The rain lashed at your face, neck and body as you staggered towards the apartment block, the violin case on your back feeling heavy as you plod along desperately trying to reach your destination. You had been taking violin lessons from a young mare by the name of Octavia Pie for several weeks now, still not enough to claim any proficiency with the instrument but you were slowly making your way through “Classical Strings for Dummies” and she’d finally stopped wincing whenever you put bow to instrument.

You’d taken up the violin after seeing the beautiful and classy mare leaving the castle after the Grand Galloping Gala that year with her decadent cello in tow, and often wondered if she had any idea of your intention to get closer to her. You had initially believed that the violin would have been relatively easy considering your experience in the guitar, of which you considered yourself close to deity status in terms of skill (like practically all guitarists, of course); fortunately she had never asked you if you had any experience in another instrument, as you were unsure if the highly stylish and sophisticated mare would have approved of your background in metal.

The few times that you’d approached the subject of any sort of romance, such as asking if she was seeing anyone, the result had always been the same; she’d look at you critically before tutting and trying to move on with the lesson. On all-hearts day, you’d taken great lengths to even send her a card; delicately making sure your writing was readable but not recognisable, signed with a question mark and pushed through her letterbox with a tray of beautifully decorated sugar cubes, along with a single rose. For the next couple of lessons that you had, you saw the rose stood in a slim vase on her mantle, until it finally wilted a couple of weeks later and you had been sad to see it gone when you arrived one day.

Wandering past a local spa, you can see the block holding Octavia’s apartment, the room you believe to be where she sleeps has a light on, flickering as if lit with a candle and you wonder if you can hear her playing over the rhythm of the raindrops pounding the exposed cobbles or splashing into puddles. Treading through these increasingly deep pools, you’re almost knocked over by a pegasus coming to a crash landing after having been thrown about in the wind. You ignore her apologies and continue to force your way towards your goal, the wind blowing in your face, keeping your mane flush against your back. As you get to the building, you let yourself in and trudge to the top floor, rapping sharply on the door with a hoof.

Octavia opens it and stares at you, causing to look at yourself. You see that you’re thoroughly drenched still, water flowing out of your mane and fur and pooling on the floor, many smaller pools having darkened the cream coloured carpet of the luxury block. She sighs, taking the violin case from you and putting it inside, returning with a warm fluffy blue towel.

“Here, dry off before you come in. I’ve just cleaned.” She says, raising an eyebrow and smiling.

“Something funny?” You ask, shaking out your mane and drying it on her doorstep.

“Oh, just a bit of schadenfreude.”

“Hmm, I don’t know what that means.”

“It’s Mecklenburgher for “amusement at the expense of others”; didn’t you learn any at school?”

“No. My family weren’t that well off.”

“Hah. Mine were rock farmers; you don’t really get poorer than that. I was home schooled between rotating our crop between fields.” She responded, frowning at your excuse for not having learned any languages.

Feeling slightly stupid, you ask her if she enjoyed performing at the gala; she hadn’t wanted to talk about it before, and this time was no different. She turns away and walks inside her apartment, and you half expect her to slam the door in your face, but you walk in unimpeded, leaving the towel in the bathroom at Octavia’s instruction.

Her flat is marvellously well furnished, everything inside oozed style and wealth; no expense spared in things such as the marble fireplace, the thick off-white wool carpet slightly tickling the pads of your hooves as you tread lightly in fear of marking anything. You enter the living room and glance at a magazine on the coffee table; “New Music in Equestria” were featuring your tutor this month in a piece titled “The Return of Classical Thunder”, detailing how classically trained musicians were beginning to retake the charts from music similar to that of DJ P0n3 and even entering the metal charts, bands such as DeathKlop being overtaken by covers of classical tracks with rock instruments. The bass player of your own band had launched into Beathoofen’s fifth during a practice session a couple of weeks ago completely at random, signalling mocking from the rest of the band before he took off in a huff.

Octavia opens the case of your violin and curses loudly, way outside of her normal calm character. You hear a splash, feeling water under your hooves and look up at her.

“Octavia? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, get a towel.” She replies, flinging your irreparably water-damaged violin in front of the fireplace, flames roaring and wood crackling in the marble setting. The water had built up in your case as you had carried it through the storm, and the filly was now thoroughly soaked after she had opened the case. She slipped out of her trademark collar and bow tie and laid them on the mantle, next to a downwards turned photograph. Bringing a fresh towel, you smile at her, taking your opportunity to return the favour she had kindly given you at her doorstep. Octavia stares for a moment at your smile, slowly catching on and giving a wry grin in response.

