//------------------------------// // Chapter VI // Story: Shipwrecked // by VashTheStampede //------------------------------// Vinyl looked at her. She was happy, beyond happy – but her mind hadn’t caught up with her ears yet. She stared at Octavia, a dumb, disconnected look on her face. Slowly, the smile in her ears reached her mind, and it clicked – resulting in the smile reaching her face. “Tavi… I… do you really mean that? Honestly? You’re not just saying this because I’ve saved your life… three times now?” Octavia smiled and chuckled lightly at the sentiment. “No, I’m quite sure I mean it. Before I elaborate, though, you might want to stop grinning – I’ve never seen a pony smile so broadly. Your face might get st-” Octavia wasn’t able to finish her sentence. Vinyl Scratch had launched herself at the mare, hugging her tightly and pulling her into a deep kiss. Octavia melted into the warmth of her lover, feeling the soft hooves rise up her back, Vinyl’s forelegs hooked underneath Octavia’s own. Octavia hesitantly brought her hooves up to Vinyl’s face, gently pulling it away from her own. Both mares opened their eyes part way, smiling. Despite the half-lidded eyes, the look they gave each other was not one of lust or desire, but one of bliss, a look of having found the pony each wanted to spend every moment with, awake or otherwise. “Octavia… why? Why do you love me?” Vinyl’s face took an abruptly serious demeanor. “Miss Scratch. I could list adjectives for hours – you’re kind, you’re intelligent, you’re a musician equally as talented as I, you’re beautiful beyond belief, you’re willing to give your life for me… but that’s not why I love you. In truth, I can’t put it into words. I can tell you all the things that make you loveable, or worthy of being loved, but when it comes to why I love you… I can’t say. There’s some… connection, you might say. Being with you… despite what has happened… when you hold me I feel safe. When you kiss me, I feel like nothing else in the world matters. I can’t quantify what I feel for you, but I do. I feel it with all my heart.” Vinyl removed her glasses, revealing her eyes to Octavia. Much to Octavia’s surprise, they were brimming with tears, Vinyl’s lips trembling and holding onto the vaguest semblance of a smile. “That’s… that’s exactly what I’d hoped you’d say. You’re perfect, Tavi, you know that?” Vinyl’s smile broke and she lowered her head, putting her face into Octavia’s neck and weeping into her shoulder. “You are too, love, you are too.” The pair sat, snuggled against each other, looking westward over the ocean towards Celestia’s descending sun. “Vinyl dear… I think we should head back now. It’s going to be dark soon, and I’m rather uncomfortable with the thought of falling asleep so close to the edge of a cliff.” Vinyl Scratch’s only reply was a pleased groan and a nod. Slowly standing up, the mares shook the weariness from their limbs. They shared another brief kiss, and began to descend from the precipice at a leisurely pace. The mutual revelation of love kept them in a state of acceptable, blissful silence, as both contemplated the potential for the development of their relationship – Octavia wondering what would happen if they ever got off the island, Vinyl Scratch concerned about how to live on it. Content with their fantasies and thoughts, the two arrived back at their cave in seemingly much less time than it had taken them to go the other way. In fact, it had taken much less time for the mares to return to their cave. The sun was beneath the horizon, but the night was still young and neither mare was tired. “Say, Vinyl…” Octavia began. The white unicorn laying with her head in the cellist’s lap blinked her eyes open, looking towards her marefriend’s face. “Were you involved with that fiasco with the Royal Wedding a few months back?” “Was I involved? Honey, I DJ’d the reception after everything went down. I was there for the incident, too. You were, too.” Octavia abruptly stopped brushing Vinyl’s mane. “How… how did you get that job? And how did you know that?” “Simple. I saw you there. In fact, now that I think of it, I’m pretty sure I saved your life.” “What are you talking about? I’d never met you until the first night on the ship,” Octavia replied, confused, but also intrigued. “Met? No, we hadn’t ‘met.’ That doesn't mean I didn’t know who you were – though I suppose that’s obvious – or that we’d never seen each other and perhaps not realized it. I’ll tell you how I got the job, too. That’s the easy part of the story. At any rate, as I recall it, you were wearing the most beautiful dress…” *** Vinyl sat on her couch. It was a boring day. She’d woken up for no apparent reason at the unreasonably early hour of three forty-five in the afternoon. Normally she wasn’t awake until at least six. Luckily for her, that meant she wasn’t woken up by the pounding on her door. A deep, female voice that Vinyl thought she recognized floated through her home. “We have been informed this is the residence of one Miss Vinyl Scratch, a DJ of the highest calibre. Is she home?” “Who wants to know?” Vinyl shot back, irritated she was awake so early. “We, the Royal Princess of the Night, have a request for her. We do believe the vernacular term for such a request is… a ‘gig,’” the voice continued, audibly uncertain of her choice of words. Oh fuck me, that’s Princess Luna! I knew I recognized her voice… wait, she has a job offer? Vinyl scrambled to her hooves and dashed for the door, telekinetically combing her hair for a couple strokes. She opened the door and bowed. “Your Highness, it is truly an honor to meet you. What have I done to deserve to be graced by your presence?” Vinyl asked, trying to use as many formal terms as she could. “Please, you may refer to us as Luna. It is I who am honored to meet you, Miss Scratch. Since our return, your music has been a comfort many an hour spent alone in the Castle. We find it’s style most… forceful,” the Night Alicorn stated, smiling, hoping she had picked an appropriate word to describe her appreciation of this new “dubstep” music that so penetrated the youth of the day’s music collections. Vinyl gaped. For one, she’d never heard her music described as “comforting.” For two, she just found out that one of the Royal Sisters was a fan. Before Vinyl could articulate a reply, Princess Luna continued speaking. “Our sister has given us the charge of acquiring entertainment for the night following the Royal Wedding of Captain of the Guard Shining Armor and Princess of Love Mi Amore Cadenza. We have decided that given the young nature of the engaged, they would appreciate some of your music. Our thoughts were that we could do one better than having your music: having you appear personally.” Vinyl Scratch passed out. *** Vinyl walked through the streets of Canterlot, eager to get within the Castle Grounds and begin preparing for the night’s festivities. She knew the Captain of the Guard’s magic was to keep any potential threats out of Canterlot for the day, but instead of a comforting shield it felt more like a foreboding prison. She hoped that getting inside and preoccupying herself with setting up her DJ booth and sound equipment would take her mind off of things. Much to her relief, it did. There was something else to distract her, though. While she had been working and making sure everything was plugged in properly, microphones were positioned to avoid feedback, records were stashed in a concealed but easily accessible location, other ponies had been wandering in and out of the large, open area in the center of the Castle’s gardens. Most were Unicorns, though the occasional Pegasus or Earth Pony caught her eye as well. They all seemed so stiff and uptight – most of them, anyway. She’d seen that white Unicorn with the monocle from that first concert she’d been to the year prior, and had a brief conversation with him and his wife. Vinyl cursed herself for not having properly introduced herself or gotten either of their names when they left. Other than that, the steady trickle of ponies had been unremarkable. Except for one. Octavia Philharmonica trotted confidently into the garden, nose high and eyes shut. She was wearing a simply stunning, jet-black dress that seemed to shimmer and shine like polished obsidian in the light. A long, narrow slit drew up one leg, revealing only part of her light purple cutie mark – a fashion considered very risqué by high-class ponies. Vinyl Scratch hid a blush by hiding her whole body behind a massive speaker, peaking out only momentarily at the gorgeous mare striding absent-mindedly through the garden. If she’s here… I can talk to her tonight. Introduce myself. Maybe make a friend. Find out which team she plays for. Find out if she’ll ever be more than a friend… Vinyl’s thoughts faded from coherency into a general state of bliss as she played out the scene in her mind, throwing out some cheesy pick-up line that the high-class cellist would absolutely swoon over, throwing herself at the DJ for a night of passionate love-making to kick off their life together. An explosion and something that sounded like shattering glass snapped Vinyl out of her reverie. She looked up in panic, expecting to see a crossed wire on her soundboard that had accidentally destroyed a table full of wine glasses. What she saw instead was much, much worse. Horrifying, deformed creatures that glinted in the sun like a finely honed dagger and an appearance similar to rotting flesh buzzed through the air on insectoid wings. Fangs caught in the light and cast jagged reflections on the ground, vaguely resembling a twisted, vampiric smile. The most terrifying part, however? That came when one landed in front of Vinyl Scratch and, in a burst of green fire, became an exact duplicate of the quaking mare, the only difference being the look of malevolence, greed, and