//------------------------------//
// Concerto Dieci 
// Story: Allegrezza 
// by Gravekeeper 
//------------------------------//

Sunlight finally drifted through the window, it smote the dust that curled and flurried in the new morning breeze, like the blizzards seen in a snowglobe. It crawled its way across the floor as time rolled on, finally alighting upon a pair of ponies asleep on the sofa, in one-another’s embrace.

The sun raised Octavia from her uncharacteristically late slumber. She shifted herself, slightly, as she woke, reworking muscles that had lain comfortably unused for the night. Her eyelids flickered open to see the pillow of electric-blue hair she had fallen asleep on that night. The night before came rushing back, Octavia’s cheeks lighting up as she recalled some of the events that had...occurred last night. It had, perhaps, gotten a little bit out of hoof, the worrying part being there was no haze of alcohol to blame this time.

She toyed with Vinyl’s mane as she shifted slightly into a more comfortable position again behind Vinyl. Octavia found herself re-wrapping her forelegs around Vinyl’s still very much unconscious form. Vinyl was highly unlikely to get up any time soon, so Octavia simply didn’t feel the need to either that morning.

She closed her eyes, nuzzling into Vinyl’s mane, but still unable to get back to sleep. It was always the case for Octavia; she was something of an early bird, so once she was awake, she couldn’t sleep until the night returned again. However, today she had no pressing engagements; no concerts or rehearsals to play. She had the day free to do whatever she wanted to do, and, currently, that was enjoying the slow tide of Vinyl’s breathing.

Of course, this whole situation presented issues. Issues that flurried and swarmed in Octavia’s mind like a flock of bats. Every up had a down; Octavia and Vinyl had found happiness together out of the view of other ponies. But what about when they stepped into the light of Equestria together, how would other ponies react to their...love?

Love. It was such an alien and strange concept, it barely seemed like a pony mind had thought it up at all. Trying to understand what she felt, understand what had drawn her towards Vinyl was like trying to write a poem with her hooves. It was right there, dancing in her face and cutting off her breath, yet she couldn’t understand why it was there. What it aimed to achieve. She wondered if Vinyl felt this uncertain. She doubted it, Vinyl had such a clear-cut, black-and-white view of the world. Not scared to say what she felt, whereas Octavia hid herself behind a veil of decorum and circumstance.

It was removing that veil that worried her now. Having the full light of reality unleashed upon her eyes. Dreams and nightmares flickered through her thoughts, she could only remember what had happened to Lyra. She had went from Octavia’s level of respected skill, to nothing, in one night; the night she publicly announced her plans to marry another mare.

High society is often called, ‘classical,’ for a reason. It holds to old ways in a vicegrip tighter than the one it holds its money in. Old-fashioned...decaying, even. It was funny how meeting Vinyl made Octavia realise that sometimes, the old ways really weren’t better, that they had been surpassed. ‘Fillyfooling,’ would be something that would give Octavia grief, no doubt. But if it was a day of grief to earn a minute of peace with Vinyl like the moment she was currently experiencing...well, that was more than acceptable.

She supposed she would have to fight for her love. If it was worth having, it was worth fighting for.

What she hadn’t realised, and what is often the trap of musicians, is that she had subconsciously been muttering her thoughts into Vinyl’s ear. It was common for a musician who had spent her career translating thought into sound to occasionally forgot to turn it off, but Octavia finally noticed her error when Vinyl shifted round to look her in the eye, grinning sheepishly with lids still half-closed.

“Y’know, I don’t normally get ponies muttering Cheryl Colt in my ear to wake me up, but your singing’s much better than hers, at least.”
Octavia sputtered, she had somewhat been hoping for a moment longer with her thoughts, not that the interruption was something she vilified.
“Cheryl...who?”
“Wow, you really don’t keep up to date with current artists, do you?
“If she’s current...she’s not an artist.”

Vinyl chuckled, raising a hoof to the painting above them. “I suppose old, ’Art,’ the painting there is, then?”
“It was ironic..and a good idea at the time.”
“What about last night?” Vinyl turned back to Octavia, eyes surprisingly alert and serious. “Was that, ‘a good idea at the time?’”
“Are you implying I might be the kind to invite fillies to my home, take advantage of them and then set them loose the next morning?”

Vinyl smiled. “I don’t want to be the latest in a long chain, Octavia. I’m sure there’s many fillies after your heart.”
“Not as many as you’d think, I suppose they all know I’m out of their league.”
“I guess none of them are as dumb as me to try and take the hoof of Lady Octavia Philharmonica...by the way, what’s with the na-.”

“Oh Celestia, don’t you start. You talk too much already, Vinyl.” Octavia leaned across the hoofful of inches, pecking Vinyl on the muzzle. “You need to stop running that tongue of yours around.”

“Oh, wow, you weren’t saying that last night.” Vinyl’s grin grew with the shades of pink on Octavia’s cheeks. “You haven’t got a taxi waiting out there for me, have you? I’m feeling all unloved again.”

Octavia groaned, blending it through her staccato bursts of giggles. “Come here, then, Octy will give you a hug.”
“So we’re sticking with, ‘Octy?’”
“Only in private.”
“You know what, Octy, I’m really glad of something last night.
“Yes?” Octavia kept up the embrace, but felt her body tense as she waited for Vinyl’s reaction to the night before, what she felt and believed about their newfound relationship.

“I’m really glad you don’t have a tuba.”

*		*		*		*		*		*	

“I suppose I could hardly have expected an emotionally searching evaluation of last night, then?”
“Aww, come on. When was I ever big with emotions and stuff?”
“True.”

