Chapter 1 - Rising From the Ashes
Octavia Melody was nervous. Pacing backstage behind the curtain, the grey earth pony mare kept telling herself that there was no need to be nervous. She had trained for this. Her whole career up until right now had been for this. That thought did not make her feel any less nervous. For what felt like the millionth time, she adjusted her pink bowtie and took a deep breath.
She glanced over at the rest of her quartet, she saw that they were faring no better than herself. Frederick Horseshoepin, Parish Nandermane and Beauty Brass were all exhibiting their nerves in their own way. Octavia didn’t know whether to take heart from this or not.
They had not been this nervous when they had first played Carneighgie Hall five years ago. ‘Yes,’ the cello player reminded herself, ‘but this is not Carneighgie Hall!’ And it wasn’t. She walked over and nuzzled Beauty Brass’s cheek, for the earth pony looked like she was about to faint.
‘We can do this…I can do this…imagine it is Carneighgie Hall…that’s all you need to do, Octavia…’ Reaching the premier performance venue in not only the whole of the country’s east coast, but arguably Equestria itself, the thirty year old mare had assumed, then at the age of twenty five, that she had reached the pinnacle of her career.
Except, here she was, with her quartet, her team, her friends and her family, stood on the stage of an even more prestigious event. ‘Ouch!’ she cursed, having pinched herself to once more see if it was in fact real. It was. Stood mere feet away from a heavy crimson curtain was the amassed elite of Canterlot. Dukes, Lords, Viscounts, Duchesses, Princes and, of course, the Princesses themselves, all awaited the curtain call.
She could hear them. The nobles, aristocrats, cream of high society, all milling around in the grand ballroom. ‘You can do this, Octavia…’ she told herself for the hundredth time. ‘It’s just a performance, like any other. Just a show. You can do this…’ It wasn’t just a performance though. This was the Grand Galloping Gala. The. Grand Galloping Gala. The premier of premier events. The highest of the high. Only the nobility of the Upper Royal Quarter got an invite to attend this event. You were somepony if you attended this.
Only the very, very best musicians in the land played here. Octavia was painfully aware, as she resumed her pacing on the stage, that Beethoven himself, the founder of the College of Performing Arts, never was invited to play here.
And here she was. Octavia Melody and her quartet. About to play at the Grand Galloping Gala. She wanted to hold her cello, just like she knew Frederick wanted to sit at his piano, Parish at his harp and Beauty take up her Prench horn. Alas, she couldn’t, for the instruments were waiting for them beyond the curtain. She wanted to hold her mother, to have her say it would all be alright, that it was just a performance, but she had passed on last year, mere months before Princess Luna’s return.
That was another reason that Octavia was nervous as a cat in Tartarus. This was to be the very first Grand Galloping Gala since Princess Luna’s return from the moon. Not only was there to be two Princess’s in attendance, but she had heard that the Elements of Harmony themselves were to be here!
Octavia couldn’t help but smile a little at that, in spite of her nerves. On the grapevine there had been whisperings of dissatisfied nobles huffing and puffing that ‘commoners’ were to attend the Gala! The fact that these ‘commoners’ had saved a Princess and were national heroes meant precisely zero to them.
Not only had the Elements of Harmony defeated Nightmare Moon, the Element of Magic had, on her own, single-hoofedly saved Ponyville from a rampaging Ursa Minor and all the Elements had saved Ponyville and Canterlot from the red dragon that had taken up residence in Smokey Mountain.
Octavia though was shaken from her thoughts when she saw, beyond the curtain, the lights from the many chandeliers in the grand ballroom go down and a spotlight hit the stage. The hour had come. The moment, it seemed, was at hoof. The very next thing she was aware of was the Master of Ceremonies announcing them. “Your majesty, my lords, ladies and gentlecolts, it is my honour to introduce to you all, the four time winners of the Gramophone Awards, the Handel Music Prize holders and the Royal Philharmonic Society Award winners, Miss Octavia Melody, Mr. Parish Nandermane, Mr. Frederick Horseshoepin and Miss Beauty Brass!”
As the stallion read out their accomplishments and their names, Octavia found she wasn’t nervous anymore. Yes, she and her friends had done all those things! They had earned those awards! They deserved to be here! A second later, to polite applause and the delicate stomp of hooves, the crimson curtain was raised.
Stepping out onto the stage proper, Octavia saw the crowd of hundreds, if not a thousand, nobleponies looking back at her and her team. Some, she recognised straightaway, like Fancypants and Fleur De Lys, Jet Set, Sapphire Shores, Upper Crust, Swan Song, Royal Ribbon… Though, the grey earth pony mare only had eyes for one place as she took up her bow.
The royal box. Her heart fell a little when she saw it was occupied by just Princess Celestia, her nephew, Prince Blueblood to her right and seated to her left was Twilight Sparkle, the Element of Magic. Octavia only knew her name because she had grown up in Canterlot not that far from Twilight Velvet’s house. She shook her head to clear it. ‘Idiot!’ She chided herself for being in any way disappointed for Princess Luna’s absence.