hunger in it’s eyes. Vinyl Scratch did the only logical thing – she blasted it in the face with magic and ran like hell. Forgetting her twenty-thousand-bit stereo equipment, forgetting her favorite headphones, forgetting her drink and food, forgetting everything but her glasses, Vinyl Scratch ran. Out of the garden, though the Castle, and out into the streets of Canterlot, where a heart-stopping scene was unfolding before her. Ponies ran from clones of themselves, Royal Guards were trapped under sticky ropes of gelatinous green goop, buildings crumbled from the wild magic blasts of distraught unicorns vainly fighting back against the oncoming horde of bug-like ponies. This is just a dream. Just a nightmare. This can't be real, Vinyl said to herself. Bracing to wake up in a cold sweat, she slapped herself across the face, hard. When nothing changed, she felt her knees grow weak. Desperate to escape the terror, Vinyl forced herself to keep moving. Had she not been looking over her shoulder to escape what was behind her, she may have noticed the green flash against the wall as she ducked into an alley. She slowed to a trot and looked up at the sight before her. “Oh, my goodness, Miss Octavia!” Vinyl exclaimed. These were not the optimal circumstances, but given the living hell she was going through, she felt this was a now or never moment. “Miss Octavia. I know this is probably the last thing you want to hear right now but for the past year I’ve known that I’m in love with you and I really just wanted to let you know that if anything happens because I honestly don’t think we’re all going to live through thi-” Vinyl’s rant was cut short by Octavia pressing her lips to the Unicorn’s. It was bliss, pure love that Vinyl was feeling. She parted her lips slightly to allow Octavia access to her mouth, gently prodding her own tongue forward. Bliss gave way to a too-pointy-to-be-a-pony’s tongue and a set of too-sharp-to-be-a-pony’s teeth, as Vinyl felt… something being drained from her. If she had to name it, she’d probably have to say it felt like happiness; like something was draining the happiness from her. As Octavia’s probing tongue reached farther into her mouth, Vinyl thought something seemed off. Something was definitely off when she felt Octavia’s tongue begin to inch its way down her throat. Vinyl pulled away, leaving a good eight inches of split, reptilian tongue hanging from Octavia’s mouth. The mare’s normally purple eyes were replaced with cat-like, emerald-green orbs filled with that same greed and hunger she’d seen before, in the not-Vinyl Scratch that had appeared to her in the garden. Vinyl gagged, screamed, and turned once again to run. Elsewhere, the real object of Vinyl’s affections was having a similarly unpleasant time. She had run from the beasts, but taken a wrong turn and ended up cornered against a cliff. There were at least a dozen of them facing her, and she had nowhere to go but through the army of demons or straight down. She chose the nowhere option. This was a decision she instantly regretted. One of the beasts leapt at her, and brutishly shoved her down on her shoulders, folding her forelegs, but leaving her rear in the air. She prayed to Celestia this wasn’t going where she thought it was, but in the current circumstances, she felt no hope. Her fears were only reassured as the creature leaning on her hiked up her dress and unceremoniously yanked her tail to one side. Octavia had tried to keep her composure so far, but this utter destruction of her dignity left her with no reason to hide her emotions. Octavia wept, tears flowing down her cheeks and onto the grass as she braced herself for the coming violation of her chastity. It never came. Instead, a shriek of pure, unadulterated fury came howling from behind the malformed black ponies, a blue explosion clearing all of them from Octavia’s field of vision, before something impacted with enough force to rip the creature mounting her clean over the edge of the cliff, whatever had struck it following closely behind. Octavia stood and ran to the edge of the cliff, desperately hoping her savior would be hanging onto a branch or pipe or something cliché like in the action films she’d seen. Much to her dismay – which was, admittedly, putting it very softly – the mysterious pony was nowhere to be found. Given the drop off of the cliff, unless the pony that had saved her was a Pegasus, one of the Princesses, or an extremely talented unicorn, they were almost certainly dead. Octavia crawled to the nearest corner and cried. Moments later, a wall of pink energy coursed through her being, giving her an oddly at-ease feeling. She stood, dried her tears, and began slowly make her way home. She wanted nothing more than a cold shower and some time alone to herself to cry. Meanwhile, in the bottom of a ravine, Vinyl Scratch laughed to herself as she lay bleeding out. “Did I really just… fuck. I