//------------------------------// // Memories That Don't Matter // Story: I'll be One Beat Away // by wizard32363 //------------------------------// “Oh, this is pointless! She could be anywhere, and I’ve fooled myself into thinking it was here! Hi, I’m Vinyl Scratch, music extraordinaire, and my buddy Tavi can go kiss my plot!” Octavia’s impressions of Vinyl weren’t good. Then again, they weren’t meant to be nice and realistic. She had been searching for days now, and had been to every town, kingdom, species, and ruler of Equestria. Queen Chrysalis, Shining Armor, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna; none had seen Vinyl recently. The only ones that seemed to have even glimpsed Vinyl last were the two sisters of Canterlot Castle. “Octavia Philharmonica, I didst see thine friend at the club that night! She, like usual when drunk, found her way to Celestia and I to hit on us. I hit her with a sleep spell, and we haven’t seen her since.” Luna was very calm when she mentioned Vinyl, but the lack of concern in Luna’s eyes worried Octavia. Was the sleep spell the only thing that Luna and Celestia cast on Vinyl? “Thank you, Princess, for your time. I’m also afraid I must cancel my showing tonight down at “The Prancer.” I hope it’s not too much trouble for you.” Octavia spoke with vexation as the words slid their way past her lips. This would have been her biggest concert since the end of high school, and all of the biggest ponies would be there. All but Octavia Philharmonica, who would be out, frantically searching for her friend once more. Octavia looked up, watching Luna nod in acknowledgement before trotting off, most likely to attend other “princess” duties, but Octavia knew that that meant eating cake and sitting in a hot spring all day. She sighed, slowly turning around to walk out the doors of the castle. At that point, it seemed hopeless. Nopony in Equestria had seen Vinyl. Nopony but Octavia, who saw her friend for a brief second before she disappeared into thin air. “I just cancelled a huge concert for that drunkard. What am I doing with my life? Why is she so damn important to me!?” Vinyl had forgotten everything, all the time. She even missed that one concert, the one from high school, the duet they had worked so hard to put on… “You know I have the club to play at tonight. I promise you, I’ll be there in time for our duet, but if I miss my gig, I’ll be fired for sure.” Vinyl seemed so sure of herself. A three-hour performance, and she’d be back, dressed nicely, in two? Octavia slid behind Vinyl, nearly knocking her in the head. She leaned in to Vinyl’s ear and blew a long sentence of impatience into it. “And I’ll be forever embarrassed if I’m the only one doing a duet, Vinyl. I’ll sound ridiculous, and I’ll never live it down. So if you’re not there, I swear I will find a way to make your life absolutely-” “Miserable.” It was as if she had said it millions of times before, and she had. Vinyl knew how to complete Octavia’s sentences, only because she had said the same things so many times over and over before. “Trust me, Octapus, I’ll be there!” “Octavia.” “Whatever.” Vinyl shrugged it off, taking her glasses and sliding them gently over her eyes. “I’ll see you later!” As Vinyl dashed by her, Octavia felt Vinyl’s lips collide with her cheek. It was the first and last time Vinyl had kissed Octavia. She loved it, though she’d never admit it to Vinyl. “Don’t ever do that again!” Octavia shouted over the slamming of the house door. And two hours laters, Octavia was sitting on stage, cello in hoof with an empty piano next to her. The crowd below stared resolutely up at her, all expectant for the greatest show the school had ever seen. After weeks of listening to constant boasting from Vinyl about how awesome it was, the entire school had been in constant excitement over the duet to be played. The duet that was to never be played. That night, Octavia had run off crying, something she was used to by now. Vinyl had always done this, every time. It was nothing new to the gray mare that thought for once in her life she actually had made an influence on somepony. And even then, when she returned home, there was that electric blue mare, drinking her cider again… “Stupid, stupid Vinyl… stupid me…” the words came as glass to her. For years she had hidden behind that wall, afraid to admit she had a problem. Vinyl had solved all of that. Now, that barrier was shattered. Octavia had nopony to lean on anymore, lest she wanted to find some old college friend who wouldn’t mean anything to her, not like Vinyl. Slamming open her front doors, she felt the cool breeze inside of her home wash over her, and suddenly she paused. The house truly was empty. The normally colorful gray and blue walls seemed to turn black in the night, and the plants inside were all withered. The instruments had collected more than bunnies, monsters, even, of dust. She sat down on the couch, brushing away a sneeze while she blew off dust. She kept her hooves underneath her, hoping to hide the stress she had chewed off of her hooves, now furless at the tips. Memories flashed through her head, but the only one she noticed was that one, the one where Vinyl destroyed her music career. It wasn’t that