Octavia fought with the trembling in her hooves as she eased the stage curtain back ever so slightly to reveal a sea of eloquently dressed ponies filling almost every seat in the arena.
A cold pit of anxiety dropped into her stomach as she let the curtain fall back into place.
“Okay, you can do this,” she chanted quietly to herself as she paced back and forth across the stage.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?” A hoof rested itself on her shoulder and Octavia nearly jumped out of her skin as she rounded on the offender.
“Oh,” she let out a breath as she came face to face with her father. “Nothing…”
Her mind still racing, she turned away from him, her attention still focused on the crowd of ponies on the other side of the curtain. Cornelius’ mouth turned downward slightly.
“Nervous?” He asked.
Octavia only continued to stare at the curtain as though she could see through it. There was a moment of pregnant silence and then Octavia let a barely audible “yes” slip through her teeth.
“What’s on the menu?”
“Trotkovsky’s ‘The Tempest.’”
“That’s great,” he said, his voice entirely too hopeful for Octavia’s liking. “I’ve heard you play that piece a million times. You’ll do fine.”
“That’s just it,” she said, whipping around to face him. “What if I don’t do fine? What if I forget one of the sections, or what if my violin isn’t in tune, or what if one of the strings breaks or…”
Cornelius stopped her rant with a hoof to the muzzle, but her eyes swelled with anxiety nonetheless.
“Octavia,” he began. “Don’t worry so much about what could happen. Just go out there and give your performance everything you’ve got.”
Tears began to pool in the corners of the young violinist’s eyes. Cornelius leaned down and gave his daughter a kiss on the forehead.
“You’ll do fine, I promise.”
Just then, a lanky looking sheep with closely trimmed wool hugged by a form-fitting suit-coat clopped her way across the stage, a clipboard perched in front of her nose.
“Octavia?” She questioned, her eyes roving over all of the competitors from overtop her glasses.
“Yes?” Octavia said, stepping out of her father’s embrace.
“You’re on in five.”
After making a curt mark on her clipboard, the sheep readjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose and marched the rest of the way across the stage. Octavia watched her walk away, pulling a heavy breath through her nose and out her mouth.
“Relax,” her father said, coming to stand next to her. “You’ve got this.”
“Yeah…” she said, her voice trailing off awkwardly.
“C’mon,” he started, resting a hoof on her shoulder again. “Let’s go make sure everything’s in order before you go on.”
The final moments before her performance were a hectic mess of nervousness and tension that consisted of: tuning her instrument, going over scales, re-tuning her instrument, and trying in vain to curb her mounting anxiety.
She was in the middle of tuning her instrument for a third time when the tell-tale clopping of hooves on wood stole her attention and she met eyes with the uptight looking sheep from earlier.
“Octavia?” She asked again; and — without missing a beat — Octavia was standing before her, violin at the ready.
“You’re on,” she said simply, not even giving Octavia a second look as she pushed past her.
Octavia could feel the anxiety she’d been working so hard to suppress rearing its ugly head again as she made her way toward the edge of the stage. From her vantage point she could see the competitor before her finishing up his routine with a strong flourish, earning him a chorus of applause and admiration from both the audience and the judges.
Octavia ‘s stomach jumped into her throat.
With knots rapidly forming in her stomach, Octavia watched the stallion on stage bow respectfully to all three sections of the audience before walking staunchly off stage with his flute in hoof; and with the stage now empty and beckoning her, Octavia strongly considered turning around and walking the other way.
“Break a leg,” she heard her father say as he came to stand behind her, urging her toward the now empty stage; but as soon as she was out from backstage and into the spotlight, she found herself more or less completely frozen.
She felt like a captured animal, caged and on display for the amusement of the populace. Blanching at the sheer numbers of ponies skewering her with their eyes, she turned and gave her father a pleading, hopeless look and in return he offered her his most encouraging smile.
Swallowing hard through the fear clogging her windpipe, Octavia turned back toward the stage and wobbled out into the spotlight.
“Hello miss Octavia.” A hoary looking mare with glasses that looked too big for her face said as she scanned the sheet of paper in front of her. “What will you be playing for us, tonight?”
Octavia tried to speak but her throat felt as though she’d swallowed a ring of sandpaper. Taking a couple of preemptive breaths, Octavia swallowed again, shielding her eyes with a hoof as more of the stage lights trained themselves on her, forcing her to squint.
