//------------------------------// // Chapter 14 // Story: From Scratch // by Kaldanor //------------------------------// "So, is this a typical breakfast for you, Vinyl?" Octavia questioned with a smirk as she looked over the table. "It's... not quite what I pictured when you offered that we eat first." "Oh, I'm sorry, were you expecting a finely cooked meal? How could I ever think to serve the great Octavia such common food! I should start all over and make you something wonderful from scratch. Would you like some eggs benedict, perhaps a fine omelette?" Vinyl shot back with a grin before she started to tear into her formerly frozen waffles. "No, I'm actually rather impressed, Vinyl. I was expecting something more like... cold cereal. I didn't know you had such refined culinary skills. This waffle is almost warm," she said with surprise as she poked it with a hoof. "I doubt I could have done a better job taking it from the freezer and putting it into the toaster myself, let alone pressing down the lever and then apparently getting impatient while waiting for it to finish." "Oh you know, only the best for you, Octybaby," Vinyl managed to say with a wave of a hoof before stuffing her face with the rest of her waffle. "Vinyl..." Octavia started to say with trepidation. "Are you... okay?" "Wha-?" Vinyl choked through a mouth full of food and had to take a moment to clear her throat. "What do you mean, Tavi?" "I'm pretty certain that was a relatively easy question to understand, Vinyl," Octavia replied with a smirk. "Are you doing alright? You had a... rough day, and I'm concerned for you. You seem a little off since we woke up." "Shouldn't I be asking you that? You're the one that took a hoof to the face," Vinyl asked with a slight grin, but it quickly faltered at the sight of Octavia's unwavering expression. Vinyl opened her mouth a few times before she managed to string together enough words to form a reply. "N-no, I guess I'm not... Even though you drove him away, and then stayed with me all night, I'm not okay... I just didn't want to make you worry." "Vinyl, nopony would expect you to be fully recovered so soon. What that worthless stallion tried to do to you is beyond description; I'm here for you, but you don't need to pretend that you're fine when you're not. If you feel the need to cry some more, then you don't have to hold it in; though, I'd prefer it if you let me take a shower before you make even more of a mess of my coat." "No, I'm cried out... for now that is. I can't guarantee that it won't start again, but I appreciate your help more than you can imagine. I just feel broken, and I can't really explain why. It all relates back to the story, and I can't really tell just parts of it. So, just finish your food and we can find somewhere more comfortable for me to break my heart open and pour it all over you." "You don't need to tell me the story now, Vinyl. If it's really going to be that tough, I understand," Octavia replied as she raised an eyebrow and tried to wear an understanding expression. "No, if the choice is between going to the guards and telling you a painful story, then I'm telling you the story. Hopefully you will understand why when I'm done, but at the very least I want the extra time it buys me before you drag me down there anyway," Vinyl replied with a knowing smirk. "I can't promise anything, but that is a likely result, Vinyl," Octavia said with a smile spreading across her face. "That isn't finishing your food, Tavi..." Vinyl remarked as her smirk slowly changed into a grin. "I'm working on it..." "If you really do want to cuddle some more later... I'm sure it could be arranged," Vinyl said with a mischievous giggle. "Alright, alright, I'll eat my food already. You're never going to let me live that down, are you?" "Of course not, who do you think I am? "So, Vinyl... what kind of timeframe are we talking here?" Octavia questioned with a careful tone as she stared at the unicorn over the long-since-empty plates. "Give me a minute; I'm trying to work myself up to it." "I understand, Vinyl. You've made it clear that it's not something you like to talk about, but let's go somewhere other than the kitchen? Where would you feel the most comfortable?" "Vinyl?" Octavia questioned after a few minutes of the unicorn staring at a spot on the wall and not saying anything. "Equestria to Vinyl... Anypony home?" she questioned with a smile as she walked around and nudged the unicorn's side with her hoof. "S-sorry, I just realized that it would probably be down in the studio. B-but that's where..." Vinyl trailed off and stared down at her empty plate. "If you want to go down there, then I'll be with you every step of the way," Octavia replied in her best soothing tone. "I-I like it in the studio... It reminds me that I own this entire building, and of how far I've come in this city, especially after..." Vinyl started to elaborate but cut herself off with a visible shiver. "I guess that makes sense, but it still doesn't seem like the best of ideas. Is there anywhere else maybe?" "I'm going to