Failing. Falling in a black, burning abyss. She screamed, but no sound came from her throat. Her eyes searched frantically, but saw nothing. There was no sense of up or down, no echo of ambient noise, no light of any form. This was nothingness, for she was nothing. She had a mission, which she had failed. She had comrades, whom she had let down. She was less than nothing, an embarrassment. A failure.

Nopony would miss the failure. Many would be happy to be rid of her, for the world had no need of weaklings. It was shaped only by strength, and all who thought otherwise were fools. This was where she belonged, where the thread of her fate had always led. There was no pain, only the agony of knowledge. The failure was useless, and this was where useless things belonged.

Useless... The word became a sound, not because the failure spoke it, but by its own power. A sound in a soundless place, as strange and deafening as a pin dropped in a silent concertorium. The crackle of fire came next, drawing all toward it. As the failure slid through the abyss toward the sound, she felt a sense of identity return. For how long had she forgotten who she was?

Useless. The failure felt the heat of the fire against her face, but still could not see it. There was no air to breathe here, no sounds to hear here, and so she could only surmise that wherever the fire crackled from, it was not here. How had she come to this abyss in the first place? It did not matter. She could not move on her own, but the fire drew all things to itself. The failure shut her eyes, and found that she could see.

The fire was warm, friendly. It danced inside a strong stone fireplace, a primal force bound to the service of civilized ponies. She felt... happy. Though she could not place the memory, the sight of a warm fire like that one somehow meant she was in a safe place. The mare opened her eyes, which caused the scene to vanish. For some reason, this seemed wrong, but she ignored it and closed her eyes tight again.

This was where she belonged, was it not? The fire had called to her, drawn her here. Out of the abyss and into the warm world. It had not been her decision, the fire had made it for her. But... no, that was silly. A fire was an element, like wind or water. It could not bring a mare into the world... what had, then? She opened her eyes for a moment and tried to order her thoughts.

Klunk. Her eyes popped shut, and she saw a faint aura of magic wink out of existence as another log dropped into the fire. Unicorns used magic, not earth ponies. She had good friends who were unicorns. Friends like... like... why could she not remember their names? There was one with a harp, and one who... who... The grey mare yawned. Who was she, anyway? Unicorns. Something important about unicorns. Unicorns she knew, unicorns-

"Octavia."

Her ears perked up. No, the fire had not spoken. She was still sitting in front of it, held by the same crackle that had drawn her here. Something else had said that name. With her eyes wide shut, she slowly turned her head toward where the sound had come from. It was a unicorn, resting in a stuffed chair near the fireplace, he looked down at her face with a faint scowl of disapproval. The grey mare reached up to wipe her mouth, thinking that to be the reason for his mood, then let her hoof roam further. She felt her forehead, flat as always, then brushed back her mane.

The unicorn sighed. "Useless." He leaned forward in the chair and rested his chin on his front hooves. "No matter how hard I try, you are still worthless."

She swallowed hard and opened her eyes, but the scene remained.

He looked down at her and lifted his goblet of wine with a precise ring of magic. "Now, now. I know it is not your fault. You would if you could, Octavia, but..." he took a reflective sip. "You cannot." He set the glass back down and turned his gaze to the fire. "Tell me, daughter. Refresh my spirit. What are you?"

The grey mare knew. It was all so very clear now. All the noise had fled, all the emptiness was filled. The dream was gone, burned away by the fire. That noise, that crash, the mumblety-peg mantra hissing through her thoughts, all those things were figments. Weaknesses. There was only one truth, and he had taught it to her long ago.

"I am a tool, Father." Octavia felt so warm. The blackness was gone. The illusion had fallen away. "An instrument of the strong. I carry out their will. I ensure their dominance." As she spoke, she felt no need to smile. It would have been unbecoming of one such as herself. "I am a Jäger."

He was silent for a long moment, watching the fire dance. "You are all I have in the world. Pathetic, really. Once I was the greatest of our calling, but now, because of you, I am nothing more than the ash in the fireplace." The stallion looked back to her, his face weary. "You are my legacy, Octavia."

