony’s anatomy, “wow. Just... wow.”

The musician blushed furiously. “Well, you were pretty fantastic yours-” tick. Tick. Tick. Brrring. “Wait, hang on, did you just say first kiss?”

The unicorn’s sheepish nod was all the confirmation Octavia needed.

Oh, well then. Doomed.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to steal your first kiss! If I’d known, I mean, oh dear, this is really b- Mmmph?!”

Twilight released the lip lock, allowing Octavia breath again.

“What-”

“Just thought I’d return the favour.” Twilight’s voice was all confidence, but she was staring nervously at her hooves under the table, her cheeks as red as the older brother of a mare she would, one day, befriend and take to a concert where this pony would be playing, a piece so beautiful that Twilight would fall in love with her all over again, for the very first time, much to this future friend’s amusement.

But that was the future. This was now.

“I- Oh, I’m sorry, yes?” Octavia was cut off, this time, by a rather stern looking older waitress, who had slunk up to their table in the mysteriously unobtrusive way that particularly experienced hospitality workers somehow pick up. This manner of movement allows them to remain almost invisible unless they wish to be, at which point they become alarmingly and disconcertingly present.

The mare practically loomed over the pair.

“I’m sorry, ma’ams,” she said in a tone that announced she was anything but, “but if you wish to carry on in this manner I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave. The napkins were one thing, but your little displays are disturbing the other patrons.”

Oh. Yeah, they were in public weren’t they? Somehow Octavia had forgotten all about every pony in the room except the wonderful purple mare across from her. Well, she said purple, she was usually purple.

Still, the other diners did seem to be giving them a rather scandalized look, a few out of intrigue and a few stallions in particular with unabashed amusement.

Guh. Stallions.

“So, will you two please behave?”

Octavia glanced apologetically at Twilight and shrank inside herself a little, withering.

‘Oh dear, she’s going to be so embarrassed, she’s the princess’s student and I’ve just sullied her, assailed her publicly and - why is she getting out her bits purse?’

There was a clang as several little golden coins hit the table. Twilight rose from her seat, much to Octavia’s and the waitress’s confusion and, admittedly, to the musician’s fascination. Still blushing furiously, though with an air of the utmost confidence in her steps, Twilight trotted around the booth table, casually forcing the waitress aside with naught but sheer presence, and gently assisted Octavia to her feet in the manner one might treat a timid bird. She then proceeded to escort, or drag, frankly, her partner out of the venue at a speed one can only describe as ‘unbridled eagerness’.

‘Oh. Well, alright then, this is a rather welcome situation, isn’t it?’

‘Is it though?’ replied a rather trite and contrary part of her brain.

Octavia considered this for a moment. Well, there were definitely a lot of downsides about the pony she had bizarrely picked to be attracted to, her neuroticism, her antisocial tendencies, her-

“Twilight, are you feeling alright?” Octavia spoke, concern weighing her words.

“More than alright. I feel great! Superb! Splendid! Carpe Diem! Je suis follement amoureux! I-”

“Twilight I’m going to ask two very important questions. The first one is probably more urgent, however; So no overwhelming urge to have a shower, mouthwash, nothing?”

“I... no.” Twilight stopped, stunned, much to the chagrin of the pony walking behind her. “I... I think I’m okay.”

Octavia cleared her throat with an expectant little cough. “Secondly: Why me? Why me at all? You should hate me, if nothing else, for how I... I don’t... Eugh.” Bad thoughts rode in on that particularly gravy train of negative potential. They were silenced by a rather daring peck on the cheek by the pony who, sensing her panic, had trotted up beside her.

“Seriously? That’s what’s bothering you? I ran out mid-conversation because you made a friendly gesture! I was constantly one upping you! I bring you in as an expert consultant and spent the whole time showing you just how much I didn’t need you! I was probably more than a little tribalist! I more than deserved-”

“No!” Octavia blurted out, frustration manifesting in the form of a trudge beside Twilight, “No, I refuse to let you take any blame for what happened. You were positively modest about what you’ve accomplished, as far as I am concerned, you acknowledged that unicorns, pegasus and earth ponies are different, not inherently better, which is far more than I can say about quite a few nobles I’ve had the displeasure of meeting, and it was a gesture you were uncomfortable with that I wouldn’t have made had I known. I was the one who exploded at you, I was the one who became the green eyed monster, that had the wildly inappropriate crisis of faith...” Octavia sighed, deeply at that. “I’m the one that messed up, and I implore you to forgive me for that.”

“As if I haven’t already. I’m just... relieved. I thought you hated me. I hated me!”

Knife. Gut. Twist.

“But you didn’t! And I don’t!” the unicorn jumped on those unpleasant thoughts, squishing them beneath her hooves like overripe grapes, “And you’re very talented, and dedicated, and clean and organized- trust me, that’s like, huge for me,” Octavia had an inkling, she suspected, “you were punctual, you volunteered to help me, for science, you were fascinated when I talked about magic,” well, horrified is just a form of fascination isn’t it? Twilight paused for a moment before going on, signs of an intense internal debate evident as her gaze dropped down and away, that same rosy blush from before tinging her cheeks when she finally said: “I know it’s really superficial, and a part of me loathes to admit this even matters to me, but I also think you’re really pretty. Physically, I mean, not just mentally.”

Well, that was a welcome development. Wasn’t it?

The trite and contrary part of her brain mumbled its acquiescence. Darn right it did.

