The Lost Six

Chapter 4: Octavia

This grey mare's name was Octavia, and she was an accomplished musician in an ensemble in Canterlot. The case contained her instrument, a cello.

Octavia pushed open the door to her house in Ponyville. She was greeted, as usual by the drowning sound of dubstep.

“Vinyl! Will you please at least put your headphones in? Some of us prefer to keep our hearing.” Octavia propped her cello against the wall by the door and walked into the living room. In a large chair in the corner there sat a white unicorn with a messy blue mane and rave goggles, which she never seemed to take off. The chair was directly in front of rather large speakers blasting music into the mare's face.

Octavia stepped behind the speaker and kicked its plug out of the wall, giving a small smirk as she did so. This was a regular occurrence.

“Hey, I was listening to that.”

“Was listening. Past tense. Your point is?”

The unicorn let out a laugh. “All right, all right. So how'd your concert go, Tavi?”

“Meh, nothing interesting happened. We played Symphony Number 9 and got a standing ovation, so that's always good. After that the four of us had lunch at a nearby diner. Oh! I got Harpo to say three words!”

Vinyl raised her eyebrows. “Wow. He must've been really talkative.”

“Yeah. I guess so. Listen, Lyra is going to be coming over in about half an hour for her lesson. Would you mind helping me set up the studio?”

Vinyl Scratch winced. “Oh, um, yeah. About that. I, uh, kinda sorta, um, I mean...”

Octavia gave a face hoof. “What did you do this time?”

“You remember how the studio had sound proof windows?”

“Please don't say you're using past tense again.”

“Well, you also remember how we had walls surrounding the studio?”

By this point, Octavia was leaning against the wall with both of her front hooves covering her face. “Please PLEASE say you didn't”

“And, um, you remember how the studio kind of existed and was not just a smoking pile of rubble?”

Octavia did a face ground. “I leave for one morning. One morning, and you burn down the studio... again. What were you even trying to do?”

“Eh, I was only trying to see if I could improve my turntables.”

“And how did that work out?”

“FANTASTIC! They're better than ever!”

Octavia let out an exasperated sigh. “Glad to hear it,” she said rather unenthusiastically. “I'll let Lyra know that her lesson has been canceled for today. Do you think you can clean what's left of our poor studio in the mean time?”

The unicorn gave an oversized smile. “No problem. Say while I'm here confessing and everything, do you also remember-”

The, now heavily stressed, mare walked away. “I'M NOT LISTENING. I'VE HAD ENOUGH BAD NEWS FROM YOU TODAY.”

With the unicorn out of earshot and working on cleaning the studio, Octavia let herself slump in her red chair by the fireplace and felt the troubles of the day flow over her. Yes, they had gotten a standing ovation... at the end of the first movement. She hated it when the audience didn't know when a song ended. On top of that, there had been only twenty ponies in the audience, and most of them were focusing on their own conversations. The nerve. They had lost money in total and the diner was far from clean. The three words Harpo had said were “I'm going home.” Now that she was finally home, Octavia had learned that her highly irresponsible room mate had set fire to their studio. This day was getting worse and worse and Octavia just wanted to let her mind wander. It eventually came back to the cat she had seen earlier and the book that was still in her saddle bag. With a deal of effort, she pulled herself off of the couch and over to her bags. What was a cat doing with a book anyway? She opened her bag and grabbed the book by the spine using her right hoof.

The room fell away. Everything went black. The sounds of various jungle animals could be heard. Then, the shapes of trees began to emerge.

“Hey what's that? Something's appearing over there, Twi. I don't think it's Derpy.” She could hear a slightly raspy voice speaking.

Everything was clear now. She was definitely in some sort of jungle and six ponies were staring at her. Wait a moment...

She pointed at the six of them. “I know you! You were the ponies who crashed the Gala and nearly ruined the Garden Party when I was there. And you!” She pointed at Pinkie Pie. “You almost broke my cello at the Gala. Wait a minute, why am I talking about this? Where the heck am I?”

Rainbow Dash threw her hands in the air and let herself fall backwards. “Another one? Jeeze! How many ponies are going to come into this place? I thought we had sent Derpy straight to Celestia, but it doesn't look like we'll be getting home any time soon.”

Twilight Sparkle give Octavia a nervous smile. “I'm sorry about the Gala, but what's past is past, right? You see, we're kind of trapped in this book until... well, I'm not exactly sure when; but I'm working on it. A pegasus named Derpy Hooves came in here earlier and she was supposed to bring this book to Celestia for us.”

“That's strange, I took this book from a cat.”

The six ponies tilt their heads in unison except for Rainbow Dash, who leaps into the air and yells, “A cat? I knew Derpy was clumsy, but I didn't think she'd be featherbrained enough to give us away.”

Twilight thinks to herself. “I'm sure there's a reasonable, logical explanation as to why a cat was holding the book. Meanwhile miss...”

“Octavia.”

“Miss Octavia. In light of recent events, do you think you can find Derpy Hooves for us? She's a grey mail mare pegasus. Blonde mane. She has... interesting, eyes. She was probably headed for Canterlot.”

Octavia looks at the six ponies for a few seconds that must have seemed like hours. Is this even real? Did Vinyl hit a gas mane when she decimated the studio? If this is real, though, do I really have a choice. Her eyes narrow. No, I don't. “I'll find her for you, and I'll do whatever I can to make sure you get back safely, taken I'm not actually in some infirmary of some sort.”

Apple Jack tilts her head. “Beg pardon? Why would you be in an infirmary?”

“Never mind. Now how do I get back?”

“Just let go of the book.”

Octavia let the book slide from her grip. As it parted contact, the image in front of her rushed away in a blur and her senses were flooded with reality. The first thing she saw was Vinyl Scratch in front of her, jaw dropped. Scratch let out a whistle.

“That. Was. AWESOME!”

Only after that did Octavia notice that her house was missing a wall.

She let herself slump onto the ground looking at where the wall used to be. “I think I just... died a little bit inside.”