Time Enough For Wub

by CoffeeMinion


Time...

Vinyl Scratch gazed up through the high windows of the cleared-out Manehattan warehouse, raising her glasses for a moment and soaking up the sight of the rising sun. She grinned, feeling the surge of adrenaline that dawn always brought her, which in this case was augmented by whatever had been circulating in the pungent haze the club goers had left behind.

She turned to watch a few stragglers making their way toward the warehouse’s exit. Most seemed happy, or exhausted; but one stalked over and kicked at a discarded wine bottle on the floor before being nudged out by the bouncers. Vinyl frowned as she watched the bottle spin and tried not to think about another bottle waiting back in her apartment, and even less about the pony who had given it to her…

She looked away and focused on her turntables and mixers, letting the sight of them anchor her back in the present. “Uh, hey, bro,” she called to a black-shirted earth pony dodging among the nearby cables and amplifiers. “Do you need me to clean up, or…?”

He shrugged. “We’re closed ’til mid-week. I don’t think management cares if you just leave it.”

“Sweet,” Vinyl said, giving him a toothy grin.

She stepped off the platform and tailed the last few ravers at a distance, making extra sure to steer clear of the grumpy one. She tossed on her headphones, then flipped through her music player, choosing something with an airy, sweet, pulsing intro.

The bass dropped right as she stepped through the door. Her head bobbed with it on instinct, and the corners of her mouth tightened into a half-smile. Light hit her coat, warming her from without, even as the sick beats of the music warmed her from within.

“Dang, hungry,” she said to nopony.

Vinyl turned down an alley that led back out to the main street. She could see hoof traffic and taxi-carts rolling by, even at such an early hour. But as she watched and let the music move her, she envisioned the tall buildings of the city rise and fall around her like thick waveforms, dwarfing her and leaving her to gaze in wonder.

A muffled sound broke through her music. Vinyl paused, finding herself at the intersection of another alley.

There, in the middle of the alley, lay a unicorn.

Vinyl blinked, raised her glasses, and looked closer. By size and mouth-shape, she guessed it was a stallion. His singed and dirtied coat had probably once been light blue. His long mane and mass of facial hair were in even worse condition, likely having started as white, but now looking scorched, dingy, and bedraggled.

After a moment of staring, she realized that his eyes were open and his mouth was moving. She fumbled as she took the headphones off.

“—me, please,” he breathed. His voice was weak, but deep, and sounded heavy with age.

Vinyl fidgeted. “Dude… are you alright?”

He tried to raise himself on his forelegs, but they gave out, and his teeth clacked as his jaw hit the ground again. “Please… it's terribly important…”

She looked toward the end of the alley. “Uh… do you want me to… hail you a cab or something?”

“No!” He looked at her with intense blue eyes and a firm set to his jaw. Then he winced again and pressed a hoof to his head. “No, I need to find… someone…”

Vinyl took a tentative step away from him. “Okay, well… good luck with that?”

“Wait, please.” He struggled to his hooves, this time succeeding, and staggered toward her slowly. Vinyl drew back a few steps, but then paused as she noticed the scorch marks on the spot where he had lain. She looked from side to side in the alley, noticing how the trash cans, bits of rubble, and other junk, had all pushed away from the scorched spot.

She pointed at some of the nearby stuff. “Were you… like, doing something in here?”

The stallion slowed his advance and held a hoof to his temple. “I remember casting a spell.” He panted with exertion. “I’m sorry, that’s all I remember.”

Vinyl tensed, but forced herself to laugh. “Bad trip, eh?”

He closed his eyes and stiffened, faltering on one of his legs. “I need…” He gritted his teeth. “I need somewhere to rest, to think things through…”

The music coming from her headphones changed. Even though they were just hanging around her neck, she could make out hints of a favorite song’s bass line. It thudded hard enough to make the coat on the back of her neck bristle with excitement.

She smiled. “Hey, why not. The night’s been epic and my place ain’t far. I got couch space if you wanna crash!”


Vinyl jolted awake to the sight of hot, burning sunlight trying to blast its way through her eyelids. She squinted her still-closed eyes and tried to bat it away, eventually stretching a hoof toward her nightstand for her glasses.

They weren’t there. She muttered a curse and groped around the bed, growing more frustrated… before touching her head and realizing they were there. She cursed again as she lowered them into place, then sat up, blinking. Her tiny bedroom was disheveled chaos, just as she liked it; she noticed the clock and figured she was waking with sundown, also just as she liked it; but something was wrong. She couldn’t place the feeling, but down deep, she knew things weren’t as they should be.

A scent wafted by, intense and savory. She sniffed. Her mouth watered, and she dimly recalled forgetting to grab something to eat after work the previous night—

That was when she spotted the chair she'd propped-up underneath her doorknob, and the night’s details came back to her.


Vinyl stepped down the short, bare hallway slowly, wincing at every strange clink and scrape she heard coming from the front room of her apartment. As she made her way past the bathroom, a sound of glass breaking in the kitchen made her jump. It was followed by a muffled curse, and then the faint sparkling sound of a unicorn’s horn coming alight.

