The Incredibly Trying Performance of Octavia

by Ponibius

Second Movement: Acciaccato

I arrived at the Canterlot Royal Concert Hall a couple days later to meet with Vinyl Scratch. The two of us had talked and made plans to see what we could come up with for our performance. Vinyl had seemed quite enthusiastic at the time of our last meeting, but I still held my own reservations. I just hoped that those reservations were simply a result of my own conservative tendencies rather than anything to actually worry about.

I checked in with the reception of the concert hall. It wasn’t really all that necessary; I had played so many concerts there, chiefly as part of the Royal Canterlot Symphonic Orchestra, that everypony knew who I was on sight. But I liked to keep my visits official there, and I saw no harm in saying a few friendly words with those that I passed upon coming into the concert hall. It always paid to have a reputation for good manners.

After I confirmed with the receptionist Vinyl hadn’t arrived yet, I continued into the building. Considering I had arrived early, as was my ingrained habit, I wasn’t too concerned yet. It helped that I knew that Vinyl also had a tendency to be fashionably late. Usually never late enough to be an issue, but noticeably late nonetheless.

I decided to put my time to good use in the meantime while I waited for her. I walked to the back of the concert hall to one of the practice rooms. The building had a few of them, both large and small, to allow musicians to practice in and conduct other activities. It helped that each room was insulated and had silence wards placed over them that anypony could activate. It was simple but effective.

I unpacked some sheets of music and my metronome out of my saddlebags and then my cello from its case. I stood up on my hindhooves and balanced against my cello. I played a few experimental notes, tuning my instrument by ear. That done, I eased myself into the sheet music before me, something wanted to perfect my playing of for the Canterlot Symphony Orchestra that coming weekend. The smooth and steady notes sang out, reverberating through and then out my soul in the perfect harmony they were meant to sing.

I played through a pair of songs I wanted to practice and then replayed a few sections I wanted to get down to perfection. With the problem sections practiced to my satisfaction, after another full run through of each song, I put my cello back in its case. That done, I looked up at the clock and saw that Vinyl was indeed running late, even by her standards.

I walked around the concert hall before catching Vinyl walking in through one of the back doors. She was hauling around some large piece of equipment that made up part of her DJing gear.

I tried to keep my tone from being reproachful towards her. “Vinyl, where have you been? We both agreed to meet at ten in the morning.”

“Sorry. It took me a while to check in with the front and then get my wagon around to the back.” She motioned with her head towards the open door behind her. “Had to get them to unlock the back door so I could drag my stuff in.”

I shook my head at her excuse. It wasn’t one I could really argue with. I knew all too well from past experience how long it could take to move around equipment and get everything in place for a performance.

“Do you need any help moving all of that?” I asked. I figured I might as well help Vinyl move along if I could.

“Yeah, sure.” Vinyl put down the piece of equipment she had been carrying down into one of the larger practice rooms. “I got a key to one of the rooms here, so I can just lock up everything we need here instead of dragging it back and forth.”

I considered that for a moment and then nodded. “That does sound convenient.” I had to give Vinyl some credit for her foresight. Frankly, it had surprised me a bit, though I suppose she did have quite a bit of experience moving around everything she needed for her performances. I had an idea just how much of a hassle that could be just from carrying an instrument as large as I was from one destination to another. I was a bit worried about the safety of her equipment if she intended to leave some of it for the night, but at the end of the day it was Vinyl’s risk to take.

The two of us walked outside the back doors of the concert hall. There I saw Vinyl’s personal affront against all things of good taste—the Wubs-Wagon. A gaudy thing intended to unleash dubstep on an unsuspecting world, the Wubs-Wagon had been painted to match Vinyl’s own coat and mane colors. The thing was covered in script detailing the services Vinyl offered and how best to contact her, in addition to a series of eye-rolling-worthy slogans like “Wub the DJ” and “Scratch for DJ.”

Vinyl noted the disapproving look I was giving the wagon. “Don’t ya say anything about my rad wheels again like last time.”

“Oh, I think it speaks for itself,” I said sarcastically.

Vinyl’s eyes lit up and she flashed me a wicked grin. “Darn right it does! It’s only the bestest wagon in all of Canterlot!”

I let out a long, patient groan. How Vinyl could stand to be affiliated with such a tacky-looking thing, I would never understand. “Can we just unpack your things—and quickly? I don’t want to be seen with that affront to all things fashionable in public.”

“I don’t blame you,” said a mezzo voice from behind me, and I nearly jumped out of my shoes. I spun around to face an all-too-familiar light pink unicorn mare, giving me and Vinyl a smug grin. “It is rather an abomination, isn’t it?”

I saw Vinyl give her an unimpressed look through her shades. “Hey, Tavi. Who’s Miss Snooty McJerkypants over there?”

