Octavia was going to be crushed. She needed an escape plan quick, before any hope for survival was lost entirely. The stoic red walls closing in on her small, grey form. She quickly darted from one end of the enclosed room to the other, frantically seeking a way out. Glancing up, she noticed a small opening in the ceiling of the room, just big enough for a filly to squeeze through. She waited for the walls to come close enough together that she could brace her back against one side, and her hooves against the other, slowly shambling up the tall corridor towards freedom. As she reached the opening she peeked her head out, trying to squeeze her shoulders through, to no avail. As the walls etched ever closer, they began shuttering and emitting a loud banging noise.
“Octy, time for school!” A loud voice intruded her dreams
Octavia burst into consciousness, suddenly realizing the red walls were her imagination taking form while she slept.
“Come on, Octy. Don’t want to be late for your very first day of classes!” There was that voice again, as delicate as morning dew on the petals of a daisy.
“I’m up, mother. I will be ready in a moment”
She anxiously hopped out of bed, quickly brushing her long black hair and fastening the bow her father got her on a business trip around her neck. After giving herself a once over in the mirror, she decided she was ready for the day.
“Don’t forget your sister has another practice session today, don’t be late coming home.” Her mother chimed in from somewhere down the hall.
“I won’t, mother. But honestly, does anyone need anymore proof of her magical superiority?” Octavia said, raising her voice slightly as she heard her mother’s hoof steps moving away from her room.
“If she ever wants to be a part of The Royal Mages, she sure as pink punch needs as much practice as possible” Her mother said, clearly enunciating the P’s at the beginning of the words.
“Please mother, your alliterations are quite endearing, but this is a serious concern of mine. Does Fermata truly require more training? She has already been Invited to this year’s Grand Galloping Gala, to be observed by Celestia herself. Is she not as good as one can get?” Octavia’s question was one asked many times before, but never given much thought by anyone other than herself.
“Oh Octy, you’re going to be late for school!” Her mother shouted, apparently paying no mind to Octavia’s previous concerns.
“Yes mother.” Octavia softly pushed her bedroom door open with her nose while throwing on her saddlebag and making her way to the front door, looking back to address her mother once more before departing.
“I will see you this evening, mother. Ta.” Octavia said, hardly masking her excitement for the upcoming day and the treasures it would surely bring.
…......................................................................................................................................................
“Miss Octavia Philharmonica?” The teacher, Prese Eptor, who was a bright yellow pony with a baby blue mane, inquired about the class.
“Here, Mrs. Eptor” Beamed Octavia.
“Very good, now a Miss...Vinyl Scratch?”
“Oh, over here.” A somewhat distracted voice coming from the back of the room chimed in.
“Ah, everyone is here. What a fine way to start the first day of school. Now for today’s lessons...” Octavia drifted off, thinking of nothing in particular, when a small piece of paper bounced onto her desk. She turned around, a small white filly with a wild electric blue mane and ostentatious purple sunglasses was gesturing at her to un-wad the paper. Octavia, feeling embarrassed at not having understood, quickly opened the note.
“What is with that bow tie?”
Octavia looked back at the white filly, glaring. She quickly flipped the paper over and scribbled a reply on the back. Wadding it up and gingerly tossing it to the back of the room.
“What is with your glasses?”
The white filly pulled off another chunk of paper from a small notebook occupying her distracted neighbor’s desk, scribbling something on it before wadding it and tossing it to Octavia.
“What? I can’t read.”
Octavia burst into a fit of laughter, getting some unfriendly looks from the students and Mrs. Eptor.
“Is something the matter, Miss Octavia? Oh what...have...we...here. Passing notes? Well the rule is you must now read them in front of the class.”
“But I...she was...oh fine..” Octavia gave in to her teacher’s request.
Octavia slouched in her chair before taking the bedraggled papers to the front of the room. In her most elegant tone, she began reading.
“Ahem, What is with that bowtie?”
