It's Gray, and Holds You Tight
No, that’s not an A, that’s an A-flat. How foolish of you, Octavia. The piece is in C-minor, after all. Leaning forward ever so gently, she notated a small ‘b’ in front of the half note. With the first forty-eight measures of the composition complete, Octavia dropped the quill back into the inkwell, and began to hum the tune quietly to herself. As the melody flowed from her vocal cords, her mind supplied the trills of the flutes and the reedy pining of the oboe. Then came the slow harmony between the string bass and cello...arpegios from the violin...a slow crescendo from the french horn…and now...the crash cymbal--
SLAM
The sudden noise caused Octavia to snap bolt upright on the piano stool, wincing as the motion caused her spine to pop in several places. As she slipped off the stool and onto her hooves, Vinyl’s voice rang through the apartment and into the bedroom which doubled as a makeshift recording studio.
“Hey Octy! I’m ho-ome!”
It was a game that they played every morning, evening, night, or whenever it was that Vinyl Scratch finally got home from the insanity that she called work. She’d barge into the house, find something to make noise with, and generally demand Octavia’s acknowledgement of her existence. When Octavia would get home from rehearsal, a performance, teaching a lesson, or anything else that was generally part of gainful employment, she would enter quietly. After all, she didn’t want to pay for damages on the apartment door. Then, she would put her cello away, making sure not to wake Vinyl, who would inevitably be passed out on the couch, drooling onto the carpet.
“Oct-teeeheehee…I said I was home!” Vinyl’s head appeared around the door, glasses pushed back to reveal her wide eyes quivering gently, her lips pursed into a puckered frown.
Letting out a long sigh and capping the inkwell, Octavia turned to face Vinyl. “Did you not think to imagine that I heard you quite clearly the first time?”
“Well, I guess not, otherwise you would have said something like ‘Oh, I missed you Vinyl!’”
“That would imply that I missed you.”
“Exactly! So lets practice! Octy, I missed you. Ok! See, that was easy. Your turn.”
“No, and if you want me to make you dinner too, it’s not happening.” Octavia pushed past Vinyl to descend the stairs to their undersized kitchen. For a musician, an apartment in Canterlot was a hefty stack of bits on the first of each month, so Octavia had bothered her college friends to find a roommate. Pity Vinyl was the only one to take her up on the offer. Nosing around in one of the cupboards, she found two aluminum pots, filled them with water, and put them on the stove.
“So...ya didn’t tell me how things went with Cloverhoof last night.”
“That is correct.”
“Well, you gonna tell me, Octy?”
“No.”
“Ah c'mon! I told you everything about my date with Half Tone! How he asked me out with sign language over the sheer noise of my set, how we got smashed, came back here, bucked all night long--”
“Yes! I remember! I’m still trying to forget the noises you two made, so will you just hush and let me cook?”
“--and actually, there is one thing I forgot. When we first got back, we were impatient and hungry, so we started rutting on the kitchen floor.”
Like a filly diving for the cookies, Octavia barreled onto the carpet. Once safe, she glared at Vinyl, who was rolling around on that same tile, shaking with laughter.
“You might think this is funny, but now you’re going to have to shower before I’ll let you back over here.”
“Oh relax, Octy, I mopped before you got up. So what’s for dinner?”
“Something you can’t pronounce.” Octavia drew a bag of gnocchi from a drawer and emptied it into the first pot. Into the second went a dry mix of herbs and spices. A culinary cop-out for sure, but it beat eating hayfries.
“Well, if I can’t talk about the food, why don’t you tell me about more about Cloverhoof?”
“I said no.” Octavia gave the spices another stir.
“Well there was a really nice sunset last night…”
“Vinyl, that’s enough.”
“Which means you probably made out…”
“Shut. Up.” Octavia reached into the ‘junk’ drawer. All the mess of pens, paper pads, coupons, and miscellaneous items from around the house wound up there--including one roll of duct tape.
“And I’m guessing as far as the base analogy goes, you got to--”
Octavia tackled Vinyl to the floor and shoved her legs out of the way. Confident that the unicorn wouldn’t be able to fight back, she pressed Vinyl’s hind legs together and wrapped them several times with the dark gray tape.
“What the hell, Octy?!” Vinyl kicked twice more, but to no avail. Octavia was a bigger pony than Vinyl to begin with, and her earth pony strength was more than enough to finish something she’d been craving for a long time now. While Vinyl begged, Octavia taped her forelegs together, and then both sets to each other. Now completely immobilized, it was foal’s play to gently apply a few layers around Vinyl’s mouth while leaving the nose clear to breath.
Sweet silence. Well, aside from the constant ‘mrmm-mrrrm’ of Vinyl’s useless blabber, but that was as close as Octavia thought she was ever going to get. She picked up her roommate and deposited her on the sofa before checking to make sure the gnocchi wasn’t boiling over. Still simmering gently, the potato pasta needed a few more minutes, and Octavia began to hum her composition again. It was soothing, just knowing what it would be when it was done. Likely nothing to be remembered for, but it was her work, nonetheless.
As the crescendo neared its peak again, Octavia savored the the throaty hum echoing back at her from the walls, and how it blended with the hum from her throat. It seemed a little funny that the sound had almost taken a crystalline nature. She stopped suddenly, as the sound grew louder, and announced itself to be an aura of telekinesis. A loud ripping noise came from the living room, followed by Vinyl’s cry.
“Ow! Why’d you wrap this so dang tight Octy? Anyways, do you plan on feeding me dinner like this? Kinda kinky. And I guess that means things didn’t work out with Cloverhoof huh?”
Octavia planted her forehoof squarely on her forehead. It seemed silence would not be visiting her home tonight.
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That punchline!
3745693
Sage: Vinyl will never stop being annoying. It is in her nature.
Duct Tape: Apply Directly to Mouth!
This thoroughly amused me. Short but sweet.
This was so amusing XD
3814509
Sage: Glad you enjoyed it!
No second chapter? No chance for Vinyl to show Octavia she can use duct tape too? Wasted potential.
Hilarious story, though.
4769957
Well, I normally one-shot-and-done with comedies. To be honest I use them to (hopefully) lure readers to my longer stories. I'd totally take a request to write more on a story if I heard it from several people though.
Glad you liked it, and thanks for letting me know. Sure brightens my day
-Sage
4770446 Noted. The way I see it there are two options.
First is a dark chapter, in which Vinyl gets pissed about what Octavia did to her, and does something in return. Would not recommend this, as it sort of ruins the comedic feel of the whole piece.
Next is something more lighthearted, in which Vinyl, as I said before, maybe shows Octavia she knows how to use the tape like that too. This is what I would like to see, if only because it fits this story so well.
4772104
Heh, alright. So long as it is kept to PG-13. I have moral objections to clop. And what I was saying was a very thinly veiled 'Tell you friends about this, so that there can be several people motivating me to write it!'
(yes I'm an attention whore)
-Sage
4772189 Why do you think it took me so long to get back to you?
In any case, I would strongly recommend the second option, though Vinyl being mad does have potential.
4772300
And why don't you have stories for me to read?
4772424 I...have a character flaw.
Background Voice: He means he's lazy.
Quiet, you! Anyway...
I've got some ideas in the works, and hope to post something in the near future.
Hysterical, my friend. Riotous even.
You have opened my eyes to a world I can't unsee... and I like it!
This should be intresting...and probably very funny.