Untiedby MxGoatChaptersCh.1: Strange Filly, Purple FillyCh. 2: IntroductionsCh. 3: NightmareCh. 4: Stargazing with the Ground-BoundCh.1: Strange Filly, Purple FillyThe Manehattan Grand Concert Hall: A wonderful piece of architecture dedicated to sheltering hundreds at a time as they listen to music and munch on cheap snacks sold at the entrance. Here I stood on the center of the stage, looking out at the applauding audience, with cello and bow in my hooves and a pink bowtie around my neck. Next to me was my accomplice: an aspiring violinist and unicorn named Vincenza. She had a long, well groomed, shiny electric and neon-blue-colored mane and tail, and magenta eyes that stood out well against her clean, perfectly white fur. She was wearing a simple black and white tuxedo and blue cravat at the time. Anypony, from a first glance, would have easily came to the conclusion that she was one of the most refined and civil mares of Manehattan. After we bowed, we walked through the velvet-red curtains, entering the backstage area. Waiting to greet us was an earth-pony stallion and a smaller unicorn mare. The stallion—Noteworthy—was almost entirely blue; his fur being a calm blueberry and his mane and tail a shade of navy. Even his cutiemark, two sets of backward bridged-eighth notes, matched the same color as his mane. The only things not blue about him were his yellow irises and proud smile. The shorter mare beside him—Lyra—wore an equally big grin. She had mint-colored fur, a baby-blue mane, deep goldenrod eyes, and a golden lyre cutiemark. Lyra’s smile spread further across her face, causing her eyes and muzzle to scrunch up and her ears to stand up with glee. “You ready for a totally rocking night?” she asked enthusiastically. After any of our performances, whether it was major or minor, Lyra would often bring Vincenza and me to some club or restaurant to celebrate. Often it involved alcoholic beverages, something I am not very fond of honestly. I am what some may call a lightweight. I usually get hopelessly intoxicated whenever I drink even a mere glass of wine. “Whatever, filly. As long as I’ve got an excuse to take off this stuffy suit and drink cheap beer until I drop—” Vincenza said. She undressed herself entirely, and magically lifted a pair of purple sunglasses out from one of the pockets of her dinner jacket. She laid the glasses over her eyes, and finished, “—I’m not complaining.” I rolled my pupils. It was typical of Vincenza to use the wrong words for things. “It is not a suit, Vincenza.” “Oh yeah, Tavy?” Vincenza frowned, “Hey, wait a moment! I told you not to call me that! We went over this already!” She stared at me for a long second before slamming her eyes shut and loudly stomping a back hoof. She groaned, “Ugh…. You drive me insane! In the bad way! Do you have any idea how much alcohol I’ll have to drown myself in because of that?” “Vinyl, like not to be mean or anything, but I won’t drag you back to Mrs. Arpeggio drunk again,” Lyra stated. “Aww c’mon, why not?” “She’s still angry at me because of last time.” “I could take her off your hooves,” Noteworthy offered. My brother was always the caring type—he always went out of his way to help ponies, whether he had just met them or had known them for quite a long time. Up until this point, he had never met Vincenza—apologies—Vinyl, yet he still offered to haul her intoxicated and mindless flank home. “Really? Thank you so much! Hey, Tavi, your brother is awesome! You should totally kiss him! Right on the lips!” Vinyl said. “Absolutely not,” my eyebrows dipped in disgust. Do you see what I mean by mindless now? How dare she suggest such a thing! “Please? Technically speaking, he’s not related to you, so it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. C’mon, kiss him already!” She winked. “It is still weird! He’s my brother! Also I do not ‘swing that way,’ as you fillies say.” “Looks like you actually do have a chance with her, Vinyl!” Lyra jested. My face twisted into a mock scowl. “A jobless pony with strabismus has more of a chance than her,” I said. Vinyl and Lyra flinched. I understand why the former would do so, but why the latter? Often the lyrist would find something like that to be funny, even hilarious, but why not now? “Dang, well at least it was worth a shot….” “Lyra, you are not a good matchmaker,” both Vinyl and I said. Noteworthy interjected to ask, “Um…girls, are we going or not?” We nodded. *** It was loud. It was very loud. The only word I have for it would be supersonic. The place was packed full of shouting, talking, whispering; guffawing, giggling, laughing; drunken and uninhibited fools. In the middle of it all was Miss Scratch. Vinyl was leading a group of ponies, including Noteworthy, into a game of drunken Duck Duck Goose in the center of the establishment. Of course I had been spending my time in a more polite manner: sitting at a table, alone, with a glass of water in front of me. That changed when Lyra had returned with one of her friends: A curly pink and blue-maned, sapphire-eyed, cream-colored pony named Sweetie Drops. Lyra dubbed her “Bon-Bon,” though. Bon-Bon was a nice pony but at times could become hard to manage, which was why I was soon alone once more, sitting outside the building, breathing in the cool, calming night air as if I was drinking an elixir. Any uncertainty in my mind fluttered away like a butterfly in a very quiet hurricane. Any worry I had was crushed by the strong winds of the storm. My calmness survived however, holding out in the eye of the hurricane, looking up at the sunlight in awe. She was completely unaware of the walls of flying debris around her, and thought to herself “Today is a wonderful, beautiful day.” Miss Calm was not the only survivor though. She had been accompanied by Miss Deep Thought, who had asked her “What is worth more: free will, action and thought, or guaranteed success of a predetermined outcome?” It was then that Miss Calm stumbled out of shock and was thrown around by the winds of the hurricane. Curse my brain. Often I found myself contemplating questions similar to this. This question in particular always came back though, and never left with an answer, unlike all of the others. It would always be rephrased, but the meaning was always the same: is it better to have a destiny or to be without one? Of course I was not anywhere near finding the answer; I did not try to answer it, and if I did I had no idea where to start. “I can help you answer it,” a childish voice reverberated around my entire head and sent a chill down my spine and into the ground underneath my hooves. “Just let me untie you,” she said. “Who are you? What are you?” I asked. A bright-purple filly with swirled, messy white and mulberry mane and tail appeared out of thin air in front of me. Her swirled purple eyes were slanted so that one pointed downwards and the other upwards. “My name is of little importance,” she stated. “Now, let me untie you.” I looked around and said “And where did you come from?” “Where I come from is of little importance.” She stared at me blankly. “What do you mean by untie?” “You might not see them, but I do: tiny little strings that dictate every movement, every statement, everything. Octavia, time does not flow nor does it split like a river. Anything that has happened, is happening, and will happen has already been predetermined by my father, by his strings. I can free you. You will be able to finally answer that question of yours.” “Are you ridiculous? You are expecting me to believe some crazy, random filly who literally appeared out of nowhere, will not tell me her name nor her origin, and uses weird, cryptic language. And how do you know my name? Never mind that, I’m probably crazy myself!” I exclaimed. I walked inside to leave the filly in the streets. Obviously I had been