The End of This

by Liechtenstein

One Last Riposte

The cruel sun rose and shone indignantly through the gaps in the curtains. Vinyl rose from her disgusting pit and surveyed her dishevelled room, abundantly populated with crumpled pieces of paper, as well as various albums, mugs and bowls. Taking care not to trod onto anything shatters or malformed by her clumsy morning hoofs, she picked her way to the exit, slowly and somewhat carefully. When she entered the hallway of her tiny apartment she suddenly became concious of a terrible, musty odour, which she decided to put down to any activities that her, or one of her friends, had partaken in over the last week. She had a reasonable idea of what they may have done, but the specifics stayed clandestine, in some far reach of her mind. All that mattered now was that there was an undisclosed number of unsavoury ponies, lying burnt-out somewhere in her flat, that would need to be evicted, sooner rather than later.

The disgusting, dank bathroom was in no better shape. The first thing that caught Vinyl's attention was the weirdly high number of beer bottles and kitchen cutlery. Looking into what remained of her mirror, she was left with a pitiful view of herself; her gleaming coat, now lacklustre and grey; her eyes, red and bloodshot, even her iris seemed to have lost its colour. Out of the corner of her eye, Vinyl spotted a solitary, detached piece of toilet paper, with what seemed to be mascara inscribed upon it. Vinyl attempted to read it, but there was very little of it that was legible. Among the smudged, scrawled handwriting she was able to make out one or two lines: I thought you might like to know that you broke my heart/Ripped and tore, tore it apart/When I forgive, I won't forget/But instead hate, abhor, lament/And I will pay for your mistakes/You take and take and take and take. Vinyl read what she could, but the small extract was all she could make out. After setting the paper aside, she decided to leave her bathroom and continue onwards to the living room.

She glanced over what was undoubtedly the room that was the worse recipient of abuse. The room smelled exactly like an ashtray, but that was to be expected considering the vast amount of discarded cigarette buts that now covered the room like a carpet. On the centre table was an innumerable amount of bottles, intermittently broken up with a packet of various illicit substances, at least that is what Vinyl assumed it was. She didn't care what it was, who brought it or who had taken it, all she wanted was every single remnant of the past week in her house gone, especially the squatters she seemed to have picked up. She counted four of them, there had been more, but so many ponies had came and gone that she couldn't keep record of them, not that she would've been in any state to. From what she could remember from the trance like week she spent most of her time in her room or the bathroom. In truth she couldn't remember much, and was just thankful that the place seemed salvageable.

She spent a short while deciding on how to at least wake the ponies up, before deciding that opening the curtains and letting the sun do the work would probably be the best way to wake them, short of individually screaming at each of them. This had the desired effect on the heliophobic almost immediately, and vinyl was met with a chorus of groans and moans. Luckily the guests seemed to understand this gesture and, after a short period of readjusting, started to prepare their exit.

"Take what's yours and leave." Were the simplistic commands ordered by Vinyl. It was too early in the morning for proper etiquette, and the others didn't seem to mind, or pay Vinyl much heed, other than a conciliatory goodbye gesture. At least she assumed it was early, time seemed to cease to matter when the last week had been spent in various states of conciousness, in a largely darkened house. She was sure of one thing, she was too tired to face the seemingly Sisyphean task that cleaning the flat would present. Vinyl wandered into her kitchen, grabbed the cleanest cup she could find, and made a single cup of coffee.

Half an hour passed and Vinyl knew she couldn't really procrastinate any longer. Luckily, being a unicorn saved her many of the strains of conventional manual labour, but she would still have the exert herself casting the magic. Preparing enough bin bags, she concentrated entirely, at first, clearing the room of ash and cigarette buds. After this came the clearance of bottles, then eventually the miscellaneous paraphernalia scattered around the place, before finally clearing all the discarded pieces of paper. She continued to clean for around half an hour, before deciding that the place was in as good of a state as it ever was, or indeed ever will be. The only highly visible, extant remains of the lost week was the flame burns on her wooden table, and the fact that her furniture was slightly more battered and worn.

