Ponyville, October 3rd

Dear BB,

Yes! I need something. I am wracked with guilt, I know full well I only write to you when I have a request, but it seems it is a bad habit I cannot put down. My deepest apologies! You are, as always, free to demand just compensation. I heard a new show opened up in Trottingham the other month, and word on the vine is very promising. We could visit some time before the Summer Sun Millennial if you like. This is only my own humble suggestion; I am of course open to anything you suggest. Within reason.

But perhaps I should have started with the most urgent: I am in no terrible danger or other pressing circumstance. Vinyl Scratch, that darling fool, likely is. So I would beg the imposition to watch our house, maybe once or twice these coming weeks, while I sally forth to rescue our wayward prodigal colleague.

You are of course perfectly within your rights to know what Vinyl is up to; as you may be aware, she has taken a sabbatical year to recharge her muse. I have a stack of postcards from her, all ready to be entered into a clipbook at some point. She has sent at least one from every community she has visited, and there are scores of them! The latest ones have been in the far north; she’s been enchanted by the fantastic vistas of the Crystal Mountain foothills and the many small villages there.

And now she says she’s staying.

Vinyl Scratch. Terror of the Canterlot Academy. Queen of the Party Scene. Staying at some village with barely three dozen inhabitants, whose main export seems to be wild snowstorms. Now, please prepare yourself. Make sure you are sitting down. Maybe make a pot of tea.

The reason she wishes to settle down in this village?

Vinyl Scratch wants to join a village choir. Permanently.

I swear upon my cello I am not making this up.

How was the tea? I hope you did not laugh yourself into hiccups. I could wax oh so poetic about Vinyl’s voice and its (lack of) melodious qualities, but you know all of that as well as I. However: once I stopped laughing, I became baffled. Worried, even. This is a good bit more eccentric than Vinyl’s usual antics, would you not say?

Which is why I have decided to visit Vinyl in person and make sure she is in good health and of sound mind. My ticket is for the evening train in a couple hours, leaving me with barely enough time to pack, put the house in order and write this letter (which I am doing first, of course). I will feel silly dropping it off at the post office on the way to the station, as they will promptly determine it should be delivered to you in Canterlot, and send it to the train station - my ticket is for the evening mail train. This also means that tomorrow, when you open and read this letter, my train will already be passing Trottingham.

Why the rush, you ask? In all honesty, I am uncertain. Yet there is this feeling, BB. Thinking of Vinyl Scratch - I am overcome with these jitters, as if my mind is refusing to continue on this path of thought. Look at that; even writing this makes me shake. My apologies for the horrid lettering. Call me hysterical - I do so! But I have to follow my emotions. I cannot ignore them.

The village is called Windy Valley, and I will write to you again as soon as I disembark the train. The track of course does not run all the way to the village - nowhere close, in fact - so I will be forced to trek the rest of the way. Until then, my apologies for loading you down with all of this; I hope it will not monopolise too much of your free time. Say hello to Maestro and the others from me, please! And try not to worry; I will be fine. As will Vinyl, once I have given her an earful.

Thank you and apologies in advance,
Octavia

Rainbow Falls, October 5th

Hello again BB,

As I am unsure of your schedule yet wish to keep you up to date, I am sending two copies of this letter; one to your apartment in Canterlot and one to our Ponyville house. I would ask you to put the Ponyville letter on my desk; the fancy to write down my experience into something more structured has struck me. Something tells me this will be a journey worth remembering.

You will be relieved to know that Her Majesty’s Rail Service has safely and timely delivered my person to the ever-charming Rainbow Falls. My only complaint might be the creaking of the sleeper cabins. I slept restlessly. I remember dreaming - of Vinyl, of course. She was looking at me, smiling a sad little smile. Then she opened her mouth, closed her eyes and drew a deep breath— and I woke up just before she’d start singing. Only a dream I hear you say, but I was intensely frustrated at waking before I could hear her voice in song. Dream logic, right? We’ve been with her to enough bars so we know her favourite drinking songs, and how she crows them, but in that dream I was sure I was going to experience something sublime.

