The Sound And Fury From Seaddle

by Nic-Fit

Enter the Lu-Tang

Chapter 5 : Enter the Lu-Tang

In which da ruckus is brought

~

It was a rainy morning in Seaddle. For some reason the weather team made it rain a lot in Seaddle, but everypony was used to it, really. It wasn't known as 'The Rainy City' for nothing, so its not like they didn't know what to expect.

It was just past 11 when Vinyl woke up. She was glad it was Sunday, the shop was closed on Sundays so she got a lie in, which was very much required today, what with last night's antics. She was feeling pretty sick, and there was a nagging feeling she had about...something, but what she remembered of last night was enough to counter the sickness, and she figured she probably just needed to check stock or something later. Vinyl rolled around in bed for a while, she had no plans to leave it anytime soon.

Her lazing was rudely interrupted by knocking from downstairs. Vinyl groggily rolled out of bed and made her way downstairs and into the shop, leaning on the banister on the way down. She opened the door that led to the shop front and looked out the glass door. Stood there knocking, was a dirtied, soaked Lyra. Vinyl opened the door and Lyra came in, and immediately tripped and fell in a puddle of her impromptu shower. She offered a weary look up at Vinyl.

"I hate everything."

~

Octavia was up at 7, same as any other day.

What was not the same, however, was the rather large cut on her head, and the left over feeling of being a little bit drunk. Drunk is not a feeling she is used to, and her injury really wasn't helping. Still, things to do, can't stay in bed forever.

After a quick shower, and some medicine for her head, she removed the bandages to see how the wound was holding up.

"Ouch...Well then, hospital it is."

She had forgotten that it was Sunday, and that the clinic didn't open until 9, which meant about half an hour of awkwardly standing around under any possible shelter from the rain. At least there was nopony else waiting so she could get treated pretty quickly.

Good news: No stitches!

Bad news: More stinging pain!

The doctor glued the wound closed and bandaged it up again, giving her some spare ones so she could change them. All that was left was her hangover, but she would just have to deal with it. She stepped back out into the rain and set about getting home at a brisk pace.

"Okay then, what have I got to do today? Well, I have that new Sonic Foal album to listen to, and...."

"Wow, is that really all? Guess I'll go over to Vinyl's then."

Octavia reaches her house and gets upstairs fast, quickly drying herself with a towel. Stupid umbrella, getting broken when needed. She made her way back to her room, and removed the special record from it's sleeve. Placing it gently onto the turntable, it started spinning in its flecked blue glory.

The first song starts. Its a mellow piece, almost droney, and very relaxing. The dynamic's suddenly change, the song becomes faster and eratic, with much more energy. She remembers this, it was the song they opened with last night. There were some very odd sounds worked into the song; ringing, almost bell like sounds and long, scratchy drawn out sounds. A glance at the liner notes revealed nothing out of the ordinary instrument wise. The band had to be doing something weird to them to get those noises. She wanted to know, new noises are always fun.

"You do know you were there watching the play this less than a day ago, right?"

Now that she thought about it, some of their equipment did have some off modifications. Things like tools wedged under the strings, and she thinks one of them was hitting their guitar with drum sticks. This presented a problem, she wanted to have a go at making these noises, but could she risk damaging her cello? It cost a lot, and really meant a lot to her...

"Stop worrying about this now and just enjoy the music."

~

"Why did you just leave me outside? Seriously, not cool!"

"I DIDN'T KNOW" I thought you came in with me! I was drunk, ok?!"

"Oh? And did you just forget about me this morning then?"

"...I'm still a bit drunk..."

The two arguing mares were interrupted by the sound of a ringing bell. Octavia had just come into the shop (Vinyl had forgotten to lock the door after letting Lyra in) and she was just...standing there, staring off into the distance.

"Uh, Tavi? Are you okay?" Vinyl asks, moving closer to her.

Octavia doesn't break from her trance, her eyes are fixed on the wall behind the counter, and she isn't moving from the spot.

"...That...album, the Sonic Foal one, from last night..."

"Mmmhmm, was it good?"

Octavia turned her head to face Vinyl, looking her straight in the eye with an emotionless face, it was slightly unnerving.

"It was life changing."

Octavia slowly made her way to the record player behind the counter, removing the aforementioned album from her bag. She put it on the player and started it, the music coming through the shop's sound system. The droney mellow intro passed, and then the dynamic change kicked in.

"Woah." Vinyl and Lyra said in unison.

~

What an album. DAMN, what an album.

The three mares listened to it about 5 or 6 times all the way through, back to back. It was that good. There was no doubt that they'd listen to it again later. It had defused the situation between Lyra and Vinyl, and chilled them both out. Octavia was already chilled out, she'd heard it first.

"Wow, I've not listened to an album I liked that much since Enter the...Lu...Tang..." Vinyl paused. "...Buck..."

"Huh?"

"Oh this is bad, very bad! Its Sunday, yeah?"

Lyra nodded.