hallucinating or something. It was a good thing I was at a bar. I could drink my insanity away. I stated my wish to the bartender: “Give me the hardest brandy you have.” Ch. 2: IntroductionsFirst there was nothingness. After the nothingness there was a sound: it was a quiet, haunting xylophone. I opened my eyes, and my pupils contracted from their dilated states. I took a breath. The air was dry. My throat itched and I felt the need to cough, but I refrained from doing so. The dust-covered walls and ceiling of the room were colored a dull brown, and the planked floor was a shade of burgundy. A single lamp held was by a rusty hook on the ceiling. It contained a slowly dying flame—one could compare it to a drowning ant—which dimly lit the room with a lonely, tired orange glow. In front of me was a wooden cello. As I stood up, I noticed the thin, metal strands tied around my hooves and legs. “Hello Octavia, today you are going to play your cello. Let us start with something simple: Pachelbel’s Cannon in C-major,” a monotonous voice said. Automatically, against my will, I picked up my worn-out bow. I played. Hour upon hour had passed and it still continued. It was perpetual: the end was never in sight. My previously empty flank glowed with a bright light. When the light dissipated, a purple treble clef was revealed to be permanently embroidered onto my thigh. I could feel my youth slowly, agonizingly drift away from me and the strings transform into weighted chains and the knots around my limbs turn to shackles. A set of words uttered by a child echoed and rang in my head, getting progressively louder as time passed. First a month had passed— “Let me untie you…,” she whispered. —then a year went by— “Let me untie you…,” she muttered. —then a whole decade— “Let me untie you…,” she murmured. —then an entire lifetime had left me. I was nothing but bones. “Let me untie you, Octavia,” she said. Everything turned black. A pain burrowed into my head and stagnated like a suffocating cockroach desperately grinding against an eardrum. The disturbance caused my eyes to burst open and my lungs to fill with oxygen. The first thing I noticed was a ceiling. It was a light orange color, one foreign to my own home. The poster-covered walls of the room were a bright sky-blue. The bed I laid within was much smaller than my own, and the sheets were colored in a rainbow of pastel hues rather than the usual blackberry color. I planted my hooves onto fluffy white carpeting and looked around more, trying to get my bearings, to find any clue concerning where I was. I looked up at the ceiling, then down towards the floor, back at the bed, then at the walls and then the posters covering those walls. Slowly, I noticed a pattern: whoever lived here must have really liked the sky. Across from the bed, against a wall, and under a drape-covered window were two comfy-looking office chairs and a wooden desk. One side of the desktop was covered in books of a wide variety, ranging from less formal literature like Daring Do to more formal subjects like modern and classical music theory, Fourier analysis and synthesis, and baking. The other side of the table was covered in stacks of paper. If one looked closely, he or she would notice one of the stacks was transcribed entirely in braille. Adjacent to the desk was a white door with an equally white doorframe. Instead of a wretched doorknob, it had a brass lever that an earth-pony or pegasus could easily press down with a hoof. I opened the door and was greeted with the face of Lyra Heartstrings. “Oh, hey, I was just checking on you. How was your sixteen-hour-long nap?” The pain in my head awoke and eagerly stabbed at my brain again with its rapier. I winced. “Please…, refrain from yelling, Lyra. I have a headache.” Even speaking hurt. I know I drank hard brandy last night, but only a little. Vinyl could probably gulp down two mugs of the stuff until she would be even mildly affected. Why must I be so sensitive to alcohol? Why should I suffer for attempting to get that blasted hallucination out of my mind? Answer me, Celestia! “I’m not.”—she raised an eyebrow—“I’m whispering.” She stared for a moment, and then asked “Is it that bad? I mean, you look terrible but not, like, that bad.” I nodded. “Alright, well, I still have some coffee sitting in the pot for you. Want some?” she offered. I nodded again. Lyra, you are a lifesaver! Lyra walked down the white hallway, presumably towards the kitchen. I followed close behind her, even though every bone in my body burned with fatigue and every hoofstep either of us made sounded like a giant, ear-shattering stomp. Of course, that was only the equally head-destroying hangover speaking. The short hallway opened up into a room with a rectangular table—likely used for eating—in the center. Surrounding the table were six wooden chairs. Naturally, I took a seat in one of the chairs, awaiting a soon-to-arrive caffeinated drink. Lyra nodded and said “Go ahead, make yourself comfy. I’ll go get your coffee.” She trotted into what was obviously a kitchen, opened a cupboard with her magic, levitated an ornate coffee-mug out from the compartment, and quietly shut the door. “Do you want me to heat it up, or are you just fine with it at room temp?” she asked. “Room temperature is fine. Thank you,” I said. Lyra lifted a pot off an unlit stove and poured some coffee into the mug. After setting the near empty pot back down, she walked back to the table I was sitting and put the coffee down in front of me. She grinned and sat herself down on the opposite end of the table, “There you go.” “Thank you.” “No need.”—Lyra waved a hoof in dismissal—“So…, what happened last night—if you don’t mind me asking? You kinda disappeared after Bon-Bon joined us. You were pretty drunk when we found you,” she said. “Lyra, I know you really like Bon-Bon. I find Sweetie Drops to be a nice pony too, but…—” I sighed and took a sip of my coffee. “—sometimes she can be a little too much for me. The very nature of our conversations is draining. I can only manage a couple minutes before I am absolutely exhausted. I needed a break. I wish I knew how to put up with her as much as you do. Maybe we could be better friends then.” “After you’ve been ‘round her for a long time you get used to it. Anyways, where did you go, the bathroom?” “Actually, I went outside to unwind and get some clean air.” “But why were you drunk?” I took another sip before answering. “I—” Just then, a door creaked open and slammed closed. Soon after, silly humming of sorts could be heard from the hallway leading into the dining room. “I’m home!” a voice called. Lyra smiled lightly, but genuinely. “Oh hey Bubbles! Sorry but, um…, could you try to quiet down a bit? My friend here has a headache,” she said. “Oh, sorry,” the pegasus walked into the room. She was wearing a pair of black shades that covered her eyes. She had a grey coat and a blonde mane. “Hey, how are you?” What was up with those shades? “Uh…, hello?” Seriously, why was she wearing those shades? What was their purpose? I shook my head to clear my thoughts. “Sorry. Hello, who are you?” I asked. How polite of me. Yes, Octavia, you most definitely did anything other than make yourself look like an absolute fool. “My friends just call me Bubbles,” she said. Peculiar; she gave me a nickname, but no name…. “I see,” I said. After a small awkward silence in which I lifted my coffee up to my muzzle and took a swig, Lyra spoke. “Bubbles, you know you don’t need to wear those in the house, right?” Bubbles lifted the shades from her face and put them into the saddlebag resting on her back. “Sorry. It’s a habit.” She opened her eyes to look at me. At least, I think she was looking at me. One of her eyes was slanted outwards in a different direction than the other. Wait…, what? I am pretty sure eyes do not behave like that. “Now that it’s out of the hat…, Octavia, this is Ditsy Doo, my housemate. She’s a mailmare.”