A Change of Pace
Chapter Two
A/N: This chapter is completely revised and edited, and I combined chapters two and three. Yay for improvement! Enjoy. :3
Vinyl Scratch began the trek back home, achieving something between a skip and a waddle. (A skwaddle! she mused, then chuckled at herself for being so easily enticed by her eccentricities). Luna's moon beamed brightly from its resting place in the sky, almost out-shining the artificial lights of the buildings that lined Canterlot. The architecture of the capital was truly something to be admired: everything seemed to glimmer regardless of the time of day. The structures were tall and elegant, striking a feeling of inferiority into ponies who passed through. Mostly constructed out of pure marble, the entire city screamed with ornate class and prominence. Although the best part, in Vinyl's opinion, was that no matter your coordinates or where you stood at any particular moment, the castle was always visible. She often used the impressive monument as a makeshift compass; making her clumsy way down the street she noted that the castle was located to her west, meaning that her apartment was east or somewhere along those lines, according to her.
As she shuffled closer to her destination, it failed to surprise her that she was receiving curious stares from a majority of the passing ponies, most likely wondering why in Equestria she was walking like that. Had Vinyl been an angry drunk (or even an angry pony at all), they would've been begging for a brawl. However, the DJ was indifferent to the world surrounding her and, as she had always used to say, 'Live and let live... or something like that.' After a few more sideways glances, bizarre glares, some instances of getting lost ("I'm not lost!" she exclaimed to a night shift security guard who had inquired on if she needed directions, "I just misplaced my house."), and a Hansel and Gretel-esque session of step-retracing, Scratch had finally made it back to her apartment. After some difficulty opening the door and an even harder time trying not to trip over absolutely everything, her glorious bed was in sight. Without bothering to remove her sunglasses, she fell asleep almost the moment her head came in contact with the pillow.
The morning came as it always did, with the DJ sprawled out in some unnatural sleeping position that was somehow comfortable to her (although, to the common onlooker, it might have appeared painful), her mouth slightly agape, and her infamous habit for easily being the heaviest sleeper in all of Equestria on display. Scratch was in the midst of a rather vivid dream where things between her and a certain grey cellist were getting saucy and-...
Knock, knock.
"Ugh," Vinyl huffed and slammed her hoof nowhere in particular with unnecessary roughness. "Just ninety more minutes."
Knock, knock.
"Are you serious? Can't a pony get some slee-" Vinyl shot up with dreadful realization, eyes feeling weighed down by anvils and her head pounding louder than the bass of her songs. Oh my Celestia, I forgot about Octavia.
Scratch scurried out of bed, heart racing in sync with the roaring migraine that devoured her brain like a raging manticore. Sprinting to the doorway, she shouted, "Octavia? Come back in, like, fifteen minutes!"
"All right, if you say so..." Came the muffled response from beyond the door.
Vinyl felt a tinge of resentment for her own irresponsibility, but shrugged it off. As much as she'd hate to admit it, the feeling was a common one and she was all too familiar the guilt that accompanied it.
With haste and urgency that was rarely seen from her, she tossed her sunglasses to the side and took the fastest shower ever recorded by ponykind; to her delight, the water provided relief for the abominable hangover. Once the hygiene issue was taken care of, the ruckus that resided in her apartment needed to be exterminated. Vinyl's eyes grew large in distress and a bit of horror as she surveyed her cluttered abode. Piles upon piles of random trash and assortments of clothes, books, pillows, bottles, knick-knacks, and, well, everything. The unicorn hadn't even noticed the mounds of stray junk that had accumulated over the months, always so consumed with more important DJ-like business, of course. Plus, company was scarce, considering she much preferred to be out and about; and even if she did have ponies over, their opinion of her failed to phase her ego. It never dawned on her that one day, one fateful day, she might actually need to impress somepony. Some really gorgeous, fancy pony. she added, a sudden determination to clean like the dickens manifesting inside her.