Enough nonsense! Have you visited here? I can recommend it. The potential to turn a corner between stalls and stumble upon inspiration (and an inevitably expensive trade) is overwhelming. The tourist brochures are factual, but they absolutely fail to convey the atmosphere. This is a place of seekers and of mysteries, and of stories both developing and ancient retold. I can certainly see why Vinyl would’ve come here; it is a logical place to find something you haven’t seen or experienced before.

She was here about a month ago. There are some postcards from the closest villages after that, ending with Windy Valley. I have brought the latest ones with me, in the hope of finding some hitherto unseen logic in them. No such luck; the only new revelation is a hint at just how isolated Windy Valley is: it took the postcard nearly ten days to reach me. Don’t they have any pegasi at all? Regular trade? I must confess there is in me a budding fascination with the place. It might be my nerves - in all likelihood it mostly is - but the air of mystery surrounding the place increases as I draw near.

But it is only mostly my nerves. I asked around; you’d think that in a place with so many seasoned travelling merchants I would be able to glean at least the basics about this village, which is not too remote from here. But either my luck is abysmal or the village is severely isolated. The most informed ponies admitted to knowing the general location of the village - and that was all.

Mysterious village is still in my future; for now I am resting in one of the inns of Rainbow Falls. I have bought a map of the local mountains, and Windy Valley is marked. I expect the journey to take me most of tomorrow. There is a faint tracery of what I hope is a path leading there, but it is hard to make out. I nevertheless base my estimate on the answers I received from more experienced local mountaineers I shared an informative supper with here in the inn. I was introduced to them after asking around, and they were friendly enough once I explained my reason to impose. They also cautioned me to start immediately at sun’s rising and do all in my power to avoid remaining exposed on the mountainside at sundown; this far into autumn, freak snow storms often spring from nowhere; it takes heavy equipment to secure a tent well enough so it will not simply blow away. As I am no camper, it is not something I ever wish to test.

Writing about this has given me awfully jangling nerves; I had better cease before I lose my gumption altogether. Wouldn’t that be tragicomic? To come all this way, only to be scared away by the final leg of my journey, task unfinished? I can imagine you rolling your eyes right now. Get a grip indeed, Octavia Melody!

Good night, BB!

Rainbow Falls, October 7th

BB,

I have been stymied.

It is difficult for me to carry myself with proper dignity with all these negative emotions storming within me. Hopefully writing will help. I will try to convey through this text exactly what happened, but in all honesty I am still flabbergasted, confused, frustrated. Scared. I am scared, BB.

I set out yesterday morning, right as the moon set and the sun rose, armed with a good quartet of galoshes for the slush, travel rations in a sensible saddle and bag combination and the map in my jaws. The main valley in which Rainbow Falls resides runs east to west, so Sun was with me from the start, warming my back as I set out towards the closest northern mountain slope. According to the map, I needed to circle it eastwards, climbing all the while until I’d reach the point where the mountain joins another, forming the valley from which Windy Valley probably gets its name.

Rainbow Falls is already high - the train station is about one thousand eight hundred metres above sea level - but Windy Valley is five hundred metres higher still. As the pegasus flies, the distance is trivial - a mere four kilometres or so - and I of course asked around; there is no pegasus carriage service here. Conditions in the mountains are too harsh for any but the most experienced of pegasi, and those generally get jobs with better security and higher pay. This left me with no option but my own four hooves as mode of transportation.