“Well,” she says, drying herself, “Now I’m as filthy as you.” You’re sure that she’s being at least a little sarcastic, so you decide to push your luck as you wrap the towel around her shoulders.

“Well, that’s how you like me isn’t it?”

As you had seen her do close to a hundred times now, Octavia looks you up and down before tutting, shaking her head and trying to change the subject.

“Right, let’s get practice started. I’ve got something you can play seeing as your violin is ruined. I imagine you’ll find it easier to use as well.”

Octavia disappears for a moment before returning with the most beautifully crafted guitar you have ever seen, the brilliant white body leading into the mahogany neck. You notice that there appears to be no tuning pegs on the head of this extravagant instrument, the hallmark of the unicorn known as Stratocaster, whose ability to make equipment that would never lose it’s tuning was legendary in musical circles, but made her instruments incredibly expensive and extremely hard to get a hold of. She passes you the guitar in a manner not unlike a knighthood ceremony taking place in the halls of Canterlot castle, allowing you to give it a brief strum.

“Knew it!” Octavia exclaims, her smile widening, “The moment you picked that violin up for the first time, I knew you were a guitarist. It’s to do with how you place your hooves on the neck.”

“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen...” you start, running a hoof along the fretboard and giving it an experimental pluck to the tune of Stables to Heaven.

“Oh? I thought you’d saved that prestigious title for me.” she responds, causing you to pause momentarily as you caught on to what you had just said and how she had reacted. You couldn’t see her face right now, but you knew that she’d raised an eyebrow, in the manner she always did, as if judging you. You bring yourself to look at her, staring into those deep purple eyes.

‘You didn’t expect that... Did you?’ her eyes betray the thought running around in her head, giving you a light wave of relief.

“How about you play something for me? Maybe I could join in?” she asks, pointing at her cello in the corner of the room, the bow next to it on the stand. You choose to play Kashmir, by Led Pegasus, surprised that Octavia soon starts to play along with you after fetching her instrument.

“Do you know this song?” You ask, still playing.

“Of course, It’s a classic. You should hear me play it on the violin; I cover Raising Sand’s vocals rather than the actual music on the violin though” She responds, eyes closed as she manoeuvres the bow skilfully across the strings of her cello, filling in where a bass guitarist would normally play for the song. She appears to lose herself, the passion of the piece playing her as much as she plays the instrument.

You eventually stop playing just to watch her lost in her throes, her head thrashing as she begins to aggressively handle the cello, your mouth hanging in awe as she improvises the end to the song; coming too and finding that part of her mane had fallen out of the elasticated loop holding it back, the strand framing the left side of her face. Not wanting to damage the beautiful guitar in your hooves, you place it on an empty stand near to where you are sitting, eyes still watching Octavia.

Her eyes flash open with a manic expression quite unlike anything you’d ever seen in the normally reserved mare. She immediately puts her cello back on it’s stand, strides over to you and presses her lips against yours, full of passion and fire, hungrily exploring your mouth with her tongue.

As she kisses you, you can feel the fine hair used to form the “blade” of Octavia’s bow being drawn across your face. Opening your eyes, you realise that it must have been made using her own charcoal grey tail hair, something typical of string instrument artists of a certain skill. The two of you keep kissing for some time, her occasionally running the blade of the bow against your coat, the fibres from her tail rubbing through your fur and against your skin in an oddly pleasurable manner. As she kisses you, you begin to trail your hooves up and down her body, running along her spine eventually stopping and moving down to the treble clef upon her flank, following the circle of the symbol and causing her to moan slightly into your mouth before deepening the kiss, hungrily lapping at your tongue with hers, breaths forced in and out through her nose. She suddenly breaks away blushing;

“Oh... I’m sorry, it’s just I...” she starts, looking at herself on top of you, straddling your legs with her forehooves on her chest.

“Lost in the moment?” You ask, “It’s fine, I was enjoying it.” you finish, raising a hoof to her chin and gently stroking her. She responds by leaning in once more, wrapping her forelegs around your neck as she nuzzles and kisses you. Her hooves begin to wander, playing with your mane as you pull the loop out of hers, causing her hair to cascade down either side of her face.

A light moisture on one of your hind legs informs you that the mare in your hooves is incredibly aroused as she continues to let you rub at her rump, eventually guiding your hoof to the base of her tail, encouraging you to run it up and down her lower spine. You occasionally break apart from the long slow kisses she is giving you to try and find your breath, watching Octavia’s hips move as she pulls your head into her neck, swinging her mane to the other side. You smile as you deeply inhale her somewhat herbal scent, somewhere between basil and rosemary - a savoury flavour that for some reason drives you wild. You’re thrilled that she is enjoying the sensation of rubbing herself against you, your own arousal becoming as obvious as hers with every sniff of her scent.