Octavia couldn’t go back to writing her classical melodies, but rather that if she did, ponies would ask questions, questions that she would not mention if she had spears to her head. She flinched when a cool drip of something hit her on the tip of her ear. Shaking off her head, she sneezed, just as another little droplet of what she only assumed to be the same liquid smacked her in the snoot. “God dammit, Vinyl, turn that water off!” The words slowed themselves as her sentence reached its conclusion. Of course, Vinyl wasn’t in the house, but the bathroom was located just above the living room, and anytime anypony took a shower, it would leak onto the couches, something that annoyed Octavia to death. But then it hit her; if Vinyl really wasn’t here, then who in Celestia’s name was in the bathroom, taking a shower? Looking around, she felt her breaths grow heavier. It was hard for her to see, given that she hadn’t initially flicked that lightswitch as usual upon entering, and was only now aware of how dark it really was around her. The shapes twisted and turned in her mind, and now she only saw moving figures within the darkness. “No immediate weapons in my vicinity -- great.” Octavia’s thoughts were rampant. “I saw it. There it is again -- it moved!” She squinted her eyes, hoping to avoid the glaring presence she felt in the murky shadows of just her living room. Just as quickly as she pushed the silhouettes away, she spotted a lamp, but wasn’t able to grab onto it, only resulting in knocking it to the floor. She froze up, sure that the pony in question upstairs had heard it, but the only sound that came into the room was the pounding tap of the water onto the cushions. For a second she flinched, scrunching her nose up. There it was again -- that sneeze that persisted to come out of her. This time, she booped herself in the nose, and fortunately, the urge went away. “What in Equestria is making this awful itching?” She asked herself, even knowing that there was no answer that she could give. It had only started recently, and there was this strange smell inside of her house, too. She had neglected to check it out because she didn’t notice it often against her concerns and quick in-and-outs of the house. Pushing that aside as what she knew Vinyl would call a “side quest,” Octavia sighed, inching towards the staircase. Anypony upstairs probably wasn’t dangerous. For all she knew, it could just be a friend casually waiting for her arrival home, which would be a plausible theory if Octavia had many regular friends. She tended to lose ponies just as easy as she would make them, whether through “egghead” talks about music, neglect to play with them, or just because the other pony went away someplace else, Octavia never seemed to have one clear, concise, steady friend to depend on. She had Vinyl, and that was more than she could ask for, even considering that Octavia didn’t really see Vinyl as a friend, the more she thought about it, as she did in a special sense, one even she couldn’t define. There was no light up the staircase, which was the first sign of trouble. If anypony were here, they would had to have gone out by now, but the only exit for a pegasus or earth pony would be through the downstairs front door. It made her feel a little safer knowing the intruder could be gone, but it was weird, too. Vinyl was a unicorn, and only Vinyl would feel this comfortable taking a shower here, right? Then again, it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing that’s happened this week. There was no noise coming from the room to the left, the bathroom. Creeping along the side of the floral wall, Octavia tried to peer in on an open, maybe slightly cracked door, but it was shut, just as she had left it last time she used it (Celestia knows when that was). She sighed, standing on all fours straight up and flicking on one of the lamps on a side table in the hallway. So there really was nopony there. Maybe the pipe had a leak in it. She really didn’t want to have to call a plumber, especially not Flippy. Flippy was the nickname that Ponyville had given to the local plumber, on account of her obsession with fish. It had gone so far that whenever she got into a pool of water, at the least a puddle, she would begin flopping around, halfway between playing in it and appearing as if she was drowning in the air, as a fish would. It was insane, and something Octavia would rather not go through, not now. Feeling more relieved now, Octavia walked at a quicker pace to the door, placing a hoof on the knob. She would have to change that, too, it annoyed her. Tavi never could get the hang of doorknobs. Whenever she thought she had latched onto it, she only managed to slide her hoof off of it, and it was weird. She had even come up with a nice lever-pulley system thing, but had never had the time to build it. When she finally had a firm grasp, and was sure of it, she turned her hoof, wincing her eyes just slightly in case there really was something bad behind the door, and opened it. When she knew there was no trouble, she opened her eyes and gasped. Trotting slowly over to the bathtub, she looked inside and saw white fur, just a wet pinch of it, on the floor of the tub. But not a single drop of water.