Sisters at Heart

by Lunatone

Chapter Four: Undeniable Chemistry

Sisters at Heart

Lunatone

Chapter Four

Undeniable Chemistry

Dusty and Jazzmere grew up together as foal playmates—just like Vinyl and I grew up together a generation later. Jazzmere was always talking about all the obstreperous mischief he and Dusty used to create. Never in Jazzmere’s stories did I hear him refer to Dusty as a “brother” despite them growing up like brothers.

The interesting parallel was I never called Vinyl my sister. Not in the usual sense at least. Never mind that Vinyl taught me to ride a tetracycle, like sisters or brothers would do, or to teach each other how to play a specific instrument.

But Vinyl and I were fillies who had learned to crawl, speak, and walk together. We even fed on the same bottle and slept in the same crib. Nevertheless, Vinyl and I weren’t blood sisters—and nothing could ever change that. Nothing. I spend the first eleven years of my life growing up with Vinyl in that house. Sometimes, it felt like it was just one long hectic summer with her, running around my father’s pool, throwing water balloons at each other, playing hide and seek, understanding the ways of life, and learning how to play musical instruments.

We played our first musical instrument at the age of six—in the studio my father ran as a business in the Manehattan music district. When I played the cello for the first time, it didn’t go as well as I had anticipated. It sounded like somepony scratching on a chalkboard. But Vinyl didn’t have any impediments playing the acoustic guitar. Her calloused hooves struck the strings, full forced, syncing each note accurately, and I would sit in front of her, wondering how she did it.

I remember asking Jazzmere if I could play the way he did during the ECMC after a few at plays. Jazzmere burst into peals of deep laughter, and, when he could speak again, explained that it takes years for a somepony to master the cello—since it was one of the more arduous instruments to play.

As the years went by, we got better at our selective instruments and started to practise less and less in my father’s studio. Instead, we did other activities, playing tag and reading, when we weren’t at practice.

We played tag in the outskirts of Manehattan, near the meadows to the north. The open fields made it easy for us to play, and it was more enjoyable to play there than in our backyard. We ran and ran, all day, and neither of us could catch our breath, let alone each other. We kept playing. Playing and chasing each other around, losing our breath even more.

By the time we completely lost our breath, we had lain in amid meadows, wheezing, not being able to speak to each other. But as we lay still on the quiet meadow, Vinyl crept closer to me, poked my nose with her hoof. The fact that she touched me didn’t help. My heart was racing from the strenuous running we did, and her silken touch made it race even faster.

We drank cold water from a nearby stream, and it was among the freshest water I ever drank. It had come from the mountainous plateaus, the snowy peaks, just north of us. After several minutes of drinking, Vinyl grinned, leered, at me in a mischievous way. It looked like she was up to something, but she did a fine job of hiding it.

“Vinyl, why are you looking at me like that?” I asked, curious.

“Just admiring your cuteness,” Vinyl said nonchalantly, taking another drink.

“You’re too adorable, Vinyl. ” Then I went back for a last drink.

“Hey, Octy, look out!” Vinyl said, splashing me with cold water. “Ha ha, gotcha!”

“That’s re-ally…c-cold!” I said, my teeth chattering rapidly. “I knew you were up to something!”

Vinyl came up to me, gave me a hug. “I’m a cheeky imp. You know how I get.”

We played another game of tag, chasing each other until the sun set to the west, until we lost our breath again and were forced to go back home with our sheer exhaustion.

It wasn’t until the school year when my time with Vinyl was affected. She didn’t go to school because Dusty didn’t have a high enough income to pay for his daughter’s tuition at the private school in Manehattan.

Everypony had a daily routine when the school year came into play. When I shambled my way to the bathroom to get ready, Vinyl had already washed up, lit the living room fireplace, and prepared a breakfast for me, with the help of Dusty. It varied from day to day, but I had no complaints. She had always insisted on helping me during the school year because she wanted me to have a “stress-free life.” When I ate my breakfast and apprised the balderdash I learned in school the previous day, Vinyl made my bed and gathered my saddle bag I used for school.

Then, Jazzmere and I rode in his personal carriage, pulled by drivers, to my school. Vinyl stayed home with Dusty to help with the day's chores: Washing the dishes, putting fresh water in the pool, harvesting the fresh fruit from the garden, and sweeping the patio.

After school, Vinyl and I met up, grabbed a biography of a famous musician or documents relating to music, and bustled to the left yew tree in our backyard. Then we sat down underneath it. Awhile back, Vinyl had used one of Jazzmere’s knives to carve our name into that very yew tree. It read: “Octavia & Vinyl will be best friends forever!” Those words made it official: That tree was ours, and our friendship would be evermore.

