The first thought that crossed Vinyl Scratch's mind, when consciousness returned with all the subtlety of a piano dropped on her head from cloud height, was that whoever invented Stagner’s needed to be fed to a hydra.
Oftentimes, in her more lucid moments, such as they were, she’d wondered if there was a way to make alcohol without the whole, you know, hangover bit. Surely there was a spell that would take the kick away. Well, there technically already was, but in that case it was more like forcing the hangover to move at a hundred times’ the speed it should have and... well, the pony usually came out worse for wear. No thanks.
She tried to gather enough force of will to at least check herself over. Without moving. Or breathing, if she could help it.
One, her head felt like it was shattered into exactly four-thousand, nine-hundred and forty two pieces, and her horn was absolutely on fire. Magic was out.
Two, she felt stiff and sore and part of her was screaming move but she literally did not have the energy to even humor the thought, curled into a small shape, her legs tangled into a respectable imitation of a knot.
Three, she was still encased in darkness. She was buried underneath a heavy comforter with a pillow planted over her eyes and very quickly she noticed, more by feel than anything else, that they were definitely not hers. Nothing she owned was this nice. Or smelled this good, for that matter. Although it didn’t really smell all that great anyway; she imagined that was because she’d been there all night.
Well, buck it. She wasn’t in her own apartment. She hated waking up in somepony else’s apartment without sufficient explanation. Especially when she had a hangover.
Buck hangovers. Buck last night.
...
Yeah. Buck ‘em.
The upside to hangovers was that she always had really really awesome hearing. Like, legit awesome. The downside was that as long as she was hung over anything louder than a pin drop made her head feel like it was being dunked in lava, or make her horn feel like it was being snapped off. She wasn’t sure which one would hurt more. She didn’t actually care, because she didn’t really want to quantify the pain that stabbed through her head when she heard a door open and somepony very delicately walk in.
There were no thumps of hoof on wood. Okay, so the room had carpets. And she was definitely in somepony’s bed, not on a couch or anything. So it was somepony’s bedroom. That narrowed it down pretty far. She didn’t know very many ponies that would take her in for the night and then lend her their bed. Unless it was some weirdo stranger; you never knew who you were going to run into around Canterlot. Well, probably some snooty unicorn, because that described about ninety percent of the population. But other than that you could never really predict it.
Something smelled good. Well, it smelled good up until the point where the scent ran up her sinuses and began poking at the back of her eyes. But if she ignored that it smelled pretty good. Omelette. Dandelion and... pink rose petals. Who knew she liked pink roses? Only the cooks down at that one eatery on the south side of town and...
She heard a plate being set down on an end table. Unlike the floor, the end table was made of wood, and the plate was made of glass, and the noise made her tremble, drawing her protesting body into a smaller shape. Buck hangovers!
Vinyl felt the gentle tap of a hoof on her shoulder, through the comforter. She wasn’t sure if Octavia (and it had to be Octavia, because only Octavia knew that she really really enjoyed rose petals) could tell or not, buried as she was, but she tried to shake her head in protest, letting out a low, agonized-sounding grunt.
Octavia poked her again, gently, but insistently.
Vinyl Scratch was not hard to motivate; obviously Tavi was going to stand there and poke her until she got her way, so she might as well just give in now and spare herself the frustration. She moved her legs, rolling the comforter off of her body.
Or... she tried to. Her mind told her legs to move. Her legs, however, decided to throw a hissy fit and cramp up in reply. Vinyl let out a whimper.
There was silence and a lack of poking from Octavia for a second or two. Then the first of what she knew would be many exasperated sighs, and the bed rolled very slightly as Octavia placed her weight on it, using her mouth to pull the comforter up and over Vinyl’s still-protesting body. Her eyes, thankfully, were still covered by the pillow; all she knew was darkness and the pain split about evenly between her head and all four of her legs.
Again, there was a pause. She could hear Octavia standing over her, probably looking down with that semi-irritated look that she always seemed to wear when dealing with Vinyl. Really, she couldn’t blame the Earth Pony. She wanted to, but she couldn’t. She wondered why the cellist kept pausing. Maybe she was trying to come up with some kind of witty snark over how pathetic she looked. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Suddenly the pillow slid from her face. Still unable to move, Vinyl wrenched her eyes shut, prepared for the inevitable glare that... never... actually... came?...