have to go back down there anyway, right? So, I guess now is as good as a time as ever..." Vinyl replied and directed a blank glance towards the front of the apartment. "I would feel much better about this if you sounded more convinced, Vinyl." "It's fine, really. If it's too much, then we can come back up here..." "Don't push yourself too hard, Vinyl," Octavia said with a resigned sigh. "Oh come on, would I do that?" "Yes." "O-okay, granted, but would I do that after everything that's happened over the last day?" Vinyl replied with a smirk. "Yes," Octavia answered instantly with her own smile. "Fine... I'll try; let's go do this thing." Vinyl lead the way out of the apartment, leaving the dishes on the table for later and ignoring the clear hesitation from Octavia at the thought. Once out in the hallway, she turned and headed for the stairwell, electing to tread down the stairs in silence. As the two of them walked down the flights of stairs, the sounds of their echoing hoofsteps filled their ears and replaced the awkward gap between them. Even though Vinyl appeared to be steadily slowing down the closer they came to the fifth floor, Octavia, for one, wasn't going to break the silence when Vinyl was clearly just trying to buy more time. Octavia drew up beside Vinyl on the landing and just stood there silently while Vinyl apparently gathered the willpower to set hoof in the hallway. It took a few minutes, but Vinyl was able to grasp the door in her magic and stride out into the hallway without any intervention. Her pace was painstakingly slow as they neared the studio, though, and when they got nearer they were faced with the door partially hanging off a hinge. Octavia had heard the door splinter when that idiotic pony had fled, but she hadn't realized the extent of the damage with how preoccupied she had been over Vinyl. As she looked closer, she saw where the door had broken the doorstop on the wall and punched a hole in the drywall. That wasn't the full extent of the damage: the top hinge had ripped the screws out of the wooden frame and, as a result, the door was hanging noticeably crooked in front of them. It was likely that the wood would have to be replaced in order to fix the hinge. A wicked smile spread across Octavia's face as she realized just how much she had scared the buffoon if he caused this much damage on his way out. She started to chuckle quietly to herself until she realized that Vinyl was staring at her with disbelief. "S-sorry..." she muttered as she struggled to regain control. Vinyl raised an eyebrow at Octavia after taking a moment to intently examine the door. She eventually pulled the door open and slowly stepped inside. Vinyl barely made it far enough into the waiting room for Octavia to follow behind before the unicorn was immediately distracted by the portion of the wall where Octavia had kicked Sharp Note into it. She walked closer, her stride becoming slightly more confident as she went and peered intently at the large damaged section of drywall. There was a rather large partially-broken section of the wall about the size of a stallion's head and a huge hole further along where his flank must have hit. Upon looking closer, Vinyl swore under her breath as she noticed flecks of blood along the edges of the hole. She stared at it for quite a long time before she actually started to giggle softly and shake her head. "I've come to realize that you were angry, Tavi, but wow... You did this by kicking him off me?" Vinyl finally whispered in awe when she heard the other mare step up next to her. "I may have been slightly upset," Octavia replied with a grim smile. "He must have nearly pissed himself with fright to do that much damage to the door on the way out." "He reminded me a bit of a dog with his tail between his legs to be honest. I may have also threatened to castrate him if he didn't get out of my sight," Octavia replied nonchalantly. "Remind me to never make you that angry," Vinyl said after letting out another quiet swear under her breath. "In retrospect, I don't think you're capable of making me that mad, Vinyl," Octavia answered with an earnest smile as she turned her attention back to Vinyl. "I doubt this is where you want to sit and talk, unless my handiwork fascinates you that much," Octavia teasingly ventured after a minute or so of silence. "N-no, of course not... Let's go into the recording room, we can push everything out of the way and lie down in there," Vinyl responded as she started to walk away but then stopped and glanced at the wall once more. She stared for a second and then swore under her breath before continuing on her way out of the waiting room. "Holy mother of Celestia..." "So, is that the earth pony strength thing, or are you freakishly strong from standing on your hindlegs to play your instrument all the time?" Vinyl questioned with a quiet giggle as she pushed the microphone, music stand, and chair out of the way. "I think more of the former than the latter, but I would not discount it completely," Octavia replied with a smile as she laid herself down