“So, uh, I guess I didn’t bring this up before, but the guards told me about last night. What you did, I mean, at the bar. Is it true?”

There was nervousness in Twilight’s voice, that much Octavia could ascertain, but her expression was an unreadable mask.

She had a good thing going here, but this was still a pretty rocky start to a relationship that had already been in dire straits. Here she was, captain at the helm and no navigator to speak of, with only her best judgement to plot a course. Does she steer towards honesty, and admit what happened, and have Twilight judge her for participating in a bar brawl? The alternative course would be lying, which would be a big breach of trust, and Twilight had essentially become her de facto lawyer in all this anyway, so she’d surely been okay with the possibility of what she’d found out being true, let alone the odds of being caught were essentially one in one...

Hrrm. Honesty is the best policy, it seems.

“Yes. As far as I can tell, all of it.”

“Well, I appreciate you not lying to me, at least. Still, did you really make a stallion more than twice your size cry like, and I’m quoting here, ‘a wee li’l tyke for his mummy’?”

“Yes.”

“Whilst standing up for your friend who had, more or less, verbally provoked him.”

“Yes.”

“Is it true you then dragged said friend off to the side to try to help her, only to be dragged back into the melee on three separate occasions?”

“Well, I only remember two of them, but most likely, yes.”

“And, for lack of a better term, you won.”

Octavia remained silent on that one. What could she say?

“Are you proud of that?”

“Honestly? No. I feel sick at the thought of what I did to some of those ponies. Would I do it again if I were in that situation, knowing what I do now? Absolutely, because I don’t regret it either. If I hadn’t acted, or rather reacted, how I had, either myself or a pony I very much care about would have been hurt much worse. That’s all that matters.” Octavia sighed heavily. “Well, this is marvellous first date conversation, isn’t it?”

“Huh. I guess this is my first date, isn’t it?” Twilight mulled this over for a good, long moment.

“Yes, about that - how are you such a good kisser? Everypony is bad at their first kiss. It’s a universal truth.” Of course, if anypony were to make a lie of a universal truth, it would be the pony beside her. The one most likely to break the laws of the universe was currently in Ponyville, baking a soundproof souffle.

“Medical journals and the section of the archives that the Princess doesn’t know that I know about...” Twilight gulped, “and I honestly hope she doesn’t. That would be very, very embarrassing. No, no, embarrassing isn’t the right word, more like mortifying.”

Octavia suddenly found herself making a mental inventory of where her library card could be right now. Perhaps she could liberate it for deeds most foul.

Take a look, it’s in a book, indeed.

“But they also told me that picnics are romantic! Which is a good thing, I think, for a date to be, yes?” Twilight asked with a desperately nervous sincerity, shooting Octavia a glance that was at once desperate and pleading.

“I would very much enjoy a picnic right now, I think, if you had a location in mind.”

“Well, did you figure you were just following me as I walked around aimlessly?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but, frankly, I suspected...”

“Well, I have a plan,” Twilight’s head came back up with a downright steely glint in her eyes, flashing dangerously for all to see, those who dared not look away, “I always have a plan.”

“I am suddenly rather apprehensive.” Octavia said aloud. What she did not add, aloud, however, was ‘and slightly aroused’, a thought she decidedly kept to herself. She beat this thought into submission, desperately hoping the thought wasn’t into that.

Twilight’s face scrunched up into a ball of focus and determination, which looked convincingly like rather bad constipation, and her horn guttered into purple light. Much to Octavia’s continued amusement a picnic blanket, perfectly folded, appeared levitating between the two.

“Wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to have waited until we were at our destination?”

“Yes, that would make a lot of sense. Fortunately, we’re there.”

Indeed, the road did seem to be bisected here by a creek, almost like a moat. In fact, the creek was so distinctly moat-like that on the other side of it was a castle and drawbridge.

Octavia had the sinking feeling that this creek may have, in fact, been a moat.

“Twilight, this is Canterlot Castle.”

“Darn, and here I thought it was the bookstore, silly me.” Twilight rolled her eyes.

“We aren’t having the picnic in the castle, are we?” The tentativeness in her voice was so evident that, upon being observed, the sentence itself would shy away.

“Of course not, that would be ridiculous.” There was the grinding of chain-on-chain, and a sundry of mechanical noises, as the drawbridge lowered, as drawbridges are wont to do.

“Oh. Good, because-”

“We’re just passing through into the gardens.” The unicorn nodded primly, cantering across the bridge excitedly.

“-of absolutely no reason whatsoever.” She gulped. Hard.

Why was her mouth so dry? Why did her throat feel like she’d tried to swallow a golf ball? Why was she trembling almost, but not quite, imperceptibly?

Perhaps she should ask the immortal ruler of Equestria, who doth control the sun itself. She’d probably know.

After all, she lives here.

The last time she’d met her was... humbling. The last time she’d met the princess she hadn’t been making kissy-faces at her surrogate daughter.

Twilight seemed to notice Octavia’s apprehension, as Octavia caught up to her, and leaned over to give her new beau a daring peck on the cheek.

It was at that moment she knew everything would be alright.

Octavia lay on her back, dazed, tissue pressed, scrunched really, into each nostril. The blood splattered picnic blanket bore evidence to the reason why. Twilight had been fussing over her ever since.

“I’m so, so sorry!”

“It’s certainly alright, Twilight, really. You couldn’t have known the cork would behave as it did.”

“But your nose!”

“Well, yes, it certainly does sting. A lot. But-”

“Are you sure it’s stopped bleeding?”