I narrowed my eyes at the lyrist leaning confidently against the concert hall’s doorway. “Vinyl, this is Quaver. She is the head of her section amongst the lyrists in the Canterlot Royal Symphonic Orchestra. Quaver, this is my friend Vinyl Scratch.”

I could have introduced Vinyl by her occupation, but I decided it was best to draw the potential battle lines where they were with my potential rival in Quaver by calling Vinyl my friend. At least I was going to err on the side of caution where the lyrist was concerned and guess that she was going to play the role of rival. No doubt she wanted to be the one to perform for the charity concert, both for the prestige of doing so and the attention it would bring to her from Canterlot’s elite, and it was a fact that Vinyl and I were the ones standing in her way. Quaver struck me as the type to take any advantage she could, including any perceived divisions between two ponies about to play a concert.

Quaver pushed off the doorframe and walked up to look down on Vinyl, both figuratively and literally. “So this is the Vinyl Scratch that all the kids are raving about?” She sniffed with an edge of disappointment. “Don’t see what all the craze is about.”

Vinyl didn’t look the least bit fazed by Quaver’s words and gave her the grin of a pony looking forward to a challenge. “Maybe if ya used your ears a bit more, you’d hear how crazy awesome my tunes are.”

“I’ve heard more than enough of what you call music.” Quaver closed her eyes and shook her head dismissively, causing her long yellow mane to flick about. “My sister had taken a liking to that noise you call music, and I fear the damage it has done to my hearing.”

“Hey, sorry if you can’t take the awesome.” Vinyl made her way to the back of her wagon and opened its back. “It’s okay, not everypony can handle the wubs.”

Quaver rolled her eyes and turned to me with a smirk that I did not like the look of. “Are you listening to this pony, Octavia? She actually thinks that rhythmless garbage can actually be called music.”

I could tell exactly what type of game Quaver was playing. She was trying to create a wedge between me and Vinyl at a critical moment. I had seen more than one friendship irreparably damaged in much this manner, and I wasn’t going to have any of it.

I shrugged and walked over to help Vinyl lift her equipment out of her wagon. “I’ll admit to not being wild about the genre, but I have enjoyed a couple of my friend’s songs.” I gave Vinyl a quick smile. “And who really knows what the future of music will be? It wasn’t that long ago that a lot of ponies considered jazz and rock to be degenerate forms of music.”

Quaver’s smirk never lost any of its self-assurance as she watched us unload Vinyl’s things. “So you think you can produce something ... tolerable with her?”

I slid one of Vinyl’s boomboxes onto my back with a grunt. “I’m sure we’ll come up with something.”

Vinyl waved dismissively. “Chillax! I totally got this.” With a spell that made me feel like Vinyl was cheating, she made a light cobalt disk appear and started levitating her equipment onto it.

“You do?” I asked skeptically.

Vinyl blew a raspberry. “Hay yeah. I’m the master of mixing genres. We’re gonna make somethin’ that will blow everypony’s socks off.”

Deciding I didn’t particularly want to carry around something large, heavy, and probably expensive, I slid the boombox onto Vinyl’s magical disk. “A concert for the Canterlot elite really isn’t a sock type of occasion.”

“Ya know what I mean.” Vinyl wrapped a leg around my neck and leaned into me. “I’ve been looking forward to playing with you since forever, Tavi.”

I cocked my eyebrow at that. I had made such an effort not to perform with my friend in the past, that I had never really considered what her thoughts on the topic might be. “You have?”

“Why wouldn’t I want to create some rad tunes with my PFF?” Vinyl pressed a hoof into the side of her skull. “I got so many ideas crammed in my head. They’re all just rushin’ to burst out in concentrated awesome.”

I loaded another box onto the disk, filling its surface area. “What did you have in mind?” I was curious about just what Vinyl had come up with. Honestly, I hadn’t come up with anything in the spare time I had since last I had seen Vinyl. Admittedly, I didn’t have nearly as much experience with original composition as she did, so this type of thing may very well have come more naturally to her. Especially if she had been thinking over the possibilities for quite some time, like she claimed.

Quaver made a short bark of a laugh. “You’re actually listening to this flash in the pan, Octavia?”

I walked up to the doorway, making sure the door wouldn’t suddenly close and hit Vinyl’s disk and knock everything to the ground. I would never be so rude as to suggest Quaver would do something quite so blatant, of course, but accidents do happen—and a surprising number of accidents could be quite deliberate. “I’m willing to let Vinyl show me what she has in mind. We are supposed to be working together.”

Quaver stepped out of our way to let us into the concert hall. “Best of luck with that. I’m sure you will need it.”

I gave Quaver one last parting shot as we passed her. “Shouldn’t you be practicing? I mean, you have such an important role in the upcoming concert. Must be so hard.”