—Lyra pointed at me with a hoof.—“Bubbles, this is Octavia. She’s a cellist.” The mare grinned. “Nice to meet you, Octavia!” she said enthusiastically. Oh. That’s why she flinched. Ch. 3: NightmareDroplets of water fell rhythmically from the ceiling to eagerly pounce the concert hall below. Drip…, drop…. Drip…, drop…. Drip…. Drop…. I could feel the wet and rotted wood of the stage sagging and creaking underneath my hooves. Surprisingly, it still could hold up the combined weights of my cello and me, even after many years of endless torment. It was rather impressive. I looked at the crowd of chairs in front of me. None of the seats were occupied. That was to be expected though since it was nighttime; almost everypony was asleep, tucked into the warm embrace of his or her bed. I refocused on the sound of water plummeting to its doom, hitting the ground and disintegrating in an instant. It was a beautiful metronome. Drip…, drop…. Drip…, drop…. Drop…. Drip…. Then there was only ominous, uneasy silence. I looked up expecting that I would see a ceiling, but instead my eyes met with the night sky. There were no stars, clouds or moon to be seen; there was only darkness and a cosmic head peering down at the stage. His breathing filled the hall with cold, dry air that had covered me in goosebumps. The Puppet Master (that is what I will call him) extended a hand into the concert hall and laid a green unicorn, alongside a wooden lyre, on the ground beside me. It was lifeless, like a ragdoll. My eyes bulged. This could not be Lyra. She was alive. She was not a motionless corpse! She was not an insignificant shell! It was Lyra. It possessed no cutie-mark, but it was still her. Blast me sky high…. The Puppet Master grinned. “Rise and shine, Heartstrings.”—he said mockingly—“It’s time to play. You too, Philharmonica.” His last words had echoed in my head, taunting me, crucifying me. If my eyes had grown any bigger then, my skull would have been shattered. Lyra was lifted from the floor, her hoof wrapped around her instrument. She sat on her flank, which now had a golden lyre emblazoned upon it, and plucked at the strings with her magic. I stared hopelessly at my friend. Of course, I could not direct my gaze at her forever; I soon had to play my part as well. Dreadfully, the strings wrapped around my own hooves had lifted my arms and had forced me to join Lyra in song. I hated this. I hated all of it. I hated him, I hated this stage, I hated the strings, and I hated this blasted cello; I wanted to throw it across the bloody room! I closed my eyes and tried to drown out the sounds of Lyra and me playing. It worked well until a single, familiar voice drilled into my head: “Let me untie you….” Shut up…. “Let me untie you….” Leave me be, please…. “Let me untie you….” My eyes exploded open and I let loose a scream so loud it could split entire oceans and decimate houses. “Stop it! Leave me alone!” The music ceased. The Puppet Master glared at me, then, for some reason, he smirked. I stared in abject horror as he let go of Lyra, letting her fall lifelessly to the ground face first with a loud thump. She was dead. I was dead. Everyone was dead. The floorboards underneath my hooves had finally given way, and I had dropped into a thick veil of darkness underneath. This was it. This was my end. Goodbye everypony; goodbye Vinyl, Lyra, Noteworthy; goodbye Measuria. When my fall had finally ended, there had been no sickening splat. There was only a loud splash as I hit water and sank. “Be careful with him, Octavia…. Be careful," the voice in my head had said before my eyes flooded with light. It had been the second time that week that I had woken up staring up at a ceiling. It had been a dream. Thank you, Celestia. Ch. 4: Stargazing with the Ground-BoundEver since that second dream, I had been thinking nonstop. The nightmares seemed like they had a meaning; they had a theme and thus a purpose and intention. Every single one of them was related by The Puppet Master and that filly. They had always contained some form of mental torture, which suggested that— “Octavia? You’re going to spill your chocolate.” —maybe there was some message being sent, a warning not to do something possibly? Since those nightmares began I had been forced to play my cello against my will. Furthermore, my cutie-mark appeared almost always after the Puppet Master stated his demands. Perhaps there was a— “Are you alright…, Sis?” —connection between the cutie-mark and the strings? That gave rise to more questions though, and do not get me started on symbolism either. The entire predicament was a conundrum. “Octavia!” I snapped out of my internalized monologue. I was sitting outside a café at a modest table with a precariously angled mug of hot cocoa in my hooves, staring at my brother with a deadpan expression that easily read “I am most certainly not having troubling thoughts. No, not at all! Inside this cranium are only adorable, flute-playing sunflowers. Carry on!” “Oh, my apologies, Noteworthy,” I said. I took a sip of my cocoa and gently set the mug back down on the table. “Are you okay? You’re behaving really strange today, Sis,” Noteworthy asked. “Thank you for your concern, Brother; I assure you I am perfectly fine.” He stared at me incredulously. His eyebrows furrowed. “Alright, if you say so.” My eyes directed themselves to the vase that stood in between me and my brother. In the vase was a singular, red tulip. It was beautiful; I observed each petal in its absolute faultlessness and I— “Mom’s recovering. According to the doc, there isn’t much more time until she’ll be out of the hospital,” he said. “That is good to hear. How’s she doing? Otherwise, I mean.” Noteworthy sighed. “She misses you. She wishes that you’d visit, or at least write to her more often,” he said. I cast my gaze down to the ground. It’s not that I wanted to ignore Mother. I just could not handle seeing her in such a condition. Watching a family member suffer because of a serious illness like that sucks something out of me I’d rather not have taken from me again. It had happened before with Father; I still remember his dying face even today, ten years later. “I miss her too…,” I weakly responded. “I miss her a lot….” “At least this nightmare will soon be over and we can all return to our normal lives,” he stated. Oh sure, the nightmare will most definitely be over. “What will you do though? Will you continue ignoring her like you’re doing now?” I grimaced. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.” I waved my hoof in dismissal. “No, you are right…; I have been avoiding her,” I said. I rubbed my hooves up against each other underneath the table and looked to the far right, towards the wall of bushes separating the café’s plot and the sidewalk and busy streets. I blinked when I noticed a golden-maned, silver-coated pegasus barrel past the establishment on four hooves with what was presumably a brown mailbag strapped around her neck. I swear I heard her say “Good afternoon, Octavia!” as she passed. I chuckled. “Why though?” Noteworthy asked. “It’s just…after father passed away…,” I dragged. My expression had dulled again and I turned to look at my brother solemnly. “Please..., I would prefer not to talk about this right now.” “…I understand.” Soon an awkward silence hung in the air. The conversation had died, and I think neither of us had anything more to say. I finished my cocoa with a swig and, after placing the empty mug down on the table, I stood up. “Thank you for the cocoa, Noteworthy. Seeing you again has been delightful.” “Yeah, we should do this again sometime. Until then, Lil’ Sis.” “Until then, Noteworthy,” I said before I departed. It would have been rude to do