Wow, I love it when people leave guest reviews correcting my correct information because they're too Scootaloo to leave it under their real account so I can reply to their bullshit. Yes, I know what a beamed fucking eighth note is. I was in band for eight years and I play three fucking instruments. I didn't say Vinyl's cutie mark was quarter notes. I said it was eighth notes. If you'd read it, you'd know that. I'm replying to you publicly because you didn't leave me the courtesy of doing it privately. So there you guys go, you get my mini rant on how stupid people can be and how fucking smart they think they all are. I really, really, REALLY appreciate you readers out there who a) review and b) favourite and c) follow. It warms my heart. And I love you guys for it. Thank you so much. I'm glad the vast majority of you guys aren't dicks, I really am. There was no sarcasm in that. You don't know how much I appreciate your non-dickness. It makes me want to give you all hugs. Because you know I'm not stupid. And I love you for that. Thank you.

Anyway. Onward ho! This poor fuckin' filly… she just can't catch a break…

"Hello?"

"Mother…" Octavia bit her lip nervously, trying to keep her voice from wavering. She heard a disgruntled sigh from the other end.

"Octavia, there had better be a good reason you are phoning me from school, I am at work, and if this is not an emergency—"

"My cello. It..it broke," Octavia said, not bothering to feel bad about cutting off her mother's tirade. There was silence. Then a click. Then the dial tone. Octavia held her breath as she set the phone in its cradle and thanked the office secretary quietly.

She turned, and left for class.

It didn't surprise her when she got called out of class to go back to the office twenty minutes later. As much as she wanted to meander, she knew what awaited her if she did. So with her head held high and her skirt swishing about her hooves, she strode promptly down to the office, struggling to emotionally detach herself from what was about to happen.

She took a deep breath, and opened the door.

Her mother stood there, tall and sharp and proud. Angry. Livid. Octavia cast her eyes to the floor as she moved out of the doorway.

"Well, do you have any lazy excuses to pelt me with, you lazy excuse for a child?" Her mother said, her voice cold. Octavia shook her head.

Of course, this dissatisfied her mother.

"I would have thought for sure you would have come up with something, Octavia. Breaking an expensive instrument like that doesn't just happen."

The corners of Octavia's mouth turned down further. No, she thought. It doesn't.

"I'm not surprised it did happen, considering you're in such a place. I cannot believe you would allow yourself to be around such petty ponies. Ponies with appendages that make them lazy and stupid have no right to be around you, who has to work hard to validate your existence."

Octavia caught Twilight Sparkle's eye, who was sitting behind the one desk as an office aide, in the middle of lifting a page with her magic, looking very meek and very upset as she pulled it out of the air with her hands and set it down gently.

No, she thought. They didn't.

"I cannot fathom why you are being such a difficult foal. You were difficult from the beginning. Your father and I work very hard to give you all you'll ever need, and you squander our hard work like it's something dispensable," her mother continued, her tone getting harsher with each sentence. "You know we cannot afford you a new cello. Why, we couldn't afford to send you to the private school."

But, she thought. You can.

"And you just continue to spiral into a delinquent foal who is disrespectful to me and your father and your elders. I am done with it, Octavia. You will not be allowed a new cello unless you are able to buy one of your own. You are grounded until I see fit to lift the punishment. You are to study your sheet music verbally until you provide yourself with a new instrument."

Octavia's mind blanked out, no longer trying to wonder how much allowance she'd have to save up to get herself a new cello.

"And furthermore," her mother said, her voice turning nasty, eyes snapping over to Twilight, who nearly cowered underneath the desk, "I don't want to hear of any more… 'friends'. You have no time, use, or need for friendship, especially any of this quality. I expect your homework to be finished by six tonight, or you'll be missing dinner to finish it. Good-bye."

And with that, there was a breeze and a click and her mother was gone.