She opened one eye slowly, cautiously, and when she found that the room was still coated in darkness, or at least so dimly lit that everything seemed coated in grey, opened the other. She could make out Octavia standing over her, even see the ash-colored pony’s pale lilac eyes, a subtle frown on her muzzle.
She grinned sheepishly.
Octavia didn’t seem amused: she stood where she was, half-glaring down at Vinyl with that small not-quite frown on her face. Very carefully, the Earth Pony raised one hoof and braced herself on the bed, the other rising not long after, and Vinyl could feel it reaching up to wrap around the fetlock of her left foreleg.
She knew what was coming, knew that it was for the best, but she was hungover and still tired and her whole body hurt so she tried whimpering one more time, putting on her best pity-face and staring pointedly at Octavia. The other mare looked back, her head tilted slightly, the half-angry expression on her face replaced now with one that told the DJ she knew that this was going to hurt and she was very sorry but it was better than letting her sit there with four very cramped legs.
She pulled, insistently, probably not as gently as she should have. Vinyl let out a string of colorful vocabulary, most of which she probably wouldn’t have used under any other circumstances, because holy sweet Celestia that bucking hurt.
Bucking hurt...
She stumbled through the apartment's outer door blindly, uncoordinated and uncaring. She knew she was drunk, because the last thing she remembered was ordering one more bottle at the bar and the barcolt giving her a very pointed you’re-the-boss look but he slid it her way anyway. At some point between downing that bottle and now she had managed to decide to go home and had stumbled down the street, the only thing saving her dignity and possibly her life the fact that it happened to be late enough at night and early enough in the morning that not even the criminals were out. Not that she’d have remembered even if something had happened.
The door was locked. For a while she’d tried turning the handle anyway, thinking that maybe she just hadn’t tried hard enough, but finally it crossed her mind to try keys. She’d gone through four when she finally remembered which one fit this particular door, but then it was a matter of seeing through her frustrated tears long enough to get it into the keyhole and by the time she was through the door she was bawling, stupid, foalish tears, really, but she didn’t care.
She’d had a bad night.
It had taken a good fifteen minutes of kicking and screaming and tinging the air blue for Octavia to get through stretching her legs out again. She didn’t hurt any more; well, her legs didn’t hurt any more. Her head still did, and it probably would for a few hours yet, but at least she could move. She didn’t want to move, because that would make her headache worse, but she could, and wasn’t it the thought that counted?
She was still lying on the bed, her body creating a nice, conveniently Vinyl-sized and -shaped spot of warmth that she didn’t quite want to leave yet. She moved her legs, partly because Octavia had told her to and partly because she knew full well that if she didn’t they’d probably just cramp up again, and she was not going through that again, no ma’am. Octavia hadn’t left the room--her bedroom, Vinyl realized. Her own bedroom. Not the guest room. Though now that Vinyl thought about it, why did Octavia even have a guest room? It wasn’t like she ever got visitors, or at least the visitors she got never needed to spend the night. Except her. Even though she’d been trying to go home. But still, Octavia had sacrificed her own bed for her, when she’d done what she now assumed she had to have done, walking into the Earth Pony’s own apartment at some Celestia-awful time in the early morning, probably crying her eyes out.
Vinyl wasn’t sure what to make of that.
Currently the Earth Pony was in the process of cutting the omelette she’d brought in into tiny pieces. Vinyl had never understood that about her. Why did she have to put everything in tiny pieces? Didn’t that just make it harder to get it into your mouth? Oh, no, Celestia and Luna, no, now what was she doing...?
Vinyl put on her skeptical face as Octavia held the business end of the fork out toward her, one of the annoyingly-precise small squares of omelette nestled very carefully on it. Her intent was very obvious.
Vinyl had her pride, and she was not going to budge. No way. She could feed her own self, thank you very much, Miss Philharmonica.
Octavia replied with her own skeptical face, before proceeding to turn around, dropping the fork back onto the plate as gently as she could, nudging the plate toward Vinyl, and glancing at her expectantly.
Okay. Okay. She could do this. Challenge accepted, Miss I’m-So-Dextrous-Look-At-Me-Play-My-Cello.
…
Or was it a double bass?
Buck it.
She craned her neck forward, inching along the bed, trying to get her teeth to the plate so she could just...
She had almost reached it when the strain of keeping her head up finally managed to send a memo to her headache, which realized it had been neglecting its duty and promptly split her head open. Whimpering, tears springing to her eyes, she let her head fall back to the pillow again.
