Octavia's Adventure

Octavia finished breakfast and drank her cold tea. Something had to go right for her today, it just had to. She didn’t feel comfortable leaving her flat without her bowtie. She needed something on her neck, and this bowtie was all she really had. Without it, she felt naked, she felt… well, she supposed she could wear one of her shawls. This would cover her up, at least. Perhaps it would fix her feelings of nakedness.

Wrapped in a lavender shawl decorated with a plethora of music notes, rests, and other various symbols, she set out with her bowtie in the pocket tucked inside the shawl. She still felt very nervous, as though she was purely naked. This, as she thought about it more, was a silly thing to think, since she count at least five ponies with no saddles, dresses, or even saddlebags.

She had grown up with the notion that not wearing anything was improper and certainly not a sign of her sophistication. She wore dresses when she was younger; then when she started cello, her father had got her a cloak. Then, of course, she received the bowtie. Since then, she had worn it religiously, day in and day out. It was just something she did. She never really questioned it, nor did she really determine that it was odd or strange. It was just that she needed to wear something.

The shawl was modest, but it wasn’t the kind of modest she had grown accustomed to over the many years she had been a professional cellist. She was used to there being something around her neck, specifically that bowtie. She pulled it out of her pocket as she paused on the stairs down from her flat. She just couldn’t go out there without something on her, without this bowtie.

She nervously looked at the tear in the soft fabric. Perhaps it would hold until she got to the tailor’s. She just couldn’t bear to walk out of the stairwell into the public eye without it on, though. She had to risk it if she was ever going to leave her apartment again. She needed this bowtie fixed. And she needed it before lunch.

She put it on, despite all the feelings in her body telling her not to, but this was her bowtie. Her only neckwear. She sighed as she finally realized, this bowtie had been her only love. She felt so lonely and pathetic. If this bowtie was her only love, what could it possibly mean? She only ever spent time wearing it. She didn’t really have any friends outside her musician colleagues, and they weren’t quite a lively bunch for harbouring grander feelings than friends. And even they were fairly dry by Octavia’s standards. She had to admit it, though, that she had always wanted something grander than the ‘friends’ she had in the orchestra.

Frederick was certainly not her friend. If that wasn’t clear before, it was clear this morning. In fact, Octavia considered him the rudest, most inconsiderate piece of… Come on, Octavia, that’s not how a lady talks about somepony.

Harpo Parish, the harpist, was very finicky about who he spent time with, and seemed too snobby for her. She tried to spend some time with him to get to know him, but all she was given in response was a scowl and a quick turn.

Octavia didn’t even know the tuba player’s name, but she tried befriending her once, but to no avail. She had been cast aside without a word, and how the tuba player did it, she was never really sure. She wasn’t a unicorn…

She was left without a friend. She had really only two loves, now that she had given it more thought. She loved her bowtie, and she loved her music. She felt ridiculous acknowledging, even if it was to herself, that these were her only two loves. She took a deep breath, hoof held to her bowtie, and walked out into the street to head toward her tailor. This could work, she thought. I could make it.

She started to smile, and as she turned to go down the street, she nearly walked into Noteworthy for the second time today. The difference was that now, he was actually paying attention to her.

“Hello there,” he said, with a smile on his face.

“Uh, hello there,” she said, putting a hoof on the back of her neck.

“What would a mare like you be doing out on a day like this?”

“I’m—I’m just heading to the tailor to get my bowtie repaired…” she said, feeling across her neck for the article of clothing she had grown so attached to over the years. She grew more and more nervous as she didn’t find it on her neck. It occurred to her that when she moved her hoof around to the back of her neck that it had fallen off. She blushed a deep scarlet and looked down on the ground quickly to see if it happened to be there.

It wasn’t. Just your luck, Octavia, it would have fallen off and gotten lost. This is just horrible! She backed up from Noteworthy, now that she resumed her feeling of nakedness. But she couldn’t go home now… how could she ever hope to find her bowtie if she did? This is important, Octavia thought to herself, trying to keep her calm, you have to find that bowtie!

She gave a nervous look at the stallion in front of her. This was her perhaps one and only chance to talk to him. She could never work up the courage before, and he was already talking to her now. The fact of the matter remained, she didn’t have her bowtie. Without that, she may as well not even be wearing the shawl she had wrapped around her. She looked all around, hoping that her bowtie was somewhere on the ground. She saw it, not four lengths ahead of her. She charged past Noteworthy to get it. Just when she was about within reach when the wind picked up and the bowtie drifted off. With a curse to the Pegasus who was in charge of the winds on this street, who only could shrug in response, she dashed off after her bowtie.

The prevailing winds carried the neckwear through the streets of Canterlot, and Octavia failed to take notice just where the winding streets and cobblestone walls were taking her. She only followed the bowtie that she had so loved for all these years, her one connection to her father. She didn’t care what happened right now, as long as she could recover her pink bowtie.

