Identity concealing tracksuit, check. White chocolate and macadamia nut granola bar, check. Brand new, state-of-the-art earphones, present. Fancy bit into his light breakfast while pouring over the details of his impulse purchase. He could recall a time when getting a new toy excited his younger self. There were so many things he’d see and throw money at back then just to try out. The unassuming clip-ons, however, he found mildly intimidating.
After getting back home, Fancy had spent a good chunk of the previous evening studying how to work them. The box contained a couple of tiny accessories to stick onto either ear and a separate storage crystal to put the music on; no clear buttons, no control mechanisms. He was slowly figuring out how to work the things with his guide booklet, but then Vinyl just had to stumble in his impromptu study session.
The young mare’s eyes had immediately sparkled upon seeing them. She knew exactly what they were on sight, the makers, the model, and so many more fine details that his little fold-out failed to mention. All Fancy could was smile and nod seeing the genius living under his roof at work. Then, she offered to make a crystal to make it all sound “even crisper” as she put it. He wasn’t aware that sound could be crispy to begin with. He just needed to tell her what he was planning on listening to and to leave the rest to her. That’s where he went from feeling old to both old and awkward.
“I should’ve just kept my mouth shut,” Fancy muttered under his breath as he clipped the little things at the base of his ears. Checking the second to last item off of his list, he then went to fulfill his last goal: Get the peacock sapphire from Vinyl presumably filled with electro swing.
Leaving the safety of his study, Fancy began his long trot through the halls towards the studio wing. It was a path he rarely traveled down. So many memories lined the walls that he’d rather not dwell upon. Each sweet reminder of his mother always bore that same bitter aftertaste. He’d carefully curated her memories to reflect the good times, but he knew the edited history in his heart. Summers rarely took a picture alone, and he’d painstakingly cropped himself out of most of them. Through all the memories, at least his younger self wasn’t there anymore, tainting the moments on display with his cruelty.
His hooves took him further back in time to memorabilia of his mother at the primetime of her life. He’d see a keepsake would be proudly displayed amidst a brilliant collage, but he wouldn’t be able to retell a single piece of their stories. It wasn’t like she hadn’t tried either, Fancy simply never bothered committing them to memory when she was around. As he approached the diplomat quarters, or rather his parent’s second bedroom, his trot slowed to a trudging crawl. So much of Mother’s time had been spent back here during her last years doing what she loved. She was always plugging away at new songs, recording with Suede, and hiding from the rest of the uncaring nobles, including her wastrel of a son.
Fancy would never know for sure, but he wouldn’t blame her if she’d been avoiding him at the time. Coming back here now felt like an intrusion. Music wasn’t his world, it was her escape from it.
All was quiet around him. He wasn’t even sure if Vinyl was awake yet. Knowing her late-night schedule, the DJ probably slept in as often as possible. Waking her up for a crystal was far too petty a reason to bother her, but perhaps she had finished doing whatever she was going to do before sleeping.
Turning his attention to the other side of the hallway, Fancy saw the live recording sign was turned off. That didn’t mean much, considering he didn’t know if Vinyl used it or not when working. He’d only checked on Vinyl back here once, and the only things he recalled from that day were things Fancy wished he could forget. Still, if it meant he didn’t need to bother Vinyl this early in the morning, he’d find the crystal and figure out how to work it by himself.
The sneaking stallion lifted an ear to the bedroom door, but he heard nothing coming from inside. He hoped Vinyl was a quiet sleeper as he turned away to check the recording studio for the sapphire. Carefully grabbing the door, Fancy gently turned the door handle and crept inside as he flicked the lights on. With no time to lose, he immediately went to the workspace to check for any sign of his quarry.
“Oh thank, Celestia,” he whispered in relief as he saw the familiar flicker of blue from the top of the desk. He plucked the earphones off with his magic and placed them down in front of him. “Now, just line them up with the points of the cut crystal and tap them at the same time to pair, and…”
Nothing happened.
Fancy pursed his lips. “But this was how… No matter. Perhaps this way?”
He flipped the earbuds over and pressed them closer to the crystal. Still nothing. If he was doing something incorrectly, he couldn’t tell. He tried several other iterations that didn’t fare any better.