"I'm meant to be in Manehattan tomorrow! I totally forgot!" Vinyl said frantically, quickly running up stairs and returning with a suitcase.

"Wait, why?"

"Method Mane from the Lu-Tang Clan caught one of my DJ sets a few months a go and said he was impressed, he asked me to guest at one or two of their shows. First one is tomorrow! I gotta get there fast!" Vinyl was hurriedly stuffing the case with records from behind the counter, kept separate from the rest.

"Couldn't you just, like, not go?" Lyra asked.

Vinyl paused, looking at Lyra with an eyebrow raised.

"Lyra, Lu-Tang Clan ain't nothin' ta buck wit!" She reverted back to stuffing the suitcase.

"Wait, how long are you going for?"

"Shouldn't be more than a few days."

"Mmmhmm, and what about the shop?" Lyra inquired, not impressed.

Vinyl stopped. She hadn't thought about that.

"AUUGHGH! EVERYTHING IS GOING WRONG!"

"Hey, what if Lyra and I watched the shop while you're gone?" Octavia offered.

Lyra and Vinyl returned the offer with a "Huh?" in unison.

"Well, I've been working here a few months now, I think I get how everything works around here. I'm sure Lyra has some clue as to what she'd be doing. It should all work out fine!"

"Well, I dunno..."

"It'll be totally fine! What could go wrong?"

Vinyl sighed and lowered her head.

"Look, I trust you. Both of you. But this shop, its...its everything I have, you know? Its just...this is...." Vinyl glanced back up at the other two.

"...Please be careful..."

"Of course! We wont let you down!" Octavia replied, sporting a mock salute.

"Now come on, you've got a gig to get to!" Lyra said, helping Vinyl pack.

~

It was a pretty chilly morning. Lyra had come down to open the door, since she was staying in the shop, so she had the keys. Octavia came inside, an autumn breeze blowing in some crud with her, mostly dead leaves.

Its 8:30, the shop would be opening proper soon. Lyra was eating a breakfast of toast, while Octavia was sorting through the record crates and moving any records in the wrong spots. It also made a great excuse to just look through for interesting stuff. After a while, Lyra turns the sign on the door with her magic. Open. Let the day start.

Lyra didn't know how to fill out all the paperwork in the office, so she just stuck around the counter with Octavia. A lot of time was spent staring out the windows, it was pretty slow (apparently most ponies don't have time to browse music on the way to work in the morning), and neither of them could think of anything to talk about, Octavia still didn't know Lyra that well, and Lyra was just really tired, especially after her night of accidental homelessness.

"Welllllll...this is fun."

The silence was awful. They needed to do...something! Then, Octavia suddenly had an idea.

"Sooooo...hows this whole 'band thing' going to work?" Octavia smiled expectantly, awaiting the reply. She'd never been in a band before. Ensembles, yes, Bands, no. Were they very different? If they were, it what ways was it different? Octavia's smile dropped when she received no reply.

"Lyra?" Octavia nudged her. Still nothing. Upon closer inspection, Lyra had fallen asleep.

"Figures." She let out a sigh.

"Oh well, at least I'll be busy with all these customers." She thought to herself, glancing out at the empty shop floor.

It was going to be a long day.

~

It was 4 hours before a customer came in. They didn't even want to talk! At least the sound of the cash register woke Lyra up. so she could talk to somepony.

"Okay, lets try that again."

"So then, how about this whole band thing?"

"Whu-huh?" Lyra replied, rubbing her eyes.

"You know, the whole 'we should start a band thing' when we went to see Sonic Foal?"

"OOOH! Well...I guess we...just practice? I dunno really. We should probably come here for it, since Vinyl's drums are here, and they're a pain to move."

"But what would we be playing?"

"Can't say really, we gotta ask Vinyl before we do anything."

Lyra put her head back on the counter in an attempt to go back to sleep.

"Riveting."

It was turning out to be a long day.

~

Shutting up shop was a lot easier than it normally is. There wasn't any mess to clean up, seeing as how there were only 3 customers today. Since she had finished cleaning up way earlier than usual, Octavia took the opportunity to look through the crates. Again.

Lyra was counting the day's profits, a whopping 44 Bits altogether.

"Vinyl isn't going to be very happy about this. I wonder how she's doing?"

"She'll be fine, I'm sure of it!"

Meanwhile in Manehattan

The crowd were milling around expectantly, the show was meant to start 10 minutes ago now. Their attention was suddenly drawn to the noise emanating from the venue's sound system.

"En garde! I'll let you try my Lu-Tang style!"

With that, a large group of ponies took the stage, bouncing around to the beats played by a certain white unicorn. At this point the mics came into play.

"BRING DA MOTHA BUCKIN' RUCKUS! BRING DA MOTHA BUCKIN' RUCKUS!"

The crowd went wild, and the DJ smiled to herself from behind the decks. The Manehattan underground was, simply put, incredible.

"This is too cool!"

~

Comments

[akarock]

I'm guessing that the Sonic Foal album was Daydream Nation