Octavia unlocked the door with a click, breathing in the sweet smell of home as she stepped inside and gingerly placed her cello in its usual place in the corner. She entered the sitting room and to find Vinyl and Tambourine sitting on the couch, sharing a pair of earbuds and eating eating some sort of toast. Grace Note was laying on a blanket on the floor, gumming a soggy pink dog and cooing some riveting speech in foal-talk.
"D'aw," Octavia said, smiling as she sat down next to Vinyl and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Whatcha listening to?"
"Wha?" Vinyl looked up from her toast. "Oh. Hi, 'Tavi. How was your day?"
"Fine," Octavia said, patting the head of her youngest daughter, who have crawled over to her and was playing with her hoof. "You?"
Vinyl rolled her eyes. "I'm a stay at home mom these days, Octy. What do you think?"
"I think you're grumpy because you miss working as much and you were bored at home all day." Octavia pulled the earbud out of Tambourine's ear. "It's rude not to even say hello when your mother comes home, you know."
Tambourine closed the book she was reading with a sigh. "Hello, Mom. Can I go back to reading now?"
"Alright. What is this, Vin'? I could hear it from across the room."
"Oh, the music. It's just somethin' one of my friends came up with. Have a listen, see what ya think." Vinyl levitated the earbud out of Octavia's hoof and into her ear.
Octavia frowned. "What is this, Vinyl? It's not very foal appropriate, is it?"
"Aw, she doesn't understand. Besides, it has a great beat. And he mentions me!"
"A song about flanks is not suitable for my daughter, and I'll thank you to stop letting her listen to it."
"Your daughter? Our daughter. Not yours. Besides, who birthed her, you, or me?"
"You're changing the subject, Vinyl." Octavia spoke through clenched teeth.
"I wouldn't have to if you hadn't decided to call me a bad parent!"
"I did no such thing. All I did was mention that I would rather have my daughter raised slightly better then you!"
"Isn't that the same thing?"
"Well, now that you point it out, yes. It is, and you're a terrible mother, et cetera. Because that is what you seem to want me to say!"
"Takes one to know one, 'Tavi. All that classical stuff you force her to listen to is just asking for the other foals to bully her!"
"Knowing about famous musicians is not the same thing as asking to be bullied. But knowing music about liking big flanks, of all things, is most certainly asking for trouble. What do you think would happen if she started singing that in school?"
"It's true, though. I do like big flanks!" Vinyl said. "And besides, I think Tamby is smart enough not to do that."
"Are you calling me fat?"
"No. What made you think that?"
"You said you like big flanks!"
"I didn't mean you!"
"Well, then, that leads me to believe you don't like me!"
"Maybe I don't!"
"Then why did you marry me?!"
"I - um - it looks like it's time for me to leave. I have to meet one of my friends for dinner. I'll see you later, 'Tavi." Vinyl growled as she threw on her coat and shades.
"Tell him your wife doesn't like his song!" Octavia shouted after her.
"It's not that friend!" Vinyl replied, slamming the door behind her.
Octavia glared at the door. "Right. I forgot you had more then one friend."
Tambourine put down her book and trotted over to her mother, laying a soft hoof on her back. "Uh, Mom? Don't you think you went a little hard on her?"
"No." Octavia said simply.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Maybe... maybe you need to calm down some, Mom," Tambourine suggested. "I could make dinner. You should - I don't know, take a hot bath, or something."
Octavia sighed. "I - are you sure you know how to make dinner?"
"I can make pasta. Or rice. I mean, Mommy taught me how to make ramen, but you don't like that, so..."
"Alright then. If your mother comes home, tell her to go away. And tell her she's sleeping on the couch. I'm going to bed."
"But - "
"Make yourself something to eat - I don't care what. I'm not very hungry."
"Okay," Tambourine said quietly, watching as her mother went into her bedroom and shut the door. "I'll just... wait up, I guess."
She trotted into the kitchen and rummaged around in the pantry, half searching for something she wanted to eat, half trying to fill the empty silence.
A crash, and Tambourine turned to find a gurgling Grace Note sitting on the floor next to her, a broken jar and a mess of sticky honey around her hooves.
"Oh, ponyfeathers. Well, I guess I'd better get you cleaned up. It's not like Mom's gonna do it."
After an uneventful bath, Tambourine carried a sleepy Grace Note to the door of her mother's room. "Mom?" she asked softly.
"Go away please, Tamby darling." Octavia's voice came through the closed door.
"I will, but - well, I have Grace Note, and she's really tired, so, can I put her in her crib?"
"No."
"But she has to sleep somewhere."
"She can stay with you."
"But I don't know - "
"Just go, Tamby. Leave me alone."
As Tambourine's hoofsteps faded from the door, Octavia poured herself another glass of the un-nameable drink she had found hidden in Vinyl's side of the closet. Her vision was already blurred, but the burning in her throat with each glass hadn't dulled. At least the pain would distract her.
