Octavia woke up first. Vinyl was breathing evenly, her muzzle mere inches away from the cellist. The DJ’s normally unkempt, disheveled mane was even more wild in her sleep, forming a vaguely circular crown around her head. The cellist quickly decided that if angels ever came to Equestria, they would look like that. Octavia briefly wondered whether watching somepony else sleep was overly creepy
The angel snorted, slowly chewing some dreamt up pastry. The grey mare smiled, brushing back a stray strand of electric blue mane.
I don’t think it really matters, thought Octavia.
Vinyl took a deep breath, her eyes fluttering open. She stretched slightly, looked up at the cellist and smiled. “Hey there,” she said softly.
“Good morning. Have a nice rest?”
“It was awesome.”
“Should we get up?”
“Nah. Harpo’ll probably knock on the door in a little bit.” Having said that, Vinyl nuzzled closer to the cellist.
Octavia smiled. “Then we should enjoy this while it lasts.”
“Yup.” The DJ paused, considering something. “Can I throw something at Harpo when he comes in?”
“And why would you do that?”
Vinyl shrugged, humming to the cadence of ‘I don’t know.’ “Seems like fun?”
The cellist chuckled slightly. “I don’t think so. Whatever happened to him last night?”
The DJ shrugged again. “Maybe he found a mare.”
Another laugh. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”
They lapsed into silence. Vinyl had her head against Octavia’s chest, the cellist’s heartbeat slowly lulling the unicorn back to sleep. The DJ had to fight back a yawn.
“Still sleepy?” asked Octavia with a smile.
“You’re too comfortable.” Vinyl poked the cellist’s stomach. “And soft.”
A second’s pause.
Oh, shit, thought Vinyl Scratch.
“Oh really?” said Octavia. “Too soft, you say?”
“I didn’t mean it like that!” Vinyl backed away to her end of the bed. “Oh Celestia, please don’t kill me!”
The cellist slowly crawled along the bed, getting a step closer with each word. She spoke quietly, pointedly, her eyes never leaving the DJ’s. “Am I the soft one, Vinyl? Perhaps you think I’ve developed some kind of obsession with cake?”
The unicorn shook her head wildly. “No Octy, I would never. I mean, you’re beautiful, the prettiest mare I’ve ever seen, definitely not soft or fat or anything.”
Another second ticked past.
Damn, I really need to learn how to shut my buckin’ mou—
Octavia pounced without warning, driving her hooves into Vinyl’s sides. The DJ fell, lying prone on the bed as her marefriend attacked.
“I’m soft?” asked Octavia. “Darling, I can’t help but notice just how soft you are.”
“T—Tavi!” gasped Vinyl. “Stop! … Stomach! .. Can’t breathe!” she choked out in between gales of debilitating laughter.
“Stop?” asked the cellist, her faux-anger slipping into giggles. “Never!” She redoubled her efforts.
The DJ couldn’t even form words. Every breath she could take was instantly expelled by her laughs. Not that it mattered anymore. All that was left was the burning of her lungs, the feeling of Octavia’s hooves at her side, and the need, the ever-present need for escape.
Vinyl acted on that need, rolling right off the side of the bed and landing with a thump. Her laughs were instantly silenced.
The cellist hurried to the edge and peeked over. “Vinyl? Vinyl, are you okay?” she asked urgently.
Vinyl Scratch lay stretched out on the carpet, her eyes slightly defocused. Octavia was deathly worried for a heart-wrenching moment.
And then the DJ began to laugh again. “Oh Luna,” she said, “I think I lost like 20 pounds. And I can’t feel my ribs. Or my lungs.” She breathed in slightly, wincing as her lungs expanded. “Wait no, there they are. It hurts like a bitch.”
The cellist gave a relieved sigh. “You deserved it.”
The DJ threw up her hooves. She instantly regretted it as her sore sides stretched. “I didn’t mean it like that! I was talking about your coat! Soft coat!”
“Uh-huh,” replied Octavia, unconvinced.
Vinyl put her forehooves on top of the bed. She poked the cellist’s side. “See?” Another poke. Octavia jumped slightly.