“Umm...Trotkovsky’s ‘The Tempest.’” She finally squeaked out, clamboring to get her instrument out of its case and ready in her hooves.
All three of the judges sat back in their seats, giving Octavia their undivided attention.
“Whenever you’re ready.” The mare in the middle seat said, her eyes hard and judgmental.
“Okay…” Octavia said, steadying herself on her hooves, touching her bow the strings and beginning to play.
Octavia hadn’t come out of her room for hours.
All that morning she had been perched by the door, turning to look out the window every couple of minutes. Cornelius remembered thinking she looked like a dog with how eagerly she’d been waiting.
When the mail-pony finally did meander by, she was out the door and back again fast enough to make Cornelius’ head spin. She dug through the mail and fished out a letter addressed to “Mrs. Octavia.” Cornelius thought this was the happiest he’d ever seen his daughter.
And then she opened the envelope.
The news was bad, the way her face contorted and drew up told him that much. Instinctively, he moved to embrace her, still piecing together the words he thought would soothe her. She pushed him away with the lightest of touches.
“Just leave me alone for a little bit…” That was all she’d said before she drug herself up to her room to fester and left him searching desperately for a way to comfort her. After a lengthy hour of deliberation, he eventually settled on having a good, honest talk.
He walked up the stairs and crept up to her door. It was deathly silent. He gave two curt knocks and waited. There was no answer.
He knocked again, still nothing.
“Octavia, honey. Are you okay?”
“Go away,” he heard faintly from the other side of the door.
“Can you just open the door, please?”
“Why?”
“So we can talk.
“I don’t want to talk.”
“Well, I do.”
“Good for you.”
“Octavia...don’t be like that.”
There was a pause. “Just go away..”
Cornelius sighed. “I’m coming in.”
Cornelius turned the handle to his daughter’s door and pushed it open. The doors not having locks had been his wife’s idea. She believed in honesty between family members. Octavia still hadn’t warmed up to the idea.
The room was dark, the only light spilling in from the hallway through the open door. Everything was shrouded in shadow and Cornelius had to squint to see the formless lump lying atop the bed at the other end of the room.
“Seriously?” The lump responded upon being suddenly bathed in light.
“Octavia,” he began as he started toward her bed. “You can’t just sit in here and wallow, it isn’t healthy.”
“I don’t care,” she croaked through the hoarseness in her voice.
Cornelius paused, unsure of what to say next. Then — in a sudden rush of clarity — it hit him. “Come downstairs with me.”
“No…”
“Yes,” he responded, walking over to the door and flicking the light switch multiple times.
Octavia gasped, wrapping herself in sheets to try and block out the flickering light. “Dad, what the buck, stop!”
“Octavia!” He hissed.
“Then stop!”
“Then come downstairs with me.”
“Fine!”
Like a pony awaiting the gallows, Octavia drug herself out of bed and followed her father down the stairs. He led her into their home’s modest living room, toward the large tarp sitting awkwardly in the middle.
“What?” she groused as her father pulled off the cover, smiling slightly at how pristine the piano underneath still shined. Octavia had just about the opposite reaction, her shoulders sagging and her breath leaving her in an irritated huff. “Honestly, Dad, I don’t feel like playing right now.”
“I don’t want you to play. Just listen.”
“If I do, will you leave me alone?”
“Yes,” the stallion said simply, clearing his throat and straightening his posture.
"Fine," Octavia relented, taking a seat next to her father, who regarded her with an even look before touching his hooves to the keys and beginning to play.
The melody started out very basic, something that Octavia reasoned she could play despite her limited experience with the piano. However, as she continued to listen, she began to notice a change in the arrangement.
The shift was subtle, but something about the way her father was playing had completely encapsulated her. It no longer felt like a pony simply plucking the keys in the correct order; It felt real. The joy of a fond memory, the exuberance of love, the rankling sting of loss, she could feel them all as keenly as though she had lived them herself and all he’d done is strike a few keys.
Cornelius rounded out the piece with the tiniest of personal flourishes and Octavia simply stood there, stock still until the last of the notes finished resonating in her ears.
“Dad, holy crap! That was amazing.” Octavia said, her earlier despondency giving way to awe and amazement.
