“Fried rice with vegetables?” asked a waiter, holding out a delicious-looking platter of rice.
“Mine, thank you,” said Octavia, raising a hoof. The waiter placed the platter in front of her.
“And that would make these spring rolls yours, yes?” he asked, turning to Vinyl and gesturing to a tray he had been levitating with magic. The white-coated unicorn nodded enthusiastically. The waiter gracefully gave her the tray, told both mares to call out for him or another waiter if there was anything else they needed, and then left.
“Man, I am absolutely starving!” exclaimed Vinyl, rubbing her hooves together. The two mares had come to a restaurant after a busy day, both because they wanted a taste of something a bit more exotic than they would normally have, and because they were too exhausted to cook something that evening.
“Completely agreed, Vinyl,” said Octavia. “Although, um, it would be rather nice if I could get the hang of these chopsticks,” she commented, struggling to work out how to hold them with a single hoof.
“I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it, beautiful,” said Vinyl, grinning as she levitated her chopsticks, which were holding a spring roll, towards her mouth.
“Sometimes I envy your magic, Vinyl,” said Octavia as she vainly attempted to pierce a grain of rice with one of her chopsticks. “Not right now, of course; I am sure that I shall look more elegant than you currently do once I get the hang of these.” She frowned: her chopstick technique was not working quite as well as she had thought it would.
“More elegant than moi?” asked Vinyl. “With my luscious blue mane?” she added, shaking her head slightly so that her mane briefly had a wavy effect to it.
“You’re getting hair on your food, Vinyl,” pointed out Octavia calmly.
“What? Urgh!” Vinyl quickly put down the food she was levitating and attempted to clean up her meal as best she could with her telekinesis, being only mildly successful in the end. For several minutes, Vinyl quietly ate her food as Octavia quietly attempted to work out how to use chopsticks using her hooves.
“So, any plans for tomorrow?” asked Octavia, eventually breaking the silence after growing frustrated with her chopsticks and needing a break.
Vinyl shrugged as she ate one of her last rolls. “Maybe start a new song, read a book, something like that? I’ll see how much free time I’ve got during the day; since Natural Twenty’s coming over for dinner and we promised we’d have a good meal on the table for him I’d like to cook something pretty sweet.”
Octavia nodded, grateful that Vinyl had volunteered to prepare dinner. Whilst her own cooking skills were hardly shabby, she was very inexperienced compared to her partner. “What do you think you’ll make?” she asked.
“I dunno. Soufflé?” Vinyl suggested. “I’ve never tried making one, and it sounds like fun! Also like a disaster waiting to happen, but still! A fun meal!” She grinned at Octavia.
Octavia smiled back. “Well,” she commented, making a vague attempt at using her chopsticks again as she spoke, “whatever the level of disaster is, it can’t be any worse than today was, can it?”
Vinyl gave a small chuckle. “Really, babe, you thought that today was a bad day? Why’s that?”
“Well, maybe not bad, but it was certainly…interesting,” said Octavia. “After all, it is not every day that one fights spirit zombies, foul beasts that they are.”
“I don’t know what you’re complaining about, the spirit zombies were fine,” said Vinyl before taking a bite into another spring roll. “It was the zombie spirits that pissed me off!”
“There were zombie spirits there too?” Octavia asked, using a chopstick to idly move her fried rice into a larger pile. “How could you tell?”
“More moaning,” said Vinyl, winking at Octavia.
Octavia snickered, in spite of herself, midway through moving a precariously balanced grain of rice to her mouth. (It fell off a moment later without her realising). “I suppose that if anyone knows about that, it would be you, wouldn’t it?” Octavia asked, smirking. Only Vinyl could turn a conversation from spirit zombies – and zombie spirits – to one about sex, thought Octavia.
Vinyl smirked back at Octavia. Crap! she thought. What do I say to that? Is she prompting me to make a sex joke, or will she just tell me to stop being vulgar in public? I guess I prompted this, but…crap, it’s been silent for too long.
“Why don’t you tell me?” Vinyl asked Octavia. Phew, that leaves it open for Octavia to steer the situation where she wants it to go. Good save, Vinyl!
Internally, Octavia sighed. Oh, great, now she just wants me to praise her sexual exploits. Very mature, Vinyl. “I wouldn’t know,” said Octavia drily.
Vinyl winced, although a moment later she turned it into one of her trademark grins in the off chance that Octavia had momentarily seen her reaction. Ouch! Is…is Octavia annoyed at me? I…maybe I’ll just shut up and see what happens next.