on the floor with her legs folded up under her. It wasn't quite as comfortable as the bedroom carpet upstairs, but by the nervous shifting Vinyl was exhibiting, she figured that Vinyl was waiting for her. "Is this fine?" Vinyl questioned with an air of worry as she laid down next to Octavia about half a pony's width apart. Octavia replied with a simple nod and turned her head to glance at Vinyl. The angle was awkward from this close, and she couldn't quite manage to look Vinyl directly in the eyes; however, upon that realization, she figured that was probably the point. "Just give me a minute... I don't know where to start." "I guess as clichéd as it sounds, it all began when I was young and setting out to make a name for myself..." Vinyl started about a minute later as she stretched out her forelegs in front of her and then let her head rest on top of them. She stubbornly focused her eyes forward and locked them on the white wall in front of her, refusing to even attempt to meet Octavia's gaze at all. "I came to Canterlot because I realized that it is the best place for a musician to gain fame. The presence of the princess drives everything forward. On top of that, the Canterlot Symphony, and the rich history of classical music built up around it, means that even ponies that specialize in more... modern music, like myself, can get quite a lot of exposure here." "There is more of an audience than you would think, even within the city itself. Ponies who were raised on classical genres and 'high-class' music gave birth to new generations of ponies who want to enjoy the newer forms of musical expression. So, despite Canterlot being known as the home of the sweet and the elite, there's quite a booming club district developing within the heart of the city," Vinyl intoned while keeping her eyes locked on the wall. "The problem with all of this is that musicians in the more modern genres rely much more heavily upon their recording label to help publicize them. Getting popular in the club scene doesn't just mean getting to play a few small gigs; you need a good label behind you to get the really good shows. Sure, there are smaller 'independent' labels around, but, for the most part, they can't pull the same weight to secure big shows for their clients. If you're going to be a small-time DJ with an underground following, you'd be much better off in Manehattan where there's far more clubs than in Canterlot. This is the city for making it big, and there's no room for those who don't; here, under the hooves of our princess, where it seems at first glance that the city she crafted had turned to gold, ponies only tolerate the very best," Vinyl nearly grumbled the last part out before she took a deep breath and continued. "Because of this, most ponies who come here for modern music need to make it into the employ of one of the major music studios around. While I was aware of this when I was young, I didn't realize how the whole political landscape had affected the executives of the labels that I needed to get in with. I was a bright, young filly with eyes full of stars and a head packed with talent. I knew that I was just waiting to share it with the world, so Canterlot was the best place for me. It shouldn't surprise you at all that I wanted to be famous. I wanted crowds of ponies cheering my name as I controlled the music that set their blood on fire with the beat," Vinyl said with a quiet sigh. "What does this have to do with-" Octavia started to ask but stopped when Vinyl actually turned to look at her for the first time since she had started. "I'm getting there, Tav. Musicians in my world don't travel in the normal social circles of Canterlot. We don't go to high-society events, we don't get paid to play at them, we don't mingle with the nobles, and we don't really put on airs about ourselves having high status; at least, not in the same way as the nobility around here. The problem is, the executives do. When trance and electronica were first starting to catch on in Canterlot, the smarter members of the classical scene started to buy up the first few clubs that had appeared. All of the most popular clubs in Canterlot these days are owned by ponies that have zero desire to step a single hoof inside of them. In fact, there are a few of them who weren't considered to be much of anypony, but they managed to raise their status by buying up the right clubs and raking in tons of bits." "I don't get it, so the executives walk around in the high social circles, how did that cause you problems?" Octavia questioned with a frown. "You've been around the high class enough to realize that money and power are something that they can never get enough of. So these days, if a new club starts up and does well for itself, it's immediately bought up or forced out of business if they refuse to sell. Over time, all of the clubs have come to be owned by members of high-society and, therefore, the best way to get a gig in a club or music house is to have your employer mingle with the owner at some fancy dinner party. As things moved forward, this