//------------------------------//
// Discography 
// Story: Dueling Keyboards 
// by FanOfMostEverything 
//------------------------------//

Twilight knocked on the duplex's door, sorting through the questions in her head one last time. Well, she supposed it technically wasn't a duplex, given the single entrance, but when the house was all but physically split down the middle, it was hard to think of it as anything else.

The opening door interrupted her train of thought before it could pull further away from Ponyville, revealing a shocked grey earth mare. "Princess Twilight!" She bowed.

Twilight held back her sigh. Bowing ponies always took those in the worst way. "You know you don't have to do that, Octavia."

"Be that as it may," Octavia said as she rose, "I can only imagine what my mother would say if I were to say to a reigning princess, 'Oh, afternoon, Twilight, care for a spot of tea?'"

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you grow up on the rock farm next to Pinkie's?"

"Yes, and my mother was still more Bittish than cold baked beans on toast." Octavia met her brow for brow. "What's your point?"

"Never mind," Twilight said quickly. "I don't suppose that offer for tea still stands?"

"Of course!" Octavia stepped back from the doorway. "Come in, come in, I always have time for the local princess."

Twilight followed her through the musical instrument-laden living room and into a similarly bisected kitchen. Octavia pulled out a kettle while Twilight examined what was either a sound system or a bleeding-edge electromantic dishwasher.

"Careful with that. It'll shake the teeth out of your head if you're not."

Twilight made for the kitchen table. "Duly noted. What is it?"

"I'm not sure myself. Vinyl's gotten it to do everything from make omelettes to file her taxes." Octavia opened one of the jars next to the thankfully recognizable stove. "I hope Wranglish breakfast tea will do. All I have at the moment."

"Sounds great!"

"Wonderful." Octavia got out an infuser. Once she filled it with the loose tea, she said. "Now, not that I'm not pleased to have you here, but why exactly did you come?"

"I was hoping you could settle a question about your roommate," said Twilight.

Octavia's ears flattened. "Oh dear. What did she do?"

"Nothing." After a moment of thought, Twilight added, "That I know of, anyway. I just wanted to know why DJ-PON3 never speaks."

"Ah. That." Octavia sat opposite Twilight. "Firstly, you do know that's not her legal name, yes?"

"Yes, but it seems like she prefers it."

Octavia shook her head. "Princess, speaking from long experience with Vinyl, let me assure you, if you base your interactions with her on what she prefers, you'll never get anywhere with her."

"I'll make a note of that. Still, you wouldn't believe some of the rumors around town. Some say she's mute. Some say she's deaf as Beat Hoofen. Some say she starts a musical number every time she opens her mouth. I figured Pinkie Pie would have the answer in her party dossiers, but her mane went flat and she muttered something about 'the wrath of Those Who Watch.' Then she locked herself in her room. Normally, that would be where I'd declare the matter a Thing Pony Was Not Meant to Know..." Twilight trailed off, her pupils contracting to pinpricks. "And at this point, I'm starting to ask myself why I didn't."

A smile spread across Octavia's muzzle. "Well, rest assured, it's nothing so dramatic as any of that. To understand Vinyl, you need to know about her grandfather."

Twilight considered that just as the kettle started whistling. She mulled it over as Octavia brought the kettle to the table and put in the tea. Still, by the time the other pony sat back down, all she could say was, "Her grandfather?"

Octavia nodded. "Yes. Old Scratch."

Twilight tilted her head. "Who would name their foal after a folk name for Prince Morningstar the Fallen?"

"Hopefully no one. Vinyl's grandfather is Prince Morningstar."

After a few moments of naked incomprehension, Twilight said, "We're talking about the same Prince Morningstar, right? Celestia and Luna's uncle? The alicorn so powerful that Tartarus was created specifically to contain him when he fell to madness?"

"The same, yes."

Several years ago, Twilight would've practically screeched with incredulity. Exposure to numerous ancient evils and Pinkie Pie meant that she calmly said, "I feel like there's a deeper story here."

Octavia shrugged and removed the infuser. "Not much of one," she said as she poured. "Her grandmother, Rosemary, was in some manner of cult, and they went on a pilgrimage to Tartartus or summoned some vestige of Prince Morningstar or suchlike. Whatever the case, one thing led to another, and Rosemary had Vinyl's mother, Chalkboard Scratch." She picked up her teacup, possibly trying to hide her smirk. "There's a joke to made there about Vinyl's taste in music."

"Maybe, but I'm not quite past the whole tiefling thing."

"Tiefling?"

"Less than half demon."

"Ah."

"So, did Chalkboard..." Twilight took a sip of her own tea to give herself time to think. It didn't help much. "I don't know, did she do anything especially evil?"

"Not that I've ever heard," said Octavia. "Huge disappointment to her mother, apparently. No glorious plan to overthrow her cousins—"

A tremendous effort of will kept Twilight from spraying Octavia with tea. "Oh my goodness, Vinyl is Celestia's niece."

"First cousin once removed, actually."

Twilight winced at the mistake. "Right. Sorry, it's the shock." She felt the corners of her mouth turn up in spite of herself. "I can actually kind of see the family resemblance now that I think about it."

Octavia nodded, her own smile looking much more natural. "Funny, isn't it? Like if Princess Celestia had Princess Luna's mane. Well, the one we saw back during the thousandth Summer Sun Celebration, anyway. Where was I?"

"Vinyl's mother being not evil."

"Ah, yes. Lovely mare. Always a treat when she comes to visit. So, Chalkboard settled down with a pleasantly eccentric stallion, and in time, they had Vinyl." Octavia trailed off, looking away from Twilight, a hoof tapping the floorboards in steady time. "And it turned out some things skip a generation."

"How so?"

"Well, Vinyl isn't evil, per se. Brusque, impulsive, irreverent..." Octavia's expression turned apologetic even as she said, "A devil-may-care attitude, if you'll pardon the pun."

Twilight waved it off. "Pinkie Pie is one of my best friends. I pardon puns reflexively."

"But unfortunately, Vinyl did pick up one thing from her grandfather, a terribly thick Tartaran accent."

Twilight blinked. "That... isn't how accents work."

"It is with that one. You see, anything Vinyl says sounds like the Black Speech of the Pit, even when it isn't. Actually a lovely language when you hear it recorded; it's only when spoken live that it makes you writhe on the ground and speak in tongues." Octavia frowned for a moment. "Apparently that sort of thing gets worse when the listener has stronger magic. I don't recommend asking Vinyl yourself."

After some thought and some more tea, Twilight said, "Is this a prank?"

Octavia bolted to her hooves. "Your Highness! I understand that your friends from before your coronation may feel comfortable treating you as they had before, but I would never do anything so crass as play a practical joke on royalty."

"Sorry!" said Twilight, hooves raised before her. "It's just... kind of hard to believe."

"Try playing some of Vinyl's tracks backwards. She slips in letters to her grandfather in most of them."

Twilight pondered that for a moment before nodding. "Okay. Then this confirms one of my earlier hypotheses."

"About Vinyl?" said Octavia.

"About Ponyville. Everypony in this town is, in fact, crazy."