To her credit, and to Vinyl’s surprise, Octavia’s expression did not instantly spring to the smug, snakelike grin she usually wore when she had managed to prove Vinyl wrong, which happened far too often for her tastes. She was frowning, even, a kind of concerned, almost angry frown, before picking the fork up again and offering the bite to the DJ.
Vinyl had her pride, and she knew when to budge.
She was no amateur.
Too often, she’d seen rookies doom their careers with their first set. A good DJ knows where to balance herself between aloof and active, between being an outside observer and being part of the crowd on the dance floor or the audience jammed up as close as they can get to the turntables, the speakers shaking the ground almost as much as the cheering and the stomping and the clapping. Rookies got too involved in their work, they focused too much on the music and not enough on the crowd. A DJ relies on the crowd. A DJ is nothing without the crowd.
She knew the kind of expression the crowd wore, that she herself had worn a few times too many when watching some newbie set up his discs the first time, that meant ‘Buddy, you’re no good.’ There were other signs, of course; the crowd would move less, dance less, cheer less; the crowd would thin out, eventually, to nothing.
A DJ is nothing without a crowd.
She knew, then, she knew all too well, the expression on their faces as she set that new disc down on the table, that kind of subtle skepticism, that doubt, that... disinterest.
And they were directing it at her.
Just like last night.
And the night before.
Was she losing her touch? Was she really all washed up? Was that it? She felt uninspired, she felt depressed. The crowd was still there by the time she finished, but it was definitely smaller than when she’d started.
Vinyl Scratch needed a drink.
Octavia had left her alone after the omelette, carefully picking up the plate and walking out of the room. She’d left the door open, and Vinyl could hear her fussing around the kitchen, no doubt cleaning the plate and the stuff used to cook the omelette. It had been a very good omelette. She wasn’t about to tell Octavia that, though, not after she’d forced her to eat it from her fork like some... filly.
It wasn’t her fault she couldn’t... oh, no, wait, yeah, it was. Well, damn.
She wondered exactly what Tavi had put in it. More than she’d let on. Probably some magical herbal cure or something, because she was smart and knew about stuff like that. Must be an Earth Pony thing. What mattered was that Vinyl’s head hurt slightly less now; instead it felt fuzzy, lined with cotton. But that was better than what it had been.
What she wanted to do was keep lying there, relaxing and resting and sleeping off the rest of this hangover. But along with a reduced headache had come the knowledge that yes, she was imposing on her best friend and this was still kind of Octavia’s bed and she should probably move.
So what she actually did was roll onto her stomach, very slowly and carefully gathering her hooves underneath her without upsetting the sheets, because Octavia would literally split her head open if she messed up her sheets, the DJ finally managing to get to all four hooves.
Octavia had kept the blinds shut, and she was grateful. Tremendously grateful, in fact. There were probably words bigger than tremendous that she didn’t know right now. Or maybe that she didn’t know at all. That was why the room was still dark, she found, and that was why the rest of the apartment wasn’t, a fact she found as she stepped out into the living room. She was there long enough to notice that the huge and expensive sound system that was almost always playing some ancient and dusty cello (bass?) piece was for once silent. Then she forced her eyes shut.
Holy buck. Ow. Bucking hay.
Blinking the spots away from her eyes, she turned away from the window and toward the windowless kitchen. This helped, but only marginally, because the kitchen, barring the cabinets and the dark grey shape of Octavia, was also very very bright. Part of her wanted to duck back into the bedroom, but she locked her knees, refusing to move. Well, she let out a yawn. But other than that she didn’t move.
The noise was enough to make Octavia turn and notice her.
When the Earth Pony found her, she had been reduced to a shaking, crying mess on the floor in the living room, because she had realized that this was not her living room and she’d just wandered into Octavia’s apartment in the middle of the night. Octavia was going to be so seriously bucking pissed off, and she’d yell, and scream, and Vinyl would feel like absolute horseapples, which she did already but this was just going to make it worse.
Because that’s what she was. What she was. Worthless, wasn’t she? She wasn’t popular any more. She wasn’t the go-to DJ any more. Her time was over. She knew it. She bucking knew it, and there went her livelihood. There went everything. She’d be reduced to opening for two-bit bands and she’d be lucky if she managed to scrape together another album before Canterlot, before Equestria as a whole, just forgot she existed.