The table was very quiet for the next few minutes. To any outside observers, it was an ordinary scene – Vinyl was leaning back on her chair slightly and waiting for Octavia to finish her meal (she had given up on using chopsticks and switched to a spoon), whilst the grey mare quietly ate. If an outside observer could see the internal thoughts of the two ponies, however, they would probably be surprised at what they saw – Vinyl’s worry and Octavia’s frustration were not the usual emotions to expect from the duo.
“So,” began Vinyl as Octavia began to finish her meal, “what do you want to do when we get back home?” She fluttered her eyelashes at Octavia. “Practice your cello?” Vinyl leaned forwards a little bit. “Read a book?” She leaned forwards a little more. “Or lie on the couch, cuddling your sexy ma-”
“Probably the former,” interrupted Octavia, oblivious to the leg that Vinyl had slowly began running up and down one of her own.
“Oh?” asked Vinyl cockily. Crap. So much for my little test; I guess she really is pissed off at me…welp, too late to back out now? “You sure about that?”
Octavia rubbed a hoof against one of her eyes. “Yes, although it’s not as if I plan to stay up late tonight regardless,” she said. “I have that interview tomorrow, remember?”
“Your what now?” Vinyl asked, genuinely confused.
“My interview tomorrow?” Octavia asked, a hint of agitation creeping into her voice. “The one I’ve been practicing all week for? The one which, if I pass, will have me be in an ensemble for the first time in quite some time?”
“Oh, y-yeah, that one,” said Vinyl. “I guess I forgot about – wait, this interview’s to join an ensemble?”
“Yes,” said Octavia just before finishing the last bit of her meal, “alongside a piano player, a harpist…you know, all of the regular players.”
“Right, right…” said Vinyl. A moment passed before she added, “So, would this, like, be a touring ensemble, or…?”
“…From what I gather, they are currently planning to play three or four concerts in Canterlot with whomever ends up getting the cellist position, before moving around Equestria for several months,” Octavia answered, her voice suddenly a bit more cold. “So, yes, I suppose they are, although I suppose I could be wrong about the information.”
“I –” Vinyl faltered, not sure what to say. Octavia might be leaving her – temporarily, Vinyl reminded herself - and going on tour around Equestria? For several months? And she hadn’t mentioned it to Vinyl yet?
Vinyl was fiddling with her chopsticks, unsure what to say, when Octavia asked, “Is something the matter, Vinyl?”
Vinyl looked over to her marefriend. Octavia had a genuine look of concern and surprise on her face, but was she just playing along? Was she annoyed at Vinyl, and that was why she was just revealing this information now? (Which implied that she had intentionally not mentioned it before now in case of a situation such as this, where she wanted some ammunition to use next time Vinyl was being annoying, although Vinyl didn’t want to think about that too much…)
“I-” Vinyl started again. For a moment she wondered what she could say to Octavia to make her think everything was okay, when a new thought came into her head- why should I be the cool mare as always, saying that everything’s okay and not saying what’s on my mind? “I’m…actually kinda a little hurt by the fact that I’m only finding out now, the day before you audition for the job, that if you get it you’ll probably be going away for a while,” Vinyl admitted, regretting telling the truth even as she spoke the words. “It’s – I want you to get the job, I really do, but I just – why didn’t you tell me this before?”
Octavia took a deep breath, then opened her mouth to say something to Vinyl. Then she closed it and took another deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. Once she was ready, she answered, in a low voice, “Why didn’t I tell you before?”
Vinyl knew she had said the wrong thing.
“Why didn’t I tell you before?” Octavia repeated. “Maybe because I wasn’t sure whether you were going to listen to something that didn’t come out of those headphones of yours. Or maybe because I didn’t think you cared about another pony’s thoughts and plans.”
“Octavia, that’s-” began Vinyl, but she was interrupted without a moment of hesitation.
“Or maybe, I – oh, that’s right, I –” Octavia paused, and stopped herself. Her voice had grown louder as she had spoken, and she needed to calm herself down again before continuing. “I did tell you, and you told me you were fine with it. But I suppose that you being drunk at the time means that you didn’t really mean it, correct?”
Vinyl tried to think of a response to that, but couldn’t think of one. Had she gotten drunk recently? Okay, so she’d had a few pints on Monday, and Wednesday when she saw how close she was to finishing that bottle of whiskey she’d put in some effort to do so, but surely she hadn’t been drunk drunk, had she? And even if she had been, since when was that a big deal to Octavia?
