Fangs

by Sapphic

Questions

I sat there on the ground with Miss Scratch still on top of me for awhile, not because I wanted her on top of me, although she was quite comfortable, but because I was thinking about a few things that came to mind when I saw Vinyl's eyes. All the times that I had met her and her eyes were dilated she seemed to be lusting for something, and I could only assume it was blood. At first I assumed she just wanted to kill me and be done with it, but after the last encounter, it seemed like she was only playing with me. After I started crying, the whole 'want to kill you' thing stopped and she complained like I wasn't playing 'the game' right. Maybe she was just playing with me, but the other times she seemed to be relentless on 'draining' me, and I still had no confirmation on if that is what she wanted to do. Of the two times she has gotten close to draining me, she has never been able to get all the way through, the first time she fell asleep, the second time she stopped right in the middle and complained. The evidence I had was supporting both sides of the assumption that she was either trying to drink from me or she was just playing some game.

My train of thought was broken when I felt Vinyl start to loosen her grip and relax into my shoulder, I probably would have stopped her if it weren't for another, more logical, option that I had. I would let her fall asleep on me, then remove her.

'That way I wouldn't have to deal with both her and Fredric at once.' I thought to myself, also giving myself a mental pat on the back. I smiled joyfully when I felt her breathing even out and her grip release completely. I began to remove her body from its position on top of me slowly, but was interrupted when I heard a voice practically scream at me, a voice that made me cringe.

"Octavia, what in Celestia are you doing with that mare?!" I turned my head slowly to find that the voice belonged, of course, to Fredric.

He looked shocked, not one of his 'dramatic, for the moment' shocks, but a genuine look of shock. I felt Vinyl shake slightly and reapply her grip, 'Why, why now of all times, did Fredric have to walk in, with my luck he will probably go off and tell Beauty and Harpo that I'm a fillyfooler and get me kicked out of the Symphony.'

I started to try and remove Miss Scratch from my body, she didn't resist, but I could tell she wasn't happy about being removed from her, probably comfortable, position. I calmly set her down in front of me, she instantly curled up into a ball while I turned to face a very confused and enraged Fredric.

"Well Fredric, you see I was letting her f-" I started calmly, I didn't get far.

"No!" He interrupted me in a very rude manner. "Don't tell me about what sinful things you were about to do, I don't want to hear them!"

'What is he going on about...Oh!'

"Fredric! I assure you I wasn't about to do...that...with her." He backed down slightly, but I could tell he was still assuming that of what his assumptive mind assumes.

"I still don't know why I took time out of my night to go pick up some no talent DJ filth..." He grumbled to himself, I shrugged it off and turned around and gather Miss Scratch, that is until she spoke out.

"What did you say?" Her voice was cold, but not void of emotion, I could clearly hear the boiling emotions of a calm, and frightening form, of rage and hate. I waited for Fredric to make one of his both condescending and clearly biased remarks, but he didn't, at least not right away. I assumed Fredric must have heard the rapidly heating emotions of Vinyl, a rare sight to see from him, for he didn't respond as quickly and as forcefully as I thought he would have.

"...I-I said you were f-filth...w-which you are." He was trying to regain some form of a defensive stance when Vinyl replied, If I didn't know any better, I would have thought Fredric was scared of Miss Scratch.

Vinyl turned over with her sunglasses gleaming, I didn't know how she managed to cover her eyes so quickly, and voiced her both unexpected and slightly scary response.

"No, no, no, I got that part of what you were saying." Her voice was finally focused on a, somewhat, single emotion that I could make out. It was like a calm form of rage, not berserk and feral, quite the opposite in fact, but testing and rather, if I say so myself, dark.

"What did you say before that?" Fredric was slightly taken aback, and even more confused, by this question, but didn't falter.

"I s-said you w-were a no talent DJ." Vinyl smiled with satisfaction and began her second assault.

"So do you have any proof of me being a 'no talent' DJ?"

"W-well...n-no, but you are a DJ." Fredric stuttered before Vinyl continued.

"So does that make me a 'no talent'?"

"N-no...I suppose not."

"Do you have any knowledge of DJ'ing?"

"N-no."

"Well, then I don't think you have a say in whether I am a no talent DJ, and honestly, I don't think you could speak much about your own talents, much less about mine." Fredric eyes went wide, as well as mine.

Of course I was siding with Vinyl up until she spoke about Fredric and his talents on the piano and he was next to even the most professional of pianists in Equestria. She was kind of going against her own word when criticizing Fredric on his talent when she had just got onto him for criticizing her DJ'ing.

"Are you suggesting that I have no talent on the piano?" Now it was Fredric's turn to possess a cold tone in his voice, although it wasn't nearly as intimidating and frightening as Vinyl, who was now getting off of the floor, it was still rather unnerving on the ears. Vinyl's smile was only widening at Fredric's display of emotion.

