A New Ponyville Melody

The train blew its whistle as it started to slowly pull out of the station. Octavia stared out the window and watched Canterlot slowly shrink into the distance.

I’ve lived there my entire life, and this is how I end up leaving it.

She left a note for her parents explaining her situation, after much persuasion on Lyra’s part. As she’d expected, they didn’t even show up to say goodbye or even try and stop her. In their eyes, she had become a failure as soon as she was no longer playing with the orchestra. Her leaving simply saved them the time of making her go.

Enough of this negative thinking, I’m moving on with my life, and everything can only go up from here.

Canterlot was fully obscured from view as the train came around the side of the mountain and started it’s way down towards Ponyville. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking. No big buildings or billboards, just farm land for miles, and in the distance, the ominous Everfree Forest.

She’d heard the tales of how the Element Bearers had defeated Nightmare Moon at the castle located deep within. From this distance, it looked no different from any other forest, but she had read stories about all the terrible things that lay waiting among those dense trees.

Near the forest, lay the town itself. It’s quaint rural appeal still caught her eye, looking so much different than the tall stone buildings of Canterlot. There was something indescribable about the town that made it feel more alive. She actually found herself becoming excited to be calling the place her home.

Octavia followed Lyra away from the station, pulling one of the carts containing Lyra’s belongings. The station had been gracious enough to loan them the carts so they could get it all in one trip.

“Come on! Bon Bon’s house is this way.” Lyra said, leading Octavia down a narrow street. Octavia quickly realized that it was going to take her a while to learn her way around. All of the streets and alleyways looked the same. Only town hall stood up above all the other buildings, serving as a guiding point.

They continued on, making their way through the seemingly endless streets that all blended together. She zoned out for a bit and almost ran into Lyra’s cart when she stopped in front of one of the buildings. It was a large two story building, made in the same fashion as most of the other buildings around it.

“Here we are.” Lyra walked up to the door and rapped her hoof loudly against it. “Bonnie, I’m here!” She turned the knob and the door opened. Leading Octavia inside she called out again. “Hope you don’t mind, but I’ve brought a friend with me.”

“Just a second!” Bon Bon frantically yelled back.

They could hear her scrambling around in the living room, and headed that way to see what all the fuss was about. As they turned the corner, they saw the cream colored mare rushing around the room, blowing out dozens of candles in various places around the room. Octavia blushed and immediately turned away when she noticed that the mare was wearing long striped socks, Lyra’s cutie mark embroidered obviously at the top of each one.

“I’ll be in the kitchen.” She hastily said as she retreated from the room, leaving Bon Bon alone with Lyra in the living room. As hard as she tried not to listen, she couldn’t help but overhear their conversation.

“Bonnie, what is all this?” Lyra asked.

“I thought you were coming alone, I wanted to surprise you.”

“Didn’t you get my second letter?” Bon Bon stopped what she was doing and gave Lyra a nervous look.

“I may have just… glanced through it. You’ve been gone for almost three months, I was so excited that you were coming back, I guess I only read what I wanted too.”

It seems that Lyra may not have told me everything about her friendship with this Bon Bon mare, Octavia thought to herself, smiling. Making her way back through the kitchen, she headed back outside and started bringing some of the boxes in while Lyra talked with Bon Bon.

Lyra appeared in the doorway a few moments later, a nervous smile on her face.

“Sorry you had to see that.” She said, eyeing Octavia warily. It was no secret that the ponies of Canterlot had no tolerance when it came to same sex couples, which was why Lyra had pointedly avoided telling her about their relationship.

“If you’re waiting for me to shun you just because I’ve found out you’re dating a mare, I’m afraid you’ll be waiting quite a long time.”

“Buh… Wha… Huh?” Lyra stumbled over her words, too flabbergasted to form a proper sentence.

“I promise, I won’t tell anyone about you two.”

“Thanks? I think.”

“Isn’t that what you were worried about? That I’d tell somepony and you two would have to leave town?”

“Huh? No. Ponyville doesn’t really care who you’re with, so long as you’re both adults. I’m just surprised that you aren’t chewing my head off right now about how it’s wrong for two mares to be together and all that other nonsense those fools in Canterlot spew.” She noticed Octavia’s surprised look at the news that fillyfooling didn’t carry the same taboo in Ponyville that it did in Canterlot.

The grey mare looked like she wanted to say something, but hesitated, clearly nervous.

“That’s probably because I’d have to yell at myself as well.”

“Wait. You can’t mean…” Lyra looked shocked.

Octavia nodded, a blush spreading over her face at revealing something so personal.

“Wow.”

“What?” Octavia asked skeptically.

“I just never pegged you for being one of us, I guess. I figured that growing up in Canterlot they would have made you into one of their mindless zombies.”

“I’ll admit it was hard to keep it a secret. I always felt as if I couldn’t tell anyone, for fear of being ostracized or kicked out by my parents. You’re actually the first pony I’ve ever told.”

“Well, just consider that another perk to getting out of that stuck up old city. No one is going to judge you here, and there are plenty of options too, if you know what I mean.” She said, nudging Octavia’s shoulder and wiggling her eyebrows.

“Well,” She paused to clear her throat, blush returning in full force. “that’s good to know, I guess.”