“Well?” asked Octavia. “Anything to say? Perhaps, ‘Sorry, Octavia, I forgot that you had told me. Good luck tomorrow’?”
“Well – I-” stammered Vinyl. She was feeling a lot of emotions at the moment, but one sprung to the forefront: anger at being talked down so easily. “Well, maybe you shouldn’t have told me whilst I was drunk!” she countered. “Or…or maybe I did screw up a little, I’ll admit that. But that’s no reason to fly off the handle at me!”
Octavia scoffed. “‘Screw up a little’?” she asked. “That is putting it lightly. Vinyl, when will you realise that we’re in a relationship? That I want you to care about me as much as I care about you?”
“What are you talking about? I do care about you!” said Vinyl defensively.
“No you don’t, Vinyl!” shouted Octavia, standing up and slamming her hooves down onto the table. “You never go out of your way for me! You never ask me how I’m doing, or support me! You’re selfish, ignorant, rude, idiotic –”
“Ahem.” Octavia was brought out of her rant by the same waiter who had been serving her and Vinyl throughout the evening. For a moment she had temporarily forgotten that she and Vinyl were in public, and so the reminder caused her to be momentarily stunned. Octavia awkwardly sat down, acting as though nothing were out of the ordinary in an attempt to save face. Vinyl, for her part, looked both annoyed and hurt by Octavia, but had the good sense not to say anything at the moment.
“I – y-yes, what is it?” Octavia asked the waiter, half-expecting him to throw her and Vinyl out.
“Complimentary fortune cookies, as given to all our customers,” said the waiter, placing a tray upon the table with two fortune cookies upon it. In spite of the volume of Octavia’s rant, he appeared professional enough not to mention it.
“Thanks,” said Vinyl. Octavia was just staring at them, lost in thought.
“Would you like the bill now?” asked the waiter to the two mares.
Vinyl looked at Octavia, and both of them nodded in unison. “Yeah, that’d be great, thanks,” said Vinyl. The waiter bowed slightly and then went away to retrieve it.
There was silence at the table once the waiter left. Vinyl wanted to reach out for a fortune cookie, but even as she contemplated the thought, she knew that Octavia would scold her for thinking about eating and avoiding the claims Octavia had just made about her. But…Octavia being quiet is nice, even if she’s still probably peeved at me, thought Vinyl. This…I can handle this. So Vinyl sat there, not doing anything in an attempt to stop rocking the boat.
Octavia, for her part, was still staring at the fortune cookies, as though they held a great revelation about the world she lived in. After what felt to Vinyl like an infinite amount of time, she spoke. “Sorry,” she said quietly.
That scared Vinyl more than if she’d yelled at her again. What was going through Octavia’s mind at the moment? “Octavia, I-”
“No, I just – shut up for a moment, alright?” Octavia said, though it was quiet and non-aggressive. Not that that stopped Vinyl from flinching slightly, her ears drooping as she did so. “Vinyl, I- I shouldn’t have…erupted at you like that, and especially not here, in public. I didn’t realise that I had all of that pent up inside me and I…well, you saw what happened. Sorry about that.”
Vinyl opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by Octavia once more. “I- I’m not going to deny that I shouldn’t have done that, but I… I guess there’s some stuff that gets to me somewhat.” Vinyl nodded slowly. “How about…for now we can put this aside, but…I think we should talk.” Octavia had mostly been speaking to the table, but as she finished, she looked up to Vinyl, staring at her marefriend, the beautiful unicorn she’d fallen in love with, in the eyes. “How about it?”
Vinyl didn’t want to say yes. She didn’t want to talk to Octavia about how their relationship was apparently falling apart more than either of them had been aware of, or to admit that it was mostly her fault. To admit that she was a bad marefriend, and possibly a bad pony in general. She knew that Octavia was doing what seemed like the best situation – and what probably was – but she didn’t want to agree to it. Why couldn’t they just pretend the argument had never happened, go home, and return to their eternally-lasting and fun relationship, with no need to have a serious discussion?
“Sure thing,” said Vinyl. Her voice cracked slightly as she spoke, but she thought that she managed to cover it up with a casual grin as an immediate follow-up.
Celestia’s mane, I need a drink, thought Vinyl.
“Well then,” said Octavia straightening her hair briefly with a hoof, “with all of that unpleasantness behind us, shall we?” She gestured to the fortune cookies, not noticing that she was shaking slightly.