She flipped over the paper.
“What is with your glasses?”
She switched papers.
“What? I can’t read.”
The entire class began to lightly chuckle, and Mrs. Eptor’s face turned red trying to suppress laughter.
“Well, I’ll have to ask you and Miss Vinyl to stay after class.”
Octavia gasped, trying to find the words to properly convey her innocence.
“But...I...we were...Ughhhh” She exhaled deeply and slowly shuffled back to her seat, dropping into it heavily, but not before giving Vinyl a mild death stare.
Vinyl was no happier about the situation, “But it’s the first day of school!”
“I apologize to you both,” Mrs. Eptor’s tone was that of genuine sorrow. “..but you can not pass notes in class.”
….....................................................................................................................................................
“Alright, you two will stay here and dust out the chalkboard erasers while I get some...well that’s not important. What is important is that you both stay here.”
Mrs. Eptor quickly left the room, leaving Octavia with the filly that caused all this trouble. Octavia quickly began dusting the erasers, leaning out a window Mrs. Eptor had left open for the task. The small white filly was busy checking her reflection in her sunglasses giving Octavia a moment to notice her eyes. Large red jewels made only more vibrant by the contrasting colors of her blue mane and white coat. They were entrancing, and she was confused as to why somepony would want to hide them behind sunglasses. Octavia quickly snapped out of the slight stupor, now slightly annoyed.
“Are you going to assist me, or admire yourself for the remainder of our punishment?” Octavia interrogated.
“Huh? Oh...uh.. I guess i’ll help”. She swung her legs around to the side of her chair and slid off, flicking her sunglasses over her eyes and slowly traipsing over to the window next to Octavia, cracking it open.
“Well, thank you. Although I must say I am still aggravated with you, getting me in trouble on the first day of class.” Octavia handed herl one of the boxes of the dusty sponges.
“I’m sorry, I just really wanted to ask you about that bow...it’s so...” She drifted off, slowly beating erasers together.
“Just so what?” Octavia was becoming mildly perturbed by this filly’s attitude.
“Just so...uncool.” She said, switching erasers.
“Uncool? I’ll have you know my father got this for me on a trip to Canterlot and it is very special to me, as I do not get to see him as often as I would like...” Octavia said, tone softening as the statement went on.
“Oh, what does he do?” The white filly inquired, only half interested.
“He is a salesman.”
“What does he sell?”
“Various things, most of which are music or Instrument related.” Octavia said, reflecting on her namesake.
“I see...” She had finished another set of erasers and placed them in the box, closing her window and walking towards the door.
“Where are you going?”
“I uh...um...leaving?’’ Vinyl didn’t feel like she had to answer to this filly, or to anyone for that matter, but found herself doing it anyway.
“You most certainly are not, at least not until I have finished. If you feel like besmirching your duties then you may, but I am taking full responsibility for my actions and you are going to stay here and, at the very least, suffer with me.” Octavia said, a slight teasing tone in her voice. Vinyl turned around and sat at the front of the room, laying her head on her hooves and sighing deeply.
“Alright, if you insist.” Vinyl fidgeted uncomfortably.
“Say...Vinyl, Is it? What do your parents do? If you don’t mind me asking.” She said, still beating dust from the erasers.
“Oh...um...well I don’t know.” Vinyl said, avoiding Octavia’s gaze.
“You don’t know?” Octavia put down the erasers and sat next to vinyl.
“Yea, well...I’m sort of an orphan...” Vinyl almost mumbled.
“Oh...” Octavia was somewhat taken aback, rarely having to deal with such delicate social situations. “Oh...well I am sorry to hear that. I did not mean to upset you...I’m sorry..” Octavia was genuinely upset, bringing up a clearly touchy subject.
“Don’t be sad on my account!” Vinyl said, springing up out of her chair and grabbing Octavia’s hoof, dragging her out of the door and into the bustling city of Manehattan.