The earth pony bowed her head. She had been born a failure. Her father had tried so very hard, and she loved him so very much, but there was no changing what she was. Octavia was a failure by birth, by deed, and by fate.

Her father nodded, as though reading her thoughts and approving of them. "And yet," he took another sip of wine, "I cannot simply rid myself of you and try again. So I am condemned to making do with what I have. A test of my will, my strength, my right to be a Jäger."

"I... I am sorry, Father."

The stallion rolled his eyes. "Sorrow is useless. It distracts from the moment." He leaned toward her again, almost out of the chair. "And to a sniper, the moment is everything. Your mind must be clear, your body ready, and your will absolute. You must kill with power, again and again, you must be worthy of that weapon in your fetlocks!" The firelight's reflection flickered in his eyes as he tried to pour his strength into this unworthy vessel. "Your mind is all you possess that is able to lay claim to the title of Jäger, my daughter. Look at me."

She lifted her head, hoping for an instant that he might validate her existence. Instead, she felt herself knocked to the ground by a hoof across the face. It would not bruise, and the sting was already gone, but the message was clear.

"If you were any other mare, I would have killed you already." He took a calming breath and slumped back into the chair. "You have botched training assignments, hesitated at key moments, and shown weakness at every turn."

Octavia bit her lower lip. She would not cry. She could not cry. That would only shame her father even more.

"But... you are not any other mare. You are my daughter." He finished the last of the wine in the goblet. "And so, you must do this for me." The unicorn glared down at her. "You must." He leaned forward again, "you must."

"Affirmative, Father," the grey mare whispered from the floor. She pulled herself upright again, then nodded slowly to show she understood.

The stallion studied her for a long moment, then the barest hint of a smile graced the corners of his muzzle. "One day, Octavia. One day, I know you will make me proud."

Yes. Anything. Her heart lept, and she bowed her head ever so slightly to hide her blush. The warmth of the fire had filled her now, and all memory of the void was gone. She was home again.

"Oh, don't be foolish, dear. She's a mudpony." The new voice sauntered into the study, a bottle of wine floating in her aura. "She'll never amount to anything, their kind never does."

Octavia recognized the body the voice came from, but it was somehow... different. Twisted. It did not flow like the notes she remembered. Wait, what were notes? Her eyes chanced upon the mark on her own flank, and a flood of understanding overwhelmed her mind. Notes, staves, scales, melodies, rhythm, tempo, harmony, octaves! Then, with a crash of comprehension that seemed to split her skull: ...Music!

The voices swirled around her for a moment, then fizzed back down to comprehensible noises. She felt dizzy, weightless, and for a moment feared that the black abyss was calling for her again, but it was something else. A strange flickering in the corner of her vision, as though the paintings in her Father's study were melting. The grey mare turned her head slightly and the distortion faded, but she knew there had been something there. A hum, a buzz, a sound of some kind that frightened her.

"Octavia."

Her eyes snapped back to the stallion, all fear forgotten at the sound of him speaking her name. He looked different than he had a moment ago. Older. Colder. The fire no longer flickered in his eyes the way it had a moment ago. She leaned her head to the side, then reached up to rub her eyes with a fetlock. That infernal hum was pounding, dancing from the floor up her spine and down again. Did Father hear the hum too?

"Music. My daughter's talent is music." He sighed deeply. "For many years, I thought that it was a mistake, that the mark on your flank meant elegance in execution... but that was a false hope."

Octavia started to say something, then covered her mouth with a hoof. This was familiar, all too familiar. It was not merely because she liked the warmth of the fire and adored the voice of her father, she had sat in this very spot and heard him say these exact words before.

"I have taught you everything I know, my daughter. Everything I am, I gave to you." He curled his lip. "But you were not strong enough for it."

She stared at him with her eyes wide, knowing what he would say before he formed the words.

"You are a continual disappointment to me. Not simply because of your body, but because of your heart. There is something in you I have not been able to crush, some... illness of the mind that holds you back from your potential. And I wonder as I sit here what the cause of that might be." He held up the goblet and looked at it curiously.