They continued to unload the carts, an awkward silence hanging over them as they moved all of the boxes inside. When they finished with the first cart, a now sockless Bon Bon came out to help with the rest of it. As she made her way through the house, Octavia saw that the living room was now devoid of anything suggesting the state it had been in earlier.

Once they were all finished, they sat down in the kitchen to rest and grab something to drink. Octavia, pushed her glass around on the table for a moment or two before speaking up.

“Are you sure that I won’t be imposing?”

“Of course not.” Bon Bon said, almost immediately. “After what you’ve been through, I would be ashamed of myself if I didn’t offer you a place to stay until you got back on your hooves.”

“Thank you. Your hospitality is quite… refreshing.”

Octavia made her way through the marketplace, picking up some items to replace ones that she had left in Canterlot, as well as a couple of things that Bon Bon had asked her to pick up while she was out. She figured it was just Bon Bon finding a way to keep her out of the house longer, so that she and Lyra could have some personal time.

She smiled to herself at the fact that they were able to freely express their love here. She pondered over whether or not she would find a special somepony for herself. As her mind wandered, imagining different ideal ponies for herself, she collided with something soft in front of her, falling to the ground.

“Hey! What’s the big idea!”

“Oh, dear, I’m so sorry! I wasn’t paying attention where I was going.”

“Obviously.” She heard the other mare’s tone change to an almost playful one. “Oh hey, I remember you. Octavia, right? I didn’t figure I’d see you again so soon.”

Turning around, she saw that she had ran into none other than Vinyl Scratch.

“Ah, Miss Vinyl! A pleasure seeing you again.”

“Just Vinyl, and pretty good. How about yourself?”

“I’ve been better.” She said dejectedly.

“Oh? Anything I could help with?”

“Not unless you can go back in time and stop me from making a stupid mistake.”

“One of those problems, huh? Well, if you ever need an ear or a shoulder to lean on, I’ll be there for ya.”

“Actually, it’s not all that bad.” This caused Vinyl to cock an eyebrow. “I may have… punched my music director for removing a piece of music I wrote from our setlist for no good reason.”

“I take it there’s more to it? Doesn’t sound all that bad so far.” Vinyl said with a smirk.

“He kicked me out of the orchestra, and promised to have me blacklisted from ever performing in Canterlot again.”

“Ouch.”

“My friend Lyra offered to let me move down here with her. Music is my life, and if I couldn’t perform in Canterlot anymore, then there wasn’t any reason to stay.”

“Sounds like you’re lucky to have a good friend like that. Canterlot can be rough if you’re on your own.”

“Yes, the big city can be quite unfriendly, especially if you don’t have connections.”

“So, how are you enjoying Ponyville so far?” Vinyl asked, leading her over to a bench so the two could sit. “Pretty big change for a city mare like yourself.”

“Yes, it’s a change alright. Although a welcome one I must admit. The ponies in this town are so much friendlier than those stuck up mules in Canterlot.”

“Well it’s not all sunshine and rainbows around here either. A lot of crazy stuff happens around here all the time. I know it doesn’t look like it, but we’ve had more than our share of disasters and just plain strange things going on around here.”

“I expect that it’s largely due to the Everfree Forest being so close?”

“Yeah that’s part of it, but mostly it comes from having Twilight Sparkle and her friends living here. They’re all great ponies, but they sure attract their fair share of trouble.” Vinyl leaned over, whispering conspiratorially. “And just between us, I don’t think those ponies are all there, if you catch my meaning.” Octavia’s eyes widened.

“Twilight Sparkle? As in Princess Twilight Sparkle?”

“The one and only.”

Octavia’s eyes rapidly scanned the surrounding area, making sure that she hadn’t missed the princess as she had wandered through town.

“Where does Princess Twilight live? I didn’t see any place set up for her.” This got a laugh out of Vinyl, which caused Octavia to stare at her curiously.

“Funny thing, that is. Princess Twilight actually lives above the public library.”

Octavia’s jaw dropped.

“You mean there’s a princess living here and the best you all could do was a LIBRARY!”

Vinyl just stared at her, wondering what she was getting at. Several ponies cast a glance in their direction, before continuing on with their business.

“The best we could do? No she lives there by her own choice. She’s a bit of a book worm, you see. When she first moved to Ponyville she almost never left the place.”

Octavia could scarcely believe what she was hearing. A princess of Equestria, willingly living inside of a public library. Her brain refused to accept this information, and promptly performed a reboot, leaving her with a blank look and one eye twitching.

Vinyl looked over at the clock tower to check the time before turning back to Octavia.

“Well my lunch break is about over, I gotta be heading back to the shop.” She said as she stood back up. When she got no reply, she shrugged and started to walk away. She stopped after a few steps and turned back around. “Say if you need a job till you can get back on your hooves, I could always use some help around the store.” Still receiving no reply, she turned and headed back to her shop.

“Stop by later if you make a decision.” Vinyl called, as she turned a corner and disappeared from view.

It took Octavia’s frazzled brain a few seconds to process what Vinyl had just said, but the more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea of helping Vinyl out in her shop.

I am going to need a way to support myself while I’m here. Even if Bon Bon is providing a room, I’ll still have expenses.

The prospect of working for the energetic white mare wasn’t so bad either. She was so open, unlike anyone she had ever met before.

I’m going to have to stop by her store when I’ve got some free time.

She checked her bags over, making sure she hadn’t lost anything when she ran into Vinyl, she got up and started making her way to pick up the final items from her list.