…........................................................................................................................................................
Outside of the tall school building there was the cityscape, ponies of all shapes and sizes rushing every which way to get to their various destinations. Octavia had grown up here, and was accustomed to the rush of ponies and to avoiding their falling hooves while going from place to place.
“Vinyl, let me go!” Octavia glanced at one of the many clocks in the city, inset in the tops of various buildings. “I have to be home in 4 minutes!” Octavia struggled to get free, and finally escaped Vinyl’s grasp. Vinyl stopped and turned around, catching a glimpse of Octavia running the opposite direction and briefly turning around to wave Vinyl goodbye.
“I guess i’ll show you tomorrow, Tavi!” Vinyl yelled through the crowd.
Octavia threw her head over her shoulder, “Very well, but please do not call me that.”
“It is actually a rather endearing nickname.” Octavia thought to herself, sprinting to make it home on time.
…........................................................................................................................................................
“Octavia, you barely made it on time.” Fermata said, the arrogance in her voice unrestricted. A gold coated pony with a blazing red mane that had blazes of orange streaked throughout the gentle curls of it, she was very much her little sisters physical opposite.
“Yes, I apologize. I was busy after school and I met this...very strange filly.” Octavia said, thinking back to her afternoon with Vinyl.
“Well, we should get going. Mother will meet us there, as usual.”
Octavia followed her older sister out the door, silently preparing herself for another self esteem berating magic session for her sister.
…........................................................................................................................................................
Octavia had no Idea how this had happened. She was running through the jungle, and had been for some time, avoiding an incredibly large beast that was crashing through the underbrush and pushing trees aside as if they were sticks on the beach. Clearing through a row of bushes she hit a dead end and she could barely suppress her momentum to prevent from falling off of the cliff face that presented itself so rudely in her path. Behind her, a beast determined to end her existence, in front of her a 100 foot drop into an improbably shallow river. Octavia felt a large crash behind her, leapt from the cliff face and...
“Octavia we’re home, go on up to bed.” The voice was of the same softness that awoke her every morning.
“What...where are we, mother?”
“You fell asleep during Fermata’s session, so I carried you home. You must have been having quite the interesting dream, you kicked the whole way home.” Octavia slid off of her mother’s back noticing her coat had matted to her belly where she had sweat from the excitement of her nightmare.
“Well, thank you mother. Good night. See you in the morning, Fermata.” Octavia addressed her sister with a tone of respect, although the edge of disdain was evident to Octavia.
…........................................................................................................................................................
“Vinyl, I do not understand what I am looking at.” Octavia had finally gotten the chance to come with Vinyl a few days later, to see what the white filly so eagerly wished to show her. They were behind the common house Vinyl lived in, tucked away in a small corridor was Vinyl’s treasure. The common house was only a few blocks from Octavia’s own home, so she was allowed to go after school rather than to Fermata’s session for today. It only took several small lies about where she would be to convince her mother.
“It’s a turntable! You can use it to make some really cool sounds and stuff.” Vinyl was ecstatic, sitting behind a large black construction about as tall as she was.
“Where did you find such a thing?” Octavia was not very interested in the turntable itself, but had recently become very intrigued by Vinyl Scratch. Something about this young filly just piqued Octavia’s interests, she was shrouded in mystery and was a welcome change from her fairly regulated lifestyle.
“I made it!” Vinyl ran around to the front of the turntable and fidgeted with some exposed wires.
“You made this?”
“Yea, it took me a long time to find the parts, I had to dig through a lot of...not so nice places. But I did it. This morning I used it for the first time. Check it out!”
Vinyl turned around and pointed to her flank, showing Octavia her cutie mark. Octavia had not noticed it for some reason, even though Vinyl had apparently had it all day. Admittedly Octavia had not paid Vinyl much attention since their afternoon in detention, which was kept a secret from Octavia’s mother (What she didn’t know would not hurt her). Vinyl’s cutie mark was a solid black music note.