"It's because she's a mudpony, dear," said the other voice. "Oh, you tried so hard, but you always were silly."

Octavia furrowed her brow. That voice sounded... odd. She had not heard it before. It was like a flute playing out of time, still a well-played flute, but it did not match the music. She did not know what it would say before it spoke.

"I have taught you these skills," her father continued as though the disruption had never occurred, "to protect you. You did not choose to be born, did not choose to be a Jäger, but you did choose to learn. And though you did not become what I hoped for, I at least hope you have learned all you are able."

She nodded. "Affirmative, Father." The earth pony had tried so very hard, but only success or failure mattered.

"Because you will need these skills to survive." He set the goblet down without drinking from it. "This world is your birthright. You may wish to play your cello at a pretty gala, but that is not your world. It can never be your world. You were born a Jäger, and that is a title that will remain with you until the grave claims you as it has claimed all of us. You were born to bring death and sorrow, not joy. Do you understand?"

"I do," Octavia answered, just as she knew she had before. But that before was now. How could what once had been happen again? Why did that hum hurt so?

He picked up his goblet of wine again. "If... if there had been another way, I would have taken it." The stallion sloshed the wine around slowly, then turned to look at the fire. "Any other way, but... I must pass on my mantle, and you are my daughter. You are my legacy." The unicorn turned back to her, and seemed to be searching for evidence in her eyes that he had forged something worthy. After a long moment, he said, "Octavia... it is an elegant name. It fits you."

The grey mare felt her heart leap. "T-thank you, Fath-"

"Dear, you really do need to drink your wine." The voice was back. Octavia saw the mare step up to the side of the chair. "It's for your health, remember?"

For the first time, the stallion looked up at her. His brow furrowed for a moment, then he glanced down at the wine. Octavia twitched her tail to the side. This felt so horridly wrong, but she could not quite put her hoof on why. She looked at the strange voice, and saw it had the form of her mother. That made sense, but why was mother...

"Dear. The wine. Drink it." She smiled at him until he picked the goblet up with a hoof.

"I rather think I have had enough for tonight."

Her eyes turned cold and hard. "Just a little more. For me." She reached down, "you'll feel so much better." The mare's hoof touched his shoulder, and she pushed the fetlock carrying the wine ever so slightly closer to his lips.

A moment passed. Octavia wanted to cry out, to say that all this should not be, but she could not find the words. What happened next shocked her into silence anyway. Her father calmly reached up, grabbed the mare, and threw her against the wall with a pulse of magic. Then he hurled the goblet of wine at her hard enough to smash it across her face. The stallion flicked something off his suit from where she had touched it, and then turned a harsh glare on the slumped pony that resembled her mother.

"You touched me. I warned you long ago about touching me without my permission." He settled back in the chair. The humiliated unicorn mare moaned something, to which her husband responded: "Have you forgotten that it was your filthy blood that defiled my legacy? Before we wed, I asked. I checked, but I trusted you." He turned to look at his daughter. "Love, Octavia. It is a terrible thing. It makes one forget that-"

"Trust is a Weakness," the grey mare intoned crisply.

"Indeed. If I had trusted less and researched more, you would have never been born." He looked at the heap of mare once more, the spilled wine staining the wall and floor red like blood. "Only those you trust can betray you."

Octavia felt a pang of empathy for her mother, and stepped closer to the mare. Her father sighed. She knew that this was that spark of weakness he had tried so hard to push out, but this moment felt so very wrong that she simply had to follow her heart. The form of her mother was shaking with what might have been sobs, and the grey mare reached out a hoof to her.

"Mother, I... let me help you clean-"

Craaack.

The unicorn's neck twisted a full hundred and eighty degrees around, and her eyes locked with the grey mare's. A grin that would have been more at home on a shark stretched across her muzzle. "Thank you, sweetie," she hauled herself to her hooves. "But I don't need any help." An unearthly glow filled her eyes, and the stained flesh of the earth pony's mother fell away. "I wanted to do things the easy way," she chuckled.