There were red, fleshy arils that fell from the yew tree, and we ate them when they were in season. Dusty had told us that we could only eat the red fleshy part of the berry since the seed in the middle was toxic. After we had eaten the plentiful berries, we wiped our hooves on the grass, staining it with a blood red colour. Then I read to her.

Sitting cross-hoofed, shadows of yew branches gyrating in Vinyl’s face, Vinyl, not knowingly, chomped on amid arils as I read material she couldn’t read herself. She grew up as an illiterate pony since she never went to school to learn how to read and write, so I read to her. She could, however, write simple things, and speak fluently when essential.

Despite her illiteracy, or maybe because of it, Vinyl was drawn to the enigma of words. I read her novels, poems, and biographies my father kept in his study, and, when I read a new poem or story to her, it never ceased to amaze her. We sat for hours under our yew tree until the sun set to the west, but Vinyl insisted that we had enough time for one more story, one more chapter, one more poetic verse.

The next day, I decided to try a different approach with Vinyl. Instead of me reading to her, I played a song with my cello from some sheet music my father had bought me to practise with. But I wasn’t playing from the sheet. I was turning the pages regularly, but I had abandoned the sheet music altogether and made my song forthwith. Vinyl was oblivious to this. She sat there, hind hooves and eyes wide open, her forehooves touching the grass, staring at our home as if she wasn’t coherent of what was going on around her.

After I had finished my song, I asked Vinyl if she liked the song I secretly extemporized, tittering building in my throat.

“Vinyl, what in Celestia’s name are you doing?” I said.

“That was one of the best songs you’ve ever played, Octy!” she said, jumping up and down.

I choked in my laughter trying to talk to her. “Really?”

“Really, really.”

“You’re too charming,” I muttered.

“It was great, Octavia! Without a doubt!”

“Charming,” I repeated, a little agog, feeling like a young pony who just got her cutie mark.

Walking back to the house with Vinyl, perpetual thoughts were going through my head. Best song you’ve ever played, she’d said.

That same night, I wrote my first music piece, after Vinyl went to bed, using the chromatic scale, and it took me an hour to write. It was a sad lament relating to a story I read to Vinyl once. The story was about two ponies who were happily together, but, when they grew old together, they developed an unknown disease, and neither of them remembered each other. They died without knowing their lover was right next to them. The lament consisted mostly of minor strings, and it ended with a shift in the pitches to deepen the tone.

Then I climbed the stairs and made my way to my father’s study with the three sheets I wrote my music piece on. Jazzmere was sitting down on his couch reading a newspaper when I came in.

“What is it, Octavia?” Jazzmere said dryly, turning around to face me, his hooves touching the arms of the sofa. His glare made my throat dry, but I cleared it when I approached him and told him about the song I wrote.

“Well, that’s good now isn’t it? Practice like that is good for you. May I see it?”

I stood in front of him for what seemed, to this day, the longest minute of my life. There was an uneasy feeling in the air, and it got denser as each second passed, making it nearly suffocating, and my heart raced, beating more violently.

“This is quite good,” Jazzmere said, looking dumbfounded to see such a piece from me. “It’s very good.”

Then he said nothing more. He didn’t even ask me why I wrote it, or what the song was about. He gave me back the sheets, got up from the sofa, and walked to the door. But he didn’t leave yet because Bon Bon was standing in the doorway.

“I was looking for you,” Bon Bon said. “You ready to go? I need to be home soon.”

“Yeah, I’m going to get ready now.”

“Sounds good.”

“Oh, Bon Bon.”

“Yes?”

“Good business talk this evening. I enjoyed it. I’ll see you downstairs when I’m ready,” he said, leaving.

At that moment, I collapsed to the ground with tears pooling in my eyes. Convulsive gasps suffocated me with each breath I took. Bon Bon, when she could, always came to me with reassuring words when she saw me in a despondent mood. It was never my father who asked me how I was doing. I always had a feeling that he expected others to cheer me up, in spite of me being his daughter. It was either Dusty, Vinyl or Bon Bon who asked how I was doing. Never my father.

“Octavia, please don’t cry,” Bon Bon sad, kneeling before me.

“You heard everything?” I asked, rubbing my eyes while trying to sit up properly.

“I did, yes.”

“I don’t think he meant any of it,” I croaked.

Bon Bon wiped a tear that was streaking down my face with a tissue she had with her. “You know how your father can sometimes get. May I see what you’ve written, Octavia?”