But right now she was more worried about Octavia finding her and screaming at her about waking her up, and how she was an absolute mess, and how she was piss drunk and leaving tearstains all over the meticulously-cleaned carpet.
She would most definitely not be coming up along side her, drawing her into a hug, and asking what was wrong. No, she wouldn’t, and that’s why it wasn’t happening, it wasn’t happening, it was... it was really happening.
It was really happening.
Octavia didn’t scream. Or yell. In fact, she cried too, when she saw how upset Vinyl was, when she’d finally managed to choke out some half-sensible explanation for what was going on, and then she’d just drawn her into a tighter hug, and she’d run her hoof through Vinyl’s mane just like her mother used to do and that made her think of her mother and their awful relationship and that just made her cry harder.
The Earth Pony held her and stroked her mane and even as she sat there in the middle of her living room, shaking, sobbing, stinking of cheap beer, she cared. She countered all of Vinyl’s little self-deprecating insults with a compliment. No, Vinyl, you aren’t losing your touch, no, you’re just in a funk, you’ll get out of it, you always do. I’ve been where you are. I’ve been where you are.
Sometimes the best musicians just need a little silence.
Now come on, Vinyl, you need your rest. You’ll feel better in the morning.Once you get over the beer, anyway.
Vinyl squinted over her shoulder, into the living room. The carpet looked freshly cleaned. She looked back to Octavia, her ears falling flat. The Earth Pony looked tired, now, she noticed. More tired than she should have been. Of course Vinyl had kind of interrupted her sleep, but...
She opened her mouth, because she wanted to apologize, because she really had made an absolute mess of herself and Octavia had had to see her like that and she’d been a wreck and kind of made a mess and she’d made Octavia lose sleep and forced her to work harder and she was so sorry--
Octavia had drawn closer to her as she’d been contemplating the living room, close enough to reach up a hoof and close Vinyl’s mouth before she could make a sound. Then she stepped forward and laid her neck across the DJ’s.
The hug took her by surprise. It took her a second to realize it was happening at all. It took her another second to return it, one hoof coming up to rest on the grey mare’s back. They stood like that for a few seconds, in complete silence.
Octavia broke it first. Vinyl had known she would; the Earth Pony had never been one for intense physical contact. Which Vinyl thought was kind of weird for her race, but hay, ponies will be ponies. She stepped beyond the white unicorn, into the living room; Vinyl wanted to follow, but she knew her limits. Besides, she was still tired. She’d rather just lean up against this door frame and look at the dishwater.
When Octavia returned, there was something in her mouth. Vinyl squinted, and Octavia tilted her head slightly and suddenly Vinyl’s world darkened and tinged violet. Her sunglasses. Octavia had gotten them for her. She didn’t even remember wearing them last night. But there was a lot she didn’t remember from last night. A lot she didn’t want to remember.
The world looked different from behind her lenses. She saw things differently. Not just because things were darker and tinged purple, although that was a totally freaking awesome side effect. The world saw her differently when she wore them, and she looked back and smiled. The world always seemed to line up just right with these babies on. Just right. Everything would be fine.
A beat began to play out in her head. One hoof gently tapped in rhythm. She tucked the track away in the back of her head, saved it for later. Right now... yeah.
Right now was quiet time.
Octavia walked past her again, into the living room. Her eyes protected, Vinyl could follow her, and she did, settling down onto the couch next to the grey mare. The couch was warm, but Octavia was warmer. Vinyl figured she’d probably hang around here a little while longer. Octavia certainly hadn’t voiced any complaints.
Buck last night.
…
Yeah, buck it. Last night was noisy. Too much noise, really. She could barely think straight.
Today was quiet.
That was just fine with her. She probably needed it.
Octavia Melody, as she always did, woke with the Sun.
She was, very briefly, confused as she sat up, carefully rubbing the sleep from her eyes with a fetlock. She took a deep breath, blinked a few times, and then remembered why she was in her guest bed instead of her own. Vinyl.
Her lips thinned. Oh, Vinyl. She thought about checking on the unicorn, but… there was no way she was awake yet. Not after the state she’d been in last night. No; Octavia had time to observe her usual rituals. The DJ would be fine for a little while longer.