Octavia backed away slowly. Who was this mare? Where was her mother? Why was that hum throbbing so loudly? She glanced back at her father, but he had turned stiff as a statue, a dull grey tone leeching all the color from his eyes and fur. "Wha-what are you?"

The unicorn hissed as she shrugged off the last of the false skin. "Oh, you're an interesting one. You're a professional. I could have done so much with a set of skills like yours, but," she spat, "that misogynistic pig you call a father wouldn't just drink the wine."

The grey mare stepped back again, then turned to her father and touched him. Her hoof passed right through his body. "D-da... Father?"

"A memory, you mudpony. But a strong one. I had to corrupt it before I could use it." She cracked her back, then with a deep gasp melted into a glowing white form. "But no, he wasn't going to have any of my wine. Stupid pig. Why does everypony have to make things so difficult?"

Octavia blinked again. "I... you... I know you."

A slow grin spread across the floating creature's face. "Well... what did he call you... Octavia? Yes, Octavia. Why, of course you know me, I'm your fairy godmother!" Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

The sniper leaned her head to the side in doubt.

"You've been a bad, bad girl, Octavia. Killing all those ponies. Hurting all those innocents." The specter smiled. "But it's okay. I've come to give you the offer of redemption."

The earth pony felt the fire dying at her back. She shook her head slowly. That hum was so loud, pulsing up through her legs like the ground itself was alive. Could nopony else hear it?

"I do not need... redemption," the grey mare said quietly, and stepped closer to the chair. "I just need my father back."

"Oh, I wanted to help your father too, but the stupid-" she cleared her throat. "He's a hard case. Here, just take my hoof, and I'll make all that icky fear go away. I can see it in your eyes, you've been hurting for so very long, haven't you?"

The assassin nodded slowly. Her thoughts were foggy. This voice seemed kind, and it had risen from her mother. Was it an angel? She glanced over at Father again, trying to understand why this all felt like... like a gun hammered together from mismatched parts and ready to explode the first time it was fired. She looked up at the mare curiously, searching for weaknesses as her Father had taught her.

"Just take my hoof. It'll all be better." The ghostly unicorn chuckled as her irises glowed orange. "Trust me."

Octavia's eyes narrowed as her mind cleared. "Trust is a Weakness."

"Fine then," spat the mare as her body flowed back into its true form. Scoffing Song rolled her head to the side and smiled. "The hard way works for me too." She raised her front legs, and five tendrils began to worm out from each hoof.

The grey mare glanced over her shoulder. Why were there no doors or windows? Her father's study should have a door right... no, just a blank wall. The fire was still lit, so going up the chimney was not an option either. There had to be some way out!

"I'm going to enjoy ripping you apart, you useless mud-"

Whooomp.

The floor shook, and Octavia felt herself topple to the ceiling. Cracks tore through the walls, and the fire spilled out of its stone box. The grey mare kicked at a crack below her hooves and felt the ceiling give way. She kicked again and dove through the hole just a moment before the screaming specter stood upright again. On the other side was her father's library, a maze of shelves and ancient texts. The cellist felt something tugging at her hooves, and saw that the floor was lined with a musical stave. On it were notes, blessed things that seemed the only honest part of this madhouse.

Stepping on the right ones let her move faster, and lit the path she wanted to take. The wrong ones brought books tumbling down upon her. Right and wrong were defined by the song in her head, the music flowing from her heart to her hooves. It was beautiful, in a terrifying way, since every wrong step brought her closer to the screeching horror behind.

Octavia did not know where she was going. She had to get away, and so she followed the notes. It was as natural as breathing to the cellist. After a moment, she recognized another sound, the lub-dub lub-dub of her pulse. Why was she only hearing it now? As she pondered, a giant shadow of a unicorn fell across one of the bookcases in front of her. The grey mare dove to the side and slid through an empty shelf, then followed the stave on that side of the bookcase away from the shadow. Whatever this thing was, she must not let it catch her.