'Is she crazy? How can she smile at Fredric, even if the display is amusing, a fellow musician shouldn't criticize another over their choice of instrument. It's just plain unethical and stupid.

"I don't see how pressing a few keys is all that hard." Vinyl's tone was playful and that wasn't helping Fredric's mood. Fredric slowly began walking towards Vinyl and raised a hoof, which gave me a perfect view to see Vinyl's smile widening even more.

'Did she want to get hit' I thought before I decided to do something.

"Why you ungrateful little piece of sh-"

"Fredric, stop!"

I had to intervene before Vinyl did something that she would regret, or more likely, before Fredric did something he would regret. It had almost slipped my mind, but I remembered Vinyl's state when she had fell onto me earlier, she might go after Fredric and he wouldn't hesitate to call the guards and wouldn't rest until she was executed.

"You both need to stop acting like foals, if you want to complain about the others lack of skill you at least need to have a valid point behind it." I stared hard at Vinyl, who decided to sit back down on her haunches with ears down, I thought my comment would end the argument on the spot, but yet again, I was wrong, I only seemed to fuel the fire of the argument.

"I agree completely Octavia, let's see how much skill this street rat has on a piano." Fredric graced himself with a smirk of victory and I could see that Vinyl was about to insult him back, that is until I gave her a stern glare and she took back her choice of action.

"Sure, why not, I don't see how hard it could be to beat you at your own game, plus, it might be fun." Vinyl said in a cheery tone as my eyes went wide and gave her another look just in time with Fredric.

"Very well, how about...three days from now...anything goes?" Vinyl simply shrugged.

"Sure, anything goes." I couldn't believe what was going on, Fredric would destroy Vinyl on the piano, and if he asked 'anything goes?' he is bound to have something up his sleeve.

"Well Octavia, it seems that you have the...'situation' under control here, so I will be on my way." He turned and began to exit the hallway until he turned around to stare hard at Miss Scratch.

"And I will see you in three days." He turned and left the hallway, leaving a shocked me and a smiling Vinyl sitting in the hallway. We must have sat there for at least five minutes, and I would have kept sitting there like that for awhile longer, that is, until Vinyl poked me in my cheek, making me turn to see what she wanted.

"Wanna drink?" I blinked a few times, honestly surprised at how quickly she got past what just happened, before deciding on my answer.

"Sure...I need to talk to you about a few things anyway." We both got up and I started making my way back to the main bar until she stopped me.

"Hey, where you going?" I looked back at her to see her head poking out of the room she had fell out of.

"Bars this way." she chimed out. I raised a brow at her, but eventually decided to follow her, looks like my escort has changed, and personally, I think like this one better, a bit cocky, but not a stuck up, condescending, ignorant, arrogant, assumptive brat. I trotted over and followed her into the room.

The first thing I noticed in the room was the casual aura it gave off, comfy looking red sofas positioned around a red rug in the center of the room, a few paintings here and there made it feel similar to home. I saw off in the corner of the room a miniature fridge, probably where the drinks were, with Miss Scratch neck deep inside.

"Hey, what do you want to drink?" She piped out, her voice slightly muffled by the fridge.

"Vinyl, I honestly think there are more important matters to attend to than what I want to drink."

"Hm, I don't think they have that...How about some cider?" I sighed, maybe another approach would work.

"Please, let's just talk first, then you can drink however much you want." She removed her head from out of the refrigerator and put her hoof up to her chin and made a humming noise, as if she were thinking hard on the matter before coming to a decision.

"Okay! But only if you drink after this, you're more fun when you're drunk!" She pranced over to the couch and plopped down, smiling cheerfully.

'Reasoning with her is almost as easy, and as difficult, as reasoning with a foal, she really does act childish for her age, whatever that may be.

I sighed and walked over to the couch, taking my seat beside her. Before I started questioning her, I decided took a good look at her. My gaze started at her head, her hair was rather ragged, but it gave off its own sense of pride, a unique form of profession, perfect for her occupation. Her glasses accented her mane perfectly, blocking out everything that tries to come in with its own purple reflection, kind of like how she acted with Fredric, responding to him with his own question. I shifted my look to her torso, it was a pristine white, just like every other time I had seen her, it seemed to never get dirty or roughed up, kind of like her in a way. I shifted my eyes to her tail, just like her mane, it was wild and free. My gaze finally settled on her cutie mark, it was an eighth note, but they were abridged, facing the opposite direction of what they would normally face, somewhat like her occupation, and personality entirely, in the society of Canterlot; always going against the normal, but still capable of working.

"Um, Octavia, what'cha looking at?" I was shook from my train of thought by Miss Scratch's voice, as well as the feeling of blood rushing to my face.