Before I said what was on my mind, I pushed her hoof away and smiled. “You’d really look it over for me?”

“I’d love to look it over for you. I took advanced music classes with your father in university, so it shouldn’t be a problem. And coming from you, Octavia, it has to be awesome.”

Once those words registered in my head, I gave her my sheets. “Thank you, Bon Bon. It means a lot to me.”

Later that night, when the sky dwindled from a pale blue sky to a star-painted one, Jazzmere left to take Bon Bon home. On her way out, Bon Bon handed me a note along with my sheets. She gave me a smile of a good impression.

“This is for you. Look over your music sheets again before you read my note.” Then when she made her way to the front door, she turned around and said one word that meant everything to me: bravo.

After they had left, I went to my room to lie on my bed. I read her note over and again. It read like this:

Octavia, I enjoyed reading the piece you wrote here. When I got the first-line playing in my head, it was heart melting. You have a gifted talent. From what I learned and experienced in university, writing music, through musical notation, takes years of practice to do well. You have done just that with your first try at the age of ten. And I can tell you why. You have a passion. And you clearly showed that in your piece. I highly encourage that you continue to write more songs. And when you do, please show them to me.

The door is always open to you with me. Your friend Bon Bon.

Reading her note enkindled the fiery confidence I needed again. And with that, I grabbed my sheet music and rushed to Vinyl’s and Dusty’s room. They’d been asleep for awhile now, since it was quite late, but I wanted to play my song to Vinyl when I still had my slowly decaying credence.

I shook Vinyl, trying to wake her up, but I also took the precaution not to disrupt Dusty. She slowly rubbed her weary eyes in confusion and stretched her stubby forehooves. “W-what time is it, Octavia?”

“It’s late, but that’s not important right now,” I said, clearing my throat quietly. “I want to play you a song.”

“But, Octavia, it’s late.”

“This song is special. I wrote it myself, and I want you to hear it.”

“If you wrote it, it’s gotta be dope,” Vinyl said, jumping out of bed.

When we got to the living room and got settled in, I acroed my bow against the strings of my cello, in front of the crackling fire, and the notes played out just as I had imagined. When the song came to an end, Vinyl silently, but lightly, bashed her forehooves together. The way she grinned with her wide eyes told me everything she thought of it.

“Well done, Octy! Bravo! Bravo!” she said, her expression beaming.

“You liked it?” I asked, surprised.

“I loved it! It was, how did you put it…charming!”

“You exaggerate too much, Vinyl,” I said, loving her for it.

“I’m not kidding! You’ll be an amazing musician I just know it,” she said. “Did you show your dad?”

Those last five words punctured through me—worse than a thousand acupuncture needles ever could, and it left me in a hunched, curled, form on the ground. Tremors radiated out from my stomach to my extremities, and I wanted it to be over. And I knew what to do. Because Vinyl could take me to paradise—a place where I could forget about life and be with somepony who cares about me.

“Octavia! What’s wrong? Why are you on the ground?” Vinyl said, her excitement fading to genuine concern. “Was it something I said?”

I kept quiet because I was about to do something that would change my life. Actually, our life. I told her to sit with me in front of the fire. Neither of us spoke nor took our eyes away from each other. The way she looked at me was invigorating. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I pressed my lips against hers, and that’s when she shrieked. Her lips were dry and cracked, but they quickly moistened as I kissed her.

By the sounds of it, I had thought, when she squealed, that she would immediately shove me away, run upstairs, and tell Dusty that I had kissed her. But she didn’t. She kissed me, and my blood boiled, which electrocuted me. As minutes went by, each kiss filled me up with her warmth. And then she finally did it: She took me to paradise. Our lips were glued together, and I never wanted it to be over.

The fire eventually diminished down to embers, leaving us in the quiet, dim room. Vinyl let me lay on her chest as we silently endured each other’s company in the stillness of the night.

And that’s when our lives changed forever.

Comments

[Bynoan]

Another amazing chapter, to the favourites it goes!

[Lunatone]

5111711

Thanks. I finally had a chance to collaborate with a pre-reader and edit this chapter. It was practically sitting on my computer for two months now. Thought I'd at least post the thing.

[Meltian]

Very nice. Happy to see this continuing. It's a rather nice take on these two very awesome ponies.

[Lunatone]

5111826

Thanks

Now that I'm back into the rhyme and rhythm of my writing, I should be dumping out another chapter soon.

[Kind of Brony]

So no public schooling in Equestria, then? Huh, rampant illiteracy amongst the lower class to solidify the sense of superiority held by the upper class doesn't seem like something Celestia would let fly so easily.