“For heaven’s sake, old boy. It was only a single page of instructions! With pictures!”
Sir Fancy Pants had famously negotiated complicated treaties between Equestria, the Dragonlands, and Griffonstone, he should be able to figure out these blasted little devices. The instructions were all the way back in the study, and he was not about to take the walk of shame to retrieve them. Not when he’d poured over the blasted thing several times in the first place. Rubbing his chin trying to think of anything else he hadn’t tired yet, he saw the logo on the side.
“Aha! The inscription!” he recalled with a smile. They’d only work with a specific rune like on their company logo, though he hadn’t bothered to remember the name.
Fancy picked the sapphire up and tried to see inside. It was cloudy, but he could make out the shape of the embedded rune inside. He placed it down next to the earphone to compare it side-by-side.
“Drat. They’re completely different shapes.”
“Yeah. Also, that’s a cornflower sapphire, not a peacock.”
Fancy yelped in surprise and turned around to see the DJ covering her mouth to hide her snickering. “Vinyl!”
“Morning, Fancy. Guess you’re looking for this?” Vinyl levitated a brilliantly vivid, blue-green peacock sapphire, with a cleanly inscribed rune inside. Even from a distance, he could see the fine quality of the cut.
“It’s beautiful,” Fancy muttered, awestruck by the gemstone’s craftsmareship.
“Thanks!” Vinyl said as she hovered it to Fancy. “Had to figure out how your Möbi-beats’ crystal worked first, but it was pretty easy-going after I picked out the enchantments. All in all, I think it turned out pretty well.”
Fancy took the crystal in his hoof. While his Möbi-beats earphones had come packaged with lustrous gypsum crystal, the flawlessly polished glean of the sapphire Vinyl had cut was on a completely different level. It was easily double the size and, despite laying flat on his hoof, was cut into a tubular hexagon rather than a flat diamond shape. The inscribed Möbius strip sigil was so cleanly cut inside, it almost looked like she’d grown a crystal around a thin band of paper.
“Good gracious, how long did this take you to make, Vinyl?”
“The cut? Not very,” she answered nonchalantly as she approached the workspace. “It’s a simple geometric shape using its natural structure, just thinner. I rounded the corners a bit so it wouldn’t rip anything in your pocket. Their spellwork was a bit tougher to crack, but I managed to figure it out. I rushed a bit, so maybe a little more than an hour?”
“Incredible. You made something this amazing in an hour?” He took another look at the gemstone in his hoof and marveled at its make. “How is that even possible?”
Vinyl quirked her brow. “It’s not that great. I didn’t need to sand it down super carefully, so the crystal was like five minutes tops. The rest of it was figuring out the inscription pattern.”
Fancy’s mouth fell open. “The crystal wasn’t the hard part?”
“Okay, Fancy? I know you’re not the best when it comes to magic, but cutting a crystal is taught in magic elementary school. For peat’s sake, I cut one in front of you before. Just figure out the wavelength it resonates at and you can manipulate its structure.”
Vinyl snatched the cornflower sapphire from the desk and focused her magic on it. She stuck her tongue out slightly as she concentrated, the ambient sound of her magical aura changing pitches going low, then high, and then low again as it searched. After a few moments of manipulation, she brightened as Fancy heard the crystal slowly start tingling with the same note as Vinyl’s magic.
The sapphire glowed brighter with magical power as Vinyl’s eyes began tracing the edges of the sapphire. A few moments later, chunks of the crystal began sliding off cleanly with no debris as portions just fell off of it. There were no sharp shearing sounds of a magical blade as the mare cleanly carved it into a perfect cube standing on its corner. Suspended in the core was the inscribed rune, clearly visible through the gem’s natural cloudiness.
“See? Had to be a little more careful not to break the inscription, but it’s easy enough. How do you think rock farmers buck boulders open? It’s mostly magic, not just raw strength.”
Fancy took the crystalline cube in his magic and smiled widely. “I suppose you’ll just have to pardon me for being easily impressed by extraordinary results from mundane magic.”
