A gentle gray hoof glided the rosewood bow over the strings of a cello, sounding the final notes of a lonely tale of excitement and betrayal. Octavia's eyes opened as her ears took in the roaring applause from the audience, many standing up to stomp their hooves more loudly. She sighed and took a bow, laying her cello on the chair beside her before walking off of the stage and behind the curtains.
She pushed past admirers and her agent, hiding her face as she was welcoming her back after her performance and walked swiftly into her dressing room. She closed and locked the door, trying to shut out all of the noises surrounding her. Octavia inhaled deeply as she sank to her haunches, staring intently at her shaking hooves.
She had missed a note.
She could not fathom how her hooves had slipped for one miniscule moment, forcing the bow to a graze second string during a note. Her eyes began to tear as she glanced up to the vanity mirror above her dressing table. It reflected her failure. The bow placed on the top of her forehead had come askew during her passionate performance, and she saw several strands of hair out of place.
Octavia stumbled over herself to correct her visage, then breathed deeply several more times. She sat there and began to think, eyes closed and breathing steady. She wondered what this meant for her career, or if anyone had even noticed. As she continued thinking, a single note blasted through her wall. A deep, throbbing bass tone that could not have originated from any instrument or any orchestra no matter how diligent.
One distinctive sound echoed through the note which sounded almost like a word. A single "wub" repeated over and over again leaked through the wall of Octavia's dressing room that lead to the alleyway behind the opera house. Her meditation disturbed, Octavia strode through the door once more, still ignoring the waves of ponies attempting to talk to her.
She left through the exit door and quickly made her way outside to find the source of the noise, which had not yet stopped since she had first heard it. The sound was more prevalent outside, new tones and chords added to it, all seeming electronic in origin.
Octavia's hoof pushed on the door to the night club situated strangely behind the opera house and her eyes were instantly blinded by a flurry of lights and glowsticks. She quickly looked around, almost terrified at the sight, but her mind perceived one thing. Everything in the room had a blue glow at the source. As her eyes adjusted to the lights, her ears began to take in the assault.
The same bassline was present in the music that she had heard from across the alley, but many more layers of sound had been added on top of it, all blending into a cacophonous sound that rocked the floor and everypony on it. The sounds mixed together into a single track that was more brilliant artistically than anything she had heard before. At the center of the room stood one pony with a pair of purple goggles levitating above her head. Everything around her, including the entire turntable in front of her pulsated with a stunning blue aura, originating from the horn of the unicorn standing behind them.
A beautiful blue mane extended from the white unicorn, the light from her horn accenting the lighter blue stripe in her hair. Her brilliant scarlet eyes focused dutifully on the turntables, hooves moving rapidly against the controls while her magic took care of whatever her hooves missed.
Every change in tune was mixed perfectly so that no beat ever became redundant, but at the same time, no segment ever ran too short. Octavia stood in awe of this mistress of sound, cautiously approaching the turntables as her eyes completely adjusted to the lights in the room. The floor was empty, yet the pony at the booth was mixing as if there was a room full of dancing equestrians. Octavia cleared her throat and everything stopped suddenly; the music, the lights, and the flying glowsticks.
"Hey there, you come for the show? I'm actually just practicing right now." the white unicorn hopped off of her stand and closed the gap between worlds as she grinned and extended her hoof.
"I'm Vinyl Scratch. I DJ here from time to time. You don't really look like the normal lot that come here to party." She said with a chuckle. Octavia stood, staring at the hoof being held out to her. She looked back up into the DJ's eyes with a smirk on her mouth.
"People call me Octavia." She smiled genuinely, her hoof brushing her hair out of her eyes. "Have you ever thought of adding a cello to your... performance?" Scratch looked her up and down with a quizzical look plastered across her face.
"What the hay is a cello?"
((Hay everyone, this is my first fic on FiMfiction, but I have been writing for a few years on various other shows. I did this story originally as a proof that I could write well for an RPG project that seems to be dead. I haven't been a part of the community for long, but I've been a fan for a while. Hit me up on MLPForums or here, honestly right now I'm just trying to get to that 1000 word minimum for submission. I don't write very long one-shots... So... I have been reading Fallout: Equestria recently and I would have to say that if you have a spare week of free reading time and you haven't read it a dozen times already, you should be there instead of reading my filler comment in the bottom...
go...
you think I'm kidding? Go now! I'm not saying any more interesting stuff, I promise...
So back to interesting stuff, I live in Texas and it's just getting to be colder here, thank goodness. I have been waiting for the cold weather since Summer essentially started in March... So yeah... 'sup bro.)