She stretched, then went about making the bed, returning it to an acceptably pristine state. She pondered if she should wash the sheets as she was straightening the comforter, but decided against it, at least for now. With one last tug, she pulled the comforter into place, and then nudged the pillow slightly, before she gave a satisfied nod and turned to enter the hallway.
There was another brief sense of disorientation. Octavia Melody was a pony of habit, and while she knew, logically, that this was still her Canterlot apartment, and that the bathroom was the second door on the right, the fact that she was emerging here rather than from her own room threw her briefly for a loop. She lightly clicked her tongue, then crossed to the bathroom to get her bedmane under control and her bowtie on.
Once she finally felt more like herself, she went to check on Vinyl. The door to her bedroom was shut, and she’d made sure to shut the blinds tight last night, so despite the fact that the windows faced Sunward, there was only the barest hint of light coming from beneath the door. Very carefully and quietly, she opened the door and looked in.
As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she took stock of her situation.
One, the room honestly didn’t smell that bad. There was a slight reek of stale alcohol, and Vinyl hadn’t bathed last night, so while Octavia would not call the scent pleasant by any stretch, she was gently relieved that it was not worse.
Two, Vinyl had, predictably, made something of a mess of her bed. She was a very animated sleeper at the best of times, but last night had apparently included a greater-than-usual variety of twists and turns, and the unicorn had gotten herself slightly tangled. The only part of her that remained totally covered was her face.
Three… Octavia’s ears perked forward, listening. But all there was to hear was Vinyl’s calm breathing, gently raspy, not quite a snore, slow and rhythmic and calm. She sounded like she was genuinely, deeply asleep. That, at least, was a relief.
The earth pony hesitated at the door, deliberating for a moment, before quietly stepping in onto the carpeted floor. Vinyl’s exposed back leg kicked once, and Octavia froze, but when nothing more came of it she resumed her slow, careful walk forward, grabbing some of the tangled comforter in her mouth and doing her best to straighten it out, covering the unicorn back up as best she could. The only response from Vinyl was a very soft hum, but it made Octavia smile nonetheless.
Quietly, she crept back out of the room and closed the door. Then she grimaced, sticking out her tongue, and headed back to the bathroom for mouthwash. These ones were getting washed today.
But only eventually. There was a proper order to these things. First, breakfast.
The day had ended so pristinely.
Most of the windows in her apartment faced eastward, toward the rising Sun. It was a traditional Canterlot design principle, stemming back to the earliest days of the Princesses dwelling in the town; the windows in almost all non-business buildings faced exclusively east or west, the idea being that the citizenry would wake with the rising of Princess Celestia’s Sun, and likewise go to bed as it disappeared over the curve of the mountain. That particular idea hadn’t held up to the increasing number of night owls dwelling in the mountain capital, and, especially since Princess Luna’s return, there had been an increasingly vocal dissatisfaction with the old principle among city-dwellers.
Octavia preferred it this way. There was an order to things, and she was in no hurry to change it.
The only lights in her apartment now were coming from the kitchen and the small table lamp next to her couch, upon which she was sitting, a mug of tea in hoof and enjoying the quiet. Her cello sat secure on its stand, polished, well-loved, but currently untouched. A little while ago, it had sung its slow, mournful songs under Octavia’s expert touch, but now its performance was over, and it was content to sit in silence. Likewise, the sound system, hooked up to a custom order phonograph (originally a gift from her parents, but customized under Vinyl’s exacting arcane know-how), sat quietly, waiting patiently. But there would be no more music tonight.
Octavia took a deep breath and sipped at her tea.
One eye opened and wandered toward her window. Eventually she turned her head and opened the other eye. Through the gap in the curtains, windows lit up the cityscape, little glowing spots of amber in defiance of the night sky above. Further, toward the upper town and city center, the lights were brighter, tinted more colors, as the more lively ponies of the night gathered to celebrate throughout the darkness. Overhead, the stars twinkled gently, still unhidden despite the radiance of the city below.
Vinyl was out there tonight, she knew. With a sudden jolt of shame, Octavia realized that she couldn’t remember where. Vinyl knew how much Octavia prized predictability, and she’d made sure Octavia knew where she’d be and when for her performances, on the off chance that the earth pony felt like coming along. No burden of expectation, no pressure for attendance, just an open invitation. But now she couldn’t remember where.
