II - Scorpio Octavia, fanfic (english)

Chapter II
Scorpio Octavia

The awakener (a grey mane, brown coat pony) knocked her window, as he did with each of the hundreds of Windows off the “Workmare” Street, exactly at six of the morning each day, without exception. She awoke, sleepy still, wishing with all of her soul to knock herself out on the mattress once again, and cover herself with her warm and fussy blankets. But should she do that, there would be no money for the daily expenses. She got up, cursing her fate. She didn’t remember the last time she had a free day. She opened the window curtains and beheld the grey morning landscape: Manedon, cradle of the industrial revolution. Columns of smoke rose in the distance, born from hundreds of factories and large ships sailing across the river. She worked at the marketplace, distributing fruits and vegetables, unloading shipments that arrived airborne, and also from the river or by land. She hated her job. But amongst all the stress and boredom the work implied, at least she had some sort of spiritual freedom: the music on the radio, same music she heard from the awakening hour until the last hour of work at the market.  She stretched her body, fading away all of the corpus-rictus; turned the radio on, on her favourite station of course, where Colthoven’s ninth symphony was being played (one of her favourites, her source of inspiration…). She washed her mouth, tied a bow around her neck, passed the comb across her long, straight black hair, looked at the mirror and made sure she looked fine and dandy: she and her purple eyes were indeed dandy, but her humble home on the other side…

-Oh, it doesn’t matter. I live alone, and never got any visitors- Even if her house wasn’t such a mess, truth be told even the slightest amount of clutter looked like a wave of spoils and trash in such a small place, but it’s the only place she could afford.


She went at the Street outside, locked her house up and made way at a steady step towards the Marketplace. While trotting, she heard the spoke-stallion tune their usual voices: weather, which new law had been passed at the city hall, the state of affair regarding the Zodiac Tournament…

-Wait, that’s new…- She told herself, when seeing a little pony gluing (with  tar and a large brush) some kind of a large poster into the wall, followed closely by another (larger and wider) poster. The first one of those things read: “An earth pony got for herself the celestial cloth of the bull, Taurus Applejack is now the new warrior at the service and protection off our beloved Princess Celestia”, below the headlines was the illustration of a golden-mane, orange-coat pony. “Oh my, she’s so tall…or maybe the illustrator enhanced her looks on this one painting?”. The next poster was, without a trace of doubt, way less humble: “BEHOLD THE ONE AND ONLY, THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE, THE QUEEN OF MAGIC, GODDESS OF ENCHANTMENTS, THE ONE TRUE CONTENDER THAT WILL SUCCEED ON HER ATTEMPTS TO OWN THE DIVINE CLOTH OF THE DIVINE ARCHER, SAGITTARIUS TRIXIE LULAMOON!!!” On such a wallpaper, there was painted a blue-coated pony with platinum mane, wearing some sort of…¿hat and a cape?. “Such ridiculous looks…” . Trough the painting, one could almost see the so called Trixie looking at one with airs of superiority.

-Gee, such a soupy mare…I kinda hate her just by seeing this painting!- She decided she had wasted much time looking at the pictures. She continued her path.

-Octavia, darling! it’s good you’re here. Look, not just a few minutes ago a lettuce, carrots and whatnot-filled cartwheel arrived, you know what you have to do now, don’t you, darling?-

-Yes, ma’am Green Tart, at once-

Sometimes she sympathized with her patroness: she was so old and yet, still had to work. But sometimes, she felt the desperate desire to yell at her “Do it yourself, you lazy old hag!”. But alas, that was a luxury only made true on her imagination (many, many times, as in today)


-Hey, there goes my almost-name-sake!- Yelled the cartwheel driver.

-Hello, Octavio. ¿How does life treat you?

-I cannot complain, i can’t.  The wheels on me cart are surely well too tidy and oiled, so does these hooves of me, so does the mane as well, but truth be told, my last free of work day cannot be found inside me memories, ¿yes?

-And what about your wife?-

-Oh, you know Rose Mane, you do. She says bein’ a mum is tiresome, and I sure do believe her!, just being a couple o’ hours with them foals takes me breath away!- he said, laughing- Come you, let me open the doors of the wagon to you- He stepped down of the cartwheel, turned around and open the wagon’s door: inside a ridiculous amount of greens awaited. “Ah, the green gold” she thought.

-That’s sure a lot, give me a minute-

-Radio?-

-Uhum- she replied. Turning back into the store, above the accountability table laid an old red wooden radio. She turned it on, carefully (her employer had this nasty custom of charging every broken thing like it was new). Her work mates always rolled their eyes whenever she turned the radio on and looked her favourite symphonic station, but even they knew that kind of music suited the long (very, very long) working hours best. She began to work…

…and for twelve long hors she did work (she had a resting time, of course: two hours, used to feed and take a little nap). When the steam whistle sounded, she felt a wave of great joy on her hearth: it was time to go home. But luck was not with her that day.
-Octavia, darling!- Yelled the patroness. “Oh, bollocks…” she thought. Her suspicions were confirmed: just at the end of the working hours, another shipment arrived “but why in the world did they have to arrive at precisely the last minute?”