“Ooh, nice burn.” Vinyl maneuvered her magic disk through the doorway, giving Quaver a playful smirk as she passed.

Quaver scowled at the two of us as we walked past her. For somepony like Quaver, not being in the spotlight might as well mean she didn’t exist at all—and that was as great of an insult as any I could ever come up with for her.

It turned out that Vinyl had indeed put a great deal of thought into a collaboration between us. Though it took a little bit of effort between Vinyl’s excitable ramblings of ideas and time to read the chicken scrawl that Vinyl called writing, a vision of what Vinyl had in mind started to form in front of me. My playing of the cello would be the central focus of the concert, but it would be accentuated by Vinyl’s own brand of music. My melody to her harmony, the range of my cello accompanied by the wide variety of notes and sounds Vinyl could provide to bring a unique auditory flavor to the audience.

It felt rather comforting as the two of us sat down and began the process of writing and fine tuning the songs we would be playing at the concert. Though Vinyl may have been an unusual collaborator, the process of planning out our performance was a familiar one. My initial fears were allayed by Vinyl’s enthusiasm and prior work, and that fear turned to optimism as our work bore fruit into something I could actually feel proud of being a part of. What we were creating wasn’t my usual fare, but in a way, that made it all the more exciting.

My confidence only grew as we put the notes on sheets of music into practice and played out loud in the practice room. We found what worked, what didn’t, and made modifications and changes as we went. Before I knew it, better than a week had passed since we started our work. That part of the work done, we had began the process of setting Vinyl’s equipment up in the main concert hall and started our practice there. Vinyl wanted to fine tune her equipment and its placement in the hall to improve how it sounded. It turned out she put a great deal of work into making sure everything sounded just right to her ears. This hard-working, perfectionist side to my friend was a very different from the one I was used to, and it was one the professional musician in me could appreciate.

Things seemed to be going quite well over the next couple of days. But as I suspected they would, our attempts to create a harmonious style between the two of us did not go perfectly.

I stopping playing during one of our runs through a song and let out a sharp breath. “Vinyl!” She hadn't heard me the first time, not surprising given the racket she was causing, and I yelled louder. “Vinyl!”

Vinyl finally stopped playing and moved her headset down to her neck. “What’d ya stop for? We were really rockin’ there!”

I rubbed at the sides of my head and closed my eyes. Being blasted by Vinyl’s music all day was giving me a terrible headache. “Yes, you were rocking. I was getting drowned out by your wubs ... again!”

Vinyl twisted a few knobs on her arcane music player. “It sounded good to me.”

I ground my teeth. “Probably because the only thing you could hear was yourself.” This had been a problem all day, and my nerves were becoming extremely worn by it. “That heavy bass you keep pumping out is overwhelming my cello.”

“Can’t you play louder?” she asked, as though it were the simplest thing in the world.

“No!” I tapped the side of my instrument. “This is a string instrument. I can only play it so loudly. Unlike that magical ... machine ... thing you are giving me a concussion with.”

Vinyl crossed her forelegs over her chest. “Hey, not my fault the DJ Master Awesomatic 4700 makes your cello look weak.”

I stomped a hoof. “My cello is not ‘weak.’ Also, I don’t think our audience of the Canterlot elite are going to enjoy getting their eardrums blasted out. Here.” I stepped back behind her magical DJ box and looked around at the various buttons, levers, and knobs that made up the controls of the infernal contraption. “Let me just turn down the...” I suddenly felt terribly out of my depth as I looked over the controls.

“Problem?” Vinyl gave me a smug smirk that made me want to throttle her. Being the upstanding, proper mare I was, I refrained. Barely.

I sighed and rubbed at my face. “How do you turn this thing’s volume down?”

“What, don’t know how to work one of these babies?” I could feel the joy Vinyl was getting out of my own ignorance about how her equipment worked.

“Because it’s made for unicorns!” I snapped. “You need unicorn magic to power this thing, and in case you didn’t notice—” I tapped my forehead where a horn would be if I were a unicorn, “—I’m not one.”

Vinyl flinched away from me. “Geez, don’t get all snippy with me.” She stepped up beside me next to the DJ box. “What’d ya want to turn down.”

I took a breath as I tried to calm myself. Blowing up on Vinyl wasn’t going to help get work done, and we didn’t have forever to prepare for the concert. “Those infernal wubs. I know for a fact we can balance those with the rest of the music much better then we have been thus far.”

I saw one of the knobs embraced by Vinyl’s telekinetic field and then turned—barely.

“More,” I said firmly. “Unless that knob is a lot more sensitive the I’m imagining it.”

Vinyl tipped her shades up to her forehead, a look of shock in her eyes. “What? No way! You’ll barely even feel the wubs shaking your chest if I go down much further.”

I fixed Vinyl with the most serious stare I could manage. If we were going to get anywhere, we needed to bring the volume down to acceptable limits. “A grave crime against dubstep, I’m sure. Bring it down, now.”