“Octavia, language” the stallion reminded sternly.
“Well, it was. I didn’t know you could play piano like that.”
“What are you talking about? I used to play along with you on the piano all the time when you were younger.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t know you could play like that. How come you didn’t enter any competitions or anything?”
“I did. Used to go to competitions just about every month.” The stallion’s front hooves wrung themselves together on the keys. He quickly tucked them underneath the piano and out of view. “That didn’t last very long though.”
“Why?” Octavia questioned incredulously.
“Used to make me a nervous wreck. I very clearly remember almost quitting more than once.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Cornelius smiled, “When we started dating, your mother made me run all of my big life decisions by her first-”
“-so you told her you wanted to quit and she flipped?”
That’s certainly what I expected.” He laughed. “But no, she wasn’t even upset. Instead, you know what she did?”
Octavia shook her head.
“She sat me down at this exact piano and told me that I was thinking about music all wrong.”
Octavia’s eyes went wide as they could and her mouth quickly followed suit. “And you stayed with her?”
“Oh, of course I did. I loved your mother; and this was really the only time I ever raised my voice at her. In fact I’m pretty sure that was our first and only real fight in the forty some years we were married.” Cornelius turned his head and could see that Octavia was very clearly hanging on his every word.
“And your mother, very calmly, asked me why it was I started playing music in the first place.”
“What’d you tell her?”
“I told her I’d been around music ever since I was a child and, at a very early age learned to respect the time and dedication that went into music-”
“-did you tell her that you’re related to one of the most famous musicians to ever grace Equestria?””
“I did. And you know what she said?’...So what?””
“Octavia’s eyes bulged nearly completely out of her skull. “So what?! You don’t suddenly find out you’re dating the son of one of the most famous musicians to ever pick up and instrument and say ‘so what-’”
“The point she was trying to make-” The stallion interrupted, pushing his daughter away lightly. “-and the point that I’m trying to teach you now is that it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been playing music or who you’re related to. If you don’t love doing it, you won’t be able to do it to it’s full potential.”
“I do love it,” Octavia insisted. Her father didn’t respond to her. Instead, he straightened his posture on the stool, and placed his hooves over the keys again.
“Go get your violin,” he said softly.
“Why?”
“Because I want to show you something.” Octavia’s smile couldn’t have been brighter as she hopped off the stool and galloped up to her bedroom. When she returned, her father was experimentally hoofing the keys. She trotted up next to him and leaned her violin case against the piano before re-taking her seat next to him.
“Do you know what your mother’s favorite song was?”
“The Four Seasons?”
“Close. It’s actually Cavatina.”
“Seriously?”
“Yup. It was the first piece I ever taught you.”
“Ugh, I know. I could probably play it in my sleep.”
“Play it with me, then.”
With her enthusiasm bubbling over, Octavia retrieved her instrument from its case. It still shined exactly like it had the first time she opened the box, sleek and impeccably clean, without even the slightest trace of dust or scratching. Octavia took a brief moment to marvel at the exceptional condition of her instrument before placing the end in the crook of her neck, the bow set lightly over the strings.
“I can’t believe you still play that thing. I got that for you what? Seven? Eight years ago?”
Octavia slid the bow back and forth across the strings a few times. “It still plays fine.”
“Do you want to get a new one?”
“No,” she smiled. “I like this one.”
“Alright.” Her father straightened his posture once more on the bench.“Just play like you would any other time, but this time, don’t think about hitting the right notes or even playing on key. Just have fun with it.”
“Gotcha.”
“Remember that time you, me and uncle Fenrich went to the beach?”
“The time we stayed practically all day and uncle Fenrich got stung by a jellyfish?”
Cornelius laughed. “Yeah, just keep stuff like that in mind while you play. Who knows? It might help.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
“You ready?” Cornelius looked over his shoulder at Octavia who nodded back at him. “Okay. 1, 2, 3…”
Hooves danced dexterously over keys, spurring the piano to life, and after a beat, it was joined by the delicate hum of a violin.
Octavia and her father played perfectly, each instrument complementing the other while not taking away from the overall arrangement. Remaining perfectly in sync, the two cleared the first leg and were transitioning into the middle of the piece when Octavia began to feel a strange and familiar sensation wash over her.