otherwise. One hour later, a door politely creaked behind me as I stepped into my apartment. It was a practical, yet pleasant and cozy place: it had a small couch and television, a modest kitchen, a sink and shower, and a decently sized bedroom with a single lavender-sheeted bed and an ordinary, adjacently oriented nightstand equipped with a family photo, alarm clock, reading lamp and novel. Across from the bed was a wooden chair and a small desk littered with paper, unopened mail, and multiple wells of varying types of ink and several accompanying quills, each with a different assigned color and purpose. I sat down at the desktop and reached for a piece of sheet-music paper and a black quill and ink well. The quill, which had appeared to have come from a crow, was a primary feather. I stared at it for several moments in absolute awe, marveling at its marvelous condition and shape. Whatever bird this belonged to was a lucky bird indeed. After a minute of admiration, I lifted the quill, dipped it in ink, and began to write: A G F #A A G F G F #D A G F #A C #A A G F G #D I pondered what note to write next, but, against my wishes, my mind remained empty. It was as if whatever idea I once had had disintegrated, abandoning me on a lone island of frustration with nothing but artists’ block to keep me company. I picked up a sitar from beside the desk and played the notes I had written. I sat for another six unproductive hours playing with possible note configurations but, no matter how hard I tried or how long I searched, nothing fit. I sighed and placed my sitar down on the floor next to my chair. I needed a break; I needed to get my mental palette cleansed. I turned to look at the window hanging above my bed and out at the sun-setting sky, its orange and pink hues decorating the panes of glass with a warm glow. Some fresh air would be nice right now. After I lifted myself out of my chair and trotted to the front door of the apartment, I put on a warm jacket and stepped outside into the chilly but welcoming air. The streets of Manehattan were almost entirely empty on weeknights and evenings. This meant that I could easily reach my intended destination without having to wade through a sea of crazed equines waiting impatiently outside certain popular nightlife-central establishments. The weekends were an entirely different story though; those were the nights when nightlife-living ponies like Vincenza—excuse me, Vinyl—strutted through the streets and showed the oversaturated rainbows of their colors. Usually this involved rave clubs and all-night bars, lots of alcohol, possibly a few illegal drugs here and there, and maybe a group of foolish friends to provide you company whilst you committed to your nighttime debauchery. I had neared the boundary of the city and I pressed on for a few hills to reach my usual spot. The place was always an ideal location for stargazing, which had in turn made it a fantastic area to rest myself and restore my equanimity. That being said, the practicality of such a location was not exclusive to preserving one’s sanity—I often came here just because I was bored or needed to think or get something out of my head that I could not bring myself to tell another. Call me an escapist or coward if you must, but sometimes I just needed me, myself and nobody else, and an expansive plains biome to offer a sanctum for my thoughts. I laid down in the thick patch of grass to stare up at the evening sky, watching the last rays of pink strike the atmosphere before disappearing, leaving only the stars and the crescent-shaped moon overhead. It was officially the night. I observed the clusters of cosmic glitter Celestia had left behind in her absence. The collections of white pinpricks formed visible patterns in the sky. I could not help but stare at three constellations in particular with awe and wonder. I heard a distant thump. An unfortunately face-planted silhouette picked itself up and brushed one of its sides with a hoof. It flapped its wings furiously as it took a stride forward, then another, then the next before leaping into the air. Soon after, its face had once again been buried into the ground by the force gravity. Downcast, the figure stood up once more and tried again, only to fail yet another time. The shadow inaudibly screamed in frustration and, downtrodden by the forces of nature itself, collapsed onto the grass, defeated. I contemplated whether I should approach the pony or not; I ultimately decided that I would indeed, at the very least, try to talk to it. I cantered towards the defeated mare, and gently cleared my throat before speaking. “Ahem…, hello, Miss…?” Naturally, the pegasus ignored me, her mind having been temporarily shoved into a box and squeezed to a pulp. Usually, in a situation like this I would have put down any further effort due to my social reservation. This was an exception to that rule; something had compelled me to empathize with her. I lifted a hoof and placed it on the shoulder of the grey-coated mare, next to her long golden locks of hair. “Miss?” She yelped and leapt forward. Her voice was quite familiar; I had most definitely heard it somewhere before, but I had misplaced the details in my mind and had a hard time recovering them. The puzzle pieces slowly slipped back into place though: her grey fur and her shimmering mane and tail were all leading pieces of information towards the mare’s identity. Alas, it was only when she had turned her head to face me that I had confirmed my suspicion. She had looked at me with a single wet yellow eye, the other having had deviated in an entirely separate direction. Her eyes had expanded and her pupils seemed to have shrunk somewhat. After Ditsy managed to calm down to her original state, she blinked, causing a single tear to roll down her cheek and bury itself between the furs of her muzzle. “Bubbles…? What…were you doing?” “…I—I want to fly. I’ve wanted to ever since I was a little filly. I worked constantly, trying to reach my goal, but I never did; eventually I gave up. Yet…here I am, making the same mistake again…and again…and again.” “…I…do not know what to say….” “Nopony does.” Much like at the café, an awkward silence hung over our heads. Unlike at cocoa-break though, I stayed with my company. I laid myself down in the grass once again and stared up at the night sky. I glanced at one of the earlier constellations and smiled lightly. “Can I share some advice with you?” I asked. Bubbles nodded. “Do you see that cluster of stars right there?”—I pointed my hoof at the cat-shaped group of lights, causing Ditsy to join my gaze up at the expansive aesthetic heavens—“That’s Sphinx. She guarded Thebes with a riddle. She killed anypony who answered the riddle incorrectly. When a stallion, Oedipus, came to her and correctly responded, Sphinx devoured herself alive,” I said morbidly. Then I chuckled. “Sometimes I feel some of our biggest problems are similar to Sphinx. If we make one wrong move we are gone forever, but if we make a correct choice the problem vanishes.” “…So…?” I grinned. “Do you want to enter Thebes, or do you want to go beyond it, Bubbles?” I asked rhetorically. “If you have a problem blocking the direct path to your goal, make a detour; walk around Thebes instead of through it. There is no need to talk to Sphinx, nor answer her deadly riddle.” “…Huh.” We stayed underneath the starlight for another thirty minutes until I got dreadfully tired. “…Hey, Ditsy, I am going to head home now. Have a good night.” “…Oh, um…G’night Octavia. See you around, I guess.” I stood up and smiled brightly. “Surely,” I said. With that, I trotted back towards Manehattan. Tonight was a nice night. It would have been a shame to have slept through it. Author's Note For any of you wondering, in this chapter I am not referring to the Sphinx of Egyptian mythology; rather, I am speaking of the Sphinx of Greek mythology.
