The next day…
Well dinner last night had gone well or at least Tress would attest to it despite the black eye, she wasn’t the only one but with Zecora it was hard to tell if she was bruising or not. Surprisingly the injuries she acquired were not because of Rainbow Dash, whom she begrudgingly respected somewhat now. She was never safe around any Sparkle, but she didn’t care as they were her friends.
Twilight thought things could have gone worse at least Rainbow was entertained by what happened last night. She was going over the agenda’s they could do today while sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of steaming hot tea under her nose.
They had several jobs they could feasibly take this day, one from a pony named Bonbon who was actually asking Twilight for a service she was actually good at. There was also a call for assistance into helping teach some unicorns at the local school by the earth pony Cheerilee. A unicorn named Lyra needed advice and a little outside help with something. There was some call for assistance in setting up musical stuff from someone named Vinyl Scratch. Another request from Vinyl to talk to a pony named Octavia about something. Finally an earth pony stallion named Time Turner needed them to throw garbage into a magical garbage can at a specific time and place, this would only take about ten seconds out of their day or so the request stated. Mr. Turner was offering up a lot of bits for them to do this.
They had plenty of jobs and plenty of things they could be getting paid for.
“Mom, I am so sorry about last night. I still don’t know what went wrong.” Barb walked into the room looking remorseful, only to receive a gentle hug from Twilight.
“It’s alright; things just got a little out of hoof Barb.” The dragon snuggled into Twilight’s chest and she smiled at her daughter. She was certainly a chip off the old block; she was certainly proven to be a part of the Sparkle family after last night. “Smart! What is Barb learning today?”
“Levitation and yes we’re doing it outside and we’re not nearly that stupid we know!” Smart fluttered into the room and landed on top of Tress’s head. “In any case we need something that doesn’t catch on fire to practice with. Unless you want stuff to be teleported to you constantly, Barb is kind of keyed in to your energy signature with her messaging spell and it seems it is a bit automatic if she doesn’t want something to catch on fire. We’re still working out the kinks on it.”
“So what are we going to do today Tress?” Twilight was eager to get out there and earn some bits so they could continue their livelihoods. They were doing pretty well already.
“I’ll take care of this Time Turner’s request, though I don’t know why he’s paying us a hundred bits to do something so simple sounding. It seems a little odd that he’d want to pay us so much, but who am I to complain as long as we get paid to do it?” Still though, Tress was kind of hoping it’d be as simple as it sounded. The description of the garbage can was simple enough; it’d have a plunger shaped object sticking out of it and that they were to ignore whatever it said and just toss some garbage into it, then forget about it entirely. “Other than that, I want to take up Lyra’s request and talk to Octavia for this Vinyl character. I’ll do the Time Turner one when I can. It’s set for around lunchtime anyway so we should probably meet at the café as its close enough to the target location. I’ll see what this Vinyl will exactly want me to say to Octavia before I meet up with Lyra.”
Tress hadn’t met any of these ponies yet, but these were their clients and they were taking their requests. Twilight handled the requests and meetings with the ponies when she got some free time that is. They have been meeting a lot of new ponies to befriend lately and Tress thought Twilight looked so happy to be spreading herself out into the world.
“I’ll come with you to meet up with Vinyl and we’ll work on that angle together and split up to go do the other things. I’ll talk Cheerilee about when I can start teaching and how long she expects me to work with the unicorns about how to do magic; she’ll likely want me doing afternoon classes.” After a moment at which Twilight noticed she was being stared at by Tress, she rolled her eyes. “Of course I’m going to take Bonbon’s request; her mane really needs a trim and some styling. I still need to talk to her about what she exactly wants me to do with her hair.”
“Don’t forget to visit the mayor today! Are you done with breakfast Barb?” Seeing the dragon nod, Smart fluttered into the air off of snuggling into Tress’s mane and immediately started for the door. “Well come on then, it’s time to open the public library or as I like to call it the kung fu dragon warrior training grounds!”
“Oh, before I forget, Pinkie finally sent us an invite to her 'welcome to Ponyville' party! I hope we can all go to it.” Barb pointed to where the invitation lay and then was out the door, she already got her hug from mom today. She could already tell Smart was going to make today fun and unique for her and looked forward to what the crazy toy mom was going to have her do.
“Huh, you have been invited to the best super de duper ultimate welcoming party ever. We’ll have snacks, games and I even got DJ-Pon3 to agree in making an appearance so it’ll be a blast. I hope we can all be the best of friends, love to every pony from the Ponyville Premiere Party Pony Pinkie Pie. It sounds fun Tress, we’ll go and we can earn some business from the sounds of it. Maybe meet a few more acquaintances and friends.” Twilight knew it was the pink pony that held the parties in the library recently, but she couldn’t be mad with her as she agreed to stop doing so. They were going to enjoy it just fine as long as Pinkie wasn’t too annoying.
“DJ-Pon3 is going to be there? Well this is sure to be a blast, especially if she’s doing the music for it. I’ve been to one of her shows before.” Tress wasn’t about to say that was with Fleur, but they did have a lot of fun. “Now let’s go see this Vinyl Scratch about this equipment set up and talking to Ms. Octavia.”
“Excuse me for asking Tress, but can I borrow some of your shampoo. You know, the no particular smell one, I need it for when I meet Bonbon later on.” They were soon setting about the room to pick up their saddle bags and Twilight was given the shampoo, she made sure to pick up the stuff she’d need for taking care of a mares mane later on today.