“This thing makes music?” Octavia asked, bewildered.
“Yea! Let me show ya.” Vinyl hurried around to the other side of the table after securing the loose wires and flipped several switches. The machine softly purred to life and the one disc on the table began to spin, Vinyl set a needle against the disc and it played an older electronic song, Vinyl called it “House music”. Octavia found the music to be not of her liking, although she was still impressed with Vinyl’s apparent mechanical know-how.
“Vinyl, this is incredible!” Octavia walked around behind Vinyl, looking at all the taped on switches and gizmos that the machine was clearly not meant to have, but Vinyl had insisted it acquire.
“Really, you like it? The music was soft, quiet. Vinyl did not want to disturb anyone, or have her prized possession discovered by unsavory characters.
“Well, not so much the music...”She drifted off. “But you built this! That is an incredible feat, Vinyl.” Octavia stopped circling the machine and looked down, her tone suddenly much more mellow.
“Vinyl...are we friends?”
Vinyl had never seen Octavia like this, although she had only known her for a few days.
“I...well...of course!” Vinyl leapt over and half hugged, half tackled Octavia.
“Excellent!” Octavia and Vinyl were now laying down on the paved ground, softly giggling in a way only fillies could.
“Vinyl, will we always be friends?” They both stood up, brushing themselves off.
“As long as I have anything to say about it, we will always be friends, Tavi.” Vinyl said, embracing her new friend once again.
…........................................................................................................................................................
Octavia’s birthday was today, and she could not be more distraught. Today she would turn 13, and she was the last pony in her class to get their cutie mark. She had tried many different things with her closest friend to try and obtain one, but nothing had really clicked as something she could do for the rest of her life. Not to mention she was never particularly adept at the things they tried. It was a saturday and Octavia’s mother had thrown her a small party at their home. Vinyl, Fermata, Octavia and a mint green unicorn named Lyra were there. Lyra was Octavia’s mother’s closest friend’s daughter, and was around the Philharmonica house fairly often the last few years due to her mother’s busy job. For the last year or so Vinyl had spent as much time in Octavia’s home as she was allowed to, and had recently inquired Octavia’s mother for a steep favor.
“Octavia, how about you open your present now?” The tone of her mother’s voice was edged with an I-know-something-you-don’t-know attitude about it. Octavia nodded and walked over to the vibrantly wrapped box, it stood a fair bit taller than she did.
“You’re gonna love it! Read the tag read the tag!.” Vinyl’s enthusiasm was hardly suppressed.
Octavia took the tag in her hoof, reading it aloud. “From Vinyl.” She read with an air of confusion, Slowly pulling away the paper and revealing a large black case. Octavia laid down the case and released the two metal clasps on its side, flipping the case open. Nestled within was a glistening cello.
“This is a very thoughtful gift.. But I do not play any instruments...and how in Equestria did you afford this Vinyl?” Octavia was pleased her dear friend would get her such an expensive gift, but confused as to why she would spend so many bits.
“Your mom helped me, she got it mailed here from your dad and I paid her as much as I could...” Vinyl drifted off, clearly not thinking she paid enough. “And I know you don’t play, but maybe it’ll get you your cutie mark?”
Octavia lifted the large instrument out of the case, plucking the strings with her hoof. “I thought only unicorns could be musicians?”
“Well, usually. But this can be played by hoof. Oh you’ll be needing this.” Octavia’s mother handed her a smaller, thin box. Opening it revealed a bow, just as extravagant as the cello was. Octavia ran the bow across the strings, experimenting with it momentarily. It produced a soft humming noise, which delighted Vinyl.
“Get a feel for it, Tavi.” Vinyl’s glee was apparent, as she bounced around Octavia and her new instrument.
“I could show you a few songs, if you want.” Octavia had completely forgotten Lyra was there, and that she played the harp.