constant presence of record executives at the events caused them to be regarded as members of high-society and, with that, the older longstanding labels stopped having issues with employing DJs and rock groups as well." "When I came here, I was by no means an innocent young filly. I knew that the world wasn't always the nicest place, that sometimes ponies did nasty things to get ahead; to top it all off, I'd gotten into a fair amount of trouble growing up. I didn't think that I'd be able to stride into Canterlot only to be handed fame on a platter. Though, I didn't expect the treatment I got from the label that signed me." Vinyl shivered and drew her legs up under her body. "My boss was a righteous jerk who didn't care anything for me or my talent," Vinyl said with bitterness dripping from her voice. "I hadn't really expected him to be nice, but he only cared that I continued to produce enough music on a set schedule so that they could ship records out on time. Booking gigs took time and effort; they seemed to be done only to promote a new album so that the label could make more money. Nothing was about my fame or promoting me, just about getting the label more bits." "My boss, though, he was something else. I was talented enough that I got placed under one of the more experienced ponies in the company. He wasn't an executive, but he essentially had the same amount of power. He had pretty much the final say over who got signed and who didn't; therefore, he had a huge amount of power over the musicians themselves. Getting on his bad side could lead to getting tossed out on your ass and having him talk bad about you to the other label owners at the next society event," Vinyl continued as her tone darkened to the point that she was soon grumbling to the pony next to her. "The worst part is that he knew the power he had over the ponies under him; at times, he would be... demanding," Vinyl whispered the word with a shiver. "I was naive and thought that if I could become popular enough, then I would be able to just ignore his behavior and the company wouldn't be able to afford tossing me out." "He was a pig in every sense of the word, and that's probably being unfair to pigs. He was well beyond his 'prime' and would often hire some young mare based on her looks alone, without even really trying to hide the fact that he just wanted to have his way with her. He used his power over each of those mares to work his way into bed with them, and then most of them were kicked back out onto the street. I highly doubt any of them actually wanted to sleep with him, but I've seen enough ponies willingly work their way to the top in that way to realize it's possible that they were aware of what was going on. A few of them even managed to make it big, despite a clear lack of talent..." "On the other hoof, he knew that I had talent and some promise beyond my body, so he stuck to merely being a slave driver around me. That is, until I started to plateau; I couldn't operate under the constant pressure to create more songs. I never had time to calm down and breathe after releasing a batch of songs before he was on my ass about more. The pressure to keep endlessly creating new content was squashing my creativity. I didn't have time to find proper inspiration, so I started to just throw together songs and then suffered for it..." Vinyl lay her head down and took a few deep breaths before she continued. "The popularity that I had started to build, the tenuous platform that I had raised myself upon, was crumbling. With the number of ponies trying to make it big in this town, there is no room for somepony who can't keep up. A new pony will come around and take all your fans away if you falter for even a moment. So, he appeared to give up on working me for my talent and, instead, wanted to get a few final songs out of me before I became unprofitable. With that shift came the change in his behavior towards me. He started to focus on my body, just like I'd seen him do with the others. He made backhoofed remarks about my talent and gave me those looks... I tried to ignore them, but the more that my popularity wavered, the more direct he became. I thought that if I ignored him, then maybe I could produce a few good songs and shut him up. I hoped that if the next EP was good enough, he would just back off and leave me alone, but I was deluding myself." "Vinyl... Are you okay? You don't have to-" Octavia started to ask after a long silence fell between them and after she thought she could see tears starting to form in the unicorn's eyes. "No! I'm not... but if this is what I have to do in order to avoid the guards, then I'll keep going. Just give me a minute..." Vinyl sniffled and rubbed her eyes with a hoof before she turned to lie down on her side, looking past Octavia towards the doorway. "I couldn't tell you how long I struggled to get him to stop, but one day he did stop. He cornered me in my 'office' in the studio, in the little closet with a desk shoved inside that I was supposed to somehow be creative in when I wasn't recording. He