“Fiiine,” she growled and turned down the volume. “We’ll try it your way for a bit.”

“Thank you,” I huffed. I went back to my place on the stage and brought my cello up to play. “Now, again from the top.”

It was a long day in what was becoming a very long week.

I returned home feeling like a wreck. It was quite a relief to come back to my private bastion from the madness of the world.

My apartment was of a modest size, all things considered. Being perched on the side of a mountain caused space to come at a premium in Canterlot. Only the extremely rich like House Sparkle could afford a large plot of land. Most ponies in Canterlot either had a shop they ran and lived in the building’s second floor, or, like me, rented an apartment.

Instead of investing in space, most ponies spent their bits on furnishing and decorating their apartments and enjoying the many luxuries the city of Canterlot offered. It’s probably why many ponies considered Canterlot to look so decadent; ponies spent more per ponylength of space then they did in the countryside, or even in most cities.

I was fairly well off, relatively speaking. I had my modest-sized apartment with a good view of the Equestrian countryside, classy furniture and art pieces to decorate its rooms and give my apartment a cultured and refined atmosphere.

I was so weary it was all I could do to put my cello in its designated spot in my music room and grab a couple of pills to help with my pounding headache before I crashed on my couch. I let out a groan and closed my eyes as I leaned my head against one of the pillows.

I woke with a start sometime later. The last glimmer of twilight had been setting when I had arrived at my apartment, and it was now completely dark outside. Thankfully, my wubs-induced headache had subsided to a dull throb in the back of my head. I considered just going back to sleep, but found myself to be wide awake after shifting positions to make myself more comfortable. It took me a few minutes to finally summon the will to pull myself off the couch and turn on some of the lights around the apartment.

I retrieved a meal of some leftover salad and sliced fruit, eating enthusiastically as I went through the daily motions of living. Working with Vinyl had become a grind that wore away at my body, mind, and spirit. Coming up with songs that combined both of our musical styles in a way that had never been done before had been ambitious to say the least, and we were paying for that ambition every day. It didn’t help that Vinyl seemed to dig in her hooves at every juncture and insisted on doing things her way instead of listening to my reasonable suggestions.

Thinking over the whole affair just made my headache return, and I was forced to take more medicine to fight it down. The number of pills I had been taking the last few days made me worry that I might be developing an addiction.

I placed what remained of my leftovers back into my icebox and made my way to my living room. I considered doing some reading to pass the time before bed, but I didn’t really feel up to it. The book I was currently reading through had been rather dull, despite one of my fellow musician’s insistence that it was supposed to be quite entertaining and thrilling, and I was seriously considering abandoning it for another. Though I wasn’t sure which book I wanted to pick up next if I decided on that course of action.

Sighing, I instead turned to my record player. It struck me as the perfect means by which to pass this melancholic mood I was in. I flipped through my records, trying to find something that fit my current mood. My curiosity was queerly piqued when I noticed one of Vinyl’s records amongst my collection. I pulled the record out and looked at it.

The cover showed Vinyl dancing at some club, with lights flashing and enough glow sticks tied around her that I was sure she could be seen at cloud level. I smirked at the somewhat ridiculous image of my friend and turned the cover’s back to look at the listing of songs. Gleaning nothing from reading the names of the songs, I placed the disk on the record player. Perhaps I could understand what Vinyl was trying to do if I listened to some of her music.

I was immediately blasted by a cacophony of noise and wubs the moment the needle hit the record. My ears flattened to my head as I winced and scrambled to turned the volume down on my stereo system, eventually finding a level of sound that didn’t make me worry about having the gendarme show up at my door with a noise complaint.

I tried listening to the song for a while, but I just couldn’t get into it. The racket it caused just didn’t appeal to me. I waited for the next song to play, and found it similar to Vinyl’s part for one of our songs. I ground my teeth as I patiently waited for the next song to play. I found it to be a contest of endurance as I listened to one song after another that I thoroughly did not enjoy. I listened to a song, trying to at least understand the genre. Try as I might, I just didn’t find any of the songs I listened appealing. Soon I reached the end of the record and let out a frustrated groan.

Finding that little venture to be less than helpful, I put Vinyl’s disk back in its cover and retrieved one much more to my liking. I selected it for a band that I enjoyed and personally knew that did modern recordings of a selection of classics from some classical composers and put it onto my record player. Met with the sweet flowing music that reminded me of the vibrancy of spring, I plopped myself down on my couch, content to relax for at least as long as the record played.

I closed my eyes as I let the music wash over me, letting each of the instruments in question work in concert with one another to create their symphony of audible delight. It was when the fourth track was in the middle of its second movement that a note of recognition hit me. I listened more closely, analysing the song to see what had piqued my interest.

