Amidst Deception

Braeburn hurried the charge he was entrusted with and led her back to his home. Nailed to the door was a rushed, smudged note. It read:

‘To Braeburn and Rose, the fall was worse than first we thought. I have taken Bailey to the hospital one town over, we may be late home or in the worst case, we will be back by tomorrow morning. Please try not to worry; there is plenty of food about the house’

‘Dad X’

Braeburn pinched his brow together to a point and paced a couple of times up and down the front of his house. He calmed himself and gave a reassuring smile to Rose “looks like the two of us are Canterlot-bound… are you up for a little adventure Rose?”

Noon was a pressing time to acquire tickets, lines stretched far past the doors of the station and ponies irritably waited within it. The unlikely pair arrived at the busiest hour of the day, the Canterlot express was such an overbooked journey that venders had descended upon it.

Offers of hay fries and corn on the cob and all manner of food were peddled along the meandering line of commuters. Brae passed on a morsel “none for me thanks.” Rose was however famished, she threw up her hoof “two cobs please!”

Braeburn lowered his head to her eager ear “I hope you’ve got the coin for that.”

Rose pivoted her head up and looked up the nose of her chaperone “What coins? I thought maybe we would barter or trade.”

Braeburn clutched a purse of bits off of his side and placed it on the ground. He undid the tie with his teeth and scooped out a few golden disks “we haven’t purchased through those means since the great revolt.”

The sun-kissed stallion lent the spare change to the poor other, she gracefully accepted the coin and turned to the response of the vendors. “Two cobs please sir.”

The peddler, dressed smartly in shirt and tie, nuzzled his face into a sack he had about his waist. “One bit for the two, since you’re just so darn cute.”

Rose tasted the bitter gold as she closed her teeth around the coin; she smiled through clenched teeth and paid the stallion. He drew back his almond hoof and retrieved two corn snacks from inside the bag.

Pleased with the haul, Rose turned to Brae and hoofed him the larger of the specimens. He was oblivious of her flattery at first but turned at the smell as it reached his nose. “Oh for me? Why thank you Rose.” Braeburn, chuffed at the charity, leaned down and planted a kiss Rose’s snout.

Her rosy red cheeks blazed through her normally intrigued expression. Rose stripped a row of sweet corn from the cob and walked forward a step with Brae as the line thinned ever so slightly. As the line thinned a little mare, Rose belatedly thanked Braeburn. “My pleasure Brae, didn’t want you going hungry.”

 The belittling waiting weighed down on Braeburn as he watched the line remain still for minutes on end. He was about to lose his rag and boycott the line when a soothing sound came from the distant town square. The mood was lifted by some much needed levity, tensions cooled within the line, the beauteous sound continued to chime.

Ponies were hard pressed to obtain tickets at such a time, they were not aggressive or bad natured however, the song kept them all on the right level.

As long as the cello borne melody enwrapped the commuters, they remained calm. The wait was far less grating without the raised voices and pointless animosity. Braeburn was so enthralled by the prevailing atmosphere of calm that he barely touched his snack.

Rose pulled a cheeky grin and walked backward in front of the stallion as the line thinned an integer more. “Are you going to eat that? You shouldn’t waste food.”

Braeburn snapped back from his delusional daydream with a fright, he shook his head free of the enchanting spell and focused on the full cob of corn. Past the foreground of corn was the impatient gaze of Rose. He gifted her with the cob and spun around recklessly to snatch the purse he had left on the ground. The vender, strangely out of character, had rescued the purse begging to be filched and had brought it to the owner.

Braeburn accepted the purse back in his hoof but noticed the vender making weird shapes with his eyes. “Oh and for your trouble.” He said as he placed a couple of gold coins on the forward hoof of the almond vender stallion.

It was the dead of noon, the direct middle of the day, and only a few commuters lay between the unlikely pair and the two tickets to paradise. As the sweet winds of melody died out so too did the air of calm, stallions were once more at each other’s throats and foals screamed and wailed. Rose and Brae were glad to be shot of the new the symphony of discordance. They reached the ticket teller and the purse was emptied out on the counter.

Safely behind the bullet-proof screen perched a rather unimpressed looking owl. He had feathers of chestnut and a belly of albumin white; he bent his beak down and probed the coinage. He cocked a both of his bushy eyebrows and squawked. “Two tickets to *squawk* Canterlot.” The owl dutifully pushed the tickets through the hatch and pecked the coins away into a drawer and waved a wing at the pair as they headed for the train.