Tambourine dropped her sister on the sofa and plopped down next to her, flipping on the TV. She grunted as a painfully loud commercial for hoofsoap blasted into the room, and switched channels quickly. A colourful cartoon featuring what appeared to be several talking bears appeared in its place.
Nope.
Tambourine changed the channel again. She absentmindedly stroked the head of her sleeping sister, wondering if this was what it was like to have a pet, and went back to randomly pressing buttons on the remote.
Tambourine halfheartedly watched a couple of ponies in suits creep around a dark, dreary mansion and whisper loudly about who killed the owner for what felt like hours before her stomach began to express its opinion of not being fed.
Well, that show wasn't anything good anyways. Maybe I should go back to the kitchen and find something to eat. Tambourine thought, eying her sister. She should stay asleep long enough.
Tambourine muted the television and tiphoofed across the hall to the kitchen. She stepped over the honey splattered on the floor, and levitated a packet of ramen out of the pantry.
"Hmm, boil water... add noodles and cook for so many minutes..." Tambourine skimmed the instructions. "Okay. seems easy enough I mean, if Mommy can do it..."
She opened the package and arranged the block of noodles and the little sauce packet on the counter before filling a pot with water and placing it on the stove.
Ten minutes later Tambourine trotted back to the sitting room, levitating the soup ahead of her. Grace Note was still asleep on the sofa, sprawled out adorably over half of it. The only problem was that it was the middle half, leaving two almost Tambourine-sized places on either side. The grey filly carefully rolled her sister out of the way and sat down.
She was halfway through her meal when the door creaked open and a contrite looking Vinyl Scratch stepped in, glancing around warily.
"Hey, Tamby. What are you doing up? And, why is Grace out here with you? And where's your mother?" Vinyl whispered loudly.
"Hi Mommy. It's safe to come in, I think Mom fell asleep a while ago. And It's only nine. I'm allowed to be up. Grace is here because Mom wouldn't let me take her into the bedroom. She said to tell you you're sleeping on the couch tonight." Tambourine replied.
"Hmph." Vinyl said. "Fat chance."
"I don't think she'd be very happy if you went in there." Tambourine said as her mother got up and made for the door of the bedroom.
"Well, ya don't say," Vinyl said sarcastically. "It's my job though. I have to go in. Wish me luck, Tamby."
"Luck." Tambourine said. "But can you bring Grace with you? I'm sick of her."
Vinyl wordlessly levitated the limp filly onto her back, took a deep breath, and quietly pushed open the door to the bedroom she shared with Octavia.
"Tammy? 'Sthat you?" Octavia's slurred voice came from a lump on the bed, presumably the grey pony buried under a mound of blankets. The room was dim, but Vinyl could see as the lump moved and a bedraggled Octavia sat up, blinking, trying to see the pony who had interrupted her - well, whatever she was doing.
"No, Octy. It's me." Vinyl said. "What's up?"
"Oh, you. What're you doing here, Vinyl? I thought you were mad."
"No, not mad. I came to apologise."
" 'Polo - pogo - pogloly not 'cepted. You called me fat."
"Octy, what the hay is - are you drunk?"
"Dunno. Think yeah. There'sh thish shtuff in the closet. 'S yucky, but I drinked it."
"By Celestia's mane, you are. This is - I don't know - I never took you for a drinker." Vinyl crossed the room and placed the sleeping Grace Note in her crib before sitting down on the bed next to her wife, who was curled up in a tight ball on her pillow.
"Go 'way pleashe." Octavia said, batting at Vinyl lazily. "I feel kinda shick."
"Yeah, I bet you do. That stuff was enough to make me feel sick - it's gotta be awful for a lightweight like you."
"'m not a lightweight."
"Yes you are. I'm sorry, Octy, but it's true."
"But earlier you said I was fat."
"I - what? No, I - ugh. Never mind, that's not what I meant. And that's not what lightweight means either. Just... please listen to me, Octavia."
"Why? You're mean. I don't even know why I married you." Octavia said softly, her voice remarkably clear.
"I - I'm sorry, Octavia. I don't know why you married me, either, but I know why I married you, and that's because I'd been madly in love with you for years."
"Really?" Octavia said coldly. "I never would have guessed."
"I don't know what's gotten into you, 'Tavi. But I want you to know that I'm really, really sorry. It was my mistake for starting the whole thing."
"It was your fault."
"I know,and I'm sorry. Can you forgive me for it, please?" Vinyl answered meekly.
"Look at you, Vinyl Scratch. You think you're so badflank, and here you are, begging on your knees. You're pathetic, you know that? Absolutely pathetic."
That stung. Almost as much as the comment about Octavia not knowing why she married Vinyl. The blue-maned mare winced, trying to convince herself that this wasn't Octavia, that she was under the influence of that blasted alcohol.
"Well? Aren't you going to defend yourself?" Octavia inquired coolly.
"No," Vinyl sighed. "It isn't worth it... I'll be on the couch if you need me."
Needless to say, it was an unpleasant night for both of them. The Princess bed was wonderful for two, but for only one pony, it was disturbingly lonely.