Clink
Vinyl burst into my room a couple of hours before my show, frantically waving around a sheaf of papers. “Tavi! Tavi, look at this!”
I quickly shut my eyes as the papers were thrust in my face and waited for Vinyl to calm down long enough for me to get a word in. Once she quieted down I snatched one of the papers from the air with a hoof and pinned it down long enough to actually read it. A brief glance over revealed nothing but obtuse legalese, signed by both Vinyl and Midnight Oil at the bottom.
“You got it?” I asked, looking up at her in astonishment.
A huge grin broke across Vinyl’s face. “Yup! I gave them my demos today, they listened to it in the office, then brought me the contract!”
I jumped forward, placing my hooves on Vinyl’s withers. “You got it!”
“I got it!” she whooped, just as she did when we left the club a week prior, and I couldn’t help but join in her little bounce.
Drawn by the noise, Symphonia poked her head into the room. “What’s the racket about?”
I stumbled to regain my balance as Vinyl twisted away to shove her papers into my room mate’s face. “I got that gig making music for Night-Glo, all thanks to Octavia’s smooth talking.”
“I did nothing but keep him talking while you froze.” I scoffed and rolled my eyes. “You should have seen her, Symphonia, you’d have thought nopony ever taught this filly manners.”
“I know for a fact Melody did,” Symphonia muttered darkly, rubbing at a spot on her left forehoof. I winced as well, remembering Mother’s unfailing aim with a wooden spoon.
“Not even your hurtful sarcasm can bring me down today, Tavi,” Vinyl responded proudly, finally stowing her papers in a saddlebag.
“More importantly, do you have a dress for the show tonight?” I asked her.
Vinyl glanced off to the side. “Well…”
“Vinyl…” I growled, warningly. “Think very carefully about your next few words.”
“I-I-I’ve been really busy with mixing those tracks, y’know? I had to think about my career fir—eep!” She squeaked as I stalked across the room and shoved my muzzle right in front of hers. I had to look up slightly, but it didn’t seem to make Vinyl any less scared.
This close, I could just about make out her wide eyes behind her glasses, above a slight blush. “Dress. Now. Or else.”
She didn’t verbally answer, but spun and bolted from our dorm room. “I’m unsure if I’m going to kill that filly or if she’s going to be the death of me,” I muttered darkly.
“You two are adorable,” Symphonia teased, turning back into the kitchen.
“What do you mean?” I asked, following after her.
Symphonia shrugged and returned to preparing dinner. “Just the way you two act together, it’s adorable.”
“So you’ve said, but I don’t understand what you mean,” I insisted.
“No, I suppose you wouldn’t,” Symphonia mused. “It’s not something I can explain easily, just forget about it.”
It was unlike her to be so inarticulate, but after a moment of thought I dropped it. That didn’t keep my thoughts from turning back as our show crept closer. I’d never heard that phrase not used to describe a couple, but Vinyl and I weren’t dating, and Symphonia knew that.
As I put on my suit, knowing that I couldn’t be distracted going into this show, I put the matter to rest. Symphonia must have just been teasing me again, nothing else really made sense. She hadn’t teased me about Vinyl in some time, maybe she was just going back to basics. I cinched my black bowtie, checked my mane one more time, and went to grab my instrument and Symphonia.
We walked in silence to the auditorium, collecting orchestra members along the way. It had become a ritual of sorts in our three years here, for all of us in the dorms to walk in one big group right before the first night of a show. The members of our audience already waiting at the auditorium doors parted respectfully as we neared. Two of them towards the front opened the doors for us, and wished us good luck.
Our group marched into the ready room, only then breaking into section groups. The atmosphere was a stark contrast to our normal joking practice sessions. Everypony knew exactly where to go and what to do, our only goal was to get ready and get on stage as quickly and efficiently as possible. Even Symphonia and Lyra were behaving themselves.
My section, being one of the smaller ones, were one of the first ready. We rose to the stage first, setting our instruments down where they would be easy to access before the curtain rose, and returned to the ready room to help other ponies. Without magic, there wasn’t much I could do but help direct and organize other ponies.