Ch.1: Strange Filly, Purple FillyThe Manehattan Grand Concert Hall: A wonderful piece of architecture dedicated to sheltering hundreds at a time as they listen to music and munch on cheap snacks sold at the entrance. Here I stood on the center of the stage, looking out at the applauding audience, with cello and bow in my hooves and a pink bowtie around my neck. Next to me was my accomplice: an aspiring violinist and unicorn named Vincenza. She had a long, well groomed, shiny electric and neon-blue-colored mane and tail, and magenta eyes that stood out well against her clean, perfectly white fur. She was wearing a simple black and white tuxedo and blue cravat at the time. Anypony, from a first glance, would have easily came to the conclusion that she was one of the most refined and civil mares of Manehattan. After we bowed, we walked through the velvet-red curtains, entering the backstage area. Waiting to greet us was an earth-pony stallion and a smaller unicorn mare. The stallion—Noteworthy—was almost entirely blue; his fur being a calm blueberry and his mane and tail a shade of navy. Even his cutiemark, two sets of backward bridged-eighth notes, matched the same color as his mane. The only things not blue about him were his yellow irises and proud smile. The shorter mare beside him—Lyra—wore an equally big grin. She had mint-colored fur, a baby-blue mane, deep goldenrod eyes, and a golden lyre cutiemark. Lyra’s smile spread further across her face, causing her eyes and muzzle to scrunch up and her ears to stand up with glee. “You ready for a totally rocking night?” she asked enthusiastically. After any of our performances, whether it was major or minor, Lyra would often bring Vincenza and me to some club or restaurant to celebrate. Often it involved alcoholic beverages, something I am not very fond of honestly. I am what some may call a lightweight. I usually get hopelessly intoxicated whenever I drink even a mere glass of wine. “Whatever, filly. As long as I’ve got an excuse to take off this stuffy suit and drink cheap beer until I drop—” Vincenza said. She undressed herself entirely, and magically lifted a pair of purple sunglasses out from one of the pockets of her dinner jacket. She laid the glasses over her eyes, and finished, “—I’m not complaining.” I rolled my pupils. It was typical of Vincenza to use the wrong words for things. “It is not a suit, Vincenza.” “Oh yeah, Tavy?” Vincenza frowned, “Hey, wait a moment! I told you not to call me that! We went over this already!” She stared at me for a long second before slamming her eyes shut and loudly stomping a back hoof. She groaned, “Ugh…. You drive me insane! In the bad way! Do you have any idea how much alcohol I’ll have to drown myself in because of that?” “Vinyl, like not to be mean or anything, but I won’t drag you back to Mrs. Arpeggio drunk again,” Lyra stated. “Aww c’mon, why not?” “She’s still angry at me because of last time.” “I could take her off your hooves,” Noteworthy offered. My brother was always the caring type—he always went out of his way to help ponies, whether he had just met them or had known them for quite a long time. Up until this point, he had never met Vincenza—apologies—Vinyl, yet he still offered to haul her intoxicated and mindless flank home. “Really? Thank you so much! Hey, Tavi, your brother is awesome! You should totally kiss him! Right on the lips!” Vinyl said. “Absolutely not,” my eyebrows dipped in disgust. Do you see what I mean by mindless now? How dare she suggest such a thing! “Please? Technically speaking, he’s not related to you, so it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. C’mon, kiss him already!” She winked. “It is still weird! He’s my brother! Also I do not ‘swing that way,’ as you fillies say.” “Looks like you actually do have a chance with her, Vinyl!” Lyra jested. My face twisted into a mock scowl. “A jobless pony with strabismus has more of a chance than her,” I said. Vinyl and Lyra flinched. I understand why the former would do so, but why the latter? Often the lyrist would find something like that to be funny, even hilarious, but why not now? “Dang, well at least it was worth a shot….” “Lyra, you are not a good matchmaker,” both Vinyl and I said. Noteworthy interjected to ask, “Um…girls, are we going or not?” We nodded. *** It was loud. It was very loud. The only word I have for it would be supersonic. The place was packed full of shouting, talking, whispering; guffawing, giggling, laughing; drunken and uninhibited fools. In the middle of it all was Miss Scratch. Vinyl was leading a group of ponies, including Noteworthy, into a game of drunken Duck Duck Goose in the center of the establishment. Of course I had been spending my time in a more polite manner: sitting at a table, alone, with a glass of water in front of me. That changed when Lyra had returned with one of her friends: A curly pink and blue-maned, sapphire-eyed, cream-colored pony named Sweetie Drops. Lyra dubbed her “Bon-Bon,” though. Bon-Bon was a nice pony but at times could become hard to manage, which was why I was soon alone once more, sitting outside the building, breathing in the cool, calming night air as if I was drinking an elixir. Any uncertainty in my mind fluttered away like a butterfly in a very quiet hurricane. Any worry I had was crushed by the strong winds of the storm. My calmness survived however, holding out in the eye of the hurricane, looking up at the sunlight in awe. She was completely unaware of the walls of flying debris around her, and thought to herself “Today is a wonderful, beautiful day.” Miss Calm was not the only survivor though. She had been accompanied by Miss Deep Thought, who had asked her “What is worth more: free will, action and thought, or guaranteed success of a predetermined outcome?” It was then that Miss Calm stumbled out of shock and was thrown around by the winds of the hurricane. Curse my brain. Often I found myself contemplating questions similar to this. This question in particular always came back though, and never left with an answer, unlike all of the others. It would always be rephrased, but the meaning was always the same: is it better to have a destiny or to be without one? Of course I was not anywhere near finding the answer; I did not try to answer it, and if I did I had no idea where to start. “I can help you answer it,” a childish voice reverberated around my entire head and sent a chill down my spine and into the ground underneath my hooves. “Just let me untie you,” she said. “Who are you? What are you?” I asked. A bright-purple filly with swirled, messy white and mulberry mane and tail appeared out of thin air in front of me. Her swirled purple eyes were slanted so that one pointed downwards and the other upwards. “My name is of little importance,” she stated. “Now, let me untie you.” I looked around and said “And where did you come from?” “Where I come from is of little importance.” She stared at me blankly. “What do you mean by untie?” “You might not see them, but I do: tiny little strings that dictate every movement, every statement, everything. Octavia, time does not flow nor does it split like a river. Anything that has happened, is happening, and will happen has already been predetermined by my father, by his strings. I can free you. You will be able to finally answer that question of yours.” “Are you ridiculous? You are expecting me to believe some crazy, random filly who literally appeared out of nowhere, will not tell me her name nor her origin, and uses weird, cryptic language. And how do you know my name? Never mind that, I’m probably crazy myself!” I exclaimed. I walked inside to leave the filly in the streets. Obviously I had been hallucinating or something. It was a good thing I was at a bar. I could drink my insanity away. I stated my wish to the bartender: “Give me the hardest brandy you have.”
