All Things Begin

Fine Octave. That was my name. Not Great Octave, not Third or Fifth or whatever number Octive, not anything special. Not Sparkling Octave or Magical Octave. No real emphasis on anything other than my homelyness. I was an Octave, a collection of 12 notes. No specific twelve, not bass or treble or tenor. Just basic, plain notation. 12 semitones, that's it. C, C Sharp, D, D Sharp, E, F, F Sharp, G, G Sharp, A, A Sharp, and B. Then it repeats. seven white keys and five black keys, if you're a piano and-slash-or keyboard fan. I'm not, really. Though that's just me. On top of the plain, boring, 'Octave' I was no extraordinary octave. I was just 'Fine.' Like the kind of fine you use when you answer your aunt's questions about how you're doing, when she asks at Winter's Viel time, when you haven't seen her in a year, and you lie to her face and say, "Fine," because its easier than explaining the cornocopia of melancholy shenanigans that was going on inside your head twenty four hours a day. I was a fine octave. I was Fine Octave. Sweet Celestia, am I glad I got that name changed.

I held the pen in my misty white levitation for a little while, tapping it on the table in the cheesy fast-food restaurant I sat in, frowning at the job application in front of me. I read over it, making sure I hadn't missed anything.

I mouthed the words as I read them, not worrying about anyone seeing me in the empty, (save the employees) restaurant.

Soy-Topia Application. Last; Octave. First; Fine. M; n/a. Gender, M/F? M. ID Number; 1134-92-3381. Street Address; 431 2nd Street, Riverside, Manetana.

I snorted a bit at that last, Riverside, I thought, Population; 2,300. Barely big enough to have its own school.

I hated living here, but its where I was stuck until I become legally an adult, and move out of my parent's house. That was only 3 years away, but it seemed like forever and a half.

I signed my name on the bottom of the application in flowy cursive goodness, and left it on the Manager's Desk. I didn't want this job too badly, but I'd been forced to apply. I wasn't that keen on him actually getting the application, to be honest. This place was gross.

I put on my coat and scarf, and stepped out into the snowstorm I'd walked here in. The wind had died down some, but the air was still filled with billions of large, fluffy snowflakes. I sighed, huffing a cloud of mist, and began the trek home.

I pulled my earbuds out of my pocket nigh on instantaneously and floated them into my ears, along with pulling out my .mp3 player, an old thing I had literally found on the side of the road, and taken home. Now it was one of my favorite possessions. It only held 4gb of music, and was completely full on that day, but I loved it. It let me take the release and comfort of my favorite music with me wherever I went.

When I'd originally found the thing, I thought it was a rock. It had just rained, and it was slathered with mud. I kicked it as I walked by on my way home from school, and it stuck to my front hoof. As I shook my hoof a bit to try and wiggle the thing off, a clump of mud fell off, revealing the device itself. I'd taken it home from there, figuring it probably did not work anymore, but I'd try it anyway. I was too poor at the time to afford such a thing anyway, so I was very excited at the prospect. When I got home, I washed it off, and submerged it into a bowl of rice for a few days. I got smacked around a little by my mother for "wasting" the rice on it, but you know, those bruises were definitely worth it.

Now, I'd loved music, and it hadn't even occured to me that there was probably music on the thing, if it worked. I'd grown up listening to Country music; y'know, "Yee-haw, beer and religion!" kind of music, (which I despised) and whatever was on the radio, which was not much in the way of diversity. Mostly Alternative Rock and Pop of some variation or another. Ironically, despite what my cutie mark would later turn out to be, I did terribly in conventional music classes until I entered my second college. We'll get to that though.

When I went to school the first day after recieving my beating and deeming the device clean and dry enough to attempt to use, we didn't have any batteries in the house. From what I could assume and from what I knew about computers, (a fair bit, considering we didn't own one, and I'd only ever used them at the library and at school) I knew that USB ports were powered, and would power on the device if I plugged it into one, regardless of whether there was a battery inside or not. The mp3 player happened to have a male ended USB plug attached, and I assumed because USB transfers data, that this was how you put music on the thing in the first place. I turned out to be right, but that's not important.

I got to school an hour early, and snuck my way into the computer lab, (we were supposed to stay in the caffeteria before official class hours) started one of the computers up, and plugged the device in.

I was greeted with a happy little tone and a pop up message, asking whether I wanted to browse the files, backup my system to the device's harddrive, or optimize my system by using the device as a processor. I wasn't interested in the last two in the least, and clicked instead on the first option, floating a pair of headphones that belonged to the school out of a little tray across the room and hooking them up, and affixing them over my ears as I saw a vast number of files of various types, sizes, and... titles, load up on the screen.