She tried to ignore all the stares and glances from the ponies who watched her gallop through the streets of Canterlot, pursuing this whimsical chase. She felt the blood in her cheeks, heated and at the surface. She was, in her mind, running through the town with nary a thing on, and without any form of decency.

You need to press on, Octavia, she thought as she could feel herself slow down from all the stares and the realization that she was, once again, naked. While she was wearing a very modest shawl, her neck was bear, and that was her biggest fear. Come on, Octavia! You’re acting like a filly now! What possibly would these ponies think if they saw you without the bowtie? She was trying to convince herself that the feelings she had inside were silly. They were the culmination of habit and diurnal routine being broken, that was all. At least, that was what she was trying to get herself to think.

This was serious in her mind. That bowtie, which was now drifting higher and higher, almost out of her reach completely, was her connection to her father. With it slipping away, it almost felt like her connection to her father, and by proxy, everything she knew and loved about music, was gone. She watched as all the Pegasi simply carried on about their business.

“Excuse me,” she said, barely summoning up enough courage to talk to one of them. It was a mare with a Rainbow-streaked mane.

“What?” she said, started. “Oh, hi. Another fan come to get an autograph from the Great Rainbow Dash?” She had a smile as wide as it could be on her blue face. Octavia felt the presence of several eyes on her and she retracted further into her shawl.

“I was… just…” Her words were failing her. She couldn’t speak with all these ponies staring at her. There were fillies and colts, mares and stallions, unicorns and Pegasi, all turning their gaze to her. She gave a small yelp then turned and fled. She slipped into a shop, through the door to the Mare’s Room, and locked herself in a stall for the second time today.

She was breathing hard not from the exhaustion of all the running. That was a different kind of pant that Octavia was unfamiliar with. No, this was a very common panting that had come across her mind several times when she woke up from nightmares that happened to be just like today was playing out.

“Why, oh Princess Luna, am I having such Nightmares!” she said out loud. She wrapped the shawl around her and began shivering. This was her nerves. It was a rather strange sensation to not be half-asleep when she felt them. Normally, they only got to her when she was woken from a peaceful slumber by images she dreaded to think about. She had long gotten over stage fright.

Pull yourself together, Octavia, this is not becoming of such a proper mare! She scolded herself again. Oh, who am I kidding? She felt tears well up in her eyes again. She had lost the bowtie that her father gave her. How could she ever replace it? The truth of the matter is, she couldn’t. It was a piece of her that she was never getting back. She felt this emptiness in her heart.

As the first few tears dropped from her face, she began thinking about how she was losing touch with her father. She worried that she would forget all those wonderful times that she always associated with him, and that bowtie. That bowtie, that one single piece of neckwear, that one ribbon of pink cloth that had adorned her neck every day for the past 25 years… it was gone.

The next few tears dropped, starting to form a pool at her hooves. She began wondering if she would ever feel comfortable enough to leave this bathroom stall, let alone go somewhere, and Celestia forbid play in front of a crowd again. She was nothing now, if she didn’t have her bowtie. It was her connection to her inner musician. Without it, she felt dead inside.

More tears fell from her eyes, making a sizeable pool of themselves beneath her. She began sniffling as the salty liquid drained into her nose. This was her life now? On what was to be the most important day of her life? When she played at a celebration of a coronation of all things? And now, she was just a failure. She had lost everything.

She could hear the clock bells toll from inside the bathroom. It was ten o’clock. She didn’t think that she could will herself to leave this bathroom. Not now, especially when she was this… discomposed. She was startled when she heard the door open, and somepony walk in.

All Octavia could hear besides the echoing of her footsteps was the rhythmic drumming of some sound that came from the direction she was in. Octavia held her breath to keep from sobbing and drawing any more attention to herself.

There was a knock at the stall door.

“Yo! You almost done in there? I kinda need the thing… fast!” That voice… it was so… improper, so, so uncouth. This certainly had to be a visitor filing into Canterlot for the Coronation Celebration.

“Is-isn’t there another stall open?” Octavia asked. Her body heaved nearly sobbing from her continued sadness.

“Nah, man! This is the only one!”

Man? Did that pony just call her a man? What in the hay did that even mean? ‘Man’? “Pardon me, but I do believe that I am a mare, and I always have been.”

“Well, well,” said the pony behind the door. “I do so humbly apologize.” There was an air of sarcasm. The sadness Octavia was feeling vanished completely at this display of sheer disrespect. Surely this pony knew better than to treat a lady like that! Particularly since she was a lady herself! She threw open the stall door to find herself face to face with a stunning white unicorn with bright blue hair, purple glasses, and a wide smile on her face. Across her ears were headphones, and that was the source of the rhythm Octavia could hear.

