The next few days passed in a haze for Vinyl. It was all a blur of packing, unpacking, repacking looking for things that were lost while packing, and finding the sad remains of things that were broken from improper packing. After she had thrown away the last box she collapsed on the sofa (mended with several rolls of duct tape) and was about to fall asleep when a click from the front door alerted her to someone’s entrance, she sat up ready to run.
“Who’s there?” she asked to the air
“It’s me,” Octavia’s voice responded. Vinyl slumped back in her seat and moaned. The earth pony had come over every day to “help” her unpack, and as grateful as Vinyl was, she needed some time alone to relax. She forced a smile anyway and turned to properly greet the mare.
“Morning, how are you?” she said in forced polite tone.
“Fine thanks. It’s awfully drab in here don’t you think?” Octavia asked, either missing or ignoring Vinyl’s tone, her voice moving to the couch.
“No point in art,” Vinyl replied plainly. She could feel the discomfort emanating from Octavia.
“I-I’m sorry I… forgot-.”
“FORGOT!? HOW DARE YOU!” Vinyl screamed.
“I-I-I-!” Octavia panicked wondering what to say to the furious unicorn, how to apologize for her faux pa.
Then Vinyl let out a whooping laugh, clutching her stomach and rolling against the wall convulsing with mirth.
“You’re too easy to troll Octavia,” she sobbed through tears of laughter. Vinyl got up and skipped to the small fridge that her even smaller kitchen held, her mood lifted by her little prank.
“What can I get you?”
Octavia let out a sigh of relief.
“Just water is fine,” she said, sitting on the couch. Vinyl flipped open a cupboard and pulled out two glasses with her magic. Filling one with water from the tap and one with soda for herself she levitated both glasses over to the couch and handed the water to Octavia.
“That’s amazing!” Octavia said, her voice drenched in awe.
“It’s just plain old country water,” Vinyl replied chuckling, taking a sip from her drink.
“Not that,” Octavia said her voice flustered now “Just… how can you do stuff like this when…”
“When I can’t see?” Vinyl asked.
Octavia’s only response was silence. Vinyl smiled in what she hoped to be a reassuring way.
“It’s all right, yes I am blind it’s not rude to say it. It’s like saying that a Zebra is a Zebra it’s not raciest, its fact.”
“Well then… how?”
Vinyl smiled she was starting to like her little neighbor mare.
***
Octavia came over pretty much every day after that, the two mares would sit and talk for hours on end with not a care in the world. Then one day Octavia asked that fateful question, the kind of question that can shatter friendships and end relationships.
“So what do you plan to do in life?”
Vinyl squirmed uncomfortably in her seat next to Octavia on the couch. This was not a new question; her father had asked her it almost every day since she had graduated from university and come back home. Getting away from that question was one of the reasons that she had found this place.
“Um, well…” she began awkwardly. Even though she had given this more though than anything else in her life she still felt like the answer was inadequate. “I’m trying to start up a DJ service.”
Octavia gasped with excitement.
“That’s so cool!” She exclaimed. Her sudden burst of fangirl was interrupted by the clashing ring of a glass smashing to the floor.
“I’m so sorry! She cried leaping from the couch as Vinyl began to levitate the broken pieces into a pile.
“No worries,” Vinyl replied coolly, she then calmly assembled the pieces and laid them in order on the table. Then, letting out a wave of magic she pulled the pieces back together, reforming the cup. Octavia let out a laugh and examined the cup; there was no sign that she had just knocked it off the table. Vinyl smiled and stood up.
“Shall we go upstairs?”
“Wh-why?” Octavia’s voice showed that this little pony’s mind wasn’t as clean as it should have been. Vinyl smirked evilly.
“So that I can show you my horn’s other uses.” She replied licentiously, licking her lips. A flustered wave of unrelated syllables flowed from Octavia’s direction each one counteracting the last.
“I-we-I don’t-well-but-I-!”
Vinyl laughed at her friend’s confusion.
“So that I can show you my DJing setup, Octopus, get your head out of the gutter!”
Octavia huffed and crossed her forelegs defensively.
“How you lead me on so!” she huffed sounding almost a little disappointed.