“Sure thing,” said Vinyl. For a moment she levitated one of them with her magic, then thought better of it and dropped it. “You choose yours first,” she offered politely.
Octavia couldn’t help but smile at the gesture, no matter how small it was. “Thank you,” she said, hovering a hoof over the tray before choosing the fortune cookie which Vinyl hadn’t previously levitated. “I must say, it is rather nice of the establishment to provide us with these for free.”
“They give ‘em away for free because they taste like crap,” said Vinyl, snapping hers in half. “The only thing anypony cares about in them is what’s on the paper, and that…that…” She trailed off as she began reading her fortune, her eyebrows narrowing as she did so in what may have been confusion or anger.
Octavia had been about to break open her fortune cookie, but hesitated upon seeing what effect Vinyl’s had had on her. “Vinyl?” she asked. “What is it?” Does it say something pertaining to our relationship? she briefly mused, before dismissing the thought.
“This is…weird, Octavia,” said Vinyl, levitating the piece of paper up to the light so that she could read it better. “Tell me, have you ever heard a fortune like this?”
“Not understanding,
The perspective is now swapped,
The jade tiger sleeps.”
Vinyl frowned, read over it again in her head to make sure that she’d read it correctly, and then dropped it down to the table carelessly. “What the hay is that supposed to mean?!”
“How odd,” commented Octavia. “Let us see what mine says.” She cracked open her fortune cookie and held up the strip of paper within to the light as Vinyl had.
“Well?” asked Vinyl impatiently. “What’s it say?”
“Even a devil may cry when he loses a loved one,” read out Octavia. “I…think it’s supposed to be a metaphor?”
“What’s a devil?” asked Vinyl.
“It’s a…” Octavia’s voice suddenly grew quite silent. “I…I don’t actually know,” she said quietly. “You’re right, these fortunes are rather strange.”
“Burn the heretical paper!” said Vinyl. “Burn it!”
“How about I store it in my saddlebag for now?” Octavia suggested, sweeping it away. As she did so, she noticed the waiter, finally arriving with the duo’s bill. “Shall we?” she suggested, gesturing to the waiter. Vinyl agreed that it was time to go, and in spite of Octavia’s insistence, paid for both meals in full.
The walk back to their Canterlot home was mostly uneventful, aside from Vinyl briefly getting the urge to ascend a tree, but throughout it all, Octavia couldn’t help but feel nervous. What was happening to her and Vinyl? Neither of them had mentioned the argument at the restaurant – a fact that she was very grateful for – but Octavia couldn’t help but feel worried. If she and Vinyl had a fissure in their relationship that neither had been aware of, what would they do next?
Eventually, the duo arrived home, and in spite of the fact that it was barely past nine PM, both mares agreed that it was time to go to bed. Fighting zombie spirits and spirit zombies during the day had drained both of them more than they had realised, and the emotionally-draining argument didn’t help any further.
“So…good night, I suppose?” said Octavia, standing outside her room and facing Vinyl.
“Y-yeah,” said Vinyl, slightly awkwardly. She avoided Octavia’s gaze for a moment, and appeared to hesitate for a moment before hastily saying, “Want to sleep in my bed tonight?”
Octavia wanted to. She really did want to; it would be nice stress relief to curl up next to Vinyl and pretend that nothing was wrong between them. But as much as she desired it, Octavia couldn’t bring herself to say yes and commit whilst their relationship was in the state it was in.
“…Sorry, Vinyl, but not tonight,” said Octavia. “It…it does not feel right at the moment.” A disappointed look appeared on Vinyl’s face, which was near-instantaneously wiped off when Octavia leaned in, kissed Vinyl, and added, “I can give you this, however.”
Vinyl blushed, although Octavia couldn’t see it in the dim light of the room. “I guess we’ll have a talk tomorrow, huh?” she said.
“If that is what you feel comfortable with,” whispered Octavia.
“Ha. Well, I don’t really feel comfortable with it at all, but get this freaky thing out of the way nice and quickly, yeah?” asked Vinyl.
“You don’t feel comfortable with this?” Octavia asked. She was surprised for a moment, before realising that she could empathise herself. “That makes sense,” she said.
“Yep. Tomorrow’s going to be one freaky day,” said Vinyl, smirking in the darkness. “Good night, beautiful. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Both mares silently retreated to their rooms, with neither of them feeling comfortable or sleeping well that night.