“Yes. Yes, I think it has. Don’t worry, Twilight-”

“But I can’t just not worry! It’s my fault! I should have been more careful, I should have known it was aimed at you-”

“Twilight, it bounced off a tree branch.” Octavia scolded, gently.

“Yes, but even the most cursory of trigonometry would have indicated its trajectory, and it was obviously a dense oak, so knowing its material density-”

Eugh. Maths. Not that Octavia wasn’t intelligent, or a ‘smarty-butt’ as Vinyl referred to her, and certainly not to further a negative cultural stereotype but... well...

There was a reason Octavia was in an arts field.

“But, surely, there are too many variables? It would have been impossible to determine, and chaos theory itself comes into effect.” The garden air seemed to resonate with a deep, throaty chuckle, one that was felt, but not heard, whilst Octavia internally scrunched like the papery tissues, hoping that what she had sounded like she knew what she meant.

“I suppose.” Twilight muttered.

Phew.

“And you know what is really good at numbing pain?” she chuckled wryly.

“Nitrous oxide, ketamine, barbiturates, though they’ve largely been replaced by benzodiazepines,” Twilight paused and gave Octavia a scathing look, “that’s it, isn’t it? You were going to try to get high off barbiturates with me? Well, I’m not into drugs, I’ll have you know.”

Octavia blinked dumbly. “I meant ‘alcohol’, as in this lovely champagne that should nicely get the rather sharp taste of blood out of my mouth, a rather pleasant bonus, but now I’m curious as to why you’d assume I was asking you for drugs.”

“I got my pharmaceutical license last year!” Twilight declared proudly, completely forgetting her previous suspicions in the fraction of a second it took for her to register the question.

“I see. So are you going to be a doctor, then?”

“Well, technically I am a doctor,” Twilight admitted, “but not an M.D. I don’t want to go through residency. I’m far too busy.”

“Too busy for a residency, but not too busy for me?” Octavia asked, painting the words with false playfulness as a confusing flurry of emotions roiled up, anxious for an answer.

“No, not too busy for you.” Twilight laughed, resting an affectionate hoof on the still-mostly-horizontal Octavia’s shoulder.

Twilight abruptly stopped laughing and gave her newly-minted marefriend an odd look, one that she might give if the pony she were talking to had suddenly turned into a giant two-headed purple elephant.

In actuality it was something far stranger than that.

“I think this might be more important,” Twilight announced, more to herself and the world in general than to the pony beside her, tasting the words slowly, as if to sample their curious flavour, “than studying.”

Apparently that was a pretty big deal. It seemed to have thrown Twilight completely for a loop. The unicorn was looking rather obviously conflicted too, crossed legs, reassuring glances at Octavia that were fleeting at best, nervously scratching at her fetlocks...

Well, it didn’t take a genius to see the obvious solution. Just to overthink it, it seemed.

“Well, it doesn’t have to be a mutually exclusive enterprise.”

Well, that stopped the nervous scratching, at the least. Twilight blinked with doey eyes. “What do you mean?”

“We could be, how did Harpsichord say it, ‘study buddies’?”

Now, those were words that had an obvious impact on Twilight. She looked all the world like a foal on Christmas morning.

“You mean it?”

“Well, your work is fascinating, truly. I believe I’m already assisting you in an official capacity, anyway.”

“Oh! Oh! Where do you want to start?” Twilight, forgetting all pretense of composure, bounced excitedly in place.

“Right now?”

“Why not?”

“Well-” Octavia was about to continue ‘because it’s not exactly what you do on a date’. That thought died quickly, however, when she realized she would have to say ‘no’ to that face. She could not find it within herself, so she instead finished; “-how about clouds?”

After the unspoken and generally universal prompt of patting the blanket beside her Twilight snuggled in beside and joined in cloud watching.

Octavia rubbed close beside her and pointed up. “How about I’ll point at a cloud, you tell me what kind it is, and I shall tell you what it looks like.”

Twilight clapped her hooves together delightedly. “Okay, first one.”

Octavia pointed at a big, cottony one just up and to the left.

“Cumulus.”

“Rabbit.”

“It does too. Okay, that one’s a cirrus."

“A soaring crane.”

“Really?”

“Tilt your head a bit to the right, like this. That’s the beak.”

“Ah! I see it now. Oh, this is so fun. Okay, okay, that’s an altostratus.”

“Big, lazy turtle. Alright, the one directly above you. I think it looks like a snogging musician.”

“Hrrm? Which one? There isn’t any - Mmmph!”

Octavia returned to her apartment with a subtle spring in her step.

Well, initially. Then, after years of forced composure finally gave way under contended bliss, she found herself skipping down the streets of Canterlot humming happily to herself, damned whoever saw.

It was incredibly liberating, she found.

‘I should do this more often. Certainly the parts preceding.’

Ah! Here she was, home sweet - hang on. In front of her apartment door lay something that she had certainly not put there herself: a rather expensive bottle of champagne, much finer than the one she had shared with Twilight earlier.

Ooh, that was a happy thought.

Tipping it to the side a little to inspect the label - very expensive it seemed - she caught sight of a rather ornamented note attached to it.

“Congratulations! May you never suffer a cloudless day.

- Celestia”

Well, she had seen after all.

She’d been caught - oh - kissing her - oh - favourite student. She’d known.

Panic. Panic, panic, panic, panic - wait. The Princess knew and approved?!