Ch. 2: IntroductionsFirst there was nothingness. After the nothingness there was a sound: it was a quiet, haunting xylophone. I opened my eyes, and my pupils contracted from their dilated states. I took a breath. The air was dry. My throat itched and I felt the need to cough, but I refrained from doing so. The dust-covered walls and ceiling of the room were colored a dull brown, and the planked floor was a shade of burgundy. A single lamp held was by a rusty hook on the ceiling. It contained a slowly dying flame—one could compare it to a drowning ant—which dimly lit the room with a lonely, tired orange glow. In front of me was a wooden cello. As I stood up, I noticed the thin, metal strands tied around my hooves and legs. “Hello Octavia, today you are going to play your cello. Let us start with something simple: Pachelbel’s Cannon in C-major,” a monotonous voice said. Automatically, against my will, I picked up my worn-out bow. I played. Hour upon hour had passed and it still continued. It was perpetual: the end was never in sight. My previously empty flank glowed with a bright light. When the light dissipated, a purple treble clef was revealed to be permanently embroidered onto my thigh. I could feel my youth slowly, agonizingly drift away from me and the strings transform into weighted chains and the knots around my limbs turn to shackles. A set of words uttered by a child echoed and rang in my head, getting progressively louder as time passed. First a month had passed— “Let me untie you…,” she whispered. —then a year went by— “Let me untie you…,” she muttered. —then a whole decade— “Let me untie you…,” she murmured. —then an entire lifetime had left me. I was nothing but bones. “Let me untie you, Octavia,” she said. Everything turned black. A pain burrowed into my head and stagnated like a suffocating cockroach desperately grinding against an eardrum. The disturbance caused my eyes to burst open and my lungs to fill with oxygen. The first thing I noticed was a ceiling. It was a light orange color, one foreign to my own home. The poster-covered walls of the room were a bright sky-blue. The bed I laid within was much smaller than my own, and the sheets were colored in a rainbow of pastel hues rather than the usual blackberry color. I planted my hooves onto fluffy white carpeting and looked around more, trying to get my bearings, to find any clue concerning where I was. I looked up at the ceiling, then down towards the floor, back at the bed, then at the walls and then the posters covering those walls. Slowly, I noticed a pattern: whoever lived here must have really liked the sky. Across from the bed, against a wall, and under a drape-covered window were two comfy-looking office chairs and a wooden desk. One side of the desktop was covered in books of a wide variety, ranging from less formal literature like Daring Do to more formal subjects like modern and classical music theory, Fourier analysis and synthesis, and baking. The other side of the table was covered in stacks of paper. If one looked closely, he or she would notice one of the stacks was transcribed entirely in braille. Adjacent to the desk was a white door with an equally white doorframe. Instead of a wretched doorknob, it had a brass lever that an earth-pony or pegasus could easily press down with a hoof. I opened the door and was greeted with the face of Lyra Heartstrings. “Oh, hey, I was just checking on you. How was your sixteen-hour-long nap?” The pain in my head awoke and eagerly stabbed at my brain again with its rapier. I winced. “Please…, refrain from yelling, Lyra. I have a headache.” Even speaking hurt. I know I drank hard brandy last night, but only a little. Vinyl could probably gulp down two mugs of the stuff until she would be even mildly affected. Why must I be so sensitive to alcohol? Why should I suffer for attempting to get that blasted hallucination out of my mind? Answer me, Celestia! “I’m not.”—she raised an eyebrow—“I’m whispering.” She stared for a moment, and then asked “Is it that bad? I mean, you look terrible but not, like, that bad.” I nodded. “Alright, well, I still have some coffee sitting in the pot for you. Want some?” she offered. I nodded again. Lyra, you are a lifesaver! Lyra walked down the white hallway, presumably towards the kitchen. I followed close behind her, even though every bone in my body burned with fatigue and every hoofstep either of us made sounded like a giant, ear-shattering stomp. Of course, that was only the equally head-destroying hangover speaking. The short hallway opened up into a room with a rectangular table—likely used for eating—in the center. Surrounding the table were six wooden chairs. Naturally, I took a seat in one of the chairs, awaiting a soon-to-arrive caffeinated drink. Lyra nodded and said “Go ahead, make yourself comfy. I’ll go get your coffee.” She trotted into what was obviously a kitchen, opened a cupboard with her magic, levitated an ornate coffee-mug out from the compartment, and quietly shut the door. “Do you want me to heat it up, or are you just fine with it at room temp?” she asked. “Room temperature is fine. Thank you,” I said. Lyra lifted a pot off an unlit stove and poured some coffee into the mug. After setting the near empty pot back down, she walked back to the table I was sitting and put the coffee down in front of me. She grinned and sat herself down on the opposite end of the table, “There you go.” “Thank you.” “No need.”—Lyra waved a hoof in dismissal—“So…, what happened last night—if you don’t mind me asking? You kinda disappeared after Bon-Bon joined us. You were pretty drunk when we found you,” she said. “Lyra, I know you really like Bon-Bon. I find Sweetie Drops to be a nice pony too, but…—” I sighed and took a sip of my coffee. “—sometimes she can be a little too much for me. The very nature of our conversations is draining. I can only manage a couple minutes before I am absolutely exhausted. I needed a break. I wish I knew how to put up with her as much as you do. Maybe we could be better friends then.” “After you’ve been ‘round her for a long time you get used to it. Anyways, where did you go, the bathroom?” “Actually, I went outside to unwind and get some clean air.” “But why were you drunk?” I took another sip before answering. “I—” Just then, a door creaked open and slammed closed. Soon after, silly humming of sorts could be heard from the hallway leading into the dining room. “I’m home!” a voice called. Lyra smiled lightly, but genuinely. “Oh hey Bubbles! Sorry but, um…, could you try to quiet down a bit? My friend here has a headache,” she said. “Oh, sorry,” the pegasus walked into the room. She was wearing a pair of black shades that covered her eyes. She had a grey coat and a blonde mane. “Hey, how are you?” What was up with those shades? “Uh…, hello?” Seriously, why was she wearing those shades? What was their purpose? I shook my head to clear my thoughts. “Sorry. Hello, who are you?” I asked. How polite of me. Yes, Octavia, you most definitely did anything other than make yourself look like an absolute fool. “My friends just call me Bubbles,” she said. Peculiar; she gave me a nickname, but no name…. “I see,” I said. After a small awkward silence in which I lifted my coffee up to my muzzle and took a swig, Lyra spoke. “Bubbles, you know you don’t need to wear those in the house, right?” Bubbles lifted the shades from her face and put them into the saddlebag resting on her back. “Sorry. It’s a habit.” She opened her eyes to look at me. At least, I think she was looking at me. One of her eyes was slanted outwards in a different direction than the other. Wait…, what? I am pretty sure eyes do not behave like that. “Now that it’s out of the hat…, Octavia, this is Ditsy Doo, my housemate. She’s a mailmare.”—Lyra pointed at me with a hoof.—“Bubbles, this is Octavia. She’s a cellist.” The mare grinned. “Nice to meet you, Octavia!” she said enthusiastically. Oh. That’s why she flinched.