made it perfectly clear, either I let him have his way with me or I was out on the street. He didn't even want to pretend any sort of romance... he wanted the sense of power and demanded that I mount my desk right there." Vinyl closed her eyes and shook her head a few times. "You can probably guess how that went over with me. I nearly punched him... I wish that I had, actually," Vinyl muttered darkly after hearing Octavia's harsh intake of breath. "I told him flat out that he'd never get that out of me and that he could screw off because the studio needed me. I knew that wasn't the case, but I figured that maybe challenging his power was the best way to deal with it. I couldn't have been more wrong..." Vinyl shivered and curled up into a white ball as she struggled to continue talking. "H-he didn't react as I'd hoped..." she added with a dark laugh. "I didn't realize that he put a lot of thought and planning into his behavior. Despite being the lowest scum around, he was very intelligent and covered his tracks well. Nopony else who worked in that area of the building was there that day. So, when I refused and started making a ruckus about it, nopony was around to come check in on us." "I'd thought that if I made a loud enough fuss he'd be too scared to force anything, but he caught me by surprise and just went for it. L-luckily, he was a bit of an idiot," Vinyl added through a pained laugh, even as tears started to run down her face. "He didn't seem to realize that it was possible for a mare to say no, even when he had my face pressed against the desk and was trying to mount me. He went straight for the prize, and something inside of me snapped when I realized he wasn't even considering that I would even think of fighting back. I wasn't going to let him do it! I didn't care if it meant never playing again," Vinyl growled as she rolled over and thumped the floor. "He was having a hard time of it because I wasn't exactly just holding still for him, so I lashed my hooves out and caught him square on one of his hindlegs. There was a satisfying crack, but I didn't stop to look at him. I ran out of the "office" without even grabbing any of my belongings. It took me two days to go to the guards and tell them what happened..." "B-but, I never w-would have thought that the worst of it hadn’t happened yet..." Vinyl choked out as she laid facing away from Octavia and sobbed under her breath. "Vinyl..." Octavia whispered, unable to think of anything else to actually say, and shifted over towards the unicorn. She ran a hoof through the blue mane once before the sobbing unicorn turned and hid her face between the gray hooves. "Th-they didn't b-believe me, Tavi!" Vinyl nearly yelled as she cried and clutched at the gray mare. "They accused me of lying! They said that he'd already come in and filed charges of assault, and that I needed to come t-talk to them about what happened. They took me into their interrogation room and yelled at me!" Octavia wasn't able to stop the tears that slowly started to trickle down her face, not from the story, but from how much the unicorn in front of her failed to resemble the Vinyl that she had come to know. She pulled Vinyl closer and just hugged her for a long moment, neither of them saying anything for several minutes before Octavia broke the silence. "Why didn't they believe you, Vinyl?" "I told you about how this city is rotten, right?" Vinyl replied a good while later after her sniffling had calmed down a bit. "This was my first real experience with exactly how bad it is. He had apparently come in with some pony that I'd never worked with before to spin some bullshit tale of how I'd hauled off and attacked him after a dispute over wages. They read out letters from other ponies in the company about how I had a terrible temper and how they were scared of me..." "It was then that I realized that I couldn't fight this. He was too powerful; too many ponies were too scared of him and would lie for him in order to make their positions secure. I thought that I was going to be thrown in jail... but that bastard was too angry over me wounding his pride. So, he specifically asked the guards to enact a certain punishment. It fit in so well with the spirit of Princess Celestia's feelings about how ponies should be given a second chance that they accepted it..." "H-he... asked the guards only that I apologize to his face and pay for breaking his leg..." Vinyl barely managed to whisper as her voice broke. Octavia’s grip on Vinyl tightened at the words and she took in a quiet hiss of a breath. "The stupid idiot of an attorney given to me by the guards agreed without even asking me first!" Vinyl nearly yelled as she buried her face deeper into the gray coat and sobbed. “He said it was for my own good, and that I should count myself lucky that I wasn’t being locked up.” "I would have rather been locked away than have to apologize to that sack of shit! Th-they made me apologize for breaking his leg..." Vinyl cried out between heavy sobs and clutched Octavia so tight that she was having trouble