Still, as she took up her bow, and felt the weight of her cello in her left forehoof, she reflected on what a feather it would have been to say she had been the first to play for the lunar alicorn since her return. Indeed, the Princess had not left the palace in the year since she had been back.
Octavia smiled to the other members of her team. No time to think about that now. The cream of high society was waiting for them to play. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Element of Loyalty talking with the Wonderbolt Captain Spitfire and Lieutenant Soarin’.
Play, they would. They had this set well-rehearsed and planned out. Most of the pieces had been written and planned with Princess Luna in mind, but they decided, with a nod from Octavia and Parish, to continue regardless of her absence. She closed her pink eyes and drew her bow across the strings of her beloved cello, an instrument that had been in her family for four hundred years, and, as Frederick played the intro, she began to play the first piece, ‘A Thousand Years’.
Finally, with the completion of the almost five minute piece, Octavia opened her eyes and again, she looked up at the royal box. The assembled nobleponies were stunned into silence that she would dare open with a song like that, but, Celestia, after a moment, enthusiastically clapped her hooves together. This seemed to galvanise the others in the grand ballroom, who likewise applauded. As she started their next piece, Octavia fancied she could see the solar alicorn crying, though she was smiling.
‘Yes!’ Silently, the cellist cheered. They had moved a Princess to tears! Their next piece was ‘Moonlight Sonata’, this was followed by ‘Summer Sun’, ‘Rainbow’ and ‘Let It Go’. By the time they had completed their fifth piece, Octavia was well in her element, as it were. All trace of her former nerves was well gone. ‘This day is going to be perfect!’ she thought with a smile, ‘The kind of day of which I've dreamed since I was small!’
Indeed, it was going so well, that she chose to forego their usual little break and carry on with the performance. As she was about to start the sixth piece, a bright pink earth pony mare suddenly appeared on the stage with a microphone of all things! Octavia Melody was outraged, and she was about to give this mare a piece of her mind when she realised she was the Element of Laughter. Her name, for the moment, escaped her, though she wondered what in Equestria she was doing.
Octavia’s world fell apart, however, when the pink mare – who was wearing one of the most preposterous dresses she had ever seen – opened her mouth. “C'mon, everypony!” she yelled in a squeaky high pitched voice straight down the microphone, “I know what will make you shake those groove-thangs!”
Needless to say, the crowd of assembled nobleponies and dignitaries, as well as the incredibly rich and famous, all shared Octavia’s look of open-mouthed shock and horror when Pinkie Pie began to sing!
“You reach your right hoof in
You reach your right hoof out
You reach your right hoof in
And you shake it all about
You do the Pony Pokey meeting lots of folks with clout
That's what I'm talking about!”
Octavia stood, stock still just like the rest of her quartet. She didn’t know what to do as this pink whirlwind was singing and doing the most ludicrous dance she had ever set eyes upon on her stage. Her stage! Parish Nandermane, at his harp, was as stunned as Octavia was. “What in the nine levels of Tartarus is she doing‽” he hissed, to which the cellist could only shrug. Sadly though, Pinkie Pie was not finished. Oh no…
“You step your left hoof in
You pull it right back out
You step your left hoof in
But you better help him out
You do the Pony Pokey but should find a different route
That's what it's all about!”
By now, some of the nobles were whispering uncertainly amongst themselves. Fleur De Lys was gesticulating madly to Fancypants, who shrugged. Several of the more sensitive mares had dropped their wine glasses and the staff were hastening to clean up the mess. In the royal box, Princess Celestia looked like somepony had slapped her across her face.
“You kick your back left in
You pull your back left out
You reach your back left in
Just be brave and have no doubt
You do the Pony Pokey feeling like you're gonna pout
That's what I'm singing about!”
Octavia wanted to die. Ponies were pointing and laughing at her and her fellow musicians as Pinkie Pie danced madly around the stage. She could tell they thought she was in on this…on this…on whatever this was! She frantically motioned to them, trying in some way to communicate that this was nothing to do with her, but they couldn’t hear her shouts over the energetic singing.
“You tilt your head in
You tilt your head out
You tilt your head in
Then you shake it all about
You do the Pony Pokey even though your date's a lout
You're better off without
You stomp your whole self in
You stomp your whole self out
You stomp your whole self in
And you stomp yourself about
You do the Pony Pokey and you give a little shout
That's what I'm talking about!”
It was getting worse! Pinkie Pie was dancing with them! The strings on Parish Nandermane’s harp were all snapped, the harp cracked. Frederick’s piano top was broken from where the infernal mare had danced upon it, but worse, far worse than even Beauty Brass’s horn being bent out of shape, was the mocking laughter from the crowd. The elite of the elite were in stitches, shocked and stunned silence having given way to derisive snorts of ridicule.
Only Princess Celestia and Twilight Sparkle were not laughing.