Ch. 3: NightmareDroplets of water fell rhythmically from the ceiling to eagerly pounce the concert hall below. Drip…, drop…. Drip…, drop…. Drip…. Drop…. I could feel the wet and rotted wood of the stage sagging and creaking underneath my hooves. Surprisingly, it still could hold up the combined weights of my cello and me, even after many years of endless torment. It was rather impressive. I looked at the crowd of chairs in front of me. None of the seats were occupied. That was to be expected though since it was nighttime; almost everypony was asleep, tucked into the warm embrace of his or her bed. I refocused on the sound of water plummeting to its doom, hitting the ground and disintegrating in an instant. It was a beautiful metronome. Drip…, drop…. Drip…, drop…. Drop…. Drip…. Then there was only ominous, uneasy silence. I looked up expecting that I would see a ceiling, but instead my eyes met with the night sky. There were no stars, clouds or moon to be seen; there was only darkness and a cosmic head peering down at the stage. His breathing filled the hall with cold, dry air that had covered me in goosebumps. The Puppet Master (that is what I will call him) extended a hand into the concert hall and laid a green unicorn, alongside a wooden lyre, on the ground beside me. It was lifeless, like a ragdoll. My eyes bulged. This could not be Lyra. She was alive. She was not a motionless corpse! She was not an insignificant shell! It was Lyra. It possessed no cutie-mark, but it was still her. Blast me sky high…. The Puppet Master grinned. “Rise and shine, Heartstrings.”—he said mockingly—“It’s time to play. You too, Philharmonica.” His last words had echoed in my head, taunting me, crucifying me. If my eyes had grown any bigger then, my skull would have been shattered. Lyra was lifted from the floor, her hoof wrapped around her instrument. She sat on her flank, which now had a golden lyre emblazoned upon it, and plucked at the strings with her magic. I stared hopelessly at my friend. Of course, I could not direct my gaze at her forever; I soon had to play my part as well. Dreadfully, the strings wrapped around my own hooves had lifted my arms and had forced me to join Lyra in song. I hated this. I hated all of it. I hated him, I hated this stage, I hated the strings, and I hated this blasted cello; I wanted to throw it across the bloody room! I closed my eyes and tried to drown out the sounds of Lyra and me playing. It worked well until a single, familiar voice drilled into my head: “Let me untie you….” Shut up…. “Let me untie you….” Leave me be, please…. “Let me untie you….” My eyes exploded open and I let loose a scream so loud it could split entire oceans and decimate houses. “Stop it! Leave me alone!” The music ceased. The Puppet Master glared at me, then, for some reason, he smirked. I stared in abject horror as he let go of Lyra, letting her fall lifelessly to the ground face first with a loud thump. She was dead. I was dead. Everyone was dead. The floorboards underneath my hooves had finally given way, and I had dropped into a thick veil of darkness underneath. This was it. This was my end. Goodbye everypony; goodbye Vinyl, Lyra, Noteworthy; goodbye Measuria. When my fall had finally ended, there had been no sickening splat. There was only a loud splash as I hit water and sank. “Be careful with him, Octavia…. Be careful," the voice in my head had said before my eyes flooded with light. It had been the second time that week that I had woken up staring up at a ceiling. It had been a dream. Thank you, Celestia.
Ch. 4: Stargazing with the Ground-BoundEver since that second dream, I had been thinking nonstop. The nightmares seemed like they had a meaning; they had a theme and thus a purpose and intention. Every single one of them was related by The Puppet Master and that filly. They had always contained some form of mental torture, which suggested that— “Octavia? You’re going to spill your chocolate.” —maybe there was some message being sent, a warning not to do something possibly? Since those nightmares began I had been forced to play my cello against my will. Furthermore, my cutie-mark appeared almost always after the Puppet Master stated his demands. Perhaps there was a— “Are you alright…, Sis?” —connection between the cutie-mark and the strings? That gave rise to more questions though, and do not get me started on symbolism either. The entire predicament was a conundrum. “Octavia!” I snapped out of my internalized monologue. I was sitting outside a café at a modest table with a precariously angled mug of hot cocoa in my hooves, staring at my brother with a deadpan expression that easily read “I am most certainly not having troubling thoughts. No, not at all! Inside this cranium are only adorable, flute-playing sunflowers. Carry on!” “Oh, my apologies, Noteworthy,” I said. I took a sip of my cocoa and gently set the mug back down on the table. “Are you okay? You’re behaving really strange today, Sis,” Noteworthy asked. “Thank you for your concern, Brother; I assure you I am perfectly fine.” He stared at me incredulously. His eyebrows furrowed. “Alright, if you say so.” My eyes directed themselves to the vase that stood in between me and my brother. In the vase was a singular, red tulip. It was beautiful; I observed each petal in its absolute faultlessness and I— “Mom’s recovering. According to the doc, there isn’t much more time until she’ll be out of the hospital,” he said. “That is good to hear. How’s she doing? Otherwise, I mean.” Noteworthy sighed. “She misses you. She wishes that you’d visit, or at least write to her more often,” he said. I cast my gaze down to the ground. It’s not that I wanted to ignore Mother. I just could not handle seeing her in such a condition. Watching a family member suffer because of a serious illness like that sucks something out of me I’d rather not have taken from me again. It had happened before with Father; I still remember his dying face even today, ten years later. “I miss her too…,” I weakly responded. “I miss her a lot….” “At least this nightmare will soon be over and we can all return to our normal lives,” he stated. Oh sure, the nightmare will most definitely be over. “What will you do though? Will you continue ignoring her like you’re doing now?” I grimaced. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.” I waved my hoof in dismissal. “No, you are right…; I have been avoiding her,” I said. I rubbed my hooves up against each other underneath the table and looked to the far right, towards the wall of bushes separating the café’s plot and the sidewalk and busy streets. I blinked when I noticed a golden-maned, silver-coated pegasus barrel past the establishment on four hooves with what was presumably a brown mailbag strapped around her neck. I swear I heard her say “Good afternoon, Octavia!” as she passed. I chuckled. “Why though?” Noteworthy asked. “It’s just…after father passed away…,” I dragged. My expression had dulled again and I turned to look at my brother solemnly. “Please..., I would prefer not to talk about this right now.” “…I understand.” Soon an awkward silence hung in the air. The conversation had died, and I think neither of us had anything more to say. I finished my cocoa with a swig and, after placing the empty mug down on the table, I stood up. “Thank you for the cocoa, Noteworthy. Seeing you again has been delightful.” “Yeah, we should do this again sometime. Until then, Lil’ Sis.” “Until then, Noteworthy,” I said before I departed. It would have been rude to do otherwise. One hour later, a door politely creaked behind me as I stepped