By Definition

by Soft Shake

Rating: everyone
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Octavia, Romance, Slice of Life, DJ P0N-3
Length: 2470

Octavia's having a bad day. She keeps having bad days. Vinyl tries her hoof at easing the pain with a pretty outlandish idea.

Octavia's having a bad day. She keeps having bad days. She keeps failing at everyday skills that normal ponies don't have to worry about; She keeps failing at existing around other ponies. She can never exist right around them. She can't smile right around them... She can't make chitchat the right way... She can't open up. Something must be so wrong with her. She must be some kind of monster.

Her wife, Vinyl, begs to differ. And she tries her hoof at easing the pain with a pretty outlandish idea.

Published 2022-10-10 16:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2022-10-10 16:50:01 UTC

Automatically Perfect

Octavia did not intend to get up. Nor did she intend to get out of bed. Or to leave the house. Or to be seen by anypony ever again. In fact, she did not particularly intend on continuing to function in any kind of harmony with the world around her ever again.

She knew, though, that she probably would do all of these things sooner or later, whether she currently intended to or not.

She would set up her cello and play on a stage in front of another hundred ponies again and again and again. Somehow.

That was just the way the world had always worked. How she worked. If there was a place she was needed at, she was there. If there was a thing she should be doing, she was doing it. As long as she was living in a world filled with obligations, she would attend to them. Always had.

If she ever stopped, who would she be then?

Despite knowing all of this, she still couldn’t conceive of a state of being in which she’d be able to leave the house by the end of the weekend.

She was scared. So scared, in fact, that she felt a certainty in her core that she would not go. And yet she remained miserable at the simultaneous certainty that she would.

That was when Vinyl walked in.

She always forgot to knock.

Octavia hid her face in her pillow as fast as she could, but the damage was done.

“Octy?”

Her voice was hoarse due to its lack of consistent use.

It was never that she couldn’t talk, Octavia had come to understand, but that most of the time she simply felt no need to. After going so long without talking by pure accident all the time, digging her voice back up from her graveyard of a throat had become a hassle.

So the fact that she had chosen to use that voice at this moment meant that she’d deemed it necessary.

“It’s nothing,” groaned Octavia into the pillow. She kind of wanted to tell her to go away, but this was Vinyl’s bedroom too.

“Tsk,” said Vinyl as she trotted over to the bed, approximately translating into a sarcastic, ‘Oh yeah?’

“Yes, I mean it. It’s… not even…” Usually, she meant it when she said it was nothing. Even if it was definitely something. Her problems never felt like they were actually worth the tears. She was always willing to concede that she was just being dramatic.

This time, she couldn’t convince herself of that.

Vinyl flopped herself onto the bed, bouncing Octavia a bit, and completely invading her space by laying close enough to rub against her.

“Vinyl…”

It was initially intended as another viscous groan of disapproval, but she hadn’t had the heart to carry through on that. Instead, the sound was an admission of defeat.

Eventually, amidst Octavia’s soft sniffling into the pillow, she heard the soft click of Vinyl’s shades settling on the nightstand.

And Octavia sighed, knowing she was being stared at. Waited on.

“I can’t talk about this,” Octavia settled on saying. “I’m… not ready yet.”

A patient, and unexpectedly comfortable silence filled the room. It was comfortable in the sense that she knew Vinyl wasn’t pressuring her. That she was content to support her in shared silence, like she always did, just by being here with her. And that made the anvil in her chest lose a bit more of its weight the longer it went on.

Octavia considered talking about it after all. Like she always did.

“It was… Lyra Heartstrings,” she caved, a sniff in between the words. “She’s a lovely pony, Vinyl. She never… She never did anything wrong. It's just… I just… We were talking and she… I mean I…”

Vinyl had heard this kind of broken storytelling before. She had heard this story before, with different names and dates. Octavia knew she could fill in the gaps.

“And her fiancée, Bon Bon, is sweet too. They are so sweet. And I just… I wasn’t… I couldn’t… I just wish they knew I'm not really that way-” Her voice reared upward involuntarily at the end and she almost burst into tears again. “I’m not. I’m really not.” Familiar tears flooded her face again as the words opened the gates for sobs to spill out of her all over again.

Whatever. If she had to cry in front of somepony, at least it was Vinyl.

After a beat, a hoof began gently stroking her mane. It was a slow and rhythmic motion. It filled in the same hole created by the absence of a calming breath. It was Vinyl.

Octavia sucked in a sharp breath and let it go a few times, trying to steady it. Once she was able to stop crying out loud, she started to speak again.

