Champagne, Illinois: an utterly absurd spot for a unicorn to visit. Nonetheless, Vinyl checked Lyra’s calculations while Lyra focused on fumbling fine maneuvering to park a vehicle not designed for hoofed drivers. Once the sun set, it would be a dark, moonless night. Equestria’s loss recovery department informed them that at least two Ponyville residents, also both unicorns, would be in Champagne on the next new moon. Vinyl shifted uncomfortably at the thought that calculations held. If the conversation went wrong, the trapped unicorn population would increase from at least two to a minimum of four. Why did loss recovery not send mediators from the local species for such sensitive operations?
As instructed, Lyra soon parked at the nearest non-reserved parking past the sushi restaurant. Two white unicorns soon appeared as Vinyl and Lyra walked away from the humans downtown toward the empty park.
“Lyra, my darling!” Called a familiar voice, “How lovely to see you.”
Rarity’s sister stepped back to let the “adults” talk out of habit, her cutie mark and flowing mane be damned.
“Rar-Rarity!” It was Lyra’s turn to stutter. “And Sweetie, too!” Her thoughts remained too scattered to say much more. Too risky.
“What’s wrong, dear? You look like you’ve seen a timberwolf. Why is Vinyl shifting her weight like that?” Rarity’s emotional generosity continued to exceed her physical giving.
Vinyl grabbed a triply-sealed oversized envelope with her lips and pushed it toward Sweetie Belle’s locked saddlebag. Lyra reviewed the rehearsed lines, the ordering becoming fuzzy now their delivery was imminent.
“Can you please deliver the smaller envelopes inside to Bon Bon and Octavia when you return?” Lyra, thankfully, grew too nervous to continue.
“Certainly, darling,” Rarity said with a cocked ear.
“Tell P-P-Pinkie I say hell-o, emphasis on Hell,” interjected Vinyl Scratch.
“Ok,” squeaked Sweetie Belle with a confused smile.
“Let me treat you to dinner, then we can chat—why are you running off?”
Vinyl froze, torn between following her friend and conversing with Rarity, hoping to learn any scrap of liberating information.
“DJ,” Rarity apparently only knew her stage name, “the sushi restaurant has bountiful vegetarian options. I insist. Let Lyra gallop her anxiety away and return to her senses.”
Dashboard lights made the mares glad for the headlights in the dim starlight. Galloping under their own horse power, they would sail through the night unaided. However, the glowing interior running lights dazzled their ungulate night vision. Lyra chuckled at Vinyl’s insistence on driving at 88 mph as they raced north on I-39 to reach the Department of Recovery pastures by daylight. Perhaps that magic would work in a different human history. Marimbas bounced on interlocking chords over the car stereo, the canvas roof firmly secured in the closed position as a trickle of ambient engine heat vented in to warm what would otherwise be the freezing interior.
Lyra sat shotgun, eyes half-closed in conflicting thoughts. If she had known the condition of the road, one faction of her mind would have rejoiced at the likelihood of a sudden return of their magic to Equestria. An allied faction wondered if Vinyl was ignorant, reckless, or shared the goal. The self-preserving faction had its satisfaction from their speed being too great to care about the frequent minor bumps. The dominant faction, however, was the one that needed a mare. Whether it was Bon Bon on Earth, a ghostly return to Ponyville to accompany Bon Bon in Equestria, or right—No, not that—Lyra interrupted her own rumination. Not the mare next to her.
Pulsing strings and bass clarinet subsumed all mental activity as their volume crescendoed and the cello dropped its customary D to a C-sharp. The music intensified like the nonexistent snowstorm outside. Pianos slithered across the stereophonic marimba alternations while the guitar crawled its way into a complete melody. Outside, a red star apparated into being, soon followed by a second star and its friend. No mere constellation, but an entire star field of red lights augmented the fixed white stars. As suddenly as the first star appeared, they all snuffed out of existence. The music remained a calm and unaffected seabed. Then the first star popped on, again followed by two others before lighting the whole sky in crimson pinpricks. The lights kept their independent tempo as they danced themselves into creation and dissolved back into the night.