“Soft coat.” Vinyl kept poking, slowly driving the cellist backwards. Before long, the DJ was back on the bed. “Oh, and this is revenge!” At the last word, Vinyl pushed a bit harder and Octavia fell. The unicorn moved with her, quickly swinging one of her back hooves over so that she was straddling the cellist.
Revenge was sweet, but it was far too short.
There was a knock on the door. Vinyl and Octavia both looked up. The DJ was still straddling the cellist.
Harpo took one glance inside and immediately turned around and shut the door. The mares inside of the room glanced at each other, then back at the door. Vinyl saw a scrap of paper slide through the crack in the doorway, then the sound of a composer’s mad laughter and the clattering of his hooves. One magical levitation later and the DJ held it in her hooves. Octavia was looking at the back of the note, all of the color under her coat slowly draining away.
It read, in Harpo’s hoofwriting, “Lock your door next time. And be safe.” An arrow was drawn next to the words. Vinyl braced herself for the worst and flipped the note over.
A condom had been taped to the back.
As Harpo ran across the streets of Canterlot, utterly convinced that moving to Baltimare was entirely worth the joke he had just played, Octavia placed her head in her hooves.
“That’s it,” said the cellist. “We’ll have to kill him.”
***
“There will be no killing of any members of Syncopated Records.” The Doctor sat in Octavia’s living room, trying desperately to stay in between the two rabid mares and the suicidal composer. “That was an express order from Fancy Pants!”
“Really?” asked Vinyl. Octavia was glaring a lioness’ glare at Harpo.
“Well, no,” conceded the Doctor, “but that can’t be good for publicity! Besides, it took a lot of effort to convince him to come back!”
“By the way, where’s that lollipop you promised me, Doctor?” asked Harpo.
The Doctor pulled a giant, multi-colored lollipop from his saddlebags and hoofed it over to the composer. “What did you even do?”
“What did he do?” asked Octavia. “I’ll tell you what he did.” The cellist did exactly that.
At the end of the rather brief tale, the Doctor turned towards Harpo. “Are you suicidal or something?!”
Harpo shrugged, moving his lollipop in vague circles. “I’m a composer. ’Suicidal’ is pretty much a requirement.”
“Where did you even find one of those around here?” asked Vinyl, mostly out of curiosity.
Octavia grimaced. “I’d rather not know.”
Harpo grinned.
“Riiiiight,” droned the Doctor. “Well, you all can discuss this later in an area not so close to sharp, pointy objects.” He glanced towards the kitchen meaningfully.
Octavia also glanced towards the kitchen, wondering how far away her knife stand actually was.
“Besides,” continued the Doctor, “we’re rather far away from my reason for being here in the first place.” He reached into his saddlebags again, suddenly pulling out three garment bags.
Harpo jumped slightly. “Witchcraft!” he cried.
The Doctor chuckled, laying the garment bags on a nearby couch. “Not exactly. They’re just bigger on the inside. Anyway, Miss Rarity has fully finished your formal attire.”
“In a single day?” asked Octavia incredulously.
“Yes,” said the Doctor with a slight smile. “And she sends her apologies for, ‘the dreadful wait’.”
The musicians took up their formal wear, ten-times more elegant in the flesh than it had been on paper. They flowed and glittered, the colors of every portion of clothes mixing perfectly.
“They’re gorgeous,” said Octavia breathlessly.
“Miss Rarity has asked you to try them on. Just to make sure that everything fits perfectly,” said the Doctor.
The musicians agreed, swiftly retiring to various rooms of Octavia’s home to try out their clothes. Vinyl tried to follow the cellist into the master bedroom, but was quickly stopped by a slamming door. She had to make due with the guest bedroom.
A few minutes later they reconvened, dressed, as the expression goes, to the nines. Octavia’s dress was exactly as Rarity had drawn it; various, glimmering shades of a royal violet mixing with a large swath of electric blue. A bow, slightly larger than the bowtie she normally wore, adorned the front of the dress.
Vinyl’s dress was shorter than Octavia’s, but had that same effect that marked it as one of Rarity’s works. Pink and purple dotted across a black background. The lower portion was a charcoal grey, adorned in the same fashion as Octavia’s dress. A clasp on the front of the dress was shaped like Vinyl’s cutie mark. She wasn’t wearing her shades.
Harpo, as males tend to, wore a comparatively simple suit. His red bowtie had been swapped out for a mauve one, which matched his vest and jacket.
