The Hollow Kingdom of Octavia

Exhibit I

"It was fucking chaos, man! I was keeping an eye on the east door like Miss Scratch told me to when fucking chaos broke out, man! There was like six, no, seven or eight stallions busting out of the place all of a sudden. It had to be eight, yeah, cuz that fancy royal guard was there too! The one from the Crystal Empire! He's the only guard though, so the others are trying to shake him off or take him out or something! I get the door shut and secured behind them just like Miss Scratch told me I should if that kind of thing happens, and when I turn around that guard pony is on the ground with a bloody head. Chariot is standing over him with a fucking pipe, so I kinda figured Chariot musta taken him out."

"Chariot?" Octavia asks, breaking the flow of the narrative. Cotton immediately shushes her.

"Oh man, they were all pretty pissed after that. They were yelling this way and that about what to do, but I couldn't follow what was going on. I was a fucking mess, but it was all a fucking mess. Then Grainy Mead is saying something and Chariot is yelling at him and yelling at him, but Grainy just keeps trying to say something or whatever. Chariot hoists that fucking pipe again and cracks Grainy across the skull, but Grainy isn't wearing a helmet like that guard was so he goes down and doesn't even budge an inch.

"Everyone is screaming that he's dead and that and Chariot is yelling at them to get moving and before I know it I'm running too and I get to The Seventh House, but I forgot that Claret was running the place now and then all of a sudden I'm here and that's all I remember!" Jitters finishes his story all in one breath, still feeling the rush of having his addiction reintroduced into his system. It is his blood, more or less.

"You're telling me Chariot killed Grainy? He just up and offed him like that?" Cotton asks, a bit more frantic than previously. Octavia notices that Jitters' story has gotten to him. Octavia is shaken too, having just heard that a pony was killed last night during the chaos at the club. "He just straight up murdered him? Was he high?!"

"You know Chariot," Jitters says, shaking from fear now instead of high. "He doesn't do anything unless he's high. He did it though, I saw it with my own two eyes. Chariot killed Grainy Mead."

"Shit... shitshitshitshitshit!" Cotton yells, kicking some trash aside in frustration. He wants to tear the whole alley apart, but his fear is so pure and complete that he hasn't got the strength to pull that off. He mutters more expletives to himself, matching the cadence of Jitters right across from him. Octavia watches them. She is also afraid, but she doesn't know of what; however, there is nothing quite so frightening as the unknown.

"Who are these ponies?" she finally musters the strength to ask. "Who is Chariot? Who is Grainy Mead? What does all this mean?"

"Shit, she's right," Cotton says all of a sudden. "It seems like Byjove doesn't know about all this yet. If he knew Chariot killed his guy... oh man, this is not good."

"B-b-but we gotta tell him." Jitters is trembling. He doesn't want to tell this Byjove pony, Octavia can tell. It is painfully clear.

"I'm not telling him!" Cotton says, trembling just as much as his running mate. "He'll kill me!"

"He'll kill me too!"

Octavia watches the two pathetic junkies shiver where they stand. It occurs to her, only right at that very moment in time does it occur to her, but the one simple truth about all of this became suddenly quite plain to her. Yes, just like the nose on her face or the blood in her veins or the knot in her gut, she notices that very simple thing: she has been in over her head from the very beginning. The point at which she would have even been able to glimpse the top is far out of view. She is very much confused, and also very, very, very much involved now.

Even so, she makes it a point to ask a question.

"Jitters, you said Vinyl Scratch told you to watch the back door?"

"Y-yeah. If I do that while deals are going down, she gives me some spending money," Jitters says, almost happy to be able to talk about something other than the impending doom hanging over his head.

"So she knows this Chariot and this Byjove and Grainy Mead?"

"Well, yeah." Jitters gives a very easy answer. There really isn't even a question about Vinyl knowing who those ponies are. "She knows all about everything. She's basically the top dog on her side of the block."

"Then she should know all about what went down," Octavia says, revealing the inner machinations of her thought process. A plan, of some variety, is taking shape. "She could tell this Byjove about this Chariot."

"Whoa, there's no way Miss Scratch would agree to that," Jitters says. "Stoking the fire between Byjove and Chariot wouldn't be good for business. There's no way she'd agree to spill the beans. You don't know her like we do."

Nopony has ever said such a thing to Octavia before in her entire life, not about Vinyl. She opens her mouth to argue, but stops. She meant to tell Jitters he is wrong, but she notices that he is not wrong. He is right.

"No, I don't know her like you do." It is easy to admit, especially in the wake of her current pitfall. "But I do know her." Just like that, Octavia turns and leaves the alley behind. Jitters and Cotton don't stop her, unconcerned for who they assume is just a bystander in all of this. Octavia is free to take what she knows and go home, so she heads towards that home; however, tonight it does not feel like a homecoming. She is heading towards the apartment where Vinyl and herself live. She is heading towards conflict.