They were off once again into the wild blue yonder while Zecora cleaned up their home, she too was going to the party and she didn’t say much else except that she’d be leaving for the Ever Free Forest soon after. She’d come visit them once in a while and make sure they actually got a well cooked meal, she felt sorry for Twilight being incapable of making anything other than some of the best pudding she’s ever tasted.
They came up to Vinyl Scratch’s location or at least the one that was given to Twilight. Tress was idly moving along behind her, Looking at the splendor that was the nice town they moved into. Walking up to the door, Twilight knocked on it and it opened to reveal a unicorn mare with a wild looking electric blue mane, white coat and wearing tinted glasses.
“Oh, hey miss Rave Lady! How’s it hanging mare, it’s been a while hasn’t it? Say, where’s the hot stuff Flower Power?” There was a look of confusion on the purple mares face and the other pony the DJ recognized immediately.
“DJ-Pon3, what are you doing here? We’re here to meet a Miss Vinyl Scratch about two jobs, one to talk to Octavia and the other to help move and possibly assist with equipment?” Tress saw a smile cross DJ-Pon3’s face.
“Oh good you’re here! Well you’re looking at her, as my name is Vinyl Scratch and that’s when I’m not up on the stage. So who’s helping me with Octavia, she’s a tad stuffy and is finding it hard to break into Canterlot high society. She really needs to learn how to live a little and let loose once in a while. I needed some pony to show her that not all high society types are all into the pompous blowhard act or at least show her she’s a tad too uptight. I needed a mare that could do the job and you’re perfect for what I need Rave Lady if you will do it; Octavia is a fan of yours and was sad that you mysteriously quit. I can kind of see Ponyville as being more your speed and I can agree that Canterlot can be quite the drag sometimes.” Well it was apparent Vinyl Scratch was quite the chatterbox and was upbeat and friendly.
“Well at least I didn’t have to explain why I quit the super model scene to you at least; you’re quite fast when it counts Vinyl. Though you could stand to bathe more, you have a body odor that’s kind of rank.” Watching as the pony sniffed herself, Tress gagged and so did Vinyl. “Yes well, where is this Octavia? I’ll see what I can do.”
“Well first I want to how much is this going to cost me? I know you aren’t doing this all for free. So when can you two help me move and set up my equipment, because it needs to be done tonight unless you have other pressing matters?” Vinyl waited as the two other ponies deliberated, Tress addressed her first.
“It’s interesting knowing the real name of the DJ that knows how to mix good music. How much a job from us costs is based on how difficult the job is, for Octavia it won’t cost more than ten bits. We can even all join together for lunch and split the check between all of us. We got several other ponies we’re going to be working with today as well.” Tress wouldn’t mind having lunch with Vinyl and whoever this Octavia is. “So we’ll do lunch at the café, what do you say Vinyl?”
“Okay that seems fair; I wouldn’t mind sharing a table with random strangers today.” Vinyl stretched out, she was going to have some fun today.“Sounds like a good plan to me.”
“I can certainly help you move you’re equipment later in the evening Miss Scratch. It really wouldn’t be that big a trouble so it’ll be cheap as well.” Twilight said politely only to get a frown from Vinyl.
“You need to remember that I don’t like being called a miss anything Sparky. Call me Vinnie or Vinyl, maybe eventually at least think of giving me a fun nickname.”After a moment Vinyl smiled seeing that Twilight gets it. “Yeah, I can work with your help though. Just follow my directions when we start setting up and we’ll do just fine Sparky.”
“Sorry about that Sniff, is Sniff okay for you Scratch? We can work out moving and setting up stuff over lunch. I’ve got a lot of other ponies to meet with today. So see you then I guess?” Twilight answered back, she stared at Vinyl’s mane. It was wild, unkempt and in need of a good cleaning but she sounded like the decent sort of pony that liked informalities. Twilight wasn’t going to ask if she could work with Vinyl’s mane as she knew what kind of pony Vinyl was and that she’d refuse immediately. “We’ll all meet at the Café with the good hay fries, say around noon to one.”
“Yeah, I can dig that. As for you Rave Lady, Octavia can be found down the street take a left and she’s in the third house on the left. Just don’t be surprised if she treats you like royalty though, she thought it was previously impossible for an earth pony mare to make it in the high society of Canterlot’s unicorn population. She’s been proven otherwise and is trying to make a splash with her classy music stuff, not exactly my scene but I want her to achieve her dreams she’s working hard for. She’s been my best friend since forever and we grew up here together so treat her with respect.” With that Vinyl turned around wiggled her rear end at them before she closed the door and snickered a bit. They saw her bridged eighth note cutie mark quite clearly and heard some words from her before she got too far from the door. “I’m so going to drop that bass tomorrow.”
“Well that was a strange pony, how do you know her and who’s Flower Power? Is it Fluttershy?” Twilight saw a cringe cross Tress’s face. She was glad to have set a time for them to meet up at the café or else things would have been a little awkward if they didn’t know when to meet up.
“No, actually it’s some of the things I did with Fleur. It’s kind of hard to make friends in Canterlot and not only did I work with her, I also partied with her too once or twice.” One would think Tress was in trouble because she still hasn’t told Twilight about how she met Fleur; they would be wrong as their friendship was as great as ever.
“Well okay then. I guess this is where we split up Tress. Today is going to be crazy I just know it.” Twilight and Tress walked away from each other. Only within seconds did they run back and swapped hugs and wishes of good luck on their jobs today, they’d need it if Twilight was right about it being crazy.