into my apartment. It was a practical, yet pleasant and cozy place: it had a small couch and television, a modest kitchen, a sink and shower, and a decently sized bedroom with a single lavender-sheeted bed and an ordinary, adjacently oriented nightstand equipped with a family photo, alarm clock, reading lamp and novel. Across from the bed was a wooden chair and a small desk littered with paper, unopened mail, and multiple wells of varying types of ink and several accompanying quills, each with a different assigned color and purpose. I sat down at the desktop and reached for a piece of sheet-music paper and a black quill and ink well. The quill, which had appeared to have come from a crow, was a primary feather. I stared at it for several moments in absolute awe, marveling at its marvelous condition and shape. Whatever bird this belonged to was a lucky bird indeed. After a minute of admiration, I lifted the quill, dipped it in ink, and began to write: A G F #A A G F G F #D A G F #A C #A A G F G #D I pondered what note to write next, but, against my wishes, my mind remained empty. It was as if whatever idea I once had had disintegrated, abandoning me on a lone island of frustration with nothing but artists’ block to keep me company. I picked up a sitar from beside the desk and played the notes I had written. I sat for another six unproductive hours playing with possible note configurations but, no matter how hard I tried or how long I searched, nothing fit. I sighed and placed my sitar down on the floor next to my chair. I needed a break; I needed to get my mental palette cleansed. I turned to look at the window hanging above my bed and out at the sun-setting sky, its orange and pink hues decorating the panes of glass with a warm glow. Some fresh air would be nice right now. After I lifted myself out of my chair and trotted to the front door of the apartment, I put on a warm jacket and stepped outside into the chilly but welcoming air. The streets of Manehattan were almost entirely empty on weeknights and evenings. This meant that I could easily reach my intended destination without having to wade through a sea of crazed equines waiting impatiently outside certain popular nightlife-central establishments. The weekends were an entirely different story though; those were the nights when nightlife-living ponies like Vincenza—excuse me, Vinyl—strutted through the streets and showed the oversaturated rainbows of their colors. Usually this involved rave clubs and all-night bars, lots of alcohol, possibly a few illegal drugs here and there, and maybe a group of foolish friends to provide you company whilst you committed to your nighttime debauchery. I had neared the boundary of the city and I pressed on for a few hills to reach my usual spot. The place was always an ideal location for stargazing, which had in turn made it a fantastic area to rest myself and restore my equanimity. That being said, the practicality of such a location was not exclusive to preserving one’s sanity—I often came here just because I was bored or needed to think or get something out of my head that I could not bring myself to tell another. Call me an escapist or coward if you must, but sometimes I just needed me, myself and nobody else, and an expansive plains biome to offer a sanctum for my thoughts. I laid down in the thick patch of grass to stare up at the evening sky, watching the last rays of pink strike the atmosphere before disappearing, leaving only the stars and the crescent-shaped moon overhead. It was officially the night. I observed the clusters of cosmic glitter Celestia had left behind in her absence. The collections of white pinpricks formed visible patterns in the sky. I could not help but stare at three constellations in particular with awe and wonder. I heard a distant thump. An unfortunately face-planted silhouette picked itself up and brushed one of its sides with a hoof. It flapped its wings furiously as it took a stride forward, then another, then the next before leaping into the air. Soon after, its face had once again been buried into the ground by the force gravity. Downcast, the figure stood up once more and tried again, only to fail yet another time. The shadow inaudibly screamed in frustration and, downtrodden by the forces of nature itself, collapsed onto the grass, defeated. I contemplated whether I should approach the pony or not; I ultimately decided that I would indeed, at the very least, try to talk to it. I cantered towards the defeated mare, and gently cleared my throat before speaking. “Ahem…, hello, Miss…?” Naturally, the pegasus ignored me, her mind having been temporarily shoved into a box and squeezed to a pulp. Usually, in a situation like this I would have put down any further effort due to my social reservation. This was an exception to that rule; something had compelled me to empathize with her. I lifted a hoof and placed it on the shoulder of the grey-coated mare, next to her long golden locks of hair. “Miss?” She yelped and leapt forward. Her voice was quite familiar; I had most definitely heard it somewhere before, but I had misplaced the details in my mind and had a hard time recovering them. The puzzle pieces slowly slipped back into place though: her grey fur and her shimmering mane and tail were all leading pieces of information towards the mare’s identity. Alas, it was only when she had turned her head to face me that I had confirmed my suspicion. She had looked at me with a single wet yellow eye, the other having had deviated in an entirely separate direction. Her eyes had expanded and her pupils seemed to have shrunk somewhat. After Ditsy managed to calm down to her original state, she blinked, causing a single tear to roll down her cheek and bury itself between the furs of her muzzle. “Bubbles…? What…were you doing?” “…I—I want to fly. I’ve wanted to ever since I was a little filly. I worked constantly, trying to reach my goal, but I never did; eventually I gave up. Yet…here I am, making the same mistake again…and again…and again.” “…I…do not know what to say….” “Nopony does.” Much like at the café, an awkward silence hung over our heads. Unlike at cocoa-break though, I stayed with my company. I laid myself down in the grass once again and stared up at the night sky. I glanced at one of the earlier constellations and smiled lightly. “Can I share some advice with you?” I asked. Bubbles nodded. “Do you see that cluster of stars right there?”—I pointed my hoof at the cat-shaped group of lights, causing Ditsy to join my gaze up at the expansive aesthetic heavens—“That’s Sphinx. She guarded Thebes with a riddle. She killed anypony who answered the riddle incorrectly. When a stallion, Oedipus, came to her and correctly responded, Sphinx devoured herself alive,” I said morbidly. Then I chuckled. “Sometimes I feel some of our biggest problems are similar to Sphinx. If we make one wrong move we are gone forever, but if we make a correct choice the problem vanishes.” “…So…?” I grinned. “Do you want to enter Thebes, or do you want to go beyond it, Bubbles?” I asked rhetorically. “If you have a problem blocking the direct path to your goal, make a detour; walk around Thebes instead of through it. There is no need to talk to Sphinx, nor answer her deadly riddle.” “…Huh.” We stayed underneath the starlight for another thirty minutes until I got dreadfully tired. “…Hey, Ditsy, I am going to head home now. Have a good night.” “…Oh, um…G’night Octavia. See you around, I guess.” I stood up and smiled brightly. “Surely,” I said. With that, I trotted back towards Manehattan. Tonight was a nice night. It would have been a shame to have slept through it. Author's Note For any of you wondering, in this chapter I am not referring to the Sphinx of Egyptian mythology; rather, I am speaking of the Sphinx of Greek mythology.