After listening for a minute, I realized what it was; I recognized the lyrist. I grabbed the album cover and examined its back. I read who had played for the album and confirmed that Quaver had indeed played for many of the songs for the album. I was surprised I hadn’t recognized that fact before.

I let the songs continue to play through my apartment, intently paying careful attention to Quaver’s playing. Her use of the lyre was quite exquisite. Her interpretations of the classics struck a chord within me, and her balance with her fellow musicians superb. She was a true master of her craft.

I considered how much better it would have been to work with Quaver instead of Vinyl. True, Quaver was on the insufferable side, but her music was compatible with my own, and I knew the two of us could put on a brilliant performance. At least, if she could put aside her arrogance long enough for us to play for a couple of hours, which, given the evidence of the existence of the album I was listening to, was possible. Listening to the record, I could imagine Quaver and I working in perfect concert.

I felt a pang of guilt over those thoughts. True, playing with Quaver was more practical, but it didn’t feel right to dismiss my friend so casually. My life couldn’t be simple. The world seemed so cruel at times.

Eventually, the record reached its end, leaving me with silence and my own thoughts.

A few days later, the two of us were still working away at trying to put together our upcoming performance. Progress had been slow. Usually we would break down into a headbutting contest to see which of our heads was harder on each issue that came up. Vinyl also started to suffer equipment failures, which only added to our stress and delays. I couldn’t help but feel as though I were cursed, a stage light broke, the curtain nearly fell on me, and I lost the keys to my home while at the concert hall. Also, Vinyl’s music was giving me a frightful headache that just seemed to go from day to day. I was just thankful that I kept pills in my instrument case to help with that problem.

I had come back to the main concert hall from relieving myself in the restroom when I heard Vinyl make a startled yelp, followed by the sound of her head hitting the inside of her arcane music box. She pulled herself out of the machine, shaking out one of her hooves and rubbing the back of her head.

Vinyl was in the process of exclaiming several phrases I was fairly sure her mother would not approve of when I walked up to her. “Are you alright?”

Vinyl let out another pained grunt. “Yeah, fine.” She took a moment to suck on her fetlock. “Just got myself zapped. The stupid magical matrix got busted somehow, and...” Vinyl trailed off and shook her head. “Don’t worry about it; it's nothing.”

I tilted my head as I examined her. “Is everything alright? You’ve been having a lot of equipment trouble the last couple of days.” I couldn’t help but notice the small plume of smoke coming out of Vinyl’s contraption. The thing could only be properly operated by unicorns, so I only had a rudimentary idea of how it worked. Still, I had a pretty good idea that it giving off black smoke like that was not a good thing.

Vinyl gave me a look I couldn’t read before shaking her head. “Yeah, been that type of day where a bunch of stuff’s been breakin’.” That had been true. I had just gone to the restroom to give Vinyl some time to fix the latest offending piece of equipment. “You were gone a while, ya know?”

I let out an exasperated sigh. “The door got wedged shut somehow. Maybe the humidity warped the restroom door or something. Almost had to buck the door off its hinges.” I frowned as I considered our recent troubles. “Will you be able to get everything back up soon? We don’t have a whole lot of time left to practice.”

“I know, I know,” Vinyl said with a frustrated growl. She lifted up her shades and rubbed at her eyes. I had left Vinyl the previous night when something else had broken down, and now I had to wonder when she had gotten home to get some sleep. “How about you just play your cello for a bit while I pop in a backup matrix. It’s not as good as the one that died on me, but it’ll be fine until I can get a new one later.”

“Sure, there were a couple sections I wanted to hammer myself anyways.” I nodded wearily and yawned. The last couple of days were wearing on me. Long hours writing music, editing said music, setting up equipment, practicing, and keeping up with everything else on my place was driving me to exhaustion.

I left Vinyl to her work and went to my cello, which was sitting at the center of the concert hall’s stage. My worries had began to increase again with the latest accidents, mishaps, and equipment failures. I was really beginning to wonder how Vinyl managed if her equipment was so prone to breakdowns.

In any event, I put my worries to the side and took a long, comforting breath as I got into my upright playing stance with my cello. I could always find at least some comfort in my music.

I ran my bow over the strings of my cello when all of its strings suddenly snapped on me. I let out a vile curse that made my own ears burn when I realized what I had said.

Vinyl peeked out from around the side of her machine to look at me. “Everything cool over there?”

I growled and put my instrument down before I did something stupid like throw it in a fit of rage. Throwing a purse full of bits would have been less expensive than throwing my cello. “Yes, it’s just that all the strings on my cello broke. Can’t remember the last time something like that happened.”

Wait. That wasn’t necessarily true; I could, upon reflection. It had been right before a performance a few years ago when one of my fellow cellists had rather pointedly tried to push me off my throne as the head of our section. He had gotten caught and fired later on, but I would have been in trouble had not one of the other, much kinder, cellists in our group not have loaned me a few strings for the night.