“I… didn’t smile,” she found herself saying. “... I never smile. I always forget to smile. I’m awful, Vinyl. I want to smile, or say hi, but… but I just get so nervous it's like I’ve forgotten how to speak. I mean I don’t know what to say, I-... I don’t know anything about… ponies. It’s just music. That’s all I know, it’s all I’ve ever known. That's all I am. I must be some kind of monster--”

Vinyl clicked her tongue in disapproval, stopping her in her tracts. ‘Not a monster,’ she’d clearly intended to say, like this was something they’d gone over before. They had.

“Then what,” Groaned Octavia. She really did want to know.

There was a pause. It didn’t need an answer.

Then, “How ‘bout a god?”

Octavia lifted her gaze just enough to stare at her wife.

She found magenta eyes staring back at her with utmost certainty.

Smearing a hoof across her tears again, Octavia prompted, “I beg your pardon?”

Vinyl laughed a bit, that quiet laugh of hers, and repeated aloud, “A god!”

Octavia just allowed herself a minute to gather herself, clearing her face and sniffling. The jarring change in direction made it a little easier to stop crying. When she was sure she could get a full sentence out, she asked, “Do I even want to know what you're going on about?”

Vinyl shoved her hoof into Octavia’s side-- Her typical motion for ‘Seriously, here me out’-- and then continued verbally despite herself. “Pretend.”

“Pretend I’m a god?” Octavia cynically repeated. “Sorry, but not all of us were born with an ego that allows for such narcissistic ideologies….”

Vinyl laughed at the jab, flattered by it, and then shook her head. No, No, I mean - “Just pretend it, you don’t have to actually believe it.”

Octavia, as willing as she was to accept advice, did not see any merit in that. “If I don’t believe it, then… What's the point? To excuse inappropriate behavior and avoid taking accountability? Not really interested.”

“It’s not about that,” She replied out loud. “Or even about pretending you're any different than you are. Nothing about you changes if we decide that you, Octavia Melody Scratch, are a god, and have always been a god.”

“If it doesn't change anything, then how should it make me feel better? God or not, I’m terrible…”

Vinyl took a little inward breath in preparation to start really speaking. “If a god were to exist. Not just some immortal pony like Princess Celestia, but…” She stared down at her hooves, trying to help herself find words with the shapes she was tracing on the bed, “An in-... in-... inconsequential?” But then she was shaking her head, ‘of course not.’

“Incomprehensible?” Offered her wife.

Vinyl beamed and shot an approving hoof at her. “If an incomprehensible deity that nopony knows exists were to actually… exist, then of course that means it's incapable of being anything less than that. And the concept of a god, by definition--” Cleared her throat a bit, “--is like, the one thing in the universe without any imperfections, just cuz it’s a god. Its qualities and personality traits don’t matter, because whatever it is is automatically deemed perfect based on that status alone.”

Octavia dropped her cheek onto the pillow again and focused on keeping more tears from leaving her eyes despite how full they were. “Okay... I still don’t see how this correlates with me.”

“If you just think of yourself as a god,” Continued Vinyl, touching Octavia’s side again, “Then your qualities and personality traits don’t matter. And it doesn’t matter if other ponies know you're a god, because you're still a god. And that means everything you do is automatically perfect, godlike, by very definition. And you can forgive ponies for not understanding because how could they? They don’t know what you are. ”

Octavia was quiet.

She was so taken aback by the fact that Vinyl had been speaking this much that she almost forgot to process what she’d actually said. “That’s… a nice thought, but-”

“It is a nice thought, isn’t it?” Vinyl interrupted with a playful nudge. “Why don’t you at least give it a try? Repeat after me.”

“Vinyl, this is ridiculous--”

“I, Octavia Melody Scratch,” started Vinyl quite optimistically.

Octavia sighed deeply. Only for Vinyl. “I, Octavia Melody Scratch.”

“Am a literal god.”

Hesitation. “...Literal?”

A look.

A sigh. “Okay, okay. I, Octavia Melody Scratch, am a lit-... teral...” It was even harder to get out than she’d expected it to be. Like bile expelled from her guts. “...God?”

Vinyl lowered her head the way she would when she looked above her shades at her, with a politely encouraging look on her face that read, ‘You wanna try that again?’

Octavia sighed, breathing out every thought that preceded it. “You seriously want me to do that again.”

A smile.

“You… aren’t even going to lead me this time?”

With a simple head shake no, Vinyl rested her head in her hoof to wait with a grin.

Octavia took in a long, pained breath.

Let’s just get this over with.