Dance. Dance, dance, dance, cheer, swoon, dance a little more and sing.

She suddenly remembered, or rather was forced to remember by that niggling little part of the brain that always picks the worst moment for everything, that tomorrow would have to be spent preparing for her father’s funeral, the day after.

Octavia felt a little guilty that wasn’t enough to kill her happy thoughts entirely.

Idly, she wondered if Twilight would think she looked-

“Hauntingly beautiful.” Twilight breathed.

Octavia responded with a weak smile. “Really?”

“Absolutely.” She nodded, firmly, idly tightening and rearranging and neatening her new marefriend’s simplistic, elegant black dress.

“An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.”

Octavia stared, awed, at the mare timidly blushing, kicking her hooves at nothingness, blushing furiously.

“That was... what was that?”

“It’s how I feel?”

“I meant, though not to downplay how absolutely wondrous your saying that makes me feel, what is that an excerpt from?”

“Oh, well, that... I’ll tell you later, okay? Much, much later.”

“Why?”

“Much.” Twilight finished.

“Well, whilst I cannot lie that I am curious, I shall have to respect that.”

Twilight smile turned sad as she levitated from behind her a beautiful cello, the one from their first meeting. Still with that wan smile she nudged Octavia gently. “Come on,” she whispered, “He’s waiting for you.”

And with that the topic was dropped as the pair silently approached the small island of ponies clinging together amidst the ocean of headstones.

It was somber day, even though it was bright and sunny. Octavia wished it were cloudy, it were rainy, that she could say that the skies themselves wept for her father. They didn’t. They painted bright and amusing portraits across the sky in sheer defiance of what the day symbolized.

Vinyl had already arrived, surprisingly, opting for a cheap tux rather than a dress. She still managed to look rather dashing which, they both felt, was all that really mattered. Twilight and Octavia took their places in the cheap folding plastic chairs set up for the occasion.

Fortissimo Crescendo had not been a popular stallion, or a worldly one. He was distant and quiet and isolated. The proceedings was attended almost entirely by family who remained stoically quiet. Her mother, too, was flanked by a few friends on each side, but the number of attending ponies was still only about a dozen.

The eulogy was quick but respectful. There truly wasn’t much to say, which in itself was overwhelmingly saddening to the daughter of the deceased.

So to commend the body to the earth that bore him she played. She played the most wiltingly, hauntingly beautiful piece she and Twilight could come up with, a piece of subtle complexity.

So she played harder and more skilfully than she had in years.

It was the first time in a long time she had had her father in the audience.

It was the last time she’d be able to play for him, too.

She didn’t cry as she played.

She didn’t cry as, after a time, the audience began to leave.

She didn’t shed a single tear until Twilight and Vinyl, side by side, approached her and informed her it was time to leave. She was finished and it was time to stop playing.

She wept the whole time the pair escorted her home. She wept whilst Vinyl stayed so she wouldn’t be alone. She wept as Twilight gently placed the cello inside the apartment and left.

Then, in Vinyl’s arms, she cried herself to sleep.

“You’re early today.” It wasn’t an accusation, merely a statement of fact.

“Sorry, Twilove, I was just a little eager to start, today.” They had settled on the cutesy nicknames that had made Vinyl the most visibly nauseated. This, they felt, was as valid a method of pet-name selection as any other. Certainly one of the most rewarding.

“Calling me that already? Vinyl’s not even around, Octypus.” Twilight smirked in kind, boiling the kettle from the small study-room’s kitchenette as Octavia set up her instrument for the session. Tea made everything better.

“Ah, but it is Hearts and Hooves today, which I believe gives me a rather sweeping license to the saccharine and sickeningly sweet.”

“Yes, I do remember how you like your tea.”

“You tease merely because I cannot stand that bitter dreck you so generously call ‘coffee’.”

“To drink is equine, Octygon, to drink coffee, divine.”

“Yes, well. Twiangle.”

“Tavi-saurus.”

“Twi-light-of-my-life.”

“Roctavia.”

That did it. Octavia tried and tried but could not think of a sufficiently awful topper to... that. She admitted defeat in a way that came far too easily; she collapsed into her comfortable chair, straddling her cello, leaning on it in laughter.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Twilight breathed, giggling herself, “I had hoped that you’d lose on that one, I really can’t think of any more.”

“So, what have you composed for us today, mon petit chou-fleur?”

“You’re really hamming it up for the holiday, huh?”

“Yes, my dearest Twiangle, but you know you love it so.”

“I shall neither confirm nor deny that allegation.” Twilight declared with faux pomposity as she carried the drinks over accompanied by a little package by her side. It didn’t escape Octavia’s notice.

“Oh, what’s this? A present for me?”

“Well, I was going to wait until we started, but-”

“Let me guess; it’s a book?” It could have sounded like a barb, or an accusation, but it was merely an understanding of how Twilight’s unique mind worked... namely that if her marefriend was the best thing ever and books were a close second, well, logically books and her marefriend should reach unparalleled heights of excellence.

“Well, sort of. It’s a scrapbook! Of the last few months!”

“How oddly imprecise of you.”

“Well, I couldn’t work out if knowing we’ve been dating for three months, two weeks, six days and twenty two hours was creepy or romantic, so I didn’t want to... take... the risk...” Twilight trailed off, massaging the bridge of her nose with a hoof. “Wow, that was awfully thick of me.”

“Endearingly so.” Octavia agreed, delicately plucking the scrapbook from the air and sorting through it. Their first composition, their first spell, photos of their various dates... even the first note the musician had sent using earth pony magic, all sorted in chronological order.