I grinned as I highlighted the whole lot of them all, 138 files in all, just over 12 hours of music, (if you wanna be mathematical, (12.0 * 60) / 138 = 5.22 minutes on average)

I decided I would listen to them in order, and neglected the shuffle button, and just hit play.

Now, being the person I was, and what kind of music I'd been exposed to throughout my life in the little farm town, I had never head anything like the sounds I heard through those headphones, which, admittadly, had such a poor frequency response range that half the sound was cut out completely.

It started simple. Boom, boom, boom, boom. It almost sounded like a kick drum, but not quite... It was more... synthetic. Then it began to build. Sounds that were the same and kind of different. A hi-hat pattern, Chik chika, chik chika, chik chik chika chik. A snare drum, Pap, pap, pap, papap. Then... the instruments came in. It was like nothing I had ever heard. It was strange, and beaufitul, and grungy and distorted, and crystal clear and sharp, smooth and rough. Back and forth between intense and fun, to calmer and just... beautiful. I had never heard such sounds before, except maybe once or twice in a pop track or two, but usually those were just acoustic instruments recorded and electronically processed. I had never heard this before.

But I liked it. A lot.

I kept listening as I searched on the internet for the name of the song, and the name of the artist. I didn't know which was which, but they were listed in the name of the mp3 file and were seperated by a hyphen, so I just took a shot in the dark and guessed. That was how I'd have arranged them, if it were me. I found the song, it was evidently pretty popular. The music video had 1.9 million hits.

I clicked on the video and heard the song come on again, but this time, I was watching it. I was watching it be performed. A colt was standing behind a big table, with a portable computer sat on one side, and several machine modules sitting on the desk. He was hitting buttons all over it, slamming around sliders and pressing buttons and twisting knobs, and the song was errupting to life, in perfect time with a lighting apparatus arranged all over his head and around the stage. Flashing his logo at the huge pumping crowd, dancing and screaming their little pony heads off in the heat of the moment and the flashing lights.

It gave me goosebumps. And I knew, right then, that that, was going to be me someday.

I was so excited.

It went on like that for a few months, every day I'd walk to school early and I would listen to these songs, over and over, and over and over again. I decided I needed to know how to do this. So, when I turned fifteen years old, that fall, I went everywhere that I could find that hired ponies under the legal age of consent, sending out applications and making phone calls left and right. I had no luck for a pretty good while, but I kept going. I had a dream, and it kept me going.

Kinda funny, they say when you find what you want to do for the rest of your life, you get your cutie mark. Maybe this kind of music wasn't what my special talent was, but for now, it's what my heart was set on, and I wasn't going to let anypony stand in the way.

The phone rang, I let it ring twice before picking up.

"Hello?" I asked tentatively. It was fairly late, after 5pm, so I didn't think it was anyone calling to give me a job. Most places are closed.

"Hi," the stranger's voice, sounded like a colt, answered back, "May I please speak to Mister Fine Octave?" he said.

"You are." I answered, stifling a yawn while he answered.

"Hi, I'm calling in regards to your application to Soy-Topia. We'd like you to come in for an interview at 3pm, does that work for you?"

I was flabbergasted, a job! Finally! I stumbled at first over my answer.

"I, uh, I have school until 3:30, can I come in at 4? It'd give me time to walk there. I'm sorry." I replied, I hated having to make things hard on somepony who could possibly be my first boss.

"Yep, that works perfect. See you then!" the colt on the phone said.

"Thank you, see you then too."

"You have a good night now,"

"You too."

And then he hung up.

It was finally happening, it had taken almost the entire school year, from the time I turned fifteen in the fall to the late spring, almost summer break from school, but it was finally here.

I went in for the interview early, and the manager, a tall, young, black coated unicorn colt with a bright pink mane and soft eyes that matched his mane. Now, I wasn't (quite) gay or anything, but I knew an attractive gentlecolt when I saw one, and this was one. He was wearing a loose-ish dark green button up shirt that was actually rather flattering.

"Hey man," he greeted me, "How's it goin'? Are you, uh," He paused and looked down at the papers on the table he'd been standing next to, "'Fine Octave'?"

"Yes I am, I'm here for my interview. Sorry I'm early." I replied, nervous and feeling rather awkward.

"No worries bro, step right this way and we can get started early, too." He levitated his papers up and started walking toward the back. I followed him through a door marked, "Employees Only" through the kitchen, a cute little industrial stainless steel clad room, kinda pretty in an overly clean, sterile way. We walked through there into a room with a door marked, "OFFICE" I also may or may not have been quietly observing his behind while en route. I noticed his cutie mark was a chef hat.

