Octavia woke with her face against her desk and a blanket around her shoulders.
There had not been a blanket around her shoulders when she’d been working, she thought. Or, maybe there had, and she’d been too out of it to realize she’d grabbed one. Octavia wrapped it tighter around herself. Smelled like Vinyl.
Vinyl… Hearth’s Warming! She jolted up, a piece of sheet music sticking to her cheek as adrenaline coursed through her. The composition!
She peeled the music sheet off her face before squinting at it with tired incomprehension. This… no, this didn’t make any sense! There wasn’t a melody here! It looked like a jumble of notes had been generously sprinkled on the page! A few weren’t anywhere near any of the bars.
Quickly, she reached for the other papers. Surely she’d gotten some of the piece down, right? She’d been writing for hours, so she must’ve at least gotten a few pieces of melody!
There wasn’t anything that made sense on each page she spared a glance. Where was it? The song she’d been filled with, it had to be somewhere in there! She pawed through the haphazard stack, faster and faster. It must be there, the song had to be somewhere, she’d written it down and-
RIIIIIIP
For a few seconds, there was silence as Octavia comprehended the torn pieces of paper. Then, slowly, she pressed a few matching pieces together, holding her breath. Was this where the melody was?
No. There was nothing. There was no melody, there was no song, this was her last-second present and it had been perfect and it didn’t even exist anymore and she had nothing to give to Vinyl for Hearth’s Warming. She crumpled up the torn pages in her hoof and marched out the door. Stupid pages. She’d throw them out in the snow for all they’d-
“Haaaaaappy Hearth’s Warming, ‘Tavi!” Chirped a familiar voice seconds before Octavia found herself trapped in a snow-white hug. “You slept in for once, filly! Must’ve been tired! Hey, I made ya some tea. Not sure if it’s cooled down too much, by now, but hey. It’s tea. Heals the soul.”
Vinyl pulled away from the hug to levitate a mug over to the kitchen table before practically bouncing over to her record table. Octavia looked down at her still-clenched hoof and the few shreds of paper she’d brought along with her.
Gingerly, as though she were setting down a newborn rabbit, she released the scraps of sheet music on the table before taking her seat. Tea. Tea wouldn’t fix the issue, but Vinyl had made it for her, and it was easier to face than anything else she’d brought upon herself.
It was notably lukewarm, but it bought her a few precious seconds to comprehend her situation. Maybe she could say she lost her gift, or that her gift was coming later? No, no, she wouldn’t lie to Vinyl. What if Vinyl found out? She’d feel betrayed that Octavia felt the need to lie to her, and the last thing she wanted to give Vinyl for Hearth’s Warming was a broken heart.
She could give her the ruined sheet music, maybe, but that wouldn’t be any sort of present, and certainly not the sort that her marefriend deserved. There wasn’t any time left, and she didn’t have a present for the most important pony in her life, and she’d failed herself, sure, but mostly she’d failed Vinyl, and that was something she couldn’t bear.
“Hey,” Vinyl said, finally noticing the tense silence in the air. “You alright?” When Octavia looked over to her, Vinyl’s brow creased with sudden concern. “Hey. Hey, it’s gonna be alright, I’m here for ya. What’s wrong?”
“I don’t have anything, Vinyl. I- oh, Celestia, I’m so sorry.” Tears streaked down Octavia’s face, but she couldn’t stop them, and she couldn’t stop the words that came pouring out with them. “I didn’t forget about you at all, I promise. I just got caught up with the gifts for ponies I know less well that I saved yours until the last minute, and then the snowstorm happened, and I had a plan, I swear it, darling, but-”
“‘Tavi,” said Vinyl quietly.
“But I couldn’t very well get to the train with all that snow, and believe me, I tried, but it was up to my shoulders, and even with the boots I could’ve gotten stranded! I’d tried to make you a gift but nothing was working and then I wrote you this song,” Octavia held up the shreds of sheet music, proof of her downfall. “But when I tried to write it down, it didn’t work, and-”
“Tavi,” she said again, pressing a hoof against Octavia’s shoulder insistently.
The gentle pressure broke Octavia from her blubbered explanation long enough for her to see her marefriend’s concerned gaze. “Yes, Vinyl?”
“Was that song you were playing the gift for me?” There was no judgement, no anger in Vinyl’s eyes.
Octavia hesitantly nodded, unable to blink away from her lover’s tender gaze. She must’ve heard some of it already, she realized. It made sense, of course, Vinyl must’ve heard something while she’d been playing. If Octavia could hear the bass of Vinyl’s music from her room, then she must’ve been able to hear some of her own playing back.
“It sounded nice,” continued Vinyl soothingly, standing up and walking towards her turntable.
“I’m glad you liked it,” Octavia sniffled, “But I can’t repeat it. That’s my problem, that’s why it’s not a present like it was meant to be, I played it but it’s gone and I can’t remember it. I wrote a song about us, and I can’t even play it the same way again, and I wanted to play it for you, Vinyl, and watch you as you listened to it, and then you’d know how much you mean to me, and you wouldn’t ever have to worry about the future because that’s my job, it’s my job, Vinyl, and I love you and thought I’d surprise you but it’s all gone.”
She didn’t notice that she’d started crying again until Vinyl’s hoof tenderly wiped a few tears from her cheek. “It’s not gone, ‘Tavi,” she murmured, floating a record gently in front of her. “It’s right here. Or, most of it. This version’s… altered.”
Octavia’s mind screeched to a halt like a runaway carriage that’d just discovered it had brakes all along. “Altered?” She blurted, more of an echo than anything as her mind stalled. How could the song not be gone? Vinyl must’ve recorded it somehow, but however had she managed that?
