Octavia's Violin Classes

"It seems like you met this monster before," noted the mare who had saved Octavia, who was now in the living room eating a bowl of tomato soup. "Is this true?"

Octavia nodded. "I think so, Ms. Aso. He was on Cardboard Street the day that pegasus went missing. And there was a broken pegasus statue there when I passed by."

"That makes sense. That statue must have been the missing pegasus."

"You mean the pegasus had a glass statue of herself?" asked Octavia, her head tilting.

"No," replied Ms. Aso. "She is the statue." Octavia gasped.

Ms. Aso continued. "Fangires hunger for ponies. They usually look like regular ponies, but they assume a monstrous stained-glass form when they get hungry, or feel like attacking," she explained. "Then they suck the colour and life energy out of a pony, causing them to turn into a colourless shell."

Octavia shivered. "Are there more of them?" she asked.

The mare sighed. "Unfortunately, yes. And lately, they have been attacking more often than usual. That is why the Wonderful Blue Sky Organization was created. We're an organization that hunts down the fangires so that they don't hurt more ponies."

"That's a funny name for a monster-hunting group," commented Octavia, before taking another spoonful of soup and swallowing it. "But if there's a whole organization for this, why are ponies still being attacked and turned into glass?"

"The fangires are very strong, and the Wonderful Blue Sky Organization is still developing a device powerful enough to defeat them," explained Ms. Aso, looking down with a small frown.

Octavia turned to the living room window nervously. "So, the fangires are still out there," she thought aloud.

* * *

Since the day she was attacked by the fangire, Octavia never left her house alone. Her bruises, being very minor, disappeared in a couple of days. In the meantime, she practiced playing her violin.

"I think I've improved a lot over the past week," Octavia told Mr. Kurenai. "Listen to this." Leaning on a wall for support, she began to play a short tune on the violin. "How was that?"

In response, Otoya Kurenai snored. In fact, he seemed pretty tired since the lesson began. "Mr. Kurenai?" Octavia asked, putting her violin down and walking over to her teacher. "Are you asleep, sir?" She stepped closer to her teacher's ear. "Mr. Kurenai, WAKE UP!"

Mr. Kurenai nearly jumped off his seat, startled. "Huh?"

"Are you alright, Mr. Kurenai? You look like you didn't get much sleep last night. Do you need some coffee? That always helps my father wake up in the morning."

"Don't bother making any," replied Otoya, yawning.

"I don't have to--not that I know how anyway. There's a coffee shop just around the corner."

"You sure we should go there?"

"Yes. You can't teach violin lessons in this state!" she answered, running to the front door.

* * *

Octavia and her teacher walked to a nearby coffee shop. A sign high above the entrance read 'Mal d'amour', the name of the restaurant. Octavia sniffed the air, smelling the aroma from the building. "I never tried coffee, but it does smell really nice," Octavia mentioned as the two ponies entered the coffee shop. Once they got inside, there was another set of doors with two large glass windows. When they opened those doors, they could see a room with tables and chairs on one side, and a counter on the other side, where the coffee shop owner stood. Near the back wall was a doghouse with a small puppy sleeping just outside of it. Lights hung above the tables and counter. Separating the two sides of the room were a couple of tables and the tall, wooden pillars that kept the building up. Although it wasn't too fancy, a classy Canterlot pony could easily feel at home here.

However, the first thing Otoya noticed was the waitress, who had also noticed the two ponies come in. Her eyes narrowed as she saw Otoya Kurenai walking toward her. "You."

Octavia, confused, turned to the waitress, who was surprisingly familiar. "Ms. Aso?"

The waitress turned her head slightly, her voice softening when she saw the young filly. "What brings you here?"

"My violin teacher needed some coffee to wake him up this morning. He keeps falling asleep," Octavia explained. When she turned to her teacher, though, his expression was less of a sleepy one and more of a dreamy look.

"See? I'm just a customer here," Otoya told Ms. Aso. "Aren't you going to take my order?"

Ms. Aso stared at the stallion sternly before raising up a notepad in one hoof. "All right, what would you like to order?"

"You."

Octavia facehoofed.

"That's it, get out!" ordered the mare.