Thinking was hard, which unnerved the grey mare. She felt as though she should be able to hold many more thoughts in her head than she could at the moment. As though there was something else eating up all the rehearsal time her orchestra of neurons usually reserved, and so they had to scramble to sight-read anything she submitted for contemplation. Instinct guided her. She ran over the notes, focusing on them until the stave suddenly came to an end. Octavia skidded to a halt and looked around.

She had left the library at some point, and was now out in the air. The sun hung high above her head, but it was... weak. Other ponies staggered around her, but when she looked directly at any of them they disappeared. A loud whistle blast came from some distance off, and she perked her ears as she turned her head. This was a train station. She was standing at a train station with her cello case at her side. Was she waiting to board a train? No, she had no ticket. She was waiting for somepony. The grey mare looked over her shoulder, but the white specter was nowhere to be found. Had she escaped it?

Nothing is finished, she remembered her Father's teachings, until death. Only that closes all things, for somepony who yet lives can still act. That is why you must strike hard, cleaving flesh and bone with your first shot. The grave closes all. Octavia swallowed hard. She was waiting for a train. This was not strange, she had waited for many trains. They were an inexpensive way for a struggling cellist to travel. She was a cellist... right?

The train was coming. Not long now. Octavia felt warm, the sun above was shining down on her. Blurry figures moved around her, and she felt her heart pounding in her barrel. What was this place? Not just the train station, this entire world. Was this the real life, or was it just fantasy? The grey mare closed her eyes and felt her knees wobble. She was just a poor girl, caught up in something her mind seemed unable to comprehend, searching for a way to escape. Octavia leaned her head back and opened her eyes, looking up at the sky in search of some answer. That was why she did not see what made that horrible Brak-um-screeeeeeeeee!

Octavia's eyes snapped down to the train track. All the blurred shapes around her turned to look as well. Muttered fragments of garbled words flooded her ears, louder even than the sound of twisting metal and the screams. She raised a fetlock to her mouth, and found something clutched in it. Paper. On the paper, writing. Words that should have some meaning, but all she could read was a signature at the bottom. His signature. She struggled through the masses of blurred forms toward the train, and saw other blurred forms stumbling out, helped by ponies in red or purple porters' uniforms. The grey mare swept a lock of her mane from her eyes and pushed closer.

Blur after blur, each one vanishing when she looked, slipped by. She moved with the rest of the crowd, helping the wobbling blurs away from the train into the care of other ponies whose faces were fuzzy figments. She did not think, only followed the notes on the ground. One of the blurs, in a purple uniform, had crimson all over his body. They carried him away, but she had no time to look, because the next out was... oh... No. No, no, no. Octavia pushed through the blurs, provoking a flurry of mangled syllables, but she did not care. He was so very still, but she had seen him lay still as stone before. Her mouth was dry, but she begged him to get up, to say something. Father was only steadying himself, she had seen him do it before, and... then... the next.

Mother. Truly mother, not the thing with the voice. She looked so... peaceful. More than she had ever been in life... or at least, more than Octavia had ever seen her. She reached down and touched her cheek. It was so very cold. The noises around her had faded. One of the blurs in a purple uniform took off his cap and held it over his front, covering the pin of a little pony holding up the world many of the railworkers wore.

The hum. It had returned, a low, mournful throb through the ground. Her barrel felt hollow as a red-uniformed porter tried to help her away from the wreck, away from them, away from... her knees gave out. He was just a blur, but she leaned her head against his front and stained his uniform with her tears so her father would not see. She felt the neat brass buttons pressing into her cheek, the fabric against her fur. That was why she could remember the uniforms, even after all this time.