“This is remarkably concise.”

“Well, if I thought of it as research into relationships, I had to take studious notes. So I did!” She beamed, “I thought it’d be better for you to have them, though. It’s not like I could possibly forget anything I’ve done with the best mare in the world.”

“Strange,” Octavia smiled wryly, “I thought you’d been spending all that time with me.”

“Funny that.” Twilight agreed. “So, not to be rude or anything, but did you get me anything?”

“Well, you do seem to quote poetry occasionally, so I thought I’d look into getting you a collection you didn’t already own.”

“Yes?” Twilight breathed, puffing up in excitement.

“I don’t think such a thing exists. At least, not for long.”

“Oh.” The unicorn deflated.

“But!” Octavia continued, “I did find something fascinating.”

“Well?” Twilight asked again, a bit more cautiously this time.

“‘To His Coy Mistress’ was the poem you mentioned, before my father’s funeral, isn’t it? I admit, the words stuck with me, struck a chord you might say, and I just couldn’t fathom why.”

“Oh.” Twilight said as Octavia watched with concealed amusement. Her beau turned significantly paled. “You noticed that.”

“Now let us sport us while we may; And now, like am'rous birds of prey” she quoted, noting Twilight’s eyes widening with each new damning syllable. “Correct?”

“I shall neither confirm nor deny that allegation.” She repeated.

“Twilight are you saying that you wish me to, as a mutual acquaintance of ours would so delicately and aptly put it, ‘rock your world?’”

“I mean... if you want.” Twilight ‘meeped’, “I mean, I don’t mind if you don’t want to. I like you for your brains, not your body, you know, even if I think you’re really, really pretty, and I’d like to do things to you... down there... but - if you’re not okay with that - that’s fine too, so - Mmmph?!”

Octavia had, noticing the rant was decidedly picking up steam as it got, well, steamier, decided that the most suitable course of action was to silence Twilight with a kiss.

So she did.

And it was glorious, all things told.

“We don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with. I won’t be disappointed.” That was, frankly, a blatant lie, but the intent behind it wasn’t.

“So you’re saying you don’t want to then? Don’t you find me attractive in... that way?”

“What?! No, I-” Octavia took a shocked step back, looking at Twilight who appeared to be... giggling and smiling gently. “That was mean.” She scolded, though it was in the hurt tones of relief rather than genuine reprimand.

“And you were being dishonest.” Twilight countered.

“I was being tactful.”

“So, lying politely, then.”

“That appears to be the root of tact, yes.”

“Well, tact is stupid.”

“You’ve made note of this before.” Like over dinner with her parents. Or conversing with other ponies in her orchestra.

Fortunately Twilight was kind at heart, if blunt. Still, it was one of the few things about Twilight that irked Octavia.

Except - like now, for instance - when it was remarkably refreshing.

Twilight closed her eyes, scrunching them in obvious thought, and recited ”’It is an infantile superstition of the equine spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge.’ Voltige said that, though I can’t for the life of me remember when, or where, he did.”

“So that’s a resounding yes to my gift for you, then?”

“Wait, what gift? I thought you said there wasn’t a poetry book that existed, that you could find, anyway.”

“Oh, no, Twilight.” Octavia walked with swaying hips and smouldering eyes to a Twilight that was powerless to its advances, “I’m giving myself to you.” She whispered into a soft, purple ear, which flicked appreciatively in response.

Twilight continued to not move.

“Mind.” Delicate nibble on the earlobe. “And body.” Fluttery kiss on the back, where the ear met skull.

Twilight continued to not move.

“Twilight?”

Twilight continued to not move.

Octavia took a step back. Twilight appeared to have been reduced to a mostly catatonic state, the only signs of life being that, well, she was still standing and, really, the incredibly goofy grin she sported.

“Twilight? Your thoughts are currently still inside your head, I’m afraid.”

“Yes.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Yes!” Twilight appeared to have started vibrating slightly, something which brought all manner of salacious and completely inappropriate images to mind for the amused onlooker.

“Ah.”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!”

“I take that as a yes, then?”

“Yes!” Twilight agreed, pouncing on Octavia in a mostly-chaste hug, punctuated with a brief smooch - for, truly, it was not a kiss, nor a peck, but a proper, honest to goodness, smooch.

“So, would you like to start today’s session, then?” Octavia asked innocently enough, “I’m sure if you’re patient.-”

There was a primal, gutteral growl from Twilight’s throat, almost beastial. When Octavia blinked she was suddenly standing in... what appeared to be a meticulously ordered bedroom. Indeed, everything was rather nice, if spartan, and at perfect ninety degree angles to everything else.

There was no doubt in her mind to the location, or the meaning behind it.

“-I mean, we managed to get the messaging spell working! Proof of concept!”

Twilight stared at her hungrily for a long second before she glanced down at herself, frowning slightly. A draw opened nearby, Octavia catching it out of her periphery as she dare not look away from the spectacle before her, as the unicorn deftly slipped on four lacy pink socks.

Then surveying the result and deeming it good, she met Octavia’s gaze and stole her breath away in the process. The mare was forced to gasp to compensate, but she did not pant slightly. Oh, no, that would certainly not be refined, or dignified, no matter how... stunning... Twilight looked with the...

My...

They both leapt simultaneously, colliding almost in mid air hungrily, lips meeting passionately and legs wrapping around one another in a furious tangle, resulting in a desperate fight for balance.