***
Once they reached her bedroom and Vinyl flipped on the switch Octavia let out a gasp. The bedroom was stark contrast to the barren front room. One wall was taken by Vinyl’s bed which had been modified so that two subwoofers made up the headboard. Next to it sat several towers of CDs each carefully labeled in braille. Then Octavia’s eyes found the most important part of the room. Vinyl’s Computer, it was a masterpiece. Four active speakers, two high-rez monitors, and a soundcard so big Vinyl had set up an extra table for it to rest on. Vinyl walked over to the monstrosity and punched the power button, razing the beast to life. It let out a low rumble like the purring of a lion then the screens flicked on and Vinyl slid into the office chair in front of it.
“Open LoopyFruits,” she said to the computer. It let out a friendly beep and a program opened up. A dozen or more colored bars each in a column. Vinyl pressed a key on a pad that sat next to her. To Octavia’s amazement: A drum stated playing, beating out an even pattern. She looked down to see that her hoof was beating along with the rhythm.
“You want to try it?” Vinyl asked.
“What? But I don’t know how to use that!”
“Don’t worry! I’ve already written all the clips, all you have to do is play them.”
Vinyl slid out of the chair and offered it to Octavia. She slid into it, nervously examining the monitor and the key pad. She looked back at Vinyl then cautiously pressed on of the keys a wobbling bass began playing to accompany the drums.
“That’s it!” Vinyl extorted “Play some more!”
Octavia turned back to the pad. She pressed a second key.
“MOTHA’ BUCKING BASS!” the computer shouted, causing Octavia to jump and sending Vinyl into a wave of laughter.
“Here,” she said through hiccupping breaths. “Let me help you.” She stepped up next to her and placed her front hooves on top of Octavia’s guiding her across the pad.
“Do it like I do,” she said. “Look with your ears, not your eyes.”
Octavia closed her eyes, she listened to the beat of the drums, Vinyl guided her to a key, not yet don’t press it yet. NOW! She pressed the key and led the drums into perfect time with the new lead she had brought in. She opened her eyes.
“I did it!” She exclaimed.
Vinyl finished the song for Octavia and then began to show her how she wrote the music clips.
“Each clip is a loop of one bar,” she said opening a new one. “So every time I lead one clip into another I don’t need to worry about where I start.” She looked up at Octavia. “I’ve been trying to add another sub-lead to the song, but I can’t find anything that works.”
“Well don’t look at… oh I’m sorry…”
“Hmm? What?”
“I wasn’t thinking… about your condition…”
“My what? What are you talking about?”
“… Never mind.”
Shaking the bizarre incident from her mind she signaled for the earth pony to come closer. Octavia stepped up next to Vinyl and examined the clip carefully.
“Does this program have a cello by any chance?”
“Yeah, but what good would that do? This is Progressive House, not Classical.”
“Progressive what?”
Vinyl rolled her head back in frustration.
“Never mind…”
Vinyl opened up the cello and let Octavia take the chair. She watched as the young mare began to, slowly, add notes to the clip. Every now and then she would hold her hooves up as if playing an invisible instrument, pausing shaking her head she would return to add more notes.
“Ok… I think that should be enough,” she said climbing from the chair.
“When do the clips come in?” Vinyl asked sliding into the chair.
“Oh… I though you could just throw them in.”
Vinyl turned to Octavia, a look of disbelief on her face.
“What?” the earth pony blustered, “you’re the DJ here!”
Vinyl shook her head and turned back to the computer, it was a sub-lead, it should be fine coming in with the main lead on bar 16. Vinyl started up the drums. Counting with her hoof beating out a rhythm on the desk she then put both leads in and…
“This sucks…” Vinyl moaned “it’s in the completely wrong key!”
“I’m sorry,” Octavia answered. “I play cello for the Canterlot orchestra, I thought- ”
“Holy sun butt, you play in Canterlot?”
“Yes… my father has… connections, he helped me get a place in the string ensemble.”
“Well,” Vinyl continued “it doesn’t completely suck, like I said it’s only in the wrong key, we just have to bump the notes around a bit.”
She turned to Octavia, smiling.
“You willing to help me out a bit more?”