She breaks the kiss to look at you, briefly and cheekily swatting at you with the bow, making you give a playful gasp as you lean in to nuzzle her chest before being denied.

“Come down onto the rug with me, in front of the fire.” She asks, running a grey hoof down your sternum, before pecking you on the muzzle with her lips. Letting her first climb off of you, you join her on the long rug on the floor, obviously designed for comfort in front of the blazing flames that make you warmer than you had been on the sofa with Octavia. She lays on her back, motioning you over her with a hoof, wrapping her forelegs around you and pulling you down to her eager and hungry lips. You start to explore her flank with your hoof-tip again, pressing gently and working in small circles, her breathing beginning to become laboured as her eyes close.

She shakes slightly, her forelegs releasing you to kiss down her body, her hooves running through your mane as you first breathe into her fur and then place a kiss on the same spot, all the while still rubbing the beautiful treble clef cutie mark that you had come to adore. Her hooves are now starting to rub almost aggressively at the side of your head, sometimes your ears are pinched between them as she seems to be losing control once more, causing you to let out your own brief moan of pleasure. Working down to her abdomen, you feel her back arch... She’s very close.

Deciding to go for the gold medal, so to speak, you keep kissing every inch of her; listening to her heavy breaths become long, drawn out moans, her hooves still buried deep in your unkempt mane, directing your head as you work, lower and lower. She quivers, repeating your name as you discover a particularly sensitive spot on her abdomen, a good six inches above what you had thought was the original destination she had been guiding you to. She moves awkwardly, trying to put her hind legs over your shoulders, squeezing your neck gently as your hooves support her still arched spine, all the while holding your face to the spot slightly below her stomach.

Suddenly, and quite to your surprise, your breaths into her fur combined with the kisses, cause her to start to shake, hooves forcing your face into her stomach, holding you closely as she reaches the apex of her pleasure, her groans reaching high pitched shrieks before she falls back, finished, complete and still slightly lost in her lust. Still trembling from your own slight lack of oxygen after how tightly she had gripped you, almost smothering you from holding you so close, you untangle yourself from her limbs and plant a gentle kiss on her forehead.

Rolling her onto her side, you lay down behind her, putting your hooves with hers from behind, holding and gently kissing the sleepy mare.

“Did you enjoy that?”

“Yes... I’m really sorry that I lost control like that though, I feel like I may have taken advantage of you.” Octavia says, turning her head to look at you, blushing slightly. You giggle, still slightly giddy about what had happened between you, before awkwardly leaning over and planting a kiss on her lips.

“It was nice, I never figured you’d be so... wild.”

“Yeah... It’s something of a family trait. Thankfully it only really comes out if I lose myself in the music. My sister... Now she’s an odd one.” she chuckles, opening up a little more as if trying to change the subject again.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, she’s always been a little crazy. She left our family after realising her calling, organising parties, I left shortly after that. I hadn’t seen her for years...”

“She was at the gala, wasn’t she? Did you get to talk to her?” you respond, putting two and two together from her refusal to talk about the gala and this new revelation about her having family.

“She didn’t even recognise me. Even when requesting that stupid song, she didn’t even realise who she was talking to; her own little sister.”

She begins to shake again, this time from sorrow rather than pleasure. Realising that Octavia is crying, you lean up and pull her into your forelegs, cradling her head as she weeps, using your mane to soak the tears up.

“Octavia, I think you need to go and talk to her. Track her down, she can’t be that hard to find. You said yourself that she left so long ago, maybe she had been forcing her feelings down too? Maybe she felt too guilty to acknowledge you that night?”

“I... I guess you could be right.” she replies, “I’m really sorry about all of this. I didn’t mean for any of it to happen, I mean, I do like you, I guess that’s why I agreed to giving you these lessons, even though you were so obviously a guitarist. I just didn’t think I’d break down like this.”
You kiss her cheek and squeeze her close.

“Look, I’ll stay here tonight, that storm is probably still going and I want to take care of you. You’re special to me. Would that be alright?”
She nods, bringing her face into your neck once again, large tears dripping into your coat as you hold her, placing a kiss on her brow and stroking her charcoal grey mane.

The two of you spend the rest of the night cuddling in front of the fire. She eventually stops crying and falls asleep in your hooves as you continue to stroke her in front of the fire. You sigh, watching the flames die down before falling asleep yourself.

She certainly was a great deal more complicated than you thought.

fin.