The Tail, the Fins, the Whole Celestia Damned Thing
The sound of bow being drawn across string was normally a pleasant experience for Octavia. Years of practice and experience had given her a keen ear for when a skilled musician was playing.
Now was not one of those times.
To say that Botch Rhapsody’s performance was awful would be like saying that rotting garbage had a mildly unpleasant odor. The sound was akin to hoof-on-chalkboard and caused Octavia’s fur to stand on end. The pony butchered another verse and Octavia ground her teeth in a vain effort to dull the nerve pain caused by the mangled notes.
“Nailed it!” Botch’s exuberant expression only served to punctuate his abysmal presentation.
The blessed silence as Botch packed his equipment was more music to Octavia’s ears than the performance had been. Octavia spied the stallion’s cutie mark, a treble clef that had broken in two, and wondered;
Can a pony’s special talent actually be to be bad at music?
“Octavia Melody.”
Octavia raised her head at the sound of her name. The director was calling for her to take the stage.
Octavia looked around the auditorium at the dozen other cellists at the tryout. She sighed as she rose from her seat and lugged her cello case to the stage. Although she had trained herself long ago to get herself into the right state of mind before playing, she found her mind wandering as she unpacked.
She had played at the Grand Galloping Gala. She had played at countless upper class functions. She was going to be first chair cellist for the Royal Canterlot Symphony. “How is this my life?” She whispered.
She sighed again as she began to play. She knew the reasons. A series of poor decisions, one of which included a dent in her cello and a satisfyingly large lump on Prince Blueblood’s head, had put her in bad standing with the canterlot elite and she had been forced to relocate to ponyville to get away from the scrutiny. Ponyville was a nice town but the only chances for her to play had been at Cranky and Matilda’s wedding and when Countess Coloratura had visited town and, quite unexpectedly, fired her entire entourage.
She had left a forwarding address with all of her old contacts, as well as a message of “have cello, will travel,” but the only invitation to play she had received since moving had been from Fancy Pants for a small garden party.
“Stop, stop, stop!” She heard the director cry.
She jolted and looked up from her instrument to see that most of the ponies in the auditorium were wearing despondent expressions and/or had tears streaming down their faces, including the director. She could not remember what it was she had been playing.
The director spoke in a broken Ponyslovakian accent. “Miss Melody, this is the most sad of performance I ever am hearing!” He saw the shocked look on her face. “Is not bad, you play like, how you say; Virtuoso. But you cannot play… dirge like this again! I must… I must ask you to leave!”
“W-w-WHAT?” She stammered.
“You must go! The joyfulness is over, your playing has kill it. What I already hear will haunt me to grave. I cannot to listen to more.”
“But, but I—”
“Please,” the director cut her off, “please.” He pointed a hoof towards the back of the auditorium.
As Octavia packed her instrument away she wondered how much wine it would take to drown her sorrows.
• § • § • § •
Vinyl had given her a large hug when she had returned home. One look at Octavia’s expression and Vinyl wasted no time running to the kitchen and tossing her a bottle of aged merlot. Octavia bit the cork, yanked it out and started to down the wine in a quite uncharacteristic fashion.
“Woah, Woah!” Vinyl gestured with her hooves for Octavia to ease off. As Octavia pulled the bottle from her lips and gasped for breath, Vinyl spoke up again. “Wow, Octavia, I’ve never seen you suck down a bottle like that before.”
“They… they kicked me out of the audition.”
A light blue aura removed Vinyl’s shades to reveal a pair of shocked eyes. “That’s… that’s a joke, right? Like, you’re joking.” Her face immediately relaxed. ‘You are joking!” She let out a laugh. “Oh, you had me going there! What did you want me to end up saying? You’re a BUM Oct!” She laughed again but the chuckles died when she saw Octavia's expression had not changed. “Oh… wow, you weren’t joking, huh?”
Octavia just stood and wobbled a little, she could not tell if it was from inebriation or from severe depression.
Vinyl magicked her shades back into place. “Ok Octi, I know what’ll fix this! A night on the town, and I’m buyin’! Hey, and Luna’s putting up a full moon tonight, so we can find our way back, easy-peasy.”
Octavia wasn’t often glad that Vinyl was such a lush, but now was one of those times. And she hadn’t been out to see a full moon in a while, now that she thought about it a little bit. Not since before they’d been marooned on that desert island and she’d tried to swim back to the mainland, only to have a shark bite her bottom… She shrugged and ignored the oddly specific and completely not plot related flashback.
• § • § • § •
Octavia stirred restlessly in her sleep. A shaft of predawn light made it through her bedroom window and shone across her face. She let out a groan of displeasure and turned away from the intruding illumination... Something was wrong.
Her pillow was wet… and sticky… Not just that, her muzzle and… well, most of her upper half felt… damp as well. Celestia, she’d thrown up on herself, hadn’t she? She reached out a hoof and froze as it came into contact with something… furry.
Had she brought somepony home last night? Her mind offered only brief, painful recollections of the previous night’s activities. She had vague memories of… dancing on a table… getting kicked out Berry Punch’s tavern… and… some crazy dream where she was all over that hack cellist, Botch Rhapsody—
“Oh Celestia, no.” Her hoof shot to her mouth, but there was no stirring, she had not woken her companion. Still, she was overcome with revulsion at the mere thought of sleeping with somepony like Botch. It wasn’t the lack of musical talent; she knew, and was friends with, many tone-deaf ponies. But Botch made himself out to be some master musician, he was a grandstander, a fraud, a—
She didn’t hear any breathing other than her own. No, that couldn’t be right. She listened harder… Nothing... Her eyes shot open.