“You do the Pony Pokey
You do the Pony Pokey
You do the Pony Pokey
And that's what it's all about
Yeah!”
“Young lady,” a unicorn pony that Octavia recognised as Lyrica spoke up, her tone snide as if the pink earth pony mare was a stain on her hoof, her voice breaking the deadly silence following the conclusion of the ‘song’, “this is not that kind of party!”
Pinkie Pie, however, would not be deterred. “Ohhhhhh...” she mused down the microphone so that everypony in the grand ballroom could hear her, “They don't want a party. These ponies want a paaartay!”
Octavia had absolutely no idea what she meant by that, she just hoped this damnable pink menace was finally done so she could at least try and salvage something, anything from the fiasco that the Grand Galloping Gala had become. Alas, it was not to be. The grey mare looked on aghast as, almost from nowhere, Pinkie Pie produced a set of DJ turntables! It was as if she pulled the whole desk from her mane! What in Tartarus was this! Before she could even attempt to process this latest turn of events though, the pink hurricane was at the decks. “Come on, everypony! You wanted a partay? Now it's a paaartaaay!”
Not only did she wish she was dead, Octavia deeply wished that the ground would open up and swallow them all whole. Eternity in the ninth level of Tartarus wouldn’t be as bad as this debacle! Now though, Pinkie Pie was randomly assaulting ponies as they tried to get out. “Yeah! Uh! Now that's a beat, yeah!” she grabbed Upper Crust and Fine line, hugged Jet Set and thrust Hoity Toity high into the air. “Uh! C'mon, dance!”
Finally, having ran through the entire crowd, Pinkie Pie was back on the stage, apparently she was not finished. “Yeah, woohoo! Stage dive!” Unfortunately, her dive went very wrong and she slipped, falling head first into Octavia herself.
Time seemed to slow down, right then. Octavia was frozen in space. As Pinkie Pie was hurtling towards her like a cotton candy missile, the earth pony couldn’t move. Her hind legs seemed to disobey her brain’s commands. She barely had the time to drop her prized cello and scream out “Nooooooo!” than Pinkie had collided with her, her momentum performing a perfect flying tackle that drove her to the floor of the stage and the air from her lungs.
Laying on her back, staring up at the ornate ceiling of the grand ballroom, Octavia finally heard the snapping sound. At first, she thought it was one of her legs, or her back, or her neck. What it actually was, was much worse. Propping herself up on her elbows, the ballroom and all the nobles faded away. Nothing else existed when she saw her bow that was still held in her right forehoof. “What…” was all she managed to say, then, when it fell into two pieces, held together just by the strings, words failed her completely.
If Pinkie Pie noticed, she gave no sign. The pink wrecking ball was already up and bouncing her way through the stunned and outraged nobility. Shakily, Octavia stood up, holding her broken bow and her fallen cello, she surveyed the scene of utter carnage around her. Parish Nandermane was cradling his broken harp like it was a dead family member. Beauty Brass was crying over her battered horn, while Frederick was trying to right his piano.
Several dozen ponies in the crowd had fainted, some had dropped their wine glasses, others were yelling and screaming that this was the worst Grand Galloping Gala in history and it was all the musician’s faults.
In the circumstances, Octavia Melody did the only reasonable thing she could. Still gripping her broken bow, she hoisted up her cello on her back and, with hot salty tears splashing from her pink eyes, she ran. She didn’t care where she was running, she just ran. Blinded by her tears, Octavia burst through a carved set of white doors with gold filigree detailing and galloped away from the ballroom. In a moment, she had left the scene of chaos behind her. She vaguely heard a small explosion behind her and a mare shout out, “You! Will! Love me!” but she didn’t stop running.
Octavia galloped through the hallways and corridors of the royal palace, she scattered maids and butlers in her wake, and blindly she galloped up luxuriously carpeted stairs. She didn’t look where she was going. She didn’t care. She didn’t care that she was galloping through usually restricted hallways not allowed to the public. She didn’t care the guards were yelling at her. Her hooves clopped and echoed from the marbled floors, the guards yells falling on deafened ears.
In a side corridor off the main hallway, not far from the grand ballroom a lonely figure paused to look out a window with the view of Ponyville below. Ponyville was where those mares saved her and she knew they were in the ballroom. She had her two guards with her, but she may as well have been alone. The town looked beautiful in the night. The many twinkling lights visible like her night sky. Princess Luna, honoured guest of the gala, choose not to attend. Even though the ponies that saved her were there. The sounds of the stampede coming from the Gala. "Things seem to be deteriorating at the party..."
Lightshine, the younger of the two bat pony guards, swivelled her ears towards the sounds. She had never heard anything like the raucous screams and thundering of many, many hooves in the royal palace before. “Please stay behind us your Highness,” she warned, shooting a dangerous look to her partner. “It doesn’t sound like an attack, but we should be cautious.”
