“You know, all this darkness probably isn’t very good for me. I am a living creature, I need sunlight!” I protested mostly in jest. In truth, I’d been kept down here in Octavia’s cellar for a few days now and she’d taken it upon herself to see that I didn’t just dry up and die on one of her friends equipment boxes.

“I’m aware, but there’s currently a pony-hunt for the one who slaughtered all those cultists and those three guards.” Octavia replied as she watched me tear into today’s lunch of a light garden salad. I’d taken quite well to the fresh vegetables, compared to the grey things back on the moon, and Octavia was more than content to feed me such items.

“Were there any witnesses that could point them in my direction?” I asked once my mouth was full. I quickly filled it again with a bite from a large red bell pepper; bell peppers very quickly became my favourite vegetable, right next to cucumbers, tomatoes, red onions -this actually confused and disturbed Octavia in the fact that I could eat an entire Red onion by itself- and cauliflower.

Octavia sighed and rested her chin on her crossed hooves. “Fortunately for you, the call for witnesses came up dry. So no, there’s no witnesses who could point you out. The only reason i’m still keeping you down here is-”

“My charming personality and pleasant company?” I interrupted with a smirk, earning a grape tomato to the face.

“Is because the Guard are looking for somepony heavily bandaged in this area. I’ve already had to incinerate the bedspreads and everything left behind from caring for you as it is.” Octavia stared dully at me as she made her explanation.

“So other than that i’d be out on my rump, huh?” I popped previously thrown tomato into my mouth and had to smile at the mere taste of the juices.

“Well, you did sexually assault me.” Tavia replied casually, almost too casually.

“Jeez, you’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” I sighed for the lack of interest in her teasing.

“Never. Just like you’d never look at me that way, either.” the grey mare grinned as she stood and gave her rump a dust off with her tail. “If you’re done, i’ll clean up.”

“No shit, i’m stuck down here. When do you expect me to be able to leave?” I inquired, dropping the remains of the bell pepper stem onto the plate before reaching back to scratch at my quickly healing wings. Alas, I was still flightless; much to my chagrin.

“Why, you going somewhere?” Octavia stopped at the stairs and looked back at me curiously.

“Yeah, for as much as I like living in your root cellar… I’ve got things to do, ponies to talk with, places to go and things to know.” I sighed and rolled onto my back and magically pulled a blanket up over my body.

“Oh, okay…” Octavia seemed to be in a state of emotional confusion, between disappointment and eagerness. “Well provided you don’t pull your stitches out for a fourth time, I think you’ll be good enough to leave by tomorrow.”

“Excellent. Thank you again, Tavia. So much thanks for all your care over the last few days.” I grinned warmly as the mare nodded gratuitously before silently ascending the stairs up.

As soon as the door was shut, the lights automatically switched off and my horn fired up with artificial light. Crawling off the case I approached a small hole in the wall and stuck my hoof inside.

Extracting the only object within, I carried it back to my resting place before settling down with the single photo sitting on the casetop before me. It was the only photo i’d ever managed to take with mom while we were together and she protested the whole thing the entire time, evident with how her head was turned up and away from the camera though her wing remained outstretched over my back.

Ahh, such good times… I thought to myself, before stamping a hoof over the photo with a grimace. Shame I have to do something to get revenge on you forgetting about me on the moon.

Suddenly the trap door creaked open, startling me as I hastened to pull the photo under my body.

“Hey, Eclissi?” Tavia stuck her head down to look at me, her face slightly flushed.

“Yeah, Tavia?” I replied as casually as I could, ignoring the rolled paper underneath me.

“You, uhm…” Tavia now completely descended the stairs and flipped on the light. “The patrolling guards have given up on the pursuit, apparently. Do you… I mean…”

“Words, Tavia. Use your words.” I egged her on, hopping down from the case and taking the photo with me.

“Do you want to… come… spend time… with… with me?” Tavia seemed to be completely refusing to even look at me but I could still tell from the deep shade of red on her nose that she was feeling extremely embarrassed.

“And by ‘spend time you you’, you mean… what? Dinner and… I don’t know what else ponies do on this planet...” I inquired, taking a few steps forwards towards the uneasy mare.

“I.. that would probably… That’d be a better way to start… yes.” Tavia replied and lifted her head as she noticed exactly how close we were to each other. “I hadn’t thought of… of starting with that…”

“What exactly were you planning on starting with then?” I narrowed an eye suspiciously at the creature before me.