“Well,” Octavia said, facing her insulter. “I do believe you owe me an apology.” Octavia couldn’t see anything through the purple glasses that the unicorn before she wore. They were relatively opaque from this side, and there was no telling how she was able to see out of them at all. She studied the unicorn before her. The mane and tail were clearly not well-maintained, and the atrocious noise that was emitted from those headphones was ghastly and vexing. Her cutie mark was a beamed pair of black eighth notes. The blue in her mane was toned down a bit by the body of it being darker, but the first thing that caught Octavia’s attention still stood out to her.

“Me? Owe you an apology? For what?” The pony before her was obviously confused, so Octavia would have to explain.

“I think you owe me an apology for calling me a ‘man.’ Whatever that means, I don’t suppose it’s any good.”

“That? That’s just what I call everypony, calm down!” The intruder gave a look down Octavia, then noticed the tear pool on the floor. “Dude, seriously, there’s a toilet there for a reason.”

“What—“ Octavia took her turn to be confused, then she followed where the white unicorn was pointing. “That? Those are tears if you must know.” At this moment, the unicorn before her did something she didn’t expect. She took off her glasses to reveal rose-colored eyes.

“Why have you been crying?” she asked.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Octavia pronounced.

“You’d be surprised,” she said, “My name’s Vinyl Scratch. If you let me use the stall real quick, I’d love to talk to you some more.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I do apologize,” Octavia said, noticing the look of anticipation on Vinyl’s face. She stepped delicately out of the stall, letting Vinyl in. Octavia went over to the sink and washed off her face, but the tearstains were still visible. After a flush of the toilet, Vinyl came out, washed her hooves, then put a hoof around Octavia.

“What’s your name?” she asked, with a soft tone that didn’t really fit all the previous experience that Octavia had with her.

“I’m Octavia Philiharmonica,” she replied. She had regained some of her composure, but she was still distraught about her missing bowtie.

“Well, then, Octy—“

“Please, do not call me Octy,” the gray mare insisted.

“I’ve gotta call you something, and that seems like a great nickname to me,” Vinyl said.

“I would still prefer if you didn’t call me that.”

“Well, Octavia,” Vinyl said, understanding that this wasn’t about her right now. “Why were you crying?”

Octavia turned her face to the floor. She simply couldn’t admit her shameful obsession with her bowtie. It was embarrassing when she tried to think about it herself, let alone when she was going to talk about it with another pony. “I don’t really wish to speak about it,” she said.

“If you don’t wanna talk about it, then you don’t wanna talk about it. But I don’t think that it’s going to do you any good just sitting around in that stall crying.” Vinyl was a bit abrasive with her approach, but she was entirely right. Octavia wasn’t going to complete anything in her life just sitting here moping about losing her bowtie. And there was something about Vinyl that she trusted, something that made her feel comfortable even though she didn’t have her bowtie.

“I suppose I could tell you,” Octavia said, feeling Vinyl’s hoof rub comfortingly against her side. This simple action reminded her of her father after one of her practices. She had been scolded by her maestro, and her father was there immediately after the session, with a hoof around her like Vinyl was doing now. This sense of comfort, this sense of familiarity, both sent chills down her spine, and made her more comfortable.

“I’m listening,” Vinyl said in a caring tone. This was nothing like Octavia’s first impression of her, this was unexpected and pleasant.

“I’m so distraught because earlier… I lost my bowtie,” she said, her volume dropping off at the end. She was so nervous about it that she nearly didn’t say it at all.

“That,” Vinyl said before pausing. Oh dear princesses, this was the judgment. This was Vinyl’s time to tell her how stupid and silly, how improper and fillyish this was. When Vinyl opened her mouth to complete her statement, she closed her eyes and prepared for the worst. This mare, who had seemed so genuinely concerned for a fellow musician, was going to pass her down-talking and lectures on to her. What did come out of Vinyl’s mouth, though, was to her great surprise: “That is horrible! If I ever lost my sunglasses, I don’t think I’d ever want to leave my home in Ponyville again!”

The look on Octavia’s face must have spoke volumes, because Vinyl only gave her a nod. “Is there anything I can do to help, Octavia?”

“Well,” she said, “I don’t think so. I mean, the weather Pegasi pretty much cleared that one up.”

“I figured it was awfully windy out today.” Vinyl gave Octavia a small smile. “Listen, we can go looking for our bowtie If you’d like. I know this mare who can locate gemstones. Perhaps she can help us with a location spell on that bowtie.” Vinyl was offering all she could, and she knew that her new friend was going to need it all.

“I-I can’t go out there!”

“Why not?”

“I don’t have my bowtie! I feel so naked!” Octavia said a little louder than she first intended. This was sure to garner some criticism. She felt the blood rush to her cheeks and she hid herself behind the shawl some more.

“I’d feel that way without my glasses, but in order for us to find it, Octy, you need to be brave.”

“I suppose you’re right, Vinyl,” Octavia said, ceding her point. If she was ever going to move on with her life—and if she was going to make that concert tonight—she would have to leave this bathroom sooner or later.

“Come on, we need to go find Rarity,” Vinyl said.