"Uh, I-Uh..." While I was stammering, Miss Scratch must have been looking around the room to try and find what I was staring at, and inevitably found a single bit lying on the floor.

"Oh! Was it this." She got up from the couch and bent over to pick up the bit. There was both a good and bad to this situation, the good part was that I had successfully avoided being caught staring at Miss Scratch's flank, the bad news was that the way she was bending over wasn't helping my blush dissipate at all. I quickly averted my gaze and eventually settled on staring at a painting on the opposite side of the room until she had gotten up from the floor, now with a bit in hoof.

"So what's up?" She asked, tossing the bit over towards me; I completely missed the bit, it hit me square on the nose then rolled off the couch, resulting in Vinyl giving a barely contained chuckle.

"Um, well we were going to..." 'Dang it, what were we going to do again, something about Vinyl probably.'

"You said something about wanting to talk to me, right?" Vinyl piped, reminding me of my entire reason of staying, that, and it appeared she would be walking me back to my house, where she would probably stay if the information Fredric had gathered wasn't true.

"Yes, I was going to ask why you decided to storm off back at the practice building the other day, it was quite rude of you." The expression she gave me after obviously confirmed my suspicion of whether she actually believed Fredric and Beauty's word.

"I...I thought you kicked me out..." She sounded depressed, it was honestly a sad sight to see and I couldn't help but feel bad for her.

"When did I say that I kicked you out?" I responded a touch playfully, throwing her off a bit.

"But...you're friends said-"

"I am not my friends." I made sure to keep my voice playful, but back it up with some sternness to show I was serious. At first she blinked a few times, but then broke out into a large smile.

"But I still have a few questions for you that my friends brought up, for one, why do you not have a birth date on your records?" Her smile was quick to disappear, replaced by a grimace.

"I-I'd prefer not to talk about that..." Not again, I just need to know if she is a criminal, it's not like I want her whole back-story, although I'm sure that that would be quite interesting, I might just have to get her to tell me that eventually, but only after we've gotten to know each other better.

"Are you a criminal, Vinyl?" I had to know, I couldn't hide a criminal in my house, if I got caught it wouldn't only hurt me, It would hurt my family as well. My assumption faltered when her eyes widened and she looked taken aback by my question.

"What?! No! Why would I be a...No, Octavia, I am not a criminal." She sounded truthful enough and she really didn't have a reason to lie to me, considering I already knew what she was, so I decided to let that topic slide...for now.

"Alright Vinyl...I believe you, but I still have a few more questions for you." I could tell she wasn't enjoying the questions, and frankly I wasn't either, but I had to know the answers to them if she was to stay in my house any longer.

"Okay...shoot." 'Well at least her mellow means of responding hasn't disappeared' I thought to myself before fetching another question out of the air.

"The last few times that I have met you, you acted differently from how you normally act around me, occasionally your eyes would be dilated and you would act...well...rather predatory." I studied her reaction carefully, and judging from what I saw, she had no idea what I was talking about, which only confirmed another one of my assumptions; she couldn't control when she acted like that, was that a risk? Maybe. Was I willing to put up with it? Well, it rather intrigued me how she seemed to just switch into that 'state' after she reached a certain breaking point. From the past encounter I assume that she could still hold back some, like when I cried, but not completely.

"Those last few times we've met...I only remember up to a certain point and then my memory kinda gets all...hazy." She sounded reluctant to share the information, but I thank her that she did, right now I was adding data, making a little notebook in my head, taking notes on how much she claimed she could control herself. This way I would know what to do when she acted like she did in the past.

"Do you know what triggers that?" I could only assume it was blood lust, but who better to ask than the one doing it?

"No..." 'Wait...what? How does she not even know what triggers herself? I was at a complete loss now, if I didn't know what caused her to act like that, then I wouldn't know how to stop it, mainly because I wouldn't know when to stop it. However, I decided not to press her any longer, mainly because I myself was tired and I could tell she was too.

"Well thank you, Miss Scratch, for sharing." I got up from my seat and started heading towards the door. I should really be getting back now, I had practice tomorrow, I only turned around to look back at her. 'Hm, it might be fun to play with her a bit...' I thought to myself.

"Coming?" I asked in an overly innocent tone.

"Wha? Does this mean..." Well it worked, she was clearly confused...and I loved it.

"Well somepony has to walk me home." It was quite fun seeing her at a complete loss as to what to do. She got up and reluctantly trotted over to follow me.

"Yeah...I guess, so...does this mean that I get to-" I stopped her with a sigh, 'And I thought I couldn't take a joke'.

"Yes, Vinyl, you can still stay at my house." She visibly brightened and added a new spring to her step as she followed me out of the room. I briefly recalled something father told me, something about needing a stallion, but I gave it no mind, I just wanted to sleep.