The room became significantly less organized for the attempt.

The bed? Trashed.

Still...

Octavia couldn’t help but notice Twilight’s disappointment in the endeavour. Both were left panting as the adrenaline and hormones wore off, certainly, but Twilight certainly didn’t look satisfied.

“Twilight?”

No response. Twilight was in a category 2 funk, defined by its Deep Introspective Thoughts. Probably not a good sign.

“Twilight?”

“I’m sorry.” She whispered back. Now, that was curious.

“You’re sorry?” Octavia snuggled closer into the mare, nuzzling her reassuringly at the base of her jawline, a perfect location to allow for maximum loving encouragement whilst still allowing her to see if, even for a moment, Twilight’s lips would curl into a placated smile.

They didn’t.

‘It wouldn’t do to panic, we need to bolster her right now.’

“What could you possibly be sorry for, my wonderful Heart and Hoof?”

“I messed up.”

Ooh, now there was an icy dagger through her chest. Not what you want to hear from the pony whose virginity you had just taken.

“Do you...” Word choice, word choice, don’t sound pathetic, don’t sound maudlin, “regret... me?” Oh, buck it, there was absolutely no better way to ask that.

“That’s the exact opposite of the problem.” Twilight groaned. “I love you, so much, and I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted me to be perfect and I wasn’t.”

It was true the romping had been punctuated by the odd yelp, squeak and disappointed sigh, sure, but-

“You couldn’t possibly expect to be perfect on your first try, could you?”

Twilight stared back at her, deadpan. Octavia remembered who she was talking to.

“Twilight, that was fun. It just takes a little practice, learning each other’s rhythms, and you can’t get that without trying it, first.”

“But... but I read every book I could find on cunnilingus and-” she stopped as she noticed Octavia wince, flinching slightly in her embrace, “-what?”

“Just, please, my dearest, could you not use that word?”

“See? See? This is what I mean.” She slumped into the pillow, arms folded in front of her with a pout. It was almost cute, but the current context spoiled that somewhat, for Octavia. “I failed.”

“Failed? This wasn’t a test Twilight.”

“It’s worse! I can retake a test! I’ve never had to, before, but I could!”

“You’re still my Twiceratops. I’ll leave the jokes about the horns and their possible suffix up in the air, however. It’s not as if you can just try again, and I assure you the practice shan’t be too rough. Unless, I suppose, you ask very nicely.”

“Not like I could try again...” Twilight muttered, scarce so that Octavia could hear her.

But hear her she did, and that worried her.

“No time travel! Unless it somehow results in a menage-a-tois where I’m not cheating on you, it’s not worth it.”

“Can’t I just play with the fabric of space and time a little bit?”

“It will not end well, my sweet.”

“... darn it.”

“If it helps matters, you’re still the perfect snuggle buddy, study buddy.”

So, slightly sticky, but ultimately very much contented, Octavia went to pressed tight in her lover’s embrace and all was right with the world, for once.

Octavia awoke in a strange place to the sound of Twilight screaming. The cry forced all vestiges of sleepiness, all pretense of slumber, forcefully from her mind, ejecting it at roughly the speed of sound.

Shooting up with a jolt, feeling herself bounce slightly as the bed springs jumped in protest beneath her, she surveyed her surroundings.

Books, bookcases, large bed - Twilight’s bedroom, where I fell asleep after...

Oh. Right.

‘Feel wonderful about that later!’ A sensible part of her brain snapped.

Okay, okay, swirling bright light, Twilight on the floor beside the bed with gleaming, white, glowing, pupilless eyes - well, that’s the problem identified - surrounded by sheafs of note paper and... no...

No, in the dim light it only looked like note paper at a glance. They were paper napkins, some of them even collated and stapled together, covered in scrawls and doodles and formula, crumpled with age.

“Twilight?!”

The head snapped towards her, staring at her with those horrific, tortured eyes, mouth opened soundlessly in a scream that her lungs could no longer provide.

Don’t do something stupid and reckless, don’t do something stupid and-

Oh, bugger it all, it was too late for that the second she kissed the darn fool mare... that worked once.

She dove off the bed, rear hoof tangling in the sheets and sending her sprawling face first off the side. Still, she drew herself up and scrabbled furiously across the floor to Twilight, threw hooves around her neck and kissed her, hard and desperate like before and yet for such horribly different reasons, a perversity of what it had meant, then.

Her lips were hot and crackled with static but she pressed tighter and pressed on, eyes fastened shut, a lone tear rolling down her cheek.

The light burning through her eyelids simpered and died, the tense and rigid pony in her arms slackened, falling against and into her, panting furiously.

She was alive! She was alive, and okay!

Thwack!

Octavia fell backwards, burning pain in her cheek, jaw not quite settling into place. Above her were the furious, cold eyes of the pony she loved, and who loved her.

“Who are you and what in Tartarus are you doing in my bedroom?! What are you doing?!”

Scratch that.

Above her were the furious, cold eyes of the pony she had loved who no longer recognized her.

Her head rolled to the side in stunned shock. Her eye, the one not currently watering and blurred, rested on a napkin.

A napkin with a lovingly detailed sketch of a Magnetic Resonance Image of the equine brain on it.

Finish with a Flourish

View Online

Rarity walked side-by-side down Canterlot streets with a pony that wasn't the kind of pony she would see herself walking side-by-side with.