***
Vinyl assessed her apartment's newfound cleanliness, almost in disbelief that she actually had it in her to accomplish the seemingly impossible task. She plopped down on her sofa, sinking into the worn leather like a comfortable quicksand. "Dang," she said to herself, lightly tapping her horn with her hoof with pride. "I haven't used my horn so much since that one night in Manehat-..."
Knock, knock. "Vinyl?" The DJ heard Octavia's smooth voice float through the mail slot of the door like a sweet ghost, drifting through the living room and landing in her ears. A goofy smile was etched on Scratch's face as she proceeded to open the door, almost forgetting her signature shades. Heh, she thought to herself as she expended her magic to retrieve them. Wouldn't wanna scare her off on our first sober encounter.
"Hellooooo," The unicorn held the door open (as any gentlemare as polite and dignified as Scratch would've done) while the cello-toting Octavia proceeded in. "And welcome." Vinyl was a millisecond away from mentioning how absolutely smokin' hot she looked today and how the bowtie really brought out the color of her eyes but decided against it, remembering how she probably already maxed out the earth pony's weird-meter from the previous night.
"I must say, Vinyl," Octavia began, drinking in the sight of the spotless house. "I don't mean to sound rude but from my first impression of you last night, this is hardly how I had imagined your home." She gave a small, quaint chuckle (which Vinyl thought was cutest thing in all of the Cute Kingdom since the concept of 'cute' was invented). "To be honest, I came here with the notion that the entire place would be a pigsty. How terribly ignorant of me."
"Heh." Vinyl gave a nervous laugh. "Yup, that's me. Clean as a whistle. My friends call me Clean-yl. Because, ya know, I'm so clean." She threw a sheepish grin towards the grey mare, praising Celestia that her glasses concealed the apprehension in her eyes.
"So, Vinyl," Octavia began, seemingly indifferent and unscathed by the outlandish behavior. "What plans did you have in mind for this music project of yours?"
"Oh, right. Music. Yeah, that." Scratch stuttered like a schoolfilly with her first crush, privately disgusted at being reduced to a blubbering pile of mush because of somepony she just met. She couldn't believe herself; she was Vinyl freakin' Scratch, the DJ P0N-3. She was known for breaking hearts and blaring beats. Last time she checked, she could get any mare by merely flashing a smile (or so she thought). She cast her frustration aside, recalling that Octavia had no interests besides a nice, musical, platonic, totally non-romantic friendship. Right? The irritating, yet somehow always correct, sector of her subconscious spoke up. Right.
Vinyl motioned for the grey mare to follow her, noticing the encased heavy cello weighing down on her back. "Oh, here. Lemme get that for you." Despite her horn being immensely drained from the earlier speed cleaning spree, Scratch conjured up the remaining energy she had and telekinetically relieved Octavia of the heavy instrument, making it float lazily ahead of them.
"Thank you, Vinyl." She smiled in appreciation. "You were right, you ARE less overbearing and much more tolerable when you're sober."
Awe, yeah. The unicorn was bursting at the seams within herself, hoping against hope that her joy wasn't external. Take THAT, stupid inner-voice of reason. You still got it, Scratch. Smooooth.
The DJ stopped in front of a door that didn't seem to differ much from any of the others, yet a serious look befell her face. "Lady Octavia, behold..." As the door opened, the pair seemed to be blinded by a burst of celestial-like white light. "THE BEAT LABORATORY!"
"The what?" Octavia replied flatly, unamused. Although, the room was a truly impressive sight; a plethora of equipment and thing-a-ma-jigs and newfangled technology that the cellist couldn't even fathom occupied every corner. Records upon records stacked in an uncharacteristically organized manner lined the pure white walls. Microphones of various shapes and sizes, turntables and wires intricately and methodically placed in all the intended spots.
Vinyl's grin beamed much like the room, almost looking like a proud mother. "This is where the magic happens."
-------------------------
"All right, just play something."
"Well, what would you like me to play?"