The feeling was still fresh in her bones; the feeling of being swept away by her father’s masterful play. It struck her even more keenly this time, and — without even realizing it — she had become transfixed.
The rich crescendo her father was building took a sudden dim. The vibrant melody was suddenly tapered off with the most gentle of flourishes and Octavia was left staring dumbly into the eyes of her father.
“Sorry, sorry.” She sputtered, hoisting her instrument back up into the proper position and laying the bow across its strings. “That was totally my fault. Can we just start over or something-”
“Why don’t you try playing it by yourself?”
“By myself…” Octavia blinked at her father before closing her eyes and taking a tense breath. As she went to pull the bow across the strings, Octavia felt her father’s hoof rest itself on her shoulder.
“Remember, just have fun with it.”
Octavia nodded and her father removed his hoof from her shoulder. Steadying the bow, Octavia took another, more relaxed breath, and began to play.
It almost scared her, how easy it was. How fondly she remembered the melody. How every last note of every last stanza was practically burned into her brain. How she could practically hear the notes in her head before she played them.
She felt like a machine. Like the notes simply came out of her brain as information that she could read and execute in nanoseconds. It didn’t seem to matter the frequency or in what order they were arranged, she played every single one exactly as she had been taught.
The piece eventually reached its pith. She could see herself surrounded by ponies; all dressed to impress and and eager to hear her play. She could see her father in the audience cheering her on. She imagined the headmasters of some prestigious musical academy sitting expectantly in the crowd, eager to hear if her play lived up to the hype she'd built for herself.
This was truly her moment.
She cleared the piece’s most complicated section with ease, earning a few impressed oohs and ahhs from her imagined audience; but as she was nearing the end, a feeling hit her.
At first she couldn’t quite place it, like a crossroad between disappointment and unhappiness; and only when she reached the very tail end of the arrangement did she realize what it was.
Dissatisfaction; like despite the countless hours she’d put into honing and perfecting her craft, her play had somehow become stale, stagnant, passionless.
Nothing like the way her father played.
Octavia’s confidence quickly bled out of her. Her strumming hoof slipped. Her bow slid skewed across the strings and she winced at the horrible noise it created.
Anxiety clouded her mind. She couldn’t remember the upcoming section. She played a desperate string of notes hoping she was on the mark.
She wasn’t.
Her hoof slipped again. The violin squealed. Octavia exhaled, loudly.
“Are you okay?” Her father asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Why don’t you take a break? Maybe go get something to eat-”
“I said I’m fine!” She growled, intent on fleshing out the last few notes. Her father’s hoof stopped her again and when she turned to look at him, she saw understanding shimmering in his eyes.
“Why don’t you stop for today, okay? You can practice more tomorrow if you want.”
Like rain after a drought, the frustration simmering inside her was slowly soothed until only sorrow shined there.
“What’s the point? She said, her shoulders sagging and her voice turning hollow and lifeless. I’ll never be as good as you?”
“You’re right,” her father started, his tone completely serious.“You’ll be even better.”
He was smiling when Octavia looked at him, and the hope in his eyes made her smile lightly too.
“You’re just saying that.”
“No, it’s true. You have talent, Octavia.” He gently wrapped a hoof around his daughter’s shoulders and pulled her close. “And I truly believe that if you really wanted to, you could be ten times better than me or your mother.”
“Do you really mean that?” She asked, a glint of hope in her eyes.
“Of course I do.”
Octavia pulled her father in close, squeezing him tightly. “Thanks dad.”
An overcast draped itself over Canterlot as Octavia followed a quartet of stallions carrying a casket into the city’s funeral home. Every pony was silent as the suit clad ponies carried the casket up the aisle and set it in its place at the altar.
Clinging desperately to courage, Octavia approached the casket. Her legs felt unsupportive, the pit in her chest heavy and constricting.
Her throat threatened to close as she came to stand next to it. She swallowed hard. Her legs shook like stalks in the wind and she nearly collapsed as one of the attendants peeled the casket open.
The tiniest of noises escaped her as her tear-brimmed eyes fell upon her father, looking peaceful as ever as he lie there.
She tried her hardest, but she couldn’t hold it in, and with an undignified gasp she began to sob; and as she allowed her sorrow to swallow her up, she felt a hoof gently snake itself around her shaking shoulders.