“That would be delightful, perhaps tomorrow you could come over and give me a few lessons?” Octavia was still eyeing the large instrument.
“Sure! I have to get going, but i’ll be back tomorrow. See you, Octavia. Bye Vinyl. Goodbye everyone.” Lyra quickly left through the front door, leaving a slightly confused group of ponies behind her.
“That Lyra is worrisome, always so secretive.” Fermata said, her typical grey demeanor showing itself.
“She is a nice pony, and has a lot to deal with because of her mother’s busy schedule. Don’t be so critical of others, Fermata.” Octavia’s mother was sincere in her defense of the mint coated unicorn.
“Yes mother.” Fermata huffed at being talked down to, a side effect of the usual admiration she received from well, everyone.
“Well, today was eventful. Mother, do you think it would be alright if Vinyl stayed here tonight? It is a saturday, and it’s getting awfully dark for ponies to be wandering about.” Octavia was being as nonchalant as possible.
“I don’t see why not, you be sure to take special care of that cello. Be sure to put it and the bow in the case. See you tomorrow girls, good night.” Octavia’s mother wandered off down the hall, towards her bedroom.
“Come on Tavi!” Vinyl was already half way up the stairs to the cello owner’s room.
“Alright, be up in a moment.” Octavia swung the large box onto her back, securing it with the strap attached to its top and bottom. She made her way to the stairs and realized she could not lift it up the first step.
“Um, Vinyl, a little help?” She shouted up the stairs.
“Huh? Oh be right down.” Vinyl came down the stairs and helped lift the box off of Octavia’s back, putting half of it on her own and they started to make their way up the stairs, sharing the load. Once they reached Octavia’s room they softly spilled the cello onto the filly sized bed.
“Well, it is getting late. We should probably get to sleep.” Octavia resettled the cello case on the end of her bed, untying her bow and setting it on her dresser. She hopped up into bed, as Vinyl got comfortable in her usual spot, a small cot covered in the house’s spare pillows and blankets.
“Yup, night Tavi.” Vinyl said, already half asleep.
…........................................................................................................................................................
Vinyl awoke to a Octavia sitting on her bed, cello crooked awkwardly in her small hooves, the short spike at the bottom hanging off of the bed. She was playing well, incredibly well for someone who had never played, her eyes closed, bow hanging delicately from the crook of her elbow. As she slowly danced her hooves across the strings of the cumbersome instrument, Vinyl slowly crept out of bed, entranced by the sound being created by this unassuming filly. As she got closer she noticed something on Octavia’s flank. A small, pink treble clef appearing as she struck the final note, sending a deep hum throughout the room. Octavia opened her eyes, not realizing she had awoken Vinyl.
“Oh, Vinyl. Sorry if I woke you. I could not sleep and well...” She drifted off as she set the cello against the ground, leaning the neck against the bed frame.
“No...no problem, Tavi. Hey uh..check out your flank.” Vinyl said, still half mesmerized by the notes of the soft medley, dancing in her mind.
“What are you...oh my..” Octavia saw the addition to her grey coat, foalish giddiness welling up inside her. “Vinyl, I got my cutie mark!” Octavia leapt out of bed, bouncing up and down excitedly in an uncharacteristic manner before settling back down.
“Ahem, Vinyl. I got my cutie mark...” She could hardly control her excitement as she began bouncing again.
“I know, it’s great!” Vinyl joined Octavia in her joyful celebration, bouncing around the grey pony.
“Hey Tavi, it’s 4am. We should uh...get back to sleep.” Vinyl said, catching a glimpse of the clock.
“Hmm?” Octavia stopped bouncing. “Oh yes, goodnight Vinyl.” She said, smile still plastered across her face as she crawled into bed. “Thank you again, Vinyl. For this gift. It...it means a lot.” Octavia waited for a response, hearing only the delicate snoring of an exhausted filly. “Goodnight, Vinyl.”