"You're very charming, I must admit, but you're certainly not the kind of pony..." Rarity made a rolling gesture hoof, "I'd see myself with."

Pony Joe smiled easily – though Rarity would call it rakishly, because that's a far more dashing word – "You don't normally go for gentleponies then?"

Rarity was about to laugh along with him when the words caught her mind, like loose fabric snagging on a thorn. There was Blueblood, but he was... no, how about that horrid bore-- hrrm, if that's how she remembered him, that spoke volumes enough.

"No." She whispered in surprise as the realization dawned on her. "I don't think I have, no. Don't you think, just once, I rather should?"

Just that same, easy going, charmingly rakish smile from the pony walking beside her. Rarity didn't mind that one bit.

She wondered if Twilight was having the same luck.

Twilight stared at the address on the back of the donut receipt. She certainly hadn't written it, Pony Joe hadn't, Applejack couldn't have... which meant it had just magically appeared since she had gotten it.

"Err, Twilight?" Applejack nudged her side, "You alright there?"

"I... I have to go," Twilight called over he shoulder as she bolted, heading towards the address on the back of the receipt.

There were... gaps in her memory, she realized. Memory spells were something she had practiced over the years, something that had saved her friends from Discord's Chaos magic, and she had come to learn what it had felt like to have your memories manipulated.

It's like... It's like eactly what it is. There is no apt analogy or metaphor for what it feels like to search through your own head and feel parts of it missing and fragmented, damaged. It feels dirty and violating and abominable.

And apparently this address could help.

It led to an older building, near where Twilight used to stay outside of the palace, she thought. The door seemed familiar, achingly so, but Twilight couldn't place it. It was definitely the place she'd find answers.

She knocked twice and listened to the flurry of activity behind the door, an unprepared rush.

The door swung open, almost jerked off its hinges rather, by a frantic earth pony about Twilight's age age, with a treble clef for a cutie mark. It was the mare that had so enthralled, so enraptured her previously at the concert.

"Twilight Sparkle," she breathed, frantic, clutching a bundle of sheet music to her chest, "I... I didn't expect you'd get here so soon. I thought I had more time!"

"More time for what?"

Octavia darted forward and pecked Twilight on the lips, before turning and spinning on the spot, heading further inside. The kiss lasted only a second, a second which left Twilight absolutely stunned, until Octavia thought better of it, turned, and kissed her a bit harder.

That, she deemed, was far more worth it. And Twilight was just as good as she remembered.

"I've spent years, years studying something a very, very clever pony did, trying to make sense of it, trying to work out how to compose it. They didn't make it easy for me, it was very complicated, but I think I've done it. I finally, finally think I've done it." She sounded frantic, like Twilight herself did after a very long night in the lab. She had the feeling the comparison was probably all-too-apt.

Twilight followed her further into the room in a daze. It was a claustrophobic room, feeling at once too big and absurdly too small. It was brimming with music books and instruments, a small kitchen, a rather decadent looking bed off to one side... but mostly books and sheet music, filling shelves built into every wall of the almost cylindrical room.

"Wow," Twilight breathed, at an utter loss for words.

It felt... it felt like she wished the library could. She walked around in a daze, admiring all the research notes and endless compositions. She couldn't help but hum a few that caught her eye, feeling the hair on the back of her neck stand on end at a peculiar few. Glancing at the research notes, and what she could understand of them, this was a laboratory, of sorts, dedicated to the magic of music, and musical magic.

No wonder she felt so at home here.

"Celestia let me keep it," Octavia explained, as if Twilight should know exactly what she was talking about, "After... after, well, everything, she thought it was the least she could do."

"It suits you," Twilight agreed, lips still tingling from the kiss, admiring the crafstmanship of the instruments on the back wall. "It looks like you were trying to do something amazing here."

Octavia smiled wryly. "A very clever pony left a lot of her research notes behind when she forgot about this place. I've been trying to build on them ever since."

Twilight stopped her meandering, turning and staring at the musician in stunned amazement. "How could a pony just forget about all this?" She looked back at the room with a newfound appreciation for it. "All this magic, and music, it's... it's amazing."

Twilight looked back and saw Octavia had disappeared. There was the rustle of a bunch of papers being moved around, and she reappeared with a stack of napkins, yellowed slightly with age, detailing curious etchings and sketchings of improbable, impossible, memory re-arrangement magic.

"You were asking how a pony could just forget about all of this? Well, Twilight, now you know."

"That's the second time you've used my name, and I'm sure I've never told you it," Twilight muttered, her eyes never leaving the napkins and diagrams that Octavia had handed to her, "I'm starting to get the feeling this isn't purely hypothetic- argh!" Twilight clutched her head, throbbing pain consuming her, enveloping her. Octavia winced sympathetically.

"Even after all this time," she said, rather miserably, "you're still not allowed to remember?"

"Remember... remember what?" Twilight gasped out between floods of pain. Octavia scurried through the room to the back wall and unhooked a double-bass from it. Taking a seat in the centre of the room she began to play, long, slow, soothing tones, tones that eased and abated Twilight's pain. She played like that for a few minutes until the crashing, roaring waves of pain became less frequent, less tumultuous, trickling into little more than aggravating eddies.

"I studied your notes," Octavia whispered, so quiet that Twilight wasn't sure she hadn't just imagined it, "on what you did that night. I think... It was hard, I will admit candidly, and there are surely a myriad of risks but... would you like to remember, Twilight? Remember me?"