“I, Octavia Melody Scratch, am a literal-…. Oh, for the love of Celestia.” She was burying her head in her hoof for a moment. “I, Octavia Mel- Can I at least drop the literal part? I just think it’s really throwing me off.”

Vinyl didn’t even dignify that with a nonverbal reply.

Octavia let out a huff, reluctantly refocusing. “Alright, fine, it isn’t true but… I, Octavia,Melody Scratch, am… a literal… god.”

…There.

Vinyl, full of hope, made a rotation motion with her hoof.

It felt wrong, sticky, like dried gum sticking to the roof of her mouth, “I, Octavia Melody Scratch, am a-... literal god…”

From Vinyl, another encouraging hoof motion.

Just get it out fast. “I, Octavia Melody Scratch, am a literal god.”

And she’d done it. She’d said it. She’d gotten the full sentence out at least one more time.

But Vinyl was still waiting.

So, again.

“I, Octavia Melody Scratch, am a literal god.”

It was getting easier now.

It was like blowing dust off of a forgotten, empty shelf, and the further she cleared it off, the stronger of an urge she felt to place something there. Things that were meant to be there all this time that she’d never had the energy to spend time hauling off the floor. But now she’d found a shelf for them, and she’d already started the hauling, and she needed to occupy the shelf, and they really didn’t belong on the floor.

“I, Octavia Melody Scratch… I, Octavia Melody Scratch, am a god.”

There was more.

“And that means I’m perfect. It doesn’t matter what I am, I’m, just, automatically perfect. They just don’t know it, and it doesn’t matter, because I’m perfect with or without them. I’m… I am Octavia Melody Scratch and I’m a god!”

A sudden compulsion to jump off the bed and stand on her hooves.

She screamed: “I AM OCTAVIA MELODY SCRATCH AND I AM A GOD!”

“WHAT ARE YOU?” Vinyl jumped down with her.

“I AM OCTAVIA MELODY SCRATCH AND I AM THE END ALL BE ALL!”

“WHAT! ARE! YOU!”

“I AM OCTAVIA MELODY SCRATCH AND I! AM! A! GOD!”

“AND ALSO WHAT!”

“AND ALSO AN IDIOT FOR MARRYING AN EGOMANIAC WITH THE WEIRDEST COMFORT STRATEGIES!”

“AND ALSO WHAT!”

“AND ALSO A PONY WHO’S GOD AWFUL AT SOCIAL INTERACTION!”

“AND ALSO WHAT!”

“AND ALSO I'M PERFECT!”

“YOU’RE DANG RIGHT, YOU-”

Coughing interrupted Vinyl, but that didn’t deter her from wrapping Octavia under her forehoof and pulling her close. As she forced her coughing to quiet a bit, she rubbed the side of her face against Octavia’s neck in a silent but clear assertion of pride.

‘Knew you could do it!’

Octavia laughed giddily, “Only you could get such a ludicrous display out of me. …Thanks for that.”

Vinyl offered a cheeky smirk in response, far more aware of her own worth.

Everything felt lighter now.

Not perfect.

But lighter.

Epilogue

Octavia and Vinyl were loosely tangled up under the covers.

Octavia hadn’t slept. And Vinyl hadn’t done much of that either.

A soft sigh escaped her, and Vinyl noticed with a frown.

“Sorry,” eased Octavia. “I really do feel a lot better.”

Vinyl cocked her head. ‘But?’

“But,” Octavia started experimentally. “I still feel bad about… Lyra. I don’t know if I can face her again. I don’t… I just don’t know what to do.”

Vinyl didn’t give much of a response, only watching and waiting with a look of deep sympathy on her face. She didn’t seem to have any instant remedy for it, or any more grandiose ideas. Perhaps she couldn’t come up with something helpful because she knew how hard this stuff had always been for Octavia.

She’d learned over the many, many years of knowing her that there was a certain point where there really wasn’t anything that could help. A certain, limited extent to which any words of encouragement and casual strategies she could come up with were able to help.

Octavia was still going to have to face Lyra, god or not, and she was probably going to have to navigate that situation all on her own, without the help of her sheet music or her wife. And she didn’t want her relationship with that nice mare to be built on continued silences, dismissive attitudes, and misunderstandings. She didn’t want that with any pony. She wanted to do better, but she just didn’t know how. It was so hard.

Vinyl tapped her hoof to hers. And when Octavia looked up, Vinyl was offering her most gentle smile of encouragement.

She could read it, of course. But it said so many things.

Octavia buried her face into her wife’s chest, and whispered through falling tears.

“Thank you, Vinyl.”