"I dunno. Just something cool."
"Vinyl, I can't just play something."
"Stuff just doesn't come into your head? You only play that boring ol' sheet music?"
"That boring sheet music happens to derive from great classic composers such as Tcoltovsky and Bethoofen." Octavia stated as if lecturing a class, forgiving the unicorn for being so daft. Of course rippling melodies and solid accompaniments rang through her head several times a day, but she found very little use for them other than personal entertainment and a cure for boredom. In this day and age, nopony wanted to hear cello solos, intricate ensembles, or booming orchestras. She may have been a mare with an old soul but she understood that original pieces would be a complete flop and failure. So, Octavia was accustomed to a life of regurgitating the measures and notes of ponies that were a few hundred years old, her musical core privately yearning for its own personal innovation.
"And look where that got them." Vinyl smirked. "Dead."
The cellist narrowed her eyes, the DJ's logic flying right over her head. "They are rightfully immortalized by their accomplishments and their works have far outlived them. They provided the genesis for every single thing you listen to. So, without these 'dead' ponies, your music would just so happen to be dead as well." Octavia was taken aback by the fact that the unicorn was already comfortable enough to crack snide jokes despite the short time they've known each other. It took months, years sometimes (depending on the pony's overall demeanor), of friendship for Octavia to even lightly tease or make a witty remark about somepony's personal life.
Vinyl's eye twitched behind her sunglasses. "Touche'."
The grey mare gave an almost untraceable victory-smirk, satisfied with getting her point across, as Scratch tinkered around with knobs and dials of all sorts, adjusting settings and fiddling with Celestia-knows-what. Octavia noted that she looked almost like a scientist in the preparation stages of an elaborate experiment, the way she was dabbling with the audio equipment with the utmost care; in fact, it was almost refreshing to see somepony as seemingly reckless as the unicorn take such consideration for something. It almost warmed her heart.
Almost.
Raising the volume on a colossal stack of amplifiers and speakers, Vinyl spoke up. "All right, Miss Fancy Hoofs, I know for a fact that you're not this boring and by-the-book. Aren't musicians known for their creativity and imagination?" At this, Octavia was a millisecond away from making a remark, wanting to state that she would hardly consider random assortments of recycled and repetitive synths a display of anything close to the creativity that was involved with classical music; not to mention the competitions of who-could-blindly-inject-the-most-bass-into-a-single-song was something she could not even begin to fathom.
But, as a lady would, she kept it to herself and stowed it away in a very cynical chamber of her brain.
"Gimme your best shot, Cello-Butt." Vinyl flashed that smirk again; that endearing, somewhat charming, irritating grin that grated into Octavia more than anything at the moment. "I mean, unless all you know is the score to The Sound of Music." The unicorn blatantly must have found herself hilarious because she was hunched over her equipment in paralyzing laughter.
Oh, I'll give you something to laugh about. Maintaining her unwavering diplomacy, she lifted her bow with profound tact and poise. With a spiteful appetite to prove to the chortling DJ that all of her misconceptions were false, Octavia pounded down on her cello, furiously playing a significantly deepened version of the infamous, "Nightmare Moon Went Down to Equestria." Vinyl's laughter ceased as if it had crashed into a brick wall and was abruptly replaced with a blanket of awe, rebuking her previous insults and fallacies. The cellist's dexterity and unrelenting skill sliced through the room with every slide of her bow and it seemed as if the instrument was actually playing her. Throughout the course of the song, the DJ's mouth had somehow fallen open as Octavia's speed enthralled her. The climax of the song's second solo pierced the air of the home-studio, each note like a sharp puncture into the fabric of oxygen. Sweat formed on the cellist's furrowed brow as she concluded the final measure, the denotation of 'concentrated' scribed on her face. With a shrill, elongated shriek of the instrument, the song ended. As if it had been absolutely nothing at all, Octavia flipped her dark hair back, the corners of her mouth resisting the urge to laugh right in the unicorn's face.