Another arc of pain, like a heated metal shard in her skull, lanced through Twilight's core, her being, and she screamed in pain. Octavia stopped playing, dropping the instrument, moving to rush to Twilight, but she was stopped with a gesture, even as one hoof remained plastered to the side of the unicorn's head.

"Keep playing," she whimpered, "it helps, it helps oh so much, please don't stop, don't stop, please." She was babbling and she knew it, but she was far too far gone to care, now. "Just please keep playing."

So Octavia did, and those long, slow, soothing notes returned.

Finally, after another few minutes, Twilight managed to pull her hooves away from her skull, again a horribly unpleasant numbness, but far better than the alternative. "What are you playing, anyway? I've never heard this composition before."

"In a way, you have," the musician sighed, still gracefully drawing bow across strings as she talked, eyes glued to the music sheet in front of her, "because, in a way, you wrote this. It's the musical equivalent of a memory spell."

Twilight stared, mystified and horrified in equal measure, at the instrument and again at the beautiful pony playing it. "You're using earth pony magic to use unicorn spells," she breathed in amazement, "that's incredible." Then the second part of her brain caught up with her as she remembered what kinds of spell she was using.

"Yes, before you bother asking, memory spells are incredibly dangerous. You, of all ponies, should know that very well." Octavia sighed, "And yet you don't."

"I still don't understand," Twilight whimpered, now, rubbing her skull and feeling... stupid. She felt stupid and weak and forgetful and wrong.

"Would you like to? Twilight, if you want to, you have to trust me. You have to trust me completely and utterly."

"I don't even know you!" Twilight half shouted, clutching her head, feeling it was a lie, knowing it was a lie. "How could I trust you?" she asked, knowing she could, knowing she did, just not knowing why, not possibly knowing why.

"Because you used to," Octavia cooed, softly, calmly, "because you used to trust me with your life, and I with yours."

Twilight thought about it, the raging, screaming inferno in her head ripping her every-which-way, the low and calming music only doing so much for the storm now. It was hard to think, hard to think through the pain, hard to... hard to brain... easy to trust... she trusted this pony...

"Yes! I trust you," she screamed, now, the room whirling around her, nauseating her, confusing her, reminding her. "I trust you completely."

"Oh good," Octavia opined, almost wryly, "because if Celestia ever finds out about this, she'll quite probably murder me where I stand."

"Wait, what?" Twilight had a chance to shout in panic before the music changed, no longer soothing, no longer calming, but now a din, a caucouphonous racquet, the room's resonance converting the roar of the instrument into a franatic and frenzied riot of mish-mashing sound. No melody was present, just a wall of discordant notes. No real rythmn could be spoken of, unless one listened very closely.

Twilight felt like it was tearing her brain apart, shifting it, grabbing it by the shrapnel and pulling, tugging, twisting it, re-arranging parts long-ago hidden and buried. She remembered... she remembered a funeral... and a cafe... a jail cell? Yes, definitely a jail cell, but not for her, no... and the cafe, the cafe came after... then there was a picnic, and a kiss, oh yes, and music, so much music in so little time, so much progress.

And it had all revolved around her.

All of it, the common thread from the tapestry rewove itself to the frenetic, heavy notes of the double-bass, all painting a portrait of a long-forgotten, forcefully forgotten, beautiful musician mare. Of her.

She was remembering her.

Her first kiss... her second... her first time... oh, geeze, why'd she have to remember that? She itched, burned, wanting to scrub the memory from her brain, before remembering trying exactly that once before and then a brilliant, burning, howling, screaming whiteness from the attempt, and then, and then-

Now. She remembered now, this room, this place, this mare.

Twilight clutched her head, rocking herslf back and forth, as it all came back, all flooded back. The notes... the notes made her remember and the pain subsided, like ripping off a bandaid after slowly pulling and peeling at it.

"Twilight?" Octavia whispered from the dias, placing the instrument down delicately and approaching the prone unicorn with just as much reverence, "How are you feeling?"

Twilight just stayed curled up in a ball on the floor, rocking herself slowly, as she heard the gentle hooffalls approach.

"Twilight?" the voice whispered, terrified, above her. Then, louder, "Please, tell me you remember something, anything!"

Twilight's hoof shot up off the floor and gripped Octavia by the scruff of her neck, pulling her down into a deep and passionate kiss. Twilight's eyes were wide open, bright, as she broke the kiss, a thin strand of saliva still dangling between them, when she finally spoke.

"I just remembered that I love you, just now."

Octavia smiled, tears forming in her bloodshot eyes. "How could I ever forget?"

"Ooh, that's nice." Chrysalis cooed. "When I return to my full strength, all of Equestria will- Glurk!"

"Just keep eating the soup, Ms Queen." Fluttershy scolded as she pressed another spoonful into the scowling changeling's mouth, "I made sure to make it with plenty of love, just for you, but it only helps if you actually eat."

"Feed. Changelings don't eat, we feed, so – Glurk!"

"Why can't you be nice like Discord?" Fluttershy wondered to herself. "I do hope Twilight doesn't find out about this..."

"What she wanted is irrelevant!" The queen declared. "Feed me!"

"Oh... alright."

Sonnets by Twilight

by MrNumbers

Maintaining Her Composure

Sheet happens.

A Major Key Change

A Minor Falsetto (Part One)

Echoes from the Past (Part 1)

A Minor Falsetto (Part Two)

Echoes from the Past (Part 2)

Echoes from the Past (Part 3)

Dying Echoes

Finish with a Flourish