Princess Luna sighed deeply, her breath misting the window pane. She couldn’t help the crushing loneliness that had been nagging at her since her return. “Sounds like my sister’s party has gotten out of hoof even without my presence as a disruption.” She wasn’t really talking to her guards, more she was addressing her reflection in the window.
“Please, your Highness,” Nightflyer spoke up. The older of the two guards, the bat pony stallion readied his spear as the sounds of the stampede rose to riotous levels. Idly he wondered what was causing it all. It sounded like the royal menagerie had gotten loose in the grand ballroom, but he dismissed that thought. It was ridiculous, right? “Your sister did invite you for a reason.”
The lunar alicorn though would not allow her spirits to be raised. Her thoughts, as most had been since her return from the moon, were centred on the town below and, by extension, Equestria as a whole. Ponies who still slept through her night. Ponies who still ignored her work. Ignored her. Nothing had changed, it seemed. Another sigh escaped her. “Maybe this was her planned distraction should I have actually attended.”
About to say something else, Nightflyer’s comment died on his lips as the sound of approaching hooves echoed loudly on the polished marble of the floor came from the corridor outside reached his ears. Sensitive as the bat pony’s ears were, the approaching hooves seemed to come from left and right at the same time. As the hooves sounded closer and closer, both confused guards, who had been anticipating a quiet night due to the Grand Galloping Gala, went on alert. Luna herself readied a defensive spell should whatever it was make it past her elite guard.
Just in case.
In the main hallway, Octavia didn't care where she was going. With hot stinging tears blinding her, she turned a corner and came to the head of the three in the corridor. Still at a full gallop she bounced off the wall and turned to her left and, as she charged at full tilt through a small table with a vase, Lightshine was the first to react to the noise as she spun around. "Your Highness beh..."
Sadly, Octavia was galloping so fast, even with her cello on her back, that the guards had no more time than that to do anything. Princess Luna herself didn’t have a chance to turn around or cast her spell as, a split second later, she went head over hooves. Around her, on a table, books that she had been reading went flying, scattered in all directions by the force of the crashing impact. Her antique gramophone joined the books, smashing into bits on the unforgiving floor.
It was all over in mere heartbeats. Almost no time at all. Princess Luna came to rest on her back underneath the window that she had, until seconds before, been staring forlornly out of with her powerful wings spread wide. In her hooves, she held her unexpected visitor which, to the surprise of all, turned out to be a grey earth pony mare with a now messy charcoal grey mane, with her back against Luna’s chest. Comically, in any other situation it no doubt would have been funny, the pony was still running.
The Princess, quickly gathering her wits about her, saw that her ‘attacker’ was still galloping her legs in mid-air, tears still streaming down her cheeks. Clearly she had no idea where she was, what she was doing or whom she had just collided with. The alicorn looked up from the floor where she was laid and saw her two stunned guards looking down at her. Both had dropped their spears and, in the confusion, Nightflyer held a cello, while Lightshine held a broken bow in her hooves.
Octavia finally stopped trying to run when she saw she wasn’t going anywhere. Through her teary eyes she saw the two shocked guards, one holding her cello and the other holding her broken bow which was as shattered and broken as her dreams and reputation. “It’s all ru-ruined…ev-every-th-thing…it’s ru-ruined…” she sobbed pathetically into her hooves.
Lightshine glanced down and saw what she was holding, her spear lying dropped on the floor. “I didn’t break it!” she squeaked, her eyes wide as saucers. Only then did she notice the rather cold raised eyebrow her Princess was shooting her way. “Oh, um, are you okay, your Highness?”
“It’s over…every-th-things over!” Octavia bawled her heart out, still the tears came. Everything she had worked so hard for since she had left school, her whole career, Carneighgie Hall, everything, it was in tatters. She had nothing.
Princess Luna, for the moment, ignored the distraught little pony whom she still held protectively in her forelegs. Why, she didn’t know, it just seemed, well, rude, to just let her go. Instead, she levelled a deadly dangerous gaze at her two ‘elite’ guards. While her turquoise eyes were narrowed, she couldn’t keep the hint of amusement from her voice. They did look funny, stood there like that. “Both of you are here to protect me, right?”
Nightflyer shuffled awkwardly and, very carefully, the older bat pony set the cello against the table so that it wouldn’t fall over while his partner – who he hoped would be more than his professional partner very soon, laid the bow on the table itself. “Um…yes, your Highness.”
“A wonderful job, you did not do.” Luna was pleased that her guards had at least the sense to be embarrassed for their failure. Then, when she was absolutely sure that she was in no danger, curiosity took over, the sounds from the grand ballroom long forgotten. “So, whom do I have in my hooves?”
Lightshine had her ears flattened back against her head. “Hi-Highness, we ah…um…we um…well, you see, um…” she really had no excuse for their laxness. Instead, she tried to divert her Princess’s attention away from that and answer her question. Unfortunately, as she did not follow classical music, she had no idea. “She’s um…she’s an earth pony, your Highness?”
