Light groaned under the weight of the carriage, but not loud enough that the unicorn he followed could hear him.
I've had worse, he thought. As if on cue, Vinyl spoke to him, still leading ahead.
"So, you actually live up here, or do you just crash with some rich friend?"
"Direct, aren't you?" He could practically hear the unicorn smirk as she spoke.
"Best way to find out what you wanna know, in my less than humble opinion," she said.
"Not a bad philosophy. I live here, yeah. My folks died a few years back, and left me with pretty much everything they own."
"Sorry to hear about your parents," she said. Light laughed.
"Don't be. I have the usual sob story about 'Oh my parents were so mean and nasty and ruined my life!' I miss them, sure, but they weren't exactly the best folks to be raising a kid."
"Well, you didn't get screwed up in the head too badly, did you?" she asked.
"You tell me. I'm carrying a complete stranger's rather heavy sound system to her house for free."
"Fair point. Speaking of my place, we're almost there," she said.
Light continued behind her, looking around as the landscape started to change. Unlike the lord ponies with the mansions in Canterlot, it seemed that Vinyl had chosen a place behind the hills of the city. It was due to this that Light found himself in a grassy valley.
"Well, didn't expect you to live in a place like this," he said. Vinyl snickered at the comment.
"Yeah, well, I used to live out here with my old college buddy, Octavia."
"Wait, you don't mean—"
"Yeah, Octavia Quarternote. She and I went to college together, and while we did, we got this house together. She got a deal with the Canterlot Philharmonic Orchestra as First Chair Cello. I got offered a spot as a technician."
"And you skipped on it to go become a DJ?" asked Light interestedly.
"Er... Not quite. I accepted, but they fired me because I kept getting caught fooling around with Octavia before and after concerts."
"You're...?"
"Gay?" asked Vinyl, grinning back at him. "Don't get disappointed yet, dude. I roll both ways."
"There's that direct stuff again," said Light, but he grinned back.
"You betcha. Ah, here we are. Home again," she said.
The house was fairly small, with just the bare basics. Living room, kitchen, bedroom with a master bathroom. Even more unusual, however, was the lack of furniture. While there was the odd chair here and there, the house wasn't what one might call "well furnished." The dishes were minimal as well. There were only three sets of dishes in the whole place.
"Two for me so that I can have one clean and one dirty, and one in case I have a guest over," said Vinyl, when Light looked at her in confusion.
The living room seemed enormous, because it only contained a love seat and a small television. That is, until the equipment was set up, after which it seemed very cramped.
"Why so little stuff around here?" asked Light.
"Because if I keep a bunch of my crap around, everything becomes a wreck, and I never bother to clean it up," said Vinyl. She set her glasses down on a counter and leaned against a wall. "Seem to little?"
"No, I actually love it," said Light. Vinyl raised her eyebrow. Light noted that this was becoming a pattern.
"Why?" she asked.
"If you're constantly playing places, then you shouldn't need too much here anyway. Just the bare basics, right?"
"Well, yeah," she said. "But most ponies think it's not enough. Octavia always used to say 'Vinyl, you should really get yourself something to explore your creative side with other than those oversized electronic monstrosities you've decided to fill the entire living room with. Why not buy a bookshelf and fill it up, or something along such lines?' Used to drive me nuts."
"Reminds me of my Mom," said Light, sitting on the floor. "She used to always say 'Light, sweety, your room is so bare. Why don't I go get you something to decorate it a little?' I always said 'No,' because I despised having stuff all over my room. What's the point, anyway?"
Vinyl gave a boyish laugh.
"Right?! Well, I'm still friends with Octavia. I think she said she met some piano colt named... I dunno... Shade, I think?"
"Oh? You ever met him?"
"Not ever. The two just hooked right up. I was looser in my love life, but damn, Octavia would just fall totally head-over-heels for whatever pony she was dating at the time!"
"When did you two wind up together, then?" asked Light.
"Well, we'd lived together from freshman year through sophomore year. We started dating in junior year, and didn't break up until... I dunno, six, seven months after graduation?"
"Why the breakup?"
"Oh," said Vinyl, flicking her mane aside and sitting on the floor as well. "That was because she was 'Too proper to carry on with such a frivolous relationship!'"
Light snorted with laughter at the adopted English accent.
"Sounds like she was kind of a prude."
"Yeah, but getting her in the sack was worth it," said Vinyl.
"She's an Earth pony, right?" asked Light. Vinyl nodded, and he grinned. "Oh, you don't need to tell me. Nuts in bed, they are. They can go for HOURS, I swear."
The two carried on, talking through the night, and giving birth to a new friendship.