“I… uhm… thought you might have been… might’ve been…” Octavia drifted off as she seemed to lose her train of thought, staring up into my eyes. “Uhm, dammit, why is this so difficult!”

“I dunno, I have no idea what you're getting at.” I shrugged back, remaining in place to stare back at Tavia’s lovely lavender eyes.

“Right, okay. Let me try again.” Tavia requested, breaking the staring contest with a deep breath and shut her eyes again. “I thought you might’ve been lonely down here all by yourself and I thought i’d offer to give my company for tonight if you were planning on leaving tomorrow, never to be seen again and I only do this because it would make me sad if you left without being able to spend time with a mare or that you’d end up spending time with a random mare or Celestia’s white coat a stallion and forever brand yourself as such a kind of stallion-” Octavia rattled off at a million miles an hour before I pressed a hoof to her lips to silence and surprise her.

“Punctuation, learn to use it please.” I requested with a small smile. “I thought you thought I was a pervert and that I disgusted you.”

“I- I know. I thought I did too. It’s just… Every night as I was in my warm bed, I could only think about you…” I raised an eyebrow and smirk at this before the pony continued. “I mean, about how you were stuck down here in the cold which wouldn’t have been good for recovery… So I thought… I’d… Offer to let you sha- share a- I mean, my bed… with… me…”

“Right…” I honestly had no idea where my cognitive functions had gone, but all I could manage was, “I see…”

“S-so? Wh-what do you say?” Octavia looked up at me apprehensively. “I mean, i’m not adverse to your idea of a… date… before tonight…”

“Right…” still nothing…

“Then after that… I- uhm…” I held another hoof up to Octavia’s lips to silence her and let myself restore cohesive sentences in my head.

“Let’s just start with the dinner and whatever else ponies do on dates. Are we planning on going out in public for that or are we going to stay in?” I suggested. This seemed to calm the mare quite visibly and let her recover.

“I suppose since you’re not only without proper attire and without a bit to your name we may want to stay in. Can you cook?” the mare inquired with a thin smile as she lead me out of my previous dwelling.

“I like to think i’m pretty good in a kitchen. Most of the time I was cooking for my mother and I but we never had the same quality of ingredients as you do here…” I replied, waiting till Octavia was completely out of the cellar before ascending myself. Did not want to put her off by making her think I was staring.

“Okay, so then do you want to spend some time in the kitchen going through the fridge to update your palettes?” Tavia offered, helping me out of my hole before shutting the door behind me.

“Might as well. If i’m going to show off for my date I might as well, right?” I replied simply.

“Heh, yeah. I suppose so…” the mare once again defied looking back at me as she escorted me into her kitchen. “So, if there’s anything that you come up with with ingredients your missing, let me know and I’ll pop out to pick them up, alright? Till then i’ll be in the study.”

“Absolutely.” I smiled back at the mare as she left with a smile on her own face. I’m not sure if I was supposed to see it but as soon as she thought she was out of sight she did a tiny prance in place before zipping off and I turned to the fridge.

A minute later and I could hear the sound of a very deep instrument having its strings being played.

“Hey Octavia, what is that you’re playing?” I shouted out while tasting a green version of cauliflower. Had a kind of sharp flavour to it.

“I’m just warming up actually!” Tavia shouted back over the sounds coming from her direction.

“No, I mean what’s that instrument? I’ve never heard anything like it!” I shouted back.

“Oh, this is a cello. It’s kind of difficult to play since it requires me to stand on my back legs and it doesn’t seem to be built to be played by ponies but I still manage!”

“What’s the point of having an instrument that isn’t meant to be played by ponies?” I shouted back in mild confusion.

“For me, it’s the challenge of becoming the best cellist in Equestria despite it’s difficulty to play!”

“Ahh, fair enough.” I replied and turned back to my sampling.

The warm-up very quickly died down to a much slower tempo before the notes began to take shape of a song I was actually fairly familiar with. With a nearly evil grin and shifty eyes, I silently set everything down and fired up my horn and begin a rather simple conjuration spell.

Standing just on the other side of the wall from Octavia, I lifted myself up onto my hind legs and rested my back against the wall as I took hold of the fretboard and waited for the proper cue. With a small snicker I calmed myself down and hit the first chord, surprising Octavia and killing her own sound for a few bars before she picked up and I carefully stepped around the corner to join her with my guitar.

The guitar itself was an electric variant, with the amp cord fading into oblivion and the sound being pumped out of my horn. Doing it this way, instead of synthesizing the sound myself, had the effect of greatly enhancing the quality of the sound. I’d discovered this instrument and figured out how it worked from some very old books in the old palace library.