When Otoya refused to leave without the waitress, one of the customers stood up. He was sitting in front of the counter with Otoya right behind him, which made it easy for him to swiftly pick up the musician and literally throw him out of the coffee shop. Octavia stood speechless where her teacher was standing moments ago.

Ms. Aso and the other customer locked the door seconds later, right before Otoya could come back in. Octavia could even hear his muzzle slam into the doors. "So... is he going to be alright?"

"I wouldn't worry much about him," said the other customer, a dark blue unicorn stallion with a short mane and sunglasses, who went back to where he was sitting and began examining the coffee prices. "20 bits for one coffee blend? That's a bit pricey, don't you think so?" he said to the coffee shop owner, who was cleaning a few glasses behind the counter.

"20 bits?" repeated Octavia. "That is expensive."

"I doubt your teacher needs it. He seems wide awake now," Ms. Aso commented.

Octavia climbed onto one of the seats in front of the counter. "Have you met him before?" Octavia asked her.

Ms. Aso nodded. "I would have defeated a couple more fangires by now if it weren't for that idiot."

Octavia's eyes widened in shock when she heard that word. "You must really hate him. What did he do?"

"He was so oblivious to the monsters, he was in the way of my attacks. Then he stole my weapon when he wasn't looking."

"Oh." Octavia looked back at the blue unicorn stallion, who had just finished arguing with the coffee shop owner about the coffee prices. "Does that unicorn also have a grudge with him?"

Ms. Aso shrugged. "I haven't seen him too often around here, so I couldn't be sure."

Octavia, unsure what to do, looked around the room awkwardly. "Well, I better head back home. Hopefully Mr. Kurenai hasn't gotten too far, or perhaps I'll be able to get home before a fangire sees me. It isn't too far anyway." She turned to the front door, which was still locked.

"I better unlock it before everypony thinks the store is closed," the waitress decided.

* * *

Outside, Mr. Kurenai was nowhere to be seen. "Looks like I'll be missing a violin lesson today," she thought aloud, walking home. She crossed the street and passed a white horsecart that was parked on the side of the road. As soon as she finished crossing, she felt her hoof step into something sticky. Looking down, she saw what looked like a thick, messy string of cotton. Octavia's eye's followed the string to find a fangire holding binoculars. This particular stained-glass monster looked somewhat bug-like, and because of the trail of string, Octavia assumed he was part spider. She tried to shake the webbing off of her hoof, but that caused the string to tug at the spider fangire's side, catching his attention.

Octavia cringed. "Not again.

The monster emitted a creepy laugh. "Looks like my web caught somepony," he giggled, putting away the binoculars. he held his front hooves--if they were hooves--in front of him, both of which had hoof puppets on.

"Wait, why do you have hoof puppets?" Octavia asked, her fear turned into confusion. "They look like you stole them from a kindergarten classroom."

The spider fangire froze, trying to think of an answer. "Uh, I just always assumed they were creepy, I guess. They aren't scary?"

"Nope," replied Octavia. "Perhaps if the puppets looked like they had been through some sort of trauma. Or you could always find an unusually furry puppet with a duck beak and scary eyebrows. Or clowns."

"Clowns," the fangire repeated, scratching his chin. "That's not a bad--" a small metal object bounced off his head before he could finish. "Ow!"

"It wasn't me!" yelled Octavia, frightened. She turned around to where the metal object should have landed behind her, but all she saw was a small shadow. She looked up, finding a metallic bat a bit larger than her hoof.

"Spider fangire! You haven't been sneaking on that fangire-hunter mare again, have you?" the bat asked.

"And what's wrong with planning to defeat one of them?" the fangire asked in response.

"Don't play dumb. Our sources tell us you have other plans that go against the rules of the fangire race. Now get out of here before I tell the Queen."

At the mention of the queen, the Spider fangire quickly ran away. "Thank you, Mr. Bat," she said to the mechanical flying creature.

"Don't assume that we'll get along well. The queen has a soft spot for ponies like you: she used to be a student to famous violinists and luthiers."

"Really?"

"Yes. It is her job to prevent fangires from breeding with other ponies. There were suspicions that this fangire was in love with a mare that works here. But enough talk, you should leave before the fangire king arrives," the bat warned. "He hates normal ponies."

Octavia nodded, and scraped as much of the web off of her hoof before running home.