Snare by bahatumay
Octavia sighed as she knocked on the door again. “Come now, Vinyl,” she reasoned. “The landlord is coming for his monthly inspection tomorrow, and I won't be fined again, so your room had better be clean this time.”
There was no answer.
Octavia sighed and went to retrieve the apartment's skeleton key. It was hidden over the lintel of the bathroom door, since more than once Vinyl had locked herself out of the bathroom.
It was a good thing she was so cute, really; otherwise she might have been forced to seek a new place of residence.
Octavia turned the key and unlocked the door. Inside Vinyl's room, as expected, was organized chaos. Records that were meticulously ordered were sitting in boxes in random places. Though everything was labeled, the labels were often crossed out and rewritten. Octavia lifted the lid to a pizza box and was pleasantly surprised to find it greasy but empty.
She took another step, wondering when or even if Vinyl would clean this up, when suddenly something snapped on her rear right leg. The next thing she knew, she was dangling upside down from a rope which had wrapped around her hind hoof.
“Viiinyyyll!”
***
Vinyl came sprinting inside. “Ha! Caught you in my snare…” Her voice trailed off as she recognized the gray earth pony who hung there. Her forelegs were crossed and her eyes were narrow.
“You're not Neon Lights,” she said dumbly
“And you're very observant,” Octavia snarled. “Just what is the meaning of this?”
“Well, you see, Neon said he was going to steal my new single before I could release it. He might have been joking, but I wasn't sure, so I set up this little snare thingie just in case.” She grinned nervously. “It worked! Yay…”
“Good,” Octavia groused. “Now get me down from here!”
“I dunno,” Vinyl said slowly. “You being there like that gives me an idea.” She turned and trotted out of the room.
Octavia desperately called after her. “Vinyl! Vinyl!”
Vinyl quickly returned, bearing a tub of ice cream in her magic. She grinned mischievously. “So as long as you're there…”
“Vinyl Scratch!”
“Hey, I'll share! Look!” And Vinyl scooped out a spoonful and held it out in front of Octavia's mouth. “Open up! Here comes the choo choo!”
“Vinyl Scratch, if you do not get me down from here this instant I swear I will-”
But Vinyl never found out what Octavia would do; the hook holding the rope against the ceiling suddenly pulled itself out of the drywall, sending Octavia crashing down on top of Vinyl.
“Th- that wasn't so bad, right?” Vinyl asked hopefully, extending her tongue to get some of the splattered ice cream off. “I'm sure in a couple hours we'll look back at this and laugh, eh?”
“Vinyl?”
“Yes, Octi?”
“You're sleeping on the couch tonight. You know this, right?”
Vinyl exhaled in defeat. “Yes, Octi…”