“I guess I get a lot of practice working with them all the time.” Vinyl blushed as she began to scratch the back of her neck. Shaking the redness away, she cleared her throat. “Anyway, can I have that back? It’s the crystal with all the songs I was going to give you.”
“Hmm?” he asked as his mind refocused on why he was there in the first place. “Oh! Sure. Go right ahead.”
Vinyl laid everything on the table, sandwiching the peacock sapphire in between the two earphones. She pressed both down with her hooves until a quick shimmer of magic across the ribbon sigil inside brought a smile to Vinyl’s face.
“Good. The pairing works,” Vinyl said as she pulled the sapphire cube closer. “Now we just gotta transcribe some music onto the rune.”
She tapped both crystals together, activating the runes in both before laying them both next to each other on the desk. Soon, a rainbow ribbon of magical energy stretched out of the Möbius strip towards the cube. It phased through sapphire, wrapping around the edges of the sigil inside, causing it to glow as well. A white line as thin as a thread of silk began running from the cube’s core back down into the peacock crystal and vanishing inside the rune.
“What is it doing?” Fancy asked as the tabletop lightshow continued its magical display.
“Transcribing a copy of the music onto the crystal. It takes a little while, especially if there’s a lot, but it’s a pretty foolproof automated solution as long as you don’t interfere with the spellwork or try to copy something with no audio like a picture. So don’t put this thing active near any of Summers’ photo gems.”
“I’ll be sure not to. I can’t imagine listening to pictures works too well,” Fancy joked as they watched the entertaining transfer together. “Is this how you archive the collection?”
“Kinda sucks, but no. Can’t.” Vinyl shook her head as she watched the magic at work. “The Reading Ribbon spell is a bit too unwieldy for what I do. You’re pretty much at the mercy of whatever it latches onto, and you can’t edit what it picks up.”
“I see. And why does that matter?” he added before Vinyl could call him out for not understanding.
“I can’t be selective if I do it like this. Möbi-beats’ spellwork just kinda guesses where stuff starts and stops. If there’s no clear markers, it might decide to cut a song in half or combine an entire album into one track. Makes shuffling or replaying really annoying.”
Fancy chuckled as he watched the magic at work. “I can already see that all of this is a bit more complicated than dropping a simple needle.”
“That’s one way to put it. It shouldn’t be a problem going from crystal to crystal with my stuff. I can be pretty obsessive with little details like that.”
“Good to know.”
Fancy watched the lovely lights spin their magical strings between the crystals held in Vinyl’s magic. The aetherial threads whipped past like a speeding aurora of colors, like Luna’s dream magic, but in the real world. After a few moments, the DJ cleared her throat, grabbing Fancy’s attention back.
“So,” Vinyl started to ask as she looked over Fancy, “did you just want my experimental stuff to jog to or what?”
“Not exactly, though I imagine it will help. I wanted to sample some more of it since Princess Luna was hoping you’d be willing to play some of this for the first night of the Crystal Summit.”
“What?” Vinyl balked as her eyes shrank. She shook the momentary fear away. “Like outside, right? Somewhere in a corner?”
“The corner part is right, but you’d be with the rest of the ESPA guests inside the grand ballroom. We’re intending to have many different music styles featured, including yours.”
“B-but I haven’t even figured out how to play most of it live! Why does she want it to be at an event like that?”
“Presumably because she likes it,” Fancy answered with a welcoming smile. “She even gave a very spirited defense for your inclusion in the event alongside the other nontraditional ideas she’s had for it.” He turned away from the crystals to give Vinyl his full attention. “Now, before you say anything, I want to assure you that this is completely your decision. If you truly don’t want to perform, I’ll let her highness know. No questions asked.”
Vinyl opened her mouth, but shut it as she thought about it. Fancy couldn’t help but notice the mare looking past him as she wrestled with the idea and mumbling something to herself.
“Vinyl? Are you alright?”
The mare perked up and sucked in her lips, her eyes darting between him and something else. Fancy shot a glance into the window between the studio and the recording room trying to see what she was looking at in the reflection, but there was nothing.