About halfway into the song, where it slowed down for a couple bars, “Where in Equestria did you learn that?” Octavia demanded through astonishment and wide grins as the tempo picked back up again.

“Remember, I had a lot of free time all alone on the moon. You’d be surprised what kind of books you could find hiding in the depths of mom’s library.” I replied as I continued to let my hoof strum away from muscle memory. “I’ll be honest though…” I paused to flail my way through a particular set of bars. “I haven’t played this in ages!”

“I think you’re doing just fine, darling!” the cellist replied with a grin as we finally reached the end of the song and let the notes drift away. “I must say, not even my friend can achieve similar sounds with her deck! That was… that was…” Octavia seemed to be suffering from a lack of appropriate words so I opted to help her out.

“Awesome?”

“Yes! I’m not the type to use such language but that was indeed awesome!” Tavia remarked. “What else can you do? Can you sing?”

“Ehhh, I have no idea.” I replied in defeat. “I didn’t get many chances to learn to sing properly so I have no idea.”

“Well, you have a beautiful tenor voice, perhaps you could sing melody for somepony else? Or if you learned an appropriate song that suited your range?” the mare suggested, setting her cello down to take a seat on the floor next to the instrument. Resting the guitar on my back I followed suit and took a seat myself.

“Maybe, but I wouldn’t know any to start with.” I admitted. Octavia had none of it as she stood and rested her cello in it’s case before trotting over to a bookshelf to peruse its contents. “Oh, wait! I may know one!”

“Oh, do I know it?” Octavia raised an eyebrow interestedly as she looked back over her shoulder at me.

“Maybe.” I replied before taking up my guitar again. Magically changing a number of settings, mostly they were all in my head anyways so it was a matter of thought, I started up a simple loop of gentle tapping on the body of the guitar. Adding in an acoustical version of the song, I gently lead into the lyrics which simply dropped Octavia’s jaw. To the floor.

She quickly recovered however, and with a smile took over the second verse with me keeping in harmony.

I will never admit it but halfway through the song the two of us were so perfectly in sync that we both began tearing up and fought with choking up on the song through to the end.

“My word, that was quite something!” Tavia noted as she wiped at her eyes. “You certainly have quite the singing voice.”

“That only worked because of your voice, I merely harmonized.” I shook my head in response.

“Don’t sell yourself short, mares love a stallion who can sing you know?” Octavia replied as my horn lit up and the guitar vanished from the realm. Landing back on my hooves, I had to shrug as I turned back to the kitchen.

“I’ll keep that in mind for next time.” I remarked. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have ingredients to taste.”

“Of course, of course. Please, take all the time you need. If your cooking skills are anything like your voice, i’m certain to weep from joy when we eat.” Octavia grinned as I waved back to her.

~~~

“So, are you on the verge of tears yet?” I chuckled over my prepared dinner. I had a bit of trouble refraining from completely consuming the ingredients beforehand but somehow I managed to crank out something edible.

“Very funny, Eclissi.” Tavia smirked bemusedly as she tentatively took another bit of her own dinner. She’d even gone so far as to get dressed up in a dark purple dress, complete with a touch of makeup and stylization of mane. I obviously couldn’t be outdone and magically dressed myself up in a black and red suit shirt and jacket. “But this is quite excellent, I must say. Well done for a first time!”

“Thank you, I appreciate that.” I grinned back to Octavia’s warm smile. “So, what’s up next after all this? We’re obviously dressed up to the nines so are you thinking of something fancy?”

“Perhaps, or maybe we could just stay in and see what other songs we can play together. Develop a sort of setlist as it were.” Octavia shifted around in her seat, perhaps unintentionally, enticingly. I shrugged and cleaned off my plate with my fork.

“I would not be opposed to such activities.” I noted, receiving a smile from the mare before me. “Then we can see what happens as the night goes on. We don’t have to do anything if you’re uncomfortable with it.”

“Thanks, but I think i’m certain now.” Tavia replied with a small smile before hopping down to round the table and take my hoof. “Come on.”

“What about the music?” I asked as I let myself be lead up the stairs towards the mare’s bedroom.

“Oh don’t worry, I think we’ll be making sweet music together regardless of how it’s done.” Tavia grinned and I could already feel biology responding. Nevermind that we’ve only known each other for just shy of a week. This was going to be interesting…

Author's Note

Okay, so I just remembered that I'd left in a couple of musical notes while writing that I don't think translate over properly so i've made the proper changes. Should work much better now, sorry!