There, mere hoof lengths away from her face, was another pony’s flank. It bore a broken treble clef cutie mark. It was Botch’s flank…
But...
It wasn’t attached to its owner.
There was blood everywhere. She was drenched in it. She sat bolt upright in bed and viewed the carnage in her room. It looked like somepony had poured several gallons of red paint into Pinkie Pie’s party cannon and fired the thing right in her bedroom.
“Well, gooooood morning sleepy head!”
Octavia’s fully widened eyes turned to the hallway door to see Vinyl standing there.
The DJ surveyed the room for an instant before pointing at Octavia. “Pwew! You, are a Stallion. Eater!”
Octavia was sure she was dreaming. It had to be a dream right?
“What… What is going on Vinyl?”
“Not much, really. I mean, you turned into a shark last night and ate some dude.”
“Ok, first; that’s impossible. Second; How are you Ok with this?” She demanded in a voice loud enough to give herself a splitting headache.
“Ok with you turning into a shark? Well, you’ve been doing that for, like, months now. I’ve been down with it ever since it started happening, really.”
Octavia’s mouth chose that moment to hang open.
“Awww, don’t look so surprised Octi, I mean, you usually just go for a swim in Ponyville pond, but wow, you ate the Tartarus out of that poor stallion last night!”
Octavia’s mouth didn’t close.
“Woah, isn’t that Botch Rhapsody’s flank?” Vinyl said, pointing at the appendage in Octavia’s bed.
Good thing she had pointed it out, or Octavia might have forgotten. Her mind chose that moment to rally, and she shrieked, shoving the limb off of the bed. It landed at Vinyl’s hooves.
“It is! Son of a— He owed me twenty bits!”
Octavia took a moment to consider the situation. Probably several moments, but with a hangover the size of Celestia’s flanks and her overall state of mental shock, she wasn’t sure.
“Vinyl…” She had to know.
“Yeah, Octi?”
“Where’s the rest of him?” While there was an impressive amount of blood strewn about the room, the only visible piece of Botch was the one flank.
“Uhh, you ate him? Maybe I didn’t make that part clear?”
Octavia’s eyes contracted. She shoved her hoof into her mouth, trying to get it far enough in to trigger her gag reflex. There was no way she was going to digest another pony. She felt Vinyl’s forehooves pull the hoof out of her mouth.
Octavia was frantic. “I... am not... leaving him... in there!”
Vinyl didn’t let go. “Octi, think about this for a minute; he was a full grown stallion, how in Tartarus can he be inside you— Huh that sounded dirtier than I meant it to.”
“Then where is he?!” Octavia shrieked.
Vinyl looked thoughtful for a moment. “I dunno, prolly wherever the other ton and a half of you went when you changed back?”
Octavia’s face was starting to hurt from all of the shocked expressions it was having to put on.
“Oh, yeah. You, like, get really big when you turn into a shark. Like, huge. Bigger than your bed, even.”
Ding-Dong
Both ponies looked towards the front of the house. It was the doorbell. And Octavia was covered in the blood of a pony she had eaten the night before. And had his flank right there on the floor.
Vinyl started to walk out of the room. “Yo, I got this.”
Octavia just sat in her bed and waited. She was going to jail. Or a dungeon somewhere. Her eyes constricted more when she realized where she would actually probably end up. She was a monster. She was going to end up in Tartarus.
She heard hoofsteps. She thought about running, but she wouldn’t get very far covered in blood, not to mention the massive hangover. Maybe she could—
“Hey, Octi, mail for you.” Vinyl presented a rather fancy looking envelope to the gore streaked mare.
“Vinyl, I don’t think any mail could possibly—” Octavia’s eyes had scanned the proffered item and saw that the return address was from Canterlot! Without thinking she reached for the letter, but stopped when she noticed her blood spattered hooves. “Uh… could you open it for me Vinyl? I seem to… umm…”
“No sweat, Octi.” Vinyl’s magic tore the envelope open and removed the letter.
Vinyl’s eyes scanned the document.
“Well?” Octavia’s anxiety, for the first time in the last several minutes, did not stem from the partial corpse in her bedroom.
“It’s an invitation to play at the upcoming Royal Canterlot Night Guard graduation ceremony.”
Octavia’s eyes lit up and she put both forehooves to her face. If she weren’t raised with so much class, she might have actually squeed.
“It’s exactly one month from now.”
Octavia could not believe her luck. The abattoir that was her bedroom was temporarily forgotten.
Vinyl continued to read. “It’s to be held at night.”
Octavia’s brow furrowed. Oh please, no.
“And Luna will raise a full moon to honor the new graduates.”
Octavia did a double facehoof. “Well, Vinyl. That’s it then. My career is over. My life is over. I—”
“Oh c’mon Octi!” Vinyl cut her pining off. “We’ve totally got this!”
“HOW?!” Octavia yelled. “How do we ‘got this?’”
Vinyl smiled. “I’ve got another unicorn friend who specializes in replicating moonlight and we’ve got a whole month to practice!”
“What… What are you suggesting, Vinyl?”
Vinyl looked at Octavia’s instrument, which had been propped in the corner of the room and had mostly survived being spattered by blood.
“Octi.”
“Yes, Vinyl?”
“You’re going to need a bigger cello.”