Fancy offered a small smile, hoping to calm her down. “You don’t need to decide right now. The event isn’t even until after Winter Wrap Up, so there’s still time.”
Vinyl shrank back as she looked to her hooves. “R-right.”
Fancy couldn’t help but chuckle. He hoped her behavior wasn’t from anything he was doing to make her uncomfortable. For a pony thought to be a wild, anarchistic pariah bent on the destruction of the aristocracy, she sure was a meek mare at the strangest times. He wanted to tap her on the shoulder to snap her out of it, but he stopped himself.
“Just take some time to think about it, alright?” Fancy requested softly.
Vinyl nodded, but kept her head down. She didn’t even notice the spellwork had finished. Fancy plucked his new toys off the table and slid the finished crystal into his pocket while donning the earphones.
“Again, thank you so much for your help, Vinyl. I’m sure you have other things to do today, so I’d rather not keep you. I appreciate you putting your wonderfully mundane talents to use for this hopelessly inept stallion.”
With that Fancy trotted past the mare and left the studio. He pressed his hoof to his ear, trying to find the right amount of time he was supposed to hold the blasted things to activate them. He was halfway down the hallway when he heard the quick pop of a door opening behind him.
“Wait!” Vinyl shouted as she galloped after him.
His heart nearly shot out of his chest as he ripped the earphones off in fear of them exploding or something. “What, what? Is something the matter?”
“Can uhh… Can I go with you?”
Fancy blinked. “Go with me?”
“Y-yeah. On your jog. Can I go, too? With you?”
Fancy arched an eyebrow, utterly confused by the proposition. He was certain that he’d told her about the cat being let out of the proverbial bag with her stay. It’d be playing into the nobles’ hooves if they were seen together.
After a brief eternity, the mare sagged down and rubbed the back of her neck as she began turning red. “Right, you’d probably rather not—cause you have important stuff and things, and the whole thing with the Möbi-beats because of the event music and like…” Vinyl trailed off as her eyes wandered to the wall where Fancy had tossed the earphones in question. She quickly hovered them off the ground and fastened them back onto Fancy’s ears. “Sorry, never mind.”
Fancy’s heart sank at seeing the dejected mare begin to turn away from him. “Wait a moment. I was simply not expecting company during my exercise. I’d lo—Rather, I wouldn’t mind your company at all.”
Vinyl’s mood rebounded shockingly fast. “Really?”
For a moment, Fancy wondered if this is what having a dog wanting to go on a walk with you was like before shaking the rude comparison out of his head. “Of course, Vinyl. You’re more than welcome to. It’s just a little early still, and I thought you must be tired after getting in late.”
She blew a razzberry and swiped her hoof to strike the notion down. “Nah, I’m used to getting up this early for school after pulling a night at Cantrips. I’m surprised you got up this early after messing with those for so long.”
“You’re not the only night owl. I’m used to pulling long nights for Princess Celestia,” Fancy retorted proudly before unhooking one of the earphones. “Admittedly, I did take far too long trying to figure these little things out.”
Vinyl smiled widely as an idea occurred to her. “How about I show you how to work these things while we’re out?”
“That’s a great idea, Vinyl! You can even provide some commentary about the music.”
The smile faltered on Vinyl’s face. “Wait, what?”
Fancy gingerly levitated the loose earphone and carefully affixed it to Vinyl’s ear. “There we are. Simply smashing. This way, we can listen at the same time, can we not?”
“I guess so.”
“The wonders of magical technology,” Fancy sighed as he took out the crystal to admire its beauty again. He lifted the sapphire up, its shimmering blue-green hue matching Vinyl’s electrifying blue mane and lightning-touched fur. “I must say, these modern marvels suit your natural beauty much better.”
Vinyl bit her lip and averted her eyes, but her reddening cheeks and ears betrayed her feelings on the matter.
“Oh, come now. There’s no need to be embarrassed by something I say, Vinyl,” Fancy joked with a generous roll of his eyes. “Besides, it’s just color coordination.”
“Would you knock it off already?” Vinyl barked back as she turned even brighter.
