The Hollow Kingdom of Octavia

Exhibit E

Octavia finds the familiarity with which her morning routine unfolds incredibly unsettling. Whenever she looks around her home the rays of sunlight flowing in and the dust particles floating about in them give her the strange sensation of being in a hospital. This place is safety constructed around a great and disturbing danger. There is a door she could open to see something certainly out of the ordinary. She could shatter the mood of fragile comfort that easily.

"Morning Tavi."

Octavia chooses to live in ignorance for the time being.

"You're up early," she says, stirring her tea but never drinking it. It is black tea, no cream but two cubes of sugar. It's got a reddish tint to it. Octavia pretends this does not bother her but does a very poor job of it.

"Our prisoner needed tending to."

"Don't call him that."

"Call him what?"

"Don't call him 'ours' and don't call him 'prisoner.'" Octavia clarifies. "I didn't bring him here. I have nothing to do with this. He is yours not ours." Octavia cleans her hooves of this.

"Fine, but if he's not a prisoner what else could he be?"

"A guest."

Just like that, Shining Armor becomes the other red tinted, sugar coated thing Octavia is trying to pretend she is okay with. She certainly thought this is where she drew the line. Perhaps it was over the line for Octavia, but now confronted with this problem she is quick to take a few steps back and draw a new line. Lines offer neither safety or comfort if they are not maintained. Still, this is a good excuse for inaction.

Octavia realizes she is thinking too hard about this.

"Well, my guest will be here for a while probably, so get used to him," Vinyl says. "And don't tell anypony."

"Get used to him." Octavia says to herself. That is exactly what she would like to do, but it's easier said than done. She hasn't even tried to yet, but this is the only for sure thing about it. It isn't something she should have to get used to.

"And don't worry. Nopony has any reason to suspect he might be here," Vinyl tells her. That seems unlikely, but Octavia doesn't say anything. She just allows the tension to continue growing. With every reassurance that they won't be caught, she is reminded that this is wrong.

It occurs to Octavia that she needs to tell somepony about this. The Prince of the Crystal Empire is missing. He was kidnapped by scared junkies and now he is here in her home. There will be a guard or two below in the street, so she could alert them right now. Octavia would be a hero, having returned Shining Armor safely to his home and having helped upturn a portion of the drug trade in the process. She wondered why she wasn't running to the castle at this very moment.

Vinyl.

"So go on and do your thing. This'll be over soon and we can have a good laugh about it afterwards, alright?" the unicorn says to her friend, but Octavia is barely listening now. It seems so odd that Vinyl is talking like she is protecting Octavia because it is really the other way around. Vinyl should be afraid that Octavia, who has basically nothing to lose, will turn her in to the brass.

"You really trust me that much?"

"Huh?" Now it was Vinyl who wasn't listening or maybe her hearing was finally starting to go from all that loud music.

"I've got to get going."

"Alright, take care."

The situation would be borderline comedic for Octavia if she wasn't the one in it. Desperately trying to maintain the illusion of innocence and agency, she hurries out the front door. She leaves the building, goes right past the guards searching the streets, and all the way to the conservatory. Once she reaches the sanctuary of the practice hall, she lets out a sigh of relief.

"Hey, Octavia, did you hear the news?"

"What news?"

"The Prince of the Crystal Empire has been kidnapped!"

That was when the enormity of the entire situation came into view: everypony knows. Everypony wants to know what Octavia knows. Everypony else would do what Octavia wouldn't if they were in her shoes. In mere seconds, she realizes she will have to keep this a secret from every breathing thing if she wants to protect Vinyl.

"Of course I heard, everypony knows," Octavia says, beginning her facade. Just as it should be, she plays the part of an innocent bystander, ignorant to the truth. "It's absolutely horrible, what's happened."

"You said it," her fellow musician replies. "I hear the castle is canceling all their major events for the upcoming days too, so it looks like we've got nothing to do in the meantime."

"And here I was, hoping for a distraction." Octavia didn't have to lie there.

"Same here. Most of the others just went home already, but the director says the place will be open for anypony who wants to practice."

"I think I'll take him up on that." Octavia sped out of the company of another pony insulting fast, but not suspiciously. She retrieved her instrument and found herself a practice room at the far, far end of the building. She practiced in silence, as in not at all. She stared catatonic at her music and held her instrument completely still, but she never moved. There was nopony to notice how strange it was because nopony ever came around, much like nopony knew what Octavia was hiding at her house because the only pony there was Vinyl.

She knew all along she was wrong when she said Shining Armor wasn't their prisoner. The stallion was most certainly trapped and Octavia felt she willingly played the role of his jailor. She stayed where she was for a while, wondering just what she should do.