Chapter 12 : Foreign Lawns
In which a something nice is arranged
~
Ponies milled around the shelves of the record store, browsing through the newly placed records. It was the grand re-opening of Vinyl's shop, which also meant it was the day that Vinyl and Lyra moved back out of Octavia's house.
Octavia and Vinyl were both working behind the counters, while Lyra milled around commenting on the records the customers were looking at worked out on the shop front. There was a large queue forming already; the store was packed. Everypony was eager to get records that weren't pop or classical, which, oddly, proved to be a struggle more often than not.
One of the big movers of the day, much to the shop team's surprise, was their own demo cassette, which Vinyl had haphazardly piled on the counter in the minutes before opening. It was only lunch time and they'd nearly run out of them. Though, this may be because Vinyl was including a tape with every purchase made, whether the customer wanted it or not.
It was all a part of Vinyl's tactic. See, the more ponies who heard it, the more ponies had heard it.
Solid.
~
It had been a pretty good day at the shop, being open for business really brings the customers in. Vinyl had closed up, Tavi had gone home, and Lyra was just doing whatever, as normal.
There was a nice atmosphere in Vinyl's house. There was Roy Neighers playing on the turntable, there was some snacks, stuff like that. It was all pretty chill until somepony started banging on the door. Loudly. Repeatedly. Vinyl grumbled and lifted herself from the sofa to go and see who would interrupt her relaxing times.She made her way down the stairs and unlocked the door, surprised to find Octavia stood there.
"Tavi? What are you doing here? You know, you interrupted our game of Hungry Hungry Hippogriffs?!"
"Sorry, but this is important!" Octavia replied, with a huge smile.
"Well, what is it?"
"Let me in, Lyra has to hear too!"
"Come on then." Vinyl sighed and turned to go back up the stairs, Octavia in tow. Reaching the top, they made their way into Vinyl's living room, finding Lyra laying upside down on the sofa, humming along to 'Everypony Loves The Sunshine' as the record played. There was indeed an abandoned game of Hungry Hungry Hippogriffs on the floor.
"'Sup Tavi?" Greeted Lyra.
"Big new, big big news!" Replied Octavia, still sporting a smile.
"Well, are you gonna tell us what it is, or just keep on grinning like a doofus?"
"Wellllllll, I got a call today from the guy who prints all the 'Below Classical' magazines, the ones you like, Lyra. He called up to say he'd heard our tape today, and that he'd be interested in signing us for the label he's starting!"
"No way!" Vinyl and Lyra replied, pretty much in unison.
"You better believe it! He said he'd be at our next live show to have a look, and then, if we want to and it all goes well, we'll be signed to 'Below Class'."
At this point Lyra started hyperventilating.
"This is amazing! We're gonna make records! This is so cool!-"
"Wait, next show?" Asked Vinyl. "We haven't done one show yet."
"-So excited! People are gonna hear our songs, and we'll go on tour, and-"
"And? A show is a show, is it not? All we need is to get booked, which shouldn't be too hard considering you gave everypony in the shop our demo."
"-And ponys will be buying our merch! T-Shirts! We would have band shirts to sell on tour, and-"
"Fair point. So what, now we just wait?"
"-Get drunk and crowd surf, then we'd smash all our stuff up, because we're signed to a label-"
"Pretty much." Octavia's pupils shrank right down, and she gasped sharply. "I NEED TO GET HOME! SOMEPONY COULD BE TRYING TO CALL RIGHT NOW!"
Octavia ran out the door and down the stairs as fast as she could, leaving a vaguely pony shaped dust cloud in Vinyl's house.
Vinyl just stood there dumbfounded. Lyra was still rambling.
"-having a fight outside the venue because security threw them out! Ponies would be fighting at our gigs, it'd be so important to them! And there would be jumping and dancing, and all kinds of fun, all because they came to listen to us! Us! Up on the stage in front of everypony, knowing they're all there just to come and listen to us live! Everypony would be getting drunk, and having a good time, it'd be so much fun! And we'd be getting paid to do it! We'll get money for making music! And we can record our music proper, and put out proper records to sell in shops all around Equestria! I have to tell everypony! This is just amazing, no pony will believe me! I can't believe me! This is so incredible, I can't wait!"
~
It was 2 AM. No pony should be knocking on the door at 2 AM. Its 2 AM, far too early/late for anything. Octavia was tired, and whoever was coming to visit at this ridiculous time was responsible, so she already wasn't happy with them, even if she had no idea who it was.
She reached the door and opened it, keeping the chain on in case they tried to force their way in. No chances. She was a little surprised to find that it wasn't an attacker at her door, but Vinyl, looking pretty terrible. She took the latch off and opened the door fully.
"Vinyl? Its 2 in the morning! What are you doing here?"
"You remember when you came over to tell us about getting signed?"
"Yeah."
"You remember Lyra's reaction to that?"
Octavia recalled Lyra's endless word-spewing from earlier and nodded.
"She's still doing it."
"But...but that was six hours ago!"
"Yes, and she hasn't stopped since. I'm planning to stay the night here, and if she hasn't stopped by the time I go over to open the shop, then...I dunno, I'll slap her or something."
"Fair play, come in." Octavia turned around and walked, followed by Vinyl, and the sound of a closing door.
"You can go in the spare room I guess, you know where everything is, right?" Octavia turned around, only to be presented with a sleeping Vinyl, on the floor just shy of the door.
"Fine then, have it your way, I'll just drag you to the sofa." Octavia muttered to herself.
~
"-And then we'll get famous and make lots of money, and everypony will know who we are! They'll talk about our shows, and records, and everything! We'll get to do interviews! They'll be all over magazines, and everything! Everypony will talk about it and they'll all know that WE ARE MUDHINNEY!"
"Hey, where is everypony?"
Lyra looked around Vinyl's now empty home. The clock read 6:43, and the sky was slightly orange. She found a note on the table near where she had been sitting.
"Lyra, if you're reading this it means you've stopped talking, hopefully. I don't know what time you're reading this, but you started at 8 PM, so work it out."
"I was talking for almost eleven hours?" She asked herself.
"I couldn't sleep with you rambling on, so I went to stay at Tavi's house for the night. As I said wrote, hopefully you've stopped rambling now, because I want to sleep in my own place, and we all have work to do today.
Vinyl"
Lyra's ears flattened against her head as she read the note.
"Oooh, I'm sorry Vinyl. I'll make it up to you, somehow."
She looked back at the clock. It was only two and a quarter hours until the shop was meant to be opened, so Vinyl and Tavi would be coming soon. So Lyra thought.
...
"THATS IT!"
~