Luna resisted the urge to facehoof, but only just. “Your deductive skills are as sharp as ever, Lightshine.” She deadpanned.
“Your Highness, we ah…um…she was too fast, um…” Nightflyer, similarly embarrassed as his partner, had his ears slicked back. Unlike her though, he actually did know who the crying mare was. “I recognise her, your Highness. It is Miss Octavia Melody, who was to perform tonight at the Grand Galloping Gala…”
“Enough.” Princess Luna silenced them in an instant. “An earth pony? A musician? Too fast, for my elite Night Guard?” Her tone was high, cold and severe, but there was just a hint of a tease in her eye. She knew, of course, the two harboured intimate thoughts towards each other, but that was no excuse. “Leave us.” She commanded but, as the two bat ponies turned, she added, “In the morning, you will both report to Captain Moonscar for a month’s punishment duty.”
The two admonished guards shuffled off down the hallway and rounded a corner out of sight. Now that Luna was alone with the crying mare, she rather found that she didn’t know what to do with her. Luna stroked the distraught mare’s charcoal grey mane and tried to comfort her as best she could. “Hush now, you are safe. Hush child, for I have you in my protection.”
‘Mother bless me though,’ Luna thought to herself, ‘She is a pretty one!’ She didn’t know what prompted her to act as she did, but before she knew it, the Princess had shed her silver horseshoe and was wiping the tears from the earth pony’s matted cheeks. “My name is Luna, what is yours?” she asked as gently as she could.
"P-Pr-Princess Luna‽" The recognition of the name made Octavia squeak out in shock and embarrassment. This was the very mare she had wanted the privilege of playing for, and here she had blundered head first into her rear end. "Please forgive me, I didn't know you were there!"
"It is quite alright, child" Luna replied gently, for she genuinely didn’t want to distress her any more than she already was. As she sobbed in her forelegs, with her still stroking her cheek – seriously, why was she doing that? – Luna looked the remarkably pretty mare over. She had the shapely legs and defined muscle tone of an earth pony, alright, as well as a very nice rump, which the Princess tried hard not to look at. Luna did notice that the mare had a musical note as a cutie mark, and, with what Nightflyer had said, she opted for what she hoped was a safe topic of conversation. "Are you perhaps a member of the orchestra? Why were you running from the Gala?"
"M-My name is Oc-Octavia M-Me-Melody,” the earth pony managed to reply through her sobs, “and yes I am part of the quartet that was to play at the Gala. But..." Octavia's pink eyes were wet with fresh, hot tears. "But some pink mare ruined everything with that stupid song!" Listening, Luna wanted to say something, anything, but she couldn't find the proper words as Octavia started crying again. "I practiced and practiced, even becoming first cellist in the Canterlot Symphony Orchestra! Only to have my chance ruined!"
As it happened, from where she was – as Nightflyer had so eloquently put it to Lightshine when he thought she wasn’t listening – sulking, Luna had heard the very fine performance of the musicians. She had even been moved from her maudlin reverie by the first piece. She had absolutely no idea what a ‘Pony Pokey’ was though. "Dry your tears." Luna said, grabbing a hoofkerchief from the table. "I shall check and see if something can be done."
Carefully, very carefully indeed, Luna extracted herself from the earth pony mare who had taken up residence on her chest and belly. “Let’s see what all the fuss is about.” She didn’t think the mare heard her, so she draped a wing over her like a child. The mare stiffened, and then relaxed against her side. Luna moved down the hall towards the ballroom and the mare hidden from view moved with her. At the end she could look down from the upper floor balcony. Her turquoise eyes went very wide at the sight that greeted her. The Element of Kindness, looking like she had been dragged through every hedge in the royal gardens, backwards, was chasing several creatures from the menagerie along the corridor. Further along, she saw the Element of Generosity slapping Prince Blueblood as hard as she could. Outside the ballroom, she could see the Elements of Loyalty and Magic apologising profusely to her sister as several nobles stomped out and the Wonderbolts flew away.
With that, Luna decided she didn’t want to know. ‘Let Celestia deal with it…’ she thought to herself as she turned away to go back down the hall. Thankfully, the mare’s sobs were starting to come fewer and fewer. Luna used her magic to open a door to a side room used for some diplomatic function. ‘That is what I’m doing with this mare.’ The mare in question remained at her side as she entered. She peeked under her wing. ‘Well, she is quite pretty…’ she thought, biting her lip.
Though she wouldn’t normally do such a thing, she bent her long powerful legs and sat on the floor next to her and, summoning her nerve, Luna moved so their flanks touched. It would either go well or it would not. When the earth pony mare stiffened up again, and Luna at first thought she had erred, then, almost imperceptibly, she felt her soften in her embrace. Again, she tried for a safe topic to talk to her about, even though she wanted to cheer. "How about you can tell me more about this age's music, hmm?"