I wasn’t the only earth pony in the Student Orchestra, but I was the only one using an instrument that required precise movements. Most of the others preferred to use things designed for hoof use instead of magic. As always they gave me words of advice as they ferried their things to stage. I thanked them and returned wishes in kind, then went to make sure the rest of our preparation went smoothly.
“Section leaders, gather around,” came the call fifteen minutes before curtain. I grabbed Symphonia and went to join Lyra and the others around Bent Bow and our conductor, Lunar Note.
“How’s everything looking?” our conductor asked.
“We’re ready,” Lyra reported.
“Violins are good to go, Loony,” Symphonia confirmed.
“Cellos are waiting, Percussion shouldn’t be too far behind,” I added.
Lunar Note listened as every section sounded off, failing to hide a wince as Symphonia did, until everything was ready to go. As was normal, the actual Percussion section lead was late to the meeting, but reported everything was ready to go anyway.
As the last leader reported in, Bent Bow gave us all a deep bow. “I expect an excellent show as always. I don’t foresee disappointment,” he said, another tradition of our orchestra.
We all bowed back. “We won’t let you down, sir,” Lunar Note said.
He turned back to us as Bent Bow left to make sure everypony was seated outside. “Alright ponies, let’s play us a show!”
Every section leader cheered, then rejoined our sections waiting on stage.
I sat and pulled my cello across my barrel in it’s ready position, letting out a long breath. My second chair poked my shoulder and gave me a reassuring smile. I returned it, making sure to nod down the line at the rest of my section.
Seconds slowly ticked by as we waited for the gentle hum of chatter beyond the thick curtain to stop. It was always the worst part for me. As the clock ticked down to the first note, I kicked myself for not taking a little more time to make sure our newest cellist was ready, but it was too late now. We were all seated, and Lunar Note was a stickler for not talking once we were on stage.
The conductor signaled one minute, followed by the rustling of everypony setting themselves in their first position. A loud buzzer in the audience silenced them. Over the PA, Bent Bow gave a short introduction. Then the curtain rose, lights flared to light, bathing us on the stage. Lunar Note raised his baton, and we all coaxed the first note of the night from our instruments.
This was the easy part. I fell back on years-ingrained reflex and simply played.
<><><><><>
An hour later the curtain dropped after our third group bow to torrential applause. It continued as we collected our instruments and retreated to the ready room in single file. The second the door shut behind us, nearly the entire orchestra broke out in cheers. Instruments were carefully stowed in cases before ponies started jumping around, hugging each other and shouting.
Symphonia herself even joined in, half jumping onto my back as I stowed my cello. “So, how many times did you mess up?”
I pushed her off me and playfully swiped at her hooves. “Not once, I’ll have you know. Not like you, you were off tempo almost the entire first song!”
“First two, I’ll have you know.” She glared at me indignant until we both cracked up laughing.
After a few minutes of complete chaos, Lunar Note clapped his hooves against the ground loudly, dragging our attention to them.
“A fantastic show,” Lunar Note said, a smile plastered across his face. “Now, I know you all are exhausted and only interested in going to bed so we can be well rested for our show tomorrow…”
He paused a moment to let the scattered giggles subside. “Due to that, I most certainly will not tell you about an after party at the usual spot, where drinks and snacks are certainly not on the house. Friends and family are also totally, unquestionably, not allowed.”
The room broke into chaos again as ponies discussed their plans. A lot of our members had their own after parties planned, but by the time they started filtering out of the room, about a quarter of us were left. Symphonia and I collected our entry passes to the not event, with one extra for Vinyl, and left to return our instruments to our dorm room.
Vinyl was waiting for us outside the ready room, as we had for Father during his shows. “That was awesome!” she shouted as we walked out.
Symphonia shoved the entry pass at Vinyl. “Glad you thought so. Come with us, we have alcohol and food.”
“Sold.”
I shook my head as Vinyl fell in beside me. “Good to know your price is so cheap.”
“The company helps,” Vinyl retorted, bumping into me playfully.
I rolled my eyes and said nothing. For a moment I thought back to Symphonia’s comment earlier today, but blew it off. She was Aunt Rosin’s daughter, she was going to tease. I’d learned very young that if I tried to avoid it, I just wouldn’t have any fun.