“Miss, Octavia?” A heavy voice asked as one of the stallions approached her. “Do you need a minute?”
Octavia simply nodded and without so much as a word the stallions exited the funeral hall, leaving her alone with her father.
Even after they’d left, Octavia remained where she was and simply allowed herself to cry until her throat felt raw and her eyes burned from the tears.
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she finally got to her hooves, but as she turned and exited the building she was surprised to find a large group of ponies waiting outside, their expressions somber and mournful.
Octavia found herself at a loss for words and as she continued to stare stupidly at them, she suddenly realized how much of a mess she must have looked.
“Excuse me,” she said, clearing her throat and dabbing at the tear stains under her eyes.
A sudden tap on her shoulder almost made her jump and she turned to find a grizzled looking stallion holding a handkerchief out to her.
“Thank you,” she sniffled, giving the area underneath her eyes a more thorough pass until she felt she looked at least a little bit presentable.
There was another long moment of silence before the Chaplin appeared at the doors behind Octavia and began ushering ponies inside. The procession of ponies passed Octavia slowly, many offering their condolences or expressing how sorry they were for her loss; and Octavia took each compliment with grace, thanking every pony for their kind words as they filed inside.
The proceeding service was a quiet but solemn one, and when ponies did get up to speak, it was with the utmost reverence and respect. Eventually, it was Octavia’s turn to take the stand, and she slowly drug herself up to the podium, cradling a tiny wooden box under her foreleg.
“Thank you for coming every pony,” she croaked through a voice that didn’t quite sound like her own.
“My father-” she tried, fighting with the tightness in her throat. “My father was a good pony. He raised me all by himself after my parents passed away. He taught me everything I know about music.” A small smile graced Octavia’s muzzle even as tears once again began to flow down her cheeks. "I'm sorry-"
Feeling as though she was losing her composure, Octavia turned away from the microphone for a brief second to collect herself. Clearing her throat and righting her posture, she turned back toward the podium and tried again to speak but all that came out was a mess of noisy sputters as she broke down and — for the second time that day — allowed herself to cry.
For the brief minute that she wept, every pony in the funeral hall was silent; and when she finally collected herself enough to speak again, she found herself at an utter and embarrassing loss for words, so instead she opened the small box she’d placed near the podium and retrieved the instrument inside.
It surprised her how pristine it still looked, even after weeks of non-use; and despite her extended stay from the instrument, as soon as she placed it in the crook of her neck, her years of training and practice came back to her in an instant.
“This was both my mother’s and my father’s favorite song. It was the first song my dad ever taught me. I hope you like it.”
With her instrument poised and ready, Octavia turned and gave one last look at her father and, In that small moment she was hit with a barrage of conflicting feelings.
The first and most prominent of the feelings that hit her was sadness, knowing that this was the last time she was going to see her father before he was buried; but, after a moment she was hit with a second more powerful feeling that caused her breath to catch.
It was joy. A swelling feeling of almost overwhelming happiness that pervaded her every pore even as her father’s body lay cold and lifeless not five feet from where she was standing.
Octavia frowned in confusion and then suddenly, the image of her father’s catatonic body bled away and her mind was filled with the image of his smiling face as he coached her younger self on the proper way to hold the bow of her violin.
Octavia smiled fondly at the memory, and then just as suddenly as it came, it disappeared, giving way to yet another memory, this one depicting a much older Octavia sitting with her father at the piano and gently humming along as he poured his soul over the keys.
This one too lasted only a moment, and the one that replaced it made her heart soar in her chest.
It was a day she remembered fondly. The day she had come home from her competition, depressed and distraught. She remembered how he’d brought her out of her room and into the foyer. She remembered being absolutely entranced by his artistry and masterful play, and she also remembered trying (and by her standards, failing) to play for him.
But what she recalled more vividly than anything else about that particular day was when he’d told her that she had the potential to be something great, even if she herself hadn’t been able to see it.
As the last of the joyful memories faded from her mind and she was brought back to reality, Octavia couldn’t help but smile. Wiping the last of the tears from her eyes, she let her gaze linger on her father for a few more precious moments before turning back to the crowd before her.
With newfound understanding filling her weary soul, she brought the bow purposefully to the strings of her violin, steeled herself and began to play.