“Right. No compliments,” he reminded himself succinctly though a wide smile. Looking over her the flushing warmth reminded him of her limited wardrobe options. “Speaking of suiting, do you have anything warm to jog in at this time of the year?”
“Nope, but it’s fine. I’ll just use a fire shield again to…” Vinyl paused as she stared at the sapphire. “Wait, no. That might interfere with the connection to the crystal. I don’t really have anything outside of hoodies and a windbreaker. My sweaters aren’t exactly exercise friendly.”
Fancy pondered the predicament. While he would enjoy the company, he surely didn’t want Vinyl freezing herself to death. Nothing in his closet would come close to fitting a mare like her, and he didn’t want to wake Fluffer Duster to ask her. It’d be unlikely anyway, since she was even smaller than Vinyl. His eyes wandered as he tried to spark some inspiration to their problem. A cover of a fashion magazine featuring his mother embracing Suede caught his eye. She was leaning into the nape of his neck, brushing the underside of his chin as he stood up straight. Fancy himself stood roughly the same height as Suede, which gave him an idea.
“You wouldn’t happen to be a medium, would you?” Fancy asked as he approached Vinyl and straightened up as he measured Vinyl with his hoof.
Vinyl tilted her head. “Yeah? Why?”
Fancy tapped his hoof nervously as he waited on the other side of the guest closet door for Vinyl to finish changing. His gamble on his mother’s clothes had paid off after the quick trip down memory lane. It’d been interesting to see all the brands that had come in and gone during Summers’ musical career. He’d forgotten just how many boxes of free clothing she’d stuffed away like junk mail in the back of her closet. It made him wonder how his parents had ever settled on the name Fancy Pants for how often Summers refused to wear anything that’d cover up her cutie mark.
“Are you sure it’s okay for me to wear these?” Vinyl finally asked from the other side.
“Of course. They were only hers in the sense they were given to her. I’m fairly certain the brand deals they were trying to entice her into have long since expired. Hopefully the clothes haven’t met the same fate.”
“Nope. The preservation wards held up, somehow. They could use some real ironing though. These creases are too intense for my magic to work out alone.”
“I’m not surprised. They’ve been folded up in that closet longer than you’ve been alive,” Fancy admitted with a laugh.
“How’d you even know there was a tracksuit in here in the first place?”
“The box was from Viva Velour. They were famous for one thing during one decade. I just hope it isn’t a complete fashion disaster.”
On cue, Vinyl opened the door to reveal a pristinely preserved, soft gold and silver jogging suit. The plush velour fabric bore copious vertical bar patterns and muted colors that shined more with a warm “peace and love” vibe than the blindingly “totally rad” energy he’d grown up around. Forget the clothes being older than Vinyl, it was all likely older than him.
“How do I look? Groovy? Outta sight? Shagadelic?” Vinyl asked, twirling around to give Fancy a full show of clothes that were assuredly older than him.
“Let’s ignore that last one,” Fancy corrected as he took in the look from jacket top to flared pant-leg bottoms. “That being said, you’re definitely all the above and far, far out.”
Mercifully, Vinyl’s colors matched despite the outfit being made with Summers’ deeper hues in mind. The top also had button-up wing sleeves, so at least she could keep the cold sealed away. The fabric looked a little tight on Vinyl, but form fitting with flared sleeves was the style at the time. In any case, Vinyl likely wasn’t going to be turning any heads in a good way wearing it despite how well the ensemble suited her.
“There’s still one more piece in here.” Vinyl levitated a matching white and gold loop of fabric and stretched and scrunched it within her magical grasp. “Should I put it on?”
“That’s a sweatband. And no, probably not.”
“Why not?” she asked while pulling her hair back into a ponytail as she donned the final piece of the ancient ensemble. “You don’t like it?”
“I’m not sure my opinion matters much here, Vinyl.” Fancy sighed as he raised a hoof to his head. He couldn’t help but chuckle to himself at the absurdity of it all. “Dear heavens, I’m sorry. This was such a terrible idea on my part.”
“I dunno. I kinda like it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” Vinyl turned to the mirror and looked over herself. “But that might just be Summers’ jive talking messing with my head.”
“Well then, if you like it, it’s yours.”