The focus was, of course, on the mares.
“So, can I pass on your approval to Miss Rarity?” asked the Doctor.
Neither Vinyl nor Octavia knew quite what to say.
Harpo rolled his eyes. “Yes, our approval and our thanks, Doctor. Tell her that those two were drooling over each other.”
The other colt chuckled. Octavia’s head snapped towards the composer, trying to glare him to death. Vinyl spared another appreciative glance at Octavia before joining in the glare. Harpo shrugged it off and went back to his lollipop.
“Well, that’s about all I had to do,” said the Doctor. “I’ll be taking my leave now.” He made for the doorway.
“You seem to do that quite a bit,” said Octavia. “Without sounding too cross, where have you been these past few days?”
The Doctor wave his hoof in a dismissive gesture. “Oh, out and about. I was doing various, vague things about... vagueness.”
The cellist gave him a flat look.
“Trust me,” said the Doctor, “you wouldn’t believe me if I told you everything. But I will say that I wasn’t completely away from Syncopated Records during my absence.”
“Care to be any vaguer?” said Octavia.
The Doctor grinned. “I might. Maybe.” And with that, the Doctor walked right back out of the room.
The musicians were on their own once again, wearing what could have been the finest clothes they’d ever worn. Somehow, the combined effect of her own dress and Vinyl wearing a dress had robbed Octavia of her murderous intent.
She would have to settle with maiming rather than killing.
“Ow!” cried the composer. Octavia hit him again.
“OW! Dammit Octavia, you’re a lot stronger than you think you are!”
The cellist hit him one more time. “I know exactly how strong I am! It’s the only reason that I’m not allowing myself to beat you to a pulp.”
“Your strength and my incredible charm, right?”
Thwack.
“Ow! That one really hurt!”
***
“Fancy Pants! Fleur! What a pleasant surprise!” Marcato Philharmonica held the door open, allowing his friends into his manor.
“Forgive us for dropping by so suddenly,” said Fancy Pants. Fleur de Lis nodded in agreement.
“Not a problem. Legato and I required a second opinion anyway.” The stallion trotted over to a nearby table and held up a single streamer. “Is this blue or purple?”
“I’d say blue,” said Fancy Pants.
Marcato turned slightly. “See?! Fancy Pants thinks it’s blue too!” he shouted up the stairs behind him.
A voice floated down. “Tell him that you’re both going senile and blind!”
“She says that we’re both going senile and blind,” relayed Marcato.
Fancy Pants chuckled slightly.
“She’s right, you know,” said Fleur. “You’re both senile and blind, and that streamer is clearly purple.”
“Oh, sure,” said Marcato dramatically. “Leave it to the mares to team up on us.”
A pillow sped down the stairs, making heavy contact with the back of Marcato’s head. The stallion barely even flinched.
“It was a lot more fun when you’d react to that,” said Legato with a slight pout.
“Darling, how many years have you been throwing things at me? At this point, I just take it as an ‘I love you,’ in the form of a pillow. Or a vase.”
“I haven’t thrown a vase at you.”
“Hearth’s Warming Eve, two years after we started dating.”
“You remember that?” asked Legato sheepishly.
“Yes, and I have the scar to prove it.” Marcato turned towards Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis, lifting back his mane to reveal a tiny discolored line.
“We’ve seen the scar,” said an amused Fancy Pants. “Multiple times.”
“Nearly every time we’ve visited and Legato threw something at you,” added Fleur de Lis. A few seconds pause, then, “Well, I suppose that’s every time we’ve visited.”
Marcato brought his hoof down, smoothing his mane again. “Doesn’t make it any less true.”
There was a dull thud as pillow collided with skull.
“Or my wife’s aim any less accurate.”
Legato stepped forward, gently leading Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis to the dining room. “Care for something to drink?”
“Just a cup of water if you don’t mind,” said Fleur de Lis.
“I’ll take the same please,” said Fancy Pants.
Legato trotted off to complete the most basic of social rituals.
“They’re adorable, aren’t they?” said Fleur.
“Quite. The classic loving old couple,” replied the stallion with a smile.
“I heard that,” said Marcato as he walked into the dining room. “We’re not that old. Give it a few more years. We’ll be outside in rocking chairs, yelling at inanimate objects.”
