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Burning Orchestral Domination

by Selbi

Chapter 1: Chapter 1: A Burning Feather

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“Haaaaaaahhhh…”

Octavia let out a large exhale as she relaxed on a park bench. Although the play at the Grand Galloping Gala was a success, she was happy to have some time for herself after all those months of nonstop practice.

She put the term ‘cellist’ aside for a few days, barely acknowledging the fact that she was a musician. She planned to just let the daily struggles of being in a world of melodies not bother her. It felt great for her to simply disregard her stance in the business.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t change the fact that she still was a pony like any other, as she was reminded by her rumbling stomach—she had to get something to eat.

“Hmm, what should I get today?” she asked herself. “I already had a rather big feast after the Gala. Something rather simple should do it for now. I’m not that hungry anyway.”

After scanning her mental list of possible places to go to, she decided it was best to get a small snack at Sugarcube Corner—a white cupcake with an electric blue topping and crimson red sprinkles. The thought of liking Vinyl so much that she’d actually eat her sounded somewhat awkward in her head, but she didn’t pay it much heed as it wouldn’t change the fact that the cupcake would taste delightful. Besides, she could always eat it in her honor, giving mental support from several hundred miles away, hoping that whatever it was Vinyl produced under the tag ‘music’ would still please her fans. She didn’t understand it, but as long as others did she didn’t complain.

With another small sigh, enjoying the soft nature around her for a bit longer, she got up and headed towards the town center of Ponyville. While the streets were quiet during this time of day the few ponies she met along the way still greeted her happily, to which she always responded in kind. She may not have been born in Ponyville—having been raised as Canterlot nobility instead—but she got past that state of mind within a few weeks after meeting Vinyl.

As she trotted down the street, her mind imagining the sugar bomb that was soon to be inside her stomach, she noticed an orange-red object emerging from the distance. As she got closer to it she identified the object as a feather. She stopped for a moment to further inspect it.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” she openly said to herself. The texture of the feather looked like any ordinary one would, with the exception that the tips of the hairs all seemed to be a little fuzzy, though not in an unorganized way. The orange and red mixture of colors, which also seemed to be topped off by the occasional yellow, gave the feather a warm touch; almost fiery.

She carefully stretched out her hoof to touch it, careful not to destroy the beauty of the feather, and felt the unusual object lightly tickling her senses. It managed to draw a small smile on Octavia’s face, though a standalone feather on the ground could hardly tickle her enough to actually laugh. However, she noticed the unusual softness of it—softer than any feather she had a chance to feel before—on top of a tiny amount of heat escaping the center of the feather. It wasn’t much, but enough to be noticeable.

With a grin she decided to pick it up and put it into her hair. Going to a nearby window she looked at her reflection, specifically at her black mane being topped off with an easily visible pinch of red contrast. Her grin grew into a smile—the combination looked really well on her.

Her act of self-admiration was interrupted when the grumbling from her stomach reminded her of her original plan. With a turn she was back on her way to the diabetes factory known as Sugarcube Corner.

Just as she was about to get the images of the Vinyl-cake back into her head she heard a loud cawk, accompanied by an angry scream. Octavia turned to the direction of the source of the noises. She wasn’t sure how to react at what she saw.

A seemingly abused bird with a goofy expression and severe lack of feathers emerged from behind the building, hastily flying towards the sky with whatever energy it had left. Octavia could tell that the few feathers still attached to its body had the very same color as the one in her hair. This made her realize that whatever happened to the bird must have been the reason why her hair held one more color at the moment. The bird’s movements were quirky and lacked any clear pattern, much against the concept one would expect of a normal bird.

The few split seconds she had to think of reasons behind this immediately passed as a light yellow mare with a pink mane came running from the building, a vicious expression on her face. Octavia identified the mare as Fluttershy, Ponyville’s self-proclaimed top vet.

“Get back here, you stupid bird!” she shouted with angst very unusual to her usually very shy and careful behavior.

The command was only answered with another squawk, as the fiery creature ascended further towards the sky. Fluttershy decided that running wouldn’t help her much to get to the exhausted, yet still fast-flying bird, so she took off to the sky as well, chasing after the slowly nearing object of her desire.

“What did I even do to you, Philomena?! All I wanted was to help you get better!” Fluttershy screamed at the bird. “Just because you’re Celestia’s pet doesn’t mean you can escape my kindness!”

“Okay, looks like someone is having a bad day. It’s not like you see the shyest pony in town suddenly turning into a psychopath with a god complex everyday,” Octavia said to herself, chuckling lightly, albeit uneased.

Her chuckle was interrupted when a bright flash suddenly appeared in the sky, making her cover her eyes with her hoofs. Just a few seconds later she looked at the sky again, only to see that chase had abruptly come to an end, as the frightened bird was a replaced with a burning pile of ashes falling down from the sky.