For one moment, and it was a fleeting moment indeed, Octavia hoped that Vinyl was alright. Which was a silly thing to worry about; she was a responsible, full-grown mare, despite her, hmm, foalish reputation. She would be okay. But Octavia really needed to check in on her all the same. It had been too long.
Octavia opened the door, and this time she knew that Vinyl was awake. The unicorn was still totally hidden under the comforter, and she had somehow, in the intervening time, managed to perfectly work part of herself—her head, possibly—underneath the pillow. There was the smallest of gasps as Octavia stepped into the room, plate balanced on one hoof as she made her way to the end table. The slow, steady breathing was gone, and Octavia’s finely-tuned ears gleaned the particular strained sound of a pony trying to breathe as little as possible underneath the heavy weight of the blanket.
She set the plate down on the end table as gently as she could, but even that earned another gasp and a shudder from the lumpen shape beneath the comforter. She gave the unicorn a moment to gather herself, then lightly leaned over and poked approximately where she figured Vinyl’s shoulder ought to be. The lump let out a low, pained grunt from somewhere beneath the weighty fabric, and the area about where she guessed Vinyl’s head was rose and fell weakly as though the unicorn were shaking her head.
Octavia poked her again, gently, but insistently.
Normally, this would have worked; Vinyl Scratch was not a hard mare to motivate, despite her laissez-faire public face. The bundle wriggled for a moment, and Octavia withdrew her hoof. But the only thing that emerged from the bundle afterward was a quiet, pained whimper.
Octavia waited patiently, then gave a sigh she hoped did not sound too exasperated. She looked up, made sure the blinds were still drawn tightly shut, then moved to pull the comforter off of the unicorn, leaning up to put her weight on the bed and… eugh… grabbing the blanket in her mouth again, pulling it over Vinyl and leaving her bare save for her face, which from her nose up remained hidden underneath the pillow. She lay on her side, facing Octavia, and did not move except for her shallow breathing.
As Octavia had feared, the unicorn’s legs were drawn tight, and even in the dim light Octavia could see how clenched taut she was. Vinyl let out another quiet whimper as the earth pony looked her over, lips quirking down in a grimace. This was going to hurt. But… first things first.
She grabbed the pillow and pulled it off, letting it slide to the floor as she took her weight off the bed. Vinyl seemed to flinch, and one foreleg made a half-hearted attempt to shield her eyes, even from what little light there was, though it didn’t get very far before the cramps stopped it short. Eventually, one of the unicorn’s eyes slowly peeked open, looking about blindly for a moment before settling on Octavia.
She flinched again when she recognized the earth pony, though whether from pain or shame Octavia couldn’t tell. Even so, a little, only half-guilty grin managed to work its way onto Vinyl’s pale, sweat-stricken face. Octavia tried not to sigh again, shaking her head slightly as she raised a forehoof and leaned her weight on the bed one more time, reaching forward to wrap her fetlock around Vinyl’s left foreleg.
The half-amused, half-anxious look in Vinyl’s eye gave way to something like fear as her ears pinned back, and Octavia hesitated. But this had to be done—at the very least, it was better than letting Vinyl lay there with cramped legs. She hoped the apology on her face was enough as she began to pull.
She could have been gentler, she knew. She’d had more chances than most earth ponies to learn to regulate her strength, and Vinyl was more fragile than she looked. It was her turn to pin her ears back as Vinyl swore loudly and repeatedly, using language Octavia had never even imagined.
Somepony was at her door.
She sat up, immediately alert and sliding out of bed. It was still dark outside, and she glanced briefly at her clock to confirm that, yes, it was some infernal hour in the morning. She moved to her bedroom door and paused, listening, wondering for a moment if she’d only imagined it.
They weren’t trying to break in, at least. It sounded more like… Her ears flicked and she tilted her head to listen better. It sounded like they were fishing for the key.
She brought her lips together and furrowed her brow. She was on the corner of the building; the unit across from her was empty, and her next-door neighbor was an elderly stallion who really did go down with the Sun. No one would mistake her apartment for their own. Unless…
She opened her bedroom door and stepped out in time to see her own front door open, and Vinyl Scratch tumbled through it, crying quietly.
For a moment, Octavia was speechless, and, apart from the click of the door swinging shut, the only sound in the room was the sad, scratchy sound of the unicorn’s despair.