Inside the office was of course, the obligatory cluttered desk with a computer monitor on it, and filing cabinets. However, instead of chairs, there were three bean bags. One big purple one instead of the typical swivel chair behind the desk, and two pink ones in front of the desk. I got a slightly stereotype feminine vibe from the way his office was decorated. Flowers, pink and purple, plush toys here and there, little stuff like that. There were some band posters on the walls, I recognized a couple, I think my mom listened to them, her girly bands she called them. Others were actually Dance Music DJ's, and an out-of-place metal band. It was really cute, actually. I liked him already. In a totally platonic we-can-definitely-be-friends-but-I-think-you're-hot kind of way, of course.

He walked in and heaved himself onto the huge purple beanbag, smiling at me, and oh my goodness, his smile was cute too. That was going to be distracting.

"So like, tell me about yourself, man." He said, grinning at me, "And chillax, have a seat." he said as he gestured toward the bean bags in front of the desk.

I gingerly slid onto one, more than likely being blatantly obvious about showing off my nervousness.

"Uhm," I started and stopped, not even close to sure where to start, "That's really vague, may I please have a little more direction, sir?" I asked, trying to be polite.

"Sure, but like, drop the sir, man. I'm waay not old enough to be called that yet. Plus I like, totally don't identify that way, bro. Just call me Chet" He said, still smiling.

I blinked. Well, at least I hadn't offended him.

"Okay Chet, I'm sorry I don't quite understand. What do you mean by 'identify'?" I asked, probably being totally rude and intruding and prying and ruining my entire life, but I was curious.

"Like, I don't identify as male, man. I'm gender fluid. I go back and forth, some days I feel like I'm a mare, others I'm a colt, other days I just don't even know. You know?" He asked, still smiling, which was good. I think.

"So depending on the day you could feel like whatever gender?" I asked, trying to wrap my head around it.

"Yup," he said, smiling, the sound of his tail swishing against the bean bag trickling into the quiet little room, "I noramlly use pronouns like, they,  their, and stuff. As for like, formal junk I just use my name."

I sat there for a little bit, kinda frowning at him, but not at him, mostly just in his direction, working it around in my head for a few seconds.

"That makes sense, actually." I said finally, nodding and smiling at him. I briefly wondered if h- ... they, thought I was cute too.

"Cool man, so, uhm, you like soy food?" They asked, evidently trying to actually do the interview.

"Oh yeah, definitely. I actually ate here the same day I left my application," I said with a tiny little, "Heh," of a laugh.

"Cool," They said, picking up a whole bunch of papers with his misty pink levitation and opened a drawer in a filling cabinet, stuffing a bunch into the matted wad of crumpled papers in there, and floating me a pen and a piece of paper, "Here man, sign at the bottom and you can come in Monday for training," they said.

"Really?" I asked, taking the pen and paper in my levitation. That'd been easy.

"Yeah bro," They said, "You seem like you're pretty cool," they finished, smiling their cute smile at me.

"Wow, uhm, thank you so much!" I said as I hurriedly signed the paper and set the pen down on their desk.

"Yeah totally man, Just like, let your parents know and stuff, and you'll come in at four, like, all the time. You're the first member of the new night staff, so like, you get first dibs on your position after I train you and stuff."

"That's awesome! Thank you so much Chet! You won't regret it!"

"You're welcome man. I'd invite you to chill for a while but I gotta lock up, and like, thank you for bein' so chill when I said anything about bein' Transgender. I'm not technically supposed to say anything, but it really irks me having employees who, like, don't accept me as I am. You know? Plus lying just, like, isn't my dig."

I nodded, stepping out of the room followed by Chet flipping off lights and locking stuff, we made our way out in that fashion.

"So," I asked as they locked stuff up, "What's Transgender?"

"What's Trans? Transgender is the little minority group I fall into for bein' different, man. Included usually in the same spectrum as gays and lesbians, the acronym for that is LGBT with a plus symbol at the end."

"What's that mean? And who else is Trans?"

"You're like, totally clueless, about this stuff, huh?" They asked, and when I nodded, they continued, "LGBT Plus; Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, plus everybody else. And Trans ponies are like, super diverse man. There's MtF's, or Male to Females. Those are ponies who were born colts but identify as mares. The opposite, FtM's; Female to Males are ponies who identify as male but were born female. Then there's like, all kinds of other ponies. Ones who identify as no gender, their own gender, both genders, gender fluid like me, and all kinds of stuff. Like, I think I read there was 1500 recorded gender identities, or somethin'." Chet explained.

By the time they'd finished talking, they were done with their locking up and we were standing by the door.

"Well, uhm, that's a lot of new stuff to think about. And I promise, you won't be disappointed in hiring me!" I said.