She rushed forward, drawn by panic about what he might have broken. She peeked around the corner to her tiny kitchen, and saw the stallion bent over and wiping at what looked like a shattered bowl of pancake mix on the red tiled floor. He looked different, though; Vinyl noticed he was free of dirt, his mane and tail were cut much shorter, and his facial hair had been groomed down into a trim goatee. She took a long breath, trying not to think of him as handsome, and trying instead to think of what she was going to do with the weird street pony whom she’d taken into her home.

He looked up, spotted her, and smiled. The corners of his eyes crinkled a bit with age, but there was warmth in them.

“And I thought I was tired,” he said, his deep voice carrying a hint of laughter.

Vinyl blushed as she stepped out from around the corner. “Heh. Yeah, I work nights.”

He nodded, then looked down at the mess at his hooves. “Well, for my sake, I’m glad you do, Miss—?”

“Vinyl Scratch,” she said, striking a pose. “Also known as DJ-P0N3, also known as the sickest DJ ever to lay waste to a Manehattan dance floor!”

“I see.” He started mopping things up again, working the towel back and forth in his magic. “And what exactly are you sick with, if you don’t mind my asking?”

There was a pause. “No, sorry bro, it’s just a figure of speech.” She looked over at the small bar-top next to the kitchen, and her eyes settled on a plate of cooked haybacon sandwiches between two glasses of dark wine. Then she spotted the open bottle, and her pulse quickened as she stared at the simple lettering on its brown label.

The stallion smiled again. “I thought that making you a meal was the least I could do, to thank you for helping me in when I was so… lost. And for the use of your grooming implements, as well as your quite remarkable in-home showering device…”

“Dude,” she interrupted. “Why’d you open Octy’s bottle?!”

He cocked his head, then looked over at the bar. “Oh, I’m sorry… I thought wine would be appropriate, considering?”

Vinyl stomped toward him. “Well you thought wrong, dipstick! Octy’s bottle is…” She glanced at the bar and cringed. “...Was… important. Maybe the most important thing I have! ...Or, had.”

He took a step back. “I’m sorry. I… don’t understand.”

She hung her head for a moment, then took one of the glasses in her magic and drained it in a single gulp. A moment later, she stuck her tongue out, gagging. “Celestia’s beard, it’s just like her! Disgusting, awful… blech!”

“This ‘Octy’ must be quite the interesting pony,” he said slowly.

“What? No! I don’t mean that she’s disgusting, I just… have you tried this stuff?”

His lips pursed into a smile. “I’ll confess to giving it a tiny sip. I thought it wasn’t bad.”

Vinyl shook her head, then lit her horn, refilled her glass, and drained it again. The bitter taste made her shiver. “Ugh. Yeah, she gave it to me when… I moved here. Said that I should drink it if I ever… wanted to.”

He furrowed his brow. “I suppose one does wish to have some wine from time to time…”

She groaned and threw her head back. “Yeah, but that wasn’t what she meant! It never was the words she said; it was the way she said them.” Vinyl poured from the bottle again, this time only managing to get a half-glass out of it. She stared for a moment at the dark liquid, rendered darker by her violet sunglasses. “All right, well, now you know who I am, and you know what Octy’s bottle was; but I don’t know who you are. Who are you, bro?”

The stallion’s smile turned sad, and he sighed. “I wish I could tell you.”

“What, you on the lam or something?”

“I… don’t remember who I am. In fact, I don’t remember much of anything from before you found me.”

Vinyl clacked her teeth together, shrugged, and finished off her wine.

He shook his head. “I’m sorry, but with all due respect, how can you just do that?”

“How can I not?” She hung her head again. “It’s Octy’s bottle. Now it’s open, and I have to drink it, before it’s all just… gone.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. His tone seemed genuine, even though the words themselves sounded dull and overplayed to her ears.

“Mmm. Yeah.” She shook her head. “So what do you think you were on if you ended up in a burned-out alley and forgot your name? More than wine, if you ask me.”

He chuckled. “I told you, I think it was a spell. I was looking for something. Something important.”

“Must not be that important if you forgot about it.”

“Yes, but forgetting who I am, on top of it?” He paused, then gestured toward his flank. “What do you make of this?”

She looked, and blushed, and levitated her empty glass back over to the bar. “I’d give it a five, maybe a six, tops. I dunno. I could go seven, if it’s just that you look kinda old, but you’re not actually, like, super-old.”

His jaw worked its way open. “...Excuse me? What do numbers have to do with anything?”

Vinyl rolled her eyes. “Five, then—obviously way too old.”

“I meant the cutie mark.”

“Oh.” Her blush intensified, and her eyes refocused on the sinuous line of grey that spiraled over a field of twinkling lights. “Heh, kinda looks the way a song does on a visualizer. Like stars going nova while you ride out on the beat.”

A look of concern touched his eyes. “The stars… going nova?”

“Yeah.” She shrugged. “How ’bout we call you ‘Nova’ ’til you remember more?”

He nodded. “Sure. Just… something that you said there…”

She raised his glass in her magic. “Uh, you gonna finish this, bro?”

He laughed. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”