It was why I always made it a point to have at least a full set of new strings at the ready at all times in my instrument case. So, I opened up my instrument case and rummaged through it. After a couple of frustrated minutes of failing to find my reserve strings, I slammed my case shut with a huff.

I tapped my hoof on the top of my case as I started to think less than pleasant thoughts. “Vinyl, has anypony else been on the stage since I left for the restroom?”

I saw Vinyl’s legs sticking out from her player and her voice echoed out from under it. “I don’t think so. Didn’t hear anypony anyways. Been working on this hunk of junk.” I heard Vinyl struggle with something and then a yelp of pain and more cursing.

I felt old worries and suspicions start to come over me. I didn’t want to think it, but I couldn’t help but consider the fact that it sounded like Vinyl had been alone with my instrument and case, and their respective strings. It was possible that Vinyl had cut the strings on my cello and hidden away the others to sabotage me, but it seemed so unlike her. Still, I could think of any number of possibilities and ways for Vinyl to gain over embarrassing me. I tried to repress the idea, but memories of old betrayals came to mind. Far, far too many betrayals over the years.

I closed my eyes and rubbed at the stinging sensation in them. “Vinyl, I think I’m going to call it a day. It seems I ran out of strings for my cello, and all the stores nearby are closed. I have some more at home, but I think I’m done for now.”

Vinyl pushed herself out from under her musical machine and looked towards me. “You cool there?” She stood up and walked over to kneel down beside me. A frown creased her lips and she put a comforting hoof on my shoulder. “Hey, I know today’s been kinda rough, but we’ll get through it. Everypony has a rotten day sooner or later.”

I wiped at my eyes some more to clear away the wetness. “Sorry ... just some bad memories were brought up.” Not to mention the guilt over thinking my best friend would do something as petty at cut my cello’s strings—a friend who had been nothing but good to me.

She hesitated a moment before a smile came to her face. “Hey, forget all this. How about we go out and get a drink? Like old times. I know this place with some good cognac.”

“I don’t know, seems to be a bit silly. Especially with all the work we still have to do.” I didn’t want to admit it, but I also felt ashamed of suspecting my best friend of sabotaging me. Even if it was true, which I severely doubted, the thought hurt too much for me to even properly register at that moment. I was tired, strung out, and wanted to go home in order to plop myself down in my bed. As a result, I wasn’t sure if I could really face her at that moment.

Vinyl jumped to her hooves and started to drag me up. “Oh come on! Don’t tell me you forgot how to have fun already! Let’s just spend a couple of hours getting a drink, get a bit to eat, and then get some rest for a fresh start tomorrow. How’s that sound?”

I considered for a long moment to turn her down, but a look into her bright eyes, shining even through her shades and that goofy grin on her face, made that impossible for me. Vinyl was my friend, and that’s all there was to it.

I let out a long sigh and then nodded slowly as Vinyl helped bring me to my hooves. “Alright, we can do that.” I gave her a sad smile. “Just like old times.”

“Vinyl, this is a nightclub, not a bar.” My ears flattened to my head to block off the noise. For at the volume the music was being played, even the most beautifully played song could only be declared noise.

As a rule, I am not a fan of nightclubs. I’m not comfortable in them. Being crammed in like hay in a bale of straw made me claustrophobic. I particularly didn’t like it when the music is being played so loud that I can’t hear myself think, much less what the pony beside me is saying. Case in point: Vinyl was saying something less than a pony length away from me, and I could only catch bits a pieces of what she was saying.

“What!?” I yelled over the blaring music. “I can’t hear a thing!”

I got the sense that Vinyl rolled her eyes, though it was hard to tell with the lighting and her shades, and she dragged me through the crowd to one of the tables. Admittedly, the music wasn’t as loud now that we were further away from the DJ, and I could finally make out what Vinyl was saying. “I saaaid, let’s sit down at this table.”

“Oh ... okay then.” I sat down in the booth we were standing next to, and Vinyl sat down opposite of me.

“Now if you don’t mind...” Vinyl dramatically trailed off and then let her forehead slam into the table. “Tell me when the waiter arrives, because after today, I want something strong.”

I propped my elbow on the table and laid my head on my hoof. “I know the feeling.”

A waiter arrived at our table and pointed to a series of folders on the far end of the table. “Your menus are right over there.” She pulled up the chalkboard around her neck to write down our order. “So what would you two like?”

I picked up a menu and started looking it over. “Cognac. Bring a glass and leave the bottle.” Feeling the need to explain myself, I gave the waiter a sheepish shrug. “Been that type of day. Also, some chips and salsa please.”