"No worries sweetheart, you have a ride home?" they asked.

"I, uh," I blushed like crazy all up and down when they called me sweetheart, and got all flustered and stammered a little bit before I answered, "I, uh, uhm, well, I, no. No I don't, I gotta walk." I said, smiling.

"Oh, dude. So not cool." Chet said, and looked out the windows, frowning. It had just started to rain a little, and the sky looked like it wanted to pick up. Soon. They bit their lip for a second, thinking, and it was very cute, before they looked at me and said, "I'll totally give you a ride, c'mon man."

"You have a car?" I asked, pulling up the hood of my hoodie over my head as we stepped outside.

"Yeah, man. It's a junker but it goes where I wanna go," they said, swishing around their keys in the air until they found the car key.

We walked up to an older muscle car. It was rusted in spots and the paint was flaking, with what remaining showing a very faded purple, with a black stripe down the center. I could see a rather torn up white interior through the windows. Chet walked around the driver's side and put the key in the door, unlocking it. He jumped in and before I could grab the door in my levitation, he opened it for me, which of course made me blush some more.

Such a gentlecolt.

I hopped in the front passenger seat, scooting into my place on the worn leather bench seat, and clipping on my seatbelt. I fidgetted for a moment or two before trying to strike up a conversation between giving directions.

“So, uhm, you like Jam & Spoon, too?” I asked, inquiring about one of the Dance Music posters I had seen on the walls in his office. He'd had one for the duo hung up behind his desk.

“Whoa!” Chet said, “You know Jam & Spoon? I thought only ponies in bigger cities knew anything about Dance tunes, man! That's so rad!”

“Yeah,” I said, blushing a tad and looking away out the window, “Dance music is my favorite thing in the world. That's, uhm, actually why I, y'know, got a job. So I could maybe, y'know, be a DJ and maybe make my own music someday.” I admitted, flushing in a bit of embarassment at the way that sounded.

“Dude,” he said, holding out his hoof and steering with the other. I puzzled at it for a moment before I lightly bumped mine against it, “That is so freakin' wicked!” He said, “Dude, someday, I'll put your poster on the wall, I bet!” He proclaimed, beaming at me as we pulled up in front of my house. I blushed at his compliments and unbuckled.

“Thanks for the ride, Chet. It was awesome meeting you, and I promise you won't regret hiring me!”

“Anytime, bro, I'll see you next Monday at 4, okay?”

“Okay! Thanks so much!” I said, hopping out into the drizzle and closing my door, waving as he drove off and U-turned back the way we came. I watched his taillights for a little while, and then turned, to head into the house and hope to avoid my mom. My thoughts were filled with the events that had just unfolded.

Transgender, huh? I thought to myself as I opened my front door.

That night I thought about a few things as I lay in bed.

Firstly, I was, frankly, confused about the Transgender thing. What did that even mean? Like, I understand that there might be gray areas between male and female, because there are gray areas between every one and zero, but gender? The concept was revolutionary to me, such a thing had seemed so solid, so... concrete, before. A single pair of genders had been a building block for my entire perception of reality and my patterns of social interaction, (y'know, what little I've had) for my entire, albiet short, life thus far. Chet, my new boss, (a fact which made me a little giddy, - A job!) had forfeited the careful game of Jenga that was my grasp on reality. It was freeing, really, if a tad upsetting in a ponies-who-dislike-change kind of way. So there was that.

Then secondly; I, embarrassingly, couldn't seem to stop my thoughts from drifting into half hearted daydreams about Chet. I mean, sitting in their car, I could smell the shampoo from their pink mane, it smelled like Strawberries. I couldn't help but wonder what nuzzling my face into it would feel like. 'Cause, y'know, I already knew what it'd smell like. Thoughts like this made my sleep come very, very slowly, if you catch my drift.

I ventured to school the next morning early, as always. At this point my mother had gotten used to it and given up questioning why. She was convinced I was doing drugs and had tried in vain to beat who my dealer was out of me, 'cause she wanted some new stuff, but I didn't know any drug dealers, so I gave her the name of the school police officer. She ran off to make a phone call and left me alone after that.

When I got to school I snuck into the computer lab, just like I did every day. You'd think I'd get caught one of these days, but no one really seems to give half a shit what any of these fillies or colts do as long as they're not breaking a law or twelve. I sighed, the Equestrian education system made me a sad pony.

I floated a pair of headphones on and logged on to a computer, plugging my .mp3 player in and putting every song on shuffle to listen to, before firing up a search engine; I needed information.

I stared at the blinking vertical line in the empty search bar for a moment, a little hesitant at what I might discover, but I pushed onward, and typed a simple keyword, before pressing the enter key, and changing my life forever.

Transgender.