Vinyl was trying not to sulk as Octavia turned to the omelette on the end table, taking the fork and starting to cut it up into bites. There were tears in the unicorn’s eyes and her breathing was still shallow, but she continued to stretch her legs per Octavia’s instructions, and even from the corner of her eye, Octavia could see that Vinyl was doing her best to put her usual cocky, unflappable face back on and having a hard time of it.
When Octavia shifted the fork and lifted a piece of omelette onto it, offering it to the unicorn, she saw the flurry of feelings in the unicorn’s expressive eyes. She had already recognized that Octavia had made the omelette with a particular guilty pleasure of hers—pink rose petals, a secret which Vinyl had admonished her never to reveal to another soul—and for a moment there was unhidden desire; then her expression shifted, eyebrows lowering slightly and lips quirking into a frown as she looked between the fork and Octavia.
She held the fork for a moment, waiting for Vinyl to get over her skepticism and accept the help, but it seemed that in this particular case, Vinyl’s pride was too big to move out of the way. Octavia rolled her eyes, pulling back and setting the fork on the plate, then nudging the whole thing in Vinyl’s direction. The unicorn’s deep magenta eyes narrowed just slightly, shifting back and forth between Octavia and the prospective meal.
Octavia suspected that Vinyl was too hungover to properly use her horn, and her suspicion proved correct when Vinyl instead tried to raise her head, adjusting her weight slightly, and opening her mouth to try and reach for the plate herself, one foreleg sliding up to join in the effort before her condition seemed to catch up to her and she let out a whimper, eyes tearing up despite her best efforts as her head fell back to the bed.
Octavia frowned, brow furrowing; for a moment, she could almost imagine the splitting pain coursing through her head. Vinyl’s expression had turned piteous again, and the request for help shone unabashed for the first time since she’d woken up. Octavia shook her head and grabbed the fork again, offering it to the unicorn with only the barest of eye rolls.
This time, Vinyl Scratch was much more cooperative.
The silence was what Octavia Melody lived for.
Some musicians lived for the act of playing. Some expressed their talent through the creation of the sound, whether through voice or instrument; they thrived in singing and playing, losing themselves in the thing itself. Others, she knew, played for the accolades that awaited on the far end. Such musicians looked out to the audience and found their worth in the stomping and the smiling and the applause. Nor were either of these wrong, for it was nopony’s place to judge another for the expression of their talent.
Vinyl, she knew, dwelled on the far side of that line; she thrived in the booth and the table but lived for the uproar of the crowd…. or the smile of somepony close.
But very few lived for what dwelled between the end of the song and the beginning of the thunderous response. A moment, just a moment, where the last note fades from the air and, even with the resolution of the final chord, there is an energy, an expectation in the air, and then—silence. The piece is over; it has left the player’s heart and entered the listener’s, and everypony is just that little bit closer. There, in that instant, there is a connection, a beautiful and brief link. And a question, because the silence asks the player and the listener both to ponder what will be next.
That was where Octavia Melody thrived. Some musicians drove themselves mad in search of the melody that truly explored their straining heart; others ran themselves ragged in the eternal but ephemeral quest for more applause. There was beauty in the music, and gratitude in the response, but there was life in the silence.
This was why, at the end of the day, every day, she sat, quiet and apart, and waited until she knew her answer to the question.
She gave Vinyl her space after the meal. The unicorn had nestled into a quiet, slightly guilty, but grateful silence as Octavia lifted the plate and returned to the kitchen. She filled the sink, got the dishes soaking, then turned to her living room, critically eyeing the carpet. Looking at it now, it didn’t seem that bad; Vinyl hadn’t actually made that much of a mess. But… ah, and there it was, the scent. She would need to work to get the acrid beer smell out of the carpet. But she had time.
Before she started, she properly opened the curtains. There was, after all, a proper order to these things. The Sun was well and truly risen now, and she gave a content nod to the active city street below as she turned, knelt, and took the beer smell to task for daring to linger in her apartment.
More time than she thought. She was actually most of the way through drying the dishes when she finally heard movement behind her. She turned.
Vinyl was standing just past the kitchen doorway, legs locked, trying to stifle a yawn. When she saw Octavia, a blush danced across her cheek and she hurriedly looked away, back over her shoulder and toward the open window… or, more likely, toward the carpet. Her ears pinned back.
For a moment, Octavia was speechless, and, apart from the click of the door swinging shut, the only sound in the room was the sad, scratchy sound of the unicorn’s despair. Then Vinyl took a few unsteady steps forward before collapsing into an uncoordinated mess in the middle of her living room floor.