“Oh,” whispered Vinyl, her eyes widening with a panic that looked so foreign to Octavia on her marefriend’s face. “Oh sweet filly, I didn’t- I didn’t mean to take your present away. I’d just heard it, and it felt like us and I thought-”
“No, dearest!” Octavia waved a hoof in the air, the other pushing her seat back from the table. “I’m not upset, I’m just surprised, I don’t know how you managed to record it, but if you liked it that much, I don’t care what you’ve done with it.”
Vinyl looked almost near-tears herself, and Octavia took the silence that stretched between them to reconsider her choice in words. Ponyfeathers. That wasn’t quite what she’d meant, but just as she’d opened her mouth to reword it, Vinyl spoke up again.
“I didn’t mean to ruin your gift, ‘Tavi,” she said haltingly. “I have a recording of it by itself, if you don’t like this, but I thought…” Vinyl trailed off thoughtfully, her gaze wandering somewhere around the ceiling behind Octavia before it centered back on her. Her expression was unguarded, more vulnerable than she’d seen Vinyl in a long time.
“You inspire me, Octavia,” she said at last, fidgeting with one of the dials on the record player. “Whenever I make music, it’s all you. It’s us, put into song. When I heard you playing, I realized that I hadn’t heard that piece before, and so I’d started to record it, because you’ve never minded when I keep samples of your playing to use in my mixes before. After a bit, it just… hit me, that you were playing us just like I play us, but it’s your own version this time. It’s different, it’s something I wouldn’t have come up with, and I heard it and-”
“And?” whispered Octavia breathlessly.
Vinyl cleared her throat as she set the record back down on its player. “It felt like I was falling in love with you all over again. So… I played how I felt back. Because we’re a duet, ‘Tavi. We always have been. And I know it’s not as much of a surprise as your gift was gonna be by itself, but if you’d like to hear it...” She trailed off, looking as shy as the day she’d first asked Octavia out on a date.
“I’d love to hear it.” Octavia sat down next to her marefriend as she gingerly set the needle on the record. Vinyl leaned her head against her shoulder, and Octavia rested her chin against Vinyl’s head as it began to play.
The first thing she noticed was how little, at the beginning, that Vinyl had changed. She could hear every note, every piece of her original melody. It sounded, by itself, far more imperfect than what she thought she’d been playing.
But then in came a drum with a rhythm like a heartbeat, and an intricate melody from a synthesizer faded in, keeping up with Octavia’s irregular tempo. It didn’t overshadow it, but it wasn’t drowned out by the cello either. It was an interesting harmony. It didn’t quite clash, but it wasn’t content to simply follow what had been done.
It was, in other words, exactly the sort of song that Octavia wanted to give to Vinyl.
In each pause, as Octavia had searched for the next thought she’d want to turn into music, Vinyl had added her own flairs, each one conjuring up her own memories, judging by the way her cheeks lifted into a grin against Octavia’s shoulder as they listened. It was profoundly personal, something she’d have to ask Vinyl about for details later on. She had the feeling they’d both be sharing stories late into the night.
The heartbeat quickened and slowed, keeping time with the music as it shifted from the highs of their relationship to their lowest points, but always it continued. Here and there, the synthesizer split off from the harmony, playing its own motifs against fragments of hers, but then returning to the melody, bringing more to the song than either mare could have ever written alone.
After all, she may have written her own memories into the music, but their relationship was never meant to be a solo piece.
When the final melody swelled to its finale, Octavia could have sworn she saw a few tears shining in Vinyl’s eyes, through the blur of those in her own. It was imperfect, and it was beautiful in its imperfection, harmonious despite (and because of) its differences.
Just like them.
“So,” said Vinyl about a minute after the last note faded into a serene silence. “I’d had something else planned for presents, but it always felt like it was missing something, so I hope this works. What’d you think? I mean, I can dig the other stuff I got you out of my closet, but I haven’t wrapped some of it yet, and-”
That was as far as she got before Octavia silenced her with a kiss. “It’s perfect,” she whispered against her marefriend’s lips before pulling her into a hug. It was better than perfect, somehow, but she doubted she could find the right words to describe it.
“Oh. Good. Great!” Vinyl’s voice carried with it a twinge of relief. “Because I think I got the wrong size for your other gifts, and I just realized you were probably being sarcastic about loving flannel. Probably.”
Octavia chuckled over her shoulder, and reached around her marefriend to play the record again. “We can sort that out later, dearest. For now, I’d like just to sit here for a moment more. Being with you truly is the best gift I could ask for.”
Vinyl smiled against Octavia’s neck, burying her face into the mess of her marefriend’s mane as they held each other, swaying in time to the music they’d created. Just as it reached its peak, Octavia could’ve sworn she heard her marefriend mumble something incoherent into her mane.
“Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that,” said Octavia, pulling back far enough to see the warning glint of mischief in Vinyl’s eyes.
“You smell like peppermint, ‘Tavi. Like, a lot. Did you try cooking something with the peppermint twists?” The carefree smirk returned as Vinyl mimed something exploding, complete with exaggerated sound effects.
Octavia giggled. “Honestly, yesterday was quite an adventure of its own. If you’d like, we could heat some soup up while I tell you about it?”
“Sure thing, filly,” Vinyl purred, already halfway to the stove. “Oh, and ‘Tavi? Happy Hearth’s Warming.”
Octavia smiled as she headed towards the few unburnt pots, hearing the stove flare to life behind her. Perfectly in sync. “Happy Hearth’s Warming, Vinyl.”
Outside, the snow drifted down from the overcast sky above, settling around the house like a comforting blanket to the muffled melody of a harmonious pair.