Octavia finally realized where she was. ‘She’s put her wing over me!’ Was the only thought Octavia could process. ‘The Princess of the Night has her wing over me! Oh wow, oh wow!’ Though she stiffened at first, she found herself leaning into the taller pony’s side as she began to tell Luna about the different genres; rock and pop, of which she knew little, and rap and punk, of which she knew even less. It was when she spoke of classical though, that she became passionate and animated.
"I see." Luna said, after a short while listening to Octavia speak. Her Canterlot accent was a joy to listen to, as was her fire when it came to music. True, proper music, though it bothered the Princess a little that what she called music was now called classic. "So,” she ventured, “despite the common pony's opinion to musical taste, you still want to perfect what is now called classical?"
"Yes." Octavia answered, her tears now dried up and a small smile growing on her face. "I've always loved music, and when I got my cutie mark in it, I threw myself at it. I practiced and practiced, and after years, my efforts paid off and my quartet and I were selected to play at the Grand Galloping Gala...only...only to have some mare from Ponyville ruin it all!"
"Shh shh." Luna said, wiping Octavia's fresh tears away. She had no desire to see this pretty young thing start crying again. Gently, she once more wiped her cheek, though this time she used her primary feathers. She absolutely adored the blush on her cheeks, noting too that she wasn’t asked to stop. ‘She likes mares!’ Luna gave a silent cheer, though she was careful not to rush. If things happened, they would happen in time, not when this mare was still upset. "I'm sorry I was not at the Gala. I would've loved to hear your music."
"Y-you mean it?" Octavia sniffled her sorrows, not hardly daring to believe what she had just heard. When Princess Luna nodded and lit her horn, Octavia wondered what she was doing. Her questions were soon answered when the alicorn took her bow and magically repaired it, so that it was as good as new.
"T-thank you!" Octavia's tears became those of joy rather than sorrow; she leapt up from the floor and, seizing her cello and her newly repaired bow, she set her instrument to play as best she could. With the cello ready and her mind clear, Octavia Melody took a deep breath. ‘W-well, here I go…playing solo for a Princess…no big deal…’
Princess Luna adjusted herself as Octavia began her piece. She tucked her legs under herself and folded away her wings. Within a few strokes of the bow across the strings, she realised she was in the presence of a great talent. She closed her eyes and allowed the beautiful music to wash over her like a balm.
Beautiful was an understatement. It was sublime, beyond anything that Luna would have believed a single pony could perform. The sound, the rhythm, the melody of the music danced around the room. It permeated her very soul in a manner she hadn’t thought possible. Not since the old days, the ‘classical’ era before her banishment, had she known music like this.
Luna's mind felt at ease and her heart felt at peace, far more so than she had in the year since her return. There was a power to it, a magic all its own that, while new, somehow managed to remind the Princess of a thousand years ago. There was something about the song reminded Luna of her times with Sky Dive. There were tears in her eyes she was so moved.
As she listened to the music sent to her straight from heaven, Princess Luna determined to make it right with this mare. So entranced was she by the sheer skill on display, that she resolved to find some recompense, some form of restitution for what had happened. She would not allow this Octavia’s dreams to be shattered, not here. Not this night.
When the music of the near five minute piece, ‘A Thousand Years’ finally slowed down to its end, Octavia saw the expression on Luna's face. She didn’t know if it was happy, sad or a mix of both. It was pretty hard to read. "Princess Luna...a-are you okay?" Octavia asked in a slightly worried tone.
"Y-yes." Luna sniffled, wiping the tears from her eyes. "It was just so beautiful." The Princess smiled a genuinely warm, sincere smile. One of the very few she had smiled in the past year. Her former maudlin mood long forgotten, driven away by the uplifting, beautiful melody, she knew just what to do to make this the best night ever! “Miss Melody,” she started as the mare took a graceful bow, “I should like to request the pleasure of your quartet, to perform here, at the palace, for a select audience, in a week’s time.”
Octavia was so surprised she almost dropped her cello and broke her newly repaired bow. “A-A…A se-select audience, your Highness?” she squeaked, wondering if this was all a dream.
Luna nodded, her smile never leaving her face. “A very small, very select, royal audience.” She hoped the emphasis that she placed on the word ‘royal’ was enough to get her point across without having to spell it out for her. Apparently, by the way her pink eyes went round as saucers, it was. Unfortunately, that revelation was one too many for the poor earth pony mare. What with her set being crashed, running into a Princess, performing for said Princess and now being invited to play with her friends for just the royals, it all proved too much.
Thankfully, as she murmured ‘best night ever’, Luna was ready to catch her and her cello in her magical aura as she fainted.
~ ~ ~
For the third time in seven days, Octavia Melody was nervous. Only this time, she wasn’t nervous because of performing in front of a grand ballroom full of nobility or for just the three Princesses and the Element of Magic, Twilight Sparkle, earlier that day at the palace. No, this time she was nervous because she was sat in the royal box of the Globe Theatre in Canterlot and sat just to her left was Princess Luna herself.