Remember? Octavia blinked and looked up again. This... had happened before too. This was the day her parents had died, and now they were dying once more. That hum was forcing its way through her bones again. The grey mare set her jaw and forced herself upright. All around her, the blurs faded away. She was alone in the world. Her eyes turned to the cello case on the platform, and a stave flowed from it to her hooves. Octavia took a step, then another, following the notes. That was her choice, to pursue her music. It was what her heart wanted. A sensation of strength flickered through her body. It was a good feeling, even though the hum was eating at it. She was walking toward control of her destiny. The grave closes all. Yes, she-

"Always the hard way. Bah, fine, then." The crack of a thunderbolt exploded behind her, and Octavia whirled about to see the white specter cackling madly. She raised her head high and another bolt of energy arced from her horn, into the bodies of the grey mare's parents. Before her horrified eyes, they began to rise, their limbs cocked at unnatural angles and their eyes flickering with some eldritch light. "Listen well, little assassin. I am Scoffing Song, and I will strip away all you hold dear until there is nothing left but death."

Octavia backed up slowly. Assassin. The cello case. Inside, a weapon. Only that closes all things, for somepony who yet lives can still act. That is why you must strike hard, cleaving flesh and bone with your first shot. She turned as though to flee and made for the train platform, grabbing her case and slinging it onto her back as she slid behind one of the sturdy brick ticket booths. The grey mare scrambled further away, into the concrete and iron of the station, then dropped her case behind a wall and reached for the latches...

A chunk of the wall vanished, vaporized by a beam of impossible power. Octavia looked down at her front hooves and saw they were singed. Her cello case was gone, reduced to cinders and scraps of metal. Then she saw the hoof of her father, turned green with rot, claw through the hole in the wall. He hauled himself through and slavered at her, all trace of the stallion she had looked up to gone. Behind him staggered the ravening shell that had once been her mother, the unicorn's beautiful features destroyed by pulsing veins of evil light that stretched out from her eye sockets.

Octavia ran. The cackle of Scoffing Song chased her, a sound that seemed to come from every which way at once as she fled into the trainyard and sought shelter beneath one of the steel monsters resting there. She lay very still, trying to disappear into the metalwork, to vanish as her father had taught her.

"Where are you, little worm? I have all the time in the world to crush your spirit!"

The grey mare felt a tremor run through the ground. That hum had returned. She held her breath and hoped she would not be found, until she saw the shadow of a unicorn fall upon one of the nearby railcars and heard a horrible crunch of metal on metal. Then she dashed out the other side of her hiding place. Her strong legs took her far away, her training let her scale and leap between the sleeping steel beasts, but nothing could keep the fear from her heart as she followed the notes. This world could only come from one place, her own mind. And if that... thing was here, what bastion did Octavia have left? She could only run from something for so long, she needed somewhere to run to.

"Octavia! Come join your parents," laughed The Daughter, her ethereal body held aloft on currents of magic that flowed from her horn to the ground. "Serve me and die!" She stretched out a hoof and levitated a traincar into a coal bunker, creating an unholy racket. "The order's up to you."

Author's Notes:

Aquarium is a long musical piece, well worth two chapters all to itself. It is also dealing with a rather big scene, the war within Octavia's mind! This first chapter is a good thousand words over the usual, but I felt it was more important to preserve the flow and pacing of the story than to keep the word count manageable.

We meet Octavia's father for the first time here. I was hesitant to add him as a full character in the story, simply because a vague boogeyman often works better, but I felt it would be a good way to explain why she loves him. Octavia is not stupid. She did not love her father because she "had to", or because she was too blind to see what he was. She loved him because, in his own twisted way, he was doing the best he could for her. However, the idea of simply turning her loose and letting her live as a "normal girl" was unthinkable to him.

Why did I put a poor cellist through all this? How could I have derived all that from a brief appearance on a cartoon? Well, as they say, it's always the quiet ones you have to watch out for...

Finally, there was indeed a Bohemian Rhapsody nod hidden in the second "chunk". As if I could pass that up!

This chapter was a tremendous amount of work. I would really love to know what you thought of it, since I think this sort of "blurred dreamworld" is the biggest risk I've taken with the story yet. If you enjoyed it, why? Did I describe unclear concepts with clear grammar? Did you feel I presented the characters reacting in a believable manner? Do you think Scoffing Song throwing trains around is kinda cool? If not, where did I botch it all up?

I hope to take your comments to heart for the next chapter, and improve!