Octavia shifted, causing her stomach to quake. It was far later than her usual breakfast time, maybe she should break away from Vinyl for a moment to gather up some food.

“Are you hungry, Vinyl?”
“Sorta, got any Cheerileeos?”
“No.”
“Zeco Pops?”
“No.”
“Scootabi-?”
“I have pancakes. Will pancakes do?”
“Only if they’re the big, flat pancakes. Not those little, fat dumpy ones.”

Octavia groaned. “Yes, yes, I will make you some crepes. You’ll just need to get off me first.”
“Make me.”
“As you wish.”

Octavia braced herself against the sofa’s back, pushing Vinyl onto the floor. She casually stepped over her, before going into the kitchen to prepare their pancakes. It took Vinyl a minute or two to realise what had happened, before she regathered her tangled pile of limbs and got back onto her hooves. She trotted over to the kitchen, peeking her head through the doorway.

“That was plain rude, Octy! I never got into this relationship to be pushed around.”
“Are you going to help me make the pancake batter, then?”
“Nope. I’ll be in the sitting room, waiting on my apology pancakes.”

Octavia chuckled, pouring the first lump of batter into the pan, before adding a healthy dose of syrup to the mix. “Of course, I’ll bring them through.”
“Wow, Octy, cooking for me and sleeping with me? You’re the perfect wife!”

The saucepan did not hit Vinyl, however, as she had already ducked behind the doorway before starting her sentence. She reappeared, grinning, in time to take an egg-whisk to the snout. She covered her injured face with a hoof, vainly trying to rub away the pain.

“Hey, it’s not sexist if I’m a mare too!”
“Still, we’re not getting married. At least, not so I can be your slave. I’m the one in charge here, anyway.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because, Vinyl dearest, I’m the one closest to the knife block.”

Vinyl retreated back into the sitting room to await her pancake delivery. Her stomach growled at her to just grab something else, and as quickly as possible. She felt that she would have to wait to get to know Octavia a little bit more thoroughly before she could undertake the liberty of raiding her fridge. Especially when she was in the process of cooking her up some pancakes.

At least Octavia had a fairly decent sound system setup. Vinyl drooled over the Ponineer record spinner, gently stroking the Ponysonic speakers with a tentative hoof. She used these for classical music? They must have obliterated her precious little mane whenever she turned them on!

Naturally, Vinyl found herself flipping one of Octavia’s less high-brow records onto the deck, and excitedly slamming the power button with expectant glee. The record spun, the display glittered with the faint aura of magic as it counted the tracks, but barely a whisper thrummed from the speakers.

Vinyl put a tentative ear to the bass drivers with extreme wariness. Not even the slightest purr emanated, though the tweeters were also fairly silent. It is worth noting that after several years of nightclubbing and heavy dubstep, Vinyl’s ears were far less capable than a filly of her age from the last generation. Still, fillies of the last generation spent all their time sewing and feeding bunnies. Vinyl was more than willing to sacrifice her top-end hearing for some throbbing bass.

Then again, she wouldn’t put it past Octavia to take up knitting. Probably socks, worryingly. She spun up the volume knob, tapped the radio tuner on, and searched through the fizzle of static and white noise for something worth listening too.

Coherent noise began to form as she spun it up, forming into a radio show as she tweaked the tuning.

“-Oood morning, Equestria! The sun is up and so are you! You’re listening to K-COLT and it’s time for THE VI-.”

Vinyl violently spun the tuning knob into a higher frequency. She didn’t much like a radio show about talking. What pony’d listen to that? Real music had to be in the higher frequencies. Once more, static became sound, and noise fizzled away into light play of some old-school jazz. Not bad, better than most of the stuff she’d find elsewhere. Vinyl delicately turned up the bass while dumbing down the treble. Much better.

The music faded away, replaced by an enthusiastically vocal radio presenter.
“Thanks for listening, fih-lees, this is Three-Colt, ah-whooo, and you’re listeni-.”

The sound disappeared as Vinyl slammed the radio tuner off. It was a dying format these days anyways, what with horn music downloads taking off so well. She grabbed the first record she could find, dropped it on the deck and spun the vinyl. Maxed out the bass, before turning the treble to a bare minimum. Marching away, she planted herself on the couch.

The music began, thrumming powerful bass with only the barest hint of actual instruments. “Just like Celestia intended,” Vinyl thought. She was surprised at how good Mozcart sounded with maximum bass, maybe she’d have to grab a couple of his albums when she headed home.

It was then that she noticed Octavia trot in the door, two plates of pancakes balanced delicately on her hooves. She acquired the source of the earthquake-like blast waves. Her own sound system. Panicking, she dropped the plates onto the coffee table before dashing over to the Ponineer record player. She scanned the knobs, every setting out of place; completely wrong! It had taken her months of careful refinement to acquire the optimum listening conditions for Beethoofen’s work, emphasising the string instruments at the top end while deferring to the double bass and cellos near the bottom.

All of that picked up and cast out the window by the white unicorn bulldozing her way through the pile of pancakes levitating before her. Vinyl raised another forkful of syrupy, doughy goodness to her lips before she noticed Octavia glaring at her from across the room. She carefully ate the pancake fragment, before delicately placing the plate on the table. Just in case she needed to run.

Octavia’s left eye twitched, in a similar manner to how a crazed gunpony’s triggerhoof would twitch. She was completely wordless as she subconsciously tried to fix the system with a stray hoof. Her voice came in a passive-aggressive growl that would have put Vinyl’s hair on end, if the gel wasn’t already doing the job for her.

“What, did you do, to my record player?!”