A loyalist, through and through, and proud of it! That was Octavia!



"Was," being the key word.



As of late, it seemed that Octavia's life was comprised of nothing but turn after unexpected turn.



For the eighth time, she looked down and inspected the mechanism of her musket. Her father's, at one time. She was fairly certain he wouldn't approve of how it was being used now.



At the time of its original purchase, it was the best gun that money could buy. Years later, it was still leagues ahead of most weapons fielded by the Continentals.



Octavia was slightly appalled to find that maintaining it wasn't all that different from lavishing care upon her prized contra bass.



But not nearly as appalled as she was to find that learning to use the exceptional weapon as a sharpshooter came almost as naturally to her as drawing a bow across strings.



She shuddered at the thought, and not for the first time. She was being trained to become a killer! Where had it all gone wrong?!



She remembered sitting on a hill with Vinyl, watching a battle unfold on a lower hill across the river from them. Unsure how she had let Vinyl drag her along. Unsure she could even bear to watch once the shooting started.



Her friend's traitorous talk of joining the rebels had driven a wedge between them as of late, but a friend she remained.



But something was amiss as the battle began. For every red coated regular, there were two green uniforms.



Octavia watched in horror as foreign griffon mercenaries advanced on the ill equip colonials below. How could the Crown do this?! Paying mercenaries to kill its own citizens! This wasn't restoring peace to confused colonies! This was an act of war!



The ragtag colonials gave as good as they got. "To what end?" She had pondered. There were not nearly enough rebel pegasi to keep their fellows protected from above. They were terribly outgunned; it was hopeless.



When the smoke cleared, the militia were surrounded. Many were dead, many more would languish in prison. Perhaps a lucky few had escaped.



And yet, as she watched those courageous rebel ponies, she saw, for the first time, what Vinyl saw, and the wedge that had been driven into their friendship disappeared.



She was brought back to the present as light shined through her now opened tent flap, parted by the hoof of that same white unicorn.



"You ready to go, Tavi?"



"No, but let's get moving."