breathing. "They made me tell him that I was sorry for making him stop..." "And he knew exactly what he was doing too!" Vinyl exclaimed suddenly as she turned towards Octavia, her face streaked with tears and the whites of her eyes red from the crying. "He was smiling! He had a twisted little smile on his evil face while the guards made me apologize for not letting him violate me!" Vinyl pounded her hooves on the floor between them at the words and then buried her face into her forelegs. "They wouldn't even pretend to listen to me as I protested..." she mumbled quietly into the white legs. "They didn't care what I had to say because my assigned attorney had already agreed to it. They didn't even care when I said that I didn't agree to it. They threatened me with worse punishments if I broke the agreement, and I was scared..." "I was young, and what they said they would do frightened me..." Vinyl sobbed quietly. "So, I apologized... while his evil little face twisted even further into that grin. Ever since, I can't even look at a guard the same way; I can't put my trust in them after they betrayed it so heavily. I was scared and hurt, and when I needed them the most, they turned their backs on me," Vinyl concluded with a disturbingly calm tone of voice. The tears that had been previously flowing freely down her face had stopped so quickly that Octavia would not have been surprised if somepony had simply switched them off. Even worse was the way that Vinyl's gaze returned to focusing on a point just beyond Octavia in an empty, emotionless expression. "Vinyl... Nothing I can say can fix what they did to you," Octavia ventured as she shifted closer to Vinyl and tried to nudge the unicorn out of the disturbingly silent gaze. "Vinyl, talk to me... You're scaring me," Octavia started as she ran a hoof through the blue mane in front of her. "You made it on your own, right?" "Y-yes... His actions lit a fire under me. What he intended was to break me; instead, it caused me to burn with anger. I was never going to forgive him or the ponies that went along with it. Giving up on music would have been letting him win, so I produced a proper album inspired by the raging emotions that he had stirred up inside of me. I put it out on an independent label and, with how quickly I managed to publish it, I was able to ride some of my previous popularity." "The ponies at that studio sucked at promotion, though, so I pushed it myself and stopped being nice about it. I managed to get some good gigs by being forceful and acting so rude that the club owners assumed I was a bigger deal than I was. I left the label behind and dumped all the money I had into self-publishing. I managed to make it somehow, and now I have all of this..." Vinyl finished and laid her head down against Octavia's chest, closing her eyes as the grey hoof kept lightly running through her blue mane. "You're going to make me go to the guards anyway, aren't you?" Vinyl asked in a subdued voice several minutes later. "Yes." "I can't stop you, can I?" Vinyl asked with a sigh. "I wouldn't be able to say that I'm your friend if I let you leave something this big alone, Vinyl. I know that it's not going to be easy, but we can't just ignore it... I'll be there with you; you won't be alone this time," Octavia asserted firmly. "You know, I'd have thought that anypony trying to make me go to the guards would piss me the hell off..." Vinyl started to reply quietly as she lifted her head up and away from the gentle hoof. "But, after everything you've done for me today, saying that you'll do it with me actually helps a lot. I didn't think that I'd actually have friends again; I'd convinced myself that everypony in Canterlot was after the same thing and that you were no different. I'm sorry... I should have realized otherwise when you took so much interest in Resonance's well-being." "Don't worry about it, Vinyl. I was being a bit of a bitch..." she ventured with a quiet chuckle. "A bit?" Vinyl answered with a grin and then winced as a hoof smacked across her head. "Hey! I'm emotionally vulnerable right now; you shouldn't be hitting me!" "You were supposed to disagree with that, Scratch..." Octavia grumbled while the corners of her mouth twitched. Vinyl chuckled and rubbed the top of her head with a hoof before grinning up at Octavia. “And here I thought you were getting to know me...” “I’m glad you can joke around after telling a story like that, but you don’t need to always try to hide how hurt you are, Vinyl.” "So this is the part where you drag me to the guards, right? I don't suppose I could convince you to wait a bit longer first?" Vinyl asked as she put her head back down against Octavia's chest. "It is rather late to be going now; we can go in the morning I suppose... What do you say we head back upstairs where the floor isn't quite so hard?" Octavia asked as a genuine smile started spread across her face. "Sounds good to me, Octypus." "I really wish you wouldn't call me that, Scratch..." Octavia grumbled and shoved the unicorn away, but she only received a giggle in response.