Vinyl slammed her menu down dramatically and jabbed her hoof into the menu. “I want a Rainbow Sunrise.” She gave me a cocky grin. “I hear that the liquid rainbow they put in it really gives it a nice kick. And ... a Celestia Sunbomb Special.”

I scratched at the corner of my mouth as I tried to find the drinks Vinyl had ordered on the menu. “Do you even know what that is? Sounds like some sort of mixer.”

Vinyl waved me off. “No, but it sounds strong, and that's what I want!”

I let out a patient sigh as I rubbed at my eye. “Is this going to be one of those nights where I have to drag you home drunk?”

Vinyl blew a raspberry my way. “I don’t get blitzed every night I go out drinkin’.”

“Just most,” I teased. Vinyl had a tendency to have a bit more than she could really handle. Sometimes I wondered where her image of being a hard partying DJ began and ended.

She crossed her forelegs over her chest and pouted. “I’m not that bad.”

I smirked and remembered past drinking experiences with her over the years. “You’re pretty bad.”

Vinyl looked like she was going to protest some more when the waiter arrived. She put the drinks down on the table. Without any ceremony or warning, Vinyl picked up the appropriately named Rainbow Sunrise and hammered it back. I would guess she immediately regretted that as she started gasping, gagging, and coughing.

My eyebrows raised as I started to worry Vinyl might collapse right there. “Are you okay?”

She coughed violently a few more times but then nodded. “M’fine.” She wiped at her sweat covered brow and then nudged the glass towards the waiter. “Gimme another.”

“Vinyl!” I protested. I had to worry about how healthy a drink like that was for my friend.

“Right away, ma’am.” The waiter picked up the glass without missing a beat and left for the bar. Obviously, she didn’t care so much about what types of poisons her customers put into themselves.

Vinyl motioned towards me with her other glass. “Tavi, I’ve had a super long day trying to fix everything for the concert two days from now. I need this.”

I shook my head and looked at the menu to see if there was anything else worth ordering. “You’re going to wake up a mess at this rate.”

“That’s for me to worry about tomorrow.” Before I could raise a protest, she shot back her second glass containing the Celestia Sunbomb Surprise. Vinyl was nearly knocked out of her seat by whatever was in that glass, and she went into another coughing fit.

Seeing no way to protect my friend from herself at this point, I poured myself a glass of cognac from the bottle the waiter had left. Desperately wanting some alcohol in my own system, I quickly drank the glass, feeling a burning sensation from the drink all the way down to my stomach. I cleared my throat and poured another glass, determining I would sit back and enjoy this one a bit more than the first. The brand seemed to be of a middling affair, but it would do for the time being.

I looked back to my friend, and was encouraged to see that she hadn’t collapsed from whatever vile concoction she had just put into herself. “You going to live there?”

“M’fine,” she gasped out. Vinyl coughed again and waved a bit. “Just’a ... bit stronger than I thought.”

“Mmm.” I took a sip of my cognac. “Just don’t drink yourself to the point you can’t even walk. You’re a pain to carry around on my back.” I was pretty much convinced that it was going to be another night where I dragged my friend home to sleep it off. Just one of those things I did in the name of friendship.

Vinyl gave me a cheeky salute. “Can do, bossy lady.” The waiter returned to drop off another Rainbow Sunrise, which thankfully, Vinyl only sipped at rather than downing in one go like her previous two drinks. “So, Tavi, mind if I ask you somethin’?”

I shrugged, seeing no issue with my friend asking a question. Though it was a bit odd to see Vinyl ask first instead of just jumping into whatever she wanted to ask like she usually did. “I don’t see why not. Ask.”

“Sooo, um, yeah...” Vinyl took a moment to continue, making me wonder just how hard those drinks had hit her. “Why’ya treatin’ this like any other job?”

I tilted my head, not quite sure what Vinyl was getting at. “What do you mean?”

Vinyl leaned onto the table and closer to me. “Well ya know? ‘S supposed to help ther’ orphans.”

It took me a couple of seconds to figure out what Vinyl was getting at, and my eyebrows raise. “Ah, you think I don’t care?”

“Well, um, err...” Vinyl looked away and rubbed the back of her neck. Poor Vinyl. Her drinks had taken away what little social grace she had.

I took a sip and shook my head before replying. “It’s not like I don’t care. It is for a good cause. Just...” I shrugged, having trouble finding the proper words for what I wanted to say. “I guess I’m a bit jaded to it all. I’ve been doing these types of things since I was a teenager, and after you’ve done a hundred of them, it all just blurs together. After a while ... it seems like another part of the job, and in a lot of ways it is, considering half of it is to make my patrons happy and get attention for myself.” That admission didn’t make me particularly happy. It made me sound more like a cynic then I really felt.

As the paragon of social grace she is, Vinyl let out a loud belch and belatedly covered her mouth. “Sorry. But I guess I can understand that. Kinda dumb how it works though. All them snooty nobles powwowing ‘round. Like at that dumb party last week.”