Thus I walked, choosing what seemed a path formed by pony hooves heading in the right direction. A musician is no slouch if they know what is good for them, so negotiating the steep and uneven terrain gave me but a healthy warmth to combat the biting wind. The path rose and dipped but on average kept climbing ever higher, and it was by my judgement an hour later that I paused on a ledge some hundreds of metres above the marketplace and admired the vista. The wind, though cold, had a pleasantly melodious susurrus to it and I even caught myself trying to hum along. The ledge seemed a somewhat well-frequented place by the locals; I spotted several samples of declarations of eternal love between couples, crudely etched into flat surfaces of rock in the cliff face. It was with good spirits, buoyed by echoes of young love, that I continued onwards and upwards. The path was definitely getting fainter, but I still felt good about my direction.

Can you imagine my confusion when, about an hour later, I arrived at an identical ledge?

At first I tried to rationalise it away as simply a higher point on the switchback path. That theory was proven laughable by the lovers’ etchings on the rock face. I had been here an hour earlier and amused myself reading these letters in stone. Now, all I felt was horror and shame. How could I have been so turned around?

I am a novice when it comes to mountaineering, of course. I am not so prideful as to deny the possibility that I simply got turned around. It was a possibility I immediately decided to eliminate going forward. I carefully studied the valley, picking out likely high-visibility landmarks. Determined, but feeling a bit impatient, I set out again. Someone else might have chosen another path for their second try (and I should’ve wondered then and there about the little detail that in hindsight stands out so clearly: I had not returned to the ledge by that path) but I would not immediately discard it due to a potential mistake of my own making.

And so I hurried onward slowly. Walking briskly a stretch of path before checking my surroundings to ward against getting turned around.

Dear Beauty Brass. Dear Celestia. It did not work.

I was out of breath, I was sweating, and there in front of me - impossibly, inexplicably, yet undeniably, the path down to that thrice-cursed ledge stretched in front of me. Landmarks that I had checked less than a minute ago were suddenly displaced almost opposite to where they were supposed to be. I had not turned around. I swear this, upon Celestia’s crown and upon her throne, yet there I was heading back the way I came.

I sat down and, I am ashamed to admit, my frustrated scream echoed off the mountains. Can you imagine it, BB? I am not some, to entertain the more negative stereotypes, some spaced-out unicorn that doesn’t know where her hooves rest. Yes: Someone like Vinyl, seemingly adrift, never anchored. But no; I am of the Earth, same as you, BB. I am not sure how connected you are to our heritage, but I have a quite solid feel of the land, thanks to my relatives in the countryside. I know where my hooves stand. And yet here on this mountain I had now lost the path not once, but TWICE. THIS IS N

I am sorry. I lost my temper. It is a cup of tea later as I resume. One of Horseshoepin’s piano concertos is playing on a record I borrowed from the kindly pony at the check-in. I may have forgotten to mention up to now that I am safe and sound, back in the Rainbow Falls inn.

Am I rambling? I feel you need to know all of it, and also in part I write my thoughts down as they are fresh so I can compile them later, with the benefit of perspective. Because right now they don’t seem to make all that much sense.

I am not sure how long I raged at the mountain. Perhaps it took offence, indicated by the snowstorm that approached as I became aware also of the valley below me getting increasingly swallowed by shadow; the sun was low on the horizon. You know I have my pride, BB, so you can maybe understand how it tore at me to beat a hasty retreat down to the safety of Rainbow Falls, but while I am without doubt prideful I am by no means a fool.

Well, not a great fool at least.

The crowd at the inn was mostly unchanged from last evening, and they were understandably alarmed by my unexpected reappearance, good ponies as they are. I am afraid I was not in the best of moods, but they forgave me my hurried and very abridged retelling of my frustrations, expressing much sympathy. The innkeeper was very generous and offered me the same room at a lower rate as a “return customer”. So that is where I am right now, putting these words onto this paper. I do believe that I am the talk of the inn this evening; I can hear the murmurs of the crowd from here as they no doubt speculate upon what I encountered.

