"Ah, Pony Beach," Octavia sighed as she glanced over a brochure that had arrived in the mail. "I'd love to visit," she added to nopony in particular.
She casually looked over the prices, expecting it to be an affordable visit, for once. "Airfare is...500,000 bits?! That doesn't even pay for room service or attractions or anything!"
At the sound of this ridiculously high price, Vinyl stepped into the kitchen. "That's how much I spend monthly on my equipment, records, turntables, speakers..." If she had fingers, she would have been counting on them.
Octavia was now more shocked than before. "Where the hay did you get that money from? There's no way you make that much at gigs because of the expenses!"
"From that jar on top of the fridge," Vinyl replied leisurely, tilting her head towards the refrigerator.
"VINYL! That was our rainy day money, and you spent it all! I was planning to bring you along, but no! You're too irresponsible!" She fetched the jar, which was surprisingly quite heavy. "There's only enough for me to go. You'll be home alone for three days."
"Home alone? Sweet!"
Octavia immediately realized the kink in the plan. "You're too irresponsible. So I'll just have to smuggle you in."
"Smuggle me in? How?"
Oct groaned. "I don't know. I'll...stuff you in my luggage bag. Yes, that will do."
"That's ridiculous," Vinyl moaned. "No way am I doin' that."
"But it's brilliant!" Octavia interrupted. "But probably illegal."
Surely enough, Octavia had gone through with her harebrained scheme. She was now ready to take her vacation and was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a fanny pack, just like the stereotypical tourist.
"Are you sure it's gonna work?" Vinyl whispered from inside the crowded duffel bag.
"Of course!" Oct replied. "That's because I'm the one who came up with it! Now lay low!"
"Excuse me, miss," a luggage check interjected, "but I need to check your bags."
"Oh, o-of course," Octavia stuttered. She wheeled the bag in front of him. "Go right ahead."
The stallion tossed the duffel bag onto a luggage-checking conveyor belt. Vinyl began to feel uneasy. She knew that the machine's scanners would expose her and probably arrest her friend for doing something so risky.
The siren for the machine suddenly sounded, sending the entire area into a tizzy of silence.
"What is it?" a blond-maned clerk asked. "Is somepony smuggling hazardous materials?"
"No, it's just another system glitch," the luggage check replied, hitting the machine with his hoof. "We really need a new one."
Octavia's bag was soon corrected as "safe for travel", She picked it up and made her way towards her plane.
"Psst, Octavia."
The charcoal-colored pony didn't reply. She had her headphones on, playing classical music at a respectful (but still loud) volume.
"Octavia..."
"What was that?" a yellow stallion sitting near Octavia asked.
She put down her music. "What?"
"That voice. What was it?"
Octavia turned to the duffel bag and saw Vinyl's magenta eyes glowing. She leaned over the bag and grinned nervously.
"I talk to myself. Yes, it's just that." To demonstrate this, she began speaking in a mockery of Vinyl's voice, then in her own again.
The stallion was confused, and surprised that such a psychotic pony could have gotten on the plane without a hitch. Swiftly, he pressed his hoof to a button on the side of his window. The captain's voice immediately came on over the intercom.
"This is Captain Firefly speaking: we have a possible psycho to be disposed of. Thank you for flying Griffon Airlines, and we hope to see you again soon when you are not a possible threat."
Soon, Octavia and her duffel bag were free-falling from the plane with a parachute, courtesy of Griffon Airlines. Oct finally unzipped the bag in mid-air so that Vinyl could breathe.
After what seemed like forever, they landed on a small island with nothing there but sand and a few trees. A large building surrounded by bikini-donning mares lay far in the distance.
"I'm sorry," Vinyl Scratch offered.
"It isn't your fault," Octavia replied, digging her hooves in the sand. "It's the captain's fault."
"You're right. But it looks like we'll be here a while. I'm still in this bag, though. Unzip me?"
As per request, Octavia pulled the zipper down and left room for her friend to tumble out.
"So, whaddaya wanna do?" Vinyl continued. "We've got sand, some bags, a parachute! We could build some paradise, and maybe light a flame for rescue-"
She turned to see Octavia, but not as her usual self. The usually-sane cellist had traded her bow tie for a floral lei, and was donning a grass skirt as well. Oct also happened to be eating sand at the moment.
"I'm one step ahead of you," she commented through a mouthful of the gritty stuff.
Vinyl was clearly weirded out by all of this. "Okay then. I'll just do this myself."
Not even an hour later, a small lean-to of sticks and a single parachute had been successfully built by Vinyl. The sun had begun to set, and the sky looked grim.
"Hey, Octavia!"
Octavia looked up from her sandwich of sand to see Vinyl holding up two snack packages, taken from the duffel bag. Octavia began to dash towards her snack-possessing friend and snapped up the familiar packages.
"Do you see that resort over there?" Vinyl pointed in the direction of the resort, still surrounded by mares in bikinis. "That's Pony Beach," she leisurely explained.
"So, you mean to tell us that we were within TROTTING DISTANCE of the darn place?!"