A sudden gust of wind connected with the pile and made it scatter all over the place. Some of the ashes even reached Octavia, and she believed a few particles even landed on her back.

The Pegasus in the sky started to burst into tears at the sudden realization, her whimpering and moaning being added to the only minutes-ago silent Ponyville noon. A few seconds passed before she moved the hooves covering her eye away, tears flowing like a waterfall down her cheeks. She scanned the surroundings a little in hopes she could somehow find something to undo what she had just witnessed. Her eyes rested on the gray mare with the red feather in her mane.

Without much hesitation, Fluttershy started flying towards Octavia, who just realized she was in the crosshair of the ‘kindness’. She didn’t need to think long before her hooves were lightly galloping along the streets, as she ran to find some place to hide. Although she wasn’t as well-built as some other ponies—her special talent having absolutely nothing to do with fitness—she was still able to build up a reasonable speed.

“Hey, you! Wait! Where did you get that feather from?!” It was clear that Octavia wouldn’t see a tomorrow, let alone her cupcake, if she got caught by the insane vet now. That thought gave her just the right amount of adrenaline to run into an alleyway, her visage being covered by the buildings surrounding her. Although she knew the Pegasus saw her entering the alley, she could use the few seconds she had while being out of her vision to find some cover.

Fortunately, said cover was laid out in front of her in the form of a small crate. It wouldn’t be comfortable, but one or two small splinters would definitely be a less horrible fate than the one she would meet if she didn’t take her chance to hide.

Octavia almost jumped into the wooden box and did as best as she could to hide her entire body in it. Thankfully, her body was gray; any bright colors could have easily been spotted through the small openings between the boards.

As expected, Fluttershy flew by, her fury blinding her enough to not even take a second and look at the objects she passed in the alleyway. Instead, she simply headed straight to the other end of the alley and turned left, disappearing behind the corresponding building.

After waiting patiently in the box, possibly a few minutes more than necessary, she got out and carefully trotted towards her house. She kept expecting her personal apocalypse in the form of a crazy mare to be around every corner, ready to painfully end her life there and then on top of taking the feather away from her.

The door shut behind behind her. Thanking Celestia that the trip to her home had not been her last, she let out a deep sigh and looked into the entrance hall’s mirror. Her mane was a complete mess and she still had a few wooden particles all over her body—thankfully none of them being in it. However, the red feather seemed to be brighter and more vivid than before, not bearing any damages in the least.

Suddenly Octavia wasn’t so sure about the amazingness of this feather anymore, if it was responsible for her running away from a psychopath. She laid the red object on a nearby table and headed off towards the kitchen.

“Well, looks like it’s only going to be a sandwich,” she said to herself with a slightly disappointed sigh.


The soft melody of slowly vibrating strings filled the house during the evening.

After the turnout of events today Octavia wasn’t really in the mood for leaving her house anymore. Her appetite had vanished almost completely, only the lettuce and bread finding room in her tummy. With not much else to do, she decided to take a break from her break and play a little. Nothing in particular came to mind, just random bits of melodies that found their ways into her mind recently.

A particularly upbeat melody suddenly hit her, something unusual. It wasn’t anywhere near what Vinyl would produce, but it was still unusually ‘rockish’ for her. The thought of playing something different for once was an awkward experience, but still very funny.

Suddenly, a thud came from the ground floor. “Is Vinyl back already? I thought she wouldn’t be back for at least two more days…” Although she didn’t think that was the cause of the noise, she didn’t want to leave out a welcoming hug in the unlikely case that the DJ was indeed back ahead of schedule.

She rushed down the stairway and scanned the entrance hall. There was nothing unusual in sight. However, just as she wanted to turn around and get back to playing, putting off the event as a mere coincidence of unimportant matters, she heard another thud, this time much clearer than before.

Turning around again, she noticed that the red feather wasn’t at the same place it was just a few seconds ago. Nervously, she walked towards the now ever-so-slightly glowing object laying on the table, hesitating to take a closer look at it. She didn’t believe in supernaturalism, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t want to avoid just-in-case scenarios.

Another thud filled the room, the time interval to the previous one being much shorter than to the first one. It was clear now: the feather was responsible for the noise. It shook almost violently, glowing brightly for a split second, sending off a few sparks which disappeared only a second later, and laying itself back down on the tabletop, an afterglow pulsing much more visibly than the one before. A clear warmth was radiating from it now.

Part of Octavia’s mind told her—almost screamed—that she should just throw the thing out while she still had the chance. It told her that her house could burn down should this thing keep getting hotter and hotter. The other part of her mind, however, was just way too captivated by the beauty of the now literally fiery feather, eager to see what was next.