Then the maracas appeared. Despite proceeding at the same tempo, the red stars danced ever more vigorously. Vinyl instinctively floored it to match the metric modulation, causing the speedometer to read 101. Lyra grunted for no particular reason—at least no reason that crossed her awareness. As she looked at the speed reading, Lyra appreciated the unicorn dyed blue and green from the dashboard lights. Her self-preserving thoughts won tonight’s battle—even if those thoughts did not, at least Vinyl possibly shared the same splattered desire for immediate return or perhaps a reckless apathy to all options. She shifted comfortably in her seat, leather clearly not being designed for species that don’t typically wear clothes. Suddenly, it was no longer an annoyance, at least for that night. Her breath deepened even as her heart raced to match the new tempo.
ZAP!
Residual magic sparked as horns touched. Lyra craned her head down to match her muzzle to Vinyl’s.
“Stop,” commanded Vinyl.
Lyra snorted as she bolted upright. Perhaps she would be better taking a fast nonphysical return to Equestria.
“Let me stop, need to stop.” Vinyl continued.
Lyra nickered in confusion as she felt the car slow.
“Dee, dis—Can’t focus like that,” Vinyl attempted to explain. “Don’t want dead in ditch. No bump, fly, and crunch.”
At last, the coupe came to stillness on the shoulder of the empty highway.
Vinyl stepped onto the sad grass on the roadside as she walked to open Lyra’s door to lean in and rub horns. Each breath of Lyra’s became a soft snort as she leaned in to intensify the rubbing, their spirals occasionally interlocking to seal their affection. Was that Vinyl’s tongue trying to make itself her bit? Lyra relaxed her lips to find if Vinyl would slide it in sideways. Indeed, her hypothesis was correct. Something broad, warm, and wet nudged her lips apart, first pushing the upper lip up, then pressing down her lower lip, finally repeating the process until their tongues touched inside Lyra’s mouth as the velvet middle of Vinyl’s muzzle blocked Lyra’s right nostril.
The mares found stillness in this position as their breathing arrived at its natural synchronization until Vinyl gently pulled away.
“S-s,”—before she could get over her stutter, she was interrupted by Lyra starting to cry.
“Ok, I’ll stop,” uttered Lyra as she unsuccessfully fought back a minor trail of tears.
“Not stop, no, not that—stand, stallion, spinner,” Vinyl said in her unintentionally cryptic manner.
Lyra saw Vinyl turn away and step closer to the slope of the ditch before stopping. Her tail swished in indecisive agitation between clamped firmly down and hiked to the side.
“Stand with me,” Vinyl’s verbal mannerism coming to sudden uncharacteristic focus.
Lyra unsteadily stepped onto the grass and gravel, her attention distracted by Vinyl’s undulating tail. Eventually, she stood nose-to-nose with her new forever roommare.
“Spin.”
The hardest possible gentle bite pinched her shoulder before Lyra was steady in her new orientation. Unthinkingly, she returned a normal gentle bite to Vinyl’s withers and didn’t let go. Vinyl eased the pressure before nipping two inches away with less force. Their instinctive massage continued silently for at least a minute, but nopony tracked time beyond that. Eventually, Vinyl’s bite strength dropped to near zero.
“Stallion.”
Lyra nickered in confusion.
“I like stallion. Lots of stallion.”
It was too dark to see Lyra blink.
“I can’t let you be my first mare—”
Realization began to penetrate the night’s incessant emotional whiplash.
“—but you, you can be the first with experience.”
Lyra finally had a coherent attempt at responding, “With Octavia your cellist?”
“Yes. We mutually agreed that was idiotic and it’s best to stick to stallions.”
“That’s the big difference between Bon and me: after our first few times, we were sad we had to go find somepony else. Let’s find you a stallion.”
Vinyl stamped her hoof, “You need this.” She pressed her horn lengthwise along Lyra’s cutie mark. “Keep going. Even if I hate it, for tonight, keep going as long as you need.” She paused briefly. “I want to like it. Liking it means I won’t have to look.” Perhaps Vinyl had slipped into communication both nonverbal and nonmagical. Neither mare particularly cared about such details.