A small smile pulled at the mare’s face. “Maybe it’s so out of style that it’s coming back in again. That happens sometimes, right?”
“My cutie mark can’t divine that information. However, my instincts would point to definitely not yet.”
“That sucks. It’s super comfy,” she said as she wiggled in the plushy suit.
“Indeed. You don’t usually wear uncomfortable athletic wear. Though Viva Velour classifies more as athleisure, I believe. Fleur would know better.”
“Whatever. We’re burning morning time, right? We should get out there.”
“You… you’re going out in that?”
“Exercise outfits are always weird looking anyway, so why not?” Vinyl looked over herself in the mirror. She seemed to like what she saw, but then slumped a bit as uncertainty crossed her face. “Unless you think I look really bad in this. I mean, I know I don’t really have much of a fashion sense, but if I look awful—”
“No-no-no!” Fancy cut her off as he waved a hoof. “Not at all. Honestly, I don’t think that’s even possible for you. Rather, I remember you saying that you have an image to maintain. I simply didn’t think ‘psychedelic’ was part of that.”
The smile returned to Vinyl's face as she looked back at Fancy. “Well, I said, DJ Pon-3 has an image to maintain, but Vinyl Scratch enjoys getting comfortable. And you know what? This old thing feels like I’m wearing a blanket all over. Plus, anypony who’d care is still asleep right now.”
“Then don’t let me get in the way. If it feels as nice as you say it is, then my mother didn’t know what she was missing.”
Vinyl grabbed a white wool scarf from her personal collection and wrapped it around her neck and muzzle. Despite appearing to have been plucked right out of a time capsule, she wore it all wonderfully well. He was tempted to swap to his Wonderbolt bomber jacket, but the whole point was not to be recognized. After one last check, she then plucked the loose Möbi-beat earphones off the nearby dresser and clipped it over her ear. With one methodical sweep of her hoof over the top of the device, she activated her half of the pair.
“Lead the way, Fancy Pants.”
It’d taken an extra hour to get ready and run through the earphone gestures, but Fancy was finally ready for his workout along with his surprise guest. The streets were still mostly in the clear as they left the borders of the estate. The two ponies jogged together, side by side, and listened to Vinyl’s various remixes of Suede’s music. She hadn’t limited her selection to big band swing. Other styles were included with the same vintage renditions layered and redone with modern electronic instruments.
Fancy didn’t even bother debating which direction to go in today as he made the right turn down the slope leading out of the upper districts. With the eyes of the nobles probably watching to see him with Vinyl, it was already risky enough to be out with her. For her part, Vinyl didn’t seem to mind. Even if she was wearing something outdated by at least four decades, she wasn’t readily recognizable outside of her hair and eye color. Without her striking shades, she could’ve been anypony.
As they trotted along the quiet, residential sidewalks, the stallion couldn’t help his steps clip-clopping to the beat in his left ear. Looking to his right, he could see Vinyl syncing with the music as well. It was different from his quiet morning jogs, but he could feel the appeal of having such songs help keep the blood pumping.
They made quite a pair of ponies. An older stallion strutting down the street in a well-worn trendy tracksuit accompanied by a young mare gingerly trotting next to him sporting a brand new athleisure wear from fifty years ago. The two were a tangled mess of generational contradictions listening to modern vintage music caught somewhere in the middle of a topsy-turvy timeline. The workout had barely even started and it was turning out to be the most fun he’d had on a jog in a long time.
Heading into the nearby park, they’d missed the sunrise by half an hour, but the morning light’s glow was still beautiful to admire. All around them were signs of winter winding down. The clean cobblestones bore nary a flake of frost on it. Looking towards the knolls covered in slushy snow, a few wild stalks of grass had breached the crunchy powder. Soon his cool mornings would be met with colorful fields of mountain flowers as the world slowly warmed back to life. Fancy slowed down as he reached his favorite, sunkissed spot in the park.
“Why’d we stop?” Vinyl asked as she turned the music down.
“Just pacing myself. I usually take a short break here to watch the sunrise. We’re just a bit behind schedule today.”