So I leaned into it. “Careful Vinyl, you’ll make Symphonia jealous.”
Symphonia scoffed. “Not likely. You aren’t something to be jealous about, Octavia.”
I glanced at Vinyl, expecting her to join in the ribbing as well. To my surprise, she was busy staring at the ground. I looked at Symphonia to see if she noticed as well. She shrugged and pulled ahead of us.
“Hey, you okay?” I asked Vinyl.
She looked up at me with a grin and nodded. “Yeah, yeah, just a little out of it, I guess.”
“It’s not that late,” I replied.
“I, uh, stayed up late the last couple of nights mixing music, remember? I’m fine, honest. Come on, I was promised alcohol.”
By then we were almost back to the dorm anyway. Vinyl stayed outside while Symphonia and I stashed our instruments inside the room and took off our performance clothes. Once outside, the three of us left campus and headed for a bar owned by Lunar Note’s father for our after party.
As normal, the building was closed for our group only. The bouncer outside took our entry tickets with a smile and ushered us inside. The party was already in full swing by the time we made it inside. Drinks were quickly shoved at us as by a very excited bass player who quickly scampered off to refill her tray for the next arrivals.
We shuffled out of the doorway and staked claim to a table. As two section heads, Symphonia and I were approached by several members to congratulate us. We made sure to return the praise twofold, especially for our newer members. After some time though, it finally slowed down enough that we could talk amongst ourselves.
The general atmosphere of the room was rather upbeat. The three of us mostly kept to our corner, but even still any time a drink on our table was even half empty, another appeared. At some point, a karaoke machine was plugged in on the bar’s small stage. Lunar Note was quickly volunteered as the first pony to perform a duet, selected at random.
Of course, he couldn’t do it alone, so Symphonia suggested Lyra join him. The battlecry was quickly taken up by the entire room, much to Symphonia’s delight and Lyra’s displeasure, and she was basically pushed up the front of the room. It backfired of course, as Lyra turned out to be a good singer, but Symphonia didn’t seem to care too much.
“You guys were really, really good,” Vinyl said for the sixth time some hours and drinks later. The party had died down somewhat, leaving only about half of us there.
“Thanks, Vinyl,” I answered again. I’d honestly lost track of how much I’d drank, but it was enough that the room was very, very warm. Our table had a nice collection of half empty glasses, but I could have sworn most of them were Vinyl and Symphonia’s.
“We should probably think about heading back though,” I said, downing the rest of the glass in front of me.
“Hey, that was mine,” Symphonia slurred from across the table. She grabbed the drink in front of Vinyl and drank that down. “Now this one is mine.”
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Vinyl laughed.
I took a minute to group all of our empty glasses together before attempting to rouse Symphonia from her chair. “Man, she’s going to have a bad day tomorrow,” I grunted, trying to push the obstinate unicorn from her very comfy stool.
With Vinyl’s help, we managed to get her present enough to stand on her own. The three of us thanked the bartender and Lunar Note and took our leave. The walk back involved a lot more swaying than it should have, but thankfully none of us fell over.
Vinyl started fidgeting as we approached the dorm building. “Tavi,” she whined.
I only grunted in answer, focused on making sure Symphonia didn’t walk into a wall.
“Tavi, I don’t wanna go home. It’s too far.”
I stopped to look at her. “It’s, like, two buildings down.”
“Yeah, see, too far. Let me stay with you.”
“I’ll walk you to your room then,” I replied, shaking my head.
“No, because then you’ll have to walk too far, twice!” Vinyl stopped in the middle of the University pathway, somehow managing to rear back on her hind hooves so she could clap her forehooves together. “Please?”
“Vinyl, Symphonia and I have morning classes tomorrow…”
“Please?”
“And you don’t have a toothbrush or anything here…”
“Please?”
“It’s only two buildings!”
“Please?” She frantically shook her head, pushing her glasses down her muzzle enough to hit me with the puppy eyes.
“Fine,” I sighed.
“Yes!” Vinyl jumped to her hooves and ran behind Symphonia to push her forward. “Move it, drunk-butt. Sleepover!”
I pressed the tip of a hoof against my forehead. I could already feel the oncoming headache.