never even told the real Octavia that I love her… heh… heh…” one final breath escaped the mare and her world faded to black. She awoke an hour later in a hospital. “I… what… hell… what?” Vinyl grumbled, trying to figure out what was going on. “We saw you save the cellist then fall. You have been dead for forty-eight minutes, but will be fully healthy again in about twelve more. Do not worry, we have made sure you will still be able to DJ the reception tonight. Do not feel as though I chose to save you over another, however. You were the only reported death, miraculously.” Princess Luna was smiling down at her. “I… I was dead? And I’m not? Wha-” Vinyl wasn’t sure if the Lunar Princess was messing with her or not, especially considering the explanation she’d been given when she’d questioned further was “ancient, powerful Alicorn magic.” Sure enough, though, she’d made a full recovery after another twelve minutes, and was DJing up a storm that night after the real wedding had taken place. Only the Princesses and those that were first-hoof witnesses of the incident with the first ceremony knew what had taken place the first time, so Vinyl wasn’t entirely sure what had gone wrong, although she assumed it had something to do with the black bug-ponies. She smiled – the newlyweds were enjoying her music, as were most of the other ponies in the garden. A few of the fanciest-looking ones didn’t seem to be having a good time, and much to her dismay, Octavia didn’t seem to be present. Vinyl sighed, and almost missed a song transition, before resigning herself to focus solely on DJing for the rest of the party. *** “You’re a zombie?” Vinyl laughed. She’d known this would be the first question out of Octavia’s mouth, and it had been for many ponies who’d asked her about her experience at the Royal Wedding. “Well, you see, yes and no. It is true that I was clinically dead for forty-eight minutes. However, when Princess Luna brought me back, it’s not like I’m a zombie. I still have a heartbeat, I still need to breath air, and I don’t have an insatiable hunger for brains. Yes, I was dead, and now I’m not, but I’m not a zombie.” “Ah.” A few seconds passed. “You tried to tell me you loved me… back then?” Octavia asked. “That I did. I didn’t know what was going on. I thought we were both going to die. It seemed like as good a time as any,” Vinyl stated, with a blush and a shrug. An awkward silence descended between them. Vinyl Scratch couldn’t figure out what to follow that statement up with, and Octavia was trying to muster the courage for her next question. To Vinyl’s initial thanks, she succeeded. What she asked, however, was not what Vinyl had been expecting. “You… you’re the pony that saved me from being raped?” Octavia asked, quietly. Vinyl Scratch paled. “Yeah. I didn’t know that it was trying to do that at the time, but… I couldn't stand to see that ever happen to you,” Vinyl hissed, pounding the dirt next to her with a hoof. “Yeah. At least I think that’s what it was trying to do. But if it had… I wouldn’t have been able to give my virginity to you, Vinyl.” Vinyl’s mood whiplashed from anger to joyous disbelief, and her mouth hung open. “You… I was your first?” “You were.” “Hehe… this is cliché as hell, but… believe it or not, you were mine, too. Not that I hadn’t wanted it before, but I’d never… Wow, Octavia. That’s… that’s really special. I… wow. Just… wow,” Vinyl, while not a pony of a particularly advanced vocabulary, rarely found herself at a loss for words. This was one of only three times she could remember – once when the Princess had admitted she was a fan, once when she’d first seen Octavia perform, and once now. Instead of trying to form a sentence with her misfiring brain, she simply smiled, and gave her love a huge, goofy grin. Octavia laughed. She loved the way Vinyl smiled like that. Suddenly, a mischievous, sexy idea came into her head. “Vinyl… you know what I’ve always wanted to try, though?” “What’s that, babe?” “Sex on the beach,” Octavia said with a wink and a giggle. “Would you like to be my third, as well, love?” “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.” *** “Captain Swashbuckle!” A white stallion with brown spots on his coat and a hoof-held telescope for a cutie mark called down from the crow’s nest. “What is it, Spyglass?” A burly, brown-coated stallion with a pair of crossed sabers on his flank and a tricorne upon his head answered. “I see an island! And there’s two ponies on the beach! Looks to be a couple of mares, sir!” “Well, what are they doing?” “It looks like… it looks like they’re sleeping!” “Sleeping? What the bloody hell are two ponies doing sleeping at this hour of the day?” “Well, sir… it looks like they may have been up rather late, if you get what I’m saying, sir!” “I do, Spyglass, I do. And two mares, you say? You know what that means, don’t you, Spyglass?” “I… I’m afraid I don’t, sir!” “It means we’ve got a job to do.”