“Oh.” Vinyl looked away. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, Vinyl. I consider it a fine trade off to be able to enjoy your company. It’s nice to have somepony else for once, and the music is quite literally a change of pace.”
Despite the pun, Vinyl brightened as her tail swished slightly. “Do you like it?”
“Very much so,” Fancy said with a nod. “I’ve heard these songs so many times before, yet they feel so different.”
Fancy didn’t need to see Vinyl’s smile that she was hiding behind her scarf. The light in her eyes was a dead giveaway. “Thanks. It’s already great dance music. I’m just putting my own spin on his swing.”
“I think it’s a little more than that, Vinyl.”
“I definitely added more percussion to it,” she noted.
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Fancy lightly rebuked as he admired Equestria shining in the dawn. He lowered his hood and slid his hoof up his ear slightly, raising the music’s volume to feel the deep rhythm pulsing through her “Amame Mucho” remix. “I’m not quite sure if I can explain it.”
Closing his eyes, the stallion concentrated. He started to hum the song underneath the iterations and then unclipped the earphone. Despite his tone being all over the place, he replayed it in his head the way he’d heard it countless times. It was an old song, a San Palomino bolero that was much older than him and his parents.
“Suede Shoes was the last of his kind; the final King of Swing. Even he would admit that his favorite style was only relevant because of the CMS’s meddling in permissible music trends. Simply put, he was born a generation too late to truly put his talents to use. So many of his albums had other songs to spice up the offerings so he could sell them. However, when you add your own sound to it?”
Fancy smiled as he clipped it back on, closing his eyes to savor the music once more. The love song was nearing its finale. In the original, it drifted out slowly and quietly in a moment of tenderness. He wondered what this version would do.
A-ma-me,
A-ma-me mucho…
Underneath Suede’s pleas for a nameless lover to stay with him and be his alone, Vinyl’s influence pulled back to hang on the intimacy of the moment.
Kiss me my darling and keep your heart closer…
To mine.
On the final note of the song where it should’ve ended, it repeated the last line of “to mine” several times as the electric influence danced alongside the ballad, extending it into a fierce tango burning at the end. Fancy tapped the device to pause it as he took a deep breath of the fresh mountain air around them before looking up to the clear sky above.
“It’s invigorating. New, but nostalgic. Classically tuned while completely unorthodox. Perhaps that paradox is what gives it that punch. It breathes life in a way I never thought Suede’s music could. Without a doubt, he’d be absolutely thrilled to hear what you’ve done with his work. They both would.”
Fancy shook his head and sighed to himself. “And there I go with complimentary language again. My apologies, Vinyl.” Fancy opened his eyes and turned to Vinyl. “It’s just that I find this simply…”
His words were stolen away seeing the smaller mare’s eyes shimmering in the new light of day, bursting with unbridled joy. Vinyl pulled gently at her scarf, revealing a smile, small and precious. Despite the mare trapped on all sides between a noble class that hated her and his inescapable influence in her life, she glowed with a wild and free abandon that broke through all the darkness. The rough and tumble pony glittered in the growing daylight. Gratitude distilled in a disheveled DJ, shining like a star just for him to see.
“... Brilliant.”
“Thank you, Fancy. You have no idea how much it means to me to hear you say that.”
After taking a few seconds to remember how to breathe, Fancy cleared his throat. He averted his eyes from the gold and silver light gracing him to look back towards the countryside in front of them. After all, it was incredibly dangerous to stare directly at the sun. “Please, think nothing of it, Vinyl. Shall we continue?”
“Oh! Right, sure.” She pulled her scarf back up, and readied her hoof to start playing the music again. “The next track should be ‘Save the last Prance for Me.’ It was a little hard to work with since Suede already changed it up a bit, but I think I figured something out. I hope you like it, too.”
“I’m sure I will.”
After another grateful smile with her eyes, Vinyl tapped the earphone to restart their jogging music. Fancy threw his hood up and focused on keeping up a healthy clip to his canter. He tried to focus on the music in his ear rather than the one performing it next to him. She needed to be more careful.
After all, a stallion could get the wrong idea seeing such raw beauty directed at them.