Content with her work, Vinyl sat down and relaxed, before confirming that it was, indeed, still morning; ten to noon. With nothing else to do, Vinyl decided to sit and enjoy the silence, for what seemed to be the first time in a long while. The silence was not to last however, as it was broken up by three very precise, distinct, loud knocks on the door. Annoyed by the break in silence, and the interruption of her relaxation, she reluctantly stood up and walked over to address the pony that so rudely stirred her. She took her time in getting to the door, but when she opened the door she was met with an all too familiar face.

"He-hello, Vinyl. Is it all right if I come in? I feel as if we need to talk." At first Octavia seemed taken aback at the state Vinyl was in, but she at least pretended to not notice anything. Vinyl's response was a non-committal, nonchalant sound, followed by a gesture that seemingly invited Octavia inside. Octavia knew the way around Vinyl's apartment well enough, and quickly found a chair.

"So, Octy, what do ya wanna talk about?" Inquired Vinyl, as she took her seat too.

"Well, Vinyl, I just wanted to say that I'm sorry; about the way things en-"

"No." Was Vinyl's simple, cutting riposte.

"Wh-what did you say, Vinyl?" Clearly disoriented by Vinyl's unprecedented interjection, Octavia stumbled over her words slightly.

"I said 'no', Octavia. No. You don't get to be sorry, Octavia, you're free. Free of this, free of me, free of everything. You can walk away, and forget everything we ever shared, forget the love you claim you once felt, but don't come to me and apologise, like I mean something-"

"You do mean something, Vinyl-" Octavia attempted to halt the stream of bitter vitriol that Vinyl was spewing, but to no avail.

"Do I now? Oh well that's pleasing to know. Why don't you write a letter to explain these feelings, now?" Sarcasm was thick in Vinyl's voice. "Do you know what I've done this past week, Octy? 'Cause I don't. I can remember next to nothing of what happened after you turfed me out. That's how much you meant to me, Octavia, I was- I am- completely destroyed, you were everything to me. But to you I was just 'phase' it seems. Something that comes one day and leaves the next."

"That's not what you were, Vinyl, you were everything to me, too. What would you have me do, Vinyl? Pretend to still love you, is that what you propose?" Octavia, however retained she attempted to be, was losing the fight to not show her anger.

"I want you to stop lying to me Octy. All I want is for you to tell me what it is you feel, and then I want you to leave my apartment." Vinyl's initial vitriol seemed to have died down, turning instead into impatient loathing.

"I've already told you everything I needed to say, you read it yourself, that was the long and short of it, Vinyl, I don't know what you want from me."

Vinyl took a pause, trying to calm herself, before she uttered the words "If you can't understand what I'm asking then goodbye, Octavia."

Comments

[Liechtenstein]

Finally got this out. Got a good idea of what to write yesterday, developed around it today. It probably isn't perfect; much like the last this is the product of a nights work. I will finish it, in a third and final chapter, expected to finish it in this chapter, but as you can see it is not finished. Enjoy, all.

[CookieCrumb]

*Gasp* I completely forgot about this.....

[shadow hunter]

WHAAAAAT?! That's it?! (for now of course...) What a DISPLEASING CLIFFHANGER! GRRRRRRR! As always excellent work, although I cannot stand cliffhangers for any significant duration of time! This must be remedied Just one small correction that threw me a bit: 'Do I know, oh' should be 'Do I now, oh' and maybe there should be a question mark after it or perhaps a semicolon... I'm not really sure So yeah, keep it up and I await the conclusion/continuation!

[Vinyl Scratch]

Can't wait for the last part!
Oh and thanks for the story update no complaints on my part.

[artisticMink]

Good, the approach is new and interesting. Sometimes, the end may a beginning
Would love to read more.

[Grif_Bladefeather]

and so Octavia comes to try and appease her guilty conscience, it's not that easy.