Octavia sucked in a breath and forced a practiced indifferent expression on her face. She looked up and nearly lost the façade as she saw Vinyl standing in the hall behind the desks, frozen and staring at her with ruby eyes. Her cheeks flushed and the earth pony spun immediately to walk out of the office, almost slamming the door behind her.

Fucking Vinyl Scratch.

The pony of many instruments, the pony that didn't have to do what her parents told her to do, the pony who got to make her own decisions. The pony that wasn't a puppet.

Octavia sniffed loudly in the empty hallway, her hooves clicking against the linoleum as she took her meander from earlier and used it to go back to class.

It was so unfair.

Why did she have to end up with the dime a dozen cutie mark, the drabbest color scheme she's ever seen on a pony, clothes that were always so stuffy and hot but required because she was a "lady". She crossed her arms around her stomach and gulped back a sob. She couldn't even keep it together long enough not to cry for five minutes, what made her think she deserved anything but what she got?

Her mother was right. She was always right. Octavia was the worst child. No matter what she did, it was never good enough. She tried too hard or she didn't try enough. There was no in between. She couldn't find the in between.

And that made her a failure.

Octavia slowed her steps and stopped, her head hanging and her throat tight and stinging from holding back her tears. She couldn't do this anymore. She was past the point of being able to do this. She couldn't win. She was never going to be a famous cello player. She was never going to be free. She was never going to succeed. Because her destiny was not the cello. It was synonymous with failure.

A hiccup broke a sob from her throat, and the floodgates opened, tears immediately falling down her cheeks. She shoved her hands against her muzzle, struggling to muffle the sudden onslaught of crying that hit her. Glancing about, she quickly shuffled to a small break in the lockers, squeezing herself inside and making herself as small as possible.

A fine effort, she thought with a pained whimper, seeing as I'm too fat to wear pretty clothes or eat sweet things like the other ponies.

Hollow hurt streaked through her belly and she crouched over, the sobs tearing through her harder as her thoughts spiraled downward, turning in on themselves in circles. She was glad the hallway was empty for the next thirty minutes still; no one would be able to see her crumble.

This time, she didn't know if she'd be able to get back up. Was this rock bottom? What else was left? She had no friends or possibility of friends, her mother had made sure of that. She had no cello. She had no time. Not anything left.

She didn't even have her dignity.

What else could she hold above the others? The fact that her mother was better because she drove Octavia to madness trying to get her to succeed in standards set far too high? That she could do whatever lame thing she did without wings or magic? Vinyl was right. She didn't have what everypony else had. And that had turned her into a terrible pony who just made other ponies' lives terrible to make herself feel better about her failure.

She stared at the locker in front of her through blurred vision.

She was a failure, and she couldn't be fixed.

She should just take herself away, away from everypony she could possibly disappoint.

That was everypony.

To take herself away from everypony…

She took a deep, shaky breath.

Well, that wouldn't be too hard, she reasoned. She was sure there was some sort of drug she could amass in large quantities, over a little bit of time. Maybe even some poisons, already right there, sitting underneath the sink in her house. It'd be painful, but physical pain was nothing. Nothing compared to this.

She sniffed and wiped her nose carelessly on her sleeve, blinking.

Maybe she should research it, find out the very best way before she actually tried anything, maybe—

Something touched her shoulder gently, and she gasped, standing up straight and whirling around.

"Hey…"

Vinyl was there, mumbling that awkward greeting at her, sunglasses off and eyes worried. Octavia felt a flash of anger pang through the sadness, and another sob ripped through her throat.

"What? Have you come to laugh at me? To gloat because you were right?" She spat, her words breaking and strained with crying. "Because you were. You were always right. And I hate you for that. I hate that you're right. And I hate you because you're you. You get everything. I've got nothing. Nothing!"

Vinyl didn't respond, waiting. Octavia heaved with frantic deep breaths, anger rushing through her and coming out at the unicorn because she was angry and she was sad and dammit if she was going to be mad at anypony right now, it'd be Vinyl fucking Scratch because nopony else was in front of her to get mad at.