The grey earth pony mare looked down at the vast twenty sided theatre, big enough to hold one thousand four hundred ponies, as spectators slowly milled in and filled the seating around the sides, while the more ‘common’ ponies stood in the circular area in the middle in front of the stage, she wondered – not for the first time – what she was doing.
Obviously she knew what she was doing, she was sat in the royal box, in Canterlot’s most prestigious theatre, on a date. A date. A date with a Princess. She just didn’t know what she was doing. Here. ‘Why?’ she thought to herself for the hundredth time that evening. ‘Why me?’ Of all the ponies that the Princess could have chosen, she was at a loss for why she chose her.
‘I’m nopony special…’ Octavia thought awkwardly, fidgeting in her seat beside the Princess. ‘My father’s only a Baron in the Lower Noble Quarter…’ again, with that thought in her head, she fidgeted uncomfortably as a few of the common ponies from the Residential District stood in the standing area looked up at her and whispered amongst themselves.
Sat beside her date, with her two guards, Nightflyer and Lightshine stood at attention behind them at the doorway to the royal box, Princess Luna wondered what in the wide world of Equestria she was doing here. It had all seemed like a good idea at the time. Octavia Melody was a mare she liked, a mare she really liked. She was a mare she was attracted to, not just on a physical level, though that was a big part of it. ‘I am a Princess though!’ she thought to herself. ‘Did I not learn, from the last time?’
‘So what if I’m a Princess?’ a tiny part of her questioned herself. ‘Don’t I deserve to be happy?’ Of course, deep down, she knew the answer to that one. ‘No, I do not…’ she answered herself. ‘After what I did, after what I became…I deserve to be back on the moon!’
Princess Luna sighed quietly, but not too quietly, for her date heard her. When Octavia turned to give her a curious look, the lunar alicorn looked away from her. The sigh opened up another thought deep in her head, where the darkness of the Nightmare still resided inside her. ‘I was a monster. An evil, soulless, monster. I killed ponies, I destroyed noble houses, and I enslaved thousands. What right do I have to be happy?’
‘Sky Dive would want you to be happy.’ Luna didn’t know where that voice came from. The midnight blue mare sniffed, lost in her private inner argument. ‘Why would Sky want me to be happy?’ she questioned herself, ‘the first thing I did when I succumbed to the Nightmare was rape her for standing up to me!’ There was no getting away from the fact, though only she knew it. ‘Then I abandoned her when I was banished…she was imprisoned in the palace and she died cursing me!’
‘Yes,” yet another part of her reasoned, ‘but Sky Dive forgave you, at the very end. Celestia ‘imprisoned’ her for her own safety, against repercussions from the public. She ensured Sky lived out a long, luxurious life.’ Now, Luna turned and smiled at her date. It was a genuine, happy smile. Sky Dive had forgiven her. She had spent many an hour with her statue in the royal gardens making peace with her former lover. ‘Sky Dive would call me foolish for hesitating like this…’
Octavia caught the smile from her date and blushed heavily. As the crimson spread across her cheeks, so hot and red she was threatening to spontaneously combust, it was her turn to look away. She was acutely aware that they had been sat together for almost twenty minutes now and not one word had been exchanged beyond the pleasantries of welcome outside the theatre. ‘How can I be with a Princess?’ she thought, moving on from her thoughts about her father, although they weren’t far from her mind. ‘Yes, she asked me on this date earlier, yes I said yes, but how can I be with her?’
Again, she fidgeted on her seating pad and, as all these thoughts swirled in her head, she stroked her right foreleg with her left as more and more ponies took their seats. Now, the more upper class and ‘noble’ ponies seated themselves higher up around the sides. Almost all eyes were on the royal box, of course. ‘How can I be with her?’ she thought again. ‘I tour! My quartet tours! I have shows, performances! I can’t just give them up!’
When Octavia looked away from her, Luna faltered, just a little, but it was enough for her two guards to notice. The Princess couldn’t help but wonder what she was doing wrong. She had smiled! She had not used the Royal Canterlot Voice – something that Celestia and Cadance had both advised her not to do – she had bowed upon greeting her date! She had even allowed her date to enter the royal box ahead of her. Clearly though, she was doing something wrong.
She had reached out with her hoof, though now the silver horseshoe clad hoof hovered in mid-air between her and Octavia before being lowered back down to the floor. Luna didn’t understand. Both Celestia and Cadance as well as Twilight Sparkle had assured her that the old laws that outlawed same sex couples had been repealed centuries ago. The Princess tried hard to keep the confusion from her face. ‘Hmm…is this not allowed, now?’ she asked herself with no small degree of worry. ‘If it is allowed, is it sociably acceptable? Cadance did not teach me this…what do I do, now?’ She was painfully aware, as were her guards, that it had been almost thirty minutes since they had communicated at all, beyond the odd coy half-lidded look. ‘Does she not like me?’ Luna wondered. That was entirely possible. There were many nobles who wanted her to go back to the moon. She was about to stand, when she caught Nightflyer’s eye.