I sighed, looking down at my drink as I rotated it back and forth on the hardwood table. I could see it from Vinyl’s perspective, even if it was a less-than-sober one. It wasn’t exactly hard to see the whole of Canterlot’s elite as a frivolous bunch. “I know, but ... it’s a bit more complex than that. My dad put it to me in a fairly succinct way once. There’s two types of ponies in Canterlot’s elite that go to all these social events. The first are the types who just want to be seen; they’re your typical socialites you normally think of when you think of Canterlot’s elites. Your Bluebloods and Jet Sets of the lot. The second are those on business. Either they want to meet somepony, introduce somepony, make some business deal, whatever. Those are your Sparkles and Fancy Pants.”

Vinyl nodded in agreement. “Yeah ... Mom ‘nd Dad put it like tha’ once. Ponies that’re importan’ an’ ponies who wanna look importan’.”

I drank a gulp from my cup and then refilled it. “Can’t tell which group is worse sometimes. One group is made up of good-for-nothings, and the other seems to be driven by nothing but ambition at times.” I took another gulp of my cognac. “Ugh, all I want to do is play my music.”

“Don’t I know it.” Vinyl placed her head down on the table. “Kinda wish I could just buck them all to the corner.” She made a derisive snort. “Shame some of ‘em are cool.” With an upturn of her glass, she finished up another of those Rainbow Sunrises and shook her head. “I mean, Dad’s alright. He’s always been there for Mom—like when she was really super sick a couple years ago.” She shrugged, an ambivalent motion, as she seemed to be deep in her own thoughts. “And he’s been cool with me, I guess. Better than how a lot of other bastards get treated by their sires, anyways. Be easier if they were all jerks. Then I could tell all of them to buck off.”

I knew who Vinyl’s father was, and most of what there was to know about that rather complex relationship. It hadn’t taken me long to notice that Vinyl didn’t have a publically-acknowledged sire. There were certainly plenty of bastards of the nobility running around in places like Canterlot. Most nobles married for political reasons, and as a result, many took up lovers outside of their marriages. From what I had gathered, it was a relatively common, if unspoken, practice. As a result, illegitimate children such as Vinyl were a common enough, if unacknowledged, feature of the upper echelons of Canterlot society.

I had guessed who Vinyl’s sire was not long after we had become friends. There were certainly plenty of rumors on the matter, and it was a rather poorly kept secret. It wasn’t very hard to guess once one saw Vinyl’s father’s relationship with her and her mother. Vinyl had even confided the truth with me a few years ago.

I swirled around my drink, watching as it splashed around in the cup. “That would make everything a bit simpler. Not that it’s only the nobles who can be uncouth around here.”

“Ain’t that the truth. Don’t e’en get me started.” Much to my chagrin, another of those rainbow colored drinks was placed in front of Vinyl, and she immediately started partaking of it.

I rubbed at the growing pain in my forehead. The exhaustion of the last week was weighing more heavily on me than ever. “I just wish I knew who I could trust sometimes.” I looked to my drink intently enough that at first I didn’t notice Vinyl starting to sob. My eyebrow raised as I watched my friend’s sudden emotional outburst. I put my glass down in order to give her my full attention.

I put a hoof on one of her legs that was outstretched on the table. “Vinyl, is everything okay?”

“‘M sowry, Tavi.” Her chest heaved with sobs, and I saw the tears working their way down her cheeks. “‘M sowry.”

Seeing my friend falling apart at the seams, I stood moved to Vinyl’s side of the booth and scooted her over so that I could pull her into a gentle hug. “Hey, it’s alright. Tell me about it.”

Vinyl leaned into me and laid her head against my chest. “B-but, I-I thought y-you m-might ‘ave been the-the one to mess up all my eque-ecuee-stuff.” That caused me to jerk. In my weariness, I hadn’t considered that Vinyl’s trouble with her equipment might be a result of something other than something mundane. “B-but th-that’s sooo dumb. I k-know ya wouldn’ do somethin’ l-like tha’. B-because you’re Tavi. And Tavi wouldn’ do s-something d-dumb like mess with my s-stuff.”

I patted Vinyl on the back to comfort her. “It’s fine, Vinyl. I ... thought the same for a minute there.”

Vinyl’s features contorted in confusion. “Wha-whugh-huh?”

I lifted up her chin so that I could give her a comforting smile. “Look, it’s been a long day. How about I drag you home with me, and we sleep it off. We’ll discuss everything in the morning.”

Vinyl moved to push me off of her, the spark of defiance she always had coming forth. “N-no way! We’re talkin’ ‘bout this—” Whatever Vinyl was about to say was interrupted when she vomited into my lap. Needless to say, that did an effective job of bringing our conversation to an end.