Her sunglasses were tilted askew by the motion, and in the one visible, bleary eye, awash with tears, Octavia saw first confusion, then fear, and then a moment of crushing realization, and Vinyl’s scratchy crying turned into full-on sobbing, bringing her hooves up over her head and clutching at her messy mane.
Octavia was already moving, even as the unicorn’s inelegant bawling was interjected with vague mumbling, her voice laced with acid and self-hatred. By the time the earth pony reached her, Vinyl had collapsed fully, face pressed against the carpet, wailing and ranting, one hoof pounding weakly at the floor as her self-loathing reached a fever pitch. Octavia stood over her for a moment, shoulders squared and brow furrowed.
Then she knelt, and, as gently as she could, she pulled Vinyl up and into a hug. She got the unicorn’s forelegs up and around her shoulders, then let her own forelegs wrap around Vinyl’s thin, slightly bony barrel, rubbing soothingly at her back and giving a firm, warm, and gentle squeeze.
For a moment, she wondered if Vinyl had even noticed. The unicorn continued to sob, even as Octavia adjusted so she could get the slightly smaller pony’s head to properly rest on her shoulder. Then, after the barest of pauses, she felt Vinyl begin to return the hug.
She tried to pull back to ask Vinyl what was wrong. The moment she began to draw back, the unicorn’s hug went from grateful to desperate, and so Octavia remained where she was and asked the question regardless.
It was difficult to make out the response, but what Octavia gleaned was this: that Vinyl’s show had gone terribly; that she wondered if she was losing her edge; that she couldn’t feel the crowd’s energy any more. And what would she be now? What could she do now? What worth was a DJ who couldn’t even excite the crowd? And—
Octavia gave another squeeze, and the unicorn’s rambling explanation ground to a shaky halt as she took another shuddering gasp, trying not to break out into sobs again. Despite herself, Octavia found herself tearing up as well. She brought her hoof up to try and rub soothingly at Vinyl’s mane, but before long both ponies found themselves shaking, crying, held tight in a mutual despair that, eventually, slowly, gave way to a mutual catharsis. And every time Vinyl tried to put herself down after that, Octavia was ready.
No, Vinyl, you aren’t losing your touch, no, you’re just in a funk, you’ll get out of it, you always do. I’ve been where you are. I’ve been where you are.
Sometimes the best musicians just need a little silence.
Now come on, Vinyl, you need your rest. You’ll feel better in the morning. Once you get over the beer, anyway.
Octavia saw Vinyl open her mouth, and she stepped forward, setting the dish towel aside and raising a hoof to close Vinyl’s mouth before she could utter the apology that had to be coming. Then she laid her neck across the DJ’s.
The hug took her by surprise. Octavia closed her eyes and stayed where she was, and after only a second, she felt the pale mare return it, laying her neck across Octavia’s shoulder and raising a foreleg to rest on her back. They stood like that for a few seconds, in complete silence.
Eventually, since she knew Vinyl would never break the hug on her own, Octavia slowly pulled back. She took a deep breath and offered a smile to Vinyl, who returned it, squinting slightly in the bright light coming from behind her and bouncing off of the kitchen tile. And Octavia realized that she had forgotten something. She gently pushed past Vinyl, who leaned lightly on the doorframe, and moved over to the couch, adjusting the pillows slightly as she looked about for… ah.
She returned to the unicorn, who turned when she heard the earth pony approach. She raised a hoof to cover her eyes, squinting at the shape Octavia was carrying in her mouth. The grey mare gently moved that hoof aside and leaned up to carefully rest the sunglasses on Vinyl’s face. The deep magenta of her eyes vanished behind the violet lenses.
And for the first time, Vinyl visibly relaxed. She didn’t seem totally better, but there was an ease to her that had been missing until now. A half-smile quirked the unicorn's lips and Octavia saw one forehoof tap slightly to some unheard rhythm before Vinyl sighed, a long, slow exhale that seemed to put her at something much closer to ease. Octavia gave a smile of her own and moved to the couch. It had warmed nicely under the attention of the rising Sun, and, when Vinyl joined her, she decided that she was quite comfy like this.
What followed was silence. An expectant silence, which asked both of them what they thought should come next. But neither felt a particular need to answer that question yet.
Today was quiet.
That was just fine with her. She probably needed it.