"You can play any instrument, you're useful, you're beautiful, you get to wear and eat whatever you want, you have parents who don't force you to do anything, and I hate you for it, I HATE YOU!" She ground out through her teeth, using her hands to make her point, flailing them about. Tears rushed down her face, but she didn't care. She was beyond caring. She wanted to hurt Vinyl. She wanted to hurt her mother. She wanted to hurt herself.

She didn't continue, unable to put anymore feelings into words without slapping Vinyl again. And even though that sounded wonderful right now, she didn't need her mother coming back into the office and dragging her home to worse punishment. So she stood there and panted and cried and glared at Vinyl, who looked down at the floor, nodded a few times, then looked back up at her.

And hugged her.

Octavia froze, her tears never stopping, but her heart might as well have. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been hugged, by anyone. Not even her parents had hugged her in a time she could remember.

She couldn't move, unable to process what was happening. She'd just told this unicorn, who didn't seem to take anything from anypony, that she hated her for everything she was, and she was hugging her? What was going on? What was she getting at? What did she want?

"Octavia…it's okay," Vinyl whispered softly, squeezing the surprised earth pony. "It is. It's always okay. Don't worry. I'm sorry, okay? I'm really sorry. It's okay. Please don't cry, I can get you another cello, it'll be fine, it's okay…"

Octavia made a small noise in the back of her throat and snaked her arms around Vinyl's lithe form, hugging her back tightly, her shoulders shaking with new sobs. She was past figuring out what was happening. All that mattered was that it was.

"N-nopony has ever b-been th-this nice to m-me," she stuttered into Vinyl's warm shoulder, her cries getting a bit too loud for an empty hallway. "Y-you and T-t-twilight and j-just everypony…and I'm j-just so mean…I'm so-sorry…I really am…"

Vinyl stroked her mane softly, humming lightly.

"Hey, it's just like I told you, Tavi, it's okay…" she murmured. "Now stop crying, you'll freak out a teacher and then we'll have hell to pay trying to explain shit…"

Octavia squeezed her harder and sniffled back a laugh. Only this pony could say something like that in the midst of such a moment.

Vinyl pulled back slightly to look Octavia in the eye, a crooked smile on her face.

"Ooooh, was that a laugh I heard?" She teased lightly, her hands strong on the earth pony's shoulders. Octavia couldn't stop the small smile that formed.

"N-no…" she replied back, just as teasingly.

"Ahh! Nope, it was! Got ya to smile! Haha, awesome!" The white unicorn crowed triumphantly, her smile growing. She rubbed the tears off of Octavia's cheeks with her thumbs and pulled her ears back upright. "There, now you can't be sad anymore. I took away all your weapons of sadness."

Octavia blushed and looked away. Of course she caused trouble, even for her enemies. She just couldn't win, could sh—

"Oi, get those bad thoughts out of your heart," Vinyl ordered suddenly, grabbing her chin and forcing Octavia to look her in the eye. "They'll get you nowhere. Now, you did apologize. Awesome. I admire that. So here's the offer I'm making you. You ditch your snooty booty attitude and I give you my old cello, in tune and great working condition, for free. But you gotta be my friend. And the other girls' friend, because Dash said they all really like you a lot. 'Kay?"

Octavia sniffed again, pulling her hands up in front of her muzzle shyly, unsure of how to react now that she had no defenses left to hide behind.

"Why're you being so nice to me?" She asked softly. "I was so rude…to all of you."

Vinyl shrugged.

"You were hurting. I get that. Not really an excuse, but at least you weren't doing it just because, you know?" She replied. "So…is that a yes?"

Octavia sniffed and folded her hands down in front of her.

"Yes," she said, pulling her chin up and nodding for effect.

Vinyl Scratch beamed, hooking her arm in Octavia's.

"Awesome. I thought you'd never humble," she joked. "Now let's go get your shit, I'll have Twily get you out of your classes for the rest of the day. We got a fuck load of homework to finish before six."