“Honey, you already do that,” laughed Legato, holding two glasses of water.
“Not in a rocking chair!... Legato, I think we should buy a rocking chair.”
As per usual, Legato ignored her husband. “Now, to what do we owe this visit, Fancy Pants?”
“Just a customary check-up. Fleur and I wanted to make sure that everything was running smoothly.” The businesspony took a sip of his water.
Legato gave a half-smile. “Only as well as could be hoped.”
Fleur de Lis raised an eyebrow, but Marcato preempted any questions.
“Blueblood has been fighting us every step of the way,” said the stallion in an exasperated tone. “He’s paid off quite a few ponies in an attempt to keep them from working with us.”
“Unsuccessfully?” asked Fancy Pants.
“Only slightly. Idiot that he is, Her Highness’s nephew is not without his own power.” Marcato put a hoof to his temple. “Your Doctor has proven indispensable in finding replacements. Can we keep him?”
Fleur laughed gently. “Only if you can convince him to stay in one place.”
Marcato grunted. “That’s a no, then.”
“So we don’t have to worry?” asked Fancy Pants.
“Of course not!” answered Legato. “We’re grown ponies, Fancy Pants; we understand how to handle ourselves.” She glanced at her husband. “One of us knows how to handle ourselves.”
“Do you see how she treats me?” protested Marcato.
“Well excuse me for your tendency to act like a foal!”
Marcato crossed his hooves. “I’m wonderful,” he asserted.
Thud.
“Pillow’s back,” noted Fleur.
“Indeed,” said Fancy Pants.
Legato cleared her voice. “In any case, you needn’t worry about things on our end. It is far more important that your little musicians behave themselves.”
“That shouldn’t be... too much of a problem,” said Fancy Pants hesitantly.
“You don’t sound totally convinced,” said Legato.
“Well,” replied the businesspony, “it’s not as though I don’t trust my musicians. But...”
“They’re young,” finished Fleur.
“Oh,” said Marcato. “Yes, that is a problem.”
The four elder ponies nodded sagely, sipping at their drinks and trying to figure out how exactly they would be able to save the younger ponies’ flanks when they inevitably bucked something up.
***
Octavia fell for the umpteenth time. Her flank was beginning to hurt. “Harpo, I think it’s your turn now.”
Harpo was laying on the couch, a bag of ice balanced on his hoof. “Hey, she’s your marefriend!”
“It’s this bucking dress!” said a highly frustrated Vinyl Scratch. “I can’t dance in this thing!”
The cellist sighed. “It’s not that, Vinyl. You just haven’t had enough time to practice. Don’t worry, we’ll fix that.”
Harpo snorted. “And then we’ll take a trip to the hospital so that they can fix us.”
Vinyl turned a bright shade of red.
Octavia hit the composer’s aching hoof, making Harpo cry out in pain and fall to the floor.
“Don’t worry, Vinyl,” said the cellist as Harpo writhed in pain, “practice makes perfect. Just remember that you’re going to begin with your right hoof. Your partner will be leading with their left.”
The DJ nodded glumly. Octavia stepped up again, smiling at the inevitable pain.
“This may be easier if I knew what song we were dancing to,” Vinyl said weakly.
“It’s a waltz,” said Harpo from his place on the floor. “Fancy dancing is boring. It’s pretty much the same for every song in a certain style of music. A waltz is a waltz is a waltz is a polka after one too many drinks.” The composer laughed at his own joke.
Octavia gave an encouraging smile. “Let’s try one more time, Vinyl.”
The DJ sighed, counting to three over and over again. “You know, you’d think that my cash-obsessed parents would have given me some dancing lessons. But nope.”
“Well, you’re not doing badly right now,” said Octavia.
Vinyl smiled and misstepped, her hoof tangling in the cellist’s. Both of them were sent crashing to the floor. The DJ sighed.
Octavia patted the back of Vinyl’s head. “It’s alright.”
“That was your fault, Octavia,” said Harpo.
“What?”
“You completely jinxed it.”
The cellist shook her head, climbing to her hooves and helping Vinyl to her own.
“One more time,” said Octavia, “from the top.”
“Oh, Princess Celestia, don’t let me break a hoof,” said Vinyl.