I wish I could join them, but I am exhausted. Sleep will no doubt claim me quickly tonight. I shall write more to you tomorrow, I think. So for now:

Good night, BB.
Octavia

Rainbow Falls, October 8th

Hello again BB,

I am writing this on the eve of a very eventful day. It turns out that as the rumour of my adventures yesterday spread, I attracted ponies willing to help! Already as I dragged myself down to breakfast I was met with words of support by the other residents and some natives of Rainbow Falls. This only grew as the day progressed; the dining room of the inn turned into something of a meeting hall as a constant stream of ponies sought me out. It feels like I have been introduced to, and had introduced to me, at least one third of the permanent inhabitants of Rainbow Falls, including the deputy mayor: one Sudden Breeze. Charming stallion, though not an appreciator of classical music. What he also didn’t appreciate was the news that there is some kind of magic in the mountains, turning ponies away from their paths. Pegasus as he is he was quick to spring into action, summoning a team of other pegasi to locate and, if possible, neutralise the odd magic.

Meanwhile, the physician of this community insisted on performing a full medical examination, despite my protests. I eventually caved and let her perform what tests she could in the inn, during a pause between visitors. I am in perfect health, naturally.

Today is for resting, but I am already determined to try again tomorrow. My various guests and visitors tried to dissuade me out of concern for my safety, but this strange setback only makes me more determined that I must reach Vinyl.

Come to think: How did Vinyl pass that magic? Is there some unicorn trick to it? Or was it not there when she passed through?

There is one visitor who did not try to persuade me to give up. In fact, he insists on joining me. His name is Berry Oats, and he says he is a composer and musician. I have no reason to doubt him based on our extended conversations this evening; he is a delightful debater of any musical topic, though his critique of contemporaries is a bit sharp at times. He claims he has heard me play and lauded my technique, but then waxed sorrowful over the ‘dreary and conventional repertoire’ at the concert hall. Needless to say, he strikes me as a stallion somewhat at odds with the world and himself. When I expressed surprise at meeting another musician at such a location, he grew serious.

“I think I was called, perhaps much like your friend ms. Scratch. You were up there; you heard the song these mountains sing, yes?”

Utter balderdash; though the winds do howl peculiarly, it is no siren song - if anything, that mountain tries to repel me! - but which creative personality does not cultivate eccentricities, I ask you? He did have one good point that I cannot refute, though I dismissed it as hypothetical at the time: Where one pony gets turned around, perhaps two ponies cooperating manage to pass. I reminded him of the deputy mayor, but he simply smiled and shook his head. “Pegasi might claim some dominion over the weather, but these mountain storms are not your average Cloudsdale Drizzle Four.”

Sadly, Berry Oats has been proven right; Sudden Breeze and his assistants returned a short moment ago, exhausted, having battled the still-raging snowstorm all day. Though they did finally claim victory over it, they had no time left over for investigating the barrier that I encountered. I have therefore decided to accept Oats’ offer of company for the attempt tomorrow.

And on the topic of tomorrow, I should finish this letter and go to bed. I want all my strength at my disposal for this second attempt!

Until next time!
Octavia

Rainbow Falls, October 21st

In reply to your letter,

We have been unable to determine the whereabouts of your friends, Octavia Melody and Vinyl Scratch, as of writing this letter, and I wished to give you a situation report.

Our efforts to locate your friends are hampered due to the wild snowstorm that blankets all of the mountainside of the northern slopes of the Rainbow Falls valley, and possibly beyond. We are awaiting additional assistance from Cloudsdale, as our own weather management team has proven insufficient to disperse the unregulated weather.

We do know Octavia set out in the company of Berry Oats, early in the morning of November 9th, their goal being the Windy Valley village. Accounting for the expected time of the journey, as well as that the storm did not start properly until well after sundown, there is every reason to believe they managed to reach their destination in good time.

For now, I would advise you to be patient and expect to hear back from your friends just as soon as this storm is dealt with; they are most likely eager to contact you. I have talked to our post office, and any letter from them will get the express treatment at no extra charge.

Respectfully,
Sudden Breeze,
Deputy Mayor of Rainbow Falls