With a mood that would make fresh milk bitter, she turned back to work. She procured being fast, and that would be her demise. Without noticing it, she let a tomato fall. When she made the fourth unload, she stepped on such tomato, lost balance, tripped, fell over a box, the box plummeted across the storage room, making lots and lots of boxes and whatnot to fell. The sound was deafening. All of a day’s work, gone.The nagging she got was so big, she lost sense of the high pitched uttered words spoken by her patroness, but deep down she know her employer was right: this was caused by her lack of care and attention.

-You will not get pay tonight, Octavia. Buzz off-

Latter at night, on her humble home, she cried. Cried because she would endure hunger, because the mortgage debt had to be paid, because she felt like an idiot. She worked all day, but in a single instant, everything fell apart. She felt a huge need to break everything surrounding her, to yell, to scream, to kick the walls. At the end, the only thing she got to do was to cry, embracing her pillow, laying down, between the walls and the blankets. Some time passed, and she felt this need to make something more. She stood, and crossed the room. She took a huge old violoncello out of a huge case, almost as big as her. She sat by the fire (which, did not come from any chimney, but from an old decrepit lamp) and its eerie light cast some thin reflections and shadows across the room. She began to play, slow and sadly, yet, beautifully.

She was not aware, but every time she played, her neighbours stopped doing anything they were up to, opened their windows and sharpened their ears. Every time she played, the “Workmare” street stood still, and the hearths of their inhabitants felt peace. She played for an hour, until she felt better, and without realising it, felt asleep on the cello.

At some point at night, some one knocked on the door. She woke up, startled, falling on the ground making a lot of noise. The humming of the floor-fell cello could be heard cross the four corners of her house.

-who’s there?- she yelled at the night. The light of her lamp was long extinguished. No one answered.

She stood by the window, and took a peek: there was somepony outside, a mare, of beautiful rose mane.

She opened the door (it took some time, she could barely see). When it was opened, besides the winter cold, a mare entered her home. She was very tall, her hooves where coated on platinum, sparkling like stars. The mare had her face covered, but her mane managed to peak amongst the fabric, a mane like she had never seen before.

-Close the door, Octavia, darling. It is cold outside.

She complied, like driven by a trance.

-Excuse me, but, who might you be?-

The figure ahead revealed her face. Her eyes were a beautiful purple, and had a slim and enviable figure, really beautiful.

-My name is Fleur, Fleur de Lis, Octavia. I am an emissary of Lady Luna, Goddess of the Night.

Octavia smiled- Yeah, right-

-Oh, I understand your disbelief, Octavia, I really do. I would not believe such a thing either, if i was in your place. I kept asking about you, yes?, for a long time I asked your neighbors about you. Out there, in the palace…- she pointed the moon, with her hoof- out there, we can hear you, we can feel your warm cosmo.

-my… what?-

-oh, gods above. I tend to forget, not every pony knows what the cosmo is.

-is it the outer space?-

-No, Octavia. It is the flame that burns deep inside of you, your link with every living thing, and your spirit itself. Whenever you play, Octavia, your cosmo burns with a thousand sun’s intensity. You make stars explode, and rise the spirits of each and every pony who listens. Don't you feel the universe around you, every time you surround yourself with the sound of music?

-I think, ma’am Lis, you are exaggerating, you see… I love to play, but I do think whichever you describe as… “cosmo”, it is nothing but passion for music

-Really?, then…Octavia, what…is…this?- Fleur touched her forehead with one of her hooves, it was just a fraction of a second, but by doing so, the small room she called “home” vanished amongst an explosion of stars and nebulae. Light surrounded her, so did the darkness, and the universe stood in front of her, and burst a sparkle inside her heart, impossible to describe. She sailed across star dust and cosmic darkness, but somehow, she know it was all real. She then saw a huge star made scorpio, and even it’s impossible size could not make her feel fear, no, it was the other way around: she felt and unfathomable feeling of… safety. She blinked, and she was back home.

-What… was that?- She asked breathless. Going back to the world, back home, was suddenly… tastless, colorless.

-That, little Octavia, it is what burns inside of you. The world is far more than just unloading potato filled shipments, you know?. Whenever you play, with all of your hearth, what burns inside of you gets unleashed, and you heal the spirits of anypony listening to you.

-And what about that creature I saw… this, scorpio?

-It is your constellation, your guarding star. It calls to you, it has chosen you, amongst the hundreds of thousands who live in this city. Pack your things, we are leaving.

-Where to?-

-Greatness awaits, Octavia.

Some minutes afterwards, she stood alongside Fleur, on a moon lit street. She carried her cello on her back, and a little bag with small chattels. Not many steps were taken before she suddenly stopped, turning his eyes back at her small house, made out of red bricks, flanked by two trees that had lost their leaves early on this year’s cruel winter.

-I do not know if I could leave behind everything that I’ve fought so hard for, miss Lis.
-Oh, but you will keep fighting, Octavia. But now, all of your efforts shall be rewarded worthwhile.

And with such words, she made her mind. Together they trotted along the Workmare street, flanked by many houses same as hers, small and red bricked. They trotted, with nothing but a wet floor under their hooves, a star lit mantle over their manes, and the promise of Greatness to Come on the horizon.