Octavia’s room>

Otherwise situated, Octavia crammed through the day, she wanted more than anything to perfect her song. She would attempt each stanza of poorly presented script till she couldn’t go wrong. The inside of her hooves bore blisters from her determination, her eyes watered from deciphering the mottled script in front of her and her ears ached from listening to every damned note.

She was geared to call it a day when she caught sight of the happiest time of her life, the stories they had told on that stage would go with her to her grave. She ignored the blister’s screams of protest and picked up the photograph, she pressed her lips over the image of Jeremiah and laid a wet kiss upon it.

“Well hello what have we got here?” a male voice asked. Octavia didn’t turn, she was stuck in her playing position, and her hooves were useless for the blisters that clung to them. She turned her head as far as it would go “who is there?”

The voice grew louder; the intruder approached the stool and sat down upon the closed cello case “what’s with you making weepy eyes at my pa?” He drew closer, his rancid breath eked a bead of sweat from the mare “why are lying to me Octavia?”

“I don’t mean to be blunt but why are you in my room? I didn’t invite you, this is most disconcerting” Octavia declared. Wallace appeared in front of the mare and he tossed her cello aside “you what? You speak of me acting untoward when you lied to me first!”

Octavia shuddered at the volume and drew her rear legs into herself “what did I lie to you about?” Wallace scratched furiously at his wiry mane which sent flecks of dandruff down to the floor “you swore you didn’t know my pa! Who are you fooling? I saw you lay a big smacker of a kiss on that photo!”

“And what does that mean?” Octavia defied as she liberated her tufty ears of dandruff. Wallace reacted like a cat being stroked the wrong way, he arched his back and he leaned on the lap of the mare “you did know him! You loved him! Yet still you lie! Now do me the single grace and at least tell me why!”

Octavia was stranded in the icy cold stare of Wallace, she looked towards her scuffed cello “you cannot come into my room unannounced; I pay for privacy and do not approve of your voyeurism.”

Wallace backed away and walked radiated around Octavia, he made exaggerated movements with his hooves as he contemplated his next move. He breathed heavily as he circled, his every step was sluggish and lazy, and his expression grew madder. Wallace returned to the lap of the mare and spat as he demanded “what do you know about him?! The truth mare or else.”

Thought she feared the ever crazier advances of the creep she remained composed. As he released her once more she brushed her coat down and resettled herself on the stool “you have your gripe, I understand, but I have practice to do so make yourself gone from here!” Wallace drew his head near one last time and bared his teeth in warning. He straightened his apparel and made for the door.

Octavia breathed a sigh of relief as his canter died off down the longest hallway. She then remembered that very morning where she had woken with the pain in her rear, she thought to herself ‘who else had entry to my room, the caretaker or the clerk?’ She then fell upon the disturbing realisation that it was the Wallace who was interested in her and that it was Wallace who had been in her room that morning.

In the corner were the huddled remains of the cello, it looked sorrowful and unloved much like the banjo. Some strings had escaped the peg box and the bridge was dented and warped. The musical mare reclaimed her motivation and climbed out of the stool. She wondered towards the battered instrument and carefully placed her hooves underneath the belly of it.

As the cello rose like a spirit freed from its mortal toil more shreds of balsa wood shed from it, revealing its’ inner hollow and ruining its resonance forever. “I’m sorry dear” Octavia soaked her tears in one of the random sheets of music spewed across her floor.

She turned to face the open door, the matted script floated down to the mess below. A vile muzzle poked around the frame, he was gazing thirstily into the flesh of Octavia. Near to the mare’s hoof was the bow, the only undamaged part of her cello. She grasped the walnut handle and approached her tormentor with the spear constructed of her own hair. He greedily held his vulture-like stare, the bow point stabbed into his gullet, his focus didn’t waver.

Wallace thrashed his hoof and disarmed the grey coated mare of her weapon. He bore his teeth at the mare that retreated towards the window. His jaw dripped with sticky black tar and his gums appeared rotten and plague ridden. The whites of his eyes receded, they gave way to a phosphorescent blue hue, and inside those eyes was a hunger like no other.

The mare did not seen the transformation, she had escaped out the window and out onto the lower awning. The bedraggled beast reformed the missing parts of his face and reassumed the normal guise of Wallace Thicket.

Octavia knew so little about the creatures sworn to secrecy. She couldn’t fathom why the creature masquerading as Wallace was so overprotective of his father. Although, seeing as she was there to relax and recuperate, she let the odd series of events wash over her. Perhaps she would live to see the errors of her complacent mind.