As the lights when down in the theatre and the spotlight shone upon the stage, signaling the start of the play, her bat pony guard nodded insistently between herself and her date. Rather unsubtly, he was mouthing ‘talk to her!’ over and over again, until at last Luna nodded, if only to stop him moving. She knew, as the instigator of their date, it was incumbent upon her to say something. As the curtain went up, she leant in to the earth pony mare and summoned her nerve, the part of her that was closest to Sky Dive. “Thank you so much for joining me at the theater tonight, Miss Melody.”
Octavia jumped, not so much from the closeness of her date, but by what she had said after so long silent. So caught by surprise was she that she missed the opening auction scene of The Phantom of the Opera, the play they were watching. “The ah, the pleasure is mine.” She replied once she had regained her composure. “This production has such wonderful music and songs. You um, you could simply call me Octavia.”
“What?” Luna asked quietly, again she caught the eye of her guards. This time it was Lightshine nodding enthusiastically. She decided to go ahead with it. “And leave me at such a disadvantage?”
Octavia blinked. “But...” she wondered briefly what she had said wrong, if she was making a fool of herself. “I...I really didn't mean to...”
“Really, Miss Melody,” Luna smiled, fully ignoring the looks on her guards faces, she knew what she was doing. Now she had started, the tease in her knew where to go. The little bit of Sky Dive in her head quelled all her doubts. “In my time a pony with more than one name was considered quite presumptuous.”
“My parents...” Octavia spluttered. She did not see Lightshine dig her beloved in the ribs and both guards share a silent giggle, “I didn't know...I'm sorry...”
“Please, Miss Melody,” Luna waved her forehoof in the air as the play carried on below them, for the moment ignored. “I have done my research on these modern times, so I can understand with the growing number of ponies the need for two names.”
Poor Octavia didn’t know what to think! Was the Princess upset with her? If that was the case, why ask her out at all? It wasn’t her fault she had two names. Should she change it? What was the etiquette here? Tentatively, for the Princess did not seem angry or upset, she asked, “Then you're not upset that I have two names?”
For a short moment, Luna was worried she had gone too far in her tease. She made a mental note to talk with Cadance about the norms of modern social interactions. Perhaps they were different to what she remembered. “Of course not, I'm trying to adapt to this modern era.” She casually reached around Octavia’s back with her broad powerful wing and pulled her in closer. “Still, you should now see the disadvantage I'm at. Should I simply call you Octavia, and you call me Princess Luna, who now is the presumptuous pony?”
“Oh!” Octavia gasped when she felt the midnight blue feathers caress her shoulder. She could feel hundreds of eyes on her but she only cared about the turquoise ones before her. “Well, um, I could call you Princess then?”
“Yes, you could, or you could call me pony, or alicorn, or blue, or any number of adjectives.”
“But...I...um...” Octavia found she rather couldn’t concentrate when the Princess leant in so close that they were now nose to nose. It was as if the Globe Theatre and the play was in a whole other dimension far, far away. Only two beings mattered at that moment, and she was gazing into the lustrous, beautiful eyes of the other.
“So, Octavia,” Luna smiled, giving her date her very best half-lidded bedroom eyes, “should I call you that then you must simply call me Luna.”
With a gulp, and a summoning of every ounce of nerve she had, Octavia Melody risked it all and touched her nose to the Princess’s. “I could do that, Luna.”
Luna, who was emboldened both by the touching of noses and her guards urging her on, wrapped her other wing around Octavia’s body and she completed the kiss. It started as a chaste little kiss, but as Octavia wrapped a grey foreleg around Luna's neck, bringing her into an even tighter embrace as she tilted her head to one side, she kissed her date full on the lips.
Princess Luna returned the gesture, placing her own leg on Octavia’s shoulder, running it up through her charcoal grey mane as she ran her tongue boldly across her lips, asking permission to enter. The cellist gladly granted it, parting her lips for Luna's tongue as she ran her own over and around it, eliciting a few pleasurable moans from the alicorn.
A second or two later and Luna, far more dominant now the ice was well and truly broken, thrust forward with her tongue into Octavia's mouth, running it around the inside before briefly wrestling the earth pony mare’s tongue into submission. Finally the need to breathe forced them both to break the kiss, their lips coming apart with a wet smacking noise. “I believe I would like that, Octavia…” Luna gasped, both mares left breathless by the incredibly passionate kiss. Basking in the afterglow of such a wonderful, amazing moment, with her heart feeling lighter than air in her heaving chest, Octavia was vaguely aware that she had been worried mere seconds before, but whatever they were, they didn’t seem remotely important anymore.
By her side, Princess Luna smiled. Hugging Octavia close to her side, she settled down to watch the play. Lighting her horn, she reached out to the heavens with her powerful magic. With nothing but a thought, she created a new star.
Shining impossibly brightly in the night sky, this new star joined the four other Midnight Stars. “Best. Night. Ever…” Luna said softly, to which Octavia ‘hmm’d’ her agreement.