“The least I could do is get some fireproof placemats so nothing will catch on fire,” she figured. But just as she was about to turn around and run into the storage room to look for something that would do the job, the feather started to levitate itself up vertically. Its pulsing glow seemed to get brighter and brighter every second, the radiating warmth turning more and more into heat.

Octavia’s mind once again reached out to her, ordering her to not just stand there and get something to help avert an incident resulting in fire fighters carrying her out of her burning house—pictures which her subconsciousness tried to throw at her in hopes it’d help. It didn’t; Octavia simply stood there, mouth agape, staring at the potential arsonist.

A few seconds passed without a turn of events. That was interrupted when the feather’s hairs suddenly were all replaced by fire. In what seemed to be only the blink of an eye, the feather exploded, sending off a wave of heat and an incredibly bright light, brighter than the flash she had seen earlier that day in the town centre. Octavia once again covered her eyes and felt the heat wave wash over her skin, bundled with a slight blow of air.

When the bright light receded enough for her to look at the spot where the feather burst into flames a moment ago, she was both surprised and startled.

There, on the counter, stood a small bird with fur and feathers looking exactly like the object it was apparently made from. The creature wasn’t taller than a few inches—nothing in comparison to the ducky bird she saw earlier. High pitched squeaks came from its small beak, while it naively waddled around, possibly wondering where it was—or what it was. After a few steps, summing up to only a few inches, it noticed the gray mare looking at it with a surprised expression.

Octavia just stood there, unable to think or do anything, and just stared at the bird. As if on command to break the awkward silence, the bird started to smile and fluttered its tiny wings, as though it wanted to fly over to the pony. This was topped off with a bunch of happy chirps.

The cellist’s heart melted at the sight, her anxious mood suddenly being replaced by admiration and sympathy. She extended her forehoofs and picked the bird up.


“N’awww, aren’t you just the cutest thing ever?” she mumbled through a wide smile for the poor creature. She brought it to her face and nuzzled it, the difference in size between head and body being very clear. That didn’t change a fact about the lovely moment of body heat exchange though.

After the brief pseudo-hug was over, Octavia withdrew the bird and gently set it down on the table again. She put a hoof to her mouth. “Hmm, I’ve never seen a bird like you before, let alone the way you appeared.” Only then did she notice that the eruption from earlier didn’t leave any damage, apart from a few strains of ash being here and there. Those weren’t a problem though, a small wipe with a duster and everything would be gone.

“Hmm… What are you anyway, to begin with? And where do you come from?” At the sudden shower of negatively charged questions, the chirper felt a wave of sadness overcoming it, its face turned from the previously happy expression to a frown.

“Oh, no no, don’t cry, please! I’m sorry. I was just thinking out loud again…” The comfort helped little, but it was enough to avoid a potential moment of melancholy. It was clear to Octavia that the bird knew about as much about itself as she did. However, that didn’t discourage the cellist: there were answers to these questions, and she was determined to find them!

A loud crackling came from the outside and both the pony and the young chick looked outside the window—it had started to rain. “Hehe, looks like we have to wait until tomorrow to start this journey and find answers.” She let out a moan. “It was getting late anyways.” She offered the small critter a hoof and let it hop onto it. After doing so, she put it on top of her head and headed for the staircase.

Just as Octavia was about to hit the first stair, she stopped and picked up the bird resting on her mane again. “Hold on, I forgot one thing: you need a name! But what could work for a fire-themed bird like you?” Although it was clear her new companion couldn’t communicate with her verbally, it still seemed to understand what she said and put a thinking expression on its face. The cellist smiled at that image and laid on said expression as well, running through a list of potential names.

“Hmm, Firebird? Nah, too cliché. Hot Shot? Ugh, no way, I don’t want anypony to think my imagination is on par with that of a mole. Flammenwerfer? Could work, it’s just too bad nopony speaks Germane around here anymore. Pyro? Infernalizer? Combustoclaw?” A couple other names ran through her mind, all of them being immediately dismissed. Eventually though, a smile appeared on her face as inspiration struck her.

“What do you think about… Flamewing?” she asked the red-orange chick. Said critter was starting to chirp happily at the new name. “Haha, so it be then. Welcome to the family, Flamewing!”

She put her freshly named companion onto her top again and headed off into the upper floor to find some rest. It’d be the first of many happy nights with her new friend.

Author's Notes:

Oh wow, yet another story inspired by Fleshgod Apocalypse? Yeah, Technical Death Metal and ponies just have so much in common, y'know? :V

Thanks to Kaidan and Abcron for literally taking this story apart and reassembling it so it doesn't suck.
Also thanks to RainbowBob for assisting me with the story's description.

Next Chapter: Chapter 2: Cleansed By Fire Estimated time remaining: 12 Minutes
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