Meanwhile, Vinyl was attempting to mop up the amorous-induced drool that ran at the sight of the impeccably fast and punchy performance. Every delusion and prior judgement had been abolished with this single feat of the unity between raw talent and obvious hours of disciplined practice. The notes had flown freely, but with defined purpose and grace despite the harsh melody of the song, making Vinyl bet with herself that this cellist could morph even the most raunchy and distasteful of songs into a choir of angels. Behind her sunglasses, Vinyl's crimson orbs were locked on Octavia in an awestruck trance.
She was thoroughly impressed.
She was thoroughly beginning to take notice that this mare sure was something. Much more than the shallow, superficial, drunken infatuation from before.
"And that is how you effectively prove somepony wrong." Octavia said matter-of-factly, clearly reveling in her victory. "I do believe you owe me an apology, Miss Scratch."
Keep it cool, Vinyl. She doesn't know you're sortakinda starting to sortakinda like-ish her a little bit more than before; she can't read your mind. Unless she's a... She gulped, a large lump blockading her throat... a mindreader! In a haste to disprove her theory she conjured up the dirtiest, most lewd thought she could think, then looked at Octavia to see if she would react to her cognition. Phew, close one. Now, whatever you do, DON'T go full-creeper.
"I'mmm sorryyyy, Octaviaaaaa." She droned, expertly bluffing her nervousness. To further improve her facade, she melodramatically collapsed to her front hooves and proceeded to exaggeratively bow. "Not worthy! Not worthy!"
"You're impossible." The earth pony retorted while attempting to hold back a small smirk, secretly amused at how animated the other mare was; truly a character.
Vinyl composed herself, suddenly getting back to business. "Now that I know what you're capable of," She grinned, teeth shining. "this brings us back to our prior conversation. Just play something!"
Scratch's wildly fired-up smile was contagious, causing the cellist to relax and laugh a bit. Loosening up as if somepony were skillfully massaging her social muscles, Octavia armed herself with her bow and was truly prepared to, as Vinyl would put it, 'tear this track up.'
The DJ returned to her rightful spot at the foreign equipment, expertly tampering with them like a captain would steer their ship. The cellist would hate to admit it, but looking at the complex turntables and how Vinyl seemed to effortlessly master them slightly intimidated her.
"Hey, Octavia," Scratch said, her hoof hovering over a button. "You dropped something."
"Hmm? Did I?" Genuinely concerned, her eyes darted across the floor.
"Yeah," Vinyl's grin was magnified. "THE BASS." She pressed down on the button and the deep, rhythmic drums pounded away from the large speakers, layered on top of a constant droning with the faintest hint of organization. Octavia's balance was nearly thrown off, the abrupt sound hitting her like a gust of wind.
Regaining her composure, she raised her bow like an armed weapon and struck her cello, making an impromptu melody that she at least assumed correlated well with whatever noise was spewing from the speakers. Octavia tried, she really did, to appreciate all forms of music and art, attempting to keep in mind that art was such a subjective concept and the same piece of work could be skewed and adopt a whole new meaning depending on the onlooker (or listener). But this? If this friendship remained, the music was definitely going to be an acquired taste.
While she played whatever appropriately popped into her head, she stole a glance at Vinyl. The unicorn seemed to be listening intently while changing pitches and distorting tidbits of the track, bringing Octavia back to her comparison about Scratch resembling a devout scientist. Well, I do assume that's why she calls it 'The Beat Laboratory.' She discarded the thought as soon as it entered her skull, almost ashamed of making the seemingly ridiculous connection. Oh, Celestia. I'm getting cheesy just being in the same room as her.
Vinyl held a hoof up, indicating Octavia to halt her playing.
"Something wrong, Vinyl?"
"Total opposite, my friend." The DJ's apparent satisfaction was seeping from her every pore. "We're about to make every clubpony's head explode." Her horn became aglow, controlling the equipment with her magic and making the beat reemerge. "Just keep playing."